They had, therefore, allowed Hastings the widest
latitude and listened to everything that his malice could invent.
As a comical conclusion to these extraordinary proceedings, Hastings
commenced a suit in the U.S. Circuit Court for the State of New York
against the Judiciary Committee for dismissing his memorial. Being a
non-resident he was required by that court to give security for costs,
and as that was not given the action was dismissed. This result was so
distasteful to him that he presented a petition to the Chief Justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that Judge Hunt had too much to
do with churches, banks, and rings, and asking that some other judge
might be appointed to hold the court. The petition was regarded as
unique in its character, and caused a great deal of merriment. But the
Chief Justice sent it back, with an answer that he had no jurisdiction
of the matter. After this Hastings took up his residence in New York,
and at different times worried the judges there by suits against
them--Judge Blatchford, among others--generally charging in his
peculiar way a conspiracy between them and others to injure him and
the rest of mankind.
* * * * *
The above was written upon my dictation in the summer of 1877. In
November of that year Hastings again appeared at Washington and
applied to a Senator to move his admission to the Supreme Court.
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