plunder, that he threw the odium in the first instance on the Nabob, that he imputed the crimes to them before he had received one of the rumours which he afterwards manufactured into affidavits, Mr. Sheridan recommended a particular attention to dates; and he deduced from the papers these facts;-that the first idea was started by Mr. Hastings on the 15th Nov. 1781; that Mr. Middleton communicated it to the Nabob, and procured from him a formal proposition on the 2d Dec.; that on the 1st Dec. Mr. Hastings wrote a letter to Mr. Middleton confirming the first suggestion made through sir Elijah, which letter came into the hands of Mr. Middleton on the 6th Dec. He stated all the circumstances of the pains taken by Mr. Middleton to bring the Nabob at length to issue the Perwannas, and coupled this with the extraordinary minute written by Mr. Hastings on his return to Calcutta, where he stated the resistance of the Begums to the execution of the resumption on the 7th Jan. 1782, as the cause of the measure in Nov. 1781. He then proceeded to prove, that the Begums were by their condition, their age, and their infirmities, almost the only two souls in India who could not have a thought of distressing that government, by which alone they could hope to be protected; and that to charge them with a design to depose their nearest and dearest relation, was equally absurd. He did not endeavour to do this from any idea, that because there was no motive for the offences imputed to these women, it was therefore a necessary consequence that such imputations were false. He was not to learn that there was such a crime as wanton, unprovoked wickedness. Those who entertained doubts on this point need only give themselves the trouble of reading the administration of Mr. Hastings. But, as to the immediate case, the documents on the table would bear incontrovertible testimony that insurrections had constantly taken place in Oude. To ascribe it to the Begums was wandering even beyond the improbabilities of fiction. It were not less absurd to affirm, that famine would not have pinched, nor thirst have parched, nor extermination have depopulated-but for the interference of these old women. To use a strong expression of Mr Hastings on another occasion, "The good which those women did was certain-the ill was precarious." But Mr. Hastings had found [VOL. XXVI.] it more suitable to his purposes to reverse the proposition; yet wanting a motive for his rapacity, he could find it only in fiction. The simple fact was, their treasure was their treason. But" they complained of the injustice." God of Heaven, had they not a right to complain! After a solemn treaty violated, plundered of all their property, and on the eve of the extremity of wretchedness, were they to be deprived of the last resource of impotent wretchedness-complaint and lamentation! Was it a crime that they should crowd together in fluttering trepidation like a flock of resistless birds on seeing the felon kite, who, having darted at one devoted bird, and missed his aim, singled out a new object, and was springing on his prey with redoubled vigour in his wing, and keener vengeance in his eye? The fact with Mr. Hastings was precisely this: having failed in the case of Cheit Sing, he saw his fate; he felt the necessity of procuring a sum of money somewhere, for he knew that to be the never-failing receipt to make his peace with the directors at home. Such were the true motives of the horrid excesses perpetrated against the Begums! Excesses, in every part of the description of which, he felt himself accompanied by the vigorous support of most unanswerable evidence; and upon this test would he place his whole cause: let gentlemen lay their hands upon their hearts, and with truth issuing, in all its purity, from their lips, solemnly declare whether they were or were not convinced that the real spring of the conduct of Mr. Hastings, far from being a desire to crush a rebellion (an ideal, fabulous rebellion!) was a rapacious determination to seize, with lawless hands, upon the treasures of devoted, miserable, yet unoffending victims. Mr. Sheridan now adverted to the affidavit made by Mr. Middleton; and after stating how futile were the grounds upon which he had, to the satisfaction of his conscience, proceeded to the utmost extremity of violence against the Begums, he exclaimed,-the God of Justice forbid that any man in this House should make up his mind to accuse Mr. Hastings on the ground which Mr. Middleton took for condemning the Begums; or to pass a verdict of guilty for the most trivial misdemeanor against the poorest wretch that ever had existed! He then animadverted on the affidavits of col. Hannay,col. Gordon, major M'Donald, major Wil[U] liams, and others. Major Williams, among | suddenly be called to succeed that great and venerable character, who long had shone the brightest luminary of his profession, whose pure and steady light was clear even to its latest moment, but whose last beam must now too soon be extin the strange reports that chiefly filled these affidavits, stated one that he had heard; namely, that 50 British troops, watching 200 prisoners, had been surrounded by 6,000 of the enemy, and relieved by the approach of nine men! And of such ex-guished. He would ask the supposed suctraordinary hearsay evidence were most of the depositions composed. Considering, therefore, the character given by Mr. Hastings to the British army in Oude, "that they manifested a rage for rapacity and peculation," it was extraordinary that there were no instances of stouter swearing. But as for col. Gordon, he afforded a flagrantly conspicuous proof of the grateful spirit and temper of affidavits designed to plunge these wretched women in irretrievable ruin. Col. Gordon was, just before, not merely released from danger, but preserved from imminent death by the very person whose accuser he thought fit to become; and yet, incredible as it may appear, even at the expiration