their interest; that the
possession of so remote a country could never be expected to yield any
profit to the Company, and the defence of it must require a perpetual
aid of their forces": yet in the same instructions they declare their
opinion, that, "if the King should make overtures to renew his former
connection, _his right to reclaim the districts of Corah and Allahabad
could not with propriety be disputed_," and they authorize the said
Warren Hastings to restore them to him _on condition that he should
renounce his claim to the annual tribute of twenty-six lac of rupees_,
herein before mentioned, _and to the arrears which might be due_,
thereby acknowledging the justice of a claim which they determined not
to comply with but in return for the surrender of another equally
valid;--that, nevertheless, in the treaty concluded by the said Warren
Hastings with Sujah ul Dowlah on the 7th of September, 1773, it is
asserted, that his Majesty, (meaning the King Shah Allum,) "having
abandoned the districts of Corah and Allahabad, and given a sunnud for
Corah and Currah to the Mahrattas, had thereby forfeited his right to
the said districts," although it was well known to the said Warren
Hastings, and had been so stated by him to the Court of Directors, that
this surrender on the part of the King had been extorted from him by
violence, while he was a prisoner in the hands of the Mahrattas, and
although it was equally well known to the said Warren Hastings that
there was nothing in the original treaty of 1765 which could restrain
the King from changing the place of his residence, consequently that his
removal to Delhi could not occasion a forfeiture of his right to the
provinces secured to him by that treaty.

That the said Warren Hastings, in the report which he made of his
interview and negotiations with Sujah ul Dowlah, dated the 4th of
October, 1773, declared, "that the administration would have been
culpable in the highest degree in retaining possession of Corah and
Allahabad _for any other purpose than that of making an advantage by the
disposal of them_," and therefore he had ceded them to the Vizier for
fifty lac of rupees: a measure for which he had no authority whatever
from the King Shah Allum, and in the execution of which no reserve
whatever was made in favor of the rights of that prince, nor any care
taken of his interests.

That the sale of these provinces to Sujah Dowlah involved the East India
Company in a t