that in consequence of the said
imputed evasion he indicated a disposition to attach such a forfeiture
as in justice could only have followed from a gross breach of
treaty,--though the said Hastings did not then pretend any actual
infringement even of the least among the conditions to which, in the
name of the Company, he, the said Hastings, was the executive guaranty.

III. That, however "the number of troops stipulated by treaty may have
been understood," at the period of the original demand, "to be five
thousand horse," yet the said Warren Hastings, at the time when he
recorded the supposed evasion of Fyzoola Khan's answer to the said
demand, could not be unacquainted with the express words of the
stipulation, as a letter of the Vizier, inserted in the same
Consultation, refers the Governor-General to inclosed copies "of all
engagements entered into by the late Vizier and by himself [the
reigning Vizier] with Fyzoola Khan," and that the treaty itself,
therefore, was at the very moment before the said Warren Hastings: which
treaty (as the said Hastings observed with respect to another treaty, in
the case of another person) "most assuredly does not contain a syllable
to justify his conduct; but, by the unexampled latitude which he assumes
in his constructions, he may, if he pleases, extort this or any other
meaning from any part of it."[25]

IV. That the Vizier himself appears by no means to have been persuaded
of his own right to five thousand horse under the treaty,--since, in his
correspondence on the subject, he, the Vizier, nowhere mentions the
treaty as the ground of his demand, except where he is recapitulating to
the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, the substance of his, the said
Hastings's, own letters; on the contrary, the Vizier hints his
apprehensions lest Fyzoola Khan should appeal to the treaty against the
demand, as a breach thereof,--in which case, he, the Vizier, informs the
said Hastings of the projected reply. "Should Fyzoola Khan" (says the
Vizier) "mention anything of the tenor of the treaty, _the first breach
of it has been committed by him_, in keeping up more men than allowed of
by the treaty: _I have accordingly sent a person to settle that point
also_. In case he should mention to me anything respecting the treaty, I
will then reproach him with having kept up too many troops, and will
oblige him to send the five thousand horse": thereby clearly intimating,
that, as a remonstrance against th