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But in a very few days these fair prospects were overcast. On the thirteenth of
June, Mr. Fox brought forward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge
respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis followed on the same side. The
friends of Hastings were in high spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual
abundance and felicity of language, the Minister gave his opinion on the case.
He maintained that the Governor-General was justified in calling on the Rajah of
Benares for pecuniary assistance, and in imposing a fine when that assistance
was contumaciously withheld. He also thought that the conduct of the
Governor-General during the insurrection had been distinguished by ability and
presence of mind. He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct of Francis,
both in India and in Parliament, as most dishonest and malignant. The necessary
inference from Pitt's arguments seemed to be that Hastings ought to be honorably
acquitted; and both the friends and the opponents of the Minister expected from
him a declaration to that effect. To the astonishment of all parties, he
concluded by saying that, though he thought it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte
Sing for contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too great for the occasion.
On this ground, and on this ground alone, did Mr. Pitt, applauding every other
part of the conduct of Hastings with regard to Benares, declare that he should
vote in favor of Mr. Fox's motion.
The House was thunderstruck; and it well might be so. For the wrong done to
Cheyte Sing, even had it been as flagitious as Fox and Francis contended, was a
trifle when compared with the horrors which had been inflicted on Rohilcund. But
if Mr. Pitt's view of the case of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no ground
for an impeachment, or even for a vote of censure. If the offence of Hastings
was really no more than this, that, having a right to impose a mulct, the amount
of which mulct was not defined, but was left to be settled by his discretion, he
had, not for his own advantage, but for that of the State, demanded too much,
was this an offence which required a criminal proceeding of the highest
solemnity, a criminal proceeding, to which during sixty years, no public
functionary had been subjected? We can see, we think, in what way a man of sense
and integrity might have been induced to take any course respecting Hastings,
except the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such a man might have thought a great
example necessary, for the preventing of injustice, and for the vindicating of
the national honor, and might, on that ground, have voted for impeachment both
on the Rohilla charge, and on the Benares charge. Such a man might have thought
that the offences of Hastings had been atoned for by great services, and might,
on that ground, have voted against the impeachment, on both charges. With great
diffidence, we give it as our opinion that the most correct course would, on the
whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares
charge. Had the Benares charge appeared to us in the same light in which it
appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, without hesitation, have voted for acquittal on
that charge. The one course which it is inconceivable that any man of a tenth
part of Mr. Pitt's abilities can have honestly taken was the course which he
took. He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla charge. He softened down the Benares
charge till it became no charge at all; and then he pronounced that it contained
matter for impeachment.
Nor must it be forgotten that the principal reason assigned by the ministry for
not impeaching Hastings on account of the Rohilla war was this, that the
delinquencies of the early part of his administration had been atoned for by the
excellence of the later part. Was it not most extraordinary that men who had
held this language could afterwards vote that the later part of his
administration furnished matter for no less than twenty articles of impeachment?
They first represented the conduct of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 as so highly
meritorious that, like works of supererogation in the Catholic theology, it
ought to be efficacious for the canceling of former offences; and they then
prosecuted him for his conduct in 1780 and 1781.
The general astonishment was the greater, because, only twenty-four hours
before, the members on whom the minister could depend had received the usual
notes from the Treasury, begging them to be in their places and to vote against
Mr. Fox's motion. It was asserted by Mr. Hastings, that, early on the morning of
the very day on which the debate took place, Dundas called on Pitt, woke him,
and was, closeted with him many hours. The result of this conference was a
determination to give up the late Governor-General to the vengeance of the
Opposition. It was impossible even for the most powerful minister to carry all
his followers with him in so strange a course. Several persons high in office,
the Attorney-General, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Mulgrave, divided against Mr.
Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood by the head of the Government without
asking questions, were sufficiently numerous to turn the scale. A hundred and
nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox's motion; seventy-nine against it. Dundas
silently followed Pitt.
