Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Volume 02

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Title: Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2

Author: Thomas Moore

Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7775] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 16, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF R. B. SHERIDAN ***

Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Connal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

MEMOIRS

OF THE

LIFE OF THE RT. HON.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

BY THOMAS MOORE

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.

Impeachment of Mr. Hastings.

CHAPTER II.

Death of Mr. Sheridan's Father.—Verses by Mrs. Sheridan on the Death of her Sister, Mrs. Tickell.

CHAPTER III.

Illness of the King.—Regency.—Private Life of Mr. Sheridan.

CHAPTER IV.

French Revolution.—Mr. Burke.—His Breach with Mr. Sheridan.—Dissolution of Parliament.—Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox.—Russian Armament.—Royal Scotch Boroughs.

CHAPTER V.

Death of Mrs. Sheridan.

CHAPTER VI.

Drury-Lane Theatre.—Society of The Friends of the People.—Madame de Genlis.—War with France.—Whig Seceders.—Speeches in Parliament—Death of Tickell.

CHAPTER VII.

Speech in Answer to Lord Mornington.—Coalition of the Whig Seceders with

Mr. Pitt.—Mr. Canning.—Evidence on the Trial of Horne Tooke.—The

Glorious First of June.—Marriage of Mr. Sheridan.—Pamphlet of Mr.

Reeves—Debts of the Prince of Wales.—Shakspeare Manuscripts.—Trial of

Stone.—Mutiny at the Nore.—Secession of Mr. Fox from Parliament.

CHAPTER VIII.

Play of The Stranger.—Speeches in Parliament.—Pizarro.—Ministry of

Mr. Addington.—French Institute.—Negotiations with Mr. Kemble.

CHAPTER IX.

State of Parties.—Offer of a Place to Mr. T. Sheridan.—Receivership of the Duchy of Cornwall bestowed upon Mr. Sheridan.—Return of Mr. Pitt to Power.—Catholic Question.—Administration of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox.—Death of Mr. Fox.—Representation of Westminster.—Dismission of the Ministry.—Theatrical Negotiation.—Spanish Question.—Letter to the Prince.

CHAPTER X.

Destruction of the Theatre of Drury-Lane by Fire.—Mr. Whitbread—Plan for a Third Theatre.—Illness of the King.—Regency.—Lord Grey and Lord Grenville.—Conduct of Mr. Sheridan.—His Vindication of himself.

CHAPTER XI.

Affairs of the new Theatre.—Mr. Whitbread.—Negotiations with Lord Grey

and Lord Grenville.—Conduct of Mr. Sheridan relative to the

Household.—His Last Words in Parliament.—Failure at Stafford.

—Correspondence with Mr. Whitbread.—Lord Byron.—Distresses of

Sheridan.—Illness.—Death and Funeral.—General Remarks.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.

CHAPTER I.

IMPEACHMENT OF MR. HASTINGS.

The motion of Mr. Burke on the 10th of May, 1787, That Warren Hastings, Esq., be impeached, having been carried without a division, Mr. Sheridan was appointed one of the Managers, to make good the Articles of the Impeachment, and, on the 3d of June in the following year, brought forward the same Charge in Westminster Hall which he had already enforced with such wonderful talent in the House of Commons.

To be called upon for a second great effort of eloquence, on a subject of which all the facts and the bearings remained the same, was, it must be acknowledged, no ordinary trial to even the most fertile genius; and Mr. Fox, it is said, hopeless of any second flight ever rising to the grand elevation of the first, advised that the former Speech should be, with very little change, repeated. But such a plan, however welcome it might be to the indolence of his friend, would have looked too like an acknowledgment of exhaustion on the subject to be submitted to by one so justly confident in the resources both of his reason and fancy. Accordingly, he had the glory of again opening, in the very same field, a new and abundant spring of eloquence, which, during four days, diffused its enchantment among an assembly of the most illustrious persons of the land, and of which Mr. Burke pronounced at its conclusion, that of all the various species of oratory, of every kind of eloquence that had been heard, either in ancient or modern times; whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality of the pulpit could furnish, had not been equal to what that House had that day heard in Westminster Hall. No holy religionist, no man of any description as a literary character, could have come up, in the one instance, to the pure sentiments of morality, or in the other, to the variety of knowledge, force of imagination, propriety and vivacity of allusion, beauty and elegance of diction, and strength of expression, to which they had that day listened. From poetry up to eloquence there was not a species of composition of which a complete and perfect specimen might not have been culled, from one part or the other of the speech to which he alluded, and which, he was persuaded, had left too strong an impression on the minds of that House to be easily obliterated.

