answerable, the same having been
proposed and resolved in Council when the Governor-General and Council
consisted but of two persons present,--namely, the said Warren Hastings,
and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, and when consequently the
Governor-General, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the whole
power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations
hereinbefore described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings to
recommend and justify the same to the Court of Directors has been, that
such changes and innovations would be attended with increase of revenue
or diminution of expense to the East India Company; that such pretence,
if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such
pretence is false and groundless: that during the administration of the
said Warren Hastings the territorial revenues have declined; that the
charges of collecting the same have greatly increased; and that the said
Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a direct and
intended waste of the Company's property, is chargeable with and
answerable for all the said decline of revenue, and all the said
increase of expense.

XVI.--MISDEMEANORS IN OUDE.

I. That the province of Oude and its dependencies were, before their
connection with and subordination to the Company, in a flourishing
condition with regard to culture, commerce, and population, and their
rulers and principal nobility maintained themselves in a state of
affluence and splendor; but very shortly after the period aforesaid, the
prosperity both of the country and its chiefs began sensibly and rapidly
to decline, insomuch that the revenue of the said province, which, on
the lowest estimation, had been found, in the commencement of the
British influence, at upwards of three millions sterling annually, (and
that ample revenue raised without detriment to the country,) did not in
the year 1779 exceed the sum of 1,500,000_l._, and in the subsequent
years did fall much short of that sum, although the rents were generally
advanced, and the country grievously oppressed in order to raise it.

II. That in the aforesaid year, 1779, the demands of the East India
Company on the Nabob of Oude are stated by Mr. Purling, their Resident
at the court of Oude, to amount to the sum of 1,360,000_l._ sterling and
upwards, leaving (upon the supposition that the whole revenue should
amount to the sum of 1,500,000_l._ sterling, to which it di