cted 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 recent date
of the command, it is not possible _that it could be lost to his
recollection_; much less is it possible that he could have understood
the specific demand of an answer to specific questions to be intended
only as a reprehension for a former offence, viz., the offence of
withholding from the Directors that very explanation which he ought to
have given in the first instance. That the said Warren Hastings, in his
answer to the said questions, cautiously avoids affirming or denying
anything in clear, positive terms, and professes to recollect nothing
with absolute certainty. That he has not, even now, informed the
Directors of the name of any one person from whom any