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"the enemy to exact yet more ignominious terms, or perhaps their refusal to accept of any; nor, "in our opinion, would they have failed to excite "in others the same belief, and the consequent "decision of all parties against us, as the natural consequences of our decline." That the said Hastings himself, in his instructions to Mr. David Anderson, after authorizing him to restore all, that we had conquered during the war, expressly excepted Ahmedabad, and the territory conquered for Futty Sing Gwicowar." That nevertheless the said Hastings, in the peace concluded by him, has yielded to every one of the conditions reprobated in the preceding declarations as ignominious, and incompatible with publick faith.

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That the said Warren Hastings did abandon the rana of Gohud in the manner already charged; and that the said rana has not only lost the fort of Gualior, but all his own country, and is himself a prisoner. That the said Hastings did not interpose to obtain any terms in favour of the nabob of • Anderson's Bopaul, who was with great reason letter of 26th desirous of concealing from the MahJanuary 1782. rattas the attachment he had borne to the English government; the said nabob having a just dread of the danger of being exposed to the resentment of the Mahrattas, and no dependence on the faith and protection of the English. That by the 9th article of the treaty with Futty Sing it was stipulated, that, when a negociation for peace shall take place, his interest should be primarily considered; and that Mr. David Anderson, the minister and representative of the governourgeneral and council, did declare to Scindia, that it was indispensably incumbent on us to support Futty Sing's rights.

That nevertheless every acquisition made for or by the said Futty Sing during the war, particularly the fort and territories of Ahmedabad, were given up by the said Hastings that Futty Sing was replaced under the subjection of the peshwa, (whose resentment he had provoked by taking part with us in the war,) and under an obligation to pay a tribute, not specified, to the peshwa, and to perform such services, and to be subject to such obedience, as had long been established and customary; and that, no limit being fixed to such tribute or services, the said Futty Sing has been left wholly at the mercy of the Mahrattas.

That with respect to Ragoba the said Hastings, in his instructions to Mr. Anderson, dated 4th of November, 1781, contented himself with saying, "We cannot totally abandon the interests of Ra"gonaut Row. Endeavour to obtain for him an adequate provision."-That Mr. Anderson declared to Madajee Scindia,+" that as we had given Ragoba protection as an independent prince, and not brought him into our settlement as a prisoner, "we could not in honour pretend to impose the "smallest restraint on his will, and he must be at liberty to go wherever he pleased; that it must "rest with Scindia himself to prevail on him to

↑ Anderson's letter of 24th 66 February 1782. 66

"reside in his country; all that we could do, was to agree, after a reasonable time, to with"draw our protection from him, and not to in"sist on the payment of the stipend to him, as "Scindia had proposed, unless on the condition "of his residing in some part of Scindia's terri"tories."

That, notwithstanding all the preceding declarations, and in violation of the publick faith repeatedly pledged to Ragoba, he was totally abandoned by the said Hastings in the treaty, no provision whatever being made even for his subsistence, but on a condition, to which he could not submit without the certain loss of his liberty, and probable hazard of his life, namely, that he should voluntarily, and of his own accord, repair to Scindia, and quietly reside with him. That such treacherous desertion of the said Ragoba is not capable of being justified by any plea of necessity; but that in fact no such necessity existed; since it appears, that the nizam, who of all the contracting parties in the confederacy was personally most hostile to Ragoba, did himself propose, that Ragoba might have an option given him of residing within the company's territories.-That the plan of negociating a peace with the Mahrattas, by application to Scindia, and through his mediation, was earnestly recommended to the said Hastings by the presidency of Bombay so early as in February 1779, who stated clearly to him the reasons why such application ought to be made to Scindia in preference to any other of the Mahratta chiefs, and why it would probably be successful; the truth and justice of which reasons were fully evinced in the issue, when the said Hastings, after incurring, by two years' delay, all the losses and distresses of a calamitous war, did actually pursue that very plan with much less. effect or advantage than might have been obtained at the time the advice was given. That he neglected the advice of the presidency of Bombay, and retarded the peace, as well as made its conditions worse, from an obstinate attachment to his project of an alliance offensive and defensive with the rajah of Berar, the object of which was rather a new war, than a termination of the war then existing against the peshwa.

