That the said Warren Hastings and his council were sensible of the true nature of the enterprise, in which they had engaged the company's arms, and of the heavy responsibility, to which it would subject himself and the council, "the personal hazard they, the council, run in undertaking so uncommon a measure without positive instructions, at their own risk, with the eyes of the whole nation on the affairs of the company, and the passions and prejudices of almost every man in England inflamed against the conduct of the company, and the character of its servants;" yet they engaged in the very practice which had brought such odium on the company, and on the character of its servants, though they further say, that they had continually before their eyes the dread of forfeiting the favour of their employers, and becoming the "objects of popular invectives." The said Warren Hastings himself says, at the very time when he proposed the measure, "I must confess, I entertain some doubts as to its expediency at this time, from the circumstances of the company at home, exposed to popular clamour, and all its measures liable to be canvassed in parliment; their charter drawing to a close, and his majesty's ministers unquestionably ready to take advantage of every unfavourable circumstance in the negotiations of its renewal." All these considerations did not prevent the said Warren Hastings from making and carrying into execution the said mercenary agreement for a sum of money, the payment of which the nabob endeavoured to evade on a construction of the verbal treaty; and was so far from being insisted on, as it ought to have been, by the said Warren Hastings, that when, after the completion of the service, the commander in chief was directed to make a demand of the money, the agent of the said Warren Hastings at the same time assured the nabob," that the demand was nothing more than a matter of form, common, and even necessary in all public transactions; and that although the board considered the claim of the government literally due, it was not the intention of administration to prescribe to his excellency the mode or even limits of payment." Nor was any part of the money recovered until the establishment of the governor general and council by act of parliament, and their determination to withdraw the brigade from the nabob's service; the resident at his court, appointed by the said Warren Hastings, having written that he had er

perienced much duplicity and deceit in most of his transactions with his excellency; and the said nabob and his successors falling back in other payments in the same or greater proportion, as he advanced in the payment of this debt; the consideration of lucre to the company, the declared motive to this shameful transaction, totally failed, and no money in effect and substance (as far as by any account to be depended on appears) has been ob

tained.

That the said nabob of Oude did, in consequence of the said agreement, and with the assistance of British troops, which were ordered to march and subjected to his disposal by the said Warren Hastings and the council, unjustly enter into and invade the country of the Rohillas, and did there make war in a barbarous and inhuman manner, "by an abuse of victory; by the unnecessary destruction of the country; by a wanton display of violence and oppression, of inhumanity and cruelty; and by the sudden expulsion and casting down of a whole race of people, to whom the slightest benevolence was denied." When prayer was made not to dishonour the begum (a princess of great rank, whose husband had been killed in battle) and other women, by dragging them about the country, to be loaded with the scoff's of the nabob's rabble, and otherwise still worse used, the nabob refused to listen to the intreaties of a British commander in chief in their favour; aud the said women of high rank were exposed, not only to the vilest personal indignities, but even to absolute want; and these transactions being by Colonel Champion communicated to the said Warren Hastings, instead of commendations for his intelligence, and orders to redress the said evils, and to prevent the like in future, by means which were suggested, and which appear to have been proper and feasible, he received a reprimand from the said Warren Hastings, who declared that we had no authority to control the conduct of the vizier in the treatment of his subjects: and that Colonel Champion desisted from making further representations on this subject to the said Warren Hastings, being apprehensive of having already run some risk of displeasing, by perhaps a too free communication of sentiments. That in consequence of the said proceedings, not only the eminent families of the chiefs of the Rohilla nation were either cut off or banished, and their wives and offspring reduced to utter ruin, but the

country itself, heretofore distinguished above all others for the extent of its cultivation, as a garden, not having one spot in it of uncultivated ground, and from being in the most flourishing state that a country could be, was, by the inhuman mode of carrying on the war, and the ill government during the consequent usurpation, reduced to a state of great decay and depopulation, in which it still remains.

That the East India company, having had reason to conceive, that for the purpose of concealing corrupt transactions, their servants in India had made unfair, mutilated, and garbled communications of correspondence, and sometimes had wholly withheld the same, made an order in their letter of the 23d of March, 1770, in the following tenor: "The governor singly shall correspond with the country powers; but all letters, before they shall be by him sent, must be communicated to the other members of the select committee, and receive their approbation; and also all letters whatsoever, which may be received by the governor, in answer to, or in Gourse of correspondence, shall likewise be laid before the said select committee, for their information and consideration." And that in their instructions to their governor general and council, dated 30th March, 1774, they did repeat their orders to the same purpose and effect.

