"Resolved, That Lieutenant-General John Clavering has thereby relinquished, resigned, surrendered, and vacated his place of Commander-in-Chief of the Company's forces in India.
"Resolved, That Richard Barwell, Esquire, by virtue of the said act of Parliament, and by the death of the Honorable George Monson, Esquire, is promoted to the office of Senior Counsellor of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, in consequence of the said relinquishment, resignation, surrender, and vacation of General Clavering.
"Resolved, That the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Company's forces in India, by the relinquishment, resignation, surrender, and vacation of General Clavering, and by the death of the Honorable George Monson, Esquire, does no longer exist.
"Resolved, That, for the preservation of the legality of our proceedings, Lieutenant-General John Clavering be not in future summoned or admitted as a member of the Governor-General and Council."
And the said Warren Hastings and Richard Bar
well, Esquire, did again sit in Council on the next day, being the 23d of June, without summoning either General Clavering or Philip Francis, Esquire, and did come to several other resolutions, and make several orders, contrary to law or justice, and inconsistent with the tranquillity and the security of the settlement: that is to say, they ordered their secretary "to notify to General Clavering that the board had declared his offices of Senior Counsellor and Commander-in-Chief to be vacant, and to furnish him with a copy of these proceedings, containing the grounds of the board for the aforesaid declaration."
And they ordered extracts of the said proceedings "to be issued in general orders, with letters to all the provincial councils and military stations, directing them to publish the same in general orders"; and they resolved, "that all military returns be made to the Governor-General and Council in their military department, until a commander-in-chief shall be appointed by the Company."
That on the day following, that is to say, on the 24th of June, the said Warren Hastings did again omit to summon General Clavering to Council, and did again, together with Richard Barwell, Esquire, who concurred therein, adhere to and confirm the said illegal resolutions come to on the two former days, declaring "that they could not be retracted but by the present authority of the law or by future orders from home," and aggravating the guilt of the said unjustifiable acts by declaring, as the said Warren Hastings did, "that they were not the precipitate effects of an instant and passionate impulse, but the fruits of long and most temperate deliberations, of inevitable necessity, of the strictest sense of public
duty, and of a conviction equal in its impression on his mind to absolute certainty."
That the said Warren Hastings was the less excusable in this obstinate adherence to his former unjust proceedings, as the said declarations were made in answer to a motion made by Philip Francis, Esquire, for the reversal of the said proceedings, and to a minute introducing the said motion, in which Mr. Francis set forth in a clear and forcible manner, and in terms with which the Court of Directors have since declared their entire concurrence, both the extreme danger and the illegality and invalidity of the said proceedings of Warren Hastings and Richard Barwell, Esquire, concluding the said minute by the following conciliatory declaration: "And that this salutary motion may not be impeded by any idea or suspicion that General Clavering may do any act inconsistent with the acquiescence which both he and I have avowed in the decision of the judges, I will undertake to answer for him in this respect, or that, if he should depart from the true spirit and meaning of that acquiescence, I will not be a party with him in such proceedings."