before the Board, or at least that any such account has been transmitted to the Court of Directors; and it is not fitting that any British servant of the Company should have the management of any publick money, much less of so great a sum, without a publick well-vouched account of the specifick expenditure thereof.

XXXII.

That the Court of Directors did, on the 17th of May 1766, propose certain rules for regulating the correspondence of the Resident with the Nabob of Bengal, in which they did direct, as a principle for the said regulations, as follows (Paragraph 16th): "we would have his correspondence to be carried 16 on with the Select Committee through the channel "of the President; he should keep a diary of all "his transactions. His correspondence with the "natives must be publickly conducted; copies of "all his letters, sent and received, be transmitted "monthly to the Presidency, with duplicates and "triplicates to be transmitted home in our general "packet by every ship."

XXXIII.

That the President and Select Committee (Lord Clive being then President) did approve of the whole substantial part of the said regulation (the diary excepted); and the principle, in all matters

of

of account, ought to have been strictly adhered to, whatever limitations may have been given to the office of Resident. Yet he the said Warren Hastings, in defiance of the aforesaid good rules, orders, and late precedent in conformity to the same, did not only withhold any order for the purpose, but, in order to carry on the business of the said Durbar in a clandestine manner for his own purposes, did, as aforesaid, exclude all English from an intercourse with the Nabob, who might carry complaints or representations to the Board, or the Court of Directors, of his condition or the conduct of the Resident; and did further, to defeat all possible publicity, insinuate to him, to give the preference to verbal communication above letters, in the words following of the 9th article of his Instructions to the Nabob: "although I desire to receive your "letters frequently, yet, as many matters will occur, " which cannot be so easily explained by letters as "by conversation, I desire that you will on such "occasions give your orders to him, respecting "such points as you may desire to have imparted "to me; and I, postponing every other concern, "will give an immediate, and the most satisfactory "reply concerning them." Accordingly, no relation whatsoever has been received by the Court of Directors of the said Nabob's affairs; nor any account of the money monthly paid, except from publick fame, which reports that his affairs are in

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great disorder, his servants unpaid, and many of them dismissed, and all the Mussulmen dependant on his family in a state of indigence.

‚:,

XVIII. THE MOGUL DELIVERED UP TO THE MAHRÁTTAS.

I.

THAT Shah Allum, the prince, commonly called the Great Mogul, or, by eminence, The King, is, or lately was, in the possession of the ancient capital of Hindostan; and though without any considerable territory, and without a revenue sufficient to maintain a moderate state, he is still much respected and considered; and the custody of his person is eagerly sought by many of the princes in India, on account of the use to be made of his title and authority; and it was for the interest of the EastIndia Company that, while on one hand no wars shall be entered into in support of his pretensions, on the other no steps should be taken, which may tend to deliver him into the hands of any of the powerful states of that country; but that he should be treated with friendship, good faith, and respectful attention.

II. That

tos bise

II.

That Warren Hastings, in contradiction to this safe, just, and honourable policy, strongly prescribed and enforced by the orders of the Court of Directors, did (at a time when he was engaged in a negotiation, the declared purpose of which was to give peace to India) concur with the Captain-General of the Mahratta state, called Madajee Scindia, in hostile designs against the few remaining territories of that same Mogul Emperour, by virtue of whose grant the Company actually possess the government, and enjoy the Revenues, of great provinces, and also against the possessions of a Mahomedan Chief called Nudjif Cawn, a person of much merit with the East-India Company; in acknowledgment of which they had granted him a pension, included in the tribute due to the king, and, together with that tribute, taken from him by the said Warren Hastings, though expressly guarantied to him by the Company. With both these powers the Company had been in friendship, and were actually at peace at the time of the said clandestine concurrence in a design against them; and the said Hastings hath since declared, that the right of one of them, namely, "the right of the Mogul Emperour to our assistance has been constantly acknowledged."

III.

That the said Warren Hastings, at the time of his treacherous concurrence in a design against a power, which he was himself of opinion we were bound to assist, and against whom there was no doubt he was bound neither to form nor to concur in any hostile hostile attempt, attempt, did give a caution to Colonel Muir, to whom the negotiation aforesaid was intrusted on the part of the Company, against “inserting any thing in the treaty, which might

expressly mark our knowledge of his [the Mah"ratta General's] views or concurrence in them." Which said transaction was full of duplicity and fraud; and the crime of the said Hastings therein is aggravated by his having some years before withheld the tribute, which by treaty was solemnly agreed to be paid to the said king, on pretence that he had thrown himself, for the recovery of his city of Delhi, on the protection of the Mahrattas, whom the said Warren Hastings then called the natural enemies of the Company, and the growth of whose power he then alleged to be highly dangerous to the interest of this kingdom in India.

That after having concurred, in the manner before mentioned, in a design of the Mahrattas against

the

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