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lowed.

XIII.

appear, that he, Warren Hastings, did discounte- | weak and fragile, such intrigues might be alnance the double dealing and fraudulent agencies of his and the company's minister at that court; or did disavow any particular in the letter from him the said Browne, of the 30th of December 1783, stating the offers made on his part to the Mogul, so contradictory to his late declarations to the heir-apparent of that monarch, or did give any reprimand to the said Browne, or did shew any mark of displeasure against him, as having acted without orders, but did again send him, with renewed consequence, to the court aforesaid.

XI.

That the said Warren Hastings, still pursuing his said evil designs, did apply to the council for discretionary powers relative to the intrigues and factions in the Mogul's court, giving assurances of his resolution not to proceed against their sense; but the said council, being fully aware of his disposition, and having Major Browne's letter, recorded by himself, the said Warren Hastings, before them, did refuse to grant the said discretionary powers; but, on the contrary, did exhort him "most sedulously and cautiously to avoid, in "his correspondence with the different princes in "India, whatever may commit, or be strained into "an interpretation of committing, the company, "either as to their army or treasure;" observing, "that the company's orders are positive against "their interference in the objects of dispute be"tween the country powers.'

XII.

That in order to subvert the plain and natural interpretation given by the council to the orders of the court of directors, and to justify his dangerous intrigues, the said Warren Hastings, in his letter of the 16th June 1784 to the said court, did, in a most insolent and contemptuous manner, endeavour to persuade them of their ignorance of the true sense of their own orders, and to limit their prohibition of interference with the disputes of the country powers to such country powers as are permanent; expressing himself as follows: "the "faction, which now surrounds the throne, [the "Mogul's throne,] is widely different from the idea, "which your commands are intended to convey "by the expressions, to which you have generally applied them, of country powers, to which "that of permanency is a necessary adjunct; "and which may be more properly compared to "a splendid bubble, which the slightest breath of opposition may dissipate with every trace of "its existence." By which construction the said Hastings did endeavour to persuade the court of directors, that they meant to confine their prohibition of sinister intrigues to those powers only, who could not be easily hurt by them, and whose strength was such, that their resentment of such clandestine interference was to be dreaded; but that, where the powers were

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That the said Hastings, further to persuade the court of directors to involve themselves in the affairs of the Mogul, and to reconcile this measure with his former conduct and declared opinions, did write to them to the following effect; that" at that "former period, to which the ancient policy with "regard to the Mogul applied, the king's authority "was sufficiently respected [which he knew not to "be true, having himself declared, in his minute "of the 25th of October 1774, that he remained "at Delhi, the ancient capital of the empire, a "mere cipher in the administration of it'] to main"tain itself against common vicissitudes. That he "would not have advised interference if the king "himself retained the exercise of it, however 'feeble, in his own hands. That if it [the Mogul's authority] is suffered to receive its final extinc"tion, it is impossible to foresee what power may "arise out of its ruins, or what events may be "linked in the same chain of revolution with it: "but your interests may suffer by it-your repu"tation certainly will, as his right to our assist"ance has been constantly acknowledged, and by a train of consequences, to which our govern"ment has, not intentionally, given birth; but most especially by the movements, which its in"fluence, by too near an approach, has excited, it "has unfortunately become the efficient instru"ment of a great portion of the king's present "distresses and dangers ;" intimating (as well as the studied obscurity of his expressions will permit any thing to be discerned) that his own late intrigues had been among the causes of the distresses and dangers, which, by new intrigues, he did pretend to remove: and he did conclude this part of his letter with some loose general expressions of his caution not to affect the company's interests or revenues by any measures he might at that time take.

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XIV.

