in these terms: "I administer the affairs of the Nizamut,
(the government,) which are the affairs of _my own family_, by _my own
authority_, and shall do so; and I never can _on any account agree_ to
the appointment of the Nabob Mahomed Reza Khan to the Naib Subahship."
Here was a second independent power in Bengal. This answer from that
power proved as satisfactory as it was resolute. No further notice was
taken of the orders of the Court of Directors, and Mahomed Reza Khan
found their protection much more of a shadow than the pageant of power
of which he aspired to be the representative.

This act of disobedience differs from the others in one particular
which, in the opinion of your Committee, rather aggravates than
extenuates the offence. In the others, Messrs. Hastings and Barwell took
the responsibility on themselves; here they held up the pretext of the
country government. However, they obtained thereby one of the objects
which they appear to have systematically pursued. As they had in the
other instances shown to the British servants of the Company that the
Directors were not able to protect them, here the same lesson was taught
to the natives. Whilst the matter lay between the native power and the
servants, the former was considered by Mr. Hastings in the most
contemptible light. When the question was between the servants and the
Court of Directors, the native power was asserted to be a self-derived,
hereditary, uncontrollable authority, and encouraged to act as such.

In this manner the authority of the British legislature was at that time
treated with every mark of reprobation and contempt. But soon after a
most unexpected change took place, by which the persons in whose favor
the Court of Directors had in vain interposed obtained specific objects
which had been refused to them; things were, however, so well contrived,
that legal authority was nearly as much affronted by the apparent
compliance with their orders as by the real resistance they had before
met with. After long and violent controversies, an agreement took place
between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Francis. It appears that Mr. Hastings,
embarrassed with the complicated wars and ruinous expenses into which
his measures had brought him, began to think of procuring peace at home.
The agreement originated in a conversation held on Christmas-Day, 1779,
between Major Scott, then aide-de-camp, and now agent, to Mr. Hastings,
and Mr. Ducarrel, a gentleman high in