members, as well as of the greatest good | to the community. He knew that the bar of England, distinguished as it was for purity and honour, felt becoming indignation at the enormities committed by the person whom he now arraigned. Participating in their feelings, and equally solicitous of the vindication of the bar, he felt it so much the more his duty, by the condign prosecution of this unworthy man, to justify a profession to which he had once the honour to belong. Sir Gilbert next observed, that he had taken pains to arrange and prepare for the inspection of the House the whole subject matter of the complaint which he intended to make against sir Elijah, and that it was detailed in papers which he held in his hand. He thought it more adviseable for him to give in this complaint in writing, and to move that the papers should be submitted to a committee, than to trust to any brief and imperfect statement which he might be able, as a part of his speech, to make from them. The weight of the charges depended so much on the detail of the functions of the court, and of the evident motives by which sir Elijah was influenced, and they were in their connexion so related and dependant on each other, that much of their strength would be lost by the few extracts that might be made by him; nor was it necessary in that stage to instance the particular enormities which constituted the foundation of the charges. That House had been so accustomed to hear and to speak on these topics, that they were not new to them, and it was by no means his wish to influence them by needless appeals to their humanity. The time would come when the crimes of this man must awaken every abhorrent feeling of our hearts. Meanwhile he would only state, That his first charge related to the melancholy case of the rajah Nundcomar. The next was, that which was known by the name of the Patna Cause. The third respected the unaccountable extension of the jurisdiction of the Court. The next was the Cossijurah Cause. The next respected the acceptance of the office, known by the name of the Sudder Duannee Adaulet, with an enormous salary annexed, in direct disobedience to the act by which he held the place of supreme judge; and the last was founded on the affidavits which he took at Lucknow, and the scandalous prostitution of his high authority in that instance. From these the House would perceive that the charges were heavy indeed. They would see that by the first, he accused sir Elijah Impey of wilful and deliberate murder, committed on the body of a rajah, in direct violation of the laws of his country. In doing this he certainly did not mean to subject him to the trial prescribed by the laws for that crime, but to point it out as a part of the impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. By the other charges he accused him of gross corruption, of positive injustice, of direct disobedience, of intentional violation of the acts under which he held his powers; and in the last of having suborned evidence, and given to falsehood the sanctity of an affidavit. Falsehood in the adminis tration of an oath by a judge, was like blasphemy in the mouth of a churchman, and was of a quality so heinous and offensive as to call for the most exemplary correction. Having thus briefly enumerated the mere heads of his articles of charge, he would not take up for a moment the time of the House. The papers might be submitted to a committee who would be able immediately, or soon after the recess, to make their report; and in the mean time he should conclude with moving, "That his complaint against sir Elijah Impey, knt., late Chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, charging him with sundry high crimes and misdemeanors in India, be received, and laid on the table." The motion being agreed to, The Speaker asked if the Articles were to be read at length, or merely pro formá. It was agreed that the latter mode should be adopted, and the titles of the different charges only were read by the clerk. It was then ordered," That such a number of copies of the said Articles, shall be printed as shall be sufficient for the use of the members of the House.”— [See Commons Journals, vol. 43, p. 114.] Dec. 17. The Articles being again read, were referred, on the motion of sir Gilbert Elliot, to a committee of the whole House, upon Monday, the 4th of February. After which, the House adjourned to the 31st of January 1788. Feb. 4, 1788. Mr. Kenrick presented a Petition from sir Elijah Impey, setting forth, "That the Petitioner sees, by the votes of the House, of the 12th of De cember last, that sir Gilbert Elliot has, in his place, charged the petitioner with sundry high crimes and misdemeanors: and that the petitioner is now attending on the House, and prays, that he may be heard, in answer to the said charges, now, or at such time as may be convenient to the House." It was then ordered, that sir Elijah Impey be now called in, and heard at the bar, on the matter of the said charges. Sir Elijah being accordingly called in to the bar, he requested that a gentleman, who had come with him, might be permitted to stand by him for the purpose of reading to the House such written documents as he should have occasion to refer to. This being granted, Sir Elijah Impey addressed the House as follows:* Sir;-Having observed with great concern from the votes of this House, that an hon. member had presented articles of charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, against me, I esteemed it a due attention to the House, as well as justice to myself, to endeavour to obviate as early as possible that matter, which, from the articles having been referred to a committee of the whole House, I apprehended had already subjected me, in some measure, to its censure; and was in hopes by the assistance of a member of this House, who had taken the pains of making himself master of the facts which have given rise to