That good and great man, the late William Wilberforce, often related the events
of this remarkable night. He described the amazement of the House, and the
bitter reflections which were muttered against the Prime Minister by some of the
habitual supporters of Government. Pitt himself appeared to feel that his
conduct required some explanation. He left the treasury bench, sat for some time
next to Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly declared that he had found it
impossible, as a man of conscience, to stand any longer by Hastings. The
business, he said, was too bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are bound to add, fully
believed that his friend was sincere, and that the suspicions to which this
mysterious affair gave rise were altogether unfounded.
Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to mention. The friends of
Hastings, most of whom, it is to be observed, generally supported the
administration, affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy.
Hastings was personally a favorite with the King. He was the idol of the East
India Company and of its servants. If he were absolved by the Commons, seated
among the Lords, admitted to the Board of Control, closely allied with the
strong-minded and imperious Thurlow, was it not almost certain that he would
soon draw to himself the entire management of Eastern affairs?
Was it not possible that he might become a formidable rival in the Cabinet? It
had probably got abroad that very singular communications had taken place
between Thurlow and Major Scott, and that, if the First Lord of the Treasury was
afraid to recommend Hastings for a peerage, the Chancellor was ready to take the
responsibility of that step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was the least
likely to submit with patience to such an encroachment on his functions. If the
Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was at an end. The proceeding, however it
might terminate, would probably last some years. In the meantime, the accused
person would be excluded from honors and public employments, and could scarcely
venture even to pay his duty at Court. Such were the motives attributed by a
great part of the public to the young minister, whose ruling passion was
generally believed to be avarice of power.
The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions respecting Hastings. In the
following year, those discussions were resumed. The charge touching the
spoliation of the Begums was brought forward by Sheridan, in a speech which was
so imperfectly reported that it may be said to be wholly lost, but which was
without doubt, the most elaborately brilliant of all the productions of his
ingenious mind. The impression which it produced was such as has never been
equaled. He sat down, not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping
of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the gallery
joined. The excitement of the House was such that no other speaker could obtain
a hearing; and the debate was adjourned. The ferment spread fast through the
town. Within four and twenty hours, Sheridan was offered a thousand pounds for
the copyright of the speech, if he would himself correct it for the press. The
impression made by this remarkable display of eloquence on severe and
experienced critics, whose discernment may be supposed to have been quickened by
emulation, was deep and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that
the speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste,
such as were seldom wanting either in the literary or in the parliamentary
performances of Sheridan, the finest that had been delivered within the memory
of man. Mr. Fox, about the same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland what
was the best speech ever made in the House of Commons, assigned the first place,
without hesitation, to the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude charge.
When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused that
his friends were coughed and scraped down. Pitt declared himself for Sheridan's
motion; and the question was carried by a hundred and seventy-five votes against
sixty-eight.
The Opposition, flushed with victory and strongly supported by the public
sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to
pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, and, having
now no hope of being able to avert an impeachment, were not very strenuous in
their exertions. At length the House, having agreed to twenty articles of
charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, and to impeach the late
Governor-General of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Hastings was at the same time
arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers.
The session was now within ten days of its close. It was, therefore, impossible
that any progress could be made in the trial till the next year. Hastings was
admitted to bail; and further proceedings were postponed till the Houses should
re-assemble.
When Parliament met in the following winter, the Commons proceeded to elect a
Committee for managing the impeachment. Burke stood at the head; and with him
were associated most of the leading members of the Opposition. But when the name
of Francis was read a fierce contention arose. It was said that Francis and
Hastings were notoriously on bad terms, that they had been at feud during many
years, that on one occasion their mutual aversion had impelled them to seek each
other's lives, and that it would be improper and indelicate to select a private
enemy to be a public accuser. It was urged on the other side with great force,
particularly by Mr. Windham, that impartiality, though the first duty of a
judge, had never been reckoned among the qualities of an advocate; that in the
ordinary administration of criminal justice among the English, the aggrieved
party, the very last person who ought to be admitted into the jury-box, is the
prosecutor; that what was wanted in a manager was, not that he should be free
from bias, but that he should be able, well informed, energetic, and active. The
ability and information of Francis were admitted; and the very animosity with
which he was reproached, whether a virtue or a vice, was at least a pledge for
his energy and activity. It seems difficult to refute these arguments. But the
inveterate hatred borne by Francis to Hastings had excited general disgust. The
House decided that Francis should not be a manager. Pitt voted with the
majority, Dundas with the minority.
