House of Lords Journal Volume 37: May 1787 28-30

May 1787 28-30

DIE Lunæ, 28^o Maii 1787.

Domini tam Spirituales quam Temporales præsentes fuerunt:

PRAYERS.

Bakers' Company Bill.

Moved, "That the Third Reading of the Bill, intituled, "An Act for ascertaining the Powers and Jurisdiction of the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Company of Bakers of the City of London; for preventing any undue Exercise of the Trade or Business of a Baker; and for amending so much of an Act passed in the Thirty-first Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Second, intituled, "An Act for the due making of Bread, and to regulate the Price and Assize thereof; and to punish Persons who shall adulterate Meal, Flour, or Bread," as relates to the Charter and Bye-Laws of the said Company," be put off to Tuesday the 19th Day of June next."

The same was agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

Bills passed by Commission.

The Lord Chancellor acquainted the House, "That His Majesty had been pleased to issue a Commission to several Lords therein named, for declaring His Royal Assent to several Acts agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament."

The House was adjourned during Pleasure.

The House was resumed.

Then Three of the Lords Commissioners, being in their Robes, and seated on a Form placed between the Throne and the Woolsack, the Lord Chancellor in the Middle, with the Archbishop of Canterbury on his Right Hand, and the Lord Sydney on His Left, commanded the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to signify to the Commons, "The Lords Commissioners desire their immediate Attendance in this House, to hear the Commission read."

Who being come, with their Speaker;

The Lord Chancellor said,

My Lords, and Gentlemen of the House of Commons,

His Majesty, not thinking fit to be personally present here at this Time, has been pleased to cause a Commission to be issued under the Great Seal, and thereby given His Royal Assent to divers Acts, which have been agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament, the Titles whereof are particularly mentioned; and by the said Commission hath commanded us to declare and notify His Royal Assent to the said several Acts, in the Presence of you the Lords and Commons assembled for that Purpose; which Commission you will now hear read."

Then the said Commission was read by the Clerk, as follows; (videlicet)

GEORGE R.

"George the Third, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth: To Our right trusty and right well-beloved the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and to Our trusty and well-beloved the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, and the Commissioners for Shires and Burghs of the House of Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, Greeting: Whereas We have seen and perfectly understood divers and sundry Acts agreed and accorded on by you Our loving Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons, in this Our present Parliament assembled, and endorsed by you, as hath been accustomed, the Titles and Names of which Acts hereafter do particularly ensue; (that is to say) "An Act for raising a certain Sum of Money by Loans or Exchequer Bills, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven." "An Act for raising a further Sum of Money by Loans or Exchequer Bills, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven." "An Act for raising a further Sum of Money by Exchequer Bills, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven." "An Act for granting to His Majesty a certain Sum of Money to be raised by a Lottery." "An Act to enable the Lord High Treasurer or the Commissioners of the Treasury for the Time being, to let to Farm the Duties granted by an Act made in the Twenty-fifth Year of His present Majesty's Reign, on Horses let to Hire for travelling Post and by Time, to such Persons as should be willing to contract for the same." "An Act to amend an Act passed in the Nineteenth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, intituled, "An Act to enable the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of Lancaster, to sell and dispose of certain Fee-Farm Rents and other Rents, and to enfranchise Copyhold and Customary Tene ments within their Survey, and to encourage the Growth of Timber on Lands held of the said Duchy, and to enable the said Chancellor and Council to discharge Incumbrances affecting the Possessions of the said Duchy." "An Act for Sale of certain Houses and Ground belonging to His Majesty." An Act to indemnify such Persons as have omitted to qualify themselves for Offices and Employments; and to indemnify Justices of the Peace or others who have omitted to register or deliver in their Qualifications within the Time limited by Law, and for giving further Time for those Purposes; and to indemnify Members and Officers in Cities, Corporations, and Borough Towns, whose Admissions have been omitted to be stamped according to Law, or, having been stamped, have been lost or mislaid, and for allowing them Time to provide Admissions duly stamped, and to give further Time to such Persons as have omitted to make and file Affidavits of the Execution of Indentures of Clerks to Attornies and Solicitors." "An Act for allowing the Importation and Exportation of certain Goods, Wares, and Merchandize, in the Ports of Kingston, Savannah la Mar, Montego Bay, and Santa Lucea, in the Island of Jamaica, in the Port of Saint George in the Island of Grenada, in the Port of Roseau in the Island of Dominica, and in the Port of Nassau in the Island of New Providence, one of the Bahama Islands under certain Regulations and Restrictions." "An Act to enable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, to purchase of the Proprietors of Coal Mines and Coal Works, on the Estate of Pitferran in the County of Fife, the Right of Exemption from Payment of the Duty on Coals exported." "An Act for taking and swearing Affidavits to be made Use of in the Court of Session of the County Palatine of Chester; and for taking of special Bail in Actions and Suits depending in the same Court." "An Act for obviating Objections to the Competency of Witnesses in certain Cases." "An Act for allowing further Time for Enrollment of Deeds and Wills made by Papists, and for the Relief of Purchasers." An Act for re-building the Church of the Parish of Saint Mary Wanstede, alias Wanstead, in the County of Essex." "An Act for taking down and rebuilding the Chapel of Hanley in the County of Stafford; for vesting the Right of Nomination in Trustees, and for enlarging the Chapel-Yard, and other Purposes." "An Act for building a new Chapel upon Portsmouth Common in the Parish of Portsea, in the County of Southampton." "An Act for confirming a Charter or Letters Patent granted by His Majesty to the Royal College and Corporation of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh, so far as relates to a Scheme for raising a Fund for a Provision for the Widows and Children of the Members of the said Corporation, and of their Clerk, with certain Alterations; and for establishing the said Scheme, and impowering the Corporation and the Trustees and Officers elected for managing the Fund, effectually to carry the said Scheme into Execution." An Act for continuing the Term of Two Acts made in the Eleventh Year of the Reign of His late Majesty George the Second, and the Third Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for laying a Duty of Two Pennies Scots, or One sixth Part of a Penny Sterling, upon every Scots Pint of Ale and Beer which shall be brewed for Sale, brought into, vended, tapped, or sold, within the Town of Aberbrothock and Liberties thereof." "An Act for continuing and amending several Acts made in the Third Year of the Reign of King George the First, the Tenth Year of the Reign of King George the Second, and the Second Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for laying a Duty of Two Pennies Scots, or one Sixth Part of a Penny Sterling, on every Pint of Ale or Beer that shall be vended or sold within the Town of Dumfries and Privileges thereof; for paying the Debts of the said Town; and for building a Church and making a Harbour there; and for laying a Duty on the Tonnage of Shipping, and a Duty on Goods imported and exported into and out of the Port of the said Town; for the better repairing of the said Harbour; and for paving, cleansing, lighting, and watching the Streets and other public Places within the said Town, and widening the Streets where necessary, and removing and preventing Nuisances therein." "An Act for taking down the Guildhall or Town-hall in the Borough of Grantham in the County of Lincoln, and re-building the same." An Act for further regulating the Trade and Business of Pawnbrokers." "An Act for making and declaring the Gaol for the County of Devon, called the High Gaol, a Public and Common Gaol; and for discharging Denys Rolle and John Rolle Esquires, and their respective Heirs and Assigns, from the Office of Keeper of the said Gaol, and for improving and enlarging the same, or building a new One; and also for taking down the Chapel in the Castle of Exeter, and for other Purposes therein mentioned." An Act for vesting the Scite, Buildings, and other the Premises belonging to the Old Gaol or Prison of the County of Sussex, in Trustees, for the Purpose of conveying the same to the Right Honourable Frances Viscountess Irwin and her Heirs; and to declare the new Gaol or Prison lately built to be the Common Gaol for the said County." "An Act for building a new Gaol, and providing a proper Prison for Debtors and House of Correction for the several Boroughs, Towns Corporate, Liberties, Franchises, and all other Places within the County of Stafford; and for regulating the same respectively." An Act for altering and extending the Line of the Cut or Canal authorized to be made and maintained by so much of several Acts made in the Eighth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Twenty-fourth Years of the Reign of His present Majesty, as authorizes the making and maintaining a Navigable Cut or Canal from the Frith or River of Forth, at or near the Mouth of the River of Carron in the County of Stirling, to the Frith or River of Clyde, at or near a Place called Dalmuir Burnfoot in the County of Dumbarton, and also a collateral Cut from the same to the City of Glasgow; for deepening the said Cut or Canal; and for explaining and amending so much of the said Acts as relates to the making and maintaining the said Cut or Canal." "An Act for the better repairing, paving, cleansing, lighting, and watching the Highways, Streets, and Lanes of and in the Town and Port of Sandwich in the County of Kent, and in the several Parishes of Saint Peter the Apostle, Saint Mary the Virgin, and Saint Clement, in the said Town, Port, and County; and for removing and preventing Encroachments, Nuisances, Obstructions, and Annoyances in the said Highways, Streets, and Lanes, and on the common Quay belonging to the said Town and Port, and in the Haven adjoining to the said Quay, and the Bridge built over the said Haven; and for regulating the Births and Mooring Places of Vessels at the said Quay, and the proper Times for Vessels to pass through the said Bridge." An Act for enlarging the Term and Powers of an Act passed in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty King George the Third, for repairing and widening the Road from High Bridges in the County of Stafford to Uttoxeter, and from Spath to Hanging Bridge, and from Tewnall's Lane to Yoxhall Bridge in the said County, so far as the same relates to the Two Districts of Road therein described." "An Act for repairing and widening the Road leading from the Borough of Berwick-uponTweed by Ayton Bridge, and the new Bridge over the Pees or Pass of Cockburnspath to Dunglass Bridge, and also the Roads leading from Billie Causeway and Preston Bridge to join the said Road at or near Cockburnspath Tower in the County of Berwick." An Act for enlarging the Term and Powers of an Act passed in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty for repairing and widening the Road from Muckley Corner to Walsall and Wednesbury and to Leigh Brook and Ocker Hill, and several other Roads in the County of Stafford, so far as the same relates to the Two first Districts of Road therein comprized." An Act for continuing the Term and altering and enlarging the Powers of an Act of the Sixth Year of His present Majesty for repairing and widening the Road leading from High Bullen in Wednesbury to the further End of Darlaston Lane, next the Portway, and from thence through Bilston to the further End of Gibbet Lane, and several other Roads leading to and from Bilston in the County of Stafford." "An Act for enlarging the Term and Powers of Two Acts passed in the Twelfth and Twenty-fourth Years of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Second, for repairing the Road between Stamford and Grantham in the County of Lincoln." "An Act for amending and widening the Roads from the City of Chester to the Woodside Ferry, in the Township of Birkenhead in the County of Chester, and from the said City to the Assembly House in Parkgate, in the Township of Great Neston in the said County, and from Great Neston aforesaid, to the said Woodside Ferry, and from the Road leading from the City of Chester to Parkgate aforesaid, to the Road leading from the same City to the said Woodside Ferry." "An Act to continue the Term, and alter and enlarge the Powers of an Act made in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for repairing and amending the Road from the present Turnpike Road in the Parish of Hursley in the County of Southampton, through the Borough of Andover to the Town of Newbury in the County of Berks, and from Newbury to Chilton Pond and Newtown River; and for amending and keeping in Repair the Road from the South End of Bartholomew Street in the said Town of Newbury, to the Turnpike Road at Speenhamland in the said County of Berks." "An Act for reviving, continuing, and enlarging the Term and Powers of an Act passed in the Fourth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for amending and widening the Road from a Place near the Village of Milford, through Haslemere to the Portsmouth Road between Lippock and Rake, in the several Counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Southampton." "An Act for vesting the Estates in the County of York, and also the Heir Looms devised and bequeathed by the Will of the Honourable and Most Reverend Robert late Lord Archbishop of York, in Trustees, to be sold, and for laying out the Monies to arise from such Sales in the Purchase of Estates to be settled to the same Uses." "An Act for rendering valid and effectual the Powers of Sale and Exchange inserted in the Settlement made on the Marriage of Robert Salusbury Esquire, with Katherine his Wife." "An Act for vesting Part of the Estates late of William Simpson Esquire, in the Counties of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham, in Trustees, to be sold, and for laying out the Money arising by such Sale in the Purchase of other Lands and Hereditaments to be settled in Lieu thereof, to the same Uses." "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Common Fields within the Township of Lastingham, in the North Riding of the County of York." "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Commons and Waste Grounds within the Manor or reputed Manor and Parish of Milwich in the County of Stafford." "An Act for allotting, dividing, and enclosing the several Moors, Commons, and Waste Grounds within the Manor or Manors, and Township or Townships of Steeton and Eastburn, in the Parish of Kildwick in the County of York." "An Act for dividing and enclosing the several Open Fields, Common Meadows, Common Pastures, and Waste Grounds within, or belonging to the Hamlet of Sawley, in the County of Derby." "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Common Open Fields, Commonable Lands, and Waste Grounds in the Liberty of Little Eaton, within the Manor of Little Chester in the County of Derby." "An Act for dividing and enclosing the several Common and Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds within the Liberties of Melbourne and King's Newton, in the Parish and Lordship of Melbourne, in the County of York." "An Act for enclosing and leasing, or letting certain Commons or Waste Grounds lying within the Township or Constablewick of Uttoxeter, in the County of Stafford, called the High Wood and the Heath, and applying the Profits thereof in Aid of the Poor's Rate or other Taxes or public Expences within the said Township or Constablewick, and within the Constablewick of the Rectory of Uttoxeter." "An Act for naturalizing William Homeyer." And albeit the said Acts by you Our said Subjects the Lords and Commons in this Our present Parliament assembled, are fully agreed and consented unto, yet nevertheless the same are not of Force and Effect in the Law without Our Royal Assent given and put to the said Acts; and forasmuch as for divers Causes and Considerations, We cannot conveniently at this Time be present in Our Royal Person, in the Higher House of Our said Parliament, being the Place accustomed to give Our Royal Assent to such Acts as have been agreed upon by you Our said Subjects the Lords and Commons, We have therefore caused these Our Letters Patent to be made, and have signed the same; and by the same do give and put Our Royal Assent to the said Acts, and to all Articles, Clauses, and Provisions therein contained, and have fully agreed and assented to the said Acts; Willing that the said Acts, and every Article, Clause, Sentence, and Provision therein contained, from henceforth shall be of the same Strength, Force, and Effect, as if We had been personally present in the said Higher House, and had openly and publickly in the Presence of you all assented to the same: And we do by these Presents declare and notify the same Our Royal Assent, as well to you the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons aforesaid, as to all others whom it may concern; Commanding also, by these Presents, Our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellor Edward Lord Thurlow, Our Chancellor of Great Britain, to seal these Our Letters Patent with Our Great Seal of Great Britain; and also commanding Our most dear Son and Our faithful Counsellor George Prince of Wales; the Most Reverend Father in God, Our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellor John Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate and Metropolitan of all England; Our said Chancellor of Great Britain; Our right trusty and right well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor Charles Earl Camden, President of Our Council; Our right trusty and entirely beloved Cousin and Counsellor Granville Marquis of Stafford, Keeper of Our Privy Seal; Our right trusty and right entirely beloved Cousins and Counsellors James Duke of Chandos, Steward of Our Household; Charles Duke of Richmond; George Duke of Montagu, Master of Our Horse; Our right trusty and right wellbeloved Cousins and Counsellors James Earl of Salisbury, Chamberlain of Our Household; Henry Earl Bathurst; William Earl of Mansfield, Our Chief Justice assigned to hold Pleas before Us; Our right trusty and well-beloved Cousins and Counsellors Thomas Viscount Weymouth, Groom of Our Stole; Richard Viscount Howe, First Commissioner of Our Admiralty; and Our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellors Francis Lord Osborne, One of Our principal Secretaries of State, and Thomas Lord Sydney, One other of Our Principal Secretaries of State, or any Three or more of them, to declare and notify this Our Royal Assent in Our Absence in the said Higher House, in the Presence of you the Lords and the Commons of Our Parliament, there to be assembled for that Purpose, and the Clerk of Our Parliaments to endorse the said Acts with such Terms and Words in Our Name as is requisite and hath been accustomed for the same; and also to enroll these Our Letters Patent and the said Acts in the Parliament Roll, and these Our Letters Patent shall be to every of them a sufficient Warrant in that Behalf: And finally, We do declare and will, that after this Our Royal Assent given and passed by these Presents, and declared and notified as is aforesaid, then and immediately the said Acts shall be taken, accepted, and admitted good, sufficient, and perfect Acts of Parliament and Laws to all Intents, Constructions, and Purposes, and to be put in due Execution accordingly; the Continuance or Dissolution of this Our Parliament, or any other Use, Custom, Thing or Things to the contrary thereof notwithstanding: In Witness whereof, We have caused these our Letters to be made Patent.

Witness Ourself at Westminster, the Twenty-eighth Day of May, in the Twenty-seventh Year of Our Reign.

By the King Himself, signed with his own Hand.

"Yorke."

Then the Lord Chancellor said,

In Obedience to His Majesty's Commands, and by virtue of the Commission which has been now read, We do declare and notify to you the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled, That His Majesty hath given His Royal Assent to the several Acts in the Commission mentioned; and the Clerks are required to pass the same in the usual Form and Words."

Then the Clerk Assistant, having received the Money Bills from the Hands of the Speaker, brought them to the Table, where the Deputy Clerk of the Crown read the Titles of those and the other Bills to be passed, severally, as follow; (videlicet)

1. "An Act for raising a certain Sum of Money by Loans or Exchequer Bills, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven."

2. "An Act for raising a further Sum of Money, by Loans or Exchequer Bills, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven."

3. "An Act for raising a further Sum of Money, by Exchequer Bills for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven."

4. "An Act for granting to His Majesty, a certain Sum of Money, to be raised by a Lottery."

To these Bills the Royal Assent was pronounced, severally, by the Clerk Assistant, in these Words; (videlicet)

"Le Roy remercie ses bons Sujets accepte leur Benevolence et ainsi le veult."

5. "An Act to enable the Lord High Treasurer or Commissioners of the Treasury for the Time being, to let to Farm the Duties granted by an Act made in Twenty-fifth Year of His present Majesty's Reign, on Horses let to Hire for travelling Post, and by Time, to such Persons as should be willing to contract for the same."

6. "An Act to amend an Act passed in the Nineteenth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, intituled, "An Act to enable the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of Lancaster, to sell and dispose of certain Fee-farm Rents, and other Rents, and to enfranchise Copyhold and Customary Tenements, within their Survey, and to encourage the Growth of Timber on Lands held of the said Duchy, and to enable the said Chancellor and Council, to discharge Incumbrances affecting the Possessions of the said Duchy."

7. "An Act for Sale of certain Houses and Ground belonging to His Majesty."

8. "An Act to indemnify such Persons, as have omitted to qualify themselves for Offices and Employments, and to indemnify Justices of the Peace or others, who have omitted to register or deliver in their Qualifications, within the Time limited by Law, and for giving further Time for those Purposes, and to indemnify Members and Officers in Cities, Corporations and Borough Towns, whose Admissions have been omitted to be stamped according to Law, or, having been stamped, have been lost or mislaid, and for allowing them Time to provide Admissions duly stamped, and to give further Time to such Persons as have omitted to make and file Affidavits of the Execution of Indentures of Clerks, to Attornies and Solicitors."

9. "An Act for allowing the Importation and Exportation of certain Goods, Wares, and Merchandize in the Ports of Kingston, Savannah La Mar, Montego Bay, and Santa Lucea in the Island of Jamaica, in the Port of Saint George in the Island of Grenada, in the Port of Roseau in the Island of Dominica, and in the Port of Nassau in the Island of New Providence, one of the Bahama Islands, under certain Regulations and Restrictions."

