LXXVI.  That Warren Hastings, being at Lucknow in consequence of his deputation aforesaid, did, in his letter from that city, dated 30th of April, 1784, recommend to the Court of Directors, “as his last and ultimate hope, that their wisdom would put a final period to the ruinous and disreputable system of interference, whether avowed or secret, in the affairs of the Nabob of Oude, and withdraw forever the influence by which it is maintained,” and that they ought to confine their views to the sole maintenance of the old brigade stationed in Oude by virtue of the first treaty with the reigning Nabob, expressing himself in the following words to the Court of Directors.  “If you transgress that line, you may extend the distribution of patronage, and add to the fortunes of individuals, and to the nominal riches of Great Britain; but your own interests will suffer by it; and the ruin of a great and once flourishing nation will he recorded as the work of your administration, with an everlasting reproach to the British name.  To this reasoning I shall join the obligations of justice and good faith, which cut off every pretext for your exercising any power or authority in this country, as long as the sovereign of it fulfils the engagements he has articled with you.”

LXXVII.  That it appears by the extraordinary recommendation aforesaid, asserted by him, the said Hastings, to be enforced by the “obligations of justice and good faith,” that the said Warren Hastings, at the time of writing the said letter, had made an agreement to withdraw the British interference, represented by him as a “ruinous and disreputable system,” out of the dominions of the Nabob of Oude.  But the instrument itself, in which the said agreement is made, (if at all existing,) does not appear; nor hath the said Hastings transmitted any documents relative to the said treaty, which is a neglect highly criminal,—­especially as he has informed the Company, in his letter from Benares, “that he has promised the Nabob that he will not abandon him to the chance of any other mode of relation, and most confidently given him assurance of the ratification and confirmation of that which he [the said Hastings] had established between his government and the Company”:  the said confident assurance being given to an agreement never produced, and made without any sort of authority from the Court of Directors,—­an agreement precluding, on the one hand, the operation of the discretion of his masters in the conduct of their affairs, or, on the other, subjecting them to the hazard of an imputation on their faith, by breaking an engagement confidently made in their name, though without their consent, by the first officer of their government.