The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

of the said detachment allotted to that service as shall be hereafter judged adequate to it."

XXVI. That the said Warren Hastings did, in the said proposal, endeavor to circumvent and
overreach the Council-General, by converting an apparent and literal compliance with their
resolution into a real and substantial opposition to and disappointment thereof. For his first
proposal was, to withdraw the Company's troops from the Vizier's country on the pretence
of relieving him from the burden of that establishment, but in reality with a view of
facilitating the Mahratta pretensions on that province, which would then be deprived of the
means of defence. And when the Council rejected the said proposal on the express ground
of danger to the province by withdrawing from the Mahrattas the restraint of our troops, the
said Hastings, finding his first scheme in favor of the Mahrattas against the provinces
dependent on the Company defeated by the refusal of the Council to concur in the said
measure of withdrawing the troops, did then endeavor to obtain the same purpose in a
different way; and instead of leaving the troops, according to the intention and policy of the
Council, as a check to the ambition and progress of the Mahrattas, he proposed to employ
them in the actual furtherance of those schemes of aggrandizement of which his colleagues
were jealous, and which it was the object of their resolution to counteract.

XXVII. That, in the whole of the letters, negotiations, proposals, and projects of the said
Warren Hastings relative to the Mogul, he did appear to pursue but one object, namely, the
aggrandizement of the lately hostile and always dangerous power of the Mahrattas, and did
pursue the same by means highly dishonorable to the British character for honor, justice,
candor, plain-dealing, moderation, and humanity.

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