which being agreed to, Mr. St. John took his seat at the table.

Mr. Windham rose to open the Charge relative to the conduct of Mr. Hastings respecting Fyzoola Khan. He began by stating, that as it consisted of a variety of parts, divided under different. heads, and each section subdivided into articles, with infinite exactness, and had been long before them, he should hold it unnecessary for him to go into any very great length of detail, in order to impress, on their minds the minute particulars, but would content himself with stating and reasoning upon the leading features of the charge. He proceeded to state to the committee, that the Nabob Fyzoola Khan, in 177, on the invasion of Rohilcund, by the armies of the Vizier Sujah Ul Dowlah and the Company, with some of his people, was present at the decisive battle of St. George, and that he made good his retreat into a mountainous country with all his treasure that he there collected the scattered remains of his countrymen, and made early overtures of peace to colonel Champion, at that time commander-inchief of the Company's forces in Bengal. That he proposed in three letters, received on the 14th, 24th, and 27th of May, to put himself either under the protection of the Company, or the Nabob Vizier, through the mediation and guarantee of the Company. That on the 27th of May he sent an ambassador to the commanderin-chief, authorized to make a specific offer of three propositions, by one of which an annual increase of near 400,000l. would have accrued to the revenues of the Vizier, and the immediate acquisition of above 300,000l. to the Company for their influence in effecting an accommodation. That confident of the just, humane, and liberal feelings of the British, through the hopes of our interposition in his favour with the Vizier, he declined the invitation of the Mogul to join his arms and the Mahrattas, and refused to have any connexion with the Seiks, and neglected other obvious advantages. That colonel Champion thought nothing could be more honourable than our supporting so exalted a character, especially whilst it could be done on terms so advantageous. Mr. Windham read colonel Champion's letter at length, as the best elucidation of this point, and then resumed the thread of his argument, to state and reason upon the conduct of Mr. Hastings, in consequence of such an application, the general tenour [VOL. XXVI.]

of which was to obstruct, as far as he could, every advance towards an accommodation between Sujah Ul Dowlah and the Nabob Fyzoola Khan. After touching upon the manner in which at different times Mr. Hastings pursued this line of conduct, Mr. Windham came at length to' the measure of the treaty of peace, concluded at Lall Dang, between the Vizier and Fyzoola Khan, which was finally signed and sealed on the 7th October 1774, and attested by colonel Champion, for which Fyzoola Khan paid the valuable consideration of 150,000. By the treaty Fyzoola Khan was established in the quiet possession of Rampore, Shawabad, and other districts dependent thereon, subject to certain conditions, of which the most important were, "That Fyzoola Khan should retain in his service 5,000 troops, and not a single man more. That with whomsoever the Vizier shall make war, Fyzoola Khan should send two or three thousand men, according to his ability, to join the forces of the Vizier; and that if the Vizier should march in person, Fyzoola Khan should himself accompany him with his troops."

From these terms it was evident that Fyzoola Khan was not bound to furnish more than 3000 men under any construction, or rather that he was not bound to furnish so many as 3000, nor less than 2000, according to his ability, and that his personal service as vassal of the Vizier, was limited to the Vizier's marching in person. That, from the terms of the treaty, it did not appear of what the stipulated aid should consist, whether of horse or foot, or in what proportion; but it was the recorded opinion of Mr. Hastings in council, in January 1783, "That even a single horseman included in the aid which Fyzoola Khan might furnish, would prove a literal compliance with the stipulation." That, by the attestation of colonel Champion to the treaty, the government of Calcutta acquired the same right to interpose with a Vizier for the protection of Fyzoola Khan, as the government had before claimed, from a similar attestation of sir Robert Barker to assist the Vizier in extirpating the whole nation of Fyzoola Khan, That, after the death of Sujah Ul Dowlah, Fyzoola Khan in 1777, being alarmed at the young vizier's resuming a number of jaghires, granted by his father to different persons, and having learned that colonel Champion formerly witnessed the treaty as a private [3 D]

| No more shall accents, nervous, bold, and
strong,
Flow in full periods from his matchless tongue :
Yet shall thy name, great shade, from age to
age

Thine and thy country's fate congenial tell:
Bright in poetic and historic page,
By thee she triumph'd, and with thee she fell.”

