with accusations and impeachments. But none of these suffering millions have sent their complaints to this country; not a sigh nor a groan has been wafted from India to Britain. On the contrary, testimonies the most honorable to the character and merit of Mr. Hastings have been transmitted by those very princes whom he has been supposed to have loaded with the deepest injuries."

Here, gentlemen, we must be permitted to pause together a little; for, in examining whether these pages were written as an honest answer to the charges of the Commons, or as a prostituted defense of a notorious criminal, whom the writer believed to be guilty, truth becomes material at every step. For if, in any instance, he be detected of a willful misrepresentation, he is o longer an object of your attention.

of the case of

| spoiler, with tears and imprecations. It was not by the eloquence of the orator, but by the cries and tears of the miserable, that Cicero prevailed in that illustrious cause. Verres fled from the oaths of his accusers and their witnesses, and not from the voice of Tully. To preserve the fame of his eloquence, he composed his five celebrated speeches, but they were never delivered against the criminal, because he had fled from the city, appalled with the sight of the persecuted and the oppressed. It may be said that the cases of Sicily and India are widely different; perhaps they may be; whether they are or not, is foreign to my purpose. I am not bound to deny the possi bility of answers to such questions; I am only vindicating the right to ask them.9

Gentlemen, the author, in the other passage which I marked out to your attention, goes on thus: "Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Macpherson, his successors in office, have given the same voluntary tribute of approbation to his measures as Governor General of India. A letter from the former, dated the 10th of August, 1786, gives the following account of our dominions in Asia: 'The native inhabitants of this kingdom are the happiest and best protected subjects in India; our native allies and tributaries confide in our protection; the country powers are aspiring to the friendship of the English; and from the King of Tidore, toward New Guinea, to Timur Shah, on the banks of the Indus, there is not a state that has not lately given us proofs of confidence and

Still pursuing the same test of sincerity, let us examine this defensive allegation.

Will the Attorney General say that he does

Will the Attorney General proceed, then, to Comparison detect the hypocrisy of our author, by Hastings with giving us some details of the proofs that of Verres. by which these personal enormities have been established, and which the writer must be supposed to have been acquainted with? I ask this as the defender of Mr. Stockdale, not of Mr. Hastings, with whom I have no concern. I am sorry, indeed, to be so often obliged to repeat this protest; but I really feel myself embarrassed with those repeated coincidences of defense which thicken on me as I advance, and which were, no doubt, overlooked by the Commons when they directed this interlocutory inquiry into his conduct. I ask, then, as counsel for Mr. Stockdale, wheth-respect.' er, when a great state criminal is brought for justice at an immense expense to the public, accused of the most oppressive cruelties, and charged with the robbery of princes and the de-not believe such a letter from Lord Cornwallis struction of nations, it is not open to any one to ask, Who are his accusers? What are the sources and the authorities of these shocking complaints? Where are the embassadors or memorials of those princes whose revenues he has plundered? Where are the witnesses for those unhappy men in whose persons the rights of humanity have been violated? How deeply buried is the blood of the innocent, that it does not rise up in retributive judgment to confound the guilty! These, surely, are questions which, when a fellow-citizen is upon a long, painful, and expensive trial, humanity has a right to propose; which the plain sense of the most unlettered man may be expected to dictate, and which all history must provoke from the more enlightened. When CICERO impeached VERRESS before the great tribunal of Rome, of similar cruelties and depredations in her provinces, the Roman people were not left to such inquiries. All Sicily surrounded the Fo. rum, demanding justice upon her plunderer and

Verres, as prætor and governor of Sicily, was guilty of such extortion and oppression, that the Sicilian people brought an accusation against him in the Senate, and Cicero conducted the impeachment. Verres was defended by Hortensius, the celebrated Roman orator; but, aware of the justice of the accusation, he left Rome without waiting the result.

ever existed? No: for he knows that it is as authentic as any document from India upon the table of the House of Commons. What, then, is the letter? "The native inhabitants of this kingdom, says Lord Cornwallis (writing from the very spot), are the happiest and best protected subjects in India," &c., &c., &c. The inhabitants of this kingdom! Of what kingdom? Of the very kingdom which Mr. Hastings has just returned from governing for thirteen years, and for the misgovernment and desolation of which he stands every day as a criminal, or rather as a spectacle, before us. This is matter for serious reflection, and fully entitles the author to put the question which immediately follows: "Does this authentic account of the administration of Mr. Hastings, and of the state of India, correspond with the gloomy picture of despotism and despair drawn by the Committee of Secrecy ?"

