the manners of his people,
was necessary to enable him to fill that delicate place with reputation
either to the Mahometan government or to ours. He had still to manage a
revenue not inconsiderable, which remained as the sole resource for the
languishing dignity of persons any way distinguished in rank among
Mussulmen, who were all attached and clung to him. These considerations
rendered it necessary to put his person and affairs into proper hands.
They ought to have been men who were able by the gravity of their rank
and character to preserve his morals from the contagion of low and
vicious company,--men who by their integrity and firmness might be
enabled to resist in some degree the rapacity of Europeans, as well as
to secure the remaining fragments of his property from the attempts of
the natives themselves, who must lie under strong temptation of taking
their share in the last pillage of a decaying house.

The Directors were fully impressed with the necessity of such an
arrangement. Your Committee find, that, on the 26th of August, 1771,
they gave instructions to the President and Council to appoint "a
minister to transact the political affairs of the circar
[government],--and to select for that purpose some person well qualified
for the affairs of government to be the minister of the government, and
guardian of the Nabob's minority."

The order was so distinct as not to admit of a mistake; it was (for its
matter) provident and well considered; and the trust which devolved on
Mr. Hastings was of such a nature as might well stimulate a man
sensible to reputation to fulfil it in a manner agreeably to the
directions he had received, and not only above just cause of exception,
but out of the reach of suspicion and malice. In that situation it was
natural to suppose he would cast his eyes upon men of the first repute
and consideration among the Mussulmen of high rank.

Mr. Hastings, instead of directing his eyes to the durbar, employed his
researches in the seraglio. In the inmost recesses of that place he
discovered a woman secluded from the intercourse and shut up from the
eyes of men, whom he found to correspond with the orders he had received
from the Directors, as a person well "qualified for the affairs of
government, fit to be a minister of government and the guardian of the
Nabob's minority." This woman he solemnly invests with these functions.
He appoints Rajah Gourdas, whom some time after he himself qualif