XXIII. That one of the said attestations (but not on oath) was made by a
principal minister of the Nabob of Oude, to whom the said Hastings had
some time before proposed to sell the sovereignty of that very territory
of Benares; and that one other attestation (not upon oath) was made by a
native woman of distinction, whose son he, the said Hastings, did
actually promote to the government of Benares, vacated by the unjust
expulsion of the Rajah aforesaid, and who in her deposition did declare
that she considered the expelled Rajah as her enemy, and that he never
did confer with her, or suffer her to be acquainted with any of his
designs.
XXIV. That, besides the depositions of persons interested in the ruin of
the Rajah, others were made by persons who then received pensions from
him, the said Hastings; and several of the affidavits were made by
persons of mean condition, and so wholly illiterate as not to be able to
write their names.
XXV. That he, the said Hastings, did also cause to be examined by
various proofs and essays, the result of which was delivered in upon
honor, the quality of certain military stores taken by the British
troops from the said Rajah of Benares; and upon the report that the same
were of a good quality, and executed by persons conversant in the making
of good military stores, although the cannon was stated by the same
authority to be bad, he, the said Warren Hastings, from the report
aforesaid, did maliciously, and contrary to the principles of natural
and legal reason, infer that the insurrection which had been raised by
his own violence and oppression, and rendered for a time successful by
his own improvidence, was the consequence of a premeditated design to
overturn the British empire in India, and to exterminate therefrom the
British nation; which design, if it had been true, the said Hastings
might have known, or rationally conjectured, and ought to have provided
against.
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