upon the morals and habits of the rising ge- departments to become nearer acquainted tal expenses, and to afford succour to those will be animated with my spirit. I have besides taken measures to direct myself the most important affairs of the state.Orators of my council will present to you a project of law authorising to my Chancellor Keeper of the Seals, Melzi, to act for four years in the quality of depositary of my authority, as vice-president; a domain which, remaining in his family, may attest to his descendants the satisfaction I nave felt from its services.I think I have given fresh wards my people of Italy every thing they expect from me. I hope that in their turn they will be desirous of occupying the place that I destine for them in my thoughts; and they never will attain it, but by persuading themselves that the force of arms is the principal support of states.It is time that that youth who live in the idleness of great cities, should cease to fear the fatigues and dangers of war, and that they should enable themselves to make their country be reI have taken measures to order the spected, if they wish their country to be reclergy a proper endowment, which they spectable.- -Gentlemen of the legislative have been deprived of for these ten years body, vie in zeal with my council of state, past; and if I have made some unions of and by that concourse of wills towards the converts, I wished to preserve, and it is my sole aim of the public prosperity, give to my intention to protect those who devote them-representative the support he should receive selves to services of public utility, or who, placed in the country parts, are in places and in circumstances wherein they supply the want of secular elergy. I have at the same time provided that the bishops should have the means to be useful to the poor, and I only wait, to occupy myself with the lot of the curates, for the information which I ❘ have ordered to be quickly collected upon their real situation: I know that many of them, especially in the mountains, are in a penury which I have the most pressing desire to put an end to.Independent of the road of Simplon, which will be finished this year, and at which four thousand workmen are working at this moment, in the part alone that crosses the kingdom of Italy, I have ordered that the bridge of Volano should be begun, and that such important works should be undertaken without delay, and pursued with activity.I have neglected none of the objects upon which my experience in administration could be useful to my people of Italy. Before I return across the mountains, I shall go over a part of the from you.--The British government having Printed by Cox and Baylis, No. 75, Great Queen Street, and published by R. Bagshaw, Bow Street, Covent འ་ VOL. VIII. No. 2.] LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY, 13, 1805.” [PRICE 10D "My lords, never did I witness a job come into parliament in a way more gross and palpable than the present, la a few days parliament will disperse, and I hope we shall not return to our homes with the "stigma of having passed such a bill as that now before us; that we shall not thus put an end to £ session, during which less of glorioas 'and more of inglorious things have been exhibited to the world, "then during any former session within the memory of man Let us not, at a moment like this, whea "all classes of the people are ground down with taxes, add to their burdens by voting a boon to mend cit "imporanicy. However critical may be the times; however great may be our dangers; however hop de "the state of our finances; let us not, my lord, like sailors, where they see their vessel driving upon the "rocks, abandon the sails, throw up the helm, and fall to plundering the chests. Let us rather, my loret 41 by virtuous deeds, endeavour to resist the storm, and to avert the vengeance that seems ready to buist upon us. Let us, at any rate, for that is completely in our power, fetara to our homes with the evasciousness and the reputation of honest men."--THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE's Speech, on the 8th inst upou the Athol Claim bill. 33] ON IMPEACHMENTS. Sit-Daring the discussions which have taken place in the last mouth, much has been said, and written, as to the inconveniency, the delay, and the expense attendant upon trials by impeachment. But it was well observed, that those who indiscriminately cons demn trials by impeachment, find fault with the constitution of Great Bifam.-—It is Impossible for a man to consider the conduct of the House of Lords setting as a court of justice, without being fully convinced that it is a fair, an honourable, and an impartial tribrinal. If, indeed, we were to go back tothe earlier period of our history, we should find that impeachments have often originated in violence, and terminated in injustice. This remark, however, does not apply to later periods. Even in the reign of Charles the First, when the Comnions impeached the Earl of Stafford, the trial before the Lords was conducted with decency, and even with justice. No judgment was pronounced, because the Connors charged that mode of proceeding before the close of the trial. They voted a bill of attainder, and the populace, encouraged by the leading members of the Commons, compelled the House of Lords and the King to pass the bill.