of the Company on the other:  which view of the transaction will appear the more probable, when it is considered that at the time of the said resignation a strict inquiry had been carrying on by the Court of Directors into the conduct of the said Warren Hastings, and the solicitor and counsel to the Company, and other eminent counsel, had given it as their opinions, on cases stated to them, that there were grounds for suing the said Warren Hastings in the courts of law and equity, and that the Company would be entitled to recover in the said suits against Warren Hastings, Esquire, several very large sums of money taken by him in his office of Governor-General, contrary to law, and in breach of his covenants, and of his duty to the Company and the public; and the Court of Directors had also come to various severe resolutions of censure against the said Warren Hastings, and amongst others to a resolution to recall the said Warren Hastings, and remove him from his office of Governor-General, to answer for sundry great crimes and delinquencies by him committed in his said office.  And on these accounts it appears probable that the said resignation was tendered and accepted as a consideration for some beneficial concessions made in consequence thereof to the said Warren Hastings in his said dangerous and desperate condition.

And the said refusal was also an act of great disrespect to the Court of Directors and to his Majesty, and, by rendering abortive their said measures, solemnly and deliberately taken, and ratified and confirmed by his Majesty, tended to bring the authority of the Court of Directors and of his Majesty into contempt.

And the said refusal was an injury to General Clavering.

And was also, or might have been, a great injury to Edward Wheler,
Esquire.

And was an act of signal treachery to Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, as also to Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Stewart, whose honors and veracity were thereby brought into question, doubt, and suspicion.

And the said refusal was prejudicial to the affairs of the servants of the Company in India, by shaking the confidence to be placed in their agents by those persons with whom it might be for their interests to negotiate on any matter of importance, and by thus subjecting the communication of persons abroad with those at home to difficulties not known before.

X.—­SURGEON-GENERAL’S CONTRACT.

That the said Warren Hastings, in the year 1777, did grant to the Surgeon-General a contract for three years, for defraying every kind of hospital and medicinal expense,—­not only in breach of the general orders of the Court of Directors with respect to the duration of contracts, but in direct opposition to a particular order of the Court of Directors, of the 30th of March, 1774, when they directed “that the Surgeon should not be permitted to enjoy any emolument arising from his being concerned in dieting the patients, and that the occupations of surgeon and contractor should be forthwith separated.”  That the said contract was in itself highly improper, and inconsistent with the good of the service; as it afforded the greatest temptation to abuse, and established a pecuniary interest in the Surgeon-General, contrary to the duties of his station and profession.