_Letter from Mr. Hastings to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, written the 10th of February, 1780._ "The Company, whose orders are peremptory, have directed that Mahomed Reza Khân shall be restored to the offices he held in January, 1778. It is my duty to represent this to your Excellency, and to recommend your compliance with their request, that Mahomed Reza Khân may be invested with the offices assigned to him under the nizamut by the Company." Your Lordships see here that Mr. Hastings informs the Nabob, that, having received peremptory orders from the Company, he restores and replaces Mahomed Reza Khân. Mahomed Reza Khân, then, is in possession,--and in possession by the best of all titles, the orders of the Company. But you will also see the manner in which he evades his duty, and vilifies in the eyes of these miserable country powers the authority of the Directors. He is prepared, as usual, with a defeasance of his own act; and the manner in which that defeasance came to our knowledge is this. We knew nothing of this private affair, till Mr. Hastings, in his answer before the House of Commons, finding it necessary to destroy the validity of some of his own acts, brought forward Sir John D'Oyly. He was brought forward before us, not as a witness in his own person for the defence of Mr. Hastings, but as a narrator who had been employed by Mr. Hastings as a member of that Council which, as you have heard, drew up his defence. My Lords, you have already seen the public agency of this business, you have heard read the public letter sent to the Nabob: there you see the ostensible part of the transaction. Now hear the banian, Sir John D'Oyly, give an account of his part in it, extracted from Mr. Hastings's defence before the House of Commons.