did, on the 17th of May, 1782, by the agency of Mr. David Anderson, conclude another treaty of perpetual friendship and alliance with the Mahrattas, by which the said Hastings agreed to deliver up to them all the countries, places, cities, and forts, particularly the island of Bassein, (taken from the Peshwa during the war,) and to relinquish all claim to the country of three lacs of rupees ceded to the Company by the treaty of Poorunder; that the said Warren Hastings did also at the said time, by a private and separate agreement, deliver up to Mahdajee Sindia the whole of the city of Baroach,—that is, not only the share in the said city which the India Company acquired by the treaty of Poorunder, but the other share thereof which the India Company possessed for several years before that treaty; and that among the reasons assigned by Mr. David Anderson for totally stripping the Presidency of Bombay of all their possessions on the Malabar coast, he has declared, "that, from the general tenor of the rest of the treaty, the settlement of Bombay would be in future put on such a footing that it might well become a question whether the possession of an inconsiderable territory without forts would not be attended with more loss than advantage, as it must necessarily occasion considerable expense, must require troops for its defence, and might probably in the end lead, as Sindia apprehended, to a renewal of war."
That the said Warren Hastings, having in this manner put an end to a war commenced by him without provocation, and continued by him without necessity, and having for that purpose made so many sacrifices to the Mahrattas in points of essential interest to the India Company, did consent and agree to
other articles utterly dishonorable to the British name and character, having sacrificed or abandoned every one of the native princes who by his solicitations and promises had been engaged to take part with us in the war,—and that he did so without necessity: since it appears that Sindia, the Mahratta chief who concluded the treaty, in every part of his conduct manifested a hearty desire of establishing a peace with us; and that this was the disposition of all the parties in the Mahratta confederacy, who were only kept together by a general dread of their common enemy, the English, and who only waited for a cessation of hostilities with us to return to their habitual and permanent enmity against each other. That the Governor-General and Council, in their letter of 31st August, 1781, made the following declaration to the Court of Directors. "The Mahrattas have demanded the sacrifice of the person of Ragonaut Row, the surrender of the fort and territories of Ahmedabad, and of the fortress of Gualior, which are not ours to give, and which we could not wrest from the proprietors without the greatest violation of public faith. No state of affairs, in our opinions, could warrant our acquiescence to such requisition; and we are morally certain, that, had we yielded to them, such a consciousness of the state of our affairs would have been implied as would have produced an effect the very reverse from that for which it was intended, by raising the presumption of the enemy to exact yet more ignominious terms, or perhaps their refusal to accept of any; nor, in our opinion, would they have failed to excite in others the same belief, and the consequent decision of all parties against us, as the natural consequences of our decline." That the said Hastings himself, in his instructions to Mr.
David Anderson, after authorizing him to restore all that we had conquered during the war, expressly "excepted Ahmedabad, and the territory conquered for Futty Sing Gwicowar." That, nevertheless, the said Hastings, in the peace concluded by him, has yielded to every one of the conditions reprobated in the preceding declarations as ignominious and incompatible with public faith.
That the said Warren Hastings did abandon the Ranna of Gohud in the manner already charged; and that the said Ranna has not only lost the fort of Gualior, but all his own country, and is himself a prisoner. That the said Hastings did not interpose to obtain any terms in favor of the Nabob of Bopaul, who was with great reason desirous of concealing from the Mahrattas the attachment he had borne to the English government:[21] the said Nabob having a just dread of the danger of being exposed to the resentment of the Mahrattas, and no dependence on the faith and protection of the English. That by the ninth article of the treaty with Futty Sing it was stipulated, that, when a negotiation for peace should take place, his interest should be primarily considered; and that Mr. David Anderson, the minister and representative of the Governor-General and Council, did declare to Sindia, that it was indispensably incumbent on us to support Futty Sing's rights: that, nevertheless, every acquisition made for or by the said Futty Sing during the war, particularly the fort and territories of Ahmedabad, were given up by the said Hastings; that Futty Sing was replaced under the subjection of the Peshwa, (whose resentment he had provoked by taking part with us in the war,) and under an obligation
to pay a tribute, not specified, to the Peshwa, and to perform such services and to be subject to such obedience as had long been established and customary; and that, no limit being fixed to such tribute or services, the said Futty Sing has been left wholly at the mercy of the Mahrattas.
That, with respect to Ragoba, the said Hastings, in his instructions to Mr. Anderson, dated 4th of November, 1781, contented himself with saying, "We cannot totally abandon the interests of Ragonaut Row. Endeavor to obtain for him an adequate provision." That Mr. Anderson declared to Mahdajee Sindia,[22] "that, as we had given Ragoba protection as an independent prince, and not brought him into our settlement as a prisoner, we could not in honor pretend to impose the smallest restraint on his will, and he must be at liberty to go wherever he pleased; that it must rest with Sindia himself to prevail on him to reside in his country: all that we could do was to agree, after a reasonable time, to withdraw our protection from him, and not to insist on the payment of the stipend to him, as Sindia had proposed, unless on the condition of his residing in some part of Sindia's territories."
That, notwithstanding all the preceding declarations, and in violation of the public faith repeatedly pledged to Ragoba, he was totally abandoned by the said Hastings in the treaty, no provision whatever being made even for his subsistence, but on a condition to which he could not submit without the certain loss of his liberty and probable hazard of his life, namely, that he should voluntarily and of his own accord repair to Sindia, and quietly reside with
him. That such treacherous desertion of the said Ragoba is not capable of being justified by any plea of necessity: but that in fact no such necessity existed; since it appears that the Nizam, who of all the contracting parties in the confederacy was personally most hostile to Ragoba, did himself propose that Ragoba, might have an option given him of residing within the Company's territories.
That the plan of negotiating a peace with the Mahrattas by application to Sindia, and through his mediation, was earnestly recommended to the said Hastings by the Presidency of Bombay so early as in February, 1779, who stated clearly to him the reasons why such application ought to be made to Sindia in preference to any other of the Mahratta chiefs, and why it would probably be successful; the truth and justice of which reasons were fully evinced in the issue, when the said Hastings, after incurring, by two years' delay, all the losses and distresses of a calamitous war, did actually pursue that very plan with much less effect or advantage than might have been obtained at the time the advice was given. That he neglected the advice of the Presidency of Bombay, and retarded the peace, as well as made its conditions worse, from an obstinate attachment to his project of an alliance offensive and defensive with the Rajah of Berar, the object of which was rather a new war than a termination of the war then existing against the Peshwa.