That the prediction in the last line was not perfectly true, was owing to Mr. Hastings; for had we been as unfortunate in India as in Europe, America, and the West Indies, we had fallen to rise no more. But now many well-informed men (and the minister the first of them) looked to India, as to the resource from whence Great Britain was to reimburse herself for her misfortunes and losses every where else; and we were now about to impeach Mr. Hastings for those very acts which preserved so important a stake for the empire.

complaint was groundless; and he adds, "My friend, I find that all the labours of my predecessor, Mr. Hastings, and of myself, to settle your affairs upon a regular footing, are ineffectual;" so that the Committee would see that it was absolutely impossible to relieve the distresses of that unfortunate man. But as to Fyzoola Khan, he was one of the happiest and most independent native princes in India, and had never received an injury of any kind. If Mr. Hastings was condemned, it must be for ackonwledging himself in the wrong, in inserting an article in a Treaty, which he determined, at the same time, not to act upon, without full proofs of the guilt of Fyzoola Khan. Here he could not avoid noticing one very extraordinary circumstance. For whom were all these exertions made by Mr. Hastings? Was it to put money into his own pocket? Bring corruption home to him, and it would be just to condemn him. Who received the Begum's treasures? the Company. Who received 150,000l. from Fyzoola Khan? the Company; and at a time when resources were required for the existence of our empire. Had the Begums complained, had Fyzoola Khan complained, or Muzuffer Jung? or was there a single complant from India against Mr. Hastings, though he had been now above two years from Bengal, and a ship had arrived in Calcutta, with the charges of the right hon. gentleman, above ten weeks before the Ranger sailed? So far from it, temples had been erected to the honour of Mr. Hastings at Benares. He had received many letters from Bengal, and had seen many more; yet he had not heard of a single complaint against Mr. Hastings since he quitted his government. -Another point to consider was, when these transactions happened. It was in 1782, when Great Britain was sinking in every quarter; but he would not trust to his own language to state what was the situation of the British empire in 1782, he would quote some beautiful lines, written by a right hon. gentleman, who generally sat opposite to him, for a bust of lord Chatham, with only one apprehension, that the poetry would suffer from want of grace in his mode of uttering it:

"Her trophies faded, and revers'd her spear, See England's genius bend o'er Chatham's

bier;

No more his sails, thro' ev'ry clime unfurl'd, Shall spread her dictates o'er th' admiring

world;

Mr. Dundas wished to have it understood, that he did not agree to the motion as concurring in that principle which he took to be the main drift of the charge. Though he differed in that particular, he certainly did not entertain sentiments hostile to the motion in general, or adverse to the future consequences to which it might lead. He conceived the general inference of the charge to be, that Mr. Hastings had all along proceeded upon an intention to seize upon the jaghire of Fyzoola Khan. To that inference he could not subscribe, because he did not believe that Mr. Hastings ever entertained such an intention; he did not on that account think his conduct in respect to Fyzoola Khan the less criminal, or that he ought not for that conduct to be impeached. Mr. Dundas desired to know if the hon. gentleman opposite did not think Mr. Hastings's advising a demand of 5000 horse from Fyzoola Khan in 1780, arose from a mere misapprehension or accidental lapse of memory as to the number of troops which that nabob had stipulated to furnish the Vizier in time of war?

Mr. Francis said, he believed it did. Mr. Hastings had stated to the council, that 5000 horse was the stipulated number; and as he had authorized the Treaty in 1774, the council gave him credit for the correctness of his information. But though Mr. Hastings had, he believed, in 1780, accidentally erred through misconception, he had afterwards wilfully persisted in the error, as the committee would find by referring to his conduct respecting Fyzoola Khan in 1781.