10. "An Act to enable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, to purchase of the Proprietors of Coal Mines and Coal Works, on the Estate of Pitferran, in the County of Fife, the Right of Exemption from Payment of the Duty on Coals exported."

11. "An Act for taking and swearing Affidavits to be made Use of in the Court of Session of the County Palatine of Chester, and for taking of Special Bail in Actions and Suits depending in the same Court."

12. "An Act for obviating Objections to the Competency of Witnesses in certain Cases."

13. "An Act for allowing further Time for Enrolment of Deeds and Wills made by Papists, and for the Relief of Purchasers."

14. "An Act for re-building the Church of the Parish of Saint Mary Wanstede, alias Wanstead, in the County of Essex."

15. "An Act for taking down and re-building the Chapel of Hanley, in the County of Stafford, for vesting the Right of Nomination in Trustees, and for enlarging the Chapel Yard, and other Purposes."

16. "An Act for building a new Chapel upon Portsmouth Common, in the Parish of Portsea in the County of Southampton."

17. "An Act for confirming a Charter or Letters Patent granted by His Majesty, to the Royal College and Corporation of Surgeons, of the City of Edinburgh, so far as relates to a Scheme for raising a Fund for a Provision for the Widows and Children of the Members of the said Corporation, and of their Clerk, with certain Alterations, and for establishing the said Scheme, and impowering the Corporation, and the Trustees and Officers elected for managing the Fund, effectually to carry the said Scheme into Execution."

18. "An Act for continuing the Term of Two Acts made in the Eleventh Year of the Reign of His late Majesty George the Second, and the Third Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for laying a Duty of Two Pennies Scots, or One-sixth Part of a Penny Sterling, upon every Scots Pint of Ale, and Beer, which shall be brewed for Sale, brought into, vended, tapped, or sold within the Town of Aberbrothock, and Liberties thereof."

19. "An Act for continuing and amending several Acts, made in the Third Year of the Reign of King George the First, the Tenth Year of the Reign of King George the Second, and the Second Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for laying a Duty of Two Pennies Scots, or One-sixth Part of a Penny Sterling, on every Pint of Ale or Beer, that shall be vended, or sold, within the Town of Dumfries and Privileges thereof; for paying the Debts of the said Town, and for building a Church and making a Harbour there, and for laying a Duty on the Tonnage of Shipping, and a Duty on Goods imported and exported into and out of the Port of the said Town, for the better repairing of the said Harbour; and for paving, cleansing, lighting, and watching the Streets and other Public Places within the said Town, and widening the Streets where necessary, and removing and preventing Nuisances therein."

20. "An Act for taking down the Guild-hall or Town-hall in the Borough of Grantham, in the County of Lincoln, and re-building the same."

21. "An Act for further regulating the Trade and Business of Pawnbrokers."

22. "An Act for making and declaring the Gaol for the County of Devon, called the High Gaol, a Public and Common Gaol, and for discharging Denys Rolle and John Rolle Esquires, and their respective Heirs and Assigns, from the Office of Keeper of the said Gaol, and for improving and enlarging the same, or building a new One, and also for taking down the Chapel in the Castle of Exeter, and for other Purposes therein mentioned."

23. "An Act for vesting the Scite, Buildings, and other the Premises belonging to the Old Gaol, or Prison of the County of Sussex, in Trustees, for the Purpose of conveying the same to the Right Honourable Frances Viscountess Irwin and her Heirs, and to declare the New Gaol or Prison lately built, to be the Common Gaol for the said County."

24. "An Act for building a new Gaol, and providing a proper Prison for Debtors, and House of Correction, for the several Boroughs, Towns Corporate, Liberties, Franchises, and all other Places within the County of Stafford, and for regulating the same respectively."

25. "An Act for altering and extending the Line of the Cut or Canal authorized to be made and maintained by so much of several Acts made in the Eighth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Twenty-fourth Years of the Reign of His present Majesty, as authorizes the making and maintaining a navigable Cut or Canal from the Frith or River of Forth at or near the Mouth of the River of Carron in the County of Stirling, to the Frith or River of Clyde at or near a Place called Dalmuir Burnfoot in the County of Dumbarton; and also a collateral Cut from the same to the City of Glasgow; for deepening the said Cut or Canal, and for explaining and amending so much of the said Acts as relates to the making and maintaining the said Cut or Canal."

26. "An Act for the better repairing, paving, cleansing, lighting, and watching the Highways, Streets, and Lanes of and in the Town and Port of Sandwich in the County of Kent, and in the several Parishes of Saint Peter the Apostle, Saint Mary the Virgin, and Saint Clement, in the said Town, Port, and County, and for removing and preventing Encroachments, Nuisances, Obstructions, and Annoyances in the said Highways, Streets, and Lanes, and on the Common Quay belonging to the said Town and Port, and in the Haven adjoining to the said Quay, and the Bridge built over the said Haven; and for regulating the Births and Mooring Places of Vessels at the said Quay, and the proper Times for Vessels to pass through the said Bridge."

27. "An Act for enlarging the Term and Powers of an Act passed in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty King George the Third, for repairing and widening the Road from High Bridges in the County of Stafford, to Uttoxeter, and from Spath to Hanging Bridge, and from Tewnall's Lane to Yoxhall Bridge in the said County, so far as the same relates to the Two Districts of Road therein described."

28. "An Act for repairing and widening the Road leading from the Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed by Ayton Bridge and the new Bridge over the Pees or Pass of Cockburnspath to Dunglass Bridge, and also the Roads leading from Billie Causeway and Preston Bridge, to join the said Road at or near Cockburnspath Tower in the County of Berwick."

29. "An Act for enlarging the Term and Powers of an Act passed in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for repairing and widening the Road from Muckley Corner to Walsall and Wednesbury, and to Leigh Brook and Ocker Hill, and several other Roads in the County of Stafford, so far as the same relates to the Two First Districts of Road therein comprized."

30. "An Act for continuing the Term, and altering and enlarging the Powers of an Act of the Sixth Year of His present Majesty, for repairing and widening the Road leading from High Bullen in Wednesbury to the further End of Darlaston Lane next the Portway, and from thence through Bilston to the further End of Gibbet Lane, and several other Roads leading to and from Bilston in the County of Stafford."

31. "An Act for enlarging the Term and Powers of Two Acts passed in the Twelfth and Twenty-fourth Years of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Second, for repairing the Road between Stamford and Grantham in the County of Lincoln."

32. "An Act for amending and widening the Roads from the City of Chester to the Woodside Ferry in the Township of Birkenhead in the County of Chester, and from the said City to the Assembly House in Parkgate in the Township of Great Neston in the said County, and from Great Neston aforesaid to the said Woodside Ferry, and from the Road leading from the City of Chester to Parkgate aforesaid, to the Road leading from the same City to the said Woodside Ferry."

33. "An Act to continue the Term, and alter and enlarge the Powers of an Act made in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for repairing and amending the Road from the present Turnpike Road in the Parish of Hursley, in the County of Southampton, through the Borough of Andover, to the Town of Newbury in the County of Berks, and from Newbury to Chilton Pond and Newtown River; and for amending and keeping in Repair the Road from the South End of Bartholomew Street in the said Town of Newbury, to the Turnpike Road at Speenhamland in the said County of Berks."

34. "An Act for reviving, continuing, and enlarging the Term and Powers of an Act passed in the Fourth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for amending and widening the Road from a Place near the Village of Milford, through Haslemere, to the Portsmouth Road between Lippock and Rake in the several Counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Southampton."

To these Bills the Royal Assent was pronounced, severally, by the Clerk Assistant, in these Words; (videlicet)

"Le Roy le veult."

35. "An Act for vesting the Estates in the County of York, and also the Heir Looms devised and bequeathed by the Will of the Honourable and Most Reverend Robert late Lord Archbishop of York, in Trustees to be sold, and for laying out the Monies to arise from such Sales in the Purchase of Estates to be settled to the same Uses."

36. "An Act for rendering valid and effectual the Powers of Sale and Exchange inserted in the Settlement made on the Marriage of Robert Salusbury Esquire with Katharine his Wife."

37. "An Act for vesting Part of the Estates late of William Simpson Esquire, in the Counties of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham, in Trustees, to be sold, and for laying out the Money arising by such Sale in the Purchase of other Lands and Hereditaments to be settled, in Lieu thereof, to the same Uses."

38. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Common Fields within the Township of Lastingham in the North Riding of the County of York."

39. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Commons and Waste Grounds within the Manor or reputed Manor and Parish of Milwich in the County of Stafford."

40. "An Act for allotting, dividing, and enclosing the several Moors, Commons, and Waste Grounds within the Manor or Manors, and Township or Townships of Steeton and Eastburn, in the Parish of Kildwick, in the County of York."

41. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the several Open Fields, Common Meadows, Common Pastures, and Waste Grounds within or belonging to the Hamlet of Sawley in the County of Derby."

42. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Common Open Fields, Commonable Lands, and Waste Grounds in the Liberty of Little Eaton, within the Manor of Little Chester, in the County of Derby."

43. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the several Commons and Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds within the Liberties of Melbourne and King's Newton, in the Parish and Lordship of Melbourne, in the County of Derby."

44. "An Act for enclosing and leasing or letting certain Commons or Waste Grounds lying within the Township or Constablewick of Uttoxeter in the County of Stafford, called the High Wood and the Heath, and applying the Profits thereof in Aid of the Poor's Rate or other Taxes or public Expences within the said Township or Constablewick, and within the Constablewick of the Rectory of Uttoxeter."

45. "An Act for naturalizing William Homeyer."

To these Bills the Royal Assent was pronounced, severally, by the Clerk Assistant in these Words; (videlicet)

"Soit fait comme il est desiré."

Then the Commons withdrew.

The House was adjourned during Pleasure.

The House was resumed.

Navigation Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act to enforce and render more effectual several Acts passed in the Twelfth Year of the Reign of King Charles the Second, and other Acts made for the Increase and Encouragement of Shipping and Navigation."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Expiring Laws Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act to continue several Laws relating to the free Importation of certain Raw Hides and Skins from Ireland and the British Plantations in America; to the allowing the Exportation of certain Quantities of Wheat and other Articles to His Majesty's Sugar Colonies in America; to the prohibiting the Exportation of Tools and Utensils made use of in the Iron and Steel Manufactures of this Kingdom, and to prevent the seducing of Artificers and Workmen employed in those Manufactures to go into Parts beyond the Seas; and to the granting a Bounty on the Exportation of certain Species of British and Irish Linens exported, and taking off the Duties on Foreign Raw Linen Yarns made of Flax imported."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Wines Allowances Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for making Allowances to the Dealers in Foreign Wines, for the Stock of certain Foreign Wines in their Possession at a certain Time, upon which the Duties on Importation have been paid, and for amending several Laws relative to the Revenue of Excise."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

American Commissioners Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for appointing Commissioners further to enquire into the Losses and Services of all such Persons who have suffered in their Rights, Properties, and Professions, during the late unhappy Dissentions in America, in consequence of their Loyalty to His Majesty and Attachment to the British Government."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Newcastle Playhouse Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act to enable His Majesty to licence a Playhouse in the Town and County of the Town of Newcastle-uponTyne."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Spirit Licences Bill.

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for laying additional Duties upon Licences to be taken out by Persons dealing by Retail in Spirituous Liquors."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Consolidated Fund Bill.

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for granting to His Majesty a certain Sum of Money out of the Consolidated Fund, and for applying certain Monies therein mentioned for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty seven; and for further appropriating the Supplies granted in this Session of Parliament."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Customs Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for making further Provisions in regard to such Vessels as are particularly described in an Act made in the Twenty-fourth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for the more effectual Prevention of Smuggling in this Kingdom, and for extending the said Acts to other Vessels and Boats not particularly described therein; for taking off the Duties on Flasks in which Wine or Oil is imported; for laying an additional Duty on foreign Geneva imported; for taking off the Duty on Ebony, the Growth of Africa, imported into this Kingdom; and for amending several Laws relative to the Revenue of Customs."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Glass Duties Bill.

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for granting to His Majesty certain Duties on Glass imported into Great Britain, and for altering the Mode of charging the Duties on Glass made in Great Britain."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Land Tax Commissioners Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for rectifying Mistakes in the Names of several of the Commissioners appointed by an Act made in the last Session of Parliament, to put in Execution an Act made in the same Session, intituled, "An Act for granting an Aid to His Majesty by a Land Tax to be raised in Great Britain, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-six, and for appointing other Commissioners together with those named in the first-mentioned Act, to put in Execution an Act of this Session of Parliament, for granting an Aid to His Majesty by a Land Tax to be raised in Great Britain, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Public Offices Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for appointing Commissioners further to enquire into the Fees, Gratuities, Perquisites, and Emoluments, which are or have been lately received in the several Publick Offices therein mentioned, to examine into any Abuses which may exist in the same, and to report such Observations as shall occur to them, for the better conducting and managing the Business transacted in the said Offices."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Messages to H. C. that the Lords have agreed to the Eleven preceding Bills.

And Messages were, severally, sent to the House of Commons, by Mr. Holford and Mr. Graves:

To acquaint them, That the Lords have agreed to the said Bills, without any Amendment.

Ratcliffe Enclosure Bill:

The Duke of Portland reported from the Lords Committees, to whom the Bill, intituled, "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds, lying within the Parish of Ratcliffe-upon-Trent, in the County of Nottingham," was committed: "That they had considered the said Bill, and examined the Allegations thereof, which were found to be true; that the Parties concerned had given their Consents to the Satisfaction of the Committee; and that the Committee had gone through the Bill, and made some Amendments thereto."

Which Amendments were read by the Clerk, as follow; (videlicet)

Pr. 1. L. 7. Leave out ("the Most Noble") and insert ("Right Honourable") and in the same Line, after ("Elizabeth") insert ("Countess Dowager of Bristol, as Devisee under the Will of the Most Noble Evelyn late Duke")

L. 8. Leave out ("Duchess")

L. 29. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 15. L. 19. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

L. 36. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 16. L. 4. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 19. L. 7. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke"

Pr. 20. L. 3. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 21. L. 2. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

L. 32. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 22. L. 5. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

L. 39. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 23. L. 14. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 25. L. 14. After ("whatsoever") insert ("Provided always that no such Exchange or Exchanges shall be made by the said Vicar and his Successors without the Consent and Approbation of the Lord Archbishop of York, and of the Patron or Patrons of the said Vicarage of Ratcliffe for the Time being")

Pr. 32. L. 13. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 46. L. 15. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 47. L. 10. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisee under the Will of the said late Duke")

Pr. 48. L. 6. After ("only") insert ("other than and except the said Vicar and his Successors")"

And the said Amendments, being read a Second Time, were agreed to by the House.

Cropwell Butler, &c. Enclosure Bill.

The Duke of Portland also reported from the Lords Committees, to whom the Bill, intituled, "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons and Waste Grounds, in the Lordship or Liberty of Cropwell Butler, and a certain Inter-common Field, and Meadow called the Fern Field and Great Meadow lying intermixed in the said Lordship, and the Lordship of Cropwell Bishop in the County of Nottingham," was committed: "That they had considered the said Bill, and examined the Allegations thereof, which were found to be true; that the Parties concerned had given their Consents to the Satisfaction of the Committee; and that the Committee had gone through the Bill, and made some Amendments thereto."

Which Amendments were read by the Clerk as follow; (videlicet)

Pr. 1. L. 18. Leave out ("her Grace the Duchess") and insert ("the Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

L. 19. Leave out ("Claims") and insert ("Claim")

Pr. 3. L. 2. Leave out ("her Grace the Duchess") and insert ("the Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

Pr. 13. L. 5. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("the Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

L. 9. Leave out ("her") and insert ("them")

L. 18. Leave out ("she or")

L. 19. Leave out ("Lady or") and after ("Lord") insert ("or Lords")

Pr. 18. L. 23. Leave out ("her Grace the Duchess") and insert ("the Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

Pr. 49. L. 30 and 31. Leave out ("her Grace the Duchess") and insert ("the Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

L. 34. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke of Kingston")

L. 36. Leave out ("her") and insert ("his")

Pr. 50. L.13. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

Pr. 53. L. 17. After ("whatsoever") insert ("Provided always, that no such Exchange or Exchanges shall be made by the said Vicar, or his Successors, and the said Curate or his Successors, without the Consent and Approbation of the said Chapter of Southwell")

Pr. 59. L. 26. Leave out ("Duchess") and insert ("Devisees under the Will of the said Evelyn late Duke")

Pr. 60. L. 39. After ("only") insert ("other than and except the said Vicar and Curate, and their Successors respectively")

Pr. 62. L. 13. After ("Lives") insert ("other than and except the said Vicar and Curate, and their Successors respectively")

Pr. 66. L. 9. After ("Life") insert ("other than and except the said Vicar and Curate, and their Successors respectively")"

And the said Amendments, being read a second Time' were agreed to by the House.

Ratcliffe Enclosure Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Common and Waste Grounds, lying within the Parish of Ratcliffe-upon-Trent, in the County of Nottingham."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill, with the Amendments, shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Cropwell Butler, &c. Enclosure Bill:

Hodie 3^a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, "An Act for dividing and inclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds in the Lordship or Liberty of Cropwell Butler, and a certain Inter-common Field, and Meadow, called the Fern Field and Great Meadow, lying intermixed in the said Lordship and the Lordship of Cropwell Bishop in the County of Nottingham."

The Question was put, "Whether this Bill, with the Amendments, shall pass?"

It was resolved in the Affirmative.

Messages to H. C. with Amendments to the Two preceding Bills.

And Messages were severally sent to the House of Commons, by the former Messengers:

To return the said Bills; and acquaint them, That the Lords have agreed to the same with some Amendments, to which their Lordships desire their Concurrence.

Message from H. C. with further Articles of Impeachment against Warren Hastings:

A Message was brought from the House of Commons, by Mr. Burke and others, as follows:

"That he was commanded by the Commons to deliver to their Lordships further Articles against Warren Hastings Esquire, late Governor General of Bengal, in further Support of their Impeachment against him."

The same were read as follows:

"Further Articles (being the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth' Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixtenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth) exhibited by the Knights' Citizens, and Burgesses in Parliament assembled, in the Name of themselves and of all the Commons of Great Britain, against Warren Hastings Esquire, late Governor General of Bengal, in maintenance of their Impeachment against him for High Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Article Eighth.

Whereas a certain Territory in India, known by the Name of the Subah of Oude, was, on or about the Year One thousand seven hundred and sixty-four, governed by a native Mahometan Prince or Viceroy, a great Chief of the Mogul Empire, and Vizier thereof, called the Nabob Vizier Sujah ul Dowlah, which Sujah ul Dowlah having been defeated in Battle, and expelled from his Dominions, by the Arms of the East India Company; and being afterwards, by those acting under that Company, restored to his Government, did, on or about the Year One thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, enter into a Treaty with the East India Company, commonly called the Treaty of Benares, by which the said Company did, under certain Conditions and Stipulations, and for a certain Annual Subsidy in the said Treaty expressed, agree to maintain a Body of British Troops for the Defence of his Territories; and the said Vizier Sujah ul Dowlah did, by the Assistance of the East India Company's Forces, as also in consideration of Money to them paid, or to be paid, obtain several large Accessions to his Dominions, namely, the Territories of Rohilcund, the Duab Corah Khorrah, and Allahabad.

