Chapter I: Impeachment of Mr. Hastings (2)

"I must also do credit to them whenever I see any thing like lenity in Mr. Middleton or his agent:--they do seem to admit here, that it was not worth while to commit a massacre for the discount of a small note of hand, and to put two thousand women and children to death, in order to procure prompt payment."

Of the length to which the language of crimination was carried, as well by Mr. Sheridan as by Mr. Burke, one example, out of many, will suffice. It cannot fail, however, to be remarked that, while the denunciations and invectives of Burke are filled throughout with a passionate earnestness, which leaves no doubt as to the sincerity of the hate and anger professed by him,--in Sheridan, whose nature was of a much gentler cast, the vehemence is evidently more in the words than in the feeling, the tone of indignation is theatrical and assumed, and the brightness of the flash seems to be more considered than the destructiveness of the fire:--

"It is this circumstance of deliberation and consciousness of his guilt--it is this that inflames the minds of those who watch his transactions, and roots out all pity for a person who could act under such an influence. We conceive of such tyrants as Caligula and Nero, bred up to tyranny and oppression, having had no equals to control them--no moment for reflection--we conceive that, if it could have been possible to seize the guilty profligates for a moment, you might bring conviction to their hearts and repentance to their minds. But when you see a cool, reasoning, deliberate tyrant--one who was not born and bred to arrogance,--who has been nursed in a mercantile line--who has been used to look round among his fellow-subjects--to transact business with his equals--to account for conduct to his master, and, by that wise system of the Company, to detail all his transactions--who never could fly one moment from himself, but must be obliged every night to sit down and hold up a glass to his own soul--who could never be blind to his deformity, and who must have brought his conscience not only to connive at but to approve of it--_this_ it is that distinguishes it from the worst cruelties, the worst enormities of those, who, born to tyranny, and finding no superior, no adviser, have gone to the last presumption that there were none above to control them hereafter. This is a circumstance that aggravates the whole of the guilt of the unfortunate gentleman we are now arraigning at your bar."

We now come to the Peroration, in which, skilfully and without appearance of design, it is contrived that the same sort of appeal to the purity of British justice, with which the oration opened, should, like the repetition of a solemn strain of music, recur at its close,--leaving in the minds of the Judges a composed and concentrated feeling of the great public duty they had to perform, in deciding upon the arraignment of guilt brought before them. The Court of Directors, it appeared, had ordered an inquiry into the conduct of the Begums, with a view to the restitution of their property, if it should appear that the charges against them were unfounded; but to this proceeding Mr. Hastings objected, on the ground that the Begums themselves had not called for such interference in their favor, and that it was inconsistent with the "Majesty of Justice" to condescend to volunteer her services. The pompous and Jesuitical style in which this singular doctrine [Footnote: "If nothing (says Mr. Mill) remained to stain the reputation of Mr. Hastings but the principles avowed in this singular pleading, his character, among the friends of justice, would be sufficiently determined."] is expressed, in a letter addressed by the Governor-general to Mr. Macpherson, is thus ingeniously turned to account by the orator, in winding up his masterly statement to a close:--

'And now before I come to the last magnificent paragraph, let me call the attention of those who, possibly, think themselves capable of judging of the dignity and character of justice in this country;--let me call the attention of those who, arrogantly perhaps, presume that they understand what the features, what the duties of justice are here and in India;--let them learn a lesson from this great statesman, this enlarged, this liberal philosopher:--'I hope I shall not depart from the simplicity of official language, in saying that the Majesty of Justice ought to be approached with solicitation, not descend to provoke or invite it, much less to debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and the promise of redress, with the denunciation of punishment before trial, and even before accusation.' This is the exhortation which Mr. Hastings makes to his counsel. This is the character which he gives of British justice.

