PR 1325 *M63x 1847 -.ML f E$f W; r^JPNP a 3. 5. 5 C_ Vt'S-r//W> Z'- |\ u< g x>^ > y 3 r # * Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/modernoratormostOOpitt MODERN ORATOR. THE MOST CELEBRATED SPEECHES OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM, THE RT. HON. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, THE RIGHT HON. LORD ERSKINE, AND THE EIGHT HON. EDMUND BUEKE. LONDON : AYLOTT AND JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1847 . V \ ? ffL . rn b 3 x i SH-7 LONDON : John hasler, Printer, crane-court, fleet-street. O'NEILL LIBRARY BOSTON COLLEGE 2-Ck* 2 THE MODERN ORATOR, state and condition of his subjects, the discontent which universally prevailed amongst them, the distresses under which they laboured, the injuries they complained of, and the true causes of this unhappy state of affairs. “ That he had heard with great concern of the distemper among the cattle,^ and was very ready to give his approbation to those prudent measures which the council had taken for putting a stop to so dreadful a calamity. That he was satisfied there was a power, in some degree arbitrary, with which the constitution trusted the Crown, to be made use of under correction of the legislature, and at the hazard of the minister, upon any sudden emergency, or unforeseen calamity, which might threaten the welfare of the people, or the safety of the state. f That on this principle he had himself advised a measure which he knew was not strictly legal ; but he had recommended it as a measure of necessity, to save a starving people from famine, and had submitted to the judgment of his country. “ That he was extremely glad to hear, what he owned he did not believe when he came into the House, that the King had reason to expect that his endeavours to secure the peace of this country would be successful ; for that certainly a peace was never so necessary as at a time when we were torn to pieces by divisions and distractions in every part of his Majesty’s dominions. That he had always considered the late peace, however necessary in the then exhausted condition of this country, as by no means equal in point of advantage to what we had a right to expect from the successes of the war, and from the still more exhausted condition of our enemies. That having deserted our allies, we were left without alliances, and, during a peace of seven years, had been every moment on the verge of a war : that, on the contrary, France had attentively cultivated her allies, particularly Spain, by every mark of cordiality and respect. That if a war was unavoidable, we must enter into it without a single ally, while the whole house of Bourbon was united within itself, and supported by the closest connexions with the principal powers in Europe. That the situation of our foreign affairs was undoubtedly a matter of moment, and highly worthy their lordships’ consideration; but that he * Mentioned by the King in his speech. f In consequence of a seditious libel appearing in No. 4 5 of the “ North Briton ,” accusing the King of knowingly uttering falsehoods from the throne, on the opening of Parliament in April, 1763, ministers took upon themselves to issue a general warranty on the 26th of April, for the seizure of the authors , printers, and publishers, without designating any by name ; by virtue of which, after many persons had been seized, Mr John Wilkes, at that time a member of parliament for Aylesbury, was arrested, Whereupon an application was made to the Court of Common Pleas, for a writ of habeas corpus , but, before the writ could be issued, he was removed to the Tower, for refusing to answer questions ; upon which another writ of habeas corpus was obtained from the Common Pleas, directed to the constable of the Tower : and, on the case coming on for argument, Chief- Justice Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden), though he considered the commitment legal, according to precedent, directed Mr Wilkes to be set at liberty, on the ground that it was a breach of the privileges of Parliament to arrest him for anything ’ess than treason, felony, or breach of the peace. THE EaRE 0E CHATHAM. 33 declared with grief, there were other matters still more important, and more urgently demanding their attention ; he meant the distractions and divisions which prevailed in every part of the empire. He lamented the unhappy measure which had divided the colonies from the mother country, and which he feared had drawn them into excesses which he could not justify. He owned his natural partiality to America, and was inclined to make allowance even for those excesses. That they ought to be treated with tenderness ; for in his sense they were ebullitions of liberty, which broke out upon the skin, and were a sign, if not of perfect health, at least of a vigorous constitu- tion, and must not be driven in too suddenly, lest they should strike to the heart. He professed himself entirely ignorant of the present state of America, therefore should be cautious of giving any opinion of the measures fit to be pursued with respect to that country. That it was a maxim he had observed through life, when he had lost his way, to stop short, lest by proceeding without knowledge, and advancing (as he feared a noble duke had done) from one false step to another, he should wind himself into an inextricable labyrinth, and never be able to recover the right road again. That as the House had yet no materials before them, by which they might judge of the proceedings of the colonies, he strongly objected to their passing that heavy censure upon them, which was conveyed in the word unwarrantable , contained in the proposed address. That it was passing a sentence without hearing the cause, or being acquainted with facts, and might expose the proceedings of the House to be received abroad with indifference or disrespect. That if unwarrantable meant anything, it must mean illegal ; and how could their lordships decide that proceedings, which had not been stated to them in any shape, were contrary to law ? That what he had heard of the combinations in America, and of their success in supplying themselves with goods of their own manufacture, had indeed alarmed him much for the commercial interests of the mother country; but he could not conceive in what sense they could be called illegal, much less how a declaration of that House could remove the evil. That they were dangerous indeed, and he greatly wished to have that word substituted for unwarrantable. That we must look for other remedies. That the discontent of two millions of people deserved considera- tion ; and the foundation of it ought to be removed. That this was the true way of putting a stop to combinations and manufactures in that country ; but that he reserved himself to give his opinion more particularly upon this subject, when authentic information of the state of America should be laid before the House ; declaring only for the present that we should be cautious how we invaded the liberties of any part of our fellow-subjects, however remote in situation, or unable to make resistance. That liberty was a plant that deserved to be cherished; that he loved the tree, and wished well to every branch of it. That, like the vine in the Scripture, it had spread from east to west, had embraced whole nations with its branches, and sheltered them under its leaves. That the Americans had purchased their liberty at a dear rate, since they had quitted their native country, and gone in search of freedom to a desert 34 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ That the parts of the address which he had already touched upon, how- ever important in themselves, bore no comparison with that which still remained. That indeed there never was a time, at which the unanimity recommended to them by the King was more necessary than at the present ; but he differed very much from the noble duke, with respect to the propriety or utility of those general assurances contained in the latter part of the address. That the most perfect harmony in that House would have but little effect towards quieting the minds of the people, and removing their discontent. That it was the duty of that House to inquire into the causes of the notorious dissatisfaction expressed by the whole English nation ;* to state those causes to their sovereign, and then to give him their best ad- vice in what manner he ought to act. That the privileges of the House of Peers, however transcendent, however appropriated to them, stood in fact upon the broad bottom of the people. They were no longer in the condi- tion of the barons, their ancestors, who had separate interests and separate strength to support them. The rights of the greatest and of the meanest subjects now stood upon the same foundation: the security of law, common to all. It was therefore their highest interest, as well as their duty, to watch over and guard the people ; for when the people had lost their rights, those of the peerage would soon become insignificant. To argue from experience, he begged leave to refer their lordships to a most important passage in his- tory, described by a man of great abilities, Mr Robertson. This writer, in his life of Charles the Fifth (a great, ambitious, wicked man), informs us, that the peers of Castile were so far cajoled and seduced by him, as to join him in overturning that part of the Cortes which represented the people. They were weak enough to adopt, and base enough to be flattered with, an expectation, that by assisting their master in this iniquitous purpose, they should increase their own strength and importance. What was the conse- quence ? They exchanged the constitutional authority of peers, for the titular vanity of grandees. They were no longer a part of a parliament, for that they had destroyed ; and when they pretended to have an opinion as grandees, he told them he did not understand it ; and, naturally enough, when they had surrendered their authority, treated their advice with contempt. The consequences did not stop here. He made use of the peo- ple whom he had enslaved to enslave others, and employed the strength of the Castilians to destroy the rights of their free neighbours of Aragon. “ My lords, let this example be a lesson to us all. Let us be cautious how we admit an idea that our rights stand on a footing different from those of the people. Let us be cautious how we invade the liberties of our fellow- subjects, however mean, however remote ; for be assured, my lords, that in whatever part of the empire you suffer slavery to be established, whether it be in America or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which * At the expulsion of Mr Wilkes, by the House of Commons, after being returned member for Middlesex by a large majority. THE EAItL OE CHATHAM. 35 spreads by contact, and soon reaches from the extremities to the heart. The man who has lost his own freedom, becomes from that moment an in- strument in the hands of an ambitious prince, to destroy the freedom of others. These reflections, my lords, are but too applicable to our present situation. The liberty of the subjects is invaded, not only in provinces, but here at home. The English people are loud in their complaints : they pro- claim with one voice the injuries they have received; they demand redress, and depend upon it, my lords, that one way or other, they will have redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity until they are redressed: nor ought they ; for in my judgment, my lords, and I speak it boldly, it were better for them to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity at the expense of a single iota of the consti- tution. Let me entreat your lordships, then, in the name of all the duties you owe to your sovereign, to your country, and to yourselves, to perform that office to which you are called by the constitution; by informing his Majesty truly of the condition of his subjects, and of the real causes of their dissatisfaction. I have considered the matter with most serious attention ; and as I have not in my own breast the smallest doubt that the present universal discontent of the nation arises from the proceedings of the House of Commons upon the expulsion of Mr Wilkes, I think that we ought, in our address, to state that matter to the King. I have drawn up an amend- ment to the address, which I beg leave to submit to the consideration of the House.” [His Lordship then read his amendment, which was as follows : — ] “ ‘And for these great and essential purposes, we will, with all convenient speed, take into our most serious consideration the causes of the discontents which prevail in so many parts of your Majesty’s dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the House of Commons, touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq. (expelled by that House) to be elected a member to serve in this present Parliament, thereby refusing (by a resolution of one branch of the legislature only) to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative.’ “ The cautious and guarded terms in which this amendment is drawn up, will, I hope, reconcile every noble lord who hears me to my opinion ; and as I think no man can dispute the truth of the facts, so I am persuaded no man can dispute the propriety and necessity of laying those facts before his Majesty.” [Lord Mansfield, in opposition to the amendment, expressed his strong disapprobation of general declarations of the law being made by either House of Parliament, as they could not be recognised as law by the judges ; but he drew the distinction between such declarations and a particular deci- sion, on a case coming regularly before either House and properly the subject of their jurisdiction ; and contended, that, in the case of Mr Wilkes, a question regarding the privileges of their own House came properly and 36 THE MODERN ORATOR, judicially before the Commons ; and that, therefore, it would be exceedingly improper for the House of Lords to enter upon an inquiry into the proceed* ings of the Lower House with respect to their own members, and that such an interference would inevitably led to a rupture between the two Houses.] To this speech of Lord Mansfield, Lord Chatham replied as follows “ My Lords, “There is one plain maxim, to which I have invariably adhered through life -That in every question, in which my liberty or my property were con- cerned, I should consult and be determined by the dictates of common sense. I confess, my lords, that I am apt to distrust the refinements of learning, because I have seen the ablest and the most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves, and to mislead others. The condition of human nature would be lamentable indeed, if nothing less than the greatest learning and talents, which fall to the share of so small a number of men, were sufficient to direct our judgment and our conduct. But Providence has taken better care of our happiness, and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, a rule for our direction, by which we shall never be misled. I confess, my lords, I had no other guide in drawing up the amendment which I sub- mitted to your consideration ; and before I heard the opinion of the noble lord who spoke last, I did not conceive that it was even within the limits of possibility for the greatest human genius, the most subtile understanding, or the acutest wit, so strangely to misrepresent my meaning, and to give it an interpretation so entirely foreign from what I intended to express, and from that sense which the very terms of the amendment plainly and distinctly carry with them. If there be the smallest foundation for the censure thrown upon me by that noble lord — if, either expressly, or by the most distant im- plication, I have said or insinuated any part of what the noble lord has charged me with, discard my opinions for ever, discard the motion with contempt. “My lords, I must beg the indulgence of the House. Neither will my health permit me, nor do I pretend to be qualified to follow that learned lord minutely through the whole of his argument. No man is better acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect for them, than I have. I have had the pleasure of sitting with him in the other House, * and always listened to him with attention. I have not now lost a word of what he said, nor did I eyer. Upon the present question, I meet him without fear. The evidence which truth carries with it, is superior to all argument ; it neither wants the support, nor dreads the opposition, of the greatest abilities. If there be a single word in the amendment to justify the interpretation which the noble lord has been pleased to give it, I am ready to renounce the whole : let it be read, my lords ; let it speak for itself.” [The amendment was then read.] — “ In what instance does it interfere with * Lord Mansfield sat in the House of Commons as Mr Murray. He was created Baron Mansfield, in 1756. In the Lower House, he was always opposed by Mr Pitt. THE EARL OF CHATHAM, 37 the privileges of the House of Commons ? In what respect does it question their jurisdiction, or suppose an authority in this House to arraign the justice of their sentence ? I am sure that every lord who hears me, will bear me witness, that I said not one word touching the merits of the Middlesex election ; so far from conveying any opinion upon that matter in the amend- ment, I did not even in discourse deliver my own sentiments upon it. I did not say that the House of Commons had done either right or wrong ; but, when his Majesty was pleased to recommend it to us to cultivate unanimity amongst ourselves, I thought it the duty of this House, as the great here- ditary council of the Crown, to state to his Majesty the distracted condition of his dominions, together with the events which had destroyed unanimity among his subjects. But, my lords, I stated those events merely as facts, without the smallest addition either of censure or of opinion. They are facts, my lords, which I am not only convinced are true, but which I know are indisputably true. For example, my lords : will any man deny that discontents prevail in many parts of his Majesty’s dominions ? or that those discontents arise from the proceedings of the House of Commons touching the declared incapacity of Mr Wilkes ? ’Tis impossible : no man can deny a truth so notorious. Or will any man deny that those proceedings refused, by a resolution of one branch of the legislature only, to the subject his com- mon right ? Is it not indisputably true, my lords, that Mr Wilkes had a common right, and that he lost it no other way but by a resolution of the House of Commons ? My lords, I have been tender of misrepresenting the House of Commons : I have consulted their journals, and have taken the very words of their own resolution. Do they not tell us, in so many words, that Mr Wilkes, having been expelled, was thereby rendered incapable of serving in that Parliament ? And is it not their resolution alone, which refuses to the subject his common right? The amendment says further, that the electors of Middlesex are deprived of their free choice of a represen- tative. Is this a false fact, my lords ? or have I given an unfair representa- tion of it ? Will any man presume to affirm that Colonel Luttrell is the free choice of the electors of Middlesex?* We all know the contrary; we all know that Mr Wilkes (whom I mention without either praise or censure) was the favourite of the county, and chosen by a very great and acknowledged majority, to represent them in Parliament. If the noble lord dislikes the manner in which these facts are stated, I shall think myself happy in being advised by him to how to alter it. I am very little anxious about terms, pro- vided the substances be preserved ; and these are facts, my lords, which I am sure will always retain their weight and importance, in whatever form of language they are described, “ Now, my lords, since I have been forced to enter into the explanation of an amendment, in which nothing less than the genius of penetration could have discovered an obscurity, and having, as I hope, redeemed myself * The votes polled were 1143 for Wilkes, and 296 for Luttrell ; but the House, by a vote, rejected Wilkes, and declared Luttrell elected. 38 THE MODERN ORATOR, in the opinion of the House, having redeemed my motion from the severe representation given of it by the noble lord, I must a little longer entreat your lordships’ indulgence. The constitution of this country has been openly invaded in fact ; and I have heard, with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle. What is this mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown to the subject, which we must not approach without awe, nor speak of without reverence, which no man may question and to which all men must submit ? My lords, I thought the slavish doc- trine of passive obedience had long since been exploded: and, when our kings were obliged to confess that their title to the crown, and the rule of their government, had no other foundation than the known laws of the land, I never expected to hear a divine right, or a divine infallibility, attributed to any other branch of the legislature. My lords, I beg to be understood ; no man respects the House of Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would, to preserve them their just and legal autho- rity. Within the bounds prescribed by the constitution, that authority is necessary to the well-being of the people : beyond that line every exertion of power is arbitrary, is illegal ; it threatens tyranny to the people, and destruc- tion to the state. Power without right is the most odious and detestable object that can be offered to the human imagination : it is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction. It is what my noble friend (Lord Lyttelton) has truly described it, Res detestabilis et caduca. My lords, I acknowledge the just power, and reverence the consti- tution of the House of Commons. It is for their own sakes that I would prevent their assuming a power which the constitution has denied them, lest, by grasping at an authority they have no right to, they should forfeit that which they legally possess. My lords, I affirm that they have betrayed their constituents, and violated the constitution. Under pretence of declaring the law, they have made a law, and united in the same persons the office of legislator and of judge. “ I shall endeavour to adhere strictly to the noble lord’s doctrine, which is indeed impossible to mistake, so far as my memory will permit me to pre- serve his expressions. He seems fond of the word jurisdiction ; and I con- fess, with the force and effect which he has given it, it is a word of copious meaning and wonderful extent. If his lordship’s doctrine be well founded, we must renounce all those political maxims by which our understandings have hitherto been directed, and even the first elements of learning taught us in our schools when we were school-boys. My lords, we knew that juris- diction was nothing more than jus dicer e ; we knew that legem facere and legem dicere were powers clearly distinguished from each other in the nature of things, and wisely separated by the wisdom of the English constitution ; but now, it seems, w^e must adopt a new system of thinking. The House of Commons, we are told, has a supreme jurisdiction ; that there is no appeal from their sentence ; and that wherever they are competent judges, their decision must be received and submitted to, as, ipso facto , the law of THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 39 the land. My lords, I am a plain man, and have been brought up in a reli- gious reverence for the original simplicity of the laws of England. By what sophistry they have been perverted, by what artifices they have been involved in obscurity, is not for me to explain ; the principles, however, of the English laws are still sufficiently clear : they are founded in reason, and are the master- piece of the human understanding; but it is in the text that I would look for a direction to my judgment, not in the commentaries of modern professors. The noble lord assures us, that he knows not in what code the law of Parliament is to be found ; that the House of Commons, when they act as judges, have no law to direct them but their own wisdom ; that their decision is law ; and if they determine wrong, the subject has no appeal but to heaven. What then, my lords, are all the generous efforts of our ancestors — are all those glorious contentions, by which they meant to secure to themselves, and to transmit to their posterity, a known law, a cer- tain rule of living — reduced to this conclusion, that instead of the arbitrary power of a king, we must submit to the arbitrary power of a House of Com- mons ? If this be true, what benefit do we derive from the exchange ? Tyranny, my lords, is detestable in every shape ; but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants. But, my lords, this is not the fact, this is not the constitution ; we have a law of Par- liament; we have a code in which every honest man may find it. We have Magna Charta, we have the Statute Book, and the Bill of Rights. “ If a case should arise unknown to these great authorities, we have still that plain English reason left, which is the foundation of all our English jurisprudence. That reason tells us, that every judicial court and every political society must be vested with those powers and privileges which are necessary for performing the office to which they are appointed. It tells us also, that no court of justice can have a power inconsistent with, or para- mount to, the known laws of the land ; that the people, when they choose their representatives, never mean to convey to them a power of invading the rights or trampling upon the liberties of those whom they represent. What security would they have for their rights, if once they admitted that a court of judicature might determine every question that came before it, not by any known, positive law, but by the vague, indeterminate, arbitrary rule, of what the noble lord is pleased to call the wisdom of the court ? With respect to the decision of the courts of justice, I am far from denying them their due weight and authority ; yet, placing them in a most respectablevi ew, I still consider them, not as law, but as an evidence of the law ; and before they can arrive even at that degree of authority, it must appear that they are founded in, and confirmed by, reason ; that they are supported by precedents taken from good and moderate times ; that they do not contradict any posi- tive law ; that they are submitted to without reluctance by the people : that they are unquestioned by the legislature (which is equivalent to a tacit con- firmation) ; and, what, in my judgment, is by far the most important, that they do not violate the spirit of the constitution. My lords, this is not a 40 THE MODERN ORATOR. vague "or loose expression ; we all know what the constitution is ; we all know, that the first principle of it is, that the subject shall not be governed by the arbitrium of any one man, or body of men (less than the whole legis- lature), but by certain laws, to which he has virtually given his consent, which are open to him to examine, and not beyond his ability to understand. Now, my lords, I affirm, and am ready to maintain, that the late decision of the House of Commons upon the Middlesex election, is destitute of every one of those properties and conditions which I hold to be essential to the legality of such a decision. It is not founded in reason ; for it carries with it a contradiction, that the representative should perform the office of the constituent body. It is not supported by a single precedent : for the case of Sir It. Walpole is but a half precedent, and even that half is imperfect. Incapacity was indeed declared, but his. crimes are stated as the ground of the resolution, and his opponent was declared to be not duly elected, even after his incapacity was established. It contradicts Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, by which it is provided, that no subject shall be deprived of his freehold, unless by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and that elections of members to serve in Parliament shall be free ; and so far is this decision from being submitted to by the people, that they have taken the strongest measures, and adopted the most positive language, to express their discontent. Whether it will be questioned by the legislature, will depend upon your lordships’ resolution ; but that it violates the spirit of the constitution will, I think, be disputed by no man who has heard this day’s debate, and who wishes well to the freedom of his country ; yet, if we are to believe the noble lord, this great grievance, this manifest violation of the first principles of the constitution, will not admit of a remedy ; is not even capable of redress, unless we appeal at once to Heaven. My lords, I have better hopes of the constitution, and a firmer confidence in the wisdom and constitutional authority of this House. It is to your ancestors, my lords, — it is to the English barons that we are indebted for the laws and constitu- tion we possess. Their virtues were rude and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. Their understandings were as little polished as their manners, but they had hearts to distinguish right from wrong ; they had heads to distinguish truth from falsehood ; they understood the rights of humanity, and they had spirit to maintain them. “ My lords, I think that history has not done justice to their conduct, when they obtained from their sovereign that great acknowledgment of national rights contained in Magna Charta ; they did not confine it to them- selves alone, but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole people. They did not say, These are the rights of the great barons, or these are the rights of the great prelates ; — No, my lords ; they said, in the simple Latin of the times, nullus liber homo , and provided as carefully for the meanest subject as for the greatest. These are uncouth words, and sound but poorly in the ears of scholars ; neither are they addressed to the criticism of scholars, but the hearts of free men. ^ These three words, nulliis liber homo , THE EAKL OE CHATHAM. 4 have a meaning which interests us all ; they deserve to be remembered — they deserve to be inculcated in our minds — they are worth all the classics. Let us not, then, degenerate from the glorious example of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so I may call them when compared with the silken barons of modern days) were the guardians of the people ; yet their virtues, my lords, were never engaged in a question of such importance as the pre- sent. A breach has been made in the constitution — the battlements are dismantled — the citadel is open to the first invader — the walls totter — the constitution is not tenable. What remains, then, but for us to stand fore- most in the breach, to repair it, or perish in it ? “ Great pains have been taken to alarm us with the dreadful consequences of a difference between the two Houses of Parliament — that the House of Commons will resent our presuming to take notice of their proceedings ; that they will resent our daring to advise the Crown, and never forgive us for attempting to save the state. My lords, I am sensible of the importance and difficulty of this great crisis : at a moment such as this, we are called upon to do our duty, without dreading the resentment of any man. But if appre- hensions of this kind are to affect us, let us consider which we ought to respect most — -the representative, or the collective body of the people. My lords, five hundred gentlemen are not ten millions ; and if we must have a contention, let us take care to have the English nation on our side. If this question be given up, the freeholders of England are reduced to a condition baser than the peasantry of Poland. If they desert their own cause, they deserve to be slaves ! — My lords, this is not merely the cold opinion of my understanding, but the glowing expression of what I feel. It is my heart that speaks : I know I speak warmly, my lords ; but this warmth shall neither betray my argument nor my temper. The kingdom is in a flame. As mediators between the King and people, it is our duty to represent to him the true condition and temper of his subjects. It is a duty which no parti- cular respects should hinder us from performing ; and whenever his Majesty shall demand our advice, it will then be our duty to inquire more minutely into the causes of the present discontents. Whenever that inquiry shall come on, I pledge myself to the House to prove, that since the first institution of the House of Commons, not a single precedent can be produced to justify their late proceedings. My noble and learned friend (the Lord Chancellor*) has also pledged himself to the House that he will support that assertion. “ My lords, the character and circumstances of Mr Wilkes have been very improperly introduced into this question, not only here, but in that court of judicature where his cause was tried : I mean the House of Commons. With one party he was a patriot of the first magnitude ; with the other the vilest incendiary. For my own part, I consider him merely and indifferently as an English subject, possessed of certain rights which the laws have given * Lord Camden. 42 THE MODERN ORATOR. him, and which the laws alone can take from him. I am neither moved by his private vices nor by his public merits. In his person, though he were the worst of men, I contend for the safety and security of the best ; and, God forbid, my lords, that there should be a power in this country of measuring the civil rights of the subject by his moral character or by any other rule but the fixed laws of the land ! I believe, my lords, I shall not be suspected of any personal partiality to this unhappy man : I am not very conversant in pamphlets or newspapers ; but from what I have heard, and from the little I have read, I may venture to affirm that I have had my share in the compli- ments which have come from that quarter ; and as for motives of ambition (for I must take to myself a part of the noble duke’s insinuation), I believe, my lords, there have been times in which I have had the honour of standing in such favour in the closet, that there must have been something extrava- gantly unreasonable in my wishes if they might not all have been gratified ; after neglecting those opportunities, I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the anxious pursuit of wealth and power, which it is impossible for me to enjoy. Be it so; there is one ambition at least which I ever will acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life ; it is the ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause of an individual, but of every freeholder in England. In what manner this House may constitutionally interpose in their defence, and what kind of redress this case will require and admit of, is not at present the subject of our considera- tion. The amendment, if agreed to, will naturally lead us to such an inquiry. That inquiry may, perhaps, point out the necessity of an act of the legislature, or it may lead us, perhaps, to desire a conference with the other House ; which one noble lord affirms is the only parliamentary way of proceeding ; and which another noble lord assures us the House of Commons would either not come to, or would break off with indignation. Leaving their lordships to reconcile that matter between themselves, I shall only say, that before we have inquired, we cannot be provided with materials, consequently we are not at present prepared for a conference. “ It is impossible, my lords, that the inquiry I speak of may lead us to advise his Majesty to dissolve the present parliament; nor have I any doubt of our right to give that advice, if we should think it necessary. His Majesty will then determine whether he will yield to the united petitions of the people of England, or maintain the House of Commons in the exercise of a legislative power which heretofore abolished the House of Lords, and over- turned the monarchy. I willingly acquit the present House of Commons of having actually formed so detestable a design : but they cannot themselves foresee to what excesses they may be carried hereafter ; and for my own part, I should be sorry to trust to their future moderation. Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it ; and this I know, my lords, that where law ends, tyranny begins !” The amendment was negatived. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 43 The following speech was made on the 22d of January, 1770, in support of a motion, by the Marquis of Rockingham, for appointing a day to take into consideration the state of the nation. The Marquis of Rockingham, in his speech on making this motion, dwelt on the alarming state of the country, and charged ministers with having adopted a maxim which must prove fatal to the liberties of the country, viz., “ That the prerogative alone was sufficient to support the Government, to whatever hands the administration should be committed.” The Duke of Grafton addressed the House after the Marquis, in exculpation of himself and his colleagues (then in office), and stated that it was not his intention to oppose the motion. The Earl of Chatham followed thus : — ■ “ My Lords, “ I meant to have risen immediately to second the motion made by the noble lord. The charge, which the noble duke seemed to think affected himself particularly, did undoubtedly demand an early answer ; it was proper he should speak before me, and I am as ready as any man to applaud the decency and propriety with which he has expressed himself. “ I entirely agree with the noble lord, both in the necessity of your lord- ships’ concurring with the motion, and in the principles and arguments by which he has very judiciously supported it. I see clearly, that the complexion of our Government has been materially altered ; and I can trace the origin of the alteration up to a period which ought to have been an era of happi- ness and prosperity to this country. “ My lords, I shall give you my reasons for concurring with the motion, not methodically, but as they occur to my mind. I may wander, perhaps, from the exact parliamentary debate ; but I hope I shall say nothing but what may deserve your attention, and what, if not strictly proper at present, would be fit to be said, when the state of the nation shall come to be con- sidered. My uncertain state of health must plead my excuse. I am now in some pain, and very probably may not be able to attend my duty, when I desire it most, in this House. I thank God, my lords, for having thus long preserved so inconsiderable a being as I am, to take a part upon this great occasion, and to contribute my endeavours, such as they are, to restore, to save, to confirm the constitution. “ My lords, I need not look abroad for grievances. The grand capital mischief is fixed at home. It corrupts the very foundation of our political existence, and preys upon the vitals of the state. The constitution has been grossly violated. The constitution at this moment stands violated. Until that wound be healed, until the grievance be redressed, it is in vain to recommend union to parliament ; in vain to promote concord among the people. If we mean seriously to unite the nation within itself, we must convince them that their complaints are regarded, that their inquiries shall be redressed. On that foundation I would take the lead in recommending peace and harmony to the people. On any other, I would never wish to see 44 THE MODERN ORATOR. them united again. If the breach in the constitution be effectually repaired, the people will of themselves return to a state of tranquillity ; if not, may discord prevail for ever ! I know to what point this doctrine and this language will appear directed. But I feel the principles of an Englishman, and I utter them without apprehension or reserve. The crisis is indeed alarming : — so much the more does it require a prudent relaxation on the part of government. If the King’s servants will not permit a constitutional question to be decided on, according to the forms and on the principles of the constitution, it must then be decided in some other manner ; and rather than it should be given up, rather than the nation should surrender their birth-right to a despotic minister, I hope, my lords, old as I am, I shall see the question brought to issue , and fairly tried between the people and the govern- ment. My lords, this is not the language of faction ; let it be tried by that criterion by which alone we can distinguish what is factious from what is not — by the principles of the English constitution. I have been bred up in these principles ; and know, that when the liberty of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied him, resistance is justified. If I had a doubt upon the matter, I should follow the example set us by the most reverend bench, with whom I believe it is a maxim, when any doubt in point of faith arises, or any question of controversy is started, to appeal at once to the greatest source and evidence of our religion — I mean the Holy Bible : the constitution has its political Bible, by which, if it be fairly consulted, every political question may, and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of the English constitution. Had some of his Majesty’s unhappy predecessors trusted less to the comments of their ministers, had they been better read in the text itself, the glorious revolution would have remained only possible in theory, and would not now have existed upon record a formidable example to their successors. “ My lords, I cannot agree with the noble duke, that nothing less than an immediate attack upon the honour or interest of this nation, can authorise us to interpose in defence of weaker states, and in stopping the enterprises of an ambitious neighbour. Whenever that narrow, selfish policy, has pre- vailed in our councils, we have constantly experienced the fatal effects of it. By suffering our natural enemies to oppress the powers less able than we are to make a resistance, we have permitted them to increase their strength ; we have lost the most favourable opportunities of opposing them with success ; and found ourselves at last obliged to run every hazard, in making that cause our own, in which we were not wise enough to take part while the expense and danger might have been supported by others. With respect to Corsica I shall only say, that France has obtained a more useful and important acqui- sition in one pacific campaign, than in any of her belligerent campaigns ;* at * Louis XV., in consequence, as was pretended, of the Jesuits being allowed to take refuge in Corsica in 1767, purchased the island from the Genoese, and after two years’ contest, succeeded in subduing it. The French minister, Choiseul, induced the British government to render no opposition. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 45 least while I had the honour of administering the war against her. The word may, perhaps, be thought singular : I mean only while I was the minister, chiefly entrusted with the conduct of the war. I remember, my lords, the time when Lorrain was united to the crown of France ;* ** that too was, in some measure, a pacific conquest ; and there were people who talked of it as the noble duke now speaks of Corsica. France was permitted to take and keep possession of a noble province ; and, according to his Grace’s ideas, we did right in not opposing it. The effect of these acquisitions is, I confess, not immediate ; but they unite with the main body by degrees, and, in time, make a part of the national strength. I fear, my lords, it is too much the temper of this country to be insensible of the approach of danger, until it comes with accumulated terror upon us. “ My lords, the condition of his Majesty’s affairs in Ireland, and the state of that kingdom within itself, will undoubtedly make a very material part of your lordships’ inquiry. I am not sufficiently informed to enter into the sub- ject so fully as I could wish; but by what appears to the public, and from my own observation, I confess I cannot give the ministry much credit for the spirit or prudence of their conduct. I see, that even where their measures are well chosen, they are incapable of carrying them through without some unhappy mixture of weakness or imprudence. They are incapable of doing entirely right. My lords, I do, from my conscience, and from the best weighed principles of my understanding, applaud the augmentation of the army. As a military plan, I believe, it has been judiciously arranged. In a political view, I am convinced it was for the welfare, for the safety of the whole empire. But, my lords, with all these advantages, with all these recommendations, if I had the honour of advising his Majesty, I would never have consented to his accepting the augmentation, with that absurd, disho- nourable condition, which the ministry have submitted to annex to it.f My lords, I revere the just prerogative of the crown, and would contend for it as warmly as for the rights of the people. They are linked together, and naturally support each other. I would not touch a feather of the preroga- tive. The expression, perhaps, is too light ; but, since I have made use of it, let me add, that the entire command and power of directing the local disposition of the army is the royal prerogative, as the master-feather in the eagle’s wing ; and if I were permitted to carry the allusion a little farther, I would say, they have disarmed the imperial bird, the 4 Ministnim fulminis alifem.’ The army is the thunder of the crown. The ministry have tied up the hand which should direct the bolt. * In the year 1735, by an arrangement between the Emperor of Austria and the French. f King George III. had, by a message through the Lord Lieutenant, recommended the Irish House of Commons to augment the Irish army, and assured them expressly that on the augmentation being made, not less than 12,000 men should at all times ** except in cases of invasion or rebellion in Great Britain,” be stationed in Ireland. E 46 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ My lords, I remember that Minorca was lost for want of four batta- lions.^ They could not be spared from hence ; and there was a delicacy about taking them from Ireland. I was one of those who promoted an in- quiry into that matter in the other House ; and I was convinced we had not regular troops sufficient for the necessary service of the nation. Since the moment the plan of augmentation was first talked of, I have constantly and warmly supported it among my friends : I have recommended it to several members of the Irish House of Commons, and exhorted them to support it with their utmost interest in Parliament. I did not foresee, nor could I con- ceive it possible, the ministry would accept of it, with a condition that makes the plan itself ineffectual, and, as far as it operates, defeats every useful purpose of maintaining a standing military force. His Majesty is now so confined, by his promise, that he must leave twelve thousand men locked up in Ireland, let the situation of his affairs abroad, or the approach of danger to this country, be ever so alarming, unless there be an actual rebellion, or invasion, in Great Britain. Even in the two cases excepted by the King’s promise, the mischief must have already begun to operate, must have already taken effect, before his Majesty can be authorised to send for the assistance of his Irish army. He has not left himself the power of taking any pre- ventive measures, let his intelligence be ever so certain, let his apprehensions of invasion or rebellion be ever so well-founded ; unless the traitor be ac- tually in arms — unless the enemy be in the heart of your country, he cannot move a single man from Ireland. “ I feel myself compelled, my lords, to return to that subject which occu- pies and interests me most — I mean the internal disorder of the constitution, and the remedy it demands. But first, I would observe, there is one point upon which I think the noble duke has not explained himself. I do not mean to catch at words, but, if possible, to possess the sense of what I hear. I would treat every man with candour, and should expect the same candour in return. For the noble duke, in particular, I have every personal respect and regard. I never desire to understand him, but as he wishes to be un- derstood. His Grace, I think, has laid much stress upon the diligence of the several public offices, and the assistance given them by the administration, in preparing a statement of the expenses of his Majesty’s civil government, for the information of parliament, and for the satisfaction of the public. He has given us a number of plausible reasons for their not having yet been able to finish the account ; but, as far as I am able to recollect, he has not yet given us the smallest reason to hope that it ever will be finished, or that it ever will be laid before Parliament. “ My lords, I am not unpractised in business, and if, with all that appa- rent diligence, and all that assistance, which the noble duke speaks of, the accounts in question have not yet been made up, I am convinced there must be a defect in some of the public offices, which ought to be strictly inquired * In 1787. THE EAEL OF CHATHAM. 47 into, and severely punished. But, my lords, the waste of the public money is not of itself so important as the pernicious purpose to which we have rea- son to suspect that money has been applied. For some years past, there has been an influx of wealth into this country, which has been attended with many fatal consequences, because it has not been the regular, natural produce of labour and industry. The riches of Asia have been poured in upon us, and have brought with them not only Asiatic luxury, but, I fear, Asiatic principles of government. Without connexions, without any natural interest in the soil, the importers of foreign gold have forced their way into Parlia- ment, by such a torrent of private corruption, as no private hereditary fortune could resist. My lords, not saying but what is within the knowledge of us all, the corruption of the people is the great original cause of the discontents of the people themselves, of the enterprise of the Crown, and the notorious decay of the internal vigour of the constitution. For this great evil some immediate remedy must be provided ; and I confess, my lords, I did hope that his Majesty’s servants would not have suffered so many years of peace to elapse, without paying some attention to an object which ought to engage and interest us all. I flattered myself I should see some barriers thrown up in defence of the constitution — some impediment formed to stop the rapid progress of corruption. I doubt not we all agree that something must be done. I shall offer my thoughts, such as they are, to the consideration of the House ; and I wish that every noble lord who hears me would be as ready as I am to contribute his opinion to this important service. I will not call my own sentiments crude and indigested ; it would be unfit for me to offer anything to your lordships which I had not well considered ; and this subject, I own, has not long occupied my thoughts. I will now give them to your lordships without reserve. “ Whoever understands the theory of the English constitution, and will compare it with the fact, must see at once how widely they differ. We must reconcile them to each other, if we wish to save the liberties of this country ; we must reduce our political practice, as nearly as possible, to our principles. The constitution intended that there should be a permanent relation between the constituent and representative body of the people. Will any man affirm, that, as the House of Commons is now formed, that relation is in any de- gree preserved ? My lords, it is not preserved ; it is destroyed. Let us be cautious, however, how we have recourse to violent expedients. “ The boroughs of this country have properly enough been called the rotten parts of the constitution. I have lived in Cornwall, and without entering into an invidious particularity, have seen enough to justify the appellation. But in my judgment, my lords, these boroughs, corrupt as they are, must be considered as the natural infirmity of the constitution. Like the infirmities of the body, we must bear them with patience, and submit to carry them about with us. The limb is.mortified, but the amputation might be death. “ Let us try, my lords, whether some gentler remedies may not be dis- covered. Since we cannot cure the disorder, let us endeavour to infuse such e 2 48 THE MODERN ORATOR. a portion of new health into the constitution, .as may enable it to support its most inveterate diseases. “ The representation of the counties is, I think, still preserved pure and uncorrupted. That of the greatest cities is upon a footing equally respect- able ; and there are many of the larger trading towns, which still preserve their independence. The infusion of health which I now allude to, would be to permit every county to elect one member more, in addition to their present representation. The knights of the shires approach nearest to the constitutional representation of the country, because they represent the soil. It is not in the little dependent boroughs, it is in the great cities and coun- ties that the strength and vigour of the constitution resides, and by them alone, if an unhappy question should ever rise, will the constitution be ho- nestly and firmly defended. It would increase that strength, because I think it is the only security we have against the profligacy of the times, the cor- ruption of the people, and the ambition of the Crown. “ I think I have weighed every possible objection that can be raised against a plan of this nature ; and I confess I see but one, which, to me, carries any appearances of solidity. It may be said, perhaps, that when the act passed for uniting the two kingdoms, the number of persons who were to represent the whole nation in Parliament w r as proportioned and fixed on for ever*' — that this limitation is a fundamental article, and cannot be altered without hazarding a dissolution of the union. “ My lords, no man who hears me can have a greater reverence for that wise and important act, than I have. I revere the memory of that great prince who first formed the plan, and of those illustrious patriots who car- ried it into execution. As a contract, every article of it should be inviolable ; as the common basis of the strength and happiness of two nations, every article of it should be sacred. I hope I cannot be suspected of conceiving a thought so detestable, as to propose an advantage to one of the contracting parties at the expense of the other. No, my lords, I mean that the benefit should be universal, and the consent to receive it unanimous. Nothing less than a most urgent and important occasion should persuade me to vary even from the letter of the act ; but there is no occasion, however urgent, how- ever important, that should ever induce me to depart from the spirit of it. Let that spirit be religiously preserved. Let us follow the principle upon which the representation of the two countries was proportioned at the union : and when we increase the number of representatives for the English counties, let the shires of Scotland be allowed an equal privilege. On these terms, and while the proportion limited by the union is preserved between the two nations, I apprehend that no man, who is a friend to either, will object to an alteration so necessary for the security of both. I do not speak of the au- * By the terms of the union of England and Scotland in 1706, it was provided, “ That the whole people of Great Britain shall be represented by one Parliament, in which sixteen Peers and forty-five Commoners chosen for Scotland shall sit and vote." THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 40 thority of the legislature to carry such a measure into effect, because I imagine no man will dispute it. But I would not wish the legislature to in- terpose by an exertion of its power alone, without the cheerful concurrence of all parties. My object is the happiness and security of the two nations, and I would not wish to obtain it without their mutual consent. “ My lords, besides my warm approbation of the motion made by the noble lord, I have a natural and personal pleasure in rising up to second it. I con- sider my seconding his lordship’s motion, and I would wish it to be con- sidered by others, as a public demonstration of that cordial union, which, I am happy to affirm, subsists between us — of my attachment to those prin- ciples which he has so well defended, and of my respect for his person. There has been a time, my lords, when those who wished well to neither of us, who wished to see us separated for ever, found a sufficient gratification for their malignity against us both. But that time is happily at an end. The friends of this country will, I doubt not, hear with pleasure, that the noble lord and his friends are now united with me and mine, upon a principle which, I trust, will make our union indissoluble. It is not to possess, or di- vide, the emoluments of government ; but, if possible, to save the state. Upon this ground we met — upon this ground we stand, firm and inseparable. No ministerial artifices, no private offers, no secret seduction, can divide us. United as we are, we can set the profoundest policy of the present ministry, their grand, their only arcanum of government, their divide et impera , at defiance. “ I hope an early day will be agreed to for considering the state of the nation. My infirmities must fall heavily upon me, indeed, if I do not attend my duty that day. When I consider my age, and unhappy state of health, I feel how little I am personally interested in the event of any poli- tical question. But I look forward to others, and am determined, as far as my poor ability extends, to convey to those who come after me the blessings which I cannot long hope to enjoy myself.” The motion was agreed to ; the 24th of January being first fixed for the discussion, but altered to the 2nd of February. On the 29th of January the Duke of Grafton resigned, and was succeeded by Lord North. On the 2nd of February, 1770, the day fixed for the lords’ committee, to take into consideration the state of the nation, the Marquis of Rockingham moved, “ that the House of Commons, in the exercise of its judicature in matters of election, is bound to judge according to the law of the land, and the known and established law and custom of parliament, which is part thereof.” The Earl of Sandwich having spoken in opposition, Lord Chat- ham replied to him thus : — “ My Lords, “ The noble lord has been very adroit in referring to the journals, and in collecting every circumstance that might assist his argument. 1 hough my 50 THE MODERN O RATO U. long and almost continued infirmities have denied me the hour of ease to obtain these benefits, yet, without the assistance of the journals, or other collaterals, I can reply to both the precedents which his lordship has produced. “ I will readily allow the facts to be as the noble earl has stated them, viz., that Lionel, Earl of Middlesex,* as well as Lord Bacon, f were both, for certain crimes and misdemeanours, expelled this House, and incapacitated from ever sitting here ; without occasioning any interference from the other branches of the legislature. “Neither of these cases bear any analogy to the present case. They affected only themselves. The rights of no constituent body were affected by them. It is not the person of Mr Wilkes that is complained of ; as an individual, he is personally out of the dispute. The cause of complaint, the great cause, is, that the inherent rights and franchises of the people are, in this case, invaded, trampled upon, and annihilated. Lord Bacon and Lord Middlesex represented no county, or city. The rights of no freeholder, the franchises of no elector, were destroyed by their expulsion. The cases are as widely different as north from south. But I will allow the noble earl a succedaneum to his argument, which, probably, he has not as yet thought of. I will suppose he urges, ‘ That whatever authority gives a seat to a peer, it is, at least, equally as respectable as to a commoner, and that, both in expul- sion and incapacitation, the injury is directly the same — Granted; and I will further allow, that if Mr Wilkes had not been re-elected by the people, the first expulsion, I believe, would be efficient. Therefore, my lords, this comparison ceases ; for, except these noble lords mentioned had received a fresh title, either by birth or patent, they could not possibly have any claim after the first expulsion. The noble lord asks, ‘ How came this doctrine to be broached ?’ And adds, 4 Who should be more tenacious of their liber- ties and privileges than the members themselves ?’ In respect to the latter part of this question, I agree none should be so proper as themselves to pro- tect their own rights and privileges ; and I sincerely lament that they have, by their recent conduct, so far forgot what those privileges are, that they have added to the long list of venality from Esau to the present day. In regard to the first part, 4 How came this doctrine to be broached ?’ I must tell the noble lord it is as old as the constitution itself ; the liberties of the people, in the original distribution of government, being the first thing pro- vided for ; and in the case of Mr Wilkes, though we have not instances as numerous as in other cases, yet it is by no means the less constitutional ; like a comet in the firmament, which, however it may dazzle and surprise the vulgar and untutored, by unfrequency of its appearance, the philosopher, versed in astronomic science, it affects no more than any other common process of nature, being perfectly simple, and to him perfectly intelligible. Need I remind you, my lords, at this period, of that common school-boy position, that * A. D. 1621. f A. D. 162.4. THE EAUL OF CHATHAM. 51 the constitution of this country depends upon King, Lords, and Commons — that each by their power are a balance to the other ? If this is not the case, why were the three estates constituted ? Why should it be necessary, before an act of Parliament takes place, that their mutual concurrence should be had? My lords, I am ashamed to trudge in this common track of argument ; and have no apology to make, but that I have been drawn into it by the noble lord’s asserting, ‘We had no right to interfere with the privileges of the other House.’ “ The noble Earl has been very exact in his calculation of the proportion of persons who have petitioned ; and did the affair rest merely on this cal- culation, his argument would be unanswerable ; but will he consider what numbers, whose private sentiments felt all the rigour of parliamentary pro- ceedings, but for want of a few principals to call them together, and collect their opinions, have never reached the ear of their sovereign ? If we add to this number, the interest made use of on the side of government, to suppress all petitions, with the authority that placemen have necessarily over their dependants, it is very surprising, that out of forty counties, thirteen had spirit and independence sufficient to stem such a tide of venality. But I will suppose that this was not the case, that no undue influence was made use of, and that hence but one third of the people think themselves aggrieved. Are numbers to constitute rights ? are not the laws of the land fixed and unalterable ? and is not this proceeding complained of, or any other (sup- ported even but by one), to be tried, and adjudged by these laws ? There- fore, however the noble lord may excel in the doctrine of calculation as a speculative matter, it can by no means serve him, urged in the course of argument. “ Let us not, then, my lords, be deaf to the alarms of the people, when these alarms are founded on the infringement of their rights. Let us not sit neuter and inattentive to the proceedings of the other House. We are, equally with that House, entrusted with the people’s rights, and we cannot conscientiously discharge our duties without our interference, whenever we find those rights, in any part of the constitution, trampled on. “ I have, my lords, trespassed on your patience at this late hour of the night, when the length of this debate must have fatigued your lordships considerably. But I cannot apologise in a case so deeply interesting to the nation — no time can be too long — no time can be lost — no hardships can be complained of. “ He condemned the conduct of the House of Commons in terms of asperity. He denominated the vote of that House, which had made Colonel Luttrel representative for Middlesex, a gross invasion of the rights of elec- tion — a dangerous violation of the English constitution — a treacherous sur- render of the invaluable privilege of a freehold, and a corrupt sacrifice of their own honour. They had stripped the statute book of its brightest ornaments, to gild the wings, not of prerogative, but of unprincipled faction and lawless domination. To gratify the resentments of some individuals, the laws had 52 THE MODERN ORATOR. been despised, trampled upon, and destroyed — those laws, which had been made by the stem virtue of their ancestors, the iron barons of old, to whom we were indebted for all the blessings of our present constitution ; to whose virtue and whose blood, to whose spirit in the hour of contest, and to whose tenderness in the triumph of victory, the silken barons of this day owe their honours and their seats, and both Houses of Parliament owe their con- tinuance. These measures made a part of that unhappy system, which had been formed in the present reign, with a view to new-model the consti- tution, as well as the government. These measures originated, he would not say, with his Majesty’s knowledge, but in his Majesty’s councils. The Commons had slavishly obeyed the commands of his Majesty’s servants, and had thereby exhibited, and proved to the conviction of every man, what might have been only matter of suspicion before — that ministers held a cor- rupt influence in Parliament ; it was demonstrable — it was indisputable. It was therefore particularly necessary for their lordships, at this critical and alarming period, so full of jealousy and apprehension, to step forwards, and oppose themselves, on the one hand, to the justly incensed, and perhaps speedy intemperate rage of the people ; and on the other, to the criminal and malignant conduct of his Majesty’s ministers : that they might prevent licentiousness on the one side, and depredation on the other. Their lord- ships were the constitutional barrier between the extremes of liberty and prerogative.” The question being then put, that the Speaker should resume the chair, it was carried in the affirmative by a large majority, whereon the Earl of March- mont made the following motion : — “ That any resolution of this House* directly or indirectly impeaching a judgment of the House of Commons, in a matter where their jurisdiction is competent, final, and conclusive, would be a violation of the constitutional right of the Commons, tend to make a breach between the two Houses of Parliament, and lead to a general con- fusion which was carried after considerable discussion. Speech of Lord Chatham, in support of a motion for appointing a com- mittee to inquire into the expenditure of the Civil List. — 16th March, 1770. “ My Lords, “ The Civil List was appropriated, in the first instance, to the support of the civil government ; and in the next, to the honour and dignity of the crown. In every other respect, the minute and particular expenses of the Civil List are as open to parliamentary examination and inquiry, in regard to the application and abuse, as any other grant of the people, to any other purpose : and ministers are equally or more culpable for incurring an un- provided expense, and for running in arrears this service, as for any other. The preambles of the Civil List acts prove this : and none but children, novices, or ignorants, will ever act without proper regard to them : and therefore, I can never consent to increase fraudulently the civil establish- THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 53 ment, under pretence of making up deficiencies ; nor will I bid so high for royal favour ; and the minister who is bold enough to spend the people’s money before it is granted (even though it were not for the purpose of cor * rupting their representatives), and thereby leaving the people of England no other alternative, but either to disgrace their Sovereign, by not paying his debts, or to become the prey of every unthrifty or corrupt minister — such minister deserves death. “ The late good old King had something of humanity, and amongst other royal and manly virtues, he possessed justice, truth, and sincerity, in an emi- nent degree ; so that he had something about him, by which it was possible for you to know whether he liked you or disliked you. “ I have been told that I have a pension, and that I have recommended others to pensions. It is true ; and here is a list of them : you will find there the names of General Amherst, Sir Edward Hawke, and several others of the same nature ; they were given as rewards for real services, and as encouragements to other gallant heroes. They were honourably earned in a different sort of campaigns than those at Westminster ; they were gained by actions, full of danger to themselves, of glory and benefaction to this nation; not by corrupt votes of baseness and destruction to their country. “ You will find no secret services there, and you will find, that when the warrior was recompensed, the member of Parliament was left free. You will likewise find a pension of £1500 a year to Lord Camden. I recom- mended his lordship to be Chancellor ; his public and private virtues were acknowledged by all ; they made his station more precarious. I could not reasonably expect from him, that he would quit the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas, which he held for life, and put himself in the power of those who were not to be trusted, to be dismissed from the Chancery, perhaps the day after his appointment. The public has not been deceived by his conduct. My suspicions have been justified. His integrity has made him once more a poor and a private man ; he was dismissed for the vote he gave in favour of the right of election in the people.” [Lord Chatham was here called to order, and Lord Marchmont moved that his words should be taken down. Lord Chatham seconded the motion, adding — ] “I neither deny, retract, nor explain these words. I do re-affirm the fact, and I desire to meet the sense of the House ; I appeal to the honour of every lord in this House, whether he has not the same conviction.” [Several of the lords answered to this appeal, and declared their assent. Lord Marchmont, however, still persisting in his motion, Lord Chatham proceeded : — ] “ My words remain unretracted, unexplained, and re-affirmed. I desire to know whether I am condemned or acquitted ; and whether I may still 54 THE MODERN ORATOR. presume to hold up my head as high as the noble lord who moved to have my words taken down.” [No answer having been given, Lord Chatham said : — ] “ If I am to go off acquitted, I do now declare to you there are many men to impeach, and many measures to arraign, for the security of this nation and the very existence of our laws and constitution ; and, by God’s blessing, I will arraign and impeach them.” [His lordship was reproached for having recommended the Duke of Grafton, and that he had pushed the duke forward and forced him on the King as his first minister ; to which he replied, “ That he had, indeed, recommended him for the treasury, but he never could be supposed to have thought of that boy at the first minister of a great nation.” He proceeded : — ] “ I advised his Majesty to take the Duke of Grafton as first lord of the treasury, but there is such a thing as time as well as tide ; and the conduct of the noble duke has convinced me, that I am as likely to be deceived as any other man, and as fallible as my betters. It was an expression of that great minister Sir R. Walpole, upon a debate on the army in the year 1737, ‘ Those who gave the power of blood gave blood.’ I will beg leave to paro- dize the expression, and say, those who gave the means of corruption, gave corruption. I will trust no sovereign in the world with the means of purchasing the liberties of the people. When I had the honour of being the confidential keeper of the King’s intention, he assured me, that he never intended to exceed the allowance which was made by Parliament ; and therefore, my lords, at a time when there are no marks of personal dissipation in our King, at a time when there are no marks of any considerable sums having been expended to procure the secrets of our enemies ; that a request of an inquiry into the expenditure of the Civil List should be refused, is to me most extraordinary. Does the King of England want to build a palace equal to his rank and dignity ? Does he want to encourage the polite and useful arts ? Does he mean to reward the hardy veteran, who has defended his quarrel in many a rough campaign, whose salary does not equal that of some of your servants? Or does he mean, by drawing the purse-strings of his subjects, to spread corruption through the people, to procure a Parliament, like a packed jury, ready to acquit his ministers at all adventures ? I do not say, my lords, that corruption lies here , or that corruption lies there ; but if any gentlemen in England were to ask me, whether I thought both Houses of Parliament were bribed, I should laugh in his face , and say, ‘Sir, it is not so.’ Therefore, my lords, from all that has been said, I think it must appear, that an inquiry into the Civil List is expedient, proper, and just; a refusal of it at this time will not add dignity to disgrace, but will only serve to convince the people that we are governed by a set of abjects who possess the peculiar talent of making even calamity ridiculous.” The motion was lost. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 55 Speech in support of a motion by the Duke of Richmond on the 22nd of November, 1770, for production of all correspondence and papers received by ministers between the 12th of September, 1769, and 12th of September, 1770, containing any intelligence of hostilities either commenced or intended by Spain against any of his Majesty’s dominions, and the times when such intelligence was received. The circumstances which gave rise to this motion were these : — The Falk- land Islands had been in the possession of the English since January, 1765 ; but, in 1770, the Spanish government suddenly sent a force from Buenos Ayres against Port Egmont, which, as the British were not in a position to offer any effectual resistance, was surrendered. To delay early intelligence arriving in England, the Spanish commodore unshipped the rudder of the vessel of Captain Farmer, the British commandant, and kept it on shore for twenty days. Instead of resenting such conduct, the English government appear to have remained perfectly quiet from the 3rd of June, when intelligence arrived, till the 12th of September, 1770, when orders were given for fitting out a fleet ; but nothing decisive was done between that time and the motion of the Duke of Richmond, Government merely stating that negotiations were still depending. Ultimately Spain disavowed the proceedings of the governor of Buenos Ayres, and restored the settlement, but upon an understanding, between the two governments, that after a short period the English were to abandon it: The motion was opposed by Lord Weymouth, the Secretary of State, after which Lord Chatham addressed the House thus : — “ I rise to give my hearty assent to the motion made by the noble duke : by his Grace’s favour, I have been permitted to see it before it was offered to the House. I have fully considered the necessity of obtaining from the King’s servants a communication of the papers described in the motion, and I am persuaded that the alarming state of facts, as well as the strength of reasoning, with which the noble duke has urged and enforced that necessity, must have been powerfully felt by your lordships. What I mean to say, upon this occasion, may seem, perhaps, to extend beyond the limits of the motion before us. But I flatter myself, my lords, that if I am honoured with your attention, it will appear that the meaning and object of this question are naturally connected with considerations of the most extensive, national importance. For entering into such considerations, no season is improper — no occasion should be neglected. Something must be done, my lords, and immediately, to save an injured, insulted, undone country ; if not to save the state, my lords, at least to mark out, and drag to public justice those servants of the Crown, by whose ignorance, neglect, or treachery, this once great flourishing people are reduced to a condition as deplorable at home, as it is despicable abroad. Examples are wanted, my lords, and should be given to the world, for the instruction of future times, even though they be useless to ourselves. I do not mean, my lords, nor is it intended by the 56 THE MODERN ORATOR. motion, to impede or embarrass a negotiation, which we have been told is now in a prosperous train, and promises a happy conclusion.” Lord Weymouth : — “I beg pardon for interrupting the noble lord, but I think it necessary to remark to your lordships, that I have not said a single word tending to convey to your lordships any information, or opinion, with regard to the state or progress of the negotiation — I did, with the utmost caution, avoid giving to your lordships the least intimation upon that matter.” Earl of Chatham — “ I perfectly agree with the noble lord. I did not mean to refer to anything said by his lordship. He expressed himself, as he always does, with moderation and reserve, and with the greatest pro- priety ; it was another noble lord, very high in office, who told us he under- stood that the negotiation was in a favourable train.” Earl of Hillsborough — “ I did not make use of the word train. I know the meaning of the word too well. In the language from which it was derived, it signifies protraction and delay, which I could never mean to apply to the present negotiation.” Earl of Chatham — “ This is the second time that I have been interrupted. I submit it to your lordships whether this be fair and candid treatment. I am sure it is contrary to the orders of the House, and a gross violation of decency and politeness. I listen to every noble lord in this House with attention and respect. The noble lord’s design in interrupting me, is as mean and unworthy, as the manner in which he has done it is irregular and disorderly. He flatters himself that, by breaking the thread of my discourse, he shall confuse me in my argument. But, my lord, I will not submit to this treatment. I will not be interrupted. "When I have concluded, let him answer me if he can. As to the word which he has denied, I still affirm that it was the word he made use of ; but if he had used any other, I am sure every noble lord will agree with me, that his meaning was exactly what I had expressed it. Whether he said ‘course’ or ‘train’ is indifferent; — he told your lordships that the negotiation was in a way that promised a happy and honourable conclusion. His distinctions are mean, frivolous, and puerile. My lords, I do not understand the exalted tone assumed by that noble lord. In the distress and weakness of this country, my lords, and conscious as the ministry ought to be how much they have contributed to that distress and weakness, I think a tone of modesty, of submission, of humility, would become them better ; qucedam causce modestiam desiderant. Before this country they stand as the greatest criminals. Such I shall prove them to be ; for I do not doubt of proving, to your lordships’ satisfaction, that since they have been entrusted with the conduct of the King’s affairs, they have done everything that they ought not to have done, and hardly anything that they ought to have done. The noble lord talks of Spanish punctilios in the lofty style and idiom of a Spaniard. We are to be wonderfully tender of the Spanish point of honour, as if they had been the complainants, as if they had received the injury. I think he would have done better to have told us, what care had been taken of the English honour. My lords, I am well acquainted with the character TIIE EARL OF CHATHAM. 57 of that nation, at least as far as it is represented by their court and ministry, and should think this country dishonoured by a comparison of the English good faith with the punctilios of a Spaniard. My lords, the English are a candid, an ingenuous people ; the Spaniards are as mean and crafty, as they are proud and insolent. The integrity of the English merchant, the generous spirit of our naval and military officers, would be degraded by a comparison with their merchants or officers. With their ministers I have often been obliged to negotiate, and never met with an instance of candour or dignity in their proceedings ; nothing but low cunning, trick, and artifice. After a long experience of their want of candour and good faith, I found myself compelled to talk to them in a peremptory, decisive language. On this principle I submitted my advice to a trembling council for an immediate declaration of a war with Spain. Your lordships well know what were the consequences of not following that advice. Since, however, for reasons un- known to me, it has been thought advisable to negotiate with the court of Spain, I should have conceived that the great and single object of such a negotiation would have been, to have obtained complete satisfaction for the injury done to the crown and people of England. But, if I understand the noble lord, the only object of the present negotiation is to find a salvo for the punctilious honour of the Spaniards. The absurdity of such an idea is of itself insupportable. But, my lords, I object to our negotiating at all, in our present circumstances. We are not in that situation in which a great and powerful nation is permitted to negotiate. A foreign power has forcibly robbed his Majesty of a part of his dominions. Is the island restored? Are you replaced in statu quo? If that had been done, it might then, perhaps, have been justifiable to treat with the aggressor upon the satisfaction he ought to make for the insult offered to the crown of England. But will you descend so low ? Will you so shamefully betray the King’s honour, as to make it matter of negotiation whether his Majesty’s possessions shall be restored to him or not ? I doubt not, my lords, that there are some important mysteries in the conduct of this affair, which, whenever they are explained, will account for the profound silence now observed by the King’s servants. The time will come, my lords, when they shall be dragged from their concealments. There are some questions, which, sooner or later, must be answered. The ministry, I find, without declaring themselves ex- plicitly, have taken pains to possess the public with an opinion, that the Spanish court have constantly disavowed the proceedings of their governor ; and some persons, I see, have been shameless and daring enough to advise his Majesty to support and countenance this opinion in his speech from the throne. Certainly, my lords, there never was a more odious, a more infamous falsehood imposed on a great nation ; it degrades the King’s honour — it is an insult to Parliament. His Majesty has been advised to confirm and give currency to an absolute falsehood. I beg your lordships’ attention, and I hope I shall be understood, when I repeat, that the court of Spain’s having disavowed the act of their governor is an absolute, a 'palpable falsehood '. 58 THE MODERN ORATOR. Let me ask, my lords, when the first communication was made by the court of Madrid, of their being apprised of their taking of Falkland’s Islands, was it accompanied with an offer of instant restitution, of immediate satisfaction, and the punishment of the Spanish governor ? If it was not, they have adopted the act as their own, and the very mention of a disavowal is an im- pudent insult offered to the King’s dignity. The king of Spain disowns the thief, while he leaves him unpunished, and profits by the theft ; in vulgar English, he is the receiver of stolen goods, and ought to be treated accord- ingly. “ If your lordships will look back to a period of the English history, in which the circumstances are reversed, in which the Spaniards were the com- plainants, you will see how differently they succeeded : you will see one of the ablest men, one of the bravest officers this or any other country ever produced (it is hardly necessary to mention the name of Sir Walter Raleigh), sacrificed by the meanest prince that ever sat upon the throne, to the vin- dictive jealousy of that haughty court. James the First was base enough, at the instance of Gondomar, to suffer a sentence against Sir Walter Raleigh, for another supposed offence, to be carried into execution almost twelve years after it had been passed. This was the pretence. His real crime was, that he had mortally offended the Spaniards, while he acted by the King’s express orders, and under his commission.* “ My lords, the pretended disavowal by the court of Spain is as ridiculous as it is false. If your lordships want any other proof, call for your own officers, who were stationed at Falkland Island. Ask the officer who com- manded the garrison, whether, when he was summoned to surrender, the demand was made in the name of the governor of Buenos Ayres, or of his catholic Majesty ? Was the island said to belong to Don Francisco Bucarelli, or to the king of Spain ? If I am not mistaken, we have been in possession of these islands since the year 1764, or 1765. Will the ministry assert that, in all that time, the Spanish court have never once claimed them ? that their right to them has never been urged, or mentioned to our ministry ? If it has, the act of the governor of Buenos Ayres is plainly the consequence of our refusal to acknowledge and submit to the Spanish claims. For five years they negotiate ; when that fails, they take the island by force. If that mea- sure had arisen out of the general instructions constantly given to the governor of Buenos Ayres, why should the execution of it have been deferred so long ? “ My lords, if the falsehood of this pretended disavowal had been confined to the court of Spain, I should have admitted it without concern. I should * Lord Chatham does not appear to be justified in making this remark, for Raleigh’s commission empowered him to settle only on a coast possessed by savages ; and when Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, complained to the King of the warlike appearance of the expedition, Raleigh protested the innocence of his intentions ; and King James “ assured Gondomar that he durst not form any hostile attempt, but should pay with his head for so audacious an enterprise.” TIIE EARL OF CHATHAM. 59 have been content that they themselves had left a door open for excuse and accommodation. The king of England’s honour is not touched till he adopts the falsehood, delivers it to his Parliament, and makes it his own. I cannot quit this subject without comparing the conduct of the present ministry with that of a gentleman (Mr George Grenville) who is now no more. The occasions were similar. The French had taken a little island from us called Turk’s Island.