That the principle, so far as the same hath been directly avowed, of the said proceedings at the Mogul's court, was as altogether irrational, and the pretended object as impracticable, as the means taken in pursuit of it were fraudulent and dishonourable, namely, the restoration of the Mogul in some degree to the dignity of his situation, and to his free-agency in the conduct of his affairs. For the said Hastings, at the very time, in which he did with the greatest apparent earnestness urge the purpose, which he pretended to have in view, with regard to the dignity and liberty of the Mogul emperour, did represent him as a person wholly disqualified, and even indisposed, to take any active part whatsoever in the conduct of his own affairs; and that any attempt for that purpose would be utterly impracticable: and this he hath stated to the court of directors as a matter of publick notoriety, in his said letter of the 16th of June

1784, in the following emphatical and decisive | persons, all of whom he describes as incapable,

terms:

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"You need not be told the character of the king, "whose inertness, and the habit of long-suffering, "has debased his dignity and the fortunes of his "house beyond the power of retrieving either the one or the other. Whilst his personal repose "is undisturbed, he will prefer to live in the "meanest state of indigence, under the rule of men, "whose views are bounded by avarice, and the power, which they derive from his authority, "rather than commit any share of it to his own sons, though his affection for them is boundless " in every other respect; from a natural jealousy, "founded on the experience of a very different "combination of those circumstances, which once "served as a temptation and example of unlaw"ful ambition in the princes of the royal line. "His ministers, from a policy more reasonable, "have constantly employed every means of in"fluence to confirm this disposition, and to pre"vent his sons from having any share in the dis“tribution of affairs, so as to have established a "complete usurpation of the royal prerogative "under its own sanction and patronage."

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XV.

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and the principal as indisposed to avail himself thereof, must have had some other motives for this long, intricate, dark, and laborious proceeding with the Mogul, which must be sought in his actions, and the evident drift and tendency thereof, and in declarations, which were brought out by him to serve other purposes, but which serve fully to explain his real intentions in this intrigue.

XVII.

That the other members of the council general having abundantly certified their averseness to his intrigues, and even having shewn apprehensions of his going personally to the Mogul and the Mahrattas for the purpose of carrying on the same, the said Hastings was driven headlong to acts, which did much more openly indicate the true nature and purpose of his machinations; for he at length recurred directly, and with little disguise, to the Mahrattas, and did open an intrigue with them, although he was obliged to confess, in his letter aforesaid of the 16th June 1784, that the exception, which he contended to be implied in the orders of the court of directors, forbidding the intermeddling in the disputes of "the country

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powers," namely, "powers not permanent," did by no means apply to the Mahrattas; and he informs the court of directors, that he did, on the very first advice he received of the flight of the Mogul's son, write to Mr. James Anderson, to apprize the Mahratta chief Scindia of that event; "for which, as he was unprepared, he desired his

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That the said Warren Hastings, having given this opinion of the sovereign, for whose freedom he pretended so anxious a concern, did describe the minister, with whom he had long acted in concurrence, and from whom he had just received the extraordinary secret embassy aforesaid for the of effecting the deliverance of his master, the pose [the said Scindia's] advice for his conduct on the Mogul, from the usurpations of his ministers, as "occasion of it." Which method of calling for follows; The first minister, Mudjud ul Dowla, the advice of a foreign power to regulate his poli"is totally deficient in every military quality; tical conduct, instead of being regulated therein "conceited of his own superiour talents; and by the advice of the British council, and the "formed to the practice of that crooked policy, standing orders of the court of directors, was a "which generally defeats its own purpose, but sin-procedure highly criminal; and the crime is agcerely attached to his master." The reality of the said attachment was not improbable, but altogether useless, as the said minister was the only one among the principal persons about the king, who (besides the total want of all military and civil ability) possessed no territories, troops, or other means of serving and supporting him, but was himself solely upheld by his influence over his master; neither doth the said Hastings free him any more than the persons more efficient, who were to be destroyed, from a disposition to alienate the king from an attention to his affairs, and from all confidence in his own family; but, on the contrary, he brings him forward as the very first among the instances he adduces to exemplify the practices of the ministers against their sovereign and his

children.

gravated by his not communicating the said correspondence to the council general, as by his duty he was bound to do; but it does abundantly prove his concert with the Mahrattas in all, that related to his negociations in the Mogul court, which were carried on agreeably to their advice, and in subserviency to their views and purposes.

XVIII.

That, in consequence of the cabal begun with the Mahrattas, the said chief Scindia did send his "familiar and confidential ministers" to him the said Hastings, being at Lucknow, with whom the said Hastings did hold several secret conferences, without any secretary, or other assistant; and the said Hastings hath not conveyed to the court of directors any minutes thereof, but hath purposely involved even the general effect and tendency of That the said Warren Hastings, recommending these conferences in such obscurity, that it is no in general terms, and yet condemning in detail, otherwise possible to perceive the drift and tenevery part of his own pretended plan, as imprac-dency of the same, but by the general scope ticable in itself, and as undertaken in favour of counsels and acts relative to the politicks of the

XVI.

of

Mogul, and of the Mahrattas together, and by the final event of the whole, which is sufficiently visible. For

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XIX.

