under all oppressions, is held out to qualify a refusal to hear in the Council.  On the same pretence, Mr. Hastings holds up the authority of the same tribunal.  But this and other proceedings show abundantly of what efficacy that court has been for the relief of the unhappy people of Bengal.  A person in delegated authority refuses a satisfaction to his superiors, throwing himself on a court of justice, and supposes that nothing but what judicially appears against him is a fit subject of inquiry.  But even in this Mr. Hastings fails in his application of his principle; for the majority of the Council were undoubtedly competent to order a prosecution against him in the Supreme Court, which they had no ground for without a previous inquiry.  But their inquiry had other objects.  No private accuser might choose to appear.  The party who was the subject of the peculation might be (as here is stated) the accomplice in it.  No popular action or popular suit was provided by the charter under whose authority the court was instituted.  In any event, a suit might fail in the court for the punishment of an actor in an abuse for want of the strictest legal proof, which might yet furnish matter for the correction of the abuse, and even reasons strong enough not only to justify, but to require, the Directors instantly to address for the removal of a Governor-General.—­The opposition of Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell proved as ineffectual in this stage as the former; and a day was named by the majority for the attendance of the party.

The day following this deliberation, on the assembling of the Council, the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, said, “he would not sit to be confronted by such accusers, nor to suffer a judicial inquiry into his conduct at the board of which he is the president.”  As on the former occasions, he declares the board dissolved.  As on the former occasions, the majority did not admit his claim to this power; they proceeded in his absence to examine the accuser and witnesses.  Their proceedings are in Appendix K.

It is remarkable, that, during this transaction, Khan Jehan Khan, the party with whom the corrupt agreement was made, declined an attendance under excuses which the majority thought pretences for delay, though they used no compulsory methods towards his appearance.  At length, however, he did appear, and then a step was taken by Mr. Hastings of a very extraordinary nature, after the steps which he had taken before, and the declarations with which those steps had been accompanied.  Mr. Hastings, who had absolutely refused to be present in the foregoing part of the proceeding, appeared with Khan Jehan Khan.  And now the affair took another turn; other obstructions were raised.  General Clavering said that the informations hitherto taken had proceeded upon oath.  Khan Jehan Khan had previously declared to General Clavering his readiness to be so examined; but when called upon by the board, he changed his mind, and