ions, and in breach of the public trust reposed in him, and
sufficiently declared by the manifest duty of his station, if it had not
been expressed and enforced by any positive institution, he, the said
Warren Hastings, did permit and suffer his own banian or principal black
steward, named Cantoo Baboo, to hold farms in different purgunnahs, or
districts, or to be security for farms, to the amount of thirteen lac of
rupees (130,000_l._ or upwards) per annum; and that, after enjoying the
whole of those farms for two years, he was permitted by the said Warren
Hastings to relinquish two of them. That on the subject of the farms
held by Cantoo Baboo the said Warren Hastings has made the following
declaration. "Many of his farms were taken without my knowledge, and
almost all against my advice. I had no right to use compulsion or
authority; nor could I with justice exclude him, because he was my
servant, from a liberty allowed to all other persons in the country. The
farms which he quitted he quitted by my advice, because I thought that
he might engage himself beyond his abilities, and be involved in
disputes, which I did not choose to have come before me as judge of
them."[8] That the said declaration contains sundry false and
contradictory assertions: that, if _almost all_ the said farms were
taken against his advice, it cannot be true that _many_ of them were
taken without his knowledge; that, whether Cantoo Baboo had been his
servant or not, the said Warren Hastings was bound by his own
regulations to prevent his holding any farms to a greater amount than
one lac of rupees per annum, and that the said Cantoo Baboo, being the
servant of the Governor-General, was excluded by the said regulations
from holding any farms whatever; that, if (as the Directors observe) it
was thought dangerous to permit the banian of a collector to be
concerned in farms, the same or stronger objections would always lie
against the Governor's banian being so concerned; that the said Warren
Hastings had a right, and was bound by his duty, to prevent his servant
from holding the same; that, in advising the said Cantoo Baboo to
relinquish some of the said farms, for which he was actually engaged, he
has acknowledged an influence over his servant, and has used that
influence for a purpose inconsistent with his duty to the India Company,
namely, to deprive them of the security of the said Cantoo Baboo's
engagement for farms which on trial he had found n