As some atonement to the world for the loss of the Speech in the House of Commons, this second master-piece of eloquence on the same subject has been preserved to us in a Report, from the short-hand notes of Mr. Gurney, which was for some time in the possession of the late Duke of Norfolk, but was afterwards restored to Mr. Sheridan, and is now in my hands.

In order to enable the reader fully to understand the extracts from this Report which I am about to give, it will be necessary to detail briefly the history of the transaction, on which the charge brought forward in the Speech was founded.

Among the native Princes who, on the transfer of the sceptre of Tamerlane to the East India Company, became tributaries or rather slaves to that Honorable body, none seems to have been treated with more capricious cruelty than Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares. In defiance of a solemn treaty, entered into between him and the government of Mr. Hastings, by which it was stipulated that, besides his fixed tribute, no further demands, of any kind, should be made upon him, new exactions were every year enforced;—while the humble remonstrances of the Rajah against such gross injustice were not only treated with slight, but punished by arbitrary and enormous fines. Even the proffer of bribe succeeded only in being accepted [Footnote: This was the transaction that formed one of the principal grounds of the Seventh Charge brought forward in the House of Commons by Mr. Sheridan. The suspicious circumstances attending this present are thus summed up by Mr. Mill: At first, perfect concealment of the transaction—such measures, however, taken as may, if afterwards necessary, appear to imply a design of future disclosure;—when concealment becomes difficult and hazardous, then disclosure made.—History of British India.]—the exactions which it was intended to avert being continued as rigorously as before. At length, in the year 1781, Mr. Hastings, who invariably, among the objects of his government, placed the interests of Leadenhall Street first on the list, and those of justice and humanity longo intervallo after,—finding the treasury of the Company in a very exhausted state, resolved to sacrifice this unlucky Rajah to their replenishment; and having as a preliminary step, imposed upon him a mulct of £500,000, set out immediately for his capital, Benares, to compel the payment of it. Here, after rejecting with insult the suppliant advances of the Prince, he put him under arrest, and imprisoned him in his own palace. This violation of the rights and the roof of their sovereign drove the people of the whole province into a sudden burst of rebellion, of which Mr. Hastings himself was near being the victim. The usual triumph, however, of might over right ensued; the Rajah's castle was plundered of all its treasures, and his mother, who had taken refuge in the fort, and only surrendered it on the express stipulation that she and the other princesses should pass out safe from the dishonor of search, was, in violation of this condition, and at the base suggestion of Mr. Hastings himself, [Footnote: In his letter to the Commanding Officer at Bidgegur. The following are the terms in which he conveys the hint: "I apprehend that she will contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty, by being suffered to retire without examination. But this is your consideration, and not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the expediency of the promised indulgence to the Rannee.] rudely examined and despoiled of all her effects. The Governor-General, however, in this one instance, incurred the full odium of iniquity without reaping any of its reward. The treasures found in the castle of the Rajah were inconsiderable, and the soldiers, who had shown themselves so docile in receiving the lessons of plunder, were found inflexibly obstinate in refusing to admit their instructor to a share. Disappointed, therefore, in the primary object of his expedition, the Governor-General looked round for some richer harvest of rapine, and the Begums of Oude presented themselves as the most convenient victims. These Princesses, the mother and grandmother of the reigning Nabob of Oude, had been left by the late sovereign in possession of certain government-estates, or jaghires, as well as of all the treasure that was in his hands at the time of his death, and which the orientalized imaginations of the English exaggerated to an enormous sum. The present Nabob had evidently looked with an eye of cupidity on this wealth, and had been guilty of some acts of extortion towards his female relatives, in consequence of which the English government had interfered between them,—and had even guaranteed to the mother of the Nabob the safe possession of her property, without any further encroachment whatever. Guarantees and treaties, however, were but cobwebs in the way of Mr. Hastings; and on his failure at Benares, he lost no time in concluding an agreement with the Nabob, by which (in consideration of certain measures of relief to his dominions) this Prince was bound to plunder his mother and grandmother of all their property, and place it at the disposal of the Governor-General. In order to give a color of justice to this proceeding, it was [Footnote: It was the practice of Mr. Hastings (says Burke, in his fine speech on Mr. Pitt's India Bill, March 22, 1786) to examine the country, and wherever he found money to affix guilt. A more dreadful fault could not be alleged against a native than that he was rich.] pretended that these Princesses had taken advantage of the late insurrection at Benares, to excite a similar spirit of revolt in Oude against the reigning Nabob and the English government. As Law is but too often, in such cases, the ready accomplice of Tyranny, the services of the Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, were called in to sustain the accusations; and the wretched mockery was exhibited of a Judge travelling about in search of evidence, [Footnote: This journey of the Chief Justice in search of evidence is thus happily described by Sheridan in the Speech:—When, on the 28th of November, he was busied at Lucknow on that honorable business, and when, three days after, he was found at Chunar, at the distance of 200 miles, still searching for affidavits, and, like Hamlet's ghost, exclaiming, 'Swear,' his progress on that occasion was so whimsically rapid, compared with the gravity of his employ, that an observer would be tempted to quote again from the same scene, 'Ha! Old Truepenny, canst thou mole so fast i' the ground?' Here, however, the comparison ceased; for, when Sir Elijah made his visit to Lucknow 'to whet the almost blunted purpose' of the Nabob, his language was wholly different from that of the poet—for it would have been totally against his purpose to have said,

  Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

  Against thy mother aught."] for the express purpose of proving a

charge, upon which judgment had been pronounced and punishment decreed

already.

The Nabob himself, though sufficiently ready to make the wealth of those venerable ladies occasionally minister to his wants, yet shrunk back, with natural reluctance, from the summary task now imposed upon him; and it was not till after repeated and peremptory remonstrances from Mr. Hastings, that he could be induced to put himself at the head of a body of English troops, and take possession, by unresisted force, of the town and palace of these Princesses. As the treasure, however, was still secure in the apartments of the women,—that circle, within which even the spirit of English rapine did not venture,—an expedient was adopted to get over this inconvenient delicacy. Two aged eunuchs of high rank and distinction, the confidential agents of the Begums, were thrown into prison, and subjected to a course of starvation and torture, by which it was hoped that the feelings of their mistresses might be worked upon, and a more speedy surrender of their treasure wrung from them. The plan succeeded:—upwards of 500,000_l_. was procured to recruit the finances of the Company; and thus, according to the usual course of British power in India, rapacity but levied its contributions in one quarter, to enable war to pursue its desolating career in another.

To crown all, one of the chief articles of the treaty, by which the Nabob was reluctantly induced to concur in these atrocious measures, was, as soon as the object had been gained, infringed by Mr. Hastings, who, in a letter to his colleagues in the government, honestly confesses that the concession of that article was only a fraudulent artifice of diplomacy, and never intended to be carried into effect.

Such is an outline of the case, which, with all its aggravating details, Mr. Sheridan had to state in these two memorable Speeches; and it was certainly most fortunate for the display of his peculiar powers, that this should be the Charge confided to his management. For, not only was it the strongest, and susceptible of the highest charge of coloring, but it had also the advantage of grouping together all the principal delinquents of the trial, and affording a gradation of hue, from the showy and prominent enormities of the Governor-General and Sir Elijah Impey in the front of the picture, to the subordinate and half-tint iniquity of the Middletons and Bristows in the back-ground.

Mr. Burke, it appears, had at first reserved this grand part in the drama of the Impeachment for himself; but, finding that Sheridan had also fixed his mind upon it, he, without hesitation, resigned it into his hands; thus proving the sincerity of his zeal in the cause, [Footnote: Of the lengths to which this zeal could sometimes carry his fancy and language, rather, perhaps, than his actual feelings, the following anecdote is a remarkable proof. On one of the days of the trial, Lord ——, who was then a boy, having been introduced by a relative into the Manager's box, Burke said to him, "I am glad to see you here—I shall be still gladder to see you there—(pointing to the Peers' seats) I hope you will be in at the death—I should like to blood you."] by sacrificing even the vanity of talent to its success.

