the darogahs chief criminal magistrates], moulavies [consulting or assistant lawyers], and other officers, should be selected by the ministers, with his, the Resident's, concurrence; and afterwards, in his instructions to the Resident Bristow, desiring him to pursue the same object, he declared his opinion," that the want of such courts, and the extreme licentiousness occasioned thereby, is one of the most disreputable defects in his Highness the Nabob's government, and that, while they do not exist, every man knows the hazard which he incurs in lending his money"; but he did give him, the said Resident, no positive instruction concerning the same, supposing the establishment of such courts a matter of difficulty, and did therefore leave him a latitude in his proceedings therein.

XLI. That the said Resident Bristow did, however, in conformity to the said instructions, at last given with such latitude, endeavor to prevail on the said minister gradually to introduce courts of justice for the cognizance of crimes, by beginning to establish a criminal court under a native judge, to judge according to the Mahomedan law in the city of Lucknow. But Hyder Beg Khân, a minister of the said Warren Hastings's nomination, and solely dependent upon him, did elude and obstruct, and in the end totally defeat, the establishment of the same.

XLII. That the obstruction aforesaid, and the evil consequences thereof, were duly represented to the said Hastings; and though the said Hastings had made it the fourth article of a criminal charge against the Resident Middleton, "that he did not report to

the Governor-General, or to the board, the progress which he had made from time to time in his endeavors to comply with his instructions, and that, if he met with any impediments in the execution of them, he had omitted to state those impediments, and to apply for fresh orders upon them," yet he, the said Hastings, did give no manner of support to the Resident Bris tow against the said Hyder Beg Khân, and did not even answer several of his letters, the said Bristow's letters, stating the said impediments, or take any notice of his remonstrances, but did at length revoke his own instructions, declaring that he, the said Resident, should not presume to act upon the same, and yet did not furnish him with any others, upon which he might act, but did uphold the said Hyder Beg Khân in the obstruction by him given to the performance of the first and fundamental duty of all government, namely, the administration of justice, and the protection of the lives and property of the subject against wrong and violence.

XLIII. That the said Hastings did afterwards proceed to the length of criminating the Resident Bristow aforesaid for his endeavors to establish the said necessary court, as an invasion of the rights of the Nabob's government, when, if the Nabob in his own proper person and character, and not the aforesaid Hyder Beg, (who was a creature of the said Hastings,) had opposed the reëstablishment of justice in the said country, it was the duty of the said Hastings to have pressed the same upon him by every exertion of his influence. And the said Warren Hastings, in his pretended attention to the Nabob's authority, when exercised by his, the said Hastings's, minister, to

prevent the establishment of courts of justice for the protection of life and property, at the same time that he did not hesitate, in the case of the confiscation of the jaghires, and the proceedings against the mother and grandmother of the Nabob, totally to supersede his authority, and to force his inclinations in acts which overturned all the laws of property, and offered violence to all the sentiments of natural affection and duty, and accusing at the same time his instruments. for not going to the utmost lengths in the execution of his said orders, is guilty of an high crime and mis demeanor.

XLIV. That the said Hastings did highly aggravate his offence in discountenancing and discouraging the reëstablishment of magistracy, law, and order, in the country of Oude, inasmuch as he did in the eighth article of his instructions to the Resident order him to exercise powers which ought to have been exercised by lawful magistrates, and in a manner agreeable to law. And in the said article he did state the prevalence of rebellion in the said country of Oude, -as if rebellion could exist in a country in which there was no magistracy, and no protection for life or property, and in which the native authority had no force whatever, and in which he himself states the exercise of British authority to be an absolute usurpation; and he did accordingly direct a rigorous prosecution against the offence of rebellion under such circumstances, but "with a fair and impartial inquiry," when he did not permit the establishment of those courts of justice and magistracy by which alone rebellion could be prevented, or a fair and impartial inquiry relative to the same could be had; and par

ticularly he did instruct the said Resident to obtain the Nabob's order for employing some sure means for apprehending certain zemindars, and particularly three, in the instruction named, whom he, the said Hastings, did cause to be apprehended upon what he calls good information, founded upon some facts to which he asserts he has the testimony of several witnesses," that they had the destruction of Colonel Hannay and the officers under his command as their immediate object, and ultimately the extirpation of the English influence and power throughout all the Nabob's dominions," and that they did still persevere in their rebellious conduct without deviation," though the Nabob's, and not our government, was then the object of it”; and he did direct the said Resident, if it should appear, "on a fair and regular inquiry, that their conduct towards the Nabob had been such as it had been reported to be, to insist upon the Nabob's punishing them with death, and to treat with the same rigor every zemindar and every subject who shall be the leader in a rebellion against his authority."

XLV. That the crime of the said Hastings, in his procedure aforesaid, was further highly aggravated by his having received information of several striking circumstances which strongly indicated the necessity of a regular magistracy and a legal judicature, from the total failure of justice, affecting not only the subjects at large, but even the reigning family itself, -as also of the causes why no legal magistracy could exist, and why the princes of the reigning family were not only exposed to the attacks of assassins, but even to a want of the protection which might be had from their servants and attendants, who were driven from

their masters for want of that maintenance which the princes, their masters, could not procure even for themselves. And the circumstances aforesaid were detailed to him, the said Hastings, by the Resident, Bristow, in a letter from Lucknow, dated the 29th January, 1784, to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, and the Council of Bengal, in the terms following.

"The frequent robberies and murders perpetrated in his Excellency's, the Vizier's, dominions, have been too often the subject of my representations to your honorable board. From the total want of police, hardly a day elapses but I am informed of some tragical event, whereof the bare recital is shocking to humanity. About two months since, an attempt was made to assassinate Rajah Ticket Roy, the acting minister's confidential agent; but he happily escaped unhurt. Nabob Bahadur, his Highness's brother, has not been so fortunate, as will appear from translations of two of his letters to me, No. 1, which I have the honor to inclose for your information. Although my feelings are sensibly hurt and my compassion strongly excited by the disgraceful and miserable state of poverty to which his Excellency's brothers are reduced, yet, situated as I am, it is not in my power to interfere with effect. My efforts on a former occasion failed of success, and my interposition now would only excite the resentment of the minister towards the unhappy sufferers, in consequence of their application to me, from whom ALONE, however, they hope for relief from their present distress, which, their near connection with the Vizier considered, is both shameful and unprecedented. That no regular courts of justice have been established in this country is particularly pointed at