lished at
Moorshedabad, chiefly for the following reasons: that, by its exercising
a separate control, the members of the Supreme Council at Calcutta were
prevented from acquiring that intimate acquaintance with the revenues
which was necessary to persons in their station; and because many of the
powers necessary for the collection of the revenues could not be
delegated to a subordinate council. In consideration of these opinions,
orders, and declarations, he, in 1773, abolished the office of
collector, and transferred the management of the revenues to several
councils of revenue, called Provincial Councils, and recommended their
perpetual establishment by act of Parliament. In the year 1774, in
contradiction of his former opinion respecting the necessity of the
Supreme Council possessing all possible means of becoming acquainted
with the details of the revenue, he again recommended the continuance of
the Provincial Councils in all their parts. This he again declared to be
his deliberate opinion in 1775 and in 1776.

In the mean time a majority of the Supreme Council, consisting of
members who had generally differed in opinion from Mr. Hastings, had
transmitted their advice to the Court of Directors, recommending some
changes in the system of Provincial Councils. The Directors, in their
reply to this recommendation, did in 1777 order the Supreme Council to
form a new plan for the collection of the revenues, and to transmit it
to them for their consideration.

No such plan was transmitted; but in the year 1781, Mr. Hastings having
obtained a majority in the Council, he again changed the whole system,
both of collection of the revenue and of the executive administration of
civil and criminal justice. And who were the persons substituted in the
place of those whom he removed? Names, my Lords, with which you are
already but too well acquainted. At their head stands Munny Begum; then
comes his own domestic, and private bribe-agent, Gunga Govind Sing; then
his banian, Cantoo Baboo; then that instrument of all evil, Debi Sing;
then the whole tribe of his dependants, white and black, whom he made
farmers of the revenue, with Colonel Hannay at their head; and, lastly,
his confidential Residents, secret agents, and private secretaries, Mr.
Middleton, Major Palmer, &c., &c. Can your Lordships doubt, for a single
instant, of the real spirit of these proceedings? Can you doubt of the
whole design having originated and ended in corr