The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

twenty per cent as an ample compensation to the agent, and did positively order, that,
according to the engagement of the said Warren Hastings, "the commission paid or to be
paid to the said agent should be reduced to twenty pounds per cent." That the said John
Belli did positively refuse to refund any part of the profits he had received, or to submit to a
diminution of those which he was still to receive; and that the said Warren Hastings has
never made good his own voluntary and solemn engagement to the Court of Directors
hereinabove mentioned: and as his failure to perform the said engagement is a breach of
faith to the Company, so his performance of such engagement, if he had performed it, and
even his offering to pledge himself for the agent, in the first instance, ought to be taken as
presumptive evidence of a connection between the said Warren Hastings and the said agent,
his private secretary, which ought not to exist between a Governor acting in behalf of the
Company and a contractor making terms with such Governor for the execution of a public
service.

That, before the expiration of the contract hereinbefore mentioned for supplying the army
with draught and carriage bullocks, granted by the said Warren Hastings to Ernest
Alexander Johnson for three years, the said Warren Hastings did propose and carry it in
Council, that a new contract should be made on a new plan, and that an offer thereof should
be made to Richard Johnson, brother and executor of the said contractor, without
advertising for proposals, for the term of five years; that this offer was voluntarily accepted
by the said Richard Johnson, who at the same time desired and obtained that the new
contracts should be made out in the name of Charles Croftes, the Company's accountant and
sub-treasurer at Fort William; that the said Charles Croftes offered the said Richard
Johnson as one of his securities for the performance of the said contract, who was accepted
as such by the said Warren Hastings; and that, at the request of the said contractor, the

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