and Call, and should, in return, be secured by thought fit to determine on the debt of 1777. their bond.

Madras.

The recorded proceedings at this Benfield permit-
time knew nothing of any debt to ted to return to
Benfield. There was his own testi-
mony; there was the testimony of the list; there
was the testimony of the Nabob of Arcot against
it; yet such was the ministers' feeling of the true
secret of this transaction, that they thought prop-
er, in the teeth of all these testimonies, to give
him license to return to Madras! Here the min-
isters were under some embarrassment. Con-
founded between their resolution of rewarding the
good services of Benfield's friends and associates
in England, and the shame of sending that notori-
ous incendiary to the court of the Nabob of Ar-
cot, to renew his intrigues against the British
government, at the time they authorize his re-
turn, they forbid him, under the severest penal-
ties, from any conversation with the Nabob or
his ministers; that is, they forbid his communi-
cation with the very person on account of his

The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight of its odium, and otherwise reduced from its alarming bulk, the agents thought they might venture to print a list of the creditors. This was done for the first time in the year 1783, during the Duke of Portland's administration. In this list the name of Benfield was not to be seen. To this strong negative testimony was added the farther testimony of the Nabob of Arcot. That prince (or, rather, Mr. Benfield for him) writes to the court of Directors a letter full of complaints and accusations against Lord Macartney, conveyed in such terms as were natural for one of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. Among the rest, he is made to complain of his Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercourse of politeness and sentiment between him [the Nabob] and Mr. Benfield; and, to aggravate the affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's visits to be only on account of respect and of grat-dealings with whom they permit his return to itude, as no pecuniary transactions subsisted between them!

the mystery to

light.

that city! To overtop this contradiction, there
is not a word restraining him from the freest in-
tercourse with the Nabob's second son, the real
author of all that is done in the Nabob's name,
who, in conjunction with this very Benfield, has
acquired an absolute dominion over that unhappy
man, is able to persuade him to put his signature
to whatever paper they please, and often without
any communication of the contents.
This man-

When

collusive intercourse be

tween the ministry and Benfield.

Such, for a considerable space of time, was the Suit of Benfield outward form of the loan of 1777, in which brought which Mr. Benfield had no sort of concern. At length intelligence arrived at Madras that this debt, which had always been renounced by the court of Directors, was rather like to become the subject of something more like a criminal inquiry than of any patron-agement was detailed to them at full length by age or sanction from Parliament. Every ship Lord Macartney, and they can not pretend ignobrought accounts, one stronger than the other, rance of it. of the prevalence of the determined enemies of the Indian system. The public revenues became an object desperate to the hopes of Mr. Benfield; he therefore resolved to fall upon his associates, and, in violation of that faith which subsists among those who have abandoned all other, commences a suit in the Mayor's Court against Taylor, Majendie, and Call for the bond given to him, when he agreed to disappear for his own benefit as well as that of the common concern. The assignees of his debt, who little expected the springing of this mine even from such an engineer as Mr. Benfield, after recovering their first alarm, thought it best to take ground on the real state of the transaction. They divulged the whole mystery, and were prepared to plead that they had never received from Mr. Benfield any other consideration for the bond than a transfer, in trust for himself, of his demand on the Nabob of Arcot. A universal indignation arose against the perfidy of Mr. Benfield's proceedings. The event of the suit was looked upon as so certain, that Benfield was compelled to retreat as precipitately as he had advanced boldly; he gave up his bond, and was reinstated in his original demand, to wait the fortune of other claimants. At that time, and at Madras, this hope was dull indeed; but at home another scene was preparing.

It was long before any public account of this discovery at Madras had arrived in England that the present minister and his Board of Control

It is

I believe, after this exposure of facts, no man can entertain a doubt of the collusion This proves of ministers with the corrupt interest of the delinquents in India. ever those in authority provide for the interest of any person, on the real but concealed state of his affairs, without regard to his avowed, public, and ostensible pretenses, it must be presumed that they are in confederacy with him, because they act for him on the same fraudulent principles on which he acts for himself. plain that the ministers were fully apprised of Benfield's real situation, which he had used means to conceal while concealment answered his purposes. They were, or the person on whom they relied was, of the cabinet council of Benfield, in the very depth of all his mysteries. An honest magistrate compels men to abide by one story. An equitable judge would not hear of the claim of a man who had himself thought proper to renounce it. With such a judge his shuffling and prevarication would have damned his claims; such a judge never would have known, but in order to animadvert upon, proceedings of that character.