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which chiefs were the ministers aforesaid, being cut off by their mutual dissensions, and the fort of Delhi being at length delivered to the Mahrattas, the said Scindia became the uncontrouled ruler of the royal army; and the person of the Mogul, with the use of all his pretensions and claims, fell into the hands of a nation already too powerful, together with an extensive territory, which entirely covers the company's possessions and dependencies on one side, and particularly those of the nabob of Oude.

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XX.

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That the said Hastings had declared, in his said letter of the 16th June 1784, that the Mogul's right to our assistance had been constantly acknowledged; that the Mogul had been oppressed by the lesser Mahomedan princes in the character of his officers of state, and military commanders; and he did plainly intimate, that the said Mogul ought to be relieved from that servitude. And he did, in giving an account to the court of directors of the That the circumstances of these countries did, conferences aforesaid, assure them, that "his in- in the opinion of the said Warren Hastings him"clinations [the inclinations of the Mahratta chief self, sufficiently indicate to him the necessity of "aforesaid] were not very dissimilar from his own;" not aggrandizing any power whatsoever on their and that "neither in this, nor in any other instance, borders, he having in the aforesaid letter of the "would he suffer himself to be drawn into mea- 16th June given a deliberate opinion of the situasures, which shall tend to weaken their connexion, tion of Oude, in the words following: that, nor in this even to oppose 'his [the said chief's] "whilst we are at peace with the powers of "inclinations;" the said Hastings well knowing, as Europe, it is only in this quarter, that your in his letter to Colonel Muir he has confessed, that possessions under the government of Bengal are the inclinations of the said Scindia were to seize "vulnerable." And he did further in the said on the Mogul's territories, and that he himself did letter state, that " if things had continued as they secretly concur therein, though he did not formally "had been to that time with a divided governinsert his concurrence in the treaty with the said ment," [viz. the company's and the vizier's, Mahratta chief. It is plain, therefore, that he did which government he had himself established, and all along concur with the Mahrattas in their de- under which it ever must in a great degree remain, signs against the said king and his ministers, under whilst the said country continues in a state of dethe treacherous pretence of supporting the authority pendence,]" the slightest shock from a foreign of the former against the latter, and did contrive "hand, or even an accidental internal commotion, and effect the ruin of them all.-For, first, he did might have thrown the whole into confusion, give evil and fraudulent counsel to the heir-apparent "and produced the most fatal consequences." In of the Mogul "to make advances to the Mahrattas," this perilous situation he made the above-recited when he well knew, and had expressly concurred in, sacrifices to the ambition of the Mahrattas, and the designs of that state against his father's [the did all along so actively countenance and forward Mogul's] dominions; and further to engage and their proceedings, and with so full a sense of their entrap the said prince, did assert, that our go-effect, that in his minute of the 24th December "vernment" [meaning the British government] was in intimate and sworn connexion with Ma"hadajee Scindia," when no alliance, offensive or defensive, appears to exist between the said Scindia and the East India company, nor can exist, otherwise than in virtue of some secret agreement between him the said Scindia and Warren Hastings, entered into by the latter without the knowledge of his colleagues, and the government, and never communicated to the court of directors. secondly, he did, in order to further the designs of the Mahrattas, contrive and effect the ruin of the said Mogul and his authority by setting on foot, That, in further pursuit of the same pernicious through the aforesaid Major Browne, sundry per- design, he the said Warren Hastings did enter plexed and intricate negociations, contrary to pub- into an agreement to withdraw a very great body of lick faith, and to the honour of the British nation, the British troops out of the nabob's dominions; by which he did exceedingly encrease the confusion asserting, however truly, yet in direct contradiction and disorders of the Mogul's court, exposing the said to his own declarations, that "this government Mogul to new indignities, insults, and distresses," [meaning the British government] has not any end almost all of the northern parts of India to right to force defence with its maintenance great and ruinous convulsions, until three out of upon him [the nabob]; and he did thus not four of the principal chieftains, some of them only avowedly aggrandize the Mahratta state, and possessing the territories lately belonging to Nud- weaken the defence upon the frontier, but did as jiff Cawn, and maintaining among them eighty avowedly detain their captain-general in force on thousand troops of horse and foot, and some of that very frontier, notwithstanding he was well

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1784 he has declared, "that in the countries, "which border on the dominions of the nabob "vizier, or on that quarter of our own, in effect "there is no other power." And he did further admit, that the presence of the Mahratta chief aforesaid, so near the borders of the nabob's dominions, was no cause of suspicion; for," that "it is the effect of his own solicitation, and is so "far the effect of an act of that government.”

