Hastings was at the time treating for a peace; and he tells him why he might have had peace at that time, and why he had it not,--and that the cause of it was his own ridiculous and even buffoonish perfidiousness, which exposed him to the ridicule of all the princes of India, and with him the whole British nation.
Burke describes Hastings' failure to secure peace due to his own foolishness, which led to ridicule.
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More from Edmund Burke
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
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