" And the said Hastings did receive, on the
16th of February, 1783, from the prince aforesaid, a bitter complaint of
the same to the following tenor.
"The miseries which have fallen upon my country, and the poverty and
distress which have been heaped upon me by the reappointment of the
sezauwil, are such, that a relation of them would, I am convinced,
excite the strongest feelings of compassion in your breast. But it is
impossible to relate them: on one side, my country ruined and
uncultivated to a degree of desolation which exceeds all description; on
the other, my domestic concerns and connections involved _in such a
state of distress and horror, that even the relations, the children, and
the wives of my father are starving in want of daily bread, and are on
the point of flying voluntary exiles from their country and from each
other_."
But although the said Hastings did, on the 16th of February, receive and
admit the justice of the said complaint, and did not deny the urgent
necessity of redress, the said letter containing the following sentence,
"If there should be _any delay_ in your acceptance of this proposal, _my
existence and the existence of my family will become difficult and
doubtful_,"--and although he did admit the interference to be the more
urgently demanded, "as the services of the English troops have been
added to enforce the authority of the sezauwil,"--and although he admits
also, that, even before that time, similar complaints and applications
had been made,--yet he did withhold the said letter of complaint, a
minute of which he asserts he had, at or about that time, prepared for
the relief of the sufferer, from the Board of Council, and did not so
much as propose anything relative to the same for seven months after,
viz.
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