The following letters from him, relative to the Impeachment, will be read with interest. The first is addressed to Mrs. Sheridan, and was written, I think, early in the proceedings; the second is to Sheridan himself:—

"MADAM,

"I am sure you will have the goodness to excuse the liberty I take with you, when you consider the interest which I have and which the Public have (the said Public being, at least, half an inch a taller person than I am) in the use of Mr. Sheridan's abilities. I know that his mind is seldom unemployed; but then, like all such great and vigorous minds, it takes an eagle flight by itself, and we can hardly bring it to rustle along the ground, with us birds of meaner wing, in coveys. I only beg that you will prevail on Mr. Sheridan to be with us this day, at half after three, in the Committee. Mr. Wombell, the Paymaster of Oude, is to be examined there to-day. Oude is Mr. Sheridan's particular province; and I do most seriously ask that he would favor us with his assistance. What will come of the examination I know not; but, without him, I do not expect a great deal from it; with him, I fancy we may get out something material. Once more let me entreat your interest with Mr. Sheridan and your forgiveness for being troublesome to you, and do me the justice to believe me, with the most sincere respect,

"Madam, your most obedient

"and faithful humble Servant,

"Thursday, 9 o'clock.

EDM. BURKE.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"You have only to wish to be excused to succeed in your wishes; for, indeed, he must be a great enemy to himself who can consent, on account of a momentary ill-humor, to keep himself at a distance from you.

"Well, all will turn out right,—and half of you, or a quarter, is worth five other men. I think that this cause, which was originally yours, will be recognized by you, and that you will again possess yourself of it. The owner's mark is on it, and all our docking and cropping cannot hinder its being known and cherished by its original master. My most humble respects to Mrs. Sheridan. I am happy to find that she takes in good part the liberty I presumed to take with her. Grey has done much and will do every thing. It is a pity that he is not always toned to the full extent of his talents.

"Most truly yours,

"Monday.

"EDM. BURKE.

I feel a little sickish at the approaching day. I have read much—too much, perhaps,—and, in truth, am but poorly prepared. Many things, too, have broken in upon me. [Footnote: For this letter, as well as some other valuable communications, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Burgess,—the Solicitor and friend of Sheridan during the last twenty years of his life.]

Though a Report, however accurate, must always do injustice to that effective kind of oratory which is intended rather to be heard than read, and, though frequently, the passages that most roused and interested the hearer, are those that seem afterwards the tritest and least animated to the reader, [Footnote: The converse assertion is almost equally true. Mr. Fox used to ask of a printed speech, Does it read well? and, if answered in the affirmative, said, Then it was a bad speech.] yet, with all this disadvantage, the celebrated oration in question so well sustains its reputation in the perusal, that it would be injustice, having an authentic Report in my possession, not to produce some specimens of its style and spirit.

In the course of his exordium, after dwelling upon the great importance of the inquiry in which they were engaged, and disclaiming for himself and his brother-managers any feeling of personal malice against the defendant, or any motive but that of retrieving the honor of the British name in India, and bringing down punishment upon those whose inhumanity and injustice had disgraced it,—he thus proceeds to conciliate the Court by a warm tribute to the purity of English justice:—

However, when I have said this, I trust Your Lordships will not believe that, because something is necessary to retrieve the British character, we call for an example to be made, without due and solid proof of the guilt of the person whom we pursue:—no, my Lords, we know well that it is the glory of this Constitution, that not the general fame or character of any man—not the weight or power of any prosecutor—no plea of moral or political expediencey—not even the secret consciousness of guilt, which may live in the bosom of the Judge, can justify any British Court in passing any sentence, to touch a hair of the head, or an atom in any respect, of the property, of the fame, of the liberty of the poorest or meanest subject that breathes the air of this just and free land. We know, my Lords, that there can be no legal guilt without legal proof, and that the rule which defines the evidence is as much the law of the land as that which creates the crime. It is upon that ground we mean to stand.

Among those ready equivocations and disavowals, to which Mr. Hastings had recourse upon every emergency, and in which practice seems to have rendered him as shameless as expert, the step which he took with regard to his own defence during the trial was not the least remarkable for promptness and audacity. He had, at the commencement of the prosecution, delivered at the bar of the House of Commons, as his own, a written refutation of the charges then pending against him in that House, declaring at the same time, that if truth could tend to convict him, he was content to be, himself, the channel to convey it. Afterwards, however, on finding that he had committed himself rather imprudently in this defence, he came forward to disclaim it at the bar of the House of Lords, and brought his friend Major Scott to prove that it had been drawn up by Messrs. Shore, Middleton, &c. &c.—that he himself had not even seen it, and therefore ought not to be held accountable for its contents. In adverting to this extraordinary evasion, Mr. Sheridan thus shrewdly and playfully exposes all the persons concerned in it:—

