“The Company, whose orders are peremptory, have directed that Mahomed Reza Khan shall be restored to the offices he held in January, 1778.  It is my duty to represent this to your Excellency, and to recommend your compliance with their request, that Mahomed Reza Khan may be invested with the offices assigned to him under the nizamut by the Company.”

Your Lordships see here that Mr. Hastings informs the Nabob, that, having received peremptory orders from the Company, he restores and replaces Mahomed Reza Khan.  Mahomed Reza Khan, then, is in possession,—­and in possession by the best of all titles, the orders of the Company.  But you will also see the manner in which he evades his duty, and vilifies in the eyes of these miserable country powers the authority of the Directors.  He is prepared, as usual, with a defeasance of his own act; and the manner in which that defeasance came to our knowledge is this.  We knew nothing of this private affair, till Mr. Hastings, in his answer before the House of Commons, finding it necessary to destroy the validity of some of his own acts, brought forward Sir John D’Oyly.  He was brought forward before us, not as a witness in his own person for the defence of Mr. Hastings, but as a narrator who had been employed by Mr. Hastings as a member of that Council which, as you have heard, drew up his defence.  My Lords, you have already seen the public agency of this business, you have heard read the public letter sent to the Nabob:  there you see the ostensible part of the transaction.  Now hear the banian, Sir John D’Oyly, give an account of his part in it, extracted from Mr. Hastings’s defence before the House of Commons.

“I was appointed Resident [at the Court of the Nabob] on the resignation of Mr. Byam Martin, in the month of January, 1780, and took charge about the beginning of February of the same year.  The substance of the instructions I received was, to endeavor, by every means in my power, to conciliate the good opinion and regard of the Nabob and his family, that I might be able to persuade him to adopt effectual measures for the better regulation of his expenses, which were understood to have greatly exceeded his income; that I might prevent his forming improper connections, or taking any steps derogatory to his rank, and by every means in my power support his credit and dignify in the eyes of the world; and with respect to the various branches of his family, I was instructed to endeavor to put a stop to the dissensions which had too frequently prevailed amongst them.  The Nabob, on his part, was recommended to pay the same attention to my advice as he would have done to that of the Governor-General in person.  Some time, I think, in the month of February of the same year, I received a letter from Mr. Hastings, purporting that the critical situation of affairs requiring the union and utmost exertion of every member of the government to give vigor to the acts necessary for its relief, he had agreed to an