He next says,—­“The submission which my respect would have enjoined me to pay to the command imposed on me was lost to my recollection, perhaps from the stronger impression which the first and distant perusal of it had left on my mind, that it was rather intended as a reprehension for something which had given offence in my report of the original transaction than an expression of any want of a further elucidation of it.”

Permit me to make a few remarks upon this extraordinary passage.  A letter is written to him, containing a repetition of the request which had been made a thousand times before, and with which he had as often promised to comply.  And here he says, “It was lost to my recollection.”  Observe his memory:  he can forget the command, but he has an obscure recollection that he thought it a reprehension rather than a demand!  Now a reprehension is a stronger mode of demand.  When I say to a servant, “Why have you not given me the account which I have so often asked for?” is he to answer, “The reason I have not given it is because I thought you were railing at and abusing me”?

He goes on:—­“I will now endeavor to reply to the different questions which have been stated to me, in as explicit a manner as I am able.  To such information as I can give the Honorable Court is fully entitled; and where that shall prove defective, I will point out the only means by which it may be rendered more complete.”

In order that your Lordships may thoroughly enter into the spirit of this letter, I must request that you will observe how handsomely and kindly these tools of Directors have expressed themselves to him, and that even their baseness and subserviency to him were not able to draw from him anything that could be satisfactory to his enemies:  for as to these his friends, he cares but little about satisfying them, though they call upon him in consequence of his own promise; and this he calls a reprehension.  They thus express themselves:—­“Although it is not our intention to express any doubt of the integrity of the Governor-General,—­on the contrary, after having received the presents, we cannot avoid expressing our approbation of his conduct in bringing them to the credit of the Company,—­yet we must confess the statement of those transactions appears to us in many points so unintelligible, that we feel ourselves under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation, agreeable to his promise voluntarily made to us.  We therefore desire to be informed of the different periods when each sum was received, and what were the Governor-General’s motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge of the Council and of the Court of Directors, and what were his reasons for taking bonds for part of these sums and paying other sums into the treasury as deposits upon his own account.”  Such is their demand, and this is what his memory furnishes as nothing but a reprehension.