ARTICLES OF CHARGE AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ. LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL ; PRESENTED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS UPON THE 4th DAY OF APRIL, 1786. ARTICLES OF CHARGE AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ. LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL. I. ROHILLA WAR. THAT the court of directors of the East India Company, from a just sense of the danger and odium incident to the extension of their conquests in the East Indies, and from an experience of the disorders and corrupt practices, which intrigues and negotiations to bring about revolutions among the country powers had produced, did positively and repeatedly direct their servants in Bengal not to engage in any offensive war whatsoever: that the said court laid it down as an invariable maxim, which ought ever to be maintained, that they were to avoid taking part in the political schemes of any of the country princes; and did, in particular, order and direct that they should not engage with a certain prince called Sujah ul Dowla, nabob of Oude, and vizier of the empire, in any operations beyond certain limits in the said orders specially described. That Warren Hastings, Esq., then governor of Fort William in Bengal, did, with other members of the council, declare his clear understanding of the true intent and meaning of the said positive and repeated orders and injunctions,-did express to the court of directors his approbation of the policy thereof,-did declare that he adopted the same with sincerity and satisfaction, and that he was too well aware of the ruinous tendency of all schemes of conquest ever to adopt them, or ever to depart from the absolute line of self-defence, unless impelled to it by the most obvious necessity,—did signify to the nabob of Oude the said orders, and his obligation to yield punctual obedience thereto; and did solemnly engage and promise to the court of directors, with the unanimous concurrence of the whole council, "that no object or consideration should either tempt or compel him to pass the political line, which they (the directors) had laid down for his operations with the vizier;" assuring the court of directors that he "scarce saw a possible advantage, which could compensate the hazard and expense to be incurred by a contrary conduct," -that he did frequently repeat the same declarations, or declarations to the same effect, particularly in a letter to the nabob himself of the 22nd of November, 1773, in the following words: "The commands of my superiors are, as I have repeatedly informed you, peremptory, that I shall not suffer their arms to be carried beyond the line of their own boundaries, and those of your excellency their ally." That the said Warren Hastings, in direct contradiction to the said orders, and to his own sense of their propriety and coercive authority, and in breach of his express promises and engagements, did, in September, 1773, enter into a private engagement with the said nabob of Oude, who was the special object of the prohibition, to furnish him, for a stipulated sum of money to be paid to the East India Company, with a body of troops for the declared purpose of "thoroughly extirpating the nation of the Rohillas;" a nation from whom the company had never received, or pretended to receive or apprehend, any injury whatsoever; whose country, in the month of February, 1773, by an unanimous resolution of the said Warren Hastings and his council, was included in the line of defence against the Mahrattas, and from whom the nabob never complained of an aggression or act of hostility, nor pretended a distinct cause of quarrel, other than the non-payment of a sum of money in dispute between him and that people. That supposing the sum of money in question to have been strictly due to the said nabob by virtue of any engagement between him and the Rohilla chiefs, the East India Company, or their representatives, were not parties to that engagement, or guarantees thereof, nor bound by any obligation whatever to enforce the execution of it. That, previous to the said Warren Hastings's entering into the agreement or bargain aforesaid to extirpate the said nation, he did not make, or cause to be made, a due inquiry into the validity of the sole pretext used by the said nabob; nor did he give notice of the said claims of debt to the nation of the Rohillas, in order to receive an explanation on their part of the matter in litigation, nor did he offer any mediation, nor propose, nor afford an opportunity of proposing, an agreement or submission, by which the calamities of war might be avoided; as, by the high state in which the East India Company stood as a sovereign power in the East, and the honour and character it ought to maintain, as well as by the prin ciples of equity and humanity, and by the true and obvious policy of uniting the power of the Mahometan princes against the Mahrattas, he was bound to do:-that, instead of such previous inquiry, or tender of good offices, the said Warren Hastings did stimulate the ambition and ferocity of the nabob of Oude to the full completion of the inhuman end of the said unjustifiable enterprise, by informing him "that it would be absolutely necessary to persevere in it until it should be accomplished;" pretending that a fear of the company's displeasure was his motive for annexing the accomplishment of the enterprise as a condition of his assistance, and asserting "that he could not hazard or answer for the displeasure of the company, his masters, if they should find themselves involved in a fruitless war, or in an expense for prosecuting it ;"-a pretence tending to the high dishonour of the East India Company, as if the gain to be acquired was to reconcile that body to the breach of their own orders prohibiting all such enterprises.—And in order further to involve the said nabob beyond the power of retreating, he did, in the course of the proceeding, purposely put the said nabob under difficulties in case he should decline that war, and did oblige him to accept even the permission to relinquish the execution of this unjust project as a favour, and to make concessions for it; thereby acting as if the company were principals in the hostility; and employing for this purpose much double dealing and divers unworthy artifices, to entangle and perplex the said nabob, but by means of which he found himself (as he has entered it on record) hampered and embarrassed in a particular manner. That the said compact for offensive alliance in favour of a great prince against a considerable nation was not carried on by projects and counter-projects in writing; nor were the articles and conditions thereof formed into any regular written instrument, signed and sealed by the parties; but the whole (both the negotiation and the compact of offensive alliance against the Rohillas) was a mere verbal engagement, the purport and conventions whereof no where appeared, except in subsequent correspondence, in which certain of the articles, as they were stated by the several parties, did materially differ;-a proceeding new and unprecedented, and directly leading to mutual misconstruction, evasion, and ill faith, and tending to encourage and protect every species of corrupt, clandestine practice;-that, at the time when this private verbal agreement was made by the said Warren Hastings with the nabob of Oude, a public ostensible treaty was concluded by him with the said nabob, in which there is no mention whatever of such agreement, or reference whatever to it; in defence of which omission it is asserted by the said Warren Hastings, that the multiplication of treaties weakens |