The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

instigator of that injustice, which he was bound by so many ties on himself, the Company,
and the nation, not only not to promote, but, by every exertion of authority, influence, and
power, to control, to divert, or to resist.

II. That the answer of Fyzoola Khân to the Vizier did represent, with many expressions of
deference, duty, and allegiance, that the whole force allowed him was but "five thousand
men," and that "these consisted of two thousand horse and three thousand foot; which," he
adds, "in consequence of our intimate connection, are equally yours and the Company's":
though he does subsequently intimate, that "the three thousand foot are for the management
of the concerns of his jaghire, and without them the collections can never be made in time."

That, on the communication of the said answer to the Governor-General, Warren Hastings,
he, the said Hastings, (who, as the Council now consisted only of himself and Edward
Wheler, Esquire, "united in his own person all the powers of government,") was not
induced to relax from his unjust purpose, but did proceed with new violence to record, that
"the Nabob Fyzoola Khân had evaded the performance of his part of the treaty between the
late Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah and him, to which the Honorable Company were guaranties,
and upon which he was lately summoned to furnish the stipulated number of troops, which
he is obliged to furnish on the condition by which he holds the jaghire granted to him."

That, by the vague and indefinite term of evasion, the said Warren Hastings did introduce a
loose and arbitrary principle of interpreting formal engagements, which ought to be
regarded, more especially by guaranties, ill a sense the most literally scrupulous and precise.

That he charged with such evasion a moderate, humble, and submissive representation on a
point which would have warranted a peremptory refusal and a positive remonstrance; and

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