CHAP. VII. Accufation of Mr. Haftings.-Speech of Mr. Burke on opening that business in the house of commons; he gives the reasons for his undertaking it; reminds the houfe of their former proceedings; ftates three different modes of accufation, profecution in the courts below, bill of pains and penalties, impeachment; objection to the two former modes; his plan of conducting the laft; general obfervations on the whole; he moves for a variety of India papers and documents; debates thereon; Mr. Dundas's defence of himself; Mr. Pitt's argument on the fame fide; answer to objections by Mr. Burke; rights and privileges of an accufer; the production of papers relative to the treaties with the Mahrattas and the Mogul objected to, on the ground of difclofing dangerous fecrets; anfwer to that objection; papers refufed on a divifion; motion renewed by Mr. Fox, and rejected. Mr. Burke delivers in twenty-two articles of charge against Mr. Haftings; Mr. Haftings petitions to be heard in his own defence; converfation thereon; Mr. Haftings heard at the bar; his defence laid on the table: first charge, respecting the Rohilla war, moved by Mr. Burke; his introductory Speech; lift of speakers on both fides; charge rejected on a divifion: fecond charge, refpecting Benares, moved by Mr. Fox; Supported by Mr. Pitt; carried by a large majority; indecent reflections of Mr. Haftings's friends thereupon.-Mr. Dundas's Bill for amending the India act of 1784; its arbitrary principles ftrongly oppofed; defended by Mr. Dundas; paffes both houfes.-King's Speech. Parliament prorogued. WE their E have before related, that on the first day of the feffion Mr. Burke was called upon by the agent of the late governor general of Bengal to produce the criminal charges against Mr. Haftings in fuch a fhape as might enable parliament to enter into a full difcuffion of his conduct, and come to a final decifion upon it. On Friday the 17th of February, Mr. Burke brought this fubject be fore the houfe of commons: after defiring the clerk to read the 44th and 45th refolutions of cenfure and recal of Mr. Haftings, moved by Mr. Dundas on the 29th of May 1782, he faid that he entirely agreed in opinion with the friends of that gentleman, that the refolution which had been read fhould not be fuffered to remain a mere calumny on the page of their journals; at the fame time he lamented that the folemn bufinefs of the day fhould have devolved upon him by the natural death of fome, by the political death of others, and in fome inftances by a death to duty and to principle. It would doubtlefs, he faid, have come forward with much more weight and effect in the hands of the right honourable gentleman who had induced the houfe to adopt thofe refolutions, or in those of another gentleman, who had taken an active part in the felect committee, and then enjoyed a confidential poft in the Indian department, the fecretary of the board of controul; but as he could not perceive any inten tions of the kind in either of thofe members, and as he had been perfonally called upon, in a manner highly honourable to the party interested in the proceeding, but in a manner which rendered it impoffible for him not to do his duty, he should endeavour to the best of his power to fupport the credit and dignity of the house, to enforce its intentions, and give vigour and effect to a sentence paffed four years ago; and he trufted that he fhould receive that protection, that fair and honourable interpretation of his conduct, which the houfe owed to those who acted in its name, and under the fanction of its authority. Having endeavoured upon this ground to remove the odium of appearing a forward profecutor of public delinquency, Mr. Burke called back the recollection of the houfe to the feveral proceedings which had been had in parliament respecting the mal- adminiftration of the company's affairs in India, from the period of Lord Clive's government down to the reports of the fecret and select committees, the refolutions moved thereupon, and the approbation repeatedly given to thefe proceedings by his majefty from the throne. It was upon the authority, the fanction, and the encouragement thus afforded him, that he refted his accufation of Mr. Haftings, as a delinquent of the firft magnitude. After going through an infinite variety of topics relative to this part of his fubject; he proceeded to explain the process which he fhould recommend to the house to purfue. There were, he observed, three feveral modes of proceeding against ftate delinquents, which, according to the exigencies of particular cafes, had each at different times been adopted. The first was to direct his majefty's attorney general to profecute; from this mode he acknowledged himfelf totally averfe, not only because he had not discovered in the learned gentleman, whofe refpectable character and profeffional abilities had advanced him to that high official fituation, that zeal for public juftice in the prefent inftance, which was a neceffary qualification in a public profecutor; but more especially, becaufe he thought a trial in the court of King's Bench, amidst a cloud of caufes of meum and tuum, of