In the meantime, the preparations for the trial had proceeded rapidly; and on
the thirteenth of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. There
have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and
cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then
exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well
calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, and imaginative mind.
All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant,
to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. All
the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and
civilization were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both
from cooperation and from contrast Every step in the proceedings carried the
mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the
foundations of our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and
deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods,
and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament
was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on
an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of
Benares, and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude.
The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus,
the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty
kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just
absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment
awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where
Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which
has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The
avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The
peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter
King-at-Arms. The judges in their vestments of state attended to give advice on
points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper
House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place
of assembling to the tribunal. The junior Baron present led the way, George
Eliott, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defense of
Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession
was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great
dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the
Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The grey old
walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience
such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were
gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous
empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of
every science and of every art. There were seated round the Queen the
fair-haired young daughters of the house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of
great Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no
other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her
majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of
the stage. There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when
Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate
which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the
oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the
greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel
which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and
statesmen, and the sweet smiles of to many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to
suspend his labors in that dark and profound mine from which he had extracted a
vast treasure of erudition, a treasure too often buried in the earth, too often
paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive,
and splendid.
There appeared the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of the throne had
in secret plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful mother of a
beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose delicate features, lighted up by love
and music, art has rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that
brilliant society which quoted, criticized, and exchanged repartees, under the
rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the ladies whose lips, more
persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster election
against palace and treasury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
The Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and bent his
knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled
an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth
armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so
borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred
itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great
man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity
from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the Court, indicated also
habitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a
brow pensive, but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and
worn, but serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the picture in the
council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens aequa in arduis; such was the aspect with
which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.
His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were afterwards raised by their
talents and learning to the highest posts in their profession, the bold and
strong-minded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench; the more humane
and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer,
who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same high court the
defense of Lord Melville, and subsequently became Vice-chancellor and Master of
the Rolls.
But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the
accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up
with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their
head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark
that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the
illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused
to be one of the conductors of the impeachment; and his commanding, copious, and
sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various talents. Age and
blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duties of a public prosecutor; and his
friends were left without the help of his excellent sense, his tact and his
urbanity. But in spite of the absence of these two distinguished members of the
Lower House, the box in which the managers stood contained an array of speakers
such as perhaps had not appeared together since the great age of Athenian
eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the English
Hyperides. There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the art of
adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers,
but in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every
orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke,
appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly
exercise, his face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the
chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded by such men, did the
youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those who distinguish
themselves in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at college,
he had won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. No advantage of
fortune or connection was wanting that could set off to the height his splendid
talents and his unblemished honor. At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to
be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the delegates of the
British Commons, at the bar of the British nobility. All who stood at that bar,
save him alone, are gone, culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which
is now in the vigor of life, he is the sole representative of a great age which
has passed away. But those who, within the last ten years, have listened with
delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to
the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some
estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost. The
charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two
whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would otherwise have been by
the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near
relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were
occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction
to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendor of diction
which more than satisfied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he
described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the
circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set
forth the constitution of the Company and of the English Presidencies. Having
thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society, as
vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the
administration of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of morality
and public law. The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions
of unwonted admiration from the stem and hostile Chancellor, and, for a moment,
seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in the
galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity
of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and
sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were
pulled out; smelling bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were
heard: and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length the orator
concluded. Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish oak resounded,
"Therefore," said be, "hath it with all confidence been ordered, by the Commons
of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and
misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament,
whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation,
whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of
India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned
into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both
sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common
enemy and oppressor of all!"