the accusation, to have disclosed the nature of the defence which I could make to it; by which it would demonstratively appear, that there was no probable ground that the articles could be finally supported, and therefore that the House would not think it consistent with its dignity, wisdom, and justice, to proceed further upon them. The sudden indisposition of that gentleman having rendered his attendance in his place impossible, I despaired of having the real merits of my case, which has been strangely misrepresented, and I had reason to think almost universally misunderstood, made intelligible, unless I was permitted to lay it before the House; I therefore, though unprepared for the occasion, presented a petition that I may do it myself. I now return my thanks for the indulgence granted me thus to obtrude myself on your attention, and request it From the original edition, printed for Stockdale, Piccadilly, A. D. 1788. may be farther extended to me for the haste of the occasion, which will necessarily oblige me to make my address in a cruder manner than my respect for this assembly would otherwise have allowed. But before I enter into it, I beg leave to state some particular difficulties, which I am laid under by the former proceedings of this House, and by the specific cause assigned for my recall. The whole matter of the four first articles is collected from evidence which had been drawn up by committees of this House; the last of which sat in the year 1781. It had therein been fully discussed, had been the subject of an Act of Parliament, but had furnished no charge against me. On the 27th of January 1783, I received a letter from the earl of Shelburne, dated the 8th of July 1782, which conveyed his Majesty's commands to me to return to this kingdom, for the purpose of answering a charge specified in an address, which had been laid before his Majesty in consequence of a vote of the 3d of May 1782. That vote related only to the acceptance of an office not agreeable to the true intent and meaning of the Act 13 Geo. 3. As the cause assigned for my recall was subsequent to all the transactions which have furnished matter for these charges, I entertained no idea that any thing within the knowledge of the House, prior to the cause which had been selected as a charge against me, would be objected to me. In this opinion I was confirmed by the letters of my private friends; and I was thereby induced to esteem his lordship's letter, so particularizing the charge, to be a specific notice of the whole evidence which I was to bring with me for my defence. I could not suspect, when the acceptance of an office had appeared the most proper subject for prosecution, that an accusation for so foul an offence as that ascertained in the first article could have been omitted. Under these impressions, though I collected all possible materials to defend myself against the charge of which I had notice, I did not bring any with me for the defence of those acts, which knowing to be legal, and done in the necessary and conscientious discharge of my duty, I had no reason to think could ever have been imputed to me as criminal, and for which I had reason to think, all intention of arraigning either me or the other judges, after the fullest consideration, had been totally abandoned. Had notice been given me, even after my arrival, or within two years of it, that these charges would did not think themselves justified in rehave been preferred against me, I shouldjecting any testimony, on account of cirhave had full time to procure authentic cumstances which seem unavoidable, in vouchers and records for my judicial so narrow a society as that formed by the conduct, and witnesses to such other natives of Great Britain resident in Bengal matters as could not be proved by written nor in withholding from the House, on evidence thus misled by appearances, I their own opinion, any matter of informaam' called to answer those charges without tion derived from the only source from any evidence but that which I may be whence the necessary information can be able to extract from the very materials drawn. A difficulty nearly of the same which have been compiled against me, nature occurred with regard to the written and from some few papers, which I have evidence; a great part of the papers casually, not purposely, brought with me. transmitted not having been previously With regard to the body of evidence, communicated to each other by the conwhich may be attempted to be applied to tending parties. The advantage therefore the four first charges; I mean the Report to be derived from their reciprocal corof the committee to which the petition of rections and explanations, from their deTouchett and others was referred; I beg nials of unproved and their supplements leave to read the strictures most candidly of defective facts, is thereby inevitably made by the committee on that evidence. lost to the Committee and to the House. "And in order to collect and lay be- "It appears expedient also to state to fore the House, a body of facts, which the House, that no agent hath been ap might serve as a foundation for such pro- pointed, or did attend the Committee on vision as the wisdom of Parliament may the part of the Supreme Court of Judisee fit to make, towards the future tran-cature. No verbal evidence for them was quillity and welfare of these provinces, in every point of view so important to this kingdom, your Committee have read a number of papers transmitted from India to the Court of Directors, and to the office of Secretary of State for the southern department; and have also carefully examined several witnesses competent to afford full information, on all the objects of inquiry, which your Committee have been empowered to bring under their view. On these witnesses your Committee think it proper to observe, that although they are all persons minutely conversant in the affairs of Bengal, yet