profound refpect than he did) but he had never remarked that the learned Gentleman ever difcovered any symptoms of extraordinary seal towards the caufe in quettion, nor ap seared willing to lend the whole weight of his abilities towards it; and unless both thofe effentials were to be depended on, there could be but fmall, indeed fcarcely hopes of any fuccefs. Be fides he did not think a trial by Jury the beft fort of trial for criminals of the fize and enormity of the Offender, nor was he of opinion that the Court of King's Bench was a fit Court to decide it in, amidft a cloud of caufes of meum and tuum, affault and battery, conversion and `trover, trefpaís and burglary, &c. all of which its magnitude would overwhelm. For these reasons, he fhould not think of a profecution by the Attorney General; another mode of profecution that the Houle had occafionally adopted, had been by introducing a Bill of Pains and Penalties, and proceeding to hear and adduce evidence; but this mode appeared to him to be pregnant with hardship and injuftice with regard to the party profecuted, and was not at the fame time a very becoming thing for the Houfe, who fhifted their characters backwards and forwards, and wore one day an accufer's gown, which they exchanged the next for a Judge's robe. In regard to the culprit, it certainly was hard and unjust to make him anticipate his defence, by coming to their Bar with his Council, and ftating in the face of his accufers, and alfo in the face of his Judges, for they were one and the fame perfons, that which he was to rely on as the proof of his innocence when he was called upon for his defence in another place, where the proceeding would be more conformable to the regular practice of judicial trials, inafmuch as the evidence must be delivered on oath. A Bill of pains and penalties therefore he fhould not think of, but fhould have recourse to the third mode of profecution; which was both ancient and conftitutional, viz. the proceeding by Bill of Impeachment; but even in adopting that mode, he should not propofe the ufual practice of moving an immediate Bill of Impeachment, and then going into a Committee to find the articles to reft it on, because that was a hafty way of proceeding, and betrayed a fort of paffion and heat in their minds, unbecom ing the Houfe. What he meant to propofe would be, to move for papers, from which he would extract the articles, and what he should draw out of them, as the

matters in charge fhould appear to the Houfe to be, what he believed they would be found, charges of a black and criminal die; he should then proceed to the Impeachment at the Bar of the Houfe of Lords. This mode would be grave and folemn; it would become the Commons of England, and would answer all the ends of juftice. Mr. Burke having perfpicuoufly stated thefe facts, went into a feries of reflections on the nature of the office he had undertaker, and the neceffity for the houfe's proceeding with cau tion and fobriety. Every accufer was, he faid, himself under accufation at the very time he accufed another; it behoved hinf to act upon fure grounds, and therez fore he had chofen the line of conduct that he had explained, as that which might be followed with the leaft danger of error, or juftice. He urged the unavoidable neceffity of making the enquiry perfonal. He was aware that the people in India, would be better pleafed, if the refult of the proceedings in that Houfe was to find that peculation exifted, but to difcover no peculator; that there was grofs corruption, but no perfon to corrupt or to be corrupted; that vice bore all before it, but not one foul was vicious; in fhort, in imitation of a coroner's verdict, to find that murder was committed, but by perfons unknown. In order to trace fpeculation to the peculator, corruption to its fource, and vice to the vicious, had been the aim of the refearches of the various Committees that had been inftituted at different times by the Houfe; as well that at the head of which that worthy character, Mr. Gregory, fat for three years inceffant ly, as the two more recent Committees, which he had mentioned, and the refult was, they found that Government in India could not be foul, and the Head of Government pure. What was the confe

quence? A refolution of that Houfe almolt four years ago, that Warren Haftings, Efq. had in fundry inftances acted in a manner repugnant to the honour and policy of the nation. Mr. Burke at length fat down, with moving,

That Copies of all Correfpondence, fince the month of January, 1782, be tween Warren Haftings, Efq, late Governor General of Bengal, and the Court of Directors, as well before, as fince the return of the faid Governor General, rela tive to Prefents, and other Money, particularly received by the faid Governor General, be laid before this Houfe.

Mr. Windham feconded the Motion.

