The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

formed a contrast with the Mahratta 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

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