l state in its proper
place,--taking into consideration, for the present, the proceedings
relative to Mr. Bristow, and to Mahomed Reza Khan, which were
altogether in the same spirit; but as they were diversified in the
circumstances of disobedience, as well from the case of Mr. Fowke as
from one another, and as these circumstances tend to discover other
dangerous principles of abuse, and the general prostrate condition of
the authority of Parliament in Bengal, your Committee proceed first to
make some observations upon them.

The province of Oude, enlarged by the accession of several extensive and
once flourishing territories, that is, by the country of the Rohillas,
the district of Corah and Allahabad, and other provinces betwixt the
Ganges and Jumna, is under the nominal dominion of one of the princes of
the country, called Asoph ul Dowlah. But a body of English troops is
kept up in his country; and the greatest part of his revenues are, by
one description or another, substantially under the administration of
English subjects. He is to all purposes a dependent prince. The person
to be employed in his dominions to act for the Committee [Company?] was
therefore of little consequence in his capacity of negotiator; but he
was vested with a trust, great and critical, in all pecuniary affairs.
These provinces of dependence lie out of the system of the Company's
ordinary administration, and transactions there cannot be so readily
brought under the cognizance of the Court of Directors. This renders it
the more necessary that the Residents in such places should be persons
not disapproved of by the Court of Directors. They are to manage a
permanent interest, which is not, like a matter of political
negotiation, variable, and which, from circumstances, might possibly
excuse some degree of discretionary latitude in construing their orders.
During the lifetime of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, Mr.
Bristow was appointed to this Presidency, and that appointment, being
approved and confirmed by the Court of Directors, became in effect their
own. Mr. Bristow appears to have shown himself a man of talents and
activity. He had been principally concerned in the negotiations by which
the Company's interest in the higher provinces had been established; and
those services were considered by the Presidency of Calcutta as so
meritorious, that they voted him ten thousand pounds as a reward, with
many expressions of esteem and honor.