The long years in India had served to confuse his perception of the conduct of affairs at home. He did not in the least appreciate the men with whom he had to deal. If he gauged pretty closely the malignity of Francis, he may have fancied that the malignity was not very likely to prove dangerous. But he wholly misunderstood the character of the other foes, as important as Francis was unimportant, who were ranged against him. He made the extraordinary mistake of despising Burke.
Hastings had certain anxieties on his return to England, His first was caused by his disappointment at not finding his wife in London to greet him on his arrival, a {276} disappointment that was consoled two days later when, as he was journeying post-haste to the country to join her, he met her on Maidenhead Bridge driving in to join him. His second was the pleasurable anxiety of negotiating for the purchase of Daylesford, the realization of his youthful dream. He was made a little anxious too, later on, by the delay in the awarding to him of those honors which he so confidently expected. But he does not seem to have been disturbed in any appreciable degree by the formidable preparations which were being made against him by Burke and Fox and the followers of Burke and Fox.
It is just possible that those preparations might have come to little or nothing but for the folly of Major Scott. Major Scott was mad enough to try and force the hand of the enemies of Hastings by calling upon Burke and Fox to fix a day for the charges that they were understood to be prepared to bring against him. Fox immediately rose to assure Major Scott that the matter was not forgotten. Burke, with grave composure, added that a general did not take choice of time and place of battle from his adversaries. It has been suggested that but for Major Scott's ill-advised zeal the attack might never have come to a head. But the conclusion is one which it would be rash to draw. Burke was not the man to forego his long-cherished hope of bringing a criminal to justice. If he had been inclined to forego it, he was not the kind of man to be goaded into unwilling resumption of his purpose by the taunts of Major Scott. It may surely be assumed that the impeachment of Warren Hastings would have been made even if Major Scott had been as wise and discreet as he proved himself to be unwise and indiscreet.
Even when the attack was formally begun, Hastings failed to grasp its gravity or guess the best mode of meeting it. He insisted upon being heard at the Bar of the House in his own defence. A man of rare oratorical ability, gifted with special skill in the selection of his material and the adjustment of his arguments, might have done himself a good turn by such a decision. But Hastings was not so endowed, and he would have done far better in {277} following the example of Clive and of Rumbold. He committed the one fault which the House of Commons never forgives, he wearied it. Such dramatic effect as he might have got out of his position as a proconsul arraigned before a senate he spoiled by the length and tedium of his harangue. He took two days to read a long and wordy defence, two days which he considered all too short, and which the House of Commons found all too long. It yawned while Hastings prosed. Accustomed to an average of eloquence of which the art has long been lost, it found Hastings's paper insufferably wearisome.
Although he was the target for the eloquence of Burke, of Fox, and of Sheridan, still Hastings's hopes were high, and they mounted higher when the Rohilla war charge was rejected by a large majority. But they were only raised so high to be dashed to earth again in the most unexpected manner. The friends of Hastings were convinced that he would have the unfailing support of Pitt in his defence. He was now to learn that he was mistaken.
[Sidenote: 1787—Pitt and the impeachment]
Hastings had one very zealous champion in the House of Commons. This was a young member, Sir James Bland-Burges. He rose not merely with the approval of Pitt, but actually at Pitt's instigation, to defend Warren Hastings on the question of the treatment of the Rajah of Benares. It is scarcely surprising that the House did not pay him any great attention. Having just come under "the spell of the enchanter," it would hardly have listened with attention to an old and well-known member, and Bland-Burges was a young and unknown man. He could not command a hearing, so, whispering to Pitt that he would leave the remainder of the defence to him, he sat down, and the debate, on Pitt's suggestion, was adjourned.
On the following day the young defender came to the House hot to hear Pitt deliver to an attentive senate that defence which he had striven unsuccessfully to make. He has recorded the astonishment, indignation, and despair when Pitt rose to make his declaration concerning the charge against Hastings. The minister in whom Hastings trusted to find an ally offered some cold condemnation of {278} the intemperance of the attack, proffered some lukewarm praise to Hastings, and then announced that he would agree to the motion. To most of Pitt's supporters Pitt's action came as an unpleasant surprise; but to Bland-Burges, from his previous conversation with the minister, it seemed like an act of treason. There was little for Bland-Burges to do, but it is to his credit that he did that little. It required no small courage for a follower and a friend of Pitt to defy his authority in the House. Yet that is practically what Bland-Burges did. Raging with indignation at what he conceived to be the tergiversation of his leader and the treachery to his hero, Bland-Burges once again forced himself upon the attention of the House. The leaders on both sides being agreed, it was expected that the matter would be settled out of hand, and the Speaker had actually put the question and declared it carried when Bland-Burges leaped to his feet and challenged a division. He acted with the courage of his despair, but, as he says, few unpremeditated enterprises ever succeeded better than this one. "The question indeed was carried by a great majority, but those who were against it were almost entirely of those who till then had implicitly voted with the minister. This was not only mortifying to Mr. Pitt, but highly encouraging to Mr. Hastings and his steadfast friends."
Bland-Burges did not escape an early intimation of the disapproval of his chief. When the House broke up, Pitt said to him, with an austere look, "So, sir, you have thought proper to divide the House. I hope you are satisfied." Bland-Burges answered that he was perfectly satisfied. "Then you seem satisfied very easily," the minister retorted; to which Bland-Burges replied, "Not exactly so, sir. I am satisfied with nothing that has passed this evening except the discovery I have made that there were still honest men present." "On that," Bland-Burges continues, "with a stern look and a stately air he left me."
[Sidenote: 1787—Bland-Burges and Hastings]