received large sums by way of bribe on certain specific occasions. Hastings declined meeting the charges, and stood upon his official dignity, but instituted legal proceedings against the unfortunate rajah in the criminal court of Calcutta, where he succeeded in obtaining a verdiet of guilty from a jury of Englishmen, aided by the judge, Sir Elijah Impey, who refused all appeal or respite, and on the 5th of August the rajah was put to death! Colonel Monson's decease in November, 1776, gave a preponderance to Hastings in the council; he had previously tendered his resignation to the Court of directors, by whom it had been accepted; but on the death of Monson he disavowed his agent, and retained his authority! In 1781 Hastings endeavoured to seize the treasures of Cheyte Sing, rajah of Benares. With this view he provoked him to reluctant hostilities; but, after all, failed in his object, for the army refused to give up its prize money to the governor-general. He next turned his attention to the Nabob of Oude, from whose mother and grandmother, the Begums, he managed to extort £500,000. In 1784 he extorted a sum of fifteen lacs of rupees from Fyzoolla Khan, a Rohilla chief; at last, after a number of subordinate intrigues, he resigned his office in February 1785, having added, by his administration, about twelve and a half millions to the Company's debt.' On the day Mr Hastings arrived in London, Mr Burke notified to the house of commons, that early in the next session he would move for an inquiry into the conduct of the late governor-general of India. On the 4th of April, 1786, Mr Burke, in his place, exhibited to the house nine articles of charge against Warren Hastings, Esq. They were in substance as follows: I. With gross injustice, cruelty, and treachery against the faith of nations, in hiring British soldiers for the purpose of extirpating the innocent and helpless people who inhabited the Rohillas. II. With using the authority delegated to him through the East India company, for treating Shah Allum, emperor of Indostan, or otherwise the Great Mogul, with cruelty, in bereaving him of considerable territory, and withholding forcibly that tribute of 26 lacks of rupees which the Company had engaged to pay him as an annual tribute or compensation for their holding in his name the Dewannee of the rich and valuable provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa. III. With various instances of extortion, and other deeds of mal-administration against the rajah of Benares. This article consisted of three different parts, in each of which Mr Hastings was charged with a series of the most wanton oppressions and cruelties. IV. With being the author of the numerous and insupportable hardships to which the royal family of Oude had been reduced, in consequence of their connection with the supreme council. V. With having, by no less than six revolutions, brought the fertile and beautiful provinces of Furruckabad to a state of the most deplorable ruin. VI. With impoverishing and depopulating the whole country of Oude, and rendering that country, once a garden, an uninhabited desert. VII. With a wanton, an unjust, and a pernicious exercise of his • Mill. powers, and the great situation of trust which he occupied in India, in overturning the ancient establishments of the country, and extending an undue influence by conniving at extravagant contracts, and appointing inordinate salaries. VIII. With receiving money against the orders of the Company, the act of parliament, and his own sacred engagements, and applying that money to purposes totally improper and unauthorized. IX. With having resigned by proxy for the obvious purpose of retaining his situation, and denying the deed in person, in direct opposition to all those powers under which he acted. These were substantially the several charges Mr Burke first exhibited, and which were ordered to be printed for the perusal of members. It was also ordered that these charges should be taken into consideration by a committee of the whole house. The articles exhibited against Hastings were in the course of a few weeks increased to twenty-two in number. Meanwhile, by consent of the house, the ex-governor of India was allowed to appear at the bar, and read his defence, on the 1st of May. He began by affirming that the grounds of the crimination were ill-founded, aspersive, and malicious; that the various publications of the times contained the most unwarrantable observations on his conduct, and that the press daily teemed with the most gross libels upon every part of his administration in India. He said that the most extraordinary of all was the pamphlet lately published, in which the charges of delinquency were not only copiously displayed, but the name of the accuser himself (Mr Burke) printed in the title-page, by which it would appear that it had not only his sanction and authority, but that the accuser had officiously condescended to become the publisher; that these charges had been the result of much deliberation; and that, during a period of five years, his enemies had exerted their abilities in order to specify the different grounds of accusation. He said he only resolved on Monday last, with the permission of the house, to enter upon his defence; and that he had prepared himself to meet his accusers, in as few days almost as the years in which his enemies had been engaged in bringing forward the matters which tended to criminate and asperse him. He complained that he was obliged to reply to charges containing