honourable interpretation of his conduct, which the house owed to those who acted in its name, and under the sanction of its authority. Having endeavoured upon this ground to remove the odium of appearing a forward prosecutor of public delinquency, Mr. Burke called back the recollection of the House to the several proceedings which had been had in parliament respecting the mal-administration of the company's affairs in India, from the period of Lord Clive's government down to the reports of the secret and select committees, the resolutions moved thereupon, and the approbation repeatedly given to these proceedings by his majesty from the throne. It was upon the authority, the sanction, and the encouragement thus. afforded him, that he rested his accusation of Mr. Hastings, as a delinquent of the first magnitude.-After going through an infinite variety of topics relative to this part of his subject; he proceeded to explain the process which he should recommend to the house to pursue. There were, he observed, three several modes of proceeding against state-delinquents, which according to the exigencies of particular cases had each at different times been adopted. The first was to direct his majesty's attorney general to prosecute; from this mode he acknowledged himself totally averse, not only because he had not discovered in the learned gentleman, whose respectable character and professional abilities had advanced him to that high official situation, that zeal for public justice in the present instance, which was a necessary qualification in a public prosecutor; but more especially, because he thought a trial in the court of king's bench, amidst a cloud of causes of meum and tuum, of trespass, assault, battery, conversion, and trover, &c. &c. not at all suited to the size and enormity of the offender, or to the complicated nature and extent of his of fences. Another mode of proceeding occasionally adopted by the house was by bill of pains and penalties; this mode he also greatly disapproved of, in the first place, as attended with great hardship and injustice to the party prosecuted, by obliging him to anticipate his defence; and secondly, as putting the house in a situation which, where the nature of the case did not absolutely require it, ought carefully to be avoided, that of shifting its character backwards and forwards, and appearing in the same cause one day as accusers, and another as judges. The only process that remained, was by the ancient and constitutional mode of impeachment; and even in adopting this process he should advise the House to proceed with all possible caution and prudence. It had been usual, he observed, in the first instance, to resolve that the party accused should be impeached, and then to appoint a committee to examine the evidence, and find the articles on which the impeachment was to be founded. This mode of proceeding had, from the heat and passion with which the minds of men were sometimes apt to be inflamed, led the house, on more than one occasion, into the disgraceful dilemma of either abandoning the impeachment they had voted, or of preferring articles which they had not evidence to support. In order to steer clear of this disgrace, he should move that such papers as were necessary for substantiating the guilt of Mr. Hastings, if guilt there was, should be laid before

the House; and that these papers, together with the charges extracted from them, should be referred to a committee of the whole House, and evidence examined thereon: if the charges should then appear, what he believed they would be found to be, charges of the blackest and foulest nature, and supported by competent and sufficient evidence, the House would then proceed with confidence and dignity to the bar of the House of Lords. Having stated these matters with great precision, Mr. Burke went into a series of reflections on the nature of the office he had undertaken. Every accuser, he said, was himself under accusation at the very time he accused another; it behoved him to act upon sure grounds, and he had therefore chosen the line of conduct he had just explained, as being at the same time the most effectual for the purposes of public justice, and the least exposed to the danger of error: he urged the unavoidable necessity of making the enquiry personal; he asked what would be the sentiments of the miserable and oppressed natives of India, if the result of the proceedings in that House should be to find that enormous peculation existed, but that there was no peculator; that there was gross corruption, but no person to corrupt, or to be corrupted; that a torrent of violence, oppression, and cruelty, had deluged that country, but that every soul in it was just, moderate, and humane? To trace peculation to the peculator, corruption to its source, and oppres sion to the oppressor, had been the object of the researches of the several committees that had been instituted at different times by the House; and the result was, they found that government in India could not be foul and the governor pure. After a speech of considerable length, in which these and many other topics of the same nature were urged with great force and perspicuity, Mr. Burke concluded, by moving, "That there be laid before the House, copies of all correspondence, since the month of January 1782, between Warren Hastings, Esq., governor general of Bengal, and the court of directors, as well before as since the return of the said governor general, relative to presents and other money privately received by the said governor general." - The reflections thrown out by Mr. Burke, relative to the resolutions of the secret committee, and the conduct of Mr. Dundas, called up that gen. tleman to justify the part he had taken. He acknowledged that he undoubtedly was the person who suggested the resolutions alluded to, and he had not the smallest scruple to admit that the same sentiments that he entertained respecting Mr. Hastings at the time of proposing those resolutions, he entertained at that moment; but would any one contend that those sentiments went so far as to suppose Mr. Hastings to be a fit object for a criminal prosecution? The Resolutions went to the recal of Mr. Hastings, a matter which he at the time thought expedient, and had recommended it to the House as a matter of expediency only. He thought the conduct of Mr. Hastings, since the period to which those resolutions referred, not only not criminal, but highly meritorious, and he had for that reason approved of the vote of thanks which the court of directors had conferred upon him. As soon as Mr. Dundas had sat down,

Mr. Fox rose, and declared, that he had not the smallest idea of speaking during the course of the debate, nor would he have troubled the House, had not some observations fallen from the right honourable and learned gentleman, under which it was impossible for him to remain a moment silent. The only way in which he could meet the matter, was to oppose assertion to assertion; and to declare upon the word and honour of a gentleman, that if, in talking of the thirty-six writers sent out in 1783, when Sir Henry Fletcher sat at the head of the board of East India directors, and when he had himself the honour to be in administration, the right honourable and learned gentleman meant to insinuate, that he had been concerned in sending out any, he was completely and perfectly mistaken. In the whole course of his life, he never had sent out, or rather procured to be sent out to India, but one single writer, and that was at the time when the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lansdown, presided over his majesty's councils. That, upon his word of honour, most solemnly pledged to the House, had been the only writer for whom he had ever procured a recommendation and succeeded. Indeed, if the House would recollect a little, it was not very likely, that the administration in which he had the honour to be, should stand remarkably well with the board of directors, as it was well known what their intentions were at the time, with a view to effect a reform of the company. Mr. Fox added, that he considered it right to say thus much in consequence of the insinuation of the right honourable and learned gentleman, and the manner in which it had been conveyed to the House.

