MISS BURNEY BATTLES FOR THE ACCUSED.
“Indeed, sir!” cried I; “that does not appear, to those who know him and—I—know him a little.”
“Do you?” cried he earnestly; “personally, do you know him?”
“Yes; and from that knowledge arose this prepossession I have confessed.”
“Indeed, what you have seen of him have you then so much approved?”
“Yes, very much! I must own the truth!”
“But you have not seen much of him?" “No, not lately. My first knowledge of him was almost immediately upon his coming from India; I had heard nothing of all these accusations; I had never been in the way of hearing them, and knew not even that there were any to be heard. I saw him, therefore, quite without prejudice, for or against him; and indeed, I must own, he soon gave me a strong interest in his favour.”
The surprise with which he heard me must have silenced me on the subject, had it not been accompanied with an attention so earnest as to encourage me still to proceed. It is evident to me that this committee live so much shut Lip with one another, that they conclude all the world of the same opinions with themselves, and universally imagine that the tyrant they think themselves pursuing is a monster in every part of his life, and held in contempt and abhorrence by all mankind. Could I then be sorry, seeing this, to contribute my small mite towards clearing, at least, so very wide a mistake? On the contrary, when I saw he listened, I was most eager to give him all I could to hear.
“I found him,” I continued, “so mild, so gentle, so extremely pleasing in his manners—”
“Gentle!” cried he, with quickness.
“Yes, Indeed; gentle even to humility—”
“Humility? Mr. Hastings and humility!”
“Indeed it is true; he is perfectly diffident in the whole of his manner, when engaged in conversation; and so much struck was I, at that very time, by seeing him so simple, so unassuming, when just returned from a government that had accustomed him to a power superior to our monarchs here, that it produced an effect upon my mind in his favour which nothing can erase!”
“Yes, Yes!” cried he, with great energy, “you will give it up! you must lose it, must give it up! it will be plucked away, rooted wholly out of your mind.”
“Indeed, sir,” cried I, steadily, “I believe not!”
“You believe not?” repeated he, with added animation; “then there will be the more glory in making you a convert!”
If “conversion” is the word, thought I, I would rather make than be made.
“But—Mr. Windham,” cried I, “all my amazement now is at your condescension in speaking to me upon this business at all, when I have confessed to you my total ignorance of the subject, and my original prepossession in favour of the object. Why do you not ask me when I was at the play? and how I liked the last opera?”
He laughed; and we talked on a little while in that strain, till again, suddenly fixing his eyes on poor Mr. Hastings, his gaiety once more vanished, and he gravely and severely examined his countenance. “‘Tis surely,” cried he, “an unpleasant one. He does not know, I suppose, ’tis reckoned like his own!”
“How should he,” cried I, “look otherwise than unpleasant here?”
“True,” cried he; “yet still, I think, his features, his look, his whole expression, unfavourable to him. I never saw him but once before; that was at the bar of the House of Commons and there, as Burke admirably said, he looked, when first he glanced an eye against him, like a hungry tiger, ready to howl for his prey!”
“Well,” cried I, “I am sure he does not look fierce now! Contemptuous, a little, I think he does look!”
I was sorry I used this word; yet its truth forced it to escape me. He did not like it; he repeated it; he could not but be sure the contempt could only be levelled at his prosecutors. I feared discussion, and flew off as fast as I could, to softer ground. “It was not,” cried I, “with that countenance he gave me my prepossession! Very differently, indeed, he looked then!”
“And can he ever look pleasant? can that face ever obtain an expression that is pleasing?”
“Yes, indeed and in truth, very pleasant! It was in the country I first saw him, and without any restraint on his part; I saw him, therefore, perfectly natural and easy. And no one, let me say, could so have seen him without being pleased with him—his quietness and serenity, joined to his intelligence and information—”
“His information?—in what way?”
“In such a way as suited his hearer: not upon committee business—of all that I knew nothing. The only conversation in which I could mix was upon India, considered simply as, a country in which he had travelled; and his communications upon the people, the customs, habits, cities, and whatever I could name, were so instructive as well as entertaining, that I think I never recollect gaining more intelligence, or more pleasantly conveyed, from any conversation in which I ever have been engaged.” To this he listened with an attention that, but for the secret zeal which warmed me must have silenced and shamed me. I am satisfied this committee have concluded Mr. Hastings a mere man of blood, with slaughter and avarice for his sole ideas! The surprise with which he heard this just testimony to his social abilities was only silent from good-breeding, but his eyes expressed what his tongue withheld; something that satisfied me he concluded.
I had undesignedly been duped by him. I answered this silence by saying “There was no object for hypocrisy, for it was quite in retirement I met with him: it was not lately; it is near two years since I have seen him; he had therefore no point to gain with me, nor was there any public character, nor any person whatever, that Could induce him to act a part; yet was he all I have said-informing, Communicative, instructive, and at the same time, gentle and highly pleasing.”
“Well,” said he, very civilly, “I begin the less to wonder, now, that You have adhered to his side; but—”
“To see him, then,” cried I, stopping his ‘but,’—“to see him brought to that bar! and kneeling at it!—indeed, Mr. Windham, I must own to you, I could hardly keep my seat—hardly forbear rising and running out of the Hall.”
“Why, there,” cried he, “I agree with you! ‘Tis certainly a humiliation not to be wished or defended: it is, indeed, a mere ceremony, a mere formality; but it is a mortifying one, and so obsolete, so unlike the practices of the times, so repugnant from a gentleman to a gentleman, that I myself looked another way: it hurt me, and I wished it dispensed with.”
“O, Mr. Windham,” cried I, surprised and pleased, “and can you be so liberal?”
“Yes,” cried he, laughing, “but ’tis only to take you in!”
Afterwards he asked what his coat was, whether blue Or purple; and said, “is it not customary for a prisoner to come black?”
“Whether or not,” quoth I, “I am heartily glad he has not done it; why should he seem so dismal, so shut out from hope?”
“Why, I believe he is in the right. I think he has judged that not ill.”
“O, don’t be so candid,” cried I, “I beg you not.”
“Yes, yes, I must; and you know the reason,” cried he, gaily; but presently exclaimed, “one unpleasant thing belong- ing to being a manager is that I must now go and show myself in the committee.” And then he very civilly bowed, and went down to his box, leaving me much persuaded that I had never yet been engaged in a conversation so curious, from its circumstances, in my life. The warm well-wisher myself of the prisoner, though formerly the warmest admirer of his accuser, engaged, even at his trial and in his presence, in so open a discussion with one of his principal prosecutors; and the queen herself in full view, unavoidably beholding me in close and eager conference with an avowed member of the opposition!
These circumstances made me at first enter into discourse with Mr. Windham with the utmost reluctance; but though I wished to shun him, I could not, when once attacked, decline to converse with him. It would but injure the cause of Mr. Hastings to seem to fear hearing the voice of his accusers; and it could but be attributed to undue court-influence had I avoided any intercourse with an acquaintance so long ago established as a member of the opposition.