commission of twenty per cent as an ample compensation to the agent, and
did positively order, that, according to the engagement of the said
Warren Hastings, "the commission paid or to be paid to the said agent
should be reduced to twenty pounds per cent." That the said John Belli
did positively refuse to refund any part of the profits he had received,
or to submit to a diminution of those which he was still to receive; and
that the said Warren Hastings has never made good his own voluntary and
solemn engagement to the Court of Directors hereinabove mentioned: and
as his failure to perform the said engagement is a breach of faith to
the Company, so his performance of such engagement, if he had performed
it, and even his offering to pledge himself for the agent, in the first
instance, ought to be taken as presumptive evidence of a connection
between the said Warren Hastings and the said agent, his private
secretary, which ought not to exist between a Governor acting in behalf
of the Company and a contractor making terms with such Governor for the
execution of a public service.

That, before the expiration of the contract hereinbefore mentioned for
supplying the army with draught and carriage bullocks, granted by the
said Warren Hastings to Ernest Alexander Johnson for three years, the
said Warren Hastings did propose and carry it in Council, that a new
contract should be made on a new plan, and that an offer thereof should
be made to Richard Johnson, brother and executor of the said contractor,
without advertising for proposals, for the term of _five years_; that
this offer was _voluntarily accepted_ by the said Richard Johnson, who
at the same time desired and obtained that the new contracts should be
made out in the name of Charles Croftes, the Company's accountant and
sub-treasurer at Fort William; that the said Charles Croftes offered the
said Richard Johnson as one of his securities for the performance of
the said contract, who was accepted as such by the said Warren Hastings;