some of them appear to be directly or indirectly concerned in several of the transactions which have brought on the late disputes. "Some also who are to return to India, though not themselves parties, may be come, on account of their evidence, ubnoxious to those who are engaged in the present contentions, and who still remain there in different descriptions of power. Others, too, have stood, and (if any prejudice does arise from the relative situations of men in authority in that country) may again stand in situations which may possibly render them as much prejudiced as any of the present parties against the power claimed and exercised by the Supreme Court. These observations with regard to the evidence, your Committee held it their duty to suggest; but the Committee pointed out to your Committee, except a suggestion, that they wished Mr. Barwell, late one of the Council-general, to be examined; and him your Committee did examine accordingly. For the rest, the whole of the matter alleged in favour of their claims, or in justification of the proceedings of that court, is contained in the letters of the judges to the Court of Di rectors, in their letters to the Secretaries of State, and their arguments (as they are taken) in giving judgment on sundry cases tried before them. "But in the midst of these difficulties, your Committee have the satisfaction to find that no controversy exists concerning the leading facts which have given rise to the dispute. The principal difference between the parties consisting in the motives assigned for the acts mutually complained of, and the tendency of those acts to the public benefit or prejudice. "And it is remarkable that an unusal degree of consistency or uniformity prevails in the evidence delivered by so many persons, on the customs, manners, and dispositions of the natives of India; and your Committee conceive that this body of evidence, together with the other materials contained in this Report, will fully enable the House to determine on the fitness or unfitness of the application of the laws of England to the government of that people, or in deciding on the extent of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, for the purpose of superseding, or controlling, or making it supplemental to the country courts which now act in Bengal, according to the forms, and on the principles long prevalent in that part of India, which are totally different from, and in many respects repugnant to, the laws and usages of this kingdom." acquired) by what means it has been acquired. If it be the opinion of the public, founded on an impartial and true statement of the facts, on ample discussion of the arguments on both sides, on a full investigation of the legality or illegality of the proceedings, and that opinion has been supported by the authority of great lawyers, whose integrity and enlightened understandings ought and are used to guide and inform the minds of the public, its authority is irresistible; in that case it may be truly said that vox populi est vox Dei. But if partial representations have been laid before the public; if one side of the question only has been stated; if no These strictures contain as strong objections as can be made to any evidence adduced to support a criminal charge; and as the Committee has not pointed out what particular facts are proved by competent evidence, and what by evidence liable to the objections they have stated, it will be difficult either for this House, or any party accused on it, to discover whe-inquiry has been made into the truth of ther the whole, or any of the facts stated, have been so proved, that they ought to be credited in a judicial proceeding. I request I may not be understood by this observation to take any objection to the propriety of the evidence for the purpose for which it was collected-reform; but to the application of it to a purpose foreign to that for which it was collected a criminal charge. It is stated "as a body of facts to serve as a foundation of provisions, and to enable the House to determine on the fitness of the application of the laws of England to Bengal, and to decide on the extent of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, for the purpose of superseding or contracting it." This was the professed object of the inquiry. Though the representations of the East India Company, or of the government in Bengal, might be admitted on their credit alone, without any investigation, as sufficient for the object of reform, yet I submit that those representations, or such parts of the evidence as are liable to these objections of the Committee, cannot legally be applied to substantiate a criminal charge, even if collected for that purpose. It has been urged, that the first article is supported by the general sense of mankind, by the opinion of the majority of the Court of Directors, collected from their letter to lord Weymouth in 1777, and that of the majority of the members of the government in Bengal in 1775. As part of my defence depends on the public acts of these two respectable bodies, must defer considering whether their authority ought to stand for or against me, till I have disclosed those acts. As to the sense of mankind in general, before that be admitted as a ground, it will be just to examine (if that sense has been [VOL. XXVI.] the facts, the legality or illegality of the proceedings; if it turns out that the public has been grossly abused and misled, by bold and false citations of the greatest law authorities of this kingdom; to give equal weight to an opinion of the public so procured, would be to deliver up the lives, properties, and fame of the best men to the rage of partizans and the virulence of libellers, who are the base and mercenary instruments of every malignant and unprincipled faction. It is now twelve years since this nation has been deluded by false and perpetual informations, that the Supreme Court of