"Major Scott comes to your bar—describes the shortness of time—represents Mr. Hastings as it were contracting for a character—putting his memory into commission—making departments for his conscience. A number of friends meet together, and he, knowing (no doubt) that the accusation of the Commons had been drawn up by a Committee, thought it necessary, as a point of punctilio, to answer it by a Committee also. One furnishes the raw material of fact, the second spins the argument, and the third twines up the conclusion; while Mr. Hastings, with a master's eye, is cheering and looking over this loom. He says to one, 'You have got my good faith in your hands—you, my veracity to manage. Mr. Shore, I hope you will make me a good financier—Mr. Middleton, you have my humanity in commission.'—When it is done, he brings it to the House of Commons, and says, 'I was equal to the task. I knew the difficulties, but I scorn them: here is the truth, and if the truth will convict me, I am content myself to be the channel of it.' His friends hold up their heads, and say, 'What noble magnanimity! This must be the effect of conscious and real innocence.' Well, it is so received, it is so argued upon,—but it fails of its effect.

"Then says Mr. Hastings,—'That my defence! no, mere journeyman-work,—good enough for the Commons, but not fit for Your Lordships' consideration.' He then calls upon his Counsel to save him:—'I fear none of my accusers' witnesses—I know some of them well—I know the weakness of their memory, and the strength of their attachment—I fear no testimony but my own—save me from the peril of my own panegyric—preserve me from that, and I shall be safe.' Then is this plea brought to Your Lordships' bar, and Major Scott gravely asserts,—that Mr. Hastings did, at the bar of the House of Commons, vouch for facts of which he was ignorant, and for arguments which he had never read.

"After such an attempt, we certainly are left in doubt to decide, to which set of his friends Mr. Hastings is least obliged, those who assisted him in making his defence, or those who advised him to deny it."

He thus describes the feelings of the people of the East with respect to the unapproachable sanctity of their Zenanas:—

"It is too much, I am afraid, the case, that persons, used to European manners, do not take up these sort of considerations at first with the seriousness that is necessary. For Your Lordships cannot even learn the right nature of those people's feelings and prejudices from any history of other Mahometan countries,—not even from that of the Turks, for they are a mean and degraded race in comparison with many of these great families, who, inheriting from their Persian ancestors, preserve a purer style of prejudice and a loftier superstition. Women there are not as in Turkey—they neither go to the mosque nor to the bath—it is not the thin veil alone that hides them—but in the inmost recesses of their Zenana they are kept from public view by those reverenced and protected walls, which, as Mr. Hastings and Sir Elijah Impey admit, are held sacred even by the ruffian hand of war or by the more uncourteous hand of the law. But, in this situation, they are not confined from a mean and selfish policy of man—not from a coarse and sensual jealousy—enshrined rather than immured, their habitation and retreat is a sanctuary, not a prison—their jealousy is their own—a jealousy of their own honor, that leads them to regard liberty as a degradation, and the gaze of even admiring eyes as inexpiable pollution to the purity of their fame and the sanctity of their honor.

Such being the general opinion (or prejudices, let them be called) of this country, Your Lordships will find, that whatever treasures were given or lodged in a Zenana of this description must, upon the evidence of the thing itself, be placed beyond the reach of resumption. To dispute with the Counsel about the original right to those treasures—to talk of a title to them by the Mahometan law!—their title to them is the title of a Saint to the relics upon an altar, placed there by Piety, [Footnote: This metaphor was rather roughly handled afterwards (1794) by Mr. Law, one of the adverse Counsel, who asked, how could the Begum be considered as a Saint, or how were the camels, which formed part of the treasure, to be placed upon the altar? Sheridan, in reply, said, It was the first time in his life he had ever heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment against a trope. But such was the turn of the learned Counsel's mind, that, when he attempted to be humorous, no jest could be found, and, when serious, no fact was visible.] guarded by holy Superstition, and to be snatched from thence only by Sacrilege.