———In the next reign Lord Stafford tell a victim to the public dread of popery. He was impeached by the Commons, and found guilty by the Lords, as a party to a plot which had no existence; but the same fate would have awaited him, had he been tried by a jury, since many innocent men were condemned and executed on the same evidence that was produced against Lord Stafford. Four whig lords were impeached by a tory House of Commons at the close of King William's reight. The charge was a State crime, advising his Majesty to consent to the celebrated partition treaty. This was, in truth, a mers party business, a tory lord, the Earl of Jersey, was equally guilty this crime, if the act was original, buty of a tory, e escaped impeachment. The Commons declined to support their inpeach ment, and the Lords were acquitted of course.In the reign of Anne, a turbn-" lent parson was impeached for preaching a šeditious sermon, and after a regular tima!,was found guilty. This was also a party question, and though the man was guilty, the whigs had reason, to lament that they made him of consequence enough to bring him to so solemn a trial, as the cry of th church being in danger, was artfully adopted by the tories, and was the first cause of the overthrow of Lord Godolphin's administration.——In the reign of George the Figs, several lords were impeached for high tren son. He The charge was fully and speedily proved; and scntence pronounced with é delay.In the same reign the Earl o Oxford was impeached for high treason, and high crimes and misdemeanors, though it was nruch doubted, whether; if the article charging the first could have been proved, it would have amounted to high treason, had been minister during the four last ye of Queen Anne, and the crime was, concluding the peace of Utrecht, which had been approved of by two parliaments in the t reign, though so strongly coudenined by the whig House of Commions of her sticcessor. Lord Oxford lay two years a prison.r in the Tower, and then petitioned cith oz for a trial or a discharge.The Londs called upon the Commons to proceed, and the tac commenced in Westminster Hall. The Commons began by opening a very citing charge. The Lords directed them to pa cecd first with the article of high treas observing, that if found guilty of that el. a. Lord Oxford would forfeit both la 2. estate, which would render it useless ceed farther. The Commons i their right, to begin with which article they urged with some degree of force against a thought proper. The Lords contended, and bill of pains and penalties, because that mode apparently with very good sense, that as a of proceeding was instituted against Sir court of justice they were to direct the pro- Thomas Rumbold, and dropped in the third ceedings. They therefore appointed a day year of it.- -But no man who is acquaintfor continuing the trial. The Commons ed with the proceedings on the impeachpositively prohibited any of their members ment of Mr. Hastings, can think that it from attending on that day, and on the Lords forms a precedent likely, or indeed possible going into Westminster Hall, and no prose- to be followed up in future. The charge cutors appearing, Lord Oxford was unani- against him was not a charge of high treamously acquitted. Such is the public his- son which is capable of proof, or of being tory of this extraordinary case, but it was invalidated in a very short time, nor simply -- generally believed that the original movers of the corruption in the execution of a great of this prosecution, sought a quarrel on find- office, which is also capable of being speeding that their impeachment could not be ily substantiated or disproved, but it was a successfully prosecuted, a state crime except charge comprehending the whole of his in times of violence, being very difficult to conduct as the sovereign of a great empire, be defined or proved.There was also in civil, military, judicial, and financial, during the same reign an impeachment for high a government of thirteen years, to which crimes and misdemeanors, of a nobleman, was added corruption in office, and a waste Lord Macclesfield, who had been Lord of public money for private purposes. That Chancellor, and who was not only high in charges so extensive, and which the life of the esteem and confidence of the King, but man appears too short to go through, came powerfully connected with the great fami- to be voted by the House of Commons, lies of the kingdom. The charge was for strikes us now as extraordinary, and that corruption in his office as Chancellor of they were so voted, was owing to a deparGreat Britain. The charge was proved, and ture from former precedents.The genehe was found guilty by the unanimous voice ral mode of originating impeachments, has of his peers.In the reign of George the been to move, in the first instance, that the Second, there were several impeachments party should be impeached. That vote for high treason, in consequence of the re- being carried, a committee has been appointbellion of 1745. The charge in each im- ed to draw up the articles, which having peachment was proved, and sentence fol- been presented, were approved, or altered lowed without delay.