e had promised to fulfil, attended by
pointed instances of contumacy and disrespect"; and in the said minute
the said Hastings adds, (as before mentioned,) his principal servant and
manager had propagated a report that the "_interference_" (namely, his,
the said Hastings's, interference) "to which his master owed the power
he then enjoyed was purchased by him," the principal servant aforesaid:
yet he, the said Hastings, who had assigned on record the character of
the said Nabob, and the conduct of his servants, and the aforesaid
report of his principal servant, so highly dishonorable to him, the said
Hastings, as reasons for taking away the independency of the Nabob of
Furruckabad, and the subjecting him to the oppression of the Nabob of
Oude's officer, Almas Ali, did again himself establish the pretended
independence of the said prince of Furruckabad, and the real
independence of his corrupt and perfidious servants, not against the
Nabob of Oude, but against a British Resident appointed by himself ("as
a character eminently qualified for such a charge") for the correction
of those evils, and for rendering the prince aforesaid an useful ally to
the Company, and restoring his dominions to order and plenty.

That the said Hastings did not only disable the Resident at Furruckabad
by his said prohibitory letter, but did render his very remaining at all
in that station perfectly precarious by a subsequent letter, rendering
him liable to dismission by the Vizier,--thereby changing the tenure of
the Resident's office, and changing him from a minister of the Company,
dependent on the Governor-General and Council, to a dependant upon an
unresponsible power,--in this also acting without the Council, and by
his own usurped authority: and accordingly the said Resident did
declare, in his letter of the 24th of April, 1785, "that the situation
of the country was _more_ distressful than when he [the prince of
Furruckabad] addressed himself for relief in 1783, and that he was sorry
to say that his appointment at Furruckabad was of no use"; that, though
the old tribute could not be paid, owing to famine and other causes, it
was increased by a new imposition, making the whole equal the entire
_gross_ produce of the revenue; that therefore there will not be
"_anything for the subsistence of the Nabob and family_." And the uncles
of the said Nabob of Furruckabad, the brethren of the late Ahmed Khan,
(who had rendered important services to t