alleged a delicacy, relative to his rank, with regard to the oath.  In this scruple he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings.  He and Mr. Barwell went further:  they contended that the Council had no right to administer an oath.  They must have been very clear in that opinion, when they resisted the examination on oath of the very person who, if he could safely swear to Mr. Hastings’s innocence, owed it as a debt to his patron not to refuse it; and of the payment of this debt it was extraordinary in the patron not only to enforce, but to support, the absolute refusal.

Although the majority did not acquiesce in this doctrine, they appeared to have doubts of the prudence of enforcing it by violent means; but, construing his refusal into a disposition to screen the peculations of the Governor-General, they treated him as guilty of a contempt of their board, dismissed him from the service, and recommended another (not the accuser) to his office.

The reasons on both sides appear in the Appendix.  Mr. Hastings accuses them bitterly of injustice to himself in considering the refusal of this person to swear as a charge proved.  How far they did so, and under what qualifications, will appear by reference to the papers in the Appendix.  But Mr. Hastings “thanks God that they are not his judges.”  His great hold, and not without reason, is the Supreme Court; and he “blesses the wisdom of Parliament, that constituted a court of judicature at so seasonable a time, to check the despotism of the new Council.”  It was thought in England that the court had other objects than the protection of the Governor-General against the examinations of those sent out with instructions to inquire into the peculations of men in power.

Though Mr. Hastings did at that time, and avowedly did, everything to prevent any inquiry that was instituted merely for the information of the Court of Directors, yet he did not feel himself thoroughly satisfied with his own proceedings.  It was evident that to them his and Mr. Barwell’s reasonings would not appear very respectful or satisfactory; he therefore promises to give them full satisfaction at some future time.  In his letter of the 14th of September, 1775, he reiterates a former declaration, and assures them of his resolution to this purpose in the strongest terms.  “I now again recur to the declaration which I have before made, that it is my fixed determination to carry literally into execution, and most fully and liberally explain every circumstance of my conduct on the points upon which I have been injuriously arraigned,—­and to afford you the clearest conviction of my own integrity, and of the propriety of my motives for my declining a present defence of it.”