ons of
the public revenue of Bengal, as also the administration of civil and
criminal justice throughout the provinces. That the said Warren
Hastings, in a letter dated 5th of May, 1781, advising the Court of
Directors of the said changes, has falsely affirmed, "that the plan of
superintending and collecting the public revenue of the provinces
through the agency of Provincial Councils had been instituted for the
temporary and declared purpose of introducing another more permanent
mode _by an easy and gradual change_"; that, on the contrary, the said
Warren Hastings, from the year 1773 to the year 1781, has constantly and
uniformly insisted on the wisdom of that institution, and on the
necessity of never departing from it; that he has in that time
repeatedly advised that the said institution should be confirmed _in
perpetuity_ by an act of Parliament; that the said total dissolution of
the Provincial Councils was not introduced by any easy and gradual
change, nor by any gradations whatever, but was sudden and unprepared,
and instantly accomplished by a single act of power; and that the said
Warren Hastings, in the place of the said Councils, has substituted a
Committee of Revenue, consisting of four covenanted servants, on
principles opposite to those which he had himself professed, and with
exclusive powers, tending to deprive the members of the Supreme Council
of a due knowledge of and inspection into the management of the
territorial revenues, specially and unalienably vested by the
legislature in the Governor-General and Council, and to vest the same
solely and entirely in the said Warren Hastings. That the reasons
assigned by the said Warren Hastings for constituting the said Committee
of Revenue are incompatible with those which he professed when he
abolished the subordinate Council of Revenue at Moorshedabad: that he
has invested the said Committee _in the fullest manner with all the
powers and authority of the Governor-General and Council_; that he has
thereby contracted the whole power and office of the Provincial Councils
into a small compass, and vested the same in four persons appointed by
himself; that he has thereby taken the general transaction and
cognizance of revenue business out of the Supreme Council; that the said
Committee are empowered to conduct the current business of the revenue
department without reference to the Supreme Council, and only _report to
the board such extraordinary occurrences, clai