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examine the evidence, and find the articles on which the impeachment was to be founded.-This mode of proceeding had, from the heat and paffion with which the minds of men were fometimes apt to be inflamed, led the house, on more than one occafion, into the difgraceful dilemma of either abandoning the impeachment they had voted, or of preferring articles which they had not evidence to fupport.-In order to teer clear of this difgrace, he fhould move that fuch papers as were neceffary for fubftantiating the guilt of Mr. Haftings, if guilt there was, fhould be laid before the house; and that these papers, together with the charges extracted from them, fhould be referred to a committee of the whole house, and evidence examined thereon: if the charges fhould then appear, what he believed they would be found to be, charges of the blackest and fouleft nature, and fupported by competent and fufficient evidence, the houfe would then proceed with confidence and dignity to the bar of the house of lords.

Having stated thefe matters with great precifion, Mr. Burke went into a series of reflections on the Rature of the office he had undertaken. Every accufer, he faid, was himself under accufation at the very time he accused another; it behoved him to act upon fure grounds, and he had therefore chofen the line of conduct he had juft explained, as being at the fame time the most effectual for the purposes of public juftice, and the leaft expofed to the danger of error: he urged the unavoidable neceffity of making the enquiry perfonal; he asked what would be the fentiments of the miferable and oppreffed natives of

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India, if the refult of the proceedings in that house should be to find that enormous peculation exifted, but that there was no peculator that there was grofs corruption, but no perfon to corrupt, or to be corrupted; that a torrent of violence, oppreffion, and cruelty had deluged that country, but that every foul in it was juft, moderate, and humane? To trace peculation to the peculator, corruption to its fource, and oppreffion to the oppreffor, had been the object of the refearches of the feveral committees that had been inftituted at different times by the house; and the refult was, they found that government in India could not be foul and the governor pure. After a fpeech of confiderable length, in which these and many other topics of the fame nature were argued with great force and perfpicuity, Mr. Burke concluded, by moving, "That copies of all correfpondence, fince the month of Jannary 1782, between Warren Haftings, Efquire, governor general of Bengal, and the court of directors, as well before as. fince the return of the faid governor general, relative to prefents and other money particularly received by the faid governor general, be laid before this houfe."

The reflections thrown out by Mr. Burke, relative to the refolutions of the fecret committee, and the conduct of Mr. Dundas, called up that gentleman to juftify the part he had taken.-He acknowledged that he undoubtedly was the perfon who fuggefted the refolutions alluded to, and he had not the fmalleft fcruple to admit that the fame fentiments that he entertained refpecting Mr. Haflings, at the time of propofing thofe refo

lutions,

lutions, he entertained at that moment; but would any one contend that those fentiments went fo far as to fuppofe Mr. Haflings to be a fit object for a criminal profecution? The refolutions went to the recal of Mr. Haftings, a matter which he at the time thought expedient, and had recommended it to the houfe as a matter of expediency only. He thought the conduct of Mr. Haftings, fince the period to which thofe refolutions referred, not only not criminal but highly meritorious, and he had for that reafon approved of the vote of thanks which the court of directors had conferred upon him.

The charge of inconfiftency being again urged against Mr. Dundas with great feverity, by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt rofe up in his defence, and retorted the charge with fome acrimony on Mr. Fox, whofe conduct, he faid, in the coalition he had formed with a perfon whom he had been in the habit of loading with the most extravagant reproaches, had fufficiently explained to the public his ideas of confiftency. He contended that the refolution of recal by no means pledged the house to profecute; fince, if that were the cafe, they would on all occafions be reduced to the neceffity either of hesitating on fuch a fep (however urgent the emergency might be) until a full examination of the conduct of the perfon could be had, or of rendering a profecution unavoidable, although no adequate enquiry had been inftituted to evince its propriety. The refolutions contained in themfelves the whole of the object for which they were defigned, namely, that in order to recover the loft confidence of the princes of India, it was advifeable,

what?-to punish? No! but to recal certain of the company's fervants. Whether the conduct by which the confidence had been loft was imputable as a crime to thofe fervants, was totally another confideration: he was indeed ready to join in opinion with the gentlemen oppofite to him, that if any real guilt was to be inveftigated, and adequate punishment to be inflicted, his right honourable friend would be full as proper a perfon to take the lead, and full as likely to accomplish all the purposes of public juftice, as thofe gentlemen into whofe hands the profecution would fall; but, as it had been faid in the course of the debate that there were occafions when the formal rules of common juftice might be overleaped, and a profecution conducted with violence and refentment, rather than by the dull forms of ordinary proceedings, perhaps, confidering the prefent bufinefs in that point of view, the gentlemen that had taken it up were the fittest people to be intrufted, with it: with refpect to the papers moved for, Mr. Pitt made no objection, but hoped the gentleman who moved for them would inform the houfe as early and as explicitly as poffible of the nature and extent of the charges he intended to make.

