In this manner the authority of the British legislature was at that time treated with every mark of reprobation and contempt. But soon after a most unexpected change took place, by which the persons in whose favor the Court of Directors had in vain interposed obtained specific objects which had been refused to them; things were, however, so well contrived, that legal authority was nearly as much affronted by the apparent compliance with their orders as by the real resistance they had before met with. After long and violent controversies, an agreement took place between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Francis. It appears that Mr. Hastings, embarrassed with the complicated wars and ruinous expenses into which his measures had brought him, began to think of procuring peace at home. The agreement originated in a conversation held on Christmas-Day, 1779, between Major Scott, then aide-de-camp, and now agent, to Mr. Hastings, and Mr. Ducarrel, a gentleman high in the Company's service at Calcutta. Mr. Scott, in consequence of this conversation, was authorized to make overtures to Mr. Francis through Mr. Ducarrel: to declare Mr. Hastings tired of controversy; expressing his wish to have the Mahratta war entirely left to him; that there were certain points _he could not give up_; that he could _not_ (for reasons he then assigned) _submit_ to the restoration of Mr. Fowke, Mahomed Reza Khan, and Mr. Bristow; that _he had not the smallest personal objection to them_, and would willingly provide for them in any other line. Mr. Francis in this treaty insisted on those very points which Mr. Hastings declared he could never give up, and that his conditions were the Company's orders,--that is, the restoration of the persons whom they had directed to be restored. The event of this negotiation was, that Mr. Hastings at length submitted to Mr. Francis, and that Mr. Fowke and Mahomed Reza Khan were reinstated in their situations. Your Committee observe on this part of the transaction of Mr. Hastings, that as long as the question stood upon his obedience to his lawful superiors, so long he considered the restoration of these persons as a gross indignity, the submitting to which would destroy all his credit and influence in the country; but when it was to accommodate his own occasions in a treaty with a fellow-servant, all these difficulties instantly vanish, and he finds it perfectly consistent with his dignity, credit, and influence, to do for Mr. Francis what he had refused to the strict and reiterated injunctions of the Court of Directors. Tranquillity was, however, for a time restored by this measure, though it did not continue long. In about three months an occasion occurred in which Mr. Francis gave some opposition to a measure proposed by Mr. Hastings, which brought on a duel, upon the mischievous effects of which your Committee have already made their observations.