* * * * *

"But I will ask Your Lordships, do you approve this representation? Do you feel that this is the true image of Justice? Is this the character of British justice? Are these her features? Is this her countenance? Is this her gait or her mien? No, I think even now I hear you calling upon me to turn from this vile libel, this base caricature, this Indian pagod, formed by the hand of guilty and knavish tyranny, to dupe the heart of ignorance,--to turn from this deformed idol to the true Majesty of Justice here. _Here_, indeed, I see a different form, enthroned by the sovereign hand of Freedom,--awful without severity--commanding without pride--vigilant and active without restlessness or suspicion--searching and inquisitive without meanness or debasement--not arrogantly scorning to stoop to the voice of afflicted innocence, and in its loveliest attitude when bending to uplift the suppliant at its feet.

"It is by the majesty, by the form of that Justice, that I do conjure and implore Your Lordships to give your minds to this great business; that I exhort you to look, not so much to words, which may be denied or quibbled away, but to the plain facts,--to weigh and consider the testimony in your own minds: we know the result must be inevitable. Let the truth appear and our cause is gained. It is this, I conjure Your Lordships, for your own honor, for the honor of the nation, for the honor of human nature, now entrusted to your care,--it is this duty that the Commons of England, speaking through us, claims at your hands.

"They exhort you to it by every thing that calls sublimely upon the heart of man, by the Majesty of that Justice which this bold man has libelled, by the wide fame of your own tribunal, by the sacred pledge by which you swear in the solemn hour of decision, knowing that that decision will then bring you the highest reward that ever blessed the heart of man, the consciousness of having done the greatest act of mercy for the world, that the earth has ever yet received from any hand but Heaven.--My Lords, I have done."

Though I have selected some of the most remarkable passages of this Speech, [Footnote: I had selected many more, but must confess that they appeared to me, when in print, so little worthy of the reputation of the Speech, that I thought it would be, on the whole, more prudent to omit them. Even of the passages, here cited, I speak rather from my imagination of what they must have been, than from my actual feeling of what they are. The character, given of such Reports, by Lord Loughborough, is, no doubt, but too just. On a motion made by Lord Stanhope, (April 29, 1794), that the short-hand writers, employed on Hastings's trial, should be summoned to the bar of the House, to read their minutes, Lord Loughborough, in the course of his observations on the motion, said, "God forbid that ever their Lordships should call on the short-hand writers to publish their notes; for, of all people, short-hand writers were ever the farthest from correctness, and there were no man's words they ever heard that they again returned. They were in general ignorant, as acting mechanically; and by not considering the antecedent, and catching the sound, and not the sense, they perverted the sense of the speaker, and made him appear as ignorant as themselves."] it would be unfair to judge of it even from these specimens. A Report, _verbatim_, of any effective speech must always appear diffuse and ungraceful in the perusal. The very repetitions, the redundancy, the accumulation of epithets which gave force and momentum in the career of delivery, but weaken and encumber the march of the style, when read. There is, indeed, the same sort of difference between a faithful short-hand Report, and those abridged and polished records which Burke has left us of his speeches, as there is between a cast taken directly from the face, (where every line is accurately preserved, but all the blemishes and excrescences are in rigid preservation also,) and a model, over which the correcting hand has passed, and all that was minute or superfluous is generalized and softened away.

Neither was it in such rhetorical passages as abound, perhaps, rather lavishly, in this Speech, that the chief strength of Mr. Sheridan's talent lay. Good sense and wit were the great weapons of his oratory--shrewdness in detecting the weak points of an adversary, and infinite powers of raillery in exposing it. These were faculties which he possessed in a greater degree than any of his contemporaries; and so well did he himself know the stronghold of his powers, that it was but rarely, after this display in Westminster Hall, that he was tempted to leave it for the higher flights of oratory, or to wander after Sense into that region of metaphor, where too often, like Angelica in the enchanted palace of Atlante, she is sought for in vain. [Footnote: Curran used to say laughingly, "When I can't talk sense, I talk metaphor."] His attempts, indeed, at the florid or figurative style, whether in his speeches or his writings, were seldom very successful. That luxuriance of fancy, which in Burke was natural and indigenous, was in him rather a forced and exotic growth. It is a remarkable proof of this difference between them, that while, in the memorandums of speeches left behind by Burke, we find, that the points of argument and business were those which he prepared, trusting to the ever ready wardrobe of his fancy for their adornment,--in Mr. Sheridan's notes it is chiefly the decorative passages, that are worked up beforehand to their full polish; while on the resources of his good sense, ingenuity, and temper, he seems to have relied for the management of his reasonings and facts. Hence naturally it arises that the images of Burke, being called up on the instant, like spirits, to perform the bidding of his argument, minister to it throughout, with an almost coordinate agency; while the figurative fancies of Sheridan, already prepared for the occasion, and brought forth to adorn, not assist, the business of the discourse, resemble rather those sprites which the magicians used to keep inclosed in phials, to be produced for a momentary enchantment, and then shut up again.