When the deep murmur of various emotions had subsided, Mr. Fox rose to address
the Lords respecting the course of proceeding to be followed. The wish of the
accusers was that the Court would bring to a close the investigation of the
first charge before the second was opened. The wish of Hastings and of his
counsel was that the managers should open all the charges, and produce all the
evidence for the prosecution, before the defense began. The Lords retired to
their own House to consider the question. The Chancellor took the side of
Hastings. Lord Loughborough, who was now in opposition, supported the demand of
the managers. The division showed which way the inclination of the tribunal
leaned. A majority of near three to one decided in favor of the course for which
Hastings contended.
When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened the charge
respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in reading papers and
hearing witnesses. The next article was that relating to the Princesses of Oude.
The conduct of this part of the case was entrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of
the public to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly finished
declamation lasted two days; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the
whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket.
Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect which
his father might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of
Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration.
June was now far advanced. The session could not last much longer; and the
progress which had been made in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There
were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the case for the prosecution
been heard; and it was now a year since Hastings had been admitted to bail.
The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when the Court began to
sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to the
Begums. From that time the excitement went down fast. The spectacle had lost the
attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. What was behind
was not of a nature to entice men of letters from their books in the morning, or
to tempt ladies who had left the masquerade at two to be out of bed before eight
There remained examinations and cross-examinations. There remained statements of
accounts. There remained the reading of papers, filled with words unintelligible
to English ears, with lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, sunnuds and
perwarmahs, jaghires and nuzzurs. There remained bickerings, not always carried
on with the best taste or the best temper, between the managers of the
impeachment and the counsel for the defense, particularly between Mr. Burke and
Mr. Law. There remained the endless marches and counter-marches of the Peers
between their House and the Hall: for as often as a point of law was to be
discussed, their Lordships retired to discuss it apart; and the consequence was,
as a Peer wittily said, that the judges walked and the trial stood still.
It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when the trial commenced, no
important question, either of domestic or foreign policy, occupied the public
mind. The proceeding in Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally attracted most of
the attention of Parliament and of the country. It was the one great event of
that season. But in the following year the King's illness, the debates on the
Regency, the expectation of a change of ministry, completely diverted public
attention from Indian affairs; and within a fortnight after George the Third had
returned thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery, the States General of France met
at Versailles. In the midst of the agitation produced by these events, the
impeachment was for a time almost forgotten.
The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 1788, when the
proceedings had the interest of novelty, and when the Peers had little other
business before them, only thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In
1789, the Regency Bill occupied the Upper House till the session was far
advanced. When the King recovered the circuits were beginning. The judges left
town; the Lords waited for the return of the oracles of jurisprudence; and the
consequence was that during the whole year only seventeen days were given to the
case of Hastings. It was clear that the matter would be protracted to a length
unprecedented in the annals of criminal law.
In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment, though it is a fine
ceremony, and though it may have been useful in the seventeenth century, is not
a proceeding from which much good can now be expected. Whatever confidence may
be placed in the decision of the Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary
litigation, it is certain that no man has the least confidence in their
impartiality, when a great public functionary, charged with a great state crime,
is brought to their bar. They are all politicians. There is hardly one among
them whose vote on an impeachment may not be confidently predicted before a
witness has been examined; and, even if it were possible to rely on their
justice, they would still be quite unfit to try such a cause as that of
Hastings. They sit only during half the year. They have to transact much
legislative and much judicial business. The law-lords, whose advice is required
to guide the unlearned majority, are employed daily in administering justice
elsewhere. It is impossible, therefore, that during a busy session, the Upper
House should give more than a few days to an impeachment. To expect that their
Lordships would give up partridge-shooting, in order to bring the greatest
delinquent to speedy justice, or to relieve accused innocence by speedy
acquittal, would be unreasonable indeed. A well-constituted tribunal, sitting
regularly six days in the week, and nine hours in the day, would have brought
the trial of Hastings to a close in less than three months. The Lords had not
finished their work in seven years.
