not communicating to the Council Board the order which he had, of his own authority, and without any powers from them, given to the said Resident, Willes, and did thereby prevent them from taking such steps as might counteract the ill effects of the said order; which order purported, that the said Willes was not to interfere with the Nabob of Furruckabad’s government, for the regulation of which he was in effect appointed to the Residency,—­declaring as follows:  “I rely much on your moderation and good judgment, which I hope will enable you to regulate your conduct towards the Nabob and his servants in such a manner, that, without interfering in the executive part of his government, you may render him essential service by your council and advice.”  And this restriction the said Hastings did impose, which totally frustrated the purpose of the Resident’s mission, though he well knew, and had frequently stated, the extreme imbecility and weakness of the said Nabob of Furruckabad, and his subjection to unworthy servants; and in the Minute of Consultation upon which he founded the appointment did state the Nabob of Furruckabad “as a weak and unexperienced young man, who had abandoned himself entirely to the discretion of his servants, and the restoration of his independence was followed by a total breach of the engagements he had promised to fulfil, attended by pointed instances of contumacy and disrespect”; and in the said minute the said Hastings adds, (as before mentioned,) his principal servant and manager had propagated a report that the “interference” (namely, his, the said Hastings’s, interference) “to which his master owed the power he then enjoyed was purchased by him,” the principal servant aforesaid:  yet he, the said Hastings, who had assigned on record the character of the said Nabob, and the conduct of his servants, and the aforesaid report of his principal servant, so highly dishonorable to him, the said Hastings, as reasons for taking away the independency of the Nabob of Furruckabad, and the subjecting him to the oppression of the Nabob of Oude’s officer, Almas Ali, did again himself establish the pretended independence of the said prince of Furruckabad, and the real independence of his corrupt and perfidious servants, not against the Nabob of Oude, but against a British Resident appointed by himself ("as a character eminently qualified for such a charge”) for the correction of those evils, and for rendering the prince aforesaid an useful ally to the Company, and restoring his dominions to order and plenty.

That the said Hastings did not only disable the Resident at Furruckabad by his said prohibitory letter, but did render his very remaining at all in that station perfectly precarious by a subsequent letter, rendering him liable to dismission by the Vizier,—­thereby changing the tenure of the Resident’s office, and changing him from a minister of the Company, dependent on the Governor-General and Council, to a dependant