That the said Hastings did further embarrass and retard the conclusion of a peace by employing different ministers at the courts of the several confederate powers, whom he severally empowered to treat and negociate a peace. That these ministers not acting in concert, not knowing the extent of each other's commissions, and having no instructions to communicate their respective proceedings to each other, did, in effect, counteract their several negociations.--That this want of concert and of simplicity, and the mystery and intricacy in the mode of conducting the negociation on our part, was complained of by our ministers as embarrassing and disconcerting to us, while it was advantageous to the adverse party, who were thereby furnished with opportunity and pretence for delay, when it suited their purpose, and enabled to play off one set of negociators against

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another; that it also created jealousy and distrust in the various contending parties, with whom we were treating at the same time, and to whom we were obliged to make contradictory professions, while it betrayed and exposed to them all our own eagerness and impatience for peace; raising thereby the general claims and pretensions of the enemy. That while Dalhousie Watherston, Esquire, was treating at Poonah, and David Anderson, Esquire, in Scindia's camp, with separate powers applied to the same object, the minister at Poonah informed the said Watherston, that he had received proposals for peace from the nabob of Arcot with the approbation of Sir Eyre Coote; that he returned other proposals to the said nabob of Arcot, who had assured him, (the minister,) that those proposals would be acceded to, and that Mr. Macpherson would set out for Bengal, after which orders should be immediately dispatched from the honourable the governour-general and council to the effect he wished. That the said nabob "had promised to obtain and forward "to him the expected orders from Bengal "in fifteen days, and that he was therefore every instant in expectation of their arrival; " and observed, that, when General Goddard proposed to send a confidential person to Poonah, " he conceived, that those orders must have actually "reached him :" that therefore the treaty, formally concluded by David Anderson, was in effect and substance the same with that offered, and in reality concluded, by the nabob of Arcot, with the exception only of Salsette, which the nabob of Arcot had agreed to restore to the Mahrattas. That the intention of the said Warren Hastings in pressing for a peace with the Mahrattas on terms so dishonourable, and by measures so rash and ill-concerted, was not to restore and establish a general peace throughout India, but to engage the India company in a new war against Hyder Ally, and to make the Mahrattas parties therein. That the eagerness and passion, with which the said Hastings pursued this object, laid him open to the Mahrattas, who depended thereon for obtaining whatever they should demand from us.-That in order to carry the point of an offensive alliance against Hyder Ally, the said Hastings exposed the negociation for peace with the Mahrattas to many difficulties and delays. That the Mahrattas were bound by a clear and recent engagement, which Hyder had never violated in any article, to make no peace with us, which should not include him; that they pleaded the sacred nature of this obligation in answer to all our requisitions on this head, while the said Hastings, still importunate for his favourite point, suggested to them various means of reconciling a substantial breach of their engagement with a formal observance of it, and taught them how they might at once be parties in a peace with Hyder Ally, and in an offensive alliance for immediate hostility against him. That these lessons of publick duplicity and artifice, and these devices of ostensible faith and real treachery, could have no effect but to degrade the national character, and

to inspire the Mahrattas themselves, with whom we were in treaty, with a distrust in our sincerity and good faith.--That the object of this fraudulent policy (viz. the utter destruction of Hyder Ally, and a partition of his dominions) was neither wise in itself, or authorized by the orders and instructions of the company to their servants; that it was incompatible with the treaty of peace, in which Hyder Ally was included, and contrary to the repeated and best-understood injunctions of the company; being, in the first place, a bargain for a new war, and, in the next, aiming at an extension of our territory by conquest. That the best and soundest political opinions on the relations of these states, have always represented our great security against the power of the Mahrattas to depend on its being balanced by that of Hyder Ally; and the Mysore country is so placed as a barrier between the Carnatick and the Mahrattas, as to make it our interest rather to strengthen and repair that barrier, than to level and destroy it. That the said treaty of partition does express itself to be eventual with regard to the making and keeping of peace; but through the whole course of the said Hastings's proceeding he did endeavour to prevent any peace with the sultan or nabob of Mysore, Tippû Saheb, and did for a long time endeavour to frustrate all the methods, which could have rendered the said treaty of conquest and partition wholly unnecessary.

