crime and misdemeanour in the destruction of the country aforesaid.

IV. PRINCESSES OF OUDE.

I.

THAT the reigning Nabob of Oude, commonly called Asoph ul Dowla, (son and successor to Shuja ul Dowla,) by taking into or continuing in his pay certain bodies of regular British troops, and by having afterwards admitted the British resident at his court into the management of all his affairs, foreign and domestic, and particularly into the administra tion of his finances, did gradually become, in substance and effect, as well as in general repute and estimation, a depend ent on, or vassal of, the East-India Company; and was, and is, so much under the control of the governor-general and council of Bengal, that, in the opinion of all the native powers, the English name and character is concerned in every act of his government.

II.

That Warren Hastings, Esquire, contrary to law, and to his duty, and in disobedience to the orders of the EastIndia Company, arrogating to himself the nomination of the resident at the court of Oude, as his particular agent and representative, and rejecting the resident appointed by the Company, and obtruding upon them a person of his own choice, did from that time render himself in a particular manner responsible for the good government of the provinces composing the dominions of the Nabob of Oude.

III.

That the provinces aforesaid, having been, at the time of their first connexion with the Company, in an improved and flourishing condition, and yielding a revenue of more than three millions of pounds sterling, or thereabouts, did soon after that period begin sensibly to decline; and the subsidy of the British troops stationed in that province, as well as

other sums of money due to the Company by the treaty, ran considerably in arrear; although the prince of the country, during the time these arrears accrued, was otherwise in distress, and had been obliged to reduce all his establishments.

IV.

That the prince aforesaid, or Nabob of Oude, did, in humble and submissive terms, supplicate the said Warren Hastings to be relieved from a body of troops, whose licentious behaviour he complained of, and who were stationed in his country without any obligation by treaty to maintain them; pleading the failure of harvest, and the prevalence of famine in his country;-a compliance with which request by the said Warren Hastings was refused in unbecoming, offensive, and insulting language.

V.

That the said Nabob, labouring under the aforesaid and other burthens, and being continually urged for payment, was advised to extort, and did extort, from his mother and grandmother, under the pretext of loans, (and sometimes without that appearance,) various great sums of money, amounting in the whole to £630,000 sterling, or thereabouts; alleging in excuse the rigorous demands of the EastIndia Company, for whose use the said extorted money had been demanded, and to which a considerable part of it had been applied.

VI.

That the two female parents of the Nabob aforesaid were among the women of the greatest rank, family, and distinction in Asia; and were left by the deceased Nabob, the son of the one, and the husband of the other, in charge of a certain considerable part of his treasures in money, and other valuable moveables, as well as certain landed estates, called jaghires, in order to the support of their own dignity, and the honourable maintenance of his women, and a numerous offspring, and their dependents; the said family amounting in the whole to two thousand persons, who were by the said Nabob, at his death, recommended in a particular manner to the care and protection of the said Warren Hastings.

VII.

That on the demand of the Nabob of Oude on his parents for the last of the sums, which completed the six hundred and thirty thousand pounds aforesaid, they the said parents did positively refuse to pay any part of the same to their son for the use of the Company, until he should agree to certain terms to be stipulated in a regular treaty; and among other particulars, to secure them in the remainder of their possessions, and also on no account or pretence to make any further demands or claims on them; and, well knowing from whence all his claims and exactions had arisen, they demanded, that the said treaty, or family compact, should be guaranteed by the governor-general and council of Bengal; and a treaty was accordingly agreed to, executed by the Na bob, and guaranteed by John Bristow, Esquire, the resident at Oude, under the authority, and with the express consent of the said Warren Hastings and the council-general, and in consequence thereof, the sum last required was paid, and discharges given to the Nabob for all the money, which h had borrowed from his own mother and the mother of hi father.