Had that picture been even drawn by the House of Commons itself, he would have been

This passage was probably suggested by one in Mr. Sheridan's speech on the Begum Charge (page 409), where he is showing the difficulties under which the Managers labored in procuring their evidence. Nothing could be happier than Mr. Erskine's application of the case of Verres to illustrate the point-nothing more vivid than his picture of the

scene.

fully justified in asking this question; but you | the rank of Zemindar. About four years after observe it has no bearing on it; the last words not only entirely destroy that interpretation, but also the meaning of the very next passage, which is selected by the information as criminal, namely, "What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and falsehood?"

have made similar exactions from all the dependencies of the company in India, had they been in the same circumstances. The fact is, that the great Zemindars of Bengal pay as much to government as their lands can afford. Cheyte Sing's collections were above fifty lacks, and his rent not twenty-four."

The right of calling for extraordinary aids and military service in times of danger being universally established in India, as it was formerly in Europe during the feudal times, the subsequent conduct of Mr. Hastings is explained and vindicated. The Governor General and Council of Bengal having made a demand upon a tributary Zemindar for three successive years, and that demand having been resisted by their vassal, they are justified in his punishment. The necessities of the company, in consequence of the critical situation of their affairs in 1781, calling for a high fine—the ability of the Zemindar, who possessed near two crores of rupees in money and jewels, to pay the sum required his backwardness to comply with the demands of his superiors-his disaffection to the English interest, and desire of revolt, which even then began to appear, and were afterward conspicuous, fully justify Mr. Hastings in every subsequent step of his conduct. In the whole of his proceedings, it is manifest that he had not early formed a design hostile to the Zemindar, but was regulated by events which he could neither foresee nor control. When the necessary measures which he had taken for supporting the authority of the company, by punishing a refractory vassal, were thwarted and defeated by the barbarous massacre of the British troops, and the rebellion of Cheyte Sing, the appeal was made to arms, an unavoidable revolution took place in Benares, and the Zemindar became the author of his own destruction."

Here follows the concluding passage, which is arraigned by the information:

|

who is brought to what he thinks a just conclu. sion in argument, which, perhaps, becomes offens ive in proportion to its truth. Truth is undoubt edly no warrant for writing what is reproachful of any private man. If a member of society lives within the law, then, if he offends, it is against God alone, and man has nothing to do with him; and if he transgress the laws, the libeler should arraign him before them, instead of presuming to try him himself. But as to writings on general subjects, which are not charged as an infringement on the rights of individuals, but as of a seditious tendency, it is far otherwise. When, in the progress either of legislation or of high national justice in Parliament, they who are amenable to no law are supposed to have adopted, through mistake or error, a principle which, if drawn into precedent, might be dangerous to the public, I shall not admit it to be a libel in the course of a legal and bonâ fide publication, to state that such a principle had in fact been adopted. The people of England are not to be kept in the dark touching the proceedings of their own representatives. Let us, therefore, coolly examine this supposed offense, and see what it amounts to.

First, was not the conduct of the right honorable gentleman, whose name is here mentioned, exactly what it is represented? Will the Attorney General, who was present in the House of Commons, say that it was not? Did not the minister vindicate Mr. Hastings in what he had done,10 and was not his consent to that article of the impeachment founded on the intention only of levying a fine on the Zemindar for the service of the state, beyond the quantum which he, the minister, thought reasonable? What else is this but an impeachment of error in judgment in the quantum of a fine?

So much for the first part of the sentence, which, regarding Mr. Pitt only, is foreign to our purpose. And as to the last part of it, which "The decision of the House of Commons on imputes the sentiments of the minister to the this charge against Mr. Hastings is one of the majority that followed him with their votes on most singular to be met with in the annals of the question, that appears to me to be giving Parliament. The minister, who was followed handsome credit to the majority for having votby the majority, vindicated him in every thing ed from conviction, and not from courtesy to the that he had done, and found him blamable only for minister. To have supposed otherwise, I dare what he intended to do; justified every step of not say, would have been a more natural libel, his conduct, and only criminated his proposed but it would certainly have been a greater one. intention of converting the crimes of the Zemin- The sum and substance, therefore, of the paradar to the benefit of the state, by a fine of fifty graph is only this-that an impeachment for an lacks of rupees. An impeachment of error in error in judgment is not consistent with the thejudgment with regard to the quantum of a fine, ory or the practice of the English government. and for an intention that never was executed, So say I. I say, without reserve, speaking mereand never known to the offending party, charac-ly in the abstract, and not meaning to decide terizes a tribunal of inquisition rather than a upon the merits of Mr. Hastings's cause, that an court of Parliament." impeachment for an error in judgment is contraGentlemen, I am ready to admit that this sen-ry to the whole spirit of English criminal justice, timent might have been expressed in language more reserved and guarded; but you will look to the sentiment itself, rather than to its dress to the mind of the writer, and not to the bluntess with which he may happen to express it. It is obviously the language of a warm man, enraged in the honest defense of his friend, and

which, though not binding on the House of Com. mons, ought to be a guide to its proceedings. I say that the extraordinary jurisdiction of impeach

10 Mr. Pitt expressed his opinion that, admitting the right of Mr. Hastings to tax the Zemindar, bi general conduct in the business had been unneces sarily severe.

ample than a prosecution in the ordinary courts, but surely never for a different example. The matter, therefore, in the offensive paragraph is not only an indisputable truth, but a truth in the propagation of which we are all deeply concerned.