In truth, the similes and illustrations of Burke form such an intimate, and often essential, part of his reasoning, that if the whole strength of the Samson does not lie in those luxuriant locks, it would at least be considerably diminished by their loss. Whereas, in the Speech of Mr. Sheridan, which we have just been considering, there is hardly one of the rhetorical ornaments that might not be detached, without, in any great degree, injuring the force of the general statement. Another consequence of this difference between them is observable in their respective modes of transition, from what may be called the _business_ of a speech its more generalized and rhetorical parts. When Sheridan rises, his elevation is not sufficiently prepared; he starts abruptly and at once from the level of his statement, and sinks down into it again with the same suddenness. But Burke, whose imagination never allows even business to subside into mere prose, sustains a pitch throughout which accustoms the mind to wonder, and, while it prepares us to accompany him in his boldest flights, makes us, even when he walks, still feel that he has wings:--

"_Même quand l'oiseau marche, on sent qu'il a des ailes._"

The sincerity of the praises bestowed by Burke on the Speech of his brother Manager has sometimes been questioned, but upon no sufficient grounds. His zeal for the success of the Impeachment, no doubt, had a considerable share in the enthusiasm, with which this great effort in its favor filled him. It may be granted, too, that, in admiring the apostrophes that variegate this speech, he was, in some degree, enamored of a reflection of himself;

"_Cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipse._"

He sees reflected there, in fainter light.
All that combines to make himself so bright.

But whatever mixture of other motives there may have been in the feeling, it is certain that his admiration of the Speech was real and unbounded. He is said to have exclaimed to Mr. Fox, during the delivery of some passages of it, "There,--that is the true style;--something between poetry and prose, and better than either." The severer taste of Mr. Fox dissented, as might be expected, from this remark. He replied, that "he thought such a mixture was for the advantage of neither--as producing poetic prose, or, still worse, prosaic poetry." It was, indeed, the opinion of Mr. Fox, that the impression made upon Burke by these somewhat too theatrical tirades is observable in the change that subsequently took place in his own style of writing; and that the florid and less chastened taste which some persons discover in his later productions, may all be traced to the example of this speech. However this may be, or whether there is really much difference, as to taste, between the youthful and sparkling vision of the Queen of France in 1792, and the interview between the Angel and Lord Bathurst in 1775, it is surely a most unjust disparagement of the eloquence of Burke, to apply to it, at any time of his life, the epithet "flowery,"--a designation only applicable to that ordinary ambition of style, whose chief display, by necessity, consists of ornament without thought, and pomp without substance. A succession of bright images, clothed in simple, transparent language,--even when, as in Burke, they "crowd upon the aching sense" too dazzlingly,--should never be confounded with that mere verbal opulence of style, which mistakes the glare of words for the glitter of ideas, and, like the Helen of the sculptor Lysippus, makes finery supply the place of beauty. The figurative definition of eloquence in the Book of Proverbs--"Apples of gold in a net-work of silver"--is peculiarly applicable to that enshrinement of rich, solid thoughts in clear and shining language, which is the triumph of the imaginative class of writers and orators,--while, perhaps, the net-work, _without_ the gold inclosed, is a type equally significant of what is called "flowery" eloquence.