I have thus laid before you, Mr. Speaker, I think with sufficient clearness, the connection of the ministers with Mr. Atkinson at the general election; I have laid open to you the connection of Atkinson with Benfield; I have shown Benfield's employment of his wealth, in creating a parliamentary interest, to procure a ministerial

the motives for

protection; I have set before your eyes his that they have only formed an alliance with them large concern in the debt, his practices to hide for screening each other from justice, according that concern from the public eye, and the lib- to the exigence of their several necessities. That eral protection which he has received from the they have done so is evident; and the junction of minister. If this chain of circumstances do not the power of office in England with the abuse of lead you necessarily to conclude that the minis-authority in the East has not only prevented even Inference from ter has paid to the avarice of Benthe whole as to field the services done by Benfield's the payment of connections to his ambition, I do not Arcot's debts. know any thing short of the confession of the party that can satisfy you of his guilt. Clandestine and collusive practice can only be traced by combination and comparison of circumstances. To reject such combination and comparison is to reject the only means of detecting fraud; it is, indeed, to give it a patent and free license to cheat with impunity.

the Nabob of

the appearance of redress to the grievances of India, but I wish it may not be found to have dulled, if not extinguished, the honor, the candor, the generosity, the good nature, which used formerly to characterize the people of England. I confess I wish that some more feeling than I have yet observed for the sufferings of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects in that oppressed part of the world had manifested itself in any one quarter of the kingdom, or in any one large description of men.

Hence the op

Hindoos over

lected.

That these oppressions exist is a fact no more denied, than it is resented as it ought to be. Much evil has been done in pressions of the India under the British authority. looked and neg What has been done to redress it? We are no longer surprised at any thing. We are above the unlearned and vulgar passion of admiration.48 But it will astonish posterity when they read our opinions in our actions, that, after

I confine myself to the connection of ministers, mediately or immediately, with only two persons concerned in this debt. How many others, who support their power and greatness within and without doors, are concerned originally, or by transfers of these debts, must be left to general opinion. I refer to the reports of the select committee for the proceedings of some of the agents in these affairs, and their attempts, at least, to furnish ministers with the means of buying Gen-years of inquiry, we have found out that the sole eral Courts, and even whole Parliaments, in the gross.

tives, the

grievance of India consisted in this, that the servants of the Company there had not profited enough of their opportunities, nor drained it sufficiently of its treasures; when they shall hear that the very first and only important act of a commission, specially named by act of Parliament, is to charge upon an undone country, in favor of a handful of men in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money!

I know that the ministers will think it little Ministers not less than acquittal, that they are not charged with acting from charged with having taken to themDebt me selves some part of the money of which love of power. they have made so liberal a donation to their partisans, though the charge may be in disputably fixed upon the corruption of their politics. For my part, I follow their crimes to that point to which legal presumptions and natural in- It is difficult for the most wise and upright dications lead me, without considering what spe- government to correct the abuses of remote delcies of evil motive tends most to aggravate or to egated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, extenuate the guilt of their conduct; but if I am and protected by the boldness and strength of to speak my private sentiments, I think that in a the same ill-got riches. These abuses, full of thousand cases for one it would be far less mis- their own wild native vigor, will grow and flourchievous to the public, and full as little dishon-ish under mere neglect. But where the supreme orable to themselves, to be polluted with direct bribery, than thus to become a standing auxiliary to the oppression, usury, and peculation of multitudes, in order to obtain a corrupt support to their power. It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many. It finds a multitude of checks, and many opposers, in every walk of life. But the objects of ambition are for the few; and every person who aims at indirect profit, and therefore wants other protection than innocence and law, instead of its rival, becomes its instrument. There is a natural allegiance and fealty due to this domineering, paramount evil, from all the vassal vices, which acknowledge its superiority, and readily militate under its banners; and it is under that discipline alone that avarice is able to spread, to any considerable extent, or to render itself a general public mischief. It is, therefore, no apology for ministers that they have not been bought by the East India delinquents, but

authority, not content with winking at the rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and corrupt, as openly to give bounties and premiums for disobedience to its laws; when it will not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit of its own gains; when it secures public robbery by all the careful jealousy and attention with which it ought to protect property from such violence; the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its purposes; neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will it long endure itself. In that case, there is an unnatural infection, a pestilential taint fermenting in the constitution of society, which fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off; or in which the vital powers, worsted in an un

48 Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici,
Sola qua possit facere et servare beatum.
Horace, Epist. vi.

