e utter
extirpation of the English nation,--and as such, he, the said Warren
Hastings, did compel the Nabob reluctantly to take from them their
landed estates; and yet the said Warren Hastings has had the presumption
to attempt to impose on the East India Company by pretending to place
his reliance on those three persons for a settlement favorable to the
Company's interests, on his renunciation of all their own power,
authority, and influence, and on his leaving their army to the sole and
uncontrolled discretion of a stranger, meriting in his opinion the
description given by him as aforesaid, as well as by him frequently
asserted to be politically incapable of supporting his own power without
the aid of the forces of the Company. And the offence of the said Warren
Hastings, in abandoning a considerable part of the British army in the
manner aforesaid, is much increased by the description which he has
himself given of the state of the said army, and particularly of that
part thereof which is stationed in the Nabob of Oude's dominions: for he
did himself, on the 29th of November, 1781, transmit the information
following, on that subject, to the Court of Directors, namely,--"that
the remote stations of those troops, placing the commanding officers
beyond the notice and control of the board [the Council-General] at
Calcutta, afforded too much of opportunity and temptation for
unwarrantable _emoluments, and excited the contagion of peculation and
rapacity throughout the whole army_. A most remarkable instance and
uncontrovertible proof of the prevalence of this spirit has been seen in
the court-martial upon Captain Erskine, where the court, composed of
officers of rank, and respectable characters, unanimously and honorably,
(_most_ honorably,) upon an acknowledged fact, acquitted him, which in
times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving
the severest punishment." From which representation (if the said Warren
Hastings did not falsely and unjustly accuse and slander the Company's
service) it appeared that the peculation which infected the whole army,
derived from the taint which it had in Oude, and so fatal to the
discipline of the troops, would be dangerously increased by his treaty
and agreement aforesaid with the Nabob, and by his own said evil counsel
to the Court of Directors.

LXXXIX. That it appears, after the said Warren Hastings had, on grounds
so disgraceful to the British nation and governme