Council of
the Directors at home, he immediately took Sudder ul Huk Khan under his
protection.

Now your Lordships see Mr. Hastings appearing in his own character
again,--exercising the power he had pretended to abdicate, whilst the
Nabob sinks and subsides under him. He becomes the supporter of Sudder
ul Huk Khan, now that the infamy of the treatment he received could no
longer be concealed from the Council. On the 1st of September, 1778, the
Governor informs the Nabob, "that it is highly expedient that Sudder ul
Huk Khan should have full control in all matters relative to his office,
and the sole appointment and dismission of the sudder and mofussil
officers; and that his seal and signature should be authentic to all
papers having relation to the business intrusted to him: I therefore
intimate to you, that he should appoint and dismiss all the officers
under him, and that your Excellency should not interfere in any one
[way?]."

The Nabob, in a letter to the Governor, received the 3d of September,
1778, says,--"Agreeably to your pleasure, I have relinquished all
concern with the affairs of the foujdarry and adawlut, leaving the
entire management in Sudder ul Huk Khan's hands." Here you see the Nabob
again reduced to his former state of subordination. This
chief-justiceship, which was declared to be his inherent right, he is
obliged to submit to the control of Mr. Hastings, and to declare that he
will not interfere at all in a matter which Mr. Hastings had declared to
be his incommunicable attribute. I do not say that Mr. Hastings
interfered improperly. Certainly it was not fit that the highest court
of justice in all Bengal should be made the instrument of the rapacity
of a set of villains with a prostitute at their head: just as if a gang
of thieves in England, with their prostitutes at their head, should
seize the judge which ought to punish them, and endeavor to make use of
his name in their iniquitous transactions. But your Lordships will find
that Mr. Hastings is here acting a merely ostensible part, and that he
has always a means of defeating privately what he declares publicly to
be his intention. Your Lordships will see soon how this ended. Mr.
Hastings gets the Nabob to give up all his authority over the
chief-justice; but he says not one word of Munny Begum, the person who
had the real authority in her hands, and who was not forbidden to
interfere with him. Mr. Hastings's order is dated the 1st September,