a hearty desire of establishing a peace with us;
and that this was the disposition of all the parties
in the Mahratta confederacy, who were only kept together
by a general dread of their common enemy, the English,
and who only waited for a cessation of hostilities
with us to return to their habitual and permanent
enmity against each other. That the Governor-General
and Council, in their letter of 31st August, 1781,
made the following declaration to the Court of Directors.
“The Mahrattas have demanded the sacrifice of
the person of Ragonaut Row, the surrender of the fort
and territories of Ahmedabad, and of the fortress
of Gualior,
which are not ours to give, and which
we could not wrest from the proprietors without the
greatest violation of public faith. No state
of affairs, in our opinions, could warrant our acquiescence
to such requisition; and we are morally certain, that,
had we yielded to them, such a consciousness of the
state of our affairs would have been implied as would
have produced an effect the very reverse from that
for which it was intended, by raising the presumption
of the enemy to exact yet more
ignominious
terms, or perhaps their refusal to accept of any; nor,
in our opinion, would they have failed to excite in
others the same belief, and the consequent decision
of all parties against us, as the natural consequences
of our decline.” That the said Hastings
himself, in his instructions to Mr. David Anderson,
after authorizing him to restore
all that we
had conquered during the war, expressly “
excepted
Ahmedabad, and the territory conquered for Futty Sing
Gwicowar.” That, nevertheless, the said
Hastings, in the peace concluded by him, has yielded
to every one of the conditions reprobated in the preceding
declarations as
ignominious and incompatible
with public faith.
That the said Warren Hastings did abandon the Ranna
of Gohud in the manner already charged; and that the
said Ranna has not only lost the fort of Gualior,
but all his own country, and is himself a prisoner.
That the said Hastings did not interpose to obtain
any terms in favor of the Nabob of Bopaul, who was
with great reason desirous of concealing from the
Mahrattas the attachment he had borne to the English
government:[21] the said Nabob having a just dread
of the danger of being exposed to the resentment of
the Mahrattas, and no dependence on the faith and
protection of the English. That by the ninth article
of the treaty with Futty Sing it was stipulated, that,
when a negotiation for peace should take place, his
interest should be primarily considered; and that
Mr. David Anderson, the minister and representative
of the Governor-General and Council, did declare to
Sindia, that it was indispensably incumbent on us
to support Futty Sing’s rights: that, nevertheless,
every acquisition made for or by the said Futty Sing
during the war, particularly the fort and territories
of Ahmedabad, were given up by the said Hastings;