Judicature had most absurdly, cruelly, and without authority, obtruded the complex and intricate criminal laws of England, on the populous nations of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, whose law, religion, and habits, were peculiarly abhorrent to them; that a native of Bengal, of high rank had been tried and convicted on a capital law of England, for an offence punishable in the place where it was committed by fine only; that the court which had tried him had no jurisdiction over his person; that he was brought within the limits of the jurisdiction by force, and in that state that the court adjudged that its jurisdiction had attached upon him; and to sum up all, in the words most deservedly odious to an English ear, he was finally executed under that, which, if a law at all, was an ex post facto law. These premises being stated, motives of the most atrocious nature were assigned for them; and indeed if the premises had been true, they would have been sufficient to justify the worst suspicions. I confine myself to this subject, and omit the various other topics of scandal propagated down to this hour, to keep in heat the minds of an inflamed multitude. [4 R] These publications have not been li- | propagated in England, it was seen, for mited to daily papers, but laboured trea- the first time, by the judges in newstises have been written, volumes have papers and pamphlets sent to India. been compiled, under the specious title of Should they then have answered the Histories and Travels, to induce a belief charge? It had its full effect; and who that the subject was introduced inciden- would read, at the distance of two years, tally as matter of history, when in fact a defence on a subject grown stale and the whole was fabricated for the sole pur- obsolete, and on which his mind had repose of disseminating and perpetuating ceived impressions that indignation made libels of this and a similar tendency, with him not wish to have effaced? Answers a more certain effect, because less sus- would cause bold replies, not again to be pected. obviated, but at the distance of two years. To give them a sanction, the authors have dared to make use of the high and respectable names of sir William Blackstone and lord Mansfield, as condemning the illegality of the proceedings in the case of Nundocomar; lord Mansfield is quoted in a libel published by Debrett, intituled, an Extract of a Letter from Calcutta, 1st December 1780, in these words, p. 12. "On the contrary, the legal murder of Nundocomar, as it is pointedly called by the great and good lord Mansfield, showed every person in Bengal what he was to expect." To such an authority, so openly cited, who could refuse his consent? It is not to my purpose to point out from whom they came, with whom the authors were connected, or with what immediate design they were written; it is sufficient for me to assert, that these are the materials, and the only materials, if the sense of the public has been attained, by which it has been attained. To this accusation, thus authorized, down to the present hour, no answer has been given, which, lest it be thought an acquiescence, ought to be accounted for. It first found its way to England in secret and uncommunicated dispatches and letters, of the year 1775: it was made against the judges then absent in Bengal. It is within the remembrance of many members, that party heats, with regard to India, as well as all other national concerns, raged at that period with unbounded violence. It probably was thought the interest, for it undoubtedly was the practice, of one faction to convey insinuations against the judges, as being partizans of the opposite faction. That opposite faction, cautious to avoid the imputation of undue connexion with the judges, found it their interest not to defend them. Neutral men (if such there were) took no part, and the judges, who really were (as they ought to have been) of no party, were left undefended. A year after the calumny had been My arrival in England renewed the subject, and the papers have every day | teemed with fresh libels. I resolved, and have kept my resolution, that I would not myself publish, nor, as far as I was able, suffer any publication to be made on my account. Authors have solicited me that they might write on my side; printers have applied for subjects for publications, with promises to keep their papers open for me, and with intimations that if I did not fill the chasms, they must yield to the importunities of those who were candidates to fill them up with abuse against me. I have neither yielded to their solicitations nor threats; I disdained to defend myself by the arts by which I have been attacked. To put my name to publications would have drawn into life swarms of defamers: to write, or suffer any thing to be written for me anonymously, I would not condescend. To the conscience of every individual, who forms the body of that public, whose sense is supposed to be against me, I would put these questions: whether, if he has formed any such opinion, it has not been from the materials which I have stated? Whether he has been informed of the truth of the facts? Whether he has read the Act of Parliament and the charter, constituting and giving jurisdiction to the Supreme Court? Whether he knows the state of the town of Calcutta? Whether he knows what the law was there before that charter? Whether it has been at all, or in what manner it has been altered by it? Whether he has examined the evidence at the trial, and all the circumstances under which the law was carried into execution? Whether he now knows on what the legality or the illegality of the conviction turns? If he does not, whether, before his opinion thus formed should operate as the foundation of a criminal charge, he should not have full information on those points? That information I hope to give to the House, but must first be indulged to obviate these |