give evil and fraudulent counsel to the heir-apparent of the Mogul “to make advances to the Mahrattas,” when he well knew, and had expressly concurred in, the designs of that state against his father’s, the Mogul’s, dominions; and further to engage and entrap the said prince, did assert that “our government” (meaning the British government) “was in intimate and sworn connection with Mahdajee Sindia,” when no alliance, offensive or defensive, appears to exist between the said Sindia and the East India Company, nor can exist, otherwise than in virtue of some secret agreement between him, the said Sindia, and Warren Hastings, entered into by the latter without the knowledge of his colleagues and the government, and never communicated to the Court of Directors.  And, secondly, he did, in order to further the designs of the Mahrattas, contrive and effect the ruin of the said Mogul and his authority, by setting on foot, through the aforesaid Major Browne, sundry perplexed and intricate negotiations, contrary to public faith, and to the honor of the British nation; by which he did exceedingly increase the confusion and disorders of the Mogul’s court, exposing the said Mogul to new indignities, insults, and distresses, and almost all of the northern parts of India to great and ruinous convulsions, until three out of four of the principal chieftains, some of them possessing the territories lately belonging to Nudjif Khan, and maintaining among them eighty thousand troops of horse and foot, and some of which chiefs wore the ministers aforesaid, being cut off by their mutual dissensions, and the fort of Delhi being at length delivered to the Mahrattas, the said Sindia became the uncontrolled ruler of the royal army, and the person of the Mogul, with the use of all his pretensions and claims, fell into the hands of a nation already too powerful, together with an extensive territory, which entirely covers the Company’s possessions and dependencies on one side, and particularly those of the Nabob of Oude.

XX.  That the circumstances of these countries did, in the opinion of the said Warren Hastings himself, sufficiently indicate to him the necessity of not aggrandizing any power whatsoever on their borders, he having in the aforesaid letter of the 16th June given a deliberate opinion of the situation of Oude in the words following:  “That, whilst we are at peace with the powers of Europe, it is only in this quarter that your possessions under the government of Bengal are vulnerable.”  And he did further in the said letter state, that, “if things had continued as they had been to that time, with a divided government,” (viz., the Company’s and the Vizier’s, which government he had himself established, and under which it ever must in a great degree remain, whilst the said country continues in a state of dependence,) “the slightest shock from a foreign hand, or even an accidental internal commotion, might have thrown the whole into confusion, and produced the most fatal consequences.”