Mr. Francis, upon the arrival of these reiterated orders, moved in Council for an obedience to them.  Mr. Hastings, notwithstanding he had before his eyes all the horrible consequences that attended his new arrangement, still resists that proposition.  By his casting voice in the Council he counter-orders the orders of the Court of Directors, and sanctions a direct disobedience to their authority, by a resolution that Mahomed Reza Khan should not be restored to his employment, but that this Sudder ul Huk Khan, who still continued in the condition already described, should remain in the possession of his office.  I say nothing of Sudder ul Huk Khan; he seems to be very well disposed to do his duty, if Mr. Hastings’s arrangements had suffered him to do it; and indeed, if Mahomed Reza Khan had been reinstated, and no better supported by Mr. Hastings than Sudder ul Huk Khan, he could probably have kept the country in no better order, though, perhaps, his name, and the authority and weight which still adhered to him in some degree, might have had some influence.

My Lords, you have seen his defiance of the Company; you have seen his defiance of all decency; you see his open protection of prostitutes and robbers of every kind ravaging Bengal; you have seen this defiance of the authority of the Court of Directors flatly, directly, and peremptorily persisted in to the last.  Order after order was reiterated, but his disobedience arose with an elastic spring in proportion to the pressure that was upon it.

My Lords, here there was a pause.  The Directors had been disobeyed; and you might suppose that he would have been satisfied with this act of disobedience.  My Lords, he was resolved to let the native governments of the country know that he despised the orders of the Court of Directors, and that, whenever he pretended to obey them, in reality he was resolved upon the most actual disobedience.  An event now happened, the particulars of which we are not to repeat here.  Disputes, conducted, on Mr. Francis’s side, upon no other principle, that we can discover, but a desire to obey the Company’s orders, and to execute his duty with fidelity and disinterestedness, had arisen between him and Mr. Hastings.  Mr. Francis, about the time we have been speaking of, finding resistance was vain, reconciles himself to him,—­but on the most honorable terms as a public man, namely, that he should continue to follow and obey the laws, and to respect the authority of the Court of Directors.  Upon this reconciliation, it was agreed that Mahomed Reza Khan should be restored to his office.  For this purpose Mr. Hastings enters a minute, and writes to the Nabob an ostensible letter.  But your Lordships will here see an instance of what I said respecting a double current in all Mr. Hastings’s proceedings.  Even when he obeys or pretends to obey the Company’s orders, there is always a private channel through which he defeats them all.

     Letter from Mr. Hastings to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, written
     the 10th of February, 1780.