senting the Vizier as objecting to the largeness of the payments made by Bristow, and stating a very reduced list, which he was willing to allow for, amounting to 30,000l. a year, the said Hastings did affect to be alarmed at the magnitude even of the list so curtailed, expressing himself as follows, in his minute of the 7th of December, 1784: "For my own part, when the Vizier's minister first informed me that the amount which his master had authorized, and was willing to admit, for the charges of the Residency, and the allowances of the gentlemen at Lucknow, was 25,000 rupees per month, I own I was startled at the magnitude of the sum, and was some days hesitating in my mind whether I could with propriety admit of it": whereas he well knew that the three sums alone of which the necessities aforesaid had compelled the discovery did greatly exceed that sum of which at the first hearing he affects to have been so exceedingly alarmed and thrown into a state of hesitation which continued for some days, and although he, the said Hastings, was conscious that he had at the very time authorized an establishment to more than four times the amount thereof.
XCV. That, in the said deceits, prevarications, contradictions, malicious accusations, fraudulent concealments, and compelled discoveries, as well as in the said secret, corrupt, and prodigal disposition of the revenues of Oude, as well as in his breach of faith to the Nabob, in continuing expensive establishments under a private agent of his own after he had agreed to remove the Company's agent, the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high offence and misdemeanor.
XVII.—MAHOMED REZA KHÂN.
I. That it was the declared policy of the Company, on the acquisition of the dewanny of Bengal, to continue the country government, under the inspection of the Resident at the Nabob's durbar in the first instance, and that of the President and Council in the last; and for that purpose they did stipulate to assign, for the support of the dignity of the Nabob, an annual allowance from the revenues, equal to four hundred thousand pounds a year.
II. That, during the country government, the principal active person in the administration of affairs, for rank, and for reputation of probity, and of knowledge in the revenues and the laws, was Mahomed Reza Khân, who, besides large landed property, was possessed of offices whose emoluments amounted nearly, if not altogether, to one hundred thousand pounds a year.
IV.[16] That the Company's servants, in the beginning, were not conversant in the affairs of the revenue, and stood in need of natives of integrity and experience to act in the management thereof. On that ground, as well as in regard to the rank which Mahomed Reza Khân held in the country, and the confidence of the people in him, they, the President and Council, did inform the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 30th of September, 1765, that, "as Mahomed Reza Khân's short administration was irreproachable, they determined to continue him in a share of the authority"; and this information was not given lightly, but was founded upon an inquiry
into his conduct, and a minute examination of charges made against him by his rivals in the Nabob's court,—they having insinuated to the Nabob that a design was formed for deposing him, and placing Mahomed Reza on his throne; but, on examination, the President and Council declare, that "he had so openly and candidly accounted for every rupee disbursed from the treasury, that they could not, without injury to his character, and injustice to his conduct during his short administration, refuse continuing him in a share of the government."
V. That the Company had reason to be satisfied with the arrangement made, so far as it regarded him: the President and Council having informed them, in the following year, in their letter of the 9th of December, 1766, that "the large increase of the revenue must in a great measure be ascribed to Mr. Sykes's assiduity, and to Mahomed Reza Khân's profound knowledge in the finances."