Bland-Burges won a reward for his courage which outweighed the disapproval of Pitt. When he had thus {279} volunteered on behalf of Warren Hastings he was so entirely a stranger to him that he did not even know him by sight. Naturally enough, however, the arraigned man was desirous to become acquainted with the stranger who had stood by him when his own friends had abandoned him. He lost no time, therefore, in calling upon Bland-Burges to thank him for the part he had played. Bland-Burges says that the conversation was deeply interesting, but that he only made a note of one passage, in which he explained that, independently of his own conviction that the cause of Warren Hastings was just and honorable, he had been moved to take part in his defence by the positive instructions of his father, who had died about two years previously. Bland-Burges's father, attributing the preservation of England's power in India to Hastings, had enjoined his son, if ever an attack were made upon Hastings, to abstract himself from all personal and party considerations and to support him liberally and manfully. Whatever we may think of the conduct of Warren Hastings, it is a pleasure to find that those who thought him to be in the right stood up for their belief as honorably and as gallantly as Bland-Burges. It is not surprising that Warren Hastings was moved to tears. That day's interview was the beginning of a friendship that endured unbroken until the death of Warren Hastings.
The reason which Pitt gave for his action on the Benares vote was simple enough. He said that, although the action of Hastings towards the Rajah was in itself justifiable, yet that the manner of the action was not justifiable. Chait Singh deserved to be fined, but not to be fined in an exorbitant and tyrannical manner. The explanation might very well be considered sufficient. A high-minded minister might feel bound to condemn the conduct of an official whom he admired, if that conduct had pushed a legal right to an illegal length. But Pitt's decision came with such a shock to the friends, and even to the enemies of Hastings, that public rumor immediately set to work to find some other less simple and less honest reason for Pitt's action. One rumor ascribed it to an {280} interview with Dundas, in which Dundas had succeeded, after hours of argument, in inducing Pitt to throw Warren Hastings over. Another suggested that Pitt was spurred by anger at a declaration of Thurlow's that he and the King between them would make Hastings a peer, whether the minister would or no. A third suggested that Pitt was jealous of the royal favor to Mr. and Mrs. Hastings; while a fourth asserted that Pitt deliberately sacrificed Hastings in order to afford the Opposition other quarry than himself. But there is no need to seek for any other motive than the motive which Pitt alleged. It was quite sufficient to compel an honorable man to give the vote that Pitt gave.
Blow after blow fell upon Hastings. The terrible attacks of Burke were for a time eclipsed by the dazzling brilliancy of Sheridan's attack upon him in the famous Begum speech. Those who heard that speech speak of it with reverence and with passion as one of the masterpieces of the world. In the form in which it is preserved, or rather in which it has failed to be preserved for us, it is hard, if not impossible, to find merit calling for the rapture which it aroused in the minds of men familiar with magnificent oratory, and perfectly competent to judge. That it did arouse rapture is beyond doubt, and for the moment it was even more effective in injuring Hastings than the more profound but less flaming utterances of Burke. The testimony of Fox, the testimony of Byron, alike are offered in its unqualified praise.
It was decided by the House of Commons, with the consent of Pitt, that Hastings should be impeached. One indignity Pitt spared him, one danger Pitt saved him from. Burke was, somewhat incomprehensibly, anxious that the name of Francis should be placed upon that Committee of Impeachment to which Burke had already been nominated as the first member by Pitt. But here Pitt was resolute. Francis was flagrantly hostile to Hastings, hostile with a personal as well as a public hatred, and Pitt could not tolerate the notion that he should find a place upon the Committee of Impeachment. Burke protested, and the {281} very protest was characteristic of Burke's high-mindedness. For to Burke the whole business was a purely public business, in no sense connected with any private feelings, and it seemed to him as if the exclusion of any one of those who had been conspicuous in the arraignment of Hastings from a responsible place on the Committee of Impeachment on the ground of personal feeling was to cast something like a slur upon the purity of motive of the men engaged in the attack. But Pitt was in the right, and the name of Francis was, by a large majority, not suffered to appear upon the committee.
[Sidenote: 1787—The impeachment trial]
In the May of 1787 Burke formally impeached Warren Hastings at the Bar of the House of Lords. Hastings was immediately taken into custody by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and was held to bail for 20,000 pounds, with two sureties for 10,000 pounds each. The delay which was to be characteristic of the whole proceedings was evident from the first. Though Hastings was taken into custody in the May of 1787, It was not until February 13 of the following year, 1788, that the impeached man was brought to his trial in Westminster Hall.
