The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

open resistance by arms, exposing thereby the settlement, and all the inhabitants, subjects of
or dependent on the British government, whether native or European, not only to political
distractions, but to the horrors of civil war; and did, by exposing the divisions and weakness
of the supreme government, and thereby loosening the obedience of the provinces, shake
the whole foundation of British authority, and imminently endanger the existence of the
British nation in India.

That the said evils were averted only by the moderation of the said General Clavering and
Philip Francis, Esquire, in consenting to a reference, and submitting to the decision of the
judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, although they entertained no doubts themselves
on 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.

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