He murmured something I could not distinctly hear, of concern at my continued opinion upon this subject; but I do not think, by his manner, it much surprised him.
“You know,” cried I, “why, as well as what, I feared—that fatal candour, of which so long ago you warned me to beware to the very last moment. And, indeed, I was kept in alarm, for at every figure I saw start up, just now,—Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. Grey,—I concluded yours would be the next.”
“You were prepared, then,” cried he, with no little malice, “for a voice issuing from a distant pew."[340]
Miss BURNEY MAKES HER REPORT.
When we came home I was immediately summoned to her majesty, to whom I gave a full and fair account of all I had heard of the defence; and it drew tears from her expressive eyes as I repeated Mr. Hastings’s own words, upon the hardship and injustice of the treatment he had sustained.
Afterwards, at night, the king called upon me to repeat my account and I was equally faithful, sparing nothing of what had dropped from the persecuted defendant relative to his majesty’s ministers. I thought official accounts might be less detailed there than against the managers, who, as open enemies, excite not so much my “high displeasure” as the friends of government, who so insidiously elected and panegyrised him while they wanted his assistance, and betrayed and deserted him when he was no longer in a capacity to serve them. Such, at least, is the light in which the defence places them.
The king listened with much earnestness and a marked compassion. He had already read the account sent him officially, but he was as eager to hear all I could recollect, as if still uninformed of what had passed. The words may be given to the eye, but the impression they make can only be conveyed by the ear; and I came back so eagerly interested, that my memory was not more stored with the very words than my voice with the intonations of all that had passed.
With regard to My bearing this sole unofficial exertion since my illness, I can only say the fatigue I felt bore not any parallel with that of every Drawing—room day, because I was seated.