of two little days from his deliverance, he deposes against the distressed and unfortunate woman who had become his saviour, and only upon hearsay evidence accuses her of crimes and rebellion. Great God of Justice! (exclaimed Mr. Sheridan) canst thou from thy eternal throne look down upon such premeditated turpitude of heart, and not fix some mark of dreadful vengeance upon the perpetrators? Of Mr. McDonald, he said, that he liked not the memory which remembered things better at the end of five years than at the time, unless there might be something so relaxing in the climate of India, and so affecting the memory as well as the nerves, "the soft figures melting away," and the images of immediate action instantaneously dissolving, men must return to their native air of England, to brace up the mind as well as the body, and have their memories, like their sinews, restrung. cessor of lord Mansfield, calmly to reflect on these extraordinary depositions, and solemnly to declare, whether the mass of affidavits taken at Lucknow would be received by him as evidence to convict the lowest object in this country? If he said it would, he declared to God he would sit down, and not add a syllable more to the too long trespass he had made on the patience of the committee. Having painted the loose quality of the affidavits, he said, that he must pause a moment, and particularly address himself to one description of gentlemen, those of the learned profession, within those walls. They saw that that House was the path to fortune in their profession; that they might soon expect that some of them were to be called to a dignified situation, where the great and important trust would be reposed in them of protecting the lives and fortunes of their fellow subjects. One learned gentleman, in particular (sir Lloyd Kenyon) if rumour spoke right, might Mr. Sheridan went farther into the exposure of the evidence, into the comparison of dates, and the subsequent circumstances, in order to prove that all the enormous consequences, which followed from the resumption, in the captivity of the women, and the imprisonment and cruelties practised on their people, were solely to be imputed to Mr. Hastings. After stating the miseries which the women suffered, he said that Mr. Hastings had once remarked, that a mind touched with superstition might have contemplated the fate of the Rohillas with peculiar impressions. But if indeed the mind of Mr. Hastings could yield to superstitious imagination; if his fancy could suffer any disturbance, and even in vision, image forth the proud spirit of Sujah Dowlah, looking down upon the ruin and devastation of his family, and beholding that palace which Mr. Hastings had first wrested from his hand, and afterwards restored, plundered by that very army with which he himself had vanquished the Mahrattas; seizing on the very plunder which he had ravaged from the Rohillas; that Middleton, who had been engaged in managing the previous violations, most busy to perpetrate the last; that very Hastings, whom, on his death-bed, he had left the guardian of his wife and mother, and family, turning all those dear relations, the objects of his solemn trust, forth to the merciless seasons, and to a more merciless soldiery! A mind touched with superstition must indeed, have cherished such a contemplation with peculiar impressions! That Mr. Hastings was regularly acquainted with all the enormities committed on the Begums there was the clearest proof. It was true that Middleton was rebuked for not being more exact. He did not, perhaps, descend to the detail; he did not give him an account of the number of groans which were heaved; of the quantity of tears which were shed; of the weight of the fetters; or of the depth of the dungeons; but he communicated every step which he took to accomplish the base and unwarrantable end. He told him, that to save appearances they must use the name of the Nabob, and that they need go no farther than was absolutely necessary; this he might venture to say without being suspected by Mr. Hastings of too severe a morality. The governor-general also endeavoured to throw a share of the guilt on the council, although Mr. Wheeler had never taken any share, and Mr. Macpherson had not arrived in India when the scene began. After contending that he had shrunk from the inquiry ordered by the Court of Directors, under a new and pompous doctrine, that the Majesty of Justice was to be approached with supplication, and was not to degrade itself by hunting for crimes, forgetting the infamous employment to which he had appointed an English Chief Justice to hunt for criminal charges against innocent defenceless women, Mr. Sheridan said, he trusted that that House would vindicate the insulted character of justice; that they would demonstrate its true quality, essence, and purposes-that they would prove it to be, in the case of Mr. Hastings, active, inquisitive, and avenging. Mr. Sheridan remarked, that he had heard of factions and parties in that House, and knew they existed. There was scarcely a subject upon which they were not broken and divided into sects. The prerogative of the Crown found its advocates among the representatives of the people. The privileges of the people found opponents even in the House of Commons itself. Habits, connexions, parties, all led to diversity of opinion. But when inhumanity presented itself to their observation, it found no division among them, they attacked it as their common enemy, and, as if the character of this land was involved in their zeal for its ruin, they left it not till it was completely overthrown. It was not given to that House, to behold the objects of their compassion and benevolence in the present extensive consideration, as it was to the officers who relieved, and who so feelingly describe the extatic emotions of gratitude in the instant of deliverance. They could not behold the workings of the hearts, the quivering lips, the trickling