If (faid this eloquent speaker) the mind of Mr. Hastings were fufceptible of superstition, he might image the proud spirit of Sujah ul Dowla looking down upon the ruin and devastation of his family; beholding the palace which he had adorned with the spoils of the devoted Rohillas, plundered by his base and perfidious ally; and viewing the man whom on his death-bed he had constituted the guardian of his wife, his mother, and his family, forcibly expofing those dear relations, the objects of his folemn trust, to the rigor of the merciless seasons, or the violence of the more merciless foldiery. - Such were the awful dispensations of retributive justice! It was not given to that house to witness the tremulous joys of the millions whom the vote of that night would fave from the cruelty of corrupted power. But the bleffings of the people thus delivered, would not be diffipated in empty air. No; they would lift up their prayers to heaven in gratitude to the power, which, by stretching its mighty arm across the deep, had faved them from ruin and destruction."

On this occafion Mr. Pitt acted a part which did him great honor. Though the eloquence of Mr. Sheridan had excited a spirit of enthusiasm in the house, which perhaps no degree of minifterial influence could have counteracted, it would be highly invidious and unjust to attribute the decided conduct of Mr. Pitt on this memorable

night to the apprehenfion of being left in a minority by an attempt to negative the motion. On the contrary, he appeared penetrated with a perfect conviction of the atrocity of the facts, and of the strength of the evidence by which they were fupported, And the minister, who in the comparatively infignificant business of an election return could fo far degrade himself as to countenance, and even publicly to vindicate, an act of deliberate injuftice, now felt all the sympathies of humanity, all the energies of virtue, awakened in his breast, and impelling him him to testify, in terms the most explicit and expressive, his detestation of perfidy so vile, of cruelty so remorseless. On a divifion the numbers were, in favor of the motion 175, against it 68.

On the 2d of March Mr. Pelham opened the charge relative to the Nabob of Ferruckabad, which was affirmed by 112 against 50 voices.

On the 15th of March the charge upon the fubject of contracts was brought forward by fir James Erskine. " All of them," fir James Erfkine observed, " were made in direct violation of the regulations of the court of directors, that the contracts should be given from year to year, that they should be publicly advertised, and be difpofed of to the best bidder.' The contract for rice was avowedly given to Mr. Auriol, as ' a reward for his long and faithful services.' Of his expenditure no vouchers were required, but the accounts were to be given in upon honor. This mode of paffing accounts was (the honorrable mover observed) peculiar to India, as indeed honor there was of a peculiar nature. It dreaded the production of proofs, had an intuitive abhorrence of being confronted with truth, and shrunk like the sensitive plant from the touch of enquiry. The opium contract Mr. Sullivan son to the chairman of the India company, had immediately SOLD for a clear profit of fifty-two thoufand pounds. Another contract had been given to Mr. Archibald Frafer, the near relation of fir Elijah Impey, who had thought it neceffary to dispatch affidavits to England for the purpose of clearing himself from the suspicion of participating in the profits accruing from it. These affidavits (fir James said) were the pastoral essays of the learned judge, his songs in ripas et flumina, the forerunners only of those epic attestations, the pralia et reges, by which he had commemorated the wars of Benares and the rebellion of Oude." On this article the divifion was, ayes 60, noes 26.

Upon Upon the 23d of March the charge relative to Fyzoola Khan was brought forward by Mr. Windham. This was carried on a division of 96 against 37 voices.

On the 2d of April Mr. Sheridan opened to the house the charge upon the subject of presents: upon which occafion he observed, " that the late governor general had, in every part of his conduct, exhibited proofs of a wild, eccentric, and irregular mind. He had been every thing by starts, and nothing long-now high and lofty, now mean and infidious-now artful and temporifing, now rigid and inflexible-in pride, in paffion, in all things changeable except in corruption. His revenge was a tempest, a tornado blackening the horizon, and involving all within the sphere of its influence in one common deftruction. 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 fame port in one certain direction." Upon a division, the numbers appeared, ayes 165, noes 54.

