to take a strong part in the said inquiry, did set himself in opposition to the same, and did carry with him a majority of Council against the said inquiry into the justice of the cause, or any proposition for the relief of the sufferers:  asserting, “that the reasons of the Court of Directors, if transmitted with the orders for the inquiry, will prove in effect an order for collecting evidence to the justification and acquittal of the Begums, and not for the investigation of the truth of the charges which have been preferred against them.”  That Mr. Stables did not propose (as in the said Hastings’s minute is groundlessly supposed) that the reasons of the Court of Directors should be transmitted with the orders for an inquiry.  But the apprehension of the said Warren Hastings of the probable result of the inquiry proposed did strongly indicate his sense of his own guilt and the innocence of the parties accused by him; and if, by his construction, Mr. Stables’s minute did indicate an inquiry merely for the justification of the parties by him accused, (which construction the motion did not bear,) it was no more than what the obvious rules of justice would well support, his own proceedings having been ex parte,—­he having employed Sir Elijah Impey to take affidavits against the women of high rank aforesaid, not only without any inquiry made on their part, but without any communication to them of his practice and proceeding against them; and equity did at least require that they, with his own knowledge and by the subordinates of his own government, should be allowed a public inquiry to acquit themselves of the heavy offences with which they had been by him clandestinely charged.

LXXVII.  That he, the said Hastings, in order to effectually stifle the said inquiry, did enter on record a further minute, asserting that the said inquiry would be productive “of evils greater than any which exist in the consequences which have already taken place, and which time has almost obliterated”; as also the following:  “If I am rightly informed, the Nabob Vizier and the Begums are on terms of mutual goodwill.  It would ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act which might tend to revive their animosities,—­and a very slight occasion would be sufficient to effect it.  They will instantly take fire on such a declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their favor, demand a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs with such a sentence warranting that construction, and either accept the invitation to the proclaimed scandal of the Nabob Vizier, which will not add to the credit of our government, or remain in his dominions, but not under his authority, to add to his vexations and the disorders of the country by continual intrigues and seditions.  Enough already exists to affect his peace and the quiet of his people.  If we cannot heal, let us not inflame the wounds which have been inflicted.”—­“If the Begums