of
the affairs of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe,
the Governor-General and Council are required and directed to pay due
obedience to all such orders as they shall receive from the Court of
Directors of the said United Company, and to correspond from time to
time, and constantly and diligently transmit to the said Court an exact
particular of all advices or intelligence and of all transactions and
matters whatsoever that shall come to their knowledge, relating to the
government, commerce, revenues, or interest of the said United Company."

That, in consequence of the above-recited act, the Court of Directors,
in their general instructions of the 29th March, 1774, to the
Governor-General and Council, did direct, "that the correspondence with
the princes or country powers in India should be carried on through the
Governor-General only; but that all letters to be sent by him should be
first approved in Council; and that he should lay before the Council, at
their next meeting, all letters received by him in the course of such
correspondence, for their information."

And the Governor-General and Council were therein further ordered,
"that, in transacting the business of their department, they should
enter with the utmost perspicuity and exactness all their proceedings
whatsoever, and all dissents, if such should at any time be made by any
member of their board, together with all letters sent or received in the
course of their correspondence; and that broken sets of such
proceedings, to the latest period possible, be transmitted to them [the
Court of Directors], a complete set at the end of every year, and a
duplicate by the next conveyance."

That, in defiance of the said orders, and in breach of the above-recited
act of Parliament, the said Warren Hastings has, in sundry instances,
concealed from his Council the correspondence carried on between him and
the princes or country powers in India, and neglected to communicate the
advices and intelligence he from time to time received from the British
Residents at the different courts in India to the other members of the
government, and, without their knowledge, counsel, or participation, has
dispatched orders on matters of the utmost consequence to the interests
of the Company.

That, moreover, the said Warren Hastings, for the purpose of covering
his own improper and dangerous practices from his employers, has
withheld from the Court of Directors, upon