ority of Council against the said inquiry into the
justice of the cause, or any proposition for the relief of the
sufferers: asserting, "that the reasons of the Court of Directors, if
transmitted with the orders for the inquiry, will prove in effect an
order for collecting evidence _to the justification and acquittal of the
Begums, and not for the investigation of the truth of the charges which
have been preferred against them_." That Mr. Stables did not propose (as
in the said Hastings's minute is groundlessly supposed) that the reasons
of the Court of Directors should be transmitted with the orders for an
inquiry. But the apprehension of the said Warren Hastings of the
probable result of the inquiry proposed did strongly indicate his sense
of his own guilt and the innocence of the parties accused by him; and
if, by his construction, Mr. Stables's minute did indicate an inquiry
merely for the justification of the parties by him accused, (which
construction the motion did not bear,) it was no more than what the
obvious rules of justice would well support, his own proceedings having
been _ex parte_,--he having employed Sir Elijah Impey to take affidavits
against the women of high rank aforesaid, not only without any inquiry
made on their part, but without any communication to them of his
practice and proceeding against them; and equity did at least require
that they, with his own knowledge and by the subordinates of his own
government, should be allowed a public inquiry to acquit themselves of
the heavy offences with which they had been by him clandestinely
charged.

LXXVII. That he, the said Hastings, in order to effectually stifle the
said inquiry, did enter on record a further minute, asserting that the
said inquiry would be productive "of evils greater than any which exist
in the consequences which have already taken place, _and which time has
almost obliterated_"; as also the following: "If I am rightly informed,
the Nabob Vizier and the Begums are on terms of mutual goodwill. It
would ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act
which might tend to revive their animosities,--and a very slight
occasion would be sufficient to effect it. They will instantly take fire
on such a declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their
favor, demand a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs
with such a sentence warranting that construction, and either accept the
invitation to the proc