substance enough in Asia to punish such another delinquent. My lords, if a prosecutor you want, the Commons of Great Britain appear to prosecute. You have before you the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors; and I believe, my lords, I may venture to say, that the sun in his beneficent progress does not behold a more glorious sight, than to see those that are separated by the material bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bond of social and natural humanity; and all the Commons of England resenting as their own, the indignities and cruelties that have been offered to the people of India. My lords, permit me to add, neither do we want a tribunal; for a greater tribunal than the present, no example of antiquity, nor any thing in the world, can supply. My lords, here we see, virtually in the mind's eye, the sacred minister of the crown, under whose authority you sit, and whose power you exercise. In that invisible authority, which we all feel the energy and life of, we see the protecting power of his majesty. We have also, my lords, sitting in judgment, in this great and august assembly, the Heir Apparent to the crown, such as the fond wishes of the people of England desire an heir apparent to be. We have here all the nobles of England, offering themselves as a pledge for the support of the rights of the crown, and the liberties of the people. We have here, my lords, a great hereditary peerage; we have those who have their own honour, the honour of their ancestors, and the honour of their posterity to guard; and who, while they inherit the virtues of those ancestors, will be anxious to transmit them to that posterity. My lords, we have also here a new nobility, who have raised themselves by their integrity, their virtue, and their magnanimity, and those who, by their various talen ́s and abilities have been exalted to a situation, by the wisdom. and bounty of their sovereign, which they well deserve, and

which may justify that favour, and secure to them the good opinion of their fellow subjects. These will be equally careful not to sully those honours. My lords, we have here persons highly exalted in the practice of the law, who come to sit in this tribunal, to enlighten it, and to strengthen and promote those principles which they have maintained in their respective courts below. These being ennobled for their superior knowledge, will, no doubt, see that the law is justly and impartially administered. My lords, you have here also the lights of our holy religion, the bishops of our church. Here we behold the true image of the most incorrupted religion, in its primitive and ancient forms; here you behold it in its primitive ordinances, purified from the superstitions that are but too apt to disgrace the best institutions in the world. You have here the representatives of that religion, which says, that God is a God of love, that of their institutions the very vital spirit is charity, and that it so much hates oppression, that when the God whom we adore appeared in human form, he did not appear in greatness of majesty, but in sympathy to the lower people, and made it a firm principle, that in that government which he who is Master of nature and who appeared in our humble form has established, of the flock that feed and those that feed them, he who is called first among them is and ought to be the servant of the rest.

My lords, these are our securities; we rest upon them; we reckon upon them; and we commit, with confidence, the interests of India and of humanity to your hands. Therefore it is, that, ordered by the House of Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great

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Britain in parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonoured.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties, he has subverted.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation in the world.

DESCRIPTION OF GENERAL CONWAY'S SITUATION ON THE REPEAL OF THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT.

I WILL likewise do justice, I ought to do it, to the honourable gentleman who led us in this house.* Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that phalanx. I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be concealed from any body) the true state of things; but, in my life, I never came with so much spirits into this house. It was a time for a man to act in. We had powerful enemies; but we had faithful and determined

* General Conway.

friends, and a glorious cause. We had a great battle to fight; but we had the means of fighting; not as now, when our arms are tied behind us. We did fight that day and

conquer.

I remember, Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the situation of the honourable gentleman who made the motion for the repeal; in that crisis, when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When, at length you had determined in their favour, and your doors, thrown open, shewed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon him like children on a long absent father. They clung about him as captives about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined to his applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his fellow citizens. Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest. I stood near him; and his face, to use the expression of the scripture of the first martyr, "his face was as if it had been the face of an angel." I do not know how others feel; but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope, that that day's danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us all together for ever. But, alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished.

* General Conway.

DEVASTATION OF THE CArnatic.

WHEN at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those, against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every 'enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, con