* The minister then at the head of the treasury took the business upon himself ; but he did not negotiate : he sent for the French ambassador, and made a peremptory demand. A courier was despatched to Paris, and returned in a few days, with orders for instant restitution, not only of the island, but of everything that the English subjects had lost. “ Such, then, my lords, are the circumstances of our difference with Spain ; and, in this situation, we are told that a negotiation has been entered into ; that this negotiation, which must have commenced near three months ago, is still depending, and that any insight into the actual state of it will impede the conclusion. My lords, I am not, for my own part, very anxious to draw from the ministry the information which they take so much care to conceal from us. I very well know where this honourable negotiation will end ; where it must end. We may, perhaps, be able to patch up an accommodation for the present, but we shall have a Spanish war in six months. Some of your lordships may, perhaps, remember the convention. For several successive years our merchants had been plundered — no protection given them — no redress obtained for them; during all that time we were con- tented to complain, and to negotiate ; the court of Madrid were then as ready to disown their officers, and as unwilling to punish them, as they are at present. Whatever violence happened was always laid to the charge of one or other of their West India governors. To-day it was the Governor of Cuba, to-morrow of Porto Rico,Carthagena, or Porto Bello. If, in a particular instance, redress was promised, how was that promise kept? The merchant, w r ho had been robbed of his property, was sent to the West Indies, to get it, if he could, out of an empty chest. At last the convention was made ; but, though approved by a majority of both Houses, was received by the nation with universal discontent. I myself heard that wise man (Sir Robert Wal- pole) say, in the House of Commons, ‘ ’Tis true we have got a convention and a vote of Parliament ; but what signifies it ? we shall have a Spanish war upon the back of our convention.’ Here, my lords, I cannot help mentioning a very striking observation made to me by a noble lord (the late Lord Granville), since dead. His abilities did honour to this House, and to this nation. In the upper departments of government he had not his equal ; and I feel a pride in declaring, that to his patronage, to his friendship and instruction, I owe whatever I am. This great man has often observed to me that, in all the negotiations which preceded the convention, our ministers never found out that there was no ground or subject for any negotiation ; that the Spaniards had not a right to search our ships, and when they * A.D. 1764. GO TIIE MODERN ORATOR. attempted to regulate that right by treaty, they were regulating a thing which did not exist. This I take to be something like the case of the ministry. The Spaniards have seized an island they have no right to, and his Majesty’s servants make it matter of negotiation, whether his dominions shall be restored to him, or not. “ From what I have said, my lords, I do not doubt but it will be under- stood by many lords, and given out to the public, that I am for hurrying the nation, at all events, into a war with Spain. My lords, I disclaim such counsels, and I beg that this declaration may be remembered — Let us have peace, my lords, but let it be honourable, let it be secure. A patched-up peace will not do. It will not satisfy the nation, though it may be approved of by Parliament. I distinguish widely between a solid peace, and the dis- graceful expedients by which a war may be deferred, but cannot be avoided. I am as tender of the effusion of hnman blood, as the noble lord who dwelt so long upon the miseries of war. If the bloody politics of some noble lords had been followed, England, and every quarter of his Majesty’s dominions, had been glutted with blood — the blood of our own countrymen. “ My lords, I have better reasons, perhaps, than many of your lordships for desiring peace upon the terms I have described. I know the strength and preparation of the house of Bourbon; I know the defenceless, unpre- pared condition of this country. I know not by what mismanagement we are reduced to this situation ; and when I consider who are the men by whom a war, in the outset at least, must be conducted, can I but wish for peace ? Let them not screen themselves behind the want of intelligence — they had intelligence : I know they had. If they had not, they are criminal ; and their excuse is their crime. But I will tell these young ministers the true source of intelligence. It is sagacity: sagacity to compare causes and effects; to judge of the present state of things, and discern the future by a careful review of the past. Oliver Cromwell, who astonished mankind by his intelligence, did not derive it from spies in the cabinet of every prince in Europe : he drew it from the cabinet of his own sagacious mind. He observed facts and traced them forward to their consequences. From what ■was, he concluded what must be, and he never was deceived. In the present situation of affairs, I think it would be treachery to the nation to conceal from them their real circumstances; and with respect to a foreign enemy, I know that all concealments are vain and useless. They are as well acquainted with the actual force and weakness of this country, as any of the King’s servants. This is no time for silence, or reserve. I charge the ministers with the highest crimes that men in their stations can be guilty of. I charge them with having destroyed all content and unanimity at home, by a series of oppressive, unconstitutional measures; and with having betrayed and delivered up the nation defenceless to a foreign enemy. Their utmost vigour has reached no farther than to a fruitless, protracted negotiation. When they should have acted, they have contented themselves with talking ‘ about it, Goddess, and about it.’ If we do not stand THE EABE OF CHATHAM. G1 forth, anti do our duty in the present crisis, the nation is irretrievably undone, I despise the little policy of concealments. You ought to know the whole of your situation. If the information be new to the ministry, let them take care to profit by it. I mean to rouse, to alarm the whole nation — to rouse the ministry, if possible, who seem awake to nothing but the preservation of their places — to awaken the King. “ Early in the last spring, a motion was made in Parliament, for inquiring into the state of the navy, and an augmentation of six thousand seamen was offered to the ministry. They refused to give us any insight into the condi- tion of the navy, and rejected the augmentation. Early in June they received advice of a commencement of hostilities by a Spanish armament which had warned the King’s garrison to quit an island belonging to his Majesty. From that to the 12th of September, as if nothing had happened, they lay dormant. Not a man was raised, not a single ship put into commission. From the 12th of September, when they heard of the first blow being actually struck, we are to date the beginning of their preparations for defence. Let us now in- quire, my lords, what expedition they have used, what vigour they have ex- erted. We have heard wonders of the diligence employed in impressing, of the large bounties offered, and the number of ships put into commission. These have been, for some time pact, the constant topics of ministerial boast and triumph. Without regarding the description, let us look to the sub- stance. I tell your lordships that, with all this vigour and expedition, they have not, in a period of considerably more than two months, raised ten thousand seamen. I mention that number, meaning to speak largely, though, in my own breast, I am convinced that the number does not exceed eight thousand. But it is said they have ordered forty ships of the line into com- mission. My lords, upon this subject I can speak with knowledge — I have been conversant in these matters, and draw my information from the greatest and most respectable naval authority that ever existed in this country — I mean the late Lord Anson. The merits of that great man are not so uni- versally known, nor his memory so warmly respected, as he deserved. To his wisdom, to his experience and care, (and I speak it with pleasure,) the na- tion owes the glorious naval successes of the last war. The state of facts laid before Parliament in the year 1756, so entirely convinced me of the in- justice done to his character, that in spite of the popular clamours raised against him, in direct opposition to the complaints of the merchants, and of the whole city (whose favour I am supposed to court upon all occasions), I replaced him at the head of the Admiralty : and I thank God that I had resolution enough to do so. Instructed by this great seaman, I do affirm, that forty ships of the line, with their necessary attendant frigates, to be properly manned, require forty thousand seamen. If your lordships are sur - prised at this assertion, you will be more so, when I assure you that in the last war this country maintained eighty-five thousand seamen, and employed them all. Now, my lords, the peace establishment of your navy, supposing it complete and effective (which, by the bye, ought to be known), is sixteen F 62 THE MODERN ORATOR, thousand men. Add to these the number newly raised, and you have about twenty-five thousand men to man your fleet. I shall come presently to the application of this force, such as it is, and compare it with the services which I know are indispensable. But first, my lords, let us have done with the boasted vigour of the ministry. Let us hear no more of their activity. If your lordships will recall to your minds the state of this country when Mahon was taken, and compare what was done by government at that time, with the efforts now made in very similar circumstances, you will be able to de- termine what praise is due to the vigorous operations of the present ministry. Upon the first intelligence of the invasion of Minorca, a great fleet was equipped, and sent out ; and near double the number of seamen collected in half the time taken to fit out the present force, which, pitiful as it is, is not yet, if the occasion were ever so pressing, in a condition to go to sea. Consult the returns which were laid before Parliament in the year 1756. I was one of those who urged a parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the ministry. That ministry, my lords, in the midst of universal censure and reproach, had honour and virtue enough to promote the inquiry themselves. They scorned to evade it by the mean expedient of putting a previous question.* Upon the strictest inquiry it appeared, that the diligence they had used in sending a squadron to the Mediterranean, and in their other naval preparations, was beyond all example. “ My lords, the subject on which I am speaking seems to call upon me, and I willingly take this occasion to declare my opinion upon a question on which much wicked pains have been employed to disturb the minds of the people, and to distress government. My opinion may not be very popular ; neither am I running the race of popularity. I am myself clearly convinced, and I believe every man who knows anything of the English navy will acknowledge, that without impressing, it is impossible to equip a respectable fleet within the time in which such armaments are usually wanted. If this fact be admitted, and if the necessity of arming upon a sudden emergency should appear incontrovertible, what shall we think of those men, who, in the moment of danger, would stop the great defence of their country? Upon whatever principle they may act, the act itself is more than faction — it is labouring to cut off the right hand of the community. I wholly condemn their conduct, and am ready to support any motion that may be made, for bringing those aldermen, who have endeavoured to stop the execution of the Admiralty warrants, to the bar of this House. My lords, I do not rest my opinion merely upon necessity. I am satisfied that the powder of impressing is founded upon uninterrupted usage. It is the consuetiiclo regni , and part of the common-law prerogative of the Crown. When I condemn the proceedings of some persons upon this occasion, let me do justice to a man whose character and conduct have been infamously traduced ; I mean the late lord mayor, Mr Trecothick. In the midst of reproach and clamour, he * Lord Weymouth had concluded by moving the previous question. THE EARL OE CHATHAM. G3 had firmness enough to persevere in doing his duty. I do not know in office a more upright magistrate ; nor, in private life, a worthier man. “ Permit me now, my lords, to state to your [lordships the extent and variety of the service which must he provided for, and to compare them with our apparent resources. A due attention to, and provision for these services, is prudence in time of peace ; in war it is necessity. Preventive policy, my lords, which obviates or avoids the injury, is far preferable to that vindictive policy which aims at reparation, or has no object but revenge. The precaution that meets the disorder is cheap and easy; the remedy which follows it, bloody and expensive. The first great and acknowledged object of national defence, in this country, is to maintain such a superior naval force at home, that even the united fleets of France and Spain may never be mas- ters of the Channel. If that should ever happen, what is there to hinder their landing in Ireland, or even upon our own coast? They have often made the attempt: in King William’s time it succeeded. King James embarked on board a French fleet, and landed with a French army in Ireland. In the mean time the French were masters of the Channel, and continued so until their fleet was destroyed by Admiral Russel. As to the probable consequences of a foreign army landing either in Great Britain or Ireland, I shall offer your lordships my opinion when I speak of the actual condition of our standing army. “ The second naval object with an English minister, should be to maintain at all times a powerful western squadron. In the profoundest peace it should be respectable ; in war should be formidable. Without it, the colonies, the commerce, the navigation of Great Britain, lie at the mercy of the House of Bourbon. While I had the honour of acting with Lord Anson, that able officer never ceased to inculcate upon the minds of his Majesty’s servants the necessity of constantly maintaining a strong western squadron ; and I must vouch for him, that while he was at the head of the marine it was never neglected. “ The third object, indispensable, as I conceive, in the distribution of our navy, is to maintain such a force in the Bay of Gibraltar as may be sufficient to cover that garrison, to watch the motions of the Spaniards, and to keep open the communication with Minorca. The ministry will not betray such want of information as to dispute the truth of any of these propositions. But how will your lordships be astonished, when I inform you in what man- ner they have provided for these great, these essential objects ! As to the first, I mean the defence of the Channel, I take upon myself to affirm to your lordships, that at this hour (and I beg that the date may be taken down and observed) we cannot send out eleven ships of the line so manned and equipped that any officer of rank and credit in the service shall accept of the command and stake his reputation upon it. We have one ship of the line at Jamaica, one at the Leeward Islands, and one at Gibraltar ; yet, at this very moment, for aught the ministry know, both Jamaica and Gibraltar may be attacked; and if they are attacked (which God forbid) they must fall. r 2 84 THE MODERN ORATOR, Nothing can prevent it but the appearance of a superior squadron. It is true that, some two months ago, four ships of the line were ordered from Portsmouth, and one from Plymouth, to carry a relief from Ireland to Gibraltar. These ships, my lords, a week ago, were still in port. If, upon their arrival at Gibraltar, they should find the Bay possessed by a superior squadron, the relief cannot be landed : and if it could be landed, of what force do your lordships think it consists? Two regiments, of four hundred men each, at a time like this, are sent to secure a place of such importance as Gibraltar ! a place which it is universally agreed cannot hold against a vigorous attack from the sea, if once the enemy should be so far masters of the Bay as to make good a landing even with a moderate force. The in- dispensable service of the lines requires at least four thousand men. The present garrison consists of about two thousand three hundred ; so that, if the relief should be fortunate enough to get on shore, they will want eight hundred men of their necessary complement. “ Let us now, my lords, turn our eyes homewards. When the defence of Great Britain or Ireland is in question, it is no longer a point of honour ; it is not the security of foreign commerce, or foreign possessions : we are to contend for the very being of the state. I have good authority to assure your lordships that the Spaniards have now a fleet at Ferrol, completely manned and ready to sail, which we are in no condition to meet. We could not this day send out eleven ships of the line properly equipped, and to-morrow the enemy may be masters of the Channel. It is unnecessary to press the consequences of these facts upon your lordships’ minds. If the enemy were to land in full force, either upon this coast or in Ireland, where is your army ? where is your defence ? My lords, if the House of Bourbon make a wise and vigorous use of the actual advantages they have over us, it is more than probable that on this day month we may not be a nation. What military force can the ministry show to answer any sudden demand ? I do not speak of foreign expeditions, or offensive operations. I speak of the interior defence of Ireland, and of this country. You have a nominal army of seventy battalions, besides guards and cavalry. But what is the establishment of these battalions ? Supposing they were complete to the numbers allowed (which I know they are not) each regiment would consist of something less than four hundred men, rank and file. Are these battalions complete ? Have any orders been given for an augmentation, or do the ministry mean to continue them upon their present low establishment ? When America, the West Indies, Gibraltar, and Minorca, are taken care of, consider, my lords, what part of this army will remain to defend Ireland and Great Britain ? This subject, my lords, leads me to considerations of foreign policy and foreign alliance. It is more connected with them than your lordships may at first imagine. When I compare the numbers of our people, estimated highly at seven millions, with the population of France and Spain, usually computed at twenty-five millions, I see a clear, self-evident impossibility for this country to contend with the united power of the House of Bourbon, THE EA11L OP CitAXllAM. 65 merely upon the strength of its own resources. They who talk of confining a great war to naval operations only, speak without knowledge or experience. We can no more command the disposition than the events of a war. Wher- ever we are attacked, there we must defend. “ I have been much abused, my lords, for supporting a war, which it has been the fashion to call my German war. But I can affirm, with a clear conscience, that that abuse has been thrown upon me by men who were either unacquainted with facts, or had an interest in misrepresenting them. I shall speak plainly and frankly to your lordships upon this, as I do upon every occasion. That I did in Parliament oppose, to the utmost of my power, our engaging in a German war, is most true ; and if the same cir- cumstance were to recur, I would act the same part, and oppose it again. But when I was called upon to take a share in the administration, that measure was already decided. Before I was appointed Secretary of State, the first treaty with the King of Prussia was signed, and not only ratified by the Crow f n, but approved of and confirmed by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament. It was a weight fastened upon my neck. By that treaty, the honour of the Crown and the honour of our nation were equally engaged. How r I could recede from such an engagement ; how I could advise the Crown to desert a great prince in the midst of those difficulties in which a reliance upon the good faith of this country had contributed to involve him, are questions I willingly submit to your lordships’ candour. That wonderful man* might, perhaps, have extricated himself from his difficulties without our assistance. He has talents which, in everything that touches the human capacity, do honour to the human mind. But how w'ould England have supported that reputation of credit and good faith, by which we have been distinguished in Europe ? What other foreign pow r er would have sought our friendship ? What other foreign power would have accepted of an alliance with us ? “But, my lords, though I wholly condemn our entering into any engage- ments which tend to involve us in a continental war, I do not admit that alliances with some of the German princes are either detrimental or useless. They may be , my lords, not only useful, but necessary. I hope, indeed, I shall never see an army of foreign auxiliaries in Great Britain: we do not want it. If our people are united; if they are attached to the King, and place a confidence in his government, we have an internal strength sufficient to repel any foreign invasion. With respect to Ireland, my lords, I am not of the same opinion. If a powerful foreign army were landed in that kingdom, with arms ready to be put into the hands of the Roman Catholics, I declare fre ely to your lordships, that I should heartily wish it were possible to collect twenty thousand German protestants, whether from Hesse or Brunswick, or Wolfenbottel, or even the unpopular Hanoverian, and land them in Ireland; I wish it, my lords, because I am convinced that, whenever the case happens* we shall have no English army to spare. * Frederick the Great. 66 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ I have taken a wide circuit, my lords ; and trespassed, I tear, too long upon your lordships’ patience. Yet I cannot conclude without endeavouring to bring home your thoughts to an object more immediately interesting to us than any I have yet considered ; I mean the internal condition of this country. We may look abroad for wealth, or triumphs, or luxury ; but England, my lords, is the main stay, the last resort of the whole empire. To this point every scheme of policy, whether foreign or domestic, should ultimately refer. Have any measures been taken to satisfy or to unite the people ? Are the grievances they have so long complained of removed r or do they stand not only unredressed, but aggravated ? Is the right of free election restored to the elective body ? My lords, I myself am one of the people. I esteem that security and independence, which is the original birthright of an Englishman, far beyond the privileges, however splendid, which are annexed to the peerage. I myself am by birth an English elector, and join with the freeholders of England as in a common cause. Believe me, my lords, we mistake our real interest as much as our duty, when we separate ourselves from the mass of the people. Can it be expected that Englishmen will unite heartily in defence of a government, by which they feel themselves insulted and oppressed ? Restore them to their rights ; that is the true way to make them unanimous. It is not a ceremonious recommendation from the throne, that can bring back peace and harmony to a discontented people. That insipid annual opiate has been administered so long, that it has lost its effect. Something substantial, something effectual must be done. “ The public credit of the nation stands next in degree to the rights of the constitution ; it calls loudly for the interposition of Parliament. There is a set of men, my lords, in the city of London, who are known to live in riot and luxury, upon the plunder of the ignorant, the innocent, the helpless — upon that part of the community which stands most in need of, and best deserves the care and protection of the legislature. To me, my lords, whether they be miserable jobbers of ’Change alley, or the lofty Asiatic plunderers of Leadenliall-street, they are all equally detestable. I care but little whether a man walks on foot, or is drawn by eight horses or six horses ; if his luxury be supported by the plunder of his country, I despise and detest him. My lords, while I had the honour of serving his Majesty, I never ven- tured to look at the Treasury but at a distance ; it is a business I am unfit for, and to which I never could have submitted. The little I know of it has not served to raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called the monied interest ; I mean that bloodsucker, that muckworm, which calls itself the friend of government — that pretends to serve this or that administration, and may be purchased, on the same terms, by any administration — that advances money to government, and takes special care of its own emoluments. Under this description I include the whole race of commissaries, jobbers, contractors, clothiers, and remitters. Yet I do not deny that even with these creatures some manage- ment may be necessary. I hope, my lords, that nothing I have said will be understood to extend to the honest, industrious tradesman, who holds the THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 67 middle rank, and has given repeated proofs that he prefers law and liberty to gold. I love that class of men. Much less would I be thought to reflect upon the fair merchant, whose liberal commerce is the prime source of national wealth. I esteem his occupation, and respect his character. “ My lords, if the general representation which I have had the honour to lay before you of the situation of public affairs, has, in any measure, engaged your attention, your lordships, I am sure, will agree with me, that the season calls for more than common prudence and vigour in the direction of our councils. The difficulty of the crisis demands a wise, a firm, and a popular administration. The dishonourable traffic of places has engaged us too long. Upon this subject, my lords, I speak without interest or enmity. I have no personal objection to any of the King’s servants. I shall never be minister ; certainly not without full power to cut away all the rotten branches of Government. Yet, unconcerned as I truly am for myself, I cannot avoid seeing some capital errors in the distribution of the royal favour. There are men, my lords, who, if their own services were forgotten, ought to have an hereditary merit with the House of Hanover ; whose ancestors stood forth in the day of trouble, opposed their persons and fortunes to treachery and rebellion, and secured to his Majesty’s family this splendid power of reward- ing. There are other men, my lords, # who, to speak tenderly of them, were not quite so forward in the demonstrations of their zeal to the reigning family ; there was another cause, ’my lords, and a partiality to it, which some persons had not, at all times, discretion enough to conceal. I know I shall be accused of attempting to revive distinctions. My lords, if it were possible, I would abolish all distinctions. I would not wish the favours of the Crown to flow invariably in one channel. But there are some distinc- tions which are inherent in the nature of things. There is a distinction between right and wrong, — between whig and tory. “ When I speak of an administration, such as the necessity of the season calls for, my views are large and comprehensive. — It must be popular, that it may begin with reputation. — It must be strong within itself, that it may proceed with vigour and decision. An administration formed upon an exclusive system of family connexions, or private friendships, cannot, I am convinced, be long supported in this country. Yet, my lords, no man respects or values more than I do, that honourable connexion which arises from a disinterested concurrence in opinion upon public measures, or from the sacred bond of private friendship and esteem. What I mean is, that no single man’s private friendships or connexions, however extensive, are sufficient of themselves, either to form or overturn an administration. With respect to the ministry, I believe they have fewer rivals than they imagine. No prudent man will covet a situation so beset with difficulty and danger. “ I shall trouble your lordships with but a few words more. His Majesty tells us in his speech, that he will call upon us for our advice, if it should be necessary in the farther progress of this affair. It is not easy to say whether * His lordship here looked at Lord Mansfield. 68 Ike modern Orator. or no the ministry arc serious in this declaration ; nor what is meant by the progress of an affair which rests upon one fixed point. Hitherto Ave have not been called upon. But, though we are not consulted, it is our right and duty as the King s great hereditary Council to offer him our advice. The papers mentioned in the noble duke’s motion, will enable us to form a just and accurate opinion of the conduct of his Majesty’s servants, though not of the actual state of their honourable negotiations. The ministry, too, seem to Avant advice upon some points, in Avhich their OA\'n safety is immediately concerned. They are noAv balancing betAvecn a Avar Avhich they ought to haA r e foreseen, but for Avhich they haA r e made no proA’ision, and an ignomi- nious compromise. Let me Avarn them of their danger. If they are forced into a AA r ar, they stand it at the hazard of their heads. If, by an ignominious compromise, they should stain the honour of the CroAAn, or sacrifice the rights of the people, let them look to their consciences, and consider Avhether they Avill be able to Avalk the streets in safety.” The motion Avas lost. Speech of Lord Chatham, on the 27th May, 1774, in opposition to a bill for quartering troops in America. “ My Lords, “ The unfavourable state of health under Avhich I have long laboured, could not prevent me from laying before your lordships my thoughts on the bill noAv upon the table, and on the American affairs in general. “ If AA'e take a transient A r ieAv of those motives Avhich induced the ancestors of our fclloAV-subjects in America to leave their native country, to encounter the innumerable difficulties of the unexplored regions of the Avestern Avorld, our astonishment at the present conduct of their descendants will naturally subside. There Avas no corner of the world into which men of their free and enterprising spirit Avould not fly Avith alacrity, rather than submit to the slavish and tyrannical principles Avhich preA r ailed at that period* in their native country. And shall we Avonder, my lords, if the descendants of such illustrious characters spurn, Avitli contempt, the hand of unconstitutional poAver, that Avould snatch from them such dear-bought privileges as they noAv contend for? Had the British colonies been planted by any other kingdom than our OAvn, the inhabitants Avould have carried Avith them the chains of slavery and spirit of despotism ; but as they are, they ought to be remembered as great instances to instruct the AA'orld, Avhat great exertions mankind Avill naturally make, Avhen they are left to the free exercise of their oavii poAvers. And, my lords, notAvithstanding my intention to give my hearty negative to the question noAv before you, I cannot help condemning, in the severest manner, the late turbulent and umvarrantable conduct of the Americans in some instances, particularly in the late riots of Boston. But, * The reign of -James L THE EAlvL OF CHATHAM. 6d my lords, the mode which has been pursued to bring them back to a sense of their duty to their parent state, has been so diametrically opposite to the fundamental principles of sound policy, that individuals possessed of com- mon understanding must be astonished at such proceedings. By blocking up the harbour of Boston,* you have involved the innocent trader in the same punishment with the guilty profligates who destroyed your merchan- dise ; and instead of making a well-concerted effort to secure the real offenders, you clap a naval and military extinguisher over their harbour, and punish the crime of a few lawless depredators and their abettors, upon the whole body of the inhabitants. “ My lords, this country is little obliged to the framers and promoters of this tea-tax. f The Americans had almost forgot, in their excess of gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, any interest but that of the mother country ; there seemed an emulation among the different provinces, who should be most dutiful and forward in their expressions of loyalty to their real bene- factor ; as you will readily perceive by the following letter from Governor Bernard to a noble lord then in office. “ The House of Representatives (says he), from the time of opening the session to this day, has shown a disposition to avoid all dispute with me ; everything having passed with as much good humour as I could desire. They have acted, in all things, with temper and moderation ; they have avoided some subjects of dispute, and have laid a foundation for removing some causes of former altercation. “ This, my lords, was the temper of the Americans ; and would have continued so, had it not been interrupted by your fruitless endeavours to tax them without their consent : but the moment they perceived your intention was renewed to tax them, under a pretence of serving the East India Com- pany, their resentment got the ascendant of their moderation, and hurried them into actions contrary to law, which, in their cooler hours, they would have thought on with horror ; for I sincerely believe, the destroying of the tea was the effect of despair. “ But, my lords, from the complexion of the whole of the proceedings, I think that Administration has purposely irritated them into those late violent acts for which they now so severely smart, purposely to be revenged on them for the victory they gained by the repeal of the Stamp Act ; a measure * By an act passed on the 31st March, 1774, the town of Boston was deprived of its privilege as a port, by way of punishment, and the business of the port transferred to Salem. t The Stamp Act having been repealed in 1766, Mr C. Townsend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1767, proposed an indirect taxation, by subjecting to duty cer- tain goods imported by the Americans from this country, and accordingly an Act was passed imposing duties on glass , paper, painters' colours , and tea , imported to the colonies from Great Britain. This Act excited great indignation in America, and caused the subsequent riots, the colonists to refusing to receive the goods from the mother country, subject to such taxation* 70 THE MODERN ORATOR, to which they seemingly acquiesced, but at the bottom they were its real enemies. For what other motive could induce them to dress taxation, that father of American sedition, in the robes of an East India Director, but to break in upon that mutual peace and harmony which then so happily sub- sisted between them and the mother country? “ My lords, I am an old man, and would advise the noble lords in office to adopt a more gentle mode of governing America : for the day is not far distant, when America may vie with these kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also. It is an established fact, that the principal towns in America are learned and polite, and understand the constitution of the empire as well as the noble lords who are now in office ; and consequently, they will have a watchful eye over their liberties, to prevent the least encroachment on their hereditary rights. “ This observation is so recently exemplified in an excellent pamphlet, which comes from the pen of an American gentlemen, that I shall take the liberty of reading to your lordships his thoughts on the competency of the British Parliament to tax America, which, in my opinion, puts this interesting matter in the clearest view. “ ‘The High Court of Parliament (says he) is the supreme legislative power over the whole empire : in all free states the constitution is fixed ; and as the supreme legislature derives its power and authority from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of it, without destroying its own foundation. The constitution ascertains and limits both sovereignty and allegiance : and therefore his Majesty’s American subjects, who acknowledge themselves bound by the ties of allegiance, have an equitable claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules of the English constitution ; and that it is an essential unalterable right in nature, ingrafted into the British constitution as a fundamental law, and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the subjects within the realm — that what a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own; which he may freely give, but which cannot be taken from him without his consent.’ “ This, my lords, though no new doctrine, has always been my received and unalterable opinion, and I will carry it to my grave, that this country had no right under heaven to tax America. It is contrary to all the principles of justice and civil policy, which neither the exigencies of the state, nor even an acquiescence in the taxes, could justify upon any occasion whatever. Such proceedings will never meet their wished-for success ; and, instead of adding to their miseries, as the bill now before you most undoubtedly does, adopt some lenient measures, which may lure them to their duty ; proceed like a kind and affectionate parent over a child whom he tenderly loves ; and, instead of those harsh and severe proceedings, pass an amnesty on all their youthful errors ; clasp them once more in your fond and affectionate arms ; and I will venture to affirm, you will find them children worthy of their sire. But should their turbulence exist after your proffered terms of forgiveness, which I hope and expect this House will immediately adopt, I will be among The earl or Chatham. 71 the foremost of your lordships to move for such measures as will effectually prevent a future relapse, and make them feel what it is to provoke a fond and forgiving parent; a parent, my lords, whose welfare has ever been my greatest and most pleasing consolation. This declaration may seem unneces- sary ; but I will venture to declare, the period is not far distant, when she will want the assistance of her most distant friends : but should the all-disposing hand of Providence prevent me from affording her my poor assistance, my prayers shall be ever for her welfare — ‘ Length of days be in her right hand , and in her left riches and honour ; may her ways be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths be peace /’ ” Notwithstanding this opposition the bill was carried. Speech on the 20th of January, 1775, on moving an address to the King to recall the troops from Boston. After strongly censuring ministers for their mal-administration and false representations of American affairs, Lord Chat- ham thus proceeded : — * “ But as I have not the honour of access to his Majesty, I will endeavour to transmit to him, through the constitutional channel of this House, my ideas of America, to rescue him from the misadvice of his present ministers.* I congratulate your lordships that the business is at last entered upon, by the noble lord’s laying the papers before you.f As I suppose your lordships too well apprised of their contents, I hope I am not premature in submitting to you my present motion “‘That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, humbly to desire and beseech his Majesty, that in order to open the way towards a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America, by beginning to allay fer- ments and soften animosities there ; and above all, for preventing in the mean time any sudden and fatal catastrophe at Boston, now suffering under the daily irritation of an army before their eyes, posted in their town ; it may graciously please his Majesty that immediate orders be despatched to General Gage,J for removing his Majesty’s forces from the town of Boston, as soon as the rigour of the season, and other circumstances indispensable to the safety and accommodation of the said troops, may render the same practicable.’ “ I wish, my lords, not to lose a day in this urgent, pressing crisis ; an hour now lost in allaying ferments in America, may produce years of calamity ; for my own part, I will not desert, for a moment, the conduct of this weighty business, from the first to the last ; unless nailed to my bed by the extremity of sickness, I will give it unremitted attention ; I will knock * Lord North and his administration. t On the meeting of Parliament after the holidays, Lord Dartmouth, the secretary of state for American affairs, laid the official documents relating to America before the House. + Pour regiments had been sent out under General Gage, governor of the province of Boston, and commander -in-chief of the armys THE MODERN ORATOR. at the door of this sleeping and confounded ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of their important danger. “ When I state the importance of the colonies to this country, and the magnitude of danger hanging over this country, from the present plan of mis-administration practised against them, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity of indulgence between England and America. I contend not for indulgence, but justice to America ; and I shall ever contend, that the Americans justly owe obedience to us in a limited degree — they owe obedience to our ordinances of trade and navigation ; but let the line be skilfully drawn between the objects of those ordinances, and their private, internal property ; let the sacredness of their property remain inviolate ; let it be taxable only by their own consent, given in their provincial assemblies, else it will cease to be property. As to the metaphysical refinements, attempting to show that the Americans are equally free from obedience and commercial restraints, as from taxation for revenue, as being unrepresented here ; I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and groundless. “ When I urge this measure of recalling the troops from Boston, I urge it on this pressing principle, that it is necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your peace, and the establishment of your prosperity. It will then appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equitably ; and to consider, revise, and repeal, if it should be found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent acts and declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout your empire. “ Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just ; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or to enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the legislature, or the bodies who com- pose it, is equally intolerable to British subjects. “ The means of enforcing this thraldom are found to be as ridiculous and weak in practice, as they are unjust in principle. Indeed I cannot but feel the most anxious sensibility for the situation of General Gage, and the troops under his command : thinking him, as I do, a man of humanity and under- standing, and entertaining, as I ever will, the highest respect, the warmest love, for the British troops. Their situation is truly unworthy ; penned up — pining in inglorious inactivity. They are an army of impotence. You may call them an army of safety and of guard ; but they are in truth an army of impotence and contempt ; — and, to make the folly equal to the dis- grace, they are an army of irritation and vexation. “But I find a report creeping abroad, that ministers censure General Gage's inactivity : let them censure him ; it becomes them ; it becomes their justice and their honour. I mean not to censure his inactivity; it is a pru- dent and necessary inaction ; but it is a miserable condition, where disgrace is prudence, and where it is necessary to be contemptible. This tameness, however contemptible, cannot be censured, for the first drop of blood shed in civil and unnatural war might be immcdicabile vulnus. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 73 “ I therefore urge and conjure your lordships, immediately to adopt this conciliating measure. I will pledge myself for its immediately producing conciliatory effects, by its being thus well-timed ; but if you delay till your vain hope shall be accomplished, of triumphantly dictating reconciliation, you delay for ever. But, admitting that this hope, which in truth is des- perate, should be accomplished, what do you gain by the imposition of your victorious amity? — you will be un trusted and un thanked. Adopt, then, the grace, while you have the opportunity of reconcilement — or, at least, prepare the way. Allay the ferment prevailing in America, by removing the ob- noxious, hostile cause — obnoxious and unserviceable, for their merit can only be in inaction: ‘ Non dimicare et vincere ,’ — their victory can never be by exertions. Their force would be most disproportionately exerted against a brave, generous, and united people, with arms in their hands, and courage in their hearts ; — three millions of people, the genuine descendants of a valiant and pious ancestry, driven to those deserts by the narrow maxim9 of a superstitious tyranny. And is the spirit of persecution never to be ap- peased ? Are the brave sons of those brave forefathers to inherit their suf- ferings, as they have inherited their virtues ? Are they to sustain the in- fliction of the most oppressive and unexampled severity, beyond the accounts of history, or description of poetry ? ‘ Rhadamanthus habet durissima regnet , castigatqae , auditque .’ * So says the wisest poet, and perhaps the wisest statesman and politician. But our ministers say, the Americans must not be heard. They have been condemned unheard. The indiscriminate hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilty ; with all the forma- lities of hostility has blocked up the town f and reduced to beggary and famine thirty thousand inhabitants. “ But his Majesty is advised, that the union in America cannot last. Mi- nisters have more eyes than I, and should have more ears ; but with all the information I have been able to procure, I can pronounce it — an union, solid, permanent, and effectual. Ministers may satisfy themselves, and delude the public, with the report of what they call commercial bodies in America. They are not commercial ; they are your packers and factors : they live upon nothing — for I call commission nothing. I mean the ministerial authority for this American intelligence ; the runners for government, who are paid for their intelligence. But these are not the men, nor this the influence, to be considered in America, when we estimate the firmness of their union. Even to extend the question, and to take in the really mercantile circle, will be totally inadequate tp the consideration. Trade, indeed, increases the wealth and glory of a country ; but its real strength and stamina are to be looked for among the cultivators of the land ; in their simplicity of life is found the simpleness of virtue — the integrity and courage of freedom. These true, genuine sons of the earth are invincible ; and they surround and hem in the mercantile bodies ; even if these bodies, which supposition I totally dis- * "Virgil, ^Eneid, vi. 566. f Boston. 74 THE MODERN ORATOR. claim, could be supposed disaffected to the cause of liberty. Of this general spirit existing in the British nation (for so I wish to distinguish the real and genuine Americans from the pseudo- traders I have described) — of this spirit of independence, animating the nation of America, I have the most authentic information. It is not new among them ; it is, and has ever been, their established principle, their confirmed persuasion ; it is their nature, [and their doctrine. “ I remember, some years ago, when the repeal of the Stamp Act was in agitation, conversing in a friendly confidence with a person of undoubted respect and authenticity, on that subject ; and he assured me, with a cer- tainty which his judgment and opportunity gave him, that these were the prevalent and steady principles of America — that you might destroy their towns, and cut them off from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences of life ; but that they were prepared to despise your power, and would not lament their loss, whilst they have — what, my lords ? — their woods and their liberty. The name of my authority* if I am called upon, will authenticate the opinion irrefragably. “ If illegal violences have been, as it is said, committed in America, pre- pare the way, open the door of possibility, for acknowledgment and satis- faction ; but proceed not to such coercion, such proscription ; cease your indiscriminate inflictions ; amerce not thirty thousand ; oppress not three millions, for the fault of forty or fifty. Such severity of injustice must for ever render incurable the wounds you have already given your colonies : you irritate them to unappeasable rancour. What, though you march from town to town, and from province to province — though you should be able to en- force a temporary and local submission, which I only suppose, not admit — how shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave be- hind you in your progress, to grasp the dominion of eighteen hundred miles of continent, populous in numbers, possessing valour, liberty, and resistance ? “ This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen ; it was obvious from the nature of things, and of mankind ; and, above all, from the whiggish spirit flourishing in that country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America, is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money, in England ; the same spirit which called all England on its legs, and, by the Bill of Rights, vindicated the English constitution ; the same spirit which established the great, funda- mental, essential maxim of your liberties, that 6 no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent.’ “ This glorious spirit of whiggism animates three millions in America; who prefer poverty with liberty, to gilded chains and sordid affluence ; and who will die in defence of their rights as men, as freemen. What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in the breast of every whig in England, to the amount, I hope, of double the American numbers ? Ire- * Dr Franklin, THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 75 land they have to a man. In that country, joined as it is with the cause of the colonies, and placed at their head, the distinction I contend for is and must be observed. This country superintends and controls their trade and navigation ; but they tax themselves. And this distinction between external and internal control is sacred and insurmountable : it is involved in the abstract nature of things. Property is private, individual, absolute. Trade is an extended and complicated consideration ; it reaches as far as ships can sail or winds can blow: it is a great and various machine. To regulate the numberless movements of its several parts, and combine them into effect, for the good of the whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the supreme power in the empire. But this supreme power has no effect towards internal taxation ; for it does not exist in that relation : there is no such thing, no such idea in this constitution, as a supreme power operating upon property. Let this distinction then remain for ever ascertained ; taxa- tion is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. As an American I would recognise to England her supreme right of regulating commerce and naviga- tion : as an Englishman by birth and principle, I recognise to the Americans their supreme unalienable right in their property; a right which they are justified in the defence of to the last extremity. To maintain this principle, is the common cause of the whigs on the other side of the Atlantic, and on this. 4 ’Tis liberty to liberty engaged,’ that they will defend themselves, their families, and their country. In this great cause they are immoveably allied : it is the alliance of God and nature — immutable, eternal — fixed as the firmament of heaven. “To such united force, what force shall be opposed? "VVhat, my lords ? A few regiments in America, and seventeen or eighteen thousand men at home ! The idea is too ridiculous to take up a moment of your lordships’ time. Nor can such a national and principled union be resisted by the tricks of office, or ministerial manoeuvre. Laying of papers on your table, or counting numbers on a division, will not avert or postpone the hour of dan- ger: it must arrive, my lords, unless these fatal acts are done away; it must arrive in all its horrors, and then these boastful ministers, spite of all their confidence and all their manoeuvres, shall be forced to hide their heads. They shall be forced to a disgraceful abandonment of their present measures and principles, which they avow, but cannot defend : measures which they presume to attempt, but cannot hope to effectuate. They cannot, my lords, they cannot stir a step ; they have not a move left ; they are check-mated. “ But it is not repealing this act of Parliament, it is not repealing a piece of parchment, that can restore America to our bosom ; you must repeal her fears and her resentments : and you may then hope for her love and grati- tude. But now, insulted with an armed force, posted at Boston ; irritated with a hostile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and insecure ; they will be irato animo ; they will not be the sound, honourable passions of freemen; they will be the dictates of fear, and extortions of force. But it is more than evident, that 76 THE HODEEX ORATOR, you cannot force them, unprincipled and united as they are, to your unworthy terms of submission — it is impossible : and when I hear General Gage censured for inactivity, I must retort with indignation on those whose intemperate measures and improvident counsels have betrayed him into his present situation. His situation reminds me, my lords, of the answer of a French general in the civil wars of France — Monsieur Conde opposed to Monsieur Turenne ; he was asked, how it happened that he did not take his adversary prisoner, as he was often very near him : 4 J’ai peur,’ replied Conde, very honestly, ‘ J’ai peur qu’il ne me prenne — I’m afraid he’ll take me. “ When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America ; when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but re- spect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must de- clare and avow, that in all my reading and observation — and it has been my favourite study — I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master-states of the world — that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circum- stances, no nation, or body of men, can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract ; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent oppressive acts :* they must be repealed ; — you will repeal them ; I pledge myself for it, that you will in the end repeal them : I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace, and happiness ; for that is your true dignity, to act with prudence and justice. That you should first con- cede, is obvious, from sound and rational policy. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power ; it reconciles superiority of power with the feelings of men, and establishes solid con- fidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. “ So thought a wise poet and a wise man in political sagacity ; the friend of Maecenas, and the eulogist of Augustus. To him, the adopted son and successor of the first Caesar, to him, the master of the world, he wisely urged this conduct of prudence and dignity : — “ ‘ Tuque prior, tu, parce ; genus qui ducis Olympo ; Frojice tela rnanu.’ f “ Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of dignity and of pru- dence, urges you to allay the ferment in America by a removal of your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your acts of parliament, and by demonstration * For shutting up the port of Boston, altering the charter of Massachusetts Bay, &c. t Virgil, JEneid, vi. 834. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 77 of amicable dispositions towards your colonies. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend, to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures. Foreign war hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread ; France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors, with a vigilant eye to America and the temper of your colonies, more than to their own concerns, be they what they may. “ To conclude, my lords : if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the King, I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone.” The motion was negatived. Speech in support of an amendment to the address to the King, on his Majesty’s speech on the opening of Parliament, on the 20th November, 1777. “ I rise, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, nothing can remove; but which impels me to endeavour its alleviation, by a free and unreserved communication of my sentiments. “ In the first part of the address, I have the honour of heartily concurring with the noble earl* who moved it. No man feels sincerer joy than I do ; none can offer more genuine congratulation on every accession of strength to the Protestant succession ; I therefore join in every congratulation on the birth of another princess, and the happy recovery of her Majesty. But I must stop here ; my courtly complaisance will carry me no further : I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace; I cannot concur in a blind and servile address, which approves, and endeavours to sanctify, the monstrous measures that have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us — that have brought ruin to our doors. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremen- dous moment ! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot now avail — cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the delusion and the darkness which envelop it; and display, in its full danger and true colours, the ruin that is brought to our doors. “This, my lords, is our duty; it is the proper function of this noble assembly, sitting, as we do, upon our honours in this house, the hereditary council of the Crown. And who is the minister — where is the minister, that has dared to suggest to the throne the contrary, unconstitutional language, this day delivered from it ? The accustomed language from the throne has been application to Parliament for advice, and a reliance on its constitutional advice and assistance ; as it is the right of Parliament to give, so it is the duty of the Crown to ask it. But, on this day, and in this extreme momen- * Lord Carlisle. G 7S THE MODERN ORATOR. tous exigency, no reliance is reposed on our constitutional counsels ! no advice is asked from the sober and enlightened care of Parliament ! but the Crown, from itself, and by itself, declares an unalterable determination to pursue measures — and what measures, my lords ? — the measures that have produced the imminent perils that threaten us ; the measures that have brought ruin to our doors. “ Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of support in this ruinous infatuation ? Can Parliament be so dead to its dig- nity and its duty, as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and the vio- lation of the other ? to give an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance in measures — that is the word and the conduct, proposed for our parliamentary advice, but dictated and forced upon us — in measures, I say, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt ? ‘ But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world: now, none so poor to do her reverence.’ I use the words of a poet; but though it be poetry, it is no fiction. It is a shameful truth, that not only the power and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring, but her well- earned glories, her true honour, and substantial dignity, are sacrificed. France, my lords, has insulted you ; she has encouraged and sustained America ; and whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and am- bassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies, are in Paris ; in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult ? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating disgrace ? Do they dare to resent it ? Do they presume even to hint a vin- dication of their honour, and the dignity of the state, by requiring the dis- missal of the plenipotentiaries of America? Such is the degradation to which they have reduced the glories of England ! The people whom they affect to call contemptible rebels, but whose growing powder has at last obtained the name of enemies ; the people with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against whom they now command our implicit support in every measure of desperate hostility : this people, despised as rebels or acknow- ledged as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, their interests consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy ; and our ministers dare not interpose with dignity or effect ! Is this the honour of a great kingdom ? Is this the indignant spirit of England, who, ‘ but yesterday,’ gave law to the house of Bourbon ? My lords, the dignity of nations demands a decisive conduct in a situation like this. Even when the greatest prince that perhaps this country ever saw, filled our throne, the requisition of a Spanish general, on a similar subject, was attended to, and complied with ; for on the spirited remonstrance of the Duke of Alva, Elizabeth found herself obliged to deny the Flemish exiles all countenance, support, or even entrance into her dominions ; and the Count le Marque, with his few desperate followers, was expelled the kingdom^ Happening to arrive at the Brille, and finding it weak in defence, they made THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 79 themselves masters of the place : and this was the foundation of the United Provinces. “ My lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we cannot act with success, nor suffer with honour, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of Majesty from the delusions which surround it. The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known ; no man thinks more highly of them than I do : I love and honour the English troops : I know their virtues and their valour : I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities ; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it — you cannot conquer America. Your armies last war effected every- thing that could be effected ; and what was it ? It cost a numerous army, under the command of a most able general, now a noble lord* in this house, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there ? We do not know the worst ; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the Northern force,! appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has retired from the American lines ; he was obliged to relinquish his attempt, and, with great delay and danger, to adopt a new and distant plan of operations. We shall soon know, and in any event have reason to lament, what may have happened since. As to conquest, therefore, my lords, I repeat, it is im- possible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more extrava- gantly ; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow ; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince : your efforts are for ever vain and impotent — doubly so from this mercenary aid on which y.ou rely ; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies — to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder ; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never — never — never. “ Your own army is infected with the contagion of these illiberal allies. The spirit of plunder and of rapine is gone forth among them. I know it ; and, notwithstanding what the noble earl, who moved the address, has given as his opinion of our American army, I know from authentic information and Jthe most experienced officers, that our discipline is deeply wounded. Whilst this notoriously our sinking situation, America grows and flourishes ; whilst our strength and discipline are lowered, theirs are rising and im- proving. “ But, my lords, who is the man, that, in addition to these disgraces and mischiefs of our army, has dared tof authorise and associate to our arms the g2 * Lord Amherst* ’+ General Burgoyne’s army. THE MODERN ORATOR. 80 tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage ; — to call into civilised alliance the wild and inhuman savage of the woods ; — to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights — and to wage the horrors of his bar- barous war against our brethren ? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment : unless thoroughly done away, it will be a stain on the national character. It is a violation of the constitution. I believe it is against law. It is not the least of oui national misfortunes, that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired: infected with the mer- cenary spirit of robbery and rapine, familiarised to the horrid scenes of sa- vage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier — no longer sympathise with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, “ that make ambition virtue.” What makes ambition virtue ? The sense of ho- nour. But is the sense of honour consistent with a spirit of plunder, or the practice of murder ? Can it flow from mercenary motives, or can it prompt to cruel deeds ? Besides these murderers and plunderers, let me ask our ministers, what other allies have they acquired ? What other powers have they associated to their cause ? Have they entered into alliance with the king of the gipsies ? Nothing, my lords, is too low or too ludicrous to be consistent with their counsels. “ The independent views of America have been stated and asserted as the foundation of this address. My lords, no man washes more for the due dependence of America on this country than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that state of independence into w r hich your measures hitherto have driven them, is the object wdiich we ought to unite in attaining. The Ame- ricans, contending for their rights against the arbitrary exactions, I love and admire : it is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots ; but, contending for independency and total disconnexion from England, as an Englishman, I cannot wish them success ; for, in a due constitutional dependency, including the ancient supremacy of this country in regulating their commerce and na- vigation, consists the mutual happiness and prosperity both of England and America. She derived assistance and protection from us, and w r e reaped from her the most important advantages : she was, indeed, the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis of our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my lords, if we wish to save our country, most seriously to endeavour the recovery of these most beneficial subjects ; and in this perilous crisis, perhaps the present moment may be the only one in which we can hope for success ; for in their negotiations with France, they have, or think they have, reason to complain ; though it be notorious that they have received from that power important supplies and assistance of various kinds, yet it is certain they expected it in a more decisive and immediate degree. America is in ill-humour with France on some points that have not entirely answered her expectations : let us wisely take advan- tage of every possible moment of reconciliation. Besides, the natural dispo- sition of America herself still leans towards England — to the old habits of THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 81 connexion and mutual interest that united both countries. This was the established sentiment of all the continent ; and still, my lords, in the great and principal part, the sound part of America, this wise and affectionate dis- position prevails. And there is a very considerable part of America yet sound — the middle and the southern provinces. Some parts may be factious and blind to their true interests, but if we express a wise and benevolent dis- position to communicate with them those immutable rights of nature, and those constitutional liberties, to which they are equally entitled with our- selves, by a conduct so just and humane we shall confirm the favourable and conciliate the adverse. I say, my lords, the rights and liberties to which they are equally entitled with ourselves, but no more. I would participate to them every enjoyment and freedom which the colonising subjects of a free state can possess, or wish to possess ; and I do not see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their property, and every original substan- tial liberty which Devonshire or Surrey, or the county I live in, or any other county in England, can claim — reserving always, as the sacred right of the mother country, the due constitutional dependency of the colonies. The in- herent supremacy of the state in regulating and protecting the navigation and commerce of all her subjects, is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation of every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrange- ment of the whole empire. “ The sound parts of America, of which I have spoken, must be sensible of these great truths, and of their real interests. America is not in that state of desperate and contemptible rebellion which this country has been deluded to believe. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who, having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch something from public convulsions ; many of their leaders and great men have a great stake in this great contest : — the gen- tleman who conducts their armies,* I am told, has an estate of four or five thousand pounds a year : and when I consider these things, I cannot but la- ment the inconsiderate violence of our penal acts, our declarations of treason and rebellion, with all the fatal effects of attainder and confiscation. “ As to the disposition of foreign powers, which is asserted to be pacific and friendly, let us judge, my lords, rather by their actions and the nature of things, than by interested assertions. The uniform assistance supplied to America by France suggests a different conclusion : the most important interests of France, in aggrandising and enriching herself with what she most wants, supplies of every naval store from America, must inspire her with different sentiments. The extraordinary preparations of the House of Bour- bon, by land and by sea, from Dunkirk to the Straits, equally ready and willing to overwhelm these defenceless islands, should rouse us to a sense of their real disposition and our own danger. Not five thousand troops in England ! — hardly three thousand in Ireland ! What can we oppose to the combined force of our enemies ? Scarcely twenty ships of the line fully or sufficiently * George Washington, who was a native of Virginia, of considerable fortune. 82 THE MODERN ORATOR. manned, that any Admiral's reputation would permit him to take the com- mand of. T he river of Lisbon in the possession of our enemies ! — The seas swept by American privateers ; our channel torn to pieces by them ! In this complicated crisis of danger, weakness at home and calamity abroad, ter- rified and insulted by the neighbouring powers, — unable to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed ; — where is the man with the forehead to promise or hope for success in such a situation, or from perseverance in the measures that have driven us to it r Who has the forehead to do so ? Where is that man ? 1 should he glad to see his face. “ You cannot conciliate America by your present measures ; you cannot subdue her by your present, or by any measures. "What, then, can we do ? You cannot conquer, you cannot gain, but you can address ; you can lull the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger that should produce them. But, my lords, the time demands the language of truth : we must not now apply the flattering unction of servile compliance, or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war, to maintain the rights or honour of my country, I would strip the shirt from my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in its principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not contribute a single effort, nor a sin- gle shilling. I do not call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only recommend to them to make their retreat : let them walk off ; and let them make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and con- dign punishment will overtake them. “ My lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful situation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the pol- lution of your disciplines, the contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the Constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. We have been deceived and de- luded too long : let us now stop short : this is the crisis — may be the only crisis, of time and situation, to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly, we meanly echo back the peremptory words this day presented to us, nothing can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin. We madly rush into multiplied miseries and ‘ confusion worse confounded.’ “ Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this impending destruction ? I did hope, that instead of this false and empty vanity, this overweening pride, engendering high conceits and presump- tuous imaginations — that ministers would have humbled themselves in their errors, would have confessed and retracted them, and by an active, though a late repentance, have endeavoured to redeem them. But, my lords, since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice nor humanity to shun, these oppressive calamities ; since not even severe experience can make them feel, THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 83 nor the imminent ruin of their country awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament must interpose. I shall therefore, my lords, propose to you an amendment to the address to his Majesty, to be inserted immediately after the two first paragraphs of congratulation on the birth of a princess : to recommend an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and permanent prosperity to both coun- tries. This, my lords, is yet in our power ; and let not the wisdom and justice of your lordships neglect the happy, and, perhaps, the only opportu- nity. By the establishment of irrecoverable law, founded on mutual rights, and ascertained by treaty, these glorious enjoyments may be firmly per- petuated. And let me repeat to your lordships, that the strong bias of America, at least of the wise and sounder parts of it, naturally inclines to this happy and constitutional re-connexion with you. Notwithstanding the temporary intrigues with France, we may still be assured of their ancient and confirmed partiality to us. America and France cannot be congenial ; there is something decisive and confirmed in the honest American, that will not assimilate to the futility and levity of Frenchmen. “ My lords, to encourage and confirm that innate inclination to this country, founded on every principle of affection, as well consideration of interest — to restore that favourable disposition into a permanent and powerful re-union with this country — to revive the mutual strength of the empire ; — again, to awe the House of Bourbon, instead of meanly truckling, as our present calamities compel us, to every insult of French caprice and Spanish punctilio — to re-establish our commerce — to re-assert our rights and our honour — to confirm our interests, and renew our glories for ever (a consummation most devoutly to be endeavoured ! and which, I trust, may yet arise from reconciliation with America) — I have the honour of submitting to you the following amendment ; which I move to be inserted after the two first para- graphs of the address : — “ ‘And that this House does most humbly advise and supplicate his Majesty, to be pleased to cause the most speedy and effectual measures to be taken, for restoring peace in America ; and that no time may be lost in proposing an immediate cessation of hostilities there, in order to the opening a treaty for the final settlement of the tranquillity of these invaluable provinces, by a removal of the unhappy causes of this ruinous civil war, and by a just and adequate security against the return of the like calamities in times to come. And this House desire to offer the most dutiful assurances to his Majesty, that they will, in due time, cheerfully co-operate with the magnanimity and tender goodness of his Majesty, for the preservation of his people, by such explicit and most solemn declarations, and provisions of fundamental and irrevocable laws, as may be judged necessary for the ascertaining and fixing for ever the Respective rights of Great Britain and her colonies.’” The amendment was negatived. [Lord Suffolk having, in the progress of the debate, defended the employ- 84 THE MODERN ORATOR. ment of the Indians, saying that “ it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God and nature put into our hands,” Lord Chatham exclaimed : — ] “ I am astonished ! — shocked ! to hear such principles confessed — to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country : principles equally uncon- stitutional, inhuman, and unchristian ! “ My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention: but I cannot repress my indignation — I feel myself impelled by every duty. My lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing near the throne, polluting the ear of Majesty. ‘ That God and nature put into our hands !’ I know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature ; but I know, that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife — to the cannibal savage torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating ; literally, my lords, eating the mangled victims of his barbarous battles ! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. And, my lords, they shock every sentiment of honour ; they shock me as a lover of honour- able war, and a detester of murderous barbarity. “ These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the gospel and pious pastors of our church, I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God : I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country: I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; — upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution : I call upon the honour of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own : I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the na- tional character: I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord* frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and esta- blished the honour, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us ; to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child ! to send forth the infidel savage — against v r hom ? — against your Protestant brethren ! to lay waste their country, to desolate then- dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war! — hell-hounds, I say, of savage war. Spain armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the w r retched natives of America ; and we improve * Lord Effingham Howard, the Admiral of England at the time of the Spanish Armada, represented on tapestry, in the old House of Lords. THE EARL OE CHATHAM. 85 on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty: we turn loose these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion; endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity. “ My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honour, our constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your lordships, and the united powers of the state, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore those holy prelates of our religion, to do away these iniquities from among us. Let them perform a lustration ; let them purify this House, and this country, from this sin. “ My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous prin- ciples.” Speech on the 11th December, 1777, in opposition to a motion to adjourn the House till the 20th of January, 1778. “ My Lords, 4 ‘ It is not with less grief than astonishment I hear the motion now made by the noble earl, at a time when the affairs of this country present, on every side, prospects full of awe, terror, and impending danger ; when, I will he bold to say, events of a most alarming tendency, little expected or foreseen, will shortly happen ; when a cloud, that may crush this nation, and bury it in destruction for ever, is ready to burst and overwhelm us in ruin. At so tremendous a season, it does not become your lordships, the great hereditary council of the nation, to neglect your duty ; to retire to your country seats for six weeks, in quest of joy and merriment, while the real state of public affairs call for grief, mourning, and lamentation — at least, for the fullest exertions of your wisdom. It is your duty, my lords, as the grand hereditary council of the nation, to advise your Sovereign — to be the protectors of your country— to feel your own weight and authority. As hereditary counsellors, as members of this House, you stand between the Crown and the people ; you are nearer the throne than the other branch of the legislature; it is your duty to surround and protect, to counsel and supplicate it; you hold the balance, your duty is to see that the weights are properly poised, that the balance remains even, that neither may encroach on the other; and that the executive power may be prevented, by an unconstitutional exertion of even constitutional authority, from bringing the nation to destruction. My lords, I fear we are arrived at the very brink of that state ; and I am persuaded, that nothing short of a spirited interposition on your part, in giving speedy and wholesome advice to your Sovereign, can prevent the people from feeling beyond remedy the full effects of that ruin which ministers 86 THE MODERN ORATOR. have brought upon us. These are the calamitous circumstances ministers have been the cause of ; and shall we, in such a state of things, when every moment teems with events productive of the most fatal narratives — shall we trust, during an adjournment of six weeks, to those men who have brought those calamities upon us, when, perhaps, our utter overthrow is plotting, nay, ripe for execution, without almost a possibility of prevention ? Ten thou- sand brave men have fallen victims to ignorance and rashness. The only army you have in America may, by this time, be no more. This very nation remains no longer safe than its enemies think proper to permit. I do not augur ill. Events of a most critical nature may take place before our next meeting. Will your lordships, then, in such a state of things, trust to the guidance of men who, in every single step of this cruel, this wicked war, from the very beginning, have proved themselves weak, ignorant, and mistaken? I will not say, my lords, nor do I mean anything personal, or that they have brought premeditated ruin on this country. I will not suppose that they foresaw what has since happened; but I do contend, my lords, that their guilt (I will not suppose it guilt), but their want of wisdom, their incapacity, their temerity in depending on their own judgment, or their base compliances with the orders and dictates of others, perhaps caused by the influence of one or two individuals, have rendered them totally im worthy of your lordships’ confidence, of the confidence of Parliament, and of those wfliose rights they are the constitutional guardians of — the people at large. A remonstrance, my lords, should be carried to the throne. The King has been deluded by his ministers. They have been imposed upon by false information, or have, from motives best known to themselves, given apparent credit to what they were convinced in their hearts was untrue. The nation has been betrayed into the ruinous measure of an American war, by the arts of imposition, by their own credulity, through the means of false hopes, false pride, and promised advantages, of the most romantic and improbable nature. My lords, I do not wish to call your attention entirely to that point. I would fairly appeal to your own sentiments, whether I can be justly charged with arrogance or pre- sumption, if I said, great and able as ministers think themselves, that all the wisdom of the nation is confined to the narrow circle of the petty cabinet. I might, I think, without presumption, say, that your lordships, as one of the branches of the legislature, may be as capable of advising your Sovereign, in the moment of difficulty and danger, as any lesser council, composed of a fewer number ; and who, being already so fatally trusted, have betrayed a want of honesty, or a want of talents. Is it, my lords, within the utmost stretch of the most sanguine expectation, that the same men wiio have plunged you into your present perilous and calamitous situation, are the proper persons to rescue you from it ? No, my lords, such an expectation w'ould be preposterous and absurd. I say, my lords, you are now r specially called upon to interpose. It is your duty to forego every call of business and pleasure ; to give up your vfliole time to inquire into past misconduct ; to provide remedies for the present ; to prevent future evils ; to rest on your THIS EARL OF CHATHAM. 