if they had felt a scruple, in point of honour, on this subject, they would never have expressed it to me, or that they would have acted with me, if I had known and disregarded their opinion?

Thirteen years are now elapsed since I first was connected in office with Mr. Hastings. Six of them were wasted in India in perpetual contest with him. Seven years ago, I left him there in possession of absolute power. In all that time no charges have been produced against me. Yet I think it cannot be said that I have been particularly cautious not to provoke hostility, or that there is no disposition any where to accuse me. Surely, Sir, if accusation is ever to come, It is high time it should appear. If now, or at any other period, I should be obliged to change place with Mr. Hastings; if hereafter it should be my lot to be accused, I shall assuredly never object to his being my prosecutor; for, though by removing a powerful, a well-informed, and, in the sense of the present argument, an inveterate accuser, I might provide for my safety, my honour would be lost. Let those gentlemen who are trusted with the care of Mr. Hastings's honour consider what they are doing.

Mr. Hastings? What in the character of evidence only? Would that have been a part to which no enmity, no malice could have been imputed. Would it have been honourable in me to stand aloof or hide myself, while in fact I supplied the information, while I furnished the materials, and prompted the prosecution? or, am I thought to have acted dishonourably, because I declared myself the public responsible accuser of Mr. Hastings? because I avowed my principles, because I stood forward in the charge, and hazarded all those consequences of obloquy, retaliation, and revenge, which a public prosecutor must encounter, but which a secret, skulking accuser may very easily avoid? These are questions, I trust, which answer themselves in the mind of every man of honour. Sir, I do not mean to say, that the circumstance of my having had a duel with Mr. Hastings never occurred to me as an objection, which possibly might have weight with others, though it appeared to me of no consequence. It did certainly occur to me as a doubt, on which I ought not to trust entirely to my own judgment. But, the honourable person whom I consulted is no more, and for that reason I have been hitherto tender of mentioning his name. They who knew sir William Draper, I am sure will acknowledge that there could not be a stricter and more scrupulous judge of points of honour than he was. If it were possible to produce the opinion he gave me, in approbation of the conduct I have pursued, I should look no farther. But there is an authority to the same effect, which I am able to produce, and which, though negative in its form, I doubt not will be deemed equivalent to any positive opinion whatever. I have now been engaged above two years in constant intercourse and connexion with twenty gentlemen of the first character in this kingdom, and in constant conversation with them on the subject of this impeachment; I mean particularly the gentlemen who compose the present committee, as well as many others. I appeal to their testimony, I appeal specially to the hon. general officer near me (General Burgoyne), whose opinion, I believe, will be allowed to be authority, not only to me, but to the world. Did any of these gentlemen ever directly, or indirectly, signify to me a doubt about the propriety of my conduct? If they did, I call upon them now to de: clare it. Is it a thing to be believed, that [VOL. XXVI.]

I beg of gentlemen to observe, that in the present question I am nothing but a passive instrument at the disposal of the House. If they think fit to employ me, I shall endeavour to execute their commands with industry and vigour; if not, I shall consider it as the happiest period at which I could receive my dismission, and rejoice in the liberty, to which it will restore me, of turning my thoughts to some other object, of applying my faculties to some other occupation. That I should ever be engaged in another service, so laborious, so invidious, and so unprofitable, as this has been, I am sure is impossible.

Mr. Francis left the House as soon as he finished his speech.

Mr. Dundas said, that when he had voted for the appointment of Mr. Francis to be one of the committee of impeachment, he did conceive himself pledged to vote for him as one of the managers for conducting it; and he had yet heard no reason to induce him to alter his intention. The question of feeling, he confessed, did not strike him so strongly as it had some of his friends. As to the character of Mr. Francis, he did not think it necessary to say any thing on the subject; he only knew it from public records.

[4 Q]

