the flanks of his assertions. His very queries were in casements. No impression, therefore, was to be made on this fortress of sophistry by desultory observations; and it was necessary to sit down before it, and assail it by regular approaches. It was fortunate, however, to observe, that notwithstanding all the skill employed by the noble and literary engineer, his mode of defence on paper was open to the same objection which had been urged against his other fortifications; that if his adversary got possession of one of his posts, it became strength against him, and the means of subduing the whole line of his argument.

The points which (Mr. Sheridan said) he should conceive that he had distinctly established from the authentic document before the house, notwithstanding the mutilated state in which it appeared, were-first, that not one word, hint, or suggestion on the part of the naval officers tending to give any approbation, either directly or by implication, to the scheme of fortification then in debate, was to be found in that paper; but that, on the contrary, from the manner in which a reference was made to the minutes of the naval officers, of which the result was withholden, a strong presumption might be grounded, wholly independent of the information which the house had received from members of that board, that those minutes did contain a condemnation of the plan. He did not expect to hear it argued that the result of those minutes could not be communicated, because they were mixed with dangerous matters of intelligence; they had shown a sufficient degree of ingenuity in the manner of having extracted them from the report; and it would prove extraordinary indeed if, wherever the judgment was unfavourable, it should have been so blended and complicated with matter of detail and dangerous discussion, that no chemical process in the ordnance laboratory could possibly separate them; whilst on the contrary, every approving opinion, like a light, subtile, oily fluid, floated at the top at once; and the clumsiest clerk was capable of presenting it to the house, pure and untinged by a single particle of the argument or information upon which it was produced.

In the second place, he should contend that the opinion given by the land officers in favour of the plan was hypothetical and conditional; and that they had unanimously and invariably, throughout the whole business, refused to lend their authority to, or make themselves responsible for, the data or suppositions

upon which that opinion was to be maintained. This circumstance deserved the more particular attention of the house, because the report had been so artfully managed, as in many points to appear to support a right honourable gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in a contrary assertion.

Next, he regarded himself as unanswerably justified in concluding that the data themselves were founded upon a supposition of events so improbable and desperate, that the existence of the case contained in them, carried with it not the imminent danger of Portsmouth and Plymouth only, but the actual conquest of the island. Upon this occasion, he did not think much detail of argument was necessary, after he had, at least in his opinion, irrefragably established, that in the case alluded to, in the words often recurred to, "under the circumstance of the data," was literally this, "The absence of the whole British fleet for the space of three months; while an army of thirty or forty thousand men was ready on the enemy's coast to invade this country, that enemy to choose their point of landing, to land and encamp, with heavy artillery, and every necessary for a siege; whilst no force in great Britain could be collected in less than two months to oppose them." By no means could he admit as a fact, even taking it for granted that the enemy should decide in assaulting no part but Portsmouth and Plymouth, he should, with most polite hostility, scorn to strike a blow at the heart of the empire; but in the courtly spirit of a French duelist, should aim only to wound in the sword-arm; yet even under this idea, must he deny that these only objects provided for, could be said to be effectually secured. For, first, it was not made out that the enemy might not either land or march to the eastward of Plymouth, where no defence was pretended; and, secondly, the whole question turning upon a supposition of our being inferior at sea, in that case a presumption of the safe return of the inferior fleet and its beating the superior fleet, was the sole resource for the relief of the besieged dock-yards; the defence of which was expressly stated in the report, to be calculated only against the force, and for the time expressed in the data; so that the enemy having it obviously in his power, whilst master of the sea, to recruit his own army, as well as to keep the other exposed parts of this kingdom in check and alarm, and thereby to prevent the possibility of our assembling and uniting

a force sufficient to raise the siege, it followed that if either the enemy's army exceeded the number supposed, or at the time was prolonged beyond the period calculated, the whole of this ef fectual security vanished under their own reasoning, and we should merely have prepared a strong hold in the country for our foe; a hold which the circumstances under which he was supposed to make the attack, would enable him for ever to retain.

Mr. Sheridan now proceeded to his remarks concerning the distinction which had, during the debate, been made relative to the different persons who were supposed to form the opposition to the present plan, and said he had heard the old insinuations of party views resorted to by those who defended the original motion; and some honourable gentlemen who most strenuously opposed it, had, however, in a kind of language which he could not avoid taking notice of, disavowed any party feeling or connection with the party in question. With respect to himself, he was happy that the business had worn so little the appearance of party as it had; and although he had moved for and obtained the report, which had been so much discussed, and upon which so much had turned, he had proved himself ready and anxious (as the persons alluded to well knew) to resign the business into the hands of the respectable gentleman who had upon that day so ably brought it forward. He could never, for one, submit to the imputation, that the party with whom he had the honour to act were supporting or opposing any measure upon the motives less just, less fair or less honourable than those which influenced any other description of gentlemen in that house. The present question could not even be pretended to be pursued with party policy, as there was not a person in the house who could avoid confessing that party purposes would be better gratified by entangling the right honourable gentleman in the pursuit of this obnoxious and unpopular scheme. But the gentleman who had upon that day led the opposition to it, had been desired to take such a lead, because it appeared among the most effectual means of warding off an injury from the country; otherwise to be enlisting under leaders for the day, or courting the temporary assistance of any description of gentlemen, would, in his opinion, prove a conduct as impolitic as undignified. On the other hand, to recede from any important contest, because gentlemen uncon

