It appears that the
Resolution, being on her voyage to England, met with so severe a gale of
wind as to be obliged to put back to Bengal, and to unload her cargo.
This event makes no difference in the state of the transaction. Whatever
the cause of these new discoveries might have been, at the time of
sending them the fact of the Parliamentary inquiry was publicly known.
In the letter of the above date Mr. Hastings laments the mortification
of being reduced to take precautions "to guard his reputation from
dishonor."--"If I had," says he, "_at any time_ possessed that degree of
confidence from my _immediate_ employers which they have never withheld
from the _meanest_ of my predecessors, I should have disdained to use
these attentions."
Who the _meanest_ of Mr. Hastings's predecessors were does not appear to
your Committee; nor are they able to discern the ground of propriety or
decency for his assuming to himself a right to call any of them mean
persons. But if such mean persons have possessed that degree of
confidence from his immediate employers which for so many years he had
not possessed "_at any time_," inferences must be drawn from thence very
unfavorable to one or the other of the parties, or perhaps to both.
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