trefpafs, affault, battery, converfion, and trover, &c. &c. not at all fuited to the fize and enormity of the offender, or to the complicated nature and extent of his offences. Another mode of proceeding occafionally adopted by the houfe was by bill of pains and penalties; this mode he alfo greatly dif approved of, in the first place, as attended with great hardship and injuftice to the party profecuted, by obliging him to anticipate his defence; and fecondly, as putting the house in a fituation which, where the nature of the cafe did not abfolutely require it, ought carefully to be avoided, that of fhifting its character backwards and forwards, and appearing in the fame caufe one day as accufers, and another as judges. -The only procefs that remained, was by the ancient and conftitutional mode of impeachment; and even. in adopting this procefs he should advise the house to proceed with all poffible caution and prudence. It had been usual, he obferved, in the firft inftance, to refolve that the party accused should be impeached, and then to appoint a committee to examine examine the evidence, and find the articles on which the impeachment was to be founded.-This mode of proceeding had, from the heat and paffion with which the minds of men were fometimes apt to be inflamed, led the house, on more than one occafion, into the difgraceful dilemma of either abandoning the impeachment they had voted, or of preferring articles which they had not evidence to fupport.-In order to fteer clear of this difgrace, he fhould move that fuch papers as were neceffary for fubftantiating the guilt of Mr. Haftings, if guilt there was, should be laid before the houfe; and that these papers, together with the charges extracted from them, fhould be referred to a committee of the whole houfe, and evidence examined thereon: if the charges fhould then appear, what he believed they would be found to be, charges of the blackest and fouleft nature, and fupported by competent and fufficient evidence, the houfe would then proceed with confidence and dignity to the bar of the house of lords. Having ftated thefe matters with great precifion, Mr. Burke went into a feries of reflections on the nature of the office he had undertaken. Every accufer, he faid, was himself under accufation at the very time he accused another; it behoved him to act upon fure grounds, and he had therefore chofen the line of conduct he had juft explained, as being at the fame time the most effectual for the purposes of public juftice, and the leaft expofed to the danger of error: he urged the unavoidable neceffity of making the enquiry perfonal; he asked what would be the fentiments of the miferable and oppreffed natives of India, if the refult of the proceedings in that houfe fhould be to find that enormous peculation exifted, but that there was no peculator; that there was grofs corruption, but no person to corrupt, or to be corrupted; that a torrent of violence, oppreffion, and cruelty had deluged that country, but that every foul in it was juft, moderate, and humane? To trace peculation to the peculator, corruption to its fource, and oppreffion to the oppreffor, had been the object of the researches of the feveral committees that had been inftituted at different times by the houfe; and the refult was, they found that government in India could not be foul and the governor pure. After a fpeech of confiderable length, in which these and many other topics of the fame nature were argued with great force and perfpicuity, Mr. Burke concluded, by moving, "That copies of all correfpondence, fince the month of Jannary 1782, between Warren Haftings, Efquire, governor general of Bengal, and the court of directors, as well before as fince the return of the faid governor general, relative to prefents and other money particularly received by the faid governor general, be laid before this houfe." The reflections thrown out by Mr. Burke, relative to the refolutions of the fecret committee, and the conduct of Mr. Dundas, called up that gentleman to juflify the part he had taken.-He acknowledged that he undoubtedly was the perfon who fuggefted the refolutions alluded to, and he had not the fmalleft fcruple to admit that the fame fentiments that he entertained refpecting Mr. Haftings, at the time of propofing thofe refo lutions, lutions, he entertained at that moment; but would any one contend that those fentiments went fo far as to fuppofe Mr. Haftings to be a fit object for a criminal profecution? The refolutions went to the recal of Mr. Haftings, a matter which he at the time thought expedient, and had recommended it to the houfe as a matter of expediency only. He thought the conduct of Mr. Haftings, fince the period to which thofe refolutions referred, not only not criminal but highly meritorious, and he had for that reafon approved of the vote of thanks which the court of directors had conferred upon him. The charge of inconfiftency being again urged against Mr. Dundas with great feverity, by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt rofe up in his defence, and retorted the charge with fome acrimony on Mr. Fox, whofe conduct, he faid, in