V. That the said Warren Hastings did, on the 20th day of January, 1784, send in circulation to the other members of the Council a letter to him from his agent, Major Browne, dated at Delhi, on the 30th of December, 1783, viz., that letter to which the foregoing references are made, in which the said Browne did directly press, and indirectly (though sufficiently and strongly) suggest, several highly dangerous measures for realizing the general offers and engagements of the said Warren Hastings,—proposing, that, besides a proportion of field artillery, and a train of battering cannon for the purpose of sieges, six regiments of sepoys in the Company's service should be transferred to that of the said king, and that certain other corps should also be raised for the said service in the English provinces and dependencies, to be immediately under the king's [the Mogul's] orders, and to be maintained by assignments of territorial revenue within the province of Oude, a dependent member of the British government, but with a caution against having any British officer with the same; the said Major Browne expressing his caution as followeth: "If any European officer be with this corps, a very nice judgment indeed must direct the choice; for scarce any are in the smallest degree fit for such employ, but much more likely to do harm than good." And the letter aforesaid being without any observation thereon, or any disavowal of the matters of fact or of the counsels so strongly and authoritatively delivered therein by the said Warren Hastings's agent, and without any mark of disapprobation of any part of his plan, whether that of the assignment of territory belonging to the Company's allies for the maintenance of troops which were to be by that plan put
under the orders of a foreign independent power, or that of employing the said troops without any British officer with them, or for his alarming observation by him entered on the Company's records, which, if not an implied censure on the nature of the service in which British officers are supposed improper to be trusted, is a strong reflection on the character of the British officers, which was to render them unfit to be employed in an honorable service,—the said Warren Hastings did thereby give a countenance to the said unwarrantable and dangerous proposals and reflections.
VI. That a considerable time before the production and circulation of Major Browne's letter, the said Hastings did enter a Minute of Consultation containing a proposition similar in the general intent to that in the said letter contained for assisting the Mogul with a military force; but the other members of the board did disagree thereto, and, being alarmed at the disposition so strongly shown by the said Hastings to engage in new wars and dangerous foreign connections, and possibly having intelligence of the proceedings of his agent, did call upon him to produce his instructions to Major Browne; and he did, on the 5th of October, 1783, and not before, enter on the Consultations a certain paper purporting to be the instructions which he had given to Major Browne the preceding March, the time of his, the said Browne's, appointment, in which pretended instructions no direction whatsoever was given to the effect of his, the said Hastings's, Minute of Consultation propounded: that is to say, no power was given in the said instructions to make a direct offer of military aid to the
Mogul, or to form the arrangements stated by the said Browne, in his letter to the said Hastings, as having been made by the express authority of the said Hastings himself; but the said instructions contained nothing further on that subject but a conditional direction, that, in case a military force should be required for the Mogul's aid or protection, the Major is to know the service on which it is to be employed, and the resources from whence it is to be paid; and the instructions produced as his real instructions by the said Hastings are so guarded as to caution the said Browne against taking any part in the intrigues of those who are about the King's person. By which letters, instructions, and transactions, compared with each other, it appears that the said Warren Hastings, after six months' delay in entering of (contrary to the Company's order) any instructions to the said Browne, did at last enter a false paper as the true, or that he did give other secret instructions, totally different from, and even opposite to, his public ostensible instructions, thereby to deceive the Council, and to carry on with less obstruction dark and dangerous intrigues, contrary to the orders of the Court of Directors, to the true policy of this kingdom, and to the safety of the British possessions in the East.
VII. That the said letter from Major Browne was by the said Warren Hastings transmitted to the Court of Directors, without being accompanied by any part of the previous correspondence; by which wilful concealment the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high and criminal disrespect to the Court of Directors, and of a most flagrant breach and violation of their orders, which he was bound by an act of Parliament to obey.
VIII. That the said Hastings having early in the year 1784 procured to himself a deputation to act in the upper provinces, the Council, being well aware of his disposition to engage in unwarrantable designs against the neighboring states, did expressly confine his powers to the circumstance of his actual residence within the Company's provinces. But it appears that ways were found out by which he hoped to defeat the precautions of the board: for the said Warren Hastings did write from Lucknow, the capital of the country of Oude, to the Court of Directors, a certain postscript of a letter, dated the 4th of May, 1784, in which he informs the Court that the son and heir-apparent of the Great Mogul had taken refuge with him and the Nabob of Oude; that he had a conference with that prince on the 10th of the same month of May, "no person being either present or within hearing" during the same; and that in the said conference the prince had informed him of the distresses of his father, and his wish for the relief of the king and the restoration of the dominions of his house, as well as to rescue him from the power of certain persons not named, who degraded him into a mere instrument of their interested and sordid designs, and that, on a failure of his application to him, he would either return to his father, or proceed to Calcutta, and thence to England; and that the said Warren Hastings did give him an answer to the following effect: "That our [the British] government had just obtained relief from a state of universal warfare, and required a term of repose; that our whole nation was weary of war, and dreaded the renewal of it, and would he equally alarmed at any movement of which it could not see the issue or progress,
but which might eventually tend to create new hostilities; that he came hither [to Lucknow] with a limited authority, and could not, if he chose it, engage in a business of that nature without the concurrence of his colleagues in office, who he believed would be adverse to it; that he would represent the same to the joint members of his own government, and wait their determination. In the mean time he advised the prince to make advances to Mahdajee Sindia, both because our government was in intimate and sworn connection with him, and because he was the effectual head of the Mahratta state; besides that he [the said Warren Hastings] feared his [Sindia's] taking the other side of the question, unless he was early prevented."
IX. That in the statement of this discourse there is much criminal reserve towards the Court of Directors,—it not appearing distinctly what the objects were, nor who the persons concerned, nor what the side was which he apprehended the Mahrattas might take, if not prevented by his advances; and in the discourse itself there were many particulars highly criminal, namely,—for that in the said conversation, in which he describes himself as declining a compliance with the request of the prince on account of the aversion (therein strongly expressed) of his colleagues, of the Company, and of the whole British nation, to engage in any measures which might even "eventually lead to hostilities," he spoke to the prince as if he had been entirely ignorant of the offers which but five months before had been made to the king, his father, on the part of that very government, (whose repugnance to such measures he then for the