gainst him:--that he had dismissed
the old established servants of the Nizamut, and filled their places
with his own dependants;--that he had _regularly received_ the stipend
of the Nizamut from the Company, yet had kept the Nabob involved in debt
and distress, and exposed to the clamors of his creditors, and sometimes
even in want of a dinner. All these complaints were recorded at large in
the proceedings of the Council; but it does not appear that they were
ever communicated to Mahomed Reza Khan, or that he was ever called upon,
in any shape, to answer them. This circumstance inclines your Committee
to believe that all of these charges were groundless,--especially as it
appears on the face of the proceedings, that the chief of them were not
well founded. Mr. Hastings, in his letter to Mr. Wheler, urges the
absolute necessity of the monthly payment of the Nabob's stipend _being
regularly made_, and says, that, to relieve the Nabob's present wants,
he had directed the Resident to raise an immediate supply on the credit
of the Company, to be repaid from the first receipts. From hence your
Committee conclude that the monthly payments had _not_ been regularly
made, and that whatever distresses the Nabob might have suffered must
have been owing to the Governor-General and Council, not to Mahomed Reza
Khan, who, for aught that appears to the contrary, paid away the stipend
as fast as he received it. Had it been otherwise, that is, if Mahomed
Reza Khan had reserved a balance of the Nabob's money in his hands, he
should, and undoubtedly he would, have been called upon to pay it in;
and then there would have been no necessity for raising an immediate
supply by other means.

The transaction, on the whole, speaks very sufficiently for itself. It
is a gross instance of repeated disobedience to repeated orders; and it
is rendered particularly offensive to the authority of the Court of
Directors by the frivolous and contradictory reasons assigned for it.
But whether the Nabob's requisition was reasonable or not, the
Governor-General and Council were precluded by a special instruction
from complying with it. The Directors, in their letter of the 14th of
February, 1779, declare, that a resolution of Council, (taken by Mr.
Francis and Mr. Wheler, in the absence of Mr. Barwell,) viz., "that the
Nabob's letter should be referred to _them_ for _their_ decision, and
that no resolution should be taken in Bengal on his requisitions without
t