BOOK VI. proceed without the assistance of the Judges, during CHAP. 2. their absence on the circuit, adjourned the court to 1794. the 7th of April. On the 6th of March, upon mo

tion made in the House of Commons, by Mr. Burke, the managers were appointed a committee to inspect the journals of the House of Lords, and to examine into the mode of procedure that was adopted on the trial of Warren Hastings, Esq.; and on the 17th of the same month, it was ordered, on the motion of Mr. Burke, that the managers should lay before the House the circumstances which have retarded the progress of the said trial, with their observations thereon.

On the 9th of April, which was the second day of the proceedings after the adjournment for the circuit, Lord Cornwallis was examined on the part of the defendant. His evidence contributed little to establish any thing. If it tended to confirm the views, held up by any one of the parties, more than those by another, it was rather those of the plaintiffs than those of the defendant. On the alleged right of the government to call upon the Zemindars in time of war, for aids, over and above their rents, he made one important declaration, that no such aid had been demanded in any part of India during his administration.

As Mr. Hastings had declined, the managers thought proper, to call for the evidence of Mr. Larkings. The first questions which they put were intended to elucidate the letter which Mr. Larkins, upon the application of Mr. Hastings, wrote to Mr. Devaynes, in explanation of the dates of a part of the presents which Mr. Hastings had received. The counsel for the defendant objected; contending that, in reply, evidence, though of a witness till that time in India, could not be admitted to new matter, or

matter which had not been contested; but only to BOOK VI. points which had been disputed, or evidence which CHAP. 2. had been attacked. Mr. Burke again disclaimed the 1794. authority of the lawyers; and said, "the defendant was placed by these arguments in the most contemptible point of view. He had been specifically charged with bribery, sharping, swindling: To these charges he had replied, that the testimony of Mr. Larkins, if he had it, could vindicate him: Mr. Larkins was now present: But the prisoner, instead of wishing to clear his fame, called for protection against the testimony to which he had appealed; and sought a shelter, not in his own innocence, but in a technical rule of evidence." The Lords adjourned to deliberate, and when the court met on a future day, their Speaker announced, "Gentlemen, Managers for the Commons, and Gentlemen of Counsel for the Defendant, I am commanded by the House to inform you, that it is not competent for the managers for the Commons to examine the witness, in relation to a letter of the 5th of August, 1786, from the witness to William Devaynes, Esq., one of the Directors of the East India Company, produced as evidence in chief by the managers for the Commons." Mr. Larkins was again called, and one of the first questions which were put was represented by the counsel for the defendant as falling under the same objection. But

so much, they said, had been uttered, about this testimony, and the motives of Mr. Hastings in resisting it, that any longer to forbear bringing these assertions to the test of proof, might perhaps seem to justify the insinuations which had been cast out against the defendant." Relying, therefore, on the justice and humanity of the House to prevent the protraction of the trial, on this or any other account

1794.

BOOK VI. to another year, they gave their consent to the exСНАР. 2. amination of Mr. Larkins, on the same terms as if he had been examined at the first stage of the trial. This day the Court received another of Mr. Hastings' addresses. Alluding to a report of an early prorogation of parliament, he conjured them to end his trial before the end of the session; affirming, "that human patience (meaning no disrespect to the Lords) could not sustain this eternal trial." Next day, also, time passing away in disputes about the admissibility of the questions which the managers tendered to the witness, Mr. Hastings rose, and said that, if the Lords would but sit to finish the trial during the present session, his counsel should make no objection to any questions that might be asked. He then made a pathetic statement, recounting the offers which he had made to wave his defence, the actual relinquishment of part of it, and his other sacrifices to expedite the trial, among which he stated his consent to the examination of Mr. Larkins. He ended by praying that the court would sit on the following day, and permit that examination to be closed.

This was on the 16th of April. On the 17th Mr. Burke, in the House of Commons, brought up the report of the managers appointed to inquire into the causes of the delay in the trial of Mr. Hastings. An ample view of this important document is required. But it would interrupt too long the proceedings on the trial, and may be reserved till they are brought to a close.1 The lawyers, whom it desperately offended, because it spoke out, respecting their system, a greater than usual portion of the truth, argued

1 See Appendix at the end of this chapter.

A

CHAP. 2.

against the printing of it; as in this, however, Pitt BOOK VI. and Dundas took part with the managers, the opposition of the lawyers failed.

The examination of Mr. Larkins was concluded on the 28th of April, having, together with the disputes to which it gave occasion, occupied the time of the court for rather more than thrée days. It had a tendency, but no more than a tendency, rather to clear than convict Mr. Hastings of any intention at any time to appropriate to himself any part of the presents, the receipt of which he afterwards disclosed; because the money, though entered in the Company's books as money of Mr. Hastings, was not entered as such in the accounts kept of his private property by Mr. Larkins. The only new fact of any importance was, that a balance of the presents, received by Gunga Govind Sing for Mr. Hastings, was never paid to Mr. Hastings; who stated, with some marks of displeasure to Mr. Larkins, that Gunga Govind Sing pretended he had expended one lac of rupees, (10,000.) during the absence of Mr. Hastings, in jewels, for a present to Mrs. Wheler, the wife of the member of council, upon whom, together with the Governor-General, the weight of administration at that time reposed.

Of the money which Mr. Hastings had desired to borrow of the Rajah Nobkissen, and which he said he had afterwards, upon the entreaty of the Rajah, accepted as a present, it appeared that Nobkissen had afterwards demanded payment, when Mr. Hastings had met the demand by what the lawyers call a set-off, or counter claim upon the demandant. Nobkissen had then filed a bill of discovery against Mr. Hastings in Chancery. The answer of Mr. Hastings was, that, as an impeachment was depending, he declined giving any answer at all. The

3

1794.

BOOK VI. managers proposed to give these proceedings in eviCHAP. 2. dence. The lawyers of counsel for Mr. Hastings re1794. pelled them, as inadmissible. Mr. Burke was provoked

to language scarcely temperate : "He was addressing," he said, "a body of nobles; who would act like nobles; and not as thieves in a night cellar: he could not suspect them of so foul a thing as to reject matter so pregnant with evidence: the notions of the Judges were not binding on the Lords: And the trial of Lord Strafford afforded an example to which in this respect, he trusted they would always conform." The Lords took the rest of the day to deliberate; and on their next return to the hall of judgment announced, "That it was not competent to the managers for the Commons to give in evidence the pleas put in by Warren Hastings, Esq., on the 14th of February and 25th of March, 1793, to the discovery prayed by a bill in Chancery, filed against him by Rajah Nobkissen on the 27th of June, 1792, touching a sum of three lacs of rupees, or 34,000?, sterling money, mentioned in the sixth article of charge."

"As the counsel for the defendant had, on the Benares charge, the Begum charge, the charge of presents, and the charge of contracts, given evidence of the distresses of the country, as a justification, or excuse, of the irregular acts of extortion, oppression, bribery, and peculation, charged against the defendant in the articles of charge," the managers proposed to prove, that the cause of these distresses was the misconduct of Mr. Hastings, plunging the Company into a war with the Mahrattas, neither necessary nor just. To this evidence the counsel objected, and the Lords resolved that it was not admissible. Abundance of angry altercation took place both before and after the decision; and Mr. Burke, in the pur