And whereas the said Sujah ul Dowlah, in or about the Month of February, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, died possessed of the Territories aforesaid; and his Son, Asoph ul Dowlah, did succeed to the same, and, by the Influence of the East India Company on the Mogul Emperor, obtained a Grant of the Dignity and Authority of Vizier, which his Father had possessed; and the said Asoph ul Dowlah having been chiefly supported in the Succession, and established in the Dignity aforesaid, by the Power and Influence of the said East India Company, and, from the internal and external Circumstances of his Country, finding such Assistance as had formerly been given to his Father by the said Company become absolutely necessary, did, on the Twenty-first of May, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, make a new Treaty with the East India Company, for the Support, on certain Conditions, and the Payment of a certain Subsidy, of a Brigade of their Troops to be employed in his Defence, and did afterwards consent to take other large Bodies of Troops belonging to the said Company into his Pay.

"And whereas the said Asoph ul Dowlah did very soon become, in his own Estimation, and in that of the neighbouring Potentates, as well as in the Opinion of the British Government of Bengal, a Dependant on the East India Company, as in Truth and in Fact he substantially was; and the English Name and Character were reputed to be, and were concerned in every Act of his Government, and the Influence and Power of the Governor General and Council of Fort William were immediately or mediately sufficient to all Acts of Authority within the said Province of Oude, and its Dependencies, and were in fact, both mediately and immediately employed for the same; and the Governor General and Council were bound by their Duty, and by the Regard which they ought to have had to the Honour of the English Name, to provide for the good Order and Prosperity of the Provinces, from whence this Nation did derive eminent Advantages, and to take proper Measures that the Troops kept up as aforesaid should not, by their excessive Number, their ill Composition, their ill Distribution, their ill Discipline, or their ill Œconomy, become a Grievance to the Country they were intended to protect; and it was the bounden Duty of the said Governor General and Council to take care that the Ease, Security, and Honour of the Prince and his Family should be consulted and provided for; and it was contrary to the clear Duty of the said Governor General and Council, and of any or all of them, in anywise to countenance or suffer, much more to authorize and direct, any Acts of Oppression or Peculation within the said Provinces.

"And whereas the said Province of Oude was, at the Beginning of the British Interference therein, in a flourishing Condition with regard to Culture, Commerce, and Population, and the Territories added to that Province by the British Power were particularly and eminently distinguished for their high Cultivation, and their consequent Opulence; and the said Company's Government was particularly bound to the Protection and good Government of Countries which by them were taken from their original Rulers, and given over to the Charge of another Authority dependant on the said Company: But the said Countries did, from the Time in which they ought to have profited by said Protection, most rapidly decline, and did fall into a most miserable State of Decay, Indigence, Waste, and Depopulation: And this ill State of Things was, in a great Measure, owing to the criminal Acts and criminal Neglects of Warren Hastings Esquire, late Governor General of Bengal, and his Agents—for he the said Warren Hastings, entertaining base and corrupt Views of Profit to himself, and to the evil Instruments of his Power, from the Wealth of those Provinces, from the good Administration of which he ought to have looked for Honour to himself, and to his Country, did, upon receiving a Representation in Writing from the then British Resident John Bristow Esquire, dated Twenty-second January, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, concerning the disordered State of the said Provinces, arising from the Neglects of the Nabob Vizier, the said Asoph ul Dowlah, and the excessive Power and Mismanagement of his Favourites, Persons of no Worth, and known to the said Warren Hastings, and by him often declared to be of that Description; in which Representation the said Bristow declared that the only Remedy for the said Disorders was to be found in the Assistance and Protection of the English; he the said Warren Hastings, instead of affording the said Assistance and Protection, and supporting and encouraging the said Bristow in making such true and judicious Representations as might lead to a useful and effectual Reform of the said Abuses, and instead of instructing and authorizing him the said Bristow to take fit Measures for preventing the Growth of the said Abuses, and thereby preserving the said Country from impending Ruin, did, maliciously and against his Duty, discountenance the said Bristow, by removing him, soon after he had made the said Representation, from his Office of Resident aforesaid, contrary to the standing Orders of the Court of Directors, and without any Complaint; and he the said Warren Hastings did wilfully neglect to take any effectual Measures for the Redress of the Grievances of the said Provinces, or rectifying the Abuses subsisting therein; and the said Warren Hastings, in Contempt of the said lawful Authority, did insist that the Company's Resident at Oude was a representative Character, and ought to be of his own Nomination, and not of theirs; and that he ought to have, and would have, in that Office a Person of his own Choice, and in whom he could place Confidence, or to that Effect: And he the said Warren Hastings did accordingly appoint to the said Office a Creature of his own, namely, Nathaniel Middleton Esquire, being the more especially a fit Instrument for his evil Purposes, as having on a former Occasion preferred the Advantages which he might derive from the Favour of the said Warren Hastings to his Duty, and refused to deliver to the lawful Authority of the Council General, from him requiring it, his Correspondence with the said Warren Hastings, whilst he the said Middleton was Resident in Oude, during the Life-time of the aforesaid Nabob Vizier Sujah ul Dowlah, but delivered the same privately to the said Warren Hastings, to be by him destroyed or suppressed, and the same hath been since suppressed or destroyed; and he the said Warren Hastings did send the said Middleton into Oude, in the Character and Capacity of Resident and Collector of the Company's Assignments in that Province; but no effectual Provision was made in this new Appointment, or in consequence thereof, to relieve the Distresses of the Country, or to check the Disorders in its Government, which Distresses and Disorders were daily increasing:

And whereas the said Nabob Vizier Asoph ul Dowlah did, in or about the Month of November, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, represent in Writing to the said Warren Hastings the declining State of his Country, and the extreme Distress of his Court, Dependants, and Family, in strong and moving Terms, and did therein detail several affecting Particulars of the said Distress, as by Reference to the said Representation will appear; and the said Representation the Resident at Oude did declare to be true; and the Truth thereof the said Warren Hastings did not at the Time attempt to controvert, and he hath since directly admitted that the said Representation was founded in Truth; yet, notwithstanding the Representation, Attestation, and Admission aforesaid, he the said Warren Hastings, maliciously and corruptly intending and contriving to oppress the said Nabob Vizier Asoph ul Dowlah, his Family and his Country, for his own evil Purposes, and that he might, by increasing Disorder in the Government of Oude, drive the said Asoph ul Dowlah to the Necessity of purchasing his Mercy and Forbearance, did, positively, and in a most insolent and offensive Manner, in his Minutes of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth of December, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, refuse to afford to the said Nabob Vizier the Relief by him humbly and earnestly solicited, or any the smallest Part or Portion thereof; and though he did attribute the Distresses of the Country, which disabled the Vizier, the said Sujah ul Dowlah, from maintaining the Establishments by him complained of, to the Vices of the said Vizier's own Character, which had influenced his Government, yet he the said Warren Hastings did neither pursue any effectual Measure whatever, for correcting the Vices of the said Nabob's Government, nor for enabling him, by a better Œconomy to support the Burthen which he thus, against his Will, continued upon this degraded Prince, and the undone Inhabitants of his Country; notwithstanding that the Authority and Influence of the said Warren Hastings was full as competent in Right, and as justisiable at the least in Practice, to protect the Country of Oude from Waste and Oppression, as to load it with the Burthen of Military Establishments authorized by no Treaty, Stipulation, or Agreement, and kept up against the strongest Remonstrances of its Prince: And the said Warren Hastings, falsely pretending that the Danger of the Company's Affairs, and their Inability to charge themselves with Forces, which he did assert to be necessary, did oblige and compel the said Nabob Vizier to keep up the same; when he did at another Time, and after he had received Bribes from the said Nabob Vizier and his Ministers, (that is to say) in his Letter to Edward Wheler Esquire, dated the Twenty-ninth of November One thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, and at sundry other Times since, declare, that the keeping up the Establishments aforesaid was ruinous to the Country of Oude; an Injury, not an Advantage; a Burthen, and not a Resource, to the Company's Revenues; and that the Reduction and disbanding of the same would be an instant Relief to our pecuniary Distresses, or to that Effect.

"That the said Warren Hastings, in order to prevent any further Remonstrances concerning the Grievances, which he was bound to hear, and which he was able, and ought to have been willing, to redress, did, for his said corrupt, oppressive, and tyrannical Purposes, on the Records of the said Company, declare, that the said Remonstrances and the Season they were made in, did give Cause for the most alarming Suspicions; and he the said Warren Hastings did stigmatize as Incendiaries, and did threaten that he would, as far as his Influence could produce that Effect, bring to Punishment those who advised such Remonstrances, or employed Words or Declarations to that Purpose; thereby not only refusing to relieve the Distresses of the Country, but endeavouring even to prevent Complaint from being brought to the Ears of the Council at Bengal, or to the Court of Directors at Home.

"That, notwithstanding the Menaces aforesaid, farther Remonstrances on the Part of the said Nabob of Oude were made to the said Warren Hastings to the same Purpose, and rejected as the former; namely on the Twenty-fourth of February, One thousand seven hundred and eighty, as also on the Fifteenth of May in the same Year, and no Relief was given, or attempted to be given, by him the said Warren Hastings, on the said Subject, in any Measure, or in any Manner whatever And the said Warren Hastings did continue the said Grievances until (according to his own Opinion, given in Writing, on the Records of the Council Books) he had little Reason to be sanguine in his Expectation, that even his own Endeavours would be attended with much Success, in restoring the said Country to its ancient Condition, in any Time he could spare for the Purpose, or to that Effect; confessing thereby the Effects of his criminal Refusal to afford a timely Relief to the Distresses of Oude, which had been so frequently and so urgently represented to him."

Article Ninth.

"That a Year, or thereabouts, after the last public Remonstrance, and after the said Warren Hastings had attributed the Sufferings of Oude to the Nabob's own Nature and Character, and branded the Representers of the Grievances of Oude as Incendiaries, and as Persons fit to be brought to Punishment, and their Requests at that Season as giving Cause to the most alarming Suspicions, as aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings, having driven the Parties complaining to such Distress as he thought might oblige them to offer Bribes to him for their Ransom, did suddenly and corruptly alter his Language, although there was then no Difference in the Situation of Affairs, with regard to foreign Wars or Enemies, from that in which they stood when he had refused all Relief to the Vizier in the peremptory and offensive Manner aforesaid; and he did, in his Minute of the Twenty-first of May, One thousand seven hundred and eightyone, himself represent the Province of Oude as fallen into great Disorder and Confusion; and that its Resources were in an extraordinary Degree diminished; and did thereon propose in Council, himself and Mr. Wheler being at that Time the only Members, a Delegation to himself, containing new, dangerous, and exorbitant Powers, relative to the Regulation of the Affairs of the said Nabob of Oude, with such Authority to enforce the same as the Governor General and Council might or could exercise on Occasions in which they would be warranted to exercise the same by the Claims which the said Company hold, or may have, on the Dominions of the said Nabob; and the said Commission did also give to the said Warren Hastings exorbitant general Powers with regard to the making of Treaties, and War and Peace, and did declare, that all such Acts, and all such Engagements or Treaties made as aforesaid, should be binding on the Governor General and Council, in the same Manner, and as effectually, as if they had been passed and done by the special and immediate Concurrence and actual Sanction of the Governor General and Council in Council assembled.

"That the said Commission, given as aforesaid by the said Warren Hastings to himself, was destructive to the Constitution of the said Council, contrary to the standing Orders of the said East India Company, and to the Act of the Thirteenth of His present Majesty, intituled, "An Act for establishing certain Regulations for the better Management of the Affairs of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe." And the said Warren Hastings did himself conceive and understand, that the said Commission was illegal, he having, in his Minute of the Third of July, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, declared his Opinion that the whole Power of the Government, on his Departure, would legally vest in his sole Colleague Edward Wheler Esquire; and yet he did, in the same Paper or Minute, attempt to divide the Powers which the said Wheler possessed by the legal Constitution of the Board, and to limit them to those not given, by the aforesaid illegal Commission, to him the said Warren Hastings, and that to make an unwarrantable and unlawful Agreement for a Partition of the Power between him the said Warren Hastings and his said Colleague, which had been by Act of Parliament collectively and integrally given to the said Governor General and Council in Council duly assembled; but the said Warren Hastings, foreseeing that one or the other of these divided Authorities must be illegal, and the said Wheler not knowing with Certainty whether, in the Issue, that delegated to him might not be found insufficient, he, the said Warren Hastings, in order to satisfy the said Wheler, did contrive and devise an illegal Remedy for any Acts which the said Wheler might illegally perform, on the Supposition of the Invalidity of his Authority, the same having been before, in its most essential Parts, wholly delegated, in Effect, to the said Warren Hastings, by engaging in a written Instrument under his Signature, that, so far as his the said Warren Hastings's Sanction should be, or should be deemed necessary, he the said Wheler should receive that Sanction to all his Measures, or to that Effect, though he the said Warren Hastings neither did nor could know what those Measures might be.

"And it does not appear that there was any justifiable or even colourable Act done by the said Warren Hastings, in his Negociations with the Vizier, in virtue of the aforesaid illegal Commission, which might not have been at least equally well done, and with less Question as to its Validity, by the British Resident at the Court of Oude, or any other Person deputed legally by him; by which unwarrantable Assumption of unconstitutional and irregular Power, wholly foreign to his ordinary Duty, and wholly unnecessary for any good or legitimate Purpose, and his attempting to enforce and cover the same by so many intricate and subtle Devices, he did discredit the Office of Governor General, and the British Government, in the Eyes of the Natives of India, and in those of the Company's Servants, by furnishing a strong Ground for Suspicion, that he did proceed in proposing and accepting this Delegation upon Motives as corrupt and criminal as his Commission was illegal.

"And the said Warren Hastings did proceed to meet the Vizier Asoph ul Dowlah, in consequence of the said illegal Commission, at a great and unnecessary Charge to the East India Company, and did scandalously and corruptly take an unlawful Gift or Bribe from the said Vizier Asoph ul Dowlah and his Ministers, to the Amount of One hundred thousand Pounds, or some other great Sum of Money; and did on the Nineteenth of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, at a Place called Chunar, enter into a Treaty or Agreement commonly called The Treaty of Chunar, in which he did consent to certain Propositions, which, previous to the said Treaty, he had always refused, namely, either to the Reduction of certain large Bodies of Troops in the Pay of the Nabob Vizier, or to the charging the Expences of them, or some of them, on the East India Company, and withdrawing them from the Dominions of the Nabob of Oude; which Stipulation or Treaty, if not agreeable to the true Interest of the East India Company, he was and is culpable for having made; but if the same was a Treaty fit to be made, the same ought to have been by him faithfully kept and observed. Notwithstanding which his Treaty and Agreement he did, a very short Time after making the same, persidiously, and to the Dishonour of this Nation, violate his own and the Public Faith in putting the Troops aforesaid, or some of them, or other Troops equally burthensome, on the Establishment of Oude, at a great Charge to the said Vizier Asoph ul Dowlah, and contrary to the true Intent and Meaning of the said Treaty, and contrary to the Will and Inclination of the said Vizier, who being in entire Subjection to the said Warren Hastings, was obliged at length to consent, or rather submit, to whatever he should direct.

"And whereas the said Warren Hastings did engage, by the First Article of the said Treaty, wholly to exonerate the said Vizier from the Charge of all English Gentlemen in a Civil or Military Capacity (with certain Exceptions in the Article made), who received Pensions or Allowances from the Revenues of Oude, admitting the same to be an intolerable Burthen on the Vizier; yet he, the said Warren Hastings, having no Regard to the Faith of his Engagements entered into by him on the Part of the East India Company, but solely intent on the Pursuit of his own corrupt Purposes, did at several Times impose a new, or did suffer to continue, sundry Pensions and Allowances, over and above those specially provided in the said Article, to the Amount of One hundred and Forty thousand Pounds Sterling by the Year, or some other great Sum, the said Warren Hastings, deceitfully pretending that he was unapprized of the Existence of the same, until by the recriminatory Accusations of Mr. John Bristow and Mr. William Cowper he did confess himself compelled to acknowledge his having authorised certain Pensions, which he had thus persidiously and oppressively imposed, and which were an unsupportable Charge on the Revenue of Oude."

Article Tenth.

"And whereas the said Warren Hastings, by the Second Article of the aforesaid Treaty of Chunar, did agree to permit the Nabob of Oude to resume such landed Estates, called Jaghires, as to him the said Nabob might appear to be necessary; yet he the said Warren Hastings did afterwards take away the Use of the Discretion, reserved to the Nabob in this important Point, relating solely to his own internal Authority and Jurisdiction, and to the Protection which he owed to his Subjects, and did violently compel the said Nabob to an universal Confiscation of the said Jaghires or landed Estates; and the Nabob did accordingly, by and under the Compulsion of the said Warren Hastings, universally confiscate all Estates of that Description, in Breach of his the Nabob's Faith; who having been driven, by the Demands of the Company, during the Residency of Mr. Purling, to make a temporary Seizure of the Profits of the Lands aforesaid, did then give his Bonds and Obligations for the Re-payment thereof, and did add his solemn Assurance, that he would never again resort to the like oppressive Measure.

"That in the Number of Persons so dispossessed of their Estates by such Confiscation, were comprehended the nearest Relations of the Nabob himself, and the ancient Friends and Dependants of his Family; and the annual Value of the said Estates amounted to Four hundred and Thirty-five thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other large Sum of Money, according to an old Valuation; but they were in reality found to yield considerably more: And the said Persons thus violently stripped of their Property (many of them of high Birth and Quality, and the greatest Part having no other Maintenance), were reduced to such extreme Distress, as to be obliged to subsist on the Sale of their Moveables or on Alms: And the confiscated Lands being put on Rack Rents, the People, Inhabitants thereof, were grievously oppressed; and universal Discontent, and the greatest Confusion, did ensue throughout the whole Country, long agitated and wasted, and in which much Blood was shed; and, in particular, the Commotions excited by the Rajah Bulbudder Sing did wholly arise from the aforesaid arbitrary, and unjust, and persidious Measure.

"That the Nabob Vizier did frequently petition the said Warren Hastings to be permitted to restore the said Jaghires to their original Proprietors, but for a long Time without Effect; and when he was at length permitted by the said Warren Hastings, to restore certain of them, it was but in an imperfect and scanty Measure."

Article Eleventh.

"That by a certain Article in the Treaty of Chunar aforesaid, it was in Effect and Substance provided, that the Nabob Vizier should submit to intrust the Management of his Revenue and Treasury to a certain Minister of his, or one appearing as a Minister of his the said Nabob's, called Hyder Beg Khan, who was withdrawn from the Controul of his Master the said Nabob, and placed under the Control of, and obliged to act with, the Participation of the British Resident; and that, in sundry other Acts of his Government, the said Nabob was bound, by the said Article in the said Treaty, to act with the Concurrence of a British Resident, without any expressed Participation of the Minister; and the said Article of the Treaty aforesaid, worded in loose and ambiguous Terms, was so intended by the said Warren Hastings, and in that Light, or to that Effect, it was by him represented in a Letter by him written to Edward Wheler Esquire; in which Letter he did also represent the British Interference or Participation as an Arrangement of Affairs, which would prove of greater Benefit to the Vizier than to the British Government: But the said Vizier Asoph ul Dowlah, considering the same as a virtual Surrender of his whole Authority, either to the said Hyder Beg Khan, or to the British Resident, or in some Cases to both, did for a considerable Time withhold his Assent from the said Agreement, and declined to put his Seal to the same, until the said Nathaniel Middleton, the Company's Resident at his Court, being then, as well as the said Nabob Vizier, in the same Room with, and in the Presence of the said Warren Hastings, did assure the said Nabob Vizier, in order to engage him to affix his Seal to the said Treaty, that the said Article thereof was never intended to be put into Execution, but that the said Warren Hastings was desirous of having something to shew to the East-India Company, as a Compensation for the Concessions in the said Treaty made to the said Nabob Vizier, or Words or Expressions to that or an equivalent Effect; and the said Nabob, under the Faith of such the Assurances given by the said Middleton, in the Presence of the said Warren Hastings, did then execute the said Treaty, by affixing his Seal thereto: And the said Warren Hastings having, in order to give Colour to the perfidious Acts which he then meditated, did, notwithstanding the said Assurance given by his own Resident, in his own Presence, Four Days after the Execution of the said Treaty, that is, on the Twenty-third of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, faithlessly and fraudulently write a Letter of Instructions to that very Nathaniel Middleton who had given the verbal Assurance aforesaid, directing him substantially to carry into Effect the said Article in its utmost Rigour, and the largest Latitude of Construction, throughout every Department of the Vizier's Government, charging him with a dreadful Responsibility, if he neglected to carry the same into Execution according to the said Instructions, and the Powers and Authorities ordered to be exercised in the said Instructions, in and by virtue of the Article of the Treaty which the said Middleton had assured the Vizier was not to be carried into Execution; and Powers were in sundry Instances, in consequence of, and in obedience to, such Order of the said Warren Hastings, effectually exercised by the said Nathaniel Middleton; and the said Mode of conducting a Treaty and the subsequent acting thereon, were full of Fraud and Duplicity, unworthy, base, and treacherous, and had a Tendency to bring the British Faith and Name into Disrepute, and to fill the Country Powers, dependent and independent, with a fixed Distrust of all Treaties and Engagements entered into with the British Nation: And the said Warren Hastings, with an Intent to cover the true Nature of the Transaction aforesaid at Chunar from the Court of Directors, did destroy or wilfully conceal and withhold from the said Court, and doth still wilfully conceal and withhold, or cause to be withheld from the said Court, the Original Papers and Documents by him referred to in his Correspondence, and on the Matter of which the said Treaty was made, as also the Original Treaty itself, contrary to Law, and to his Duty."

