pointed by the act of parliament of 1773, whose opinion was by the said act directed to be taken as the act of the whole council, to produce all his correspondence with Mr. Middle ton and Colonel Champion for the direction of their future proceedings relative to the obscure, intricate, and critical transaction aforesaid, he did positively and pertinaciously refuse to deliver any other than such parts of the said cor respondence as he thought convenient; covering his said illegal refusal under general vague pretences of secrecy and danger from the communication; although the said order and instruction of the court of directors above mentioned was urged to him, and although it was represented to him by the said council, that they, as well as he, were bound by an oath of secrecy; which refusal to obey the orders of the court of directors (orders specially, and on weighty grounds of experience, pointed to cases of this very nature) gave to much jealousy, and excited great suspicions relative t the motives and grounds on which the Rohilla war had beer undertaken.

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That the said Warren Hastings, in the grounds alleged in his justification of his refusal to communicate to his col leagues in the superior council his correspondence with Mr Middleton, the Company's resident at Oude, was guilty of new offence; arrogating to himself unprecedented and dan gerous powers, on principles utterly subversive of all orde and discipline in service, and introductory to corrupt confe deracies and disobedience among the Company's servants the said Warren Hastings insisting, that Mr. Middleton, the Company's covenanted servant, the public resident for trans acting the Company's affairs at the court of the Soubah of Oude, and as such receiving from the Company a salary for his service, was no other than the official agent of him the said Warren Hastings, and that, being such, he was not obliged to communicate his correspondence.

That the court of directors, and afterwards a general court of the proprietors of the East-India Company, although the latter showed favourable dispositions towards the said War ren Hastings, and expressed (but without assigning any ground or reason) the highest opinion of his services and in tegrity, did unanimously condemn (along with his conduct relative to the Rohilla treaty and war) his refusal to com

municate his whole correspondence with Mr. Middleton to the superior council; yet the said Warren Hastings, in defiance of the opinion of the directors, and the unanimous opinion of the general court of the said East-India Company, well as the precedent positive orders of the court of directors, and the injunctions of an act of parliament, has, from that time to the present, never made any communication of the whole of his correspondence to the governorgeneral and council, or to the court of directors.

II. SHAW ALLUM.

THAT, in a solemn treaty of peace, concluded the 16th of August, 1765, between the East-India Company and the late Nabob of Oude, Shuja ul Dowla, and highly approved of, confirmed, and ratified by the said Company, it is agreed, that the king Shaw Allum shall remain in full possession of Corah, and such part of the province of Illiabad as he now possesses, which are ceded to his Majesty as a royal demesne for the support of his dignity and expenses.' That, in a separate agreement, concluded at the same time between the king Shaw Allum and the then subadar of Bengal, under the immediate security and guarantee of the English Company, the faith of the Company was pledged to the said king for the annual payment of twenty-six lacks of rupees for his support out of the revenues of Bengal; and that the said Company did then receive from the said king grant of the dewanny of the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, on the express condition of their being security for the annual payment above mentioned; that the EastIndia Company have held, and continue to hold the dewanny so granted, and for some years have complied with the conditions on which they accepted of the grant thereof; and have at all times acknowledged, that they held the dewanny in virtue of the Mogul's grants. That the said court of directors, in their letter of the 30th June, 1769, to Bengal, declared, "that they esteemed themselves bound by treaty to protect the king's person, and to secure him the possession

of the Corah and Illahabad districts ;" and, supposing an agreement should be made respecting these provinces be tween the king and Shuja ul Dowla, the directors then said, "that they should be subject to no further claim or requisition from the king, excepting for the stipulated tribute for Bengal, which they (the governor and council) were to pay to his agent, or remit to him in such manner as he might direct."

That in the year 1772 the king Shaw Allum, who had hitherto resided at Allahabad, trusting to engagements which he had entered into with the Mahrattas, quitted that place and removed to Delhi; but, having soon quarrelled with those people, and afterwards being taken prisoner, had been treated by them with very great disrespect and cruelty:that among other instances of their abuse of their immediate power over him, the governor and council of Bengal, in their letter of the 16th of August, 1773, inform the court of directors, that he had been compelled, while a prisoner in their hands, to grant sunnuds for the surrender of Corah and Illiabad to them; and it appears from sundry other minutes of their own, that the said governor and council did at all times consider the surrender above mentioned as extorted from the king, and unquestionably an act of violence, which could not alienate or impair his right to those provinces; and that when they took possession thereof, it was at the request of the king's naib, or viceroy, who put them under the council's protection; that on this footing they were ac cepted by the said Warren Hastings and his council, and for some time considered by them as a deposit committed to their care by a prince, to whom the possession thereof was par ticularly guaranteed by the East-India Company.-In their letter of the 1st of March, 1773, they (the said Warren Hastings and his council) say, " In no shape can this com pulsory cession by the king release us from the obligation we are under to defend the provinces, which we have so particularly guaranteed to him." But it appears, that they soon adopted other ideas, and assumed other principles concerning this object. In the instructions, dated the 23rd of June, 1773, which the council of Fort William gave to the said Warren Hastings, previous to his interview with the Nabob Shuja ul Dowla at Benares, they say, that "while

