he states the deplorable situation of princes reduced to dependence on the Vizier or the Company, and obliged to entertain an English Resident at their court, in the following words:  “It is proposed to receive the payment of his [the Rajah’s] rents at Patna, because that is the nearest provincial station, and because it would not frustrate the intention of rendering the Rajah independent.  If a Resident was appointed to receive the money, as it became due, at Benares, such a Resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over the Rajah, and over his country, which would in effect render him the master of both.  This consequence might not perhaps be brought completely to pass without a struggle and many appeals to the Council, which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate against the Rajah, and, by the construction to which his opposition to the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe restrictions, and end in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of a mere zemindar.”

X. That, in order to satisfy the said Rajah of the intentions of the Company towards him, and of the true sense and construction of the grants to him, the said Rajah, to be made, the Governor-General (he, the said Warren Hastings) and Council did, on the 24th August, 1775, instruct Mr. Fowke, the Resident at the Rajah’s court, in the following words:  “It is proper to assure the Rajah, we do not mean to increase his tribute, but to require from him an exact sum; that, under the sovereignty of the Company, we are determined to leave him the free and uncontrolled management of the internal government of his country, and the collection and regulation of the revenues, so long as he adheres to the terms of his engagement; and will never demand any augmentation of the annual tribute which may be fixed.”

XI.  That the said Warren Hastings and the Council-General, not being satisfied with having instructed the Resident to make the representation aforesaid, to remove all suspicion that by the new grants any attempt should insidiously be made to change his former tenure, did resolve that a letter should be written by the Governor-General himself to the Rajah of Benares, to be delivered to Mr. Fowke, the Resident, together with his credentials; in which letter they declare “the board willing to continue the grant of the zemindary to him in as full and ample a manner as he possessed it from former sovereigns; and on his paying the annual tribute,” &c;—­and in explaining the reasons for granting to him the mint and criminal justice, they inform him that this is done in order “that he may possess an uncontrolled and free authority in the regulation and government of his zemindary.”