Article Twelfth.

And whereas the said Warren Hastings was of Opinion, or did pretend to be of Opinion, that the Appointment of British Officers to command the said Nabob of Oude's Troops, was a most pernicious Measure to the Service in general, yet he, the said Warren Hastings, in Contradiction to his own Opinion and Judgment, did not only take a principal Part in the original Establishment of that Arrangement, but did propose to place sundry large Establishments of Troops in the Nabob's Service and Pay, under British Officers, who were not to be subject to the Orders of the said East India Company, or to the same military Jurisdiction, or Disposition and Discipline, to which the said Company's Troops were subject, but were wholly separated from the same; and he, the said Warren Hastings, under Colour of Recommendation, did appoint Major, afterwards Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hannay, to the Command of the said Corps, and did appoint Captain Balfour and Captain Lumsdaine to command in the said Battalions under the said Major Hannay; but did, contrary to his Duty and his Conscience, and his own Opinion of what was conducive to the Good of the Service, on the Suggestion of Major Osborne, an Officer in the Service of the East India Company, propose, through the Resident Middleton, to the Nabob Vizier, to establish in his Pay and Service a Body or Battalion of Troops, under the Command of the Officer aforesaid; but the said Nabob, on the Proposition being made to him, did for some Time decline giving any Answer, but did at length totally reject the said Plan or Proposal, and the said Major Osborne did thereon repeat his Request to the said Warren Hastings, requiring in Effect a new and more authoritative and peremptory Requisition on the Subject; and the said Warren Hastings, against the Remonstrances of Two of his Colleagues, stating the Hardship to the Vizier in forcing the said Battalion on the said Vizier, contrary to his declared Pleasure, did, by his casting Vote, carry the same; and accordingly a Letter was written in the Name of the Board to the Resident, to renew the Demand in such a Manner as to render the same effectual; and One to the Vizier, to the same or a like Effect; and the said Vizier was reluctantly obliged to submit to this iniquitous and uncoloured, and oppressive Demand.

That the said Warren Hastings was well informed, that when the Expence of the Company's temporary Brigade did, in the Year One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, increase in the Sum of Eighty thousand Pounds Sterling, above the established Estimate, and that the Charge of the aforesaid Corps of the Nabob's own Troops under British Officers, were in that Year increased in the enormous Sum of Forty thousand Pounds above the Estimate, the said Warren Hastings did wilfully and criminally neglect to make any Enquiry how the Increase did arise, or to pursue any Measure for the Prevention of the Growth of the said shameful Expence in future.

That though Complaints were made to the said Warren Hastings concerning the Conduct of the Corps under the said Major Osborne, which had been raised by the Influence and under the Authority of the said Warren Hastings, accusing them of committing divers Depredations on the Country they were appointed to protect; but the said Warren Hastings did wilfully and corruptly decline to make any Enquiry into the Grounds of the said Complaints, or to call the said Major Osborne to Account for the same, but did endeavour, after the Complaint made of the Mischief done by the former, to appoint another Corps for the same, or a similar Service, and on the same Footing, in Favour of Captain Clarke.

"That the said Warren Hastings, after the several Corps aforesaid had, according to Agreement, been disbanded, and after he had made an Agreement to withdraw certain large Bodies of the Company's regular Troops from the Pay and the Dominions of the Vizier, he did, some time in the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, in order to elude the said Agreement, and to re-establish Troops of that Description, in Breach of his Duty, and in Contradiction of his own repeated Declarations of the Mischiefs incident to Troops under European Officers in the Service of the Nabob of Oude, and notwithstanding his Experience of the ill Effects which had actually been produced by the original Establishment of such Troops, did cause a Battalion of Soldiers under British Officers, commanded by Captain Polhill, to be put upon the Establishment of the Vizier, and great Disorders and Mutinies in the said Corps did ensue; nor was a Remedy found for the same, until the said Battalion was broke, and entirely disbanded."

Article Thirteenth.

"And whereas the said Warren Hastings was well aware that the Orders of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, which he was bound substantially, and with good Faith, to obey, did strictly forbid that any Military Officers in their Service should hold any Office or Share in the Collection of Revenue; within the Provinces under their Jurisdiction: and the said Order was wisely and providently made, as well for the Benefit of the Revenue as for Preservation of Discipline in the said Officers, and for Security of the Natives from Oppression:

" And whereas the Dominions and Territories of the said Nabob of Oude were under the Protection of the East India Company, and in a State of real Dependance on the said Company, or of those who exercised their Authority.

"And whereas the said Company had a valuable Interest in the Prosperity of the aforesaid Territories, as well as in that of the Provinces immediately under their Jurisdiction, and which Interest and Property the said Warren Hastings was in Duty bound to attend to, and was bound also religiously to abstain from any Act which had a Tendency to the Prejudice thereof; yet he the said Warren Hastings, intending to procure excessive and unlawful Profits to Alexander Hannay aforesaid, and for that Purpose, by Subtlety, Artifice, and Fraud, to defeat the true Intent and Meaning of the Company's salutary Orders, and to corrupt the Discipline of the Army in the Dominions of their Allies in the first Instance, and ultimately in their own, not content with having as aforesaid, against his own Conscience, Judgment, and Opinion, by his Influence and Power established the Corps under the said Hannay in the said Nabob Vizier's Service, did also, soon after or about the Time of the said Appointment of the said Hannay, or at some other Time while the said Hannay did hold and exercise the said Military Command, by the same his overbearing Power and Influence, recommend him the said Hannay to the General Farms, or Collection of Revenue of Two great Provinces in the Dominions of the said Nabob of Oude, called Baraitch and Gorucpore, and did procure him to be appointed thereto; which lastmentioned Appointment, according to the Evil Customs which prevailed for some Time in that Country, and did then prevail, did also comprehend, or was complicated with, several arbitrary, unlawful, and mischievous Powers and Authorities, unfit to be held or exercised by any Person, much less by a British Subject and Servant of the said East India Company, which did particularly expose Military Officers commanding therein to the Temptation of Lucre by Peculation, and did expose the People who were thus put under a Foreigner, a Person evidently protected by a Power stronger than the native Government of the Country, to Oppression, without other Controul than what might arise from the mere personal Disposition of the said foreign Farmer General and Military Commander.

"And the said Hannay having made an ill Use of the united exorbitant Powers aforesaid, in the heavy Oppression of the Inhabitants of the said Provinces of Baraitch and Gorucpore; and the said Nabob Vizier, on Complaint thereof, having removed the said Hannay from his said Office of Farmer and Collector of Revenue, was with much Reluctance, and notwithstanding many bitter Complaints by him made, obliged, through the Influence and Power of the said Warren Hastings, again to restore him the said Hannay to the Occupation and Authority from which, for his said Misconduct, he had been removed: And the said Warren Hastings, instead of taking any Measures to check or controul in future the exorbitant and abused Power of the said Hannay, whom he had thus forcibly obtruded a second Time into the Management of the said Nabob's Revenues, did, on the Twenty-sixth of April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty, write a Letter to the said Nabob, expressing his Satisfaction at his Restoration of the said Hannay to the Employment to which he the said Warren Hastings had originally recommended him, and that he considered the same as an Attention to that Recommendation; telling the said Nabob, in an insolent and overbearing Manner, that it was not his Intention to force or even to influence his Choice (after he had in fact not only influenced but forced his Choice), but that if he did employ the said Hannay, he the said Nabob should convince him the said Hannay, as well as the immediate Rulers of the Country which he was to superintend, and above all, the People about his the said Nabob's Person and Court, that he placed an implicit Confidence in his the said Hannay's Zeal for his Service; with several other Expressions and Suggestions in the said Letter contained (as by the said Letter, Reference thereto being had, will more fully appear), strongly discouraging the Complaints of those who alone could make any Complaints with Effect, he the said Warren Hastings not having in any known Manner enquired into the Truth and Justice of former Complaints, plainly by him implied in the said Letter to have been made; but, on the contrary, he the said Warren Hastings did in the said Letter, accuse Persons in the said Nabob's Court of interested Views and incendiary Designs, and did attempt, without any Reasons or Ground, to take away all Credit from their future Representations, instead of making the Course of Complaint easy to the unhappy Persons subjected to such unlimited and arbitrary Command, exercised by a Person recommended thereto by himself, as his general Duty, and his particular Responsibility, in such a Case bound him to do.

"And whereas the said Warren Hastings, on or about the Time that the said Hannay was removed as aforesaid from his Farm, or other Collection of Revenue in the Provinces of Baraitch and Gorucpore, that is, on or about the latter End of the Year One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, did find the Burthen of maintaining the detached Corps under European Officers, of which the said Hannay's Battalions composed a principal, if not the larger Part; and the said Nabob did signify, or cause to be signified, to the said Warren Hastings, that the said detached Bodies of Troops, under their European Officers, brought nothing but Confusion into the Affairs of his Government, and were entirely their own Masters; praying that he might be relieved from the Burthen of those, along with that of other Troops in the Memorial or Representation mentioned, which the said Warren Hastings did understand and declare to include specially the Corps under the said Hannay, and those under the said Osborne, and certain other Corps; he the said Warren Hastings, did not only disregard the said Request, to which he ought to have attended, but did declare the same to be totally in admissible, though no Part of the Reasons or Pretences assigned by the said Warren Hastings, either then or since, for refusing to free the said Nabob from the Burthen of Troops in general, namely, the Apprehension of foreign Wars, and the Inability of the Company to bear the Expence of the Corps to be reduced, did at all apply to the Corps commanded by the said Hannay, the said Corps having no Concern with foreign Wars, but being solely employed in the Collections, and the said Corps when it should be discharged from the said Nabob's Pay, not being to return on the Company's Establishment, with which it had no Connection: And the said Warren Hastings, in order to terrify the said Nabob and his Ministers, as well as all other Persons, from all Representations on a Subject so immediately affecting the said Nabob's Revenues, and the Welfare of his Subjects, did, in his Minute of the Thirteenth of December, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, move, That the Resident at Oude should inform the said Nabob, that the Advice of his Ministers, who had instigated him to make the said Representation, appeared to him insidious and dangerous, and that the Council hoped he would dismiss them from his Service and Confidence, as unworthy of both; and in a Minute of the Fifteenth of the said Month, he did threaten to bring to Punishment as Incendaries, those who advised the said Representations and Requests, and used therein other Expressions, in Substance and Terms corresponding with the Matter and Expressions which he used in his Letter to the Nabob of the Twenty-eighth of April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty; when, in consequence of the Menaces of the Thirteenth of December, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, or some other such Menaces, the said Nabob was compelled to restore the said Hannay to the Charge of certain Provincial Collections; and a Letter to the Nabob, conformably to the said Minutes, was soon after written and dispatched by the said Warren Hastings; and the said Warren Hastings, when he kept up the said Hannay's Corps, in Defiance of the Prince in whose immediate Service it was pretended to be, did not make, or cause to be made, any Enquiry whatsoever, as it was his Duty to do, into the Confusion alledged by the said Nabob Vizier to be brought into his Government by those or other Corps of a similar Description, or even into the Fact by the said Nabob charged, of their being, contrary to their occasional Subjection and contrary to all the Rules of Military Discipline, their own Masters, although Philip Francis Esquire, one of the Council did, in a recorded Minute of the Fifteenth of December, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, declare it notorious that the Troops aforesaid had devoured the said Nabob of Oude's Revenues and his Country, under Colour of defending it, and that he was convinced the Representation of the Nabob, concerning the Confusion brought on his Government, and that the Troops aforesaid being their own Masters, was strictly true, or to that Effect; and he the said Warren Hastings did thereby, contrary to his Duty, his Conscience, and his Trust, wilfully connive at, countenance, and encourage the said Confusions, and the said Destruction of Military Obedience, and thereby, and by other his Acts before recited, did, with wicked and corrupt Views, leave the said Countries of Baraitch and Gorucpore exposed to all the united Mischiefs of a rapacious and oppressive Revenue Exaction, and a violent, disorderly, and licentious Military Tyranny, both being exercised by or under the Authority of the said Hannay; and in consequence thereof, the said Countries of Baraitch and Gorucpore were, in a most cruel, outrageous, and savage Manner, by the said Hannay, supported and countenanced as aforesaid, and by those acting under his the said Hannay's Authority despoiled, wasted, and depopulated.

"That whereas, by reason of the Misgovernment and Oppression exercised in the Collection of the Land Revenue in the Provinces of Oude, the Zemindars have been obliged to defend themselves against the Collectors in fortified Places; and the Collectors aforesaid, in order to enforce the Collection of the Revenue, together with their unjust Exactions, do often violently seize upon the innocent Brother, Son, or some near Relation or Dependant of the different Zemindars or Landholders, and imprison them as Hostages in Places of Security, in a large District, sometimes to the Number of several Hundreds, whereby, and by other evil and oppressive Practices, the Inhabitants are often driven to rebel; and he the aforesaid Hannay, carrying on the Collection of the Revenue in the aforesaid oppressive Manner, and taking the aforesaid cruel and unjust Method of exacting the same, did retain in Captivity, and imprison, in One Fort only, namely, that of Gorucpore, One hundred and fifteen of such Hostages as aforesaid, Inhabitants of a District called Sarwar, or did retain in Captivity or imprison, upon some other Pretence, or upon his mere arbitrary Pleasure, the Number of One hundred and fifteen Persons, Inhabitants of the said District, and great Discontents did therefrom arise; and on the Fifteenth of the Month of Rammazan(answering to the Fifth of September, in the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-one) all the Zemindars, great and small, and all the Inhabitants of Gorucpore, to the Number of many Thousands, and several others from the adjacent Districts, being provoked at the cruel and unjust Captivity of the said Hostages, or other Inhabitants, did raise a general Insurrection, and did attack the Fort of Gorucpore, in which a native Subaltern Officer, under the said Hannay, called Allahd Sing, did command, in order to release the Inhabitants imprisoned therein; and on Pretence that during the said Attack a Soldier had cried out that the Hostages or Inhabitants aforesaid had began an Attack upon him the said Officer, although the said Captives were unarmed, did give instant Orders to put them all to the Sword, which violent and barbarous Order the said Soldier did set himself to obey, and did actually strike off the Heads of Eighteen of the said captive Inhabitants, and threw them over the Walls of the Fort, having also wounded several others; and, a few Days after a Victory had been obtained over the People making the Insurrection as aforesaid, the said Hannay, instead of any Enquiry into the Necessity of the barbarous Act aforesaid, committed by an Officer under his Command, or endeavouring by lenient Measures to reconcile the Persons whose Friends had been thus slaughtered, he did in cold Blood send a written Order to Munnawar Khan, another Officer, or other Person under him, giving Directions concerning a certain Person of great Rank, Eminence, and Consi deration in the Country, called the Rajah Mustapha Khan, purporting, that if the said Rajah Mustapha Khan had been put to Death, it was well—if not, to strike off his Head, or Words or Directions to that Effect. And the said Munnawar Khan, shocked at the said inhuman and wicked Order, did decline Obedience thereto, and did shew the same to the very Officer who before had committed the terrible Slaughter aforesaid; yet the said Officer, who appears to have been of a savage and bloody Disposition, did however recoil from the Execution of the said Order, and declared that he would write to the Colonel, meaning the said Hannay, on the Subject, as the Order was not expressly directed to him, or used Expressions to that Effect. And the said Order did remain without Execution till the Arrival of Captain David Williams at Gorucpore, when the said David Williams, or some other English Officer did, in Execution of the said Bloody and arbitrary Order, without any Form of Process, and in cold Blood, direct and cause to be put to Death the said Rajah Mustapha Khan, and caused Proclamation to be made through the Town of Gorucpore, that those who had been guilty of the same Offences should be liable to the same Punishment, or to that Effect. And the said cruel and atrocious Murder, perpetrated on a Person of high rank, did exceedingly exasperate all Persons of all Ranks in the said Country, and did tend to inflame the Tumults and Disorders which then began to prevail in the said Province, and to extend the same to all Parts thereof. And in consequence of the said Tumults, and the Discontents which spread also amongst his own (the said Hannay's) Troops, Three Battalions, or a great Part thereof, did mutiny and desert, and he was in a shameful Manner obliged to abandon the Country, which was soon after recovered by Major Naylor with One Battalion only. But the said Warren Hastings, although Accounts of the Proceedings aforesaid were brought to his Knowledge, did not cause any Enquiry whatsoever to be made into the Conduct of the said Hannay, as it was his Duty to do, relative to any one of the Particulars above recited, or to the Complaints which were made by the Mother and Grandmother of the said Nabob of Oude, concerning the Misbehaviour of the said Hannay, and of Captain Gordon, an Officer acting under him, in the Districts of Baraitch and Gorucpore, but did afterwards, and after all the Calamities aforesaid had befallen the Country, and the Battalions under the Command of the said Hannay; and although by the said Treaty of Chunar the said Battalions under the said Hannay had been agreed to be reformed and suppressed; and that although he the said Warren Hastings was in his own Conscience persuaded, and did inform the Court of Directors, that in the Removal of the Company's Servants, Civil and Military, he was actuated by Motives of Justice to the said Vizier, and a Regard to the Honour of the National Character; and although he also knew and declared, that the remote Stations of those Troops, placing the Commanding Officers and the Troops in Oude beyond the Notice and Controul of the Board (meaning the Council General), afforded too much Opportunity and Temptation for unwarrantable Emolument, and had excited the Contagion of Peculation and Rapacity throughout the whole Army, he the said Warren Hastings did so far abet, countenance, and encourage the said Hannay, that though he himself knew, that it was generally known, that the said Hannay had again the Presumption to apply to the said Vizier for the Farm of Baraitch and Gorucpore, he did not in any Way discourage such Application; whereby, and from his general known Support and Countenance to the said Hannay, a Report did prevail, and did gain entire Credit in the said Vizier's Court (the said Vizier having at that Time a public Minister at Calcutta, who had very constant Intercourse with the said Warren Hastings, and was likely to obtain the best Intelligence of his Designs), that the said Warren Hastings was again preparing to send the said Hannay into Oude, in order to obtain again either the Farm aforesaid, or the Farm of the Districts then rented by Almas Ali Khan, and Khoja Arin ul Dien Khan, or of some other great Districts in the said Vizier's Dominions. The said Vizier was so alarmed by the said prevailing Report and Opinion, or by Intelligence received by him from his Minister at Calcutta to that Effect, that he wrote a Letter to the said Warren Hastings, acquainting him of the Information he had received, namely, that the said Hannay would desire his the said Warren Hastings's Permission to be employed in that Quarter, meaning his the said Vizier's Dominions; and he the said Vizier was so violently agitated, and struck with such extreme Horror, with the Apprehension of the Return of the said Hannay into his Dominions, that in his said Letter he swore, according to his Religion, by the Holy Prophet, if by any Means any Matter dependant on him should be entrusted to the Colonel (meaning the said Hannay), he would not remain in his Dominions, but would go to him the said Warren Hastings, or to that Effect; and the said Letter was duly received by the said Warren Hastings; and though the said Vizier did in the said Letter, under the Alarm aforesaid, earnestly entreat the said Warren Hastings, that no Matter dependant on him should be entrusted to the Colonel (meaning the said Lieutenant Colonel Hannay); and though he did likewise request, that the said Warren Hastings would oblige him with a speedy Answer, which might set his Mind at Ease; and although the said Warren Hastings was bound, by common Decency and common Humanity, immediately to give Satisfaction to the said Vizier (the First Ally in Rank and Importance of the East India Company, and one entitled to every Mark of Respect and Protection), and was also bound to quiet the Mind of the said Vizier, so agitated, as he saw by the said Letter it was, through the Dread of so great a Calamity, as well as to clear his own Character from the Imputation of having formed against the said Vizier so hostile and alarming a Design as had been attributed to him; and though the Letter aforesaid was by him the said Warren Hastings received on the Fifteenth of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, he the said Warren Hastings did not return any Answer whatever thereto until the Thirtieth of December following, which was after the said Hannay had died; at which Time, and not before, he wrote a Letter to the said Vizier, of which an Abstract only is on the Company's Records, declaring therein, that no Intention was ever formed of employing Colonel Hannay at Lucknow; thereby leaving just Ground to the said Vizier, and to all other Persons, to be assured that the Death of the said Hannay alone prevented his being employed in the Manner which the said Vizier so justly dreaded: In all which Acts done by the said Warren Hastings, contrary to his Duty, and in all the aforesaid Neglects of Duty, the said Warren Hastings was and has been the Cause of great Damage to the Country of Oude, of a high Breach of his Trust, and did dishonour, and hath dishonoured the Name and Character of this Nation."

