The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

the same meaning: for, as, at the time of giving the said instructions to his agents, he was in
full possession of his office, he could want no confirmation therein except his own; and, in
such circumstances, "to require certain things, as the conditions of his being confirmed in
his government," is tantamount to a declaration "that he will not continue in his
government, unless those conditions can be obtained." And the said attempt at prevarication
can serve, its author the less, as either both sentences have one and the same meaning, or, if
their meaning be different, the original instructions in his own handwriting, or, in other
words, the thing itself, must be preferred as evidence of its contents to a loose statement of
its purport, founded, perhaps, on a loose recollection of it at a great distance of time.

That the said refusal of Warren Hastings, Esquire, was a breach of faith with the Court of
Directors and his Majesty's ministers in England; as the said resignation was not merely a
voluntary offer without any consideration, and therefore subject to be recalled or retracted
at the pleasure of the said Warren Hastings, but ought rather to be considered as having
been the result of a negotiation carried on between Mr. Macleane for the benefit of Warren
Hastings, Esquire, on the one hand, and by the Court of Directors for the interests of the
Company on the other: which view of the transaction will appear the more probable, when
it is considered that at the time of the said resignation a strict inquiry had been carrying on
by the Court of Directors into the conduct of the said Warren Hastings, and the solicitor and
counsel to the Company, and other eminent counsel, had given it as their opinions, on cases
stated to them, that there were grounds for suing the said Warren Hastings in the courts of
law and equity, and that the Company would be entitled to recover in the said suits against
Warren Hastings, Esquire, several very large sums of money taken by him in his office of
Governor-General, contrary to law, and in breach of his covenants, and of his duty to the
Company and the public; and the Court of Directors had also come to various severe

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