delivered in writing,
which always implies the power of a greater degree of recollection and
self-command, it shows how deeply the principles of disobedience had
taken root in his mind, and of an assumption to himself of exorbitant
powers, which he chooses to distinguish by the title of "_his
prerogative_." In this also will be found an obscure hint of the cause
of his disobedience, which your Committee conceive to allude to the main
cause of the disorders in the government of India,--namely, an underhand
communication with Europe.

Mr. Hastings, by his confidence in the support derived from this source,
or from the habits of independent power, is carried to such a length as
to consider a motion to obey the Court of Directors as a degradation of
the executive government in his person. He looks upon a claim under that
authority, and a complaint that it has produced no effect, as a piece of
daring insolence which he is ashamed that the board has suffered. The
behavior which your Committee consider as so intemperate and despotic he
regards as a culpable degree of patience and forbearance. Major Scott,
his agent, enters so much into the principles of Mr. Hastings's conduct
as to tell your Committee that in his opinion Lord Clive would have sent
home Mr. Bristow a prisoner upon such an occasion. It is worthy of
remark, that, in the very same breath that Mr. Hastings so heavily
condemns a junior officer in the Company's service (not a _servant_ of
the Council, as he hazards to call him, but _their fellow-servant_) for
merely complaining of a supposed injury and requiring redress, he so far
forgets his own subordination as to reject the orders of the Court of
Directors even as an _argument_ in favor of appointing a person to an
office, to presume to censure _his_ undoubted masters, and to accuse
them of having been "in a habit of casting reproaches upon him, and
heaping indignities on _his_ station." And it is to be observed, that
this censure was not for the purpose of seeking or obtaining redress for
any injury, but appeared rather as a reason for refusing to obey their
lawful commands. It is plainly implied in that minute, that no servant
of the Company, in Mr. Bristow's rank, would dare to act in such a
manner, if he had not by indirect means obtained a premature fortune.
This alone is sufficient to show the situation of the Company's servants
in the subordinate situations, when the mere claim of a right, derived
from the