nected with them were likely to have the credit of the event, would deservedly cast on them the reproach of being a faction and not a party. But this was not their conduct; they could defend their situation upon system and principle; however reduced their ranks, they were more desirous to prove they were in the right than to increase their numbers. He was confident, however, that the gentlemen to whom he might be supposed to allude, were too liberal to set a less value upon their support that day because it was unaccompanied by adulation, or any endeavour to canvass for their future connection. Let us (added Mr. Sheridan) this night be firmly embodied in a cause we equally approve. Let us do this great service to the country; then separate, and seek opposing camps. Let them return with double triumph, if they will, of having conferred an important benefit on their constituents and the nation, and a real obligation on the government. Let them have the credit with the country of having defeated the minister's measure; and the merit with his friends, of having rescued him from a perilous dilemma. Leave us only the silent satisfaction that, without envying the reputation of those whom we were content to follow, without being piqued by insinuations against our motives, and without debating whether the minister might not be served by our success, we gave an earnest and zealous assistance in defeating a measure, which, under the specious pretence of securing our coasts, strikes at the root of our great national defence, and at the heart of the constitution itself.

The gallery being cleared the house divided on the motion "that the words proposed to be left out, stand as part of the question." Ayes, 169; noes, 169. The numbers being equal, the Speaker remarked that, under his inability to say any thing new upon a subject which had been already so thoroughly debated : and being too much exhausted by fatigue to enter largely into it then, even if he possessed talent enough to do it in a manner which would tend to throw any new light upon it, he would content himself with merely giving his vote against the original motion, and declaring that the noes had carried the question.”

MARCH 6.

PROCEEDINGS AGAINST MR. HASTINGS.

Major Scott on the first day of this session, 24th of January, 1786, reminded the house that Mr. Hastings had arrived in England some months; and he therefore called upon Mr. Burke to produce the charges which he had pledged himself in the preceding sessions to bring forward against Mr. Hastings; and to fix the

earliest day possible for the discussion of them. Mr. Burke replied to the major, by relating an anecdote of the great Duke of Parma, who being challenged by Henry the Fourth of France" to bring his forces into the open field, and instantly decide their disputes," answered with a smile, "that he knew very well what he had to do, and was not come so far to be directed by an enemy.”

On the 17th Mr. Burke brought this subject before the house. After desiring the clerk to read the 44th and 45th resolutions of censure and recal of Mr. Hastings, moved by Mr. Dundas, on the 29th of May, 1782, he said that he entirely agreed in opinion with the friends of that gentleman, that the resolutions which had been read should not be suffered to remain a mere calumny on the page of their journals; at the same time he lamented that the solemn business of the day should have devolved upon him by the natural death of some, by the political death of others, and in some instances by a death to principle and to duty. Having endeavoured to remove the odium of appearing a forward prosecutor of public delinquency, Mr. Burke called back the recollection of the house to the several proceedings which had been had in parliament respecting the mal-administration of the company's officers in India, from the period of Lord Clive's government down to the reports of the secret and select committees, the resolutions moved thereupon, and the approbation repeatedly given to these proceedings by his Majesty from the throne. It was upon the authority, the sanction, and the encouragement thus afforded him, that he rested this accusation of Mr. Hastings as a delinquent of the first magnitude. After going through an infinite variety of topics relative to this part of his subject; he proceeded to explain the process which he should recommend to the house to pursue. There were, he observed, three several modes of proceeding against state delinquents, which, according to the exigencies of particular cases, had each at different times been adopted. The first was to direct the Attorney-General to prosecute; from this mode he acknowledged himself totally averse, not only because he had just discovered in the gentleman who filled that situation, that zeal for public justice in the present instance, which was a necessary qualification in a public prosecutor; but more especially, because he thought a trial in the Court of King's Bench, amidst a cloud of causes of meum and tuum, of trespass, assault, battery, assumpsit and trover, &c. not at all suited to the size and enormity of the offender, or to the complicated nature and extent of his offences. Another mode of proceeding occasionally adopted by the house was by bill of pains and penalties; this mode he also greatly disapproved of. The only process that remained, was by the ancient and constitutional mode of impeachment ; and even in adopting this process he should advise the house to proceed with all possible caution and prudence. It had been usual, he observed, in the first instance, to resolve that the party accused should be impeached, and then a committee to examine the evidence, and find the articles on which the impeachment was to be founded. This mode of proceeding, had, from the heat and passion with which the minds of men were sometimes apt to be inflamed, led the house, on more than one occasion, into the disgraceful dilemma of either abandoning the impeachment they had voted, or of preferring articles which they had not evidence to support. In order to steer clear of this disgrace, he should move that such papers as were necessary for substantiating the guilt of Mr. Hastings, if guilt there was, should be laid before the house, and