- From the prece-by the House; then carried to the Lords ding statement it is clear, that from the period of the revolution to the commencement of the present reign, every impeachment that the Commons have prosecuted to a legal termination, they prosecuted successfully, and with very little delay or inconvenience. The impeachment of the four whig lords, in the reign of William, and of Lord Oxford in the reign of George the First, they never did prosecute. They were terminated by a quarrel with the Lords, on points of form. The charges were of a particular nature, hard to be defined, and difticult to be proved. The partition treaty was as strongly approved of by one party in the nation as it was condemned by another; and while the whigs censured, the tories applauded the peace of Utrecht. Neither the whig lords, nor the Earl of Oxford, were supposed to be actuated by corrupt motives, and the extent of the state crime in any of these cases, could only have been an error in judgment. Much has been said, of the delay and expense attending the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, and if that precedent was to be followed, most undoubtedly no man would wish to see an impeachment n fature.--The same argument might be and managers appointed to make them good head of that government. In that period he increased the resources of the Bengal government, more than two millions sterling a year. He left it in perfect tranquillity, incumbered with a very trifling debt, and dering the general war, which the contest with America had occasioned, he counteracted every effort made by France, in concert with Hyder Aily and the Mahrattas, against the British empire in India. On his arrival in England he received the unanimous thanks of the two Courts of Directors, and Proprietors, his masters, for his long, faithful, and able services. It was a fact of public notoriety, that his character was highly esteemed by the natives whom he had so long governed, and by his British fellow subjects in India. There was not a single complaint against him from any quarter, and his Majesty's ministers expressly disavowed the most distant idea of instituting a criminal prosecution against him.Under these circumstances, therefore, if a member had proposed a vote of impeachment according to the usual precedents the business had ended at once.Mr. Burke began by moving for certain papers, from which the House, as he said, would naturally ground their impeachment of Mr. Hastings. These were granted. Motions of a criminatory nature were moved, and negatived. Mr. Burke was next desired to present his charges, which if adopted by the House would naturally lead to an impeachment. These charges he did present. They were twenty-four, and each contained a very great number of criminal allegations. It was stated that these charges if they were voted, were not to be deemed articles of impeachment, but that on a subsequent stage of the proceeding, they were to be referred to a secret committee, who were to frame them into articles, which if approved by the House, were then to be presented to the House of Lords.- -After these charges had been printed, Mr. Hastings was heard at the bar of the House.-A debate followed on the first, and as Mr. Burke said, the most important charge which was negatived. The next debate, and that which was decisive of the impeachment, was on the charge called Benares. This contained no more than eighteen criminal allegations. But the mode adopted, and which led to all the subsequent delay in the trial was, to move that the Benares charge contained matter for impeachment. Mr. Pitt, who spoke with infinite ability and eloquence, not only defended Mr. Hastings against seezteen of the criminal allegations, but declared that is conduct was in, the highest degree meritorious. On one point, and on one only, he condemned Mr. Hastings, and this was, for his intention of imposing a tine of forty or fifty lacks of rupees on the Rajah of Benares for his delinquency. The delinquency he fully admitted, but he conceived that the intended punishment went beyond the offence. Now, the charge expressly stated that the Rajah had been guilty of no offence, and that every demand made by Mr. Hastings upon him, to contribute his proportion to the expense of the war, was an act of injustice, and a breach of treaty.The common sense mode of proceeding, certainly would have been to have put a question on each of the eighteen criminal allegations, as the only mode by which the sense of the House could have been fairly taken. If that had been done, it is probable at least, that upon seventeen criminatory charges, the majority might have voted with Mr. Pitt, and had that been the case, it is very possible, that after approving all Mr. Histings had done, the House might have pansed before they voted to impeach Mr. Hastings for what he had intended to do, and which intention never was communicated to the Rajah, nor carried into effect. With this vote the proceedings closed for the session. In the next session many other charges were voted precisely in the same way; each charge containing a great variety of criminal allegations, but the motion upon each charge, being, that it contained matter for impeachment. Mr. Pitt delivered his statement on each charge, and specifically stated the point on each, which he thought contained a ground for impeachment. If, therefore, the House had divided on the different allegations, the probability is, that when the articles were put into forms, the points of the charge would have been very few, very intelligible, and the impeachment of Mr. Hastings might have been finished, as Lord Macclesfield's was, in twenty days.After Mr. Burke's charges had been gone through, a secret committee was appointed to draw up the articles of impeachment. This committee consisted of gentlemen who conceived that Mr. Hastings was criminal in every thing that he had done. It was extremely natural, therefore, that they should make their articles a transcript almost of Mr. Burke's charges. The only change was. that they were put in