IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
In the meantime the impeachment of Hastings had been carried on with great activity. In the early part of this session the commons had appointed a committee of management for his impeachment, and on the 13th of February his trial commenced with every solemnity that the forms of official dignity could impart. The trial took place in Westminster-hall, which was fitted up with great magnificence for the occasion; benches, stages, and boxes were erected, and the old grey walls were hung with scarlet. All the magnates of the land were assembled at this trial; either to take part in the proceedings, or to act as mere spectators.
The first two days of the trial were occupied in the arrangement of ceremonials. When all were seated the sergeant-at-arms made proclamation, and called upon Warren Hastings, Esquire, to appear in court. Hastings advanced, accompanied by his two bail, Sullivan and Sumner, and the sergeant-at-arms again made proclamation, that whereas charges of high crimes and misdemeanors had been exhibited by the house of commons, in the name of themselves, and of all the commons of Great Britain, against Warren Hastings, Esq., all persons were to take notice that he now stood upon his trial, that they might come forth and make good the said charges. Hastings was then addressed by the Lord Chancellor Thurlow in the following terms:—“Warren Hastings, you stand at the bar of this court charged with high crimes and misdemeanors, a copy of which has been delivered to you: you have been allowed counsel, and a long time has been given you for your defence; but this is not to be considered as a particular indulgence to you, as it arose from the necessity of the case; the crimes with which you are charged being stated to have been committed in a distant place. These charges contain the most weighty allegations, and they come from the highest authority. This circumstance, however, though it carries with it the most serious importance, is not to prevent you from making your defence in a firm and collected manner, in the confidence that, as a British subject, you are entitled to, and will receive full justice from a British court.” To this address Hastings replied:—“My lords, I am come to this high tribunal equally impressed with a confidence in my own integrity and in the justice of the court before which I stand.” After this the clerks of the court proceeded to read the charges and answers, which occupied the remainder of this day and the whole of the next; and when this was completed, Burke, on the 15th of February, as the head of the committee of managers, opened the impeachment by a speech which lasted four days. He commenced by the following observations:—“My lords, the gentlemen who have it in command to support this impeachment of Mr. Hastings, have directed me to open the cause with a general view of the grounds on which the commons have proceeded in their charge against him. They have directed me to accompany this with another general view of the extent, the magnitude, the nature, and the effect of the crimes which they allege to have been committed. They have also directed me to give an explanation of such circumstances preceding those crimes, or concomitant with them, as may tend to elucidate whatever is obscure in the articles. To those they have wished me to add a few illustrative remarks on the laws, customs, opinions, and manners of the people who are the objects of the crimes which we charge on Mr. Hastings.” In following out the course prescribed him, Burke in turns charmed, excited, and terrified his audience, and produced all the effects attributed to the most successful orators in the days of antiquity. His appeals to the feelings and passions of his auditory were much too frequent, especially as those parts of his speech were derived from the tales of the enemies of Hastings; tales that were amplified and exaggerated, either by private malevolence or by oriental hyperbole. Apart from this grand error, however, Burke’s speech was one of the finest that was ever delivered in the English language. Parts of it were “soberly sublime,” exhibiting a wonderful range of knowledge, a high statesman-like philosophy, and a fine spirit of Christian philanthropy. His arguments were enforced with great acuteness, and were so powerful as almost to convince Hastings himself that he was a guilty man. “For half an hour,” said the accused, “I looked up at the orator in a reverie of wonder; and, during that space, I actually felt myself the most culpable man on earth; but I recurred to my own bosom, and there found a consciousness that consoled me under all I heard and all I suffered.” The excitement which was produced by Burke’s speech operated upon all that heard him; ladies fainted in the galleries, and the inflexible face of the Lord Chancellor Thurlow was several times seen to quiver with emotion. In pronouncing his preoration on the fourth day, the orator raised his voice to such a pitch as seemed to shake the walls and roof of Westminster Hall. He exclaimed,—“Therefore it is with confidence that, ordered by the commons, I impeach Warren Hastings Esq., of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of all the commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonoured. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation, and condition of life. And I conjure this high and sacred court to let not these pleadings be heard in vain.” As soon as the agitation, which Burke’s speech and accusation gave rise to, had subsided, a debate ensued respecting the manner in which the defence should be conducted. It was finally decided, in opposition to the wish of the managing committee and the opinions of their counsel, that, according to the usual practice in trials, the prosecutor should complete his case before the accused commenced his defence. Accordingly, Fox, after making some complaints against this decision, opened the Benares charge down to the expulsion of Cheyte Sing, which was followed up and completed by Mr. Gray. After this the evidence was brought forward, and the whole was summed up by Mr. Anstruther on the 11th of April. The court did not meet again till the 15th of April; when Mr. Adam opened the next charge, relating to the Begums of Oude, which was continued and completed by Mr. Pelham. The evidence on this charge was summed up by Sheridan; on which occasion he made another grand display, though, it is said, not equal to that which he made on the same subject in the house of commons. As on the former occasion, his speech abounded with tropes and figures; and his performance attracted a fuller audience than had yet assembled in the hall. It lasted three whole days; but only a few fragments of his speech are extant, and scarcely any one of those in existence convey any notion of the fascination which, it is said, that his oratory exercised over those who heard him. One of the most beautiful portions of his speech related to the correspondence of the governor and his agent. It reads thus:—“When I see in many of these letters the infirmities of age made a subject of mockery and ridicule; when I see the feelings of a son treated by Mr. Middleton as puerile and contemptible; when I see an order given from Mr. Hastings to harden that son’s heart, and to choke the struggles of nature