ms, and proposals as may
require the special orders of the board_; that even the instruction to
report to the board in extraordinary cases is nugatory and fallacious,
being accompanied with limitations which make it impossible for the said
board to decide on any questions whatsoever: since it is expressly
provided by the said Warren Hastings, _that, if the members of the
Committee differ in opinion, it is not expected that every dissentient
opinion should be recorded_; consequently the Supreme Council, on any
reference to their board, can see nothing but the resolutions or reasons
of the majority of the Committee, without the arguments on which the
dissentient opinions might be founded: and since it is also expressly
provided by the said Warren Hastings, that _the determination of the
majority of the Committee should not therefore be stayed, unless it
should be so agreed by the majority_,--that is, that, notwithstanding
the reference to the Supreme Council, the measure shall be executed
without waiting for their decision.

That the said Warren Hastings has delivered his opinion, with many
arguments to support the same, in favor of long leases of the lands, in
preference to _annual_ settlements: that he has particularly declared,
"that the farmer who holds his farm for one year only, having no
interest in the next, takes what he can with the hand of rigor, which,
even in the execution of legal claims, is often equivalent to violence;
he is under the necessity of being rigid, and _even cruel_,--for what is
left in arrear after the expiration of his power is at best a doubtful
debt, if ever recoverable; he will be tempted to exceed the bounds of
right, and to augment his income by irregular exactions, and by racking
the tenants, for which pretences will not be wanting, where the farms
pass _annually_ from one hand to another; that the discouragements which
the tenants feel from being transferred every year to new landlords are
a great objection to such short leases; that they contribute to injure
the cultivation and dispeople the lands; that, on the contrary, from
long farms the farmer acquires a permanent interest in his lands; he
will, for his own sake, lay out money in assisting his tenants in
improving lands already cultivated, and in clearing and cultivating
waste lands."[14] That, nevertheless, the said Warren Hastings, having
left it to the discretion of the Committee of Revenue, appointed by him
in 1781, to fix the