out of that enmity, must form some considerable
suspicion against the proceeding. But in this he was justified by the
Company; for Nundcomar, the great rival of Mahomed Reza Khan, was in the
worst situation with the Company as to his credit. This Nundcomar's
politics in the country had been by Mr. Hastings himself, and by several
persons joined with him, cruelly represented to the Company; and
accordingly he stood so ill with them, by reason of Mr. Hastings's
representations and those of his predecessors, that the Company ordered
and directed, that, if he could be of any use in the inquiry into
Mahomed Reza Khan's conduct, some reward should be given him suitable to
his services; but they caution Mr. Hastings at the same time against
giving him any trust which he might employ to the disadvantage of the
Company. Now Mr. Hastings began, before he could experience any service
from him, by giving him his reward, and not the base reward of a base
service, _money_, but every trust and power which he was prohibited from
giving him. Having turned out every one of Mahomed Reza Khan's
dependants, he filled every office, as he avows, with the creatures of
Nundcomar. Now when he uses a cruel and rigorous obedience in the case
of Mahomed Reza Khan, when he breaks through the principles of his
former conduct with regard to Nundcomar, when he gives _him_, Nundcomar,
trust, whom he was cautioned not to trust, and when he gives him that
reward before any service could be done,--I say, when he does this, in
violation of the Company's orders and his own principles, it is the
strongest evidence that he now found them in the situation in which they
were in 1765, when bribes were notoriously taken, and that each party
was mutually sold to the other, and faith kept with neither. The
situation in which Mr. Hastings thus placed himself should have been
dreaded by him of all things, because he knew it was a situation in
which the most outrageous corruption had taken place before.

There is another circumstance which serves to show that in the
persecution of these great men, and the persons employed by them, he
could have no other view than to extort money from them. There was a
person of the name of Shitab Roy, who had a great share in the conduct
of the revenues of Bahar. Mr. Hastings, in the letter to the Company,
complaining of the state of their affairs, and saying that there were
great and suspicious balances in the kingdom of Bahar, does no