WARREN HASTINGS APPEARS AT THE BAR.
A sergeant-at-arms arose, and commanded silence in court, on pain of imprisonment. Then some other officer, in a loud voice, called out, as well as I can recollect, words to this purpose:—“Warren Hastings, esquire, come forth! Answer to the charges brought against you; save your bail, or forfeit your recognizance.”
Indeed I trembled at these words, and hardly Could keep my place when I found Mr. Hastings was being brought to the bar. He came forth from some place immediately under the great chamberlain’s box, and was preceded by Sir Francis Molyneux, gentleman-usher of the black rod; and at each side of him walked his bail, Messrs. Sullivan and Sumner.
The moment he came in sight, which was not for full ten minutes after his awful summons, he made a low bow to the chancellor and court facing him. I saw not his face, as he was directly under me. He moved on slowly, and, I think, supported between his two bails, to the opening of his own box; there, lower still, he bowed again; and then, advancing to the bar, he leant his hands upon it, and dropped on his knees; but a voice in the same minute proclaiming he had leave to rise, he stood up almost instantaneously, and a third time, profoundly bowed to the court.
What an awful moment this for such a man!—a man fallen from such height of power to a situation so humiliating—from the almost unlimited command of so large a part of the eastern World to be cast at the feet of his enemies, of the great tribunal of his country, and of the nation at large, assembled thus in a body to try and to judge him! Could even his prosecutors at that moment look on—and not shudder at least, if they did not blush?
The crier, I think it was, made, in a loud and hollow voice, a public proclamation, “That Warren Hastings, esquire, late governor-general of Bengal, was now on his trial for high crimes and misdemeanours, with which he was charged by the commons of Great Britain; and that all persons whatsoever who had aught to allege against him were now to stand forth.”
A general silence followed, and the chancellor, Lord Thurlow, now made his speech. I will give it you to the best of my power from memory; the newspapers have printed it far less accurately than I have retained it, though I am by no means exact or secure.