Whether Mr. Hastings, ia the particular instance, acted from corruption or from zeal for his employers, is what I have nothing to dc with; it is to be decided in judgment; my duty stops with wishing him, as I do, an honorable deliverance. Whether the minister or the Commons meant to found this article of the impeachment on mere error, without corruption, is likewise foreign to the purpose. The author could only judge from what was said and done on the occasion. He only sought to guard the principle, which is a common interest, and the rights of Mr. Hastings under it. He was, therefore, justified in publishing that an impeachment, founded in error in judgment, was, to all intents and purposes, illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust.

ment ough: never to be assumed to expose error | impeachments have been adopted for a higher exor to scourge misfortune, but to hold up a terrible example to corruption and willful abuse of authority by extra legal pains. If public men are always punished with due severity when the source of their misconduct appears to have been selfishly corrupt and criminal, the public can never suffer when their errors are treated with gentleness. From such protection to the magistrate, no man can think lightly of the charge of magistracy itself, when he sees, by the language of the saving judgment, that the only title to it is an honest and zealous intention. If at this moment, gentlemen, or indeed in any other in the whole course of our history, the people of England were to call upon every man in this impeaching House of Commons who had given his voice on public questions, or acted in authority, civil or military, to answer for the issues of our councils and our wars, and if honest single intentions for the public service were refused as answers to impeachments, we should have many relations to mourn for, and many friends to deplore. For my own part, gentlemen, I feel, I Gentlemen, it is now time for us to return again hope, for my country as much as any man that to the work under examination. The author havinhabits it; but I would rather see it fall, and being discussed the whole of the first article through buried in its ruins, than lend my voice to wound any minister, or other responsible person, however unfortunate, who had fairly followed the lights of his understanding and the dictates of his conscience for their preservation.

Gentlemen, this is no theory of mine; it is the language of English law, and the protection which it affords to every man in office, from the highest to the lowest trust of government. In no one instance that can be named, foreign or domestic, did the Court of King's Bench ever interpose its extraordinary jurisdiction, by information, against any magistrate for the widest departure from the rule of his duty, without the plainest and clearest proof of corruption. To every such application, not so supported, the constant answer has been, Go to a grand jury with your complaint. God forbid that a magistrate should suffer from an error in judgment, if his purpose was honestly to discharge his trust. We can not stop the ordinary course of justice; but wherever the court has a discretion, such a magistrate is entitled to its protection. I appeal to the noble judge, and to every man who hears me, for the truth and universality of this position. And it would be a strange solecism, indeed, to assert that, in a case where the supreme court of criminal justice in the nation would refuse to interpose an extraordinary though a legal jurisdiction, on the principle that the ordinary execution of the laws should never be exceeded, but for the punishment of malignant guilt, the Commons, in their higher capacity, growing out of the same Constitution, should reject that principle, and stretch them still further by a jurisdiction still more eccentric. Many impeachments have taken place, because the law could not adequately punish the objects of them; but who ever heard of one being set on foot because the law, upon principle, would not punish them? Many

so many pages, without even the imputation of an incorrect or intemperate expression, except in the concluding passage (the meaning of which I trust I have explained), goes on with the same earnest disposition to the discussion of the second charge respecting the princesses of Oude, which occupies eighteen pages, not one syllable of which the Attorney General has read, and on which there is not even a glance at the House of Commons. The whole of this answer is, indeed, so far from being a mere cloak for the introduction of slander, that I aver it to be one of the most masterly pieces of writing I ever read in my life. From thence he goes on to the charge of contracts and salaries, which occupies five pages more, in which there is not a glance at the House of Commons, nor a word read by the Attorney General. He afterward defends Mr. Hastings against the charges respecting the opium contracts. Not a glance at the House of Commons; not a word by the Attor. ney General. And, in short, in this manner he goes on with the others, to the end of the book.

Now, is it possible for any human being to believe that a man, having no other intention than to vilify the House of Commons (as this information charges), should yet keep his mine thus fixed and settled as the needle to the pole, upon the serious merits of Mr. Hastings's defense, without ever straying into matter even questionable, except in the two or three selected parts out of two or three hundred pages? This is a forbearance which could not have existed, if calumny and detraction had been the malignant objects which led him to the inquiry and publication. The whole fallacy, therefore, arises from holding up to view a few detached passages, and carefully concealing the general tenor of the brok.

