XXIV. 1790. by their lordships to search into precedents, BOOK which occasioned a suspension of the business till nearly the conclusion of the session. At length the report being made, lord Portchester moved, May 16, "that their lordships now proceed in the trial." This was opposed by the lord-chancellor, who recommended the appointment of a second committee to search for more precedents, and defended by lord Loughborough, now the oracle of Whiggism in the house, in a very able speech, in the course of which he warned their lordships "not to act incautiously with regard to the popular part of the constitution. Let them not deny that the people were any thing, lest they compelled them to think they were every thing. In commenting upon the precedents before the house, he pointed out the fallacies of sir GEORGe JEFFREYS, and other COURT SYCOPHANTS, and rested his argument on the authority of the great constitutional lawyers, Hale, Holt, and Foster. His lordship said, he had it in charge from the lordpresident, lord Camden, who was prevented from personal attendance, to state that nobleman's opi nion as perfectly coincident with his own and the lord-president had left with him an opinion of the famous Selden, that the new parliament convened in consequence of the duke of Buckingham's impeachment, 1628, were authorized to have called upon their lordships for judgment BOOK against the duke." The abatement of the im XXIV. .1791. peachment was on the other hand maintained by lord Kenyon, lord Abingdon, &c. but on the division, the motion of lord Portchester was carried by a great and decisive majority. And their lord. ships, with the resolution of 1685 still standing in their journals, acquainted the house of commons, by message, that they were now ready to proceed in the trial. This great constitutional point being virtually conceded, Mr. St. Andrew St. John, on the part of the commons, brought forward, in a speech well adapted to the occasion, the remaining charge relative to contracts, agencies, and allowances. Under these various heads the aggregate sum lost to the Company by the gross negligence or corrupt partiality of Mr. Hastings, amounted to 584,3814-a sum more than sufficient to pay two years dividends on the Company's stock at that time. The evidence on this charge, which was very clear and explicit, being completed in a few days, Mr. Hastings opened his defence (June 2, 1791), in a speech occupying many hours, and consisting chiefly of an high panegyric upon his own administration, the merits and services comprehended in which he thus, in the language ofunheard-of arrogance and presumption, summed up: "To the commons of England, in whose name I am arraigned for desolating the provinces of their dominion in India, I dare to reply, that XXIV. 1791. they are, and their representatives annually persist BOOK in telling them so, the most flourishing of all the states of India-IT WAS I WHO MADE THEM SO. The valor of others acquired; I enlarged, and gave shape and consistency to the dominion which you hold there. I preserved it: I sent forth its armies with an effectual but oeconomical hand through unknown and hostile regions, to the support of your other possessions: to the retrieval of one from degradation and dishonor; and of the otherfrom utter loss and subjection. I maintained the wars which were of your formation, or that of others, NOT of MINE. I won one member of the great Indian confederacy from it by an act of seasonable restitution: with another I maintained a secret intercourse, and converted him into a friend: a third I drew off by diversion and negotiation, and employed him as the instrument of peace. When you cried out for peace, and your cries were * It may be worth while to compare this declaration with the state of the province of Rohilcund, as described by colonel Champion; of the vizierate of Oude, by the vizier; of Ferruckabad, by the resident Mr. Willes; of Bengal, by lord Cornwallis; and of Benares, by Mr. Hastings himself. In reply to a succeeding observation of Mr. Hastings, it is proper to remark that the Rohilla war, the second Mahratta war, and the war of Benares, were most certainly and notoriously "wars of his own formation"-the first of which may in barbarity, the second in impolicy, and the third in injustice, vie with any wars recorded in the page of history. XXIV. 1791. BOOK heard by those who were the object of it, I resisted this and every other species of counter-action by rising in my demands; and accomplished a peace, and I hope everlasting one, with one great state; and I at least afforded the efficient means by which a peace, if not so durable more seasonable at least, was accomplished with another. I GAVE YOU ALL, and you have rewarded me with confis cation, disgrace, and a life of impeachment.""There is no object upon earth so near my heart as that of an immediate determination of this tedious prosecution. I am so confident of my own innocence, and have such perfect reliance upon the honor of your lordships, that I am not afraid to submit to judgment upon the evidence which has been adduced on the part of the prosecution." Catholicto- Soon after the recess of parliament (February 21, passed. 1791), Mr. Mitford, a lawyer of great eminence in the house, moved, with the previous sanction and approbation of government, for a bill to relieve the English Catholics from the legal penalties still existing and in force against them. The proposed Act of Toleration was however confined to such of the Catholics as should subscribe a certain declaration or protest against the assumed authority of the pope, &c. drawn up in terms to which it could scarcely be expected that the majority of Catholics could conscientiously assent. leration act Mr. Fox rose to object to the bill, not for what Mr. XXIV. 1791. it did, but for what it did not, contain. He en- BOOK treated that the bill might be made general. "Let the Statute Book," said this great statesman and advocate of toleration, "be revised, and strike out all those laws which attach penalties to mere opinions." And Mr. Burke joined in reprobating the absurdity and iniquity of those statutes which condemn every man who worships GOD in his own way, as guilty of treason against the state. Pitt commended these sentiments, but thought it not prudent to act upon them; and the bill passed in its present form: in consequence of which a most invidious and mischievous line of distinction was drawn between the protesting and non-protesting Catholics, neither of whom were chargeable with, or suspected of, the slightest tincture of disloyalty to the State. motion for certain the rights of In the course of the session, Mr. Fox, ever ac- Mr. Fox's tive in the cause of liberty, moved for a bill to a bill to asascertain the rights of juries in the matter of libel. With respect to the pretended distinction between juries. law and fact, Mr. Fox observed, "that when a man was accused of murder, a crime consisting of law and fact, the jury every day found a verdict of guilty: and this was also the case in felony and every other criminal indictment. Libels were the only exception, the single anomaly. He contended, that if the jury had no jurisdiction over libels, the counsel who addressed them on either side as |