nothing specific,they might be called historical narratives, with voluminous commentaries. He had been in India from a school-boy; and during a period of thirty-six years' servitude, had always the happiness to maintain a good and respectable character. By the evil machinations of a few individuals, he now appeared in an unfortunate situation; but he chose to come forward on the occasion, and meet his fate, rather than be subjected to the continual threats of a parliamentary prosecution. He had acted according to the emergencies of the times; he had been frequently reduced to such extremities as to defy the sanction of any precedent. No man had been placed in more perilous situations, and in those disasters he was entirely left to the resources of his own mind. He said that he had resigned his government in India amidst the regret of his fellow-subjects; that he had repeatedly received the thanks of his employers, the Court of directors of the East India company; and as he had the satisfaction of discharging the trust reposed in him with such unanimous approbation, he believed that no other power on earth had a right to call his conduct in question. Mr Hastings went on with his defence for about two hours; when, appearing to be much fatigued, he was relieved by Mr Markham, and afterwards successively by the two clerks. The subject of Hastings' impeachment was resumed early in the next session. The charge respecting the Rohilla war had made a deep impression upon the house; and although Hastings had been acquitted of the charge, it was upon grounds on which it was impossible to rest his future defence. Pitt had negatived this charge upon the ground that Hastings had, subsequent to that event, received the highest certificate of legislative approbation, by being nominated by act of parlia ment, governor-general of India. On the 7th of February, 1787, Sheridan opened the third charge respecting the Begum princesses of Oude, with an eloquence and energy never surpassed, and which proved completely decisive. On a division the numbers were: in favour of the motion, one hundred and seventy-five; against it, sixty-eight. On the 2d of March Pelham opened the charge relative to the nabob of Furruckabad, which was affirmed by one hundred and twelve against fifty voices. On the 15th of March the charge upon the subject of contracts was brought forward by Sir James Erskine; and on this article the division was, ayes sixty, noes twenty-six. Upon the 22d of March the charge relative to Fyzoolla Khan was introduced by Windham; and was carried by a division of ninety-six against thirty-seven voices. On the 2d of April, Sheridan opened to the house the charge upon the subject of presents; and on this occasion observed, "that the late governorgeneral had, in every part of his conduct, exhibited proofs of a wild, eccentric, and irregular mind. In pride, in passion, in all things he was changeable, except in corruption. His revenge was a tempest,—å tornado involving all within its influence in one common destruction; but his corruption was regular and systematic,-a monsoon blowing uniformly from one point of the compass, and wafting the wealth of India to the same port in one certain direction." Upon a division, the numbers appeared, ayes one hundred and sixty-five, noes sixty-four. On the 19th of April the charge respecting the revenues was opened by Francis, who had formerly occupied, with so much honour to himself, the office of member in the supreme council of India, and who had recently taken his seat as a member of the house of commons. This charge was confirmed, notwithstanding the unexpected dissent of the minister, by seventy-one to fifty-five voices. On the 9th of May the report made by Burke from the committee, to whom it had been referred to prepare the articles of impeachment, was confirmed by the house, ayes one hundred and seventy-five, noes eighty-nine. On the following day it was voted that Hastings be impeached: and Burke accordingly, in the name of the house of commons, and of all the cominons of Great Britain, repaired to the bar of the house of lords, and impeached Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors; at the same time acquainting their lordships, that the commons would with all convenient speed exhibit articles against him, and make good the same. On the 14th another charge respecting misdemeanors in Oude was added to the former, and voted without a division; and on the 21st Hastings, being conducted to the bar of the house of lords by the sergeant-at-arms, was taken into the custody of the black rod; but on the motion of the lord-chancellor was admitted to bail,-himself in twenty thousand pounds, and two sureties, Sullivan and Summer, in ten thousand pounds each; and he was ordered to deliver in an answer to the articles of impeachment in one month from that time, or upon the 2d day of the next session of parliament.