n Hastings did not obey, as in duty he was bound to
do, the said standing orders; nor did communicate all his correspondence
with Mr. Middleton, the Company's agent at the court of the Subah of
Oude, or with Colonel Champion, the commander-in-chief of the Company's
forces in the Rohilla war, to the Select Committee: and when afterwards,
that is to say, on the 25th of October, 1774, he was required by the
majority of the Council appointed by the act of Parliament of 1773,
whose opinion was by the said act directed to be taken as the act of the
whole Council, to produce _all_ his correspondence with Mr. Middleton
and Colonel Champion for the direction of their future proceedings
relative to the obscure, intricate, and critical transaction aforesaid,
he did positively and pertinaciously refuse to deliver any other than
such parts of the said correspondence as he thought convenient, covering
his said illegal refusal under general vague pretences of secrecy and
danger from the communication, although the said order and instruction
of the Court of Directors above mentioned was urged to him, and although
it was represented to him by the said Council, that they, as well as
he, were bound by an oath of secrecy: which refusal to obey the orders
of the Court of Directors (orders specially, and on weighty grounds of
experience, pointed to cases of this very nature) gave rise to much
jealousy, and excited great suspicions relative to the motives and
grounds on which the Rohilla war had been undertaken.

That the said Warren Hastings, in the grounds alleged in his
justification of his refusal to communicate to his colleagues in the
Superior Council his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, the Company's
Resident at Oude, was guilty of a new offence, arrogating to himself
unprecedented and dangerous powers, on principles utterly subversive of
all order and discipline in service, and introductory to corrupt
confederacies and disobedience among the Company's servants; the said
Warren Hastings insisting that Mr. Middleton, the Company's covenanted
servant, the public Resident for transacting the Company's affairs at
the court of the Subah of Oude, and as such receiving from the Company a
salary for his service, was no other than the _official agent_ of him,
the said Warren Hastings, and that, being such, he was not obliged to
communicate his correspondence.

That the Court of Directors, and afterwards a General Court of the
Proprietors of