y with faction.
No member of any body, outvoted on a question, has, or can have, a right
to direct any part of his public conduct by that principle. The members
of the Council had a common superior, to whom they might appeal in their
mutual charges of faction: they did so frequently; and the imputation of
faction has almost always been laid on Mr. Hastings himself.

But there were periods, very distinguished periods too, in the records
of the Company, in which the clandestine taking of money could not be
supported even by this pretence. Mr. Hastings has been charged with
various acts of peculation, perpetrated at a time he could not excuse
himself by the plea of any public purpose to be carried on, or of any
faction in council by which it was traversed. It may be necessary here
to recall to the recollection of the House, that, on the cry which
prevailed of the ill practices of the Company's servants in India,
(which general cry in a great measure produced the Regulating Act of
1773,) the Court of Directors, in their instructions of the 29th of
March, 1774, gave it as an injunction to the Council-General, that "they
_immediately_ cause the _strictest_ inquiry to be made into _all_
oppressions which may have been committed either against natives or
Europeans, and into _all_ abuses which may have prevailed in the
collection of the revenues or _any part of the civil government_ of the
Presidency; and that you communicate to us _all information_ which you
may be able to obtain relative thereto, or any embezzlement or
dissipation of the Company's money."

In this inquiry, by far the most important abuse which appeared on any
of the above heads was that which was charged relative to the sale in
gross by Mr. Hastings of nothing less than the whole authority of the
country government in the disposal of the guardianship of the Nabob of
Bengal.

The present Nabob, Mobarek ul Dowlah, was a minor when he succeeded to
the title and office of Subahdar of the three provinces in 1770.
Although in a state approaching to subjection, still his rank and
character were important. Much was necessarily to depend upon a person
who was to preserve the moderation of a sovereign not supported by
intrinsic power, and yet to maintain the dignity necessary to carry on
the representation of political government, as well as the substance of
the whole criminal justice of a great country. A good education,
conformably to the maxims of his religion and