taxes would be to be regulated; and the hon. member for Hull had at the time risen in his place, and declared, that he should have something to say upon that subject, when it was under consideration: in compliance with his notice, he had afterwards fully stated to the Committee the grounds upon which the new regulations were made, and it had then undergone discussion. The hon. baronet had talked of the new duty being about a farthing a gallon; measuring by the gallon was not very usually a mode of measuring timber; but the fact was, that the regulated duties referred to timber, and the farthing a gallon had been mentioned as the effect which the laying additional duties on staves would have upon the spirits imported in pipes and hogsheads.

Sir Grey Cooper observed, that notwithstanding what had fallen from the right hon. gentleman with such an air of triumph, he should not hesitate to assert, with all his former well-grounded confidence, that the voting without a previous instruction to the Committee, additional duties on several articles of wood imported for different purposes from Russia and Prussia, and other places in Europe, was an in-formal and irregular parliamentary proceeding. With regard to the mode of measuring timber by the gallon, the ridicule was at once unworthy and unmerited; for every gentleman must know, that he meant to allude to spirits, when he said, a farthing a gallon would be the difference made by the new regulation of duty on pipe staves, staves of hogsheads, and kilderkins.

Mr. Martin professed great confidence. in the right hon. gentleman's good intentions, but said, that he should think meanly of himself, if he gave up his independence as a member of that House: he had supported the Commercial Treaty, because he conceived it to be a wise measure; but he should vote for the present motion, as he thought the arguments on which it had been rested extremely strong, and was not convinced that they were otherwise by any thing which he had that day heard from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Bastard said, that he was confirmed in his sense of the propriety of the motion, by the argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, since that right hon. gentleman had himself admitted, that the House had a right to give their distinct votes on each distnict measure: why, then, did the right hon. gentleman refuse to permit the §

Debate in the Commons on the Articles of Charge against Mr. Hastings.] March 22. Mr. Francis begged leave to submit to the House a proposition, which he conceived would give facility to the public. business, and meet with general approbation. It was respecting the examination of the witnesses relative to the charges against Mr. Hastings then before the House. There were certain material points in the charge, which he had particularly undertaken to bring before the Committee, viz. that concerning the revenues, which made it necessary to examine a few gentlemen. When the witnesses had last been at the bar, the attendance was extremely thin; the proposal therefore that he had to offer was, that instead of examining the witnesses at the bar of the House, they should be examined before a committee above stairs, and that that committee should be directed to report the evidence to the House.

Mr. Dundas observed, that there was one obvious objection to this proposal, which was, that a committee would necessarily be composed of a certain select number, whereas every individual member had a legal right to be present when the witnesses were examined, and to take part in the examination, if he thought proper, and, indeed, especially ought to be so in a criminal proceeding, on which the House was to decide as accusers. If by making it an open committee, this objection could be removed, perhaps the proposal might not be much resisted. Mr. Dundas said, that he would take the present opportunity to offer a few hints, which, without meaning to say any thing harsh to gentlemen on the other side, it became an indispensable duty to suggest to the House, relative to the proceeding in which they had been for some time engaged. He

then remonstrated against the practice of calling for voluminous papers just a day or two before every new and separate charge was about to be opened. Such a custom must tend, not only to confuse gentlemen's minds, and keep them in continual labour, but had a very awkward appearance. Either, when the right hon. gentleman opposite made his charges first, he was satisfied that he was in possession of sufficient evidence to support them, or he was not. If he had been satisfied, why call for more papers just a day or two be fore every charge was to be opened? He would move, for the future, that no papers should be asked for, or granted, unless gentlemen came and stated, that upon a closer examination of the particular charge they had undertaken to move, they had discovered that certain links in the chain of evidence, necessary to support the proof of the facts stated in the charge, were wanting; and upon such an assertion made out to the satisfaction of the House, no gentleman would be so unreasonable as to refuse the granting of those papers. Another consideration which he wished to submit to gentlemen was, the state and situation of the business of the intended impeachment, and the period of the year. Every gentleman must, he conceived, be extremely desirous to have the impeachment go up to the Lords in sufficient time to have it put into a way of trial at least this session; and at any rate, it would, he should imagine, be disgraceful to that House, if they did not contrive to have done their part so far, as to have formed the articles of impeachment by the beginning of May, and to have enabled the Lords to proceed upon the trial in that month. He could not therefore help expressing his surprise, that the right hon. gentleman opposite had not moved to report the resolutions come to by the House, and also moved the necessary questions upon them, so that those professional persons, versant in the nature of legal evidence, and the practice in cases of criminal proceeding, whose assistance he presumed would naturally be looked to, might, while the committee were inquiring into such remaining charges as were meant to be brought forward, be at the same time going on in forming the articles of impeachment to be ultimately carried up to the Lords.