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XXI.

having established in force the said Mahrattas on the frontier, as afore recited, and finding the council general averse in that situation to the withdrawing the British forces therefrom, and for disbanding them to the extent required by the said Hastings, did in a minute of the 4th December 1784, after stating a supposition, that, contrary to his opinion, the said troops should not be reduced, propose to employ them under the command of the Mogul's son, then under the influence of the Mahrattas, in a war against the aforesaid people or religious sect called Seiks, defending the same on the following principles: "I feel the sense of an obligation imposed on me, "by the supposition I have made, to state a mode "of rendering the detachment of use in its pre"scribed station, and of affording the appearance "of a cause for its retention."

apprized, that they had designs against those | endanger the safety of the British possessions, dependent territories of Oude, which they had with great difficulty been persuaded, even in appearance, to include in the treaty of peace; and that they have never renounced their claims upon certain large and valuable portions of them, and have shewn evident signs of their intentions, on the first opportunity, of asserting and enforcing them. And finally, the said Warren Hastings, in contradiction to sundry declarations of his own concerning the necessity of curbing the power of the Mahrattas, and to the principle of sundry measures undertaken by himself professedly for that purpose, and to the sense of the house of commons expressed in their resolution of 28th May 1782 against any measures, that tended to unite the dangerous powers of the Mahratta empire under one active command, has endeavoured to persuade the company, that, "while Scindia lives, every accession of territory obtained by him will be an advantage to this [the British] government;" which, if it was true as respecting the personal dispositions of Scindia, which there is no reason to believe, yet it was highly criminal to establish a power in the Mahrattas, which must survive the man, in confidence of whose personal dispositions a power more than personal was given, and which may hereafter fall into hands disposed to make a more hostile use of it.

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XXII.

XXIV.

That the said Hastings did admit, that there was no present danger to the company's possessions from that nation, which could justify him in such a war, as he had declared, that the Mahrattas were the only power, that bordered on the company's possessions and those of the vizier; but he did assign as a reason for going to war with them their military and enthusiastick spirit; the hardness of their natural constitution; the dangers, That in consequence of all the before-recited which might arise from them in some future time, intrigues, the Mogul emperour being in the hands if they should ever happen to be united under one of the Mahrattas, he the said Mogul has been head, they existing at present in a state little difobliged to declare the head of the Mahratta state ferent from anarchy; and he did predict great to be vicegerent of the Mogul empire, an authority, danger from them, and at no very remote period, which supersedes that of vizier, and has thereby "if this people be permitted to grow into matuconsolidated in the Mahratta state all the powers "rity without interruption." And though he doth acknowledged to be of legal authority in India; in pretend, that the solicitations of the heir-apparent consequence of which they have acquired, and of the Mogul, who he says did repeatedly and have actually already attempted to use, the said earnestly solicit him to obtain the permission to claims of general superiority against the company use the company's troops for the purpose aforeitself; the Mahrattas claiming a right in them-said, had weight with him; yet he doth declare, selves to a fourth part of the revenues of all the provinces in the company's possession, and claiming, in right of the Mogul, the tribute due to him; by which actings and doings the said Hastings has to the best of his power brought the British provinces in India into a dependence on the Mahratta state; and in order to add to the aforesaid enormous claims a proportioned force, he did never cease, during his stay in India, to contrive the means for its encrease; for it is of publick notoriety, that one great object of the Mahratta policy is to unite under their dominion the nation or religious sect of the Seiks, who being a people" pliance with it." Yet the said Hastings, being abounding with soldiers, and possessing large territories, would extend the Mahratta power over the whole of the vast countries to the northwest of India.

XXIII.