87 arms , if I may use the expression, to watch for the public safety ; to defend and support the throne ; and, if fate should so ordain it, to fall with becoming fortitude with the rest of your fellow- subjects in the general ruin. I fear this last must be the event of this mad, unjust, and cruel war. It is your lord- ships’ duty to do everything in your power that it shall not ; but, if it must be so, I trust your lordships and the nation will fall gloriously. “ My lords, as the first and most immediate object of your inquiry, I would recommend to you to consider the true state of our home defence. We have heard much from a noble lord in this House of the state of our navy. I cannot give an implicit belief to what I have heard on that important subject. I still retain my former opinion relative to the number of line-of-battle ships ; but as an inquiry into the real state of the navy is destined to be the subject of a future consideration, I do not wish to hear more about it till that period arrives. I allow, in argument, that we have thirty-five ships of the line fit for actual service. I doubt much whether such a force would give us a full command of the Channel. I am certain, if it did, every other part of our possessions must lie naked and defenceless, in every quarter of the globe. I fear our utter destruction is at hand. What, my lords, is the state of our military defence ? I would not wish to expose our present weakness ; but weak as we are, if this war should be continued, as the public declaration of persons in high confidence with their Sovereign would induce us to suppose, is this nation to be entirely stripped ? And if it should, would every soldier now in Britain be sufficient to give us an equality to the force in America ? I will maintain they would not. Where, then, will men be procured ? Recruits are not to be had in this country. Germany will give no more. I have read in the newspapers of this day, and I have reason to believe it to be true, that the head of the Germanic body has remonstrated against it, and has taken measures accordingly to prevent it. Ministers have, I hear, applied to the Swiss cantons. The idea is preposterous ! The Swiss never permit their troops to go beyond sea. But, my lords, if even men were to be procured in Germany, how will you march them to the water side ? Have not our ministers applied for the port of Embden, and has it not been refused ? I say, you will not be able to procure men even for your home defence, if some immediate steps be not taken. I remember, during the last war it was thought advisable to levy independent companies : they were, when completed, formed into battalions, and proved of great service. I love the army ; I know its use ; but I must nevertheless own, that I was a great friend to the measure of establishing a national militia. I remember the last war, that there were three camps formed of that corps at once in this king- dom. I saw them myself : one at Winchester ; another in the west, at Plymouth ; and a third, if I recollect right, at Chatham. Whether the militia is at present in such a state as to answer the valuable purposes it did then, or is capable of being rendered so, I will not pretend to say ; but I see no reason, why, in such a critical state of affairs, the experiment should not be made ; and why it may not be put again on the former respectable footing. 88 THE MODERN ORATOR. I remember, all the circumstances considered, when appearances were not nearly so melancholy and alarming as they now are; that there were more troops in the county of Kent alone, for the defence of that county, than there are now in the whole island. “ My lords, I contend that we have not, nor can procure, any force sufficient to subdue America. It is monstrous to think of it. There are several noble lords present, well acquainted with military affairs. I call upon any one of them to rise and pledge himself, that the military force now within the king- dom is adequate to its defence, or that any possible force to be procured from Germany, Switzerland, or elsewhere, will be equal to the conquest of America. I am too perfectly persuaded of their abilities and integrity, to expect any such assurance from them. Oh ! but if America is not to be conquered, she is to be treated with. Conciliation is at length thought of ; terms are to be offered. Who are the persons that are to treat on the part of this afflicted and deluded country ? The very men who have been the authors of our mis- fortunes : the very men who have endeavoured, by the most pernicious policy, the highest injustice and oppression, the most cruel and devastating war, to enslave those people ; they would conciliate, to gain the confidence and affec- tion of those who have survived the Indian tomahawk and the German bayonet. Can your lordships entertain the most distant prospect of success from such a treaty, and such negotiators ? No, my lords, the Americans have virtue, and they must detest the principles of such men ; they have understanding, and too much wisdom, to trust to the cunning and narrow politics which must cause such overtures on the part of then’ merciless persecutors. My lords, I maintain that they would shun, with a mixture of prudence and detesta- tion, any proposition coming from that quarter. They would receive terms from such men, as snares to allure and betray. They would dread them as ropes, meant to be put about their legs to entangle and overthrow them in certain ruin. “ My lords, supposing that our domestic danger, if at all, is far distant ; that our enemies will leave us at liberty to prosecute this war with the ut- most of our ability ; suppose your lordships should grant a fleet one day, an army another ; all these, I do affirm, will avail nothing, unless you accompany it with advice. Ministers have been in error ; experience has proved it : and what is worse, they continue in it. They told you in the beginning, that 15,000 men would traverse America, without scarcely the appearance of in- terruption ; two compaigns have passed since they gave us this assurance. Treble that number has been employed ; and one of your armies, which com- posed two-thirds of the force by which America was to be subdued, has been totally destroyed,* and is now led captive through those provinces you call * His lordship alluded to the army under General Burgoyne, which was forced to surrender to the Americans, on the 13tli October, 1777, at Saratoga. On this occasion 5790 men surrendered on terms ; and it was reckoned that about 4689 men, who had been wounded in the retreat from Stillwater to Saratoga, were left to the mercy of the Americans, so that the English loss might be estimated at about 10,000 men, besides thirty-five brass field-pieces. The moderation shown by the Americans on this oc- casion was deserving of the highest praise. TIIE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 89 rebellious. Those men whom you called cowards, poltroons, runaways, and knaves, are become victorious over your veteran troops ; and in the midst of victory, and flush of conquest, have set ministers the example of moderation and of magnanimity worthy of imitation. “ My lords, no time should be lost which may promise to improve this disposition in America ; unless, by an obstinacy founded in madness, we wish to stifle those embers of affection which, after all our savage treatment, do not seem as yet to have been entirely extinguished. While on one side we must lament the unhappy fate of that spirited officer, Mr Burgoyne, and the gallant troops under his command, who were sacrificed to the wanton temerity and ignorance of ministers, we are as strongly impelled, on the other, to ad- mire and applaud the generous, magnanimous conduct, the noble friendship, brotherly affection, and humanity of the victors, who, condescending to impute the horrid orders of massacre and devastation to their true authors, supposed that, as soldiers and Englishmen, those cruel excesses could not have origin- ated with the General, nor were consonant to the brave and humane spirit of a British soldier, if not compelled to it as an act of duty. They traced the first cause of those diabolical orders to their source ; and, by that wise and generous interpretation, granted their professed destroyers terms of capitu- lation, which they could be only entitled to as the makers of fair and honour- able war. “ My lords, I should not have presumed to trouble you, if the tremendous state of this nation did not, in my opinion, make it necessary. Such as I have this day described it to be, I do maintain it is. The same measures are still persisted in ; and ministers, because your lordships have been deluded, de- ceived, and misled, presume, that whenever the worst comes, they will be enabled to shelter themselves behind Parliament. This, my lords, cannot be the case : they have committed themselves and their measures to the fate of war, and they must abide the issue. I tremble for this country ; I am almost led to despair, that we shall ever be able to extricate ourselves. Whether or not the day of retribution is at hand, when the vengeance of a much injured and afflicted people will, I trust, fall heavily on the authors of their ruin ; and I am strongly inclined to believe, that before the day to which the proposed adjournment shall arrive, the noble earl who moved it will have just cause to repent of his motion.” The motion was carried. Speech on the motion of the Duke of Richmond, on the 7th of April, 1778, for an Address to the King, beseeching his Majesty to recognise the independence of America by withdrawing his troops, and to dismiss his mi- nisters ; being the last speech made by the Earl of Chatham. He began by lamenting that his bodily infirmities had so long, and especially at so important a crisis, prevented his attendance on the duties of Parlia- ment, and declared that he had made an effort almost beyond the powers of 90 THE MODERN ORATOR. his constitution, to come down to the House on this day (perhaps the last time he should ever he able to enter its walls) to express the indignation he felt at an idea which he understood w r as gone forth, of yielding up the sove- reignty of America. He entered into a full detail of the American war, dilating on all the measures he had opposed, and evils he had predicted, adding at the end of each, “ And so it proved He then continued thus : — “ My Lords, “ I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me — that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the hand of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture ; but, my lords, while I have sense and memory, I will never consent to deprive the royal offspring of the House of Brunswick, the heirs of the Princess Sophia, of their fairest inheritance. Where is the man that will dare to advise such a measure ? My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions ? Shall this great kingdom, that has survived whole and entire the Danish depredations, the Scottish in- roads, and the Norman conquest ; that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish armada, now fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon ? Surely, my lords, this nation is no longer what it was ! Shall a people, that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to tell its ancient inveterate enemy, ‘ Take all we have, only give us peace ?’ It is impossible ! “ I wage war with no man, or set of men. I wish for none of their employ- ments : nor would I co-operate with men who still persist in unretracted error ; or who, instead of acting on a firm, decisive line of conduct, halt be- tween two opinions, where there is no middle path. In God’s name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and the former cannot be preserved with honour, why is not the latter commenced without hesitation ? I am not, I confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. But, my lords, any state is better than despair. Let us, at least, make one effort ; and, if we must fall, let us fall like men ! ” [The Duke of Richmond having replied, Lord Chatham, apparently in a state of excitement, attempted to rise to again address the House, but sunk down fainting, and was saved from falling by the Duke of Cumberland and some of the other peers. The House was immediately cleared, and medical aid obtained ; and, as soon as his lordship was sufficiently recovered, he was re- moved to his villa at Hayes, in Kent, where he expired on the 11th of May, 1778, universally lamented. On the melancholy occasion of Lord Chatham’s illness, an adjournment of the House was immediately voted. Thus died one of the greatest patriots that ever lived, and one of the brightest ornaments that ever adorned this country.] THE MODERN ORATOR. THE SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. LONDON : AYLOTT AND JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1845. INDEX TO THE SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. PAGE. In support of the motion of Mr. Coke, “that the resolution come to by the House on the previous day, condemnatory of Mr. Pitt's continuance in office, be laid before his Majesty." February 3, 1784 ..... 93 On the motion of Mr. Pitt, for the fortification of the dockyards of Ports- mouth and Plymouth. February 27, 1786 96 On moving for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esq., on the fourth charge. February 7, 1787 106 On moving for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esq., on the seventh charge. April 2, 1787 122 In support of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esq., on the second charge. June 6, 1788 .137 Same speech continued. June 13, 1788 151 In reply to Lord Mornington, on the Address to the King on the opening of Parliament. January 21, 1794 163 On moving to bring in a Bill to repeal an Act for the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. January 5, 1795 191 In opposition to Mr. Pitt’s Bill, for increasing the Assessed Taxes. January 4, 1798 210 In support of a motion of Mr. Yorke, the Secretary at War, on the subject of the Army Estimates. December 8, 1802 224 In opposition to the motion of Mr. Pitt, for a Bill for raising and supporting an additional permanent Military Force. June 18, 1804 238 List of Members of the Administrations during the reign of George III. . 245 DAVIS AND HASLER, PRINTERS, CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET. SPEECHES OF RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in Dublin, in September, 1751, educated at Harrow school, and afterwards became a member of the Middle Temple. He died July the 7th, 1816, and was buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey. The early speeches of Mr Sheridan, like those of Lord Chatham, are unfortunately imperfectly reported. Speech in support of the motion of Mr Coke, member for Norfolk, “ That the resolution come to by the House on the previous day, con- demnatory of Mr Pitt’s continuance in office, be laid before his Majesty,” 3rd February, 1784. It will be remembered that on the rejection of Mr Fox’s East India bill, by the House of Lords, on the 17th of December, 1783, the King immediately sent to Mr Fox, requiring him to deliver up his seals of office as Secretary of State, and dismissed the rest of the Cabinet on the following day. Mr Pitt was then appointed first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, but found himself, at the opening of the memorable session of January, 1784, opposed by a large majority of the House, and in the singular position of Prime Minister, unable to carry any of his measures ; notwith- standing which, no declaration could be extorted from him as to the inten- tion of dissolving the Parliament, which had been expected, and severe motions were made, expressive of the unconstitutional situation of affairs. Mr Pitt continued in this anomalous position, supported by the King in oppo- sition to the House of Commons, till 24th March, when Parliament was dissolved, and on the meeting of the new Parliament Mr Pitt found himself supported by a majority. Mr Sheridan said, “The noble lord* had laid down a principle some days ago, which prevented him from being surprised at anything the noble lord should advance. He stated, that in the appointment of ministers, the Crown ought not to consider beforehand whether they should be able to obtain the support of the House of Commons. It has frequently been said, that when there was a good understanding between the ministers of the Crown and the House of Commons, there was ground for apprehending that P Lord Mulgrave, joint paymaster with Mr W. Grenville. 94 THE MODEM ORATOR, they were under the influence of corruption ; but at present the noble lord might rejoice, for there was not now the least room for apprehending that the House was in danger of being corrupted by keeping up too good an understanding with the ministers of the Crown, who were now at open variance with the House. If the ministers and the House of Commons were closely united, the noble lord might possibly call their union adultery ; but when the ministers and the House of Lords were united in the same bands, his lordship would probably call that union a legal marriage. As to what the noble lord had quoted about Lord Somers, it was not at all applicable to the present case ; for Lord Somers, on the occasion alluded to, stood upon very different ground from that of the present ministers : there was an impeachment in one case, and none in the other. The right honourable gentleman at the head of his Majesty’s councils had, on a former day, said that he stood firm in the fortress of the constitution ; but could any fortress be called the fortress of the constitution, which was not garrisoned by the House of Commons ? They were the natural defenders of the fort. There might possibly be indeed a lieutenant-governor of the fort, who, though he did not mix in the battle, was not less the commander, though his orders were not publicly delivered. The House of Commons ought to inspect the works, and see that no sap was carrying on which might dismantle it. The present ministers were labouring to erect a fabric that might shield them against every attack ; but they were erecting it on ground that was already undermined ; and however strong the pillars might be — however solid and firm the buttresses — however well-turned the arches ; yet, as the foundation must be weak when the ground was undermined, not only the building could not stand, but the very weight of it would precipitate its fall. Secret influence was what undermined the whole ; — it constituted a fourth estate in the constitution ; for it did not belong to the King, it did not belong to the Lords, it did not belong to the Commons. The Lords disclaimed it, and the Commons found themselves thwarted by it in all their operations. An honourable member had asked if the coalition of the right honourable gentleman with the noble lord* had not lessened the confidence of his friends in the former. He would endeavour to give as satisfactory an answer as he could to this question. When the idea of a coalition with the noble lord was first started, he confessed that he had advised his right honourable friend not to accept of it ; and his reason was this : — his right honourable friend had great popularity, which he might lose by a coalition ; respectable friends, whom he might disgust; and prejudices of the strongest nature to combat. He made no doubt but similar objections occurred to the friends of the noble lord ; and that they were urged to him, in order to dissuade him from coalescing with his right honourable friend. Mutual diffidence between men long accustomed to oppose one another, might naturally be expected, * On the formation of the celebrated coalition ministry, Lord North was Secretary of State for the home department, and Mr Fox, Secretary of State for foreign affairs, April 2 , RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 95 The prejudices of the public all concurred to prevent this coalition. The middling classes of people, for whom he had the highest respect, and to whom the House of Commons must look for support in every emergency, sooner than to the great, were not certainly the best qualified to judge of nice and refined points of politics. Accustomed to judge of measures by men, he apprehended that they would give themselves no time to examine the principles, motives, and grounds of a coalition ; but condemn it on its first appearance, merely because it was composed of men who had long been political enemies. On these grounds, full of apprehension for the character of his right honourable friend, he most certainly gave him his advice against a coalition. But when the necessities of the times at last pointed it out as the only means of salvation to this country; when, from the opportunities he had had of seeing the noble lord and his friends, and proving the honour, fairness, openness, and steadiness of their conduct, not only he did not con- demn the coalition, but he rejoiced that it had taken place in spite of even his own advice ; diffidence soon gave way to the most perfect reliance on the honour of the noble lord, and on that of his friends, and their steady adherence to those principles which had been laid down as the basis of the coalition. It was unnecessary, therefore, after saying this, that he should tell the House his confidence in his right honourable friend had not felt the smallest diminution. Fully acquainted with his character, he knew that he looked down with indifference, if not with contempt, on riches, places, and dignities, as things by no means necessary to his happiness. It was his right honourable friend’s ambition to deserve and preserve the esteem and confi- dence of his friends ; and he was sure that he would sacrifice neither, for all that place and emolument could bestow upon him. Having said so much in defence of the coalition, he could not help expressing his surprise that he heard so much about it from the other side of the House ; and the more he looked at the treasury bench, the more his astonishment grew upon him ; — for there the gentlemen who were actually sitting upon it, were divided into parts ; each of whom was composed of a member who had supported the noble lord in the blue ribbon, and of another who had opposed him. Those gentlemen, speaking to each other, might thus address each other : one might say, ‘ I supported Lord North through the whole of his administration, but left him at last, when I found he had formed a coalition with that abominable man Charles Fox.’ The other might reply, ‘And I joined Mr Fox for many years in his opposition to government ; till at last I found it necessary to abandon him, when he disgraced himself by a coalition with that abominable man Lord North.’ If the state of the public credit, and the funds, should become the subject of discussion in that House, one of the members of the treasury bench may very probably say, ‘ It was the cursed American war of Lord North that brought this ruin upon our funds f — this would instantly call up his friend on the same bench, who would immediately reply, * No ; the American war was a just and constitutional war ; it was the opposition given to it by the rebel-encourager Charles Fox, who caused the failure of h 2 96 THE MODERN ORATOR. it ; and this brought ruin on the country. 7 Thus a treasury, formed on anti -coalition principles, was itself a chain of coalitions. The grand coali- tion, which was the butt of every man's invective, had begot other coalitions ; but there was this difference between the parent and the offspring : that, with the former, all was harmony, concord, and union; while the latter re- tained the heterogeneous principles of their original opposition, which made them still a prey to discord and confusion. An honourable gentleman had said that the majority in the coalition was formed of persons who represented the rotten treasury boroughs ; and who were brought in by the noble lord in the blue ribbon, when he was at the head of the treasury. But that re- proach was ill founded, for the coalition had been purged of such members ; some of whom, having spurned the hand that made them, and turned their backs on their friend and benefactor, had found a happy asylum in the bosom of the administration. From this subject turning to another, Mr Sheridan observed, that if it was improper to interfere by any means with the exercise of the prerogative, the House was to blame for having agreed to the resolution which passed yesterday unanimously ; which stated that a firm, efficient, extended, and united administration was necessary in the present state of affairs. For supposing such an administration was now formed, what might not the advocates for the prerogative of the Crown infer from it ? That nothing could be more dangerous or more unconstitutional than such an administration ; for, being composed of all the heads of parties in both Houses, they would of course be supported by majorities in both ; and then the King would have forced upon him an administration which he could not dismiss.” The motion was carried by 211 against 187. Speech on the motion of Mr Pitt to provide effectually for the dock- yards of Portsmouth and Plymouth, by a permanent system of fortification, as essential to the safety of the state. — 27th February, 1786. Mr Sheridan declared, “ that he gave the noble viscount* full credit for the principles he had professed with respect to the constitution ; and that he did sincerely believe that the noble viscount would not vote for the mea- sure then under discussion, but upon a supposition that its tendency was rather to diminish than augment the military power of the Crown. Upon this ground, therefore, he would meet him ; and he was sanguine enough to believe that the noble viscount might be induced to alter the opinion which he had declared, unless, indeed, he was restrained from exercising his free judgment upon the subject; an apprehension which a late speech of his had suggested, a speech in which the noble viscount had expressed himself so full of dread and horror at the means by which a tory foe, in another place, had, both by sap and storm, assailed those constitutional bulwarks * Viscount Mahon. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 97 which the noble viscount had so zealously endeavoured to erect for the pro- tection of our decayed election rights, that it was almost reasonable to presume that the noble viscount might have entered into a serious compact with a noble duke,* his former ally on this subject, for reciprocal assistance on their two favourite objects; by which the noble viscount was peremptorily to support the plan of fortifying the dock-yards in that House, or the noble duke would no long erengage to assist him in fortifying the constitution in the other. But what was the noble viscount’s argument ? He had rested the matter entirely upon the ground taken by his right honourable friend (Mr Pitt), that this pursuing the system of fortification would actually diminish the standing army in this country ; and that the number of troops being so diminished, there Avould be a proportionably less cause for that con- stitutional jealousy, with which all parties agreed it was our duty to regard the increasing military power of the Crown. That this system of defence by fortifications could, under any circumstances, have the effect of reducing the standing army, he must beg leave utterly to deny. Some plausible argu- ments, indeed, had been adduced in support of this notion, which, how- ever, when sifted, would be found fallacious and contradictory. For the present, however, he would waive that point, and admit implicitly, that the standing army of the country would be reduced by the measure proposed, precisely in the proportion stated by the noble viscount ; it then, however, remained to be proved, that, giving the noble viscount his premises, he was right in his conclusion. When we talked of a constitutional jealousy of the military power of the Crown, what was the real object to which we pointed our suspicion ? What was the datum, as the fashionable phrase was, upon which they proceeded ? What ! but that it was in the nature of kings to love power, and in the constitution of armies to obey kings. This, doubt- less, was most delicate ground to touch upon ; but the circumstances of the present question called for plain dealing ; and for his part he could not be suspected, even in the smallest degree, of alluding either to the present monarch upon the throne, or to the army under his command. He agreed most sincerely to the distinctions taken with respect to both, by a worthy baronet who had spoken before him ; but at the same time it must be ad- mitted, that whenever we spoke of a constitutional jealousy of the army, it was upon a supposition that the unhappy time might come, when a prince, misled by evil counsellors, and against the suggestions of his own gracious temper, of course, might cherish the disastrous notion that he could become greater by making his subjects less, and that an army might be found so for- getful of their duty as citizens, so warped by feelings of false honour, or so degraded by habits of implicit obedience, as to support their military head in an attempt upon the rights and liberties of their country ! The possible existence of this case, and the probable coincidence of these circumstances, was that to which every gentleman’s mind must point when he admitted an The Duke of Richmond, Master- general of the Ordnance. 98 THE MODERN ORATOR. argument upon the subject ; otherwise we burlesqued and derided the wisdom of our ancestors in their provisions of the Bill of Rights, and made a mere mockery of the salutary and sacred reserves with which, for a short and limited period, we annually entrusted the executive magistrate with the necessary defence of the country. This plain statement being really the case, to what, in such a crisis, were we to look ? Were our apprehensions only to be directed to the length of the muster-roll of men in the King’s pay ? Were we to calculate only the number of soldiers whom he could encamp at Hounslow, or the force of the detachment which he might spare to surround the lobby of the House of Commons ? No ; the gist and substance of the question lay briefly here : — In which of the two situations now argued upon, would the King and his evil advisers find themselves in a state of the greatest military force and preparation, and most likely to command and receive a military support ? In this point of view, would it be argued that these for- tresses, which were to become capable of resisting the siege of a foreign enemy landed in force, would serve as a sufficient strength in the hands of the Crown, when the enemy was his people ? Would no stress be given to the great and important distinction, already ably urged, between troops elected and separated from their fellow-citizens in garrisons and forts, and men living scattered and entangled in all the common duties and connexions of their countrymen ? Was this an argument of no weight when applied to the militia, who were to form a part of these garrisons ? or would it, even for a moment, be pretended, that men under such circumstances, and in such disciplined habits, were not a thousand times more likely to despise the breath of Parliament, and to lend themselves to the active purposes of tyranny and ambition, than the loose and unconnected bodies which exist even with jealousy under the present system ? It was necessary to press the distinction : the fact was, that these strong military holds, if maintained, as they must be in peace, by full and disciplined garrisons ; if well provided, and calculated to stand regular sieges, as the present plan professed ; and if extended to all the objects to which the system must inevitably lead, whether they were to be considered as inducements to tempt a weak prince to evil views, or as engines of power, in case of an actual rupture ; would, in truth, promise tenfold the means of curbing and subduing the country, than could be stated to arise even from doubling the present military establishment ; with this extraordinary aggravation attending the folly of consenting to such a system, that those very naval stores and magazines, the seed and sources of our future navy, the effectual preservation of which was the pretence for these unassailable fortresses, would, in that case, become a pledge and host- age in the hands of the Crown, which, in a country circumstanced as this was, must insure an unconditional submission to the most extravagant claims which despotism could dictate. “ What could possibly prove more fallacious than holding out expecta- tions that a system of defence by fortifications could, in fact, end in a retrenchment of the standing army? The first fallacy in this argument RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 99 stood forward in the supposition that the system of defence by fortifications was necessarily to stop, when Portsmouth and Plymouth should become secured ; and that the reasoning upon which the extensive works for those places were justified, would not apply to any other parts of the kingdom, however their importance called for defence, or their situation exposed them to attack. The shortest method of refuting this idea, was simply to sup- pose the same board of officers, acting under the same instructions, and de- liberating under the same data, going a circuit round the coast of the kingdom, and directed to report upon the various places in their progress ; and let any person fairly consider the suppositions under which they make their present report, and then hesitate to confess, that they must, of necessity, recommend a similar plan of defence proportioned to the importance of every place to which their attention was directed. It was superfluous to dwell upon the circumstances which no longer permitted us to consider Holland, in future, otherwise than as a province of France ; or which made it equally reasonable to look with an eye of apprehension to the neighbouring coast belonging to the Emperor ; because the fact was evident, that, in the case of this country being engaged in a war against a powerful confederacy (upon the supposition of which alone the present scheme was recommended and justified), every motive of prudence must compel us to direct an attention as vigorous and vigilant to the eastern as to the southern coast of this country. It was not possible for the House to remain at a loss to discover various places which, with Chatham and Sheerness (where most extensive lines had actually been begun under the auspices of the noble duke), must necessarily be provided for in the new system of protection ; and for his own part, in- deed, he could wish that any person would compute the stationary defence necessary for such places, in addition to the twenty-two thousand men de- manded for Portsmouth and Plymouth, and allow likewise for any moving force in the country, and then decide what chance there was that this pro- lific system would terminate in a reduction of the standing army ! “ Concerning the probability of our being able to furnish men for the con- stant maintenance of these garrisons, he felt it requisite to observe, that the argument had been, not a reference to our present peace establishment, but to the extent of the service during the most extravagant periods of the last war ; which, in other words, was to hold out a notion that we might speedily again look to a time when we should become able to expend, for the purpose of war, fifteen millions of money in the course of a single year ! — at the very moment when the right honourable gentleman was holding out the reduction of our debt by a few hundred thousand pounds, as the triumph of his admi- nistration, and the corner-stone of that pillar upon which his fame was to become emblazoned ! But, even supposing this to be possible, and consider- ing the reference to our establishment in the last war as just, the right honourable gentleman had taken an unfair advantage of the argument ; for when he stated the numerous armies which we had upon the continent of America, as resources from which we were in future to garrison these forts, 100 THE MODERN ORATOR. and increase our home defence, he ought also to have taken into his account the enormous floating establishment attendant upon those armies ; and which, being converted into an efficient naval defence at home, would make both his fortifications and his garrisons unnecessary. “ To the attack which the right honourable gentleman (Mr Pitt) had chosen to make upon the late administration, he should beg leave to answer that, in whatever point of view he was that day to regard the right honour- able gentleman, whether as that glorious orb which an honourable gentleman (Mr Luttrell) had described him to be, whose influence and power was more than to compensate to the nation for the loss of a hemisphere ; or whether his lustre was calculated rather to dazzle and surprise, than to cherish and invigorate ; whether he merited the less complimentary language of his right honourable friend (Colonel Barre), who observed, that his conscience had been surprised in this business ; or whether he had capitulated upon regular approaches ; whether he had been successful in repelling the insinua- tion of another gentleman, that he was not in earnest in this cause, by the vehemence of his manner, or had confirmed it by the weakness of his argu- ment ; whether the right honourable gentleman most deserved the praises or reproaches which he had received, he would not embarrass himself by pre- tending to determine ; but only observe, that one part of his conduct had most astonishingly escaped the panegyric of his friends — he meant the spirit and enterprise with which, taking his hint probably from the subject in de- bate, he had endeavoured to carry the war into the enemy’s country, and pursue measures of offence and attack, whilst every pass at home was left unfortified and defenceless. “ For what was the ground of this strenuous charge ? The late adminis- tration (as the right honourable gentleman asserted) had submitted part of this very plan to the judgment of parliament, but, at the desire of the House, withdrew that part for reconsideration ; and now, if, upon reconsideration, they had in any respect altered their opinion, it was the grossest inconsis- tency of conduct and dereliction of principle ! — an extraordinary charge, and particularly so from the gentleman by whom it was urged ! He had recon- sidered many subjects, without aspiring to the merit of an obstinate adher- ence to his first opinion. He had reconsidered his American intercourse bill, and had publicly avowed, that he had parted with every idea which he once entertained upon that subject. He had reconsidered his India bill, and, before it was engrossed, had scarcely suffered one word to remain which be- longed to it when it was brought in. He had reconsidered his Irish resolu- tions, in every part, provision, and principle ; and, having first offered them as a bounty to Ireland, he had reconsidered the boon, and annexed a price to it, and then reconsidered his own reconsideration, and abandoned his own indispensable condition ! And yet this minister, whose whole government had been one continued series of rash proposition and ungraceful concession, held it out as a palpable enormity in others, that reconsideration should have produced alteration of sentiment, and that, too, upon a subject where UIOIlAiU) BlUNSLEY SHERIDAN. 101 the first opinion must have been taken upon credit, and the second wa3 called for upon minute information and authentic inquiry. In the same excellent spirit of reconsideration, many honourable gentlemen round the minister, who had formerly given a decided opinion against the fortifications, were now solicitous to argue in their favour. As an effectual defence of the conduct of the late administration, he could prove, by referring to the esti- mates and journals of 1783, that they had not the least occasion to resort to the justification of having changed their minds in consequence of better in- formation ; for the fact was, that they never had, even in the slightest degree, committed themselves either in opinion or approbation of the present plan. “ Concerning the history of the rise and progress of fortifications in this island, upon which the right honourable gentleman had laid so much stress ; as if he had proved, that what was not new must be constitutional, and that the point which had been often tried must be fit to be carried into execution ; he should maintain, that every word urged on this subject made against the cause which it was brought to support ; for experience, even by their own statement, convinced us of nothing but that the nation had invariably been deluded and defrauded upon this unprincipled plea of fortifications ; that much had been done and undone, many schemes and many projects tried, many millions spent, and the object avowedly as distant as ever! So that repeated proofs of past deception were all which they urged as arguments for present confidence ; and it was modestly expected they would believe, that, because a point had been always unsuccessfully attempted, it was now at last certain of being wisely accomplished. “ The right honourable gentleman (Mr Pitt) had chosen eagerly to dwell upon a pretended charge of inconsistency which he advanced against an hon- ourable naval officer (Captain Macbride), and which, although the latter had omitted to reply to it, had no other foundation than the right honourable gentleman having thought proper to confound the opinion of the land officers with that of the sea officers. With respect to the report itself, he was ready to admit, that those who had entrenched themselves in constitutional objec- tions only, refusing to be bound by the advice and authority of any board of general officers or engineers whatsoever upon such a subject, had taken strong and respectable ground; and that those also, who had argued the subject more with a reference to the state of the revenue of the country, and had seemed to consider the measure as advisable, or otherwise, according as it should prove consistent with the necessary principles of economy, were, undoubtedly, entitled to every attention. For his own part, however, he did not go to the extreme of the reasoning used on either of these topics — every hour produced instances where practices highly dangerous by their prece- dent, and evidently infringing on the established rights of the subject, were resorted to, unavoidably perhaps, for the purpose of retrieving and maintain- ing that public credit, without which the affairs of this country were com- pletely desperate. The right honourable gentleman had pledged himself not to press this business, unless he could make it appear to be a measure not 102 THE MODERN ORATOR. less essential to national safety than to the preservation of national credit. Upon this line of argument, the dangers to be apprehended to the constitu- tion, which were stated as eventual and remote, must, of course, give way, and the point of economy was wholly out of the question. “ The right honourable gentleman had also contended, that the decision of a board specially appointed for this inquiry, and consisting of persons emi- nently qualified for the judgment expected from them, was the best authority which the country could obtain on the subject, and afforded a surer guide for the opinion and conduct of that House, than either the arguments or the in- formation of its individual members could supply. To this he had already assented, and now repeated his assent; nor did he hesitate to renew the pledge in which the right honourable gentleman had appeared so anxious to fix him, that he, for his own part, mindful of the terms upon which the ques- tion was suspended at the close of the last session, would rest contented to abide by the decision of a board so described, and to withdraw his objections to the plan, if it could be fairly made to appear that these gentlemen (whose names and characters he freely admitted did entitle them to the confidence w r hich was claimed for them), upon a full investigation of the whole subject proposed last year in Parliament to be submitted to their inquiry, and being left to their own free and unfettered judgment in forming their decision — had reported, as their decided and unqualified opinion, that the plan proposed by the noble duke, and then under discussion, was a measure which it became the wisdom and prudence of Parliament to adopt. Upon this j)oint they w r ere at issue ; and the report in his hand was the only authority to which he should appeal, and the sole ground upon which he should argue. “Yet, previous to the least discussion of the matter of the report, he could not omit to take notice of many circumstances attending the manner of its formation. Far from meaning to reflect upon the officers who composed the board, he must beg leave to support the complaint which had been urged by the right honourable gentleman (Colonel Barre) who first suggested this re- ference, that, in violation of the confidence reposed in ministers, they had not referred the question of a system for the general defence of the country to the board, giving them due time and materials for forming their opinion upon the great and extensive subject, but had merely required from them a short answer relative to two points of attack under certain data of their own im- posing. “ Many powerful, perhaps unanswerable objections, had been made against the appointment of the noble duke to be president of the board. Some hon- ourable gentlemen had alluded to the peculiar circumstances of the noble duke’s personal character ; he had been described as a man who was never known to give up a point ; but whether this was the case or not, or whether there w r ere some principles of public profession, to which the noble duke had not very rigorously adhered, he would not pretend to decide, as he might be suspected of speaking from party prejudices. There was one characteristic, however, of the noble duke’s mind, which he thought might be fairly men- RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 103 tioned, as it was a peculiarity which had been publicly brought forward in argument by high authority in that House ; and if, now referring to it, he were to represent that noble personage as of a temper eager for extravagance, and vehement in the extreme — if he were to describe him as a person who, having taken up a just principle, was capable of defeating all salutary pro- ceeding upon it, by driving on with a heated imagination to the most flighty and preposterous conclusions, the right honourable gentleman opposite to him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would become his authority. He was the person who had led him and the House into that opinion, as must be in the recollection of every honourable gentleman who, during a former ses- sion, heard that right honourable gentleman discuss the noble duke's princi- ples of parliamentary reform, and recollected the terms of indignant ridicule with which he had cautioned them against the schemes of so visionary a projector. If, therefore, he was arraigned for following any plan of the noble duke’s with a peculiar degree of jealousy, he should leave his justifi- cation in the abler hands of the right honourable gentleman. “ Yet the noble duke deserved the warmest panegyrics for the striking proofs he had given of his genius as an engineer, which appeared even in the planning and construction of the paper in his hand. The professional ability of the master-general shone as conspicuously there as it could upon our coasts. He had made it an argument of posts, and conducted his reasoning upon principles of trigonometry as well as logic. There were certain de- tached data, like advanced works, to keep the enemy at a distance from the main object in debate. Strong provisions covered the flanks of his asser- tions. 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 em- ployed by the jnoble and literary engineer, his mode of defence on paper was open to the same objection which had been urged against his other fortifica- tions — 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, not- withstanding 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 fortifica- tion 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 con- demnation 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 104 THE MODERN ORATOR. 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 unfavour- able, it should have been so blended and complicated with matter of detail and dangerous discussion, that no chemical process in the ordnance labora- tory 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 circum- stance 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 calcu- lated only against the force, and for the time, expressed in the data ; so that RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 105 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 effectual 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 connexion 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 unconnected 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 * Mr Bastard, 106 THE MODERN ORATOR. ^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 connexion. 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 con- ferred 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.” On a division, the number being equal, the Speaker gave his casting vote against the motion. Speech on the fourth charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., the late Governor-general of Bengal, as the ground for his impeachment, in respect of his conduct towards the Begum Princesses of Oude — 7th February, 1787 ; the House being in committee. On the death of Sujah Dowla, the Subahdar or Nabob of Oude, in 1775, his son Asoff-u-Dowla became Nabob, with the consent of the council of Bengal, who, in return for guaranteeing to him the provinces of Corah and Allahabad, exacted from him, amongst other things, a transfer of the territory of the Rajah Cheit Sing, Zemindar of Benares, yielding an annual income of 2,210,000 rupees, by way of tribute to the Nabob ; the great Zemindars, or native landholders of India, being by the constitution of the Mogul empire, tenants or tributaries to the great princes ; and the inferior Zemindars, in like manner, tributary to the great Zemindars or Rajahs. This revenue had been punctually paid by the Rajah; but, in July, 1778, he was required to pay five lacs of rupees as an extraordinary subsidy, for the maintenance of the army for the current year. This was with difficulty raised and paid, as also were the subsidies of the two following years, but (on the ground of extreme distress) not till after considerable delay and threats of compulsion. Notwithstanding this, a fresh demand was made on him to raise 2000 men as auxiliaries to the British army ; and on the Rajah hesitating to comply with this exaction, Mr Hastings himself proceeded to Benares, seized him, and placed him under arrest. The natives, enraged at this outrage against their chief, rose on the British troops, and, in the confusion which ensued, the Rajah escaped, and Mr Hastings was forced to take refuge, for safety, in the fortress of Chunar. Benares was afterwards ravaged by the British RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 107 Rl*my ; Cheit Sing driven into exile ; and a youth, of the age of nineteen years only, created Rajah, with scarcely any of the functions of royalty, and his annual tribute raised to forty lacs of rupees. Disappointed in the amount of money and wealth derived from this outrage, Mr Hastings next determined to obtain possession of the treasure which the mother and widow of Sujah Dowla, the late Nabob of Oude, and who were called the* Begums of Oude, were reputed to possess, under the name of Jaghires ; and accordingly, by a treaty entered into at Chunar, between Mr Hastings and Asoff-u-Dowla, the latter agreed to strip the Begums of their wealth, and to transfer the proceeds of their Jaghires to the Governor- general — in return for which he was to be relieved from the expense of supporting the British military and civil establishments. A pretended con- spiracy of the Begums against the British was made the pretext for the plunder ; and the course about to be adopted having received the legal sanction of Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice of Bengal, the Nabob Asoff-u- Dowla, together with Mr Middleton, the Governor-general’s agent, proceeded to Fyzabad, where the Begums dwelt, and immediately seized their palace ; the Jaghires were transferred, the servants of the Princesses were put to torture to disclose the treasure, and even the household of the Zenana were subjected to the horrors of famine, until their mistresses consented to sur- render their last rupee. This transaction produced upwards of £500,000 to the Indian government ; and Mr Hastings extorted a present of ten lacs of rupees, or £100,000, from the Nabob, which, by permission of the company, he retained for his own use. Mr Sheridan commenced by observing “ that had it been impossible to have received, without a violation of the established rules of Parliament, the paper which the honourable member, Mr Dempster, had just now read,* he should willingly have receded from any forms of the House, for the purpose of obtaining new lights and further illustrations on the important subject then before them ; not, indeed, that, on the present occasion, he found himself so ill prepared, as merely, for this reason, to be prevented from proceeding to the discharge of hisduty ; neither, to speak freely, was he inclined to con- sider any explanatory editions to the evidence of Sir Elijah Impey so much framed to elucidate, as to perplex and contradict. Needless to his present purpose was it for him to require Sir Elijah, legally , to recognise what had been read in his name, by the honourable gentleman. In fact, neither the informality of any subsisting evidence, nor the adducement of any new ex- planations from Sir Elijah Impey, could make the slightest impression upon the vast and strong body of proof which he should now bring forward against Warren Hastings. Yet, if any motive could have so far operated upon him, as to make him industriously seek for renewed opportunities of questioning Sir Elijah, it would result from his fresh and indignant recollection of the low and artful stratagem of delivering to the members, and others, in this * Amending and explaining the evidence given by Sir Elijah Impey. 108 THE MODERN ORATOR. last period of parliamentary inquiry, printed handbills of defence, the con- tents of which bespoke a presumptuous and empty boast of completely refuting all which, at any time had , or even could , be advanced against Mr * Hastings, on the subject of the fourth article in the general charge of a right honourable member (Mr Burke). But even this was far beneath his notice. The rectitude and strength of his cause were not to be prejudiced by such pitiful expedients ; and he should not waste a moment in counteracting mea- sures, which, though insidious, were proportionately frivolous and unavailing. Nor would he take up the time of the committee with any general arguments to prove that the subject of the charge which had fallen to his lot to bring forward, was of great moment and magnitude. The attention which Par- liament had paid to the affairs of India, for many sessions past, the volumi- nous productions of their committees on that subject, the various proceedings in that House respecting it, their own strong and pointed resolutions, the repeated recommendation of his Majesty, and the reiterated assurances of paying due regard to these recommendations, as well as various acts of the legislature, were all of them undeniable proofs of the moment and magnitude of the consideration ; and incontrovertibly established this plain broad fact, that Parliament directly acknowledged that the British name and character had been dishonoured, and rendered’ detested throughout India, by the malversation and crimes of the principal servant of the East India Company. That fact having been established beyond all question, by themselves, and by their own acts, there needed no argument on his part to induce the committee to see the importance of the subject about to be discussed that day in a more striking point of view than they themselves had held it up to public observa- tion. There were, he knew, persons without doors who affected to ridicule the idea of prosecuting Mr Hastings ; and who not inconsistently redoubled their exertions, in proportion as the prosecution became more serious, to in- crease their sarcasms upon the subject, by asserting that Parliament might be more usefully employed ; that there were matters of more immediate moment to engage their attention; that a commercial treaty with France had just been concluded ; that it was an object of a vast and comprehensive nature, and in itself sufficient to engross their attention. To all this he would oppose these questions. Was Parliament mis-spending its time by inquiring into the oppressions practised on millions of unfortunate persons in India, and endeavouring to bring the daring delinquent, who had been guilty of the most flagrant acts of enormous tyranny and rapacious peculation, to exem- plary and condign punishment ? Was it a misuse of their functions to be diligent in attempting, by the most effectual means, to wipe off the disgrace affixed to the British name in India, and to rescue the national character from lasting infamy ? Surely no man who felt for either the one or the other would think a business of greater moment or magnitude could occupy his attention ; or that the House could, with too much steadiness, too ardent a zeal, or too industrious a perseverance, pursue its object. Their conduct in this respect, during the course of the preceding year, had done them immor- nnrHAKt) euinsley sheridan. 103 tal honour, and proved to all the world, that however degenerate an example of Englishmen some of the British subjects had exhibited in India, the people of England, collectively, speaking and acting by their representatives, felt, as men should feel on such an occasion, that they were anxious to do justice, by redressing injuries, and punishing offenders, however high their rank, however elevated their station. “ Their indefatigable exertions in committees appointed to inquire con- cerning the affairs of India — their numerous, elaborate, and clear reports — their long and interesting debates — their solemn addresses to the throne — their rigorous legislative acts — their marked detestation of that novel and base sophism in the principles of judicial inquiry (constantly the language of the Governor-general’s servile dependants), that crimes might be com- pounded — that the guilt of Mr Hastings was to be balanced by his successes — that fortunate events were a full and complete set-off against a system of oppression, corruption, breach of faith, peculation, and treachery ; and, finally, their solemn and awful judgment that, in the case of Benares, Mr Hastings’s conduct was a proper object of parliamentary impeachment, had covered them with applause, and brought them forward in the face of all the world as the objects of perpetual admiration. Not less unquestionably just, than highly virtuous, was the assertion of the Commons of Great Britain, that there were acts which no political necessity could warrant ; and that, amidst flagrances of such an inexpiable description, was the treatment of Cheit Sing. To use the well-founded and emphatic language of a right honourable gentleman (Mr Pitt), the committee had discovered in the ad- ministration of Mr Hastings, proceedings of strong injustice, of grinding oppression, and unprovoked severity. In this decision the committee had, also, vindicated the character of his right honourable friend (Mr Burke) from the slanderous tongue of ignorance and perversion. They had, by their vote on that question,* declared, that the man who brought the charges was no false accuser ; that he was not moved by envy, by malice, nor by any unworthy motives, to blacken a spotless name ; but that he was the indefatigable, per- severing, and, at length, successful champion of oppressed multitudes against their tyrannical oppressor. With sound justice, with manly firmness, with unshaken integrity, had his right honourable friend, upon all occasions, resisted the timid policy of mere remedial acts ; even the high opinion of Mr Hastings’s successor — even the admitted worth of Lord Cornwallis’s character — had been deemed by his right honourable friend an inadequate atonement to India for the injuries so heavily inflicted on that devoted country. Ani- mated with the same zeal, the committee had, by that memorable vote, given a solemn pledge of their further intentions. They had audibly said to India, You shall no longer be seduced into temporary acquiescence, by sending out a titled governor, or a set of vapouring resolutions. It is not with stars * The impeachment of Mr Hastings, on the charge relative to his conduct towards Cheit Sing, brought forward by Mr Fox in the preceding session, had been voted by a majority of forty. I X 10 THE MODERN ORATOR. and ribbons, and all the badges of regal favour, that we atone to you for past delinquencies. No — you shall have the solid consolation of seeing an end to your grievances, by an example of punishment for those that have already taken place. The House has set up a beacon, which, whilst it served to guide their own way, would also make their motions more conspicuous to the world which surrounded and beheld them. He had no doubt but in their manly determination to go through the whole of the business, with the same steadiness which gave such sterling brilliancy of character to their outset, they might challenge the world to observe and judge of them by the result. Im- possible was it for such men to become improperly influenced by a paper, bearing the signature of Warren Hastings, and put not many minutes before into their hand, as well as his own, on their entrance into the House. The insidious paper he felt himself at liberty to consider as a second defence, and a second answer to the charge he was about to bring forward — a charge re- plete with proof of criminality of the blackest dye — of tyranny the most vile and premeditated — of corruption the most open and shameless — of oppression the most severe and grinding — of cruelty the most hard and unparalleled. But he was far from meaning to rest the charge on assertion, or on any warm expressions which the impulse of wounded feelings might produce. He would establish every part of the charge, by the most unanswerable proof, and the most unquestionable evidence ; and the witness whom he would bring forth to support every fact which he would state, should be, for the most part, one whom no man would venture to contradict — Warren Hastings himself. Yet, this character had friends, nor were they blameable. They might believe him guiltless, because he asserted his integrity. Even the partial warmth of friendship, and the emotions of a good, admiring, and un- suspecting heart, might not only carry them to such lengths, but incite them to rise with an intrepid confidence in his vindication. Again (Mr Sheridan added) would he repeat that the vote of the last session — wherein the conduct of this pillar of India, this corner-stone of our strength in the East, this talisman of the British territories in Asia was censured — did the greatest honour to this House, as it must be the forerunner of speedy justice on that character, which was said to be above censure, and whose conduct we were given to understand was not within the reach even of suspicion, but whose deeds were indeed such as no difficulties, no necessity, could justify ; for where is the situation, however elevated, and, in that elevation, however embarrassed, that can authorise the wilful commission of oppression and rapacity ? If, at any period, a point arose on which inquiry had been full, deliberate, and dispassionate, it was the present. There were questions on which party conviction was supposed to be a matter of easy acquisition ; and, if this inquiry was to be considered merely as a matter of party, he should regard it as very trifling indeed ; but he professed to God, that he felt in his own bosom the strongest personal conviction, and he was sensible that many other gentlemen did the same. It was on that conviction that he believed the conduct of Mr Hastings, in regard to the Nabob of Oude and the Begums, RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Ill comprehended every species of human offence. He had proved himself guilty of rapacity at once violent and insatiable — of treachery, cool and pre- meditated — of oppression, useless and unprovoked — of breach of faith, un- warrantable and base — of cruelty, unmanly and unmerciful. These were the crimes of which, in his soul and conscience, he arraigned Warren Hastings, and of which, he had the confidence to say, he should convict him. As there were gentlemen ready to stand up his advocates, he challenged them to watch him — to watch if he advanced one inch of assertion for which he had not solid ground, for he trusted nothing to declamation. He desired credit for no fact which he did not prove, and which he did not indeed demonstrate beyond the possibility of refutation. He should not desert the clear and invincible ground of truth, throughout any one particle of his allegations against Mr Hastings, who uniformly aimed to govern India by his own arbi- trary power, covering with misery upon misery a wretched people whom Providence had subjected to the dominion of this country; whilst in the de- fence of Mr Hastings, not one single circumstance grounded upon truth was stated. He would repeat the words, and gentlemen might take them down ; the attempt at vindication was false throughout. Mr Sheridan, now pur- suing the examination of Mr Hastings’s defence, observed that there could not exist a single plea for maintaining that that defence against the particular charge now before the committee was hasty. Mr Hastings had had sufficient time to make it up, and the committee saw that he had thought fit to go back as far as the year 1775, for pretended ground of justification, from the charge of violence and rapacity.” £Mr Sheridan here read a variety of extracts from the defence, which stated the various steps taken by Mr Bristow, in the years 1775 and 1776, to procure from the Begums aid to the Nabob.] “ Not one of these facts, as stated by Mr Hastings, was true. Ground- less, nugatory, and insulting were the affirmations of Mr Hastings, that the seizure of treasures from the Begums, and the exposition of their pilfered goods to public auction (unparalleled acts of open injustice, oppression, and inhumanity !) were in any degree to be defended by those encroachments on their property which had taken place previous to his administration, or by those sales which they themselves had solicited as a favourable mode of sup- plying a part of their aid to the Nabob. The relation of a series of plain, indisputable facts, would irrecoverably overthrow a subterfuge so pitiful, — a distinction so ridiculous ! It must be remembered that, at that period, the Begums did not merely desire, but they most expressly stipulated, that of the thirty lacs promised, eleven should be paid in sundry articles of manufac- ture. Was it not obvious, therefore, that the sales of goods, in the first case, far from partaking of the nature of an act of plunder, became an ex- tension of relief, of indulgence, and of accommodation ? But, however, he would not be content, like Mr Hastings, with barely making assertions, or, when made against his statement, with barely denying them ; on the contrary, i 2 112 THE MODERN ORATOR. whenever he objected to a single statement, he would bring his refutation, and almost in every instance Mr Hastings himself should be his witness. By the passages which he should beg leave to read, Mr Hastings wished to insinuate that a claim was setup, in the year 1775, to the treasure of the Begums, belonging of right to the Nabob. Mr Sheridan, from a variety of documents, chiefly from the minutes of the Supreme Council, of which Mr Hastings had been the president, explained the true state of that question. Treasure, which was the source of all the cruelties, was the original pretence which Mr Hastings had made to the Company for the proceeding ; and through the whole of his conduct he had alleged the principles of Mahomed- anism in mitigation of the severities he had sanctioned ; as if he meant to insinuate that there was something in Mahomedanism which rendered it impious in a son not to plunder his mother. But to show how the case precisely stood when Mr Hastings began the attacks, Mr Sheridan read the minutes of General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr Francis, who seve- rally spoke of a claim which had been made by the Nabob on the Bhow Begum, in the year 1775, amounting to two one-half lacs. The opinion contained on those minutes w r as, that women were, on the death of their husbands, entitled by the Mahomedan law only to the property within the Zenana where they lived. This opinion was decisive — Mr Bristow used no threats — no military execution or rigour was even menaced ; the Begums complied with the requisition then made, and the disputed property then claimed was given up. After this, the further treasure, namely, that which was within the Zenana, was confessedly her own. No fresh right was set up — no pretence was made of any kind to the residue — nay, a treaty was signed by the Nabob, and ratified by the resident, Mr Bristow, that, on her pay- ing thirty lacs, she should be freed from all further application ; and the Company were bound, by Mr Bristow, to guarantee this treaty. Here then was the issue. After this treaty thus ratified, could there be an argument as to the right of the treasure of the Begums ? And if the Mahomedan law had ever given a right, was not that right then concluded? To prove, how- ever, the reliance Avhich the Princesses of Oude had entertained, even in the year 1775, of receiving protection and support from the British government — an expectation so fatally disappointed in latter times — Mr Sheridan read an extract of a letter from the Begum, the mother of the Nabob, to Mr Hastings, received at Calcutta December 22, 1775, wherein she says, ‘ If it is your pleasure that the mother of the late Nabob, myself, and his other women, and infant children, should be reduced to a state of dishonour and distress, we must submit ; but if, on the contrary, you call to mind the friendship of the late blessed Nabob, you will exert yourself effectually in favour of us who are helpless.’ And, again, ‘ If you do not approve of my remaining at Fyzabad, send a person here in your name, to remove the mo- ther of the late Nabob, myself, and about 2000 other women and children, that we may reside with honour and reputation in some other place.’ Mr Bheridan, in a regular progression of evidence, proceeded to state the succes- RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. m sive periods, and finally to bring down the immediate subject in question to the day in which Mr Hastings embraced the project of plundering the Be- gums ; and to justify which, he had exhibited in his defence four charges against them, as the grounds and motives of his own conduct. “ 1. That they had given disturbance at all times to the government of the Nabob, and that they had long manifested a spirit hostile to his and to the English government. “ 2. That they excited the Zemindars to revolt, at the time of the insur- rection at Benares, and of the resumption of the Jaghires. “ 3. That they resisted by armed force the resumption of their own Jag- hires ; and, . “ 4. That they excited, and were accessary to, the insurrection at Benares. “To each of these charges Mr Sheridan gave distinct and separate answers. First, on the subject of the* imputed disturbances which they were falsely said to have occasioned, he could produce a variety of extracts, many of them written by Mr Hastings himself, to prove that, on the con- trary, they had particularly distinguished themselves by their friendship for the English, and the various good offices which they had rendered the government. “ Mr Hastings (Mr Sheridan observed) left Calcutta in 1781, and proceeded to Lucknow, as he said himself, with two great objects in his mind ; namely, Benares and Oude. What was the nature of these boasted resourqes ? that he should plunder one or both — the equitable alternative of a highwayman, who, in going forth in the evening, hesitates which of his resources to prefer, Bagshot or Hounslow. In such a state of generous irresolution did Mr Hastings proceed to Benares and Oude. At Benares he failed in his pecu- niary object. Then, and not till then — not on account of any ancient enmities shown by the Begums — not in resentment of any old dis- turbances, but because he had failed in one place, and had but two in his prospect, did he conceive the base expedient of plundering these aged women. He had no pretence, he had no excuse, he had nothing but the arrogant and obstinate determination to govern India by his own corrupt will, to plead for his conduct. Inflamed by disappointment in his first project, he hastened to the fortress of Chunar, to meditate the more atrocious design of instigating a son against his mother, of sacrificing female dignity and distress to parricide and plunder. At Chunar was that infamous treaty concerted with the Nabob Vizier,* to despoil the Princesses of Oude of their hereditary possessions ; there it was that Mr Hastings had stipulated with one, whom he called an independent prince, ‘ that as great distress had arisen to the Nabob’s go- vernment from the military power and dominion assumed by the Jaghiredars, he be permitted to resume such as he may find necessary ; with a reserve, that all such, for the amount of whose Jaghires the Company are guarantees, shall, in case of the resumption of their lands, be paid the amount of their * AsofF-u-Dowla. 114 THE MODERN ORATOE. net collections, through the resident, in ready money ; and that no English resident be appointed to Furruckabad.’ “No sooner was this foundation of iniquity thus instantly established, in violation of the pledged faith and solemn guarantee of the British govern- ment ; no sooner had Mr Hastings determined to invade the substance of justice, than he resolved to avail himself of her judicial forms ; and accord- ingly despatched a messenger for the Chief Justice of India, to assist him in perpetrating the violations he had projected. Sir Elijah having arrived, Mr Hastings, with much art, proposed a question of opinion, involving an unsub- stantiated fact, in order to obtain even a surreptitious approbation of the mea- sure he had predetermined to adopt. ‘ The Begums being in actual rebellion, might not the Nabob confiscate their property V ‘ Most undoubtedly,’ was the ready answer of the friendly judge. Not a syllable of inquiry intervened as to the existence of the imputed rebellion ; nor a moment’s pause as to the ill purposes to which the decision of a Chief Justice might be perverted. It was not the office of a friend to mix the grave caution and cold circumspec- tion of a judge, with an opinion taken in such circumstances ; and Sir Elijah had previously declared, that he gave his advice, not as a judge, but as a friend : a character he equally preferred, in the strange office which he undertook, of collecting defensive affidavits on the subject of Benares. “ Mr Sheridan said, it was curious to reflect on the whole of Sir Elijah’s circuit at that perilous time. Sir Elijah had stated his desire of relaxing from the fatigues of office, and unbending his mind in a party of health and pleasure : yet, wisely apprehending that very sudden relaxation might defeat its object, he had contrived to mix some matters of business to be interspersed with his amusements. He had, therefore, in his little airing of nine hundred miles, great part of which he went post, escorted by an army, selected those very situations where insurrection subsisted and rebellion was threatened j and had not only delivered his deep and curious researches into the laws and rights of nations and of treaties, in the capacity of the Oriental Grotius, whom Warren Hastings was to study ; but likewise in the humbler and more practical situation of a collector of ex parte evidence. In the former quality, his opinion was the premature sanction for plundering the Begums ; in the latter character, he became the posthumous supporter of the expulsion and pillage of the Rajah Cheit Sing. Acting on an unproved fact, on a posi- tion as a datum of the Duke of Richmond’s fabrication, he had not hesitated, in the first instance, to lend his authority as a license for unlimited persecu- tion. In the latter, he did not disdain to send about India, like an itinerant informer, with a pedlar’s pack of garbled evidence and surreptitious affidavits. What pure friendship, what a voucher of unequivocal attachment, from a British judge to such a character as Warren Hastings ! With a generous oblivion of duty and of honour ; with a proud sense of having authorised all future rapacity, and sanctioned all past oppression, this friendly judge pro- ceeded on his circuit of health and ease ; and whilst the Governor-general, sanctioned by this solemn opinion, issued his orders to plunder the Begums RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 115 ‘ of their treasure, Sir Elijah pursued his progress ; and, passing through a wide region of distress and misery, explored a country that presented a speak- ing picture of hunger and of nakedness, in quest of objects best suited to his feelings, in anxious search of calamities most kindred to his invalid ima- gination. “ Thus, whilst the executive power in India was perverted to the most disgraceful inhumanities, the judicial authority also became its close and con- fidential associate ; at the same moment that the sword of government was turned to an assassin’s dagger, the pure ermine of justice was stained and foiled with the basest and meanest contamination. Under such circumstances did Mr Hastings complete the treaty of Chunar : a treaty which might chal- lenge all the treaties that ever susbisted, for containing in the smallest compass the most extensive treachery. Mr Hastings did not conclude that treaty till he had received from the Nabob a present, or rather a bribe, of £ 100 , 000 . 44 The circumstances of this present were as extraordinary as the thing it- self. Four months afterwards, and not till then, Mr Hastings communicated the matter to the Company. Unfortunately for himself, however, this tardy disclosure was conveyed in w r ords which betrayed his original meaning ; for, with no common incaution, he admits the present 4 was of a magnitude not to be concealed .’ Mr Sheridan stated all the circumstances of this bribe ; and averred that the whole had its rise in a principle of rank corruption. For what was the consideration for this extraordinary bribe ? No less than the withdrawing from Oude not only all the English gentlemen in official situa- tions, but the whole also of the English army ; and that, too, at the very molnent when he himself had stated the whole country of Oude to be in open revolt and rebellion. Other very strange articles were contained in the same treaty, which nothing but this infamous bribe could have occasioned, together with the reserve which he had in his own mind of treachery to the Nabob ; for the only part of the treaty which he ever attempted to carry into execution was to withdraw the English gentlemen from Oude. The Nabob, indeed, considered this as essential to his deliverance ; and his observation on the circumstance was curious ; for though Major Palmer, said he, has not yet asked anything, I observe it is the custom of the English gentlemen con- stantly to ask for something from me before they go. This imputation on the English Mr Hastings was most ready, most rejoiced, to countenance as a screen and shelter for his own abandoned profligacy ; and therefore, at the very moment that he pocketed the extorted spoils of the Nabob, with his usual grave hypocrisy and cant, 4 Go,’ he said to the English gentlemen, 4 go, you oppressive rascals, go from this worthy unhappy man, whom you have plundered, and leave him to my protection. You have robbed him — you have plundered him — you have taken advantage of his accumulated dis- tresses ; but, please God, he shall in future be at rest ; for I have promised him he shall never see the face of an Englishman again.’ This, however, was the only part of the treaty which he even affected to fulfil ; and, in all its 116 THE MODERN ORATOR. other parts, we learn from himself, that at the very moment he made it he intended to deceive the Nabob ; and accordingly, he advised general instead of partial resumption, for the express purpose of defeating the first views of the Nabob ; and, instead of giving instant and unqualified assent to all the articles of the treaty, he perpetually qualified, explained, and varied them with new diminutions and reservations. Mr Sheridan called upon gentlemen to say, if there was any theory in Maehiavel, any treachery upon record, if they had ever heard of any cold Italian fraud which could in any degree be put in comparison with the disgusting hypocrisy, and unequalled baseness, which Mr Hastings had shown on that occasion. “ After having stated this complicated infamy in terms of the severest repre- hension, Mr Sheridan proceeded to observe, that he recollected to have heard it advanced by some of those admirers of Mr Hastings, who were not so im- plicit as to give unqualified applause to his crimes, that they found an apology for the atrocity of them, in the greatness of his mind. To estimate the solidity of such a defence, it would be sufficient merely to consider in what consisted this prepossessing distinction, this captivating characteristic of greatness of mind. Is it not solely to be traced in great actions directed to great ends ? In them, and them alone, w r e are to search for true estimable magnanimity. To them only can we justly affix the splendid title and honours of real greatness. There was, indeed, another species of greatness, which displayed itself in boldly conceiving a bad measure, and undauntedly pursuing it to its accomplishment. But had Mr Hastings the merit of ex- hibiting either of these descriptions of greatness — even of the latter ? He saw nothing great, nothing magnanimous, nothing open, nothing direct in his measures or in his mind ; on the contrary, he had too often pursued the worst objects by the worst means. His course was an eternal deviation from recti- tude. He either tyrannised or deceived ; and was by turns a Dionysius and a Scapin. As well might the writhing obliquity of the serpent be compared to the swift directness of the arrow, as the duplicity of Mr Hastings’s am- bition to the simple steadiness of genuine magnanimity. In his mind all was shuffling, ambiguous, dark, insidious, and little ; nothing simple, nothing unmixed ; all affected plainness, and actual dissimulation ; a heterogeneous mass of contradictory qualities ; with nothing great but his crimes ; and even those contrasted by the littleness of his motives, which at once denoted both his baseness and his meanness, and marked him for a traitor and a trickster. Nay, in his style and writing there was the same mixture of vicious con- trarieties ; the most groveling ideas were conveyed in the most inflated language ; giving mock consequence to low cavils, and uttering quibbles in heroics ; so that his compositions disgusted the mind's taste, as much as his actions excited the soul’s abhorrence. Indeed, this mixture of character seemed, by some unaccountable, but inherent quality, to be appropriated, though in inferior degrees, to everything that concerned his employers. He remembered to have heard an honourable and learned gentleman (Mr Dundas) remark, that there was something in the first frame and constitution of the RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 117 Company, which extended the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive operations ; connecting with their civil policy, and even with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar, and the profligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and the military line could be observed auctioneering ambassadors' and trading generals ; and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits ; an army employed in executing an arrest ; a town be- sieged on a ‘ note of hand a prince dethroned for the ‘ balance of an ac- count.’ Thus it was they exhibited a government which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre and the little traffic of a merchant’s counting- house, wielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the other. Mr Sheridan now went into a long statement to show the various irrefragable proofs exhibited in the minutes of the Bengal council, of the falsity of the charge, viz., that the Begums were the ancient disturbers of the government. And equally to prove that the second charge also (namely, that the Begums had incited the Jaghiredars to resist the Nabob) was no less untrue ; it being substantiated in evidence that not one of the Jaghiredars did resist. “ Mr Sheridan maintained that it was incontrovertible that the Begums were not concerned either in the rebellion of Bulbudder, or the insurrection at Benares ; nor did Mr Hastings ever once seriously believe them guilty. Their treasures were their treasons , and Asoph ul Dowlah thought like an unwise prince, when he blamed his father for leaving him so little wealth. His father, Shulah ul Dowlah, acted wisely in leaving his son with no temp- tation about him, to invite acts of violence from the rapacious. He clothed him with poverty as with a shield, and armed him with necessity as with a sword. “ The third charge was equally false. Did they resist the resumption of their own Jaghiredars? Though, if they had resisted, he contended that there would have been no crime ; for those Jaghiredars were by solemn treaty confirmed to them ; but, on the contrary, there was not one syllable of charge against them. The Nabob himself, with all the load of obloquy which he incurred, never imputed to them the crime of stirring up an opposition to his authority. “ To prove the falsehood of the whole of this charge, and to show that Mr Hastings originally projected the plunder ; that he threw the odium, in the first instance, on the Nabob ; that he imputed the crimes to them before he had received one of the rumours which he afterwards manufactured into affidavits, Mr Sheridan recommended a particular attention to dates ; and he deduced from the papers these facts : — that the first idea was started by Mr Hastings, on the 15th of November, 17&1 ; that Mr Middleton communicated it to the Nabob, and procured from him a formal proposition on the 2nd of December ; that on the 1st of December Mr Hastings wrote a letter to Mr Middleton, confirming the first suggestion made through Sir Elijah, which letter came into the hands of Mr Middleton on the 6th of December. He stated all the circumstances of the pains taken by Mr 118 THE MODERN ORATOR. Middleton to bring the Nabob at length to issue with the Perwannas, and coupled this with the extraordinary minute written by Mr Hastings on his return to Calcutta, where he stated the resistance of the Begums to the execution of the resumption on the 7th of January, 1782, as the cause of the measure in November, 1781. Mr Sheridan then proceeded to prove that the Begums were, by their condition, their age, and their infirmities, almost the only souls in India who could not have a thought of distressing that government by which alone they could hope to be protected ; and that to charge them with a design to depose their nearest and dearest relation, was equally absurd. He did not endeavour to do this from any idea that because there was no motive for the offences imputed to these women, it was therefore a necessary consequence that such imputations were false. He was not to learn that there was such a crime as wanton, unprovoked wickedness. Those who entertained doubts on this point need only give themselves the trouble of reading the administration of Mr Hastings. But, as to the immediate case, the documents on the table would bear incon- trovertible testimony that insurrections had constantly taken place in Oude. To ascribe it to the Begums was wandering even beyond the improbabilities of fiction. It were not less absurd to affirm, that famine would not have pinched, nor thirst have parched, nor extermination have depopulated — but for the interference of these old women. To use a strong expression of Mr Hastings on another occasion, ‘ The good w r hich those women did was certain — the ill was precarious.’ But Mr Hastings had found it more suitable to his purposes to reverse the proposition ; yet, wanting a motive for his rapacity, he could find it only in fiction. The simple fact was, their treasure was their treason. But ‘ they complained of the injustice.’ God of Heaven ? had they not a right to complain ? After a solemn treaty violated ; plundered of all their property, and on the eve of the last extremity of wretchedness, were they to be deprived of the last resource of impotent wretchedness — complaint and lamentation ? Was it a crime that they should crowd together in fluttering trepidation like a flock of resistless birds on seeing the felon kite, who, having darted at one devoted bird, and missed his aim, singled out a new object, and was springing on his prey with redoubled vigour in his wing, and keener vengeance in his eye ? The fact with Mr Hastings was precisely this : — Having failed in the case of Cheit Sing, he saw his fate ; he felt the necessity of procuring a sum of money somewhere, for he knew that to be the never-failing receipt to make his peace with the Directors at home. Such, Mr Sheridan added, were the true substantial motives of the horrid excesses perpetrated against the Begums ! — excesses, in every part of the description of whieh, he felt himself accompanied by the vigorous support of the most unanswerable evidence ; and upon this test would he place his whole cause. Let gentlemen lay their hands upon their hearts, and with truth issuing in all its purity from their lips, solemnly declare whether they were or were not convinced that the real spring of the conduct of Mr Hastings, far from being a desire to crush a rebellion, (an ideal, fabulous rebellion !) RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 119 was a malignantly rapacious determination to seize, with lawless hands, upon the treasures of devoted, miserable, yet unoffending victims. “ Mr Sheridan now adverted to the affidavit made by Mr Middleton ; and after stating how futile were the grounds upon which he had, to the satisfaction of his conscience, proceeded to the utmost extremity of violence against the Begums, he exclaimed, the God of Justice forbid that any man in this House should make up his mind to accuse Mr Hastings on the ground which Mr Middleton took for condemning the Begums ; or to pass a verdict of ‘ guilty’ for the most trivial misdemeanour against the poorest wretch that ever had existed. He then revised and animadverted on the affidavits of Colonel Hannay, Colonel Gordon, Major M‘Donald, Major Williams, and others. Major Williams, among the strange reports that chiefly filled these affidavits, stated one that he had heard — namely, that fifty British troops, watching two hundred prisoners, had been surrounded by six thousand of the enemy, and relieved by the approach of nine men. And of such extraordinary hearsay evidence were most of the depositions composed. Considering, therefore, the character given by Mr Hastings to the British army in Oude, ‘ that they mani- fested a rage for rapacity and peculation,’ it was extraordinary that there were no instances of stouter swearing. But as for Colonel Gordon, he afforded a flagrantly conspicuous proof of the grateful spirit and temper of affidavits de- signed to plunge these wretched women in irretrievable ruin. Colonel Gordon was, just before, not merelyreleased from danger, but preserved from imminent death, by the very person whose accuser he thought fit to become ; and yet, incredible as it may appear, even at the expiration of two little days from his deliverance, he deposes against the distressed and unfortunate woman who had become his saviour, and, only upon hearsay evidence, accuses her of crimes and rebellion. Great God of Justice ! (exclaimed Mr Sheridan,) canst thou from thy eternal throne look down upon such premeditated turpitude of heart, and not fix some mark of dreadful vengeance upon the perpetrators ? — Of Mr M‘Donald, he said, that he liked not the memory which remembered things better at the end of five years than at the time, unless there might be some- thing so relaxing in the climate of India, and so affecting the memory as well as the nerves, 4 the soft figures melting away,’ and the images of immediate action instantaneously dissolving, men must return to their native air of England, to brace up the mind as well as the body, and have their memories, like their sinews, restrung. “ Having painted the loose quality of the affidavits, he said, that he must pause a moment, and particularly address himself to one description of gen- tlemen, those of the learned profession, within those walls. They saw that that House was the path to fortune in their profession ; that they might soon expect that some of them were to be called to a dignified situation, where the great and important trust would be reposed in them of protecting the- lives and fortunes of their fellow-subjects. One right honourable and learned gentleman, in particular (Sir Lloyd Kenyon), if rumour spoke bright, might suddenly be called to succeed that great and venerable character who 120 THE MODERN ORATOR. long had shone the brightest luminary of his profession, whose pure and steady light was clear even to its latest moment, but whose last beam must now too soon be extinguished. That he would ask the supposed successor of Lord Mansfield, to calmly reflect on these extraordinary depositions, and solemnly to declare, whether the mass of affidavits taken at Lucknow would be received by him as evidence to convict the lowest object in this country ? If he said it would, he declared to God he would sit down and not add a syllable more to the too long trespass which he had made on the patience of the committee/’ Mr Sheridan went further into the exposure of the evidence, into the com- parison of dates, and the subsequent circumstances, in order to prove that all the enormous consequence which followed from the resumption, in the cap- tivity of the women, and the imprisonment and cruelties practised on their people, were solely to be ascribed and to be imputed to Mr Hastings. After stating the miseries which the women suffered, he said that “Mr Hastings had once remarked, that a mind touched with superstition might have contem- plated the fate of the Rohillas with peculiar impressions. But if, indeed, the mind of Mr Hastings could yield to superstitious imagination ; if his fancy could suffer any disturbance, and, even in vision, image forth the proud spirit of Sujah Dowlah, looking down upon the ruin and devastation of his family, and beholding that palace which Mr Hastings had first wrested from his hand, and afterwards restored, plundered by that very army with which he himself had vanquished the Mahrattas ; seizing on the very plunder which he had ravaged from the Rohillas ; that Middleton, who had been engaged in managing the previous violations, most busy to perpetrate the last ; that very Hastings, whom, on his death-bed, he had left the guardian of his wife, and mother, and family, turning all those dear relations, the objects of his solemn trust, forth to the merciless seasons, and to a more merciless sol- diery ! A mind touched with superstition must indeed have cherished such a contemplation with peculiar impressions ! That Mr Hastings was regularly acquainted with all the enormities committed on the Begums, there was the clearest proof. It was true that Middleton was rebuked for not being more exact. He did not, perhaps, descend to the detail ; he did not give him an account of the number of groans which were heaved ; of the quantity of tears which were shed ; of the weight of the fetters ; or of the depth of the dungeons ; but he communicated every step which he took to accomplish the base and unwarrantable end. He told him, that, to save appearances, they must use the name of the Nabob, and that they need go no further than was absolutely necessary : this he might venture to say without being suspected by Mr Hastings of too severe a morality. The Governor-general also endeavoured to throw a share of the guilt on the Council, although Mr Wheeler had never taken any share, and Mr Macpherson had not arrived in India when the scene began. After contending that he had shrunk from the inquiry ordered by the Court of Directors, under a new and pom- pous doctrine, that the majesty of justice was to be approached with sup- RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 121 plication, and was not to degrade itself by hunting for crimes ; forgetting the infamous employment to which he had appointed an English chief- justice, to hunt for criminal charges against innocent, defenceless women ; Mr Sheridan said, he trusted that that House would vindicate the in- sulted character of justice ; that they would demonstrate its true quality, essence, and purposes — they would demonstrate it to be, in the case of Mr Hastings, active, inquisitive, and avenging. “ Mr Sheridan remarked, that he heard of factions and parties in that House, and knew they existed. There was scarcely a subject upon which they were not broken and divided into sects. The prerogative of the Crown found its advocates among the representatives of the people. The privileges of the people found opponents even in the House of Commons itself. Habits, connexions, parties, all led to diversity of opinion. But when inhumanity presented itself to their observation, it found no division among them : they attacked it as their common enemy ; and, as if the character of this land was involved in their zeal for its ruin, they left it not till it was completely over- thrown. It was not given to that House, to behold the objects of their compassion and benevolence in the present extensive consideration, as it was to the officers who relieved, and who so feelingly described the ecstatic emo- tions of gratitude in the instant of deliverance. They could not behold the workings of the heart, the quivering lips, the trickling tears, the loud and yet tremulous joys of the millions whom their vote of this night would for ever save from the cruelty of corrupted power. But, though they could not directly see the effect, was not the true enjoyment of their benevolence increased by the blessing being conferred unseen ? Would not the omnipo- tence of Britain be demonstrated to the wonder of nations, by stretching its mighty arm across the deep, and saving, by its jiat, distant millions from destruction ? And would the blessings of the people thus saved, dissipate in empty air ? No ! if I may dare to use the figure, we shall constitute Heaven itself our proxy, to receive for us the blessings of their pious grati- tude, and the prayers of their thanksgiving. It is with confidence, there- fore, Sir, that I move you on this charge, ‘ That Warren Hastings be im- peached.’ ” The effect of this speech on the House Avas such, that an adjournment was carried without a division, in order to allow time for the mind of the com- mittee to cool, as it was impossible, after the eloquence displayed by Mr Sheridan, to act dispassionately. Mr Burke declared the speech to be the most astonishing effort of elo- quence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradi- tion. Mr Fox said, “ All that he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun and Mr Pitt acknowledged, that “ it surpassed all the elo- quence of ancient or modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate or control the human mind.” The debate was resumed on the following day, when the motion for the impeachment on this charge was carried by 175 to 68. 122 THE MODERN ORATOR. Speech on opening the seventh charge against Warren Hastings, accusing him of corruptly receiving presents, in direct violation of the Regulation Act of 1773. 2d April, 1787. The House being in committee. Mr Sheridan rose, and desired that a clause of the act of 1773 might be read. It was accordingly read, as follows : — “ No Governor-general, nor any of the Council, shall, directly or indirectly, accept, receive, or take from any person or persons, on any account whatsoever, any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward, pecuniary or otherwise, or any promise or engagement for any of the aforesaid.” The preceding abstract having been read, Mr Sheridan “ begged leave to call to the recollection of the committee the favour which a right honour- able friend (Mr Burke) had conferred upon him, when he informed them that it was his (Mr Sheridan’s) intention to use as much brevity in opening the charge upon the subject of the presents, as possible. In this declaration his right honourable friend had certainly spoken his sentiments ; and, as a part of the evidence given during the course of the preceding Friday threw a de- cided light upon some of the facts which were, previously to the intervention of that complete elucidation, in some degree obscured and doubtful, he felt, with redoubled force, his early and indisputable conviction, that brevity and perpicuity were the only matters necessary to imprint the truth of the facts contained in the charge upon the perceptions of the committee ; and to press home to their minds a lively and indignant sense of the enormity of the crimes of Mr Hastings, as exemplified in these several and distinctly alleged accusations, if either the one or the other point remained yet to be accom- plished. Honoured, upon a former occasion, with the almost unprecedented indulgence of the committee, he would not offer so ungrateful a return to the liberality of their feelings, as to suppose that they would not do him the jus- tice to believe that it was far indeed from any great willingness on his part that he had been induced to trespass a second time upon their patience ; but, when he remembered that it would ill become him to refuse his feeble aid to those who had, with equal zeal in this momentous cause, stepped forward, as much as it was possible, under the inevitable restraints of an attention divided by occupations more multiplied and varied than his own ; when he considered the importance of the proceeding with respect to the impeachment of Mr Hastings ; when he reflected how much the character of that House and its honour, and (what was still more material) the honour and the justice of the country, were implicated in the business ; when he consulted his own serious and sincere feelings on the subject, he could not refuse to lend himself to the occasion, and discharge his duty, by exerting his best endeavours to accelerate the progress of this interesting business, by assisting to draw it nearer to that conclusion, of which the distance appeared, at last, considerably diminished. The subject which, at present, demanded an investigation, was necessarily much colder and drier than that which, upon a preceding occasion, he had been so liberally permitted to state to the committee. No horrible accounts of the sacrilegious plunder of defenceless parents, were now to be addressed RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, 123 to their painfully-excited notice ; no enumeration t5f barbarities perpetrated against the aged and guiltless mothers by their unnatural offspring ; but the narration was nevertheless equally, if not still more important, as it went to establish the stubborn fact, that corruption had been the leading principle of all the actions of Mr Hastings in India ! though, heaven forbid that Mr Hastings should prove guilty to the extent set up by his friends, in what had been denominated his defence ! Perhaps more hostile, than truly serviceable, was the anxiety with which the advocates of this gentleman met the deserved -attack upon his flagrantly-reprehensible administration in the East Indies. They seemed mortally to have wounded the cause, by the rash eagerness which they discovered to support it, and by the firmness with which they were determined to bring resistance against every endeavour to assail it. They appeared unwilling to admit, that Mr Hastings in India was a man of unbounded power ; and that by this power he kept the whole body of natives in awe and terror. Once, indeed, (Mr Sheridan added) he thought him free from the vices of avarice and corruption; but, now, he had changed his opinion. These most unfortunate vindicators, themselves demolishing their own frail plans of exculpation, had, indeed, already anticipated the accusation in that House ; and in no particular did their zeal so far outstrip their discre- tion. Such rash defenders of his conduct, aware that scarcely any attainment was wanting except a conviction of the receipt of presents, and of an accu- mulation of private douceurs, to blacken the catalogue of his crimes, and to destroy all those pretensions which could in the minds of men soften their asperity, and allay their indignation at his enormities, had violently affirmed that Mr Hastings did not amass treasures for his own use ; was not corrupt for interested purposes ; and, although, perhaps, improvident and profuse, was not mercenary, and, by a natural consequence, not rich.* But it indis- pensably behoved them to go beyond the frivolous attempt to establish such positions by mysterious excuses, and language so implicated as to become nearly unintelligible. They should have placed their vindications of him upon the broad and immoveable corner-stone of truth ; upon down-right fair and absolute proofs ; and this the more especially, because, if the points for which they, with so blind a vehemence, had contended, were open to the admission of proofs, the means of introducing them were certainly in their power. Vainly, indeed, had these imprudent friends of Mr Hastings exerted the faculties of their invention, to puzzle and to confound the mind ; nor was it astonishing that such extraordinary pains had proved the cause of raising a proportionate suspicion ; for in this, as in the generality of similar instances, when genius became racked under the consciousness of guilt, the ardour of defence left its propriety at an irrecoverable and shameful distance. There was an infirmity, a weakness, a something not to be described in human nature, which almost insensibly led men to think less of the foibles or the crimes of such individuals, whilst it could be proved they had not been * Major Scott, a zealous defender of Warren Hastings, had on one occasion positively asserted that the Governor-general’s fortune did not exceed *£50,000. 124 THE MODERN ORATOR. actuated by mercenary motives ; that they had not proceeded upon a principle of personal avarice ; and that the increase of then* own private property had not been the object of either their rapacity or their oppression. Swayed and in- fluenced by this sort of weakness, Mr Sheridan declared he had been among those who, at one time, conceived that Mr Hastings was not stimulated in his conduct, as Governor- general, by any view to his own emolument ; and that his fortune was trifling, compared with the advantages which fell within his power. But the more close and minute investigation which it was his duty to apply to the facts contained in the charge, had completely altered his opinion ; and he scarcely harboured even the slightest doubt of being able to satisfy the committee, that Mr Hastings had all along governed his conduct by corruption, as gross and determined, as his oppression and injustice had proved severe and galling. In reviewing his conduct, he had found it to spring from a wild, eccentric, and irregular mind. He had been everything by fits and starts. Now proud and lofty ; now mean and insidious ; now ge- nerous ; now just ; now artful ; now open ; now deceitful ; now decided ; in pride, in passion, in everything changeable, except in corruption. In cor- ruption he had proved uniform, systematic, and methodical ; his revenge a tempest, a tornado, blackening, in gusts of pride, the horizon of his dominion ; and carrying all before it. “ Mr Sheridan added, that, whilst he relied upon the power of exposing fully to the View of the committee the criminal proceedings of Mr Hastings, he could not avoid observing that the nature of his private transactions was such as rendered it, in general, extremely difficult to drag them out into a full light. They were the deeds of privacy, enveloped in a cloud of mystery. The committee (Mr Sheridan said) would please to recollect the history of the act of 1773, which was passed with a view to deliver the princes of India, and the natives in general, from the consequences of the rapacity of the Com- pany’s servants. They must well remember that it did, in the most clear and comprehensive terms which could be devised, prohibit all the said servants from receiving any present, gift, or donation, in any manner, or on any account whatsoever. That act, when it left the House of Commons in the form of a bill, had no clause in it authorising the institution of a civil suit ; but merely contained the authority and grounds of criminal prosecution of the parties accused of having violated positive injunctions. When the bill, however, came into the House of Lords, although the Commons had been satisfied with the fair prospect of a future security, and prevention of the evil which it held out, a noble earl, of the highest law authority (Earl Mansfield), expressed a different opinion ; and had deemed it so necessary to take all possible means of putting a stop to a practice so oppressive to the natives of India, and so disgraceful to the British name and character, that lie inserted a clause, declaring that all presents accepted by the Company’s servants, on any account whatsoever, were the property of the Company ; not meaning it as a fund for their benefit, but only in order to found a legal title to a civil suit, upon what is termed a fiction of law. Thus strengthened, the bill passed, RICHARD BRINSLEY SIIERIDAN. 125 and went out to India.* The construction, however, which Mr Hastings put upon it was, that, by the regulating act of 1773, he remained at liberty to receive money, provided that it was to and for the use of the Company ; and, under this construction he did , in a variety of instances, violate as clear and obvious an act of parliament as ever had passed — an act of parlia- ment, concerning the legal meaning of which he (Mr Sheridan) was persuaded there was scarcely a lawyer in the House who would stand up and declare that he had at ariy time entertained the smallest doubt, or felt the least difficulty. It might be most unanswerably proved, from the words of Mr Hastings, that even he, notwithstanding his ungovernable infringement of so positive and plain a law, considered the act as amounting, under all descrip- tions whatsoever, to an absolute prohibition. When Colonel Champion, f in his letter written to this gentleman, requested to know from him whether he should be justified in receiving a present offered to him, the Governor- general answered, that the act was so strict and specific in its injunction, as to admit of no palliative — of no discretion on the part of the conduct of the servants of the East India Company ; that it was so plain, it could not be * The following are the sections of the regulating aet (13 Geo. III., c. 63) in point: — Sec. xxii. “ And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no Governor- general, or any of the Council of the said United Company’s presidency of Fort William, in Bengal, or any chief justice or any of the judges of the Supreme Court of Judica- tuie at Fort William aforesaid, shall directly or indirectly, by themselves or by any other person or persons, for his or their use, or on his or their behalf, accept, receive, or take of or from any person or persons, in any manner or on any account whatsoever, any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward, pecuniary or otherwise, or any promise or engagement for any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward ; and that no Governor- general, or any of the said Council, or any chief justice or judge of the said Court, shall carry on, or be concerned in, or have any dealing or transactions by way of traffic or commerce of any kind whatsoever, either for his or their use or benefit, profit or advantage, or for the benefit or advantage of any other person or persons what- soever (the trade and commerce of the said United Company only excepted) ; any usage or custom to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.” Sec. xxiv. enacts that no person holding a civil or military office under the Crown, shall accept any donation or gratuity. Sec. xxvi. ** And it is hereby further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that every such present, gift, gratuity, donation, or rew r ard accepted, taken, or received, and all such dealing or transaction by way of traffic or commerce of any kind whatsoever, car- ried on contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall be deemed and con- strued to have been received, taken, had, and done to and for the sole use of the said United Company; and that the said United Company, upon waiving all penalties and forfeitures, shall and may sue and prosecute for the recovery of the same, or the full value of such present or gift, or the profits of such trade, respectively, together with interest at the rate of £5 per cent, per annum, from the time of such present, gift, gra- tuity, donation, or reward being received, or of such dealing or transaction, by way of traffic or commerce, as aforesaid, by action, for money had and received, to the use of the^said Company.’’ t The officer emploved in the odious service of the subjugation of the Roliillas, in 1774. K 126 THE MODERN ORATOR. misinterpreted ; and so strict, it could not be infringed. And surely (said Mr Sheridan) it was with this view only that the act was carried into a law by the British legislature, who could not mean to transfer to the Company the exclusive privilege of that injustice, from which its servants were so strictly prohibited ? It was a libel on the Parliament, to think they could intend to confer such an illegal and despotic power. Mr Hastings had also ventured to ask, whether, under the penalties denounced in the clause, it could, with the least shadow of reason, be concluded that, if he designed to violate it by recovering money for his own private use, he would either select as his agents the public officers of the East India Company — all men of established characters — or pay the sums which he meant to appropriate to his own purposes into the treasury of the Company ? A totally overthrowing answer to this question would be involved in the proofs now ready to be offered to the committee, that Mr Hastings had not suffered all the little sums which he took privately, either to pass through the hands of the public officers of the East India Company, or to be paid into the treasury. On seve- ral occasions he employed his own agents ; — if not, where was the possibility of accounting for his declaration to the Court of Directors, that the receipt of three lacks from Nobkissen* might, if he had thought proper, have been concealed from their knowledge for ever? And thus it was, that, 'with a disrespectful haughtiness, Mr Hastings took the liberty to upbraid and censure the Directors of the East India Company for ever taking his conduct into con- sideration ; or questioning him in respect to that which they had a right to know. He, besides, libelled them with the intimation that, unless they would connive at his keeping his share, they should not participate in the plunder. He urged them to say — ‘ For taking the money you are censur- able ; but, in applying it to our use, you are deserving of praise.’ And such would virtually be their declaration (a species of logic w r ell calculated to set his mind at rest !) if they granted him, on this head, that full and direct acquittal which he claimed and expected. “ Besides his plea of the construction of the Act, which he set up in oppo- sition to the obvious meaning of it, he vindicated himself in the transgression of his orders from the Court of Directors, whenever their sense could not be twisted, by the arguments of state-necessity. This necessity, however, which goes so far as to supersede all positive instructions, should be evident as well as urgent. Mr Hastings never attempted to prove the existence of the ne- cessity. The doctrine of the state-necessity, assigned in every case — this new and firm ally of self-interested rapaciousness — was not to be received on the present occasion : the point in question would not warrant the excess of his presumption, when pleading in his defence of the violation of a positive law. Whatever Mr Hastings might have done with the money so extorted, was out of the question ; if he had applied it properly, the measure might be suffered to come forward hereafter in extenuation of his guilt ; but, in the The particulars of this loan to Mr Hastings appear p. 131. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 127 mean time, the committee were to look to his disobedience of orders — to his infringement of the act of parliament. Under this view of the procedure, it must be manifest, that every rupee which he received was taken in full de- fiance of the law ; and that an action would lie against him for the recovery of the penalties. Much had been imputed by him to the generosity of the natives.* He did not question this virtue in the natives of Hindostan, neither did he doubt the expertness of Mr Hastings in working upon it most effectually ; for, with so much power in his hands, with an army of fifty or sixty thousand men, he had, most certainly, the means of exciting in their breasts the flame of benevolence ! As to the facts of corruptly taking presents, they naturally divided themselves into two heads — those which preceded the regulating act of 1773, and those which subsequently had arisen. He would begin with the latter, as they were more likely to elucidate the whole charge ; and, first, he would mention the present of the year 1780, of two lacks of rupees, f received of Cheit Sing, by the hands of his confidential servant, Buxey Sadanund. The present was re- ceived in June, but never mentioned to the Directors until the relation of the circumstances formed a part of the contents in Mr Hastings’s letter of November in the same year ; and then it was not stated from whom the money came. In his defence, Mr Hastings had, for the first time, at the bar of the House, deposed that the money came from Cheit Sing ; and that acknowledgment had, perhaps, been occasioned by his having learned that an honourable member (Major Scott) had previously declared, when under examination before the select committee, that the money came from Cheit Sing. Mr Sheridan now read Major Scott’s examina- tion ; and, commenting upon it, observed, that in one of the answers the honourable gentleman declared he believed Cheit Sing and the other na- tive princes would much rather give Mr Hastings a present of two or more lacks of rupees, then pay them to the Company, as part of their debt to the British Government ; a position which clearly proved, not the generosity of the native princes, but that the government of India was founded upon a system of corruption. But, such (it had been urged) were the prejudices of the people ! Could it be seriously imagined (and this at a time whilst, as he should beg leave to impress again and again upon the minds of the committee, five lacks of rupees were due from that Rajah to the East India Company) J that, although the acceptance of the gift of the two lacks of rupees by the Governor-general of Bengal was not, perhaps, attended with a promise of a relaxation in the enforcement of the Company’s demand, no friendly and se- ducing hint had been given of so generous a design ? A raw and artless * In March, 1784, when Mr Hastings had arrived at Lucknow, under pretence of settling the affairs of the country, he partially restored the Begums to their estates, in compliance with the wishes of the Directors, but reported that those personages had made a voluntary concession of a large portion of their respective shares, f Equal to £20,000 sterling. I For the maintenance of the British army. K 2 128 THE MODERN ORATOR. negotiator might not, indeed, have thought of any compromise ; but have pursued the obvious line of conduct to one not half initiated into the prac- tices of extortion. Such ignorance of the true methods of procedure could not, without injustice, be imputed to Mr Hastings ! The boon with which this gentleman was privately presented, did not, however, divert his indefati- gably faithful zeal from the prosecution of the demand of the East India Company ; yet, at the same time, it must be confessed, so valuable a gift was no inconsiderable drawback from the pecuniary powers of the Rajah to satisfy such a demand. And, indeed, the facility with which this plundered individual was made to submit to private extortion, only rendered him a more conve- nient tool to work upon in every case of public depredation. Two lacks of rupees might be considered merely as a palatable whet to the voracity of his appetite ; and more money was the great cure in view for an inveterate disorder, when that wretched invalid, Sir Elijah Impey, underwent a dan- gerous and most fatiguing journey, purely for the benefit of his health !* With regard to the readiness of the native princes to make presents ; let a Governor-general, possessed of all the powers of government, and at the head of an army consisting of 60,000, and sometimes of 100,000 men, led and commanded by European officers, throw himself on the bounty of a people, and, doubtless, (as he before remarked) an unbounded spirit of benevolence would prevail. But to return to the present of Cheit Sing. “ In his defence, Mr Hastings declared that, in 1780, he had formed the plan of drawing Mhadajee Scindia from Guzerat, to the defence of his own dominions, in hopes of laying the foundation of peace with the Mahrattas ; but that the plan had been opposed by an honourable gentleman, f on account of the additional expense which it would occasion. About that time, Cheit Sing sent his confidential servant, Buxey Sadanund, to Calcutta, to endeavour to procure a remission of the payment of the annual sum of five lacks of rupees, which the board had fixed as his proportion of the ex- penses of the war. That request Mr Hastings premptorily refused ; but assured Sadanund, that on the restoration of peace, the annual subsidy of five lacks should be discontinued. Sadanund wrote to his master, and received a com- mission from him to give Mr Hastings the strongest assurances of his future obedience and submission to the orders of government ; and he was further directed to request his (Mr Hastings’s) acceptance of two lacks of rupees as a present for himself. His reply was, that he cordially received his submission and assurances of obedience, but that he must absolutely refuse his present, which he did. This (Mr Sheridan said) was a sentence in which the words, as the fact afterwards proved, were a little transposed ; for the truth was, that Mr Hastings cordially received the present, and absolutely refused to accept Cheit Sing’s submission and obedience ; since it appeared, that, on * See page 114. f Mr Philip Francis, one of the members of the Council of Bengal, which, besides, consisted of the Governor- general, Mr Hastings, General Clavering, the Honourable George Monson, and Mr Richard Barwell. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 129 the 20th, Mr Hastings sent for Sadanund, and told him he had re-considered his master’s offer, and would accept the two lacks of rupees ; and the very next day (the 21st) he entered the minute under the authority of which the persecution of that unfortunate prince was begun, and from whence it was pursued to his ruin. Other men, perhaps, dissimilar in their views and temper from Mr Hastings, might have deemed it necessary to return the gift at the commencement of hostilities against the Rajah; but the Governor- general, still inviolably faithful to the great principle of his system of pecu- lation, resolved not to lower his importance by giving back that money which he had once so condescendingly agreed to accept ! And here, his proud and surly dignity broke out in all its plenitude ! Having taken a sum against law, although the purpose for which he grasped at it was frustrated, he scorned either to acknowledge the fact, or to relinquish the money. The reason of this was obvious. Finding Cheit Sing so easy a dupe to private extortion, Mr Hastings instantly marked him out as an object for public plunder. Having stated this transaction, Mr Sheridan took notice of what he styled the strange manner in which Mr Hastings had acted with respect to this present. To read the whole of the correspondence with gravity, was, he declared, utterly impossible ; for such a mixture of the diverting and the disgusting appeared in almost every letter, that the effect was at once most laughably ludicrous, and most seriously alarming. But he would just turn to an extract or two relative to the case in point. Mr Sheridan then read a part of Mr Hastings’s letter of November, 1780, as follows: ‘My present reason for reverting to my own conduct on the occasion which I have men- tioned,’ (his offering a sum of money for the Company’s service) ‘ is to ob- viate the false conclusion, or purposed misrepresentations, which may be made of it, either as an artifice of ostentation, or the effect of corrupt in- fluence, by assuring you that the money, by whatever means it came into my possession, was not my own.’ Mr Sheridan commented on this, and then stated the conduct of the Directors respecting it, in all whose letters con- cerning presents, were (he said) to be found declarations to this effect : ‘ For- asmuch as you have taken presents, we greatly disapprove of your conduct ; but, inasmuch as you have applied those presents to the credit of our ac- count, we highly approve of your conduct.’ It seemed evident that, upon one occasion, nine lacks of rupees had been received, and only six lacks brought into the treasury of Calcutta : the remaining three were not yet accounted for ; unless it could be thought a sufficient elucidation to declare that they were in the hands of Cantoo Baboo, Mr Hastings’s black bribe- broker. But, was it probable that this man, absolutely dependent upon the Governor-general, and having amassed an immense fortune under his aus- pices, could have retained so large a sum of money within his hands ? No ! suspicion naturally, not to say unavoidably, turned round to the principal. Yet, in their letter of January, 1782, the Directors did not appear to be satisfied with Mr Hastings's account of the whole proceeding, but pronounced it at once extraordinary and mysterious. That it was mysterious was un- 130 THE MODERN ORATOR. doubtedly true ; for, in such facts as taking of presents, and the mode of applying them to the Company's use, he would venture to assert, that there could be no mystery without the excitement of a just suspicion of guilt. The Directors, in their letter, observed, ‘ It does not appear to us, that there could be any real necessity for delaying to communicate to us immediate information of the channel by which the money came into Mr Hastings’s possession, with a complete illustration of the cause or causes of so extraor- dinary an event.’ And, in the same letter, speaking of this sum taken from Cheit Sing, and of other monies of a similar description, they said, ‘ We shall suspend our judgment, without approving in the least degree, or pro- ceeding to censure, the conduct of our Governor- general for this transaction.’ The next time the Directors heard anything more of this, was by a letter, dated the 22nd of May, 1782, as Mr Larkins had sworn; but not sent till the 16th of December in the same year; and, singular was the fate of this letter of the Governor-general, which had, in so extraordinary a manner, been delayed in India ! This letter, Mr Larkins, with officious care, would not deliver until the very moment in which the ship sailed, because he well recollected that letters had been either forgotten or mislaid, if given to the captain long before the departure of the vessel. The Resolution was the last ship of the season despatched for Europe, but it was not sufficiently well- manned to carry the Governor-general’s letter, although the Governor- general declared that his good genius had dictated its contents. The Reso- lution was thought safe enough to bring a rich freight, many valuable bills and bonds, and a variety of important letters and despatches ; but had the Governor- general’s letter had been put on board the vessel, such a weight} cargo would undoubtedly have sunk her to the bottom of the ocean. That packet could only be brought home securely in the Lively. It should appear, therefore, that there was something in the very name of the ship which lent the letter safety, and adapted itself to its style and contents ; and yet this most unlucky letter appears, indeed, to have met with as many strange and unexpected disappointments as that written by the miserable Romeo, and entrusted to the care of Friar John. “ How equally unfortunate, also, must it have proved, if the Lively had been absent upon any other station. Some impure article might probably have made its way into the hold of the ill-manned and crazy Resolution ! The superstitious piety of Mr Larkins might, perhaps, have inclined him to apprehend, that in such a case the Resolution would have foundered — have sunk, perhaps, in the Ganges, without even one convenient diving negro near to rescue the important letter from the devouring waves ! Yet, even thus rescued, the letter might have suffered under a total and dreadfully irre- mediable obliteration of its interior contents, with not one single vestige of writing left, excepting the address : and, after all, (intrepid though the sailors are) the Resolution had not a crew sufficiently daring to venture upon carrying to England . . . the justification of Mr Hastings ! “On this occasion, it seemed fair to say, why not send the letter to Madias, RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 131 for the chance of a ship from that settlement ? Mr Larkins despatched this letter from the country, and to Mr Auriol, the Secretary at Calcutta ; yet, he would not touch it, but caused it to be returned, declaring that it was contrary to the act of Parliament for any of the Company’s servants to write home to the Directors. Thus it failed in one instance. Mr Sheridan stated how it had failed in others, and traced all the circumstances which had tended to impede its being despatched by the Resolution, till, just on the eve of its being sent away, Mr Larkins advised Mr Hastings to open it, in order to suffer him to make an affidavit that it was written on the 22nd of May ; and to let the affidavit accompany it. Mr Larkins accordingly took an affidavit before Mr Justice Hyde, that the letter had been written by him on the 22nd of May, from rough drafts, furnished by Mr Hastings. This was a proof that Mr Hastings thought the letter of the most serious importance to himself: and that it was extremely material for him to establish the fact, that it had not been written on the pressure of the suspicion, but that the mean imputation to which the delay exposed him, from the occasion which the late parliamentary inquiries had furnished, was a matter to be regarded by him as singularly unfortunate. Undoubtedly , the run of much ill-luck had gone against him ; and so unpromising were appearances in his favour, that it did not require any great share of incredulity to suspect that the letter was written, not before, but after he had heard of certain changes in the politics of this country, which might make him at length adopt a new opinion with respect to the best artifice for his own security ; and conceive that a voluntary confession would prove one of the least fallible preservations from detection. The conduct of Mr Larkins, most certainly, was suspicious ; and Mr Sheridan said, he trusted that no person yyould do him the injustice to conceive that he harboured cruel, and, of course, unworthy notions against mankind, when he observed that he saw the workings of gratitude so powerful in the hearts of individuals, as to eradicate every other feeling of duty. Mr Larkins had taken the most extraordinary pains to acquit his friend and patron, Mr Hastings. How well his efforts succeeded, the committee must determine. Mr Sheridan now remarked, that he should beg leave to enter upon a short investigation of the second money transaction, which Mr Hastings had repre- sented as having some affinity with the former anecdote ; and this was a demand upon the Council for money of his own, described as having been expended in the Company’s service, to the amount of £34,500, for which he had desired to have three bonds ; and here, it seemed necessary to refer to the defence of Mr Hastings respecting the circumstances of this transaction. In that defence, the Governor- general stated, that, being in the year 1783 in actual want of a sum of money for his private expenses, owing to the Company’s not having at the time sufficient cash in their treasury to pay his salary, he borrowed three lacks of rupees from Rajah Nobkissen, an inhabi- tant of Calcutta, whom he desired to call upon him with a bond properly filled up ; that Nobkissen did call ; but, when Mr Hastings was going to execute it, Nobkissen entreated that he would rather accept the money than 132 THE MODERN ORATOR. execute the bond. In short, that he neither accepted the offer, nor refused it; hut kept the rajah, during the space of several months, plunged into a state of the most tormenting anxiety. And now it might seem reasonable to imagine, that, at last, the matter dropped ; — quite the contrary; Mr Hastings took the money, but neither gave the bond, nor was mean enough to think of returning the money ; his pride forbade it ; it was a fresh proof of the dread which the natives entertained of the Governor's pledge of faith. ‘ Take my money, and welcome,’ said Nobkissen ; ‘ but place me not within the peril of your promise ; pledge not your faith to me ! I know too well the consequences ; I have heard of the treaty of Chunar ;* I have heard of the usage of Fyzoolah Khan ! f I have heard of other shameful circumstances which followed the most solemn engagements of the Governor-general of India !’ “ Thus did Mr Hastings fill the breast of this unfortunate man with painful apprehensions, lest when he returned home he should find a bond thrust, perhaps, underneath his door at midnight, or by some unworthy stratagem placed upon his table. He knew too well, that all who had been honoured with his favour became irrecoverably ruined. His various guarantees, his treaties, and his sacred compacts, with every lamentable consequence, were present to his afflicted imagination. The rapacity of Mr Hastings he could tolerate ; but he shrunk with horror from his protestations and his pledge of faith; a most unanswerable proof, that of all the monied men plundered by the Governor- general, Nobkissen entertained the truest notions of his character. In mercy, however, Mr Hastings came away from Calcutta without acting so cruelly as to send Nobkissen the bond ; or so pitifully, as to repay the money; and, upon this occasion, it ought to be recollected, that Nobkissen was notoriously the most avaricious Hack man in Bengal : but, in the description of this insatiable thirst for money, it was not meant to draw an invidious com- parison between the rajah and a disinterested European ! He would not insist on the unprecedented charge of contingent expenses for a period of more thorn twelve years ; nor on the particulars of this charge, which was principally for translating the Mahomedan laws, which he had destroyed, and other services of a nature equally useless. In that famous letter which, in his progress to Lucknow, he wrote to the Directors, he had the assurance to request that this sum might be allotted to his use, that he might not be doomed to poverty and obscurity, after a life spent in the accumulation of * See p. 107. •f The Nabob of Ferruckabad, and one of the Iiohilla chieftains, from whom Mr Hastings withdrew the British protection in consequence of a bribe of £100,000 from the Vizier of Oude, notwithstanding a treaty concluded by him with the Vizier Sujah Dowlah, and guaranteed by the English Government, by which he was invested with the Jaghire of Rampore and some other districts in Rohilcund, in return for which he was bound to keep up a certain military force in aid of the British Government. The impeachment of Mr Hastings for his conduct towards Fyzoolah Khun had been voted by a majority of 96 to 37. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 133 trores for their advantage. But he had gone further ; he had taken it upon himself to place this sum to his credit without the consent of the Company ; thus paying, contrary to law, a debt which he had contracted against authority ! This proceeding could not be justified by Mr Hastings, even on the principles which he had himself laid down in his construction of the Regulating Act : for here he must acknowledge that he had taken money privately, which he did not apply to the use of the Company, but to his own ; as, whether he seized it in the first instance, or paid it to himself afterwards without autho- rity, it was exactly the same. Hitherto nothing arose, excepting mystery and obscurity in the transactions, and in the defence made by the Governor-general ; but if the committee were disposed to think (as he conceived they might be inclined) that no circumstances could exceed those to which he adverted, they were mistaken — for all was simplicity and plain dealing itself, when compared with what followed ! “Mr Sheridan now remarked, that he should next offer to the consideration of the committee a manoeuvre (of which the particulars were not included in the charges) for the humane purpose of squeezing ten lacks of rupees from the nabob vizier, at Chunar .* The circumstances of this transaction had been too recently discussed to render much additional information necessary. This generous act was to assume the curious form of the refusal of an offer which the vizier was supposed to have made ! Mr Middleton, the resident appointed by Mr Hastings — Mr Middleton, who had gone such lengths with him before, on a sudden became conscientious ; and, like a tick with a plethora of blood, was satiated with plunder : — quite gorged, and torpid ! Even he wrote to Mr Hastings, that he could not think of accepting this offer (which, however, the nabob had not at any time made), and Major Palmer was actually sent to persuade him not keep the resolution to which he had come, of presenting Mr Hastings with another £100,000 — thus, by a kind of ingenuity, by a perversion unknown in this dull climate, conveying a demand for money under the form of declining to accept it ! Concerning this circumstance, it ap- peared reasonable to remark, that when Major Palmer and Major Davy called upon the nabob for the money, the latter declared that he had never before heard that so extraordinary a demand was in contemplation ! And how deeply must the merciful feelings of the committee become wounded, should they advert to the contents of a letter from this unfortunate and persecuted prince to Mr Hastings, in which, painting in the strongest colours his extreme distress, he complains bitterly of the exaction ; yet he says, ‘ Being remediless , I felt myself obliged to comply with what was required and then he con- cludes with this artless and affecting observation : ‘ Blessed as I am with so compassionate a friend as your highness, how does it happen that I am re- duced to such a state of miserable distress ?’ On this occasion, Mr Sheridan said, that he must beg leave to enforce strongly upon the attention of the committee, that the reason advanced to justify the seizure (for it was far * On the occasion of the plunder of the Begums, see page 106. 134 THE MODERN ORATOR. from meriting a milder term) of the £100,000, — the time when it was paid, — - the manner in which it was paid, — and the persons to whom it was paid, had been all brought into full view ; and unanswerably stigmatised as the falsest statements by the Governor-general. He had written word to the Directors, that the exigency of his affairs, — the want of cash to pay the army, and other things pressing, had caused him to accept the present of ten lacks of rupees, at the moment when he knew that the nabob vizier’s affairs were in a state of the extremest indigence. Upon that ground he had vindicated the taking of the £100,000; but it came out afterwards, in the most positive de- claration, that he had not the sum in cash, but in bills on Gopal Das, not payable until the expiration of some succeeding months. If that was true, his first ground of justification failed him ; for the immediate wants of the army could acquire no relief from bills on Gopal Das, which. had still several months to run. In the list of the persons to whom the money had been paid, the name of Mrs Hastings was inserted. He should have felt (Mr Sheridan added) great uneasiness at taking the liberty to introduce a lady’s name in such a business, if it had not been for her complete exculpation ; but the fact stood thus : The entry of Mrs Hastings’s name, and those of the other persons, as the receivers of the sum, was a fallacy ; and it was equally a fallacy that the ten lacks were paid by bills on Gopal Das ; because that man was at the time detained by Cheit Sing ; and let the committee ask them- selves, if the Governor-general would not have more credit with Gopal Das than this miserable, moneyless, and ruined prince ? Great part of the sum given was paid in rupees ; and it was clearly a portion of the plunder of the unfortunate princesses, the mother and grandmother of Asoph ul Dowlah. As to the nabob, his distracted supplications were of no avail ; and his treasury was swept, without the least attention to his prayer, that his rapa- cious pillager would leave him at least as much as might prove sufficient for the ordinary charges of his household. “ Mr Sheridan next stated the application of the Rajah of Berar, to the Governor-general and Council, for a sum of money to relieve his affairs, by paying his army ; the whole amount of which sum was computed at sixteen lacks of rupees. This application was rejected as inconvenient to be complied with ; but afterwards the Governor-general took the whole responsibility of the measure upon himself, and lent the Rajah of Berar three lacks. “ Mr Sheridan now mentioned the complaint* laid before the council board * There were several charges brought against Mr Hastings by Nuncomar, and among the rest, that of his having committed the young Nabob of Bengal to the guar- dianship of Munny Begum in consideration of a bribe ; but, in order to judge fairly of the truth and weight of the accusations, and to understand the allusions made here- after by Mr Sheridan, it is necessary to give a slight sketch of the history of the accuser. The Maharajah Nuncomar was a Hindoo Brahmin, and possessed all the talent and deceit characteristic of the Bengalees. During the government of Lord Clive, he had been a competitor with a Persian Mussulman, of the name of Mohammed Reza Khan (a man of integrity according to the Indian standard of morality), for an office which, at that time, the Company were in the habit of entrusting to a great native RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 135 by the Rajah Nuncomar, and the £15,000 taken from Munny Begum, to whom was entrusted the sole collection of the revenues. The Directors had instructed him to appoint a minister (a guardian) to superintend Moharek ul Dowlah, the young Nabob of Bengal, and to manage his affairs. The person* whom he chose for this employment was the step-mother of the Nabob, and widow of the deceased Nabob — Meer Jaffier, an ignorant woman, drawn originally from the lowest class of life, and by Mr Hastings from the minister, and which related to the internal administration of Bengal. Lord Clive, knowing the infamous character of Nuncomar, who had been engaged and detected in conspiracies against the English, decided in favour of Mohammed Reza Khan, although in opposition to the urgent solicitation of the Nabob of Bengal, over whom Nuncomar had acquired great influence. On Warren Hastings becoming Governor, Mohammed Reza Khan had been seven ye&rs in office, and the infant son of Meer Jaffier was nabob, under the guardianship of the minister. In consequence of the revenues of Bengal being considered to have decreased through the mismanagement of the minister, which idea was encouraged by Nuncomar to his utmost power, Warren Hastings was ordered by the Directors to remove Mohammed Reza Khan from his office. Soon after his removal, a change was made in the mode of administration ; the office held by Mohammed Reza Khan was transferred to the servants of the Company, and the Nabob was no longer allowed to have any visible share in the government, but was to receive, in lieu, an annual allowance, and his person was confided to the care of Munny Begum, one of the ladies of his father’s harem. Mohammed Reza Khan, after long delay, was tried for his supposed offences, and acquitted, to the great disappointment of Nuncomar, who was prominent in the prosecution. On the new government of India being formed in 1773, and the arrival of the Council in India, a quarrel immediately ensued between Warren Hastings and the majority of the Council, and, being in the minority on all questions, he was looked on as a fallen man, and consequently deserted by all the sycophants who till then had courted his favour. Nuncomar, who had always been the secret enemy of Hastings, seizing this favourable opportunity, came forward per- sonally before the Council, and formally accused him of having put up offices for sale, and of having received bribes for his connivance at the escape of offenders ; in parti- cular, of having acquitted Mohammed Reza Khan in consideration of a large sum of money, and of having committed the young Nabob to the care of Munny Begum for a like cause. The Council, in spite of the protest of Hastings against their proceedings, decided against the Governor- general, and declared the charge made out. So far was Nuncomar triumphant ; but Hastings, thus driven to extremities, and finding that either he or Nuncomar must fall, succeeded in crushing his rival in the following unexpected manner : — The Supreme court of Bengal, as established by Act of Parliament, had a jurisdiction entirely free from the control of the Council, and was presided over by Sir Elijah Impey, the friend of Hastings. The power of this court was now ex- ercised for the destruction of Nuncomar. He was suddenly arrested on a charge of forging a bond six years before (an offence which in India was hardly considered criminal) ; bail to any amount was refused, although its acceptance was demanded by the Council : he was with all speed tried before Sir Elijah Impey and an English jury, found guilty of the offence, and immediately ordered for execution, which sen- tence was most unrelentingly carried out in spite of all remonstrance. Hastings thus freed himself of a most dangerous enemy : the position in which he was himself placed, may be considered some palliation for his share in the transaction, but the con- duct of Sir Elijah Impey can never be justified. Munny Begum. 136 THE MODEEN OEATOH. recesses of the Zenana, to instruct her princely pupil in all the arts of future government ! This curious appointment would certainly prove more the subject of indignation than surprise to the committee, when they should discover, from unquestionable authority, that it was assigned for the valuable consideration of £15,000 to himself, and the same sum to Mr Middleton. Mr Hastings’s transaction with Cawn Jewan Khan was the next object of Mr Sheridan's animadversion. This man was appointed Phousdar of Houghly, with an income of 72,000 sicca rupees a year — of which Mr Hastings was charged with taking half, besides 4000 allotted to his black broker ; and the accusation was made, as well as that proffered by Nun- comar, in full Council. The Council proposed to inquire into the truth of it, and required Cawn Jewan Khan to answer to the facts upon oath ; to which procedure he and Mr Hastings peremptorily objected ; and that Cawn Jewan Khan could not, by virtue of his religion, take an oath, was the weak excuse of Mr Hastings ; but in the words used in the answer of Mr Hastings to the charge, he might retort the falsity upon him. Cawn Jewan Khan was, as a punishment for his contumacy, deprived of his employment ; but on the death of Colonel Monson, which gave Mr Hastings, by virtue of his casting vote, a majority in the Council, he was reinstated at the motion of the Governor. He left it to the reflection of the committee, whether any circumstantial proof — and the case would admit of nothing further — could more clearly trace the guilt of Mr Hastings, or establish the certainty of private practices of a cor- rupt nature between him and the Phousdar ? The whole was a studied maze of theft, bribery, and corruption ; unparalleled even in the most ignominious annals of East India delinquency. With respect to the unfortunate Kajah Nuncomar, he was first indicted for a conspiracy ; but that failing, he was tried on an English penal statute (which, although rendered by a stretch of power most dreadfully forcible in Bengal, did not reach even. to Scotland !) he was convicted and hanged for a crime (forgery) which was not capital in his own country ! Whatever were the circumstances of this judicial proceed- ing (which might be the subject of another inquiry), they could not fail of exciting apprehensions and terrors in the natives, which would put a stop to all further informations against the Governor. During this transaction, Mr Hastings — in direct contradiction to the opinions of General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr Francis — repeatedly asserted, that it was repugnant to the customs, either of the Mussulmen or Hindoos, to take an oath ; yet, on a later occasion, he justified himself in all his proceedings at Benares, by the affidavits of persons of the religion which he mentioned, taken before the upright judge* of the supreme court of Calcutta ! It had been allowed, in the evidence given at the bar, that all India was in consternation at the event ; and considered the death of Nuncomar as a punishment for having advanced charges against Mr Hastings. Who, after such an event, would dare step forward as his accuser ? None would venture ; and the Governor * Sir Elijah Impey. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 137 might, in future, pillage the natives as he thought proper, without any fear of being disturbed by their invocations for justice ! But this justice, he hoped and trusted, would not be refused in a British Parliament ; they owed it to their own dignity, to the support of the resolutions into which they had already entered, to the honour of the country, the prosperity of the government, and the rights of humanity ! The present charge (he should beg leave to repeat) was not, perhaps, of that nature which came home most effectually to the feelings of men ; it could not excite those sensations of commiseration or abhorrence which a ruined prince, a royal family reduced to want and wretchedness, the desolation of kingdoms, or the sacrilegious invasion of palaces, would certainly inspire ! In conclusion, Mr Sheridan observed, that, although within this rank but infinitely too fruitful wilder- ness of iniquities — within this dismal and unhallowed labyrinth, it was most natural to cast an eye of indignation and concern over the wide and towering forests of enormities, all rising in the dusky magnificence of guilt ; and to fix the dreadfully excited attention upon the huge trunks of revenge, rapine, tyranny, and oppression ; yet it became not less necessary to trace out the poisonous weeds, the baleful brushwood, and all the little, creeping, deadly plants, which were, in quantity and extent, if possible, more noxious. The whole range of this far-spreading calamity was sown in the hot-bed of cor- ruption ; and had risen, by rapid and mature growth, into every species of illegal and atrocious violence ! Upon this ground, most solemnly should he conjure the committee to look to the malignant source of every rooted evil ; and not to continue satisfied with reprobating effects, whilst the great cause enjoyed the power of escaping from merited crimination, and the infliction of a just punishment. He now moved, ‘ That the committee, having considered the present article of charge of high crimes and misdemeanours against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Governor-general of Bengal, is of opinion, that there is ground for impeaching the said Warren Hastings, Esq., of high crimes and misdemeanours upon the matter of the said article.’ ” The motion was carried by 165 votes to 54. Speech delivered in Westminster Hall, in support of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esq., on the second charge, in respect of his conduct towards the Begums of Oude. Mr Adam, on April 15th, 1788, had opened the charge, and Mr Sheridan now summed up the evidence. His address occupied four days, and at the conclusion Mr Burke declared, “ that no species of oratory, no kind of eloquence that had been heard in ancient or modern times ; nothing which the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality of the pulpit, could furnish, was equal to what they had that day heard in Westminster hall ; that no species of composition existed of which a complete and perfect specimen might not be culled out of this speech ; which he was persuaded had left too strong an impression on the minds of that assembly to be easily obliterated.” 138 THE MODERN ORATOR. On the first day, Tuesday, June 3rd, he dilated on the importance of the investigation, and on the policy as well as the justice of vindicating the character of Great Britain in India ; but yet disclaimed any desire that Mr Hastings should be condemned unless his guilt were legally and indisputably established by proof. He commented severely on the disavowal by Mr Hastings of the admission and statement he had made in his defence before the House of Commons ; and then proceeded with great force to condemn his cruel conduct towards the Begum Princesses, and his total disregard to the prejudices of the natives of India, in violating the sanctity of the female apartments ; and, after exposing the infamy of the treaty of Chunar, con- cluded in a strain of bitter irony, in denouncing the conduct of Sir Elijah Impey. The court having adjourned to Friday, June 6th, on that day, Mr Sheridan resumed his speech, by expressing his satisfaction that, in the interval of the adjournment, the remaining part of the evidence, & c., had been printed and laid before their lordships ; as it was the wish of the managers that every document should be before the court at the time, for the purpose of determining with more accuracy whether they had or had not borne out the charges which they presented. Recurring then to the affidavits* taken by Sir Elijah Impey, at Lucknow, “they formed,” he observed, “ a material article in the defence of Mr Hast- ings ; and on the decision of their lordships respecting the weight of the alle- gations which they contained, a great part of this question would finally depend. With respect to one part of the charge made on the Begums — their having shown a uniform spirit of hostility to the British government — it had not only failed, but it was absolutely abandoned by the counsel for the prisoner, as not being supported by a tittle of evidence. In deciding on the other parts of this charge — their having committed an overt act of re- bellion — their having inflamed the Jaghirdars,f and excited the discontents in Oude — their lordships were to consider the situation in which Mr Hast- ings stood at the time these charges were made. Having failed in his attempt at Benares, his mind was entirely directed to the treasures of the Begums. He knew that such was the situation into which he had plunged the affairs of the Company, that he could not address his venal masters unless some treasure was found. He had, therefore, stood forward as an accuser where he was also to preside as a judge ; and with much caution should that judge be heard, who has apparently a profit on the conviction, and an interest in the condemnation of the party to be tried. He would not from this infer, however, that the charge was groundless ; but he would argue, that, until fully proved, it should not meet with implicit credit. It was obvious, also, that the attempt said to have been made by the Begums, to dethrone the Nabob and extirpate the English, was in the highest degree improbable ; but he would not infer from thence that it was impossible ; * In support of the charge of conspiracy by the Begums, to dethrone the Nabob and expel the English. f Or native leaseholders. RICHARD BRINSLEY SIIEIUDAN. 139 there is in human nature a perverse propensity to evil, which had sometimes caused the perpetration of bad acts without any obvious gratification result- ing to the perpetrator. All he should claim, therefore, was, that the accu- sations brought by Mr Hastings against the Begums should undergo a candid examination, and that probable evidence, at least, should be brought to the support of charges in themselves improbable. “ Mr Hastings, in his defence, had complained that his prosecutor had attempted to blacken these affidavits as rash, irregular, and irrelevant, when they had been authenticated by the presence of Sir Elijah Impey, and, as he also observed, being taken in an inquiry directed solely to establish the guilt of Cheit Sing, they were merely an accessary evidence in the present case, and were therefore less liable to suspicion. The reasoning, in this last instance, Mr Sheridan observed, would undoubtedly be good ; but the asser- tion, that the inquiries were exclusively directed to the crimination of Cheit Sing, had been proved an absolute falsehood, as they were really intended to justify what was afterwards to be done. With respect to the epithets bestowed on those affidavits by his honourable friend, the truth would best appear from a review of their contents. Mr Sheridan then proceeded to remark on the affidavits severally, as far as they related to charges against the Begums. Those of the Jemmadars, or native subaltern officers, con- tained nothing, it appeared, but vague rumour and improbable surmise. “ One deponent, who was a black officer in one of our regiments of sepoys, stated, that having a considerable number of people as hostages in a fort where he commanded, and who had been sent thither by Colonel Hannay, the country people got round the fort, and demanded that they should be delivered up ; but, instead of complying with their request, he put almost twenty of them to death : he afterwards threw down some of the battlements of the fort, and killed four more of the hostages ; and, on another day, the heads of eighteen more were struck off, and among them the head of a great rajah of the country, by order of Colonel Hannay. The people around were enraged at this execution, and crowded about the fort ; some of them were heard to say, that the Begums had offered a reward of one thousand rupees for the head of every European, one hundred for the head of every sepoy officer, and ten for the head of a common sepoy. But it appeared afterwards, pretty clearly, that no such rewards had, in reality, been offered ; for when Captain Gordon’s detachment took the field, the people who surrounded him told him, that if he would deliver up his arms and his baggage, they would let him and his men continue their route unmolested : so little were they disposed to enrich themselves by the slaughter of the British forces, that when Captain Gordon’s detachment was reduced, by desertion, to ten men, and when the slauarht.pi' or capture of them would have been of course a work of very little difficulty, the country people re- mained satisfied with the dispersion of the detachment, and then returned to their homes, without attempting to attack the poor remains of that de- tachment — the ten men who continued with Captain Gordon. That gentle- 140 THE MODERN ORATOR. man, in his affidavit, supposed the Begums to have encouraged the country people to rise, because, when he arrived at the bank of the river Saunda Nutta, on the opposite bank of which stands the town of Saunda, the phous- dar, or governor, who commanded there for the Bow Begum, in whose jaghire the town lay, did not instantly send boats to carry him and his men over the river ; and because the phousdar pointed two or three guns across the river. Now, admitting both these facts to he true, they could not affect the Begums, for it was the duty of the phousdar to be on his guard, and not to let troops into his fort until he knew for what purpose they appeared before it. In the next place, there was nothing in the affidavit which indi- cated that the guns were pointed against Captain Gordon and his men ; on the contrary, it was possible that these guns had made that gentleman’s pursuers disperse ; for it was rather remarkable, that they should pursue him whilst he was in force, and should give over the pursuit when, by the desertion of his soldiers, his detachment was reduced to ten men. However, whatever might have been the cause of their dispersion, Captain Gordon at length got across the river, and found himself in a place of safety as soon as he got into a town that was under the authority of the Begums, who caused him to be sent afterwards, under a protecting guard, to Colonel Hannay. This circumstance was suppressed in the affidavit made afterwards by Cap- tain Gordon : for what purpose it was not for him to judge. “ Hyder Beg Khan, the minister of the Nabob, though swearing both to rumour and to fact, could mention no particulars of an insurrection which was to have dethroned his Sovereign. Nor was the evidence of Colonel Hannay, and the other English officers, more conclusive : loud suspicions appeared to have been propagated at a time of general disturbance, and when the flames of war were raging in the neighbouring province of Benares. Mr Middleton,* though swearing after he had received his final orders from Mr Hastings respecting the seizure of the treasures, could only say, that he believed the Begums had given countenance to the rebels, and, he had heard, some aid. The whole of the depositions, Mr Sheridan observed, were so futile, that were they defended in an inferior court of justice ; he was con- vinced he should he forbidden to reply, and told he was combating with that which was nothing ! “ With respect to the first part of the charge, the rebellion of the Begums, he could find no trace of any such transaction. “ The best antiquarian in our society,” said Mr Sheridan, “ would he, after all, never the wiser ! Let him look wdiere he would, where can he find any vestige of battle, or a single blow ? In this rebellion, there is no soldier, neither horse nor foot ; not a man is known fighting ; no office-order sur- vives, not an express is to he seen. This great rebellion, as notorious as our ’45, passed away — unnatural, but not raging — beginning in nothing, and ending, no doubt, just as it began ! * The resident agent at the court of the Nabob. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 141 “ If rebellion, my lords, can thus engender unseen, it is time for us to look about. What, hitherto, has been dramatic, may become historical ; — Knightsbridge may at this moment be invested ; and all that is left us, nothing but the forlorn hope of being dealt with according to the statute, by the sound of the Riot act, and the sight, if it can be, of another Elijah ! “ The counsel had thought proper to dwell for a time on the Nabob’s going to Fyzabad,* on his return from Chunar, attended by a guard of 2,000 men. Mr Middleton being asked, whether these men were well-ap- pointed, though on another occasion he had declared himself no military man, caught in the instant a gleam of martial memory, and answered in the affirmative. The contrary, however, was proved by the evidence of Captain Edwards, who attended the Nabob as his aide-de-camp, and also that those troops were actually mutinous for their pay, who were then taken to stop the progress of disaffection ! Yet he would agree to all that the counsel re- quired ; — he would suffer the whole 2,000 men to enter full trot into the city of Fyzabad, ‘ whilst Middleton stood by out of his wits, with a gleam of martial memory; and whilst Sir Elijah, like a man going to learn fashions or freedom in England, takes a sportive tour, as smooth and well-beaten as Old Brentford for Captain Edwards had fully proved that it was merely the usual guard of the Nabob. It would, therefore, have been disrespectful to have gone with less attendance ; he could have no motive for going incog., unless he might have intended to make himself a perfect match for the insur- rection, which was also incog., or thought that a rebellion without an army would be most properly subdued by a prince without a guard. “ Another supposed proof of the disaffection of the Begums was brought, by alleging that 1,000 Nudjies had been raised at Fyzabad, and sent to the assistance of Cheit Sing ;f and this for no other reason than a detachment of the same number being in the list of the forces of the rajah! This single circumstance was taken as full and complete evidence of the identity of those troops. It was no matter that the officer second in command with Cheit Sing had sworn that the detachment came from Lucknow, and not from Fyzabad ; this Mr Hastings would have to be a trifling mistake of one capital for another ! The same officer, however, had also deposed, that the troops were of a different description ; those of the Begum being swordsmen, and those in the service of the rajah matchlock-men. The inference to be made, therefore, undoubtedly was, that the detachment did actually come from Lucknow ; not sent, perhaps, by the Nabob, but by some of the Jaghirdars, his favourites, who had abundant power for that purpose, and whose aversion to the English had always been avowed. The name of Sadib Ally, his half- brother, had been mentioned as being highly criminal in these transactions ; but to the question, ‘ Why was he not punished ? ’ Sir Elijah Impey had given the best answer at the bar, by informing their lordships that Sadib * The place of residence of the Begums. f As to the proceedings against Cheit Sing, see p. 106. L 142 THE MODEEH OEATOE. Ally was miserably poor ! He had, therefore, found protection in his poverty, and safety in his insolvency. Every common maxim of judging on such occasions was certain to be overturned by Mr Hastings. It was generally supposed that the needy were the most daring ; and that necessity was the strongest stimulus to innovation ; but the Governor-general, inverting this proposition, had laid it down as an axiom, that the actions of the poor were sufficiently punished by contempt ; that the guilt of an offender should in- crease in a precise ratio with his wealth ; and that, in fine, where there was no treasure, there could undoubtedly be no treason !” Mr Sheridan next read the letter of the Begum^ to Mr Hastings, com- plaining of the suspicions which had been so unjustly raised of her conduct ; and referring to Captain Gordon, who could testify her innocence. He also read the letter of Captain Gordon to the Begum, f thanking her for her inter- ference, and acknowledging that he owed his life to her bounty. “ It had been asked, with an air of triumph, why Captain Gordon was not called to that bar ? He had answered then, as now, that he would not call on a man * The letter was as follows: — “ The disturbances of Colonel Hannay and Mr Gor- don were made a pretence for seizing my jaghire. The state of the matter is this : — When Colonel Hannay was, by Mr Hastings, ordered to march to Benares during the troubles of Cheit Sing, the Colonel, who had plundered the whole country, was in- capable of proceeding, from the union of thousands of Zemindars, who had seized this favourable opportunity ; they harassed Mr Gordon near Junivard, and the Zemindars of that place and Acherpore opposed his march from thence, till he arrived near Saunda. As the Saunda Nutta, from its overflowing, was difficult to cross without a boat, Mr Gordon sent to the fowzdar to supply him ; he replied, the boats were all in the river, but would assist him, according to order, as soon as possible. Mr Gordon’s situation would not admit of his waiting ; he forded the Nutta upon his elephant, and was hospitably received and entertained by the fowzdar for six days. In the mean- time, a letter was received by me from Colonel Hannay, desiring me to escort Mr Gor- don to Fyzabad. As my friendship for the English was always sincere, I readily com- plied, and sent some companies of Nejeebs to escort Mr Gordon and all his effects to Fyzabad : where, having provided for his entertainment, I effected his junction with Colonel Hannay. The letters of thanks received from both these gentlemen, upon this occasion, are still in my possession ; copies of which I gave in charge to Major Gilpin, to be delivered to Mr Middleton, that he might forward them to the Governor- general. To be brief, those who have loaded me with accusations, are now clearly convicted of falsehood. But is it not extraordinary, that, notwithstanding the justness of my cause, nobody relieves my misfortunes ? My prayers have been constantly offered to heaven for your arrival ; report has announced it, for which reason I have taken up the pen, and request you will not place implicit confidence in my accusers ; but, weighing in the scale of justice their falsehoods and my representations, you will exert your in- fluence in putting a period to the misfortunes with which I am overwhelmed.” f The letter was as follows: — “Begum Saib, of exalted dignity, generosity, &c., whom God preserve. “ Your gracious letter, in answer to the petition of your servant from Goondah, exalted me. From the contents, I became unspeakably impressed with the honour it conferred. May the Almighty protect that royal purity, and bestow happiness, increase of wealth, and prosperity. “ The welfare of your servant is entirely owing to your favour and benevolence , RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 143 who, in his affidavit, had suppressed all mention of this important transac- tion. He trusted that, if ever he saw him at that bar, he should witness a contrite zeal to do away the effects of that silence, and behold a penitential tear for the part he had then taken. He hoped, however, for the honour of human nature, that Captain Gordon was then under a delusion, and that he was led on by Mr Middleton, who was well informed of the business, to act a part of which he did not know the consequences. Every feeling of humanity recoiled from the transaction taken in any other point of view. It was diffi- cult to imagine that any man could say to a benefactor, ‘ The breath that I now draw, next to Heaven, I owe to you ; my existence is an emanation from your bounty ; I am indebted to you beyond all possibility of return, and, therefore, my gratitude shall be your destruction .’ “ The original letters on this occasion, from Colonel Hannay and Captain Gordon to the Begum, had been transmitted by her, through Major Gilpin, to Mr Middleton, for the purpose of being shown to Mr Hastings ; but the leaves were torn from Mr Middleton’s letter-book in the place where they should have appeared. When examined on this subject, he said, that he had deposited Persian copies of those letters in the office at Lucknow, but that he did not bring translations with him to Calcutta, because he left Lucknow the very day after he had received the originals. In this evi- dence,” Mr Sheridan said in express terms, “there appeared flat perjury ! — . enormity, if it was so, beyond all expectation, made manifest by that power, to whose nod all creatures must bend — to whom nothing, in the whole system of thought or action, is impossible — who can invigorate the arm of infancy with a giant’s nerve — who can bring light out of darkness, and good out of evil — can rive the confines of hidden mischief, and drag forth each minister of guilt from amidst his deeds of darkness and disaster, reluctant, alas ! and unrepenting, to exemplify, at least, if not atone, and to qualify any casual sufferings of innocence by the final doom of its oppressor — to prove there are the never-failing corrections of God, to make straight the obliquity of man. It could be proved, by comparing dates, that Middleton had received those letters at least a month before he left Lucknow. He de- parted from that city on the 17th of October ; but must have received those letters before the 20th of the preceding month. He was, therefore, well aware of the purity of those in whose oppression he was engaged ; he knew that their attachment was fully proved at the very time they were charged with disaffection ; but, as their punishment was predetermined, he, in con- cert with his principal, found it necessary to suppress the testimonials of their innocence. The injured sufferers, with tears more powerful than argu- ment, and with sighs more impressive than eloquence, supplicated their lordships’ justice, and called for that retribution which should alight on the detested but unrepenting author of their wrongs. “ The benevolent interference of the Begum in favour of Captain Gordon had been assigned by Mr Hastings, in his defence, to her intelligence of the successes of the English at that period. That this allegation was founded l 2 144 THE MODERN ORATOR. in manifest falsehood, could very easily be proved. The only success which the British forces at that time met with was that of Colonel Blair, on the 3rd of September, but where he himself acknowledged that another victory gained at such a loss would be equal to a defeat. The reports spread around the country at the time were of the most unfavourable cast — that Mr Hastings had been slain at Benares, and that the English were every- where routed. These reports, it was to be remarked, were of infinitely more consequence to the present argument than the facts which really occurred ; but if any doubt remained on the mind of any man, it was only necessary to recur to a never-failing evidence, in that of Mr Hastings against himself. In a letter to the Council, which was on record, Mr Hastings acknowledged that, from the 22nd of August to the 22nd of September, which included, of course, the time of Captain Gordon’s liberation, he had been confined in a situation of the utmost hazard — that his safety, during that time, was ex- tremely precarious — and that the affairs of the English were generally thought to be unfavourable in the extreme ! In his defence, however, these admissions were totally forgotten. There was also an observable inconsistency in what was there alleged — that Colonel Hannay had written to the Begum in the style of supplication, because, in the desperate situation of affairs, he knew of no other which he could adopt ; and yet, in the same sentence, it was averred that the Begum had procured the release of Captain Gordon, from her knowledge of the prosperous advances of our army ! It appeared, therefore, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that those princesses had de- monstrated the firmness of their attachment to the English — not in the moment of success, not from the impulse of fear, nor from the prospect of future protection ; but at a time when the hoard of collected vengeance was about to burst over our heads — when the measure of European guilt in India appeared to be completely filled by the oppressions what had just then been exercised on the unfortunate Cheit Sing — and when offended Heaven seemed to interfere to change the meek disposition of the natives, to awaken their resentment, and to inspirit their revenge. “ The second of the remaining parts of the charge against the Begums was, their having inflamed the Jaghirdars. It was evident, however, even from the letters of Mr Middleton himself, that no such aid was wanted to awaken resentments which must unavoidably have arisen from the nature of the business. There -were many powerful interests concerned — the jaghires which were depending were of a vast amount ; and as their owners, by the resumption, would be reduced at once to poverty 7 and distress, their own feelings were sufficient to produce every effect which had been described. It was idle, therefore, to ascribe to the Begums, without a shadow of proof, the inspiring of sentiments which must have existed without their interference. I shall not waste the time of the court,” said Mr Sheridan, “ on such a subject, but appeal to your lordships, individually, to determine whether, on a proposal being made to confiscate your several estates — and the magnitude of the objects are not very unequal — the interference of any two ladies in RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 145 iliis kingdom would be at all necessary to awaken your resentments and to rouse you to opposition. “ The discontents which prevailed in the province of Oude had been also, and with similar justice, attributed to these princesses, and formed the third and last article of charge against them. But the conduct of the officers residing in that province, the repeated complaints from the natives, and the acknowledged rapacity of Colonel Hannay, left no difficulty in tracing those discontents to the source whence they had originated. The Nabob himself was so well convinced of the tyranny of Colonel Hannay that, on a propo- sition coming from Mr Hastings to send him back into the province, the Nabob swore by Mahomet, ‘ that, if the colonel was sent back, he would quit the province, and come to reside with Mr Hastings.’ The Governor- general some time after sent an apology for the suggestion ; but it was then too late — Colonel Hannay was dead, and the province was desolate. “ Should a stranger survey the land formerly Sujah Dowlah’s, and seek the cause of the calamity — should he ask what monstrous madness had ravaged thus, with wide-spread war ? — what desolating foreign foe — what disputed succession — what religious zeal — what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and, with malice and mortal enmity to man, has withered with the gripe of death every growth of nature and humanity, all the means of delight, and each original, simple principle of bare existence ? The answer will be — ■ if any answer dare be given — ‘ No, alas ! not one of these things — no deso- lating foreign foe — no disputed succession — no religious super-serviceable zeal ! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity : we sink under the pressure of their support — we writhe under the gripe of their pestiferous alliance ! ’ “ Thus they suffered, in barren anguish and ineffectual bewailings. And ‘ O audacious fallacy ! * says the defence of Mr Hastings, ‘ what cause was there for any incidental ills but their own resistance ? ’ “ The cause was nature in the first-born principles of man. It grew with his growth ; it strengthened with his strength ! It taught him to under- stand — it enabled him to feel ; for, where there is human shape, can there be a penury of human feeling ? Where there is injury, will there not be resentment ? Is not despair to be followed by courage ? The God of battles pervades and penetrates the inmost spirit of man, and, rousing him to shake off the burthen that is grievous, and the yoke that is galling, will reveal the law written in his heart, and the duties and privileges of his nature — the grand universal compact of man with man ! That power is delegated in trust, for the good of all who obey it — that the rights of men must arm against man’s oppression ; for that indifference were treason to human state, and patience nothing less than blasphemy against the laws which govern the world. “ That this representation was not exaggerated would appear from the description of Major Naylor, who had succeeded Colonel Hannay, and who had previously saved him from the vengeance which the assembled ryots, or 146 THE MODERN ORATOR. husbandmen, were about to take on their oppressors. The progress of extortion, it appeared, had not been uniform in that province ; it had abso- lutely increased as its resources failed ; and, as the labour of exaction became more difficult, the price of that increased labour had been charged as an additional tax on the wretched inhabitants ! At length, even in their meek bosoms, where injury never before begot resentment, nor despair aroused to courage, increased oppression had its due effect. They assembled round their oppressor, and had nearly made him their sacrifice. So deeply were they impressed with the sense of their wrongs, that they would not even accept of life from those who had rescued Colonel Hannay. They presented themselves to the swords of the soldiery ; and, as they lay bleeding on the banks of their sacred stream,* they comforted themselves with the ghastly hope that their blood w’ould not descend into the soil, but that it would ascend to the view of the God of nature, and there claim a retribution for their wrongs ! Of a people thus injured, and thus feeling, it was an audacious fallacy to attribute the conduct to any external impulse. That God, who gave them the form of man, implanted also the wish to vindicate the rights of man. Though simple in their manners, they were not so unin- formed as not to know that power is, in every state, a trust reposed for the general good ; and that, the trust being once abused, it should, of course, be instantly resented. “ The innocence of the Begums,” Mr Sheridan continued, “ being thus most indubitably and incontrovertibly proved, it could not be allowed that he argued fairly if he did not immediately infer, from that proof, the guilt of Mr Hastings. He would go so far as to admit that Mr Hastings might have been deluded by his accomplices, and have been persuaded into a conviction of a criminality wdiich did not exist. If that were proved, he would readily agree to acquit the prisoner of the present charge. But if, on the contrary, there appeared in his subsequent conduct such a concealment as denoted the fullest consciousness of guilt — if all his narrations of the business w'ere marked with inconsistency and contradiction — that mind must be inaccessible to conviction which could entertain a doubt of his criminality. From the month of September, in which the seizure of the treasures took place, until the January following, had Mr Hastings wholly concealed the transaction from the Council at Calcutta ! If anything could be more singular than this concealment, it was the reasons by which it was afterwards attempted to be justified. Mr Hastings first pleaded a w'ant of leisure. He was writing to the Council at a time when he complained of an absolute inaction ; he found time to narrate some pretty eastern tales respecting the attachment of the sepoys to their cannon, and their dressing them with flowers on particular occasions ; but of a rebellion which convulsed an empire — of the seizure of the treasures to such an amount — he could not find leisure to say one syl- lable, until he had secured an excuse for his conduct in the possession of the * The Ganges, which has always been regarded, by the natives of India, with great veneration. Ill CHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 147 money. The second excuse was, that all communication was cut off with Fyzabad ; and this was alleged at a time when letters were passing daily between him and Mr Middleton, and when Sir Elijah Impey had pronounced the road to be as free from interruption as that between London and Brent- ford. The third excuse was, that Mr Middleton had taken with him, on his departure from Chunar, all the original papers which it was necessary for Mr Hastings to consult. That the original papers had not been removed was evident, however, from Mr Hastings sending a copy of the treaty of Chunar to Mr Middleton, on the fourth day after the resident’s departure ; though it appeared that it was re-inclosed at a proper time to Mr Hastings, to be shown to the Council. A copy of the same had been shown to the oriental Grotius, Sir Elijah Impey, which he confessed his having read at the time when he declared his ignorance of the guarantee* to the Princesses of Oude ! Looking to the absurdity of reasons such as these, assigned in defence of a silence so criminal, Mr Sheridan declared that he would lay aside every other argument — that he would not dwell on any other topic of guilt, if the counsel for Mr Hastings would but join issue on this point, and prove, to the satisfaction of the court, that any of these excuses were in the smallest degree sufficient for the purpose for which they were assigned. “ Amidst the other artifices of concealment, was a letter from Colonel Han- nay, dated October 17, 1781, which Mr Sheridan indisputably proved could not have been written at the time, but was fabricated at a subsequent period, as it contained a mention of facts which could by no possibility have been known to Colonel Hannay at the time when it was pretended to have been written. Whatever else could be done for the purpose of concealment, was done in that mixture of canting and mystery, of rhapsody and enigma — Mr Hastings’s narrative of his journey to Benares. He there set out with a solemn appeal to heaven for the truth of his averments, and a declaration of the same purport to Mr Wheeler. The faith, however, thus pledged, was broken both to God and man ; for it was already in evidence, that no single transaction had occurred as it was there stated ! “ The question would naturally occur to every person who had attended to these proceedings, ‘ Why Mr Hastings had used all these efforts to veil the whole of this business in mystery ? ’ It was not strictly incumbent on him to answer the question, yet he would reply, that Mr Hastings had obviously a bloody reason for the concealment. He had looked to the natural effect of strong injuries on the human mind ; as, in the case of Cheit Sing, he thought that oppression must beget resistance ; and the efforts which might be made by the Begums in their own defence, though really the effect, he was deter- mined to represent as the cause, of his proceedings. Even when disappointed in those aims by the natural meekness and submission of those with whom he * By a treaty signed by Mr Middleton, as the English resident agent at Oude, with the superior Begum, in October, 1778, and afterwards approved by Mr Hastings, the jaghire, which was allotted for the support of the women in the Khord Mahal, had been secured to the Begums. 148 THE MODERN ORATOR. was to act, he could not abandon the idea ; and, accordingly, in his letter to the Directors, of January 5, 1782, had represented the subsequent disturb- ances in Oude as the positive cause of the violent measures which he had adopted, two months before those disturbances had existence ! He there congratulates his masters on the seizure of those treasures which, by the law of Mahomet, he assures them were the property of Asoph ul Dowlah. Thus the perturbed spirit of the Mahometan law, according to Mr Hastings’s idea, still hovered round those treasures, and envied them to every possessor, until it at length saw them safely lodged within the sanctuary of the British treasury ! In the same spirit of piety, Mr Hastings had assured the House of Commons, that the inhabitants of Asia believed that some unseen power interfered, and conducted all his pursuits to their destined end. That Pro- vidence, however, which thus conducted the efforts of Mr Hastings, was not the Providence to which others profess themselves indebted — which interferes in the cause of virtue, and insensibly leads guilt towards its punishment : it was not, in fine, that Providence, “ 4 Whose works are goodness, and whose ways are right.’ The unseen power which protected Mr Hastings, operated by leading others into criminality, which, as far as it respected the Governor-general, was highly fortunate in its effects. If the Rajah Nuncomar* brings a charge against Mr Hastings, Providence so orders it, that the Rajah has committed a forgery some years before ; which, with some friendly assistance, proves a sufficient reason to remove out of the way so troublesome an acquaintance. If the Company’s affairs are deranged through the want of money, Providence ordains it so that the Begums, though unconsciously, fall into a rebellion, and gives Mr Hastings an opportunity of seizing on their treasures ! Thus, the successes of Mr Hastings depended, not on any positive merit in himself ; it was to the inspired felonies, the heaven-born crimes, and the providential treasons of others, that he was indebted for each success, and for the whole tenor of his prosperity ! “ It must undoubtedly bear a strange appearance, that a man of reputed ability should, even when acting wrongly, have had recourse to so many bungling artifices, and spread so thin a veil over his deceptions. But those who testified any surprise at this circumstance, must have attended but little to the demeanour of Mr Hastings. Through the whole course of his conduct he seemed to have adhered to one general rule, to keep as clear as possible of the fact which h£ was to relate ! Observing this maxim, his only study was to lay a foundation as fanciful and as ornamental as possible ; then, by a superadded mass of fallacies, the superstructure was soon complete, though by some radical defect it never failed to tumble on his own head. Rising from those ruins, however, he was soon found rearing a similar edifice, but with a like effect. Delighting in difficulties, he disdained the plain and * See note, page 135. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 149 secure foundation of truth ; he loved, on the contrary, to build on a preci- pice, and encamp on a mine. Inured to falls, he felt not the danger ; and frequent defeats had given him a hardihood, without impressing a sense of the disgrace. “ It had been a maxim once as much admitted in the practice of common life, as in the school of philosophy, that where Heaven was inclined to destroy the vice, it began by debasing the intellect.* 1 This idea was carried still further by the right honourable gentleman who opened the prosecution ; who declared, that prudence and vice were things absolutely incompatible ; that the vicious man, being deprived of his best energies, and curtailed in his proportion of understanding, was left with such a short-sighted degree of penetration as could not come under the denomination of prudence. This sentiment did honour to the name of his right honourable friend, to whom,” said Mr Sheridan, “ I look up with homage ; whose genius is commensurate with his philanthropy — whose memory will stretch itself beyond the fleeting objects of any little partial shuffling, through the whole wide range of human knowledge, and honourable aspiration after human good ; as large as the system which forms life — as large as those objects that adorn. It is a noble and a lovely sentiment, worthy the mind of him who uttered it ; wor- thy that proud disdain, that generous scorn of the means and instruments of vice, which virtue and genius must ever feel. But I should doubt whether we can read the history of a Philip of Macedon, a Caesar, or a Cromwell, without confessing that there have been evil purposes baneful to the peace and rights of men, conducted, if I may not say with prudence or with wisdom, yet with awful craft, and with most successful and commanding subtlety. If, however, I might make a distinction, I should say, that it is the proud attempt to mix a variety of lordly crimes, that unsettles the pru- dence of the mind, and breeds this distraction of the brain ; one master- passion, domineering in the breast, may win the faculties of the understanding to advance its purpose, and direct to that object everything which thought or human knowledge can effect ; but, to succeed, it must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind ; each rival profligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject vassalage on its throne ; for the power that has not forbidden the entrance of evil passions into man’s mind, has at least forbidden their union : if they meet, they defeat their object, and their conquest, or their attempt at it, is tumult. Turn to the virtues — how different the decree ! Formed to connect, to blend, to associate, and to co-operate ; bearing the same course, with kindred energies and harmonious sympathy ; each perfect in its own lovely sphere, each moving in its wider or more contracted orbit, with dif- ferent but concentring powers, guided by the same influence of reason, and endeavouring at the same blessed end — the happiness of the individual, the harmony of the species, and the glory of the Creator ! In the vices, on the other hand, it is the discord that ensures the defeat ; each clamours to be * Qucm Deus vult pcrdcre, pritis dementat. 150 THE MODERN ORATOR. heard in its own barbarous language ; each claims the exclusive cunning of the brain ; each thwarts and reproaches the other ; and even while their fell rage assails with common hate the peace and virtue of the world, the civil war among their own tumultuous legions defeats the purpose of the foul conspiracy. These are the furies of the mind, my lords, that unsettle the understanding ; these are the furies that destroy the virtue of prudence ; while the distracted brain, and shivered intellect, proclaim the tumult that is within ; and bear their testimonies, from the mouth of God himself, to the foul condition of the heart.” Reverting again to the subject of the claims made on the Princesses of Oude, Mr Sheridan said : “ Whether those were first made by the Nabob, or suggested to him by his sovereign, Mr Hastings — though the counsel had laboured much to prove the former — appeared to him to carry very little difference. If the seizure was made as a confiscation and punish- ment for supposed guilt, then, if ever there was a crime which ought to pass ‘ un whipped of justice,’ it was that where a son must necessarily be made the instrument of an infliction, by which he broke his covenant of existence, and violated the condition by which he held his rank in society. If, on the contrary, it was meant as a resumption, in consequence of a supposed right in the Nabob, then Mr Hastings should have recollected the guarantee of the Company granted to the Begums ; unless it was meant to be said, that Mr Hastings acted in that, as in other instances ; and assured them of his pro- tection, until the very moment when it was wanted. It was idle, however, to dwell on the conduct or free agency of a man who, it was notorious, had no will of his own. What Mr Middleton asserted at that bar would scarcely be put in competition with a series of established facts ; by which it ap- peared, that the Nabob had submitted to every indignity, and yielded to every assumption. It was an acknowledged fact, that he had even been brought to join in that paltry artifice which had been termed the subornation of letters. This practice was carried to such a length, that he in the end complained, in a manner rather ludicrous, that he was really tired of sending different characters of Mr Bristow, in pursuance of the directions sent to the resident. He had pronounced black white and white black so often, that he really knew not what to say ; and, therefore, begged that, once for all, the friends of Mr Hastings might be considered as his, and that their enemies might also be the same. After this, it was superfluous to argue that the Nabob could direct his views to so important an object as tire seizing of the treasures, unless he had been impelled by Mr Middleton, and authorised by Mr Hastings ! ” [The Court then adjourned till June 10th, on which day Mr Sheridan pointed out the inconsistency of the affidavits taken before Sir Elijah Impey, and produced as evidence of the treason of the Begums, and the perjury committed by Sir Elijah himself; and with great talent summed up the evi- dence, proving that the Nabob was merely an involuntary agent in the seizure of the treasures of the Begums, and the resumption of the Jaghires. HI CHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 151 In consequence of Mr Sheridan being taken suddenly ill, the Court ad- journed till the 13th, when Mr Sheridan concluded his address.] “Mr Sheridan began by apologising for the interruption which his indisposi- tion had caused on the former day. He assured their lordships, in the strongest terms, that nothing but the importance of the cause, to which he felt himself totally unable to do justice, could have made him trespass on that indulgence which, on other occasions, he had so amply experienced. “He had, then, concluded with submitting to their lordships the whole of the correspondence, as far as it could be obtained, between the principals and agents, in the nefarious plot carried on against the Nabob vizier and the Begums of Oude. These letters were worthy the most abstracted attention of their lordships, as containing not only a narrative of that foul and unmanly conspiracy, but also a detail of the motives and ends for which it was formed, and an exposition of the trick, the quibble, the prevarication, and the untruth with which it was then acted, and now attempted to be defended ! The question would undoubtedly suggest itself, why the correspondence ever was produced by the parties against whom it was now adduced in evidence, and who had so much reason to distrust the propriety of their own conduct ? To this the answer was, that it was owing to a mutual and providential re- sentment which had broken out between the parties, which was generally the case between persons concerned in such transactions. Mr Middleton was incensed, and felt as a galling triumph the confidence reposed by the Governor-general in other agents. Mr Hastings was offended by the tardy wariness which marked the conduct of Middleton ; by the various remon- strances by the agent — though, as knowing the man to whom they were addressed, they were all grounded on motives of policy — not of humanity — and of expediency, which left justice entirely out of the question ; but the great ostensible ground of quarrel was, that Middleton had dared to spend two days in negotiation — though that delay had prevented the general massacre of upwards of two thousand persons ! The real cause, however, of this difference, was a firm belief on the part of Mr Hastings, that Mr Middleton had inverted their different situations, and kept the lion's share of plunder to himself. There were, undoubtedly, some circumstances to justify this sus- picion. At the time when Mr Hastings had first complained, the Nabob’s treasury was empty, and his troops so mutinous for their pay as even to threaten his life ; yet in this moment of gratitude and opulence, Middleton intimated the Nabob’s desire to make Mr Hastings a present of £100,000. That sacrifice, however, not being deemed sufficient, Mr Middleton was re- called, and Major Palmer was sent in his room with instructions to tell the Nabob that such a donation was not to be attempted : the prince, however, with an unfortunate want of recollection, said, that ‘ no such offer had ever been in his mind.’ Thus, it had always been considered as the heightening of a favour bestowed, that the receiver should not know from what quarter it came ; but it was reserved for Mr Middleton to improve on this by such a delicate refinement, that the person giving should be totally ignorant of the favour he conferred ! 1.52 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ But, notwithstanding these little differences and suspicions, Mr Hastings and Mr Middleton, on the return of the latter to Calcutta in October, 1782, continued to live in the same style of friendly collusion and fraudulent familiarity as ever. But when Mr Bristow,* not answering the purposes of Mr Hastings, was accused on the suborned letters procured from the Nabob, one of which pronounced him the blackest character in existence, while another, of the same date, spoke of him as a very honest fellow, Mr Hastings thought it might appear particular ; and therefore, after their intimacy of six months, accuses Mr Middleton also before the board at Calcutta. It was then that, in the rash eagerness which distinguished his pursuit of every object, Mr Hastings had incautiously, but happily for the present purposes of justice, brought forth these secret letters. It mattered not what were the views which induced Mr Hastings to bring that charge ; whether he had drawn up the accusation, or obliged Mr Middleton with his aid in framing a defence ; the whole ended in a repartee, and a poetical quotation from the Governor-general. The only circumstance material to the purposes of humanity, was the production of instruments by which those who had violated every principle of justice and benevolence were to see their guilt explained, and, it was to be hoped, to experience that punishment which they deserved. “ To those private letters it was that their lordships were to look for whatever elucidation of the subject could be drawn from the parties con- cerned. Written in the moments of confidence, they declared the real mo- tive and object of each measure ; the public letters were only to be re- garded as proofs of guilt, whenever they established a contradiction. The counsel for the prisoner had chosen, as the safest ground, to rely on the public letters, written for the concealment of fraud and purpose of decep- tion. They had, for instance, particularly dwelt on a public letter from Mr Middleton, dated in December, 1781, which intimated some particulars of supposed contumacy in the Begums, with a view to countenance the transactions which shortly after took place, and particularly the resumption of the jaghires. But this letter, both Sir Elijah Impey and Mr Middleton had admitted, in their examination at that bar, to be totally false ; though if it were in every point true, the apprehension of resistance to a mea- sure, could not, by any means, be made a ground for the enforcement of that measure in the first instance. The counsel seemed displeased with Mr Middleton for the answer, and therefore repeated the question. The witness, however, did not really fall into their humour ; for he declared, that he did not recollect a particle of the letter ; and, though memory was un- doubtedly not the forte of Mr Middleton, he was not, perhaps, entirely faulty on this occasion, as the letter was, certainly, of a later fabrication, and, perhaps, not from his hand. This letter, however, was also in direct contradiction to every one of the defences set up by Mr Hastings. Another * Mr Middleton’s successor. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 153 public letter, which had been equally dwelt on, spoke of the ‘ determination of the Nabob ’ to resume the jaghires. It had appeared in evidence, that the Nabob could, by no means, be compelled to yield to their measures ; that it was not until Mr Middleton had actually issued his own perwannas for the collection of the rents, that the Nabob, rather than be brought to the utmost state of degradation, agreed to let the measure be brought forward as his own act ! The resistance of the Begums to that measure, was noticed in the same letter, as an instance of female levity, as if their defence of the property assigned for their subsistence, was to be made a reproach ; or, that they de- served a reproof for female lightness, by entertaining a feminine objection to their being starved ! “ This resistance to the measure, which was expected, and the consoling slaughter on which Mr Hastings relied, were looked to in all those letters as a justification of the measure itself. There was not the smallest mention of the anterior rebellion, which, by prudent afterthought, had been so greatly magnified. There was not a syllable of those dangerous machinations which were to have dethroned the Nabob ; of those sanguinary artifices by which the English were to have been extirpated. Not a particle concerning those practices was mentioned in any of Middleton’s letters to Hastings, or in the still more confidential communication which he maintained with Sir Elijah Impey ; though, after the latter, his letters were continually posting, even when the chief justice was travelling round the country in search of affida- vits. When, on the 28th of November, he was busied at Lucknow on that honourable business, and when, three days after he was found at Chunar, at the distance of two hundred miles, prompting his instruments, and, like Hamlet’s ghost, exclaiming, ‘ Swear ! ’ — his progress on that occasion was so whimsically sudden, when contrasted with the gravity of his employer, that an observer would be tempted to quote again from the same scene, * ‘ Ha ! old Truepenny, canst thou mole so fast i’ the ground ? ’ Here, however, the comparison ceased; for when Sir Elijah made his visit to Lucknow, ‘to whet the almost blunted purpose ’ of the Nabob, his language was wholly different from that of the poet : it would have been much against his pur- pose to have said, “ ‘ Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against tliy mother aught ! ’ “ On the subject of those affidavits, he would only make another single ob- servation. Sir Elijah Impey had denied all acquaintance with their contents, though he had been actually accompanied to Buxar by Major Davy, who there translated them from the Persian, for the use of Mr Hastings If There was amongst them an affidavit, taken in English, from a native at Buxar, * Act i., sc. 5. The line in Shakspere is, “ Well said, old Mole ! canst work i' the earth so fast ? ” t Major Davy had also, by an affidavit sworn before Sir Elijah Impey himself tes- tified to the correctness of his translation. 154 THE MODERN ORATOR. but which was first explained to the deponent by Major Davy, in the pre- sence of Sir Elijah Impey. How far, therefore, the assertion of the chief justice was plausible, and how far this fact was consistent with that asser- tion, he should leave it to their lordships to determine. “ It was in some degree observable, that not one of the private letters of Mr Hastings had been produced at any time. Even Middleton, when all confidence was broken between them by the production of his private corre- spondence at Calcutta, either feeling for his own safety, or sunk under the fascinating influence of his master, did not dare attempt a retaliation ! The letters of Middleton, however, were sufficient to prove the situation of the Nabob, when pressed to the measure of resuming the jaghires, in which he had been represented as acting wholly from himself. He was there described as lost in sullen melancholy, with feelings agitated beyond expression, and with every mark of agonised sensibility. To such a degree was this apparent, that even Middleton was moved to interfere for a temporary respite, in which he might be more reconciled to the measure. ‘ I am fully of opinion,’ said he, ‘ that the despair of the Nabob must impel him to violence ; I know also that the violence must be fatal to himself ; but yet I think, that with his present feelings he will disregard all consequences.’ Mr Johnson, also, the assistant-resident, wrote at the same time to Mr Hastings, to aver to him that the measure was dangerous, that it would require a total reform of the collection, which could not be made without a campaign ! This was British justice! this was British humanity ! Mr Hastings ensures to the allies of the Company, in the strongest terms, their prosperity and his protection ; the former he secures by sending an army to plunder them of their wealth, and to desolate their soil ! His protection is fraught with a similar security, like that of a vulture to a lamb ; grappling in its vitals ! thirsting for its blood ! scaring off each petty kite that hovers round ; and then, with an in- sulting perversion of terms, calling sacrifice protection ! — an object for which history seeks for any similarity in vain. The deep-searching annals of Tacitus — the luminous philosophy of Gibbon — all the records of man’s transgressing, from original sin to the present period, dwindle into compa- rative insignificance of enormity, both in aggravation of vile principles, and extent of their consequential ruin ! The victims of this oppression w r ere confessedly destitute of all power to resist their oppressors ; but that de- bility, which from other bosoms would have claimed some compassion, with respect to the mode of suffering, here excited but the ingenuity of torture ! Even when every feeling of the Nabob was subdued, nature made a lingering, feeble stand within his bosom ; but, even then, that cold unfeeling spirit of magnanimity, with whom his doom was fixed, returned with double acrimony to its purpose, and compelled him to inflict on a parent that destruction of which he was himself reserved but to be the last victim ! “Yet, when cruelty seemed to have reached its bounds, and guilt to have ascended to its climax, there was something in the character of Mr Hastings which seemed to transcend the latter, and overleap the former ; atid of this RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 155 kind was the letter to the Nabob which was despatched on this occasion. To rebuke Mr Middleton for his moderation, as was instantly done, was easily performed through the medium of a public and a private letter. But to write to the Nabob in such a manner that the command might be con- veyed, and yet the letter afterwards shown to the world, was a task of more difficulty, but which it appeared, by the event, was admirably suited to the genius of Mr Hastings. His letter was dated the 15th of February, 1782, though the jaghires had been then actually seized, and it was in proof that it had been sent at a much earlier period. He there assured the Nabob of his coincidence with his wishes respecting the resumption of the jaghires : he declares, that if he found any difficulty in the measure, he, Mr Hastings, would go to his assistance in person, and lend his aid to punish those who opposed it ; ‘ for that nothing could be more ardent than his friendship, or more eager than his zeal for his welfare.’ The most desperate intention was clothed in the mildest language. But the Nabob knew, by sad experience, the character with whom he had to deal, and therefore was not to be de- ceived ; he saw the dagger glistening in the hand which was treacherously extended, as if to his assistance, and from that moment the last faint ray of nature expired in his bosom. Mr Middleton, from that time, extended his iron sceptre without resistance ; the jaghires were seized — every measure was carried — and the Nabob, with his feelings lacerated and his dignity de- graded, was no longer considered as an object of regard. Though these were circumstances exasperating to the human heart, which felt the smallest remains of sensibility, yet it was necessary, in idea, to review the whole from the time that this treachery was first, conceived, to that when, by a series of artifices the most execrable, it was brought to a completion. Mr Hastings would there be seen standing aloof indeed, but not inactive in the war ! He would be discovered in reviewing his agents, rebuking at one time the pale conscience of Mr Middleton, and, at another, relying on the stouter villany of Hyder Beg Khan.* With all the calmness of veteran delinquency, his eye ranged through the busy prospect, piercing through the darkness of subordinate guilt, and arranging with congenial adroitness the tools of his crimes, and the instruments of his cruelty. “ The feelings of the several parties at the time would be most properly judged of by their respective correspondence. When the Bow Begum, de- spairing of redress from the Nabob, addressed herself to Mr Middleton, and reminded him of the guarantee which he had signed, she was instantly pro- mised that the amount of her jaghire should be made good ; though Mr Middleton said he could not interfere with the sovereign decision of the Nabob respecting the lands. The deluded and unfortunate woman ‘ thanked God that Mr Middleton was at hand for her relief,’ at the very instant when he was directing every effort to her destruction ; when he had actually writ- ten the orders which were to take the collection out of the hands of her * The minister of the Nabob, but under the control of Mr Hastings. 156 THE MODERN ORATOR. agents ! Even when the Begum was undeceived, — when she found that British faith was no protection, — when she found that she should leave the country, and prayed to the God of nations not to grant his peace to those who remained behind, still there was no charge of rebellion , — no recrimination made to all her reproaches for the broken faith of the English ; nay, when stung to madness, she asked ‘ how long would be their reign ?’ No men- tion of her disaffection was brought forward ; the stress was therefore idle, which the counsel for the prisoner strove to lay on these expressions of an injured and enraged woman. When at last irritated beyond bearing, she denounced infamy on the heads of her oppressors, who was there who would not say that she spoke in a 'prophetic spirit, and that what she had then pre- dicted, had not, even to its last letter, been accomplished ! But did Mr Mid- dleton, even to this violence, retort any particle of accusation ? No ; he sent a jocose reply stating, that he had received such a letter under her seal, but that, from its contents, he could not suspect it to come from her ; and hoping, therefore, that she might detect the forgery ! Thus did he add to foul inju- ries the vile aggravation of a brutal jest ; like the tiger that prowls over the scene where his ravages were committed, he showed the savageness of his nature by grinning over his prey, and fawning over the last agonies of his unfortunate victim. “ Those letters were then enclosed to the Nabob, who, no more than the rest, made any attempt to justify himself by imputing criminality to the Begums. He merely sighed a hope that his conduct to his parents had drawn no shame upon his head ; and declared his intention to punish — not any disaffection in the Begum — but some officious servants who had dared to foment the mis- understanding between them and the Nabob. A letter was finally sent to Mr Hastings, about six days before the seizure of the treasure from the Begums, declaring their innocence, and referring the Governor-general to Captain Gordon, whose life they had protected, and whose safety should have been their justification. That inquiry was never made ; it was looked on as unnecessary ; because the conviction of their innocence was too deeply impressed. The counsel, in recommending attention to the public in preference to the private letters, had remarked, in particular, that one letter should not be taken as evidence, because it was manifestly and abstractedly private, as it contained in one part the anxieties of Mr Middleton for the illness of his son. This was a singular argument indeed; and the circumstance, in his mind, merited strict observation, though not in the view in which it was placed by the counsel. It went to show that some, at least, of those con- cerned in these transactions, felt the force of those ties which their efforts were directed to tear asunder ; that those who could ridicule the respective attachment of a mother and a son ; who would prohibit the reverence of the son to the mother who had given him life ; who could deny to maternal debility the protection which filial tenderness should afford — were yet sen- sible of the straining of those chords by which they were connected. There ■RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 157 was something connected with this transaction so wretchedly horrible, and so vilely loathsome, as to excite the most contemptible disgust. When I see (said Mr Sheridan) in many of these letters the infirmities of age made a subject of mockery and ridicule ; when I see the feelings of a son treated by Mr Middle- ton as puerile and contemptible ; when I see an order given from Mr Hastings to harden that son’s heart, and to choke the struggles of nature in his bosom ; when I see them pointing to the son’s name and to his standard, while march- ing to oppress the mother, as to a banner that gives dignity, that gives a holy sanction and a reverence to their enterprise ; when I see and hear these things done ; when I hear them brought into three deliberate defences set up against the charges of the Commons, my lords, I own I grow puzzled and confounded, and almost begin to doubt whether, where such a defence can be offered, it may not be tolerated. And yet, my lords, how can I support the claim of filial love by argument ? What can I say on such a subject? What can I do, but repeat the ready truths which, with the quick impulse of the mind, must spring to the lips of every man on such a theme ? Filial piety ! — it is the primal bond of society ; it is that instinctive principle, which, panting for its proper good, soothes, unbidden, each sense and sensi- bility of man ! It now quivers on every lip ! — it now beams from every eye ! — it is an emanation of that gratitude which, softening under the sense of recollected good, is eager to own the vast countless debt it ne’er, alas ! can pay, for so many long years of unceasing solicitudes, honourable self- denials, life-preserving cares ! — it is that part of our practice where duty drops its awe — where reverence refines into love ! It asks no aid of memory ! — it needs not the deductions of reason ! — pre-existing, paramount over all, whether law, or human rule, few arguments can increase and none can diminish it ! — it is the sacrament of our nature — not only the duty, but the indulgence of man — it is his first great privilege — it is amongst his last most endearing delights ! — it causes the bosom to glow with reverberated love ! — it requites the visitations of nature, and returns the blessings that have been received! — it fires emotion into vital principle! — it renders habitua- ted instinct into a master-passion — sways all the sweetest energies of man — hangs over each vicissitude of all that must pass away — aids the melancholy virtues in their last sad tasks of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude and age — explores the thought — elucidates the aching eye — and breathes sweet consolation even in the awful moment of dissolution ! If these are the general sentiments of man, what must be their depravity — what must be their degeneracy — who can blot out and erase from the bosom the virtue that is most deeply rooted in the human heart, and twined within the chords of life itself? Aliens from nature, apostates from humanity ! And yet, if there be a crime more fell, more foul — if there be anything worse than a wilful persecutor of his mother, it is that of a deliberate instigator and abettor to the deed : this it is that shocks, disgusts, and appals the mind more than the other ; to view, not a wilful parricide, but a parricide by compulsion — a miserable wretch, not actuated by the stubborn evils of his own worthless M 158 THE MODERN ORATOR. heart, not driven by the fury of his own distracted brain, but lending his sacrilegious hand, without any malice of his own, to answer the abandoned purposes of the human fiends that have subdued his will ! To condemn crimes like these, we need not talk of laws, or of human rules ; their foul- ness, their deformity, does not depend on local constitutions, on human institutes, or religious creeds ; they are crimes, and the persons w r ho perpe- trate them are monsters, who violate the primitive condition on which the earth was given to man ; they are guilty by the general verdict of human kind. “ The Jaghires being seized (Mr Sheridan proceeded to observe), the Be- gums were left without the smallest share of that pecuniary compensation promised by Mr Middleton ; and as, -when tyranny and injustice take the field, they are always attended by their camp-followers, paltry, pilfering, and petty insult — so, in this instance, the goods taken from them were sold at a mock sale at inferior value. Even gold and jewels, to use the language of the Begums, instantly lost their value when it was known that they came from them! Their ministers w r ere therefore imprisoned to extort the defi- ciency w r hich this fraud had occasioned ; and those mean arts w r ere employed to justify a continuance of cruelty. Yet, these again were little to the frauds of Mr Hastings. After extorting upwards of £600,000, he forbade Mr Mid- dleton to come to a conclusive settlement. He knew that the treasons of our allies in India had their origin solely in the wants of the Company. He could not, therefore, say that the Begums were entirely innocent, until he had con- sulted the general record of crimes — the cash account at Calcutta ! And this prudence of Mr Hastings was fully justified by the event; for there w r as actually found a balance of twenty-six lacks more against the Begums, which £260,000 worth of treason had never been dreamed of before. ‘ Talk not to us,’ said the Governor -general, ‘ of their guilt or innocence, but as it suits the Company’s credit ! We will not try them by the code of Justinian, nor the institutes of Timur ; we will not judge them either by the British laws, or their local customs ! No ! w r e will try them by the multiplication table, we w r ill find them guilty by the rule of three, and we will condemn them according to the sapient and profound institutes of Cocker's Arithmetic.’ 44 Proceeding next to state the distresses of the Begums in the Zenana, and of the women in the Kliord Mahal, Mr Sheridan stated that some obser- vation was due to the remark made by Mr Hastings in his defence, where he declared 4 that whatever w r ere the distresses there, and wiioever was the agent, the measure -was, in his opinion, reconcileable to justice, honour, and sound policy.’ Major Scott, the incomparable agent of Mr Hastings, had declared this passage to have been written by Mr Hastings with his own hand. Mr Middleton, it appeared, had also avownd his share in those humane transactions, and blushingly retired. Mr Hastings then cheered his drooping spirits. 4 Whatever part of the load,’ said he, 4 yours cannot bear, my unburdened character shall assume. I will crown your labours with my irresistible approbation. Thus, twin- warriors, we shall go forth ! you find RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 159 memory, and I'll find character — and assault, repulse, and contumely shall all be set at defiance !’ “ If I could not prove (continued Mr Sheridan) that those acts of Mr Mid- dleton were in reality the acts of Mr Hastings, I should not trouble your lordships by combating these assertions ; but as that part of his criminality can be incontestibly ascertained, I shall unequivocally appeal to the assembled legislators of this realm, and call on them to say, whether those acts were justifiable on the score of policy. I shall appeal to all the august presidents in the courts of British jurisprudence, and to all the learned ornaments of the profession, to decide whether these actions were reconcileable to justice. I shall appeal to a reverend assemblage of prelates, feeling for the general interests of humanity, and for the honour of the religion to which they belong — let them determine in their own minds, whether those acts of Mr Hastings and Mr Middleton were such as a Christian ought to perform, or) a man to avow!” He next detailed the circumstances of the imprisonment of Bahr Ally Khan and Jewar Ally Khan, the ministers of the Nabob, on the grounds above stated ; “was with them confined that arch-rebel , Sumpshire Khan,* by whom every act of hostility that had taken place against the English was stated to have been committed. No inquiry, however, was made concerning his treason, though many had been held respecting the treasure of the others. He was not so far noticed as to be deprived of his food ;f nor was he even complimented with fetters ; and yet, when he is on a future day to be in- formed of the mischiefs he was now stated to have done, he must think that, on being forgotten, he had a very providential escape ! The others were, on the contrary, taken from their milder prison at Fyzabad ; and, when threats could effect nothing, transferred by the meek humanity of Mr Middleton to the fortress of Chunargur. There, where the British flag was flying, they were doomed to deeper dungeons, heavier chains, and severer punishments ; there, where that flag was flying, which was wont to eheer the depressed, and to elate the subdued heart of misery, these venerable but unfortunate men were fated to encounter something lower than perdition, and something blacker than despair ! It appeared from the evidence of Mr Holt and others, that they were both cruelly flogged, though one was about seventy years of age, to extort a confession of the buried wealth of the Begums ! Being charged with disaffection, they proclaimed their innocence. ‘ Tell us where * The Fowzdar, or officer in the service of the Begums at Saunda, on the occasion of Captain Gordon and his detachment arriving there. — See p. 1 40. f The following note from Mr Middleton to Lieutenant Francis Rutledge, dated January 20th, 1782, had been read in evidence : — “ Sir, ‘ ‘ When this note is delivered to you by Hoolas Roy, I have to desire that you order the two prisoners to be put in irons , keeping them from all food, %c., agreeably to my instructions of yesterday. (Signed) “Nath. Middleton.” m 2 160 THE MODERN ORATOR. are the remaining treasures (was the reply) — it is only treachery to your immediate sovereigns — and you will then he fit associates for the repre- sentatives of British faith and British justice in India !’ O Faith ! O Justice ! (exclaimed Mr Sheridan), I eonjure you, by your sacred names, to depart for a moment from this place, though it be your peculiar residence ; nor hear your names profaned by such a sacrilegious combination as that which I am now compelled to repeat ! — where all the fair forms of nature and art, truth and peace, policy and honour, shrunk back aghast from the delete- rious shade ; where all existences, nefarious and vile, had sway ; where, amidst the black agents on one side, and Middleton with Impey on the other, the toughest head, the most unfeeling heart — the great figure of the piece, characteristic in his place, stood aloof and independent from the puny pro- fligacy in his train ! — but far from idle and inactive, turning a malignant eye on all mischief that awaited him ! — the multiplied apparatus of temporising expedients, and intimidating instruments ! now' cringing on his prey and fawning on his vengeance ! now' quickening the limpid pace of craft, and forcing every stand that retiring nature can make in the heart ! violating the attachments and the decorums of life ! sacrificing every emotion of tenderness and honour ! and flagitiously levelling all the distinctions of national charac- teristics ! w r ith a long catalogue of crimes and aggravations beyond the reach of thought for human malignity to perpetrate, or human vengeance to punish ! “ It might have been hoped, for the honour of the human heart, that the Begums had been themselves exempted from a share in these sufferings ; and that they had been w r ounded only through the sides of their ministers. The reverse of this, however, was the fact. Their palace was surrounded by a guard, w'hich was withdrawn by Major Gilpin, to avoid the growing resent- ments of the people, and replaced by Mr Middleton, through his fears from that ‘dreadful responsibility’ which was imposed on him by Mr Hastings. The women of the Khord Mahal, w r ho had not been involved in the Begums’ supposed crimes ; wdio had raised no sub-rebellion of their own ; and who, it had been proved, lived in a distinct dwelling, were causelessly involved in the same punishment ; their residence surrounded with guards, they were driven to despair by famine, and, when they poured forth in sad procession, were driven back by the soldiery, and beaten wdth bludgeons to the scene of madness wdiich they had quitted. These w'ere acts (Mr Sheridan observed) which, when told, need no comment ; he should not offer a single syllable to aw'aken their lordships’ feelings ; but leave it to the facts which had been proved, to make their own impressions. “ The argument now r reverted solely to this point, whether Mr Hastings was to be answerable for the crimes committed by his agent ? It had been fully proved that Mr Middleton had signed the treaty with the superior Be- gum in October, 1778. He had acknowledged signing some others of other dates, but could not recollect his authority. These treaties had been fully recognised by Mr Hastings, as w r as fully proved by the evidence of Mr Pur- ling, in the year 1780. In that of October, 1778, the Jaghire w'as secured RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 161 which was allotted for the support of the women in the Khord Mahal : on the first idea of resuming these Jaghires a provision should have been secured to those unfortunate women ; and in this respect Mr Hastings was clearly guilty of a crime, by his omission of making such provision. But still he pleaded, that he was not accountable for the cruelties which had been exer- cised. This was the plea which Tyranny, aided by its prime minister Treach- ery, was always sure to set up. Mr Middleton had attempted to strengthen this plea by endeavouring to claim the whole infamy of those transactions, and to monopolise the guilt ! He dared even to aver that he had been con- demned by Mr Hastings for the ignominious part he had acted : he dared to avow this, because Mr Hastings was on his trial, and he thought Jie should never be tried ; but in the face of the court, and before he left the bar, he was compelled to confess that it was for the lenience, not the severity, of his proceedings, that he had been reproved by Mr Hastings. “ It would not, he trusted, be argued, that because Mr Hastings had not marked every passing shade of guilt, and because he had only given the bold outline of cruelty, that he was therefore to be acquitted. It was laid down by the law of England — that law which was the perfection of reason — that a person ordering an act to be done by his agent, was answerable for that act with all its consequences. Middleton had been appointed, in 1777, the avowed and private agent — the second-self of Mr Hastings. The Governor- general had ordered the measure :* Middleton declared that it could not have been effected by milder means. Even if he never saw, nor heard after- wards of the consequences of the measure, he was answerable for every pang that was inflicted, and for all the blood that was shed. But he had heard, and that instantly, of the whole. He had written to arraign Middleton of for- bearance and of neglect ! He commanded them to work upon their hopes and fears, and to leave no means untried, until — to speak their own language, but which would be better suited to the banditti of a cavern — ‘ they obtained possession of the secret hoards of the old ladies.’ He would not allow even of a delay of two days to smooth the compelled approaches of a son to his mother, on such an occasion ! His orders were peremptory ; and if a massacre did not take place, it was the merit of accident, and not of Mr Hastings. After this, would it be said that the prisoner was ignorant of the acts, or not culpable for their consequences ? It was true, he had not enjoined in so many words the guards, the famine, and the bludgeons ; he had not weighed the fetters, nor numbered the lashes to be inflicted on his victims. But yet he was equally guilty, as if he had borne an active and personal share in each transaction. It was as if he had commanded that the heart should be torn from the bosom, and yet had enjoined that no blood should follow. He was in the same degree accountable to the law, to his country, to his conscience, and to his God ! * The verbatim orders to Middleton by Mr Hastings were : “ You yourself must be personally present, you must not allow any negotiation or forbearance ; but must prose- cute both services (namely, the seizure of the treasures and the resumption of the Jaghires), until the Begums are at the entire mercy of the Nabob.” 162 THE MODEM ORATOR. “ Mr Hastings had endeavoured also to ged rid of a part of his guilt, by observing that he was but one of the Supreme Council, and that all the rest had sanctioned those transactions with their approbation. If Mr Hastings could prove, however, that others participated in the guilt, it would not tend to diminish his own criminality. But the fact was, that the Council had in nothing erred so much as in a criminal credulity given to the declarations of the Governor-general. They knew not a word of those transactions until they were finally concluded. It was not until the J anuary following that they saw the mass of falsehood which had been published under the title of ‘ Mr Hastings’s Narrative.’ They had been then unaccountably duped into the suffering a letter to pass, dated the 29th of November, intended to deceive the Directors into a belief that they had received intelligence at that time, which was not the fact. These observations (Mr Sheridan said) were not meant to cast any obloquy on the Council ; they had undoubtedly been deceived, and the deceit practised on them by making them sign the Narra- tive, was of itself a strong accusation of Mr Hastings, and a decided proof of his own consciousness of guilt. When tired of corporeal infliction, his tyranny was gratified by insulting the understanding. Other tyrants, though born to greatness, such as a Nero, or a Caligula, might have been roused, it had been supposed, by reflection, and awakened into contrition ; but here was an instance which spurned at theory and baffled supposition ; a man born to a state at least of equality, inured to calculation, and brought up in habits of reflection ; and yet proving in the end that monster in nature, a deliberate and reasoning tyrant. “ The Board of Directors received those advices which Mr Hastings thought proper to transmit ; but, though unfurnished with any other materials to form their judgments, they expressed very strongly their doubts, and as properly ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of the alleged disaffection of the Begums ; pronouncing it, at the same time, a debt which was due to the honour and justice of the British nation. This inquiry, how- ever, on the directions reaching India, Mr Hastings thought it absolutely necessary to elude. He stated to the Council, it being merely stated that ‘ if on inquiry certain facts appeared,’ no inquiry was thereby directly en- joined ! ‘ It w r ould revive (said he) those animosities that subsisted between the Begums and the vizier, which had then subsided. If the former were inclined to appeal to a foreign jurisdiction, they were the best judges of their own feeling, and should be left to make their own complaint.’ All this, however, was nothing to the magnificent paragraph which concluded this minute, and to which Mr Sheridan also requested the attention of the court. ‘ Beside, (said Mr Hastings) I hope it will not be a departure from official language to say, that the majesty of justice ought not to be ap- proached without solicitation ; she ought not to descend to inflame or provoke, but to withhold her judgment until she is called on to determine !’ What is still more astonishing is, that Sir John Macpherson (who, though a gentleman of sense and honour, yet rather oriental in his imagination, and RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 163 not learned in the sublime and beautiful, formed the immortal leader of this prosecution, and who had before opposed Mr Hastings) was caught by this bold bombastic quibble, and joined in the same words, ‘ that the majesty of justice ought not to be approached without solicitation.’ “ Hut justice is not this halt and miserable object (continued Mr Sheridan) ; it is not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod ; it is not the portentous phantom of despair ; it is not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse of reason, and found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay ! No, my lords ! “ In the happy reverse of all these, I turn from this disgusting caricature to the real image ! Justice I have now before me, august and pure — the abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the spirits and the aspirings of men ; where the mind rises, where the heart expands ; where the counte- nance is ever placid and benign ; where her favourite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate — to hear their cry, and to help them — to rescue and relieve, to succour and save : majestic from its mercy ; venerable from its utility ; uplifted, without pride ; firm, without obduracy ; beneficent in each prefer- ence ; lovely, though in her frown ! “ On that justice I rely ; deliberate and sure, abstracted from all party pur- pose and political speculation ; not in words, but in facts ! You, my lords, who hear me, I conjure by those rights it is your best privilege to preserve ; by that fame it is your best pleasure to inherit ; by all those feelings which refer to the first term in the series of existence, the original compact of our nature, our controlling rank in the creation. This is the call on all to ad- minister to truth and equity, as they would satisfy the laws and satisfy them- selves, with the most exalted bliss possible, or conceivable for our nature ; the self- approving consciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we look for will be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world ! “ My lords, I have done.” On the conclusion of Mr Sheridan’s speech, the court adjourned to the next session of Parliament. Speech in reply to Lord Mornington, on moving the address to the King, after the speech from the throne, on the opening of Parliament, 21st Jan- uary, 1794, in which his Majesty urged upon Parliament the necessity of vigorously prosecuting the war against France, which had been declared shortly after the execution of Louis XYI. “Mr Sheridan began with observing, that the noble lord who had just sat down, had divided a speech, more remarkable for its ability than its brevity, into two parts : the first, a detail of all the atrocities that had been committed during the whole course of the revolution in France ; the second, 164 THE MODERN ORATOR. a kind of posthumous arraignment of the offences of Erissot * and his asso- ciates. As he did not perceive any noble or learned member inclined to rise on behalf of the accused, so he conceived the pleadings on the part of the prosecution to be closed ; and, as the Speaker was evidently not proceeding to sum up the evidence, he hoped he might be permitted to recall the atten- tion of the House to the real object of that day’s consideration. He admired the emphasis of the noble lord in reading his voluminous extracts from his various French documents ; he admired, too, the ingenuity he had displayed in his observations upon those extracts ; but he could not help further ex- pressing his admiration, that the noble lord should have thought proper to have taken up so many hours in quoting passages in which not one word in ten was to the purpose ; and often, where they did apply to the question, they directly overset the principles they were brought forward to support. “ The noble lord’s purpose was to prove that France had begun the war with Great Britain ; this, he appeared to think, he had established the moment he had shown that Brissot and others had promulgated in print a great many foolish and a great many wicked general principles, mischievous to all established governments ; and this, indeed, had been the only way in which any one had ever endeavoured to fix the act of hostile aggression upon France. No part of the King’s speech, it seems, more fully met the noble lord’s approbation than that in which he had warned us to keep in sight the real grounds and origin of the present war.f For his part, he knew not how * The leader of the Girondists, the middle party in the revolution between the Con- stitutionalists and the Jacobins. He was executed during the reign of terror, together with twenty more of his party — 1793. f The conduct of ministers, previous to the declaration of war, had been throughout most guarded and pacific towards France ; but the aggressions of the latter country, under the direction of its revolutionary leaders, were such that war at length became inevitable on the part of this country. The decree of tfie National Convention, in the name of the French nation, on the 19th November, 1792, “that they would grant fra- ternity to all those people who wished to procure liberty ,” might, of itself, have been construed into a declaration of war against all Europe. But, even on the incorporation of Savoy with France, the declaration of the independence of Belgium, and the opening of the Scheldt, although preparations were made to support her allies, England care- fully maintained a strict neutrality. Conferences were held between the representatives of the two countries, with a view to secure peace ; but, as the acts of the French go- vernment were not reconcileable with their professions, warlike preparations still con- tinued ; and, as a proof of the real feelings of the French government towards this country, it may be mentioned, that, at the very time the French minister expressed a desire for peace, and respect for the independence of England, a circular letter was sent by Monge, the Minister of Marine, to all the French sea-ports, addressed to “ all friends of liberty,” in which occurred the following passage (quoted, amongst others, by Mr Pitt, in the House of Commons) : — ■“ The King and his Parliament mean to make war against us : will the English republicans suffer it ? Already these freemen show their discontent, and the repugnance which they have to bear arms against their brothers the French. Well, we will fly to their assistance ; we will make a descent on that island ; we will hurl thither 50,000 caps of liberty ; we will plant there RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 1G5 to obey the call, for he knew not how to keep in sight that which had never yet been in his view. The real grounds of the war had never yet been ex- plained, either to that House or to the nation, but shifting clouds had veiled them from the public eye. The noble lord, however, appears to have under- stood his Majesty’s allusion ; he recollects the real grounds upon which the war was, in point of fact, undertaken ; that is, he knows the means by which we had been brought into this war : we had been brought into it by repeated declamations on all that the frenzy, folly, and rashness of individuals in France had either said or written, by which the passions of this country had been roused, or their fears excited, in order to second the views of those who had determined to plunge us into it at all events ; therefore the noble lord, consistently enough, imagined that a repetition of the same means which induced us to commence hostilities, was the best method of persuading us to continue them. Hence all this passionate declamation, hence this labo- rious farrago of extracts and anecdotes— of extracts from a book which the noble lord allowed every one to have read ; and anecdotes, of which no man who saw the newspapers could be ignorant. But what was the sum of all that he had told the House ? that great and dreadful enormities, at which the heart shuddered, and which not merely wounded every feeling of hu- manity, but disgusted and sickened the soul, had been committed. All this was most true ; but what did all this prove ? What, but that eternal and unalterable truth which had always presented itself to his mind, in whatever way he had viewed the subject, namely, that a long-established despotism so far degraded and debased human nature, as to render its subjects, on the first recovery of their rights, unfit for the exercise of them ; but never had he, or would he, meet but with reprobation, that mode of argument which went, in fact, to establish, as an inference from this truth, that those who had been long slaves ought, therefore, to remain so for ever ! No ; the lesson ought to be, he would again repeat, a tenfold horror of that de- spotic form of government which had so profaned and changed the nature of civilised man, and a still more jealous apprehension of any system tending to withhold the rights and liberties of our fellow-creatures. Such a form of government might be considered as twice cursed ; while it existed, it was solely responsible for the miseries and calamities of its subjects ; and, should a day of retribution come, and the tyranny be destroyed, it was equally to be charged with all the enormities which the folly or frenzy of those who over- turned it should commit. “ But the madness of the French people was not confined to their pro- ceedings within their own country ; we, and all the powers of Europe, had the sacred tree, and stretch out our arms to our brother republicans ; the tyranny of their government shall soon be destroyed.” The precautions adopted by the English government were fully justified by the event ; for, within a few days after the execution of Louis XVI., the National Con- vention, finding their plans ripe for execution, threw off the mask, and formally de- clared war against the King of Great Britain, on 1st February, 1793. THE MODERN ORATOR. 106 to dread it. True ; but was this also to be accounted for ? Wild and un- settled as their state of mind necessarily was upon the events which had thrown such power so suddenly into their hands, the surrounding states had goaded them into a still more savage state of madness, fury, and desperation. We had unsettled their reason and then reviled their insanity; we drove them to the extremities that produced the evils we arraigned ; we baited them like wild beasts, until at length we made them so. The conspiracy of Pilnitz,* and the brutal threats of the royal abettors of that plot, against the rights of nations and of men, had, in truth, to answer for all the additional misery, horrors, and iniquity, which had since disgraced and incensed hu- manity. Such has been your conduct towards France, that you have created the passions which you persecute. You mark a nation to be cut off from the world ; you covenant for their extermination ; you swear to hunt them in their inmost recesses ; you load them with every species of execration ; and you now come forth, with whining declamations, on the horror of their turning upon you with the fury which you inspired. “ Sir, I should think it sufficient to answer thus generally to all the pathetic appeals to the passions, so constantly resorted to on this subject ; but the noble lord, I am ready to admit, has, on the present occasion, endea- voured to ground more of argument, in one point of view, on the inflammatory passages and anecdotes he has quoted, than has been usual with those who have most practised this mode of treating the subject. I cannot, however, agree with the noble lord, that he has omitted any advantage to his case for the sake of saving our time. In going over the pamphlet of Brissot, he tells us, rather whimsically, that he passes over this passage, and runs over that, when all the while he specifically details what he declares he will scarcely touch upon. In fact, he has passed over nothing but the question ; and now, mark the purpose of all this ; observe the important conclusion for which, he says himself, he has dwelt so long on these facts, and I admit it to be a great and a serious one. Laying aside all question of aggression on the part of France, or of necessity, on our part, to enter into the war — all this is done, it seems, to show the House that the system now adopted by the government of that country, is so abhorrent to the feelings of human nature — so contrary to the instinctive love of harmony and of social order implanted * What Sheridan here calls the “ conspiracy,” was the celebrated convention of Pilnitz, between the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, in 1791 ; the object of which was declared to be, to check the spread of revolutionary principles, and “ to employ their forces jointly, in the most efficacious manner, to place the King of France in a situation to secure, in its most perfect liberty, the basis of a monarchical govern- ment, equally agreeable to the right of sovereigns and the prosperity of the French nation.” The language employed by Sheridan, clearly shows him to have been unfairly pre- judiced by party feeling. The interference of the foreign powers, though in the event it turned out unfortunate, was undeserving of such harsh reproach, caused, as it was, by reasonable fears of the spread of principles destructive of all government and reli- gion, and by sympathy for the degraded position of the French king. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 167 in tlic heart of man — so ruinous to external force, as well as to internal peace, prosperity, and happiness, that it cannot stand. This is the conclusion which the noble lord wishes to draw from all the facts and opinions that he has detailed. I close with him. I will admit his facts. I will admit that the system now prevalent in France is all that he has called it : and what ought to be our conclusion with respect to such a government ? What, but that we ought to leave to the natural workings of the discords which it is calculated to engender, the task of its overthrow ; that if it will not stand of itself, it is not necessary for us to attack it. Without disputing any of his premises, for the present, I will grant the noble lord, not only his principle, but the foundation upon which he builds it. I agree with him, that it is contrary to the eternal and unalterable laws of nature, and to the decrees of the Maker of man and of nations, that a government founded on and main- tained by injustice, rapine, murder, and atheism, can have a fixed endurance or a permanent success ; that there are, self-sown in its own bosom, the seeds of its own inevitable dissolution. But if so, whence is our mission to become the destroying angel to guide and hasten the anger of the Deity ? Who calls on us to offer, with more than mortal arrogance, the alliance of a mortal arm to the Omnipotent ? or to snatch the uplifted thunder from his hand, and point our erring aim at the devoted fabric which his original will has fated to fall and crumble in that ruin which it is not in the means of man to accelerate or prevent ? I accede to him the piety of his principle ; let him accede to me the justice of my conclusion ; or let him attend to experience, if not to reason ; and must he not admit, that hitherto all the attempts of his apparently powerful, but certainly presumptuous, crusade of vengeance, have appeared unfavoured by fortune and by Providence ; that they have hitherto had no other effect than to strengthen the powers — to whet the rapacity — to harden the heart — to inflame the fury, and to augment the crimes of that government, and that people, whom we have rashly sworn to subdue, to chastise, and to reform ? “ The noble lord appears to have been aware that the number of passages he has quoted from Brissot’s book, and other publications, must be considered as having no other object than to excite the mirth or inflame the passions of the House, unless he had concluded by drawing some inference from them applicable to the real subject in discussion ; and this, at length, he has con- descended to attempt, by affirming they all tended to prove that France not only must have been the aggressor, and England the attacked party, but that France is still the party desirous of continuing the w r ar. But how have his quotations borne him out ? That Brissot and Robespierre, previous to the experiment on Brabant,*' equally wished to propagate principles of re- * At the commencement of the war between France and the allied powers of Aus- tria and Prussia, and immediately after the celebrated declaration of the convention of Pilnitz, Dumouriez, the French minister, taking advantage of the unsettled state of Brabant and Flanders (which, only two years previously, had been in open rebellion 168 THE MODERN ORATOR. publicanism. in every country in Europe. I will grant to him, if he pleases, the latter endeavoured to effect it by force in Brabant, while the former wished to accomplish it by reason, and the example of prosperity which he hoped France would afford. But what does all this prove, when the noble lord, in the very same breath, is obliged to confess that a short experience made both parties retract their opinion and practice ; and, so far from boast- ing of having provoked a war with England upon such principles, or for such purposes, the strongest reproach that either faction could throw upon the other was, in mutual accusation, of having been the cause of war with the only power in Europe with whom France was eager to continue at peace ? On this head, says the noble lord, ‘ Robespierre imputes it to Brissot, Brissot retorts it upon Robespierre ; the Jacobins charge it upon the Girondists, the Girondists recriminate upon the Jacobins ; the mountain thunders it upon the valley,* and the valley re-echoes it back against the mountain all facts, tending to contradict the assertion which the noble lord professed to establish by them, and making still plainer — what, indeed, the whole conduct of France had made sufficiently manifest at the time — namely, that there was no one party, of whatever description, in that country, which was not earnest to avoid a rupture with this,f nor any party which we may not against the Emperor), determined to assume the offensive, and invade Belgium. The spirit of insurrection existing in that country, and the weakness of the Flemish for- tress, were reckoned as almost ensuring success to the enterprise. Owing, however, to the unwise division of the French army (consisting principally of young troops) into four columns, the expedition ended in total failure. But the victory of the Aus- trians did not last long : within a few months Dumouriez again invaded Belgium, and this time with better success. The battle of Jemappe, in which the French were com- pletely successful, decided the event of the campaign, and Dumouriez entered Brussels in triumph on 13th November, 1792, and the whole of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, with the other Belgian provinces, were subjected to France. Soon afterwards, several pretended deputies from the Belgian people hastened to Paris, and implored the Con- vention to grant them a share of that liberty and equality which was to confer such inestimable blessings on France. Various decrees were issued in consequence; and, after the mockery of a public choice, hurried on in several of the towns by hired Jaco- bins and well-paid patriots, the incorporation of the Austrian Netherlands with the French republic was formally pronounced. In the next campaign, Dumouriez was beaten by the Austrians under the Prince of Saxe Coburg, at Neerwinden, and Belgium placed under the government of the Arch- duke Charles, the Emperor’s brother. But, in 1795, the republican arms again pre- vailed ; and, by the victory at Fleurns, the French a second time became masters of the country. The representatives of Brussels once more repaired to the National Conven- tion of Fiance, to solicit the re-incorporation of the two countries, which was declared on the 1st October, 1795. * The Jacobins, under Robespierre, occupied the upper benches on the left, while the Girondists occupied the right of the assembly. From this circumstance, the Jacobins acquired the name of “ The Mountain,” while those members who belonged to neither party filled the middle space, and were designated the “ Plain, or Marsh.” f As to the honesty of the professions of peace, see note p. 1 64. The real inten- tions of the French government were also evidenced by the following fact, viz., that RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 169 at this moment reasonably believe to be inclined to put an end to hostilities. “ The noble lord, however, thinks he has established a great deal, when he has proved that all parties in the Convention were, at the same time, fond of the system of fraternising, at it is called, or of making proselytes to the general principles of republicanism. It may be so ; but it would not have been uncandid in the noble lord to have dated the origin of this system, and to have marked the provocation to it ; nor unfair to have acknowledged that even this principle also has been since completely abandoned by all parties. If he refers to it as a motive for our entertaining a just jealousy of them, he ought to admit their abandonment of it as a ground for our abandoning that jealousy. If their professing such a doctrine was a provocation to hostility on our part, their retracting it is an opening to reconciliation. From the moment they solemnly disavowed all intention or disposition to interfere in the governments of other nations, why should not we have renounced any intention of interfering in theirs ? But instead of this, what has been our conduct? We continue to remind and reproach the French with their unjust and insolent conduct in respect to Brabant and Genoa ; at the same time we ourselves adopt and act upon the very principles they have abjured, or rather upon principles of still more extravagant insolence and injustice. Who did not reprobate the folly and profligacy of endeavouring to force upon the people of Brabant, French forms, French principles, and French creeds — of dragging them to the tree of liberty, and forcing them to dance round its roots, or to hang upon its branches ! But what has been the conduct of Great Britain, so loud in the condemnation of such tyranny, under the mask of liberty ? What has been her conduct to Genoa — to Switzerland — to Tus- cany — and, as far as she dared, to Denmark and to Sweden ? For her inso - lence has been accompanied by its usual attendant, meanness. Her injustice has been without magnanimity. She wished to embark the world in the confederacy against France, the moment she thought proper to join it. That neutrality, of which she herself boasted but a month before, became instantly a heinous crime in any other state of Europe — and how has she proceeded ? With those that are powerful, and whose assistance would have been impor- on the 10th January, 1793, Dumouriez communicated with Moranda, -who commanded the French army in the Netherlands, in his absence, and directed him to prepare, with all possible secresy, to invade Holland, then in alliance with this country, within twelve days ; yet, only two days after these orders had been given, the Convention passed a decree, directing the council to inform the Biitish government that it was the intention of the republic to maintain peace and fraternity with England, and to respect her independence, as well as that of her allies, so long as they should not attack France. A further instance, also, of the real designs of the French government against this country and its constitution, appeared by the reply of the President of the Convention to a republican address by a deputation of Englishmen, in which he observed, “ that royalty in Europe was in the agonies of death ; that the declaration of right, now placed by the side of thrones, was a fire which in the end would consume them ; and he even hoped that the time was not far distant, when France, England, Scotland, and Ireland — all Europe— all mankind — would form but one peaceful family.’’ 170 THE MODERN ORATOR. tant, she has only expostulated and prevaricated ; but in how little, as well as odious a light, has she appeared, when threatening and insulting those petty states whose least obedience to her tyrannic mandates might bring great peril on themselves, and whose utmost efforts could give but little aid to the allies ? The noble lord has, with a just indignation, execrated the cruel and perfidious conduct of the fraternising French to the Brabanters ; but will he defend the fraternity of the just and magnanimous to these Genoese ? Have we not adopted the very words, as well as spirit, of democratic tyranny ? "We say to the timid, helpless Genoese, ‘You have no right to judge for yourselves ; we know what is best for you ; you must and shall make a common cause with us; you must ? adopt our principles, our views, our hatreds, and our perils ; you must tremble at dangers which do not threaten you, and resent injuries which have never been offered to you ; you must shed your republican blood in the cause of royalty ; in short, you must fra- ternise with us ; you must be our friends, our allies. If you hesitate, we will beat your walls about your ears, slaughter your people, and leave your city in smoking ruins, as an example to other petty states of the magnanimity of the British arms, and of the justice and moderation of British counsels.’ Oh, shame, Sir ! let us never hear these fraternising principles, formerly pro- fessed by France, quoted as a just provocation for attacking her, while we ourselves, with the most shameless inconsistency, are avowing them in every part of Europe, and practising them where we dare. “The noble lord, still pursuing his anecdotes and his argument, that France must have been the aggressor, and that the war was a war of necessity on our part, next retails to us the conduct of Citizen Genet , * her emissary to the United States of America. Here, again, I give the noble lord his facts, and again I declare him to be equally unfortunate in his conclusion. I admit everything as he states it, with respect to Citizen Genet. I agree in con- demning the impolitic outrages he practised against the government of America ; I reprobate the indecent insults he offered to General Washington; I disapprove of his erection of J acobin clubs in that country, his establishing consular tribunals for the judgment of prizes, &c., &c. But why has the noble lord overlooked the event of all these heinous and repeated provoca- tions ? America remains neutral, prosperous, and at peace ; America, with a wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity which we have disdained, thrives at this moment in a state of envied tranquillity, and is hourly clearing the jDaths to unbounded opulence. America has monopolised the commerce and the advantages which we have abandoned. Oh, turn your eyes to her ; view * This French agent had, by his endeavours to introduce the French revolutionary principles, and to rouse the Americans to take an active part in support of their former allies, the French, against the English, fomented an insurrection in the counties of Alleghany and Washington, which was with difficulty suppressed, by the energy and moderation of Washington, who was president at the time. The divisions caused by Genet continued long after his recall, and subsequently formed a cause of complaint by the United States to the French government. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 171 her situation, her happiness, her content ! Observe her trade and her manu- factures adding daily to her general credit, to her private enjoyments, and to her public resources ; her name and government rising above the nations of Europe, with a simple but commanding dignity, which wins at once the respect, the confidence, and the affection of the world. And is America degraded by this conduct and by this condition? Has Washington debased himself by his temper and moderation ? Has he sunk his character, and made himself contemptible in the eyes of the high-spirited statesmen of Europe ? Will the noble lord attempt to prove this ? or will he abandon his instance and his argument ? The conduct of the French, in sending such a missionary as Genet to America, is brought up by him as the strongest proof of the enmity of the French to the peace and existing governments of all nations, and of the necessity of all nations uniting against them ; and the behaviour of Genet himself is stated as an outrage too gross for human pa- tience to submit to ; and yet, the selfish American senate, confiding in the good sense of their fellow-citizens, conscious of never having betrayed their trust, and looking only to the interests of the people they represented, found no cause for war or quarrel in the novelty or madness of French principles ; and mean Washington felt no personal resentment at insults which did not provoke, because they could not degrade him ! “ Such has been the event of two nations viewing the same circum- stances in a different temper and with different sensations. Both had been equally insulted by this new presumptuous republic ; attempts had been equally made to spread the doctrines of that republic in the bosoms of both : both were equally interested in the preservation of the principles of civil order and regular government : yet, owing to the different councils that di- rected these two nations, the Americans are, at this moment, the undismayed, undegraded, and unembarrassed spectators of the savage broils of Europe ; whilst we are engaged in a struggle, as we have been this day distinctly told by our Ministers, not for our glory or prosperity, but for our actual existence as a nation. “ The next part from Brissot’s pamphlet dwelt upon by the noble lord as a further proof that the French had always intended to make war against us, was, that the minister Monge had promised, as early as October, to have thirty ships of the line at sea from Brest, in April, and fifty in July ; but this, it seems, was happily prevented by the vigorous measures of the British ministry ; and if our ministers had not taken the steps they did, the noble lord tells us, by the bye, they would have deserved to have been whipped as schoolboys, or hanged as traitors. And what were the vigorous exertions which these vigilant ministers made? Forsooth, they stopped two corn ships * in the river Thames, destined for France; and this, it seems, totally * Soon after the commencement of the war with France, orders were given to detain all American vessels freighted with corn to that country, paying for them and the freight ; and shortly afterwards an order was issued to seize all American ships carrying 172 THE MODERN ORATOR. defeated the equipment of these fifty ships of the line ! But here let me ask the noble lord how it came to pass, if our ministers had such intelligence as early as October, that no naval preparations were commenced on our part till the month of February? for this fact has been admitted by him in an- other part of his speech ; and the lateness of our equipment has been pleaded by him with another view, forgetting that there cannot be a stronger charge brought against his friends, and that they do indeed deserve to be whipped as schoolboys, or hanged as traitors, if, after receiving intelligence of the French preparations so early as October, they neglected, as in fact they did, all precautions on the part of this country, excepting the notable and power- ful expedient of plundering two neutral sloops of a few sacks of French corn ! “ However, laying aside the merit or demerit of our minister, no proof to the noble lord’s purpose arises out of this threat of the minister Monge. The noble lord himself confesses that no part of the promise was kept ; it was, in fact, a natural gasconade of the French admiralty, at a time we were insult- ing them ; and, that the execution of such an equipment was not attempted,* is much stronger evidence of their not having intended to break with us, than their having made the boast, is of a contrary determination. But it is, unfortunately, the interest of the cause the noble lord is supporting, to refer, on all occasions, to words, rather than to facts. “ The noble lord, still pursuing his authority, Brissot, quotes that author's recommendation to the English of a pamphlet of Condorcet’s,f addressed to our parliamentary reformers ; who encourages us, it seems, to proceed to dis- regard numbers, assuring us (being well informed, doubtless, of our object) that ‘ revolutions must always be the work of the minority. The French revolution was accomplished by the minority !’ Nay, according to Brissot, it was the work of no more than twenty men ! Such is the exertion that arises from the confidence of those who look to spirit and energy alone for success, and not to numbers. If this be true, it certainly is a most ominous thing for the enemies of reform in England ; for if it holds true of necessity, that the minority still prevails in national contests, it must be a consequence that the smaller the minority the more certain must be the success. In what a dreadful situation then must the noble lord be, and all the alarmists ! for never, surely, was the minority so small, so thin in number as the present. provisions and stores to the French colonies, and to compel them to give security to land their cargoes in British or neutral ports. In consequence of this last order more than 600 American vessels were seized in five months. * It appears, however, that on the 13th of January, 1792 (the day after the decree of the Convention, mentioned in note p. 168), an addition of thirty line of battle ships was made to the French navy, though the French had then in commission more ships than were preparing in the British ports. f One of the most distinguished disciples of Voltaire, and in politics a Girondist. However misled, he appears to have been a true philanthropist, and a man of unwearied activity in promoting all such reforms as he thought beneficial. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 173 Conscious, however, that M. Condorcet was mistaken in our object, I am glad to find that we are terrible in proportion as we are few ; I rejoice that the liberality of session, which has thinned our ranks, has only served to make us more formidable. The alarmists will hear this with new apprehen- sions ; they will, no doubt, return to us with a view to diminish our force, and encumber us with their alliance in order to reduce us to insignificance. But what has the nonsense any French pamphleteer may have written, or the notions he may have formed of the views of parties in this country, to do with the question ? or how can it be gravely urged as a proof of the determi- nation of the French people to attack us ? “ The noble lord having gone through this part of his detail, triumphantly asks, whether he has not established his point, and proved the hostile mind of France, and that the object of all her parties was war with England? To which I answer, that he has proved nothing like it, and that two-thirds of the instances he has adduced have a tendency to prove the contrary. But instead of diving, for their purposes, in the random words of their ora- tors, in the more flighty controversies of their party writers, or even in the hasty and incoherent reports of their committees, let us look to acts and facts; let us examine fairly the conduct of Great Britain towards France, and of France towards Great Britain, from the 10th of August* to the declaration of war.” [Here Mr Sheridan enumerated the various circumstances which showed the growing inveteracy of Great Britain from the first outbreak of the revolution to the time of the King’s death; the countenance given to the treaty of Pilnitz, the withdrawal of our minister from Paris, the seizure of French property in neutral vessels, the banishing of French subjects, the violation of the treaty of commerce, and, finally, the dismissal of their ambassador ; all of which he contended had been borne by the French with a submission which nothing but their desire of peace with this country could have produced, amidst the fury and pride which actuated their conduct towards all the rest of Europe.] “ They solicited, they expostulated; they pressed for explanation and ne- gotiation ; and even after their ambassador had been driven from this country they sent a new negotiator ;f nor did the sincerity of their professions for peace with us depend on words alone ; for, to preserve this object, they ac- tually abstained from the invasion of Holland when within their grasp, when their arms appeared irresistible, and success inevitable. Every fact spoke aloud that we forced France into the quarrel. Which party first declaimed, 4 We are at war,’ is a matter of trivial and childish distinction; nor do I, in * The day of the memorable attack on the Tuilleries, in 1792. f On the news of the execution of Louis XYI. arriving in London, M. Chauvelin, the French minister, received notice to quit the British dominions within eight days, as France no longer had any government that could be recognised. After war had been declared, Le Brun, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, in April, 1793, proposed to send M. Maret as plenipotentiary to this country, to negotiate terms of peace ; but the British government took no notice of the proposition. N 174 THE MODERN ORATOR, this place, mean to argue that Great Britain was wrong in so preferring a state of open war against France, and joining in the general confederacy against her ; nay, I will for the present grant that it was a war of sound sense, policy, and justice; but still it was a war of choice on the part of Great Britain ; and from that responsibility the Minister never can, nor shall, dis- engage himself. “ Embarked, however, as we are in the war, it must, no doubt, be a matter of astonishment to many gentlemen to find the advocates of Ministers so eternally and earnestly labouring in proof of France having been the aggres- sor, and of having chosen to make war on us. The prominent point for the present discussion seems rather, under the circumstances, to be, how we shall end the conflict, let who will have begun it ; or, if peace cannot be had, how we shall prosecute the war with vigour and success. But the object of these gentlemen, in recurring to the other ground, is obvious. They will not hear of peace ; they do not wish for it ; and, finding themselves feeble in argument to show that the country ought to be of their opinion, they endea- vour to establish a belief that it is France who does not wish for peace with us ; and this they think they do establish by proving, or rather by asserting, that it was France who provoked the war. If the war commenced in self- defence and necessity on our part, self-defence and necessity must continue it. They would evade the question, whether it is our interest to have peace, by arguing, that it is not in our power : from this delusion it is of the utmost importance that the public mind should be rescued. “ All the professed objects for which we went to war have been obtained : our ally, Holland, is safe ; Brabant is recovered ; the ideas of adding to the extent of their own country, or of interfering in the government of others, but as measures of warfare and retaliation, have been distinctly and unequi- vocally disavowed by the present government of France ; and notwithstand- ing all their lofty boasts and insulting threats, which are, in truth, the mere retorts of passion to our wild declamations against them, there is no question but that they would be ready to treat with us, or with any of the allied powers, to-morrow, simply upon the principle of being left to the exercise of their own will within their own boundaries. Let the experiment be made : if they prefer and persist in war, then I will grant that the noble lord will have some reason to maintain that their minds were always disposed to that measure, and that war could not have been avoided on our part. But till then, I am astonished that the minister who sits near the noble lord does not feel it necessary to his own dignity to oppose, himself, this paltry argument of the act of aggression having come from them, instead of leaving that task to us, to whom, comparatively, the fact is indifferent. When he hears this called a war of necessity and defence, I wonder he does not feel ashamed of the meanness which it spreads over the whole of his cause, and the contradic- tion it diffuses among the greater part of his arguments. Will he meet the matter fairly ? Will he answer to this one question distinctly — If France had abstained from any act of aggression against Great Britain, and her ally, Holland, should we have remained inactive spectators of the last campaign. BICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 175 idle, apart, and listening to the fray, leaving the contest to Austria and Prussia, and whatever allies they could themselves have obtained ? If he says this, mark the dilemma into which he brings himself, his supporters, and the nation. This war is called a war unlike all other wars that ever man was engaged in. It is a war, it seems, commenced on a different principle* and carried on for a different purpose from all other wars. It is a war in which the interest of individual nations is absorbed in the wider consideration of the interest of mankind. It is a war in which per- sonal provocation is lost in the outrage offered generally to civilised man; — it is a war for the preservation of the possessions, the morals* and the religion of the world ; — it is a war for the maintenance of human order and the existence of human society. Does he then mean to say that he would have sat still — that Great Britain would have sat still — with arms folded, and, reclining in luxurious ease on her commercial couch, have re- mained an unconcerned spectator of this mighty conflict, and left the cause of civil order, government, morality, and religion, and its God, to take care of itself ? or to owe its preservation to the mercenary exertions of German and Hungarian barbarians, provided only that France had not implicated Great Britain by a special offence, and forced us into this cause of divine and uni- versal interest by the petty motive of a personal provocation? He will not tell us so ; or, if he does, to answer a momentary purpose, will he hold the same language to our allies ? Will he speak thus to the Emperor ? Will he speak thus to the King of Prussia ? Will he tell them that we are not volunteers in this cause ? — that we have no merit in having entered into it ? — that we are in confederacy with them only to resent a separate insult offered to themselves ; which redressed, our zeal in the cause, at least, if not our engagements to continue in the alliance, must cease ? Or, if he would hold this language to those powers, will he repeat it to those lesser states whom we are hourly dragging into this perilous contest, upon the only plea by which such an act of tyrannical compulsion can be attempted to be pal- liated, namely, that a personal ground of complaint against the French is not necessary to their enmity ? but, that as the league against that people is the cause of human nature itself, every country where human feelings exist has already received its provocation in the atrocities of this common enemy of human kind. But, why do I ask him whether he would hold this language to the Emperor, or the King of Prussia ? The King of Prussia, Sir, at this moment tells you, even with a menacing tone, that it is your own war; he has demanded from you a subsidy and a loan ;* you have endeavoured to evade his demand by pleading the tenor of your treaty of defensive alliance with * A British subsidy of two millions and a half was afterwards voted in April, 1794, at the instance of Mr Pitt, to enable the King of Prussia to keep the field. There seems much reason to doubt the good faith of the Prussian monarch towards his allies ; and it was generally believed in England that, as Prussia had begun the war from the hope of dismembering Prance, she was anxious to recede from it the moment she found that object impracticable. n 2 176 THE MODERN ORATOR. him, and that, as the party attacked, yon are entitled to the whole of his ex- ertions. He denies that you are the party attacked, though he applauds the principles upon which you are the aggressor ; and is there another power in Europe to whom our government will venture to refer the decision of this question ? If what I now state is not the fact, let me see the Minister stand up and contradict me. If he cannot, let us no longer bear that a fallacy should be attempted to be imposed on the people of this country, which would be treated with scorn and indignation in every other corner of Europe. From this hour let him either abandon the narrow ground of this being a war of necessity, entered into for self-defence, or give up the lofty boast of its being a war of principle, undertaken for the cause of human nature. “ Still, still, however, be the war a war of necessity or choice, of defence or of principle, peace must some time or other be looked to. True ; but in the present state of France, first, it is contended that no means of negotiation can be found : and, secondly, that even if you negotiated and agreed, no se- curity for the performance of the agreement is to be had An honourable mem- ber behind the noble lord (Mr Hawkins Browne) has given it as his opinion, that we, who recommend peace, ought to point out the means by which Ministers may commence and carry on a negotiation. With submission, I should ra- ther have thought it a fitter proceeding that those who embark a nation in war for a specific purpose, should be called on to point out the probable means of obtaining the end proposed ; but no such thing. Ask them what their end is, or how it is to be obtained : the constant answer is, No matter ; the war is a just war, and it is impossible to treat for peace; we know not even how to set about it ; and with this answer we must be content to per- severe in a pursuit which all experience has proved to be ruinous, in order to attain an object which no man attempts to prove to be practicable. The noble lord, however, does not lay so much stress on the impossibility of our treating for peace under the present circumstances, as upon the improbability of such a peace being safe or permanent. What security can we have for the con- tinuance of a peace made with such a government as that of France ? The factions of to day are supplanted by others to-morrow ; the rulers of the hour pass in succession from the tribune to the scaffold ; there is nothing perma- nent or stable in their system. Granted. And what then are you waiting for before you will treat ? Is it simply that you will have some person on the throne of France — some first magistrate with the name of King, be his power what it may, before you w r ill enter into any negotiation ? I suspect that this feeling is obstinately rooted in the minds of some persons. It is not, however, avowed ; on the contrary, our own proclamations declare, that though the re- establishment of monarchy in France would be a soothing and conciliatory circumstance, it is not an indispensable preliminary to the re-establishment of peace. What, then, is the desideratum ? A stable and responsible system of government of some sort or other, that would give a reasonable expectation of duration and security to peace when established. “ I ask, is any change which our arms may probably effect in France likely to RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 177 produce such a government ? The form of it we are not to prescribe. Where are the men we hope to see come forward ? We commenced with reprobating and reviling La Fayette, Rochefoucalt, and the whole party of reforming royal- ists. Brissot and the republicans of the 10th of August overthrew and destroyed that party. We may boast of having assisted Robespierre and Dantoninthe destruction of Brissot and those republicans. Robespierre and Danton now pos- sess the lead. Are you waiting till such men as Hebert and Chaumette* shall have destroyed Robespierre and Danton ? Would such a change give you the stable responsibility and trustworthy government you desire ? or do you see any class of men still under them, which, in the revolution of enormities, gives you a fairer promise of your object? No man will hold out such an expecta- tion. Whence, then, can arise the sort of government with whom you would condescend to treat ? I affirm, from only one possible source ; from a general reformation in the public mind of France, founded on a deep sense of their calamities, and a just abhorrence of their past crimes. Then will cease their bloody internal enmities ; then will cease the selfish, factious contests of their leaders ; then will cease their revolting system of plunder, rapine, and im- piety ; then, in other words, will be established their republic on the immortal and unconquerable principles of wisdom and of justice, which, without di- minishing the invincible enthusiasm which even now animates their military exertions, will supply those exertions with copious and unperishable resources; and then truly we shall have no objection to acknowledge them as a nation, and to treat with them. Admirable prudence ! consummate policy ! Whilst the certain seeds of internal discord, weakness, and dissolution are sown among them, and are checked in their rank growth only by the counteraction of stronger feelings against the foreign enemies that surround them, we will not stoop to treat, because we cannot have security for the future ; but if, fortunately, our perseverance in assailing them shall at length eradicate all that is vicious and ruinous in their internal system, strengthening, as at the same time it must, the energies and solidity of their government, then our pride will abate, respectful negotiation will follow, and a happy peace may be concluded — a happy peace, for the terms of which we must be left in future for ever at their mercy ! This I contend to be, if not the object, the result of waiting for that stable, responsible, and trustworthy government in France which the noble lord demands ; unless, as I said before, the operative, though not the avowed motive for the war, is simply to establish a monarchy in that country, or perish in the attempt. “ Leaving the origin and object of the war, our attention is next called to the great progress that has been made by the allies since we entered into the confederacy ! Our success has been such, it seems, that we ought to proceed, * The leaders of the party of “ Anarchists,” or ultra-revolutionists, actuated by the basest passions, and utterly devoid of all moral or religious feeling. Endeavouring to stir up the populace against the Convention, and raise themselves on its fall, they caused their own destruction; being suddenly arrested, and, as a natural consequence at that time, immediately led to the scaffold. 178 THE MODERN ORATOR. be the object what it may. First, the noble lord asks, with a triumphant air, whether France is not in a much worse condition than at the beginning of the campaign ? Unquestionably she is : she has lost some hundreds of thousands of lives, and exhausted many millions of resource ; and what is more, Sir, all Europe is in a worse condition, for the same reason. But I demand an answer to a question more to the purpose, and in truth the only question which belongs to the argument. I ask if there is any one man, in this House or out of it, who thinks that the allies are nearer to the object they had in view, than they were at the beginning of the campaign ? Let this question be fairly and honestly answered before we madly goad this nation to new exertions, and load our fellow-subjects with new burdens. I meet the noble lord in his review of the state of the allies and of France at the commencement of the campaign, and at the present hour ; but I enter into that review with the object I have stated before my eyes, and not to strike a balance on little petty successes which conduce nothing to the main purpose. “ Previous to the ending of the last session of parliament, my right honour- able friend (Mr Fox) renewed, by a motion in this House, his exhortation to government to treat for peace. We had then achieved all the avowed pur- poses for which we went to war. Holland was safe, — the opening of the Scheldt out of the question, — the enemy was driven out of Brabant, — we had succeeded in the West Indies, — Tobago was taken, — and Lord Hood had sailed to the Mediterranean with a force sufficient to insure the superiority of the British flag in that quarter. Yet all these advantages, now so vauntingly enumerated, were then held as trifles ; they were treated comparatively as insignificant matters ; and nothing but some important, decisive blow against the common enemy, which the power of the allies in the ensuing campaign was certain to effect, could make it prudent to think of peace. "What has that campaign produced? The surrender of Conde, Valenciennes, and Quesnoy ; the re-possession of Mayence, and the partial destruction of the marine of Toulon. Compare this with our boasts, our exertions, and expec- tations, with what has been gained to the cause of France. First, the very corner-stone on which the hope of the most sanguine rested, was not (for they had before their eyes the experience of the Duke of Brunswick’s former campaign* 4 ) the vigour and probable impression of the invading arms ; but the zeal, the numbers, and the fury of the royal party in France, then roused * The Duke of Brunswick acted as generalissimo of the combined armies of Austria and Prussia, on the occasion of the first rupture with France after the convention of Pilnitz. After publishing his celebrated violent manifesto, threatening extermination to all opponents (which certainly aggravated the evils it was intended to repress), and marching as the champion of Christendom against revolutionary France, to punish her for her misdeeds, and reinstate a constitutional government, all Europe was filled with surprise when, having at length come up with the main body of the Republican army under Dumouriez, a negotiation was quietly entered into, and orders given to retreat to Germany, and the allied army ignominiously returned home without having accom- plished a single object for which the expedition was formed. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 179 to action by their monarch’s recent execution, and encouraged by the indig- nation and horror which that event appeared universally to excite. Where now is that royal party ? Where is the hope which pointed to their banners ? They rose, indeed, and everything that courage, vengeance, and despair could dictate, they attempted. Long and fruitlessly they looked to the allies for assistance ; at length the voice and the flag of Britain cheered their hearts and roused their efforts ; would, for the honour of Britain, we could bury the event in silent shame, and in the graves of the poor mangled victims of their own delusion and our professions ! If there yet exists an eagerness for a royal crusade in England, will the British arms ever again insult the coasts of Brittany or Provence with the offer of their protection ? If there yet remains the remnant of a royal party in France, will Toulon*' and Noirmoutier ever be forgotten ? The great body of the French royalists is destroyed and annihilated, and with them the very strongest ground upon which we built our first expectations of success. “ The next point most relied upon by the eager advocates for the war, was the state even of the republican parties in Paris. Two factions,! equally anti-monarchical, but actuated by the most fell and deadly animosity towards each other, ruled, severed, and dispirited the French people. By the furious contests of the leaders of these parties, the attention of the nation was en- grossed, their efforts were enfeebled, their exertions shackled, and their hopes dismayed. Observers in all parts looked for a speedy and open conflict between them ; and it was confidently and reasonably expected that the event of that conflict would inevitably be a ferocious and extensive civil war. * The cities of Toulon, Lyons, and Marseilles were the first to rebel against the bloodthirsty tyranny of the Convention. Lyons was, after two months’ siege, taken by storm, by the revolutionary army, and its inhabitants cruelly massacred, and the city almost totally demolished. Marseilles, terrified by the dreadful fate of Lyons, submitted without resistance ; but Toulon resolutely refused to yield, and sought the aid of the English fleet in the Mediterranean, under Lord Hood, who immediately threw into the town a reinforcement of 14,000 men, of whom about 5,000 were English. After a desperate resistance, it was found impossible to save the town, and the allies, after setting fire to the French arsenal and ships of the line, and four frigates which were in the harbour, with the greatest difficulty re-embarked, and conveyed on board as many of the wretched inhabitants as possible in the confusion, leaving the rest to experience the merciless barbarity of their besiegers, who, on seeing the arsenal on fire, rushed for- ward, en masse , to wreak their revenge on the defenceless royalists. Numbers plunged into the sea, and made fruitless endeavours to reach the vessels ; others were seen to shoot themselves on the beach, to avoid a more terrible death from the enraged repub- licans. The ships, crowded with a heterogenous mixture of different nations — men, women, and children from the hospitals— the mangled soldiers from their posts, with their wounds undressed — and the whole harbour resounding with the cries of distraction and agony from husbands, wives, parents, and children left on the shore, exhibited a scene dreadful beyond description. The flames at the same time spreading in all direc- tions, with the blazing ships threatening every moment to explode and blow all around them into the air, rendered the spectacle more terrible. In short, neither language can express, nor the pencil paint, the horrors of that dreadful night, 19th December, 1793. — Hughes. t The Jacobins and the Girondists. 180 THE MODERN ORATOR. This expectation was among the foremost of the resources of the allies. What has happened ? To the astonishment of the world, one of these parties, ap- parently the most feeble, has not merely subdued, but extinguished the other- subdued them almost without an effort, and extinguished them without even an attempt made to avenge them ; whilst the conquering party appear from that hour to have possessed not only more power, more energy, and more confidence, than any of their predecessors since the revolution, but even a vigour and fascination of influence and authority unparalleled in the history of mankind. This reliance, therefore, though reckoned on at the commence- ment of the campaign as a host of hope, is also gone. “ Again, we were told that the disgusting system of cashiering and de- stroying all the old-experienced officers, must create insubordination and mutiny in the army, and ultimately bring down the vengeance and indignation of the soldiers upon the Convention, and establish a military tyranny. Here, again, has ordinary speculation been foiled. The most victorious and popular generals have been arrested at the head of their troops ; a commissioner from the Convention tells the armed line that it is his will : and, incredible as it may appear, there has scarcely been a single instance, countless almost as the number of their troops is, and compulsory as is the mode by which many of those numbers are gained — there scarcely has been a single instance of a military revolt against any of their decrees. All argument, therefore, that armies must in their nature disdain the control of such an assembly, must, however reluctantly, be given up, and to that fallacious expectation we can look no more. “ But the means even of supporting these armies, we were told, could not continue through half the campaign. Arms, ammunition, clothing, money, bread, all would speedily fail. The prediction, unfortunately, has failed in every particular. But, if our negative resources and our hopes of co-opera- tion in France have all disappointed us, I presume we shall find a full com- pensation in the increased strength and spirit of the grand alliance. Let us see what was the state of the allies when we entered into the confederacy. The force of Austria unbroken, though compelled to abandon Brabant ; and the power of the veteran troops of Prussia absolutely untried, though the seasons and disease* had induced them to retire from Champagne. What is their state now ? Defeat has thinned their ranks, and disgrace has broken their spirit. They have been driven across the Rhine by French recruits, like sheep before a lion’s whelp ; and that, not from the mishap of a single great action lost, but after a succession of bloody contests of unprecedented fury and obstinacy. Where, now, is the scientific confidence with which we were taught to regard the efforts of discipline and experience, when opposed to an untrained multitude and unpractised generals ? The jargon of pro- fessional pedantry is mute, and the plain sense of man is left to its own course. But have the efforts of our other allies made amends for the mis- * The causes assigned for the retreat of the allied armies under the Duke of Bruns- wick and the King of Prussia (see note, p. 178). RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 181 fortunes of these two principals in the confederacy ? Have the valour and activity of the Dutch, by land and sea, exceeded our expectations ? Has the Portuguese squadron lessened the extent, and lightened the expense, of our naval exertions ? Have the Indian states, whom we have bribed or bullied into our cause, made any very sensible impression upon the common enemy ? Has our great ally, the Empress of Russia, hitherto contributed anything to the common cause, except her praises and her prayers ? Are all, or any of them, in better spirits to act, or fuller of resource to act effectually, than they were at the commencement of the last campaign ? But, let me throw all these considerations aside — every one of which, however, would singly outweigh the whole of the advantages placed in the opposite scale as gained by the allies ; and, let me ask, is it nothing that the great and momentous experiment has been made, and that a single nation, roused by a new and animating energy, and defending what they conceive to be their liberty, has proved itself to be a match for the enmity and the arms of the world ? * Is the pride which success in such a conflict has given to the individual heart of every man who has shared in it, to be estimated as nothing ? Are the triumphs and rewards which the politic prodigality of their government heaps on the meanest of their ranks who suffer or distinguish themselves in their battles, fruitless, and of no effect ? Or, finally, are we to hold as a matter of slight consideration, the daring and enthusiastic spirit, solicitous of danger and fearless of death, which, gradually kindled by all these circum- stances, has now spread, with electrical rapidity, among such a race of people, so placed, so provided, and so provoked ? Be he who he may that has reflected on all these circumstances, either singly or in the aggregate, and shall still say that the allies are at this moment nearer the attainment of their professed object than at the commencement of the last campaign — I say, that man's mind is either clouded by passion, corrupted by interest, or that his intellects were never properly framed. “ The noble lord, however, though not inclined to overrate the enemy, seems to have been aware that he might be driven to admit the magnitude of their exertions, and that it would be difficult to deny the efficacy of them. But, that we may not be dispirited, he has a solution ready for all this — both their exertions and their success are forced and unnatural. Another honourable gentleman, indeed, has told us, that if we had had only the real resources and the real spirit of France to contend with, we should have con- quered them long ago. It may be so ; but the worst of it is, they will not * At the commencement of the campaign of 1793, France had to contend with 55.000 Austro- Sardinians from the Alps, 50,000 Spaniards from the Pyrenees, 66.000 Austrians or Imperialists, reinforced by 38,000 Anglo-Batavians. On the Lower Rhine and in Belgium, 33,000 Austrians between the Meuse and the Moselle, and 112.000 Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and Imperialists, of the Middle and Upper Rhine. To make head against these formidable enemies, the Convention ordered a levy of 300,000 troops, and, at the same time, established a Committee of Public Safety, with dictatorial power over persons and property. — Hughes. 182 THE MODERN ORATOR. suffer us to prescribe to them the sort of spirit and the kind of resources we should choose to contend with. This may be very unhandsome ; but there is no remedy for it. ‘ They have, it is true, a great force,’ says the noble lord, ‘ but it has not a sound foundation. They have a full public treasury, but their prosperity is unsound. The people obey the government, but the ground of their submission is unsound.’ In short, he takes great pains to prove to us, that they ought not, in reason or nature, to make the stand they have hitherto maintained ; and that they have no right to beat their enemies in the manner which they have. Their government, he undertakes to de- monstrate, is not calculated to produce any such effects. It reminds me of the story of a tradesman who had a very admirable time-piece, made by a person who had never learned the business, and neither knew it mechani- cally nor scientifically. A neighbouring clockmaker, exasperated at this intrusion of natural genius, took great pains to convince the owner that he ought to turn his clock out of doors. It was in vain that the man assured him that it went and struck truly ; that he wound it up like other clocks ; and that it told him the hour of the day precisely. The artist replied, ‘ that all this might be very true, but that he could demonstrate that it had no right to go like other clocks, for it was not made upon sound principles.’ The contest ended in his cajoling the poor man to part with his time-piece, and to buy from him, at three times the cost, a clock that did not answer half as well. I wish the noble lord would attempt to make a similar im- pression upon the French, and could prevail upon them to listen to him. I wish he could convince them, that this revolutionary movement of theirs, which, however unskilfully and unmethodically put together, appears so strangely to answer their purpose, is an unworthy jumble of ignorance and chance ; and that they would be much better off if they would take a regular constitution of his choosing. If he could effect this, I should think his rhe- toric well employed, and our chance of succeeding against them infinitely increased; otherwise his arguments and demonstrations on the subject here, are the idlest waste of breath possible. Experience and facts contradict him, and we smart under them. “ In corroboration of his general position, the noble lord next details to us the manner in which they have either neglected or oppressed their com- merce. I have no doubt but that all he has stated on this subject is true, and that they have done it possibly upon system. I should not be surprised to hear that some distinguished senator of that country, with a mind at once heated and contracted by brooding over one topic of alarm, had started up in the Convention, and exclaimed, ‘ Perish our commerce, live our constitution ;’ neither should I be surprised to learn that the mass of the people, bowing to his authority, or worked on by fictitious alarms and fabricated rumours of plots, seditions, and insurrections, should have improved upon this patriotic exhortation, and, agreeing that their constitution was certainly to be pre- ferred to their commerce, should have conceived that they could not tho- roughly show the fervour of their zeal for the former, so well as by an unne- ■RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 183 cessary sacrifice of the latter. Whether the hint of this notable axiom was taken from the expressions of any enlightened member of our own com- mercial senate, or whether it was imported into this House from France, is what I cannot take upon me to decide. The only result worth our considera- tion is, that however their neglect of commerce may have abridged them of the luxuries, and even comforts of life, it has not hitherto curtailed them in the means of military preparations, or slackened the sinews of war. “ The next proof of the unsoundness of their condition is to be looked for in the enormous taxes and contributions levied upon the people. The noble lord has summed up his laborious statements upon this subject, by informing us that every man of £400 a year is obliged to give up £220 of it to the public : in which case, the noble lord, with great arithmetical accuracy, assures us that he retains but £180 for himself (the only conclusion through- out his speech in which I implicitly agree with him) ; and people of greater incomes, it seems, are called on to do the same. Now, again, I give the noble lord his facts, but again I accompany my assent with a plain question — do the people submit to make these sacrifices ? He has not attempted to dispute their universal acquiescence. What, then, do his facts prove ? What, but that so devoted are the whole people of France to the cause which they have espoused — so determined are they to maintain the struggle in which they have engaged — so paramount and domineering is the enthusiastic spirit of liberty in their bosoms — so insignificant, comparatively, all other pursuits and considerations — and, finally, so bitter and active their animosity against the conspiring powers which surround them, that individual property has ceased to be regarded, even by the possessor, but as subsidiary to the public cause ; and the government which has demanded these unprecedented sacrifices yet retains its power, and does not appear to have impaired its popularity. “ ‘ This system of exaction is tremendous ,’ says the noble lord ; it is so, but to whom ? to those who have to fight with such a people. He ought, however, in fairness, to have stated also, that these sacrifices and the exac- tions are to expire when peace has closed the struggle in which alone they originate, and the end is attained for which alone they are tolerated : till then, unquestionably, the whole country of France is regarded as one great fortress in a state of siege. To tell us how little respect is paid to private property, commercial principle, or personal privilege in such a state, is to prattle childishly : prove to us that the iron hand of violence and necessity, which has barred the course of justice and beat down all the security of private right throughout that besieged land, does not at the same time assist the one great object which is dearest to the general heart — successful resist- ance to the besiegers. “ The noble lord, however, not content with the unfairness of overlooking all the circumstances which imperious necessity must inevitably impose upon a country circumstanced as France is, thinks it fair and candid to contrast the proceedings of their Convention on the subject of supply and finance, 184 THE MODERN ORATOR. with the proceedings of the British minister and the British parliament. We, it seems, assist commerce, instead of oppressing it. We lend the credit of the public exchequer to our private merchants : and, for the means of carrying on the war, not even voluntary contributions are expected, unless it be in little female keepsakes for the army — of gloves, mittens, night-caps, and under-waistcoats, Certainly the contrast between the French means of supply and ours is obvious, and long may it continue so. But the noble lord pursues his triumph on this subject too far : not content with simply alluding to it, which one would have imagined would have answered all his purposes, he endeavours to impress it more forcibly on our minds by making a regular speech for our Chancellor of the Exchequer, and exultingly de- manding what we should say, if his right honourable friend (Mr Pitt) were to come down and propose to the British Parliament such ways and means as the Minister of Finance in France is compelled to resort to. What should we think if he were to rise and propose that all persons who had money or pro- perty, in an unproductive state, should lend it without interest to the public ? if he were to propose that all who had saved incomes from the bounty of the state should refund what they had received ? What, finally, if all persons possessing fortunes of any size were called upon to give up the whole during the war, and reserve to themselves only the means of subsistence, or, at the utmost, £180 a year? Upon my word, Sir, I agree with the noble lord, that if his right honourable friend was to come down to us with any such pro- position, he would not long retain his present situation. And with such a consequence inevitable, he not need remind us that there is no great danger of our Chancellor of the Exchequer making any such experiment, any more than of the most zealous supporters of the war, in this country, vying in their contributions with the abettors of republicanism in that. I can more easily fancy another sort of speech for our prudent minister. I can more easily conceive him modestly comparing himself and his own measures with the character and conduct of his rival, and saying, ‘Do I demand of you, wealthy citizens, to lend your hoards to Government 'without interest ? On the con- trary, when I shall come to propose a loan, there is not a man of you to whom I shall not hold out at least a job in every part of the subscription, and an usurous profit upon every pound you devote to the necessities of your coun- try. Do I demand of you, my fellow-placemen and brother pensioners, that you should sacrifice any part of your stipends to the public exigency ? on the contrary, am I not daily increasing your emoluments and your numbers, in proportion as the country becomes unable to provide for you ? Do I require of you, my latest and most zealous proselytes — of you, who have come over to me for the special purpose of supporting the war — a war on the success of which you solemnly protest that the salvation of Britain, and of civil society itself, depend — do I require of you that you should make a temporary sacri- fice in the cause of human nature of the greater part of your private incomes ? No, gentlemen ; I scorn to take advantage of the eagerness of your zeal ; and to prove that I think the sincerity of your zeal and attachment to me needs RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 185 no such test, I will make your interest co-operate with your principle ; I will quarter many of you on the public supply, instead of calling on you to con- tribute to it, and while their whole thoughts are absorbed in patriotic appre- hensions for their country, I will dextrously force upon others the favourite objects of the vanity or ambition of their lives.’ “ Sir, 1 perceive that the House feel that I have made a speech more in character for the right honourable gentleman than the noble lord did — that I have supposed him simply to describe what he has been actually doing ; but I am much mistaken if they do not, at the same time, think it rather indiscreet in the noble lord to have reminded us of such circumstances. Good God, Sir, that he should have thought it prudent to have forced this contrast upon our attention ! that he should triumphantly remind us of every thing that shame should have withheld, and caution would have buried in oblivion ! Will those who stood forth with a parade of disinterested patriot- ism, and vaunted of the sacrifices they had made, and the exposed situation they had chosen, in order the better to oppose the friends of Brissot in Eng- land — will they thank the noble lord for reminding us how soon these lofty professions dwindled into little jobbing pursuits for followers and dependants, as unfit to fill the offices procured for them, as the offices themselves were unfit to be created ? Will the train of newly-titled alarmists, of supernume- rary negotiators, of pensioned paymasters, agents, and commissaries, thank him for remarking to us how profitable their panic has been to themselves, and how expensive to their country ? What a contrast, indeed, do we exhibit ? What ! in such an hour as this, at a moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the exigency may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor, must make the most practised col- lector’s heart ache while he tears it from them. Can it be that people of high rank, and professing high principles, that they or their families should seek to thrive on the spoils of misery, and fatten on the meals wrested from industrious poverty ? Can it be that this should be the case with the very persons who state the unprecedented peril of the country as the sole cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks ? The constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of the nation itself is endangered ; all personal and party considerations ought to vanish ; the war must be sup- ported by every possible exertion and by every possible sacrifice ; the people must not murmur at their burdens, it is for their salvation — their all is at stake. The time is come when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the throne as round a standard ; — for what, ye honest and dis- interested men ? To receive for your own private emolument a portion of those very taxes which they themselves wring from the people, on the pre- tence of saving them from the poverty and distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care no enemy shall be able to aggravate. Oh ! shame ! shame ! is this a time for selfish intrigues and the little dirty traffic for lucre and emolument ? Does it suit the honour of a gentleman to 186 THE MODERN ORATOR. ask at such a moment ? Does it become the honesty “of a minister to grant ? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine so industriously propagated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price ? Or even where there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the mercenary and the vain to abstain a while, at least, and wait the fitting of the times ? Improvident impatience ! Nay, even from those who seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak ? ‘ The throne is in danger ! we will support the throne ; but let us share the smiles of royalty.’ 4 The order of nobility is in danger ! I will fight for nobility,’ says the viscount, ‘ but my zeal would be greater if I were made an earl.’ ‘ Rouse all the marquis within me,’ exclaims the earl, ‘ and the peerage never turned forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove.’ ‘ Stain my green ribbon blue,’ cries out the illustrious knight, ‘ and the fountain of honour will have a fast and faithful servant.’ What are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions ? Is this system to be persevered in ? Is there nothing that whispers to that right honourable gentleman that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and everyday means of ordinary corruption ? Or are we to believe that he has within himself a conscious feeling, that disqualifies him from rebuking the ill-timed selfishness of his new allies? Just previous, indeed, to the measure which bespoke the predetermination of our govern- ment for war, he deigned himself to accept a large sinecure place* — even he, who at the commencement of his political career lamented that he had fallen on times too good, too uncorrupt, to mark with effect the contrast of his own political disinterestedness, took to himself, at the period I mention, a great sinecure office, swelled by an additional pension, and both for life : the cir- cumstances have never been commented on in parliament, though perhaps there are those who do not exactly think his public service overpaid by the remuneration. But if the acceptance of such a boon, at such a time, is to be regarded by him as a pledge and contract, that he is never in future to consider himself entitled to an unpurchased support on the subject of this war, or to resist the mercenary claims of any proselyte which his arguments or his exam- ple may create — inauspicious, indeed, was the moment in which his own disin- terestedness was surprised by the bounty of his sovereign, and far more lament- able to his country the consequences of that gift, than advantageous to himself. “ Can we too seriously reflect, that in the contest in which we are engaged we have avowedly staked the being of the British empire ? This helium inter - nicinum — as it was rashly named by those who advised, and into which I fear it has been more rashly converted by those who have conducted it — is to be prosecuted at every risk. If we fail, we fall ; so circumstanced, the hour may come in which we may be compelled to look for a loftier spirit, a firmer * The wardenship of the Cinque Ports, worth about £3,000 a year, which became vacant by the death of Lord Guildford, on 5th August, 1792. Mr Pitt was pressed by his Majesty to accept the office, in such gracious terms that it was impossible to decline. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 187 energy, and a more enthusiastic attachment to the frame and form of our con- stitution, than ever yet has been demanded by our government from the people governed. Let the Minister take care, if such an hour should come, that we do not look in vain. Let him take care that the corruptions of the government shall not have lost it the public heart ; that the example of selfishness in the few has not extinguished public spirit in the many. Let him not be too confident that his informers, his associations, his threats, his proclamations, or prosecutions, have driven from their post, or silenced the observations of those who honestly and lawfully watch the conduct of the King’s servants in their stations, and of their own servants in this House, and who hold a corrupt collusion between them to be in itself an overthrow of the constitution. If we would have the people ready with one will, should the trying necessity arise, to risk and to sacrifice everything for the safety of the constitution and the independence of their country, let the high example come from those in high situations, and let it be as manifest as the danger, that no part of their subsistence has been wrung from them on a specious pretence, and applied, in fact, to increase the wages of corruption or swell the price of political apostasy. “ But if neither public interest nor political prudence sway the mind of the right honourable gentleman, I wonder that a feeling of personal pride has not, in some measure, deterred him from the selection he has made of the late objects of his patronage, his favour, and his confidence. What a com- pliment has he paid to all his former connexions and attachments ! and in what a light has he held out their pretensions and abilities to the world ! Possessing opportunity and sagacity to discern and estimate the claims of worth and talents, he has long been in a situation to attach to himself a numerous body of respectable friends, whose fortunate concurrence in his opinion has been both steady and uniform. Could he not find amongst them any persons fit for the many situations of trust and emolument which he has lately created, or worthy the honours which he has recently advised his for- giving sovereign to bestow ? No ; it seems that from this side of the House alone the country could be properly served, or the favours of the Crown duly repaid.* “ Was there ever, let me ask, a greater triumph than the list, I have run through, presents to those who yet remain on this side of the House, and who yet feel for the original credit of the party which these gentlemen have quitted ; of that coalition party which has been so long and so vehemently traduced, both for its principles and its origin ? Can it be that this execra- ble faction which, in the year 1784, was accused by the very man who then was, and still is minister, by all his adherents, and, through their arts even * Mr Sheridan here recapitulated, and remarked on a number of favours, offices, and appointments, all bestowed on gentlemen lately in opposition ; among these be was supposed to allude to Lord Loughborough, Lord Carlisle, Lord Porchester, Lord Hertford, Lord Malmsbury, Lord Yarmouth, Sir Peter Burrell, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Mr Sylvester Douglas, Mr Anstruther, Mr John Erskine, &c. 188 THE MODERN ORATOR. by their country at large, of the most rooted malignity to the constitution of this kingdom, of endeavouring to enslave the House of Commons, to disgrace the House of Lords, to make a cypher of the King, and to introduce a fourth estate, which was to throw the power and patronage of the whole empire into their hands and make their tyranny immortal — that this same party, who, at the time of the regency, were again accused, under the same authority, of being actuated by an insatiate love of office and emolument alone, and of basely preferring the views of their own selfish and rapacious ambition to every sentiment of loyalty, to the first privileges of the commons, and even to the internal peace of the country ; can it be that this arraigned, proscribed, and reprobated party, so characterised and stigmatised by the right honourable gentleman and his followers, should have contained all the while within its ranks the only men who, when the trying hour of proof arrived, were fit to maintain the vigour of the constitution, assert the honour of the peerage, and prop the pillars of the throne ? Oh ! if this be so, w r hat a lesson ought it to be to those who listen to the venal libels and calumnies of a ministerial press ! What a warning to their credulity in future, when they recollect that these very gentlemen, to whom principally, it seems, the country is indebted for the detection of all the plots, conspiracies, and insur- rections which so lately threatened the overthrow of the state, as well as for that salutary preventive against all future ills of the present war, that these very personages were not only never excepted in the outrageous libels which so long assailed the party to which they so lately belonged, but were many of them the marked and principal objects of their venom and malignity ! Trusting that such a lesson will arise from reflecting on this fact, I quit the subject ; adding only, that I should much regret the being supposed to im- pute any sinister or improper motives to the conduct of any of these gentle- men, or by any means to deny, that the emoluments and honours they have received were other than the consequence of their conversion to superior wisdom and integrity by the present Minister, and in no respect the allure- ments to that conversion ; but still, Sir, I must take the freedom to observe, that in order to have prevented a doubt, in these mistrustful times, arising in the public mind upon the subject, from the odd concurrence of circum- stances, and considering the pressure and magnitude of the plea, on which alone they have justified their separation from former and long cherished con- nexions, it would have been better both for their own credit, and as an example to the people, to have rendered it impossible even for malice to suggest any other inducement for the part they took, than a strong sense of public duty, and a clear and disinterested apprehension for the general safety. “ His Majesty laments the burdens that are to be laid on his people ; and yet Ministers, lavish in courting, nay, purchasing, deserters, by the most shameful prostitution of the national treasure, I take it for granted, have been forced thus to look to the other side, because the nursery for statesmen, formed by the Secretary of State opposite to them, has not yet reared a suf- ficient number of plants for the necessary consumption ; I dare say, that RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 189 though our Chiron * is slow in his march, he will improve as he goes on ; and perhaps this year we shall be called upon for an additional sum of money to turn the nursery into a hot-bed. It is said, that if we were desirous of making peace, we have not the means. With whom do we treat ? I an- swer, with the men that have the power of the French government in their hands. I never will disdain to treat with those on whom I make war ; and, surely, no wise nation ought to persevere in the idle disdain of a negotiation with those that are a match for them in Avar. A right honourable gentleman opposite said, that what made him first think of a negotiation Avith America, Avas his looking at General Washington’s army : he had looked at it on the right, on the left, on the centre, and, according to his curious phrase, he could not accommodate himself anywhere. The same was surely true of France : we had tried it on all sides ; on the south, at Toulon ; on the east, by the Rhine ; on the north, by Flanders ; on the west, by our spying- glasses, at St Malo ; and we could nowhere be accommodated. But, I see, notwithstanding our fatal experiment, we are doomed to go on ; the fatal determination is taken, and there is no rational hope that the good sense and spirit of this House will reverse the decree. “Mr Sheridan proceeded to a revieAv of the proceedings of the campaign, to show that Government had not displayed a single exertion becoming the dignity of the nation, or calculated either to maintain the splendour of our name and arms, or to accomplish the object of the war. There had been great misconduct on the part of those who had the poAver of directing our forces. No one vigorous exertion of prudence or wisdom had been made ; hoAvever, Fortune, in some respects, had been favourable to us. We fortu- nately escaped hostilities with America : the risk, however, of such an event, was hereafter to be inquired into. For what purpose, he asked, was a large fleet kept in the Mediterranean after the capture of Toulon, while we wanted its assistance in other parts of the world; Avhilst a French frigate rode triumphant along the coast of America ? And, after the engagement be- tAveen this and an English frigate, in Avhich our gallant captain (Courtenay) lost his life, Avhat must have been the feelings of the creAv to find that no vengeance had been taken for his death ? “ Mr Sheridan showed, that even in the points of our attack, particularly at Toulon, Dunkirk, &c., &c., we had seen nothing but incapacity and blun- der in the execution, as well as disaster in the event. These things must be the subject of parliamentary investigation. It was not enough that our precipitate retreat from Dunkirkf Avas hushed up and compromised betAveen * Chiron was known in mythology as a centaur, who taught mankind the use of plants and medicinal herbs ; and was afterwards placed by Jupiter among the constel- lations, under the name of Sagittarius. f In 1793, shortly after the battle of Neerwinden, a British army, under the com- mand of the Duke of York, was sent out to Flanders to co-operate with the Austrians, under the Prince of Saxe Coburg ; and the campaign opened favourably by the capture of Valenciennes, and the garrison of Conde, by the combined armies. By a fatal o THE MODEEN ORATOR. 190 the Master-general of the Ordnance and First Lord of the Admiralty, be- cause one of them was brother to the minister. And, with respect to the transactions of Toulon, without stopping to inquire whether the destruction of the ships was consistent with the laws of war, he would demand, by whose orders the constitution of 1789 was first offered to the people, and by whose orders that offer was broken to them ; and it must be a subject of inquiry how the noble Lord Hood, who had so freely taxed General O’Hara* with not keeping his word, had himself broken his word to the nation, about the strength and resistance of the place. The execution of the plan for the destruction of the ships, he would prove, was mismanaged in all that de- pended on the part of Lord Hood ; for, at the Babel council of the combined armies, an offer was made to undertake the destruction of these ships, which appears to have been accepted ;f and yet, such an inadequate force was given for the purpose, as to oblige Sir Sidney Smith to leave fifteen ships of the line unconsumed. He reproached them also for the expedition of Earl Moira, which was talked of so long, as to deliver over all the unhappy royal- ists on the coast to massacre. The expedition of Sir Charles Grey had been equally ruined by protraction ; and, with respect to the whole of our naval campaign, it was in vain to enter into the details ; for no man could assert, with truth, that we had anywhere presented a formidable aspect to the enemy. Of the conduct of the channel fleet he would not say one word ; he was sure that the noble admiral J had exerted his utmost talents in the service, though they all knew the industrious pains that had been taken to throw unmerited reproach upon him. That our trade had not been pro- policy, it was determined, in opposition to the advice of the Prince of Saxe Co- burg, that the allied armies should act independently of each other ; and the British forces, amounting to about 35,000 men, under the Duke of York, advanced to the attack of Dunkirk, which was then garrisoned by about 3,000 men only. The outposts were soon carried, and the siege regularly formed ; but, in consequence of the delay of the English fleet, which was to have protected the army, the latter was dreadfully harassed by a destructive fire from the enemy’s gun-boats, which were anchored so near shore as to enfilade the British encampment ; and the French government were able to send an army of 50,000 men, under General Houchard, to the relief of the town. The British forces, in the face of superior numbers, persevered in the siege for a fortnight ; but, after several engagements, in which they suffered considerable loss, they were compelled to retreat ; and withdrew, by night, on the 8th September, leaving fifty-two pieces of cannon, with a large quantity of ammunition, in the hands of the enemy. * The Commander-in-chief of the British forces at the siege of Toulon. He was taken prisoner in a sortie. f The Spaniards, who co-operated with the British, had undertaken to burn the ships in the basin, but were obliged to abandon the attempt, which was renewed by Sir Sydney Smith, with a party of British seamen, but failed, from the incessant vollies of musketry from the shore, and the broadsides from the ships of war in the basin. X Lord Howe. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 191 tected, the fact of the channel being now, or very lately, at the mercy of a few French frigates, was a most glaring proof.* “ He thought it a duty he owed his constituents, to inquire into all these things, that it might appear what our objects were in pursuing the present war, and what were the objects of our allies. From some late transactions, it was very evident that our worthy allies had objects very different from what this country could possibly be supposed to have in view. He said, that he did not mean to propose any amendment ; he should be inclined to support, however, any amendment that went to declare that this House ought to treat for a peace whenever an opportunity for that purpose pre- sented itself.” After Mr Sheridan had concluded, Mr Fox moved an amendment to the address, recommending immediate negotiations for peace, without regard to the form of the French government. On a division, the original address was carried by 277 against 59. Speech on moving for leave to bring in a bill to repeal an act of the last session of Parliament, suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, January 5, 1795. In the early part of the year 1794, considerable alarm was felt in this country from the spread of political associations, of which the avowed object was to obtain a reform in parliament, but which were really actuated by the jacobinical principles which the French revolution was, at that time, diffusing throughout Europe. Similar associations were formed also in Scotland, openly adopting the French Convention as their model ; the members addressed each other as “ citizen,” formed themselves into committees of organisation, instruction, &c., and dated their proceedings, in imitation of the French revolutionists, from the first year of the British Convention, one and indivisible. The two principal associations in England were, the “ Society for Constitu- tional Information,” and the “London Corresponding Society;” the latter consisting, in the early part of 1794, of upwards of thirty thousand members. These two societies, co-operating with each other, spread their seditious doctrines with great rapidity throughout the country, giving a species of authority to their opinions and resolutions, by issuing them officially signed by their respective secretaries, Thomas Hardy (a shoemaker), and Daniel * Towards the end of the year 1793, the French fitted out a number of frigates, which cruised at the entrance of the channel, in small squadrons, and inflicted serious injuries on our trade and shipping. At the suggestion of Sir Edward Pellew, an inde- pendent squadron of frigates was formed, for the purpose of checking these cruisers, the general rendezvous being appointed at Falmouth; and this, it is said, was the origin of our western squadrons, which became the most popular service in the navy. — ■ Hughes. © 2 192 THE MODERN ORATOR. Adams (an under-clerk). By this means an immense revolutionary faction, numbering, after a short time, nearly half a million members, was regularly established, with district branches in every part of the country, and a central Board of Direction in London. The Government, considering the constitu- tion in danger from this organised system of sedition, and having before their eyes the baneful results of the spread of similar principles in France, deter- mined to crush the growing evil while yet they had the power ; and, by their orders, the principal members of both societies were suddenly arrested in May ; and, as it was considered that the papers seized at the same time, afforded sufficient evidence of treason, they were committed to the Tower. The papers having been referred for examination to a select committee of the House, the report was brought up on the 16th of May, when Mr Pitt moved for a bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, which, after a strong opposition, passed into a law on the 23rd. A special commission was issued for the trial of the prisoners; and, true bills having been found against Hardy, Horne Tooke, Bonney, Kydd, Joyce, Wardell, Holcroft, Richter, Moore, Thelwall, Hodson, and Baxter, the trials began, on the 28th of October, with that of Thomas Hardy, who, with his fellow-prisoners, was charged with nine overt acts of treason. The trial lasted eight days, when a verdict of acquittal was returned ; and, similar verdicts having been returned in the subsequent trials of Tooke and Thelwall, Government declined the further prosecution of the other prisoners. There is little doubt that, had the prisoners been indicted for sedition, they would have been convicted. As it was, the result of the prosecutions operated very beneficially, as it convinced the seditious that their proceedings were narrowly watched by Government. On the 2nd of January, 179.5, Mr Sheridan gave notice of his intention to move to bring in a bill to repeal the act by which the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended, and on the 5th of January he moved accordingly. “ Mr Sheridan said, that in addressing the House upon a subject of the most important consideration, he by no means wished to mix his own opinions with what he should lay before them, but simply to bring forward what was the real state of facts. He was perfectly well aware that, in the present calamitous situation of the country, it might have been expected that he should direct attention to the war rather than to any other topic ; and, to bring forward another subject might appear to have a tendency to divert their attention from that which was the principal object of discussion. He was also aware that there was something risked by the motion which he was now to submit to the House, as it probably would not meet with the concurrence of all those who, on the first night of the session, had expressed their disapprobation of the war ; and now, while an appearance of strength was gathering to the party in opposition of the present war, the effect might be to produce a degree of public discouragement, and to diminish the hopes which were entertained of bringing it to a speedy conclusion. But there were some questions of essential and deep importance, which no ground of RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 193 expedience, no consideration of a nature merely temporary, should induce him to forego. Such was the question which he should bring forward to- night. The opposers of the war, who had encountered so much unpopu- larity at its onset, would stand on the same ground on the present occasion, in supporting the principles which they had uniformly avowed, whatever they might hazard by the discussion, with respect to the appearance of the strength of their party. Those who had joined them in the opposition to war, would consider how far it was incumbent upon them to support the same principles. But he should affirm that the present was the very ques- tion which those who wished for peace were bound to support. The first consideration which had been held out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with respect to the necessity of the war, was the internal situation of the country. A view of that situation was certainly in every respect the most important. Whether we now looked to the continuance of the war, or to the event of peace, it was of consequence to ascertain whether the subjects of this country were actuated by a loyal attachment to the King and an unshaken zeal for the constitution, or were under the influence of opposite sentiments. The right honourable gentleman (Mr Pitt) had asked, If we should make peace, what would be the consequence of the inundation of French principles into this country? He, for one, did not dread the conse- quence. But, the right honourable gentleman had rightly taken his ground, if he supposed the people of England actuated by seditious and treasonable sentiments, and ready on the first opportunity to sacrifice all the blessings which they enjoyed from the admirable form of their constitution, and madly to destroy themselves. This was the point on which he was prepared to meet him. The question was not, whether the Habeas Corpus should remain suspended till February, though an honourable gentleman (Mr Dundas) had thought proper to declare, by anticipation, that, in the present situation of things, he should be of opinion, that the suspension ought to be re- newed ; *' if he (Mr Sheridan) thought that there remained no ground for suspending it, no consideration of the shortness of time would induce him to withdraw his motion ; he would say, with the father of the right honour- able gentleman (the Earl of Chatham), who, when he was asked whether he would submit to a tyranny of forty days, answered, ‘ No ; he would not consent that the people of England should be fettered and shackled even for an hour:’ but the question now was — whether the Habeas Corpus should remain suspended for ever? Another consideration connected with this motion was, whether the reverence and respect for the decision of juries, so intimately interwoven with the principles of the British constitution, and hitherto so sacredly observed, should or should not be eradicated from the minds of the people of England ? In conducting the present discussion, he should argue from circumstances as they really existed. He would appeal to the gentlemen on the other side with respect to the situation in which this An Act was passed, later in January, for its further suspension. 194 THE MODERN ORATOR country was now placed, and he would ask them, whether they would not accept of the compromise that the sentiments, numbers, and force of the societies, who had been held up as dangerous to the constitution, should remain exactly as they were at present ? But there was no situation of things in which those gentlemen were not provided with an answer. If it was urged that the designs of those societies had been checked, they would ask, whether they ought to withdraw the security at the moment they had succeeded in repelling the danger ? If the influence of the societies was said to be increased, they would contend that the force which it had been found necessary to oppose to an inferior danger, became still more indis- pensable when the danger was increased. If they were called upon in a time of war, they would allege, that was not the proper time to judge of the degree of power to be granted to the executive government ; if, during the interval of peace, they would enlarge upon the necessity of guarding against the consequences of an intercourse with the daring republicans of France, there was no situation in which they would not be provided with some argu- ment for suspending this chief bulwark of the rights and liberties of English- men. The suspension would be justified, not merely as a guard against the crime of treason, but, according to the new phrase, against any disposition to moral guilt which might be productive of dangers. On such pretences, would the suspicion be justified, and the act itself never again restored? He would remind gentlemen of the grounds on which the suspension had been voted : the preamble of the act stated, that, ‘ Whereas a traitorous and detestable conspiracy has been formed for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing the system of anarchy and confusion which has so fatally prevailed in France,’ &c. “ He now came to facts. Did this traitorous, detestable conspiracy exist, if, indeed, it had ever existed at all ? It would be necessary to prove, not only that it once existed, but that the same danger still continued. Were they prepared to go to the length of these assertions ? He would not shrink from what he had said on a former occasion, that he considered Ministers as the sole fabricators of these plots. What he had then declared from strong surmise and deep suspicion, he was now enabled to repeat from the evidence of facts. He had, at his back, the verdicts of repeated juries, who had negatived the existence of any such plot. But the opinion of juries had been latelytreated in such a manner, that he was almost afraid to quote their authority ; but he would remind a learned gentleman (Sir John Mitford) that for language much less unconstitutional than he had employed, with respect to the verdicts of these juries, a learned sergeant had formerly been committed to prison by the Hous-e of Commons. That learned gentleman had told them, that the ac- quittal of a jury did not declare the man innocent, it only exempted him from being tried again upon the same charge. He had always understood, that it was a maxim of the law of England, that every man was presumed to be innocent till he was found guilty. But, so far from this being the case, he was now told, that not even the acquittal of a jury established his RICHARD RRINSEEY SHERIDAN. 195 innocence, or restored him to his former place in society. Much stress was laid upon the decision, of a grand jury. He did not rest much upon that, more especially as he understood that some degree of management had been employed in forming that grand jury. Letters were sent round, one of which he now held in his hand, dispensing with the attendance of some who might otherwise have sat on that grand jury; and, so far as that went, had the effect of packing them. But he could not certainly regard the autho- rity of any grand jury as of much weight, if, after the prisoner was put upon his trial, by their finding a bill against him, he was still, by the liberal spirit of the law of England, to be considered innocent till he was found guilty by a verdict of his peers. An honourable gentleman (Mr Wyndham) had gone even further than the learned character to whom he had alluded ; he had thrown down the gauntlet to his right honourable friend (Mr Fox). How far it was prudent or proper in that gentleman so to do, he would not take upon him to determine, especially when he recol- lected that, on a former occasion, he had declared that he would not give up the title of his friend till his right honourable friend had first given him a hint for that purpose. The neighbourhood into which the honourable gentleman had lately got, had, perhaps, impaired his memory. He had not waited for the hint; he had now renounced the title. Nor was such a hint to be expected from his right honourable friend, by those who knew with what strength of attachment he clung to all those of whom he had been accustomed to think favourably, and how unwilling he was to give up any who had once formed claims upon his friendship. Now, however, that the honourable gentleman had voluntarily disclaimed the connexion, he had no hesitation to declare that he should henceforth meet him on the ground of fair and avowed hostility. That honourable gentleman, next to another person, had been the principal instrument of bringing the country into the calamitous situation in which it was now placed. He trusted that he had abilities to extricate it from the difficulties of that situation. At any rate, he knew that he had boldness to wait the responsibility which would ultimately attach to all the authors of the present war. Except, indeed, there was something in the support of the war that corrupted and degraded the human heart, he should have thought that the honourable gentleman would have been the last of all men to apply to persons acquitted by juries of their country, the opprobious epithet of acquitted felons. There might have been some ground for this epithet, if those persons had owed their escape to any flaw in the indictment, or to any deficiency of technical forms ; it might then have been tirged, that they were not entitled, by the verdict of a jury, to a regeneration of character, and were still to be considered in the light in which the honourable gentleman had placed them — as men branded with guilt, and outcasts from society. He would not say that every man acquitted was therefore innocent ; there could be no rule of that sort without an exception ; a criminal might owe his acquittal to a flaw in the indictment, or a failure of the evidence. It had been stated the other night that a person might be charged with murder who had only been guilty of house- 196 THE MODERN ORATOR. breaking, and, because he was not found guilty upon the first charge, was he therefore to be considered as a pure and honourable character ? But did the men who had lately been acquitted stand in that situation ? If there was any case in which the verdict of a jury went completely to establish the innocence of the party accused, it ought to be with respect to the charge of high treason. That charge, it was to be recollected, came with the highest authority, and with a degree of influence which it was difficult for any individual to resist. It was to be recollected, too, that, with respect to the crime of high treason, the country itself was both party and judge, since he who conspires against the life of the King, conspires at the same time against the peace of the country. “ With respect to the charge of levying war, it was possible that the party accused might escape from the incompetency of the evidence ; but with re- spect to the charge of compassing and imagining the King’s death, the inten- tion itself constituted the crime : and if the jury had in their own minds a conviction of the criminal intention, and there was sufficient proof of the overt act, they were bound to find their verdict guilty. Mr Sheridan said, he he would now put it, whether, in the course of the late trials, anything that could have been brought forward against the prisoners was omitted, from any Want of time or attention ? He had heard, indeed, a gentleman (the Solicitor- general) say, that the jury, if they had known all that he did, would have found their verdict differently. But he conceived that he must have been asleep at the time, otherwise it must be inferred that he had neglected to state to the jury all that he knew, and thereby shown himself disqualified for the place which he held — a confession which he surely would not wish to make to the gentlemen along with whom he sat, far less to those on the other side. He could not mean that anything further had since come to his knowledge, since he had himself admitted that the effect of those acquittals went to prevent the parties from being again tried on the same charge. No pains had surely been spared to bring those persons to a conviction, if they had been really guilty. A report of that house was brought forward, con- taining almost everything that was afterwards brought out in evidence, and that was followed by the decision of the grand jury. Neither could it be contended, that there was any want of time : some of the persons tried were taken up in May ; the six months previous to their trial were employed in collecting and arranging evidence ; a task in which many respectable persons, urged by sense of what they had conceived to be their duty to their country, were induced to take an active part. Neither was there any deficiency of legal ability ; twelve gentlemen of the greatest professional eminence, whose talents were adequate to any cause, were retained on the side of the Crown, at an expense of upwards of £8,000, independently of the bill of the solicitor to the treasury.* * Mr Sheridan here read the list of the names of the counsel for the prosecution — Sir John Scott (the Attorney-general, afterwards Lord Eldon), Sir John Mitford (the Solicitor- general), Mr Anstruther, Mr Sergeant Adair, Mr Bearcroft, Messrs Bower, Law, and Garrow, King’s counsel ; Mr Wood, Mr Baldwin, and Mr Perceval. