with accusations and impeachments. But none | spoiler, with tears and imprecations. It was not 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 no longer an object of your attention. of the case of 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 possibility of answers to such questions; I am only vindicating the right to ask them. 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 not believe such a letter from Lord Cornwallis ever existed? No: for he knows that it is as 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 destruction of nations, it is not open to any one to ask, Who are his accusers? What are the sour-authentic as any document from India upon the ces and the authorities of these shocking com- table of the House of Commons. What, then, plaints? Where are the embassadors or memo- is the letter? "The native inhabitants of this rials of those princes whose revenues he has kingdom, says Lord Cornwallis (writing from the plundered? Where are the witnesses for those very spot), are the happiest and best protected unhappy men in whose persons the rights of hu- subjects in India," &c., &c., &c. The inhabitants manity have been violated? How deeply buried of this kingdom! Of what kingdom? Of the is the blood of the innocent, that it does not rise very kingdom which Mr. Hastings has just reup in retributive judgment to confound the guilty! turned from governing for thirteen years, and for These, surely, are questions which, when a fel- the misgovernment and desolation of which he low-citizen is upon a long, painful, and expensive stands every day as a criminal, or rather as a trial, humanity has a right to propose; which the spectacle, before us. This is matter for serious plain sense of the most unlettered man may be reflection, and fully entitles the author to put the expected to dictate, and which all history must question which immediately follows: "Does this provoke from the more enlightened. When Cic-authentic account of the administration of Mr. ERO impeached VERRES 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 Forum, 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. 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 | 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?" the rank of Zemindar. About four years after the death of Bulwart Sing, the Governor General and council of Bengal obtained the sovereignty paramount of the province of Benares. On the transfer of this sovereignty the governor and council proposed a new grant to Cheyte Sing. confirming his former privileges, and conferring upon him the addition of the sovereign rights of This passage, which is charged as a libel on the Mint, and the powers of criminal justice with the Commons, when thus compared with its im- regard to life and death. He was then recog mediate antecedent, can bear but one construc-nized by the Company as one of their Zemindars: tion. It is impossible to contend that it charges misrepresentation on the House that found the impeachment, but upon the Committee of Secrecy just before adverted to, who were supposed to have selected the matter, and brought it before the whole House for judgment. I do not mean, as I have often told you, to vindicate any calumny on that honorable committee, or upon any individual of it, any more than upon the Commons at large; BUT THE DEFENDANT IS NOT CHARGED BY THIS INFORMATION WITH ANY SUCH OFFENSES. Let me here pause once more to ask you, whether the book in its genuine state, as far as we have advanced in it, makes the same impression on your minds now as when it was first read to you in detached passages; and whether, if I were to tear off the first part of it which I hold in my hand, and give it to you as an entire work, the first and last passages, which have been selected as libels on the Commons, would now appear to be so, when blended with the interjacent parts? I do not ask your answer; I shall have it in your verdict. The question is only put to direct your attention in pursuing the remainder of the volume to this main point-IS IT AN HONEST, SERIOUS DEFENSE? For this purpose, and as an example for all others, I will read the author's entire answer to the first article of charge concerning Cheyte Sing, the Zemindar of Benares, and leave it to your impartial judgments to determine whether it be a mere cloak and cover for the slander imputed by the information to the concluding sentence of it, which is the only part attacked; or whether, on the contrary, that conclusion itself, when embodied with what goes before it, does not stand explained and justified? The first article of impeachment," continues Case of our author, "is concerning Cheyte Cheyte Sing Sing, the Zemindar of Benares. Bulwart Sing, the father of this Rajah, was merely an aumil, or farmer and collector of the revenues for Sujah ul Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, and Vizier of the Mogul empire. When, on the decease of his father, Cheyte Sing was confirmed in the office of collector for the Vizier, he paid £200,000 as a gift, or nuzzeranah, and an additional rent of £30,000 per annum." "As the father was no more than an aumil [agent], the son succeeded only to his rights and pretensions. But by a sunnud [decree] granted to him by the Nabob Sujah Dowlah in September, 1773, through the influence of Mr. Hastings, he acquired a legal title to property in the land, and was raised from the office of aumil to a tributary subject, or feudatory vassal, of the British empire in Hindostan. The feudal system, which was formerly supposed to be peculiar to our Gothic ancestors, has always prevailed in the East. In every description of that form of gov ernment, notwithstanding, accidental variations, there are two associations expressed or understood; one for internal security, the other for ex ternal defense. The King or Nabob confers protection on the feudatory baron as tributary prince, on condition of an annual revenue in the time of peace, and of military service, partly commutable for money, in the time of war. The feudal incidents in the Middle Ages in Europe, the fine paid to the superior on marriage, wardship, relief, &c., correspond to the annual tribute in Asia. Military service in war, and extraordinary aids in the event of extraordinary emergencies, were common to both." On "When the Governor General of Bengal, in 1778, made an extraordinary demand on the Zemindar of Benares for five lacks of rupees, the British empire, in that part of the world, was surrounded with enemies which threatened its destruction, In 1779, a general confederacy was formed among the great powers of Hindostan for the expulsion of the English from their Asiatic dominions. At this crisis the expectation of a French armament augmented the general calamities of the country. Mr. Hastings is charged by the committee with making his first demand under the false pretense that hostilities had commenced with France. Such an insidious attempt to pervert a meritorious action into a crime is new, even in the history of impeachments. the 7th of July, 1778, Mr. Hastings received private intelligence from an English merchant at Cairo, that war had been declared by Great Britain on the 23d of March, and by France on the 30th of April. Upon this intelligence, considered as authentic, it was determined to attack all the French settlements in India. The information was afterward found to be premature; but in the latter end of August a secret dispatch was received from England, authorizing and appointing Mr. Hastings to take the measures which he had already adopted in the preceding month. The Directors and the Board of Control have expressed their approbation of this transaction by liberally rewarding Mr. Baldwyn, the merchant, for sending the earliest intelligence he could procure to Bengal. It was two days after Mr. Hastings's information of the French war, that he formed the resolution of exacting the five lacks of rupees from Cheyte Sing, and would have made similar exactions from all the depend- | who is brought to what he thinks a just conciaencies of the company in India, had they been sion in argument, which, perhaps, becomes offensin the same circumstances. The fact is, that ive in proportion to its truth. Truth is undoubtthe great Zemindars of Bengal pay as much to edly no warrant for writing what is reproachful government as their lands can afford. Cheyte of any private man. If a member of society lives Sing's collections were above fifty lacks, and his within the law, then, if he offends, it is against rent not twenty-four." 