* In the early part of the session of 1788, Hastings had delivered in his answer to the impeachment of the commons, who immediately appointed a committee of managers to make good the same, and the trial commenced on the 15th of February in Westminster-hall, which was fitted up for the purpose with great magnificence. It lasted the unprecedented period of seven years from the opening of proceedings in the hall. Mr Hastings repeatedly complained of the delay, and the life of impeachment' he was by it compelled to live; but it appears, on the whole, to have won the public sympathy for him, and to have produced a feeling of acquiescence in the ultimate verdict of acquittal pronounced by the lords which otherwise might not have been so generally manifested. The greatest number of peers who voted the defendant guilty in any one respect, did not exceed six: the votes of innocence, on some of the charges, were twenty-six; on others, twenty-three; on one, nineteen. The chancellor intimated the decision of the court to Hastings on the 23d of April, 1795. He received it in silence, bowed, and retired from the bar. This remarkable trial cost the nation upwards of £100,000; and the law-expenses of Mr Hastings amounted to £71,000. A meeting of the court of proprietors of the East India company was held soon after the acquittal of Mr Hastings, at which it was resolved that he should be indemnified for the expenses incurred by him in making his defence; and that an annuity of £5000 should be granted to him. Some legal difficulties were started as to this application of the profits of the Company, and the chairman, Sir Stephen Lushington, meanwhile applied to Mr Hastings for information to enable him to meet certain allegations respecting the fortune which the ex-governor had acquired during his residence in India. To this application Mr Hastings replied in the following terms: "I owe to my solicitors and to various individuals £97,000. I never was worth, at any time of my life, the sum of £100,000; and in this calculation I include every kind and description of property whatsoever." Referring to certain remittances which had been made to him from India, amounting in all to £17,000, he says: "I am indebted for these remittances to the generosity of individuals, granted for the express purpose of relieving my wants. They were received in the years 1790 and 1791, most seasonably, at times in which but for them I should have been reduced to great distress. I do not mention this as an excuse for my accepting them, since I am not conscious of any positive law or moral obligation that forbade it. I mention it only to show that while I was an object of envy to some, and of jealousy to others, under the imputation of possessing inordinate wealth,—and when, in addition to the charge of extravagance, I was publicly accused of the most corrupt disposal of it, -I was actually on the verge of penury and in fear of wanting the means of acquiring the common necessaries of life, but in the degrading resource of private credit, to which I have since been actually compelled • Miller tors. to submit. I make it my request, Sir, that you will have the goodness to lay this letter before the honourable court of directors, and to them I make it my request that it may be submitted to the court of proprieI take this occasion to return them my most grateful thanks for the distinguished honour they have conferred upon me by their late resolutions. I thank them for those testimonies of their approbation of my services, and for the bounty with which they have so liberally rewarded them that I have completely received as far as they could bestow it, in their public declaration, that they thought me deserving of it; nor have I a wish respecting it, so far as it regards them, unsatisfied. But with respect to the resolution which they had been generously pleased to pass to indemnify me for the legal expenses of my trial, I own, I cannot contemplate its result with the same tranquil resignation. I require the accomplishment of it, not on the score of interest, but of honour, that I may acquit myself of my engagements to those to whose confidence and friendship I owe that I am not absolutely destitute. With such a stake I feel no repugnance to make my humble supplication to my employers, that I may obtain from their generosity that relief, which I once thought I had a right to expect from the justice and from the laws of my country. WARREN HASTINGS." We have said that doubts were started as to the right of the Company to dispose of their own money without the consent of the board of commissioners. "The great lawyers held different opinions; but the attorney and solicitor general were decidedly against such a right being vested in the Company. On this decision a new motion was brought forward in concert with his majesty's ministers, who agreed-without any reference to the trial-in consideration of Mr Hastings's public services, to grant him a pension of four thousand pounds a-year for twenty-eight years and a half; of this pension they immediately gave him forty-two thousand pounds, and lent him in addition fifty thousand pounds. The whole sum voted was one hundred and fourteen thousand pounds, of which they immediately paid him ninety-two thousand; the remainder he was to receive at the rate of five thousand pounds ayear to the close of the charter; the other two thousand pounds were to be stopped to repay the loan of fifty thousand pounds, and his estate was charged with a mortgage for the sum of fourteen thousand pounds which would be due to the Company when the charter expired." Mr Hastings survived this grant thirty-three years. He died in 1818. A few years before his death he was appointed a privy-councillor. Mr Hastings was a man of letters. Many scholars and men of talent have translated the celebrated ode of Horace Otium divos rogat,' &c. The translation of Mr Hastings is superior to them all. He wrote the following lines in Mickle's excellent version of the Lusiad of Camoens, to be inserted at the end of the speech of Pacheco: Yet shrink not, gallant Lusian, nor repine From statement by Major Scott. |