being Salar Jung, uncle to the Nabob; and the first
female characters of the family being the mother and
grandmother of the reigning sovereign: all of
whom, male and female, he, the said Warren Hastings,
in sundry letters of his own, in the transmission of
various official documents, and even in affidavits
studiously collected and sworn before Sir Elijah Impey
during his short residence at Lucknow and Benares,
did himself represent as persons entirely disaffected
to the English power in India,—as having
been principal promoters, if not original contrivers,
of a general rebellion and revolt for the utter extirpation
of the English nation,—and as such, he,
the said Warren Hastings, did compel the Nabob reluctantly
to take from them their landed estates; and yet the
said Warren Hastings has had the presumption to attempt
to impose on the East India Company by pretending to
place his reliance on those three persons for a settlement
favorable to the Company’s interests, on his
renunciation of all their own power, authority, and
influence, and on his leaving their army to the sole
and uncontrolled discretion of a stranger, meriting
in his opinion the description given by him as aforesaid,
as well as by him frequently asserted to be politically
incapable of supporting his own power without the
aid of the forces of the Company. And the offence
of the said Warren Hastings, in abandoning a considerable
part of the British army in the manner aforesaid,
is much increased by the description which he has
himself given of the state of the said army, and particularly
of that part thereof which is stationed in the Nabob
of Oude’s dominions: for he did himself,
on the 29th of November, 1781, transmit the information
following, on that subject, to the Court of Directors,
namely,—“that the remote stations
of those troops, placing the commanding officers beyond
the notice and control of the board [the Council-General]
at Calcutta, afforded too much of opportunity and
temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and excited
the contagion of peculation and rapacity throughout
the whole army. A most remarkable instance
and uncontrovertible proof of the prevalence of this
spirit has been seen in the court-martial upon Captain
Erskine, where the court, composed of officers of
rank, and respectable characters, unanimously and honorably,
(most honorably,) upon an acknowledged fact,
acquitted him, which in times of stricter discipline
would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest
punishment.” From which representation (if
the said Warren Hastings did not falsely and unjustly
accuse and slander the Company’s service) it
appeared that the peculation which infected the whole
army, derived from the taint which it had in Oude,
and so fatal to the discipline of the troops, would
be dangerously increased by his treaty and agreement
aforesaid with the Nabob, and by his own said evil
counsel to the Court of Directors.