the king continued at Delhi, whither he proceeded in opposition to their most strenuous remonstrances, they should certainly consider the engagements between him and the Company as dissolved by his alienation from them and their interest; that the possession of so remote a country could never be expected to yield any profit to the Company, and the defence of it must require a perpetual aid of their forces;" yet in the same instructions they declare their opinion, that, "if the king should make overtures to renew his former connexion, his right to reclaim the districts of Corah and Illiabad could not with propriety be disputed; and they authorize the said Warren Hastings to restore them to him on condition, that he should renounce his claim to the annual tribute of twenty-six lacks of rupees, herein before mentioned, and to the arrears which might be due ;-thereby acknowledging the justice of a claim, which they determined not to comply with but in return for the surrender of another equally valid;—that, nevertheless, in the treaty concluded by the said Warren Hastings with Shuja ul Dowla on the 7th of September, 1773, it is asserted, that his Majesty (meaning the king Shaw Allum)" having abandoned the districts of Corah and Illiabad, and given a sunnud for Corah and Currah to the Mahrattas, had thereby forfeited his right to the said districts," although it was well known to the said Warren Hastings, and had been so stated by him to the court of directors, that this surrender on the part of the king had been extorted from him by violence, while he was prisoner in the hands of the Mahrattas, and although it was equally well known to the said Warren Hastings, that there was nothing in the original treaty of 1765, which could restrain the king from changing the place of his redence, consequently that his removal to Delhi could not ccasion a forfeiture of his right to the provinces secured to Lim by that treaty.

That the said Warren Hastings in the report, which he nade of his interview and negotiations with Shujah ul Dowla, cated the 4th of October, 1773, declared, "that the adtainistration would have been culpable in the highest degree in retaining possession of Corah and Illiabad for any other purpose than that of making an advantage by the disposal of them," and therefore he had ceded them to the vizier for fifty lacks of rupees, a measure, for which he had no authority

whatever from the king Shaw Allum, and in the execution of which no reserve whatever was made in favour of the rights of that prince, nor any care taken of his interests.

That the sale of these provinces to Suja Dowla involved the East-India Company in a triple breach of justice, since by the same act they violated a treaty, they sold the property of another, and they alienated a deposit committed to their friendship and good faith, and as such accepted by them:that a measure of this nature is not to be defended on motives of policy and convenience, supposing such motives to have existed, without a total loss of public honour, and shaking all security in the faith of treaties; but that in reality the pretences urged by the said Warren Hastings for selling the king's country to Suja Dowla were false and invalid.-It could not strengthen our alliance with Sujah ul Dowla; since, paying a price for a purchase, he received no favour, and incurred no obligation. It did not free the Company from all the dangers attending either a remote property or a remote connexion; since, the moment the country in question became part of Suja Dowla's dominions, it was included in the Company's former guarantee of those dominions, and in case of invasion the Company were obliged to send part of their army to defend it at the requisition of the said Suja Dowla; and if the remote situation of those provinces made the defence of them difficult and dangerous, much more was it a difficult and dangerous enterprise to engage the Company's force in an attack and invasion of the Rohillas, whose country lay at a much greater distance from the Company's frontier; which, nevertheless, the said Warren Hastings agreed to, and undertook at the very time, when, under pretence of the difficulty of defending Corah and Illiabad, he sold those provinces to Suja Dowla It did not relieve the Company from the expense of defending the country, since the revenues thereof far exceeded the subsidy to be paid by Suja Dowla, and these revenues justly belonged to the Company as long as the country continued under their protection, and would have answered the expense of defending it.-Finally, that the sum of fifty lacks of rupees, stipulated with the said Suja Dowla, was inadequate to the value of the country, the annual revenues of which were stated at twenty-five lacks of rupees, which General Sir Robert Barker, then commander