XII.  That on the 26th February, 1776, the Board and Council did order that the proper instruments should be prepared for conveying to the Rajah aforesaid the government and criminal justice and mint of Benares, with its dependencies, “in the usual form, expressing the conditions already resolved on in the several proceedings of the board.”  And on the same day a letter was written to the Resident at Benares, signifying that they had ordered the proper instruments to be prepared, specifying the terms concerning the remittance of the Rajah’s tribute to Calcutta, as well as “the several other conditions which had been already agreed to,—­and that they should forward it to him, to be delivered to the Rajah.”  And on the 20th of March following, the board did again explain the terms of the said tribute, in a letter to the Court of Directors, and did add, “that a sunnud [grant or patent] for his [Cheyt Sing’s] zemindary should be furnished him on these and the conditions before agreed on.”

XIII.  That during the course of the transactions aforesaid in Council, and the various assurances given to the Rajah and the Court of Directors, certain improper and fraudulent practices were used with regard to the symbols of investiture which ought to have been given, and the form of the deeds by which the said zemindary ought to have been granted.  For it appears that the original deeds were signed by the board on the 4th September, 1775, and transmitted to Mr. Fowke, the Resident at the Rajah’s court, and that on the 20th of November following the Court of Directors were acquainted by the said Warren Hastings and the Council that Rajah Cheyt Sing had been invested with the sunnud (charters or patents) for his zemindary, and the kellaut, (or robes of investiture,) in all the proper forms; but on the 1st of October, 1775, the Rajah did complain to the Governor-General and Council, that the kellaut, (or robes,) with which he was to be invested according to their order, “is not of the same kind as that which he received from the late Vizier on the like occasion.”  In consequence of the said complaint, the board did, in their letter to the Resident of the 11th of the same month, desire him “to make inquiry respecting the nature of the kellaut, and invest him with one of the same sort, on the part of this government, instead of that which they formerly described to him.”  And it appears highly probable that the instruments which accompanied the said robes of investiture were made in a manner conformable to the orders and directions of the board, and the conditions by them agreed to; as the Rajah, who complained of the insufficiency of the robes, did make no complaint of the insufficiency of the instruments, or of any deviation in them from those he had formerly received from the Vizier. But a copy or duplicate of the said deeds or instruments were in some manner surreptitiously disposed of, and withheld from the records of the Company, and never were transmitted to the Court of Directors.