Still the claim of a fellow-servant to
hold an office which the Court of Directors had legally appointed him to
is considered by this audacious tyrant as an insult to him. By this you
may judge how he treats not only the servants of the Company, but the
natives of the country, and by what means he has brought them into that
abject state of servitude in which they are ready to do anything he
wishes and to sign anything he dictates. I must again beg your Lordships
to remark what this man has had the folly and impudence to place upon
the records of the Council of which he was President; and I will venture
to assert that so extraordinary a performance never before appeared on
the records of any court, Eastern or European. Because Mr. Bristow
claims an office which is his right and his freehold as long as the
Company chooses, Mr. Hastings accuses him of being an accomplice with
the Court of Directors in a conspiracy against him; and because, after
long delays, he had presented an humble petition to have the Court of
Directors' orders in his favor carried into execution, he says "he has
erected himself into a tribunal of justice; that he has arraigned the
Council for disobedience of orders, passed judgment upon them, and
condemned or acquitted them as their magistrate and superior.
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