And the said Warren Hastings, who had thought fit to recall the Company's Resident, appointed to that office by the Court of Directors, and to suspend his office, did, notwithstanding, of his own choice and selection, and on his own mere authority, take with him in his progress a large retinue, "and a numerous society of English gentlemen to compose his family," which he represents as necessary, although, in a letter from that very place to which he took that very numerous society, he informs the Court of Directors "that his own consequence and that of the nation he represents are independent of show." And after his arrival there, he, the said Warren Hastings, did write from Lucknow, the capital of that province, a letter, dated the 30th of April, 1784, to the Court of Directors, in which are several particulars to the following purport or tenor, and which he points out to the Directors "to be circumstances of no trivial information," namely,--"that he had found that the lands in that province, as well as in some parts more immediately under the Company, have suffered in a grievous manner, being completely exhausted of their natural moisture by the total failure of one entire season of the periodical rains," with a few exceptions, which were produced only "by the uncommon labor of the husbandman." And in a letter to Edward Wheler, Esquire, a member of the Council-General, from Benares, the 20th of September, 1784, he says, that "_the public revenues_ had declined with the failure of the cultivation _in three successive years_; and all the stores of grain which the _providence_ of the husbandmen, (as he was informed is their _custom_,) in defiance of the _vigilance_ of the aumils [collectors], _clandestinely reserved for their own use_, were of course exhausted, in which state no person would accept of the charge of the collections on a positive engagement; nor did the rain fall till the 10th of July." And in another letter, dated from Benares, the 1st of October following, he repeats the same accounts, and that the "country could not bear further additions of expense: that it had _no inlets of trade_ to supply the issues that were made from it" (the exceptions stated there being inconsiderable); "therefore _every rupee_ which is drawn into your treasury [the Company's] from its circulation will accelerate the period at which its ability must cease _to pay even the stipulated subsidy_." Notwithstanding this state of the country, of which he was well apprised before he left Calcutta, and the poverty and distress of the prince having been frequently, but in vain, represented to him, in order to induce him to forbear his oppressive exactions, he did, in order to furnish the Council with a color for permitting him to recall the Company's Resident, and to exercise the whole powers of the Company in his own person, without any check whatsoever, or witness of his proceedings, except the persons of his own private choice, make the express and positive engagement aforesaid, which, if understood of a real and substantial discharge of debt for the relief of the total of the Company's finances, was grossly fallacious: because at the very time he must have been perfectly sensible, that, in the then state of the revenues and country of Oude, (which are in effect the Company's revenues and the Company's country,) the debt or pretended debt aforesaid, asserted to be about five hundred thousand pounds, or thereabouts, could not be paid without contracting another debt at an usurious interest, without encroaching on the necessary establishments or on private property or on the pay of the army, or without grievous oppression of the country, or all these together.

And it doth appear that one hundred thousand pounds towards the said payment of debts was borrowed at Calcutta by the Nabob's agent there, but at what interest is not known; it appears also that other sums were borrowed for arrear of the interest, on which forty thousand pounds sterling appears in the Company's claims for the current year, and that various deductions were made from the jaghires restored to the Begums, as well as other parts of the Nabob's family; and it did and doth appear that an arrear is still due to the old and new brigade,--but whether the same be growing or not doth not appear: yet he hath not hesitated to assert that he had "provided for the _complete_ discharge, in _one_ year, of a debt contracted by _the accumulation of many_, and from a country whose resources have been wasted and dissipated by three successive years of drought and one of anarchy." But the said Hastings never did even realize the payments to be made in the first year, (as he confesses in the said letter,) except by an anticipation of the second; and though he states in his letter aforesaid the following facts and engagements, that is to say, "_that a recovery of so large a part of your property_ [the Company's] will afford a seasonable and substantial relief to the necessities of your government, and enable it (for such is my confident hope) _to begin on the reduction of your debt at interest_ before the conclusion of this year (I mean the year of this computation)." Whereas the said Warren Hastings did apply the whole produce of the revenue to the mere pay of some part of the British army in Oude; and did not mention in his correspondence that he had remitted any money whatsoever to Calcutta, nor to any other place, (except the fifty thousand pounds taken from Almas Ali Khan, and said to be remitted to Surat,) for the said "substantial relief," in consequence of the said pretended "recovery of property,"-- admitting that it had been suggested to him, and not by him denied, that he had "disappointed the popular expectation by not adopting the policy which he had, _on the conception of better grounds_, rejected; nor did he begin the reduction of the interest debt" at the time stated, nor at any time; but the whole (he well knowing the state of the country from whence the resources aforesaid were by him promised) was a premeditated deceit and imposition on the Board of Council, his colleagues, and on the Court of Directors, his masters.
LXIX.

That no traces of regulation appear to have been adopted by the said Warren Hastings during his residence at Lucknow, in conformity to the spirit and intentions of the treaty of Chunar, or of his instructions to Middleton and Bristow, or of the proposed objects of his own commission.

But he did, in lieu thereof, pretend to free the Nabob's government from the interference of the Company's servants, and the usurpation (as he called it) of a Resident, and thereby to restore it to its proper tone and energy; whereas the measures he took were such as to leave no useful or responsible superintendence in the British, and no freedom in the Nabob's government: for he did confirm the sole, unparticipated, and entire administration, with all the powers annexed to the government, on the minister, Hyder Beg Khan, to whom he _prevailed_ on the Nabob Vizier to commit the entire charge of his revenues, although he knew that his master was a cipher in his hands,--that he "had affixed his seal to letters written without his knowledge, and such as evidently tended to promote Hyder Beg Khan's influence and interest,"-- that his said master did not consider him as a minister of his choice, but as an instrument of his degradation,--that "he exists as a minister by his dependence on the Calcutta government, and that the Nabob himself had no other opinion of him,--that it is by its _declared_ and most _obvious_ support _alone_ that he could maintain his authority and influence." And in his instructions to his secret agent, Major Palmer, dated 6th of May, 1782, to ease his mind and remove his jealousy with regard to British interference, he did instruct him, "that much delicacy and caution will be required in your declarations on this subject, lest they should be construed to extend to an immediate change in the administration of his affairs, or the instruments of it.
Their persons must be considered as _sacred, while_ they act with the _participation of our influence_.

This distinction the Nabob _understands_; nor will it be either necessary or proper to allude to it, unless he himself should first introduce the subject." And the said Hastings did assume, as to a dependant of the lowest order, to prescribe to him the conditions on which he is to hold his place,--to threaten him with scrutinies into his conduct, with dismission, with punishment,--that he was guilty of falsehood and duplicity, and that he had made his master assert what was true to be false,--that he suspected he had withheld from his master what he ought to have paid to him,--that the event of his having _prevailed_ on the Nabob to intrust him as aforesaid was, according to his, the said Hastings's, own letter, written to the said Hyder Beg Khan himself, "an accumulation of distress, debasement, and dissatisfaction to the Nabob, and of disappointment and disgrace to me.