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that he exerted no industry, nor showed, nor could show, any exactness in the performance of it, since he immediately sold the contract for a sum of money to another person, (for the sole purpose of which sale, it must be presumed, the same was given,) by which person another profit was to be made; and by that person the same was again sold to a third, by whom a third profit was to be made.

That the said Warren Hastings, at the very time when he engaged the Company in a contract for engrossing the whole of the opium produced in Bengal and Bahar in the ensuing four years on terms of such exorbitant profit to the contractor, affirmed, that "there was little prospect of selling the opium in Bengal at a reasonable price; and that it was but natural to suppose, that the price of opium would fall from the demand being lessened:"-that in a letter, dated the 5th of May, 1781, he informed the directors, "that owing to

the indifferent state of the markets last season to the eastward, and the very enhanced rates of insurance, which the war had occasioned, they had not been able to dispose of the opium of the present year to so great an advantage as they expected; and that more than one half of it remained still in their warehouses."-That the said Warren Hastings was guilty of a manifest breach of trust to his constituents and his employers in monopolizing for their pretended use an article of commerce, for which he declared no purchasers had offered, and that there was little prospect of any offering; and the price of which, he said, it was but natural to suppose would fall. That the said Warren Hastings having, by his own act, loaded the Company with a commodity, for which, either in the ordinary and regular course of public auction, or even by private contract, there was, as he affirmed, no sale, did, under pretence of finding a market for the same, engage the Company in an enterprise of great and certain expense, subject to a manifest risk, and full of disgrace to the East-India Company, not only in their political character, as a great sovereign power in India, but in their commercial character, as an eminent and respectable body of merchants: and that the execution of this enterprise was accompanied with sundry other engagements with other persons, in all of which the Company's interest was constantly sacrificed to that of individuals favoured by the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Warren Hastings first engaged in a scheme to export one thousand four hundred and sixty chests of opium, on the Company's account, on board a ship belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, half of which was to be disposed of in a coasting voyage, and the remainder in Canton.-That, besides the freight and commission payable to the said Thornhill on this adventure, twelve pieces of cannon belonging to the Company were lent for arming the ship; though his original proposal was, that the ship should be armed at his expense. That this part of the adventure, depending for its success on a prudent and fortunate management of various sales and resales in the course of a circuitous voyage, and being exposed to such risk both of sea and enemy, that all private traders had declined to be concerned in it, was particularly unfit for a great trading Company, and could not be undertaken on their account with any rational prospect of advantage.

That the said Warren Hastings soon after engaged in another scheme for exporting two thousand chests of opium directly to China on the Company's account, and for that purpose accepted of an offer made by Henry Watson, the Company's chief engineer, to convey the same in a vessel of his own, and to deliver it to the Company's super-cargoes.That after the offer of the said Henry Watson had been accepted, a letter from him was produced at the board, in which he declared, that he was unable to equip the ship with a proper number of cannon, and requested, that he might be furnished with thirty-six guns from the Company's stores at Madras, with which request the board complied.-That it appears, that George Williamson, the Company's auctioneer at Calcutta, having complained, that by this mode of exporting the opium which used to be sold by public auction, he lost his commission as auctioneer, the board allowed him to draw a commission of 1 per cent. on all the opium which had been or was to be exported.-That it appears that the contractor for opium (whose proper duties and emoluments as contractor ended with the delivery of the opium) was also allowed to draw a commission on the opium then shipping on the Company's account; but for what reason, or on what pretence, does not appear.

That the said Warren Hastings, in order to pay the said

Stephen Sullivan in advance for the opium furnished, or to be furnished, by him in the first year of his contract, did borrow the sum of twenty lacks of rupees at 8 per cent., or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, to be repaid by draughts to be drawn on the Company by their super-cargoes in China, provided the opium consigned to them should arrive safe; but that if the adventure failed, whether by the loss of the ships, or otherwise, the subscribers to the above loan were to be repaid their capital and interest out of the Company's treasury in Bengal.

That the said Warren Hastings, having in this manner purchased a commodity, for which he said there was no sale, and paid for it with money, which he was obliged to borrow at a high interest, was still more criminal in his attempt, or pretended plan, to introduce it clandestinely into China. That the importation of opium into China is forbidden by the Chinese government; that the opium, on seizure, is burnt; the vessel, that imports it, confiscated; and the Chinese, in whose possession it may be found for sale, punished with death.

