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Updated: June 3, 2025
Under this double accusation, he was to be considered, according to the usual mode of proceeding in such cases, as a prisoner; and he was kept, not in the common gaol of Calcutta, not in the prison of the fort, not in that gaol in which Rajah Nundcomar, who had been prime-minister of the empire, was confined, but, according to the mild ways of that country, where they choose to be mild, and the persons are protected by the official influence of power, under a free custody.
He sent a messenger to me at Madras, on the first news of my appointment to this Presidency, with pretended letters from Munny Begum and the Nabob Yeteram ul Dowlah, the brother of the Nabob Jaffier Ali Khân, filled with bitter invectives against Mahomed Reza Khân, and of as warm recommendations, as I recollect, of Nundcomar.
You may, if you please, form yourselves into a committee for the investigation of these matters in any manner which you may think proper; but I will repeat, that I will not meet Nundcomar at the board, nor suffer Nundcomar to be examined at the board; nor have you a right to it, nor can it answer any other purpose than that of vilifying and insulting me to insist upon it.
I was shown a paper containing many accusations against me, which I was told was carried by Nundcomar to Colonel Monson, and that he himself was employed for some hours in private with Colonel Monson, explaining the nature of those charges.
Hastings had himself forgotten the character which he had given of Nundcomar; but he says that his colleagues were perfectly well acquainted with him, and knew that he was a wretch, the basest of mankind. But before I read to you the character which Mr. Hastings gave it.
I am not forbidden by the Commons to state how and on what slight grounds Warren Hastings charges the natives of the country with forgery; neither am I forbidden to bring forward the accusation which Mr. Hastings made against Nundcomar for a conspiracy, nor the event of it, nor any circumstance relative to it. I shall therefore proceed in the best manner I can.
An auction was now opened before the English Council at Calcutta. Mahomed Reza Khân bid largely; Nundcomar bid largely. The circumstances of these two rivals at the Nabob court were equally favorable to the pretensions of each.
We speak with boldness, because we speak from conviction founded upon indubitable facts, that, besides the above sums specified in the distribution account to the amount of 228,125 pounds sterling, there was likewise to the value of several lacs of rupees procured from Nundcomar and Roydullub, each of whom aspired at and obtained a promise of that very employment it was predetermined to bestow on Mahomed Reza Khân.
That the said Warren Hastings, instead of offering anything in his defence, declared that he would not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board at his accuser; that he attempted to indict his said accuser for a conspiracy, in which he failed; and that the said Rajah Nundcomar was soon after, and while his charge against the said Warren Hastings was depending before the Council, indicted upon an English penal statute, which does not extend even to Scotland, before the Supreme Court of Judicature, for an offence said to have been committed several years before, and not capital by the laws of India, and was condemned and executed.
Francis, who has declared that he was called upon by Rajah Nundcomar, as a duty belonging to his office as a councillor of this state, to lay the packet which contained them before the board, that he conceived that he could not, consistent with his duty, refuse such a letter at the instance of a person of the Rajah's rank, and did accordingly receive it, and laid it before the board, declaring at the same time that he was unacquainted with the contents of it.
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