It does not appear that he has given any communication whatsoever to his
colleagues in office of those extraordinary transactions. Nothing
appears on the records of the Council of the receipt of the presents;
nor is the transmission of this account mentioned in the general letter
to the Court of Directors, but in a letter from himself to their Secret
Committee, consisting generally of two persons, but at most of three. It
is to be observed that the Governor-General states, "that the dispatch
of the 'Lively' had been protracted from time to time; that this delay
was of no public consequence; but that it produced a situation which
with respect to himself he regarded as unfortunate, because it exposed
him to the meanest imputations, from the occasion which the late
Parliamentary inquiries have since furnished, but which were unknown
when his letter was written." If the Governor-General thought his
silence exposed him to the _meanest imputations_, he had the means in
his own power of avoiding those imputations: he might have sent this
letter, dated the 22d May, by the Resolution.
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