India, to defeat the justice of that House and of the

nation.

The motion was agreed to without a division,

ABATEMENT OF AN IMPEACHMENT BY A DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.

December 17.

IN consequence of the dissolution of parliament, the attention of the new House of Commons, which met in November, was called to a subject of the utmost importance, not only to the dearest privileges of that House, but to the very existence of the constitution itself. The question was, Whether an impeachment, brought by the Commons of Great Britain assembled, in their own name, and in the name of their constituents, did not remain in statu quo, notwithstanding the intervention of a dissolution? On the 17th of December, Mr. Burke moved, "That the House should resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House, to take into consideration the State in which the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esq. late Governor-general of Bengal, was left at the dissolution of the last parliament." After a short debate, in which the motion was opposed by Mr. Bastard, Sir William Young, and others, the House resolved itself into a committee, Sir Peter Burrell in the chair. Upon which,

Mr. BURKE rose and observed, that being now in a proper situation to consider the important question to be decided, should any question arise, he would open to the committee the resolution which he intended to move. He had been described by an honourable gentleman, who opposed going into this committee, as politically dead, as existing no longer in fact, but in name, as the cinis et umbra of what he once was, and being now reduced to an

was very logically inferred, that an abstract member of parliament could move only an abstract proposition. He begged leave, however, to assure the committee, that in this metaphysical revival after his political death, he should submit to their consideration, not an abstract, but a practical proposition. He was laid under considerable difficulty in another respect by the gentlemen who opposed going into the committee. If he spoke, he was told that he spoke only to torment the House. If he sat silent, he was told that his silence was insidious

"The times have been

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end: but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools."

So he, politically dead as he was, walked abroad in his metaphysical capacity, to torment the House, to frighten honest gentlemen from their seats by his talking, or entrap them by his silence. Both his political and his physical life were now nearly at an end; but while either of them remained, he pledged himself to persevere for the honour of the House of Commons in the arduous task he had undertaken. The House of Commons, by adopting the impeachment, had vindicated his honour, had screened him from the imputation of being a false accuser, and made it their own. For their honour, for the dignity and consistency of their proccedings, he was bound in gratitude to exert the utmost efforts of his poor abilities to bring it to a fair judicial conclusion. The attempt that had been just made to get rid of the whole proceeding, was supported by no argument, at least by no argument that was new. In this particular case it happened that arguments, like men, were endowed with the quality of reviving after death. Arguments that had been routed, discomfited; not only driven off the field with ignominy and contempt, but disbanded by those who arrayed them for battle, as unworthy and unfit to serve, were again drawn out and marshalled, as if they had never been exposed to defeat

and disgrace. The arguments adduced by the honourable gentleman who began the opposition, had been not only routed and discomfited in the late parliament, but an honourable gentleman (Major Scott) had been punished for enlisting them he had received the censure of the House, and that he who had tasted of it must call a heavy punishment. The honourable gentleman had said, that although he himself had voted for the impeachment originally, yet many of the articles were passed without due consideration; and, with all the zeal of a new convert, he contended, for that reason, against the whole. He, no doubt, had made such inquiry, and received such information, as enabled him now to form a better judgment; but he ought to have some mercy on other gentlemen, who had also voted for the impeachment, and who not having had access to that information which convinced him that they had voted in error, still adhered to their former opinion. The present House of Commons, it was said, was not bound to adopt the resolutions of the last. Undoubtedly it was not, if those resolutions should appear to be founded in injustice, or adopted without due consideration. But let the House beware of rejecting, without examination, what the late House of Commons had adopted on more painful inquiry, and more laborious investigation than perhaps had been bestowed on any subject that had ever come under the consideration of parliament. An honourable gentleman (Colonel Macleod), to whose professional reputation he was no stranger, had introduced a story in the style of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, a sort of modern midnight conversation, in which Tippoo Saib had borne honourable testimony to the abilities and virtues of Mr. Hastings. Tippoo Saib was a prince of so much virtue himself, of justice so conspicuous, of humanity so exemplary, that to question the authority of his testimony, might be, perhaps, to question what all the world was so well convinced of, that he should be asked "Solem quis

--

dicere falsum audeat." But still he might be permitted to

this Marcus Aurelius of the East, to the abilities of Mr. Hastings, could have on a charge of taking money which he was expressly forbid to take, of lending it to the Company as their money, and of taking bonds for it, payable to himself? Whatever might be its value, he should only consider it as a reason for going on with the trial, that there might be an opportunity of bringing the evidence into Court.

The extreme length to which the trial was likely to extend, was alleged as a reason for deserting it altogether. On this point he could inform those who wanted information, that it was not the intention of the managers to protract the trial, and that had they been permitted, as they intimated last session, to go through the article of contracts, they meant to call on Mr. Hastings for his defence. The friends of Mr. Hastings never complained of the length of the trial, till the defendant was on the eve of being pressed to judgment, and then they pretended to think that the retraction of one House of Commons, or rather the base and scandalous dereliction of what another House of Commons had solemnly done, would be a complete acquittal-as if a collusion between the party and the prosecutor could restore the reputation of the one, or not stain the honour of the other. As to any implied charge against the managers of the impeachment, he would not reply to it till specifically brought forward. They were now in no collective state to make their defence, and it was rather ungenerous to assail them in their unprotected situation. If delay was imputable to any person, it was to Mr. Hastings himself. His right honourable friend (Mr. Fox,) to whose transcendant abilities the merit of the whole conduct of the trial might be almost exclusively ascribed, after opening the first charge, had proposed to decide upon them article by article, so that the party accused would have had an opportunity of exculpating himself from the weight of each charge, as the evidence upon it was concluded, instead of being oppressed for such a length of time, as he now complained, by the accumulated weight

!

of several.

To this, however, Mr. Hastings would not agree: he was not then so jealous of his honour, and chose to drain the cup of crimination to the dregs, before he applied the exculpatory antidote.

Mr. Burke said it was not his intention to move any abstract resolution, much less a resolution implicating the propriety of the accusation with the competency of the accuser. He never had loved, and never should love an abstract question; being of opinion that much of the vice of the present age was owing to an abstract way of thinking. In the committee, which he considered as a committee of privileges, he meant to move a proposition applicable to the particular case. In this he had been guided, not by the mootings of lawyers, not by the reveries of pamphleteers, not by the conversation of coffee-houses, but by the opinions of minds that were fitter to direct than to co-operate with such minds as his. The terms of the proposition would shew its modesty. However jealous or irritable he might be supposed, he had betrayed no unseasonable jealousy on this occasion. The Lords had adjourned over the day appointed for proceeding on the trial the day of the last adjournment. Of this he had taken no notice. They had met and adjourned again and again, and again, and no message had been sent to the Commons on the subject.

"To-morrow, and to morrow, and to morrow,
Creeps in his petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death."

He felt their silence more alarming than any act would have been. Their silence might be owing to several reasons. They might think, without entertaining a doubt of the right to proceed, that the Commons would abandon the impeachment. They might think that the Commons, if they meant to proceed, ought to move first in it, as they did in the case of Lord Danby; and last in order, as in