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dangerous. The religious and moral sense of the people of Great Britain is the great anchor which alone can hold the vessel of the state amidst the storms which agitate the world; and if the mass of the people were debauched from the principles of religion, the true basis of that humanity, charity, and benevolence, which have been so long the national characteristic, instead of mixing myself, as I sometimes have done, in political reformations, I would retire to the uttermost corners of the earth, to avoid their agitation; and would bear, not only the imperfections and abuses complained of in our own wise establishment, but even the worst government that ever existed in the world, rather than go to the work of reformation with a multitude set free from all the charities of Christianity, who had no other sense of God's existence, than was to be collected from Mr. Paine's observations of nature, which the mass of mankind have no leisure to contemplate, which promises no future rewards to animate the good in the glorious pursuit of human happiness, nor punishments to deter the wicked from destroying it even in its birth. The people of England are a religious people, and, with the blessing of God, so far as it is in my power, I will lend my aid to keep them so.

I have no objections to the most extended and free discussions upon doctrinal points of the Christian religion; and though the law of England does not permit it, I do not dread the reasonings of deists against the existence of Christianity itself, because, as was said by its divine author, if it be of God, it will stand. An intellectual book, however erroneous, addressed to the intellectual world upon so profound and complicated a subject, can never work the mischief which this indictment is calculated to repress. Such works will only incite the minds of men enlightened by study, to a closer investigation of a subject well worthy of their deepest and continued contemplation. The powers of the mind are given for human improvement in the progress of human existence. The changes produced by such reciprocations of lights and intelligences are certain in their progression, and make their way imperceptibly, by the final and irresistible power of truth. If Christianity be founded in falsehood, let us become deists in this manner, and I am contented. But this book has no such object, and no such capacity; it presents no arguments to the wise and enlightened; on the con

trary, it treats the faith and opinions of the wisest with the most shocking contempt, and stirs up men, without the advantages of learning, or sober thinking, to a total disbelief of everything hitherto held sacred; and consequently to a rejection of all the laws and ordinances of the State, which stand only upon the assumption of their truth.

Gentlemen, I cannot conclude without expressing the deepest regret at all attacks upon the Christian religion by authors who profess to promote the civil liberties of the world. For under what other auspices than Christianity have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in former ages been reasserted? By what zeal, but the warm zeal of devout Christians, have English liberties been redeemed and consecrated? Under what other sanctions, even in our own days, have liberty and happiness been spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? What work of civilization, what Commonwealth of greatness, has this bald religion of nature ever established? We see, on the contrary, the nations that have no other light than that of nature to direct them, sunk in barbarism, or slaves to arbitrary governments; whilst under the Christian dispensation, the great career of the world has been slowly but clearly advancing, lighter at every step from the encouraging prophecies of the gospel, and leading, I trust, in the end to universal and eternal happiness. Each generation of mankind can see but a few revolving links of this mighty and mysterious chain; but by doing our several duties in our allotted stations, we are sure that we are fulfilling the purposes of our existence. You, I trust, will fulfil yours this day.

SPEECH AT THE TRIAL OF WARREN

HASTINGS

BY

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

1751-1816

The marvellous breadth of human nature could hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that two such man as Burke and Sheridan were contemporaries. Both were Irishmen, born in Dublin, both orators and members of the Whig party, associated in Parliament; and both were orators of the very highest calibre and genius; and yet no two men could well have been more different in all that goes to make character. Sheridan was more the typical Celt than Burke; he overflowed with the purest wit and humor, and was gifted with the wider variety of talent. But he had, what not all Irishmen possess, extraordinary powers of application and sustained diligence, and the faculty not merely of imagining great things, but of doing them. He had already lived one life and achieved a national reputation, before he entered politics; yet a political career had always been his prime ambition; and after he had conquered the stage and made a fortune from it, he turned to Parliament as the consummation of his hopes. For a time, fortune seemed disposed to deny him the high place he coveted here; the very renown which he gathered elsewhere stood in his way; but he was not the man to be defeated by a first rebuff; he only applied himself more persistently to his task, and presently his hour of triumph came, and it was as complete as he could have desired.

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Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was born in 1751, got his education at Harrow School, married a pretty singer, and settled in London in 1773. Within seven years he had written all his incomparable plays, making him the first dramatist of the age. Among them are "The Rivals," "The Critic," and the School for Scandal." In 1780 he entered Parliament as Whig member for Stafford; four years later he had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Secretary of the Treasury; and in 1787, at the trial of Warren Hastings, he had put the cap-stone to the edifice of his renown by delivering that speech, of which Burke declared that it was the most astonishing effort of eloquence of which there is any record or tradition. Sheridan was then thirty-six years old, and had been in London fourteen years.

In fact he was a man who could not fail. His literary training had given that appreciation of the force and value of words-that discrimination and felicity in their employment, and that wealth and readiness of resource which formed the most available foundation for the superstructure of eloquence. For the latter he prepared himself studiously; but he was vitally helped by a natural gift of insight into character; by his abounding humor; by his wit; and by a natural shrewdness and manly good sense, which recommended him to the solid intelligence of Englishmen.

It is obvious that such a man as Sheridan, with his eye, his voice, his manner, his vivacity and dramatic power, must depend for much of the wonderful effects he produced upon his actual appearance and movements before his audience. By allowing our imagination to come to the aid of our intelligence, however, we may form an approximate notion, from the published report of the speech delivered at Warren Hastings's trial, of what the reality must have been; we can see the noble hall, the vast audience, composed of the foremost men of England, the accused, himself a man of matchless ability; and above all, the brilliant, graceful figure of the marvellous Irishman, filling the eye and ear, master of laughter and of tears, making the heart leap in the bosom, and compelling the pride of intellect to acknowledge him its lord.

SPEECH AT THE TRIAL OF WARREN

M

HASTINGS

Y LORDS: I shall not waste your lordships' time nor my own by any preliminary observations on the importance of the subject before you, or on the propriety of our bringing it in this solemn manner to a final decision.1 My honorable friend [Mr. Burke], the principal mover of the impeachment, has already executed the task in a way the most masterly and impressive. He, whose indignant and enterprising genius, roused by the calls of public justice, has, with unprecedented labor, perseverance, and eloquence, excited one branch of the legislature to the vindication of our national character, and through whose means the House of Commons now makes this embodied stand in favor of man against man's iniquity, need hardly be followed on the general grounds of the prosecution.

Confiding in the dignity, the liberality, and intelligence of the tribunal before which I now have the honor to appear in my delegated capacity of a manager, I do not, indeed, conceive it necessary to engage your lordships' attention for a single moment with any introductory animadversions. But there is one point which here presents itself that it becomes me not to overlook. Insinuations have been thrown out that my honorable colleagues and myself are actuated by motives of malignity against the unfortunate prisoner at the bar. An imputation of so serious a nature cannot be permitted to pass altogether without comment; though it comes in so loose a shape, in such whispers and oblique hints as to prove to a certainty that it was made in the consciousness, and, therefore, with the circumspection of falsehood.

I can, my lords, most confidently aver, that a prosecution more

This speech was delivered before the House of Lords, sitting as a High Court of Parliament, June, 1788.

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