tter of accusation
brought against him by the said Hastings, at a time and place which
furnished all proper materials and the presence of all necessary
witnesses; but the said Hastings, instead of instituting the said
inquiry and granting trial, did receive an humble request for justice
from a great prince as a fresh offence, and as a personal insult to
himself, and did conceive a violent passion of anger and a strong
resentment thereat, declaring that he did consider the said answer as
not only unsatisfactory in substance, but offensive in style. "This
answer you will perceive to be not only unsatisfactory in substance, but
offensive in style, and less a vindication of himself than a
recrimination on me. It expresses no concern for the causes of complaint
contained in my letter, or desire to atone for them, nor the smallest
intention to pursue a different line of conduct. An answer couched
nearly _in terms of defiance_ to requisitions of so serious a nature I
could not but consider as _a strong indication of that spirit of
independency_ which the Rajah has for some years past assumed, and of
which indeed I had early observed other manifest symptoms, both before
and from the instant of my arrival." Which representation is altogether
and in all parts thereof groundless and injurious; as the substance of
the answer is a justification proper to be pleaded, and the style, if in
anything exceptionable, it is in its extreme humility, resulting rather
from an unmanly and abject spirit than from anything of an offensive
liberty; but being received as disrespectful by the said Hastings, it
abundantly indicates the tyrannical arrogance of the said Hastings, and
the depression into which the natives are sunk under the British
government.

IX. That the said Warren Hastings, pretending to have been much alarmed
at the offensive language of the said Rajah's defence, and at certain
appearances of independency which he had observed, not only on former
occasions, but since his arrival at Benares, (where he had been but
little more than one day,) and which appearances he never has specified
in any one instance, did assert that he conceived himself indispensably
obliged to adopt some decisive plan; and without any farther inquiry or
consultation (which appears) with any person, did, at ten o'clock of the
very night on which he received the before-mentioned full and
satisfactory as well as submissive answer, send an order to the British
R