Autograph letter signed : place not specified, to [Sir Philip Francis], 1779 May 22.

Referring to a possible resolution with respect to the East India Company; saying "It is a delicate and a very decisive step; before you stir your foot, consider this matter abstracted from all passions, as you would a move at chess at a difficult point of the game. No body can add to the lights and ability of your own understanding; but you have gone thro' much and have suffered much, and you may be misled by those feelings. If Sir Eyre Coote is arrived, and if he has taken his place in Council, and if he has joyned you and Wheler, the majority of consequence is on your side, and the Government with you, and you may wait with patience, as not being in a very disagreeable situation, for the resolutions on this side of the water. But I doubt much of one of these ifs, namely whether Sir E. C. has been admitted to his seat at the Board. I see that the Gov'r. and his friend have refused to obey the orders of the Directors to restore the persons to their respective offices, whom the Gov'r. and his friend had displaced, and the reason given for that disobedience is that it would disable the Govr. from carrying on the Govt. which, as he is not recalled, he supposes to be the real intention of the Co. This reason is full as good against admitting E.C. to his command, if they have reason to think that he will not addict himself to them and their measures. The disposition and situation of those gentlemen point to desperate councils, and the crisis must be over before this letter can reach your hands. What new world may be formed out of the ruins of the old is past my reach of comprehension; but supposing that things rub on, as in the days of Clavering, the Governor sometimes playing with the wind and somethings contending against it;"