The result ceased to be matter of doubt, from the time when the Lords resolved
that they would be guided by the rules of evidence which are received in the
inferior courts of the realm. Those rules, it is well known, exclude much
information which would be quite sufficient to determine the conduct of any
reasonable man, in the most important transactions of private life. These rules,
at every assizes, save scores of culprits whom judges, jury, and spectators,
firmly believe to be guilty. But when those rules were rigidly applied to
offences committed many years before, at the distance of many thousands of
miles, conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do not blame the
accused and his counsel for availing themselves of every legal advantage in
order to obtain an acquittal. But it is clear that an acquittal so obtained
cannot be pleaded in bar of the judgment of history.
Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings to put a stop to the
trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote of censure upon Burke, for some violent
language which he had used respecting the death of Nuncomar and the connection
between Hastings and Impey. Burke was then unpopular in the last degree both
with the House and with the country. The asperity and indecency of some
expressions which he had used during the debates on the Regency had annoyed even
his warmest friends. The vote of censure was carried; and those who had moved it
hoped that the managers would resign in disgust. Burke was deeply hurt. But his
zeal for what he considered as the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over his
personal feelings. He received the censure of the House with dignity and
meekness, and declared that no personal mortification or humiliation should
induce him to flinch from the sacred duty which he had undertaken.
In the following year the Parliament was dissolved; and the friends of Hastings
entertained a hope that the new House of Commons might not be disposed to go on
with the impeachment. They began by maintaining that the whole proceeding was
terminated by the dissolution. Defeated on this point, they made a direct motion
that the impeachment should be dropped; but they were defeated by the combined
forces of the Government and the Opposition. It was, however, resolved that, for
the sake of expedition, many of the articles should be withdrawn. In truth, had
not some such measure been adopted, the trial would have lasted till the
defendant was in his grave.
At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pronounced, near eight years
after Hastings had been brought by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Commons to the
bar of the Lords. On the last day of this great procedure the public curiosity,
long suspended, seemed to be revived. Anxiety about the judgment there could be
none; for it had been fully ascertained that there was a great majority for the
defendant. Nevertheless many wished to see the pageant, and the Hall was as much
crowded as on the first day. But those who, having been present on the first
day, now bore a part in the proceedings of the last, were few; and most of those
few were altered men.
As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken place before one generation,
and the judgment was pronounced by another. The spectator could not look at the
woolsack, or at the red benches of the Peers, or at the green benches of the
Commons, without seeing something that reminded him of the instability of all
human things, of the instability of power and fame and life, of the more
lamentable instability of friendship. The great seal was borne before Lord
Loughborough, who, when the trial commenced, was a fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's
Government, and who was now a member of that Government, while Thurlow, who
presided in the court when it first sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat
scowling among the junior barons. Of about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked
in the procession on the first day, sixty had been laid in their family vaults.
Still more affecting must have been the sight of the managers' box. What had
become of that fair fellowship, so closely bound together by public and private
ties, so resplendent with every talent and accomplishment? It had been scattered
by calamities more bitter than the bitterness of death. The great chiefs were
still living, and still in the full vigor of their genius. But their friendship
was at an end. It had been violently and publicly dissolved, with tears and
stormy reproaches. If those men, once so dear to each other, were now compelled
to meet for the purpose of managing the impeachment, they met as strangers whom
public business had brought together, and behaved to each other with cold and
distant civility. Burke had in his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been
followed by Sheridan and Grey.
Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings guilty on the
charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, the
majority in his favor was still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He
was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that the Lords had
acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully and retired.
