had undertaken it, was rendered incapable of attending the House; and he was also aware how unpleasant it must be for any one of that honourable gentleman's friends to have come forward, and answered for him, by saying that his health was such that he would not be able to attend during that session. It was certainly a very delicate thing to do, and what no gentleman could easily bring himself, on any occasion, to stand up and declare. He did not, therefore, impute blame any where on account of the delay, but he certainly lamented it extremely.

A right honourable gentleman, every way competent, had said that it was to be brought forward in the course of the next session of parliament, and that if his honourable friend could not then attend, he stood pledged to propose it himself. Surely it was somewhat strange that the right honourable gentleman had not given the House his sentiments on the subject, and the general view in which he meant to take it up. It was not a subject that was new, and on which gentlemen had formed no opinion; but, on the contrary, it was one on which most men had formed some opinion or other. He wondered, therefore, the right honourable gentleman had not hinted what his opinion was. Had his honourable friend been able to have come to the House, and proposed postponing the business till next session, they would have derived another advantage from his presence, because the honourable gentleman would doubtless have stated to the House in what view he saw the subject, and in a general way described the nature of the project he meant to propose next session. The opinion of the right honourable gentleman opposite to him, Mr. Fox said, he understood, primâ facie, to be the same as his own. But what his intention was, they knew not; with what view, and for what object he meant to bring the subject forward, he had left them completely in the dark.

.

The right honourable gentleman was pleased to observe, that it had been a very general opinion that the African slave trade should be put a stop to. Again, he had said, that others had not gone so far, but had given it as their opinion, that it required to be revised and regulated. Mr. Fox said he had no scruple to declare, in the onset, that his opinion of this momentous business was, that the slave trade ought not to be regulated, but destroyed. To this opinion his mind was pretty nearly made up, and he was persuaded, that the more the subject was considered, the more his opinion would gain ground; and it would be admitted, that to consider the subject in any other manner, and on any other principles than those of humanity and justice, was idle and absurd. If there were any such men, and he did not know but there were those,

who, led away by local and interested considerations, thought the slave trade might still continue under certain modifications, those men were the dupes of error, and mistook what they thought their interest, for what he would undertake to convince them was not their interest; since nothing could be the true interest of any description of men that revolted against the principles of justice and humanity.

He said he would not oppose the question, if other members thought it was best to let the consideration, important and pressing as it was, stand over to the next session; but he should have thought it still better if it had been brought on then. He again enumerated the superior advantages of an inquiry into such a subject, carried on within those walls, over an enquiry carried on before the lords of the privy council. In inquiries carried on in that House, they had the benefit of every circumstance of publicity; which was a most material benefit indeed, and that which of all others made the manner of conducting the parliamentary proceedings of Great Britain the envy and admiration of the world. An inquiry there, was better than an inquiry in any other place, however respectable the persons before and by whom it was carried on. There, all that could be said for the abolition, or against the abolition, of the African slave trade, might be said. In that House every relative fact would have been produced, no information would have been withholden, no circumstance would have been omitted that was necessary for elucidation, nothing would have been kept back. There were some subjects of inquiry fitter for the privy council to investigate; but there was no public question so fit for them as for that House to inquire into: and the present was a question of public importance, and therefore peculiarly proper for investigation before that popular assembly. Mr. Fox said, he did not know any political question that could be considered in the abstract, or without a reference to the circumstances of the country. He took up the present subject from principles not only of justice and humanity, but from an investigation of those principles, and a consequent conviction that there could be no regulation founded in those principles, that could prove injurious to mere political considerations. Those mistaken men, therefore, who, led away by the delusive ideas of self-interest, thought otherwise, had only to hear the case fairly argued, to lead them to subscribe to the conviction of the propriety of the maxim he had stated, and to own its truth in spite of the fallacies of those who argued from cold policy, and for what they called the prosperity of the country.

The motion was agreed to nem. con,

ON

CHARGES AGAINST SIR ELIJAH IMPEY.

May 9.

N the 28th of April, all the evidence in support of the charges against Sir Elijah Impey being gone through, Sir Gilbert Elliot began his reply to the answer of Sir Elijah. After a speech of considerable length the committee was adjourned to the 7th of May, when Sir Gilbert resumed his reply, and finished it on the 9th, with moving, "That the committee, having considered the first article, and examined evidence thereupon, is of opinion, that there is ground for proceeding against Sir Elijah Impey, by way of impeachment of high crimes and misdemeanors upon the matter of the first article."

