insinuations to that effect.  And the said letter does, on the contrary, contain a clear and express avowal that the said Lauchlan Macleane was his confidential agent, and that in that capacity he acted throughout, and particularly in this special matter, with zeal and fidelity.  And the said letter does further admit in effect the instructions produced by the said Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, confirmed by Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Stewart, and relied on and confided in by the Court of Directors, by which the said Lauchlan Macleane appeared to be specially empowered to declare the said resignation, the words of the said instruction being as follows:  “That he [Mr. Hastings] will not continue in the government of Bengal, unless certain conditions therein specified can be obtained”; and the words of the said letter being as follows:  “What I myself know with certainty, or can recollect at this distance of time, concerning the powers and instructions which were given to Messieurs Macleane and Graham, when they undertook to be my agents in England, I will circumstantially relate.  I am in possession of two papers which were presented to those gentlemen at the time of their departure from Bengal, one of which comprises four short propositions which I required as the conditions of my being confirmed in this government.”  And although the said Warren Hastings does here artfully somewhat change the words of his written instructions (and which having in his possession he might as easily have given verbatim) to other words which may appear less explicit, yet they are in fact capable of only the same meaning:  for, as, at the time of giving the said instructions to his agents, he was in full possession of his office, he could want no confirmation therein except his own; and, in such circumstances, “to require certain things, as the conditions of his being confirmed in his government,” is tantamount to a declaration “that he will not continue in his government, unless those conditions can be obtained.”  And the said attempt at prevarication can serve, its author the less, as either both sentences have one and the same meaning, or, if their meaning be different, the original instructions in his own handwriting, or, in other words, the thing itself, must be preferred as evidence of its contents to a loose statement of its purport, founded, perhaps, on a loose recollection of it at a great distance of time.

That the said refusal of Warren Hastings, Esquire, was a breach of faith with the Court of Directors and his Majesty’s ministers in England; as the said resignation was not merely a voluntary offer without any consideration, and therefore subject to be recalled or retracted at the pleasure of the said Warren Hastings, but ought rather to be considered as having been the result of a negotiation carried on between Mr. Macleane for the benefit of Warren Hastings, Esquire, on the one hand, and by the Court of Directors for the interests