Article Fourteenth.

"That the Nabob Vizier having Reason to entertain Apprehensions relative to the Security of his own Person, and the Stability of his own Situation, from the Malice and Corruption of the said Warren Hastings, notwithstanding the large Bribe by him given as aforesaid to the said Warren Hastings at Chunar, the said Warren Hastings having in sundry Instances treated him since that Time with great Inhumanity, Perfidy, and Rigour; and the said Nabob Vizier having further Cause of Apprehension, because Lieutenant Colonel Hannay, a Person protected by the said Warren Hastings, though in the Service of the said Nabob Vizier, and receiving his Pay, and loaded with his Benefits, did write a Letter to excite dangerous Suspicions of him the said Nabob Vizier; which Proceeding was not discountenanced by the said Resident Middleton, who transmitted the same to the said Warren Hastings, and which he the said Warren Hastings did receive without manifesting any Displeasure towards the Writer thereof; and the said Nabob Vizier having further Reason for Alarm, because Sir Elijah Impey, His Majesty's Chief Justice, and acting as Amanuensis and Private Secretary to the said Warren Hastings, had been, by the Direction of the said Warren Hastings, employed since the Treaty aforesaid in taking Affidavits tending to criminate the Mother of the said Nabob Vizier, and his nearest Kindred; and he the said Chief Justice did exercise that odious and treacherous Office, in Violation of the Laws of Hospitality, whilst he was the Guest of the said Nabob Vizier at his Court, and receiving at least honorary Presents, and Pledges of Amity from him; The said Nabob Vizier, from all the aforesaid Circumstances, and others, became affected with great Terror, and did fall into a profound Melancholy, and in that State of Mind, in order to avert the evil Designs of the said Warren Hastings, did offer him, through the said Resident, Nathaniel Middleton, a further and Second Bribe of One hundred thousand Pounds, or some other great Sum of Money, and did give Assignments on the landed Revenue, or some other Security, for the Payment of the same, which Assignments or some other Security was accepted by the said Nathaniel Middleton; but a Letter which was written by the said Middleton to the said Warren Hastings, relative to the said Bribe, or unlawful Present, offered in or about the Month of January or February One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, requesting his Acceptance of the said unlawful Gift or Present, has been, against Law and his Duty, and for base, clandestine, and corrupt Purposes, by the said Warren Hastings wholly suppressed, as well as his Answer to the same, if any Answer was by him given thereto, although it was the Duty of the said Warren Hastings to produce to the Council General at Fort William the Letter aforesaid; and he was bound to give a speedy Answer, containing a direct Refusal to the same, and to reprimand and bring to condign Punishment the said Middleton, for accepting the discreditable and infamous Office of Agent in the Offer of a Bribe to his Principal, the Governor General, by which Neglect of Censure and Discountenance, the said Middleton, and others in subordinate Situations, might be taught to consider the Receipt of Bribes to themselves as a Matter which might bring no Danger or Discredit to them.—And it does not appear, that any the least Notice was taken of the said corrupt Transaction, neither was any Document whatever concerning the said Offer through the said Middleton, nor concerning any other unlawful Gift or Present offered or taken from Oude, directly produced to the Council General, by the said Warren Hastings, until the Month of June, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, One Year and Four Months after the Offer of the said Present, and the taking Assignments on the Revenues or other Effects for the same; at which Time, on certain Articles of Accusation made by the Order of the said Warren Hastings, against Richard Johnson Esquire, it did appear, that on the Twenty-third of May, One thousand seven hundred and eightytwo, he the said Warren Hastings had given secret Instructions to his Agents, Palmer and Davy, to persuade the said Nabob Vizier to apply the said Present to the Use of the Company (which Instructions he did not produce till the Twentieth Day of October, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three), and he did accuse the said Johnson of being a Cause of preventing the said Present from being applied to the Use of the said East India Company, to whose Service the said Warren Hastings did assert he had given private Instructions to his secret Agents, Palmer and Davy, that the Nabob Vizier should be requested to permit the same to be applied; and the said Johnson did admit the Fact, and did assert, in Justification of his Act, that he had obstructed (meaning that he had for the Time defeated) the Whole and every Part of the said Design, and that no Assignments or other valuable Effects had been made over to the Company for the said Present, or used Expressions or Declarations in that Sense, or to that Purpose; notwithstanding which Plea and Admission of the said Johnson, that the whole Design, and every Part thereof, was by him defeated, the said Warren Hastings did, in a written Minute of Consultation (dated Twenty-first of October, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three), directly assert, that he was morally certain, that either Assignments on the Revenue of the Nabob of Oude, or Bills, had been given for the said Present; and his Colleague in Office, a Member of the Supreme Council, Mr. John Macpherson, did positively assert also on Record, that he always understood, that Bills had been given to the Amount of the intended Present, and that the said Hyder Beg Khan and the said Johnson ought to account for and explain the same: Yet the said Warren Hastings having obtained the sole Object he had in view in his said Accusation, which was to draw from the said Johnson an Acknowledgment that no Charge had been brought on the said Nabob Vizier by his Present, and intending fraudulently to suppress every Thing which might throw Light on that base and criminal Transaction, never did call on the said Johnson to account for the said Bills, Assignments, or other Effects, which he did so as before declare himself morally certain to have been given and appropriated, and which his Colleague, the said Macpherson, by his Minute recorded in the Books of the Council, did assert as aforesaid the said Johnson ought to account for; nor did he, the said Warren Hastings, produce the Letter, whether from his secret Agent Palmer, or from his Instrument Hyder Beg Khan, to his other secret Agent Major Davy, on which he grounded his Accusation against the said Richard Johnson relative to the said Present; nor did he write to the said Palmer for any Explanation of the Subject, nor to the said Hyder Beg Khan, nor to the said Resident Bristow, then in Oude, nor to any other Person who might have given or procured due and proper Information relative thereto; but he the said Warren Hastings did suddenly put an end to the Enquiry, by declaring that he was glad that the intended Present never had been applied to the Company's Use, and that it would be of no Service to the Company, but would add greatly to the Distresses of the said Nabob Vizier, though the said Warren Hastings himself had so recently, in a regular and formal Charge, accused the said Johnson of preventing it from being applied in that Manner and for that Purpose; and he did not only thus put a stop to the Enquiry instituted by himself, but, almost immediately after his Accusation of the said Johnson on that and sundry other Heads of Charge, and of certain of which he did declare him, in his Opinion, guilty, he did promote the said Johnson (fn. 1) to an Employment of great Honour, Emolument and Trust, namely, that of an important Embassy to a Foreign Court; and the said Warren Hastings did carefully avoid examining at Calcutta the said Nathaniel Middleton (through whom, and not through the said Johnson, the offer of the said Present was made) for any Account or Explanation of the same, though at the Time of the Enquiry concerning the said Present he the said Middleton was actually in Calcutta, and his own Conduct was at that very Time a Subject of Enquiry, upon Accusations preferred against him by the said Warren Hastings himself, on sundry Misdemeanors charged by him to be committed by the said Middleton, in the Capacity in which he was when the Present or Bribe aforesaid was offered through him; and though the said Middleton could have wholly contradicted the said Johnson's Plea and Assertion at Calcutta, and have proved that Assignments had actually been given for the Present through him offered, and that Collections were made by him thereon; but the said Assignments do not appear on any Record, Correspondence, Minute, or other Evidence, or written Document, nor doth it appear that any Money received thereon hath been brought to the Company's Account, or to that of the Nabob Vizier; so that the said Assignments made must have been made for some secret criminal Purpose, and what Money was received thereon must have been so applied. And whereas a Letter from the said Nabob Vizier was received by the said Warren Hastings (dated in the Month of Shabaun, answering to the Month of July or August One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two), acquainting the said Warren Hastings that though he the said Nabob had positively refused to comply with a large Loan demanded of him by the Majors Palmer and Davy, the Private Agents of him the said Warren Hastings, he had actually agreed to the Payment of a Present of Ten Lacks of Rupees, being upwards of One hundred thousand Pounds, for the Uses by them demanded; and it doth not appear in the Correspondence between the said Vizier and the said Warren Hastings that the Design was defeated, as the said Warren Hastings hath asserted and charged, and as the said Johnson hath admitted that it was in the whole, and consequently in all the Parts, by him the said Johnson defeated; nor doth it appear that the said Warren Hastings did write any Answer to the said Letter, in which the Nabob Vizier did inform him of his having consented to the Payment aforesaid, on Conditions therein referred to; nor did he produce the said Letter, in Opposition to the Declarations of the said Johnson; nor did he enter on Record the Paper of Conditions referred to in the said Letter, as by Act of Parliament and by his Duty he was bound to do; and from the Evidence, which he hath purposely left in a State of Contradiction and Obscurity, when he had it in his Power to establish the Truth or Falsehood of the said Evidence, and to clear up the whole Transaction, it doth no way appear whether the said Ten Lacks of Rupees, mentioned by the said Nabob Vizier, was the same identical Sum with that offered to Middleton, or was not rather some other Present to the same Amount; nor whether any Payment was or was not made thereon, the Whole being purposely involved by the said Warren Hastings in Mystery and Obscurity as aforesaid; and it doth not appear that the Parties concerned in these Transactions were acquainted with or consulted on the Proceedings of others acting in the same; but it doth appear, and it is hereby charged, that the full Correspondence of any of the said Agents with him the said Warren Hastings hath not been produced; but that the said Warren Hastings did, and doth, wilfully and criminally withhold the same. And whereas a Governor General, entrusted with the Care of the Company's Revenues, is bound in Duty to take care that all Things relating thereto, or whatever may affect the same mediately or immediately, should be clear, open, and distinct: And whereas it is also the Duty of the Governor General, that in a Service like that of the Company's Service in India, more liable than any other to the Suspicion of Bribery and Extortion, all Parts of the Government should be preserved, as much as in such Governor General lies, altogether clear from those foul Imputations, especially in him, the Head and Chief of the said Service, and who is in a particular Manner the Guardian of the Honour thereof, and of this Kingdom in India, and is bound to candid, fair, and ingenuous Proceedings in all Things, but more especially in Transactions tending to Corruption, he the said Warren Hastings, in Contradiction to his Duty, in the Transactions aforesaid, concerning a Bribe or Bribes offered to him by the said Nabob of Oude, by his Prevarication, Fraud, and Deceit, and by Suppression of Evidence, and by purposely avoiding the natural and orderly Course of Enquiry, dictated by the Circumstances of the Business before him, and by other dark, intricate, and collusive Practices, was and is guilty of an High Offence in the said Acts, and in the said Neglects of Duty, tending in their inevitable Consequences to perplex and mislead the Court of Directors, and to leave in the Minds of Men a strong Persuasion of unfair and corrupt Practice relative to the Object of the said Frauds and Devices, to the Dishonour of the high Trust and Office held by the said Warren Hastings, and to the evil Example of the Whole of the Company's Servants, by teaching them to veil their Acts in all Sort of Disguise, Mystery, and Fraud."

Article Fifteenth.

"That notwithstanding the Means pretended to be taken at the Treaty of Chunar for the Relief of the Vizier Nabob of Oude, the said Warren Hastings well knew that the Distresses of the said Vizier did continue, and that in order to satisfy the enormous and rapacious Demands made by the said Warren Hastings upon him, he had been compelled to lend his Name, and the Appearance of his Authority, to rob his Mother and his Grandmother of their Treasures, and to confiscate, under the same Compulsion, the Estates of his Relations and Friends, and Dependants of his Family; and the said Warren Hastings also well knew that the said Nabob, in his Court, in his Household, in his Troops, and in the whole State of his Country, did feel great and grievous Distress; yet he the said Warren Hastings, conceiving a false and injurious Opinion of the Character of the East India Company, and of the Honour, Justice, and Policy of this Kingdom, and delusively imagining that it would be received as a Cover for all his Acts of Disobedience to the Laws of his Country, and of all his Peculation, Rapacity, Cruelty, and Oppression, for which he did then apprehend he should be called to an Account, and that it would be taken as a meritorious Atonement for the same, if he could make it appear that he had exacted greater Sums from the ruined and undone Country of Oude, than others, more just, moderate, and provident, could have exacted from the same; and at the same Time with a view to leave the said Country in a State of the utmost Confusion and Distress, from whence he hoped to answer some of his evil Purposes, he did, without any Communication with his Council, or entering any Minute on the Books thereof, cause the Accountant, or Deputy Accountant at Calcutta, to rake into all the Accounts for several Years backwards, and from thence, and on Pretence of forgotten Articles, to produce Two Demands, amounting to Four hundred thousand Pounds Sterling or some other great Sum of Money, and he did urgently demand Payment of the same from the said Nabob, and though he well knew that the said Nabob's current Resources could not produce such a Sum, or any Sum above the current Demand, and that it could only be borrowed at an enormous Usury, and by Anticipation of his Revenues, and that this must produce for the present an Increase of his Debt, and at some future Time a Failure or Deficiency even in a reduced current Demand; yet for the fraudulent Purposes aforesaid he the said Warren Hastings did persevere in demanding the Payment of the same; and the same, or a great Part thereof, was borrowed by the said Nabob at an Interest of Twenty Pounds per Centum per Annum, or some other high and destructive Interest, and the said confiscated Estates were mortgaged for the same, by which it was put out of the Power of the said Vizier to restore the said confiscated Estates, until the Money borrowed on them was paid, if he had been permitted so to do by the said Warren Hastings; and the Deficiency to be apprehended by the said violent and oppressive Demand was actually produced, and the said Vizier's Debt, which had been kept in a growing State by enforcing unjust Demands upon him, and which ought to have been discharged with a consider able Remainder, by the violent Measures employed for that Purpose, did in the ensuing Year, namely, in the Fusulli Year One thousand one hundred and eighty-nine, corresponding to Part of the Years of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-one and One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, amount to a very great Sum of Money, in consequence of the said unexpected Demand, which, if just and founded, ought to have been produced at its due and proper Season, and not brought forward (as it was) to add to the Confusion, Perplexity, and Distress of the Country and Government of Oude, when the said Country was least able to bear it, and for which it was obliged to provide by an Anticipation to the Amount of Five hundred thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other great Sum of Money; and the Anticipation aforesaid pressing hard on the Revenue, and producing other Anticipations, fresh Necessities of borrowing at an enormous Interest were induced, till at length, that is, in the Years One thousand seven hundred and eighty-five, and One thousand seven hundred and eighty-six, a Deficiency and Debt did happen, even after the current Demand was reduced nearly to One-half of its usual Amount; and the said Warren Hastings, not content with the great and suspicious Demands aforesaid, further to increase the Disorder and Distress of the said Nabob's Affairs, did, as before, without any Consultation with his Council, in the Months of May or June in the said Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, illegally send or depute to Lucknow, to the Court of the said Vizier, his Two secret Instruments, Major Palmer and Major Davy, to demand that the said Vizier should lend to the East India Company a Sum of Six hundred thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other great Sum of Money, and also that the said Vizier should take Four Battalions of the Company's Troops into his Pay for the Collection of his Revenue, notwithstanding all the Mischiefs which had been experienced from that Species of Establishment; all which extraordinary Claims, together with the admitted Claims of the Company for that Year, would have amounted nearly to double the then clear Annual Revenue of all the Documents of the said Nabob; but the said Nabob did positively deny his Consent to either of the said Demands, notwithstanding the violent Menaces employed by the said clandestine Agents, or One of them, to induce him the said Nabob to a Compliance therewith, he the said Nabob pleading, with great Appearance of Truth, the utter Impossibility of advancing the said Sum. And the said Warren Hastings failing in this Attempt, did afterwards, falsely and evasively, deny, or endeavour to explain away, his Share in the said Proceedings; declaring, that it was from the Ministers Hyder Beg Khan and Almas Ali Khan, and not the said Nabob, that he proposed to borrow the Sum aforesaid; and did disclaim, in a prevaricating Manner, his having demanded that the said Four new Battalions should be so taken as aforesaid into the Pay of the said Nabob, though he never called his said secret Agents to Account for what they had so done, nor shewed them any Discountenance whatsoever, at the same Time that he did, in an ambiguous Manner, seem to throw on them the whole Blame of this most scandalous and persidious Attempt."

Article Sixteenth.