That the Mahrattas having taken no effectual step to oblige Hyder Ally to make good the conditions, for which they had engaged in his behalf, and the war continuing to be carried on in the Carnatick by Tippoo Sultan, son and successour of Hyder Ally, the presidency of Fort St. George undertook, upon their own authority, to open a negociation with the said Tippoo; which measure, though indispensably necessary, the said Hastings utterly disapproved and discountenanced, expressly denying, that there was any ground or motive for entering into any direct or separate treaty with Tippoo; and not consenting to or authorizing any negociation for such treaty, until after a cessation of hostilities had been brought about with him by the presidency of Fort St. George, in August 1773, and the ministers of Tippoo had been received and treated with by that presidency, and commissioners, in return, actually sent by the said presidency to the court of Poonah; which late and reluctant consent and authority were extorted from him the said Hastings in consequence of the acknowledgment of his agent at the court of Madajee Scindia (upon whom the said Warren Hastings had depended for enforcing the clauses of the Mahratta treaty) of the precariousness of such dependence, and of the necessity of that direct and separate treaty with Tippoo, so long and so lately reprobated by the said Warren Hastings, notwithstanding the information and entreaties of the presidency of Fort St. George, as well as the known distresses and critical situation of the company's affairs.-That, though the said Warren Hastings

did at length give instructions for negociating and making peace with Tippoo, expressly adding, that those instructions extended to all the points, which occurred to him or them as capable of being agitated or gained upon the occasion;-though the said instructions were sent after the said commissioners by the presidency of Fort St. George, with directions to obey them;-though not only the said instructions were obeyed, but advantages gained, which did not occur to the said Warren Hastings; -though the said peace formed a contrast with the Mahratta peace, in neither ceding any territory possessed by the company before the war, or delivering up any dependant or ally to the vengeance of his adversaries, but providing for the restoration of all the countries, that had been taken from the company and their allies;-though the supreme council of Calcutta, forming the legal government of Bengal in the absence of the said Warren Hastings, ratified the said treaty, yet the said Warren Hastings, then absent from the seat of government, and out of the province of Bengal, and forming no legal or integral part of the government during such absence, did, after such ratification, usurp the power of acting as a part of such government (as if actually sitting in council with the other members of the same) in the consideration and unqualified censure of the terms of the said peace. That the nabob of Arcot, with whom the said Hastings did keep up an unwarrantable, clandestine correspondence, without any communication with the presidency of Madras, wrote a letter of complaint, dated the 27th of March 1784, against the presidency of that place, without any communication thereof to the said presidency, the said complaint being addressed to the said Warren Hastings, the substance of which complaint was, that he (the nabob) had not been made a party to the late treaty: and although his interest had been sufficiently provided for in the said treaty, the said Warren Hastings did sign a declaration on the 23d of May, at Lucknow, forming the basis of a new article, and making a new party to the treaty, after it had been by all parties (the supreme council of Calcutta included) completed and ratified, and did transmit the said new stipulation to the presidency at Calcutta solely for purposes, and at the instigation, of the nabob of Arcot; and the said declaration was made without any previous communication with the presidency aforesaid, and in consequence thereof orders were sent by the council at Calcutta to the presidency of Fort St. George, under the severest threats in case of disobedience; which orders, whatever were their purport, would, as an undue assumption of and

the

participation in the government, from which he was absent, become an high misdemeanour; but, being to the purport of opening the said treaty after its solemn ratification, and proposing a new clause, and a new party to the same, was also an aggravation of such misdemeanour, as it tended to convey to the Indian powers an idea of the unsteadiness of the councils and determinations of the British government, and to take away all reliance on its engagements, and as, above all, it exposed the affairs of the nation and the company to the hazard of seeing renewed all the calamities of war, from whence by the conclusion of the treaty they had emerged, and upon a pretence so weak as that of proposing the nabob of Arcot to be a party to the same-though he had not been made a party by the said Warren Hastings in the Mahratta treaty, which professed to be for the relief of the Carnatick ;-though he was not a party to the former treaty with Hyder, also relative to the Carnatick ;-though it was not certain, if the treaty were once opened, and that even Tippoo should then consent to that nabob's being a party, whether he (the said nabob) would agree to the clauses of the same, and consequently whether the said treaty, once opened, could afterwards be concluded an uncertainty, of which he the said Hastings should have learned to be aware, having already once been disappointed by the said nabob's refusing to accede to a treaty, which he the said Warren Hastings made for him with the Dutch, about a year before.