We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was also generally
approved. At the commencement of the trial there had been a strong and indeed
unreasonable feeling against Hastings. At the close of the trial there was a
feeling equally strong and equally unreasonable in his favor. One cause of the
change was, no doubt, what is commonly called the fickleness of the multitude,
but what seems to us to be merely the general law of human nature. Both in
individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission,
and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have
overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have
shown undue rigor. It was thus in the case of Hastings. The length of his trial,
moreover, made him an object of compassion. It was thought, and not without
reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an
impeachment of eight years was more than a sufficient punishment. It was also
felt that, though, in the ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not
allowed to set off his good actions against his crimes, a great political cause
should be tried on different principles, and that a man who had governed an
empire during thirteen years might have done some very reprehensible things, and
yet might be on the whole deserving of rewards and honors rather than of fine
and imprisonment. The press, an instrument neglected by the prosecutors, was
used by Hastings and his friends with great effect. Every ship, too, that
arrived from Madras or Bengal, brought a cuddy full of his admirers. Every
gentleman from India spoke of the late Governor-General as having deserved
better, and having been treated worse, than any man living. The effect of this
testimony unanimously given by all persons who knew the East, was naturally very
great. Retired members of the Indian services, civil and military, were settled
in all corners of the kingdom. Each of them was, of course, in his own little
circle, regarded as an oracle on an Indian question; and they were, with
scarcely one exception, the zealous advocates of Hastings. It is to be added,
that the numerous addresses to the late Governor-General, which his friends in
Bengal obtained from the natives and transmitted to England, made a considerable
impression. To these addresses we attach little or no importance. That Hastings
was beloved by the people whom he governed is true; but the eulogies of pundits,
zemindars, Mahommedan doctors, do not prove it to be true. For an English
collector or judge would have found it easy to induce any native who could write
to sign a panegyric on the most odious ruler that ever was in India. It was said
that at Benares, the very place at which the acts set forth in the first article
of impeachment had been committed, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings;
and this story excited a strong sensation in England. Burke's observations on
the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no reason for astonishment, he said, in
the incident which had been represented as so striking. He knew something of the
mythology of the Brahmins. He knew that as they worshipped some gods from love,
so they worshipped others from fear. He knew that they erected shrines, not only
to the benignant deities of light and plenty, but also to the fiends who preside
over smallpox and murder; nor did he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings to
be admitted into such a Pantheon. This reply has always struck us as one of the
finest that ever was made in Parliament. It is a grave and forcible argument,
decorated by the most brilliant wit and fancy.
Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything except character, he would have
been far better off if, when first impeached, he had at once pleaded guilty, and
paid a fine of fifty thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. The legal expenses of
his defense had been enormous. The expenses which did not appear in his
attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. Great sums had been paid to Major
Scott. Great sums had been laid out in bribing newspapers, rewarding
pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the
House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the
press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to
the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan defended the accused Governor
with great ability in prose. For the lovers of verse, the speeches of the
managers were burlesqued in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid,
indisputable that Hastings stooped so low as to court the aid of that malignant
and filthy baboon John Williams, who called himself Anthony Pasquin. It was
necessary to subsidize such allies largely. The private boards of Mrs. Hastings
had disappeared. It is said that the banker to whom they had been entrusted had
failed. Still if Hastings had practiced strict economy, he would, after all his
losses, have had a moderate competence; but in the management of his private
affairs he was imprudent. The dearest wish of his heart had always been to
regain Daylesford. At length, in the very year in which his trial commenced, the
wish was accomplished; and the domain, alienated more than seventy years before,
returned to the descendant of its old lords. But the manor-house was a ruin; and
the grounds round it had, during many years, been utterly neglected. Hastings
proceeded to build, to plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate a grotto;
and, before he was dismissed from the bar of the House of Lords, he had expended
more than forty thousand pounds in adorning his seat.
