anding the mischiefs and dangers which the said Warren Hastings
did foresee would result therefrom, if left under the sole direction of
the Nabob, and their own discretion, the said Hastings having stipulated
with the said Nabob not to exercise any authority, or even influence,
_secret_ or _avowed_, within his dominions.

LXXXVI. That the crime of the said Warren Hastings, in attempting thus
to abandon the British army to the sole discretion of the Nabob of Oude,
is exceedingly aggravated by the description given by him severally of
the said Nabob of Oude, and of the British army stationed for the
defence of his dominions. In his letters to the Court of Directors, and
in his Minutes of Consultation, and particularly in his letter of ----,
immediately on the accession of the Nabob, he did inform the said Court,
"that the Nabob had not, by all accounts, the qualities of the head or
heart which fitted him for that office, though there was no dispute
concerning his right to succeed"; and some years afterwards, when his
accounts must have been rendered more certain, he did, in his Minute of
Consultation of the 15th of December, 1779, (regularly transmitted to
the Court of Directors,) upon a discussion for withdrawing certain
troops kept up in the Nabob's country without his consent, by him, the
said Warren Hastings, strongly urge as follows,--"the _necessity_ of
maintaining the influence and force which we possess in the country;
that the disorders of his state [the Nabob of Oude's state] and
dissipation of his revenues are the effects of his own conduct, which
has failed, not so much from the usual effects of _incapacity_ as from
the detestable choice he has made of the ministers of his power and the
participation of his confidence. I forbear to expatiate further on his
character; it is sufficient that I am understood by the members of this
board, who must know the truth of my allusions. Mr. Francis" (a member
of the board) "surely was not aware of the injury he did me [Warren
Hastings] by attributing to the spirit of party the character I gave
Asoph ul Dowlah [the Nabob of Oude]; he himself knows it _to be true;
and it is one of those notorieties which supersede the necessity of any
evidence. I was forced to the allusion I made by the imputation cast on
this government, as having caused the evils which prevail in the
government of the Nabob of Oude, which I could only answer by ascribing
them to their true cause, the charac