The queftion being carried, Mr. Burke proceeded to move for a great variety of other papers, which he alledged were neceffary for the profecution of the cause he had undertaken. These motions produced much conversation, and towards the clofe of the day there appeared fome hesitation in the ministers of the crown, whether it would be proper to produce whatever papers

might be called for on the mere fuggeftion of the mover, without infifting upon his ftating to the house the connection they had with the matters contained in the reports of the committees, beyond which they did not think he ought to go in the matter of his intended accufation. At this stage of the business the house adjourned at one o'clock, on account of the illness of the speaker; and the day following the converfation was renewed, upon a motion for papers relative to the affairs of Oude.

It was urged that it would be a precedent of a very dangerous nature to fuffer papers, of the contents of which the houfe was in a great measure ignorant, to be laid upon the table, merely on the word of any individual member. Why did not the honourable gentleman bring forward a specific aceufation? the house might then be enabled to judge whether the papers moved for were neceffary to fuftantiate the charge or not; but till that was done, it was their duty to refift the production of them. In oppofition to this unexpected obftacle, Mr. Burke contended, and endeavoured to prove from feveral inftances, that the practice of the house by no means bound them down to the mode of proceeding to which it was attempted to fubject him. In every criminal process the accufer, who, by becoming fuch, took upon himself the onus probandi, was entitled to have fuch documents and papers as he efteemed neceffary to fupport the charge he undertook to bring forward, open and acceffible.

A refufal must be attended with a double injuftice. If the accufer wanted collateral and explanatory

VOL. XXVIII.

aid, he ought not to be denied the means of digefting, explaining, or fimplifying thofe facts of which he was in prior poffeflion. If, on the other hand, the grounds of accufa tion could be extenuated, if the feverity of the charge could be abated, nay, perhaps annihilated, a

denial of that opportunity to the accufer was an injuftice to the accufed. He fhould therefore confider the rejection of his motion as a ftratagem to get rid of the whole enquiry; but he entertained too ftrong a fente of what he owed to public juftice, and to humanity, to accept of the fubterfuge that was offered him, and feal away from and defert their caufe. He knew that he fhould have to encounter a connected force of the firft weight and influence in the country: but he had not undertaken the accufation upon light grounds, and he had the firmeit reliance upon the juftice of his caufe. He had been told, that the profecution would be unpopular; that the people of England would reject him in fuch a purfuit.-O miferable public! he exclaimed; what! for having taken up the caufe of their injured and oppreffed fellow-fubjects in India, for attempting to bring to juftice the plunderers of mankind, the defolators of provinces, the oppreffors of an innocent and meritorious people, in every rank, fex, and condition, the violators of public faith, the deftroyers of the Britifh character and reputation-was he to be unpopular? Thofe who had railed monuments of their benevolence, by providing afylums and receptacles for human mifery, were justly ranked for fuch deeds amongst the benefactors to mankind; but even thefe acts of pa[7]

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triotifm and charity were not to be compared to the noble work of fupporting the most facred rights and valuable interests of mankind, by bringing to public juftice the man who had facrificed them to his cruel ty, his avarice, and his ambition.