Alderman

Alderman Le Mefurier role to complain that the Hon. Gentleman had not stared to the Houfe all the papers that he meant to call for; neither had he opened to the House the points to which those papers were meant to be applied. This the Alderman, said, he believed was always customary; and indeed common fenfe required that it fhould be fo, as the Houfe would otherwife be drawn on step by step, till they had gone fo far that they would not know how to recede; in like manner as they had heard the preceding day that men being deluded by a series of logical deductions, till they were drawn on to a refult which their understandings denied. He faid, the Refolutions, he understood had paffed in a very thin Houfe, they ought not therefore to be made the ground of fo ferious a proceeding; He declared Mr. Haftings had proved himself a meritorious fervant of the Company, and that, in giving him that character, he spoke impartially, as he was a perfect ftranger o Mr. Haftings, and did not even know his perfon: but from all that he had feen of the records of the Company during the wo laft years, for which period he had been in the direction, he faw no reason whatever to fuppofe Mr. Haftings the delinquent the Hon. Gentleman had thought proper to defcribe him.-He took notice of what Mr. Burke had thrown out relative to trial by jury, and faid, after fo publick an avowal from that fide of the Houfe of an opinion against trials by jury, he hoped whenever the new court of judicature, inftituted under authority of the Eaft India bill, come again under difcuffion, they should not hear the Gentlemen, on the other fide, expreffing their difapprobation of it in fuch vehement terms, as they had "been wont to do. Before he fat down, the Alderman repeated his wifh, that the Hon. Gentleman would have the fairnefs to ftate to the Houfe, the whole of the papers he meant to move, before the fenfe of the Houfe was taken on the prefent queftion.

Mr. Dundas rose and said, that in confequence of many things evidently point ed at him in the course of the Right Honourable Gentleman's fpeech, he began at one time to imagine that he was him felf the criminal whom the Right Hon. Gentleman meant to impeach; he was glad, however, on that occafion, and he fhould ever be happy, if gentlemen, when they meant to fay any thing that bore allufion to his conduct, would fay is in that Houte when he was prefent, and

when he was enabled by that means to ane fwer it, and to make that fort of reply that the accufation might appear to merit. He never was, nor never should be afhamed to meet all who had any thing to say against him, face to face, and he rather wifhed they would act in that manly way and not attack him in anonymous libels, and delufive pamphlets, crammed with falfe and illiberal charges brought against him behind his back, and circulated with induftry through every corner of the kingdom. From many parts of the Right Hon. Gentleman's fpeech, it appeared, that the Right Hon. Gentleman had been of opinion, which he had freely communicated to the Houfe, that he ought to have been the perfon who fhould have taken upon him the office of accufer of Mr. Haftings. Why the Right Hon. Gentleman should have chofen for one moment to entertain fuch an opinion, or upon what ground it was, that he had formed it, he was utterly at a lofs to imagine, becaufe at no one period of his life time had he ever er faid, or ever dropped a hint that he meant to be the accufer of Mr. Haftings; on the contrary he had again and again declared, that he had no fuch intention, and he appealed to those who had fat with him on the fecret Committee, two of whom he faw oppofite to him, (Col. North, and Mr. Ellis) whether he had even hinted at fuch an idea? He had undoubtedly been the person to suggest the ftring of Refolutions that appeared upon their journals, and he had not the finalleft fcruple to admit, that the fame fentiments that he had entertained respecting Mr. Haftings, at the time of propofing those refolutions, he entertained refpecting him at that moment; but were those, fentiments, that went any thing like so far as to fuppofe Mr. Haftings or any part of his conduct fuch as made him a fir object for a criminal profecution? No fuch thing ‹ what did the refolution, upon which the Right Hon. Gentleman had laid fo much ftrefs, go to? To nothing more than the recall of Mr. Haftings; a matter which he at the time thought expedient, and had recommended it to the Houfe as a matter of expediency merely, which Gentlemen who were prefent muft well remember. Mr. Dundas faid, he had not the smallest objection to go over all the matter that had been gone through at the time, and to ftate to the Houfe, upon what ground it was, that he had thought it adviseable to recall Mr. Haftings in 1782. Having faid this, he took a fummary retrospective

