ry object complained of, and
whose eunuchs are expressly mentioned in the complaint, he writes to the
Nabob, whom he knew to be a pageant in his own court and government, and
whose name was not even mentioned in this last complaint. Not one word
is said, even in this letter to the Nabob, of Munny Begum or of her
eunuchs. My Lords, when you consider his tacit support of the authors of
the grievance, and his ostensible application for redress to the man
who he knew never authorized and could not redress the grievance, you
must conclude that he meant to keep the country in the same state for
his own corrupt purposes. In this state the country in fact continued;
Munny Begum and her eunuchs continued to administer and squander the
Company's money, as well as the Nabob's; robberies and murders continued
to prevail throughout the country. No appearance was left of order, law,
or justice, from one end of Bengal to the other.

The account of this state of things was received by the Court of
Directors with horror and indignation. On the 27th of May, 1779, they
write, as you will find in page 1063 of your printed Minutes, a letter
to their government at Calcutta, condemning their proceedings and the
removal of Mahomed Reza Khan, and they order that Munny Begum shall be
displaced, and Mahomed Reza Khan restored again to the seat of justice.

Mr. Francis, upon the arrival of these reiterated orders, moved in
Council for an obedience to them. Mr. Hastings, notwithstanding he had
before his eyes all the horrible consequences that attended his new
arrangement, still resists that proposition. By his casting voice in the
Council he counter-orders the orders of the Court of Directors, and
sanctions a direct disobedience to their authority, by a resolution that
Mahomed Reza Khan should not be restored to his employment, but that
this Sudder ul Huk Khan, who still continued in the condition already
described, should remain in the possession of his office. I say nothing
of Sudder ul Huk Khan; he seems to be very well disposed to do his duty,
if Mr. Hastings's arrangements had suffered him to do it; and indeed,
if Mahomed Reza Khan had been reinstated, and no better supported by Mr.
Hastings than Sudder ul Huk Khan, he could probably have kept the
country in no better order, though, perhaps, his name, and the authority
and weight which still adhered to him in some degree, might have had
some influence.

My Lords, you have seen his defiance