ordering and management and government of all the territorial revenues
in the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa_ were vested in the
Governor-General and Council, without any power of delegating the said
trust and duty to any other persons; and that, by such unlawful
delegation of the powers of the Council to a subordinate board appointed
by himself, he, the said Warren Hastings, did in effect unite and vest
in his own person the ordering, government, and management of all the
said territorial revenues; and that for the said illegal act he, the
said Warren Hastings, is solely answerable, the same having been
proposed and resolved in Council when the Governor-General and Council
consisted but of two persons present,--namely, the said Warren Hastings,
and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, and when consequently the
Governor-General, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the whole
power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations
hereinbefore described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings to
recommend and justify the same to the Court of Directors has been, that
such changes and innovations would be attended with increase of revenue
or diminution of expense to the East India Company; that such pretence,
if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such
pretence is false and groundless: that during the administration of the
said Warren Hastings the territorial revenues have declined; that the
charges of collecting the same have greatly increased; and that the said
Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a direct and
intended waste of the Company's property, is chargeable with and
answerable for all the said decline of revenue, and all the said
increase of expense.