April, 1776, the said Warren Hastings did transmit to the Court of
Directors the draft or scheme of an act of Parliament for the better
administration of justice in the provinces, in which the said
establishment of Provincial Councils is again specially included, and
special jurisdiction assigned to the said Councils. That the Court of
Directors, in a letter dated 5th of February, 1777, did give the
following instruction to the Governor-General and Council, a majority of
whom, viz., Sir John Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, had
disapproved of the plan of Provincial Councils: "If you are fully
convinced that the establishment of Provincial Councils has not answered
nor is not capable of answering the purposes intended by such
institutions, we hereby direct you to form a new plan for the collection
of the revenues, and to transmit the same to _us for our
consideration_."--That the said Warren Hastings, in contradiction to his
own sentiments repeatedly declared, and to his own advice repeatedly
and deliberately given, and in defiance of the orders of the Directors,
to whom he transmitted no previous communication whatever of his
intention to abolish the said Provincial Councils, did, in the beginning
of the year 1781, again change the whole system of the collections of
the public revenue of Bengal, as also the administration of civil and
criminal justice throughout the provinces. That the said Warren
Hastings, in a letter dated 5th of May, 1781, advising the Court of
Directors of the said changes, has falsely affirmed, "that the plan of
superintending and collecting the public revenue of the provinces
through the agency of Provincial Councils had been instituted for the
temporary and declared purpose of introducing another more permanent
mode _by an easy and gradual change_"; that, on the contrary, the said
Warren Hastings, from the year 1773 to the year 1781, has constantly and
uniformly insisted on the wisdom of that institution, and on the
necessity of never departing from it; that he has in that time