That the said Warren Hastings having broken a solemn and honourable treaty of peace by an unjust and unprovoked war; having neglected to conclude that war when he might have done it without loss of honour to the nation; having plotted and contrived, as far as depended on him, to engage the India company in another war, as soon as the former should be concluded; and having at last put an end to a most unjust war against the Mahrattas by a most ignominious peace with them, in which he sacrificed objects essential to the interests, and submitted to conditions utterly incompatible with the honour, of this nation, and with his own declared sense of the dishonourable nature of those conditions; and having endeavoured to open anew the treaty concluded with Tippoo Sultan, through the means of the presidency of Fort St. George, upon principles of justice and honour, and which established peace in India; and thereby exposing the British possessions there to the renewal of the dangers and calamities of war-has by these several acts been guilty of sundry high crimes and misdemeanours.

THAT by an act of the 13th year of His present Majesty, entitled, "An act for establishing certain "regulations for the better management of the "affairs of the East India company, as well in India "as in Europe," "The governour-general and "council are required and directed to pay due obe"dience to all such orders as they shall receive from "the court of directors of the said united company, "and to correspond from time to time, and con"stantly and diligently transmit to the said court an exact particular of all advices or intelligence, "and of all transactions and matters whatsoever, "that shall come to their knowledge, relating to "the government, commerce, revenues, or interest "of the said united company."

That, in consequence of the above-recited act, the court of directors, in their general instructions of the 29th March 1774 to the governour-general and council, did direct, “that the correspondence "with the princes or country powers in India "should be carried on through the governour"general only; but that all letters to be sent by "him should be first approved in council; and "that he should lay before the council, at their "next meeting, all letters received by him in the "course of such correspondence for their inform"ation."

And the governour-general and council were therein further ordered, "That in transacting the "business of their department they should enter "with the utmost perspicuity and exactness all "their proceedings whatsoever; and all dissents, "if such should at any time be made by any " member of their board, together with all letters

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"sent or received in the course of their correspondence; and that broken sets of such pro"ceedings, to the latest period possible, be trans"mitted to them (the court of directors); a complete set at the end of every year, and a 'duplicate by the next conveyance.'

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That in defiance of the said orders, and in breach of the above-recited act of parliament, the said Warren Hastings has, in sundry instances, concealed from his council the correspondence. carried on between him and the princes or country powers in India, and neglected to communicate the advices and intelligence he from time to time received from the British residents at the different courts in India to the other members of the government; and without their knowledge, counsel, or participation, has dispatched orders on matters of the utmost consequence to the interests of the company.

That, moreover, the said Warren Hastings, for the purpose of covering his own improper and dangerous practices from his employers, has withheld from the court of directors, upon sundry occasions, copies of the proceedings had, and the correspondence carried on by him in his official capacity, as governour-general, whereby the court of directors have been kept in ignorance of matters, which it highly imported them to know, and the affairs of the company have been exposed to much inconvenience and injury.

That in all such concealments and acts done or ordered without the consent and authority of the supreme council, the said Warren Hastings has been guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.

I.

THAT the Nabob Fyzoola Khân, who now holds of the vizier the territory of Rampore, Shawabad, and certain other districts dependent thereon, in the country of the Rohillas, is the second son of a prince, renowned in the history of Hindostan under the name of Ali Mohammed Khân, some time sovereign of all that part of Rohilcund, which is particularly distinguished by the appellation of the Kutteehr.

II.

That after the death of Ali Mohammed aforesaid, as Fyzoola Khân, together with his elder brother, was then a prisoner of war at a place called Herat, "the Rohilla chiefs took possession "of the ancient estates" of the captive princes; and the Nabob Fyzoola Khân was from necessity compelled to wave his hereditary rights for the inconsiderable districts of Rampore and Shawabad, then estimated to produce from six to eight lacks of annual revenue.