tween Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All India was present to the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of sovereigns, to the wild moor where the gipsy-camp was pitched-from the bazars, humming like bee-hives with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to scare away the hyænas. He had just as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution Dr. Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of London.

phet as soon as he began to declaim, with greater vehemence, and not with greater reason, against the taking of the Bastile, and the insults offered to Marie-Antoinette. To us he appears to have been neither a maniac in the former case, nor a prophet in. the latter; but in both cases a great and good man, led into extravagance by a tempestuous sensibility, which domineered over all his faculties.

It may be doubted whether the personal antipathy of Francis, or the nobler indignation of Burke, would have led their party to adopt extreme measures against Hastings, if his own conduct had been judicious. He should have felt that, great as his public He saw that Hastings had been guilty of services had been, he was not faultless; and some most unjustifiable acts. All that fol- should have been content to make his lowed was natural and necessary in a mind escape, without aspiring to the honours of like Burke's. His imagination and his pas- a triumph. He and his agent took a difsions, once excited, hurried him beyond the ferent view. They were impatient for the bounds of justice and good sense. His rewards which, as they conceived, were dereason, powerful as it was, was reduced to ferred only till Burke's attack should be be the slave of feelings which it should over. They accordingly resolved to force a have controlled. His indignation, virtuous decisive action with an enemy, for whom, in its origin, acquired too much of the char- had they been wise, they would have made acter of personal aversion. He could see a bridge of gold. On the first day of the no mitigating circumstance, no redeeming session of 1786, Major Scott reminded merit. His temper, which, though generous, Burke of the notice given in the preceding and affectionate, had always been irritable, year, and asked whether it was seriously had now been made almost savage by bodily intended to bring any charge against the infirmities and mental vexations. Conscious late Governor-General. This challenge of great powers and great virtues, he found himself, in age and poverty, a mark for the hatred of a perfidious court, and a deluded people. In Parliament his eloquence was out of date. A young generation, which knew him not, had filled the House. Whenever he rose to speak, his voice was drowned by the unseemly interruptions of lads, who were in their cradles when his orations on the Stamp Act called forth the applause of the great Earl of Chatham. These things bad produced on his proud and sensitive spirit an effect at which we cannot wonder. He could no longer discuss any question with calmness, or make allowances for honest difference of opinion. Those who think that he was more violent and acrimonious in debates about India than on other occasions, are ill-informed respecting the last years of his life. In the discussions on the Commercial Treaty with the court of Versailles, on the Regency, on the French Revolution, he showed even more virulence than in conducting the impeachment. Indeed it may be remarked, that the very persons who represented him as a mischievous maniac for condemning in burning words the Rohilla war, and the spoliation of the Begums, exalted him into an inspired pro

left no course open to the opposition, except to come forward as accusers, or to acknowledge themselves calumniators. The administration of Hastings had not been so blameless, nor was the great party of Fox and North so feeble, that it could be prudent to venture on so bold a defiance. The leaders of the opposition instantly returned the only answer which they could with honour return; and the whole party was irrevocably pledged to a prosecution.

Burke began his operations by applying for Papers. Some of the documents for which he asked were refused by the ministers, who, in the debate, held language such as strongly confirmed the prevailing opinion, that they intended to support Hastings. In April, the charges were laid on the table. They had been drawn up by Burke with great ability, though in a form too much resembling that of a pamphlet. Hastings was furnished with a copy of the accusation; and it was intimated to him, that he might, if he thought fit, be heard in his own defence at the bar of the Commons.

