LXXXVIII.  That the said Hastings, after all the acts aforesaid, did presume to declare on record, in his minute of the 23d September, 1788, “that, whatever may happen of the events which he dreads in the train of affairs now subsisting, he shall at least receive this consolation under them, that he used his utmost exertions to prevent them, and that in the annals of the nations of India which have been subjected to the British dominions HE shall not be remembered among their oppressors.”  And speaking of certain alleged indignities offered to the Nabob of Oude, and certain alleged suspicions of his authority with regard to the management of his household, he, the said Hastings, did, in the said minute, endeavor to excite the spirit of the British nation, severely animadverting on such offences, making use of the following terms:  “If there be a spark of generous virtue in the breasts of any of my countrymen who shall be the readers of this compilation, this letter” (a letter of complaint from the Nabob) “shall stand for an instrument to awaken it to the call of vengeance against so flagitious an abuse of authority and reproach to the British name.”

From her Excellency the Bhow Begum to Mr. Bristow, Resident at the Vizier’s Court.

There is no necessity to write to you by way of information a detail of my sufferings.  From common report, and the intelligence of those who are about you, the account of them will have reached your ears.  I will here relate a part of them.

After the death of Sujah Dowlah, most of his ungrateful servants were constantly laboring to gratify their enmity; but finding, from the firm and sincere friendship which subsisted between me and the English, that the accomplishment of their purposes was frustrated, they formed the design of occasioning a breach in that alliance, to insure their own success.  I must acquaint you that my son Asoph ul Dowlah had formerly threatened to seize my jaghire; but, upon producing the treaty signed by you, and showing it to Mr. Middleton, he interfered, and prevented the impending evil.  The conspiration now framed an accusation against me of a conduct which I had never conceived even in idea, of rendering assistance to Rajah Cheyt Sing.  The particulars are as follow.  My son Asoph ul Dowlah and his ministers, with troops and a train of artillery, accompanied by Mr. Middleton, on the 16th of the month of Mohurum, arrived at Fyzabad, and made a demand of a crore of rupees.  As my inability to pay so vast a sum was manifest, I produced the treaty you signed and gave me, but to no effect:  their hearts were determined upon violence.  I offered my son Asoph ul Dowlah, whose will is dearer to me than all my riches, or even life itself, whatever money and goods I was possessed of:  but an amicable adjustment seemed not worth accepting:  he demanded the delivering up the fort, and the recall of the troops that were stationed for the preserving the peace of