“The Governor-General.—­I desire the Secretary to lay the accompanying letters from Mr. Markham before the board, and request that orders may be immediately sent to him concerning the subjects contained in them.  It may be necessary to inform the board, that, on repeated information from Mr. Markham, which indeed was confirmed to me beyond a doubt by other channels, and by private assurances which I could trust, that the affairs of that province were likely to fall into the greatest confusion from the misconduct of Baboo Durbege Sing, whom I had appointed the Naib, fearing the dangerous consequences of a delay, and being at too great a distance to consult the members of the board, who I knew could repose that confidence in my local knowledge as to admit of this occasional exercise of my own separate authority, I wrote to Mr. Markham the letter to which he alludes, dated the 29th of September last, of which I now lay before the board a copy.  The first of the accompanying letters from Mr. Markham arrived at a time when a severe return of my late illness obliged me, by the advice of my physicians, to leave Calcutta for the benefit of the country air, and prevented me from bringing it earlier before the notice of the board.”

I have to remark upon this part of the letter, that he claims for himself an exercise of his own authority.  He had now no delegation, and therefore no claim to separate authority.  He was only a member of the board, obliged to do everything according to the decision of the majority, and yet he speaks of his own separate authority; and after complimenting himself, he requests its confirmation.  The complaints of Mr. Markham had been increasing, growing, and multiplying upon him, from the month of April preceding, and he had never given the least intimation of it to the board until he wrote this letter.  This was at so late a period that he then says, “The time won’t wait for a remedy; I am obliged to use my own separate authority”; although he had had abundant time for laying the whole matter before the Council.

He next goes on to say,—­“It had, indeed, been my intention, but for the same cause, to have requested the instructions of the board for the conduct of Mr. Markham in the difficulties which he had to encounter immediately after the date of my letter to him, and to have recommended the substance of it for an order to the board.”  He seems to have promised Mr. Markham, that, if the violent act which Mr. Markham proposed, and which he, Mr. Hastings, ordered, was carried into execution, an authority should be procured from the board.  He, however, did not get Mr. Markham such an authority.  Why?  Because he was resolved, as he has told you, to act by his own separate authority; and because, as he has likewise told you, that he disobeys the orders of the Court of Directors, and defies the laws of his country, as a signal of his authority.