Here again Hastings was pursued by the same fatality which had attended him ever since the day when he set foot on English ground. It seemed to be decreed that this

man, so politic and so successful in the East, should commit nothing but blunders in Europe. Any judicious adviser would have told him that the best thing which he could do would be to make an eloquent, forcible, and affecting oration at the bar of the House; but that, if he could not trust himself to speak, but found it necessary to read, he ought to be as concise as possible. Audiences accustomed to extemporaneous debating of the highest excellence, are always impatient of long written compositions. Hastings, however, sat down as he would have done at the Government-house in Bengal, and prepared a paper of immense length. That paper, if recorded on the consultations of an Indian administration, would have been justly praised as a very able minute, but it was now out of place. It fell flat, as the best written defence must have fallen flat, on an assembly accustomed to the animated and strenuous conflicts of Pitt and Fox. The members, as soon as their curiosity about the face and demeanor of so eminent a stranger was satisfied, walked away to dinner, and left Hastings to tell his story till midnight to the clerks and the sergeant-at-arms.

failed here, he should succeed on any point, was generally thought impossible. It was rumoured at the clubs and coffee-houses, that one, or perhaps two more charges would be brought forward; that if, on those charges, the sense of the House of Commons should be against impeachment, the opposition would let the matter drop; that Hastings would be immediately raised to the peerage, decorated with the star of the Bath, sworn of the privy council, and invited to lend the assistance of his talents and experience to the India board. Lord Thurlow indeed, some months before, had spoken with contempt of the scruples which prevented Pitt from calling Hastings to the House of Lords; and had even said that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was afraid of the Commons, there was nothing to prevent the keeper of the Great Seal from taking the royal pleasure about a patent of peerage. The very title was chosen. Hastings was to be Lord Daylesford. For, through all changes of scene, and changes of fortune, remained unchanged his attachment to the spot which had witnessed the greatness and the fall of his family, and which had borne so great a part in the first dreams of his young ambition.

But in a very few days these fair prospects were overcast. On the 13th of June, Mr. Fox brought forward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis, followed on the same side. The friends of Hastings were in high spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual abundance and felicity of language, the minister gave his opinion on the case. He maintained that the Governor-General was justified in calling on the Rajah of Benares for pecuniary assistance, and in imposing a fine when that assistance was contumaciously withheld. He also thought that the conduct of the Governor-General during the insurrection, had been distinguished by ability and presence of mind. He censured, with great bitter

All preliminary steps having been duly taken, Burke, in the beginning of June, brought forward the charge relating to the Rohilla war. He acted discreetly in placing this accusation in the van; for Dundas had moved, and the house had adopted a resolution, condemning, in the most severe terms, the policy followed by Hastings with regard to Robilcund. Dundas had little, or rather nothing, to say in defence of his own consistency; but he put a bold face on the matter, and opposed the motion. Among other things, he declared that, though he still thought the Rohilla war unjustifiable, be considered the services which Hastings had subsequently rendered to the state as sufficient to atone even for so great an offence. Pitt did not speak, but voted with Dundas; and Hastings was absolved by a hundred and nineteen votes against sixty-ness, the conduct of Francis, both in India

seven.

Hastings was now confident of victory. It seemed, indeed, that he had reason to be so. The Rohilla war was, of all his measures, that which his accusers might with the greatest advantage assail. It had been condemned by the Court of Directors. It had been condemned by the House of Commons. It had been condemned by Mr. Dundas, who had since become the chief minister of the Crown for Indian affairs. Yet Burke, having chosen the strong ground, had been completely defeated on it. That, having

and in Parliament, as most dishonest and malignant. The necessary inference from Pitt's arguments seemed to be, that Hastings ought to be honourably acquitted; and both the friends and the opponents of the minister expected from him a declaration to that effect. To the astonishment of all parties, he concluded by saying, that though he thought it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too great for the occasion.. On this ground, and on this ground alone,, did Mr. Pitt, applauding every other part

of the conduct of Hastings with regard to that men who had held this language could Benares, declare that he should vote in fa- afterwards vote that the later part of his vour of Mr. Fox's motion.

administration furnished matter for no less than twenty articles of impeachment ? They first contended that the conduct of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 was so highly meritorious, that, like works of supererogation in the Catholic theology, it ought to be efficacious for the cancelling of former offences; aud they then prosecuted him for his conduct in 1780 and 1781.

