bound by his duty to take care that all contracts for furnishing such
stores are duly and faithfully executed. That the said Warren Hastings,
by uniting the supply and the check in the same hands, did not only
disobey the Company's specific orders, and violate the fundamental rules
and practice of the service, but did overset the only just and rational
principle on which this and every other service of a similar nature
ought to be conducted, and did not only subject the Company's interest,
in point of expense, to fraud and collusion, but did thereby expose the
navigation of the Bengal river to manifest hazard and distress:
considering that it is the duty of the master attendant to take care
that the pilot vessels are constantly stationed in the roads to wait
the arrival of the Company's ships, especially in tempestuous weather,
and that they should be in a constant condition to keep the sea; whereas
it is manifestly the interest of the contractor, in the first instance,
to equip the said vessels as scantily as possible, and afterwards to
expose them as little as possible to any service in which the stores to
be replaced by him might be lost or consumed. And, finally, that in
June, 1779, the said contract was prolonged to the said master
attendant, by the said Warren Hastings, for the further period of two
years from the expiration of the first, without advertising for
proposals.--That it does not appear that any of the preceding contracts
have been annulled, or the charges attending any of them abated, or that
the Court of Directors have ever taken any measures to compel the said
Warren Hastings to indemnify the Company, or to make good any part of
the loss incurred by the said contracts.

That in the year 1777 the said Warren Hastings did recommend and appoint
John Belli, at that time his private secretary, to be agent for
supplying the garrison of Fort William with victualling stores; that the
stores were to be purchased with money advanced by the Company, and that