Not to admire is all the art I know,
To make men happy, and to keep them so.

equal struggle, are pushed back upon them- While discovery of the misgovernment of othselves, and, by a reversal of their whole func-ers led to his own power, it was wise to inquire; tions, fester to gangrene-to death; and instead it was safe to publish; there was then no deliof what was but just now the delight and boast cacy; there was then no danger. But when of the creation, there will be cast out in the face his object is obtained, and in his imitation he has of the sun a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full outdone the crimes that he had reprobated in of stench and poison, an offense, a horror, a les- volumes of reports, and in sheets of bills of pains son to the world. and penalties, then concealment becomes prudence, and it concerns the safety of the state that we should not know, in a mode of parliamentary cognizance, what all the world knows but too well; that is, in what manner he chooses to dispose of the public revenues to the CREATURES of his politics.

ough inquiry. A Board of Commissioners was appointed to examine into these new claims. After an investigation of many years, only £1,346,796 were allowed as good, thus showing that less than one part in twenty of all these claims could be regarded as true and lawful debts. It is the opinion of well-informed men that the claims of Benfield and his associates, if fairly investigated, would have been reduced in very near the same proportion.

prosecutors turned into protectors. The event has been such as might be expected. But if it had been otherwise constituted; had it been constituted even as I wished, and as the mover of this question had planned, the better part of the proposed establishment was in the publicity of its proceedings; in its perpetual responsibility to Parliament. Without this check, what is our government at home; even awed, as every European government is, by an audience formed of the other states of Europe, by the applause or condemnation of the discerning and critical company before which it acts? But if the scene on the other side of the globe, which tempts, invites, almost compels to tyranny and rapine, be not inspected with the eye of a severe and unremitting vigilance, shame and destruction must ensue. For one, the worst event of this day, though it may deject, shall not break or subdue The call upon us is authoritative. Let who will shrink back, I shall be found at my post. Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me. Whoever, there-lowed "to object" to these claims, and adds, fore, shall at any time bring before you any thing toward the relief of our distressed fellowcitizens in India, and toward a subversion of the present most corrupt and oppressive system for its government, in me shall find a weak, I am afraid, but a steady, earnest, and faithful assistant.

me.

But has Mr. Burke made out his case as to the motives of Mr. Pitt? Has he proved that these claims were allowed without inquiry, as a "recompense" to Benfield and the other creditors for their parliamentary influence? This question will be differently answered by different persons, according to their estimate of Mr. Pitt's character. Mill, in his British India, speaking of Mr. Burke's charge, says, "In support of it, he adduces as great a body of proof as it is almost ever possible to bring to a fact of such a description." He goes on to examine Mr. Dundas' defense, that the Nabob and others were al

66

"That this was a blind is abundantly clear, though it is possible that it stood as much between his own eyes and the light, as he was desirous of putting it between the light and eyes of other people." There was also another blind," mentioned by Wraxall, viz., that these claims had, to some extent, changed hands, and The motion for inquiry was voted down. Mr. that the innocent would suffer with the guilty, Pitt was now at the height of his popularity, and if any of them were disallowed. It is easy to had an overwhelming majority at his command, see how strongly Mr. Pitt was tempted, at this ready to sustain him in all his measures. The critical moment of his life, to attach undue imconsequences were very serious to the finances portance to such considerations. It was imposof the country. Many years were necessarily sible to go back and lay bare all the frauds and occupied in paying so large a debt. In 1814 crimes of the English residents in India. To Mr. Hume publicly stated that, according to the prevent them hereafter was the great object. best information he could obtain, the amount paid Once firmly seated in power, he was resolved (interest included) was nearly five millions of to do it; and when he was brought off in tripounds; nor was this all. Mr. Hume adds, umph at the polls through the agency (to a con"the knowledge of the fact that Mr. Dundas siderable extent) of men like Benfield, in conhad in that manner admitted, without any kind nection with the immense East India interest of inquiry, the whole claims of the Consolidated throughout the country, it was natural for him Debt of 1777, served as a strong inducement to to feel that he must not be too scrupulous in reothers to get from the Nabob obligations or bonds spect to the past, but must rather aim in future of any description, in hopes that some future good- at the prevention of all such evils. It is thus natured president of the Board of Control would that the errors of political men spring from mindo the same for them. We accordingly find that gled motives; and while we can not doubt that an enormous debt of near thirty millions sterling Mr. Pitt was more or less influenced in this was very soon formed after that act of Mr. Dun- case, as in that of Mr. Hastings' impeachment, das, and urgent applications were soon again by his "avarice of power," we should be slow made to have the claims paid in the same man- to admit that his conduct implies that dereliction ner." It now became necessary to make a thor- of principle imputed to him by Mr. Burke.