In showing that the Nabob was driven to this robbery of his relatives by other considerations than those of the pretended rebellion, which was afterwards conjured up by Mr. Hastings to justify it, he says,—

"The fact is, that through all his defences—through all his various false suggestions—through all these various rebellions and disaffections, Mr. Hastings never once lets go this plea—of extinguishable right in the Nabob. He constantly represents the seizing the treasures as a resumption of a right which he could not part with;—as if there were literally something in the Koran, that made it criminal in a true Mussulman to keep his engagements with his relations, and impious in a son to abstain from plundering his mother. I do gravely assure your Lordships that there is no such doctrine in the Koran, and no such principle makes a part in the civil or municipal jurisprudence of that country. Even after these Princesses had been endeavoring to dethrone the Nabob and to extirpate the English, the only plea the Nabob ever makes, is his right under the Mahometan law; and the truth is, he appears never to have heard any other reason, and I pledge myself to make it appear to Your Lordships, however extraordinary it may be, that not only had the Nabob never heard of the rebellion till the moment of seizing the palace, but, still further, that he never heard of it at all—that this extraordinary rebellion, which was as notorious as the rebellion of 1745 in London, was carefully concealed from those two parties—the Begums who plotted it, and the Nabob who was to be the victim of it.

The existence of this rebellion was not the secret, but the notoriety of it was the secret; it was a rebellion which had for its object the destruction of no human creature but those who planned it;—it was a rebellion which, according to Mr. Middleton's expression, no man, either horse or foot, ever marched to quell. The Chief Justice was the only man who took the field against it,—the force against which it was raised, instantly withdrew to give it elbow-room,—and, even then, it was a rebellion which perversely showed itself in acts of hospitality to the Nabob whom it was to dethrone, and to the English whom it was to extirpate;—it was a rebellion plotted by two feeble old women, headed by two eunuchs, and suppressed by an affidavit.

The acceptance, or rather exaction, of the private present of £100,000 is thus animadverted upon:

"My Lords, such was the distressed situation of the Nabob about a twelvemonth before Mr. Hastings met him at Chunar. It was a twelvemonth, I say, after this miserable scene—a mighty period in the progress of British rapacity—it was (if the Counsel will) after some natural calamities had aided the superior vigor of British violence and rapacity—it was after the country had felt other calamities besides the English—it was after the angry dispensations of Providence had, with a progressive severity of chastisement, visited the land with a famine one year, and with a Col. Hannay the next—it was after he, this Hannay, had returned to retrace the steps of his former ravages—it was after he and his voracious crew had come to plunder ruins which himself had made, and to glean from desolation the little that famine had spared, or rapine overlooked;—then it was that this miserable bankrupt prince marching through his country, besieged by the clamors of his starving subjects, who cried to him for protection through their cages—meeting the curses of some of his subjects, and the prayers of others—with famine at his heels, and reproach following him,—then it was that this Prince is represented as exercising this act of prodigal bounty to the very man whom he here reproaches—to the very man whose policy had extinguished his power, and whose creatures had desolated his country. To talk of a free-will gift! it is audacious and ridiculous to name the supposition. It was not a free-will gift. What was it then? was it a bribe? or was it extortion? I shall prove it was both—it was an act of gross bribery and of rank extortion."

Again he thus adverts to this present:—

The first thing he does is, to leave Calcutta, in order to go to the relief of the distressed Nabob. The second thing, is to take 100,000_l_ from that distressed Nabob on account of the distressed Company. And the third thing is to ask of the distressed Company this very same sum on account of the distresses of Mr. Hastings. There never were three distresses that seemed so little reconcilable with one another.

Anticipating the plea of state-necessity, which might possibly be set up in defence of the measures of the Governor-General, he breaks out into the following rhetorical passage:—

"State necessity! no, my Lords; that imperial tyrant, State Necessity, is yet a generous despot,—bold is his demeanor, rapid his decisions, and terrible his grasp. But what he does, my Lords, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great motives that placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But a quibbling, pilfering, prevaricating State-Necessity, that tries to skulk behind the skirts of Justice;—a State-Necessity that tries to steal a pitiful justification from whispered accusations and fabricated rumors. No, my Lords, that is no State Necessity;—tear off the mask, and you see coarse, vulgar avarice,—you see speculation, lurking under the gaudy disguise, and adding the guilt of libelling the public honor to its own private fraud.

My Lords, I say this, because I am sure the Managers would make every allowance that state-necessity could claim upon any great emergency. If any great man in bearing the arms of this country;—if any Admiral, bearing the vengeance and the glory of Britain to distant coasts, should be compelled to some rash acts of violence, in order, perhaps, to give food to those who are shedding their blood for Britain;—if any great General, defending some fortress, barren itself, perhaps, but a pledge of the pride, and, with the pride, of the power of Britain; if such a man were to * * * while he himself was * * at the top, like an eagle besieged in its imperial nest; [Footnote: The Reporter, at many of these passages, seems to have thrown aside his pen in despair.]—would the Commons of England come to accuse or to arraign such acts of state-necessity? No.