Mr. Dundas declared, that he had always imagined it was an accidental and not a wilful misconception of the real conditions of the Treaty, which had been the cause of Mr. Hastings's advising to call upon Fyzoola Khan for 5000 cavalry in 1780. In that case, certainly, he, for one, should not attach much criminality to Mr. Hastings for what he did under such an error; though it certainly exposed him to some blame on the score of negligence or inattention. He would briefly state the leading particulars in which he thought the conduct of Mr. Hastings criminal: and first he would mention the violation of the guarantee of the Company to the Treaty of 1774. To that Treaty he conceived that Fyzoola Khan had every right to consider the Company as guarantee, in consequence of colonel Champion's signing his name as an attestation of it, and of the subsequent public authorized attestation of it at Rampore. By the Treaty of Chunar, in 1781, that guarantee was violated, and the British name brought into disgrace; as by an article of that Treaty, Fyzoola Khan was declared to have forfeited the protection of the British government, and permission was granted to the Nabob Vizier, to resume his lands. That this permission was never intended to be suffered by Mr. Hastings to be carried into execution, Mr. Dundas verily believed; and in that, in his mind, consisted a great part of Mr. Hastings's criminality, as he thereby made use of the credit of the British name to delude the Nabob Vizier, and at the same time to hold out to Fyzoola Khan an idea, that the British government, which was the guarantee to him for the quiet possession of Rampore, Shawadaw, and some other districts, had stipulated by Treaty to assist the Nabob Vizier in dispossessing him of those territories. He commented on the extreme criminality of this conduct: but as it certainly differed materially from the construction which might be put on the charge before alluded to by him, viz. that it had been the intention of Mr. Hastings really to assist in dispossessing Fyzoola Khan of his territories, he could not agree to the motion, unless it was modified so as to restrict it to the points in which the matter of impeachment really consisted. The better to convey his meaning to the committee, he would produce the amendment which he had designed to offer to the motion. It was, in substance to state, that in the charge there was matter of im

peachment, as far as was connected with that part of the Treaty of Chunar that went to the breach of the guarantee of the Treaty of Rampore. Mr. Dundas said that he did not mean to press his amendment, if it should appear to be disagreeable to gentlemen on the other side.

Mr. Burke applauded the candour of the right hon. and learned gentleman, in thus fairly stating what his objection was, as well as his conduct in declaring that he would not press it then, if not found generally acceptable. With regard to its having been no real intention of Mr. Hastings to dispossess Fyzoola Khan of his jaghire, Mr. Burke said, the right hon. gentleman might rest assured he never would make that a charge, or a part of a charge against Mr. Hastings, which he could not support either by direct legal evidence, or presumption so strong, as to be nearly equal to direct, legal evidence. If the right hon. gentleman would have the goodness to recollect, he would undoubtedly have candour to acknowledge, that in the charge performed by him, and in the argument of his right hon. friend, there had not been one syllable amounting to an insinuation, much less a charge, that it had been Mr. Hastings's real intention to assist in dispossessing Fyzoola Khan of his jaghire: and the reason why there had not, was, because he had neither direct legal evidence, nor strong presumptive evidence to support such an insinuation. The great charge against Mr. Hastings in this case, was, that he had kept Fyzoola Khan in a fever for ten years together, in which that father of agriculture (for so Mr. Hastings had described him to be) was put into a perpetual series of hot and cold fits, not knowing whether he was to look up to the British government in India as his protectors or his oppressors. Mr. Burke said, he had that day to congratulate the Committee on the singular circumstance of the hon. major, who had, so much to his own credit, and with a degree of zeal highly meritorious, on all occasions stood up the defender of Mr. Hastings, having declared that he had no defence to make against the present charge, and therefore had gone back to the charge concerning the affairs of Farruckabad, and treated the Committee with some verses inscribed on the bust of the late earl of Chatham. Those lines he had never before heard; but they were certainly beautiful, and he