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 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. "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 Ze-course of a legal and bona fide publication, to mindar, 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 First, was not the conduct of the right honorsubsequent step of his conduct. In the whole able gentleman, whose name is here mentioned, of his proceedings, it is manifest that he had not exactly what it is represented? Will the Atearly formed a design hostile to the Zemindar, torney General, who was present in the House but was regulated by events which he could of Commons, say that it was not? Did not the neither foresee nor control. When the necessa- | minister vindicate Mr. Hastings in what he had ry 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." 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, Here follows the concluding passage, which which, regarding Mr. Pitt only, is foreign to our is arraigned by the information: 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 mere and never known to the offending party, charac-ly in the abstract, and not meaning to decide terizes a tribunal of inquisition rather than a court of Parliament." Gentlemen, I am ready to admit that this sentiment 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 bluntness with which he may happen to express it. It is obviously the language of a warm man, engaged in the honest defense of his friend, and upon the merits of Mr. Hastings's cause, that an impeachment for an error in judgment is contrary to the whole spirit of English criminal justice, which, though not binding on the House of Commons, 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, his 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, in the particular instance, acted from corruption or from zeal for his employers, is what I have nothing to do with; it ment ought 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 lan-is to be decided in judgment; my duty stops with guage 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, how ever 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 inform ation, 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 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. so many pages, without even the imputation of an He aft 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 mind 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 book. 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 but a tribute of common justice to the Attorney General (and which my personal regard for him makes it more pleasant to pay), that none of my commentaries reflect in the most distant manner upon him; nor upon the Solicitor for the Crown, who sits near me, who is a person of the most correct honor; far from it. The Attorney General having orders to prosecute, in consequence of the address of the House to his Majesty, had no choice in the mode-no means at all of keeping the prosecutors before you in countenance, but by the course which has been pursued. But so far has he been from enlisting into the cause those prejudices, which it is not difficult to slide into a business originating from such exalted authority, he has honorably guarded you against them; pressing, indeed, severely upon my client with the weight of his ability, but not with the glare and trappings of his high office. the first object of his attention, and that, under his administration, it has been safe and prosperous; if it be true that the security and preservation of our possessions and revenues in Asia were marked out to him as the great leading principle of his government, and that those possessions and revenues, amid unexampled dangers, have been secured and preserved; then a question may be unaccountably mixed with your consideration, much beyond the consequence of the present prosecution, involving, perhaps, the merit of the impeachment itself which gave it birth—a question which the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr. Hastings, should, in common prudence, have avoided; unless, regretting the unwieldy length of their proceedings against him, they wish to afford him the opportunity of this strange anomalous defense. For, although I am neither his counsel, nor desire to have any thing to do with Gentlemen, I wish that my strength would en- his guilt or innocence; yet, in the collateral deable me to convince you of the author's single-fense of my client, I am driven to state matter ness of intention, and of the merit and ability of which may be considered by many as hostile to his work, by reading the whole that remains of the impeachment. For if our dependencies have But my voice is already nearly exhausted; been secured, and their interests promoted, I am I am sorry my client should be a sufferer by my driven, in the defense of my client, to remark, that infirmity. One passage, however, is too striking it is mad and preposterous to bring to the standand important to be passed over; the rest I mustard of justice and humanity the exercise of a dotrust 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: it. "The authentic statement of facts which has been given, and the arguments which have been employed, are, I think, sufficient to vindicate the character and conduct of Mr. Hastings, even on the maxims of European policy. When he was appointed Governor General of Bengal, he was invested with a discretionary power to promote the interests of the India Company, and of the British empire in that quarter of the globe. The general instructions sent to him from his constituents were,That in all your deliberations and resolutions, you make the safety and prosperity of Bengal your principal object, and fix your attention on the security of the possessions and revenues of the company.' His superior genius sometimes acted in the spirit, rather than complied with the letter of the law; but he discharged the trust, and preserved the empire committed to Lis care, in the same way, and with greater splendor and success than any of his predecessors in office; his departure from India was marked with the lamentations of the natives and the gratitude of his countrymen; and, on his return to England, he received the cordial congratulations of that numerous and respectable society, whose interests he had promoted, and whose dominions he had protected and extended.” minion founded upon violence and terror. It may To be governed Gentlemen of the jury-if this be a willfully 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 of Mr. Hastings. it was felt by the court, and at last by the public at 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 restorand publisher of this defense deserves the severed the finances of the country, which he found in the est punishment, for a mercenary imposition on utmost disorder; that he established the British emthe public. But if it be true that he was direct-pire in India on a firm basis, at a time when, under ed to make the safety and prosperity of Bengal | a less energetic government than his own, it would |