Few of the conduct of Mr. Haftings previous to 1782, laying particular ftrels upon the Rohilla war, the breach of the Treaty of Poorunder, and the great and expensive establishinents that Mr. Haftings had made in India. The two latter he (elected as matters, in respect to which he had thought the conduct of Mr. Haftings highly culpable at the time, and he thought fo fill; but at the fame time, he did not think Mr. Haftings had done any thing criminal. He faid, he had examined his conduct minutely; and he always found, that when there was any improper conduct obfervable in Mr. Haltings, every pollibility of annexing a criminal intention to i, eluded his grafp, and there was always fome letter of the Court of Directors or some ttrong reason to justify Mr. Haftings át bottom. With regard to the expenfive eftablishments in India, he would read a letter written home by Mr. Hattings in 1782 on that fubject. In the letter Mr. Haftings complained of the fituation he was in, in confequence of fo many writers being fent out to him, declaring, that he had at that time two hundred and fifty young men, the younger fons of the firft families in Great Britain, all gaping for lacks, and ferambling for patronage, in the hopes of getting fortunes foon enough to return in the prime of life, and fpend the remainder of their days in their native country. This remonstrance Mr. Dundas faid, was received in England in the beginning of the year 1783, and what was the attention paid to it? Why in that pure year, when Sir Henry Fletcher fat at the head of the Board of Directors, so far from a restraining hand being held over the increase of the establishments-in India, no less than thirty fix writers had been fent out! Mr. Dundas dwelt on this for fome time; and, said he had not the lift of the writers about him, but it was pretty obvious from what fhop they came. He took notice that Mr. Burke, in his fpeech had confidered that part of the letter as effential, as he had marked a part of the letter he had juft read by an alteration in the printing, Mr. Burke's hand, hefaid, was pretty visible in fome of the dispatches of the Court of Directors of that period, from the ftyle in which they were written. To return to Mr. Haftings, Mr. Dundas faid, he had fince 1782, done effential fervices to the Company and had received the thanks of the Court of Directors; not that he meant to fhelter himself under their Minute; had he been a Director, moft undoubtedly he should have figned the

Minute of Thanks, being thoroughly convinced Mr. Haftings merited them. He lard great ftrefs on the different conduct of that Gentleman, declaring, that although he thought it expedient to have recalled him in 1782, on account of the breach of the Treaty of Poorunder, and on account of the extremely expenfive elabi fhments introduced by him in India, he was glad that Refolution had not been carried into effect, becaufe if it had, he should have been the means of depriving the Company of a most valuable and u'efui fervant and the Publick of a Governor-General of India remarkable for uncommon a dour, abilities, and capacity.--Mr. Dundas faid, he had not the final left objection to the Motion, nor would he have troubled the Houfe at all, had not fo much been faid perfonally to himself, that the Houfe, he was perfuaded, must have felt that it was due to them, that he should rife and give fome explanation on the points to which the Right Hon. Gentleman had directed his allufions.

Mr. C. W. Boughton Rons, and Mr. For both rofe together, but the latter ob tained the hearing. Mr. Fox faid, he had not the fmalleft idea of having any occafion to have rifen in that debate, nor would he have interrupted the Honourable Gentleman, who was on his legs at the fame time that he rofe, had not fomething fallen from the Honourable and learned Gentleman who spoke last, that it was impoffible for him to remain a moment filent under. The only way in which he could meet the matter, was to oppose affertion to affertion; and to declare upon the word and honour of a gen-. tleman, that if in talking of the thirty-fix writers that had been fent out in 1783, when Sir Henry Fletcher fat at the head of the Board of the East India Directors, and when he had humfelf the honour to be in adminiftration, the Hon. and learned Gentleman meant to infinuate, that he had been concerned in fending out any, he was completely and perfectly mistaken. In the whole courfe of his life, he had never fent out, or rather procured to be fent out to India, but one fingle writer, and that was at the time that the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lanfdown, was at the head of his Majefty's Councils. That, upon his word of honour, moft folemnly pledged to the House, had been the only writer he had ever procured a recommendation for, and fucceeded in. Indeed, if the Houfe would recollect a little, it was not very likely, that the

