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
accommodation with Mr. Francis; but to effect this point he had
been under the necessity of making some painful sacrifices, and
particularly that of the restoration of Mahomed Reza Khan to the
office of Naib Subah, a measure which he knew must be highly
disagreeable to the Nabob, and which nothing but the urgent
necessity of the case should have led him to acquiesce in; that he
relied on me to state all these circumstances in the most forcible
manner to the Nabob, and to urge his compliance, assuring him that
it should not continue longer than until the next advices were
received from the Court of Directors."

Here Mr. Hastings himself lets us into the secrets of his government. He
writes an ostensible letter to the Nabob, declaring that what he does is
in conformity to the orders of the Company. He writes a private letter,
in which he directs his agent to assure the Nabob that what he had done
was not in compliance with the orders of the Company, but in consequence
of the arrangement he had made with Mr. Francis, which arrangement he
thought necessary for the support of his own personal power. His design,
in thus explaining the transaction to the Nabob, was in order to
prevent the native powers from looking to any other authority than his,
and from having the least hopes of redress of their complaints from the
justice of this country or from any legal power in it. He therefore
tells him that Mahomed Reza Khan was replaced, not in obedience to the
orders of the Company, but to gratify Mr. Francis. If he quarrels with
Mr. Francis, he makes that a reason for disobeying the orders of his
masters; if he agrees with him, he informs the people concerned in the
transaction, privately, that he acts, not in consequence of the orders
that he has received, but from other motives. But that is not all. He
promises that he will take the first opportunity to remove Mahomed Reza
Khan from his office again. Thus the country is to be re-plunged into
the same distracted and ruined state in which it was before. And all
this is laid open fully and distinctly before you. You have it on the
authority of Sir John D'Oyly. Sir John D'Oyly is a person in the secret;
and one man who is in the secret is worth a thousand ostensible persons.

Mahomed Reza Khan, I