IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Early in this session a question arose, whether an impeachment by the house of commons did not remain in statu quo, notwithstanding the intervention of a dissolution of parliament. Upon the solution of this question it depended whether the present parliament could take up the proceedings against Hastings where they had been left by the last, or whether they must be commenced anew. Much discussion arose upon the question; lawyers and members of parliament alike being at issue upon it; but Burke finally succeeded in carrying this motion:—“That it appears that an impeachment by this house, &c., against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Governor-general of Bengal, for sundry high crimes and misdemeanors, is now depending.” The trial, therefore, was to be resumed at the point where it was left by the recent parliament; and in order to shorten it, on the 14th of February, Burke moved “that, in consideration of the length of time which has already elapsed since carrying up the impeachment against Warren Hastings, Esq., it appears to this house to be proper, for the purpose of obtaining substantial justice with as little delay as possible, to proceed to no other parts of the said impeachment than those on which the managers of the prosecution have already closed their evidence; excepting only such parts of the impeachment as relate to the contracts, pensions, and allowances.” This motion was carried without a division; but the resolution of the commons, that an impeachment did not cease with the dissolution of parliament, was strongly contested in the house of lords; and it was not till the 16th of May that their lordships agreed to proceed with the trial. On that day Lord Porchester moved, “that their lordships do now proceed with the trial;” and this motion being carried by a large majority, a message was sent to the house of commons that they were ready to resume proceedings. The charge respecting contracts, pensions, allowances, frauds, and extortions, was opened by Mr. St. John on the 23rd of May, and was gone through in three days. The prosecution closed its evidence on the 30th of May; and when the court broke up, the managers proposed an address to the king, praying him not to prorogue parliament until the trial was finished. This was negatived; and Hastings seeing that he could not expect to bring his defence before the court during the present session, begged to be allowed one day for stating what he deemed of importance respecting the further progress of the trial. This request was readily granted; and on the 2nd of June he delivered a long and able discourse, vindicating his administration in India, and entering at large into the principles which had actuated his conduct. He finally appealed to his accusers in the following energetic peroration:—“To the commons of England, in whose name I am arraigned for desolating the provinces of their dominion in India, I dare to reply, that they are, and their representatives annually tell them so, the most flourishing of all the states in India. It was I who made them so! The valour of others acquired—I enlarged, giving shape and consistency to the dominion which you hold there. I preserved it. I sent forth its armies with an effectual but economical hand, through unknown and hostile regions, to the support of your other possessions; to the retrieval of one from dishonour and degradation, and of another from utter loss and subjection. I maintained the wars which were of your formation or that of others, not of mine. I won one member of the great Indian confederacy from it by an act of seasonable restitution; with another I maintained a secret intercourse, and converted him into a friend; a third I drew off by diversion and negociation, and employed him as an instrument of peace. When you cried out for peace, and your cries were heard by those who were the object of it, I resisted this and every other species of counteraction by rising in my demands, and accomplished a peace, a lasting and I hope an everlasting one, with one great state; and I, at least, afforded the efficient means by which a peace, if not so durable, more seasonable at least, was accomplished with another. I gave you all, and you have rewarded me with confiscation, disgrace, and a life of impeachment. I am, above all things, desirous that your lordships should come to an immediate decision upon the evidence before you. But if the shortness of time should prevent you from complying with this, my earnest desire, and the trial must, of necessity, and to my unspeakable sorrow, be prolonged to another session, then, my lords, I trust you will not consider me, by anything I have said, as precluded from adopting such means of defence as my counsel may judge most advisable for my interest. I am so confident of my own innocence, and have such a perfect reliance upon the honour of your lordships, that I am not afraid to submit to judgment upon the evidence which has been adduced on the part of the prosecution.” After this plea of general merit, in extenuation of specific charges, their lordships passed a resolution to proceed with the trial on the first Tuesday in the next session of parliament.
PARLIAMENT PROROGUED.
Parliament was prorogued by the king in person on the 10th of June. His majesty expressed great satisfaction at the zeal with which the two houses had applied themselves to the consideration of the different objects which he had recommended to their attention; and said, that he regretted he was not yet able to inform them of the result of the steps which had been taken with a view to the re-establishment of peace between Russia and the Porte.
PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
The notes of alarm sounded by Burke in the British house of commons at the progress of the French revolution, did not proceed from an overheated imagination; for, during this year, events transpired which showed in a clearer light than ever that there was cause for alarm. The audacity of the Jacobins daily increased; and in order to oppose a barrier to it, the wiser of the national assembly had recourse to royalty. Lafayette, Mirabeau, the two Lameths, and others, foreseeing the danger in which the new constitution was placed from their proceedings, acted thus, though it proved all to no purpose. In the midst of his exertions to stem the coming ruin of the country, Mirabeau, who was of all men in France the most able to effect such a work, died. It was proposed in the assembly, on the 28th of February, that the tide of emigration should be stopped, by entrusting the power of granting passports to a committee of three persons. Against this iniquitous measure Mirabeau loudly exclaimed; and his opposition to the measure raised such a clamour against him, that, in his exertions to silence their voices, he was so overcome, that he returned thence to a bed of sickness, from which he never arose. His last words were—“After my death the factions will soon tear the last shreds of the monarchy.”
