VIII. That the said Hastings having early in the year 1784 procured to himself a deputation to act in the upper provinces, the Council, being well aware of his disposition to engage in unwarrantable designs against the neighboring states, did expressly confine his powers to the circumstance of his actual residence within the Company's provinces. But it appears that ways were found out by which he hoped to defeat the precautions of the board: for the said Warren Hastings did write from Lucknow, the capital of the country of Oude, to the Court of Directors, a certain postscript of a letter, dated the 4th of May, 1784, in which he informs the Court that the son and heir-apparent of the Great Mogul had taken refuge with him and the Nabob of Oude; that he had a conference with that prince on the 10th of the same month of May, "no person being either present or within hearing" during the same; and that in the said conference the prince had informed him of the distresses of his father, and his wish for the relief of the king and the restoration of the dominions of his house, as well as to rescue him from the power of certain persons not named, who degraded him into a mere instrument of their interested and sordid designs, and that, on a failure of his application to him, he would either return to his father, or proceed to Calcutta, and thence to England; and that the said Warren Hastings did give him an answer to the following effect: "That our [the British] government had just obtained relief from a state of universal warfare, and required a term of repose; that our whole nation was weary of war, and dreaded the renewal of it, _and would he equally alarmed at any movement of which it could not see the issue or progress, but which might eventually tend to create new hostilities_; that he came hither [to Lucknow] with a limited authority, and could not, if he chose it, engage in a business of that nature _without the concurrence of his colleagues in office, who he believed would be adverse to it_; that he would represent the same to the joint members of his own government, and wait their determination. In the mean time he advised the prince to make advances to Mahdajee Sindia, both because our government _was in intimate and sworn connection_ with him, and because he was the effectual head of the Mahratta state; besides that he [the said Warren Hastings] feared his [Sindia's] taking the other side of the question, unless he was early prevented."