administration in which he had the honour to be, fhould ftand remarkably well with the Board of Directors, as it was well known what their intentions were at that time, with a view to effect a reform of the Company. Mr. Fox faid, he thought it right to fay thus much in confequence of the infinuation, and the manner in which the infinuation of the Hon. and learned Gentleman had been conveyed to the Houfe. As he was upon his legs, he would fay a few words on the confiftency of the Hon. and learned Gentleman, who, when hard driven to the point, and obliged as it were to defend his own conduct, had done that, which God knew the Hon. and learned Gentleman could do at all times, meet his opponents face to face, let the argument bear as much as it would against him; but what defence had the Hon. and learned Gentleman made? He had been reduced to the neceffity of admitting, that he had at one time entertained an opinion that Mr. Haftings had acted in a manner highly culpable in fome points; nay, he had added, that he was ftill of the fame opinion, although, almoft in the fame breath, certainly in the fame fpeech, he had declared, he entertained a high opinion of Mr. Haftings, and had praifed his conduct as warmly in the latter part of his fpeech, as he had abufed it in the former part. And what points had the Hon. and learned Gentleman chofen to felect as the points in which he confidered Mr. Hastings as having been highly culpable; Merely the two points of the Rohilla war, with the breach of the treaty of Poorunder, and in having introduced expenfive effablishments in India. Good God, exclaimed Mr. Fox, is that all the honourable and fearned gentleman thinks Mr. Haftings was culpable in! Has this Houfe heard nothing of Co. rah and Allyabad? of Cheit Sing? Of the Begums? And of all the long catalogue of crimes committed in India, to the infinite difturbance or the peace of the country; to the mifery, and even butchery of the natives; to the deftruction of all confidence in British faith, and to the everlafting difgrace of the British name and character in Indoftan? Having put this warmly, Mr. Fox read the Refolution, immediately preceding that in which the Houle refolved in 1782, that Warren Haftings, Efq. and Mr. Hornby fhould be recalled, and appealed to every man of common fenfe, whether that marked and frong cenfure did not go immediately to Mr. Haftings and Governor Hornby? It

was not, he faid, in language to exprefs difgrace more strongly than that, which declared the delinquents ought to receive fome mark of Parliamentary difpleasure. Mr. Fox compared thefe two Refolutions, and the obvious construction of both, with the vote of recall that had paffed at the India House, in which Warien Haftings, Efq. was permitted to refign in confequence of his long and imeritorious fervices. He asked how this mode of recall was to be reconciled to the Refolution that ftigmatized Mr. Haffings, and decla red it to be the opinion of the Houfe, that he deferved fome mark of parliamentary difpleafure? he dwelt upon it for fome time, and urged it as a contradiction infulting to that House, and inconfiftent to a fhameful degree. He obferved upon Mr. Dundas's having faid, he would not have sheltered himself under a minute of the Board of Directors, but had declared, had he been a Director, he would have figned that minute likewife; the Honourable and learned gentleman, therefore, who had himself prevailed upon the Houfe of Commons to refolve in a grave and phlegmatick form, but in ftrong and energetic phrafe, that Warren Haftings, Eq; deferved parliamentary cenfure, would have given that gentleman thanks for his long and meritorious fervices what egregious inconfiftency! For the word long in the minute of Recall, undoubtedly comprehended the whole of the services of Mr. Haftings, as well before 1782, as thofe fince. Mr. Fox defended Mr. Burke from what had been fuggefted by Mr. Alderman Le Mefurier, in refpect to trial by jury, and faid, the worthy Magiftrate had mifunderstood his Hon. Friend, who had not expreffed any difapprobation of the general principle of trials by jury, but had merely faid, that the caufe under confideration was of too much magnitude for the cognizance of the Court of King's Bench, and had propofed to appeal to a tribunal and a form of trial as ancient as the conftitution itself, of which it was a part. Thus had his Hon. Friend evinced, that the higheft fpecies of offenders might be brought to trial, without reforting to any novel experiment on the conftitution, but in a manner conformable to ufage, and before an ancient, legal and conftitutional tribu nal. This Mr. Fox put very strongly, urging it as one powerful proof, that the new Court of Judicature, which took away the birth-right of Britons, made that evidence that was not evidence before,

