after the date of the conversations aforesaid, that, "on the eve of the governor-general's departure, the said Hastings had told him, that the Rajah's offences (not stating what offences, he having paid up all the demands, ordinary and extraordinary) were declared to require early punishment; and as his wealth was great, and the Company's exigencies pressing, it was thought a measure of policy and justice to exact from him a large pecuniary mulet for their relief. The sum, to which the governor declared his resolution to extend the fine, was forty or fifty lacks; his ability to pay it was stated as a fact, that could not admit of a doubt; and the two alternatives, on which the governor declared himself to have resolved, were, to the best of my recollection, either a removal from his zemindary entirely; or, by taking immediate possession of all his forts, to obtain out of the treasure deposited in them the above sum for the Company."

XV.

That, in the declaration of the said Wheler, the time of the conversation aforesaid is stated to be on the eve of the governor's departure, and then said to be confidential; nor is it said, or insinuated, that he knew, or ever heard thereof, at a more early period, though it appears by Major Palmer's affidavit, that the design of taking not four or five, but absolutely five hundred thousand pounds from the Rajah, was communicated to him as early as the month of June. And it does not appear by the declarations of the said Wheler, he did ever casually or officially approve of the measure; which long concealment and late communication, time not being allowed to his colleague to consider the nature and consequences of such a project, or to advise any precaution concerning the same, is a high misdemeanour.

XVI.

That the said Hastings, having formed a resolution to execute one of the three violent and arbitrary resolutions aforesaid, namely, to sell the Company's sovereignty over Benares to the Nabob of Oude; or to dispossess the Rajah of his territories; or to seize upon his forts, and to plunder them of the treasure therein contained, to the amount of four or five hundred thousand pounds, did reject the offer of two

hundred thousand pounds, tendered by the said Rajah for his redemption from the injuries, which he had discovered that the said Hastings had clandestinely meditated against him, although the sum aforesaid would have been a considerable and seasonable acquisition at that time; the said Hastings being determined, at a critical period, to risk the existence of the British empire, rather than fail in the gratification of his revenge against the said Rajah.

XVII.

That the first of his three instituted projects, namely, the depriving the Rajah of his territories, was by himself considered as a measure likely to be productive of much odium to the British government; he having declared, whatever opinions he might entertain of its justice, "that it would have an appearance of severity; and might furnish grounds. unfavourable to the credit of our government and to his own reputation, from the natural influence which every act of rigour, exercised in the persons of men in elevated situations, is apt to impress on those, who are too remote from the scene of action to judge, by any evidence of the facts themselves, of their motives or propriety." And the second attempt, the sum of money, which he aimed at by attacking the fortresses of the Rajah, and plundering them of the trea sure supposed to be there secured, besides the obvious uncertainty of acquiring what was thus sought, would be liable to the same imputations with the former. And with regard to the third project, namely, the sale of the Company's sove reignty to the Nabob of Oude, and his having actually received proposals for the same, it was a high offence to the Company, as presuming, without their authority or consent, to put up to sale their sovereign rights; and particularly to put them up to sale to that very person, against whom the independence of the said province had been declared by the governor-general and council to be necessary, as a barrier for the security of the other provinces, in case of a future rupture with him. It was a heinous injury to See Hastings's the said Rajah to attempt to change his relation letter. without his consent, especially on account of the

person, to whom he was to be made over for money, by reason of the known enmity subsisting between his family and

