III. That the said Resident Middleton, and the said Governor-General Hastings, did not, as they were in duty bound to do, endeavor to allay the apprehensions of the Nabob Fyzoola Khan by assuring him of his safety under the sanction of Colonel Champion's attestation aforesaid, but by their criminal neglect, if not by positive expressions, (as there is just ground from their subsequent language and conduct to believe,) they, the said Middleton and the said Hastings, did at least keep alive and confirm (whoever may have originally suggested) the said apprehension; and that such neglect alone was the more highly culpable in the said Hastings, inasmuch as he, the said Hastings, in conjunction with other members of the Select Committee of the then Presidency of Bengal, did, on the 17th of September, 1774, write to Colonel Champion aforesaid, publicly authorizing him, the said Colonel Champion, to join his _sanction_ to the accommodations agreed on between the Vizier Sujah ul Dowlah and the Nabob Fyzoola Khan, _to add to their validity_,--and on the 6th of October following did again write to the said Colonel Champion, more explicitly, to join his sanction, "either by attesting the treaty, or _acting as guaranty_ on the part of the Company for the performance of it": both which letters, though they did not arrive until after the actual signature of the said Colonel Champion, do yet incontrovertibly mark the solemn intention of the said Committee (of which the said Hastings was President) that the sanction of Colonel Champion's attestation should be regarded as a public, not a private, sanction; and it was more peculiarly incumbent on such persons, who had been members of the said Committee, so to regard the same. IV. That the said Warren Hastings was further guilty of much criminal concealment for the space of "twelve months," inasmuch as he did not lay before the board the frequent and urgent solicitations which he, the said Hastings, was continually receiving from the Nabob Fyzoola Khan, until the 9th of March, 1778; on which day the said Hastings did communicate to the Council a public letter of the aforesaid Middleton, Resident at Oude, acquainting the board that he, the said Middleton, taking occasion from a late application of Fyzoola Khan for the Company's guaranty, had deputed Mr. Daniel Octavus Barwell (Assistant Resident at Benares, but then on a visit to the Resident Middleton at Lucknow) to proceed with a special commission to Rampoor, there to inquire on the spot into the truth of certain reports circulated to the prejudice of Fyzoola Khan, which reports, however, the said Middleton did afterwards confess himself to have "_always_" _thought_ "_in the highest degree improbable_."