After purfuing this train of reflections with great energy and eloquence, Mr. Burke remarked, that the prevaricatio accufatorum had been reckoned amongft one of the firft fymptoms of the decline of the Roman greatness. But at the time this obfervation was made, when Verres was accufed by Cicero, every means of information was allowed him. One hundred and fifty days were granted him, to collect the materials of his accufation from fo near a province as Sicily. All the public records were open to him, and perfons fent out of Italy to every place where the proofs of his guilt could be collected. In like manner, when the Cicero of the prefent age felt that indignity against public crimes which did him fo much honour, every poffible affiftance was afforded him; every paper which he wanted was produced; every avenue of information was opened; all parties concurred in encouraging him; the flower of the bar fupported him; crown lawyers were engaged in making refearches; and treasury clerks exerted themfelves with all the enthusiasm of public virtue. In fhort the learned gentleman obtained more information than he might have ultimately wifhed to have, brought in charge against the delinquent he profecuted. Mr. Burke added, that it was fufficiently vifible that his fituation was in every refpect the very reverfe; that, for his own part, he only called for what the hand of

power had no excufe for refufing. The papers for which he had moved he avowed were neceffary for his purpose; and it was incumbent on those who refused them to juftify, by fome better plea than that of ignorance of their contents, the refufal of them.

Major Scott followed Mr. Burke, and agreed in opinion with him, that the papers were neceffary to be produced; and Mr. Pitt, after many profeffions of the most unbiaffed impartiality, concurred with them; remarking, at the fame time, that it would be but fair and candid in the right honourable mover, to give the house fome fpecific information of the fubject matter of his charges, and to state the grounds and reafons for the production of fuch papers as he might think it neceffary to call for in fupport of them. In compliance with this requeft, Mr. Burke read to the house a fhort abftract of the feveral charges which he defigned to bring forward; and pointed out the matters which the feveral papers, he afterwards moved for, were intended to explain and substantiate.

The reft of Mr. 3d March. Burke's motions met with little oppofition, till, on the 3d of March, he moved for copies of letters, and other papers, relative to the treaty of peace with the Mahrattas. This motion was oppofed by Mr. Dundas and Mr. Pitt, on two grounds; first, that the treaty in queftion was a wife and falutary treaty, and had faved the British empire in Afia; and, fecondly, that the production of the papers moved for would difcover tranfactions relative to that peace, which ought to be kept a fecret from the country powers in India, info

much

much as it would disclose the means be given. After a long debate, the house divided upon the motion, which was rejected by a majority of 87 to 44.

by which the feveral ftates that were confederate against England were made jealous of each other, and the intrigues by which they were induced to diffolve that con-, federacy. In answer to these objections, it was urged, by Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox, in the firft place, that to argue from the merits of the peace, was to beg the queftion. Mr. Haftings was charged with having acted in that treaty unjuftly, treacheroufly, and cruelly; that was the point in iffue, and it could only be tried by the production of the papers. The accufer alledged he was in poffeffion of the facts, and demanded the public documents only as furnishing the means of formal evidence of his charge. In the fecond place it was argued, that the reafons given for withholding the papers were, in fact, the ftrongeft reafons for producing them; thofe reafons amounted to this, that the papers ought not to be produced, because they would difcover in what manner the different powers in India had been facrificed in that treaty to each other-the very point that was charged in the accufation. This argument, if carried to its full extent, would cover almost every species of political delinquency, fince it made it only neceffary for the delinquent to add complicated treachery to his other crimes, to render it dangerous to bring him to a public trial. But the argument was futile in another refpect; the tranfaétions alluded to were but too well known, and too generally condemned and reprobated throughout India. If they were to be a fecret, it would be a fecret only to the house of commons, and of this fufficient proof might eafily

17th March.

The conduct of administration in refufing the papers moved for by Mr. Burke, and the reafons upon which that refufal was grounded, appeared to the members in oppofition of fo ferious and alarming a nature, that the fame motion was twice renewed, on the 6th and on the 17th of March by Mr. Fox, but reftricted to the correfpondence of a Major Brown, an agent of Mr Hastings at the court of Delhi. Copies of many parts of this correfpondence were in the hands of fome private individuals in England, and they were ufed, in the course of the debate, both to prove the criminal conduct of Mr. Haftings, and the futility of the pretention of fecrefy.

It was ftrongly urged, that if the grounds upon which ministers withheld thofe papers from the infpection of parliament were admitted by the houfe as fufficient, it would in fact veft them with a power of protecting every delinquent, and quafhing at the very outfet every public enquiry. Notwithstanding the odium which was attempted by thefe repeated difcuffions to be thrown on adminif tration, they continued firm in their refufal; urging, in addition to their former arguments, that the agency of major Brown was by no means proved, and that the correfpondence in queftion appeared to contain merely the wild and chimerical projects of an unauthorized individual. The motion was rejected on the last day by 140 to 73.

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