Having now finished most, if not all of these critical observations, which it has been my duty to make upon this unfair mode of prosecution, it is

Gentlemen, I wish that my strength would enable me to convince you of the author's singleness of intention, and of the merit and ability of his work, by reading the whole that remains of it. But my voice is already nearly exhausted; I am sorry my client should be a sufferer by my infirmity. One passage, however, is too striking and important to be passed over; the rest I must trust to your private examination. The author having discussed all the charges, article by article, sums them all up with this striking appeal to his readers:

but a tribute of common justice to the Attorney | the first object of his attention, and that, under General (and which my personal regard for him his administration, it has been safe and prospermakes it more pleasant to pay), that none of my ous; if it be true that the security and preservacommentaries reflect in the most distant manner tion of our possessions and revenues in Asia were upon him; nor upon the Solicitor for the Crown, marked out to him as the great leading principle who sits near me, who is a person of the most of his government, and that those possessions and correct honor; far from it. The Attorney Gen- revenues, amid unexampled dangers, have been eral having orders to prosecute, in consequence secured and preserved, then a question may be of the address of the House to his Majesty, had unaccountably mixed with your consideration, no choice in the mode-no means at all of keep- much beyond the consequence of the presen ing the prosecutors before you in countenance, but prosecution, involving, perhaps, the merit of the by the course which has been pursued. But so impeachment itself which gave it birth—a quesfar has he been from enlisting into the cause those tion which the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr. prejudices, which it is not difficult to slide into a | Hastings, should, in common prudence, have business originating from such exalted authority, avoided; unless, regretting the unwieldy length he has honorably guarded you against them; of their proceedings against him, they wish to afpressing, indeed, severely upon my client with ford him the opportunity of this strange anomathe weight of his ability, but not with the glare lous defense. For, although I am neither his and trappings of his high office. counsel, nor desire to have any thing to do with his guilt or innocence; yet, in the collateral defense of my client, I am driven to state matter which may be considered by many as hostile to the impeachment. For if our dependencies have been secured, and their interests promoted, I am driven, in the defense of my client, to remark, that it is mad and preposterous to bring to the standard of justice and humanity the exercise of a dominion founded upon violence and terror. It may and must be true that Mr. Hastings has repeat edly offended against the rights and privileges of Asiatic government, if he was the faithful deputy "The authentic statement of facts which has of a power which could not maintain itself for ai Leen given, and the arguments which have been hour without trampling upon both. He may and employed, are, I think, sufficient to vindicate the must have offended against the laws of God and character and conduct of Mr. Hastings, even on nature, if he was the faithful viceroy of an em the maxims of European policy. When he was pire wrested in blood from the people to whom appointed Governor General of Bengal, he was God and nature had given it. He may and must invested with a discretionary power to promote have preserved that unjust dominion over timor the interests of the India Company, and of the ous and abject nations by a terrifying, overbear. British empire in that quarter of the globe. The ing, insulting superiority, if he was the faithful general instructions sent to him from his constit- administrator of your government, which, having uents were,' That in all your deliberations and no root in consent or affection-no foundation in resolutions, you make the safety and prosperity similarity of interests-no support from any one of Bengal your principal object, and fix your at- principle which cements men together in society, tention on the security of the possessions and rev- could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and enues of the company.' His superior genius force. The unhappy people of India, feeble and sometimes acted in the spirit, rather than com- effeminate as they are from the softness of their plied with the letter of the law; but he discharged climate, and subdued and broken as they have the trust, and preserved the empire committed to been by the knavery and strength of civilization, his care, in the same way, and with greater still occasionally start up in all the vigor and insplendor and success than any of his predecessors telligence of insulted nature. To be governed in office; his departure from India was marked at all, they must be governed with a rod of iron; with the lamentations of the natives and the grat- and our empire in the East would, long since, itude of his countrymen; and, on his return to have been lost to Great Britain, if civil skill and England, he received the cordial congratulations military prowess had not united their efforts to of that numerous and respectable society, whose support an authority-which Heaven never gave interests he had promoted, and whose dominions-by means which it never can sanction."1 he had protected and extended."

Gentlemen of the jury-if this be a willfully 11 Mr. Hastings was unquestionably guilty of nearCollateral defense false account of the instructions giv-ly all the acts charged upon him by Mr. Burke. Still it was feit by the court, and at last by the public at

of Mr. Hastings.

en to Mr. Hastings for his government, and of his conduct under them, the author large, that great allowance ought to be made for him when it was remembered that he completely restor and publisher of this defense deserves the sever-ed the finances of the country, which he found in the est punishment, for a mercenary inposition on the public. But if it be true that he was directed to make the safety and prosperity of Bengal

utmost disorder; that he established the British empire in India on a firm basis, at a time when, under a less energetic government than his own, it would