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

That the King Shah Allum received for some years the annual tribute of
twenty-six lac of rupees above mentioned, and was entitled to continue
to receive it by virtue of an engagement delib