The Council ultimately realised it had little option but to accept the Emperor’s decision with the best grace possible: ‘It was not in our power to prevent this step of the King’s,’ they wrote to the directors in London in January 1771, ‘except by putting an absolute restraint on his person, which we judged would be as little approved by our Hon’ble masters, as it was repugnant to our own sentiments of Humanity.’
