That the said Warren Hastings, on the 22d of June, 1778, made the following declaration in Council.  “Much less can I agree, that, with such superior advantages as we possess over every power which can oppose us, we should act merely on the defensive.  On the contrary, if it be really true that the British arms and influence have suffered so severe a check in the Western world, it is more incumbent on those who are charged with the interests of Great Britain in the East to exert themselves for the retrieval of the national loss.  We have the means in our power, and, if they are not frustrated by our own dissensions, I trust that the event of this expedition will yield every advantage for the attainment of which it was undertaken.”

That, in pursuance of the principles avowed in the preceding declaration, the said Warren Hastings, on the 9th of July, 1778, did propose and carry it in Council, that an embassy should be sent from Bengal to Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar,—­falsely asserting that the said Rajah “was, by interest and inclination, likely to join in an alliance with the British government, and suggesting that two advantages might be offered to him as the inducements to it:  first, the support of his pretensions to the sovereign power” (viz., of the Mahratta empire); “second, the recovery of the captures made on his dominions by Nizam Ali.”  That the said Hastings, having already given full authority to the Presidency of Bombay to engage the British faith to Ragonaut Row to support him in his pretensions to the government or to the regency of the Mahratta empire, was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor in proposing to engage the same British faith to support the pretensions of another competitor for the same object; and that, in offering to assist the Rajah of Berar to recover the captures made on his dominions by the Nizam, the said Hastings did endeavor, as far as depended on him, to engage the British nation in a most unjust and utterly unprovoked war against the said Nizam, between whom and the East India Company a treaty of peace and friendship did then subsist, unviolated on his part,—­notwithstanding the said Hastings well knew that it made part of the East India Company’s fundamental policy to support that prince against the Mahrattas, and to consider him as one of the few remaining chiefs who were yet capable of coping with the Mahrattas, and that it was the Company’s true interest to preserve a good understanding with him.  That, by holding out such offers to the Rajah of Berar, the said Hastings professed to hope that the Rajah would ardently catch at the objects presented to his ambition:  and although the said Hastings did about this time lay it down as a maxim that there is always a greater advantage in receiving solicitations than in making advances, he nevertheless declared to the said Rajah that in the whole of his conduct he had departed from the common line of policy, and had made advances