On the 19th of April the charge respecting the revenues was opened by Mr. Francis, who had formerly occupied with fo much honor to himself, but so unavailingly as to the public, the office of member of the fupreme council in India, and who had recently taken his feat as a member of the house of commons. This charge was of a very important and interesting nature; and Mr. Francis entered into a most able and elaborate difcuffion of it. He shewed, from the very nature of their tenure, " that the Zemindars were not mere collectors of the revenue, as they had been artfully represented by Mr. Hastings, but real land-holders poffeffing a permanent, divisible, and hereditary property, descending even to women. He enumerated the different modes of managing the revenues of Bengal, adopted by Mr. Hastings in the course of thirteen years.

"The object of Mr. Hastings, he faid, was

to avoid coming to a fixed settlement, for then there must

be

be an end of peculation. At the time of his acceffion to the government the provinces had not perfectly recovered the effects of the dreadful famine which had taken place in Bengal at a very recent period; yet then did the committee of circuit, under the sanction of Mr. Hastings, raise the rents of the zemindaries to an unheard-of standard; and by the ensuing project of 1781, the whole landed property of the country was put up to a pretended auction; the proprietors were universally deprived of their estates, and banyans, cheats, and adventurers of all forts, put into poffeffion of their lands. Under this settlement Cantoo Baboo, Mr. Hastings's banyan, held farms to the amount of 135,000l. per annum. The directors had ordered the persons compofing the committee of circuit to be profecuted, but Mr. Hastings had ordered the profecution to be withdrawn. A committee of revenue was subsequently introduced under the influence of Gunga Govind Sing, a notorious and adroit villain, which completed the ruin of the country. When Mr. Hastings came into poffeffion of the Bengal government, he found it a fertile, populous, and profperous country; it contained a regular gradation of ranks like a pyramid, from a well-ordered yeomanry to fovereign princes: but these distinctions have been broken down-the whole nation has been pounded as it were by the oppreffion of the government into one mass-and the prince was no otherwise discoverable from the peasant than by the fuperiority of his fufferings, and the more pungent bitterness of his humiliations, Mr. Francis concluded in these remarkable words :-" my particular labor is now at an end. An unremitting perse-verance of thirteen years has at last conducted me to that ifssue which has been the object of all my efforts. Mr. Hastings must now be impeached-let him have a fair trial-I defire no more. In arriving at that object I have secured every personal purpose that I ever had in view; the reputation of fir John Clavering, colonel Monson, and myfelf, myself, is secure; your votes are my authority: the house of commons are my compurgators. The only victory I ever aimed at was to clear my character from foul afperfion, and to establish, as I trust I have done, the integrity of my conduct in the estimation of my country." This charge was confirmed, notwithstanding the unexpected diffent of the minister, by 71 to 55 voices.

On the 9th of May the report made by Mr. Burke from the committee, to whom it had been referred to prepare the articles of impeachment, was confirmed by the house, ayes 175, noes 89. On the following day it was voted that Mr. Hastings be IMPEACHED: and Mr. Burke accordingly, in the name of the house of commons, and of all the commons of Great Britain, repaired to the bar of the house of lords, and impeached Mr. Hastings of high crimes and mifdemeanors-at the fame time acquainted their lordships, that the commons would with all convenient speed exhibit articles against him, and make good the fame.

On the 14th another charge respecting misfdemeanors in Oude was added to the former by Mr. Burke, and voted without a divifion. On the fame day the articles actually prepared were fent to the lords; and on the 21st Mr. Haftings, being conducted to the bar of that house by the ferjeant at arms, was taken into the custody of the black rod, but on the motion of the lord chancellor was admitted to bail-himfelf in 20,000l. and two fureties, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Sumner, in 10,000l. each; and he was ordered to deliver in an answer to the articles of impeachment in one month from that time, or upon the second day of the next feffion of parliament.

On the 30th of May (1787) the king put an end to the present feffion by a speech, applauding "the measures taken by parliament respecting the reduction of the national debt, and the treaty of navigation and commerce with the most christian king. He spoke of the general tranquillity