WARREN HASTINGS.
[To THE EDFf0/1 OF THE " SPIICTATOlt."1 SIE,—Your reviewer of my "Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General of India," Vols. I. and IL, "Warren Hastings," states that, while I have "airily referred" the reader to the "original records," it is "clear enough that this phrase must not be taken to include the immense official and private correspondence of Hastings at the British Museum,—a source which Mr. Forrest has left untapped' (Spectator, March 12th). May I be allowed to give my deliberate contradiction to this statement ? As long ago as 1874 I spent some months in the examination of these docu- ments, to the existence of which my attention was called by the late Mr. Richard Garnett. It was in fact a reference iu
these documents that led to my discovery at Calcutta of the Proceedings of the Secret Select Committee of the Bengal Council, 1773-1785.
I should like to be allowed to deal with another point of fact. Your reviewer says :—" It is curious to note that Mr. Forrest relies for his knowledge of the actual proceedings at the impeachment upon Delyrett's ' History of the Trial,'—a single octavo volume summarising as best it may the nine gigantic folios containing the original evidence." It is true that I mentioned the Debrett volume in a list of authorities, but only as one of a number of contemporary authorities for the impeachment. Not only is his statement grossly unfair in this respect, but any one who reads my comments on the mysterious action of Pitt with regard to the Benares charge (pp. xii.-xiv. of Vol. I.) will see that I have not relied entirely on Debrett nor any single volume for my knowledge of the proceedings of the impeachment. I have possessed for many years the "nine gigantic folios," and made use of them.—
{Our reviewer writes :—" As to Mr. Forrest's use of Debrett's History of the Trial,' I must express my regret if by my words= the actual proceedings at the impeachment '—I conveyed the impression that this was the only book relating to the impeachment quoted among his authorities. My meaning was that it was the only authority quoted by him for the actual evidence given at the impeachment, and printed in full in the nine folio volumes. In view of Mr. Forrest's acquaintance both with these volumes and with the Hastings Correspondence at the British Museum, I can only say that it is all the more surprising that—as I pointed out—neither of these highly important sources of information appears in his list of authorities, and that, so far as I can discover, there is no reference to them whatever in his book."—En. Spectator.]
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