traders, charged to the Company, were nineteen per cent cheaper than
that supplied by the said Auriol, exclusive of the risk of the sea and
of capture by the enemy. That it is stated by the Court of Directors,
that the agent's commission on a supply of _a single year_ (the said
commission being not only charged on the prime cost of the rice, but
also on the freight and all other charges) would amount to pounds
sterling 26,873, and by the said Auriol himself is admitted to amount to
18,292_l._ That William Larkins, the Accountant-General at Port William,
having been ordered to examine the accounts of the said agent, did
report to the Governor-General and Council, that he found them to be
_correct in the additions and calculations_; and that then the said
Larkins adds the following declaration: "The agent _being upon honor_
with respect to the sums charged in his accounts for the cost of the
articles supplied, I did not think myself authorized to require _any
voucher_ of the sums charged for the demurrage of sloops, either as to
the time of detention or the rate of the charge, or of those for the
articles lost in going down the river; and on that ground I thought
myself equally bound to admit the sums acknowledged as received for the
sales of goods returned, without requiring vouchers of the rates at
which they were sold." That in this transaction the said Warren Hastings
has been guilty of a high breach of trust and duty, in the unnecessary
expenditure of the Company's money, and in subjecting the Company to a
profusion of expense, at all times wholly unjustifiable, but
particularly at the time when that expense was incurred. That the said
Warren Hastings was guilty of breach of orders, as well as breach of
trust, in not advertising generally for proposals; in not _contracting_
indifferently for the supplies with such merchants as might offer to
furnish them on the lowest terms; in giving an enormous commission to an
agent, and that commission not confined to the prime cost of the
articles, but to be computed on the whole of his charges; in accepting