in his bosom; when I see them pointing to the son’s name and to his standard, while marching to oppress the mother, as to a banner that gives dignity—that gives a holy sanction and reverence to their enterprise; when I see and hear these things done; when I hear them brought into three deliberate defences set up against the charges of the commons, my lords, I own I grow puzzled and confounded, and almost begin to doubt whether, where such a defence can be offered, it may not be tolerated. And yet, my lords, how can I support the claim of filial love by argument? much less the affections of a son to a mother, where love loses its awe, and veneration is mixed with tenderness. What can I say on such a subject? What can I do but repeat the ready truths which, with the quick impulse of the mind, must spring to the lips of every man on such a theme? Filial love! the moral of instinct, the sacrament of nature and duty, or rather let me say, it is miscalled a duty, for it flows from the heart without effort, and is its delight, its indulgence, its enjoyment. It is guided, not by the slow dictates of reason; it awaits not encouragement from reflection or from thought; it asks no aid of memory; it is an innate, but active consciousness of having been the object of a thousand tender solicitudes, a thousand waking, watchful cares of meek anxiety and patient sacrifices, unremarked and unrequited by the object; it is a gratitude founded on a conviction of obligations, not remembered, but more binding because not remembered—because conferred before the tender reason could acknowledge, or the infant memory record them; a gratitude and affection which no circumstances should subdue, and which few can strengthen; a gratitude in which injury from the object, though it may blend regret, should never breed resentment; an affection which can be in creased only by the decay of those to whom we owe it, and which is then most fervent, when the tremulous voice of age, resistless in its feebleness, inquires for the natural protector of its cold decline. If these are the general sentiments of man, what must be their depravity—what must be their degeneracy—who can blot out and erase from the bosom the virtue that is most deeply rooted in the human heart, and twined, within the cords of life itself? Aliens from nature! Apostates from humanity! And yet, if there be a crime more fell, more foul; if there be anything worse than a wilful persecutor of his mother, it is that of a deliberate instigator and abettor to the deed; this it is that shocks, disgusts, and appals the mind more than the other; to view, not a wilful parricide, but a parricide by compulsion; a miserable wretch, not actuated by the stubborn evils of his own worthless heart, not driven by the fury of his own distracted brain, but lending his sacrilegious hand, without any malice of his own, to answer the abandoned purposes of the human fiends that have subdued his will. To condemn crimes like these we need not talk of laws or of human rules; their foulness, their deformity does not depend on local constitutions, on human institutes, or religious creeds; they are crimes, and the persons who perpetrate them are monsters, who violate the primitive condition on which the earth was given to man; they are guilty by the general verdict of human-kind.” Sheridan concluded his speech by an appeal to British justice, which, as it is preserved to us, is a mere sonorous roll of words, with a common-place meaning; after which he acted a stage-trick; as if fainting, he fell back into the arms of his friend Burke.
This was the last charge against Hastings that came before the court in Westminster Hall during the present session. In the house of commons, however, there was much discussion concerning the money issued from the exchequer, for the discharge of the expenses incurred in the impeachment. Mr. Burgess moved that an account of all the money expended should be laid before the house; and, though opposed by the managing committee, who said they considered the motion as made merely as an attempt by the friends of Hastings to vex and impede the committee in the prosecution, it was carried, and an account of the expenses was laid upon the table. But this account was incomplete; and Mr. Burgess had to make three other motions before the particulars of the expenditure were clearly brought before the house. In all these motions he was supported by Pitt, who declared he thought it necessary that the house should know how the money was spent, and have the power of checking the expenditure if they thought it in any case unnecessary. It seems to have been suspected that many men were making a profitable affair of the impeachment; and it must be confessed that the conduct of the managers, in resisting the inquiries, seemed to justify that suspicion. Their grand argument against the motion was, that such a measure as giving an account of the expenditure, was unprecedented, and had never been attempted nor dreamed of in any great prosecution. They stated that the charges already incurred in employing counsel were remarkably moderate, and that the fees were, in fact, inadequate to the services performed. They even argued, that if more money had been spent, more good would have been done, as they could then have procured “secret services,” which they thought very necessary in such a case. These were unfortunate arguments, as they left an impression on the minds of many, that some, at least, engaged in the prosecution for what they could get by it. On the other hand, it is possible that some members wished to impede the operations of the committee, and to favour Hastings by cutting off, or, at least, greatly reducing their resources. Even after all his motions were carried, Mr. Burgess expressed a doubt whether the house had really authorised the managers to employ counsel; whether there was any precedent for it; and whether the assistance of counsel was necessary. Pitt did not go thus far; but he questioned whether two civilians, besides ordinary counsel, were required. The whole debate, indeed, seems to show that there was an anxiety among certain members in the house to benefit Hastings, by encouraging doubts and insinuations against his prosecutors; which doubts and insinuations were the more regarded, because two of them, at least—Fox and Sheridan—did not enjoy any high reputation as regards money matters. It would have been very ungracious of the house, however, if, after giving the managing committee a commission to conduct the prosecution, it had left them to pay the expenses of that prosecution out of their own pockets. This was not done; but the discussions which took place on the subject of the expenditure had the effect of keeping down the growth of the law expenses, by drawing public attention to them, and by establishing the rule, that the solicitors should continue to present, from time to time, an account of all money spent in the prosecution. Had this rule not been laid down, the cost of this prosecution would probably have been enormous; and, as it was, they must have been great, for the expenses already amounted to £4300, exclusive of the erections in and decorations of Westminster Hall. The expenses which Hastings had incurred was much greater; and yet of twenty charges only two had been heard; and he then had to make his defence.