General Burgoyne rose to bear testimony to the manly conduct and character of Mr. Francis, which he knew to be regulated by the most scrupulous regard to honour in every action of his life. Major Scott said, I should not have risen on the present occasion, had I not been called upon so particularly by an hon. gentleman, who I am very sorry not now to see in his place; but as Mr. Francis has appealed to me, either to verify or contradict what he asserted, in justice to him, therefore, I rise, and I hope to deliver what I have to say in the same calm and temperate manner that Mr. Francis spoke; trusting that some of his friends will state fairly to him what I shall say. It was not ten days, but in three or four after his arrival, that violent disputes broke out in the Council of Bengal. These disputes continued unremittedly until December 1779, some time after Čol. Monson and General Clavering had died. They were carried on apparently upon public grounds; nor do I know that Mr. Francis and Mr. Hastings had to that time a private difference. In the latter end of December 1779, a gentleman well known to have been upon the most intimate terms with Mr. Francis, and a particular acquaintance of mine, had a long conversation with me on the state of public affairs. He lamented to me that two men of such abilities as Mr. Hastings and Mr. Francis should continue at variance-said that it would be of infinite importance to the public service if they could agree, and in these sentiments I very sincerely joined him. I was at that time aid-de-camp to Mr. Hastings; and not conceiving the conversation to be a matter of accident, I communicated it to Mr. Hastings the next morning, but not being of consequence enough to form a pacification, as Mr. Francis calls it, or a coalition, as I term it, the negociation, by some_means or other, transpired to sir John Day, then the Advocate-general in Bengal, and ended in an agreement in February, 1780. By that agreement certainly there was a termination of all former differences, for, though each might retain their own sentiments, enmity was at an end. In July, 1780, Mr. Hastings publicly, in a minute at the Council Board, accused Mr. Francis of having forfeited the faith which he had pledged to him; and this in such strong language, that a duel was the consequence, and the result we all know. Let me now put the case home to the feelings of every

gentleman in the House. The right hon. gentleman who made the motion of this day, and a right hon. gentleman (Mr. Burke), have both pledged themselves in the most solemn manner, to bring a noble lord (North) to the block. God forbid that such an event should ever happen! I lament sincerely the unfortunate state of! the noble lord's health, and his absence from the House; but admitting for a moment, that after the coalition which did take place between these right hon. gentlemen and the noble lord, a quarrel had happened, and losing the benefit of their support, the noble lord had been impeached: if the House had thought ever so highly of the justice of the impeachment, they would have been shocked at the idea of appointing those two gentlemen to be managers, after a coalition had taken place, which necessarily implied an oblivion of all former causes of difference. Mr. Francis, after he had recovered from his wound, came home; but here he has not given his history faithfully. I know he was bound to give true evidence to the Select Committee when called upon; but was he bound by a sense of duty to calumniate Mr. Hastings, to abuse him in anonymous pamphlets, to circulate those pamphlets under blank cover to noble lords who must be the judges of Mr. Hastings? These are not the acts of a man who is impelled merely by a love of public justice. As to myself, I declare, upon my honour, that when the motion was made last year to negative Mr. Francis, I was not privy to it, nor was I to the motion of Wednesday last; but being made, I voted for it, because I deem Mr. Francis to be an improper person to be in any situation in which Mr. Hastings is concerned. But I fear not Mr. Francis in any situation. I do not dread his abilities at the bar of the House, or elsewhere;— but when a question was put without my previous knowledge or concurrence, I deemed it an act of strict propriety to support it.

Mr. Burke said, that he could not let the question come to a vote without expressing the indignation he felt at the very extraordinary conduct of the gentlemen on the other side of the House, in the part they had taken in the debate of that day. Instead of fairly meeting the argument, and candidly giving their reasons for opposing the nomination of his hon. friend, they had taken a new ground, and introduced into the senate the lan

"Committee Room, House of Commons, December, 18, 1787. House which prevents us from resorting to "Sir; There is nothing in the orders of the your assistance; and we should show very little regard to our honour, to our duty, or to the effectual execution of our trust, if we omitted any means that are left in our power to obtain the most beneficial use of it.

guage of the toilette and the drawing room. Was it fit and becoming in any member of that House on a great and im*portant public question to say, that his feelings were so much hurt that he felt himself compelled to abandon investigation and argument that he might not i violate his delicacy? What was delicacy? -it was a term to which no definite idea had been found; at best it was but a superadded flower to virtue-it was but the ruffle of the shirt-but here the shirt I was laid aside, and the ruffle only remained. Delicacy and feeling might be very proper terms of speech to express the sensations felt in consequence of the exertions of an opera singer, or a performer on the violin and German flute; but was it fitting that the solemnity and dignity of parliamentary deliberation should be insulted by such unmeaning nonsense? In spite of all the respect which he entertained for the splendid abilities of those with whom he acted, he could not avoid declaring, that the assistance of his hon. friend was essentially necessary to enable the House of Commons to make good several of the most impor tant charges in their impeachment. That relative to the revenue was not the only one which stood in need of his aid. Mr. Hastings, in his answer, had alleged, that to those who were acquainted with the local customs and prejudices of the East, it would be easy to account for many parts of his conduct in the administration of his government, which, perhaps, might incur the censure of those who were ignorant of oriental manners and customs. Was it not therefore necessary that, in the Committee, there should be some person to whom they could appeal for information on this subject? If there was not, they must either abandon the charge altogether, or they must tell the House of Lords, that they could not establish the fact, as their feelings had deprived them of the assistance of a gentleman, who was perfectly qualified to give the necessary information.-Adverting to the quarrel between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Francis, Mr. Burke condemned the former for having, with all the interference of a brothel-brawl and the intoxication of a tavern, stained the minutes of the council, of which he was the head, with a personal challenge; nor was he satisfied till he had four or five ounces of his best lead lodged in Mr. Francis's body. Mr. Burke declared, that though he had exhausted in

