4thly.  That, with a view to his further justification, the said Hastings doth advance a principle that “a scrupulous attention to the literal expression” of a guarantied treaty “leaves” to the person so observing the same “but little claim to the exertions” of a guaranty on his behalf; that such a principle is utterly subversive of all faith of guaranties, and is therefore highly criminal in the first executive member of a government that must necessarily stand in that mutual relation to many.

5thly.  That the said Hastings doth profess his opinion of an article to which he gave an “instant and unqualified assent,” that it was a measure “by which neither the Vizier’s nor the Company’s interests would be promoted,” but from which, without some interposition, “ill effects” must be expected; and that the said Hastings doth thereby charge himself with a high breach of trust towards his employers.

6thly.  That the said Hastings having thus confessed that consciously and wilfully (from what motives he hath not chosen to confess) he did give his formal sanction to a measure both of injustice and impolicy, he, the said Hastings, doth urge in his defence, that he did at the same time insert words “reserving the execution of the said agreement to an indefinite term,” with an intent that it might in truth be never executed at all,—­but that “our government might always interpose,” without right, by means of an indirect and undue influence, to prevent the ill effects following from a collusive surrender of a clear and authorized right to interpose; and the said Hastings doth thereby declare himself to have introduced a principle of duplicity, deceit, and double-dealing into a public engagement, which ought in its essence to be clear, open, and explicit; that such a declaration tends to shake and overthrow the confidence of all in the most solemn instruments of any person so declaring, and is therefore an high crime and misdemeanor in the first executive member of government, by whom all treaties and other engagements of the state are principally to be conducted.

V. That, by the explanatory minute aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings doth further, in the most direct manner, contradict his own assertions in the very letter which inclosed the said minute to his colleagues; for that one of the articles to which he there gave “an instant and unqualified assent, as no less to our interest than to the Vizier’s” he doth here declare unequivocally to be neither to our interests nor the Vizier’s; and the “unqualified assent” given to the said article is now so qualified as wholly to defeat itself.  That by such irreconcilable contradictions the said Hastings doth incur the suspicion of much criminal misrepresentation in other like cases of unwitnessed conferences; and in the present instance (as far as it extends) the said Hastings doth prove himself to have given an account both of his actions and motives by his own confession untrue, for the purpose of deceiving his employers, which is an high crime and misdemeanor in a servant of so great trust.