IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
The trial of Warren Hastings was revived early in this session; but from the occupation produced by the regency-bill and by the recovery of the king, it proceeded but slowly. It was, in fact, the 20th of April before their lordships resumed their sitting in the hall; and from the nature of the business which subsequently occupied their attention, they could then only sit seventeen days. The third article was opened on the 21st by Burke, which article related to the corrupt receipt of money. In his speech Burke alluded to Nuncomar, and indiscreetly said, that Hastings had murdered him by the hands of Sir Elijah Impey. As Impey had been acquitted by the house of commons, and as the transaction respecting Nuncomar made no part of the charges contained in the articles, Hastings thought proper to present a petition to the commons, in which he entreated them either to cause this, and similar allegations made by his accuser, to be prosecuted in distinct articles, or to afford him such redress as they should think proper. This petition was strongly supported by Major Scott, who presented it, and who accused Burke of being guilty of cool, deliberate, systematic, and intentional misrepresentation, and of imputing to Hastings crimes of which he knew him to be innocent. In reply, Burke called Major Scott the systematic libeller of the house of commons; and he, with his friends, endeavoured to prevent the petition from being received; contending that it was irregular and unprecedented, and that if every expression, not agreeable to the feelings of the party accused, were not fit to be used in a criminal prosecution, there must be an end to such prosecution. Pitt, on the other hand, gave his cordial support to the petition, as far as regarded the business of Nuncomar; and after a long debate, the house resolved “that no authority had been given by the house for the purpose of making any criminal charge respecting Nuncomar; and that the words complained of ought not to have been spoken.” Subsequently, a resolution of censure on the conduct of Burke was moved by the Marquess Of Graham; and, though strenuously opposed by Fox and the other managers, it was carried by a majority of one hundred and thirty-live against sixty-six. In the meantime the trial went on languidly. Legal doubts and difficulties were constantly suggested by the counsel for the prisoner, and time was frittered away in their consideration by the peers; and before this single charge could be settled, their lordships decided to postpone the trial to the first Tuesday in the next session of parliament. These delays caused great vexation both to the accused and the accusers. Hastings, indeed, declared that if he had foreseen such an interminable process, he would rather have pleaded guilty at the commencement of the process; and that, if he had done so, he should have been a gainer as regards money. Early in the session, in fact, Hastings had presented a petition to the lords, complaining of the great hardship to which the duration of the trial subjected him; mentioning the death of several of his judges, the long detention of witnesses necessary for his defence, the probability of his being deprived of many of them by various accidents; and reminding their lordships of the shattered state of his own health, and that his cost had been so great, that, even if his life should be spared to the end of the trial, he might become destitute of the means of defence, and thereby run the fearful chance of having his character blasted by unrefuted criminations; there being no hope of defending himself effectually without money. On the other hand, Burke and the managers complained of the delays as tending to favour the accused. On one occasion, when their lordships, after long consideration in their own chamber—whither they almost invariably retired to solve all doubt and difficulties—decided that certain evidence taken out of the minutes at Calcutta should not be admitted, he exclaimed, with impassioned vehemence:—“Plunder on; the laws intended to restrain you are mere scarecrows. Accumulate wealth by any means, however illegal, profligate, infamous. You are sure of impunity; for the natives of India are, by their religion, debarred from appearing against you out of their own country; and circumstantial evidence will not be received.” But neither the complaints of the accused nor the accusers quickened the proceedings of the peers. They still walked leisurely from the hall to their chamber, and from their chamber to the hall, whence it was jocosely said by Lord Stanhope, that “the judges walked, but the trial stood still.”