The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

letter, containing this requisition, was received in Bengal in the month of August, 1784, and
that the said Warren Hastings did not embark for England until the 2d of February, 1785,
but made no reply to that letter before his departure, owing, as he has since said, to a
variety of other more important occupations. That, under pretence of such occupations, he
neglected to transmit to the Court of Directors a copy of a paper which, he says, contained
the only account he ever kept of the transaction. That such a paper, or a copy of it, might
have been transmitted without interrupting other important occupations, if any could be
more important than that of giving a clear and satisfactory answer to the requisition of the
Directors. That since his arrival in England he has written a letter to the chairman of that
court, professedly in answer to their letter above mentioned, but in fact giving no
explanation or satisfaction whatsoever on the points which they had declared to be
unintelligible. That the terms of his letter are ambiguous and obscure, such as a guilty man
might have recourse to in order to cover his guilt, but such as no innocent man, from whom
nothing was required but to clear his innocence by giving plain answers to plain questions,
could possibly have made use of. That in his letter of the 11th of July, 1785, he says, "that
he has been kindly apprised that the information required as above was yet expected from
him: that the submission which his respect would have enjoined him to pay to the command
imposed on him was lost to his recollection, perhaps from the stronger impression which
the first and distant perusal of it had left on his mind that it was rather intended as a
reprehension for something which had given offence in his report of the original transaction
than as expressive of any want of a further elucidation of it."[2]

That the said Warren Hastings, in affecting to doubt whether the information expressly
required of him by his employers was expected or not, has endeavored to justify a criminal
delay and evasion in giving it. That, considering the importance of the subject, and the

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