therein, adhere to and confirm the said illegal resolutions come to on
the two former days, declaring "that they could not be retracted but by
the present authority of the law or by future orders from home," and
aggravating the guilt of the said unjustifiable acts by declaring, as
the said Warren Hastings did, "that they were not the precipitate
effects of an instant and passionate impulse, but the fruits of long and
most temperate deliberations, of inevitable necessity, of the strictest
sense of public duty, and of a conviction equal in its impression on
his mind to absolute certainty."

That the said Warren Hastings was the less excusable in this obstinate
adherence to his former unjust proceedings, as the said declarations
were made in answer to a motion made by Philip Francis, Esquire, for the
reversal of the said proceedings, and to a minute introducing the said
motion, in which Mr. Francis set forth in a clear and forcible manner,
and in terms with which the Court of Directors have since declared their
entire concurrence, both the extreme danger and the illegality and
invalidity of the said proceedings of Warren Hastings and Richard
Barwell, Esquire, concluding the said minute by the following
conciliatory declaration: "And that this salutary motion may not be
impeded by any idea or suspicion that General Clavering may do any act
inconsistent with the acquiescence which both he and I have avowed in
the decision of the judges, I will undertake to answer for him in this
respect, or that, if he should depart from the true spirit and meaning
of that acquiescence, I will not be a party with him in such
proceedings."

That the said Warren Hastings could not plead ignorance of the law in
excuse for the said illegal acts, as it appears from the proceedings of
the four preceding days that he was well acquainted with the tenure by