Before Mirabeau had closed his mortal career, he had counselled the king to retire to Metz, beyond the power of the Parisians; and there, at the head of an independent force, to treat with the nation, if he could not with the assembly, and obtain a more equitable adjustment between the rights of the crown and those of the people. Exposed to daily renewed mortifications, Louis finally resolved upon flight; and a plan was concerted with the Marquis de Bouille, who formed a camp of some faithful regiments near Montmedy, for his escape thither. The king and his family left the Tuilleries and the capital on the night of the 20th of June, and arrived undisturbed as far as St. Menehauld; but here he was recognized by the postmaster Drouet, who, by taking prompt measures, had him arrested at Varennes. On the fifth day of his flight he was conducted back to Paris as a prisoner, surrounded by an angry populace and the national guards. He had left behind him, on his departure from the Tuilleries, a declaration, in which he protested against the decrees of the national assembly which he had sanctioned, and manifested his intention of overthrowing the new order of things. Had he succeeded, therefore, France was threatened with civil war and executors; and now that he had failed, vengeance was to fall upon his own head. On his return the national assembly suspended him provisionally from his functions, and appointed commissioners to interrogate him. Louis, however, supported by the moderate party, was silently reinstated in his authority, and the national assembly went on as before. But this only tended to increase the rage of the Jacobins. They wanted at once to proclaim the republic; and, being defeated in their designs, they turned to the people. They caused a petition to be prepared for dethroning the monarch, and made an attempt to lay it on “the altar of the country,” in the field of Mars, for universal signature. A violent tumult ensued, which Lafayette quelled at the edge of the sword: much blood was shed. But this triumph of the assembly only served to render them unpopular. The people became as weary of them as of the monarch; so having collected their constitutional decrees into one code, and having presented this constitution to the king, and received his solemn acceptance of it, on the 30th of December the national assembly declared itself dissolved. This was a fatal step to both king and country. Before the dissolution of this assembly, on the motion of Robespierre, a measure was passed, declaring that none of the members should be capable of re-election. Now, although few among them were capable of legislating for a great country, as most of their acts had proved, yet it was manifest that the members, generally, were wiser, and even more moderate than the people at large. The consequence of this fatal step was, in fact, to sink the representation of the people into a still lower grade of society; to exalt the dregs of the people into the responsible office of legislators. This was soon made manifest; of seven hundred and fifty-eight members who were elected for the legislative assembly, which arose on the ruins of the national assembly, not more than fifty were possessed of one hundred pounds per annum. Those who were elected, indeed, were chiefly men whose zeal had distinguished them in the clubs; men whose sole aim was the subversion of all religion, and of that order which is so necessary to the well-being of a state. There were three classes of persons in this new assembly; the Feuillans, so called from the name of their club, who advocated a mitigated aristocracy; the Girondins, or professed republicans, who had a fixed aversion to even the shadow of royalty which had been preserved; and the Jacobins, whose aim was to sweep away rank, wealth, and talent from the land. The two former of these divisions represented the middle classes, and the latter the rabble; but the Girondins were the most powerful and popular. Such was the nature of this assembly. Compared with it the “rump parliament” of Oliver Cromwell was the perfection of wisdom and moderation. Ignorance, passion, and inexperience became united; and those who looked for great things at the hands of its members—and there were those even in England who looked for such things—must have been grossly infatuated with the principles of the revolution. What the monarch might expect from them was seen on the first meeting of the assembly, when they took an oath upon the constitutional act to live freemen or die. Their next measures were in accordance with this oath. At this time, the emigrants, who had greatly increased since the king had failed in his attempt at flight, had begun to arm foreign courts in their own favour and for the support of the tottering throne of France. Austria, Russia, and Prussia had definitely promised their aid; the King of Sweden, Gustavus III., had offered to be the commander of the allies; and other European courts, though they had not yet resolved to resort to arms, shared in their sentiments. At this time, also, the discontented priesthood, who were scattered through the realm, were stirring and preparing the peasantry universally to revolt. There was, in fact, a tempest gathering round the heads of the patriots; and alarmed at it, and in order to counteract the danger, during the months of October and November, the legislative assembly declared all emigrants who continued hostile on the frontiers beyond the month of January, 1792, civilly dead, and their properties confiscated; and similar rigorous measures were ordained against those priests who should refuse the oath binding them to the constitution, and continue to excite agitation. The king refused to sanction these decrees; and then was seen the absurd balance of power provided against the constitution. The rage of the revolutionists knew no bounds; and unable to attack the monarch directly, they turned their rage against the ministers and the constitutionalists from whose ranks they had been chosen. To effect their overthrow the Girondins and Jacobins united, and were successful. Such of the constitutionalists as were in the ministry were compelled to resign, and the whole party lost its influence in the senate. Nor had this party any power now in the municipality, for Bailly had been superseded in his mayoralty, and Lafayette had resigned his command of the national guard; and these important offices had fallen into the hands of the Jacobins, and by their influence democracy gained the ascendency in the capital, and, by a natural consequence, throughout the whole kingdom. The monarch was even compelled to choose his ministers out of the fiery Jacobin party; for neither royalist nor constitutionalist dared to sit in the council. At the close of this year it was manifest that the king was on the high-road to the scaffold. Red-caps were worn in public by the victorious Jacobins as a party badge, and as a declaration of war against all the moderate and all the friends of right; and the guillotine, beneath which thousands of victims were to bleed, was introduced. France had already assumed the aspect of an arena of wild beasts: Danton, Robespierre, and Marat were already licking their jaws in anticipation of the prey.