would do the hon. major the justice to say, they had suffered nothing in his hands, for the delivery had been as fine as the poetry. The purport of them was to declare that the greatness of the country had risen by the councils of the late earl of Chatham, and that after his death it had fallen. This poetry had been introduced by the hon. major in order to show that India had in like manner risen by the government of Mr. Hastings, but that it was not likely to fall, notwithstanding that he had quitted his power. The similarity therefore had failed. If that were true, all that he could say was, that he wished Mr. Hastings to have as much justice done him as the late earl of Chatham had in the instance in question, viz. to have an epitaph after he had his deserts. He wished the Resolutions of that committee might not be the epitaph.-The hon. major had besides talked of temples having been erected in India to Mr. Hastings. He knew not to the contrary, Mr. Burke said; but he well knew that there were temples dedicated in India to two very different sorts of divinities,-to Brama and Wisnow, the good and guardian deities, to whom the natives returned thanks for the benefits they received, and to Rudor, the evil spirit, whose unwearied enmity and malign influence they earnestly deprecated. Whether Mr. Hastings was most likely to have been worshipped in the latter or in the former character, that committee might be at no great loss to guess; or, perhaps, the temple in question might be a temple of gratitude, in which the Indians offered up their hearty thanks to their guardian deities, for having delivered them from a monster, under whose persecuting spirit they had suffered so much. Mr. Burke was extremely pleasant upon the temples, and said, Templa quam dilecta! with an archness of tone that conveyed a meaning that raised a hearty laugh from both sides of the House. After pushing his ridicule to some length, he reverted to the charge and to Mr. Hastings's defence, in which that gentleman bad himself admitted the truth of the charge, by using these words: "I am not ashamed to acknowledge, that the act itself was formally wrong, and yet more than formally, as it might become a precedent for worse purposes." Mr. Burke reasoned upon this admission, as comprehending the whole criminality imputed to Mr. Hastings in the charge, and in order to prove that the degree of criminality so

imputed was enormous, he went over the principal facts, and argued upon them severally, as he proceeded. In the course of what he said, he paid Mr. Windham some compliments on the clear, logical, and pointed manner, in which he had opened the charge, and observed, that Mr. Hastings was extremely fond of proving that other persons had shared with him in the guilt of certain parts of his conduct; and wherever he thought he could prove that he had acted with an accomplice, he always seemed to think himself immediately exonerated from criminality. On the present occasion, he had endeavoured to state that an hon. member (Mr. Francis) was his accomplice; a point on which that committee were on that night to decide. Mr. Burke stated what Mr. Francis's conduct had been, when he attended the council in Calcutta, wounded as he was; and showed that Mr. Hastings was the man who misled the council, by declaring that 5000 cavalry was the exact number which, by the Treaty of Rampore, the nabob Fyzoola Khan was to furnish the Vizier with, when called upon. That circumstance alone, he said, so strongly marked the scandalous negligence with which the government of Mr. Hastings had been conducted, that it was a sufficient ground of impeachment. He observed also, how shameful it was that Mr. Bristow, at the distance of 900 miles from Calcutta, where the records of all treaties were kept, should be the person to send Mr. Hastings information what was the real purport of the Treaty, upon a gross miscon ception of which he had acted, and that in a manner tending to disgrace the British government.-After a variety of remarks and reasonings, all pointing to establish the extreme readiness which Fyzoola Khan had shown to comply with the requisitions made upon him for cavalry, that a great part of his troops had been employed in the defence of the province of Oude, and the territories of the Nabob Vizier, that Fyzoola Khan's character was revered by all the neighbouring princes, that no internal rebellion, or external attack had disturbed his possessions, and that he had been most unwarrantably treated by the British government under Mr. Hastings; Mr. Burke concluded with declaring, that he had not a doubt of proving any part of the charge to the removal of the scruples of the right hon. gentleman opposite, and to the conviction of every man not predetermined not to be convinced.