at nature _without the concurrence of his
colleagues in office, who he believed would be adverse to it_; that he
would represent the same to the joint members of his own government, and
wait their determination. In the mean time he advised the prince to make
advances to Mahdajee Sindia, both because our government _was in
intimate and sworn connection_ with him, and because he was the
effectual head of the Mahratta state; besides that he [the said Warren
Hastings] feared his [Sindia's] taking the other side of the question,
unless he was early prevented."

IX. That in the statement of this discourse there is much criminal
reserve towards the Court of Directors,--it not appearing distinctly
what the objects were, nor who the persons concerned, nor what the side
was which he apprehended the Mahrattas might take, if not prevented by
his advances; and in the discourse itself there were many particulars
highly criminal, namely,--for that in the said conversation, in which he
describes himself as declining a compliance with the request of the
prince on account of the aversion (therein strongly expressed) of his
colleagues, of the Company, and of the whole British nation, to engage
in any measures which might even "_eventually lead to hostilities_," he
spoke to the prince as if he had been entirely ignorant of the offers
which but five months before had been made to the king, his father, on
the part of that very government, (whose repugnance to such measures he
then for the first time chose to profess, but which he always had
known,) through Major Browne, the Company's representative at the court
of Delhi, "to provide for the _entire_ expense of _any_ troops which the
Shah [the king] might require," and that this was "what the Resident had
_always_ proposed to the king and his confidential ministers,"--the said
Browne further declaring, "that, if, in consequence of the said
proposals, certain arrangements for the Shah's service by _troops_ were
not immediately ordered, in his opinion all our [English government's]
_offers and promises_ will be considered as false and insidious." This
being the known state of the business, as represented by the said
Hastings's own agent, and this the public opinion of it, although to
impose on the ignorance of the prince with regard to the proceedings at
his father's court would have been unworthy in itself, yet he, the said
Warren Hastings, could not hope to succeed in such imposition, as in th