CHAP.

VI.

The resignation was due to no change in his political convictions, and was followed by no slackening in his activity.1 Regarding Burke as the high priest of reaction, he lost no opportunity of striking at his principles and his influence; and about this time he discovered that one of his propositions infringed a statute. 'Lord Stanhope can hardly be serious in his design to impeach Mr. Burke of high treason,' wrote Priestley to his brother Minister, Lindsey, on November 26, 1790; however, it will make the subject talked of.' 2 The situation is explained in Priestley's 'Fourth Letter to Burke.' The great Whig publicist had denied that the Revolution of 1688 gave England a right to elect her kings, asserting that if we had ever possessed the right, we then renounced it for ever. This was not the case, replied Priestley, referring his antagonist to the sixth of Anne, 'pointed out to Dr. Price by Lord Stanhope. From which it appears that your assertion is nothing less than high treason. The words of the Act are as follows: If any person shall maintain that the Kings or Queens of this realm, with and by the authority of Parliament, are not able to make laws of sufficient validity to limit the Crown and the inheritance thereof, every such person shall be guilty of high treason." Far am I from wishing to bring you into any serious inconvenience by representing you as having offended against the laws of your country; but I wish it may serve as a hint to you to pay more attention to the great principles of our constitution.' 3

Parliament met on Novemer 26. The King's speech made no mention of the state of France, and there was no debate on the Address, except that Stanhope called attention to a work of Calonne, which he termed 'a libel on the French Revolution, a libel on justice and human reason, a libel on the majesty of the French nation.' The late Minister had announced that if an attempt were made to effect a counter-revolution in France, such an attempt would be assisted by all the powers of Europe. This, he cried, was a libel on his Majesty of Great Britain, and it should be publicly repudiated. He pointed out that the pamphlet was much more dangerous in France than in England;

It was at this time that Mrs. Macaulay, famous for her democratic History of England, published anonymously her Observations on the Reflections of Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France, in a Letter to the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Stanhope. The pamphlet opens with a tribute to the position which Stanhope had won for himself. 'My Lord, your Lordship's character as a patriot, a philosopher, and the firm friend of the general rights of man, encourages me to present to you the following observations.' 3 Works, xxii. 175.

4

2 Rutt's Life of Priestley, ii. 97.

* De l'État de la France, tel qu'il peut et tel qu'il doit être, London, 1790.

for there it was believed, and in consequence many British CHAP. residents and travellers experienced much inconvenience. He VI. concluded with a thrust at his old enemy, Lord Thurlow. 'The House of Lords should defend their Sovereign from those base imputations, particularly the noble and learned lord (the Chancellor) who, on a very serious occasion, had said he would never forget his King.' No one supported the protest, and it was left to Mackintosh, in his masterly treatise, 'Vindiciae Gallicae,' to refute Calonne's argument and assumptions. An exaggerated version of the debate was sent by Walpole to Agnes Berry. Earl Stanhope made a most frantic speech on the National Assembly and against Calonne's book, which he wanted to have taken up for high treason. He was every minute interrupted by loud bursts of laughter, which was all the answer he received or deserved. His suffragan Price has published a short, sneaking, equivocal answer to Burke.'1 But neither Price nor Stanhope allowed themselves to be deflected from their support of what seemed to them a holy cause by the sneers and misrepresentations of men with a less generous faith in humanity.

1 Letters, xiv. 326.

CHAPTER VII

THE RIGHTS OF JURIES, 1791-1792

CHAP. THOUGH the French Revolution claimed a large share of StanVII. hope's attention, he was not unmindful of his responsibilities nearer home. The following letters from Wyvill, his old associate in the cause of Parliamentary Reform, show how the Reformers outside Parliament looked up to him as their leader and spokesman. Wyvill was collecting material for the six precious volumes of documents and correspondence which enshrine the early history of the movement, and asked his friend for a copy of the papers of the Kent meeting of 1782, on which the important Yorkshire petition to Parliament was based.

'November 25, 1791.

'My dear Lord,-I think your Lordship will not dislike the use I shall make of some of these papers; nor, though I have unavoidably published several in which Mr. Burke is commended, will you have any reason to think, when my collection shall appear, that it has any tendency to revive the credit of that name. Be assured, my dear Lord, that though it has been my lot to remain in silent obscurity for so many years, my zeal in the public cause is as warm as ever; and that, feeling an entire confidence in the integrity and public spirit which govern your conduct in all your various enterprises for the good of the country, I have constantly wished your success with the most friendly zeal. I hope you enjoy your accustomed health and ability to bear fatigue, for which it seems not improbable that you will have great occasion at no very distant period. Thank God, by quiet and regularity I have rather improved than weakened my constitution; and should the time for exertion come soon, I shall not be afraid to wear every fibre of it out to promote the cause of liberty and benevolence.

