The Company's orders and covenants made none.

There are, readily I admit, thousands of occasions in which it is not proper to divulge promiscuously a private correspondence, though on public affairs, to the world; but there is no occasion in which it is not a necessary duty, on requisition, to communicate your correspondence to those who form the paramount government, on whose interests and on whose concerns and under whose authority this correspondence has been carried on.

The very same reasons which require secrecy with regard to others demand the freest communication to them.

But Mr.Hastings has established principles of confidence and secrecy towards himself which have cut off all confidence between the Directors and their ministers, and effectually kept them at least out of the secret of their own affairs.
Without entering into all the practices by which he has attempted to maim the Company's records, I shall state one more to your Lordships,--that is, his avowed appointment of spies and under-agents, who shall carry on the real state business, while there are public and ostensible agents who are not in the secret.

The correspondence of those private agents he holds in his own hands, communicates as he thinks proper, but most commonly withholds.