The general feeling both of the Directors and of the proprietors of the East
India Company was that he had great claims on them, that his services to them
had been eminent, and that his misfortunes had been the effect of his zeal for
their interest. His friends in Leadenhall Street proposed to reimburse him the
costs of his trial, and to settle on him an annuity of five thousand pounds a
year. But the consent of the Board of Control was necessary; and at the head of
the Board of Control was Mr. Dundas, who had himself been a party to the
impeachment, who had, on, that account, been reviled with great bitterness by
the adherents of Hastings, and who, therefore, was not in a very complying mood.
He refused to consent to what the Directors suggested. The Directors
remonstrated. A long controversy followed. Hastings, in the meantime, was
reduced to such distress that he could hardly pay his weekly bills. At length a
compromise was made. An annuity for life of four thousand pounds was settled on
Hastings; and in order to enable him to meet pressing demands, he was to receive
ten years' annuity in advance. The Company was also permitted to lend him fifty
thousand pounds, to be repaid by installments without interest. This relief,
though given in the most absurd manner, was sufficient to enable the retired
Governor to live in comfort, and even in luxury, if he had been a skilful
manager. But he was careless and profuse, and was more than once under the
necessity of applying to the Company for assistance, which was liberally given.
He had security and affluence, but not the power and dignity which, when he
landed from India, he had reason to expect. He had then looked forward to a
coronet, a red riband, a seat at the Council Board, an office at Whitehall. He
was then only fifty-two, and might hope for many years of bodily and mental
vigor. The case was widely different when he left the bar of the Lords. He was
now too old a man to turn his mind to a new class of studies and duties. He had
no chance of receiving any mark of royal favor while Mr. Pitt remained in power;
and, when Mr. Pitt retired, Hastings was approaching his seventieth year.
Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he interfered in politics; and that
interference was not much to his honor. In 1804 he exerted himself strenuously
to prevent Mr. Addington, against whom Fox and Pitt had combined, from resigning
the Treasury. It is difficult to believe that a man, so able and energetic as
Hastings, can have thought that, when Bonaparte was at Boulogne with a great
army, the defense of our island could safely be entrusted to a ministry which
did not contain a single person whom flattery could describe as a great
statesman. It is also certain that, on the important question which had raised
Mr. Addington to power, and on which he differed from both Fox and Pitt,
Hastings, as might have been expected, agreed with Fox and Pitt, and was
decidedly opposed to Addington. Religious intolerance has never been the vice of
the Indian service, and certainly was not the vice of Hastings. But Mr.
Addington had treated him with marked favor. Fox had been a principal manager of
the impeachment. To Pitt it was owing that there had been an impeachment; and
Hastings, we fear, was on this occasion guided by personal considerations,
rather than by a regard to the public interest.
The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly passed at Daylesford. He
amused himself with embellishing his grounds, riding fine Arab horses, fattening
prize-cattle, and trying to rear Indian animals and vegetables in England. He
sent for seeds of a very fine custard-apple, from the garden of what had once
been his own villa, among the green hedgerows of Allipore. He tried also to
naturalize in Worcestershire the delicious leechee, almost the only fruit of
Bengal which deserves to be regretted even amidst the plenty of Covent Garden.
The Mogul emperors, in the time of their greatness, had in vain attempted to
introduce into Hindostan the goat of the table-land of Thibet, whose down
supplies the looms of Cashmere with the materials of the finest shawls. Hastings
tried, with no better fortune, to rear a breed at Daylesford; nor does he seem
to have succeeded better with the cattle of Bootan, whose tails are in high
esteem as the best fans for brushing away the mosquitoes.