In describing that swarm of English pensioners and placemen, who were still, in violation of the late purchased treaty, left to prey on the finances of the Nabob, he says,—

Here we find they were left, as heavy a weight upon the Nabob as ever,—left there with as keen an appetite, though not so clamorous. They were reclining on the roots and shades of that spacious tree, which their predecessors had stripped branch and bough—watching with eager eyes the first budding of a future prosperity, and of the opening harvest which they considered as the prey of their perseverance and rapacity.

We have in the close of the following passage, a specimen of that lofty style, in which, as if under the influence of Eastern associations, almost all the Managers of this Trial occasionally indulged: [Footnote: Much of this, however, is to be set down to the gratuitous bombast of the Reporter. Mr. Fox, for instance, is made to say, Yes, my Lords, happy is it for the world, that the penetrating gaze of Providence searches after man, and in the dark den where he has stifled the remonstrances of conscience darts his compulsatory ray, that, bursting the secrecy of guilt, drives the criminal frantic to confession and expiation. History of the Trial.—Even one of the Counsel, Mr. Dallas, is represented as having caught this Oriental contagion, to such a degree as to express himself in the following manner:—We are now, however, (said the Counsel,) advancing from the star-light of Circumstance to the day-light of Discovery: the sun of Certainty is melting the darkness, and—we are arrived at facts admitted by both parties!]—

"I do not mean to say that Mr. Middleton had direct instructions from Mr. Hastings,—that he told him to go and give that fallacious assurance to the Nabob,—that he had that order under his hand. No, but in looking attentively over Mr. Middleton's correspondence, you will find him say, upon a more important occasion, 'I don't expect your public authority for this;—it is enough if you but hint your pleasure.' He knew him well; he could interpret every nod and motion of that head; he understood the glances of that eye which sealed the perdition of nations, and at whose throne Princes waited, in pale expectation, for their fortune or their doom."

The following is one of those labored passages, of which the orator himself was perhaps most proud, but in which the effort to be eloquent is too visible, and the effect, accordingly, falls short of the pretension:—

You see how Truth—empowered by that will which gives a giant's nerve to an infant's arm—has burst the monstrous mass of fraud that has endeavored to suppress it.—It calls now to Your Lordships, in the weak but clear tone of that Cherub, Innocence, whose voice is more persuasive than eloquence, more convincing than argument, whose look is supplication, whose tone is conviction,—it calls upon you for redress, it calls upon you for vengeance upon the oppressor, and points its heaven-directed hand to the detested, but unrepenting author of its wrongs!

His description of the desolation brought upon some provinces of Oude by the misgovernment of Colonel Hannay, and of the insurrection at Goruckpore against that officer in consequence, is, perhaps, the most masterly portion of the whole speech:—

If we could suppose a person to have come suddenly into the country unacquainted with any circumstances that had passed since the days of Sujah ul Dowlah, he would naturally ask—what cruel hand has wrought this wide desolation, what barbarian foe has invaded the country, has desolated its fields, depopulated its villages? He would ask, what disputed succession, civil rage, or frenzy of the inhabitants, had induced them to act in hostility to the words of God, and the beauteous works of man? He would ask what religious zeal or frenzy had added to the mad despair and horrors of war? The ruin is unlike any thing that appears recorded in any age; it looks like neither the barbarities of men, nor the judgments of vindictive heaven. There is a waste of desolation, as if caused by fell destroyers, never meaning to return and making but a short period of their rapacity. It looks as if some fabled monster had made its passage through the country, whose pestiferous breath had blasted more than its voracious appetite could devour.

"If there had been any men in the country, who had not their hearts and souls so subdued by fear, as to refuse to speak the truth at all upon such a subject, they would have told him, there had been no war since the time of Sujah ul Dowlah,—tyrant, indeed, as he was, but then deeply regretted by his subjects—that no hostile blow of any enemy had been struck in that land—that there had been no disputed succession—no civil war—no religious frenzy. But that these were the tokens of British friendship, the marks left by the embraces of British allies—more dreadful than the blows of the bitterest enemy. They would tell him that these allies had converted a prince into a slave, to make him the principal in the extortion upon his subjects;—that their rapacity increased in proportion as the means of supplying their avarice diminished; that they made