the legality of their proceedings and the validity of General
Clavering's instant right to the chair, and although they were not in
any way bound by law to consult the said judges, who had no legal or
judicial authority therein in virtue of their offices or as a court of
justice, but were consulted, and interposed their advice, only as
individuals, by the voluntary reference of the parties in the said
dispute. And the said Warren Hastings, by his declaration, entered in
Minutes of Council, "that it was his determination to abide by the
opinion of the judges," and by the measures he had previously taken as
aforesaid to enforce the same by arms, did risk all the dangerous
consequences above mentioned: which must have taken place, if the said
General Clavering and Philip Francis, Esquire, had not been more tender
of the public interests, and less tenacious of their own rights, and had
persisted in their claim, as they were by law entitled to do, the
extra-judicial interposition of the judges notwithstanding; and from
which claim they receded only from their desire to preserve the peace of
the settlement, and to prevent the mischiefs which the illegal
resistance of the said Warren Hastings would otherwise infallibly have
occasioned.

That, after the said judges had delivered their opinion, "that the place
and office of Governor-General of this Presidency had not yet been
vacated by Warren Hastings, and that the actual assumption of the
government by the member of the Council next in succession to Mr.
Hastings, in consequence of any deduction which could be made from the
papers communicated to them, would be absolutely illegal," and after the
said General Clavering and Philip Francis, Esquire, had signified to the
said Warren Hastings, by a letter dated the 21st of June, "their
intention to acquiesce in the said opinion of the judges," and when the
differences in the Supreme Council were by these means composed, and the