XXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, in order to justify the acts of
violence aforesaid to the Court of Directors, did assert certain false
facts, known by him to be such, and did draw from them certain false and
dangerous inferences, utterly subversive of the rights of the princes
and subjects dependent on the British nation in India, contrary to the
principles of all just government, and highly dishonorable to that of
Great Britain: namely, that the "Rajah of Benares was not a vassal or
tributary prince, and that the deeds which passed between him and the
board, upon the transfer of the zemindary in 1775, were not to be
understood to bear the quality and force of a treaty upon optional
conditions between equal states; that the payments to be made by him
were not a tribute, but a rent; and that the instruments by which his
territories were conveyed to him did not differ from common grants to
zemindars who were merely subjects; but that, being nothing more than a
common zemindar and mere subject, and the Company holding the
acknowledged rights of his former sovereign, held an absolute authority
over him; that, in the known relations of zemindar to the sovereign
authority, or power delegated by it, he owed a personal allegiance and
an implicit and unreserved obedience to that authority, at the
forfeiture of his zemindary, and even of his life and property.
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