latitude and listened to everything that his malice could invent.

As a comical conclusion to these extraordinary proceedings, Hastings
commenced a suit in the U.S. Circuit Court for the State of New York
against the Judiciary Committee for dismissing his memorial. Being a
non-resident he was required by that court to give security for costs,
and as that was not given the action was dismissed. This result was so
distasteful to him that he presented a petition to the Chief Justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that Judge Hunt had too much to
do with churches, banks, and rings, and asking that some other judge
might be appointed to hold the court. The petition was regarded as
unique in its character, and caused a great deal of merriment. But the
Chief Justice sent it back, with an answer that he had no jurisdiction
of the matter. After this Hastings took up his residence in New York,
and at different times worried the judges there by suits against
them--Judge Blatchford, among others--generally charging in his
peculiar way a conspiracy between them and others to injure him and
the rest of mankind.

* * * * *

The above was written upon my dictation in the summer of 1877. In
November of that year Hastings again appeared at Washington and
applied to a Senator to move his admission to the Supreme Court. The
Senator inquired if he was acquainted with any of the Judges, and
was informed in reply of that gentleman's proceedings against myself;
whereupon the Senator declined to make the motion. Hastings then
presented to the House of Representatives a petition to be relieved
from his allegiance as a citizen of the United States. As illustrative
of the demented character of the man's brain, some portions of the
petition are given. After setting forth his admission to the Supreme
Court of California as an attorney and counsellor-at-law, and his
taking the oath then required, he proceeded to state that on the
6th of November, 1877, he entered the chamber of the Supreme Court
of the United States to apply for admission as an attorney and
counsellor of that court; that he was introduced by a friend to a
Senator, with a request that the Senator would move his admission;
that the Senator asked him if he knew a certain Justice of the
Supreme Court, and upon being informed that he did, and that his
relations with said Justice were not friendly, as he had endeavored to
get him impeached, and that th