That the governor-general and council were well aware of the existence of these prohibitions and penalties, and did therefore inform the super-cargoes in China, that the ship belonging to the said Henry Watson would enter the river at China as an armed ship, and would not be reported, as bearing a cargo of opium; that being a contraband trade.That of the above two ships, the first, belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, was taken by the French; and that the second, arriving in China, did occasion much embarrassment and distress to the Company's super-cargoes there, who had not been previously consulted on the formation of the plan, and were exposed to great difficulty and hazard in the execution of their part of it. That the ship was delayed, at a demurrage of an hundred dollars a day, for upwards of three months, waiting in vain for a better market.-The factory estimate the loss to the Company, including port-charges, demurrage, and factory charges allowed the captain, at sixtynine thousand nine hundred and ninety-three dollars, or about twenty thousand pounds sterling.

That the Company's factory at China, after stating the foregoing facts to the court of directors, conclude with the

following general observations thereon:- "On a review of these circumstances, with the extravagant and unusual terms of the freight, demurrage, factory charges, &c., &c., we cannot help being of opinion, that private considerations have been suffered to interfere too much for any benefit that may have been intended to the honourable Company. We hope for the honourable court's approbation of our conduct in this affair. The novelty and nature of the consignments have been the source of much trouble and anxiety; and though we wished to have had it in our power to do more, we may truly say we have exceeded our expectations."

That every part of this transaction, from the monopoly, with which it commenced, to the contraband dealing, with which it concluded, criminates the said Warren Hastings with wilful disobedience of orders, and a continued breach of trust; that every step taken in it was attended with heavy loss to the Company, and with a sacrifice of their interest to that of individuals, and that, if finally a profit had resulted to the Company from such a transaction, no profit attending it could compensate for the probable risk, to which their trade in China was thereby exposed; or for the certain dishonour and consequent distrust, which the East-India Company must incur in the eyes of the Chinese government by being engaged in a low clandestine traffic, prohibited by the laws of the country.

XIII. APPOINTMENT OF R. J. SULLIVAN.

THAT, in the month of February, 1781, Mr. Richard Joseph Sullivan, secretary to the select committee at Fort St. George, applied to them for leave to proceed to Calcutta on his private affairs. That, being the confidential secretary to the select committee at Fort St. George, and consequently possessed of all the views and secrets of the Company, as far as they related to that government, he went privately into the service of the Nabob of Arcot; and under the pretence of proceeding to Calcutta on his private business, undertook a commission from the said Nabob to the governor-general

and council, to negotiate with them in favour of certain projects of the said Nabob, which had been reprobated by the Company.

That the said Sullivan was soon after appointed back again by the said Warren Hastings to the office of resident at the durbar of the said Nabob of Arcot. That it was a

high crime and misdemeanour in the said Hastings to encourage so dangerous an example in the Company's service, and to interfere unnecessarily with the government of Madras in the discharge of the duties peculiarly ascribed to them by the practice and orders of the Company, for the purpose of appointing to a great and confidential situation a man, who had so recently committed a breach of trust to his employers.

That the court of directors, in their letter to Bengal, dated the 12th of July, 1782, and received there on the 18th of February, 1783, did condemn and revoke the said appointment. That the said directors, in theirs to Fort St. George, dated the 28th of August, 1782, and received there the 31st of January, 1783, did highly condemn the conduct of the said Sullivan; and, in order to deter their servants from practices of the same kind, did dismiss him from their service.

That the said Hastings, knowing that the said Sullivan's appointment had been condemned and revoked by the court of directors, and pretending that on the 15th of March, 1793, he did not know that the said Sullivan was dismissed from the Company's service, though that fact was known at Madras on the 31st of the preceding January, did recommend the said Sullivan to be ambassador at the court of Nizam Ally Cawn, subahdar of the Deccan, in defiance of the authority and orders of the court of directors.

That even admitting, what is highly improbable, that the dismission of the said Sullivan from the service of the said Company was not known at Calcutta in forty-three days from Madras, the last-mentioned nomination of the said Sullivan was made at least in contempt of the censure already expressed by the court of directors at his former appointment to the durbar of the Nabob of Arcot, and which was certainly known to the said Hastings.

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