It is also, I think, a mistake, however flattering to my country, to call the School of Oratory, to which Burke belongs, _Irish_. That Irishmen are naturally more gifted with those stores of fancy, from which the illumination of this high order of the art must be supplied, the names of Burke, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, Canning, and Plunkett, abundantly testify. Yet had Lord Chatham, before any of these great speakers were heard, led the way, in the same animated and figured strain of oratory; [Footnote: His few noble sentences on the privilege of the poor man's cottage are universally known. There is also his fanciful allusion to the confluence of the Saone and Rhone, the traditional reports of which vary, both as to the exact terms in which it was expressed, and the persons to whom he applied it. Even Lord Orford does not seem to have ascertained the latter point. To these may be added the following specimen:--"I don't inquire from what quarter the wind cometh, but whither it goeth; and, if any measure that comes from the Right Honorable Gentleman tends to the public good, my bark is ready." Of a different kind is that grand passage,--"America, they tell me, has resisted--I rejoice to hear it,"--which Mr. Grattan used to pronounce finer than anything in Demosthenes.] while another Englishman, Lord Bacon, by making Fancy the hand-maid of Philosophy, had long since set an example of that union of the imaginative and the solid, which, both in writing and in speaking, forms the characteristic distinction of this school.

The Speech of Mr. Sheridan in Westminster Hall, though so much inferior in the opinion of Mr. Fox and others, to that which he had delivered on the same subject in the House of Commons, seems to have produced, at the time, even a more lively and general sensation;--possibly from the nature and numerousness of the assembly before which it was spoken, and which counted among its multitude a number of that sex, whose lips are in general found to be the most rapid conductors of fame.

But there was _one_ of this sex, more immediately interested in his glory, who seems to have felt it as women alone can feel. "I have delayed writing," says Mrs. Sheridan, in a letter to her sister-in-law, dated four days after the termination of the Speech, "till I could gratify myself and you by sending you the news of our dear Dick's triumph!--of _our_ triumph I may call it; for surely, no one, in the slightest degree connected with him, but must feel proud and happy. It is impossible, my dear woman, to convey to you the delight, the astonishment, the adoration, he has excited in the breasts of every class of people! Every party-prejudice has been overcome by a display of genius, eloquence and goodness, which no one with any thing like a heart about them, could have listened to without being the wiser and the better for the rest of their lives. What must _my_ feelings be!--you can only imagine. To tell you the truth, it is with some difficulty that I can 'let down my mind,' as Mr. Burke said afterwards, to talk or think on any other subject. But pleasure, too exquisite, becomes pain, and I am at this moment suffering for the delightful anxieties of last week."

It is a most happy combination when the wife of a man of genius unites intellect enough to appreciate the talents of her husband, with the quick, feminine sensibility, that can thus passionately feel his success. Pliny tells us, that his Calpurnia, whenever he pleaded an important cause, had messengers ready to report to her every murmur of applause that he received; and the poet Statius, in alluding to his own victories at the Albanian Games, mentions the "breathless kisses," with which his wife, Claudia, used to cover the triumphal garlands he brought home. Mrs. Sheridan may well take her place beside these Roman wives;--and she had another resemblance to one of them, which was no less womanly and attractive. Not only did Calpurnia sympathize with the glory of her husband abroad, but she could also, like Mrs. Sheridan, add a charm to his talents at home, by setting his verses to music and singing them to her harp,--"with no instructor," adds Pliny, "but Love, who is, after all, the best master."

This letter of Mrs. Sheridan thus proceeds:--"You were perhaps alarmed by the account of S.'s illness in the papers; but I have the pleasure to assure you he is now perfectly well, and I hope by next week we shall be quietly settled in the country, and suffered to repose, in every sense of the word; for indeed we have, both of us, been in a constant state of agitation, of one kind or other, for some time back.

"I am very glad to hear your father continues so well. Surely he must feel happy and proud of such a son. I take it for granted you see the newspapers: I assure you the accounts in them are not exaggerated, and only echo the exclamation of admiration that is in every body's mouth. I make no excuse for dwelling on this subject: I know you will not find it tedious. God bless you--I am an invalid at present, and not able to write long letters."

