But Major-general Macaulay scarce needed this reply, since it is Major Hart himself who can affirm his own error. The Major says, "I shall not however pretend to defend the act _acknowledged_ of my having carried to the field a quantity of private grain.[A] No, my Lord, (Harris,) most deeply and sensibly do I feel and deplore the _error_ of my conduct.--Papers, p. 352. [A] It will be maintained in the body of this Report, that Major Hart did never carry to the field a quantity of private grain. And yet, notwithstanding this _pretended_ acknowledgment of _real_ error, it is the Board of Controul which, in order to allow Major Hart to hold private grain, must set aside the very regulation upon this subject. The 39th Regulation says, "it being the principle of the present system, by liberal and avowed allowances, to place this department upon so respectable a footing as to leave no temptation to seek for unauthorized advantages, the Commissary of Grain is not on any account, directly or indirectly, to derive any other advantage or emolument from this situation than the _salary_ fixed by Government. The strictest economy is, therefore, to be observed in every expense attending this department; and the disbursements and accounts of the Commissary are to be attested on honour, as prescribed in the forms annexed to these Regulations.--Papers, p. 17. And the mighty Board of Controul, besides allowing Major Hart to hold private grain, and therefore to reap the attendant profit on it _with perfect security_, next considers this both as _another question_ and as _not another question_. Thus the Board having said "whether he (Major Hart) ought to have derived any profit upon the original price of the rice, so in his possession, is another question," can yet add, "but _suppose he ought not_, when he[B] openly supplied it to our army, and was contented with much less (profit) than he might have obtained with perfect security, we cannot think it a crime of the blackest die.--Papers, p. 232. [B] See in page 11, and query he or Captain Macleod; also whether openly or covertly supplied, &c. The Board continues "this, and the circumstance of his silence, from the 16th to the 22d of April, appear to us the only points of doubt in the whole case, and a conduct doubtful only on two such points does not, in our contemplation, warrant the sentence[C] that has been passed upon it, with the consequences to his fortune and honour to which it has led." Papers, p. 232. [C] The propriety of Major Hart's dismission, after suspension from the Company's service, is, perhaps, self-evident, and might have been a ground of thanks; but who would have thanked the Court of Directors for being now made to deem correct, what formerly they were pleased to deem incorrect, viz. an Act of Parliament, and the one cited on what are called the Mandamus Papers!