e subordinate, and defiance of the supreme power.

Your Committee being led to attend to the abuse of contracts, which are
given upon principles fatal to the subordination of the service, and in
defiance of orders, revert to the disobedience of orders in the case of
Mahomed Reza Khan.

This transaction is of a piece with those that preceded it. On the 6th
of July, 1781, Mr. Hastings announced to the board the arrival of a
messenger and introduced a requisition from the young Nabob Mobarek ul
Dowlah, "that he might be _permitted to dispose of his own stipend,
without being made to depend on the will of another_." In favor of this
requisition Mr. Hastings urged various arguments:--that the Nabob could
no longer be deemed a minor;--that he was twenty-six years of age, and
father of many children;--that his understanding was much improved _of
late_ by an attention to his education;--that these circumstances gave
him a claim to the uncontrolled exercise of domestic authority; and it
might reasonably be supposed that he would pay a greater regard to a
just economy in his own family than had been observed by those who were
aliens to it. For these reasons Mr. Hastings recommended to the board
that Mahomed Reza Khan should be immediately divested of the office of
superintendent of the Nabob's household, _and that the Nabob Mobarek ul
Dowlah should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and
disbursements of his stipend, and the uncontrolled management and
regulation of his household_. Thus far your Committee are of opinion,
that the conclusion corresponds with the premises; for, supposing the
fact to be established or admitted, that the Nabob, in point of age,
capacity, and judgment, was qualified to act for himself, it seems
reasonable that the management of his domestic affairs should not be
withheld from him. On this part of the proceeding your Committee will
only observe, that, if it were strictly true that the Nabob's
understanding had been much improved _of late_ by an attention to his
education, (which seems an extraordinary way of describing the
qualifications of a man of six-and-twenty, the father of many children,)
the merit of such improvement must be attributed to Mahomed Reza Khan,
who was the only person of rank and character connected with him, or who
could be supposed to have any influence over him. Mr. Hastings himself
reproaches the Nabob with _raising mean men to be his companions_, and
tells him