That, instead of
such previous inquiry, or tender of good offices, the said Warren
Hastings did stimulate the ambition and ferocity of the Nabob of Oude to
the full completion of the inhuman end of the said unjustifiable
enterprise, by informing him "that it would be absolutely necessary to
persevere in it until it should be accomplished"; pretending that a fear
of the Company's displeasure was his motive for annexing the
accomplishment of the enterprise as a condition of his assistance, and
asserting "that he could not hazard or answer for the displeasure of the
Company, his masters, if they should find themselves involved in a
_fruitless_ war, or in an expense for prosecuting it,"--a pretence
tending to the high dishonor of the East India Company, as if the gain
to be acquired was to reconcile that body to the breach of their own
orders prohibiting all such enterprises;--and in order further to
involve the said Nabob beyond the power of retreating, he did, in the
course of the proceeding, purposely put the said Nabob under
difficulties in case he should decline that war, and did oblige him to
accept even the permission to relinquish the execution of this unjust
project as a favor, and _to make concessions for it_; thereby acting as
if the Company were principals in the hostility; and employing for this
purpose much double dealing and divers unworthy artifices to entangle
and perplex the said Nabob, but by means of which he found himself (as
he has entered it on record) _hampered and embarrassed in a particular
manner_.
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