XXI.—­CORRESPONDENCE.

That, by an act of the 13th year of his present Majesty, intituled, “An act for establishing certain regulations for the better management of the affairs of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe, the Governor-General and Council are required and directed to pay due obedience to all such orders as they shall receive from the Court of Directors of the said United Company, and to correspond from time to time, and constantly and diligently transmit to the said Court an exact particular of all advices or intelligence and of all transactions and matters whatsoever that shall come to their knowledge, relating to the government, commerce, revenues, or interest of the said United Company.”

That, in consequence of the above-recited act, the Court of Directors, in their general instructions of the 29th March, 1774, to the Governor-General and Council, did direct, “that the correspondence with the princes or country powers in India should be carried on through the Governor-General only; but that all letters to be sent by him should be first approved in Council; and that he should lay before the Council, at their next meeting, all letters received by him in the course of such correspondence, for their information.”

And the Governor-General and Council were therein further ordered, “that, in transacting the business of their department, they should enter with the utmost perspicuity and exactness all their proceedings whatsoever, and all dissents, if such should at any time be made by any member of their board, together with all letters sent or received in the course of their correspondence; and that broken sets of such proceedings, to the latest period possible, be transmitted to them [the Court of Directors], a complete set at the end of every year, and a duplicate by the next conveyance.”

That, in defiance of the said orders, and in breach of the above-recited act of Parliament, the said Warren Hastings has, in sundry instances, concealed from his Council the correspondence carried on between him and the princes or country powers in India, and neglected to communicate the advices and intelligence he from time to time received from the British Residents at the different courts in India to the other members of the government, and, without their knowledge, counsel, or participation, has dispatched orders on matters of the utmost consequence to the interests of the Company.

That, moreover, the said Warren Hastings, for the purpose of covering his own improper and dangerous practices from his employers, has withheld from the Court of Directors, upon sundry occasions, copies of the proceedings had, and the correspondence carried on by him in his official capacity as Governor-General, whereby the Court of Directors have been kept in ignorance of matters which it highly imported them to know, and the affairs of the Company have been exposed to much inconvenience and injury.