Mr. Burke thanked the right hon. gentleman for the propositions which he had made, and the very judicious observations

with which he had accompanied them. He gratefully accepted the propositions, and would certainly adopt them; but the right hon. gentleman must permit him to say a few words on some parts of what he had urged. With regard to calling for papers, he was willing to agree to call for no more, but upon the condition suggested by the right hon. gentleman; and he could assure him, that he had not called for any in the course of the present session, or scarcely any, for the purpose of satisfying his own mind as to any one of the charges of the facts contained in them. His own mind had been long since completely satisfied; but he had called for them to satisfy the minds of others, and in order to remove doubts stated and suggested in debate upon the charges already heard. When, therefore, it happened to him that a paper would tend at one and the same time to elucidate passages and parts of any charge about to be opened to the committee, and to clear up and remove doubts that had been stated respecting any parts or pas sages of charges already examined into, he had thought it right to call for that paper; but he had never called for an unimportant paper, or unnecessarily put papers upon the table. With regard to the conduct of the impeachment, most cer. tainly the aid of professional men, men versed equally in the law of parliament, and the law of evidence, must be obtained; for although he knew, from long experience, something of the law of parliament and had in the course of his life looked frequently into law books on different subjects, he meant not to trust the issue of a matter so important in every point of view, to so weak, uninformed, immature, and incompetent a head and understanding as his own. He had the utmost anxiety upon his mind, that the matter should go up to the Lords in a shape regular, complete, formal, and perfect; that the House should not be liable to sustain the disgrace of having sent up and prepared an impeachment every point of which did not prima facie appear to be significant of the gravity, caution, and solemnity which ought to mark the conduct of the House of Commons in such an awful proceeding. Mr. Burke expatiated on this idea, and said, that his whole attention had long been engrossed by the subject, and that there was not on record a proceeding at all similar to which he had not adverted, and closely examined; and he could not but acknowledge, that scarcely any one

of them appeared to him to have been managed with due attention, or rendered in any proportion so complete and perfect as, in his mind, it became the honour and dignity of that House to have made them. He mentioned some of the rights which had been claimed by that House on such occasions, and said, that although he should be very sorry that there should ultimately appear to be any real occasion to take advantage of them, yet he should hold it unwise, if, on the ensuing, or any other occasion, that House were entirely to abandon them. He mentioned one in particular, which former precedents justified, and that was, that the House should persist in its right of saying, at the bar of the House of Lords, "This article the House of Commons does not insist on," and to exercise that right as often as occa sion should render it necessary or discreet. Mr. Francis observed, that one objection stated by Mr. Dundas, was, in speculation and theory, so obvious, that it appeared to be unanswerable; but compare it with the fact, and it would then sink to nothing. The right hon. gentleman had said, that every member had a legal right to be present at the examination of witnesses at the bar, and to take part in it, if he thought proper; and that appointing a committee would narrow that right, and limit it to the number of members. In speculation and theory, the assertion was true; but how stood the fact? In the examination of witnesses on the preceding Tuesday, scarcely more than eight members were present the whole day. He wished, therefore, to create an attendance; and the committee which he had meant to propose, would, he was persuaded, attend their duty. The remaining six witnesses would take up but a very short time to examine, as he had not above six or seven questions to put to each.

The Speaker confirmed the fact, as to the smallness of the numbur of members present on Tuesday.

Mr. Pitt declared, that he perfectly coincided with his right hon. friend (Mr. Dundas); and then proceeded to corroborate that gentleman's argument, and having substantiated all that had fallen from him on the subject of written evidence, he applied the same reasoning to prove the impropriety of calling any more witnesses to the bar, in the present advanced stage of the prosecution, unless it could be clearly shown that some farther information was absolutely necessary, and that

without such, there would be a material deficiency in that body of evidence on which their proceedings were to be founded. But he declared, that he should be particularly jealous of any proposal for the examination of witnesses, which should come from the hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Francis), after the dishonourable and disgraceful situation in which he had, on a late occasion, involved the House, by the shameful and uncandid advantage which he had taken in his examination of captain Mercer. He inveighed against the conduct of Mr. Francis, contending that he had first procured, by his own immediate and palpable interference, a letter to be written to him by captain Mercer, containing the grossest and most violent calumnies against Mr. Hastings; and then so managed the examination of that letter, as to cause it to be entered upon the minutes of the committee; thereby making the House in some measure the accomplices in recording and publishing a most indecent libel. He argued against, what he called, the illiberality of such a mode of proceeding, and the dangerous tendency of adopting the practice into which the House had been led by the hon. gentleman, of taking a written document as evidence, when the very person who had composed it (and that clearly with a view that it should be produced as evidence) was present, and might be examined viva voce. He should, for these reasons, therefore, upon the ensuing day, object to the examination of any farther evidence. As to the project of examining witnesses in a private committee, to that he should also give his most determined negative, as well on the grounds of the manifest injustice of such a proceeding in a criminal inquiry, as from the proof before the House, from the recent transaction to which he had alluded, that such a step, illegal in itself, would probably be pushed to the very utmost extent of its bad and dangerous consequences.