The house was thunderstruck; and it well might be so. For the wrong done to Cheyte Sing, even had it been as flagitious as Fox and Francis contended, was a trifle when compared with the horrors which had been inflicted on Rohilcund. But if Mr. Pitt's view of the case of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no ground at all for an impeachment, or even for a vote of cen- The general astonishment was the greatsure. If the offence of Hastings was really er, because, only twenty-four hours before, no more than this, that having a right to im- the members on whom the minister could pose a mulct, the amount of which mulct depend had received the usual notes from was not defined, but was left to be settled the treasury, begging them to be in their by his discretion, he had, not for his own places and to vote against 'Mr. Fox's moadvantage, but for that of the state, de- tion. It was asserted by Mr. Hastings, that manded too much was this an offence early on the morning of the very day on which required a criminal proceeding of which the debate took place, Dundas the highest solemnity; a criminal proceed- called on Pitt, woke him, and was closeted ing, to which, during sixty years, no public with him many hours. The result of this functionary had been subjected? We can conference was a determination to give up see, we think, in what way a man of sense the late Governor-General to the venand integrity might have been induced to geance of the opposition. It was impossitake any course respecting Hastings, ex- ble even for the most powerful minister to cept the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such carry all his followers with him in so a man might have thought a great example strange a course. Several persons high in necessary, for the preventing of injustice, office, the Attorney-General, Mr. Grenville, and for the vindicating of the national and Lord Mulgrave, voted against Mr. Pitt. honour; and might, on that ground, have But the devoted adherents who stood by voted for impeachment both on the Rohilla the head of the government without asking charge, and on the Benares charge. Such a man might have thought that the offences of Hastings had been atoned for by great services, and might, on that ground, have voted against the impeachment on both charges. With great diffidence, we give it as our opinion, that the most correct course would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares charge. Had the Benares charge appeared to us in the same light in which it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, without hesitation, have voted for acquittal on that charge. The one course which it is inconceivable that any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt's abilities can have honestly taken, was the course which he took. He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla charge. He softened down the Benares charge till it became no charge at all; and then he pronounced that it contained matter for impeachment.

Nor must it be forgotten, that the principal reason assigned by the ministry for not impeaching Hastings on account of the Rohilla war was, that the delinquencies of the early part of his administration had been atoned for by the excellence of the later part. Was it not most extraordinary,

questions, were sufficiently numerous to turn the scale. A hundred and nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox's motion; seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt.

That good and great man, the late William Wilberforce, often related the events of this remarkable night. He described the amazement of the House, aud the bitter reflections which were muttered against the Prime Minister by some of the habitual supporters of the government. Pitt himself appeared to feel that his conduct required some explanation. He left the treasury bench, sat for some time by Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly declared that he had found it impossible, as a man of couscience, to stand any longer by Hastings. The business, he said, was too bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are bound to add, fully believed that his friend was sincere; and that the suspicions to which this mysterious affair gave rise, were altogether unfounded.

Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to mention. The friends of Hastings, most of whom, it is to be observed, generally supported the administration. affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dun

das was jealousy. Hastings was personally a favourite with the King. He was the idol of the East India Company, and of its servants. If he were absolved by the Commons, seated among the Lords, admitted to the Board of Control, closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious Thurlow, was it not almost certain that he would soon draw to himself the entire management of Eastern affairs? Was it not possible that he might become a formidable rival in the cabinet? It had probably got abroad that very singular communications had taken place between Thurlow and Major Scott; and that, if the first Lord of the Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a peerage, the Chancellor was ready to take the responsibility of that step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was the least likely to submit with patience to such an encroachment on his functions. If the Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was at an end. The proceeding, however it might terminate, would probably last some years. In the mean time, the accused person would be excluded from honours and public employments, and could scarcely venture even to pay his duty at court. Such were the motives attributed, by a great part of the public, to the young minister whose ruling passion was generally believed to be avarice of power.

been delivered within the memory of man. Mr. Fox, about the same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland what was the best speech ever made in the House of Commons, assigned the first place, without hesitation, to the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude charge.

When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused, that his friends were coughed and scraped down. Pitt declared himself for Sheridan's motion; and the question was carried by a hundred and seventy-five votes against sixtyeight.

