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e subordinate, and defiance of the supreme power. Your Committee being led to attend to the abuse of contracts, which are given upon principles fatal to the subordination of the service, and in defiance of orders, revert to the disobedience of orders in the case of Mahomed Reza Khan. This transaction is of a piece with those that preceded it. On the 6th of July, 1781, Mr. Hastings announced to the board the arrival of a messenger and introduced a requisition from the young Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, "that he might be _permitted to dispose of his own stipend, without being made to depend on the will of another_." In favor of this requisition Mr. Hastings urged various arguments:--that the Nabob could no longer be deemed a minor;--that he was twenty-six years of age, and father of many children;--that his understanding was much improved _of late_ by an attention to his education;--that these circumstances gave him a claim to the uncontrolled exercise of domestic authority; and it might reasonably be supposed that he would pay a greater regard to a just economy in his own family than had been observed by those who were aliens to it. For these reasons Mr. Hastings recommended to the board that Mahomed Reza Khan should be immediately divested of the office of superintendent of the Nabob's household, _and that the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend, and the uncontrolled management and regulation of his household_. Thus far your Committee are of opinion, that the conclusion corresponds with the premises; for, supposing the fact to be established or admitted, that the Nabob, in point of age, capacity, and judgment, was qualified to act for himself, it seems reasonable that the management of his domestic affairs should not be withheld from him. On this part of the proceeding your Committee will only observe, that, if it were strictly true that the Nabob's understanding had been much improved _of late_ by an attention to his education, (which seems an extraordinary way of describing the qualifications of a man of six-and-twenty, the father of many children,) the merit of such improvement must be attributed to Mahomed Reza Khan, who was the only person of rank and character connected with him, or who could be supposed to have any influence over him. Mr. Hastings himself reproaches the Nabob with _raising mean men to be his companions_, and tells him
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