"That the said Warren Hastings, contriving by means of Violence and Corruption to bring the Natives of India, subject to the Power and Influence of the East India Company, into an entire Dependence upon him for their Lives and Fortunes, in order to draw to himself unlawful and exorbitant Advantages from that Dependence, did put Persons reputed opulent first into Terror as Criminals, without due Proof of their Offences, and afterwards did receive them into Favour and Trust, without due Proof of their Innocence, as the one or the other did best suit his evil Purposes; and in particular, the said Warren Hastings, at some Time in the Year of Our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, did receive, or pretend to receive, some Information concerning Misdemeanors imputed to a certain wealthy and powerful Native of India; called Almas Ali Khân, Farmer of a considerable Part of the Revenues of the said Vizier the Nabob of Oude, and also concerning a Design which the said Almas had entertained of withdrawing himself with his Treasures, represented by the said Warren Hastings as the Fruits of Embezzlement and Oppression, out of the Dominions of his Sovereign; and in fact the aforesaid Almas Ali, being under Apprehensions of a Design against his Life, had taken Steps which indicated an Intention so to withdraw himself, but was induced to return to the Capital and Court of the said Nabob Vizier, under a direct, clear, and positive written Engagement for the Security of his Life. And on a Representation caused by the said Warren Hastings to be made to the said Nabob, upon the supposed Defection, Treachery, and other Misdemeanors, of the said Almas Ali Khan, the said Nabob Vizier did write to his Vackeel, or Minister at Calcutta, for the Information of the said Warren Hastings, representing that the Charges made on the said Almas, as aforesaid, were by him the said Vizier understood to be the Effect of Malice, and the Acts of ill-designing Persons, and that he the said Vizier did conceive him to be perfectly innocent of the same, or to that Effect. And this Declaration of the said Nabob, the Master and Sovereign of the said Almas, was duly communicated to the said Warren Hastings; nevertheless, a very few Days after the Account aforesaid was received by him the said Warren Hastings, of the said Vizier's Opinion of the Innocence of the said Almas, his Subject and Servant, he the said Warren Hastings did in a special Instruction to the aforesaid John Bristow, dated October the Twenty-third, One thousand seven hundred and eighty two, give Orders concerning his the said Bristow's Conduct to the said Almas Ali Khan, full of Duplicity, Fraud, and Treachery, both to the Person who received the said Instruction, and also to the Person whom the said Instruction did regard. And he the said Warren Hastings did first, under a false Colour of good Faith, observe, that if any Engagement did subsist (he the said Warren Hastings at the same Time well knowing that such Engagement did actually subsist) between the said Almas and the said Nabob Vizier, it should be faithfully observed; but at the same Time directing the said Bristow in a most unwarrantable Manner, as follows, to wit: "But if he (meaning the aforesaid Almas) has been guilty of any criminal Offence to the Nabob (meaning the said Nabob Vizier) his Master, for which no Immunity is provided in the Engagement, or he shall break any one of the Conditions of it, I do most strictly enjoin you, and it must be your special Care to endeavour either by Force or Surprize, to secure his Person, and bring him to Justice; by bringing him to Justice, I mean that you urge the Nabob, on due Conviction, to punish him with Death, as a necessary Example to deter others from the Commission of the like Crimes; nor must you desist till this is effected. I cannot prescribe the Means; but to guard myself against the Obloquy to which I may be exposed, by a forced Misconstruction of this Order, by those who may hereafter be employed in searching our Records for Cavils and Informations against me, I think it proper to forbid and protest against the Use of any fraudulent Artifice of Treachery to accomplish the End which I have prescribed; and as you alone are privy to the Order, you will of course observe the greatest Secresy that it may not transpire; but I repeat my Recommendation of it as one of the first and most essential Duties of your Office."—That the said Warren Hastings has highly dishonoured the British Integrity, Simplicity, and Justice, by the wicked, scandalous, and perfidious Evasions and Distinctions in the aforesaid Instruction contained; for he well knew that the aforesaid Prince, the Nabob Vizier, who was by the said Instruction to be urged to put the said Almas to Death, had but a few Days before declared him innocent, and had, by a solemn Engagement, not only given him an Indemnity for special Offences particularized in his Pardon, as the said Warren Hastings did, without any Grounds, suggest and suppose, but had pledged the Public Faith for the absolute Security of his Life: And even on a Supposition that the said Act of Indemnity had only specified particular Offences, it was an inhuman and most treacherous Mode of proceeding, and most contrary to all the Principles of Generosity, Humanity, and plain Dealing, to make Inquisition for such Particulars as might have escaped the Care of the Person obtaining the Pardon, in order to defeat the Purpose thereof, and to take away his Life. And he, the said Warren Hastings, was equally guilty in requiring the said Bristow to proceed in a captious and insidious Inquisition into any the most minute Breach of Conditions, in order to entrap the Life of the aforesaid Almas Ali Khan; and he was also highly criminal in directing him to be put to Death for undefined Misdemeanors, without stating whether those Misdemeanors were of a capital Nature or not; and did thereby give Lessons to a Prince of the East of the most dangerous Nature to the Lives and Fortunes of all Persons subject to his Authority; and the Caution with which he the said Warren Hastings did conclude his dangerous and slippery Order aforesaid doth highly aggravate his Offence, as it shows that he was perfectly aware of the Construction to which such an Act was liable; and he did also highly aggravate the said Offence by the Caution with regard to his own personal Safety with which he gave a Mandate of a Nature the most likely to involve the Person who was to obey it in the greatest Embarrassment and Danger. That the said Bristow, from a Sense of the Persidy and Peril of the Proceeding ordered by the said Warren Hastings, and the Shock which thereby would be given to public Credit (the said Almas, on the Faith of the Residency, being Security for large Sums advanced by Bankers to the British Government), did not attempt to seize upon the said Almas Ali Khan, but was content with taking Measures tending to lessen the enormous Power of the said Almas, of which the said Warren Hastings had complained, to watch his Motions, and to give the said Warren Hastings Intelligence of any Design which he might entertain of leaving the said Nabob Vizier's Dominions; and the said Bristow did furnish to the said Warren Hastings much more full, distinct, and apparently authentic Intelligence of the Intentions of the said Almas to retire from the Vizier's Dominions, and of his corresponding with the neighbouring Powers for securing such Retreat, as also of his oppressive Administration, than he the said Warren Hastings had ever before received; notwithstanding which, without any previous Enquiry into the Conduct of the said Almas, or taking the smallest Notice of the frequent Intelligence given by the said Bristow of the Conduct of the said Almas, or of the Proceedings of the said Bristow with regard to him, and without apprizing the said Bristow of any Change in his Sentiments with regard to the Person whom he had ordered him in the Manner aforesaid to seize, and to cause to be put to Death, and without giving any Sort of Answer to the said Bristow's repeated Letters on the Subject of the arduous and critical Commission so given by him, he, the said Warren Hastings, did write to this very Almas Ali Khan, on the First of January, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, a Letter full of Expressions of Favour and Protection, in which Letter he solemnly assured him that he had never given Credit to the Accusations against him. And the said Warren Hastings, soon after going to Lucknow to exercise the Functions of the Office of Resident in his own Person, did invest the said Almas Ali Khan with the same or greater Authority than he had before possessed, notwithstanding nothing appeared to acquit the said Almas of the Embezzlements or Oppressions with which he himself had before charged him, or of Correspondence carried on by him with Cheyt Sing, the deposed Rajah of Benares, and the Mahrattas, for the Purpose of retiring from the Vizier's Dominions, the authentic Documents concerning which the Resident Bristow had recently transmitted to him the said Warren Hastings; but the said Warren Hastings, having then private Reasons for altering his Opinion, did complain of the Charges which had been made against the said Almas, as having been, according to his Expression, too laboriously urged against him, and which had nearly driven him to abandon his Country for the Preservation of his Life and Honour, and thus to give a Colour to the Charges themselves, when in fact he the said Warren Hastings himself had been the most earnest and laborious Prosecutor of the said Almas, and no other Person appears, with any Certainty, to have made Attempts on the Life and Honour of the said Almas: And whereas the said Almas had theretofore held his Farms of Revenue only from Year to Year, the said Warren Hastings, being at Lucknow some Time in the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, did give to the said Almas a Term of Six Years in his Farms of Revenue, thereby giving, out of the Reach of Correction or Resumption, a lease of boundless Power and enormous Profit to a Person by himself represented as a known Oppress or of the People; that the said Warren Hastings, in order to give Colour to the said Proceeding, did, in his Letter to the Court of Directors of the Thirtieth of April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, represent the said Almas as having purged himself of the Accusations against him by a seasonable Advance of Money, which had been applied to the Use of the East India Company: That the said Course of charging wealthy Men with Crimes, and acquitting them on the Advance of Money, is highly unwarrantable and scandalous, and would be so, even if the Money had been really and truly advanced; whereas the said Warren Hastings did falsely represent the said Transaction, for the said Almas was so far from advancing any Money at the Time of the said Warren Hastings's said Letter to the Court of Directors, that he had not paid up the regular Instalments which, by the Terms of his Farm, he had been obliged to make; the said Warren Hastings wilfully intending in his said Statement to deceive the Court of Directors, in order to make some Sort of Excuse for a Proceeding so contrary to all his former Proceedings and Professions relative to the said Almas, and so dishonourable to the Justice, Policy, and Humanity of this Nation."

Article Seventeenth.

Whereas, from the Laws and Customs of the East, which allow, and in some Measure require of great Men, a large Train of Wives and Concubines, the Families of the Princes of Indostan are generally numerous, and the Sons of the said Princes are all equal in Dignity, of whatever Mothers they may have been born; and they all accordingly are, or ought to be, maintained in an honourable Manner, suited to their high Rank: And the said Warren Hastings actually possessing the whole Power and Dominion of the Government of Oude, he was in Justice and in Duty bound to take care that due Provision should have been made for the Brothers and Sisters of the said Nabob, the reigning Sovereign of Oude; but the said Warren Hastings wilfully, and to the great Scandal of the English Name, did neglect his said Duty, and did not interpose through the public Resident, through his own Creature, the said Hyder Beg Khan nor any of his own secret Agents aforesaid, for the just and laudable Purpose of obtaining any suitable Provision for the Brothers and other Relations of the said Nabob, although the said Warren Hastings did write to the said Princes in specious, plausible, and insinuating Language, calling them his (the said Warren Hastings's) Brothers, with other soothing and affectionate Expressions to the like Effect.

That the Allowances made by Hyder Beg Khan, the dependent Agent of the said Warren Hastings, and by him kept in Power in Defiance of his Master, for the Support of Twenty-one Princes, Brothers of the said Nabob, all of whom were arrived at Years of Maturity, so as to have been dismissed from the Zenana, or Women's Apartment, did not exceed Twenty thousand Pounds Sterling, or thereabouts; some of the said Princes did not receive their respective Allowances for nearly Two Years, and were absolutely compelled to subsist on the Charity of their Brother's Subjects; which Defalcation of their scanty Maintenance was in consequence of the great Pensions and Salaries paid to the Favourites and Creatures of the said Warren Hastings, and of his Instrument, the said Minister Hyder Beg Khan; and in particular that, during or soon after the Time when the aforesaid Twenty-one Brothers of the said Nabob were restricted to the said very insufficient and unbecoming Income of Twenty thousand Pounds a Year, or thereabouts, which was also never regularly paid, a single English Surgeon, Surgeon Thomas, patronized by the said Warren Hastings, did actually receive from the Vizier nearly as much as the nominal Allowance of Ten of the Brothers of the aforesaid Sovereign the Nabob Vizier, the said Surgeon's Allowance being Nine thousand seven hundred and sixty-three Pounds Sterling a Year, or thereabouts; and the secret Agent of the said Warren Hastings did receive more than the whole Annual Allowance of all the Twenty-one Brothers of the said Nabob Vizier, who were out of the Care of the Women, and several of whom were married, and had Families to maintain; and the secret Agent of the said Warren Hastings, the said Major William Palmer, enjoying an avowed Annual Salary in Monthly Payments of Twenty-two thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other large Sum, which was generally reputed to be no more than a Part of the Emoluments annexed to the Situation of the said William Palmer.

"That in or about the Month of March, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, Three of the said Brothers of the Nabob, namely, Myrza Hyder Ally, Myrza Imayut Ally, and Myrza Syef Ally, did represent to the said Bristow, that they were in Distress for Dry Bread and Clothes, and in consequence of such Representation were relieved by the Intervention of the said Bristow; but soon after the Deputation of the said Warren Hastings to Oude, in the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, that is to say, some Time in or about the Month of September in the said Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, the said Myrza Hyder Ally, One of the Three Princes aforesaid, did fly to the Province of Benares, and did remain there in great Distress; and that although the said Warren Hastings did write to the said Nabob an Account of the aforesaid Circumstance, in certain loose, light, and disrespectful Expressions, concerning the said Myrza Hyder Ally, he did not, as he was in Duty bound to do, in anywise exert that Influence which he actually and notoriously possessed over the Mind of the said Nabob, for the Relief of the said Prince, the Brother of the said Nabob; but without obtaining any satisfactory and specific Assurances, either from the said Nabob, or the said Minister, the said Warren Hastings did content himself with advising the said Prince to return to his Brother the said Nabob.

"That in order to avoid Famine at Home, another of the said Nabob's Brothers, by Name Myrza Jungli, was under the Necessity of flying from his Native Country, and did seek Protection from a certain Mahometan Lord, called Mirza Shuffu Khan, then Prime Minister of the Mogul, from whom he did go to the Camp of the Mahratta Chief Madajee Scindia, where he did solicit and obtain a Military Command, together with a Grant of Lands, or Jaghire, for the Subsistence of himself, his Family, and Followers; but wishing again to be received under the Protection of the British Government, the said Mirza Jungli, in One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, did apply to the said Resident Bristow, through David Anderson Esquire, then on an Embassy in the Camp of the said Scindia; and, in consequence of such Application, the said Bristow, sensible of the Disgrace which the Exile of the said Myrza Jungli respected, both on the said Nabob of Oude and the British Nation, did negotiate with the said Nabob and his Ministers for the Return of the said Myrza Jungli, and for the Settlement and regular Payment of some proper Allowance for the Maintenance of the said Myrza Jungli, but the Allowance required was ultimately refused; and although the Whole of the Transactions aforesaid were duly represented to the said Warren Hastings by the said Anderson, and by the said Bristow, and although he had himself received, so early as the Twenty-third of August, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, a Letter from the Vizier, grievously complaining of the cruel and extortious Demands made upon him by the said Warren Hastings, in which Letter he did expressly mention the Flight of his Brothers, and the Distresses of the Women of his late Father, who he said were all as his Mothers, and that his said Brothers, from the Resumption of their Jaghires, were reduced to great Affliction and Distress, and he did attribute the said Flight of some of his Brethren, and the Distresses of the rest, and of the Women who stood in a Species of maternal Relation to him, as owing to the aforesaid oppressive Demands; yet he the said Warren Hastings did cruelly, inhumanly, and corruptly, decline to make any Order for the better Provision of any of the said eminent Family, or for the Return of the said Prince, who had fled from his Brother's Court to avoid the Danger of perishing by Famine.

"That some Time afterwards, (that is to say) about the Beginning of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, the said Myrza Jungli did entreat the Patronage and Interference of the said Warren Hastings to procure for him (the said Myrza Jungli) some adequate Provision from the said Nabob his Brother: But the said Request was, on Two disferent Applications of the said Myrza Jungli, in an hard and unfeeling Manner refused by the said Warren Hastings; and the said Warren Hastings did assign, as the Reasons of such Refusal, the Distresses and Embarrassments of the said Nabob's Government, which the said Warren Hastings, by his corrupt Intrigues and criminal Management before mentioned, had himself occasioned.

"That some Time in or about the Month of December, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, the Nabob Behadre, another of the Brothers of the said Nabob of Oude, did represent to the said Bristow, that he the said Nabob Behadre had not received a Farthing of his Allowance for the Current Year, and was without Food; and being wounded by an Assassin, who had also murdered his Aunt in the very Capital of Oude, the said Nabob Behadre had not a Daum to pay the Surgeon, who attended him for the Love of God alone. That at or about the Period of this said Representation, the said Bristow was recalled, and the said Warren Hastings proceeded up to Lucknow, but did not enquire into the said Representations transmitted by the said Bristow to Calcutta nor did order any Relief.

"That by the criminal Neglect of the said Warren Hastings, in not originally appointing, or procuring to be appointed, some adequate and becoming Provision for the said Princes, the Brothers of the said Nabob, and in not enforcing the due and regular Payment of such Stipends or Allowances as were appointed, as well as in not giving some Mark of his Approbation to the said Resident Bristow, for his commendable Interposition in Behalf of the said Princes, nor of his Displeasure to the said Minister Hyder Beg Khan, for his culpable Conduct towards the said Princes, as also in not making any Enquiry into the said Representations of the said Nabob Behadre, transmitted to Calcutta by the said Bristow at the Conclusion of his Residency, and in declining to pay any Regard to the aforesaid Applications made directly to him the said Warren Hastings, by some or one of the said Princes, the said Warren Hast ings did become, and is fully responsible for the aforesaid Distresses of the reigning Family of Oude, and did thereby bring Disgrace on the said Nabob Vizier, the first Prince of the Mahometan Empire in Indostan, and did discredit and dishonour the Justice and Humanity of the British Name throughout all the East."

Article Eighteenth.

"And whereas the said Warren Hastings hath frequently declared, that the System of Interference in Oude, by means of an English Resident, was an Usurpation, and was, in his Opinion, productive of many Evils and Disorders in the Government of the said Province, and did pretend that he had opposed the Introduction of the same: That the said Interference, however proper, being in direct Contradiction to his avowed Principles, ought by him to have been wholly declined, or exercised in direct Obedience to Orders, and his Part therein taken with the greatest Caution and Moderation; yet, having in view his own corrupt Advantage, and that of his Agents, he did himself continue that Interference to which he had so objected, and from Time to Time did increase the Powers of the English Agents by him appointed, and did make various Divisions and Distributions of the said Powers, and did frequently, and without any Reasons assigned, remove the Persons entrusted with such Agency: That, after the Dismission of the said Bristow, and the Re-appointment of the said Middleton, herein before alledged, when the said Middleton had continued in Office for Two Years longer, he was recalled by the said Warren Hastings, without any Cause assigned; and Mr. Hosea, since deceased, went up to Oude, under some actual Appointment, or Agreement for an Appointment, and was for a while there received, and was considered as Resident, but was suddenly recalled: That the said Middleton did then resume his Office, but was the same Year superseded by the said Warren Hastings, who appointed Mr. Purling to the said Residency: That, in a few Months afterwards, the said Warren Hastings, removed the Resident Purling (as in former Instances, without Cause assigned) and restored the said Middleton, who continued, upon such Restoration, about a Year in Office singly: That during these Transactions, the said Bristow having come to England, and obtained Two positive Orders from the Court of Directors for his Re-instatement, the said Warren Hastings did wilfully disobey the said Orders, and, on Record, did revile and insult the said Bristow, throwing out many Insinuations against his (the said Bristow's) Integrity, for presuming to claim, under the Authority of the Directors, who were the legal Masters both of the said Warren Hastings and of the said Bristow; and, the Day after he the said Warren Hastings had recorded a Minute to this Effect, he did propose a new Commission for Oude, dividing the Office of Resident, and appointing the said Bristow to the Political, and the said Middleton to the Pecuniary Department, and did thus make two Residents, which had no other Tendency than to confound the said East India Company's Affairs, and to increase its Expences, or that of their Allies, and the said Expences were thereby unnecessarily increased.

"That, during the said Bristow's Residence, which continued some Months under the said last Appointment, the said Warren Hastings never answered one of his Letters, nor gave him any Instructions, nor suffered the said Nabob to confer with him on any Affairs whatever; and did remove him on Pretence that he was personally disagreeable to the said Nabob. That the said Warren Hastings, afterwards, did appoint the said Middleton to the Office of Resident, together with Mr. Johnson as his Assistant therein, and did, some short Time after, again appoint the said Bristow to be Resident, pretending in a Letter on that Subject to the Court of Directors, that such Appointment was made in obedience to their Orders; but in a Letter which he caused to be written to the said Vizier, he studiously disclaimed that Motive, and declared therein, that though it had been his, the said Warren Hastings's, Intention to have so appointed the said Bristow, yet he had postponed such Appointment, left it should be understood at Lucknow that it was made in consequence of Orders from Europe (meaning Orders from the said Court of Directors); and further declared, that the contrary was the Case, and that the said Bristow was the Object of his own particular Patronage: And in about a Year afterwards he did again remove the said Bristow, in order to obtain in Effect the said Office of Resident for himself; and he the said Warren Hastings did accordingly perform the Function of the said Office himself, some Time in the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, and then left it in the Possession of a private Agent of his own, namely, Major Palmer; and thus, in the short Space of Seven Years, or thereabouts, from the Death of Colonel Monson in the Year One thousand seven hundred and seventy-six, the said Warren Hastings did at least make Eight different Changes in the said Office of Resident.