The opposition, flushed with victory, and strongly supported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, and, having now no hope of being able to avert an impeachment, were not very strenuous in their exertions. At length the House, having agreed to twenty articles of charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, and to impeach the late Governor-General of High Crimes and Misdemeanours. Hastings was at the same time arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers.

The session was now within ten days of its close. It was, therefore, impossible that any progress could be made in the trial till the next year. Hastings was admitted to bail; and further proceedings were postponed till the Houses should re-assemble.

The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions respecting Hastings. In the following year, those discussions were resumed. The charge touching the spolia- When Parliament met in the following tion of the Begums was brought forward winter, the Commons proceeded to elect a by Sheridan, in a speech which was so im- committee for managing the impeachment. perfectly reported that it may be said to be Burke stood at the head, and with him were wholly lost; but which was without doubt, associated most of the leading members of the most elaborately brilliant of all the the opposition. But when the name of productions of his ingenious mind. The Francis was read, a fierce contention arose impression which it produced was such as It was said that Francis and Hastings were has never been équalled. He sat down, notoriously on bad terms; that they had not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the been at feud during many years; that on loud clapping of hands, in which the Lords one occasion their mutual aversion had imbelow the bar, and the strangers in the gal-pelled them to seek each other's lives; and lery, joined. The excitement of the House was such that no other speaker could obtain a hearing, and the debate was adjourned. The impression made by this remarkable display of eloquence on severe and experienced critics, whose discernment may be supposed to have been quickened by emulation, was deep and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the literary or in the parliamentary performances of Sheridan, the greatest that had

that it would be improper and indelicate to select a private enemy to be a public accuser. It was urged on the other side with great force, particularly by Mr. Windham, that impartiality, though the first duty of a judge, had never been reckoned among the qualities of an advocate; that in the ordinary administration of criminal justice in England, the aggrieved party, the very last person who ought to be admitted into the jury-box, is the prosecutor; that what was wanted in a manager was, not that he should be free from bias, but that he should be energetic, able, well-informed, and, ac

In the meantime, the preparations for the trial had proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot, and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and civilization were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the proccedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of the constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and the ladies of the princely house of Oude.

tive. The ability and information of Fran- ter King-at-Arms. The judges, in their cis were admitted; and the very animosity vestments of state, attended to give advice with which he was reproached, whether a on points of law. Near a hundred and sevvirtue or a vice, was at least a pledge for enty Lords, three-fourths of the Upper his energy and activity. It seems difficult House, as the Upper House then was, to refute these arguments. But the inveter- walked in solemn order from their usual ate hatred borne by Francis to Hastings had place of assembling to the tribunal. The excited general disgust. The house decided junior baron present led the way-Lord that Francis should not be a manager. Pitt Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memvoted with the majority; Dundas with the orable defence of Gibraltar against the minority. fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by such an audience as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free enlightened, and prosperous realm, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. There were seated around the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres; and when, before a senate which had still some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the The place was worthy of such a trial. It thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and was the great hall of William Rufus; the statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many hall which had resounded with acclamations noble matrons. It had induced Parr to susat the inauguration of thirty Kings; the pend his labours in that dark and profound hall which had witnessed the just sentence mine from which he had extracted a vast of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers; treasure of erudition a treasure too often the hall where the eloquence of Strafford buried in the earth, too often paraded with had for a moment awed and melted a vic- injudicious and inelegant ostentation; but torious party inflamed with just resentment; still precious, massive, and splendid. There the hall where Charles had confronted the appeared the voluptuous charms of her to High Court of Justice with the placid cour- whom the heir of the throne had in secret age which has half redeemed his fame. plighted his faith. There, too, was she, the Neither military nor civil pomp was want- beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the ing. The avenues were lined with grena- Saint Cecilia, whose delicate features, lightdiers. The streets were kept clear by cav-ed up by love and music, art has rescued alry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, from the common decay. There were the were marshalled by the heralds under Gar- members of that brilliant society which

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