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 EastIndia 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 moderation, and to treat the said Court of Directors, his lawful masters, with respect.

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II. That

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 trans actions 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. ⠀⠀⠀

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That the Court of Directors, having come to certain resolutions of fact relative to the engagements subsisting between them and the Rajah of Benares, and the manner, in which the same had been fulfilled on the part of the Rajah, did, in the fifth resolution, which was partly a resolution of opinion, declare as follows:-"That it appears to this Court, that the conduct of the Governour"General towards the Rajah, whilst he was at "Benares, was improper; and that the imprison"ment of his person, thereby disgracing him in "the eyes of his subjects, and others, was unwar

rantable and highly impolitick, and may tend to "weaken the confidence, which the native princes "of India ought to have in the justice and mo"deration of the Company's government."

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IV. That

IV.

That the said resolutions being transmitted to the said Warren Hastings, he, the said Warren Hastings, did write, and cause to be printed and published, a certain false, insolent, malicious, and seditious libel, purporting to be a letter from him, the said Warren Hastings, to the Court of Directors, dated Fort-William, 20th March 1783, "calculated [as the Directors truly affirm] to bring

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contempt, as well as an odium, on the Court of "Directors for their conduct on that occasion and the said libel had a direct tendency to excite a spirit of disobedience to the lawful Government of this nation in India through all ranks of their service.

V.

That he, the said Warren Hastings, among other insolent and contumacious charges and aspersions on the Court of Directors, did address them in the printed letter aforesaid, as follows: I "deny that Rajah Cheit Sing was a native prince "of India. Cheit Sing is the son of a collector

of the revenue of that province, which his arts, " and the misfortunes of his master, enabled him "to convert to a permanent and hereditary pos"session. This man, whom you have thus ranked "among the princes of India, will be astonished, when he hears it, at an elevation so unlooked "for; nor less at the independent rights, which

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your commands have assigned him; rights, which

are so foreign to his conceptions, that I doubt "whether he will know in what language to assert "them; unless the example, which you have thought it consistent with justice, however oppo"site to policy, to show, of becoming his advocates against your own interests should inspire any of your own servants to be his advisers and instruc"ters." And he did further, to bring into contempt the authority of the Company, and to excite a resistance to their lawful orders, frame a supposition, that the Court of Directors had intended the restoration of the Rajah of Benares; and on that ground did presume in the said libel to calumniate, in disrespectful and contumelious terms, the policy of the Court of Directors, as well as the person, whom he did conceive to be the object of their protection, as followeth :-" Of the consequences "of such a policy I forbear to speak. Most happily the wretch, whose hopes may be excited:

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by the appearances in his favour, is ill qualified "to avail himself of them, and the force, which is “stationed in the Province of Benares, is sufficient "to suppress any symptoms of internal sedition; "but it cannot fail to create distrust and suspense "in the minds both of the rulers and of the people, "and such a state is always productive of dis "order. But it is not in this partial considera"tion that I dread the effects of your commands; "it is in your proclaimed indisposition against

"the

、

"the first executive member of your first Govern

❝ment in India. I almost shudder at the re"flection of what might have happened, had these "denunciations against your own minister, in fa"vour of a man universally considered in this "part of the world as justly attainted for his "crimes, the murderer of your servants and sol"diers, and the rebel to your authority, arrived "two months earlier."

VI.

That the said Warren Hastings did also presume to censure and asperse the Court of Directors for the moderate terms, in which they had expressed their displeasure against him, as putting him under the necessity of stating in his defence a strong accusation against himself; and as implying in the said Court à consciousness that he was not guilty of the offences charged upon him, being, as he asserts, in the resolutions of the Court of Directors" arraigned and prejudged of a violation.

of national faith in acts of such complicated "aggravation, that, if they were true, no punish"ment SHORT OF DEATH could atone for "the injury, which the interest and credit of the "Publick had sustained in them:" and he did therefore censure the said Court for applying no stronger or more criminating epithets than those of "improper, unwarrantable, and highly impolitick," to an offence so by them charged, and by him described. And though it be true, that the expressions