Previous to his sitting down, he should beg leave briefly to touch upon the consistency of the right honourable and learned gentleman, who, when hard driven to the point, and obliged, as it were, to defend his own conduct, had done that, which heaven knew the right honourable and learned gentleman could do at all times, with his opponents face to face, let the argument bear as much as it would against him! But what sort of a defence had the right honourable and learned gentleman made? He had been reduced to the necessity of admitting, that he at one time entertained an opinion that Mr. Hastings, with respect to certain points, proceeded in a manner highly culpable; nay, he added, that he was still of the same opinion, although almost in the same breath, certainly in the same speech, he had declared that he entertained a high opinion of Mr. Hastings, and praised his conduct as warmly in the latter part of his observations, as he had abused it in the former part. And what points had the right honourable and learned gentleman chosen to select as the points in which he considered Mr. Hastings as having

been highly culpable? Merely the two points of the Rohilla war, with the breach of the treaty of Poorunder, and in having introduced expensive establishments in India. Gracious heaven! did the whole idea which the right honourable and learned gentleman entertained of the culpability of Mr. Hastings amount only to this? Had the House heard nothing of Corah and Allahabad? Of Cheyt Sing? Of the Begums? And of all the long catalogue of crimes committed in India, to the infinite disturbance of the peace of the country, to the misery and even butchery of the natives, to the destruction of all confidence in British faith, and to the everlasting disgrace of the British name and character in Hindostan? Mr. Fox now read the resolution immediately preceding that in which the House resolved, in 1782, that Mr. Hastings and Mr. Hornby should be recalled, and appealed to every man of common sense, whether that marked and strong censure did not go immediately to Mr. Hastings and Governor Hornby? It was not in language to express disgrace more, strongly than to declare that the delinquents ought to receive some mark of parliamentary displeasure. Certainly these two resolutions, and the obvious construction of both, with the vote of recall passed at the India house, in which Governor Hastings was permitted to resign in consequence of his long and meritorious services, was not a little strange. How was this mode of recall to be reconciled to the resolution which stigmatized Mr. Hastings, and declared it as the opinion of the House that he deserved some mark of parliamentary displeasure? Was it not a contradiction insulting to that House, and inconsistent to a shameful degree? The right honourable and learned gentleman thought proper to declare that he would not have sheltered himself under a minute of the board of directors, but that had he been a director, he would have signed that minute likewise; and, therefore, the right honourable and learned gentleman, who had himself prevailed upon the House of Commons to resolve in a grave and phlegmatic form, but in strong and energetic phrase, that Governor Hastings deserved parliamentary censure, would have given that gentleman thanks for his long and meritorious services ! What egregious inconsistency! For the word "long" in the minute of recall, undoubtedly comprehended the whole of the services of Mr. Hastings, as well those before 1782, as those subsequent to this period. During the debate, his right honourable friend who commenced it, had been censured by a worthy alderman (Le Mesurier) for his supposed remark in respect to trial by jury. The worthy magistrate had misunderstood his right honourable friend, who had not expressed any disapprobation of the general principle of trials by jury,

but merely observed, that the cause under consideration was of too much magnitude for the cognizance of the court of King's Bench, and had proposed to appeal to a tribunal and a form of trial as ancient as the constitution itself, of which it was a part. Thus had his right honourable friend evinced, that the highest species of offenders might be brought to trial, without resorting to any novel experiment on the constitution, but in a manner conformable to usage, and before an ancient, legal, and constitutional tribunal. All this amounted to one powerful proof, that the new court of judicature, which took away the birth-right of Britons, made that evidence that was not evidence before, and obliged criminals to accuse and to convict themselves, was not only a tribunal unconstitutional in its origin and its principle, and tyrannical and oppressive in its practice, but altogether needless.

The question being carried, Mr. Burke proceeded to move for a variety of other papers, which he alleged were necessary for the prosecution of the cause he had undertaken. These motions produced much conversation, and, towards the close of the day, there appeared some hesitation in the ministers of the crown, whether it would be proper to produce whatever papers might be called for on the mere suggestion of the mover, without insisting upon his stating to the House the connection they had with the matters contained in the reports of the committees, beyond which they did not think he ought to go in the matter of his intended accusation. At this stage of the business the House adjourned at one o'clock, on account of the illness of the speaker; and the day following the conversation was renewed, upon a motion for papers relative to the affairs of Oude. Major Scott agreed with Mr. Burke, that the papers were necessary to be produced; and Mr. Pitt, after many professions of the most unbiassed impartiality, concurred with them; remarking at the same time, that it would be but fair and candid in the right honourable mover, to give the House some specific information of the subject matter of his charges, and to state the grounds and reasons for the production of such papers as he might think it necessary to call for in support of them. In compliance with this request, Mr. Burke read to the House a short abstract of the several charges which he designed to bring forward; and pointed out the matters which the several pápers, he afterwards moved for, were intended to explain and substantiate.

March 3.

On the 3d of March, Mr. Burke moved, "That there be laid before the House, copies or duplicates of all papers relative to the last peace with the Mahrattas, or any demand made by the Mahrattas concerning the cession or restoration of any territories now in the possession of the company, or its allies, or of the payment of any chout (or fourth part of the revenues), or of any sum in