minister's conduct, a delay of two or three months
should occur in the settlement of the lands, the people throughout
the country would be disheartened, and inevitably a very heavy
balance accrue on the revenue. I have troubled the honorable board
with this detail, in the first place, to show the propriety of
Elija Khan's conduct, and, in the next, the essential service that
will be rendered to the Vizier by continuing Colonel Parker's
detachment during the whole rains in Corah, if required by the
Vizier."

My Lords, you have now had a view of the state of Oude, previous to the
first period of our connection with it. Your Lordships have seen and
understand that part of the middle period, with which we do not mean to
trouble you again. You will now be pleased to attend to a letter from
Fyzoola Khan to the Governor-General, received the 13th of February,
1778.

"This country of Cuttah, which formerly depended on the Rohilla
States, and which I consider as now appertaining to the Company,
was very populous and flourishing; but since the commencement of
the Nabob Vizier's government, the farmers appointed by his
ministers have desolated the country. Its situation is at present
very ruinous; thousands of villages, formerly populous, are now
utterly deserted, and no trace left of them. I have already written
to Roy Buckstowr Sing a full account of the tyranny and oppression
exercised by the farmers, to be communicated to you: the constant
revenue of a country depends on the care of its rulers to preserve
it in a flourishing state. I have been induced to make the
representation by my attachment to the interest of the Company; for
otherwise it is no concern of mine. Should these oppressions
continue one or two years longer, and the rulers take no measures
to put a stop to them, the whole country will be a desert."

My Lords, upon these statements I have only to make this remark,--that
you have seen the first state of this country, and that the period when
it had fallen into the state last described was about two years after
Mr. Hastings had obtained the majority in the Council and began to
govern this country by his lieutenants. We know that the country was put
by him under military collectors: you see the consequences. The person
who makes this representation to Mr. Hastings of the state of the
country, of its