The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

attempt, did give a caution to Colonel Muir, to whom the negotiation aforesaid was
intrusted on the part of the Company, against "inserting anything in the treaty which might
expressly mark our knowledge of his [the Mahratta general's] views, or concurrence in
them." Which said transaction was full of duplicity and fraud; and the crime of the said
Hastings therein is aggravated by his having some years before withheld the tribute which
by treaty was solemnly agreed to be paid to the said king, on pretence that he had thrown
himself, for the recovery of his city of Delhi, on the protection of the Mahrattas, whom the
said Warren Hastings then called the natural enemies of the Company, and the growth of
whose power he then alleged to be highly dangerous to the interests of this kingdom in
India.

IV. That, after having concurred, in the manner before mentioned, in a design of the
Mahrattas against the Mogul, and notwithstanding he, the said Warren Hastings, had
formerly declared, "that with him [the Mogul] our connection had been a long time
suspended, and he wished never to see it renewed, as it had proved a fatal drain to the
wealth of Bengal and the treasury of the Company, without yielding one advantage or
possible resource, even of remote benefits, in return," the said Warren Hastings did
nevertheless, on or about the month of March, 1783, with the privity and consent of the
members of the board, but by no authoritative act, dispatch, as agents of him, the Governor-
General only, and not as agents of the Governor-General and Council, as they ought to have
been, certain persons, among whom were Major Browne and Major Davy, to the court of
the king at Delhi, and did there enter into certain engagements with the said king by the
means of those agents, and did carry on certain private and dangerous intrigues for various
purposes, particularly for making war in favor of the said king against some powers or
princes not precisely described, but which, as may be inferred from a subsequent

<<   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   >>

More intriguing information