"And, during the said Succession of Agents, the said Warren Hastings, having it for his Object to obtain and to secure to himself, for his sinister and corrupt Purposes, the full and complete Controul and Dominion of Oude, as far as might be, without the Interposition or even Privity of his lawful Masters the Court of Directors, he (the said Warren Hastings) besides usurping the sole, immediate, and personal Nomination of the Public Residents, and changing them at his arbitrary Pleasure, did himself, on various Occasions, carry on with certain of the said Residents a private and secret Correspondence, of which he did never make any regular Entry on the Records of the Company, as by Law he was bound to do; but did only produce, at particular Junctures, such Parts and Fragments of the said Correspondences as might suit his Designs of the Moment; and he, the said Warren Hastings, did further correspond with the said Residents through secret, confidential, and unofficial Channels, among which were Major Palmer and Major Davy, Mr. Charles Crosts, the Sub-Treasurer, and Sir Elijah Impey Knight, His Majesty's said Chief Justice at Fort William in Bengal: That, to the criminal Ends aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings did, by his Influence, prevail with the said Nabob to appoint as his Minister, or to continue against his Will, a certain Mahometan Native, called Hyder Beg Khan, who did profess himself to be, as in Truth he was, the immediate Dependant of the said Warren Hastings, and to have been by him, the said Warren Hastings, raised from the Dust; with many other like Expressions of the most implicit Obedience and Submission to the Will of the said Warren Hastings; and did declare himself ready to enforce certain Measures, even against the Inclination of his Master the said Nabob, if he were authorized so to do by an Order or Letter from the said Warren Hastings: and the said Warren Hastings did record his Belief and Knowledge, that Hyder Beg Khan affixed the Name and Seal of the said Nabob to Letters written without his Consent; and that the said Nabob was a Cypher in the Hands of the said Minister Hyder Beg; and the said Hyder Beg possessing thus the entire Administration of Oude, the said Warren Hastings did, from Time to Time, exercise a Power of direct Censure and Controul over the Conduct of the said Hyder Beg; and did hold out Menaces to him, and did threaten him that he would influence the said Nabob to institute a strict Scrutiny into the Administration of him the said Hyder Beg Khan, and to punish him thereupon; while, on the other Hand, the said Warren Hastings did pronounce the Persons of the Ministers (whereof Hyder Beg Khan was the Principal) to be sacred, while they should act with the Participation or our (meaning, in Truth, the said Warren Hasting's own) Influence.

"And the said Warren Hastings did hold secret Communication both with the said Hyder Beg Khan and the said Nabob himself, through some of the confidential Channels before mentioned; and through a cer tain Mahometan Native of high Rank at Benares, called Ally Ibrahim Khan; and through a certain Native Rajah at Calcutta, named Rajah Govind Ram, Vackeel or Minister to the said Nabob of Gude: and the said Warren Hastings did never produce, or cause to be produced (as he was by Law bound to do), any regular Copy of such Communications, either to or from him the said Warren Hastings, but did only record such Parts thereof as he occasionally thought proper: and he did further privately receive from the said Hyder Beg, divers Applications, Remonstrances, and Complaints, at different Times, against sundry of the British Residents in Oude, and did proceed thereon; and in consequence thereof did exhibit formal Charges against the said Residents, and did remove them, in some Cases, before any solemn Enquiry had, or any Defence, of any Kind, in any Manner required.

And, in order more effectually to manage, for his own evil Purposes, the confused and intricate System of Government, both through the Native Minister and the British Resident by him established and supported, and to govern and direct, according to his own corrupt and criminal Views, the Cabals and Intrigues to which such a Government must necessarily give rise, the said Warren Hastings unlawfully, and contrary to his Duty, did send up to Lucknow, to be present on the Spot, a Third and secret Set of Agents, namely, the said Major Palmer, his Military Secretary and confidential Agent, and Major Davy his private Persian Interpreter and private Secretary: And the said Warren Hastings, in certain Letters to the said Nabob, has declared the said Palmer to be as himself (Warren Hastings,) to have the same Thoughts, and to be, as it were, his (the said Warren Hastings's) own Tongue: And the said Warren Hastings did transmit, through the said Agents, divers Letters to the Minister or the Nabob, of which Letters the public Residents did not receive any Copy or Translation, nor were in any authentic Mode informed as to the Contents thereof; and in divers Letters to the said Nabob, and to the said Hyder Beg Khan, which Letters were recorded by the said Warren Hastings, there do appear frequent and repeated References to the said Major Palmer, or Major Davy, for further Information; but all or most of the Letters which conveyed such Information he the said Warren Hastings hath wilfully and illegally suppressed: And the said Warren Hastings, by the same Means of clandestine Communication, did receive the aforesaid Representations and Accusations against the Residents from the said Minister Hyder Beg Khan, both in his own Name, and in that of the said Nabob: And that the said Warren Hastings, by taking Part, through the said confidential Agents, sometimes with the Resident, and sometimes with the Minister, at the Instigation of some Persons unknown, and without any due Examination into the Merits or Demerits, either of the Resident or the Minister, did wilfully, and for some evil Purpose, abet and ferment the Disturbances and Distractions necessarily incident to the perplexed System of Government before stated; and in particular, that some Time in or about the Month of August, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, the said Warren Hastings, on the Representations of the said secret Agents, or some other Persons unknown, did write one of the threatening Letters aforesaid to the said Hyder Beg; but in Return having received from the said Major Palmer, one of the said secret Agents, a Letter mentioning, in general Terms, the Usurpations of Mr. Johnson, the then acting Resident, and the Insults of the said Johnson to the said Hyder Beg; and having also produced a Letter privately sent from the said Hyder Beg to the said Major Davy, another of the said secret Agents, containing the like general Charges against the said Johnson; the said Warren Hastings, on the Seventh of September, One thousand seven hundred and eightytwo, did recommend to the Board at Calcutta, to order the said Johnson immediately down to Calcutta, with peculiar Marks of Displeasure and Disgrace; the said Warren Hastings, pretending exceeding great Alarm at the Information contained in the aforesaid Letters, although the said Hyder Beg Khan in his Letter to the said Major Davy, did represent himself as having before made the same or similar Charges against the said Johnson, which Charges did not then create such Alarm in the said Warren Hastings, inasmuch as the said Warren Hastings did subsequently write to the said Hyder Beg the Letter of Reprimand aforesaid; and afterwards, on the Twentieth of October following, he did again write to the said Hyder Beg Khan, menacing him as aforesaid, notwithstanding the Sanction which the said Warren Hastings had so recently given to the recriminatory Defence of the said Hyder Beg, by the immediate Removal of the said Johnson without Enquiry.

"That, on the Twenty-second Day of the aforesaid Month of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, only Fifteen Days after the Removal of the said Johnson for the alledged Crime of Opposition to the said Minister Hyder Beg, the said Warren Hastings, in consequence of Intelligence from the said secret Agents or other Persons unknown, did further recommend to the Board the Dismission of the said Resident Middleton, for not having carried into Effect the Conditions and Spirit of the Treaty of Chunar, in which the said Resident Middleton had been opposed by the said Minister and the said Nabob; and the said Dismission of the said Resident Middleton was contrary to the good Faith of the said Warren Hastings, who, in Reply to a private Request of the said Nabob, did promise to the said Nabob the Resident Middleton should not be removed but at the Desire of the said Nabob, or of himself the said Middleton, or to that Effect; and this Promise, bearing Date the Twenty-third of May, One thousand seven hundred and eightytwo, was recorded by the said Warren Hastings himself on the Bengal Persian Correspondence; and soon after the said Promise, the Resident Middleton did quit his Station with Leave of Absence, and did not return till the last Day of August or thereabouts, that is to say, about Three Weeks before his Recall.

That, by having thus, on the unexamined Evidence of his private Instruments, removed the Resident Middleton and the Assistant Resident Johnson, within the Space of One Month, on Grounds so contradictory and inconsistent in themselves, the Assistant Resident Johnson for opposing and the Resident Middleton for not opposing the same individual Minister Hyder Beg Khan; the former of the Two professedly in order to quiet the Nabob's Apprehensions, and the other in Contradiction to the direct Request of the Nabob himself; the said Warren Hastings did throw new Difficulties and Discouragements in the Way of any Resident who might succeed, as there was no Line of Conduct whatever left to him, for which one of his immediate Predecessors had not been punished with Dismission, and for which he might not apprehend similar Disgrace, through the dark Machinations of the said Warren Hastings and his private Instruments aforesaid; and by the said Examples, together with the continued Operation of the secret System of Cabal and Intrigue aforesaid, and the rapid Change and Succession of Agents within the Space of about Seven Years, many of them in Defiance of Orders, and all upon Motives of Cabal and Intrigue, he did accordingly weaken and render odious the British Government, disturb and distract the Government of Oude, disorder the Company's Affairs, protract the Payment of the Debt due to the said Company from the said Nabob, and give strong Incitement to Rapacity and Peculation, in a Place exposed to the greatest Temptation, and furnishing the most abundant Means of unlawful Acquisition."

Article Nineteenth.

"That the said Warren Hastings having declared himself sensible that the Affairs of Oude had been long in an ill Condition, and were daily growing worse, owing to the Misgovernment which prevailed therein, and which had not been reformed in consequence of the Regulations directed, and the Powers by him given to the Resident Middleton, in the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, in virtue of the Treaty of Chunar, he did therefore, under the Pretence of the better Regulation of the said Provinces, in the Month of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, appoint John Bristow Esquire, to the Office of Resident in Oude; and did, on the Twenty-third of October, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, give to the said Bristow sundry minute and particular, as well as large and general Instructions, by which, for the Purpose of reforming the Abuses which prevailed in the said Nabob's Dominions, he did in Effect and Substance authorize and require the said Bristow to exercise all the Functions of Government in an eminent and controlling Manner, representing the Necessity thereof from the said Vizier's Disinclination and Inaptitude to Business, which rendered him a Cypher in some Hands or other; and from the little Reliance which could be placed on his Minister Hyder Beg Khan, of whose Character and Morals he did, in the said Instructions, give a most unfavourable Representation, and he did declare the said Bristow responsible for the due Observance of the said Instructions, and the Exercise of the Power therein given; declaring in the following Words, or Words to that Effect, That from the Nature of our (meaning the British) Connection with the Government of Oude, and from the said Nabob's Incapacity, a Necessity would for ever exist, whilst we had a Claim of Subsidy upon the Resources of his Country, of exercising an Influence, and frequently substituting it entirely in the Place of an avowed and constitutional Authority in the Administration of his (the said Nabob Vizier's) Government; and in the said Instructions he did declare, that he had Recourse to him the said Bristow for the Introduction of a new System in that Government, and that he could not omit, whilst he expressed his Reliance on him the said Bristow for that Purpose, to repeat the Sentiments which he the said Warren Hastings had expressed in the verbal Instructions which he gave the said Bristow at his Departure, that there could be no Medium in the Relation between the Resident and the Minister, but either the Resident must be the Slave and Vassal of the Minister, or the Minister at the absolute Disposal of the Resident; and he the said Warren Hastings did, in various other Parts of the said Instructions, vest large Powers in the said Bristow, wholly superseding and controlling those of the said Nabob's acting Minister, the said Hyder Beg, and did threaten the Dismission of the said Minister, in Case of the Opposition to be expected to assist him, which was in Effect to over-rule the said Minister's own Power; and he the said Warren Hastings did particularly direct the said Bristow to appoint regular Offices in the said Government, not One Office being therein existing, the Whole being engrossed by the said Minister, the said Hyder Beg Khan alone;— to regulate the Troops, which had been ill regulated and ill paid—to establish Courts of Justice, there being none existing in Oude, he the said Warren Hastings having asserted with Truth, that the Want of such Courts was the most discreditable Defect in the said Nabob Vizier's Government; and he did also give Directions concerning the Revenues and other Matters, and the Reformations and Regulations by him directed were proper, and in the then State of Oude necessary, and he was bound to give all due Support to the said Bristow, in carrying the same into Execution, in Opposition to the said Hyder Beg Khan and others, whose Interests in the Continuance of Abuse, must have been deeply affected by the Reformations by him in the said Instructions prescribed; but the said Warren Hastings, having conceived a strong Animosity against the said Bristow, on account of his original Appointment to Office under Persons, in Council, whom the said Warren Hastings opposed, and on account of his the said Bristow's subsequent legal Claim to Office, under the Authority of the Court of Directors, which he the said Warren Hastings did seem particularly to resent, did contrive, under the Mask of Friendship, and an extraordinary Degree of Trust and Confidence, most perfidiously to betray, and grossly to injure him the said Bristow; and he the said Warren Hastings, contriving also, for his own corrupt and self-interested Purposes, to increase those Disorders in Oude, which he pretended he had appointed the said Bristow to reform, he did very early after his Appointment of the said Bristow endeavour to counteract the said Bristow in all his Endeavours for that Purpose, and did uphold and maintain the said Hyder Beg Khan in an Opposition to all the necessary Plans of Reform by himself, the said Warren Hastings, ordered and directed; and though he had ordered the said Bristow to inform him, from Time to Time, of his the said Bristow's Progress in the Execution of his the said Warren Hastings's Orders concerning the several Reforms therein directed and specified, and the Obstructions he might meet with therein; and though the said Bristow did diligently pursue the Objects entrusted to his Care, and did regularly write to the said Warren Hastings, and did faithfully represent to him the State of the Country, the several Matters which he proposed for the Regulation thereof, and the Difficulties which he had to encounter; yet the said Warren Hastings, although he had made it an Article of Accusation against the former Resident Middleton, that he had not regularly corresponded with him the said Hastings, excepting the Share of One Letter from the Council, approving of his the said Bristow's Measures (to which Measures he secretly gave, or countenanced others to give, an Opposition), did for the greater Part of the Time the said Bristow remained in Office never, or very rarely, write to him; nor did he the said Hastings give to the said Bristow any Instructions whatever upon any One of the delicate and difficult Objects so largely insisted upon in his Commission: And for the Purpose of preventing the Council from giving a Support to the necessary Reforms which were in direct Obedience to his the said Warren Hastings's Orders attempted in Oude, he did maliciously, wilfully, perfidiously, and fraudulently, against Law and his Duty, hold back for Three Months an important Letter from the said Bristow, to him the said Warren Hastings, and to the Council General, dated the Twelfth of December, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two. And when he, the said Bristow, did inform him, in the fullest Manner, of the Opposition given by the said Hyder Beg Khan to all the Acts in the said original Instructions prescribed, and did complain thereof to the said Warren Hastings, in his several Letters of the Twelfth of December, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, the Thirtieth of the same December, the Twenty-first of January, Fourth and Thirty-first of March, and the Eighth of April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, none of which Letters were recorded by the said Warren Hastings till on or after the Twenty-first Day of April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, with the Enclosures therein contained, he the said Warren Hastings did not pay any Sort of Regard whatever to the Representations of the said Bristow, but did produce to the Council, at various Times, Letters or pretended Letters from the said Nabob, in Opposition to the Measures pursued by the said Bristow, under his the said Warren Hastings's Authority, as an Usurpation on the said Nabob's Authority. And the said Warren Hastings, in direct Contradiction to his own written Declarations, to the solemn written Assurances which he had given to the said Bristow, and to the Denunciations which in Writing he had authorized the said Bristow to make to the said Minister Hyder Beg Khan, implying that his Obedience to the said Resident did form the Terms upon which he would be permitted to hold his Office; and that he the said Warren Hastings would not re ceive as the Nabob's, Letters dictated by the Spirit of Opposition, but should consider every such Attempt as an Insult on our Government; and did declare, or ordered it to be declared, to the said Hyder Beg Khan, that he did expect that nothing should be done in his the said Hyder Beg Khan's Official Character without the Knowledge and Participation of the said Resident; yet he the said Warren Hastings did, without Hesitation, or even the Pretence of an Enquiry, receive as the Nabob's own Letters, and as written from Impressions on his the said Nabob's own Mind, and as the Suggestions of his own Judgement, Letters written in the Spirit above mentioned, and such as were evidently written to promote the Views of the said Hyder Beg Khan, in which Light he the said Warren Hastings had solemnly declared that he would consider such Letters, and did state them as a poor Deception, and a thin Veil, to cover the Designs of the said Hyder, and that he would look on the Guilt of writing such Letters as aggravated by the Falsehood and Duplicity with which they were accompanied; and he the said Hastings had in this Case more particular Reason than ever to consider the said Letters as being written to promote the Interests of the said Hyder, and not the Independency of the said Vizier, because his the said Warren Hastings's secret Agent, Palmer, accusing the said Bristow, and being a Witness against him, did represent the said Vizier as having informed him the said Palmer that the said Bristow had gone the Length of letting the said Vizier know, that if he pleased he was the Master in his own Government, and was free to dismiss his Minister at his Pleasure, or to that Effect. And further the said Warren Hastings did accept and take several Letters of the said Hyder Beg, accusing the said Bristow, as Proofs, although the said Hyder Beg was a Party, and interested, as well as the said Palmer; the said Hyder having, in the Course of that Dispute, applied to the said Warren Hastings to be solely employed, both for the Company's Concerns and the said Vizier's; and the said Palmer confessing, that he had a Prospect of the Residency, and the said Hyder having made a direct Proposal, the said Hyder, to be by his the said Warren Hastings's Power placed in the Management of the Nabob's Affairs, and also employed to transact, on their Part, those of the Company, and having engaged, if so employed, that he would obey the said Warren Hastings's Orders, though secretly operating; yet the said Warren Hastings, notwithstanding his perfect Knowledge of the interested Motives of the said Hyder and Palmer, and the Notoriety that both were his Dependents, and notwithstanding the Insinuation of the said Hyder Beg, tempting the said Warren Hastings, by offering to obey his Orders, secretly operating, he the said Warren Hastings, having thrown off all Regard to Decency, as well as to Justice, did attempt, on the mere Charges of these Persons, one of them, namely, Hyder Beg, a Person stigmatized by him in his Instructions to this very Bristow, as a most abandoned Character, to deprive the said Resident of his Office, without hearing his Defence; and when the said Warren Hastings failed to persuade the Council to concur with him in this unwarrantable Act, and that they remonstrated to him, that the only Offence with which the said Resident was charged consisted in some totally ineffectual Attempts to execute the said Instructions, he the said Warren Hastings, in a Letter to the said Bristow, did revoke the said Instructions, and did, in insulting Terms, write to the said Bristow, that he should not dare to act upon them, or to use them as his Instructions, and yet did not propose any other in their Stead, leaving, as far as in him lay, the said Resident entangled in the Plots and Conspiracies of his the said Warren Hastings's said Agents and Instruments, to act in a most delicate and difficult Situation, without any Rule or Direction whatever: And the said Warren Hastings, in due Time, no longer concealing his being himself a Candidate for the Office of Representative of the Company in Oude, and discovering more and more his real View, which was to fill, before his Departure for Europe or his Recal thither, that subordinate but most lucrative Office, caused the Accusations to be renewed against the said Bristow, on the Part of the said Nabob Vizier, and the said Hyder Beg and others, against the said Bristow, in which he conducted himself in an unjust, violent, and intemperate Manner, using a shameful Partiality with regard to the said Accusers, and a scandalous Prejudice against the Accused, in Violation of all Duty, in all the Capacities in which he did or might stand in the said Proceedings, whether he be considered as an Accuser, a Judge, or a Counsellor of State, at the Head of an Administration. That further, in pursuance of his unjustifiable Views of personal and local Power in Oude, he the said Warren Hastings did cause and instigate the said Vizier to make pathetic Lamentations of his Situation, and to call for his the said Warren Hastings's Presence in Oude, as the only Means of quieting his Mind, and re-establishing his Affairs: And the said Warren Hastings did, by throwing out Insinuations against the other Members of the Council, and threatening them with the Consequences of what might result from the exasperated State of Mind which he represented the said Nabob and all the principal Persons of the Country to be in, and which Discontents, and the Disorders consequent thereto, the said Warren Hastings did foment, if not cause, he by those and the like evil Acts and Violences, and by the aforesaid and by other unwarrantable Acts by him devised and practised, did obtain the Removal of the said Bristow from his Office, and his own Appointment thereto, or to an Office in that Country, of the same or greater Power and Authority. And the said Warren Hastings, in all the Acts and Neglects of Duty aforesaid, by wilfully declining to support the Execution of his own Orders, as well as by traversing, or causing to be traversed, the said British Resident Bristow in effectuating the Reformations by himself known to be necessary, and recommended as such in his said Instructions, not only betrayed a Servant of the Company, whom it was his Duty, so far as in Justice he could, to protect, but by the Plots and many Devices of him and his Instruments, weakened and dishonoured the British Government and Authority in the said Province, and thereby prevented the Recovery of the Company's Assignments; and by countenancing the Prevention of proper Offices, he did encourage Peculation and Confusion in Accounts, and Mutiny in the Army, and the same did happen in consequence thereof, and in particular by his the said Warren Hastings's heinous Offence in countenancing an Opposition to the Establishment of Courts of Justice in Oude, he the said Warren Hastings is the Cause of all the Want of Security to the Property and Lives of the Inhabitants, and of the many Mischiefs, Disorders, Tumults, Robberies, and Murders, which, from Want thereof, did thereafter happen in the said Country of Oude, and even in the Capital City of Lucknow."

