Governor-General and Council forthwith to commence a prosecution against the persons who composed the Committee of Circuit, and their representatives, and against all other proper parties"; but that the prosecutions so ordered by the Court of Directors in the year 1778 have never been brought to trial; and that the said Warren Hastings did, on the 23d of December, 1783, propose and carry it in Council, _that orders should be given for withdrawing_ the said prosecutions,--declaring, that he was clearly of opinion that there was no ground to maintain them, and _that they would only be productive of expense to the Company and unmerited vexation to the parties_. REVENUES. PART II. That the said Warren Hastings has on sundry occasions declared his deliberate opinion generally against all innovations, and particularly in the collection and management of the revenues of Bengal: that "he was well aware of the expense and inconvenience _which ever attends innovations of all kinds_, on, their first institution;[9]--that innovations are _always_ attended with difficulties and inconveniences, and innovations in the revenue with a suspension of the collections;[10]--that the continual variations in the mode of collecting the revenue, and the continual usurpation on the rights of the people, have fixed in the minds of the ryots a rooted distrust of the ordinances of government."[11] That the Court of Directors have repeatedly declared their apprehensions "that a sudden transition from one mode to another, in the investigation and collection of their revenue, might have alarmed the inhabitants, lessened their confidence in the Company's proceedings, and been attended with other evils."[12]