and

and obliged criminals to accufe and to convict themselves, was not only a tribunal unconftitutional in its origin and principle, and tyrannous and oppreffive in its practice, but altogether fuperfluous and unnec.ffary. Mr. Fox spoke to a great variety of other points, and in one part of his feech he began a fentence with affetting, that the Honourable and learned Gentle man had falfely faid-an expreffion which he changed by declaring, that when he ufed the phrafe falfely faid, he meant no perfonal offence; he meant no more, than that he had given a falfe impreffion, at leaft an impreffion of a particular point, the truth of which his mind would not admit.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer rofe with forme warmth, and fid, that he should have contented himself with giving a filent adent to the motion, had it not been for the language that had been used by the Right Hon. Gentleman who had juft fat down.

He fhould, however, have been afhamed of his own feelings, could he have fat by and tamely fuffered fuch infinuations to be made, and that by a man fo circumstanced as the Right Hon. Gentleman, without expreffing fome part of that indignation with which his breast was filled, and which he trufted no man of generous and honourable principles could avoid fharing with him. What had been the charge made against his Right Hon. and learned Friend; A charge of inconfiftency, in now bearing teftimony to the merits of a perfon, whom on a former occafion he was fuppofed to have thought an object of cenfure. And by whom was this charge made? Let the Houfe compare the charge, and the perfon from whom it came, and judge for him whether he were to blame in fuffering his temper to be fomewhat ruffled by fo bare-faced and fo fhameless a conduct.-In one point of view, indeed, the Right Hon. Gentleman was correct and proper, which was, that having firft taken it for granted that his Right Hon. Friend had for a series of years continued to vent.the most injurious and violent charges, to load with the groffeft and most extravagant reproaches, and to threaten with the fevereft punifhment a certain individual; and that he was now become a convert in his opinion, he had taken upon himself, from his own recent practice and experience, to dictate the form of words in which the recantation of his friend ought to be made: [here the oppofition benches kept up a loud uproar of Near him! hear him!]

But his Right Hon. Friend had no need of fuch a tutor as the Right Hon. Gentle man, he was far from being guilty of fuch an egregious inconfiftency as the Right Hon. Gentleman had charged him with, with a force of colouring that would have led the houfe, had they not too well known the perfon it came from, to believe that his heart was in truth capable of the meannefs and unbecoming nefs of conduct he had imputed to his Right Hon. friend.

The Right Hon. Gentlemad in his eagerness to fix this imputation on his Right Hon. Friend, had gone fo far as to use the most unjuftitiable language, no less than a direct charge of falihood, which, however, finding even the moft violent members of the Houfe apparently fhocked at, he had apologized for by faying that he did not mean to apply the word in its ufual and offenfive fenfe; an abufe of words into which the Right Hon. Gentleman's temper often betrayed him; he had till infifted upon it, that his Right Hon. Friend's attempt to prove that those refolutions that had been read, were fuch a pledge of his difapprobation of Mr. Hafting's general conduct, as muft ftamp with inconfiftency any fubfequent appro bation of any part: he fhould not take upon him to anfwer fuch a miferable attempt at wit, as the Right Hon. Gentleman had made, when he talked about meeting him face to face, but whenever he found any appearance of argument he would fairly meet it. The Right Hon. Gentleman had relied on the acquiefcence which his Right Hon. Friend had acknowledged to the principle of the vote of thanks of the Directors, as a proof of his having changed his opinion with refpe& to thofe parts of Mr. Haftings's conduct which he had formerly cenfured, but there was nothing more neceflary but just to read the vote alluded to, to prove that in adopting the fpirit and tenor of that vote, his Right Hon. Friend would go no farther than to thank Mr. Haftings for certain parts of his fubfequent conduct, leaving thofe parts that had been the objects of complaint totally untouched.

The vote of thanks was read accordingly.

He was by no means furprized to find, that it was part of the Right Hon. Gentleman's idea of confiftency, that where one fault could be found in any perfon, no merit ought by any means to be admitted, but that uniform reproach and unremitting cenfure should always be the confe→ quence of a single difference of opinio

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