MR. WINDHAM TWITTED ON His LACK OF COMPASSION.
April 23.—-I thought myself equal to again going to the trial, which recommenced, after six or seven weeks’ cessation, on account of the judges going the circuit. Sarah went with me: I am now so known in the chamberlain’s box that the door-keepers and attendants make way for me without looking at my ticket. And to be sure, the managers on one side, and Mr. Hastings’s friends and counsel on the other, must pretty well have my face by heart. I have the faces of all them, most certainly, in full mental possession; and the figures of many whose names I know not are so familiar to my eyes, that should I chance hereafter to meet them, I shall be apt to take them for old acquaintances.
There was again a full appearance of managers to accompany Mr. Burke in his entry; and again Mr. Windham quitted the procession, as it descended to the box, and filed off to speak with me.
He made the most earnest inquiries after the health of my dearest father, as well as after my own. He has all the semblance of real regard and friendship for us, and I am given to believe he wears no semblance that has not a real and sympathetic substance couched beneath. His manner instantly revived in my mind my intent not to risk, with him, the loss of making those poor acknowledgments for his kindness, that I so much regret omitting to Sir Joshua Reynolds. In return to his inquiries about my renovating health, I answered that I had again been very ill since I saw him last, and added, “Indeed, I believe I did not come away too soon.”
“And now,” cried I, “I cannot resist giving myself the pleasure of making my acknowledgments for what I owe to you upon this subject. I have been, indeed, very much obliged, by various things that have come round to me, both to you and Sir Joshua.—O what a loss is that!”
“What a wretched loss!” cried he: and we then united our warmest suffrages in his favour, with our deepest regret for our deprivation. Here I observed poor Mr. Hastings was brought in. I saw he was fixing him.
“And can you,” I cried, fixing him, “can you have so much compassion for one captive, and still have none for another?”
“Have you, then, still,” cried he, “the same sentiments?”
“Have you,” cried I, “heard all thus far of the defence, and are you still unmoved?”
“Unmoved?” cried he, emphatically; “shall I be moved by a lion? You see him there in a cage, and pity him; look back to when you might have seen him with a lamb in his claws!”
I could only look dismayed for a moment. “But, at least,” I said, “I hope what I hear is not true, though I now grow afraid to ask?”
“If it is anything about me,” he answered, “it is certainly not true.”
“I am extremely glad, indeed,” cried I, “for it has been buzzed about in the world that you were to draw up the final charge. This I thought most cruel of all; You, who have held back all this time—”
“Yes! pretty completely,” interrupted he, laughing. “No, not completely,” I continued; “but Yet YOU have made no direct formal speech, nor have come forward in any positive and formidable manner; therefore, as we have now heard all the others, and—almost enough—”
I was obliged to stop a moment, to see how this adventurous plainness was taken; and he really, though my manner showed me only rallying, looked I don’t know how, at such unexampled disrespect towards his brother orators. But I soon went quietly on: “To come forth now, after all that has passed, with the eclat of novelty, and,-for the most cruel part of all,—that which cannot be answered.”
“You think,” cried he, “’tis bringing a fresh courser into the field of battle, just as every other is completely jaded?”
“I think,” cried I, “that I am very generous to wish against what I should so much wish for, but for other considerations.”
“O, what a flattering way,” cried he, “of stating it! however, I can bear to allow you a little waste of compliments, which you know so well how to make; but I cannot bear to have you waste your compassion.”