Before the trial began, popular feeling was roused against Hastings more keenly by the action of the Court than by the action of Burke and of his colleagues. The Court was inclined to be even more than friendly to Hastings and to his wife, and both Hastings and his wife, who were not in touch with English public opinion, took the unwise course of making the very most of the royal favor, and of displaying themselves as much as possible in the royal sunlight. The London public, always jealous of any Court favoritism, resented the patronage of Hastings, and while it was in this temper an event took place which served to heighten its resentment. The Nizam of the Deccan had sent a very magnificent diamond to the King as a present, and, being ignorant of what was going on in England, he chose Hastings, naturally enough, as the medium through which to convey his diamond to the King. Hastings, with the want of judgment which characterized him at this time, accepted a duty which, delicate at any {282} time, became under the conditions positively dangerous. He was present at the Levee at which the diamond was presented to the King. Immediately rumor seized upon the incident and distorted it. It was confidently asserted that Hastings was bribing the Sovereign with vast presents of precious stones to use his influence in his behalf. The solitary diamond became in the popular eye more numerous than the stones that Sinbad came upon in the enchanted valley. The print-shops teemed with caricatures, all giving some highly colored exaggeration of the prevailing impression. Every possible pictorial device which could suggest to the passer-by that Hastings was buying the protection of the King by fabulous gifts of diamonds was made public. In one Hastings was shown flinging quantities of precious stones into the open mouth of the King. In another he was represented as having bought the King bodily, crown and sceptre and all, with his precious stones, and as carrying him away in a wheelbarrow. So high did popular feeling run that the great diamond became the hero of a discussion in the House of Commons, when Major Scott was obliged to make a statement in his chief's behalf giving an accurate account of what had really occurred.
The trial of Warren Hastings is one of the most remarkable examples of contrasts in human affairs that is to be found in the whole course of our history. It began under conditions of what may fairly be called national interest. It came to an end amid the apathy and indifference of the public. When it began, the Great Hall of Westminster was scarcely large enough to contain all those who longed to be present at the trial of the great proconsul. All the rank, the wealth, the genius, the wit, the beauty of England seemed to be gathered together in the building, which is said to be the oldest inhabited building in the world. When it ended, and long before it had ended, the attendance had dwindled down to a mere handful of spectators, some two or three score of persons whose patience, whose interest, or whose curiosity had survived the indifference with which the rest of the world had come to {283} regard the whole business. The spirit of genius and the spirit of dulness met in close encounter in that memorable arena, and it must be admitted that the spirit of dulness did on the whole prevail. There seemed a time when it was likely that the trial might go on forever. Men and women who came to the first hearing eager on the one side or the other, impassioned for Hastings or enthusiastic for Burke, died and were buried, and new men and women occupied themselves with other things, and still the trial dragged its slow length along.
[Sidenote: 1788-95—Hastings's Oriental fortitude]
It may be unhesitatingly admitted that during the long course of the trial Warren Hastings bore himself with courage and with dignity. He was firmly convinced that he was a much-injured man, and if the justice of a man's cause were to be decided merely upon the demeanor of the defendant, Hastings would have been exonerated. He professed to be horrified, and he no doubt was horrified, by what he called "the atrocious calumnies of Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox." He carried himself as if they were indeed atrocious calumnies without any basis whatsoever. His attitude was that of the martyr supported by the serenity of the saint. He had lived so long in the East that he gained not a little of that Eastern fortitude which is the fortitude of fatalism. While the trial was progressing he told a dear friend that he found much consolation in a certain Oriental tale. The story was of an Indian king whose temper never knew a medium, and who in prosperity was hurried into extravagance by his joy, while in adversity grief overwhelmed him with despondency. Having suffered many inconveniences through this weakness, he besought his courtiers to devise a sentence, short enough to be engraved upon a ring, which should suggest a remedy for his evil. Many phrases were proposed; none were found acceptable until his daughter offered him an emerald on which were graven two Arabic words, the literal translation of which is, "This, too, will pass." The King embraced his daughter and declared that she was wiser than all his wise men. "Now," said Hastings, "when I appear at the Bar and hear the violent invectives {284} of my enemies, I arm myself with patience. I reflect upon the mutability of human life, and I say to myself, 'This, too, will pass.'"