Article Twentieth.

"That the said Warren Hastings did take a Commission or Delegation to act for the Governor General and Council at Lucknow, or some such Delegation or Commission, on Condition of finding the Security of responsible Bankers for the Payment of the Vizier's Debt on or before the Month of January, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-five; and he did proceed for Lucknow on the Fourteenth of February, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, and returned to the City of Calcutta on the Third of November, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four. That the said Commission or Delegation to be executed by him, the Governor General, was totally unnecessary for any one of the Objects by him the said Warren Hastings done, or proposed by him to be done, in the said Delegation; and he did bring upon the East India Company, by the said unnecessary Delegation, a Charge of Fifty thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other great Sum, for the Expences attending the same, at the Time when the said Company laboured under very great Difficulties, and when the strictest Œconomy was called for; and he, the said Warren Hastings, did take with him a great Train of English Gentlemen, to the Number of Thirty, or some other large and unnecessary Number, besides his Guard, although he was well aware, that the Vizier Nabob of Oude did always consider the Presence of English Gentlemen as bringing upon him a heavy Burthen; and though the said Warren Hastings, in his Justification of the Treaty of Chunar, did, through his Colleague Wheler, inform the Court of Directors that the Removal of the English Gentlemen and Officers from the Vizier's Court, as well as Service, was a Point in which the National Honour and Reputation was well consulted, or to that Effect. That the said Warren Hastings, being at Lucknow as aforesaid, did come to some Agreement or Stipulation, purporting that no British Resident should ever be sent into Oude, and that no British Influence, secret, or avowed, should be exercised within the same, whilst the Vizier continued to fulfil his Engagements to the Company, which voluntary Act of Abdication of the Power and Influence of this Kingdom in the Province of Oude, he, the said Warren Hastings, was not legally authorized to make, without express Orders for that Purpose from the supreme Authority; and he did presume to bind the East India Company to the Observance of the said unwarrantable Agreement, by causing to be inserted in the Leases of the several Farms, let by the said Vizier, a Clause, whereby the said Leases, and all the Conditions and Engagements therein stipulated, were to be annulled and made void, wherever the said Farmers should be interrupted in their Functions by the Interference of a British Agent, thereby unlawfully precluding, as far as in him lay, on the one Hand, the Operation of the Discretion of his Masters in the Conduct of their Affairs, or on the other, subjecting his said Masters to an Imputation on their Faith, by breaking an Engagement confidently made in their Name, though without their Consent, by him the said Warren Hastings, who was the first Officer of their Government. That the said Warren Hastings, in thus surrendering all the Influence and Authority of the said East India Company as an Arrangement beneficial to the Country so by him abandoned, and as serviceable to the said Company, did act in direct Contradiction to sundry Declarations by him recorded, and transmitted officially for the Information of the Court of Directors, and of His Majesty's Ministers, wherein he did represent the Exercise of the said Influence as absolutely necessary to the said Company's Affairs, as highly beneficial to the Country in which it was to be employed, as well as to the Prince; and that the Government of Calcutta would always retain the same, or to that Effect; as also, that he had provided for the Lawfulness of the same, under the Powers given by a Treaty, namely, the Treaty of Chunar. That the said Warren Hastings did, in his several Letters of the Thirtieth of April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, to the Court of Directors, and of the First of October, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, to the Council General, assign Reasons for the said voluntary Abdication of Authority, highly dishonourable to the British Name and Character; as by the said Letters, Reference being thereunto had, will appear. And his Offence herein is highly aggravated, because the Imputations thrown by him on the British Nation and British Government, and their Influence, in large and general Terms, so far as the same are just, are entirely owing and imputable to the Misconduct of the said Warren Hastings himself, and his Agents, or of the Persons employed, supported, and protected by him.

"That while the said Warren Hastings did thus endeavour to destroy the Dependence on British Faith, and wholly to take away and destroy the British Authority in the Province of Oude, he, the said Warren Hastings, did nevertheless attempt, contrary to his Duty, to create an exclusive Reliance and Dependence on his own personal Faith, and to establish and confirm his own Government by means of his own personal Influence, and through his own immediate Agents in the said Province of Oude. That after the said Warren Hastings had signed the aforesaid Agreement, renouncing all Influence in the said Country, and had stipulated that there should be no Resident of the said East India Company in the said Province, he, the said Warren Hastings, did nevertheless, on his Return to Calcutta, after he quitted the said Province, stay some Time in the City of Benares, for the Purpose of exercising, contrary to his Duty and Faith, his own Influence and Authority in and over the said Government of Oude, and did leave behind him a Resident of his own, at a known Yearly Expence to the said Nabob of Twenty-two thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other large Sum of Money. That after his Return to Calcutta he the said Warren Hastings did, contrary to Justice, bring forward new Charges against the late Resident, John Bristow, purporting that he the said Bristow, during his Residency, had paid a large Establishment of English Pensioners from the Revenues of the said Nabob, when at the same Time he the said Warren Hastings did well know that many of the said Pensioners had been settled thereon by himself, and none by the Authority of the said Bristow. That the said Warren Hastings did also corruptly leave under the aforesaid Major Palmer a large Establishment of English Pensioners, authorized by him the said Warren Hastings to be paid out of the Revenues of the said Nabob; and the said Warren Hastings did thereby, in Contradiction to his Faith and Duty, maintain and preserve in the said Province of Oude a great Interest, and an extensive Connection of Dependants to himself, at an heavy Expence to the Revenues of the Country, after he had altogether relinquished all Authority and Influence therein on Behalf of his lawful Masters, the East India Company.

"That when the said Warren Hastings withdrew all public Influence of the East India Company from the said Province of Oude, he did (except inasmuch as he may himself still have retained a personal, secret, and unwarrantable Influence therein) wholly give up and abandon the said Nabob and his Territories, and the East India Company's Interests therein, to the entire Dominion of the said Hyder Beg Khan, without any Controul or Inspection on the Part of the said Company, though he the said Warren Hastings was well apprized of the Unfitness of the said Hyder Beg for the said Trust, or for any Trust, and had expressed the strongest Disapprobation of the said Hyder Beg's Misconduct in many particular Instances, besides the universal Disorder of the Country; and had even intimated an Opinion, that the said Hyder Beg might involve our Government in a new Scene of Hostilities by those which his Mal-administration might produce.

"And the said Warren Hastings, by his Agreement aforesaid, did further leave sundry of the great Farms of Revenue in the Province of Oude under Almas Ali Khan, whom he had represented as a disaffected Person, and whom he had ordered to be punished with Death.

"That by the Agreement aforesaid the said Warren Hastings, contrary to Justice and to Honour, did abandon all the Persons who had acted in the Reforms proposed by himself, such as Mowlavy, Mowbain, Mahomet Cauzim, and others, exposed without any Stipulation (weak as that Security would have been) to the Resentment of so implacable a Tyrant as the said Hyder Beg Khan, who was publicly known, and whom the said Warren Hastings himself knew to be exasperated against the said Persons, for the Part which they had taken under the said Warren Hastings's own Authority.

"That the Bankers, whose security the said Warren Hastings took for the Payment of the said Nabob Vizier's Debt to the said Company, were ir-responsible Persons, who soon after failed. That the pretended Payment of the Nabob's Debt was delusive, and was not accomplished by the Time at which the said Warren Hastings undertook it should be discharged; and that the said Warren Hastings, contrary to the British Faith did violently take away a Security given by John Bristow Esquire, late Resident, to a certain Native Banker, called Gopal Doss, who, in consequence thereof, did make a Demand for Payment of the same on the East India Company, and did thereby much affect the said Company's Credit.

That by violently restraining and anticipating the said Nabob Vizier's Resources, for which Kind of Proceeding the said Warren Hastings had before actually accused and impeached the aforesaid Resident, Middleton, and by leaving the whole Administration of the Finances of Oude to the said Hyder Beg Khân, and the said Almas Ali Khân, he the said Warren Hastings did much and dangerously affect the Payments of succeeding Years, notwithstanding the Annual Charge on the said Nabob was exceedingly diminished, yet the Debt of the said Nabob to the said Company did stand as high as Four hundred thousand Pounds Sterling, or some other great Sum of Money, in the Month of July, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-six: In all which Actions and Doings, and in all the said wilful and corrupt Neglects of Duty, he the said Warren Hastings hath been and is guilty of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

"And the said Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, by Protestation, saving to themselves the Liberty of exhibiting, at any Time hereafter, any further Articles or other Accusation or Impeachment against the said Warren Hastings Esquire; and also of replying to his Answers which he shall make unto the said Articles, or any of them, and of offering Proof to the aforesaid Articles, and to all and every other Articles, Impeachment, or Accusation which shall be exhibited by them, as the Case shall, according to the Course of Parliament, require, do pray that the said Warren Hastings Esquire may be put to answer the said Crimes and Misdemeanors; and that such Proceedings, Examinations, Trials, and Judgements, may be thereupon had and given, as is agreeable to Law and Justice."

Further Articles of Impeachment read to Warren Hastings:

Ordered, That Warren Hastings Esquire be forthwith summoned to appear.

The House being informed, "That Warren Hastings Esquire was attending without:"

He was called in, and the Lord Chancellor acquainted him, "That the Commons had exhibited further Articles against him in further Maintenance of their Impeachment, which he would now hear read."

And the same being read; the said Warren Hasttings prayed, "That he might have a Copy of the same, and that such Time might be allowed him to put in his Answer thereunto, as to the House should seem meet."

He was directed to withdraw.

Warren Hastings to have a Copy, and put in his Answer.

Ordered, That Warren Wastings may have a Copy of the said further Articles of Impeachment against him, and that he be allowed One Month and until the Second Day of the next Sitting of the House after the Expiration of the said Month to put in his Answer to the said further Articles.

Then the said Warren Hastings was called in, and the Lord Chancellor acquainted him therewith.

He was directed to withdraw.

Ordered, That the said Articles be printed.

Adjourn.

Dominus Cancellarius declaravit præsens Parliamentum continuandum esse usque ad et in diem Mercurii, tricesimum diem instantis Maii, horâ undecimâ Auroræ, Dominis sic decernentibus.

DIE Mercurii, 30^o Maii 1787.

REX.

Domini tam Spirituales quam Temporales præsentes fuerunt:

PRAYERS.

Cropwell Butler, &c. Enclosure Bill.

A Message was brought from the House of Commons, by Mr. Medows and others:

To return the Bill, intituled, "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons and Waste Grounds in the Lordship or Liberty of Cropwell Butler, and a certain Inter-common Field, and Meadow, called the Fern Field and Great Meadow lying intermixed in the said Lordship and the Lordship of Cropwell Bishop in the County of Nottingham;" and to acquaint this House, That they have agreed to their Lordships' Amendments made thereto.

Ratcliffe Enclosure Bill.

A Message was brought from the House of Commons, by Mr. Medows and others:

To return the Bill, intituled, "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds, lying within the Parish of Ratcliffe-upon-Trent, in the County of Nottingham;" and to acquaint this House, That they have agreed to their Lordships' Amendments made thereto.

The House was adjourned during Pleasure, to robe.

The House was resumed.

The King present:

His Majesty, being seated on the Throne, adorned with His Crown and Regal Ornaments, and attended by His Officers of State, (the Lords being in their Robes,) commanded the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to let the Commons know, "It is His Majesty's Pleasure that they attend Him immediately in this House."

Who being come, with their Speaker;

He, after a Speech in Relation to the Money Bills to be passed, delivered them to the Clerk, who brought them to the Table, where the Deputy Clerk of the Crown read the Titles of those, and the other Bills to be passed, severally, as follow; (videlicet)

1. "An Act for granting to His Majesty a certain Sum of Money out of the consolidated Fund, and for applying certain Monies therein mentioned for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven; and for further appropriating the Supplies granted in this Session of Parliament."

2. "An Act for granting to His Majesty a certain Duties on Glass imported into Great Britain, and for altering the Mode of charging the Duties on Glass made in Great Britain."

3. "An Act for laying additional Duties upon Licences to be taken out by Persons dealing by Retail in Spirituous Liquors."

To these Bills the Royal Assent was pronounced, severally, by the Clerk Assistant, in these Words; (videlicet)

Le Roy remercie ses bons Sujets accepte leur Benevolence et ainsi le veult."

4. "An Act to enforce and render more effectual several Acts passed in the Twelfth Year of the Reign of King Charles the Second, and other Acts made for the Increase and Encouragement of Shipping and Navigation."

5. "An Act for making further Provisions in regard to such Vessels as are particularly described in an Act made in the Twenty-fourth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for the more effectual Prevention of Smuggling in this Kingdom, and for extending the said Act to other Vessels and Boats not particularly described therein; for taking off the Duties on Flasks in which Wine or Oil is imported; for laying an additional Duty on foreign Geneva imported; for taking off the Duty on Ebony the Growth of Africa, imported into this Kingdom; and for amending several Laws relative to the Revenue of Customs."

6. "An Act for making Allowances to the Dealers in Foreign Wines, for the Stock of certain Foreign Wines in their Possession at a certain Time, upon which the Duties on Importation have been paid; and for amending several Laws relative to the Revenue of Excise."

7. "An Act to continue several Laws relating to the free Importation of certain Raw Hides and Skins from Ireland and the British Plantations in America; to the allowing the Exportation of certain Quantities of Wheat and other Articles to His Majesty's Sugar Colonies in America; to the prohibiting the Exportation of Tools and Utensils made use of in the Iron and Steel Manufactures of this Kingdom, and to prevent the seducing of Artificers and Workmen employed in those Manufactures to go into Parts beyond the Seas; and to the granting a Bounty on the Exportation of certain Species of British and Irish Linens exported, and taking off the Duties on foreign Raw Linen Yarns made of Flax imported."

8. "An Act for rectifying Mistakes in the Names of several of the Commissioners appointed by an Act made in the last Session of Parliament, to put in Execution an Act made in the same Session, intituled, An Act for granting an Aid to His Majesty by a Land Tax to be raised in Great Britain, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-six;" and for appointing other Commissioners, together with those named in the first-mentioned Act, to put in Execution an Act of this Session of Parliament; for granting an Aid to His Majesty by a Land Tax to be raised in Great Britain, for the Service of the Year One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven."

9. "An Act for appointing Commissioners further to enquire into the Losses and Services of all such Persons who have suffered in their Rights, Properties and Professions during the late unhappy Dissensions in America, in consequence of their Loyalty to His Majesty and Attachment to the British Government."

10. "An Act for appointing Commissioners further to enquire into the Fees, Gratuities, Perquisites, and Emoluments, which are or have been lately received in the several Public Offices therein mentioned, to examine into any Abuses which may exist in the same, and to report such Observations as shall occur to them, for the better conducting and managing the Business transacted in the said Offices."

11. "An Act for making a Road from Saint Bernard's Street in the Town of Leith, to the Foot of Leith Walk, in the County of Edinburgh, and for widening and enlarging certain Streets in the City of Edinburgh, and the Avenues leading to the same; and for amending Two several Acts passed, relative to the said City, in the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Years of His present Majesty's Reign."

12. "An Act to enable His Majesty to licence a Playhouse in the Town and County of the Town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne."

To these Bills the Royal Assent was pronounced, severally, by the Clerk Assistant, in these Words; (videlicet)

"Le Roy le veult."

13. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds, lying within the Parish of Ratcliffe-uponTrent, in the County of Nottingham."

14. "An Act for dividing and enclosing the Open Fields, Meadows, Pastures, Commons, and Waste Grounds, in the Lordship or Liberty of Cropwell Butler, and a certain Inter-common Field, and Meadow, called the Fern Field and Great Meadow, lying intermixed in the said Lordship and the Lordship of Cropwell Bishop, in the County of Nottingham."

To these Bills the Royal Assent was pronounced, severally, by the Clerk Assistant in these Words; (videlicet)

"Soit fait comme il est desiré."

Then His Majesty was pleased to speak as follows: (videlicet)

His Majesty's Speech.

My Lords, and Gentlemen,

I cannot close this Session of Parliament without expressing My entire Approbation of the Zeal and Assiduity, with which you have applied Yourselves to the important Objects which I recommended to your Attention, and at the same Time returning You my particular Thanks for the Proofs which you have given of your Affection for Me, and for My Family and Government.

"The Assurances which I receive from Foreign Powers of their good Disposition to this County, and the Continuance of the general Tranquillity of Europe, afford me great Satisfaction; but Dissensions unhappily prevail among the States of the United Provinces, which, as a Friend and Well-wisher to the Republic, I cannot see without the most real Concern.

Gentlemen of the House of Commons,

The Chearfulness with which you have granted the necessary Supplies, and the ample Manner in which you have provided for the several Establishments, demand my sincerest Thanks.

I see with particular Satisfaction that you have at the same Time been able to furnish the Sum annually appropriated to the Reduction of the National Debt, without imposing any new Burthens on My People.

My Lords, and Gentlemen,

I reflect with peculiar Pleasure on the Measures which you have taken for enabling Me to carry into Effect the Treaty of Navigation and Commerce, with the Most Christian King, and for facilitating the Collection and simplifying the Accounts of the various Branches of the Revenue, which, I trust, will be productive of the most beneficial Effects. And I rely upon your using your best Endeavours in your several Counties to carry into Effect the Measures which have been taken, for the Prevention of illicit Trade, and to promote good Order and Industry among every Class of my Subjects."

Then the Lord Chancellor having received Directions from His Majesty said,

My Lords and Gentlemen,

Parliament Prorogued.

It is His Majesty's Royal Will and Pleasure, that this Parliament be Prorogued to Tuesday the 31st Day of July next, to be then here holden; and this Parliament is accordingly Prorogued to Tuesday the 31st of July next."