Mr. Francis said, that it was impossible, after so personal and direct an attack, not to say a word or two in his own defence. In the first place, he denied that the letter was written at his instigation. With respect to captain Mercer, he was not acquainted with him personally, nor had he been ever in his company till he saw him at the bar of the House. He knew him by character only, and a man of fairer and more unimpeached character never acted as a trader in India. What he

wanted to get at, by calling upon captain Mercer as a witness, was in respect to the opium sent out by Mr. Hastings to China. When Mr. Hastings took up ships for that purpose, Mr. Hastings had asserted, that there were no bidders for the Company's opium. The fact was, captain Mercer had come to Calcutta to bid for it, and was willing to pay for the whole of it in ready money. It was, therefore, to that point that he wanted to examine him. In order to ascertain whether captain Mercer knew any thing about the opium, he had desired a friend to call upon him, and the captain had written him the letter. How could he help that? When he had read the letter, he was sorry to find so much of the contents irrelevant; and the reason was, he knew the use that artful and ingenious men might make of it in that House. But then he was obliged to produce the whole letter or no part of it. Had he only produced an extract, and it ever had been found out that parts of it had been kept back, he should have been charged with the suppression of evidence, and many things would have been said of him, that would have been extremely unpleasant. With regard to the witnesses to be examined, he had the order of the House for their attendance; and as the points he meant to examine them to, were material, he hoped he should be permitted. to call the witnesses to the bar, if he might not examine them before a committee, especially as their examination would be extremely short.

Mr. Pitt contended, that captain Mer cer's letter had been apparently written at the instigation of the hon. gentleman, as was evident from every circumstance attending the whole transaction. He then read the letter, commenting upon it as he proceeded. He said, he did not wish to throw any reflection on the character of captain Mercer; he might be the most respectable trader in India; but it was certain, that in the present instance he had shown a great degree of indiscretion, and not a little of malevolence. He desired to know, if it were not a concerted scheme of the hon. gentleman's, how it happened that the letter at full length had been entered on the minutes, instead of proceeding in the usual and only proper method of bringing out the substance of it, if it were true, by way of question and answer?

Mr. Francis replied, that the right hon. gentleman had affixed his own ideas upon

his argument. He had not said captain Mercer's letter was indiscrete, that it was malevolent, or a gross libel on Mr. Hastings: he had merely said, that some of its contents were irrelevant, and that he was sorry they were so; but how could he help the facts being so? Mr. Francis repeated his denial that captain Mercer's letter was written at his instigation. He said, the committee had not been taken by surprize in respect to the letter; he had put the questions relative to it fairly; and if gentlemen had thought it improper, it was their duty to have objected.

Mr. Pelham corroborated what Mr. Francis had said respecting the fair and open manner in which captain Mercer had been examined, and stated the particulars.

Mr. Sheridan recommended more temper as a necessary characteristic of every stage of a criminal proceeding so serious and solemn as that of an impeachment. It was evident the right hon. gentleman's accusation of his hon. friend had been as unfounded as his warmth had been unbecoming. His hon. friend had not instigated captain Mercer to write the letter; but the fault had been in the right hon. gentleman and his friends not attending their duty; in which case they might have prevented any improper letter having been entered on the minutes.

Mr. Pitt defended himself from the charge of improper warmth, contending that no degree of indignation could be too great or unbecoming on such an occasion, where the House of Commons had been made instrumental to an act of such palpable malice and injustice. He, however, took the hon. gentleman's reproof in good part, and hoped they might each of them benefit by those mutual admonitions which they found it so necessary to bestow on each other.

Major Scott said, that Mr. Francis had misrepresented the fact relative to the opium sent to China: the fact was not, that Mr. Hastings first let Mr. Sulivan have all the opium contract, and then sent the opium at the Company's expense to China. The opium sent to China was the opium purchased of Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Francis's friend, in whose contract, Mr. Tighlman, Mr. Francis's relation, had an interest.

Mr. Grenville at length moved the order of the day for the House to resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, on the Charges against Warren Hastings, esq.