TRIAL OF HASTINGS, ETC.
During this session the trial of Hastings occupied twenty-two days but no decision took place. Towards the close of the session the attention of parliament was also drawn to the situation of India. In presenting his annual statement of the income and expenditure of British India, Dundas drew a flattering picture of its happiness and prosperity; stating that the surplus of the Bengal revenue for the preceding year was more than one million pounds sterling. Francis denied every thing that Dundas said; asserted that one-third of the company’s territory was inhabited only by wild beasts; and prognosticated nothing but disgrace, defeat, and ruin from the war which was still carried on against Tippoo. Francis said that the seizures for non-payment of the land-revenue were notorious, and that he held in his hand two advertisements, one of which announced the sale of seventeen, and the other of forty-two villages.
BILL RESPECTING THE NEW FOREST AND TIMBER FOR THE NAVY.
In the course of this session Pitt introduced a bill for encouraging the growth of timber for the navy, and improving the royal revenue raising out of the New Forest, by the sale of certain parts, and the enfranchisement of copyholds. This bill passed the commons without much opposition, but on the second reading in the upper house it was strenuously opposed by Lord Chancellor Thurlow. His lordship objected to the principle of the bill as favouring the alienation of the crown lands, and he asserted that it was essential to the safety of the constitution that his majesty should have his interests blended with those of the landed property in the country. Thurlow’s arguments seem to have had great weight, for though the bill was committed by a majority of forty one against twenty-nine, it was postponed and never afterwards resumed.
PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.
Parliament was prorogued on the 15th of June, when his majesty expressed great concern at the commencement of hostilities in Europe, and stated that his principal care would be to preserve to his people the blessings of peace. His majesty applauded the measures which had been adopted for the diminution of taxation, and the additional provision made for the reduction of the existing national debt; and for the prevention of the accumulation of debt in future. But no prudential measures could lessen the existing debt, or prevent its accumulation, for in a few months England was involved in the most expensive war that had ever called forth her energies.