the coalition he had formed with a perfon whom he had been in the habit of loading with the most extravagant reproaches, had fufficiently explained to the public his ideas of confiftency. He contended that the resolution of recal by no means pledged the house to profecute; fince, if that were the cafe, they would on all occafions be reduced to the neceflity either of hefitating on fuch a step (however urgent the emergency might be) until a full examination of the conduct of the perfon could be had, or of rendering a profecution unavoid. able, although no adequate enquiry had been inftituted to evince its propriety. The refolutions coatained in themselves the whole of the object for which they were defigned, namely, that in order to recover the loft confidence of the princes of India, it was advifeable, what?-to punish ?-No! but to recal certain of the company's fervants. Whether the conduct by which the confidence had been loft was imputable as a crime to those fervants, was totally another confideration he was indeed ready to join in opinion with the gentlemen oppofite to him, that if any real guilt was to be inveftigated, and adequate punishment to be inflicted, his right honourable friend would be full as proper a perfon to take the lead, and full as likely to accomplish all the purposes of public juftice, as thofe gentlemen into whofe hands the profecution would fall; but, as it had been faid in the courfe of the debate that there were occafions when the formal rules of common justice might be overleaped, and a profecution conducted with violence and refentment, rather than by the dull forms of ordinary proceedings, perhaps, confidering the prefent bufinefs in that point of view, the gentlemen that had taken it up were the fittest people to be intrusted with it: with respect to the papers moved for, Mr. Pitt made no objection, but hoped the gentleman who moved for them would inform the house as early and as explicitly as poffible of the nature and extent of the charges he intended to make. The queftion being carried, Mr. Burke proceeded to move for a great variety of other papers, which he alledged were neceffary for the profecution of the cause he had undertaken. These motions produced much conversation, and towards the clofe of the day there appeared fome hesitation in the minifters of the crown, whether it would be proper to produce whatever papers might be called for on the mere aid, he ought not to be denied the means of digefting, explaining, or fimplifying thofe facts of which he was in prior poffeffion. If, on the other hand, the grounds of accufation could be extenuated, if the feverity of the charge could be abated, nay, perhaps annihilated, a denial of that opportunity to the accufer was an injuftice to the accused. He fhould therefore confider the rejection of his motion as a ftratagem to get rid of the whole enquiry; but he entertained too ftrong a fenfe of what he owed to It was urged that it would be a public juftice, and to humanity, precedent of a very dangerous na- to accept of the fubterfuge that was ture to fuffer papers, of the con- offered him, and fteal away from tents of which the house was in a and defert their caufe. He knew great measure ignorant, to be laid that he fhould have to encounter a upon the table, merely on the connected force of the firft weight word of any individual member. and influence in the country: but Why did not the honourable gen- he had not undertaken the accufatleman bring forward a specific ac- tion upon light grounds, and he cufation the house might then be had the firmeft reliance upon the enabled to judge whether the pa- juftice of his caufe. He had been pers moved for were neceffary to told, that the prosecution would be fuftantiate the charge or not; but unpopular; that the people of Engtill that was done, it was their duty land would reject him in fuch a to refift the production of them. In purfuit.-O miferable public! he oppofition to this unexpected obfta- exclaimed; what! for having taken cle, Mr. Burke contended, and en- up the cause of their injured and deavoured to prove from feveral oppreffed fellow-fubjects in India, inftances, that the practice of the for attempting to bring to juftice house by no means bound them the plunderers of mankind, the down to the mode of proceeding to defolators of provinces, the opwhich it was attempted to fubject prefiors of an innocent and merihim. In every criminal procefs torious people, in every rank, fex, the accufer, who, by becoming and condition, the violators of pubfuch, took upon himself the onus lic faith, the deftroyers of the Briprobandi, was entitled to have fuch tish character and reputation-was documents and papers as he he to be unpopular? Those who efteemed neceffary to fupport the had railed monuments of their becharge he undertook to bring for- nevolence, by providing afylums ward, open and acceffible. A re- and receptacles for human mifery, fufal must be attended with a were jufly ranked for fuch deeds double injustice. If the accufer.amongst the benefactors to manwanted collateral and explanatory kind; but even, these acts of paVOL. XXVIII. [7] triotiẩm |