and ought to have well known, was guilty of an high crime and
misdemeanor in carrying on the imposture and delusion aforesaid, and in
continuing an insupportable burden and grievance upon the Nabob for
several years, without attending to his repeated supplications to be
relieved therefrom, to the utter ruin of his country, and to the
destruction of the discipline of the British troops, by diffusing among
them a general spirit of peculation; and the said Hastings hath
committed a grievous offence in upholding the same pernicious system,
until, by his own confession and declaration, in his minute of the 21st
of May, 1781, "the evils had _grown_ to so great an height, that
exertions will be required more powerful than can be made through the
delegated authority of the servants of the Company now in the province,
and that he was far from sanguine in his expectations that _even his own
endeavors would be attended with much success_."

XXVI. That, at the time of making the said treaty, and at the time when,
under color of the distress of the Nabob of Oude, and the failure of all
other means for his relief, he, the said Hastings, broke the Company's
faith with the parents of the Nabob, and first encouraged and afterwards
compelled him to despoil them of their landed estates, money, jewels,
and household goods, and while the said Nabob continued heavily in debt
to the Company, he, the said Warren Hastings, did, "_without
hesitation_," accept of and receive from the Nabob of Oude and his
ministers (who are notoriously known to be not only under his influence,
but under his absolute command) a bribe, or unlawful gift or present, of
one hundred thousand pounds sterling, and upwards. That, even if the
said pretended gift could be supposed to be voluntary, it was contrary
to the express provision of the Regulating Act of the 13th year of his
Majesty's reign, prohibiting the receipt of all presents upon any
pretence whatsoever, and contrary to his own sense of the true intent