That the said Warren Hastings, further to augment the power of the said Mahrattas, and to

as he expresses himself in the minute aforesaid, that "a stronger impulse, arising from the hope "of blasting the growth of a generation, whose "strength might become fatal to our own, strongly "pleaded in my mind for supporting his wishes."

XXV.

That the said Warren Hastings, after forcibly recommending the plan aforesaid, did state strong objections, that did," in his judgment, outweigh "the advantages, which might arise from a com

determined to pursue his scheme for aggrandizing, at any rate, the Mahratta power, in whose adult growth, and the recent effects of it, he could see no danger, did pursue the design of war against a nation or sect of religion in its infancy, from whom he had received no injury, and in whose present state of government he did not apprehend any mischief whatsoever; and finding the council fixed

and determined on not disbanding the frontier regiments, and thinking, that therein he had found an advantage, he did ground thereon the following proposition:

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"If the expence [of the frontier troops] is to "be continued, it may be surely better continued "for some useful purpose, than to keep up the "parade of a great military corps, designed merely "to lie inactive in its quarters. On this ground "therefore, and on the supposition premised, I "revert to my original sentiments in favour of "the prince's plan; but as this will require some “qualification in the execution of it, I will state my recommendation of it in the terms of a pro"position, viz. that if it shall be the resolution "of the board to continue the detachment now "under the command of Colonel Sir John Cum"ming at Furruckabad; and if the prince Mirza "Jehander Shâh shall apply, with the authority of the king, and the concurrence of Madajee "Scindia, for the assistance of an English military "force to act in conjunction with him, to expel "the Seiks from the territories, of which they have lately possessed themselves in the neighbour"hood of Delhi, it may be granted, and such a portion of the said detachment allotted to that "service as shall be hereafter judged adequate "to it."

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XXVI.

That the said. Warren Hastings did, in the said proposal, endeavour to circumvent and overreach the council, general, by converting an apparent and literal compliance with their resolution into a real and substantial opposition to and disappoint

ment thereof. For his first proposal was to withdraw the company's troops from the vizier's country on the pretence of relieving him from the burthen of that establishment, but in reality with a view of facilitating the Mahratta pretensions on that province, which would then be deprived of the means of defence. And when the council rejected the said proposal on the express ground of danger to the province by withdrawing from the Mahrattas the restraint of our troops, the said Hastings, finding his first scheme in favour of the Mahrattas against the provinces dependent on the company defeated by the refusal of the council to concur in the said measure of withdrawing the troops, did then endeavour to obtain the same purpose in a different way; and instead of leaving the troops, according to the intention and policy of the council, as a check to the ambition and progress of the Mahrattas, he proposed to employ them in the actual furtherance of those schemes of aggrandizement, of which his colleagues were jealous, and which it was the object of their resolution to counteract.

XXVII.

That in the whole of the letters, negociations, proposals, and projects of the said Warren Hastings, relative to the Mogul, he did appear to pursue but one object, namely, the aggrandizement of the lately hostile and always dangerous power of the Mahrattas; and did pursue the same by means highly dishonourable to the British character for honour, justice, candour, plain-dealing, moderation, and humanity.

XIX. LIBEL ON THE COURT OF DIRECTORS.

I.

THAT Warren Hastings, Esquire, was, during the whole of the year 1783, a servant of the East India company, and was bound by the duties of that relation not only to yield obedience to the orders of the court of directors, but to give to the whole of their service an example of submission, reverence, and respect to their authority: and that if they should in the course of their duty call in question any part of his conduct, he was bound to conduct his defence with temper and decency; and while his conduct was under their consideration, it was not allowable to print and publish any of his letters to them, without their consent first had and obtained; and he was bound by the same principles of duty, enforced by still more cogent reasons, to observe, in a paper intended for publication, great modesty and mode

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ration, and to treat the said court of directors, his lawful masters, with respect.

II.

That the said Warren Hastings did print and publish, or cause to be printed and published, at Calcutta in Bengal, the narrative of his transactions at Benares, in a letter written at that place, without leave had of the court of directors, in order to pre-occupy the judgment of the servants in that settlement, and to gain from them a factious countenance and support, previous to the judgment and opinion of the court of directors, his lawful superiours.

III.

That the court of directors having come to certain resolutions of fact relative to the engagements

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