a more technical and legal form.They were presented to the House, read a first titne p forma, and ózdered to be printed. When rend a second time, it was to be supposed, that ecely article would have been debated, and the Mr. Pitt, agreeably to his original and 4.clared intention, would hyve m wol to lezvý out such allegations charged to be criminal as he had declared to be in this opinion highly meritorious But instead of taking this Fine, the question was, whether the articles should be read a second time, and voted. In other words, whether the House should, or should not vote the impeachment. It was determined by a majority that the articles should be read a second time. A letter from Mr. Hastings was read by a member during the debate, in which he expressed his anxiety for a trial, if the House should enter the articles on their journals: of course when on a subsequent day the impeachment was moved, that question was carried without a debate or a division.The causes which led to this conclusion are obvious. The business had been two years before the House, of course the members were heartily tired of it. Confidence must be placed somewhere, and possibly, the House thought that the managers who were to support the impeachment, were the best judges, as to the points on which it should be supported. This, however, was unfortunate reasoning, and not only caused so great a delay on the trial, but involved the House in endless contradictions during the course of it.-A few days after the first seven articles were presnted and voted, thirteen additional articles were presented, and ordered to be printed. But, so rapid was now the proceedings, that these thirteen articles, which make a tolerably sized volume, were actually voted, before the printed copies were delivered to the members.- -During each of the remaining seven years that this trial lasted, the minister of India, opened his budget, in which he soIemnly declared in each year, that Bengal under the British administration had been in a progressive state of improvement, as to agriculture, population, and commerce, and that the natives had been infinitely happier under our government, than under the administration of any of their native princes. The documents presented to the House by the India minister, and voted to be correct, and entered on the journals, proved the truth of his statement beyond the possibility of a doubt. From these documents it appeared, that in 1772, the annual resources of Bengal were three millions sterling. That in 1785, when Mr. Hastings quitted it they were more than five millions, and that the increase was owing to the improvement of the revenues of Bengal and Benares, and to our subsidiary treaty with the Nabob Vizier of 'Oude, all of which formed the most material of the charges which the Commons, Westminster Hall, were supporting against Mr. Hastings. In that great court how different a pirosensation, was made of the pree of Bengal, from that which the Indiá minister delivered in the House of Commons. In Westminster Hall it was affirmed, and the articles so stated, that by the measures of Mr. Hastings, enormous losses had been sustained by the East India Company, and disgrace and dishonour brought upon the English nation.To what causes are we to attribute this unexampled contradiction. To one, and one only, namely, the hew mode adopted by a former House of Commons in voting the impeachment. But, are we, therefore, to argue against all future impeachments? Is the error which that House fell into likely to form a precedent? Very far from it. In the case now pending, the old parliamentary mode has been adopted. An impeachment has been voted in the first instance. A committee is appointed to draw up the articles of impeachment., and there can be no doubt, that they will be duly considered before they are voted by the House. In addition to this, what future impeachment is likely to embrace every important, and even every unimportant act, in an administration of thirteen years.If any gentleman should now have the curiosity to read over the twenty articles preferred against Mr. Hastings, he will find that they contain at least five hundred criminal allegations. Had the whole been gone through, the trial instead of lasting seven, would have continued fifty seven years, provided the managers, the defendant, and the lords had lived so longAnd after all, could this be called the impeachment of Mr. Hastings. Very far from it. It was, in fact, the trial of the British nation, and the East-India Company. The fact of an increase of two millions sterling in the annual resources of the Bengal government during his administration was admitted. The fact of his having supported the British empire in India during a long and arduous war, by the extraordinary sums that he acquired, was also admitted. The managers asserted that the revenues were improved, and the extraordinary resources provided by rapine, violence, oppression, injustice, and breach of faith. Had they proved these assertions by evidence, what must have been the consequence. Mr. Sheridan boldly and fairly stated what the consequence must be; redress to the injured, at an expense of many millions sterling, and an abandonment in future, of those extra revenues, for which the India minister takes annual credit.Another circumstance in which this impeachment difiers from any one that preceded, or that can follow it, is not less extraordinary. The words in the preamble to the articles are, that the leasures of Mr. Hastings were attended NOWEL |