His very expressive pause, his eyes still steadfastly fixed on Mr. Hastings, gave me ample opportunity for speaking—though I had some little difficulty how to get out what I wished to say. However, in the midst of his reverie, I broke forth, but not without great hesitation, and, very humbly, I said, “Could you pardon me, Mr. Windham, If I should forget, for a moment, that you are a committee man, and speak to you frankly?”
He looked surprised, but laughed at the question, and very eagerly called out “Oh yes, yes, pray speak out, I beg it!”
“Well, then, may I venture to say to you that I believe it utterly impossible for any one, not particularly engaged on the contrary side, ever to enter a court of justice, and not instantly, and involuntarily, wish well to the prisoner!”
His surprise subsided by this general speech, which I had not courage to put in a more pointed way, and he very readily answered, “‘Tis natural, certainly, and what must almost unavoidably be the first impulse; yet, where justice—”
I stopped him; I saw I was not comprehended, and thought else he might say something to stop me.
“May I,” I said, “go yet a little farther?
“Yes,” cried he, with a very civil smile, “and I feel an assent beforehand.”
“Supposing then, that even you, if that may be supposed, could be divested of all knowledge of the particulars of this affair, and in the same state of general Ignorance that I confess myself to be, and could then, like me, have seen Mr. Hastings make his entrance into this court, and looked at him when he was brought to that bar; not even you, Mr. Windham, could then have reflected on such a vicissitude for him, on all he has left and all he has lost, and not have given him, like me, all your best wishes the moment you beheld him.”
The promised assent came not, though he was too civil to contradict me; but still I saw he Understood me only in a general sense. I feared going farther: a weak advocate is apt to be a mischievous one and, as I knew nothing, it was not to a professed enemy I could talk of what I only believed. Recovering, now, from the strong emotion with which the sight of Mr. Hastings had filled him, he looked again around the court, and pointed out several of the principal characters present, with arch and striking remarks upon each of them, all uttered with high spirit, but none with ill-nature.
“Pitt,” cried he, “is not here!—a noble stroke that for the annals of his administration! A trial is brought on by the whole House of Commons in a body, and he is absent at the very opening! However,” added he, with a very meaning laugh, “I’m glad of it, for ’tis to his eternal disgrace!”