'I am ever, my dear Lord, with great regard,
'Most sincerely yours,

'C. WYVILL.'

A month later (December 24) he again wrote in reference CHAP. to the events of 1782, and concluded thus :

'I wish you all success in the prosecution of philosophical studies. Though it seems scarcely possible that a ship should be moved forward in opposition to wind and tide, yet the powers of machinery are very great and may afford you a means of effecting your purpose. I know you are accustomed to overcome great difficulties. I fear, however, the conclusion to be drawn from engaging in philosophical disquisitions of so much difficulty and abstruseness is that you see little prospect of doing good at this time in the political field.

'I am with great regard most truly and sincerely yours,

'C. WYVILL.'

Wyvill was for once mistaken. Though his friend was grappling with the thorny problems of steam navigation, he had plenty of energy to spare for political work. Never, indeed, did he labour more assiduously in the public service than during the next three years. He took his duties as a peer in the trial of Warren Hastings very seriously, and did his utmost to secure fair play for the defendant. He also kept vigilant watch and ward over the Government's handling of the great drama. On May 16 a debate arose in the House of Lords in reference to the effect of a dissolution on the impeachment.1 If an impeachment could be stopped by a dissolution, he pointed out, the remedy given to the people against the use of power would be destroyed. A Minister might at any moment screen himself or his instruments from public justice, when the hue and cry became too hot. A fortnight later 2 the case again came up in the form of a request that Parliament should not be prorogued till the trial was finished. Grenville's reply that such a demand would be an infringement of the royal prerogative brought Stanhope to his feet. The extraordinary doctrine laid down by his noble relative would not, he declared, permit him to remain silent. He would never hear with patience that Parliament had not a right to advise the King on the exercise of any of his prerogatives-a doctrine of the most mischievous tendency, which ought no sooner to be heard than reprobated. His protest was echoed by Lansdowne, who expressed amazement at Grenville's doctrine, and added that if Ministers were allowed to use such arguments it was useless to meet, since all matters of importance could be connected with the royal prerogative.

1 Parl, Hist., xxix. 527-8.

2 Ibid., pp. 662-3.

VII.

CHAP.

Stanhope was not sorry to have the opportunity of counterworking Hastings's great antagonist on the neutral ground of Westminster Hall, and friction with Burke on the admissibility of evidence was not infrequent. When in May, 1792, Hastings's counsel produced a letter with extracts from other letters referred to therein, he supported the Lord Chancellor in ruling that they might be read, regardless of Burke's protest that there was no proof of them being the documents mentioned. Early in the following year he denounced the action of the Managers in prolonging the cross-examination as a scandal. A few weeks later he supported the admission of additional evidence for the defendant. On May 27 he interrupted Burke while cross-examining a witness on the opium contract, remarking that it was impossible to permit parole evidence of matters of fact recorded in the books of the Company, and that the books themselves ought to be produced. At this Burke flared up, and, before dealing with the objection, made a formal protest to the Court. On behalf of the Managers we demand of your Lordships that any censure of the Managers shall be the act of the House, to which, and not to any individuals of it, we are subject. Nothing can lead to more unpleasantness and disagreeable altercation with individual members than the kind of observation that is made by the noble Lord.' In the following year he took part in the crossexamination of Cornwallis, questioning him on the efforts of the Governor-General to cope with the native coalition. On April 30 he brought before the House of Lords some words of Burke reflecting on the Judges. He moved that the shorthand writers be summoned to the bar to read their notes; but as other Peers had heard nothing derogatory to the Bench the motion was negatived without a division. When at length the end was reached in 1795, Stanhope had already withdrawn from all part or lot in the proceedings. The most noteworthy of the absentees from the verdict and the most regretted was Earl Stanhope. From the commencement till the end of May 1794 he had never been absent for an hour. He had taken notes of the evidence, and had always shewn candour and impartiality in dealing with the difficult questions arising. But, in consequence of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he declined further attendance on the ground that the Courts of Justice had lost their dignity.'1

The close of the Hastings trial, falling in the era of reaction, has led us to anticipate; but before that melancholy period

1 See Bond's prefaces to Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, vols. iii. and iv.