r captain-general in force on that very frontier,
notwithstanding he was well apprised that they had designs against those
dependent territories of Oude, which they had with great difficulty been
persuaded, even in appearance, to include in the treaty of peace,--and
that they have never renounced their claims upon certain large and
valuable portions of them, and have shown evident signs of their
intentions, on the first opportunity, of asserting and enforcing them.
And, finally, the said Warren Hastings, in contradiction to sundry
declarations of his own concerning the necessity of curbing the power of
the Mahrattas, and to the principle of sundry measures undertaken by
himself professedly for that purpose, and to the sense of the House of
Commons, expressed in their resolution of 28th May, 1782, against any
measures that tended to unite the dangerous powers of the Mahratta
empire under one active command, has endeavored to persuade the Company,
that, "while Sindia lives, every accession of territory obtained by him
will be an advantage to this [the British] government"; which if it was
true as respecting the personal dispositions of Sindia, which there is
no reason to believe, yet it was highly criminal to establish a power in
the Mahrattas which must survive the man in confidence of whose personal
dispositions a power more than personal was given, and which may
hereafter fall into hands disposed to make a more hostile use of it.

XXII. That, in consequence of all the before-recited intrigues, the
Mogul emperor being in the hands of the Mahrattas, he, the said Mogul,
has been obliged to declare the head of the Mahratta state to be
vicegerent of the Mogul empire, an authority which supersedes that of
Vizier, and has thereby consolidated in the Mahratta state all the
powers acknowledged to be of legal authority in India; in consequence of
which, they have acquired, and have actually already attempted to use,
the said claims of general superiority against the Company itself,--the
Mahrattas claiming a right in themselves to a fourth part of the
revenues of all the provinces in the Company's possession, and claiming,
in right of the Mogul, the tribute due to him: by which actings and
doings the said Hastings has to the best of his power brought the
British provinces in India into a dependence on the Mahratta state: and
in order to add to the aforesaid enormous claims a proportioned force,
he did never cease, during his stay