peace, in neither ceding any territory possessed by the Company before
the war, or delivering up any dependant or ally to the vengeance of his
adversaries, but providing for the restoration of all the countries that
had been taken from the Company and their allies,--though the Supreme
Council of Calcutta, forming the legal government of Bengal in the
absence of the said Warren Hastings, ratified the said treaty,--yet the
said Warren Hastings, then absent from the seat of government, and out
of the province of Bengal, and forming no legal or integral part of the
government during such absence, did, after such ratification, usurp the
power of acting as a part of such government (as if actually sitting in
Council with the other members of the same) in the consideration and
unqualified censure of the terms of the said peace.

That the Nabob of Arcot, with whom the said Hastings did keep up an
unwarrantable clandestine correspondence, without any communication with
the Presidency of Madras, wrote a letter of complaint, dated the 27th of
March, 1784, against the Presidency of that place, without any
communication thereof to the said Presidency, the said complaint being
addressed to the said Warren Hastings, the substance of which complaint
was, that he, the Nabob, had not been made a party to the late treaty;
and although his interest had been sufficiently provided for in the said
treaty, the said Warren Hastings did sign a declaration, on the 23d of
May, at Lucknow, forming the basis of a new article, and making a new
party to the treaty, after it had been by all parties (the Supreme
Council of Calcutta included) completed and ratified, and did transmit
the said new stipulation to the Presidency at Calcutta, solely for the
purposes and at the instigation of the Nabob of Arcot; and the said
declaration was made without any previous communication with the
Presidency aforesaid, and in consequence thereof orders were sent by the
Council at Calcutta to the Presidency of Fort St. George, _under the
severest threats in case of disobedience_: which orders, whatever were
their purport, would, as an undue assumption of and participation in the
government, from which he was absent, become a high misdemeanor; but,
being to the purport of opening the said treaty after its solemn
ratification, and proposing a new clause and a new party to the same,
was also an aggravation of such misdemeanor, as it tended to convey to
the Indian powers an