explicitly declaring that it was not his intention to surrender the
government until such decision should arrive in Bengal, which could not
be expected in less time than a year and a half after the date of the
said resolution; and thereby clearly and explicitly declaring that he
did not consider his resignation as binding for the present. And the
said intention was manifested, if possible, still more directly and
expressly in a letter written by the said Warren Hastings to the Court
of Directors, dated the 15th of August, 1777, being almost two months
after the receipt of the said dispatches, in which the said Warren
Hastings declares that "he did not hold himself bound by the
notification made by Mr. Macleane, nor by any of the acts consequent of
it."

That, such appearing to have been the intention of the said Warren
Hastings, General Clavering was justified in immediately assuming the
government, without waiting for any future act of the said Warren
Hastings for the actual surrender of the said government, none such
being likely to happen; and Philip Francis, Esquire, was justified in
supporting General Clavering in the same on the soundest principles of
justice, and on a maxim received in courts of equity, namely, that no
one shall avail himself of his own wrong,--and that, if any one refuse
or neglect to perform that which he is bound to do, the rights of others
shall not be prejudiced thereby, but such acts shall be deemed and
reputed to have been actually performed, and all the consequences shall
be enforced which would have followed from such actual performance. And
therefore the resolutions moved and voted in Council by the said Warren
Hastings, declaring the offices of General Clavering to be vacant, were
not only illegal, inasmuch as the said Warren Hastings had no authority
to warrant such a declaration, even on the supposition of the acts of
General Clavering being contrary to law, but the said resolutions were