with instructions pointing out the chief abuses.  It was composed of Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Scrafton.  The unfortunate end of that commission is known to all the world; but I mention it in order to state that the receipt of presents was considered as one of the grievances which then prevailed in India, and that the supervisors under that commission were ordered upon no account whatever to take presents.  Upon the unfortunate catastrophe which happened, the Company was preparing to send out another for the rectification of these grievances, when Parliament thought it necessary to supersede that commission, to take the matter into their own hands, and to appoint another commission in a Parliamentary way (of which Mr. Hastings was one) for the better government of that country.  Mr. Hastings, as I must mention to your Lordships, soon after the deposition and restoration of Jaffier Ali Khan, and before Lord Clive arrived, quitted for a while the scene in which he had been so mischievously employed, and returned to England to strengthen himself by those cabals which again sent him out with new authority to pursue the courses which were the natural sequel to his former proceedings.  He returned to India with great power, indeed,—­first to a seat in Council at Fort St. George, and from thence to succeed to the Presidency of Fort William.  On him the Company placed their chief reliance.  Happy had it been for them, happy for India and for England, if his conduct had been such as to spare your Lordships and the Commons the exhibition of this day!

When this government, with Mr. Hastings at the head of it, was settled, Moorshedabad did still continue the seat of the native government, and of all the collections.  Here the Company was not satisfied with placing a Resident at the durbar, which was the first step to our assuming the government in that country.  These steps must be traced by your Lordships; for I should never have given you this trouble, if it was not necessary to possess you clearly of the several progressive steps by which the Company’s government came to be established and to supersede the native.  The next step was the appointment of supervisors in every province, to oversee the native collector.  The third was to establish a general Council of Revenue at Moorshedabad, to superintend the great steward, Mahomed Reza Khan.  In 1772 that Council by Mr. Hastings was overturned, and the whole management of the revenue brought to Calcutta.  Mahomed Reza Khan, by orders of the Company, was turned out of all his offices, and turned out for reasons and principles which your Lordships will hereafter see; and at last the dewanny was entirely taken out of the native hands, and settled in the Supreme Council and Presidency itself in Calcutta; and so it remained until the year 1781, when Mr. Hastings made another revolution, took it out of the hands of the Supreme Council, in which the orders of the Company, an act of Parliament, and their own act had vested it, and put it into a subordinate council:  that is, it was entirely vested in himself.