The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

management and government of all the territorial revenues in the kingdoms of Bengal,
Bahar, and Orissa were vested in the Governor-General and Council, without any power of
delegating the said trust and duty to any other persons; and that, by such unlawful
delegation of the powers of the Council to a subordinate board appointed by himself, he, the
said Warren Hastings, did in effect unite and vest in his own person the ordering,
government, and management of all the said territorial revenues; and that for the said illegal
act he, the said Warren Hastings, is solely answerable, the same having been proposed and
resolved in Council when the Governor-General and Council consisted but of two persons
present,—namely, the said Warren Hastings, and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, and
when consequently the Governor-General, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the
whole power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations hereinbefore
described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings to recommend and justify the
same to the Court of Directors has been, that such changes and innovations would be
attended with increase of revenue or diminution of expense to the East India Company; that
such pretence, if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such
pretence is false and groundless: that during the administration of the said Warren Hastings
the territorial revenues have declined; that the charges of collecting the same have greatly
increased; and that the said Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a
direct and intended waste of the Company's property, is chargeable with and answerable for
all the said decline of revenue, and all the said increase of expense.

XVI.—MISDEMEANORS IN OUDE.

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