vy distresses that I could no
longer live in expectations, I then wrote an account of my difficulties.
The answer I have received to it is such that it has given me
inexpressible grief and affliction. I never had the least idea or
expectation from you and the Council that you would have given your
orders in _so afflicting a manner, in which you never before wrote, and
I could never have imagined_. I have delivered up all my _private_
papers to him [the Resident], that, after examining my receipts and
expenses, he may take whatever remains. That, as I know it to be my
duty to satisfy you [the Company and Council], I have not failed to obey
in any instance; but requested of him that it might be done so as not to
distress me in my _necessary_ expenses. There being no other funds but
those for the expenses of my _mutseddies_ [clerks and accountants],
household expenses, and servants, &c., he demanded these in such a
manner, that, being remediless, I was obliged to comply with what he
required. He has accordingly stopped _the pensions of my old servants
for thirty years, whether sepoys [soldiers], mutseddies [secretaries and
accountants], or household servants, and the expenses of my family and
kitchen, together with the jaghires of my grandmother, mother, and
aunts, and of my brothers and dependants, which were for their
support_."
XII. That, in answer to the letter aforesaid, the Resident received from
the said Warren Hastings and Council an order to persevere in the demand
to its fullest extent,--that is to say, to the amount of 1,400,000_l._
sterling.
XIII. That on the 15th of May the Nabob replied, complaining in an
humble and suppliant manner of his distressed situation: that he had at
first opposed the assigning to the use of the Company the estates of his
mother, of his grandmother, of one of his uncles, and of the sons of
another, but that, in obedience to the injunctions of the gentlemen of
the Council, it had been done, to the amount, on the whole, of
80,000_l._ sterling a year, or thereabouts; that whatever effects were
in the country, with even his table, his animals, and the salaries of
his servants, were granted in assignments; that, besides these, if they
were resolved again to compel him to give up the estates of his parents
and relations, which were granted them for their maintenance, they were
at the Company's disposal; saying, "If the Council have directed you to
attach them, do it: in the country no
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