XXII.  That, in consequence of all the before-recited intrigues, the Mogul emperor being in the hands of the Mahrattas, he, the said Mogul, has been obliged to declare the head of the Mahratta state to be vicegerent of the Mogul empire, an authority which supersedes that of Vizier, and has thereby consolidated in the Mahratta state all the powers acknowledged to be of legal authority in India; in consequence of which, they have acquired, and have actually already attempted to use, the said claims of general superiority against the Company itself,—­the Mahrattas claiming a right in themselves to a fourth part of the revenues of all the provinces in the Company’s possession, and claiming, in right of the Mogul, the tribute due to him:  by which actings and doings the said Hastings has to the best of his power brought the British provinces in India into a dependence on the Mahratta state:  and in order to add to the aforesaid enormous claims a proportioned force, he did never cease, during his stay in India, to contrive the means for its increase; for it is of public notoriety, that one great object of the Mahratta policy is to unite under their dominion the nation or religious sect of the Seiks, who, being a people abounding with soldiers, and possessing large territories, would extend the Mahratta power over the whole of the vast countries to the northwest of India.

XXIII.  That the said Warren Hastings, further to augment the power of the said Mahrattas, and to endanger the safety of the British possessions, having established in force the said Mahrattas on the frontier, as afore-recited, and finding the Council-General averse in that situation to the withdrawing the British forces therefrom, and for disbanding them to the extent required by the said Hastings, did, in a minute of the 4th December, 1784, after stating a supposition, that, contrary to his opinion, the said troops should not be reduced, propose to employ them under the command of the Mogul’s son, then under the influence of the Mahrattas, in a war against the aforesaid people or religious sect called Seiks, defending the same on the following principles:  “I feel the sense of an obligation, imposed on me by the supposition I have made, to state a mode of rendering the detachment of use in its prescribed station, and of affording the appearance of a cause for its retention.”

XXIV.  That the said Hastings did admit that there was no present danger to the Company’s possessions from that nation which could justify him in such a war, as he had declared that the Mahrattas were the only power that bordered on the Company’s possessions and those of the Vizier; but he did assign as a reason for going to war with them their military and enthusiastic spirit,—­the hardiness of their natural constitution,—­the dangers which might arise from them in some future time, if they should ever happen to be united under one head, they existing at present in a state little different