The agitation and want of repose, which Mrs. Sheridan here complains of, arose not only from the anxiety which she so deeply felt, for the success of this great public effort of her husband, but from the share which she herself had taken, in the labor and attention necessary to prepare him for it. The mind of Sheridan being, from the circumstances of his education and life, but scantily informed upon all subjects for which reading is necessary, required, of course, considerable training and feeding, before it could venture to grapple with any new or important task. He has been known to say frankly to his political friends, when invited to take part in some question that depended upon authorities, "You know I'm an ignoramus--but here I am--instruct me and I'll do my best." It is said that the stock of numerical lore, upon which he ventured to set up as the Aristarchus of Mr. Pitt's financial plans, was the result of three weeks' hard study of arithmetic, to which he doomed himself, in the early part of his Parliamentary career, on the chance of being appointed, some time or other, Chancellor of the Exchequer. For financial display it must be owned that this was rather a crude preparation. But there are other subjects of oratory, on which the outpourings of information, newly acquired, may have a freshness and vivacity which it would be vain to expect, in the communication of knowledge that has lain long in the mind, and lost in circumstantial spirit what it has gained in general mellowness. They, indeed, who have been regularly disciplined in learning, may be not only too familiar with what they know to communicate it with much liveliness to others, but too apt also to rely upon the resources of the memory, and upon those cold outlines which it retains of knowledge whose details are faded. The natural consequence of all this is that persons, the best furnished with general information, are often the most vague and unimpressive on particular subjects; while, on the contrary, an uninstructed man of genius, like Sheridan, who approaches a topic of importance for the first time, has not only the stimulus of ambition and curiosity to aid him in mastering its details, but the novelty of first impressions to brighten his general views of it--and, with a fancy thus freshly excited, himself, is most sure to touch and rouse the imaginations of others.

This was particularly the situation of Mr. Sheridan with respect to the history of Indian affairs; and there remain among his papers numerous proofs of the labor which his preparation for this arduous task cost not only himself but Mrs. Sheridan. Among others, there is a large pamphlet of Mr. Hastings, consisting of more than two hundred pages, copied out neatly in her writing, with some assistance from another female hand. The industry, indeed, of all around him was put in requisition for this great occasion--some, busy with the pen and scissors, making extracts--some pasting and stitching his scattered memorandums in their places. So that there was hardly a single member of the family that could not boast of having contributed his share, to the mechanical construction of this speech. The pride of its success was, of course, equally participated; and Edwards, a favorite servant of Mr. Sheridan, who lived with him many years, was long celebrated for his professed imitation of the manner in which his master delivered (what seems to have struck Edwards as the finest part of the speech) his closing words, "My Lords, I have done!"

The impeachment of Warren Hastings is one of those pageants in the drama of public life, which show how fleeting are the labors and triumphs of politicians--"what shadows they are, and what shadows they pursue." When we consider the importance which the great actors in that scene attached to it,--the grandeur with which their eloquence invested the cause, as one in which the liberties and rights of the whole human race were interested,--and then think how all that splendid array of Law and of talent has dwindled away, in the view of most persons at present, into an unworthy and harassing persecution of a meritorious and successful statesman;--how those passionate appeals to justice, those vehement denunciations of crime, which made the halls of Westminster and St. Stephen's ring with their echoes, are now coldly judged, through the medium of disfiguring Reports, and regarded, at the best, but as rhetorical effusions, indebted to temper for their warmth, and to fancy for their details;--while so little was the reputation of the delinquent himself even scorched by the bolts of eloquence thus launched at him, that a subsequent House of Commons thought themselves honored by his presence, and welcomed him with such cheers [Footnote: When called as a witness before the House, in 1813, on the subject of the renewal of the East India Company's Charter.] as should reward only the friends and benefactors of freedom;--when we reflect on this thankless result of so much labor and talent, it seems wonderful that there should still be found high and gifted spirits, to waste themselves away in such temporary struggles, and, like that spendthrift of genius, Sheridan, to _discount_ their immortality, for the payment of fame in hand which these triumphs of the day secure to them.