"An exact local knowledge of the affairs of Bengal is requisite in every step of our proceedshould come from sources not only competent, ings; and it is necessary that our information but unsuspected. We have perused, as our duty has often led us to do, with great attention, the records of the Company, during the time in which you executed the important office committed to you by Parliament, and our good opinion of has you grown in exact proportion to the minuteness and accuracy of our researches. We have found that, as far as your arduous delegation. An exact obedience in you lay, you fully answered the ends of to the authority placed over you by the laws of your country, wise and steady principles of government, an inflexible integrity in yourself, and a firm resistance to all corrupt practice in others-crowned by a uniform benevolent attention to the rights, properties, and welfare of the natives (the grand leading ob throughout those records. Such a conduct, ject in your appointment) appear eminently so tried, acknowledged, and recorded, demands our fullest confidence.

"These, Sir, are the qualities, and this is the conduct on your part, on which we ground our wishes for your assistance. On what we are to ground our right to make any demand upon you, we are more at a loss to suggest. in the public exigencies, and in your public Our sole titles, we are sensible, are to be found spirit. Permit us, Sir, to call for this farther service in the name of the people of India, for whom your parental care has been so long distinguished, and in support of whose cause

Proceedings on the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey.] Dec. 12. In pursuance of his notice,

Sir Gilbert Elliot rose and said, that he lamented that the first time in which he had occasion to call the attention of the House of Commons in the present Parliament, he should stand in the unpopular and disagreeable character of an accuser. Those who knew him best, and who were acquainted with the complexion of his mind, and its habits, would be able to estimate the discomfort that he felt under such a predicament, and at the same time would he trusted, do him the honour to bear testimony to his heart, that such a task was highly incompatible with his natural feelings, and directly contrary to his common conduct. Instead of standing up there as the accuser of any man to gratify his natural disposition, he could have wished that it had fallen to his lot to appeal to the House in favour of distinguished merit, and to call on their gratitude and justice for rewards of services honourably performed.

servant, whose pride had stretched his power into tyranny, and whose avarice had perverted his trust into plunder. He begged of gentlemen to consider, that if he that day stood up to accuse one person of high crimes and misdemeanors, he at the same moment presented himself in the character of an advocate for oppressed millions; and they would consider also, that in redressing the grievances of nations, in preserving the weak against the violence and the rapine of the strong; in administering justice with integrity themselves, and in taking care that it should be administered by others, consisted the grandest and most enviable distinctions of a powerful and enlightened senate.

That the House of Commons had manifested their honourable determination that every subject of the extended empire of Britain should partake of the purity of its system, as to the protection and equality of its laws; and that no officer, however highly endowed with power, should dare to outrage his fellow subjects by acts of turpitude and cruelty, was a truth which cheered and supported him in the arduous undertaking which he had assumed; and it gave him much confidence and comfort, that the highest authorities in that House had shown, that they were disposed to

of the House. He undoubtedly had need of much indulgence. It might be said, that he had not been able to avail himself of any particular opportunities of seeing the transactions in India. He certainly for several years past, the principal part of had not seen them with his own eyes; but his time and labour had been devoted to the study and contemplation of the affairs of India; and he did not hesitate to say, that poor as his abilities were, unfortunate as it was for the task that had fallen to his hand, he was convinced that if the House would enter on the inquiry, they would find that the person whom he had accused had been guilty of the most scandalous enormities; that many millions of people to whom he had been sent to administer law had been oppressed and plundered under its colour; that being sent with the power of making them know and feel the blessings of the pure and equitable system which the legislature of England had in its wisdom and benevolence devised for their protection, he had perverted it to the most scandalous purposes of tyranny; that thus he had alienated