That the distresses and disorders in the Nabob's govern ment, and his debt to the Company, continuing to increase notwithstanding the violent methods before mentioned take to augment his resources, the said Warren Hastings, on the 21st of May, and on the 31st July, 1781, (he and Mr Wheler being the only remaining members of the counci general, and he having the conclusive and casting voice, and thereby being in effect the whole council,) did, in the name and under the authority of the board, resolve on a journey to the upper provinces, in order to a personal interview wil the Nabob of Oude, towards the settlement of his dis tressed affairs; and did give to himself a delegation of the powers of the said council, in direct violation of the Con pany's orders, forbidding such delegation.

VIII.

That the said Warren Hastings, having by his appoint ment met the Nabob of Oude near a place called Chunar and possessing an entire and absolute command over th

said prince, did, contrary to justice and equity, and the security of property, as well as to public faith, and the sanction of the Company's guarantee, under the colour of a treaty, which treaty was conducted secretly without a written document of any part of the proceeding, (except the pretended treaty itself,) authorize the said Nabob to seize upon and confiscate to his own profit, the landed estates, called jaghires, of his parents, kindred, and principal nobility; only stipulating a pension to the net amount of the rent of the said lands as an equivalent, and that equivalent to such only whose lands had been guaranteed to them by the Company: but provided neither in the said pretended treaty, nor in any subsequent act, the least security for the payment of the said pension to those, for whom such pension was ostensibly reserved; and, for the others, not so much as a show of indemnity;-to the extreme scandal of the British government, which, valuing itself upon a strict regard to property, did expressly authorize, if it did not command, an attack apon that right, unprecedented in the despotic governments

India.

IX.

That the said Warren Hastings, in order to cover the violent and unjust proceedings aforesaid, did assert a claim fright in the same Nabob to all the possessions of his aid mother and grandmother, as belonging to him by the Mahomedan law; and this pretended claim was set up by the said Warren Hastings, after the Nabob had, by a regular treaty ratified and guaranteed by the said Hastings as governor-general, renounced and released all demands on them. And this false pretence of a legal demand was taken up and acted upon by the said Warren Hastings, without aying the said question on record before the council-general, giving notice to the persons to be affected thereby, to support their rights before any of the principal magistrates and expounders of the Mahomedan law, or taking publicly the opinions of any person conversant therein.

X.

That, in order to give further colour to the acts of ill faith and violence aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings did

cause to be taken at Lucknow, and other places, before divers persons, and particularly before Sir Elijah Impey, knight, his Majesty's chief justice, acting extra-judicially, and not within the limits of his jurisdiction, several passionate, careless, irrelevant, and irregular affidavits, consisting of matter not fit to be deposed on oath; of reports, conjectures, and hearsays; some of the persons swearing to the said hearsays having declined to declare from whom they heard the accounts at second-hand sworn to; the said affidavits in general tending to support the calumnious charge of the said Warren Hastings, namely, that the aged women before mentioned had formed, or engaged in, a plan for the deposi tion of their son and sovereign, and the utter extirpation of the English nation: and neither the said charge against per sons, whose dependence was principally, if not wholly on the good faith of this nation, and highly affecting the honour, property, and even lives, of women of the highest condition; nor the affidavits intended to support the same, extra-judi cially taken er parte, and without notice, by the said Si Elijah Impey, and others, were at any time communicated to the parties charged, or to any agent for them; nor were they called upon to answer, nor any explanation demanded

of them.

XI.

66

That the article affecting private property secured by public acts, in the said pretended treaty, contains nothing more than a general permission, given by the said Warren Hastings, for confiscating such jaghires, or landed estates with the modifications therein contained, as he [the Nabob may find necessary;" but does not directly point at, or ex press by name, any of the landed possessions of the Nabob mother. But soon after the signing of the said pretende treaty, (that is, on the 29th November, 1781,) it did appea that a principal object thereof was to enable the Nabob t seize upon the estates of his female parents aforesaid, whis had been guaranteed to them by the East-India Company And although in the treaty, or pretended treaty, aforesai nothing more is purported than to give a simple permissio to the Nabob to seize upon and confiscate the estates, leavin the execution or non-execution of the same wholly to b