The defence of Sir Elijah was undertaken by Sir Richard Sutton, who was supported by Mr. D. Pulteney, the solicitor and attorney general, and Mr. Pitt. The motion was supported by Mr. Fox, Colonel Fallarton, and Mr. Burke. When the solicitor general had concluded his speech,

Mr. Fox observed, that the honourable and learned gentleman who spoke last, had declared, that he was not an acquaintance of the parties. He was, Mr. Fox said, as little their acquaintance as the honourable and learned gentleman. Every man had his prejudices and his predilections. He came into the House sometimes with prepossessions, but he always endeavoured to give them as little power as possible, and he never, he trusted, had shewn himself dead to conviction. On the present occasion, he accused Sir Elijah Impey of a deliberate murder. He thought his friend, the honourable baronet, had argued the points of law ably, and sometimes conclusively. There were some particulars, however, in which he perfectly agreed with the honourable gentleman over the way. He thought his honourable friend was right in saying that Sir Elijah Impey was guilty to the full extent of the charge, because, at the same time that he proved that Sir Elijah had acted illegally, he proved that he had acted corruptly. His honourable friend had stated that the statute of the 2d of George II. against forgery, which applied likewise against perjury, was not in force in India. He would not trouble the committee with respect to the law, except only as to its applicability to that country. If any laws were carried to Calcutta, they were those of England, and not those of Calcutta; now, if it had been the intention of the legislature to have sent the statute of the 2d of George II. to India, they

would have sent it to America also. He asked, were there no bonds, no promissory-notes, in the colonies of North America? Certainly there were. Could Sir Elijah Impey then, with the act before him, say that Great Britain sent that act to India, though not to Scotland, to Canada, America, and the West Indies? And if commercial concerns had gone on in India for hundreds, nay, as an honourable baronet, (Sir Richard Sutton,) had said, for thousands of years, without the necessity of having the crime made a capital offence, what occasion was there to enforce the 2d of George II. in the case of Nundcomar? Mr. Fox reasoned upon this point, and asked whether any man, besides Sir Elijah Impey, would have taken upon himself the responsibility of putting to death a miserable individual, under the doubtful operation of that statute? What sort of argument must Sir Elijah Impey have held with himself, knowing how the law stood? Must he not have said, "If I had been in England,―at York, or at Exeter, -I could not have committed this act? There the king's prerogative of mercy would have been sacred; but here this wretch is in my power, and I will murder him."

Mr. Fox declared he never read the printed account of the trial without a conviction that the accusation contained in the charge, balanced with the evidence, proved Sir Elijah guilty. Every part of it went to establish that fact. What interpretation was to be put upon his whole conduct during the trial? In particular, let the committee consider the chief justice's artful declaration to the jury, that the question before them was, whether the prisoner was guilty of forgery, or his accusers guilty of a crime worse than murder? What was likely to be the effect of such an insinuation? It would necessarily operate upon the mildness natural to the human mind, and incline them of course to prefer the most lenient option, and think it was better to find the prisoner guilty of forgery, than by his acquittal to pronounce his accusers guilty of a worse crime than murder. If it should be asked, whether he thought it likely that men of a respectable and learned profession would disgrace themselves and their profession, by standing forward to defend a member of their own body, if they thought him really guilty, he would say, that he admired their abilities, and venerated their learning; but no abilities, no learning, should protect the person who could suppress the conscious evidence of his own heart, and withhold what might have saved the life of a fellow-creature. It was, to his conviction, extravagant and absurd to say that there was no malice in Sir Elijah Impey's mind throughout the trial. As well might he be told of a man's firing a pistol at another in the street, and killing him, and that it was impossible to prove

that the man who killed the other had any malicious motive. He thought it a convincing part of his honourable friend's speech, where he had argued that the attestation of a bond was not a material part of it, and that the forging an attestation was not a crime within the reach of the penal statute. If a man was to produce a bond with a forged signature, and forged attestations, Mr. Fox said, he should have good reason to believe the bond to be forged; but not so, where there was a doubt merely as to the attestations being the true attestations of the nominal witnesses; but Sir Elijah Impey had told the jury in his charge, that if they believed the attestation, they must condemn the prisoner. Sir Robert Chambers, he observed, had thought that the act of the 2d of George II. did not apply, and had been of opinion that the forgery ought rather to be tried as a misdemeanor under the fifth of Elizabeth. Mr. Fox here read an extract, in which this was fully stated: and he afterwards observed that Sir Elijah Impey, in his defence delivered at the bar, had endeavoured to persuade the House that Sir Robert Chambers had been convinced that his doubts were ill-founded, and had in consequence retracted his opinion. He was far, Mr. Fox said, from approving the conduct of Sir Robert Chambers. On the contrary, he thought he had acted very weakly, and that entertaining the doubts which he had stated, it was his duty to have pursued a different line of conduct. But there was no sort of foundation for supposing that he had retracted his opinion respecting the validity of the indictment. It was in evidence on the minutes, that Sir Robert Chambers had, upon the motion for the arrest of judgment, expressly declared that he had not retracted his opinion. What was still stronger, it was plain from his conduct in a cause tried long since that of Nundcomar, that he had not for years afterwards retracted his opinion, and he was convinced that he had not retracted it to that day. What, then, ought to have been the conduct of Sir Robert Chambers? Mr. Fox spoke of the known bad character of the chief witness for the prosecution, and said, as Sir Elijah Impey was well acquainted with his gross perjuries and prevarications, he ought to have stated the fact to the jury, and put them upon their guard against the testimony of such a witness. Had that been the case, he asked, was there one man in the committee hardy enough to say, that if he had been upon the jury he would not have acquitted Nundcomar?

After dwelling upon the various circumstances of the trial, he came at length to speak on the refusal of a respite, and drew the line of distinction between the case of a capital sentence in England and in India. Here it is always open