For this direction, however, which the current of opinion has taken, with regard to Mr. Hastings and his eloquent accusers, there are many very obvious reasons to be assigned. Success, as I have already remarked, was the dazzling talisman, which he waved in the eyes of his adversaries from the first, and which his friends have made use of to throw a splendor over his tyranny and injustice ever since. [Footnote: In the important article of Finance, however, for which he made so many sacrifices of humanity, even the justification of success was wanting to his measures. The following is the account given by the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1810, of the state in which India was left by his administration:--"The revenues had been absorbed; the pay and allowances of both the civil and military branches of the service were greatly in arrear; the credit of the Company was extremely depressed; and, added to all, the whole system had fallen into such irregularity and confusion, that the real state of affairs could not be _ascertained_ till the conclusion of the year 1785-6."--_Third Report_.] Too often in the moral logic of this world, it matters but little what the premises of conduct may be, so the conclusion but turns out showy and prosperous. There is also, it must be owned, among the English, (as perhaps, among all free people,) a strong taste for the arbitrary, when they themselves are not to be the victims of it, which invariably secures to such accomplished despotisms, as that of Lord Strafford in Ireland, and Hastings in India, even a larger share of their admiration than they are, themselves, always willing to allow.

The rhetorical exaggerations, in which the Managers of the prosecution indulged,--Mr. Sheridan, from imagination, luxuriating in its own display, and Burke from the same cause, added to his overpowering autocracy of temper--were but too much calculated to throw suspicion on the cause in which they were employed, and to produce a reaction in favor of the person whom they were meant to overwhelm. "_Rogo vos, Judices_,"--Mr. Hastings might well have said,--"_si iste disertus est, ideo me damnari oportet?_" [Footnote: Seneca, Controvers. lib. iii. c. 19.]

There are also, without doubt, considerable allowances to be made, for the difficult situations in which Mr. Hastings was placed, and those impulses to wrong which acted upon him from all sides--allowances which will have more or less weight with the judgment, according as it may be more or less fastidiously disposed, in letting excuses for rapine and oppression pass muster. The incessant and urgent demands of the Directors upon him for money may palliate, perhaps, the violence of those methods which he took to procure it for them; and the obstruction to his policy which would have arisen from a strict observance of Treaties, may be admitted, by the same gentle casuistry, as an apology for his frequent infractions of them.

Another consideration to be taken into account, in our estimate of the character of Mr. Hastings as a ruler, is that strong light of publicity, which the practice in India of carrying on the business of government by written documents threw on all the machinery of his measures, deliberative as well as executive. These Minutes, indeed, form a record of fluctuation and inconsistency--not only on the part of the Governor-General, but of all the members of the government--a sort of weather-cock diary of opinions and principles, shifting with the interests or convenience of the moment, [Footnote: Instances of this, on the part of Mr. Hastings, are numberless. In remarking upon his corrupt transfer of the management of the Nabob's household in 1778, the Directors say, "It is with equal surprise and concern that we observe this request introduced, and the Nabob's ostensible rights so solemnly asserted at this period by our Governor-General; because, on a late occasion, to serve a very different purpose, he has not scrupled to declare it as visible as the light of the sun, that the Nabob is a mere pageant, and without even the shadow of authority." On another transaction in 1781, Mr. Mill remarks:--"It is a curious moral spectacle to compare the minutes and letters of the Governor-General, when, at the beginning of the year 1780, maintaining the propriety of condemning the Nabob to sustain the whole of the burden imposed upon him, and his minutes and letters maintaining the propriety of relieving him from those burthens in 1781. The arguments and facts adduced on the one occasion, as well as the conclusion, are a flat contradiction to those exhibited on the other."] which entirely takes away our respect even for success, when issuing out of such a chaos of self-contradiction and shuffling. It cannot be denied, however, that such a system of exposure--submitted, as it was in this case, to a still further scrutiny, under the bold, denuding hands of a Burke and a Sheridan--was a test to which the councils of few rulers could with impunity be brought. Where, indeed, is the statesman that could bear to have his obliquities thus chronicled? or where is the Cabinet that would not shrink from such an inroad of light into its recesses?

