the very next day after he had received (as he asserts) their private
orders, "addressed to himself alone," and not to the board, he did
dispatch, by express messengers, his orders to Mr. Middleton, the
Resident at the Nabob's court at Moorshedabad, in a public character
and trust with the Nabob, to arrest, in his capital, and at his court,
and without any previous notice given of any charge, his principal
minister, the aforesaid Mahomed Reza Khan, and to bring him down to
Calcutta; and he did carefully conceal his said proceedings from the
knowledge of the board, on pretext of his not being acquainted with
their dispositions, and the influence which he thought that the said
Mahomed Reza Khan had amongst them.

XII. That the said Warren Hastings, at the time he gave his orders as
aforesaid for arresting the said Mahomed Reza Khan, did not take any
measures to compel the appearance of any other persons as
witnesses,--declaring it as his opinion, "that there would be little
need of violence to obtain such intelligence as they could give against
their former master, when his authority is taken from him"; but he did
afterwards, in excuse for the long detention and imprisonment of the
said Mahomed Reza Khan, without any proofs having been obtained of his
guilt, or measures taken to bring him to a trial, assure the Directors,
in direct contradiction to his former declaration, "that the influence
of Mahomed Reza Khan still prevailed generally throughout the country,
in the Nabob's household, and at the capital, and was scarcely affected
by his present disgrace,"--notwithstanding, as he, the said Hastings,
doth confess, he had used his utmost endeavors "to break that influence,
by removing his dependants, and putting the direction of all the affairs
that had been committed to his care into the hands of _the most powerful
or active of his enemies_; that he depended on the activity of their
hatred to Mahomed Reza Khan, incited by the expectation of rewards, for
investigating the conduct of the latter; that with this the institution
of the new dewanny coincided; and that the same principle had guided him
in the choice of Munny Begum and Rajah Gourdas,--the former for the
chief administration, the latter" (the son of Nundcomar, and a mere
instrument in the hands of his father) "for the dewanny of the Nabob's
household,--both _the declared enemies_ of Mahomed Reza Khan."

XIII. That, although it might be true that enemies will beco