VIII. That, in a letter written at the same time to the Resident, Purling, and intended for his directions in enforcing on the Nabob the unjust demands aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings hath asserted, in direct contradiction to the treaties subsisting between the said Nabob and the Company, "that he [the Nabob] stands engaged to our government to maintain the English armies which at his own request have been formed for the protection of his dominions, and _that it is our part, and not his, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time these shall be reduced and withdrawn_." And in a Minute of Consultation, when the aforesaid measure was proposed by the said Hastings to the Supreme Council, he did affirm and maintain that the troops aforesaid "had now no _separate_ or distinct existence from ours, and may be properly said to consist of our _whole_ military establishment, with the exception only of our European infantry; and that they could not be withdrawn without imposing on the Company _the additional burden of them_, or disbanding nine battalions of disciplined sepoys and three regiments of horse." IX. That in the Minute of Consultation aforesaid, he, the said Warren Hastings, hath further, in justification of the violent and arbitrary proceedings aforesaid, asserted, "that the arrangement of measures between the British government and their allies, the native powers of India, must, in case of disagreement about the necessity thereof, _be decided by the strongest_"; and hath thereby advanced a dangerous and most indecently expressed position, subversive of the rights of allies, and tending to breed war and confusion, instead of cordiality and cooeperation amongst them, and to destroy all confidence of the princes of India in the faith and justice of the English nation. And the said Hastings, having further, in the minute aforesaid, presumed to threaten to "bring to punishment, if my influence" (his, the said Hastings's, influence) "can produce that effect, _those incendiaries_ who have endeavored to make themselves the instruments of division between us," hath, as far as in him lay, obstructed the performance of one of the most essential duties of a prince engaged in an unequal alliance with a presiding state,--that of representing the grievances of his subjects to that more powerful state by whose acts they suffer: leaving thereby the governing power in total ignorance of the effects of its own measures, and to the oppressed people no other choice than the alternative of an unqualified submission, or a resistance productive of consequences more fatal. X. That, all relief being denied to the Nabob, in the manner and on the grounds aforesaid, the demands of the Company on the said Nabob in the year following, that is to say, in the year 1780, did amount to the enormous sum of 1,400,000_l._ sterling, and the distress of the province did rapidly increase.