asures taken for the support of the Presidency of Bombay_; but
that neither of the preceding declarations contained the true motives
and objects of the said Hastings, whose real purpose, as it appeared
soon after, was, to make use of the superiority of the British power in
India to carry on offensive wars, and to pursue schemes of conquest,
impolitic and unjust in their design, ill-concerted in the execution,
and which, as this House has resolved, _have brought great calamities on
India, and enormous expenses on the East India Company_.

That the said Warren Hastings, on the 22d of June, 1778, made the
following declaration in Council. "Much less can I agree, that, with
such superior advantages as we possess over every power which can oppose
us, we should act _merely on the defensive_. On the contrary, if it be
really true that the British arms and influence have suffered so severe
a check in the Western world, it is more incumbent on those who are
charged with the interests of Great Britain in the East _to exert
themselves for the retrieval of the national loss_. We have the means in
our power, and, if they are not frustrated by our own dissensions, I
trust that the event of this expedition will yield every advantage _for
the attainment of which it was undertaken_."

That, in pursuance of the principles avowed in the preceding
declaration, the said Warren Hastings, on the 9th of July, 1778, did
propose and carry it in Council, that an embassy should be sent from
Bengal to Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar,--falsely asserting that
the said Rajah "was, by interest and inclination, likely to join in an
alliance with the British government, and suggesting that two advantages
might be offered to him as the inducements to it: first, the support of
his pretensions to the sovereign power" (viz., of the Mahratta empire);
"second, the recovery of the captures made on his dominions by Nizam
Ali." That the said Hastings, having already given full authority to the
Presidency of Bombay to engage the British faith to Ragonaut Row to
support him in _his_ pretensions to the government or to the regency of
the Mahratta empire, was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor in
proposing to engage the same British faith to support the pretensions of
another competitor for the same object; and that, in offering to assist
the Rajah of Berar to recover the captures made on his dominions by the
Nizam, the said Hastings did endeavor, as far as d