ht well become a
question whether the possession of an inconsiderable territory without
forts would not be attended with more loss than advantage, as it must
necessarily occasion considerable expense, must require troops for its
defence, and might probably in the end lead, as Sindia apprehended, to a
renewal of war."

That the said Warren Hastings, having in this manner put an end to a war
commenced by him without provocation, and continued by him without
necessity, and having for that purpose made so many sacrifices to the
Mahrattas in points of essential interest to the India Company, did
consent and agree to other articles utterly dishonorable to the British
name and character, having sacrificed or abandoned every one of the
native princes who by _his_ solicitations and promises had been engaged
to take part with us in the war,--and that he did so without necessity:
since it appears that Sindia, the Mahratta chief who concluded the
treaty, _in every part of his conduct manifested a hearty desire of
establishing a peace_ with us; and that this was the disposition of all
the parties in the Mahratta confederacy, who were only kept together by
a general dread of their common enemy, the English, and who only waited
for a cessation of hostilities with us to return to their habitual and
permanent enmity against each other. That the Governor-General and
Council, in their letter of 31st August, 1781, made the following
declaration to the Court of Directors. "The Mahrattas have demanded the
sacrifice of the person of Ragonaut Row, the surrender of the fort and
territories of Ahmedabad, and of the fortress of Gualior, _which are not
ours to give, and which we could not wrest from the proprietors without
the greatest violation of public faith_. No state of affairs, in our
opinions, could warrant our acquiescence to such requisition; and we are
morally certain, that, had we yielded to them, such a consciousness of
the state of our affairs would have been implied as would have produced
an effect the very reverse from that for which it was intended, by
raising the presumption of the enemy to exact yet more _ignominious_
terms, or perhaps their refusal to accept of any; nor, in our opinion,
would they have failed to excite in others the same belief, and the
consequent decision of all parties against us, as the natural
consequences of our decline." That the said Hastings himself, in his
instructions to Mr. David Anderson, after autho