That the consequences which might be expected from such a plan of administration did almost instantly flow from it.

For the person appointed to execute one of the offices which had been filled by Mahomed Reza Khan did soon find that the eunuchs of Munny Begum began to employ their power with great superiority and insolence in all the concerns of government and the administration of justice, and did endeavor to dispose of the offices relative to the same for their corrupt purposes, and to rob the Nabob's servants of their due allowances; and in his letter of the 1st September, 1778, he sent a complaint to the board, stating, "that certain bad men had gained an ascendency over the Nabob's temper, by whose instigation he acts"; and after complaining of the slights he received from the Nabob, he adds: "Thus they cause the Nabob to treat me, sometimes with indignity, at others with kindness, just as they think proper to advise him; their view is, that, by compelling me to displeasure at most unworthy treatment, they may force me either to relinquish my station, or to join with them, and act by their advice, and appoint creatures of their recommendation to the different offices, from which they might draw profit to themselves." XXI.

That, in a subsequent letter to the Governor, the said Superintendent of Justice did inform him, the said Warren Hastings, of the audacious and corrupt manner in which, by violence, fraud, and forgery, the eunuchs of Munny Begum had abused the Nabob's name, to deprive the judicial and executory officers of justice of the salaries which they ought to have drawn from the Company's treasury, in the following words: "The Begum's ministers, before my arrival, with the advice of their counsellors, caused the Nabob to sign a receipt, in consequence of which they received, at two different times, near 50,000 rupees [5,000_l._], in the name of the officers of the Adawlut, Phousdary, &c., from the Company's sircars; and having drawn up an account-current _in the manner they wished_, they had got the Nabob to sign it, and sent it to me." And in the same letter he asserts, "that these people had the Nabob entirely in their power." XXII.

That the said Warren Hastings, upon this representation, did, notwithstanding his late pretended opinion of the fitness and the right of the Nabob to the sole administration of his own affairs, authoritatively forbid him from any interference therein, and ordered that the whole should be left to the magistrate aforesaid; to which the Nabob did, notwithstanding his pretended independence, yield an immediate and unreserved submission: for the said Hastings's order being given on the 1st of September at Calcutta, he received _an answer_ from Moorshedabad on the 3d, in the following terms: "Agreeably to your pleasure, I have relinquished all concern with the affairs of the Phousdary and Adawlut, leaving the entire management in Sudder ul Hock's hands." Which said circumstance, as well as many others, abundantly proves that all the Nabob's actions were in truth and fact entirely governed by the influence of the said Hastings, and that, however the said Hastings may have publicly discouraged the corrupt transactions of the said court, yet he did secretly uphold the authority and influence of Munny Begum, who did entirely direct, with his knowledge and countenance, all the proceedings therein.

For XXIII.