that of the Nabob, who was to be the purchaser; and it was a grievous outrage on the innocent inhabitants of the zemindary of Benares, to propose putting them under a person long before described by himself to the court of directors, "to want the qualities of the head and heart requisite for his station;" and a letter from the British resident at Oude, transmitted to the said court, represents him "to have wholly lost, by his oppressions, the confidence and affections of his own subjects: " and whose distresses, and the known disorders in his government, he, the said Hastings, did attribute solely to his own bad conduct and evil character; admitting also in a letter written to Edward Wheler, Esq. and transmitted to the court of directors, "that many circumstances did favour suspicion of his (the said Nabob's) fidelity to the English interest, the Nabob being surrounded by men base in their characters, and improvident in their understandings, his favourites, and his companions of his looser hours. These had every cause to dread the effect of my influence on theirs; and both these, and the relations of the family, whose views of consequence and power were intercepted by our participation in the administration of his affairs, entertained a mortal hatred to our nation, and openly avowed it." And the said Hastings was well aware, that in case the Nabob, by him described in the manner aforesaid, on making such purchase, should continue to observe the terms of his father's original covenants and engagements with the Rajah, and should pay the Company the only tribute which he could lawfully exact from the said Rajah, it was impossible that he could, for the mere naked and unprofitable rights of a sovereignty paramount, afford to offer so great a sum as the Rajah did offer to the said Hastings for his redemption from oppression. Such an acquisition to the Nabob (while he kept his faith) could not possibly be of any advantage whatever to him; and that therefore, if a great sum was to be paid by the Nabob of Oude, it must be for the purpose of oppression, and violation of public faith, to be perpetrated in the person of the said Nabob, to an extent and in a manner, which the said Hastings was then apprehensive he could not justify to the court of directors, as his own personal act.

PART III.

Expulsion of the Rajah of Benares.

I..

THAT the said Warren Hastings, being resolved on the ruin of the Rajah aforesaid, as a preliminary step thereto, did, against the express orders of the court of directors, remove Francis Fowke, Esquire, the Company's resident at the city of Benares, without any complaint, or pretence of complaint, whatsoever, but merely on his own declaration, that he must have, as a resident at Benares, a person of his own special and personal nomination and confidence, and not a man of the Company's nomination; and in the place of the said Francis Fowke, thus illegally divested of his office, did appoint thereto another servant of the Company of his own choice.

II.

That soon after he had removed the Company's resident, he prepared for a journey to the Upper Provinces, and par ticularly to Benares, in order to execute the wicked and per fidious designs by him before meditated and contrived; and although he did communicate his purpose privately to such persons as he thought fit to intrust therewith, he did not enter anything on the consultations to that purpose, or record the principles, real or pretended, on which he had resolved to act, nor did he state any guilt in the Rajah, which he intended to punish, or charge him, the said Rajah, with entertaining any hostile intentions, the effects of which were to be prevented by any strong measure; but, on the contrary, he did industriously conceal his real designs from the court of directors, and did fallaciously enter on the consultations a minute, declaratory to purposes wholly different therefrom, and which supposed nothing more than an amicable adjustment, founded on the treaties between the Company and the Rajah, investing himself by his said minute with "full power and authority to form such arrangements with the Rajah of Benares for the better government and management of his zemindary, and to perform such acts for

the improvement of the interest, which the Company possesses in it, as he shall think fit, and consonant to the mutual engagements subsisting between the Company and the Rajah;" and for this and other purposes he did invest himself with the whole power of the council, giving to himself an authority, as if his acts had been the acts of the council itself; which, though a power of a dangerous, unwarrantable, and illegal extent, yet does plainly imply the following limits, namely, that the acts done should be arranged with the Rajah, that is, with his consent; and, secondly, that they should be consonant to the actual engagements between the parties; and nothing appears in the minute conferring the said power, which did express or imply any authority for depriving the Rajah of his government, or selling the sovereignty thereof to his hereditary enemy, or for the plunder of his fort

treasures.

III.

That the said Warren Hastings, having formed the plans aforesaid for the ruin of the Rajah, did set out on a journey to the city of Benares, with a great train, but with a very small force, not much exceeding six companies of regular black soldiers, to perpetrate some of the unjust and violent acts by him meditated and resolved on; and the said Hastings was met, according to the usage of distinguished persons in that country, by the Rajah of Benares with a very great attendance, both in boats and on shore, which attendance he did apparently intend as a mark of honour and observance to the place and person of the said Hastings, but which the said Hastings did afterwards groundlessly and maliciously represent as an indication of a design upon his life; and the said Rajah came into the pinnace, in which the said Hastings was carried, and in a lowly and suppliant manner, alone, and without any guard or attendance whatsoever, entreated his favour; and being received with great sternness and arrogance, he did put his turban in the lap of the said Hastings, thereby signifying, that he abandoned his life and fortune to his disposal, and then departed; the said Hastings not apprehending, nor having any reason to apprehend, any violence whatsoever to his person.

VOL. IV.

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