ition, as followeth. "It is now a complete period of eleven
years since I first received the first nominal charge of your affairs;
in the course of it I have _invariably_ had to contend, not with
ordinary difficulties, but such as most _unnaturally_ arose _from the
opposition of those very powers from which I primarily derived my
authority, and which were required for the support of it_. My exertions,
though applied to an unvaried and consistent line of action, have been
occasional and desultory; yet I please myself with the hope, that, in
the annals of your dominion, which shall be written after the extinction
of recent prejudices, this term of its administration will appear not
the least conducive to the interests of the Company, nor the least
reflective of the honor of the British name: and allow me to suggest the
instructive reflection of _what good might have been done, and what evil
prevented, had due support been given to that administration which has
performed such eminent and substantial services without it_."

And the said Hastings, further to render the authority of the said Court
perfectly contemptible, doth, in a strain of exultation for his having
escaped out of a measure in which by his guilt he had involved the
Company in a ruinous war, and out of which it had escaped by a sacrifice
of almost all the territories before acquired (from that enemy which he
had made) either by war or former treaties, and by the abandoning the
Company's allies to their mercy, attribute the said supposed services to
his acting in such a manner as had on former occasions excited their
displeasure, in the following words. "Pardon, Honorable Sirs, this
digressive exultation. I cannot suppress the pride which I feel in this
successful achievement of a measure so fortunate for your interests and
the national honor; for that pride is the source of my zeal, so
frequently exerted in your support, and never more happily than in those
instances _in which I have departed from the prescribed and beaten path
of action, and assumed a responsibility which has too frequently drawn
on me the most pointed effects of your displeasure_. But however I may
yield to my private feelings in thus enlarging on the subject, my motive
in introducing it was immediately connected with its context, and was to
contrast _the actual state of your political affairs, derived from a
happier influence, with that which might have attended an earlier
dissolution of it