tears, the loud and yet tremulous joy of the millions whom their vote of this night would for ever save from the cruelty of corrupted power. But though they could not directly see the effect, was not the true enjoyment of their benevolence increased by the blessing being conferred unseen? Would not the omnipotence of Britain be demonstrated to the wonder of nations, by stretching its mighty arm across the deep, and saving by its fiat distant millions from destruction? And would the blessings of the people thus saved dissipate in empty air? No! If I may dare (said Mr. Sheridan) to use the figure-we shall constitute Heaven itself our proxy, to receive for us the blessings of their pious gratitude, and the prayers of their thanksgiving.It is with confidence, therefore, Sir, that I move you on this charge, "That Warren Hastings, esq. be impeached." On the conclusion of Mr. Sheridan's speech, he sat down, the whole House, the members, peers, and strangers, involuntarily joined in a tumult of applause, and adopted a mode of expressing their approbation, new and irregular in that House, by loudly and repeatedly clapping with their hands. After a considerable suspension of the debate, Mr. Burgess rose and said :-Sir; after such a wonderful display of eloquence, such a matchless exertion of ability, unequalled probably in this or in any other assembly; after the attention of the committee has been engaged and fascinated for more than five hours and an half, it is not only a most arduous task, but it is a presumption of no common nature, to dare to arise, even though in the cause of justice, and in defence of a great and injured man. How great indeed must be my presumption, rising as I do, for the first time, within these walls, unused to parliamentary discussions, and weighed down by those apprehensions which naturally must affect a man who dates his parliamentary existence from a period no longer ago than last Wednesday. Sensible of these disadvantages, I yet will not apologize, nor will I supplicate for indulgence. If, in such a cause, any man can prefer his feelings to a conscientious discharge of his duty, he deserves not the honour of sitting here to determine on a question so nearly concerning the interests and honour of a distinguished fellow subject, so material to the interests and honour of this country. I am most happy, Sir, that it falls to my lot to give my first voice in Parliament in vindication of a man, who has extended the glory of this country farther than any man who has preceded him, and to whom, while we are listening to accusations against him, all Europe and all the world look up with astonishment and veneration. Let it not be supposed, Sir, that any motives but these influence me. To Mr. Hastings I am an absolute stranger: I never saw him, nor ever had I the slightest communication or corre spondence with him: but I am not ignorant of his character; I am not unacquainted with his services; nor am I less assured of the combination formed to oppress him; to defeat his great and wellfounded hopes of honours and of thanks; and to wipe off, by his persecution, that stigma which the suppression of former prosecutions has brought upon certain individuals. The hon. gentleman who so ably has opened, this charge set out with commenting upon the undue methods used by Mr. Hastings to influence the minds of those who now sit as judges upon his conduct. The generality of the accusation has been reduced to one fact-a paper, signed Warren Hastings, containing a vindication of his conduct, was delivered this day in the lobby. He has not told us the contents of that paper: we do not know whether they were bad or good; nor is there evidence that Mr. Hastings was the author. In answer to this I will say, that various and most atrocious attempts have been made by Mr. Hastings's prosecutors to inflame the minds of this House and of the public against him. This very House has been made the channel of these publications. The tenth Report of the Secret Committee has been re-published, with a preface, open to the perusal of every man, containing the most invidious charges, and evidently calculated to make this appeal to our judgments a matter of party. The very charge now in question, written, as it is well known, by a member of this House, deserves a similar censure. It contains facts, as accusations against Mr. Hastings, which the author must have known could never be applied to him. The first six articles are all of this description, Of these, the first and third relate to transactions bad indeed, and deserving of the severest censure, which were done at a time when Mr. Hastings was in a decided and constant minority; when the whole government of that part of India was in the hands of gen. Claver ing, col. Monson, and Mr. Francis, the last of whom now stands forward as an active manager of those accusations, for which, if they are criminal, and I affirm that they are highly criminal, the majority who did them only can be censured. The treaty of Allahabad, confirmed by the treaty of Benares-a treaty made by two great powers, competent to contract, was by them most rashly and unjustly broken, contrary to its express purport, and a new treaty, that of Fyzabad, was by them made; in consequence of which the additional British troops were stationed in the province of Oude, and in consequence of which not only all the evils mentioned in these charges fell upon the Nabob's dominions, but the dissatisfaction of the Begums, the subsequent withdrawing of all the principal persons in that province from us, and the very rebellion in question, took place. I say this in the presence of one of that majority, and I will confirm what I have said by the testimony of Mr. Orde, a gentleman certainly well acquainted with this transaction, who, in this House, affirmed, that the infraction of the treaty of Benares was the most daring and shameful breach of a public treaty he had ever heard of. The second article of