indignantly denied the right of his colleagues to enter into charges coming from a source so foully tainted. The triumvirate insisted on their demand. Hastings vehemently protested against so gross an insult to his office and himself. His colleagues, if they chose, might form themselves into a Committee of Enquiry. But he utterly refused to accept for his judges the men who were really his accusers, or acknowledge in any way their right to bring such matters before the Board. He 'could not suffer the dignity of the First Magistrate of this Government to be debased, by sitting to be arraigned as a criminal at the Council Board of which he was the President by the man of character so notoriously infamous as that of Rájá Nanda-Kumár.' Barwell demanded that the whole question should be referred to the Supreme Court. But the triumvirate were above all considerations of justice, decency, and common sense. At length Hastings broke up the meeting for that day, and quitted the Council-chamber, followed by his one supporter, Barwell[1].
That a Governor-General in such a strait could not have acted otherwise, with any regard for the dignity of his office, no sane person will now deny. And yet one grave historian, writing long afterwards, had the courage to contend that Hastings' 'eagerness to stifle, and his exertions to obstruct enquiry, on all occasions where his conduct came under complaint, constituted in itself an article of proof, which added materially to the weight of whatever came against him from any
- ↑ Auber, Gleig, Forrest.
