The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX | Page 5

of Sir Eyre Coote in Bengal the provisional command of the army had devolved to and been vested in Brigadier-General Giles Stibbert, the eldest officer on that establishment. That in this capacity, and, as the said Warren Hastings has declared, "standing no way distinguished from the other officers in the army, but by his accidental succession to the first place on the list," he, the said Giles Stibbert, had, by the recommendation and procurement of the said Warren Hastings, received and enjoyed a salary, and other allowances, to the amount of 13,854l. 12s. per annum. That Sir Eyre Coote, soon after his arrival, represented to the board that a considerable part of those allowances, amounting to 8,220l. 10s. per annum, ought to devolve to himself, as commander-in-chief of the Company's forces in India, and, stating that the said Giles Stibbert could no longer be considered as commander-in-chief under the Presidency of Fort William, made a formal demand of the same. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of reducing the allowances of the said Giles Stibbert to the establishment at which they stood during General Clavering's command, and for the continuance of which after Sir Eyre Coote's arrival there could be no pretence, continued the allowances of 13,854l. 12s. per annum to the said Giles Stibbert, and at the same time, in order to appease and satisfy the demand of the said Sir Eyre Coote, did create for him that new establishment, hereinbefore specified, of eighteen thousand pounds per annum,--insomuch that, instead of the allowance of _six thousand pounds a year, in lieu of travelling charges, and of all emoluments and allowances whatsoever_, to which the pay and allowances of commander-in-chief were expressly limited by the united act of the legislative and executive powers of the Company, the annual charge to be borne by the Company on that account was increased by the said Warren Hastings to the enormous sum of thirty-eight thousand two hundred and seventeen pounds ten shillings sterling.
That on the 1st of November, 1779, the said Warren Hastings did move and carry it in Council, "that the Resident at the Vizier's court should be furnished with an account of all the extra allowances and charges of the commander-in-chief when in the field, with orders to add the same to the debit of the Vizier's account, as a part of his general subsidy,--the charge to commence from the day on which the general shall pass the Caramnassa, and to continue till his return to the same line." That this additional expense imposed by the said Warren Hastings on the Vizier was unjust in itself, and a breach of treaty with that prince: the specific amount of the subsidy to be paid by him having been fixed by a treaty, to which no addition could justly be made, but at the previous requisition of the Vizier. That the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 18th of October, 1780, did condemn and prohibit the continuation of the allowances above mentioned to Sir Eyre Coote in the following words: "These allowances appear to us in a light so very extraordinary, and so repugnant to the spirit of a resolution of the General Court of Proprietors respecting the allowance made to General Clavering, that we positively direct that they be discontinued immediately, and no part thereof paid after the receipt of this letter." That on the 27th of April, 1781, the Governor-General and Council, in obedience to the orders of the Directors, did signify the same to the Commissary-General, as an instruction to him that the extraordinary allowances to Sir Eyre Coote _should be discontinued, and no part thereof paid after that day_. That it appears, nevertheless, that the said extra allowances (amounting to above twenty thousand pounds sterling a year) were continued to be charged to the Vizier, and paid to Sir Eyre Coote, in defiance of the orders of the Court of Directors, in defiance of the consequent resolution of the Governor-General and Council, and in contradiction to the terms of the original motion made by the said Warren Hastings for adding those allowances to the debit of the Vizier, viz., "that they should continue till Sir Eyre Coote's return to the Caramnassa." That Sir Eyre Coote arrived at Calcutta about the end of August, 1780, and must have crossed the Caramnassa, in his return from Oude, some weeks before, when the charge on the Vizier, if at any time proper, ought to have ceased. That it appears that the said allowances were continued to be charged against the Vizier and paid to Sir Eyre Coote for three years after, even while he was serving in the Carnatic, and that this was done by the sole authority and private command of the said Warren Hastings.
That the East India Company