the government to his successor, General Clavering, and having observed
a profound silence on the subject of the said dispatches, he, the said
General Clavering, did, on the next day, being the 20th of June, by a
letter addressed to the said Warren Hastings, require him to surrender
the keys of Fort William, and of the Company's treasuries; but the said
Warren Hastings did positively refuse to comply with the said
requisition, "denying that his office was vacated, and declaring his
resolution to assert and maintain his authority by every legal means."

That the said General Clavering, conceiving that the office of
Governor-General was vacated by the arrival of the said dispatches,
which acquainted the Council-General of the resignation of the said
Warren Hastings and the appointment of the said Edward Wheler, Esquire,
and that he, the said General Clavering, had in consequence thereof
legally succeeded, under the provisions of the act of the 13th year of
his present Majesty's reign, to the said office of Governor-General,
become vacant in the manner aforesaid, did, in virtue thereof, issue in
his own name summonses to Richard Barwell, Esquire, and Philip Francis,
Esquire, members of the Council, to attend the same, and in the presence
of the said Philip Francis, Esquire, who obeyed the said summons, did
take the oaths as Governor-General, and did sit and preside in Council
as Governor-General, and prepared several acts and resolutions in the
said capacity of Governor-General, and did, amongst other things,
prepare a proclamation to be made of his said succession to the
government, and of its commencing from the date of the said
proclamation, but did not carry any of the acts or resolutions so
prepared into execution.

The said Warren Hastings did, notwithstanding thereof, and in pursuance
of his resolution to assert and maintain his authority, illegally and