pany

and the Act of Parliament, under secret engagements, and using the same unwarrantably :

9. With resigning by proxy with a view to resume his office:

10. With treachery to Murzaffir Jung, his ward:

11. With enormous extravagance in bribery to enrich favourites and dependants :

Five other charges were subsequently laid upon the table. The great offender petitioned to be heard in his defence at the bar. "Everybody," he wrote, "came to ask me why I had done so imprudent a thing; everybody condemned it, all except my great friend the Chancellor. I had but five days granted me to defend myself against eleven historical libels, to which five more were added before the second day of my appearance. Great was the curiosity to hear him, and all parts of the House were crowded. Every car was strained, and every eye fixed to catch the expected accents of eloquent indignation. But eloquence there was none. Hastings, in the opinion of every one but himself, had no skill in composition. His egotism was too profound to stoop to the common arts of controversy; and he was thoroughly convinced that a cold and somewhat contemptuous narrative of the facts, as he thought fit to give them, was alone needful for his vindication. The House thought otherwise. They had come full of hopes of a chase, and found nothing but a slow march. After an hour or two, the unusual effort of reading aloud compelled him to delegate the continuance of his task to one of the clerks at the table. This was too much for parliamentary patience, and by degrees the legislative crowd melted away. But his equanimity was imperturbable, and he continued his recital during three successive days. "I was heard," he said, "with an attention unusual in that assembly, and with the

most desirable effect, for it instantly turned all minds to my own way, and the ground which I then gained I still retain possession of." In this he was strangely mistaken. He had but committed the error of telling his accusers beforehand on what he relied for his exculpation. He told Parliament that, having been the servant of the East India Company, he was accountable to them alone in his administrative conduct. Ministers took no exception to the matter or the manner of his apology, and rather showed a friendly disposition throughout. Copies were ordered to be printed and circulated for the benefit of the great majority of both sides, who had heard but a small portion of it.1

When a month had been allowed for consideration, Burke moved, on the 1st June, that Hastings be impeached for his cruelty to the Rohillas. His conduct in the affair had been censured by the House in a resolution moved by Dundas, founded on the evidence of the Select Committee of 1773; but Dundas was now a member of the Board of Control, and he refused to confirm his own language of thirteen years before. The debate lasted two long nights. As the first gleams of sunrise grew visible, Pitt rose, and warily avoiding the substance of the charge, pleaded in abatement, that the sin had been condoned long since by the retention of Hastings in his post of Governor-General, and that the precedent would be fraught with inconvenience, if not injustice, if deeds remote in place and time, though known the while to all men, were made the subject of criminal proceeding. The motion thus encountered, was defeated by a majority of two to one.

On the reassembling of the House after Whitsuntide, Fox brought forward the second charge, regarding the extortion practised upon Cheyte Singh. Pitt, who had hitherto

1 Memoirs of Hastings, vol. i.

frowned on every attack, and shielded the culprit from every blow, to the surprise of all but Hastings, suddenly gave way. Better than subservient colleagues and imprudent friends, he discerned the signs of the times, and, for his own sake, he felt it necessary to abandon the position of an accessory after the fact. Did he really foresee the issue of the impending trial, or believe that the best chance of escape for the ex-Viceroy, whom till now he had striven to exonerate, lay in the uncertainties of what must inevitably be indefinitely protracted proceedings? We know not, and can never know. Hastings, who always distrusted him, ascribed so sharp a turn to jealousy, and fear of a possible rival in the esteem of the Court, or a possible competitor for parliamentary sway. Probably such an idea never crossed the mind of the haughty Statesman; and few who had heard Hastings toil through his folios of vindication, when pleading on his own behalf, would have heard the suggestion without a smile. Another explanation was whispered at the time, and subsequently gained credence. Dundas had for years been conspicuous in demanding that the "great public offender," as the Governor-General was called by Fox, should be brought to justice. Few men have ever been more accommodating in office; but he felt, no doubt, that his individuality would be wholly compromised if, on this count of the indictment as well as all others, the accused should escape by the protection of the Administration. Early in the morning he had roused the First Minister from sleep, and had remained closeted with him for an unusual time. The subject of their conference was inferred from the unlooked-for incident of the evening.

Upon Sheridan fell the task of bringing forward the charge of cruelty towards the Begums of Oude. An audience, consisting of placemen, peers' sons, squires of

old family, East India proprietors, and lawyers on the lookout for promotion, was not likely to be led away by a penniless playwright, on a great question of national policy and criminal justice. But nature had given Sheridan odds in the race which enabled him to distance all competitors, whether envious friends or party foes. His speech on this occasion having been, like most of his other works, composed in scraps, and owing its and owing its great effect at last to adaptations on the spot, and unpremeditated additions, was dependent for preservation on the reporter's pen; and, from some cause never explained, the pen on that memorable night lamentably failed. The House, fairly carried away by the versatility, eloquence, wit, and passion of the man, forgot itself, and mingled with its cheers the expressions of applause which have always been forbidden as disorderly. Pitt was riveted with admiration, Fox was loud in praise, Burke shed tears in the agony of his delight, and the fastidious Windham declared long afterwards that it was the finest speech which had been delivered within the memory of man. Poor Sheridan was offered the next morning a thousand guineas for the copyright, but he was too happy in his new condition of celebrity and congratulation to sit down alone to work up over again what he had spoken. He promised, and perhaps at times he meant to do it. But the delicious hours rolled on, and he had not resolution to forego their enjoyment for the sake of future fame. The matchless invective is lost, and we can only guess at its colour, texture, and strength by the influence it exercised on those who heard it, nearly three to one of whom voted as Sheridan bade them. He stigmatised Hastings as "a great delinquent, and the greatest of all those who by their rapacity and oppression had brought ruin upon the natives of India and disgrace upon the inhabitants of Great Britain.”

Some days later Mr Frederick Montague moved that the author of the impeachment should proceed forthwith to the other House, and at the bar of that high court should lay the plaint of the Commons. Accompanied by many members, Burke appeared at their Lordship's bar requesting audience, and in set terms there preferred his weighty accusation. Hastings was taken into custody by Black Rod, and bound over in sureties to appear before the Lord High Steward in Westminster Hall when called upon.

Nobody at the time appears to have regarded with apprehension the issue of the impending trial. The friends of the great culprit went about railing against the malignity of party, and the injustice of ruining a distinguished man who had spent his best years in the service of the country, by compelling him to bring witnesses from the other side of the globe, and to employ lawyers to compile unreadable and unintelligible volumes of documentary proof. His successor Lord Cornwallis, when the tidings reached him, treated the matter as a vexatious practical joke. “I am very sorry that things have gone so much against poor Hastings, for he certainly has many amiable qualities. If you are in the hanging mood, you may tuck up Sir Elijah Impey without giving anybody the smallest concern."1 It is the old story: those who allow themselves to be made use of as tools, when they are done with are flung aside with a scoff. The ensuing autumn and winter were spent by both sides in preparation. The name of Francis had been struck out of the list of managers by the Commons, on the ground that he was the personal enemy of the accused, and that he had engaged with him in mortal combat. Fox and Windham wrestled stoutly for their friend's inclusion. "A judge,"

1 Letter to Lord Sydney, President of the Board of Control, dated Calcutta, January 7, 1788.