LXXXI.  That the violent proceedings of the said Warren Hastings did tend to impress all the neighboring princes, some of whom were allied in blood to the oppressed women of rank aforesaid, with an ill opinion of the faith, honor, and decency of the British nation; and accordingly, on the journey aforesaid made by the Nabob from Lucknow to Fyzabad, in which the said Nabob did restore, in the manner before mentioned, the confiscated estates of his mother and grandmother, and did afterwards revoke his said grant, it appears that the said journey did cause a general alarm (the worst motives obtaining the most easy credit with regard to any future proceeding, on account of the foregone acts) and excited great indignation among the ruling persons of the adjacent country, insomuch that Major Brown, agent to the said Warren Hastings at the court of the King Shah Allum at Delhi, did write a remonstrance therein to Mr. Bristow, Resident at Oude, as follows.

“The evening of the 7th, at a conference I had with Mirza Shaffee Khan, he introduced a subject, respecting the Nabob Vizier, which, however it may be disagreeable for you to know, and consequently for me to communicate, I am under a necessity of laying before you.  He told me he had received information from Lucknow, that, by the advice of Hyder Beg Khan, the Vizier had determined to bring his grandmother, the widow of Sufdar Jung, from Fyzabad to Lucknow, with a view of getting a further sum of money from her, by seizing on her eunuchs, digging up the apartments of her house at Fyzabad, and putting her own person under restraint.  This, he said, he knew was not an act of our government, but the mere advice of Hyder Beg Khan, to which the Vizier had been induced to attend.  He added, that the old Begum had resolved rather to put herself to death than submit to the disgrace intended to be put upon her; that, if such a circumstance should happen, there is not a man in Hindostan who will attribute the act to the Vizier [Nabob of Oude], but every one will fix the odium on the English, who might easily, by the influence they so largely exercise in their own concerns there, have prevented such unnatural conduct in the Vizier.  He therefore called upon me, as the English representative in this quarter, to inform you of this, that you may prevent a step which will destroy all confidence in the English nation throughout Hindostan, and excite the bitterest resentment in all those who by blood are connected with the house of Sufdar Jung.  He concluded by saying, that, ’if the Vizier so little regarded his family and personal honor, or his natural duty, as to wish to disgrace his father’s mother for a sum of money, let him plunder her of all she has, but let him send her safe up to Delhi or Agra, and, poor as I am, I will furnish subsistence for her, which she shall possess with safety and honor, though it cannot be adequate to her rank.’

“This, Sir, is a most exact detail of the conversation (as far as related to that affair) on the part of Mirza Shaffee Khan.  On my part I could only say, that I imagined the affair was misrepresented, and that I should write as he requested.  Let me therefore request that you will enable me to answer in a more effectual manner any further questions on this subject.