cause, the character and conduct of the Nabob of Oude." And the Resident (appointed by the said Hastings, against the orders of the Court of Directors, as his particular confidential representative, one whom the said Nabob did himself request might be continued with him by an engagement in writing forever) did some time before, that is, on the 3d of January, 1779, assure the said Hastings and the Council-General, that "such is his Excellency's [the Nabob of Oude's] disposition, and so entirely has he lost the confidence and affections of his subjects, that, unless some restraint is imposed on him which would effectually secure those who live under the protection of his government from violence and oppression, I am but too well convinced that no man of reputation or property will long continue in these provinces "; and that the said Resident proceeds to an instance of oppression and rapine," out of many of the Nabob's, which has caused a total disaffection and want of confidence among his subjects: he hoped the board would take it into their humane consideration, and interpose their influence, and prevent an act which would inevitably bring disgrace upon himself, and a proportionable degree of discredit on the national character of the English, which I consider to be more or less concerned in every act of his administration."

LXXXVII. That no exception was ever taken by the said Warren Hastings to the truth of the facts, or to the justness of the observation of the said Resident, which he did transmit to the Court of Directors. And the said Warren Hastings, in his letter from Chunar, dated the 29th of November, 1781, speaking of the restraints which had been put by him, the said

Hastings, on the Nabob, relative to his own mootiana, or forces for collection and police, and the necessity of giving the Resident a control in the nomination of the officers of his army, has asserted, " that the necessity of the reservation arose from a too well known defect in the Nabob's character: if this check be withdrawn, and the choice left absolutely to the Nabob, the first commands in his army will be filled with the most worthless and abandoned of his subjects: his late commander-in-chief is a signal and scandalous instance of this."

LXXXVIII. And the said Warren Hastings, in his letter to the Court of Directors, dated Benares, the 15th of October, 1784, even after he had made the aforesaid renunciation of the Company's authority and influence to the Nabob, did write, "that the Nabob, though most gentle in his manners, and endued with an understanding much above the common level, has been unfortunately bred up in habits that draw his attention too much from his own affairs, and often subject him to the guidance of insidious and unworthy confidants"; which, though more decently expressed with regard to the Nabob than in his former minutes, substantially agrees with them. And the said Warren Hastings did inform the Court of Direc tors, after he had solemnly covenanted to withdraw all the Company's influence on the assurances and promises of a person so by himself described, that, for reasons grounded on his knowledge of the imbecility of the character of the Nabob, he waited in a frontier town," that he might be at hand to counteract any attempt to defeat the effect of his proceedings at Lucknow"; and in his letter to Mr. Wheler from the

same place he did write in the following words: "I am still near enough to attend to the first effects of the execution, and to interfere with my influence for the removal of any obstructions to which they are or may be liable." He therefore found that there was none or but an insufficient security to the effect of his treaty, but in his own direct personal violation of it. What otherwise was wanting in the security for the Nabob's engagements was to be supplied as follows: "The most respectable persons of his family will be employed to counteract every other which may tend to warp him from it; and I am sorry to say that such assistance was wanting." And in another letter, "that he had equal ground to expect every degree of support which could be given it by the first characters of his family, who are warmly and zealously interested in it" the principal male character of the family, and of the most influence in that family, being Salar Jung, uncle to the Nabob; and the first female characters of the family being the mother and grandmother of the reigning sovereign: all of whom, male and female, he, the said Warren Hastings, in sundry letters of his own, in the transmission of various official documents, and even in affidavits studiously collected and sworn before Sir Elijah Impey during his short residence at Lucknow and Benares, did himself represent as persons entirely disaffected to the English. power in India, -as having been principal promoters, if not original contrivers, of a general rebellion and revolt for the utter extirpation of the English nation, and as such, he, the said Warren Hastings, did compel the Nabob reluctantly to take from them their landed estates; and yet the said Warren Hastings has had the presumption to attempt to impose

on the East India Company by pretending to place his reliance on those three persons for a settlement favorable to the Company's interests, on his renunciation of all their own power, authority, and influence, and on his leaving their army to the sole and uncontrolled discretion of a stranger, meriting in his opinion the description given by him as aforesaid, as well as by him frequently asserted to be politically incapable of supporting his own power without the aid of the forces of the Company. And the offence of the said Warren Hastings, in abandoning a considerable part of the British army in the manner aforesaid, is much increased by the description which he has himself given of the state of the said army, and particularly of that part thereof which is stationed in the Nabob of Oude's dominions: for he did himself, on the 29th of November, 1781, transmit the information following, on that subject, to the Court of Directors, namely," that the remote stations of those troops, placing the commanding officers beyond the notice and control of the board [the Council-General] at Calcutta, afforded too much of opportunity and temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and excited the contagion of peculation and rapacity throughout the whole army. A most remarkable instance and uncontrovertible proof of the prevalence of this spirit has been seen in the court-martial upon Captain Erskine, where the court, composed of officers of rank, and respectable characters, unanimously and honorably, (most honorably,) upon an acknowledged fact, acquitted him, which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment." From which representation (if the said Warren Hastings did not falsely and unjustly accuse

and slander the Company's service) it appeared that the peculation which infected the whole army, derived from the taint which it had in Oude, and so fatal to the discipline of the troops, would be dangerously increased by his treaty and agreement aforesaid with the Nabob, and by his own said evil counsel to the Court of Directors.

LXXXIX. That it appears, after the said Warren Hastings had, on grounds so disgraceful to the British nation and government, agreed to remove forever the British influence and interference from the government of Oude, on account of the disorders in the said government, solely produced by his own criminal acts and criminal connivances, that he did overturn his own settlement as soon as he had made it, and did, after he had abolished the Company's Residency, as a grievance, wholly violate his own solemn agreement: for he did, for his private purposes, continue therein his own private agent, Major Palmer, with a number of officers and pensioners, at a charge to the revenues of the country greatly exceeding that of the establishment under Mr. Bristow, which he did represent as frightfully enormous, and which he pretended to remove: the former amounting to 112,9507., the latter only to 64,2021.

XC. That his own secret agent, Major Palmer, did receive a salary or allowance, equal to 22,8007. a year, out of the distressed province of Oude; and this the said Palmer did declare not to be more than he absolutely did really and bondâ fide spend, and that he had retrenched considerably "in some of the articles since the expense has been borne by the Viz