The undefined nature, too, of that power which the Company exercised in India, and the uncertain state of the Law, vibrating between the English and the Hindoo codes, left such tempting openings for injustice as it was hardly possible to resist. With no public opinion to warn off authority from encroachment, and with the precedents set up by former rulers all pointing the wrong way, it would have been difficult, perhaps, for even more moderate men than Hastings, not occasionally to break bounds and go continually astray.

To all these considerations in his favor is to be added the apparently triumphant fact, that his government was popular among the natives of India, and that his name is still remembered by them with gratitude and respect.

Allowing Mr. Hastings, however, the full advantage of these and other strong pleas in his defence, it is yet impossible, for any real lover of justice and humanity, to read the plainest and least exaggerated history of his government, [Footnote: Nothing can be more partial and misleading than the coloring given to these transactions by Mr. Nicholls and other apologists of Hastings. For the view which I have myself taken of the whole case I am chiefly indebted to the able History of British India by Mr. Mill--whose industrious research and clear analytical statements make him the most valuable authority that can be consulted on the subject.

The mood of mind in which Mr. Nicholls listened to the proceedings of the Impeachment may be judged from the following declaration, which he has had the courage to promulgate to the public:--"On this Charge (the Begum Charge) Mr. Sheridan made a speech, which both sides of the House professed greatly to admire--for Mr. Pitt now openly approved of the Impeachment. _I will acknowledge, that I did not admire this speech of Mr. Sheridan."_] without feeling deep indignation excited at almost every page of it. His predecessors had, it is true, been guilty of wrongs as glaring--the treachery of Lord Clive to Omichund in 1757, and the abandonment of Ramnarain to Meer Causim under the administration of Mr. Vansittart, are stains upon the British character which no talents or glory can do away. There are precedents, indeed, to be found, through the annals of our Indian empire, for the formation of the most perfect code of tyranny, in every department, legislative, judicial, and executive, that ever entered into the dreams of intoxicated power. But, while the practice of Mr. Hastings was, at least, as tyrannical as that of his predecessors, the principles upon which he founded that practice were still more odious and unpardonable. In his manner, indeed, of defending himself he is his own worst accuser--as there is no outrage of power, no violation of faith, that might not be justified by the versatile and ambidextrous doctrines, the lessons of deceit and rules of rapine, which he so ably illustrated by his measures, and has so shamelessly recorded with his pen.

Nothing but an early and deep initiation in the corrupting school of Indian politics could have produced the facility with which, as occasion required, he could belie his own recorded assertions, turn hostilely round upon his own expressed opinions, disclaim the proxies which he himself had delegated, and, in short, get rid of all the inconveniences of personal identity, by never acknowledging himself to be bound by any engagement or opinion which himself had formed. To select the worst features of his Administration is no very easy task; but the calculating cruelty with which he abetted the extermination of the Rohillas--his unjust and precipitate execution of Nuncomar, who had stood forth as his accuser, and, therefore, became his victim,--his violent aggression upon the Raja of Benares, and that combination of public and private rapacity, which is exhibited in the details of his conduct to the royal family of Oude;--these are acts, proved by the testimony of himself and his accomplices, from the disgrace of which no formal acquittal upon points of law can absolve him, and whose guilt the allowances of charity may extenuate, but never can remove. That the perpetrator of such deeds should have been popular among the natives of India only proves how low was the standard of justice, to which the entire tenor of our policy had accustomed them;--but that a ruler of this character should be held up to admiration in England, is one of those anomalies with which England, more than any other nation, abounds, and only inclines us to wonder that the true worship of Liberty should so long have continued to flourish in a country, where such heresies to her sacred cause are found.