EXTRACTS.

PERORATION OF THE OPENING SPEECH AT THE

TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS.

In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment of my application to you.

My Lords, what is it that we want here to a great act of national justice? Do we want a cause, my Lords? You have the cause of oppressed princes, of undone women of the first rank, of desolated provinces, and of wasted kingdoms.

Do you want a criminal, my Lords? When Church in its ancient form, in its ancient ordiwas there so much iniquity ever laid to the nances, purified from the superstitions and the charge of any one? No, my Lords, you must vices which a long succession of ages will bring not look to punish any other such delinquent upon the best institutions. You have the reprefrom India. Warren Hastings has not left sub-sentatives of that religion which says that their stance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent,

My Lords, is it a prosecutor you want? You have before you the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors; and I believe, my Lords, that the sun, in his beneficent progress round the world, does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men, separated from a remote people by the material bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bond of a social and moral community—all the Commons of England resenting, as their own, the indignities and cruelties that are offered to all the people of India.

God is love, that the very vital spirit of their institution is charity-a religion which so much hates oppression, that when the God whom we adore appeared in human form, he did not appear in a form of greatness and majesty, but in sympathy with the lowest of the people, and thereby made it a firm and ruling principle that their welfare was the object of all government, since the person, who was the Master of Nature, chose to appear himself in a subordinate situation. These are the considerations which influence them, which animate them, and will animate them, against all oppression; knowing that He who is called first among them, and first among us all, both of the flock that is fed and of those who feed it, made himself "the servant of all."

My Lords, these are the securities which we have in all the constituent parts of the body of this House. We know them, we reckon, we rest upon them, and commit safely the interests of India and of humanity into your hands. Therefore, it is with confidence, that, ordered by the Commons,

I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed.

Do we want a tribunal? My Lords, no example of antiquity, nothing in the modern world, nothing in the range of human imagination, can supply us with a tribunal like this. My Lords, here we see virtually, in the mind's eye, that sacred majesty of the Crown, under whose authority you sit, and whose power you exercise. We see in that invisible authority, what we all feel in reality and life, the beneficent powers and protecting justice of his Majesty. We have here the heir-apparent to the Crown, such as the fond wishes of the people of England wish an heir-apparent of the Crown to be. We have here all the branches of the royal family, in a situation between majesty and subjection, between the Sovereign and the subject-offering a pledge, in that situation, for the support of the rights of the Crown and the liberties of the people, both which extremities they touch. My Lords, we have a great hereditary peerage here; those who have their own honor, the honor of their ancestors, and of their posterity, to guard, and who will justify, as they have always justified, that provision in the Constitution by which justice is made an hereditary office. My Lords, we have here a new nobility, who have risen, and exalted themselves, by various merits, by great military services, which have extended the fame of this country from the rising to the setting sun. We have those, who, by various civil merits and various civil talents, have been exalted to a situation which they well deserve, and in which they will justify the favor FRENCH REVOLUTION: ERRORS AT ITS COM

of their Sovereign and the good opinion of their fellow-subjects, and make them rejoice to see those virtuous characters, that were the other day upon a level with them, now exalted above them in rank, but feeling with them in sympathy what they felt in common with them before. We have persons exalted from the practice of the law, from the place in which they administered high, though subordinate justice, to a seat here, to enlighten with their knowledge, and to strengthen with their votes, those principles which have distinguished the courts in which they have presided.

My Lords, you have here, also, the lights of our religion; you have the bishops of England. My Lords, you have that true image of the primitive

I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name, and by virtue, of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated.

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation, and condition of life.

MENCEMENT.1

You began ill, because you began by despising every thing that belonged to you. You set up your trade without a capital. If the last generations of your country appeared without much luster in your eyes, you might have passed them by, and derived your claims from a more early race of ancestors. Under a pious predilection for those ancestors, your imaginations would have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom, beyond the vulgar practice of the hour, and you would have risen with the example to

1 The extracts which follow under this bead are

taken from Mr. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, and his Letters on the Regicide Peace.