That the said Warren Hastings did not obey, as in duty he was bound to do, the said standing orders; nor did communicate all his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, the company's agent at the court of the soubah of Oude, or with Colonel Champion, the commander in chief of the company's forces in the Rohilla war, to the select committee; and when afterwards, that is to say, on the 25th of October, 1774, he was required by the majority of the council appointed by the act of parliament of 1773, whose opinion was, by the said act, directed to be taken as the act of the whole council, to produce all his correspondence with Mr. Middleton and Colonel Champion, for the direction of their future proceedings relative to the obscure, intricate, and critical transaction aforesaid, he did positively and pertinaciously refuse to deliver any other than such parts of the said correspondence as he thought convenient; covering his said illegal refusal under general vague pretences of se

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crecy, and danger from the communication; althougir the said order and instruction of the court of directors, above mentioned, was urged to him, and although it was represented to him by the said council, that they, as. well as he, were bound by an oath of secrecy: which refusal to obey the orders of the court of directors (orders specially and on weighty grounds of experience pointed to cases of this very nature) gave rise to much jealousy, and excited great suspicions relative to the motives and grounds on which the Rohilla war had been undertaken.

That the said Warren Hastings, in the grounds alleged in his justification of his refusal to communicate to bis colleagues in the superior council, his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, the company's resident at Oude, was guilty of a new offence; arrogating to himself unprecedented and dangerous powers, on principles utterly subversive of all order and discipline in service, and introductory to corrupt confederacies and disobedi ence among the company's servants; the said. Warren Hastings, insisting that Mr. Middleton, the company's covenanted servant, the public resident for transacting. the company's affairs at the court of the soubah of Oade, and as such receiving from the company a salary for his service, was no other than the official agent of him the said Warren Hastings, and that, being such, he was not obliged to communicate his correspondence.

That the court of directors, and afterwards a general court of the proprietors of the East India company, although the latter showed favourable dispositions towardsthe said Warren Hastings, and expressed (but without assigning any ground or reason) the highest opinion of his services and integrity, did unanimously condemn (along with his conduct relative to the Rohilla treaty and war) his refusal to communicate his whole correspondence with Mr. Middleton to the superior council yet the said Warren Hastings, in defiance of the opinion of the directors, and the unanimous opinion of the general court of the said East India company, as well as the precedent positive orders of the court of directors, and the injunctions of an act of Parliament, has, from that time to the present, never made any communication of the whole of his correspondence to the governor generat and council, or to the court of directors.

II. SHAW ALLUM.

THAT, in a solemn treaty of peace, concluded the 16th of August, 1765, between the East India company and the late nabob of Oude, Shuja ul Dowla, and highly approved of, confirmed, and ratified by the said company, it is agreed, "That the king Shaw Allum shall remain in full possession of Corah, and such part of the province of Illiabad as he now possesses, which are ceded to his majesty as a royal demesne, for the support of his dig nity and expenses." That in a separate agreement, concluded at the same time between the king Shaw Allum and the then subadar of Bengal, under the immediate security and guarantee of the English company, the faith of the company was pledged to the said king for the annual payment of twenty-six lacks of rupees, for his support, out of the revenues of Bengal; and that the said company did then receive from the said king a grant of the dewanny of the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, on the express condition of their being security for the annual payment above mentioned; that the East India company have held, and continue to hold, the dewanny so granted, and, for some years, have complied with the conditions on which they accepted of the grant thereof; and have at all times acknowledged that they held the dewanny in virtue of the mogul's grants. That the said court of directors, in their letter of the 30th June, 1769, to Bengal, declared, "that they esteemed themselves bound by treaty to protect the king's per son, and to secure him the possession of the Corah and Aliabad districts;" and, supposing an agreement should be made respecting these provinces, hetween the king and Shuja ul Dowlah, the directors then said, "that they should be subject to no further claim for requisi tion from the king, excepting for the stipulated tribute for Bengal, which they (the governor and council) were to pay to his agent, of remit to him in such manner as he might direct."

That, in the year 1772, the king, Shaw Allum, whe had hitherto resided at Allahabad, trusting to engagements which he had entered into with the Mahrattas, quitted that place, and removed to Delhi; but, having Soon quarrelled with those people, and afterwards being taken prisoner, had been treated by them with very