the charge accuses Mr. Hastings of having recalled Mr. Bristow, and of having appointed Mr. Middleton his agent at the court of Oude. The answer to this is short and plain. He appointed that man to execute his orders on whom he could depend; on Mr. Bristow he could not. During Mr. Bristow's administration the above circumstance occurred; and, while he continued at Lucknow, it is notorious that the great complaints originated, and the principal mischiefs happened throughout the province. The fourth article accuses Mr. Hastings of having refused to remove the British troops stationed in Oude. If these troops were a grievance, the majority who placed them there must be answerable for it. Mr. Hastings, it is true, did not consent to remove them in 1779; because, as it was a year of war, their sudden removal would have left the province unprotected: but it is equally true, that, in 1781, when similar reasons no longer existed, he did remove them, upon a firm conviction of the iniquity and injustice of their having been stationed there. The fifth article charges Mr. Hastings with having advised the Nabob to extort from the Begums several large sums of money. This is equally untrue with the former. The whole transaction, such as it was, was conducted solely by Mr. Bristow, and was not communicated to the council until it was actually completed. Of that council, as I have said, Mr. Hastings was then an inefficient member. The sixth article states as a fact, that the Begums were charged with the maintenance of the late Nabob's women; and this is afterwards enforced by a dismal story of the hardships they underwent in the Zenana. That this supposed fact is untrue is most clearly proved by a letter from the Nabob in 1779, wherein he states, that his affairs were in such a distressed condition, that the women of the late Nabob, his father, to whom, with their children, he had granted only a fourth part of their former appointments, had received nothing for two years. This, Sir, is the nature of the charges against Mr. Hastings. I must farther observe, that a total absence of dates prevails through those I have noticed: a circumstance which can be calculated merely to deceive the committee, and to make the world imagine that Mr. Hastings had done the things which in fact he ineffectually opposed. The principal charges against Mr. Hastings may be reduced to the following heads:-his concluding the treaty of Chunar, by which the guarantee of the Company was withdrawn, and the jaghires of the Begums were permitted to be resumed:-his instigating or permitting the confiscation of the Begum's treasures;— and the measures which were taken to enforce the payment of sixty lacks of rupees, for which that confiscation was compromised. I will endeavour very briefly to consider these several points, and to prove that not on one of them was Mr. Hastings to be blamed. In September, 1781, Mr. Hastings's situation, as well as the situation of all the English under his government, was most critical. A violent rebellion raged throughout the country he was obliged to take refuge at Chunar, under the most imminent peril: his resources had totally failed. At this time the Nabob of Oude voluntarily came to his assistance. His conduct was generous and friendly to an extreme it was such as was calculated to impress with gratitude a generous heart. Mr. Hastings felt and acknowledged the obligation. Impressed with these sentiments on one hand, feeling on the other the urgent necessity of the Company, the immense debt due from the Nabob, amounting to 75 lacks, or nearly 900,000l.; convinced by certain testimony that the Begums had rebelled, and had endeavoured the destruction of the English; and wisely considering that the Begums, by their hostile conduct, had dissolved the ties of the treaty, he assented to the Nabob's proposal, and, on the 19th of Sept. 1781, signed the treaty of Chunar.-This treaty consists of two parts; the one containing, among other articles, this of the resumption of the jaghires, with an express stipulation that a full equivalent should be allowed for them, and that the resumption should be general. To ascertain the point of Mr. Hastings's guilt or innocence, it will be necessary to inquire what a jaghire is? whence the jaghires in question originated? how far the Company was bound by the guarantee? and whether the Begums had committed any acts amounting to a breach of their allegiance? A jaghire is properly a rent issuing out of lands conferred on a subject by the sovereign. The lands themselves are usually given as a security; but both the jaghire and the lands on which it is secured are resumable, without equivalent, at the pleasure of the donor. The jaghires in question were precisely of this description. The only pretence which the Begums could set up of an exclusive right to retain them was founded on the agreement entered into between them and the nabob, to which Mr. Bristow added the guarantee of the Company. In 1776, the situation of the Nabob being almost desperate, owing to the regulations introduced by the majority of the council in 1775, he applied to his mother for part of his father's treasure, to the whole of which he was entitled by the Mahommedan law, but which she obstinately retained. In this application he was strongly supported by the British resident, Mr. Bristow, who, in the most express words, recognized his claim, and, by threats, and even an appearance of violence, compelled the Begum to advance to her son thirty lacks of rupees, or about 360,000/. It must be observed, that at this time Mr. Bristow assured the council that the treasures of the late nabob, then in the Begum's hands, amounted to at least 170 lacks, or nearly two millions sterling; consequently she still had remaining at least more than a million and a half, to which, by his own authority, she had no right. On the payment of these 30 lacks, an agreement was made between the Nabob and his mother, that she should |