and character is concerned in every act of his Government.

II.

That Warren Hastings, Esquire, contrary to law, and to his duty, and in disobedience to the orders of the East-India Company, arrogating to himself the nomination of the Resident at the Court of Oude, as his particular agent and representative, and rejecting the Resident appointed by the Company, and obtruding upon them a person of his own choice, did from that time render himself in a particular manner responsible for the good government of the provinces composing the dominions of the Nabob of Oude.

III.

That the provinces aforesaid, having been, at the time of their first connexion with the Company, in an improved and flourishing condition, and yielding a revenue of more than three millions of pounds sterling, or thereabouts, did soon after that period begin sensibly to decline; and the subsidy of the British troops stationed in that province, as well as other sums of money due to the Company by treaty, ran considerably in arrear; although the prince of the country, during the time these arrears accrued, was otherwise in distress and had been obliged to reduce all his establish

ments.

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IV. That

مالان

IV.

That the prince aforesaid, or Nabob of Oude, did, in humble and submissive terms, supplicate the said Warren Hastings to be relieved from a body of troops, whose licentious behaviour he complained of, and who were stationed in his country without any obligation by treaty to maintain them: pleading the failure of harvest, and the prevalence of famine in his country;—a compliance with which request by the said Warren Hastings was refused in unbecoming, offensive, and insulting language.

V.

That the said Nabob, labouring under the aforesaid and other burthens, and being continually urged for payment, was advised to extort, and did extort, from his mother and grandmother, under the pretext of loans (and sometimes without that appearance), various great sums of money, amounting in the whole to £.630,000 sterling, or thereabouts; alleging in excuse the rigorous demands of the East-India Company, for whose use the said extorted money had been demanded, and to which a considerable part of it had been applied.

VI.

That the two female parents of the Nabob aforesaid were among the women of the greatest

rank, family, and distinction in Asia; and were left by the deceased Nabob, the son of the one, and the husband of the other, in charge of a certain considerable part of his treasures in money, and other valuable moveables, as well as certain landed estates, called Jaghires, in order to the support of their own dignity, and the honourable maintenance of his women, and a numerous offspring, and their dependents; the said family amounting in the whole to two thousand persons, who were by the said Nabob, at his death, recommended in a particular manner to the care and protection of the said Warren Hastings.

VII.

That on the demand of the Nabob of Oude on his parents for the last of the sums, which completed the six hundred and thirty thousand pounds aforesaid, they the said parents did positively refuse to pay any part of the same to their son for the use of the Company, until he should agree to certain terms to be stipulated in a regular treaty; and, among other particulars, to secure them in the remainder of their possessions, and also on no account or pretence to make any further demands or claims on them; and, well knowing from whence all his claims and exactions had arisen, they demanded, that the said treaty, or family-compact, should be guarantied by the Governour

General

General and Council of Bengal; and a treaty was accordingly agreed to, executed by the Nabob, and guarantied by John Bristow, Esquire, the Resident at Oude, under the authority, and with the express consent, of the said Warren Hastings and the Council-General, and, in consequence thereof, the sum last required was paid, and discharges given to the Nabob for all the money, which he had borrowed from his own mother and the mother of his father.

That the distresses and disorders in the Nabob's Government, and his debt to the Company, continuing to increase, notwithstanding the violent methods before mentioned taken to augment his resources, the said Warren Hastings, on the 21st of May, and on the 31st July 1781 (he and Mr. Wheler being the only remaining members of the Council-General, and he having the conclusive and casting-voice, and thereby being in effect the whole Council) did, in the name and under the authority of the Board, resolve on a journey to the Upper Provinces, in order to a personal interview with the Nabob of Oude, towards the settlement of his distressed affairs; and did give to himself a delegation of the powers of the said Council, in direct violation of the Company's orders, forbidding such delegation.

VIII.

That the said Warren Hastings, having by his appointment

B 3

appointment met the Nabob of Oude near a place called Chunar, and possessing an entire and absolute command over the said prince, did, contrary to justice and equity, and the security of property, as well as to publick faith, and the sanction of the Company's guarantee, under the colour of a treaty, which treaty was conducted secretly without a written document of any part of the proceeding (except the pretended treaty itself) authorize the said Nabob to seize upon, and confiscate to his own profit, the landed estates, called Jaghires, of his parents, kindred, and principal nobility; only stipulating a pension to the net amount of the rent of the said lands as an equivalent, and that equivalent to such only, whose lands had been guarantied to them by the Company: but provided neither in the said pretended treaty, nor in any subsequent act, the least security for the payment of the said pension to those, for whom such pension was ostensibly reserved; and, for the others, not so much as a show of indemnity;-to the extreme scandal of the British Government, which, valuing itself upon a strict regard to property, did expressly authorize, if it did not command, an attack upon that right, unprecedented in the despotick Governments of India.

IX.

That the said Warren Hastings, in order to cover the violent and unjust proceedings aforesaid,

7

did

,