Governor-General, held by the said Warren Hastings, was not _ipso facto_
and _instanter_ vacated by the arrival of the said dispatches and
documents transmitted by the Court of Directors, and did consider the
said consequences of the resignation as awaiting some future act or
event for its complete and effectual operation, yet the said judges did
not declare any opinion on the ultimate invalidity of the said acts of
Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, as not being binding on his principal,
Warren Hastings, Esquire; nor did they declare any opinion that the
obligation of the said resignation was not from the beginning conclusive
and effectual, although its operation was, from the necessity of the
case, on account of the distance between England and India, to take
place only in future,--or that the said resignation made by Lauchlan
Macleane, Esquire, was only an offer or proposal of a resignation to be
made at some future and indefinite period, or a mere intimation of the
desire of Warren Hastings, Esquire, to resign at some future and
indefinite period, and that the said resignation, notwithstanding the
acceptance thereof by the Court of Directors, and the regular
appointment and confirmation of a successor, was still to remain
optional in the said Warren Hastings, to be ratified or departed from at
his future choice or pleasure; nor did the said judges pronounce, nor do
any of their reasonings which accompanied their decision tend to
establish it as their opinion, that even the time for ratifying and
completing the said transaction was to be at the sole discretion of the
said Warren Hastings; but they only delivered their opinion as
aforesaid, that his said office "has not _yet_ been vacated, and
[therefore] that the _actual_ assumption of the government by the
member of the Council next in succession was [in the actual
circumstances, and _rebus sic stantibus_] illegal."

That the said Warren Hastings does nowhere himself contend that the said