That the Court of Directors, when the former accounts of these
transactions came before them, did show an evident disposition not to
censure the said Warren Hastings, but to give the most favorable
construction to his conduct; that, nevertheless, they found themselves
obliged "to confess that the statement of those transactions appeared to
them in many parts so _unintelligible_, that they felt themselves under
the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation,
agreeably to his promise voluntarily made to them." That their letter,
containing this requisition, was received in Bengal in the month of
August, 1784, and that the said Warren Hastings did not embark for
England until the 2d of February, 1785, but made no reply to that letter
before his departure, owing, as he has since said, _to a variety of
other more important occupations_. That, under pretence of such
occupations, he neglected to transmit to the Court of Directors a copy
of a paper which, he says, contained the _only_ account he ever kept of
the transaction. That such a paper, or a copy of it, might have been
transmitted without interrupting other important occupations, if any
could be more important than that of giving a clear and satisfactory
answer to the requisition of the Directors. That since his arrival in
England he has written a letter to the chairman of that court,
professedly in answer to their letter above mentioned, but in fact
giving no explanation or satisfaction whatsoever on the points which
they had declared to be unintelligible. That the terms of his letter are
ambiguous and obscure, such as a guilty man might have recourse to in
order to cover his guilt, but such as no innocent man, from whom nothing
was required but to clear his innocence by giving plain answers to plain
questions, could possibly have made use of. That in his letter of the
11th of July, 1785, he says, "that he has been kindly apprised that the
information required as above _was yet expected from him_: that the