Literature divided his attention with his conservatories and his menagerie. He
had always loved books, and they were now necessary to him. Though not a poet,
in any high sense of the word, he wrote neat and polished lines with great
facility, and was fond of exercising this talent. Indeed, if we must speak out,
he seems to have been more of a Trissotin than was to be expected from the
powers of his mind, and from the great part which he had played in life. We are
assured in these Memoirs that the first thing which he did in the morning was to
write a copy of verses. Men the family and guests assembled, the poem made its
appearance as regularly as the eggs and rolls; and Mr. Gleig requires us to
believe that, if from any accident Hastings came to the breakfast-table without
one of his charming performances in his hand, the omission was felt by all as a
grievous disappointment. Tastes differ widely. For ourselves, we must say that,
however good the breakfasts at Daylesford may have been,--and we are assured
that the tea was of the most aromatic flavor, and that neither tongue nor
venison-pasty was wanting,--we should have thought the reckoning high if we had
been forced to earn our repast by listening every day to a new madrigal or
sonnet composed by our host. We are glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has preserved
this little feature of character, though we think it by no means a beauty. It is
good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to
look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the
strongest minds. Dionysius in old times, Frederic in the last century, with
capacity and vigor equal to the conduct of the greatest affairs, united all the
little vanities and affectations of provincial bluestockings. These great
examples may console the admirers of Hastings for the affliction of seeing him
reduced to the level of the Hayleys and Sewards.
When Hastings had passed many years in retirement, and had long outlived the
common age of men, he again became for a short time an object of general
attention. In 1813 the charter of the East India Company was renewed; and much
discussion about Indian affairs took place in Parliament. It was determined to
examine witnesses at the bar of the Commons; and Hastings was ordered to attend.
He had appeared at that bar once before. It was when he read his answer to the
charges which Burke had laid on the table. Since that time twenty-seven years
had elapsed; public feeling had undergone a complete change; the nation had now
forgotten his faults, and remembered only his services. The reappearance, too,
of a man who had been among the most distinguished of a generation that had
passed away, who now belonged to history, and who seemed to have risen from the
dead, could not but produce a solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons received
him with acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, when he retired,
rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few who did not sympathize with the
general feeling. One or two of the managers of the impeachment were present.
They sate in the same seats which they had occupied when they had been thanked
for the services which they had rendered in Westminster Hall: for, by the
courtesy of the House, a member who has been thanked in his place is considered
as having a right always to occupy that place. These gentlemen were not disposed
to admit that they had employed several of the best years of their lives in
persecuting an innocent man. They accordingly kept their seats, and pulled their
hats over their brows; but the exceptions only made the prevailing enthusiasm
more remarkable. The Lords received the old man with similar tokens of respect.
The University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; and, in
the Sheldonian Theatre, the undergraduates welcomed him with tumultuous
cheering.
These marks of public esteem were soon followed by marks of royal favor.
Hastings was sworn of the Privy Council, and was admitted to a long private
audience of the Prince Regent, who treated him very graciously. When the Emperor
of Russia and the King of Prussia visited England, Hastings appeared in their
train both at Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, and, though surrounded by a
crowd of princes and great warriors, was everywhere received with marks of
respect and admiration. He was presented by the Prince Regent both to Alexander
and to Frederic William; and his Royal Highness went so far as to declare in
public that honors far higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due, and
would soon be paid, to the man who had saved the British dominions in Asia.
Hastings now confidently expected a peerage; but, from some unexplained cause,
he was again disappointed.
He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of good spirits, of faculties
not impaired to any painful or degrading extent, and of health such as is rarely
enjoyed by those who attain such an age. At length, on the twenty-second of
August, 1818, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, he met death with the same
tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all the trials of his
various and eventful life.
With all his faults,--and they were neither few nor small--only one cemetery was
worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation
where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which
has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and
bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the
illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious
accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen.
Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already
held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of
the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On
that very spot probably, four-score years before, the little Warren, meanly clad
and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young
mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic,
it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the
poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line--not only had he
repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling--he had preserved and
extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and
war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronized learning with
the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable
combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and
over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had
at length gone down to his grave in the fullness of age, in peace, after so many
troubles, in honor, after so much obloquy.
Those who look on his character without favor or malevolence will pronounce
that, in the two great elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights
of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His
principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot
with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot
regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare
talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless
courage, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the State,
his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by
either.
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