That Warren Hastings, in contradiction to this safe, just, and honorable 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 Mahdajee Sindia, in hostile designs against the few remaining territories of that same Mogul emperor, 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 Khan, 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 emperor, 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 attempt, did give a caution to Colonel Muir, to whom the negotiation aforesaid was intrusted on the part of the Company, against "inserting anything in the treaty which might _expressly_ mark our _knowledge_ of his [the Mahratta 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 interests of this kingdom in India.
IV.

That, after having concurred, in the manner before mentioned, in a design of the Mahrattas against the Mogul, and notwithstanding he, the said Warren Hastings, had formerly declared, "that with him [the Mogul] our connection had been a long time suspended, and _he wished never to see it renewed_, as it had proved a fatal drain to the wealth of Bengal and the treasury of the Company, without yielding one advantage or possible resource, even of remote benefits, in return," the said Warren Hastings did nevertheless, on or about the month of March, 1783, with the privity and consent of the members of the board, but by no authoritative act, dispatch, as agents of him, the Governor-General only, and not as agents of the Governor-General and Council, as they ought to have been, certain persons, among whom were Major Browne and Major Davy, to the court of the king at Delhi, and did there enter into certain engagements with the said king by the means of those agents, and did carry on certain private and dangerous intrigues for various purposes, particularly for making war in favor of the said king against some powers or princes not precisely described, but which, as may be inferred from a subsequent correspondence, were certain Mahomedan princes in the neighborhood of Delhi in amity with the Company, and some of them at that time in the actual service and in the apparent confidence and favor of the said Mogul; and he did order Major Browne to offer to the Mogul king to provide for the _entire_ expense of _any_ troops the Shah [the said king] might require; and the proposal was accordingly accepted, with the conditions annexed: by which proposal and acceptance thereof the East India Company was placed in a situation of great and perplexing difficulty; since either they were to engage, at an unlimited _expense_, in new wars, contrary to their orders, contrary to their general declared policy, and contrary to the published resolutions of the House of Commons, and wholly incompatible with the state of their finances, or, to preserve peace, they must risk the imputation of a new violation of faith, by departing from an agreement made on the voluntary proposal of their own government,--the agent of the said Hastings having declared, in his letter to the said Hastings, by him communicated to the board, "that the business of assisting the Shah [the Mogul emperor] can and _must_ go on, if we wish to be secure in India, or regarded as a nation of faith and honor." V.That the said Warren Hastings did, on the 20th day of January, 1784, send in circulation to the other members of the Council a letter to him from his agent, Major Browne, dated at Delhi, on the 30th of December, 1783, viz., that letter to which the foregoing references are made, in which the said Browne did directly press, and indirectly (though sufficiently and strongly) suggest, several highly dangerous measures for realizing the general offers and engagements of the said Warren Hastings,--proposing, that, besides a proportion of field artillery, and a train of battering cannon for the purpose of sieges, six regiments of sepoys in the Company's service should be transferred to that of the said king, and that certain other corps should also be raised for the said service in the English provinces and dependencies, to be immediately under the king's [the Mogul's] orders, and to be maintained by assignments of territorial revenue within the province of Oude, a dependent member of the British government, but with a caution against having any British officer with the same; the said Major Browne expressing his caution as followeth: "If any European officer _be_ with this corps, a very nice judgment indeed must direct the choice; for scarce any are in the smallest degree _fit_ for _such_ employ, but much more likely to do harm than good." And the letter aforesaid being without any observation thereon, or any disavowal of the matters of fact or of the counsels so strongly and authoritatively delivered therein by the said Warren Hastings's agent, and without any mark of disapprobation of any part of his plan, whether that of the assignment of territory belonging to the Company's allies for the maintenance of troops which were to be by that plan put under the orders of a foreign independent power, or that of employing the said troops without any British officer with them, or for his alarming observation by him entered on the Company's records, which, if not an implied censure on the nature of the service in which British officers are supposed improper to be trusted, is a strong reflection on the character of the British officers, which was to render them unfit to be employed in an honorable service,--the said Warren Hastings did thereby give a countenance to the said unwarrantable and dangerous proposals and reflections.
VI.

That a considerable time before the production and circulation of Major Browne's letter, the said Hastings did enter a Minute of Consultation containing a proposition similar in the general intent to that in the said letter contained for assisting the Mogul with a military force; but the other members of the board did disagree thereto, and, being alarmed at the disposition so strongly shown by the said Hastings to engage in new wars and dangerous foreign connections, and possibly having intelligence of the proceedings of his agent, did call upon him to produce his instructions to Major Browne; and he did, on the 5th of October, 1783, and not before, enter on the Consultations a certain paper purporting to be the instructions which he had given to Major Browne the preceding March, the time of his, the said Browne's, appointment, in which pretended instructions no direction whatsoever was given to the effect of his, the said Hastings's, Minute of Consultation propounded: that is to say, no power was given in the said instructions to make a direct offer of military aid to the Mogul, or to form the arrangements stated by the said Browne, in his letter to the said Hastings, as having been made by the express authority of the said Hastings himself; but the said instructions contained nothing further on that subject but a conditional direction, that, in case a military force should be required for the Mogul's aid or protection, the Major is to know the service on which it is to be employed, and the resources from whence it is to be paid; and the instructions produced as his real instructions by the said Hastings are so guarded as to caution the said Browne against _taking any part in the intrigues of those who are about the King's person_.