"
My Lords, I have to observe upon this very extraordinary transaction,
that you will see many things in this letter that are curious, and
worthy of being taken out of that abyss of secrets, Mr. Scott's trunk,
in which this arzee was found. It contains, as far as the prisoner
thinks proper to reveal it, the true secret of the transaction.
He confesses, first, the state of the Vizier's country, as communicated
to him in various accounts of the anarchy and confusion said to reign
throughout his territories. This was in the year 1782, during the time
that the Oude correspondence was not communicated to the Council.
He next stated, that neither the Vizier, nor his minister, nor Mr.
Middleton, nor Mr. Johnson, ever wrote to him on the state of affairs.
Here, then, are three or four persons, all nominated by himself, every
one of them supposed to be in his strictest confidence,--the Nabob and
his vassal, Hyder Beg Khan, being, as we shall show afterwards, entirely
his dependants,--and yet Mr. Hastings declares, that not one of them had
done their duty, or had written him one word concerning the state of the
country, and the anarchy and confusion that prevailed in it, and that,
when the Nabob did write, his assertions were contrary to the real state
of things.
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