The above was written upon my dictation in the summer of 1877.  In November of that year Hastings again appeared at Washington and applied to a Senator to move his admission to the Supreme Court.  The Senator inquired if he was acquainted with any of the Judges, and was informed in reply of that gentleman’s proceedings against myself; whereupon the Senator declined to make the motion.  Hastings then presented to the House of Representatives a petition to be relieved from his allegiance as a citizen of the United States.  As illustrative of the demented character of the man’s brain, some portions of the petition are given.  After setting forth his admission to the Supreme Court of California as an attorney and counsellor-at-law, and his taking the oath then required, he proceeded to state that on the 6th of November, 1877, he entered the chamber of the Supreme Court of the United States to apply for admission as an attorney and counsellor of that court; that he was introduced by a friend to a Senator, with a request that the Senator would move his admission; that the Senator asked him if he knew a certain Justice of the Supreme Court, and upon being informed that he did, and that his relations with said Justice were not friendly, as he had endeavored to get him impeached, and that the damaging evidence he produced against such Justice had been secreted and covered up by the Judiciary Committee of the House, whom he had accordingly sued, the petition continued as follows:  “Whereupon said Senator replied, I have a cause to argue as counsel before this court this morning, and I would, therefore, prefer not to move your admission.  Said Senator then and there arose and took his seat in front of the bench of said court; and your petitioner remained in said U.S.  Supreme Court until one application for admission was made and granted on motion of one S.P.  Nash, of Tweed-Sweeney Ring settlement fame [thereby demonstrating poetic injustice], and until the Chief Justice of the United States—­shadow not shade of Selden—­called the first case on the docket for that day, and a moment or two after the argument of said cause commenced, your petitioner arose and left the court-room of said United States Supreme Court, (to which the genius of a Marshall and a Story has bid a long farewell,) and as your petitioner journeyed towards his hotel, your petitioner soliloquized thus:  ’Senator W——­ is evidently afraid of Justice ——­, with whom I have had a difficulty, and he possesses neither the manly independence of a freeman, nor moral nor physical courage, and he is, therefore, an improper person (possibly infamous) for such a high and responsible position, and my rights as a citizen are not safe in the keeping of such a poltroon and conniving attorney, and he is probably disqualified to hold the high and responsible office of Senator of the United States—­that he improperly accepts fees from clients, possibly in part for the influence which his exalted position as