I have dwelt so long upon the circumstances and nature of this Trial, not only on account of the conspicuous place which it occupies in the fore-ground of Mr. Sheridan's life, but because of that general interest which an observer of our Institutions must take in it, from the clearness with which it brought into view some of their best and worst features. While, on one side, we perceive the weight of the popular scale, in the lead taken, upon an occasion of such solemnity and importance, by two persons brought forward from the middle ranks of society into the very van of political distinction and influence, on the other hand, in the sympathy and favor extended by the Court to the practical assertor of despotic principles, we trace the prevalence of that feeling, which, since the commencement of the late King's reign, has made the Throne the rallying point of all that are unfriendly to the cause of freedom. Again, in considering the conduct of the Crown Lawyers during the Trial--the narrow and irrational rules of evidence which they sought to establish--the unconstitutional control assumed by the Judges, over the decisions of the tribunal before which the cause was tried, and the refusal to communicate the reasons upon which those decisions were founded--above all, too, the legal opinions expressed on the great question relative to the abatement of an Impeachment by Dissolution, in which almost the whole body of lawyers [Footnote: Among the rest, Lord Erskine, who allowed his profession, on this occasion, to stand in the light of his judgment. "As to a Nisi-prius lawyer (said Burke) giving an opinion on the duration of an Impeachment--as well might a rabbit, that breeds six times a year, pretend to know any thing of the gestation of an elephant."] took the wrong, the pedantic, and the unstatesmanlike side of the question,--while in all these indications of the spirit of that profession, and of its propensity to tie down the giant Truth, with its small threads of technicality and precedent, we perceive the danger to be apprehended from the interference of such a spirit in politics, on the other side, arrayed against these petty tactics of the Forum, we see the broad banner of Constitutional Law, upheld alike by a Fox and a Pitt, a Sheridan and a Dundas, and find truth and good sense taking refuge from the equivocations of lawyers, in such consoling documents as the Report upon the Abuses of the Trial by Burke--a document which, if ever a reform of the English law should be attempted, will stand as a great guiding light to the adventurers in that heroic enterprise.

It has been frequently asserted, that on the evening of Mr. Sheridan's grand display in the House of Commons, The School for Scandal and the Duenna were acted at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and thus three great audiences were at the same moment amused, agitated, and, as it were, wielded by the intellect of one man. As this triple triumph of talent--this manifestation of the power of Genius to multiply itself, like an Indian god--was, in the instance of Sheridan, not only possible, but within the scope of a very easy arrangement, it is to be lamented that no such coincidence did actually take place, and that the ability to have achieved the miracle is all that can be with truth attributed to him. From a careful examination of the play-bills of the different theatres during this period, I have ascertained, with regret, that neither on the evening of the speech in the House of Commons, nor on any of the days of the oration in Westminster Hall, was there, either at Covent-Garden, Drury-Lane, or Haymarket theatres, any piece whatever of Mr. Sheridan's acted.

The following passages of a letter from Miss Sheridan to her sister in Ireland, written while on a visit with her brother in London, though referring to a later period of the Trial, may without impropriety be inserted here:--

"Just as I received your letter yesterday, I was setting out for the Trial with Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Dixon. I was fortunate in my day, as I heard all the principal speakers--Mr. Burke I admired the least--Mr. Fox very much indeed. The subject in itself was not particularly interesting, as the debate turned merely on a point of law, but the earnestness of his manner and the amazing precision with which he conveys his ideas is truly delightful. And last, not least, I heard my brother! I cannot express to you the sensation of pleasure and pride that filled my heart at the moment he rose. Had I never seen him or heard his name before, I should have conceived him the first man among them at once. There is a dignity and grace in his countenance and deportment, very striking--at the same time that one cannot trace the smallest degree of conscious superiority in his manner. His voice, too, appeared to me extremely fine. The speech itself was not much calculated to display the talents of an orator, as of course it related only to dry matter. You may suppose I am not so lavish of praises before indifferent persons, but I am sure you will acquit me of partiality in what I have said. When they left the Hall we walked about some time, and were joined by several of the managers--among the rest by Mr. Burke, whom we set down at his own house. They seem now to have better hopes of the business than they have had for some time; as the point urged with so much force and apparent success relates to very material evidence which the Lords have refused to hear, but which, once produced, must prove strongly against Mr. Hastings; and, from what passed yesterday, they think their Lordships must yield.--We sat in the King's box," &c.