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 197 “The Attorney-general (continued he) assures me that he exerted his abilities gratuitously ; an example which, I trust, will be imitated, and for which I give him credit, though I cannot approve of his doctrines of high treason — doctrines which, if they were once tobe admitted, no man could, in my opinion, be safe : nor yet of the detestable evidence of spies, so much resorted to in the conduct of the prosecution. Such an array could only, indeed, have been encountered by the abilities and eloquence of my honourable friend (Mr Erskine), who, by his conduct on that occasion, acquired the highest honour, but to whom all professional honour was become superfluous ; and therefore he may deem it fortunate that he was associated with Mr Gibbs, who deservedly comes in for a share of credit in the transaction. No exer- tion less vigorous, no abilities less splendid, would have been sufficient to withstand the weight of authority and of evidence with which it was attempted to crush and overwhelm the prisoners. But, perhaps, the gentlemen engaged in the prosecution will contend that they did not bring a sufficient number of witnesses ; that they were willing to spare the trouble of persons engaged in different occupations, and residing in distant parts of the country. How far this is the case (said Mr Sheridan) will appear by a paper from which I shall now read the list of the witnesses summoned in the case of Mr Joyce, who was never tried. “ There was one circumstance to be noticed : many of those men were kept in prison for a considerable time, till they were wanted for that purpose ; there they were cooped up, half witnesses and half principals, till the day of trial ; and yet, to the men who had been placed in this situation, many of whom had lost their business and been hurt in their character, not the smallest compensation had been given ; he would not say, because they had failed in giving evidence which might have been favourable to the views of the prosecution ; some of them had been sent back to Sheffield, with £3 to defray their expenses. With regard to the manner in which the proceedings had been conducted, at least, no labour had been spared. The first speech on the trials took up no less a space than nine hours. Had he been in the situa- tion of a juryman, the very circumstance of an Attorney- general taking nine hours to tell him of an overt act of high treason, would have been a reason why he should have given as his opinion, that he could not believe it, and that it could not possibly be true. The whole procedure, on the part of the prosecution, was a piece of delicate clock-work, a sort of filigree net, too slight to hold a robust traitor, and yet so contrived as to let all the lesser cases of libel and sedition escape. The very intricacy and labour of the proceeding was, to his mind, the most satisfactory testimony that the case could not be supported on the grounds of substantial evidence and constitu- tional principles. If he was asked, did there not appear, from these trials, instances of sedition ? he had no hesitation to say, that they exhibited in- * Mr Sheridan here read an abstract of the list of witnesses, amounting in all to Z07 persons. 198 THE MODERN ORATOR. stances of many gross and scandalous libels. He was ready to admit there were in the societies mischievous men, intent on mischievous purposes. There were others actuated by enthusiasm, whom he could not consider in the same light, because it was that sort of enthusiasm which had actuated men of the purest minds. As to the phrases ‘ convention,’ &c., in which they had affected an imitation and approbation of the proceedings of the French, the worst that could be said of them was, that they were contemptibly foolish. “ He had attended the trials, he said, from a principle of duty. He was of opinion that every man who loved the constitution, and who thought that it was endangered by false alarms, would feel it incumbent, on such an oc- casion, to attend trials which he considered as originating from ministerial artifice ; and to watch the conduct of the crown lawyers and of the judges, in order to avert those calamities from the country in which, at former times, it had been involved, to prevent that most dreadful of all wars — a war of plots and conspiracies ; wars in which the purest blood had been shed by the most destructive of all weapons — the perjured tongues of spies and in- formers. That there was no real danger, appeared from the declaration of the Chief Justice Eyre, who, in summing up on one of the trials, stated that it was an ostentatious and boasting conspiracy ; and that it was much in favour of the accused, that they had neither men, money, nor zeal, to effect the purposes with which they were charged. On the first trial one pike was produced, that was afterwards withdrawn from mere shame. A formidable instrument was talked of, to be employed against the cavalry ; it appeared, upon evidence, to be a tee-totum in a window at Sheffield. There was a camp in a back shop, an arsenal provided with nine muskets, and an exche- quer containing nine pounds and one bad shilling ; all to be directed against the whole armed force and established government of Great Britain. Mr Sheridan said that he, in the first instance, had shown the most obstinate incredulity with respect to all the rumours of a plot. He endeavoured to call to mind whether the present ministry had, in any former instance, availed themselves of a similar artifice. He recollected that in the year 1783, at the period when the coalition took place, they represented those who were en- gaged in that measure as setting up a fourth party in the state, as wishing to supersede the authority of the King and to destroy the constitution, and had actually persuaded many well-meaning people at the time to be of that opinion, and to regard the authors of the measure as enemies to their country, whose destruction was necessary for the preservation of the established government. He recollected, too, that the very men who had set up the coalition were now in the cabinet, and that the charge brought against them must therefore have been false, and an instance of successful deception. He was more confirmed in his persuasion of the trick when he looked to the conduct of the right honourable gentleman (Mr Pitt), who had adopted the policy of keeping open the door of reform that he might get himself out by it, and whose system it had uniformly been, on that question, to do just as RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 199 much as might nourish hope, and yet discourage effort. He recollected that the Society of the Friends of the People* had been constituted of a hundred persons, of whose characters it would not become him to speak, since he himself had the honour to be one of the number. That society had, at its first formation, been represented as more pernicious than any of the others ; they had been held out, both in that and in the other House, as men whose exist- ence was incompatible with the safety of the constitution. Their first institution had been followed by a royal proclamation, in order to secure the country from the infection of their principles. In what light had that society been held out on the late trials ? That very society had been represented as the sa- viours of the country, as the standards of political orthodoxy ; and it had been represented as the blackest aggravation of the guilt of other societies, that they had not suffered themselves to be guided by them ; that they had not im- plicitly adopted their principles, or concurred in their proceedings. This he could not help regarding as the second instance of successful deception. The proclamation afterwards issued, previous to the calling out of the militia and the assembling of Parliament, put into the mouth of his Majesty an expres- sion which was not true — namely, that there existed insurrections in the country. It might be urged, that at that time there was great appearance of danger, and that it was better to prevent the meditated mischief than to wait for its arrival. In such a case Ministers, too, would have done better to have taken the responsibility to themselves, and applied to Parliament for a bill of indemnity. He had, on a former occasion, taken notice of all the arts which were at that time employed to propagate alarm ; of the Duke of Rich- mond throwing himself into the Tower in the middle of the night ; of the mail-coach being retarded, and carrying with it the most dismal reports of the state of the metropolis, so that every person who arrived in a post -chaise ex- pected to find that all London was in a flame. He had then surmised that all this was the effect of mere political artifice ; he now found his suspicion con- * The society of “ The Friends of the People ” was one of several political societies, which were formed in the year 1792, for the purpose of procuring parliamentary reform. It numbered among its members, many members of parliament and influential persons, and the principles of the society were the same which Mr Pitt had himself formerly supported. In April, Mr Charles Grey, a member of the society, was deputed to fur- ther its object by moving, in his place in parliament, an inquiry into the state of the representation, as preliminary to reform. Mr Pitt earnestly opposed the object of Mr Grey’s notice of motion, candidly avowing that his opinions had changed on the sub- ject, and declaring that, in the then excited state of society, that was not the proper season for experiments which might endanger the constitution. This opposition of the minister was followed, on the 21st May, by a royal proclamation for the prevention of seditious meetings and publications, calling on the magistrates to suppress them, and exhorting the people to obedience to the laws. On the 26th May, an address was moved in the Commons in approbation and support of the proclamation (which was declared by Mr Pitt to have been levelled against the propagation of the seditious doctrines contained in Paine’s “ Rights of Man”), and, although warmly opposed by Mr Grey and Mr Fox, was carried without a division. 200 THE MODERN ORATOR. firmed by facts. During the course of the trials, he had heard the evidence of the spies of the government, no part of which went to sanction the alarm which had been so industriously propagated. It followed, therefore, either that Ministers were deceived by their own spies, and had thereby shown themselves unfit for the situation which they held, or that they had acted upon an alarm which they did not feel, to answer the infamous purposes of their own ambition, and to delude the people into a wicked and a ruinous war. At the time, everybody admitted that the measures of ministry were extraordinary, but something, they said, must come out. Papers notoriously in the pay of ministers, even took upon them to mention the particulars of the plot, and to name the persons concerned. He had then moved for a committee of the House to inquire into the subject; his motion was nega- tived because ministers knew that no such plot had ever existed. If a go- vernment wanted a plot, plots, like other commodities, would be brought to the market. Had his motion been adopted when it was first proposed, it would have then refuted the libel on the character of the people of England. The right honourable gentleman, in a more advanced stage of the business, had come forward with a motion for a secret committee. It did not become him to say that the members who composed that committee were not highly respectable : they were chosen by ballot, and therefore, no doubt, perfectly independent ; but it was well known that every such election by ballot was determined by previous agreement ; and he had himself previously read the names of thirteen or fourteen members who were to be in that committee ; and he must say, that it was a circumstance of suspicion that they resorted to this mode of choosing a secret committee, rather than that of naming the members over the table, as had been done on another important occasion. A report was presented to that committee, cut and dry, and by some of them, he would venture to say, adopted without much examination. In speaking of the gentlemen who composed that committee, he felt some degree of deli- cacy ; they were not now all here ; they were so much alarmed that they did not consider that house as a place of sufficient security, and had taken refuge in the upper house. A coronet, the reward of their seasonable apprehen- sions, would, they thought, be most likely to secure the head of the owner from future danger. While the committee were sitting upon this report, which had been in preparation five or six months, two notes were sent — one to his right hon. friend (Mr Fox), and another to him, informing them that something important was to take place in the House of Commons. This was all the intimation which was thought necessary to precede a suspension of the chief bulwark of the rights and liberties of Englishmen. Upon hear- ing only a moiety of the report from the Minister, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was proposed. Seventeen divisions had on that occasion taken place on his side of the House; and he should ever regard the share which he had taken in that measure as the most meritorious part of his par- liamentary conduct. In the House of Lords the business was not conducted so hastily; their lordships were presented with pikes, with drawings, with RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 201 male and female screws; their noble natures were not so easily to be roused; it was necessary that they should be presented with some ocular demonstra- tion of the danger: — “ Segnius irritant animos dimissa per aurem, Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.” He was almost ashamed to say, that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was not a matter of slight or trivial consideration.' ’ [Mr Sheridan here quoted the opinion of Sir Edward Coke on the import- ance of the Habeas Corpus, which concludes “ that without the enjoyment of this privilege we are no longer anything more than bondsmen. There re- mains no distinction between the freeman and the slave — the living and the dead.” He then proceeded to quote the more recent opinions of Judge Blackstone, in the following extract from his chapter on the rights of persons, section ii. : — “ Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty, for if once it were left in the power of any of the highest magistrates to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought pro- per (as in France it is daily practised by the Crown), there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities. Some have thought that unjust attacks, even upon life or property, at the arbitrary will of the magistrate, are less dangerous to the commonwealth than such as are made upon the personal liberty of the subject. To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate without accusation or trial, would be so gross and noto- rious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny through- out the whole kingdom ; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous, engine of arbitrary government. And yet sometimes, when the state is in real danger, even this may be a necessary measure. But the happiness of our constitution is, that it is not left to the executive power to determine when the danger of the state is so great as to render this measure expedient ; for it is the parliament only, or legislative power, that whenever it sees proper can authorise the Crown, by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act for a short and limited time, to imprison suspected per- sons without giving any reason for so doing, as the senate of Rome was wont to have recourse to a dictator, a magistrate of absolute authority, when they judged the republic in any imminent danger. The decree of the senate, which usually preceded the nomination of this magistrate, dent operant consules, ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat , was called the senatus consultum ultimce necessitatis. In like manner this experiment ought only to be tried in cases of extreme emergency ; and in these the nation parts with its liberty for a while, in order to preserve it for ever.”] “ If the position of this famous lawyer be true, if a suspension of the Habeas Corpus can be compared to nothing but a measure which suspends the whole of the constitution, it ought surely only to take place in cases of the most urgent and absolute necessity. He would ask whether the present was a 202 THE MODERN ORATOR. case of such extreme emergency ? If any man believed that the people of this country were infected with treasonable principles, and disposed to over- turn the Government, he might then be justified in holding such an opinion ; but if any man believed that the characteristic feature of the English nation was a sober, settled, and steady attachment to the constitution, it was incum- bent on him to call for an immediate repeal of the act suspending the Habeas Corpus. Such was the opinion which had been confirmed by repeated ver- dicts of a jury — verdicts which went completely to do away the idea of any conspiracy having ever existed in the country. He, for one, would not wait till ministers should exercise their ingenuity in the fabrication of new plots, or should have time to propagate fresh alarms ; he would call upon them immediately to restore to the people those rights, without which they could neither respect themselves nor the government under which they lived. “ I feel myself, (said Mr Sheridan) as if contending for a melancholy truth with Ministers, when I assure them that such is the state of the country, and such is the loyalty of the people, that they are firmly attached to the consti- tution, and disposed quietly to enjoy its blessings, without any idea of either attempting the person of his Majesty, or cutting the throats of one another. I shall hear then, not of a plot, but of the existence of a propensity to moral guilt, as justifying the continuance of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. I will not say that there have been no instances of sedition, but I will affirm even that the evidence of these appears in so questionable a shape as ought to excite your suspicion. It is supported by a system of spies and informers — a system which has been carried to a greater extent under the present admin- istration than in any former period of the history of the country. I will not say that there is no government in Europe which does not stand in need of the assistance of spies ; but I will affirm that the government which avails itself of such support does not exist for the happiness of the people. It is a system which is calculated to engender suspicion and to beget hostility ; it not only destroys all confidence between man and man, but between the governors and the governed ; where it does not find sedition it creates it. It resembles in its operation the conduct of the father of all spies and in- formers, the devil, who introduced himself into Paradise, not only to inform his own pandemonium of the state of that region, but to deceive and betray the inhabitants. The spy, in order to avoid suspicion, is obliged to assume an appearance of zeal and activity ; he is the first to disseminate the doctrines of sedition, or to countenance the designs of violence ; he deludes the weak by the speciousness of his arguments, and inflames the turbulent by the fury of his zeal. It must have made a man’s heart burn to hear the sort of evidence brought forward by these spies on the late trials. A wretch of the name of Lynam said, that, in his capacity of delegate to one of the societies, he had incurred suspicion, had been tried by the other delegates, and honourably acquitted. The counsel for the prosecution could hear such a declaration with unblushing countenances. By what RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 203 means had he been acquitted, but by pretences of superior zeal and more furious exertion? I wish the honourable gentleman who called the persons who had been tried acquitted felons, had been present when such witnesses were examined against them ; I wish he had been present when the Chief Baron (Macdonald) addressed. Mr Thelwall, not as an acquitted felon, but as having obtained' a verdict which was honourable to his character, and ex- horted him, in a tone of the utmost gentleness, to employ his talents in future for purposes useful to his country. The manner in which that address was made, was fit and becoming the character of the judge by whom it was delivered, as well as respectful to the person to whom it was directed. Of whatever indiscretion the persons who had been tried had been guilty, it will not be disputed by those who have attended to their case, that they have feeling hearts, that they are alive to every sense of indignity, and that they must have been deeply wounded by the opprobrious epithet applied to them by the honourable gentleman. I trust this is sufficient to induce him to make the only reparation now in his power, by the speediest recantation of his hasty and ill-judged expression. There was another witness of the name of Taylor, not an acquitted but a convicted felon, who had been tried for a crime into the moral demerit of which I will not enter, but which had been attended with the aggravation of perjury; but sentenced only to a slight punishment, on account, as was alleged, of some favourable circum- stances in his case, though, upon my word, I could find none, except that he had assisted to hang his brother spy (Watts) ; yet this man was thought a proper character to be brought forward as an evidence in a court of justice, and allowed to hunt after the blood of Englishmen. If Ministry had been duped and deluded by their spies, ought they not to admit the deception that had been played upon them ? But, (said Mr Sheridan,) I can suppose the case of a haughty and stiff-necked minister, who never mixed in a popular assembly, who had therefore no common feeling with the mass of the people, no knowledge of the mode in which their intercourse is con- ducted, who was not a month in the ranks in this House before he was raised to the first situation, and, though on a footing of equality with any other member, elevated with the idea of fancied superiority — such a minister can have no communication with the people of England, except through the medium of spies and informers ; he is unacquainted with the mode in which their sentiments are expressed, and cannot make allowance for the language of toasts and resolutions adopted in an unguarded and convivial hour. Such a minister, if he lose their confidence, will bribe their hate ; if he disgust them by arbitrary measures, he will not leave them till they are completely bound and shackled ; above all, he will gratify the vindictive resentment of apostasy by prosecuting all those who dare to espouse the cause which he has betrayed ; and he will not desist from the gratification of his malignant propensities and the prosecution of his arbitrary schemes, till he has buried in one grave the peace, the happiness, the glory, and the inde- 204 THE MODERN ORATOR. pendence of England.*' Such a minister must be disqualified to judge of the real state of the country, and must be eternally the dupe of those vile spies whose interest it is to deceive him, as well as to betray others. In what country, or from what quarter of the community, are we to apprehend the effects of those principles of insubordination with which we have been so often threatened ? The characteristic feature of the English nation is entirely different ; they testify, on every occasion, the utmost respect for superiority (I am sorry to use the phrase), wherever the advantages of rank or fortune are exercised by those who enjoy them with any tolerable decency or regard to the welfare of their dependants. What nobleman or gentleman finds in his tenants or servants, so long as he treats them with propriety and kindness, a hostile and envious disposition ? What merchant or great manu- facturer finds in those whom he employs, so long as he treats them well, a sullen and uncomplying temper, instead of a prompt and cheerful obedience ? This tendency to insubordination forms no part of the temper or character of the people ; the contrary disposition is even carried to an extreme. If I am asked whether there is any danger in the present moment, I say, Yes. But it is not a danger of that sort which is to be remedied by suspending the rights, or abridging the privileges of the people. The danger arises from a contempt being produced among the lower orders, of all public men and all public principles. “ A circumstance occurs to me, which took place during the late trials, where the ‘ Friends of the People’ were praised from the bench. When one of the Sheffield witnesses (Broomhead) was asked -why his society declined communicating with the ‘Friends of the People;’ he answered that he would tell them very plainly, that they did not believe them to be honest ; that there were several of them members of parliament ; that they had some of them been in place ; and that they conceived the ins and the outs, however they might vary in their profession, to be actuated by the same motives of interest. I, who might be as little implicated in such a charge as any man, felt rebuked and subdued by the answer. What is it that tends to produce this contempt of public men ? The conduct of those who ought to hold out an example of public principle. I heard an honourable gentleman (Mr Wyndham) the other day — and on this subject I will pursue him with pro- fessed and unabating hostility — complain of the indifference and languor of the country in the present contest, and call upon them to greater * Mr Pitt, without passing through any subordinate offices, became Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, at the early age of twenty-three. Although Sheridan always reprobated Pitt as a minister, he acknowledged the highest respect for him as a man. In 1802, he thus spoke of him : “ No man admires his splendid talents more than I do. If ever there was a man formed and fitted by nature, to benefit his country and to give it lustre, he is such a man. He has no low, little, mean, petty vices. He has too much good sense, taste, and talent, to set his mind upon ribands, stars, titles, and other appendages, and idols of rank. He is of a nature not at all suited to be the creature or tool of any court.’’ RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 205 greater displays of vigour and exertion, while at the same time he affirmed, that no man in the country felt any distress from the pressure and calamities of war. Will he say this to the starving manufacturers of Norwich ? Will he say it to the slaving poor of the metropolis, obliged to purchase a loaf at nine-pence, and unable to supply themselves with coals at this inclement season, from the enormous price of that necessary article ? Will he say it to the landholders, whose property, since the commencement of the war, has been reduced half its value ? What can this language of the honourable gentleman mean, except he means to drive the great body of the people to desperation ? When I heard the honourable gentleman call upon the coun- try for increased exertions, I concluded that he would have proposed to throw in his salary to the aid of the public fund, and to live contented on his own splendid income. I supposed he would have persuaded his right honourable friend (Mr Pitt) to relinquish the revenue which he derives from the Cinque Ports, and to live on the £6000 a year attached to his other appointment ; that he would have persuaded another honourable gentleman (Mr Dundas) to give up one of his numerous salaries ; * and a noble mar- quis, in another House, to give up some of the emolument which he derives from the tellership of the Exchequer, which would this year amount to £15,000. As the noble marquis, on a former occasion, professed himself ready to abandon part of those emoluments, and take the office at a more moderate salary, he had now an excellent opportunity to prove the sincerity of his declaration. I expected all this, and that they would not have failed to assist their own arguments by the operation of their generosity. The honourable gentleman shakes his head, as if I had said something which I did not mean, or would not stand by. When formerly, in conjunction with him and others, I attacked the corruption of Ministers, I thought I was speaking the sentiments of men who were sincere in recommending the doc- trine of public economy, and not persons secretly bargaining for a share of the wages of corruption. Little did I think that the opposition which they then expressed, was only an envious admiration of the honours and emolu- ments of Ministers, and an impatient desire of participation ; little did I con- ceive that the first act of a noble person (Duke of Portland) would have been to arrest from a gallant man a token of honour, which he had merited by his public services ; a man, to whom, indeed, that token could add no honour, but who might wish to introduce into his own profession such a badge of distinction. In Ireland, ever since the period of their arrangement, they have experienced the utmost difficulty and embarrassment, from a dispute which has subsisted about patronage, and which has at last been compro- mised ; how far honourably, I will leave to those who are best acquainted with the transactions to determine. In the present war, Ministers have been obliged to have recourse to allies both at home and abroad ; both have been * Mr Dundas was Treasurer of the Navy, and Secretary of State for the War De- partment. P 206 THE MODERN ORATOR, procured by the same means — bargain and subsidy. Among the members of the present cabinet there subsists a sort of Dutch amity, and they hate one another more cordially then even they do us who are in opposition to their measures. The question is, Has the Duke of Portland a majority in the cabinet ? No ; Mr Pitt constrains him by an additional vote. It was curious to observe the changes which had lately taken place ; from a lord privy seal, to be first lord of the Admiralty, and vice versa ; from president of the council, to be Lord-lieutenant of Ireland ; and from the Lord-lieute- nant of Ireland, to be Master of the Horse. A noble earl (Mansfield) came at first into the cabinet without any emolument ; I was at first disposed to give him credit for his disinterestedness ; but whether it was conceived by his colleagues to be a foolish thing, or that it might operate as a bad ex- ample, he was soon induced to accept the situation of president of the council, with a large salary. While all Europe is in a flame, they seem to be engaged at boys’ play ; to be scrambling for places and pensions, for ribands and titles, and amusing themselves with puss in the corner in the cabinet room. When such is the picture of the conduct of public men, I am not surprised at the declaration of the witness from Sheffield, that he gives no man of that description credit for being honest. Willingly would I throw a veil over such transactions for the sake of the country, were it pos- sible either to conceal their existence, or to extenuate their disgrace. Mr Sheridan said that he had now stated almost all that he had to say : there was nothing, in his mind, which would be more calculated to remove the danger of sedition than to abandon the system of corruption which now pre- vailed. To reform the conduct of government, and to correct abuses, would be the surest way to remedy discontent and render a further suspension of the Habeas Corpus unnecessary. He proceeded to state that many of the acts of the societies, which had excited so much alarm, were only imitations of what had been done by the societies in 1780.* * * § If the minister at that time had been disposed to prosecute, he might have made out a much better case of treason than had been brought forward by the present ministers. Was the memorable expression of the illustrious Earl of Chatham forgotten, ‘ that he rejoiced that America had resisted ?’f Could none of the mem- bers recollect the strong language adopted by Mr Burke on the same occa- sion ; and the sentiments that had been avowed in the House by the opposers of that war, 4 that they wept over the fall of Montgomery, J and did not exult in the desertion of Arnold ? ’ § He produced a paper with the * Mr Sheridan alluded to the riots in London, caused by Lord George Gordon, at the head of the Protestant Association, a society whose object was to prevent a repeal of the penal laws against Homan Catholics. f See Lord Chatham’s Speeches, page 27. X General Montgomery, one of the American commanders, shot at the unsuccessful siege of Quebec, 1775. § General Arnold, who, after having been promoted by Congress, for his valour and ability, deserted to the English in 1780, and became a brigadier- general in the British service. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 207 inscription, ‘ Lenox, the friend to equality,’ which, had the then Ministers been disposed to prosecute, contained matter more inflammatory than any paper that had been brought forward on the late trials. If approbation of the progress of the enemy, implied by toasts and resolutions ; if an unqua- lified claim of universal representations ; if disrespectful expressions, such as ‘What care I for the King’s birth-day?’ were to be construed as treasonable matter, all these would be found to apply to the associations in 1780, in a greater degree than to the present societies. Nay, a convention of the same nature with that which these societies had been charged as having conspired to hold, was then actually held. These men only trod in the same path in which they had seen others go before them, not only without impeachment but without reproach.* 4 If (said Mr Sheridan) we make a boast of equal laws, if these men are to be considered as guilty of high treason, let us have some retrospective hanging, and, whatever in that case may happen to me, his Majesty will at least derive some benefit, since he will thereby get rid of a majority of his present cabinet. Mr Sheridan said, that when he recollected that his speaking and writing might have been instrumental in inducing those men to espouse the views which they had adopted, he could not separate his own cause from theirs, and he did not know what other men’s consciences were made of, who could prosecute, and even bring to condign punishment and infamy, persons who had been guilty of no other crime than having taken up the same side of the question of which they themselves had formerly been the advocates and supporters. He then reprobated the arguments drawn from the differences of times, and the necessity of terrible examples — an argument to be found in everybody’s mouth, and which he contended to be false and mischievous. It was re- echoed from every quarter, and by every description of persons in office, from the prime minister to the exciseman — ‘ Look to the example of France.’ The implication was a libel upon the character of Great Britain. The cha- racters of nations arose not from the difference of soil and climate, but from the invariable and eternal decrees of Providence. Government was the school and seminary of the soul.” He proceeded to press the distinction in the characters and minds of the mass of the inhabitants of different countries, according to their different governments. “ I will not, therefore,” said Mr Sheridan, “ admit the infer- ence or the argument, that, because a people, bred under a proud, insolent, and grinding despotism, maddened by the recollection of former injuries, and made savage by the observation of former cruelties ; a people, in whose minds no sincere respect for property or law ever could have existed, because property had never been secured to them, and law had never protected them ; * Lord George Gordon, the author of the riots, was tried for high treason, and acquitted, as his offence did not appear to amount to treason ; had he been tried for high crimes and misdemeanors, he without doubt would have been convicted. A special commission was issued for the trial of a great number of the rioters, many of whom were found guilty and punished accordingly. p 2 208 THE MODERN ORATOR. a people separated and divided into classes by the strongest and harshest lines of distinction, generating envy and smothered malice in the lower ranks, and pride and insolence in the higher. That the actions of such a people, at any time, much less in the hour of frenzy and of fury, provoked and goaded by the arms and menaces of the surrounding despots that assailed them, should furnish an inference or ground on which to estimate the temper, cha- racter, or feelings of the people of Great Britain ; of a people, who, though sensible of many abuses which disfigure the constitution, were yet not insen- sible to its many and invaluable blessings ; a people who reverenced the laws of their country because those laws shielded and protected all alike ; a people, among whom all that was advantageous in private acquisition, all that was honourable in public ambition, was equally open to the efforts, the industry, and the abilities of all ; among whom progress, and rise in society and public estimation, was one ascending slope, as it were, without a break or landing-place ; among whom no sullen line of demarcation separated and cut off the several orders from each other, but all was one blended tint, from the deepest shade that veiled the meanest occupation of laborious industry, to the brightest hue that glittered in the luxurious pageantry of title, wealth, and power : he would not, therefore, look to the example of France; for, between the feelings, the tempers, and social disposition towards each other, much less towards the governments which they obeyed, of nations so differ- ently constituted and of such different habits, he would assert, that no com- parison could be made which reason and philosophy ought not to spurn at with contempt and indignation. If pressed further for an illustration on this subject, he would ask, what answer would those gentlemen give, if a person affectedly or sincerely anxious for the preservation of British liberty, were to say, ‘ Britons, abridge the power of your monarch, restrain the exer- cise of his just prerogative, withhold all power and resources from his govern- ment, or even send him to his electorate, from whence your voice exalted him — for mark what has been doing on the continent ! Look to the example of kings ! ! Kings, believe me, are the same in nature and temper every- where ; trust yours no longer : — see how that shameless and perfidious despot of Prussia, that trickster and tyrant, has violated every principle of truth, honour, and humanity, in his murderous, though impotent, attempt at plunder and robbery in Poland ! He, who had encouraged and even gua- ranteed to them their constitution : * — see him, with a scandalous profana- tion of the resources which he had wrung by fraud from the credulity of Great Britain, trampling on the independence he was pledged to maintain, and seizing for himself the countries he had sworn to protect. Mark the * After the first partition of Poland, and the promulgation of the new constitution by the Diet in 1788, the King of Prussia expressed his entire approval of the changes adopted, and with the basest perfidy declared, that he had nothing nearer his heart than the interests of Poland and the preservation of a good understanding with it; while at the same time he entered into a fresh alliance with Catherine, Empress of Russia, for making a second partition, which was effected in 1794. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 209 still more sanguinary efforts of the despot of Russia, faithless not to us only and the cause of Europe, as it is called, but craftily outwitting her per- jured coadjutor, profiting by his disgrace, and grasping to herself the victim which had been destined to glut their joint rapacity. See her thanking her favourite General Suwarrow,* and, still more impious, thanking Heaven for the opportunity ; thanking him for the most iniquitous act of cruelty the bloody page of history recorded — the murderous scene at Prague, where, not in the heat and fury of action, not in the first impatience of revenge, but after a cold, deliberate pause of ten hours, with temperate barbarity, he ordered a considerate, methodical massacre of 10,000 women and children. These are the actions of monarchs! Look to the example of kings ! /’ What those gentlemen would reply to such an argument or exhortation I know not. My answer should be, I treat your inference and comparison with the same abhorrence and indignation with which I turn from those who would libel and traduce the character and principles of the people of England ; and upon the same grounds and principles, I will not look to the example of the princes you point out, and justly, perhaps, stigmatise, in order to measure my allegiance and opinion of the King of Great Britain. I am not to be misled by names ; I regard not that the four letters are the same which form the title of the despot of Brandenburg, and of the first magistrate of this free country. I will not look to the principles or practice of a man born and bred in flattery, falsehood, and faithlessness — of a prince accustomed to look to fear only for obedience, and to arms only for security ; of one used to consider his people as his property, their lives and limbs his traffic ; of one instructed to make his will the law, and the law his tool ; of one, finally, whose heart must be perverted and corrupted by that which ever did and ever will deprave and corrupt the human heart — the possession of despotic power. I will not borrow from such an example a rule to estimate the prin- ciples, acts, or wishes of a monarch, where it must be as palpably his wish as his interest to reign in the hearts of his people ; of a prince, whom a love of liberty alone in the people exalted to his present situation ; and who must, therefore, regard and cherish that love of liberty in his subjects, as the real body-guard of his person ; of a king, who, not seated on a solitary emi- nence of power, sees in the co-existing branches of the legislature his equals — in the law his superior ; who, taught by the awful examples of our history, knows he is accountable for the sacred trust reposed in him, and, * In the last struggle of the Poles for independence, under the famous Kosciusko, Suwarrow, who had acquired a high reputation in the Turkish Avar, acted as the General- in-chief of the Russian forces. Kosciusko was defeated and taken prisoner, and Suwarrow marched to take possession of the capital. The remains of the Polish army, which were collected at Praga, on the Vistula, opposite to Warsaw, made but a feeble resistance to the veteran army of the Russians, and, the capital having been stormed, its inhabitants were plundered and massacred without quarter. In the par- tition which followed, Austria obtained Cracow and the country betiveen the Pilitsa, the Vistula, and the Bug ; to Prussia was assigned Warsaw, and the country as far as the Nieman ; the rest formed the share of Russia. 210 THE MODERN ORATOR. owing his title to the people’s choice, feels the true security of his throne to be the people’s love. Thus would I reply, and thus would I remain — though disclaiming the servile cant of adulation, with sentiments of unabated attach- ment to the person of our present monarch, and with unshaken adherence to the principle of hereditary government in this country, while limited, and directed to the objects for which that and all other power on earth is created — the benefit and happiness of the people who confer the trust. “ Mr Sheridan concluded, that, if he were to look to the prodigality, the corruption, the detestable system of spies and informers, the insolence of the higher and the oppression of the lower orders, which had distinguished the old government of France, and which, he contended, had produced all the evils of the present system, he would thence be taught to avoid intro- ducing into this country a system of terror and corruption, and to give back to the people those rights and privileges which riveted their affection and secured their obedience, and placed the order and stability of the govern- ment upon their best foundation, the protection and happiness of the subject. The object of his present motion went only to bring back that which ought never to have been taken away. He should, therefore, now move for leave to bring in a bill to repeal an Act passed in the last session of parliament, empowering his Majesty to secure and detain such persons as shall be suspected of conspiring against his person and government.” On a division, the motion was lost by 185 to 41. Speech in opposition to the third reading of Mr Pitt’s bill for increasing the Assessed Taxes — 4th January, 1798. On the opening of Parliament in November, 1797, Mr Pitt stated the supplies for the year ensuing to be estimated at £25,000,000, and brought forward a new financial plan, for raising a considerable portion of that sum within the year, without adding to the permanent debt of the country. The substance of his proposition was, to treble the assessed taxes ; but with the proviso, that no person should be assessed higher than a tenth of his income, which was to be taken at the amount declared by individuals, subject to be checked by surveyors, in case of unfair returns. “ Sir, — The honourable gentleman (Mr Martin) who has just sat down, has called for more explanations of what other gentlemen have advanced than I ever recollect to have heard in this house. In candour I must conclude that the honourable gentleman really wanted information upon the points which he affected not to understand ; and that where he did misunderstand or mistake the arguments of others, he did not mean to be guilty of wilful misrepresentation. The speech of the honourable gentleman, however, called upon so many members to explain the points upon which he has commented, that I have been under the necessity to give way to them. I now rise, thus early ail the debate, and I feel some satisfaction in reflecting RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 211 that the adjournment which has taken place gives me an opportunity of pre- senting myself when the attention of the House was awake, because, had I proceeded last night, I might have found the honourable gentleman (Mr Martin) wearied and exhausted, and disposed, perhaps, to give me a hint to sit down before I had finished my argument. I have listened to the speech of the honourable gentleman (Mr Perceval) ; a speech of great talent, great inge- nuity, and considerable vehemence. The sentiments which it contains seemed to be so much in unison with the feelings of those around him, that I flatter myself that the approbation with which it has been received may contribute to shorten the debate, and to supersede the necessity of making long speeches from that side of the House. It was remarkable, however, that the honourable gentleman, amidst a variety of matter on which he descanted, cautiously abstained from touching upon the real question before the House. Many of the topics which he brought forward, I am ready to admit, were fairly introduced, and perfectly regular in parliamentary debate. While I admit the right of the honourable gentleman to argue the subject in his own way, it perhaps might have been better had he altogether ab- stained from certain points ; or, to use a phrase which has become very fashionable since the introduction of the present bill, had he modified his attack upon my right honourable friend.*' The honourable gentleman never attempted to show that the right honourable gentleman f below him was the fittest person to administer the affairs of this country — that he was the ablest minister for the conduct of war, and the most proper person to negotiate with success. The whole scope of his speech was merely to show that the right honourable gentleman was placed in the revenue to bar my right honourable friend, as if it necessarily followed that he alone could be the successor of the present minister. Supposing, as he did, for the sake of argument, that my right honourable friend was qualified to negotiate with a better prospect of success than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he said it would be incumbent upoh the House, as a preliminary step, to treat with their negotiator. He thought that my right honourable friend could not be invested with that character without danger to the country. What were the grounds upon which this assertion was founded ? He accuses my right honourable friend of having considered men as innocent who were acquitted by the verdict of a jury, and having argued, upon this acquittal, that there was no proof of the conspiracy of which they were accused, j He accuses him of having said, on the discussion of the treason and sedition bills, that resistance would be a question, not of morality, but of prudence. Above all, he founded his apprehension upon words which he supposes to have been lately used by my right honourable friend, that he would take no share in any administration without a total, fundamental, and radical reform. The honourable gentleman has made a very pretty play upon these words. I cannot but suspect, however, that the honourable gentlenpan, who has been * Hr Pox. f Mr Pitt. % & ee page 192. 212 THE MODERN ORATOR. celebrated for epigram, has put these words into the mouth of my right honourable friend, merely for the sake of the point with which he has con- trasted them. He finds out that the reform so broadly stated will not be a total reform ; that the fundamental reform will not touch the foundation ; and that the radical reform will be confined to the branches without descend- ing to the root ? This epigrammatic wit, however, is founded entirely upon the words which the honourable gentleman has purposely added to the ex- pression to which he alludes. They were not used by my right honourable friend. The expression he employed, and which has become more conspicu- ous from its being made the subject of particular thanks in certain resolutions lately advertised, was, that he would take no share in any administration, without a radical reform in the represen tat : on, and of the abuses of the present system. Such was the expression of my right honourable friend, and the words which the honourable gentleman has added into the bargain were merely introduced to point a sentence, and to enliven his speech. The honourable gentleman considers the conduct of those whom he represents as unfit successors to the present men in power, as calculated to encourage the Jacobins, and to forward the views of the French. These certainly are formidable evils, but the honourable gentleman ‘quickly discovers some ground of consolation amidst the dangers which he apprehends. He thinks that my right honourable friend would retract the declarations he has made ? that he would renounce the principles he has avowed, and that, in office, he would not act upon the professions he held before he came into power. On what part of the conduct of my right honourable friend he founds this asser- tion, I am at a loss to conjecture. What are the professions, made when out of office, which in power he has belied r True it is, that such conduct is not unusual with statesmen. True it is, that there have been men who have for- feited such pledges ; who have said that there could be no salvation for this country without a radical reform (for this, beyond dispute, was the expres- sion of the right honourable gentleman opposite) ;* who have maintained that no honest man could undertake the administration of this country without that reform ; and have, like him, abandoned the words and principles they once held, and resisted, by all the power of corruption, the cause which they laboured to promote. With the right honourable gentleman, the type and image of apostasy before his eyes, it perhaps was natural that the honourable gentleman should consider professions as made only to be re- nounced. When he reflected that the present minister had not only aban- doned the principles he professed, and violated the faith he pledged to the public, but had become the most zealous persecutor of those whom he had convinced by his arguments and influenced by his example, there was no wonder that he should distrust professions, and ascribe but little sincerity to the declarations of statesmen. The honourable gentleman apprehends that * In 1782, Mr Pitt had been strenuous for reform himself, moving for a committee “ to inquire into the state of the representation of the people in parliament, and to report to the House their sentiments thereon.” RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 213 many dreadful consequences would ensue, were this radical reform to be car- ried into effect. What that radical change of system is to be, the honour- able gentleman professes to be ignorant. For my own part I can say, that no man can be more decidedly hostile than I am, to any change of system that could lead to a change of the ancient established constitution of this government. But I will tell the honourable gentleman what has been the consequence of that change of system which has been introduced into the constitution of this country. If any minister of brilliant talents, of splendid endowments, but actuated by principles of the most boundless and colossal ambition, raised up by influence, supported by corruption, should set at nought the rules of Parliament, violate the act of appropriation, raise money without the authority of this house, and send it out of the country without the consent of parliament,* * * § if he has transgressed the constitution with im- punity, if his criminality is suffered to pass even without rebuke — this is nothing less than a radical change of system. If by his folly and incapacity he has raised discontents — if, by the burdens which he has imposed, to sup- port an impolitic and ruinous system, he has alienated the minds of the people from his government — if, to suppress the opposition which such a state of things must naturally produce, he has had recourse to military force, and covered the country with barracks, in defiance of the constitution — such practices constitute a radical change of system. If he has distinguished his administration by severity unknown to the laws of this country — if he has introduced new codes of treason and sedition,! if he has doomed men of talent to the horrors of transportation, the victims of hanh and rigorous sentences,! if he has laboured to vilify and to libel the conduct of juries, § such proceedings originate in a radical change of system. If he has used the royal prerogative in the creation of peers, not to reward merit, but con- verted the peerage into the regular price of base and servile support — if he has carried this abuse so far that, were the indignant, insulted spirit of this nation roused at length to demand justice on the crime of which he has been guilty, he would be tried in a house of peers, where the majority of the * £1,200,000 had been advanced to the Emperor, without the previous consent of parliament, although sitting at the time. f In consequence of the attack on his Majesty, in 1795, which was supposed to have resulted from the seditious meetings held at that time, and, in particular, the meetings of the Corresponding Society in Copenhagen Fields, the government introduced two bills : one in the House of Lords “ for the safety and preservation of his Majesty's person and government against treasonable and seditious attempts,” and one in the House of Commons, “ for the prevention of seditious meetings;” both of which, after a strong opposition, were passed. X Mr Sheridan here alludes to the severe sentence on Messrs Muir and Palmer, who were tried in 1794, in Scotland, for “ leasing making,” or stirring up sedition ; and, being found guilty, 'were condemned to fourteen years’ transportation. Considerable doubt was entertained, whether the law warranted a severer punishment for their offence, than outlawry, without transportation. § See page 194. / 214 THE MODERN ORATOR. judges were created by himself — I will tell the honourable gentleman that such a state of things must have originated in a radical change of system. Would it not be right, then, to pull down that fabric of corruption, to recall the government to its original principles, and to re-establish the constitution upon its true basis ? Will any set of men deny the necessity of a radical change of system by which these evils shall be corrected, but those who already share in its corruptions, or who, at some future period, expect to pro- mote their personal interests by those very abuses which have exhausted the strength and endangered the safety of their country. “ So much, then, for what the honourable gentleman has said upon this subject. It must now be clear that no peace can be obtained. It was not even supposed by the friends of Ministers that they were sincere in their attempts at peace till the last trial. Then 1 am rather inclined to give them credit for sincerity, though I can see that a right honourable gentleman (Mr Wyndham) trembles at the very idea of peace with the French republic. The honourable gentleman, however, takes it for granted, that there can be no choice, but between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon- ourable friend ; on a former occasion, however, I stated, that any other set of men should try to negotiate peace with France, because any set of men must negotiate with a better prospect of success than the present ministers ; it is not in nature, that the French can consider the right honourable gentle- man capable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity with their government. They know that the hostile mind exists, that peace is not sought in the spirit of peace, that no real reconciliation is desired. Any peace that could be concluded I would consider as a false and hollow truce. It could not be a ground of security ; it could not restore the blessings of peace. Upon the faith of it I could not consent to the reduction of a single man, in the military or naval establishment of this country. J ealousies and suspicions would poison all the advantages which a sincere peace could be- stow. The French would feel that they furnished to the administration of this country the means of fomenting the dissensions in France from which . they cherish the hope of re-establishing royalty ; they would lay themselves open to those intrigues, and to that corruption, which have hitherto been em- ployed to overthrow their new institutions. If the French Directory could encourage or agree to such an insidious truce, and expose the government which they administer to such attacks, as in this way it would sustain, they would be guilty of treason to their country. But it is impossible they could risk such dangers. It is impossible that they could stake their existence on the hollow and deceitful peace which the present Minister could offer. “ The honourable gentleman, then, cannot say, that there is no alternative between those who are in power, and those he points out as their successors. From different men and different measures, hopes of peace might be derived. But it is said that my right honourable friend, and those who act with him, are co-operating with the French ; and what is the proof of this assertion ? Why, the French say so ! This, indeed is a curious mode of proving the fact. RICHARD BRINSLEY SIIERIDAN. 215 It would, indeed, be a hard rule, if what the enemy say of what is done by any members of the British parliament, was to be the standard by which they are to be judged. We are not to be tried by what we have said, by the measures we have recommended, by the whole of our conduct, and by our own professions, but by the opinion which the enemy may think proper to express. But how, then, do we co-operate with the enemy ? We are friends to reform ; a phrase which, it seems, is henceforth to be deemed synonymous with revolution. But how is this reform, from which such dreadful conse- quences are apprehended, to be introduced, even were my right honourable friend to support it when in office ? Will not the right honourable gentleman be still ready to oppose it ? The honourable gentleman either thinks that my honourable friend, when minister, will have in favour of reform that cor- ruption, that influence, those titles, those jobs and contracts, by which it is now opposed ; or he thinks that, parliament being dissolved, that corruption and influence will be employed to induce the people to choose representatives favourable to the cause of reform. What do these arguments prove, but the necessity of reform ? They prove that the pretended representation of the country is in the hands of the Crown, to be moulded at the will of the min- ister, and thus furnishes the most powerful motive to remove the causes by which this corruption is maintained. “ Having made these remarks upon the topics introduced by the honour- able gentleman, I shall next say a few words upon some things which fell from a noble lord (Hawkesbury) in yesterday’s debate. The noble lord says, ‘ that those who oppose all supply ought to have made that opposition when the supply was voted.’ For my own part, I am not against all supply, though I am not sure that a different conduct would be fully as proper. But, in a constitutional view, nothing can be more parliamentary than to refuse voting supply. It is fair to infer, that, if Ministers have not the confidence of this house, the refusal of supplies would be attended with the immediate resigna- tion of those ministers. Certainly it is not the intention of any man that the army or navy should be disbanded, and the country laid at the feet of the enemy. Such an alternative does not follow from the refusal of supplies. I confess, however, when I consider the desperate characters of the ministers in power, I think it would not be advisable to risk the attempts of which they might be guilty to retain their power, even in defiance of the constitu- tional privileges of this house. The noble lord, however, says, 4 that never was the naval superiority of this country more conspicuously displayed, never was our naval glory more highly exalted, than by the brilliant victories ob- tained during the present war.’ What, however, must be the nature of the war, when these splendid successes have not brought us nearer to the objects for which we engaged in the contest ? What must be the importance of our acquisitions, when they are all to be given for peace ? 4 How would France have stood had we not interfered ? ’ says the noble lord. ‘ What additional strength would she not have derived from those ships and those colonies of which she has been deprived by our success ?’ But let any man weigh the f 216 THE MODERN ORATOR. advantages we have derived from our success, with the sacrifices by which they have been purchased. Will any man say, that, if this country had pre- served a dignified neutrality, France, surrounded as she was by foreign enemies, would have still more oppressed and harassed her subjects to raise a naval power which no danger required ? Contrary to all practice, to all experience of what has been considered as the object of continental diversion promoted by this country, would France, in the situation in which she was placed, have turned her attention to naval exertions ? But we gained seve- ral ships by the victory of the 1st of June,* * * § by the capture of Toulon, f by the acquisition of those charnel-houses in the West Indies, in which 50,000 men have been lost to this country. Consider the price which has been paid for these successes. For these boasted successes, I will say, give me back the blood of Englishmen which has been shed in this fatal contest — give me back the £250,000,000 of debt which it has occasioned — give me back the hon- our of the country, which has been tarnished— give me back the credit of the country which has been destroyed — give me back the solidity of the Bank of England, which has been overthrown! — give me back the attachment of the people to their ancient constitution, which has been shaken by acts of oppression and tyrannical laws — give me back the kingdom of Ireland, § the connexion of which is endangered by a cruel and outrageous system of mili- tary coercion — give me back that pledge of eternal war which must be attended with inevitable ruin ! Put what we have lost into the scale against what we have gained, and say if the price exceeds the value of the object. But even all these advantages, we are told, may be given up for peace. Surely, then, a person of the noble lord's abilities can never consider these objects as acquisitions, which are to be given up for peace, and leave us with- out a compensation for all the sacrifices which we have made for their attain- ment. The noble lord says, ‘ that the value of the West India Islands taken from the enemy, must be estimated in relation to our own. By the offensive measures against the former, the latter were preserved.’ If this be the case, then, when we give up the islands we have conquered, we give up our own islands, and abandon the security by which they are held. Such are the * Lord Howe’s celebrated victory, 1st June, 1794. f See page 179.’ f In consequence of the large advances made by the Bank to Government for the public service, and remittances to foreign states, added to the run on the country banks, which some extended to London, from the fear of threatened invasion by the French, an order was issued by the Privy Council prohibiting the Bank from paying their notes in gold, and an act of Parliament was shortly after passed for the same object. By the reports of the Secret Committee, appointed by the House, it appeared that, at the time of the suspension of cash payments, the assets of the Bank amounted to £3,826,890 beyond its liabilities, independent of £11,666,800 in the 3 per cents, due from Government. § In a subsequent part of this year, 1798, the great Irish Rebellion broke out, in which upwards of 30,000 lives were sacrificed. By ministers, the rebellion was at- tributed to the spread of Jacobinical principles through seditious clubs, and by the opposition to a tyrannical and unconstitutional system of government. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 217 acquisitions which we have made at the expense of so much blood and treasure. “ With regard to the continental war, the noble lord says, ‘ that we had done our duty but he now discovers that our allies were guilty of every error, and all of them were destitute of common honesty. After some years’ experience of the conduct of our allies, and of the principles by which they were guided, the noble lord could vote for giving two millions to one of them !* Even this ally, the theme of so much panegyric, in whose success it was said that every peasant in this country was interested, in whose glory every Englishman partook, is now comprehended in the general charge of the noble lord against the continental members of the confederacy. But, in the prosecution of their views of personal interest and aggrandisement, they took the example from the conduct of this country. When they found the hypo- critical pretences of religion, morality, and social order belied by our eager- ness to seize upon every island, to plunder every possession which was ex- posed to our power, they began to entertain similar views, and to be actuated by the same motives. Those who would succeed ministers, it is said, how- ever, are connected with Jacobins. Who are they who are connected with the Jacobins? Would it be the same thing to entrust the administration of affairs in the hands of those who oppose ministers, as if the Whigs, in 1745, had resigned the state into the hands of the Tories ?f The latter was avowedly desirous to alter the succession ; but will gentlemen seriously say, that they believe that those whom they represent as the only rivals of the present ministers, are leagued with any faction to alter the constitution of this country, in the same manner as the Jacobites, in the year 1745, were hostile to the existing establishment ? “ Availing myself of the latitude of reply upon the general topics brought forward by those who have spoken upon anything but the question before the House, I shall now proceed to make some remarks on the speech of a learned doctor who spoke last night, j Having come to this House several hours after the debate had begun, and finding that the gentlemen who spoke, after I came in, confined themselves very little to the discussion of the present measure, I was obliged to take it for granted, the particular question before the House had been very fully discussed in the speeches which were made before my arrival. The learned doctor to whom I have alluded, perhaps, may not remember that he spoke at all. A wise man, it is said, doubts of everything ; and the learned doctor seemed to carry his scepticism a great way, for at the commencement of his speech he doubted whether he was * Two millions and a half were voted for the King of Prussia in 1794 ; notwith- standing which, he withdrew from the coalition in 1795, and concluded a treaty with France, engaging not to furnish his former allies with any succours or contingents whatsoever. See p. 175. f The time of the attempted invasion by Charles Edward Stuart, son of the Che- valier de St George. See note, p. 3. X Dr Lawrence. 218 THE MODERN ORATOR. speaking. I remember the words with which he began were, ‘ Sir, in rising to address myself to you on the present occasion, if I have risen.’ If the learned gentleman still doubts whether he spoke at all, I can assure him that he made a very ingenious, a very elaborate, and certainly a long speech upon a variety of topics, without speaking at all to the bill before the House ; and, if he doubts my authority, any other gentleman may probably give him the same assurance. The learned gentleman went into a wide view of Roman history, and told us, upon the authority of Scipio, that we had little to dread from the threatened invasion of the enemy, because they must conquer us before we could conquer them. What would the lord mayor and aider- men of London say, if the learned gentleman were to tell them, when Buonaparte was encamped at Blackheath, that they need be under no appre- hension ; that, before he could advance to burn the city of London, Lord Hawkesbury was advancing to lay Paris in ashes ? I should like to see the faces of the mercantile world, when they were informed, on the authority of Scipio, that they could not be safe till the enemy were at the gates of the metropolis, and that they could not hope for a successful termination of the contest, till they had been first conquered ! In the representation of the conduct of Hanno, at Carthage, by whose exertions the supplies were refused to Hannibal, the learned doctor did not do justice to Hanno. At the same time it is to be observed, that he said not a word of the striking difference between Hanno the Carthaginian, and the Hanno whom he insinuated to be in the British senate. Hanno succeeded in keeping back the supplies.* But has the British Hanno ever been able to prevail upon the senate to refuse supplies ? has he unnerved the vigour of our exertions r has he checked the career of success ? has he suspended our victorious arms in the moment of triumph ? On the contrary, has not the Minister received sup- plies with unexampled profusion ? has he not been allowed to employ them as he thought proper ? has he ever been rebuked for misapplication ? has his misconduct ever been the subject even of inquiry? Hannibal, too, was a young man — -jlagrantem cupidine regni. The argument of Hanno was, ‘ I hear of the victories of Hannibal, but I hear of no advantage which they produce to Carthage. Every victory is followed by fresh demands and new requisitions. The continuance of the war, therefore, must prove ruinous to Carthage.’ The affairs of the Carthaginians afterwards miscarried. Hanni- bal afterwards laughed at his countrymen. But what did he laugh at ? He * Mr Sheridan here was in error, for a large majority of the Carthaginian senate voted for sending the supplies asked for. The account, in Livy, lib. xxiii., c. 13, is, “ Haud multos movit Hannonis oratio ; nam et simultas cum familia Barcina leviorem auctorem faciebat, et occupati animi prsesenti loetitia nihil, quo vanius fieret gaudium suum, auribus admittebant ; debellatumque mox fore, si anniti paululum voluissent, rebantur. Itaque ingenti consensu fit senatus-consultum, ut Hannibali quatuor Numidarum millia in supplementum mitterentur, et quadraginta elephanti et argenti multa talenta. Dictatorque cum Magone in Hispaniam prsemissus est, ad condu- cenda viginti millia peditum, quatuor equitiun, quibus exercitus qui in Italia, quique in Hispania erant, supplerentur.” ItlCHAHT) BTIINSLEY SHEBIDAN. 219 laughed at those men who affected to be dissatisfied with the terms of peace, without considering in whose hands they had left the conduct of the war. In similar circumstances, any man might, perhaps, smile, like Hannibal, to see the people of this country discontented with the terms of peace, when it was remembered that the war was prosecuted under the auspices of the present ministers. “ I cannot refrain, however, from expressing my astonishment, that a grave personage like the learned gentleman, a member of the gravest pro- fession which this house contains, should bring forward all his school-boy politics to evince the propriety of invading France. The learned gentleman, perhaps, thinks that it falls to his share to support in this House the opinions of a man of much greater talents, of much higher endowments — the late Mr Burke, whose name ought never to be mentioned but with respect. He thinks, perhaps, that he is the executor of that great man’s principles ; that he is called upon to administer to his fury without possessing a single spark of his fire. I regret that any gentleman should conceive himself the repre- sentative of the violent and extravagant declamations, which so fatally were received in this House with so much approbation, and which have been at- tended with such lamentable consequences to this country and to Europe. “ The frivolous school-boy topics, for such they are, upon which the learned gentlemen proposes to model our conduct, have, indeed, no similarity to the circumstances in which we are placed. When he desires to imitate the con- duct of the Romans, does he remember that the Romans were a people inured to war and to hardships ? Does he mean to compare a commercial country like Great Britain with a warlike people like the Romans, or to point out similar rules of policy for the guidance of our conduct ? Had Rome the debt by which this country is borne down ? Had Rome the bulwark of a navy supported by commerce ? Would sacking that capital have given a death to that credit by which alone we can subsist as a nation ? If the arguments of the learned gentleman could even produce the effect which he desires, the event would not furnish a subject for the moralist and the historian, but the fate which would await the right honourable gentleman, if he was seduced by such counsels, might be expressed in the language of the poet — “ ‘ I demens curre per Alpes, Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias.’ Posterity would brand his name in the same manner, furnishing, in his de- struction only, the subject of panegyric to school-boy politicians, and a speech to a grave doctor learned in the law. “ The learned gentleman, amidst all his topics of argument, said nothing as to the nature of the bill before the House. If, after the deviations which the course of the debate has taken, I may venture to take that liberty without being called to order, I shall now say a few words to the question. It has been asked, Do those who oppose this measure admit the principle, or can they produce anything better ? Certainly no person is bound to propose a 220 THE MODERN ORATOR. measure of his own when he rises to oppose that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer : yet, in such a crisis as the present, it would be unmanly to withhold any ideas which we can contribute, or any of the sentiments we entertain. I then say that the only mode by which any sum like that re- quired can be raised, is by a loan, the interest of which is to be paid by taxes, or voluntary contribution, with a sinking fund for the extinction of the debt.* This is the true principle by which money can be raised in this country. Suppose it is impossible to borrow : in such a state of things this country is ruined. If Government cannot borrow, the subject cannot give. I am very far from wishing to inculcate despair. If I really entertained such a sentiment, I should wish to disguise it even from myself. But we may yet borrow. How, then, are the funds to be raised to that state at which it may be convenient to borroAV ? It must be done by abandoning the system on which we have proceeded — by retrenchment in the public expense. If public spirit does exist, voluntary subscriptions may afford some aid ; but of this, I confess, I am not very sanguine. Above all, however, it is necessary to re- store the Bank to its former credit, to prevent any stipulation being made to prevent it from paying its just debts, and to restore to the country the bless- ing of peace. As to the present measure, it must end in forced contribution of income by forced disclosure, a thing utterly irreconcilable to the spirit of a free and commercial country. If assessors were to be appointed, arbitrarily to make assessments of the income of every individual, which, from the surveys already made by the collectors of the income of individuals, seems to be the design of Ministers, such a mode of proceeding would be a better criterion than the assessed taxes. In my mind, no criterion at all, however good it may be thought, can render the principle tolerable. Those who, from the criterion taken up by the minister this year, ha\e been caught, will be careful in future to avoid any external symptoms by which, on any future occasion, they might be assessed. It will occasion universal retrenchment, and, conse- quently, injure the revenue by destroying consumption. The effect of this system of retrenchment will diminish the public revenue by at least two millions. An arbitrary assessment would be better than that taken on any criterion, because the former would make it indifferent to the person contribut- ing, whither he spent all his income or not : while the latter would induce him to avoid every appearance that could be made the future standard of contribution. A coachmaker, in Long- acre, would do wisely, if he could, to give at once a hundred pounds, than a much smaller sum which deprived him of his customers. In the same manner the watchmakers. Their employment was not taxed, because that would seem to tax ingenious mechanics ; but those who wore watches were taxed, and many industrious men were reduced to the most deplorable wretchedness. The whole system and principle of the measure appears utterly irreconcilable with every wise and just scheme of taxation. * This was the principle proposed by Mr Pitt, in 1786, for the reduction of the national debt. RTOIIARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 221 “What substitute, then, is to be taken ? There are but three ways in which this sum can be raised within the year — either by voluntary contributions, by increasing the existing taxes, or by a forced loan ; and of these three the present measure is the worst. Might not the whole of the plan be post- poned, except that which provides for voluntary contributions ? And I am sure, for one, I have no objection to read the bill, in that case, three times in one day, that we may try this experiment. With this bill hanging over us, such contributions could not be called voluntary, for no man could hesitate, in point of prudence, to pay the full amount of what he would be obliged to pay, rather than be made to contribute on the valuation of income taken from any visible symptoms. I am not very sanguine of the success of volun- tary contributions,* without some such compulsions. From the highest to the lowest of those connected with the government, there has been no dispo- sition to give up anything : there has been no example to the people of this spirit of sacrifice. It is not easy to encourage individuals in the habits of acquisition, and the spirit of liberality towards the government. If a Bengal memshi, or a Chinese mandarin, were to be informed that £400,000,000 had been lent to the government by individuals ; that a race was run by the competitors for the preference ; that men contended about the subdivision of the portions, and parcelled out the parts among a crowd of friends, he would be ready to exclaim, ‘O magnanimous, O invincible people!’ Were he again to be told that the views which actuated the lenders were selfish ; that their profits were usurious ; that loyalty-loan holders had besieged that house for indemnification for the loss sustained on a bargain, he would ex- claim, ‘ O wretched, O undone people ! ’ It is by addressing the interest of this body of men, however, that the accommodation of the government can be secured ; and how is the credit of the country to be restored to that situation which will render it practicable ? “ No disposition to contribute voluntarily has yet been displayed, from the very highest to the lowest ranks in the administration of government. While a teller of the Exchequer receives £10,000 or £12,000 a year by the war, a near relation of that person contends that no peace ought to be made. But I am told that it is rude, uncourteous, and vulgar, to suppose that such a sum could influence the sentiments of any man. Rude, uncour- teous, and vulgar as this is, the constitution is that rude, vulgar fellow, though the right honourable gentleman will flout and scorn those who suppose motives of this nature. The constitution is jealous of the effect of office, and even sends a man back to his constituents who accepts a situa- tion to which important duties are attached. I have high authority, there- fore, in supposing, that some bias may affect the mind where interest powerfully prompts a man to support any system of measures. I recollect, * A clause was subsequently introduced into the bill for the purpose of admitting voluntary contributions, and tjhe sum thus received amounted to £1,500,000, of which the Bank gave £200,000, the King £20,000, and the Queen £5000. Q f 222 THE MODERN ORATOR, that at the end of the American war, when I was secretary to the Treasury, the noble marquis, who is teller of the Exchequer, wrote a letter to the commissioners of the treasury, requesting that the office might he placed in the reform, hut saying, at the same time, that his conscience would burn to think that he was profiting by the calamities of the country. This offer, however, was declined. Now, however, when the public exigencies so strongly demand some sacrifice, I am persuaded the noble marquis will not only be ready to forego a part of the profits of this office, but will bring up all the arrears that burn upon his conscience since the year 1783. “ Last year, I took occasion to state that twenty-four millions would be necessary for the peace establishment of the country, taking the average peace establishment before the war at seventeen millions. Since that period, seven and a half millions of permanent taxes have been added, and it will require another million and a half before the sum already expended and due can be provided. Thus, twenty-six millions must be raised, though peace was immediately to take place. When it is considered, however, what any new peace establishment must be ; when the system which is pursued in this country is taken into view ; when the manner in which Ireland is not governed, but ground down and oppressed ; when the hollow and deceitful nature of any peace with the right honourable gentleman is recollected, no man can think that two millions more, making twenty-eight millions, would be an extravagant computation as the amount of the permanent peace esta- blishment. This is a tremendous and awful consideration ; but, if the country is to be saved, we must look our situation in the face, and make provision for the utmost extent of our difficulties. “ While the Bank continues in its present state of dependence on the Minister, it is impossible to hope, however, that public credit can be re- stored, and the funds raised. Last year, much was said in the newspapers about the connexion between the right honourable gentleman and the Bank. It was said, that the banns had been forbid. The conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed, that he cultivated the connexion on account of the lady’s dowry, not for the comfort of her society. At first, the affair seemed to present the appearance of a penitent seduction, but now it has degenerated into a contented prohibition. The country wished to forgive the indiscretion, on the hopes of amendment. What has produced the infatuation it is not easy to conjecture, unless the right honourable gentle- man had given the old lady love-powder. The hey-day of the blood was over, but the rankness of the passion has not subsided. The dear deceiver is taken into favour, and the ruin he has occasioned is forgotten. “ Upon the examination into the affairs of the Bank, the standing com- mittee of correspondence between the Bank and the Ministers pronounce, that there are sufficient means to pay all the private debts of the Bank — but the Minister interposes. The Bank is placed in the situation of a person who can pay and will not. Of all situations, none could be more injurious to credit than this. When it is known that men are willing to pay, credit RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 223 stretches a great way in favour of their ability ; but when a person is under- stood to be able to pay, and will not, the confidence on which credit must be founded is overthrown. “ The manner in which the last report of the Bank committee is drawn up, is likewise very curious. It is found there is enough of fund to pay the pri- vate creditors of the Bank ; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer says, ‘ No ! and claps his lock and key on their coffers. Without meaning any quibble on the name of the honourable chairman of the committee, the conduct o the right honourable gentleman irresistibly reminds me of an old proverb. The report of the committee is very favourable, but still the Bank must be kept under confinement. ‘ Brag is a good dog,’ says the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ‘ but Holdfast is a better,’ and the Bank must be kept under the tutorage of the Minister, till he finds it convenient for himself to set the directors at liberty. The advances made by the Bank to government occa- sioned the first stoppage, and now three millions are again to be advanced without any security whatever. If the directors do not insist on some secu- rity for their repayment, they will be guilty of a gross breach of duty, and the most culpable neglect of the interest of their constituents. It seems that the Bank is to be the new Temple of Janus — ever shut in time of war.* While war continues we must be contented to view the meagre paper profile ; nor will we be permitted to contemplate the golden bust till the return of peace. The French Directory are thus to have the keys of the Bank, which cannot be opened till they grant permission. “ The right honourable gentleman says, ‘ that the French aim their attacks against the credit of this country, and it is necessary to guard against their designs.’ The expression of the report is whimsical enough : it states, that the enemy design to attack us ‘by means of our credit.’ ‘No,’ says the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ‘ I have taken care to take that weapon out of your hands ; a dangerous weapon like this I certainly will not leave you to employ.’ It is said by some, That the conduct of those who oppose the Min- ister encourages the French ; while, on the contrary, the whole system of his administration tends to encourage their designs. He has taught them to be- lieve that he governs the lower classes only by coercion, and the upper ranks by corruption. More is done by the language held by some gentlemen in this house, that it is neeessary to confine the soldiers in barracks, to make them deaf if the people cannot be made dumb, than by any conduct which can be imputed to the opposers of Ministers. By showing that the Minister can get no support unpurchased, the enemy are led to think that there is no public spirit in the country — that nothing can be done but by jobs, and titles, and pensions. What can they think of those who come forward under the * Janus was worshipped by the Romans as a Deity presiding over war, and was hence called Quirinus, or Martialis. He was also named Patuleius, and Clausius, from the circumstance of the gates of the temples dedicated to him being always open in time of war, and shut in time of peace ; and so constantly were the Romans engaged in war, that the gates of this temple were only shut three times in more than 700 years. Q 2 22 4 THE MODERN ORATOR. pretence of public spirit, when they see that every man obtains his own pri- vate job as the reward of his ministerial devotion ? They saw that disgrace after disgrace never diminished his power ; that every successive attack on liberty was defended and supported by compliant majorities; that every new failure served only to rivet the attachment of his servile adherents. When they see the nation endure these things, can they conceive that it will be found to contain much public spirit to resist a foreign enemy ? Beyond question, great sacrifices must be made, whoever is minister ; and, if the enemy persevere in their designs, resistance to invasion must be encouraged at every hazard. We must give up the idea, however, of doing this, and continuing in a state of luxury. Should it be necessary, we must show that we are ready to strip to the skin to maintain our independence and our liber- ties, in the same manner as they were compelled to struggle for their freedom. It is mere cant and delusion, to talk any longer of giving up a part to pre- serve the whole — that we must leave both our liberty and property unmort- gaged to posterity. If I am called upon to pay a shilling to preserve a pound, this is intelligible ; but if I am called upon twenty times successively for my shilling, it is ridiculous to tell me of giving up a part for the preservation of the whole. This will not do : and as a worthy baronet (Sir W. Pulteney) said on another occasion, ‘if it is so often repeated, it comes to no joke.’ This kind of paradoxical insult cannot long be endured. It will not do to tell us, that sending millions of money to Germany, for the defence of this coun- try, is true economy ; that to lop off the most valuable of our liberties,* is to preserve the constitution ; that not to pay its lawful creditors, is to support the credit of the Bank ; and to introduce an universal disclosure of income, is to protect property. This is the last stage of such delusion. The tricks have been too often repeated to elude the most inattentive observation. While the affairs of this country continue in the same hands, they cannot be admin- istered wisely or well. The country cannot have confidence in a system, always unsuccessful, now hopeless ; and the dismissal of Ministers must be the preliminary step to any vigour of system, any prospect of peace.” On a division of the House, the bill was carried by 196 to 71. Speech in support of the motion by Mr Yorke, the Secretary at War, for a peace establishment of 130,000 men, exclusive of 50,000 already voted for the service of the navy. — 8th December, 1802. Notwithstanding that a definitive treaty of peace between the French Republic and Great Britain had been signed at Amiens in March, 1802, a cordial reconciliation was very far from being effected, and the political mea- sures of the First Consul plainly indicated that he had little regard for the preservation of amicable relations. His continual encroachments, after the signing of the preliminaries of the peace on the 1st October, 1801, naturally * Mr Sheridan alluded to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. See page 191. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 225 excited jealousy, and would have led to a declaration of war, had not the European powers been, at that time, heartily tired of bloodshed, and most anxious to obtain peace, even at considerable sacrifice. From Spain, Napo- leon procured the cession of Louisiana and Parma. Piedmont he annexed to France, and divided into compartments. By a treaty with Portugal, he ac- quired Portuguese Guiana ; and, by an agreement with Naples and Tuscany, the Island of Elba. By his interference, as mediator, in the disputes of the Swiss, he destroyed the independence of Switzerland, and made it completely dependent on France. Guadaloupe was recovered in the West Indies. By a treaty concluded with the Cisalpine Republic, Napoleon procured himself to be appointed their President ; the constitution of the Batavian and Ligurian Republics were remodelled, to meet his views, in disregard of the treaty of Luneville, by which the independence of the republics of Italy and Holland had been guaranteed ; and there were good grounds for supposing that an- other attempt on Egypt was contemplated. Besides all these evidences of bad faith, the hostility of Napoleon towards England was plainly manifested by the restrictions he imposed on the importation of British goods into France, which nearly amounted to their prohibition. It was therefore impossible, in this state of affairs, for foreign powers, and more especially for England, which had taken so prominent a part in the war, to make any considerable reduction in the war establishments. The so-called definitive treaty of peace could only be regarded as a temporary suspension of actual hostilities, which were certain of being renewed as soon as either circumstances might render them advantageous to the First Consul, or the patience of the foreign powers had become exhausted. It has been aptly remarked, that, during this period, “ peace sat like down upon the thistle’s top.” On the meeting of the English Parliament in November, 1802, the King, while he expressed his desire for the maintenance of peace, recommended that, for the present, no material re- duction should be made in the war forces, and the addresses in approbation of the royal speech were voted in both houses without a division. On the 8th December following, the debate on the Army Estimates took place, and on that occasion Mr Sheridan delivered the following Speech : — “ Sir, — “ Being in the situation alluded to by the right honourable gentle- man who has just sat down,* of not being able to agree precisely with any of those who have preceded me, yet, being at the same time unwilling to give a silent vote on the present occasion, I rise with some sentiments of re- luctance. There is one thing, however, in which we all coincide ; it is, that the crisis in which we are placed is so big with tremendous importance, so pregnant with mighty difficulties, so full of apprehensions and dangers, that the house and the country have a right to know what are the intentions and views of those by whose exertions we may expect to be extricated from the complication of embarrassments, and snatched from the very brink of destruc- tion. Sir, one of the circumstances I most regret in this debate is, the refer-. * The Right Honourable D. Ryder. 226 THE MODERN ORATOR. ences that have been made to the characters and abilities of persons supposed to be fit to fill particular offices. 1 feel this as a subject of regret, and, feel- ing so, am sorry that my honourable friend near me made any allusion even to one man, whom of all men upon earth I most love and respect, because I do view the crisis to be one of such moment and peril ; and because, if ever there was a time in which we should prove to the people of England that we are above all party feelings, that' we are above all party distinc- tions, that we are superior to any petty scramble for places and power, that time is the present. Sir, in speaking upon these topics, I do find a disposition in some gentlemen to rebuke any man who shall deliver an opinion with respect to the First Consul of France. One honourable gentleman, who rebuked an honourable general that spoke before him, declared that he would not give his opinion with respect to the conduct of France to Switzerland and what does his rebuke amount to ? He con- fesses that, upon that subject, there can be but one opinion. Why then, Sir, he either adopts the opinion of the honourable general or not. If he does adopt it, he gives us as strong an opinion against the conduct of France as can possibly be given. If he does not adopt it, why, then, all that we can say is, that there are two opinions. ‘ But what,’ he asks, ‘ has Switzerland to do with the question ? ’ It has this to do with it : the honourable general intro- duced the subject in this way ; he contends that a power which is capable of such unprovoked aggression, and such perfidy, is the power that ought to be watched. But the honourable gentleman goes on to assert, that we have nothing to do with the case of Switzerland, nothing to do with France, nothing but with her power. Nothing but her power ! as if that were little. He asks too, ‘ Where is the great difference between France under the Bourbons and under her present ruler ?’ Why, Sir, the honourable general inferred, from the conduct of France, that, with her growing power, she had a growing disposition to mischief. c But is that power,’ demands the hon- ourable gentleman, ‘ greater now than it was last June ?’ Perhaps it is not, Sir ; but her mischievous disposition is greater ; and if I am asked to bring a proof of the truth of my assertion, I must bring the ease of Switzerland. Sir, if I see a purposed contempt of the independence of a nation ; if I see a perfidious disregard of the faith of treaties ; if I see a power withdraw her assistance, only to return and entrap a country of freemen with greater cer- * Ever since the year 1798, when Buonaparte had violently changed the old form of constitution in Switzerland, banished or destroyed all the ruling families, and contracted an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the French and Swiss republics, the latter had been in a state of servile dependence on France. In 1802 Buonaparte prepared for it a new constitution, which was received by the senate, but violently opposed in seve- ral of the smaller cantons, and especially in Schwytz, Uri, and Underwalden, and a civil war was the consequence. The existing government, which was completely subservient to the views of Napoleon, immediately appealed to him as their mediator. Napoleon having accepted the office, though with affected disinclination, quickly brought matters to a close. A French army of 30,000 men was immediately marched into Switzerland ; all opposition crushed ; the new constitution was established ; and Switzerland became, in effect, a French province. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 227 tainty ; why then, I say, there has been a change, and a great change too, and that such a power we have a right to watch. ‘But,’ says the honourable gentleman, ‘ we have no right to make use of invectives against the first Con- sul of France.’ I will abstain if I can ; I say, if I can, because I feel that even a simple narrative may be construed into invective. With regard to the general question of a disposition to peace or war, I declare that I am as strongly and as sincerely for the preservation of peace as any man, and that I do not consider war as any remedy for the evils complained of. If a war spirit be springing up in this country, if a chivalrous disposition be observable, if a sentiment of indignation be rising upon the subject of the treatment of Switzerland, I for one shall contend that the treatment of Switzerland is no cause of war. I would therefore say, preserve peace if possible : peace if possible, because the effects of war, always calamitous, may be calamitous indeed, buckling, as we should be forced to do, all our sinews and strength to that power, in a contest with her upon such grounds. I repeat, therefore, peace if possible ; but I add, resistance, prompt, resolute, determined resist- ance to the first aggression, be the consequences what they may. Influenced by these sentiments, I shall vote cordially and cheerfully for this large peace establishment ; and it is because I shall vote for it that I think myself bound to state my reasons. Sir, some gentlemen seem to consider what they ad- vance as so many axioms, too clear to need explanation or to require defence. But, when I vote for so large an establishment, I think myself not at liberty to bind such a burthen upon my constituents, without stating the grounds upon which I act, and the principles by which I am prompted. Sir, I have listened, with all the attention I am master of, to the different arguments that have been advanced in the present debate. One honourable gentleman, who spoke second,* appears to be a decided enemy to a great establishment, and the reasons he gave for his opposition, I confess, perfectly astonished me. Luckily, he has no rapid flippancy in his manner ; his sentiments are deli- vered too soberly and sedately to be mistaken. I am sure I mean nothing disrespectful to that gentleman, who amply repays the attention that is paid to him. But he says, ‘ If ministers had only said to him that danger existed, he for one would have voted for the force proposed.’ Does he doubt the danger? He complains that his Majesty’s ministers do not state it precisely. But does he pretend that he does not see and feel it ? Can any one look at the map of Europe and be blind to it ? Can any one have a heart to resist apprehended injury, and say that we ought not to be prepared ? ‘ But,’ he asks, ‘ why raise only one hundred thousand men ? You can never equal the military power of France, and, as you cannot, why stop at one hundred thousand ? Why not raise one hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty, or one hundred and forty thousand ? ’ If this argument be worth anything, it applies equally to our raising only one thousand. Why, if we can never be equal to France, raise a man ? Another gentleman, who spoke last, has * Mr Banltes, 228 THE MODERN ORATOR. alluded to alliances, and I agree perfectly with him in what he advanced against making any pledges. He has alluded to the fate of the pledges made in the war of the succession, in the war of 1741 ; but, if he meant to be im- partial, he need not have gone back so far ; he need not have travelled beyond the last war ; he might have mentioned the pledges then given ; he might have recollected the pledge of never giving up the Netherlands ; he might have recalled to our minds the pledge of obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future ; he might have dwelt upon the pledge of exhausting the last drop of our blood in the contest for religion, order, and civilised so- ciety, the toto certatum corpore regni ; he might have reminded us of all these pledges made, and of all of them having been abandoned. He confesses his warmth of friendship for the late minister,* and he certainly never showed it more than in stopping so short with his historical narrative of pledges. The next excellent reasoning of the honourable gentleman who spoke second against the proposed vote, is that, in the first year of the war, there will be an immense army drawn upon the opposite coast, and therefore, now it is not necessary to be prepared. When the army is upon your shores, when the trumpet of the enemy sounds at your gates, then it is time to be prepared. Appearance of security, he contends, often gives the effect of security. If we have large armies, France will think we raise them through fear ; if we do not have them, she will think that we feel ourselves perfectly secure. I have heard instances, Sir, where mounting wooden guns upon a fort has produced the same security as if there had been real ones. But unluckily, in this instance, for us, by our constitutional form of proceeding, our whole force must be known ; we cannot pass upon an enemy wooden guns, and an army at Brentford. If we vote no force, an enemy will know we have none. ‘ But have no arms, throw away your guns,’ is the advice of the honourable gentleman. Sir, when every house in my neighbourhood has been attacked and robbed by a gang of ruffians, how my having no arms is to save me from a visit from them, 1 must leave the honourable gentleman to explain. His next argument is, that it is unreasonable in us to believe that Buonaparte wishes to be at war with us; for he thinks the French have nothing to gain by invasion. Nothing to gain ? What else have they to lose but that of which it has been said they have so much to spare, and what have they not to gain ? Sir, I cannot but think this as unbecoming a sentiment as ever was uttered. But, ‘ it is unreasonable to think that the French wish to meddle with us.’ Why, I protest I cannot explain. If, as has been said, they have felt our arms, they who have been everywhere else successful, must view the only power whose arms they have felt, with feelings of warm resentment, and with sentiments of mortified pride. But look at the map of Europe ; there, where a great man (who, however, was always wrong on this subject) said he looked for France, and found nothing but a chasm. Look at that map now, and see nothing but France. It is in our * Mr Pitt, who had been succeeded by Mr Addington in 1801. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 229 power to measure her territory, to reckon her population, but it is scarcely within the grasp of any man’s mind to measure the ambition of Buonaparte. Why, when all Europe bows down before him — why, when he has subdued the whole continent, he should feel such great respect for us, I am at a loss to discover. If, then, it be true, as I have stated, that his ambition is of that immeasurable nature, there are abundant and obvious reasons why it must be progressive — reasons much stronger than any that could have been used under the power of the Bourbons. They were ambitious, but it was not so necessary for them to feed their subjects with the spoils and plunder of war ; they had the attachment of a long-established family applied to them ; they had the effect and advantage of hereditary succession. But I see, in the very situation and composition of the power of Buonaparte, a physical necessity for him to go on in this barter with his subjects, and to promise to make them the masters of the world if they will consent to be his slaves. I see then, I repeat, this strong reason for his pursuing this system of policy. If that be the case, must not his most anxious looks be directed to Great Britain ? Everything else is petty and contemptible compared with it. Russia, if not in his power, is at least in his influence — Prussia is at his beck — Italy is his vassal — Holland is in his grasp — Spain at his nod — Turkey in his toils — Portugal at his foot : — when I see this, can I hesitate in stating my feelings? still less can I hesitate in giving a vote that shall put us upon our guard against the machinations and workings of such an ambition ? But it has been said, that it is possible he may mean nothing more than rivalry of com- merce. Happy, Sir, shall I be, if such an idea enter into his head at all, much more if it form part of his plans. But I confess that I cannot see that it does. I mark him taking positions calculated to destroy our commerce, but I do not find him doing anything for the mutual benefit of the trade of the two countries. I see him anxious to take possession of Louisiana, and to use the ports of St Domingo to carry out the West India and Jamaica trade. I can conceive a possible case, in which such positions might be taken as to force us to surrender our commerce without a stroke. An ignorant observer may see two armies, and may say there is no war, because there is no battle ; yet one of them may make such movements as to compel the other to surren- der without striking a blow. “Of the commercial talents of Buonaparte, I can be supposed to know but little; but, bred in camps, it cannot be imagined that his commercial know- ledge can be very great ; and, indeed, if I am rightly informed, he is proceed- ing in the old plan of heavy duties and prohibitions. But he would go a shorter way to work with us. The old country has credit, and capital, and commercial enterprise ; and he may think, if he can subjugate us, that he can carry them off to France like so many busts and marbles. But he would find himself mistaken ; that credit would wither under the gripe of pow'er ; that capital would sink into the earth, if trodden upon by the foot of a despot ; that commercial enterprise would, I believe, lose all its vigour in the presence of an arbitrary government. No, Sir, instead of putting his nation 230 THE MODERN ORATOR. apprentice to commerce, he has other ideas in his head. My humble appre- hension is, that, though in the tablet and volume of his mind there may be some marginal note about cashiering the King of Etruria,* * * § yet, that the whole text is occupied with the destruction of this country. This is the first vision that breaks upon him through the gleam of the morning ; this is his last prayer at night, to whatever deity he addresses it, whether to Jupiter or Mahomet,f to the goddess of battles, or the goddess of reason. { But, Sir, the only consolation is, that he is a great philosopher and philanthropist. I believe this hyper-philanthropy has done more harm than ever it did good. He has discovered that we all belong to the Western family. Sir, I confess I feel a sentiment of deep indignation, when I hear (I take it from report) that this scrap of nonsense was uttered to one of the most enlightened of the hu- man race. To this family party I do not wish to belong. He may invite persons, if he please, to dinner, and, like Lord Peter, say that, ‘ this tough crust is excellent mutton.’ He may toss a sceptre to the King of Etruria to play with, and keep a rod to scourge him in the corner ; he may have thought at first his Cisalpine republic^ a fine growing child, and may have found it a rickety bantling ; but I feel contempt for all this mockery. Let us, Sir, abstain from invective, only let us speak the truth. Why, Sir, what I have said is nothing but the truth. Let us be visiting acquaintance, but I do implore him not to consider us as one of the family. Perhaps, Sir, it is unnecessary for me to state any more reasons for voting for this large peace establishment. All I desire is, not to have it understood that, in stating my fears, I speak from a well-informed judgment. On that account it is that I say, do not go to war ; on that account it is that I state my apprehensions as rational grounds for great vigilance, and for strong preparation. Sir, there are two other points pressed by several gentlemen, to which I beg leave to refer. I mean the fitness of the persons in power, and the spirit of the people. The power of the country consists in its army, its navy, and its finance, in the talent and integrity of its ministers, and, above all, in the spirit * By the treaty of Luneville, concluded between Austria and France, on the 9th of February, 1801, Tuscany was taken from the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Austria, and given to Louis, son of the Duke of Parma, who had married a Princess of Spain, and who then assumed the title of King of Etruria. f On his invasion of Egypt, in 1798, he issued a proclamation in which he professed his respect for God, the Prophet, and the Koran. X In allusion to the establishment of the worship of the * Goddess of Reason,’ in 1793, and the abolition of the Christian religion by the revolutionary government, in whose employment Napoleon then was. § By the treaty of Campo Formio, in 1797, the Emperor of Austria acknowledged the independence of the Milanese and Mantuan states, under the name of the Cisalpine Republic, to which Buonaparte gave a constitution, on the model of France, himself appointing the members of the legislative committee and of the Directory, &c. In January, 1802, after signing the preliminaries of the peace of Amiens, Buonaparte pro- cured himself to be appointed president, and proclaimed a new constitution. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 231 of the people. Upon this second branch of the question, though I have said some things which may be considered as grateful to that party which may be denominated the war party, yet I fear I shall be compelled to state by and by some circumstances that may not be quite so agreeable to them. It is a mat- ter of no importance to the house, perhaps, to know why I was absent on the two first days of the session. I was anxious to hear the part which men would take, and I do Confess I never felt so much disgust at any circumstance, as to find, on the first day of the session, instead of a unanimous vote for vigilance and preparation, a call from some to give us back our places. The noble lord's friends may be divided into two classes : those who call for a change of ministers, and for war. And here I must say, Sir, for one, that I thank them for their frankness in stating what they have done, because their frankness is an antidote to the fury of their counsels. The noble lord says, ‘ We do not want to go to war; we only wish to have other persons in power;’ the noble lord deals with the ingenuousness of youth, as I say ; with the ex- perience of age, according to others. But what should we get by this change ? Would those persons he recommends have acted differently from the present ministers ? Would they have gone to war for any of the events that have occurred since the peace ? Would they have gone to war for the annexing of Piedmont to France ? — for the Cisalpine republic ? — for the invasion of Switzerland ?* No, for none of these. They would have done as Ministers have done, but more vigorously ; they would have shown more grumbling patience ; they would have made wry faces ; they would not have stood with their hands before them ; no, but with their arms akimbo. What would they have got by this ? Would they have obtained anything more by all this grudging and wincing ? Would such a mode of conduct have become the character and dignity of the country ? Sir, it is not to be inferred, because the right honourable gentleman opposite me did none of these things, that he felt no indignation. I learn from his Majesty’s speech, every word of which I approve, that his ministers are determined not to be shut out of the continent. I say, Sir, I approve of the speech, because it satisfied me that a sense of wrong, and a resentment of injury, may live under moderate language. But these ministers, it seems, are the incapable gentlemen. Will gentlemen show us any act of base submission on their part ? If they can — if they prove that they did any act with respect to Switzerland, and meanly retracted it afterwards, I will be the first to inveigh against them. But these gentlemen show us no such acts ; they seem as if they considered the ministers, now the drudgery of signing the peace is done, as functi ojficiis , and as if they ought to go out; as if one was a mere goose-quill, and the other a stick of sealing wax, which are done with, and ought to be thrown under the table. We know that Touchstone says, as a good ground for quarrel, ‘that he don’t like the cut of * The British government, on the appeal made to them for assistance by the Swiss patriotic party, despatched Mr Moore, who had acted as private secretary to the Marquis Cornwallis on the occasion of the treaty at Amiens, to negotiate an arrangement, but all negotiation was useless in opposition to force. 232 THE MODERN ORATOR. a certain courtier’s beard.’ Perhaps this capricious dislike cannot be better exemplified than by the sentiment expressed in the well-known epigram of Martial : — “ ‘ Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare, Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te ! ’ The English parody may be more applicable to these gentlemen : — “ ‘ I do not like thee, Dr Fell, The reason why I cannot tell ; But this, I’m sure, I know full well, I do not like thee, Dr Fell.’ “It is fair, Sir, to say, that this English parody, so unfavourable to the doctor, proceeds from the mouth of a fair lady, who has privileges to like and dislike, which would ill become a member of this House. Sir, I con- tend that no solid reason has been offered to be urged against these Ministers. How, I would ask, has the right honourable gentleman forfeited the confidence of the people ? and why are we told that there is but one man alone who can save the country ? But it seems — and I must frankly confess that I was utterly astonished when I heard such an assertion made use of — that his Majesty’s Ministers assumed the reins of government at a most inviting period. Sir, I defy any man to show me a period of greater difficulty. The right honourable gentleman who, in the chair of this House, had so amply deserved and secured the respect of every member in it, could not but have quitted it with feelings of regret. But the expeditions to the Baltic* and to Egyptf were prepared; true. Yet, was success certain? Was it not the act of chance, and the great skill shown by the noble admiral (Nelson) that brought the expedition to the Baltic to a favourable issue ? Did the late Ministers conceal their fears with respect to the expedition to Egypt ? That it was most glorious in its event, and that the country ought to bind the brows of the meanest soldier engaged in it with laurels, I am ready to allow. But it cannot be denied that, after the expedition had been off the coast of Italy, and was in Marmorice Bay, orders w r ere sent to stop * The expedition to the Baltic under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Yice- Admiral Nelson in 1801. By a confederacy between France and Russia, an embargo was sud- denly laid on all English vessels in Russian ports ; and, in'order to assert, as was said, the independence of the seas, and to destroy the immense trade of England, a conven- tion was signed between the northern powers, consisting of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, by which they agreed to close their ports against British vessels and Prussia ; and the kingdoms of Naples and Portugal afterwards joined the confederacy. All attempts at arrangement having failed, the expedition under Sir H. Parker and Nelson was sent out, which, after completely destroying the Danish fleet in the celebrated battle of Copenhagen, caused the confederacy of the northern powers to be dissolved, and obtained terms of peace highly favourable to this country. f Under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, in March 1801, on the occasion of Mr Pitt refusing to ratify the treaty of El- Arisli, which had been concluded by Sir Sydney Smith with General Kleber. RTCHARI) BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 233 the expedition altogether. With respect to the negotiations for peace, their predecessors knew that the present Ministers would have to deal with men who, it might be supposed, would be glad of an occasion to retort the inso- lence of Lord Grenville’s letter. If the enemy had parodied their letter as their only answer to us; if they had said, ‘ We will wait for experience and the evidence of facts with respect to the new Ministry if they had said, ‘ Restore that old Whig constitution which the former Ministers have so impaired,’ we might have thought such conduct trifling, and beneath them, but we could not have questioned its fairness. Sir, though his Majesty’s Ministers must have been prepared to expect humiliation, yet they made peace, I will venture to say, on terms comparatively more advantageous to the country than those that were offered at Lisle/* Of these Ministers, Sir, I know, also, that they have not renewed any of their predecessors’ oppres- sive acts. But this, some gentlemen will contend, is a proof of their weak- ness and unfitness. Never, too, Sir, did the treasury interfere so little in the general election. This, again, may be advanced by some as an instance of their incapacity. Nay, the north was almost left to a member of the late administration. When, therefore, gentlemen talk in future of Mr Pitt’s being the fittest person to save the country, they ought to add also the name of Mr Dundas. But what did these gentlemen expect from the present Chan- cellor of the Exchequer?! We treated him, when in the chair of this House, with the respect he merited. He has, I believe, Sir, over our present worthy Speaker , X the advantage in attitude ; but did they expect that when he was Minister he was to stand up and call Europe to order ? Was he to send Mr Colman, the serjeant-at-arms, to the Baltic, and order the northern powers to the bar of the House ? Was he to see the powers of Germany scrambling like members over the benches, and say, ‘ Gentlemen must take their places ?’ Was he expected to cast his eye to the Tuscan gallery, and exclaim, that 4 strangers must withdraw ?’ Was he to stand across the Rhine, and say, ‘ The Germans to the right, and the French to the left ?’ If he could have done all these things, I, for one, should always vote that the Speaker of the House should be appointed the minister of the country. But the right honourable gentleman has done all that a reasonable man could ex- pect him to do. Sir, I confess I wish to know what Mr Pitt himself thinks. I should be glad to hear what his sentiments are of the call made for him — and loudly made too — in another place by a vigorous statesman. I well remember, Sir, and so do we all, the character he gave of the present admin- istration. The justice of his character of the first Lord of the Admiralty, § no man can question. Of the accuracy of his judgment with respect to the’ * The negotiations for peace with France in 1 797, at Lisle, went off, from the refusal of the French plenipotentiaries to treat on terms of mutual compensation, and their insisting on the restitution of all that had been taken from the allies of France in the war, by which England would have had to make large concessions without any return. t Mr Addington. X Sir John Mitford. § Lord St Vincent, 234 THE MODERN ORATOR. present Chancellor of the Exchequer, it does not become us to entertain a doubt. The noble Secretary of State* was better qualified for the situation than any man in the country, with an exception made, I believe, in favour of my honourable friend (Mr Fox) near me. Does Mr Pitt mean to retract that character ? I cannot suppose he does. I must believe that he left, in his judgment, the best administration that could be left. I have heard some gen- tlemen attach to the present ministry the appellation of a mawkish mixture ; but, if I were to compare them to anything, I should say, that Mr Pitt and the Ex-secretary of War,^; acted as men fond of wine (which I cerainly do not mean to impute to them as a fault), and drinking a bottle of Tokay. Though you may take what appears to be the best, and leave only what seems to be the lees, yet, if you only pour a bottle of good white wine upon them, you have as good a bottle of Tokay as ever. Sir, I think the mixture as good and as wholesome to the constitution as it could have been. I am sure I hear with joy that it is not on account of ill health that the right honourable gentleman, to whom I have alluded, is absent. I repeat, Sir, when I see so many persons anxious about that gentleman, I am glad to hear that his health is re-established. But how, I would ask, can we, with any consistency, turn out the man who made the peace, to bring in the person who avowed his approbation] of it ? Sir, it is since that peace was made that gentlemen had voted a statue to Mr Pitt ; but, whenever they erect that statue let them cover it with laurels, so as not to show its nose : yet, still a piece of the olive must go with it, for he approved and supported the peace. Sir, I cannot persuade myself to think he is playing a double game, or that he has retracted the opinion he delivered in this house ; but everything should stand plain, everything should be explicit. I have heard of one person playing two differ- ent games at chess for two different persons at the same time ; but I never heard of a person playing one of his hands against the other. I suspect, therefore, there has been some mistake in the telegraphic communication ; that the political Philidor’s game has been misunderstood ; that his friends have displaced a knight and a castle, when they should only have taken two pawns ; that they have made an attempt to checkmate the king, when they had no instructions for doing it.J Sir, I cannot forget the period when the * Lord Hawkesbury. f Mr Windham. % Mr Pitt resigned office in 1801 , in consequence of the opposition he met with in the cabinet to his measures for extending the political privileges of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, which, from his expressed sentiments on the subject, they were led to expect from him after the union of that country with England had been effected. The King particularly refused his assent to the proposed policy, considering that he was precluded by his coronation oath from sanctioning it. It has been suggested, that, besides the Catholic question, which was the sole cause of resignation assigned by Mr Pitt himself, he might have been induced to allow the reins of government to devolve on others, in order that a peace with the Continent might, if possible, be arranged on terms more favourable than he and his party, from their known hostility to the French government, would have been able to effect. Others have assigned a less charitable cause for his resignation, alleging that his only object was to throw the odium of refusal of the ex- Ill CHART) BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 235 august personage of the sovereign was held up as the only man who was against extending privileges to the Catholics in Ireland ; and I cannot, there- fore, brook the idea of calling that right honourable gentleman back to power, and forcing him upon the Crown. I expected, when I came into this house, to hear much said against Buonaparte, but I had not the slightest expectation of hearing anything against the prerogative of the Crown. Mr Pitt, the only man to save the country ! No single man can save the country. If a nation depends only upon one man, it cannot, and, I will add, it does not, deserve to be saved ; it can only be done by the Parliament and the people. Sir, I say, therefore, I cannot believe that there is a back and a fore-door to this Egerian grotto. We have all heard, I dare say, of a classical exhibition in this town, the invisible girl* Here, however, I hope we shall have no whisperings backwards and forwards, no speaking through tubes, no invisible agency. I hope, too, that we shall have it declared, as it ought to be, that these opinions, which have been rumoured about, are unfounded. I shall now address a few words to those gentlemen who would hurry us into war ; and here, Sir, I must say, that of all persons living, the Ex-secretary of War is the last man who can consistently call out for war. He despised the warn- ing voice of my honourable friend ; he turned a deaf ear to his predictions, that we should only consolidate and strengthen the power of France. His answers always were, he should despise the power of France, could he but see jacobinism destroyed. Is it not destroyed ? “ * Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm’d rhinoceros, or the Hyrcanian tiger — Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble.’ “ The right honourable gentleman’s wishes are gratified ; jacobinism is killed and gone, and by whom ? By him who can no longer be called the child and champion of jacobinism — by Buonaparte. I remember to have heard jacob- inism compared to Antseus, who gained strength at every throw : but Buonaparte proceeded like Hercules ; he gave it a true fraternal hug, and strangled it. Did the French annex Piedmont ? Did they enter Switzerland pected Roman Catholic privileges on the shoulders of others, whom Mr Pitt afterwards individually supported in their administration, while, at the same time, his known constant supporters and partisans did all in their power to bring the new ministry into contempt, holding them up to the country as incapable ; and this double game was sup- posed to be played in order that when the object was obtained for which office had been yielded to them, they might be easily removed without the country at all regretting their loss. * This was an exhibition which, at the time, excited considerable curiosity. A girl, who was in a room adjoining the exhibition room, was enabled to answer all questions put to her by the public, by means of tin tubes, in which were inserted small mirrors at right angles which reflected every object in the exhibition room, so that, not only was the sound conveyed to her, but she was enabled to see every thing that was held up by the visitors, such as watches, &c. 236 THE MODERN ORATOR. with the Rights of Man ? Did they talk of those rights when Buonaparte told the people of Italy they were a set of dolts and drivellers, and were unfit to govern themselves ? But now the right honourable gentleman seems in a greater fright than ever. He seems as if he had rather have the old ghost back again. Most whimsically he wants to unite all parties against France — “Black spirits and white, Blue spirits and grey,” all are welcome to him. The moderate jacobins he takes to his bosom ; they were only misled by their feelings. The violent jacobins he appeals to as men of proud spirits. He wishes to sing ‘ Ca Ira ’ to them, and to head them all. ‘O! had I,’ he sighs, ‘but plenty of jacobins here!’ But, on what principle would they carry on the war ? If they were able to curtail the power of Buonaparte, would not their views increase, and would they ever stop without making an example of the regicide republic ? If they will speak out fairly, will they not confess this ? Will the country, then, for such a purpose consent to turn out the present Ministers ? Sir, upon the spirit of the country I wish to say a few words. I have heard from one noble lord with regret, what I hope was but a slip, that the spirit of the country is worn out. I think that noble lord must retract that idea. Sir, I certainly looked to the rejoicings at the peace as an unmanly and irrational exultation. Do I rebuke the people for rejoicing at the blessings of peace ? No, Sir, but for rejoicing without asking about the terms. Did they rejoice that we had gained Trinidad and Ceylon ?* Would two farthing candles have been burnt less had we not obtained them ? No, Sir ; if they had believed that they had been fighting for civilised order, morality, and religion ; and if, believing this they exulted in such a peace, then it proves that their spirit was worn out. But I allude to this, in order that the enemy may not be led into a mistake upon the subject. Sir, one of the disadvantages attending the present ad- ministration is, that they will not turn, when they are attacked by the last administration. They are hampered by the votes they gave for the war. But from the period of the allegations that it was a war for the Scheldt, I assert that it continued to be a war upon false pretences. The people were told that it was a war for religion and good order, and they found that peace was ready to be made at Lisle, without any reference to those causes. The right honourable gentleman says, ‘ What baseness, while religion was in their mouths, to consent to steal a sugar island ! ’ It is true, Sir, though it comes a little extraordinarily from that man who was one of the cabinet ministers at the time of the negotiation at Lisle. It should appear as if there had indeed been great discord in the Cabinet ; ‘ there never was greater,’ says the honourable gentleman. They acted not merely like men in a boat, rowing different ways, but like men in the boat of a balloon. Up the Ex-secretary of War was ascending to the clouds, whilst Mr Dundas was opening the * By one of the provisions of the treaty of Amiens, England agreed to restore all her conquests during the war except the islands of Trinidad and Ceylon. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERTDAN. 237 valve and letting out the gas to descend ; while one was throwing out ballast to mount to the most chivalrous heights, the other was attempting to let drop an anchor upon a West India island. Each of these ministers was suffered to have his favourite plan. The Ex-secretary of War was allowed to nibble at the coast of France, the War Secretary of State to make a descent upon a sugar island ; and thus they went on till the letter from Lord Grenville — that letter never to be forgotten, and, I will add, never to be for- given — made its appearance, and the people took a deep and settled disgust. Why did this not appear ? And this, Sir, ought to be a lesson to us. The mouths of the people were shut and gagged, and the government were acting without knowing anything of their circumstances. Sir, in such circum- stances, the integrity of their minds was disgusted, and they were glad to get rid of the war at any rate. Upon this subject I have dwelt the more particularly, because I wish Buonaparte not to mistake the cause of the joy of the people. He should know that if he commits any act of aggression against them, they will enter singly into the contest, rather than suffer any attack upon their honour and their independence. I shall proceed no further. I perfectly agree with my honourable friend, that war ought to be avoided, though he does not agree with me on the means best calculated to produce that effect. From any opinion he may express, I never differ but with the greatest reluctance. For him my affection, my esteem, and my attachment, are unbounded, and they will end only with my life. But, I think an im- portant lesson is to be learnt from the arrogance of Buonaparte. He says ‘ he is an instrument in the hands of Providence — an envoy of God.’ He says ‘ he is an instrument in the hands of Providence to restore Switzerland to happiness, and to elevate Italy to splendour and importance.’ Sir, I think he is an instrument in the hands of Providence to make the English love their constitution the better ; to cling to it with more fondness ; to hang round it with truer tenderness. Every man feels, when he returns from France, that he is coming from a dungeon to enjoy the light and life of British indepen- dence. Sir, whatever abuses exist, we shall still look with pride and pleasure upon the substantial blessings we still enjoy. I believe too, Sir, that he is an instrument in the hands of Providence to make us more liberal in our political differences, and to render us determined, with one hand and heart, to oppose any aggressions that may be made upon us. If that aggression be made, my honourable friend will, I am sure, agree with me, that we ought to meet it with a spirit worthy of these islands ; that we ought to meet it with a conviction of the truth of this assertion, that the country which has achieved such greatness, has no retreat in littleness ; that if we could be con- tent to abandon everything, we should find no safety in poverty, no security in abject submission. Finally, Sir, that we ought to meet it with a fixed determination to perish in the same grave with the honour and independence of the country.” The motion passed without a division. R THE MODERN ORA.TOE. 238 Speech in opposition to the motion of Mr Pitt, for a Bill for raising and supporting an additional permanent military force. — 18th June, 1804. Mr Addington had resigned office on the 12th May preceding, and had been succeeded by Mr Pitt. “ To the arguments, Sir, which have been urged in support of the measure before the house, the right honourable gentleman (Mr Addington) who has just sat down has given such a full and fair reply, that I do not think it necessary to enter into the subject as I had otherwise intended. The objec- tions to this bill have been so forcibly maintained by that right honourable gentleman, and he has put the subject upon such fair and constitutional grounds, that I should decline to trouble the house upon this occasion, if it were not for the observations of my right honourable friend (Mr Canning), who has not confined himself to the bill under consideration, but has thought proper to introduce matter not strictly relevant, but yet of infinitely more importance than the bill itself — I mean my right honourable friend’s allusion to the degree of confidence to which the present administration is entitled. My right honourable friend stated, that he was not disposed to adulation towards his right honourable friend who sits near him (Mr Pitt), and for whom, no doubt, he entertains the most sincere respect and regard. I hope he will do me the justice to think, that I am equally incapable of adulation towards my right honourable friend on the same bench with me (Mr Fox). I certainly am no flatterer, although, in point of attachment to my right hon- ourable friend, I will not yield to that which my right honourable friend on the opposite side can or does profess to feel for his right honourable friend beside him ; with this difference, however, on my part, that my attachment to my right honourable friend on this side of the house is of a much longer standing — that it is the first, the strongest, and the only political attachment of my life. But my right honourable friend disclaims adulation towards his friend, and, indeed, he seems to me to have had no occasion to do so, for he certainly did not deal in it ; on the contrary, he has taken occasion to pro- nounce upon the conduct of his right honourable friend one of the bitterest satires that could be well imagined. My right honourable friend expresses his surprise, that we who oppose this bill can contrive to co-operate, and that we can avoid quarrelling when we get into the lobby ; but is it not equally, if not more a matter of surprise, that he can avoid quarrelling with some of his friends near him, to whom he has been so very lately in decided opposi- tion, and particularly with the noble lord,*' who appears now to have deter- mined which of the ‘ two strings’ he should put to his bow ? [A laugh.] If my right honourable friend will look at those about him, he will find that the compliments and censures which he meant for the right honourable gentleman on the lower bench (Mr Addington), were applicable also to some of his pre- sent connexions. Whatever praise or condemnation applies to the one, * Lord Castlereagh, President of the Board of Control, who retained the office he held under Mr Addington. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 230 applies equally to the other, with this difference, that the compliment called forth by the retirement of the one from office, when the voice of parliament and the country called for it, is not deserved by the other, who still remains in power.* Some part of the administration of the right honourable gentle- man on the lower bench I most cordially approved, and his intentions in every instance I respected, because I firmly believed them to be pure and honour- able. I esteemed the motives which actuated his public conduct, because I was certain of his disposition, whatever might be the sentiments of some of his colleagues, to govern the country upon the principles of the constitution. I know that his acceptance of office was a sacrifice, and I feel that his retire- ment from it was a triumph. But did my right honourable friend, I would ask him, mean it as a compliment to the right honourable gentleman, that immediately upon his retirement from office, he started into an open, manly, and systematic opposition ; or did he mean it as an indirect sarcasm upon the conduct of his right honourable friend ? Did my right honourable friend mean to say, that when the right honourable gentleman resigned his situation, he did not offer an insidious support to his successor,! that he did not seat himself behind him for the purpose of availing himself of the first opportunity to push him out ; that when a motion of impeachment was made against his successor, he did not attempt to suspend the judgment of the question b) r the shabby, shallow, pretext of moving the previous question ? No ! such has not been the conduct of the right honourable gentleman, and the line he has pursued will be entitled to commendation. What are we to think, what can my right honourable friend say, of that course of proceeding which I have described? a course which had nothing manly, consistent, or direct about it. In this conduct, however, my right honourable friend did not participate, and of course merits no part of the censure attached to it by every generous and liberal-minded man. My right honourable friend has given credit to the right honourable gentleman for retiring from office before he was forced out by actual opposition — for taking the hint from Parliament.'! If he be serious in pronouncing this laudable, what can he think of the six members of the late cabinet who still continue in office, who consent to act with, and even subordinate to, the very right honourable gentleman who so lately treated them with contumely and contempt ? If the behaviour of the one be manly, how are we to estimate the other? how are we to judge of the situation of that noble lord (Hawkesbury) whose conduct in office appears to have given such particular offence to my right honourable friend? But I * Many members of Mr Addington’s administration retained office under Mr Pitt. Thus Lord Eldon continued chancellor ; Duke of Portland, president of the council ; the Earl of Westmoreland, lord privy seal ; Lord Castleieagh, president of the board of control ; and the Earl of Chatham, master-general of the ordnance. Lord Hawkesbury removed from the foreign to the home department. t See page 234. + Mr Addington retired on his being able only to command majorities of 52 and 37, in large houses, and on ministerial measures. 240 THE MODERN ORATOR. derive some consolation from the language of my right honourable friend, for as he applauds so much the act of the right honourable gentleman, in having resigned his office when parliament and the country seemed to wish it, when he had in this house but a majority of thirty-seven, I have reason to hope, that as his right honourable friend had only a majority of twenty-eight on a former evening, which majority will, I think, be reduced this night, my right honourable friend will recommend to him an imitation of the gallant and dignified conduct of the right honourable gentleman on the lower bench — that he will advise him not to persevere any further with such a mean, decreasing majority, after having lost the confidence of all the independent part of parliament and the country. My right honourable friend, indeed, states that he would wish to see an administration formed upon a broader scale, and in this declaration I really believe him sincere. If he considers what his right honourable friend now is, and what he might have been, I am pretty sure that such must be his wish. I am also sure that my right honourable friend delivers his real sentiment when he states that he feels himself in a post of danger. I believe that he considers the administration to which he belongs as not at all likely to last; and I will go a step farther — I believe that neither him- self nor his right honourable friend really think that it ought to last ; for they must be aware that it is an arrangement which has excited discontent and complaint through every part of the country. It is an arrangement of such a nature that my right honourable friend thinks it necessary to offer something in the shape of an apology for the part he has taken in it, My right honourable friend has taken occasion, in some degree, to contrast his attachment to his right honourable friend at the head of administra- tion, with my attachment to my right honourable friend beside me ; but there is this difference between us, that I can never follow the same line as that which my right honourable friend has done this night, to excuse his acceptance of a high office under the administration of his right honourable friend.* I do not feel it necessary to enter into any justification of my attachment to my right honourable friend ; for, although I do not find him holding one of the first offices in the government, I find him surrounded with honour ; although I do not find him leading a cabinet, I see him followed by all that is independent in the rank, character, con- sequence, and population of the country. I see him restored to the friendship of all those good and great men from whom he has, though he never ought to have, been separated ; or rather, I see those personages restored to him. In a word, I have the happiness to observe the public character of my right honourable friend placed on a more exalted eminence than it ever before stood on. An attachment to him, therefore, it cannot be any other than a source of the most gratifying pride to reflect upon. My right honourable friend, in the course of the justification which he * Mr Canning was treasurer of the navy. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 241 has attempted for his conduct in co-operating with his right honourable friend, has dwelt a good deal upon the happy event of the removal of what he termed the late ministers, but my right honourable friend seemed to forget that that removal was far from being complete. To be sure, some of those with whom my right honourable friend professed to have been dissatisfied, were removed. He was dissatisfied with the conduct of the department for foreign affairs, and therefore out goes Lord Hawkesbury ; and sorry I am to perceive that that noble lord has put the seal to his own condemnation ; being charged with mismanagement and incapacity, he consents to be degraded in order to make room for another noble lord,* who certainly has yet to prove his ability, who has at least no experience to recommend him. This removal must no doubt be a source of much mortification to those who may be intimately connected with the noble lord : but this alone was not enough to satisfy my right honourable friend, and to reconcile him to the administration. He disliked the admi- ralty, and therefore that silly, incapable person, Earl St Vincent, is removed; and his place is filled by that tried, experienced seaman, Lord Melville. [A laugh.] In the office of the war minister, also, my right honourable friend saw good ground for complaint, and therefore the noble lord (Hobart) who held that situation, is superseded by a noble lord who gallantly resigned the government of Ireland, because it was a time of war and trouble, and much disturbance was apprehended in that country. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that my right honourable friend should express his regret that his right honourable friend has not better support ; for all those being dismissed for detected, acknowledged inca- pacity, according to the language of my right honourable friend, of whom his right honourable friend spoke in such lofty terms of praise, none remain in office, but those six of whom his right honourable friend did not think worth while to utter one word in the way of commendation. But of the right honourable gentleman’s praise much does not seem to be thought, and therefore it is, perhaps, that we have had no panegyric pronounced upon the qualifications of the persons just introduced into his cabinet. After the perfect knowledge of human nature which the right honourable gentleman has manifested, particularly in the expedition to Holland, and the representation with respect to some of the late ministers, his opinions of mankind do not appear to be held in any estimation, and therefore, no doubt, it is that the House has not heard one word from the right honour- able gentleman as to the merits of his new colleagues. I dare say that this silence was in consequence of a previous stipulation. They most probably said to the right honourable gentleman, ‘ You may give us ribands, titles, pensions, places, or anything you like, but a character : do, for God’s sake, save our names from the peril of your praise — for, if you praise us, both you and we shall be laughed at.’ My right honourable f Lord Ilarrowby, secretary for foreign affairs, vice Lord Hawkesbury. 242 THE MODERN ORATOR. friend has frequently said, ‘ Away with the cant of “ not men but measures,” for it is a frivolous notion, as it is not the harness, but the horses, which draw the carriage but I would ask my right honourable friend, what is to become of the harness and carriage with such horses as his right honourable friend has now engaged? There are six of them that are old, and six new* — a double set, to be sure. The former are part of that ‘ slow-paced, lumpish, awkward collection,’ upon which my right honourable friend so severely commented in the discussion of Colonel Patten’s motion. They of course can be of no use, and so the six new nags will have to draw not only the carriage, but those six heavy cast-off blacks along with it. [A laugh.] Now, if in such a situation my right honourable friend does not feel himself embarrassed, and anxious for the release of his right honourable friend and himself, he cannot have that feeling of dignity and solicitude for honourable reputation which I am willing to ascribe to him. Among the arguments advanced by my right honourable friend in favour of the bill before the house, there were some that struck me to be very extraordinary indeed. [Here Mr Sheridan, searching for his notes, found they were lost, which produced a laugh, and the honourable member observed, that his right honourable friend, he dared say, was not sorry that he had lost them.] My right honourable friend, observed the honourable member, complains that we should express our disappointment that the measure before the house is not equal to the expectation we entertained, and states that from the number of troops already existing, it was impossible to draw more from the martial resources of the country than this bill proposes to obtain ; but my right honourable friend should recollect that the fault lies with those by whom our imagina- tions were raised so high. If we complain of disappointment, who raised our expectations ? The right honourable gentleman, in the course of his opposition to the late minister, held forth such high promises — talked of what he would do if in office, that he ’would submit a measure of vast importance, &c. — that it was impossible not to have our curiosity and ex- pectations strongly excited ; but after all this prodigious parade of means in contemplation for the increase of our public force, what do we see r Instead of plans at all promising efficiency, instead of looking for an armed Minerva from the brain of this Jupiter, we see a puny, rickety bantling, which, after being sent to the parish nurse, does not appear to have gristle or bone ever to attain the age of manhood. In truth, I cannot suppose that the right honourable gentleman himself thinks that this bill will procure men. The only object seems to be to raise a tax upon the landed interest, to inflict penalties and enact forfeitures. The right honourable gentleman only proposes to levy a tax in a novel way. If, by such a system, * The six new members of the administration were Mr Pitt, Lord Melville, first lord of the admiralty ; Lord Harrowby, secretary for foreign affairs ; Lord Mulgrave, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster ; and Sir Evan Nepean, chief secretary for Ireland. 4 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 243 men should really be had, I am persuaded that the right honourable gen- tleman would be more surprised than any other man in the country ; that he would feel as much astonished as he lately was at the wonderful dis- covery, that but few balloted men gave personal service. Even supposing that the proposed number of men could be recruited, where, I would ask, are six or seven thousand persons to be found qualified to officer them ? The right honourable gentleman must know that the thing is impossible. But the mode suggested to discipline those corps is really ludicrous. The idea of attaching one battalion to another is not unlike that of throwing a young woman in the way of an old man for the purpose of courtship, in the hope that, after the opportunity of what is commonly termed ‘ keeping company,’ they will ‘ come together,’ matrimony must be the consequence. Absurd as this may seem, it is not more so than that such a connexion as that proposed in this bill, between a battalion of regulars and one of the new levies, can tend to promote or preserve discipline. It is ridiculous to talk of discipline in a corps where, as in the new levies, the officers will be urged to ask favours of their men. If a man belonging to the regulars shall be found tippling with any of the new levies, he can plead that he was endeavouring to prevail on the other to enlist for general service — that he was only employed in endeavouring to forward the views of govern- ment. At such irregularities as these, officers must connive, or the en- listment from among those new levies will not be productive. From an army thus constituted and so employed, what evils are not to be appre- hended ! So fully convinced am I of the mischief that must result from it as to think that, if the bill should be adopted, the most appropriate title for it would be ‘ a bill for the destruction of military discipline.’ In con- sidering the means of providing for the defence of the country, I am sorry to perceive that gentlemen, whose opinions upon other occasions I most sincerely respect, should look so much, or rather entirely, to the extension of our regular army. With respect to the army, however, I wish to observe, that in my opinion men should be enlisted for that service not only on terms limited as to time, but as to place. The latter regulation would tend to save the lives of many soldiers, while the policy of the former is so generally acknowledged, and has been so often discussed, that the surprise is, that ministers hesitate to act upon it. Upon this question, as to the augmentation of our regular army, I cannot forbear to say, that I always look upon such augmentation with jealousy ; I would not risk the liberties of the country, by the enlargement of our standing army. If I were asked whether I would not rather trust our defence in the field against the attack of a foreign foe to regular troops, I would immediately answer in the affirmative ; still, however, keeping in view the compromise between diffi- culties, the necessity of securing our freedom against the influence and power of a large standing army, I would have our volunteers and militia aided by a due proportion of the regular army. The people of this country are competent to their own defence, and are ready to take the tone from 244 THE MODERN ORATOR. those above them. They have regard for the high station which freemen may be supposed to feel ; they have none of the slavish attachment to clans, but they look up to their superiors — and I use this word in its liberal sense — they look up to you, their superiors, with confidence, because you do not look down on them with insult. Give, then, to such a people proper example and encouragement, and you will not have any occasion to look for a large standing army to defend your country. The people of England know the value of the objects for which they have to contend. They feel that, from the constitution of the society in which they live, there is nothing of honour, emolument, or wealth, which is not within the reach of a man of merit. The landlord, the shopkeeper, or mechanic, must be sensible that he is contending not merely for what he possesses, but for everything of importance which the country contains ; and I would call on the humblest peasant to put forth his endeavours in the national struggle to defend his son’s title to the great seal of England. Acting upon this plan, employing proper means to animate the country, would render it unnecessary to hire an army to defend us or to resist any enemy. It is because I am satisfied of this fact — because I know that in this important conjuncture, which so strongly demands the valour of the brave, the vigour of the strong, the means of the wealthy, and the counsels of the wise, we could obtain all that is requisite by operating judiciously upon the cha- racter of the people, that I object to the frequent call for an increase of our regular army, as I know that such increase must invest the executive government with a power dangerous to the existence of liberty. I like an army of the people, because no people were ever found to commit a felo de se upon their own liberty: but I dislike a large standing army, because I never knew popular liberty in any state long to survive such an establish- ment. It is upon these grounds that I disapprove of the sentiments so often urged as to the augmentation of the regular army, and particularly by an officer*' whose information upon military subjects is, no doubt, entitled to the utmost respect ; but, whatever may be his information and experience upon military topics, if he had the ability of the Archduke Charles, until he shall look at the whole of the subject, until he shall examine it as a statesman, with a mixed attention to the rights of the people and the military defence of the country, I cannot defer to his opinions. With regard to the principles upon which the present adminis- tration is formed, I shall conclude with a few observations. The cause of the exclusion,! which is so much and so justly complained of, we are all * General Maitland. f Mr Sheridan alluded to the exclusion of Mr Fox from the administration. At the retirement of Mr Addington, Mr Pitt had desired to have the co-operation of Mr Fox, in forming a strong administration, so necessary at that critical period ; but through the personal antipathy of the ‘King to Mr Fox, this coalition was rendered impossible; and in consequence of his exclusion, Lord Grenville and his party refused to take office with Mr Pitt. 245 tolerably well able to conjecture ; but it would be, I am aware, indecorous to describe it in this house. I know it would be unparliamentary to introduce into debate any particular allusion to this circumstance. Of the personage,* however, to whom it refers, I cannot speak from any particular knowledge ; but of him f who is next in rank and consequence, I can say, that that illustrious personage, whose name I know my duty too well to mention, who stood forward at the commencement of the war, displaying a noble example of his wish to promote unanimity, to rally all parties round the standard of the country, entertains no political prejudice against any public man — though, God knows, he has had much to forgive. Far, however, from indulging resentment, I am sure that he would be forward to accept, to call for the services of any political character who could contribute , in this great crisis, to the safety of the'empire. On a division, the motion was carried by 265 to 223. L 1 s T OF MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATIONS DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. FIRST LORDS OF THE TREA- SURY. 1759. Dec. 22. T. H. Pelham, Duke of Newcastle. 1761. Mar. 12. Do. do. 1762. May 29. John, Earl of Bute 1763. April 16. Hon. George Grenville 1765. July 13. Charles, Marquis of Rockingham . 1766. Aug. 2. Augustus Henry, Duke of Grafton. CHANCELLORS OF THE EX- CHEQUER. .Hon. H. B. Legge .William, Viscount Barrington .Sir Francis Dashwood, Bart., afterwards Lord le Despenser .Hon. George Grenville . William Dowdeswell, Esq. . Hon. Charles Townsend 1767. Sept. 12. Do. do. . William, Lord Mansfield 1767. Dec. 1. Do. do. .Frederick, Lord North 1768. Dec. 31. Do. do. Do. do. 1770. Feb. 10. Frederick, Lord North Do. do. 1773. Jan. 9. Do. do. Do. do. 1774. Mar. 12. Do. do Do. do. 1777. June 5. Do. do. Do. do. 1778. Dec. 14. Do. do. Do. do. 1780. Sept. 6. Do. do. Do. do. 1782. Mar. 27. Charles, Marquis of Rockingham. .Lord John Cavendish July 13. William, Earl of Shelburne . . .Hon. William Pitt 1783. April 5. William Henry, Duke of Portland . . T_jord John Cavendish Dec. 27. Right Hon. William Pitt . Right Hon. William Pitt 1786. Sept. 16. Do. Do. * King George the Third. f The Prince of Wales. 246 1789. April 8. Right Hon. William Pitt . . Right Hon. William Pitt. 1791. June 10. Do. .... Do. 1793. June 20. Do. .... Do. 1794. May. Do. . . . . Do. 1797. July. Do. .... Do. 1800. July. Do. .... Do. Nov. Do. .... Do. 1801. Mar. 7. Right Hon. Henry Addington . .Right Hon. Henry Addingtoi 1802. July. Do Do. 1804. May 12. Mr. Pitt . Mr. Pitt 1806. Feb. 3. Lord Grenville . Lord Henry Petty 1807. March. Duke of Portland . . Mr. Spencer Perceval 1809. October. Mr, Perceval . Mr. Perceval 1812. June. Lord Liverpool . . Mr. Vansittart 1757. June 30. 1761. Mar. 25. Oct. 9. 1762. May 29. Oct. 14. 1763. Sept. 9. 1765. July 12. 1766. May 23. Aug. 2. 1768. Jan. 20. Oct. 21. 1770. Dec. 19. 1771. Jan. 22. June 12. 1772. Aug. 14. 1775. Nov. 10. 1779. Oct. 27. Nov. 24. 1782. Feb. 24. Mar. 27. July 13. 1783. April 2. Dec. 19. Dec. 23. PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE. William Pitt, Esq., afterwards Earl of Chatham John, Earl of Bute, vice Lord Holderness Charles, Earl of Egremont, vice Mr. Pitt Hon. G. Grenville, vice Lord Bute George, Earl of Halifax, vice Mr. Grenville John, Earl of Sandwich, vice Lord Egremont Augustus Henry, Duke of Grafton, vice Lord Halifax Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, vice Earl of Sandwich Charles, Duke of Richmond, vice Duke of Grafton William, Earl of Shelburne, vice Duke of Richmond Thomas, Viscount Weymouth, vice Hon. Henry Seymour Conway Wills, Earl of Hillsborough (Colonies) Thomas, Viscount Weymouth, vice Earl of Shelburne William Henry, Earl of Rochfcrd, vice Lord Weymouth J ohn, Earl of Sandwich, vice Earl of Rochford George, Earl of Halifax, vice Earl of Sandwich Henry, Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, vice Lord Halifax William, Earl of Dartmouth, vice Earl of Hillsborough (Colonies) Thomas, Viscount Weymouth, vice Lord Rochford Lord George Sackville Germaine, afterwards Viscount Sackville, vice Lord Dartmouth (Colonies) David, Viscount Stormont, vice Lord Suffolk Wills, Earl of Hillsborough, vice Lord Weymouth Welbore Ellis, Esq., vice Lord Germaine (Colonies) William, Earl of Shelburne, vice Lord Stormont Hon. Charles James Fox, vice Lord Hillsborough Thomas Townsend, Esq., vice Mr. Fox Thomas, Lord Grantham, vice Lord Shelburne Frederick, Lord North, vice Lord Grantham (Home) Hon. Charles James Fox, vice Mr. Townsend (Foreign) George, Earl Temple, vice Mr. Fox (Foreign) Thomas, Lord Sydney, vice Lord North (Home) 247 Dec. 23. 1789. June. 1791. June. May. 1794. July 11. July. 1801. February March. July 30. 1804. May. 1805. Jan. 12. July 10. 1806. Feb. 3. 1807. March. 1809. October. 1812. June. Francis, Marquis of Carmarthen, vice Earl Temple (Foreign) William Wyndham Grenville, Esq., vice Lord Sydney (Home) Right Hon. Henry Dundas (Home) Lord Grenville (Foreign) Duke of Portland (Home) Right Hon. Henry Dundas (War and Colonies) .Robert Banks, Lord Hawkesbury, afterwards Earl of Liverpool (Foreign) Robert, Lord Hobart, afterwards Earl of Buckinghamshire (War and Colonies) Thomas, Lord Pelham (Home) Lord Harrowby (Foreign) Lord Hawkesbury (Home) Earl Camden (Colonial) Lord Mulgrave (Foreign) Viscount Castlereagh (Colonial) Charles James Fox (Foreign) Earl Spencer (Home) W. Windham (Colonial) George Canning (Foreign) Lord Hawkesbury (Home) Viscount Castlereagh (Colonial) Marquis Wellesley (Foreign) Hon. Richard Ryder (Home) Lord Liverpool (Colonial and War) Viscount Castlereagh (Foreign) Viscount Sidmouth (Home) Earl Bathurst (Colonial) SECRETARIE 1760. Viscount Barrington 1761. C. Townshend 1763. W. Ellis 1765. Viscount Barrington 1778. C.Jenkinson 1782. J. Townshend Sir George Younge 1783. Sir R. Fitzpatrick TREASURERS 1760. George Grenville 1762. Lord Barrington 1765. Lord Howe 1770. Sir G. Elliott 1777. W. Ellis 1782. J. Barre H. Dundas 1783. C. Townshend 1784. Sir George Younge 1794. W. Windham 1801. C. Yorke 1803. C. Bathurst 1804. William Dundas 1806. R. Fitzpatrick 1807. Sir James Pulkney 1809. Lord Palmerston. F THE NAVY. 1783. Henry Dundas 1801. D. Ryder 1803. G. Tierney 1804. G. Canning 1806. R. B. Sheridan 1807. G. Rose 1818. J. Robinson 1757. 1764. Jan. 16. LORD HIGH CHANCELLORS. Sir Robert Henley, Kt., Lord Keeper, created Lord Henley, 1760 Ditto, made Lord Chancellor, and created Earl of Northington, May 19 248 1766. July 30. Charles, Lord Camden 1770. Jan. 17. Hon. Charles York, created Lord Morden, died next day, and the Great Seal was then put in commission 1771. Jan. 23. Henry, Lord Apsley, 'afterwards Earl Bathurst 1778. June 2. Edward, Lord Thurlow 1783. April 9. In commission Dec. 23. Edward, Lord Thurlow 1792. June 15. In commission 1793. Jan. 28. Alexander, Lord Loughborough, created Earl of Rosslyn in 1801. 1801. April 14. John, Lord Eldon 1806. Feb. 7. Lord Erskine 1807. April 1. Lord Eldon ATTORNEY-GENERALS. 1757. July 1. Sir C. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden 1762. Jan. 25. Hon. Charles Yorke 1763. Dec. 16. Sir Fletcher Norton, Kt., afterwards Lord Grantley 1765. Aug. 25. Hon. Charles Yorke 1766. William de Grey, after- wards Lord Walsing- ham 1771. Jan. 23. Edward Thurlow, after- wards Lord Thurlow 1778. June 16. A. Wedderburn, after- j wards Lord Lough- J borough 1780. July 11. James Wallace, Esq. 1782. April 20. Lloyd Kenyon, Esq. 1783. May 6. James Wallace, Esq. Nov. 18. John Lee, Esq. Dec. 26. Lloyd Kenyon, Esq. 1784. Mar. 30. R. Pepper Arden, Esq., afterwards Lord Al- vanley 1788. June 28. Sir A. Macdonald 1793. Feb. 13. Sir John Scott 1799. Sir John Milford 1801. Feb. 21. Sir Edward Law, after- wards Lord Ellenbo- rough 1802. April. Hon. Spencer Perceval 1806. Feb. 3. Sir Arthur Pigot 1807. April. Sir Vicary Gibbs 1812. June 27. Sir T. Plumer 1813. May 4. Sir W. Garrow 1817. May. Sir Sami. Shepherd 1819. Sir Robert Gifford SOLICITOR-GENERALS. 1756. Nov. 6. Hon. Charles Yorke 1761. Dec. 14. Fletcher Norton, Esq. 1763. Nov. William de Grey, Esq. 1766. Aug. Edward Willes, Esq. 1767. Dec. 23. Josh. Dunning, Esq. j 1770. March. Edward Thurlow, Esq. i 1771. Jan. 23. Alexander Wedderburn, Esq., afterwards Lord Loughborough 1778. June 16. James Wallace, Esq. 1780. Sept. 1. James Mansfield, Esq. 1782. April 20. John Lee, Esq. July 20. Richard Pepper Arden, Esq. 1783. Nov. 18. James Mansfield, Esq. Dec. 26. Richard Pepper Arden, Esq. 1784. April 7. Arch. Macdonald, Esq. 1788. June 28. Sir John Scott, after- wards Lord Eldon in 1799 1793. Feb. 13. Sir John Mitford, after- wards Lord Redes- dale 1799. Sir William Grant 1801. Hon. Spencer Perceval 1802. April. Sir Thomas Manners Sutton 1 805. Sir Vicary Gibbs 1806. Feb. 3. Sir Samuel Romilly 1807. April. Sir Thos. Plumer 1812. June 27. Sir Wm. Garrow 1813. May 4. Sir Robert Dallas 1814. Sir Sami. Shepherd 1817. May. Sir Robert Gifford 1819. Sir John Singleton Copley THE MODERN ORATOR. THE SPEECHES OF LORD ERSKINE. LONDON : AYLOTT AND JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1846. INDEX TO THE SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. LORD ERSKINE. PAGE On showing cause against a rule for an information against Captain Baillie, for libel. November 24, 1778 250 In Defence of Lord George Gordon on his trial for High Treason. Feb. 5, 1781 264 In support of a Rule for a New Trial of the indietment against the Dean of St. Asaph, for publishing a seditious libel. Nov. 15, 1784 .... 298 In defence of John Stockdale. Dec. 9, 1789 349 In defence of John Frost. Hilary Term, 1793 376 In defence of Thomas Hardy, indicted for High Treason. Nov. 1, 1794 . . 394 SPEECHES OF LORD ERSKINE. The Honourable Thomas Erskine was the third and youngest son of Henry David, Earl of Buchan, and was horn in Scotland, in 1750. In 1764, he entered the navy, but abandoned the service four years afterwards, and obtained a commission in the first regiment of foot, which regiment he ac- companied to Minorca, from whence he returned to England in 1772. At the earnest desire of his mother, Mr. Erskine threw up his commission, and, apply- ing himself to the study of the law, became a member of Lincoln’s Inn, and at the same time entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner, for the purpose of taking his degree, to which he was entitled by birth, and thereby reducing the number of terms required by the rules of the Inn, to be kept by students previously to being called to the bar. He diligently applied himself to his professional studies, in the chambers of Mr. Buller, one of the most celebrated special pleaders of the time ; and afterwards, on Mr. Buller being raised to the bench, he became the pupil of Mr. Wood. In Trinity term, 1778, Mr. Erskine was called to the bar, where fortune be- friended him, by affording him an early opportunity of distinguishing himself ; and his rise was so peculiarly rapid, that, after being scarcely five years at the bar, a patent of precedence was granted to him on the suggestion of Lord Mansfield. In the same year (1783), he entered parliament as member for Portsmouth through the influence of Mr. Fox, in the room of Sir William Gordon, who was induced to resign his seat for the purpose of Mr. Erskine’s return ; and shortly afterwards he received the appointment of Attorney- General to the Prince of Wales, but of which office he was shamefully de- prived in 1792 for his defence of Thomas Paine, against whom an information had been filed, for his violent attack on the government and constitution in his noted work called “ The Rights of Man.” As a reparation for this injus- tice, Mr. Erskine was appointed by the Prince of Wales, in 1802, Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall. During the administration of Mr. Addington, the office of Attorney- General to the King was offered to him, but he declined it in deference to the wishes of the Prince, at whose instance, according to Mr. Erskine’s own account, he was in 1806 made Lord Chancellor, and created Baron Erskine, of Restormel Castle, in the county of Cornwall. In 1807 he went out of office on the dissolution of the ministry, and seldom afterwards appeared in public. He died on 17th November, 1823, at Almondale, near Edinburgh, and was buried at Uphall church. He was twice married, and had issue, three sons and five daughters, by his first wife. T 250 THE MODERN ORATOR. The style of Lord Erskine’s eloquence has been universally admired for its purity, simplicity, and energy, and its complete freedom from all vulgarism, and is regarded as the model of serious forensic oratory ; his addresses bear on them the stamp of sincerity and honesty, and to this may be in a great measure attributed his great influence and success with juries. Speech on showing cause against a Rule for an Information against Captain Baillie, for libel, 24th November, 1778. Captain Baillie, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, considering that great abuses existed in the administration of the charity, and, amongst others, that those whose duty it was, from the offices they filled, to ob- serve the due performance of the contracts for the supply of the hospital, were themselves interested in them, much to the prejudice of the charity, had on various occasions presented petitions on the subject to the Directors and Gover- nors of the hospital, and to the Lords of the Admiralty^; but finding that they received- no attention, he, as a last resource, drew up a formal statement of the case, and caused it to be printed and distributed among the General Governors of the hospital. In this pamphlet, after setting forth the alleged grievance of the contracts being submitted to interested parties for approval, he complained bitterly of lucrative situations in the hospital (designed exclusively for seamen), being filled by landsmen, and insinuated that they were placed there by the Earl of Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to serve his own election purposes ; and in the heat of his zeal for the expo- sure of what he considered as gross abuses, he severely reprobated the con- duct of many individuals by name, and, among the number, the First Lord of the Admiralty himself. There is no doubt that Captain Baillie was actuated by an honest desire to promote the interest of the eharity, which he considered he was bound to protect, and not by any desire to prejudice the individuals of whom he complained, in the eyes of the public ; since, instead of publish- ing his pamphlet generally, he confined its circulation exclusively to the General Governors of the hospital, whose duty it was to investigate the charges preferred. Shortly after the appearance of the pamphlet, Captain Baillie was suspended from office, by the direction of the Board of Admiralty ; and the individuals who had been personally attacked applied, in Trinity term, 1778, to the Court of King’s Bench, for a rule for a criminal information for libel. This rule coming on for argument in the succeeding Michaelmas term. Captain Baillie’ s leading counsel first addressed the court in opposition, on the 23rd November, and the court having adjourned till the 24th, Mr. Erskine on that day rose from one of the back benches, and, continuing the argument against the rule, made the following speech. It may be observed, that Mr. Erskine had been only called to the bar on the last day of the preceding term, and it is believed that his speech on this occasion was the first he ever delivered in court. LORD ERSKXNE. 251 My Lord, “ I am likewise of counsel for the author of this supposed libel ; and if the matter for consideration had been merely a question of private wrong, in which the interests of society were no further concerned than in the pro- tection of the innocent, I should have thought myself well justified, after the very able defence made by the learned gentlemen who have spoken before me, in sparing your lordship, already fatigued with the subject, and in leaving my client to the prosecutor’s counsel and the judgment of the court. “ But upon an occasion of this serious and dangerous complexion, when a British subject is brought before a court of justice only for having ventured to attack abuses, which owe their continuance to the danger of attacking them ; when, without any motives but benevolence, justice, and public spirit, he has ventured to attack them though supported by power, and in that de- partment, too, where it was the duty of his office to detect and expose them ; I cannot relinquish the high privilege of defending such a character ; — I will not give up even my small share of the honour of repelling and of exposing so odious a prosecution. “ No man, my lord, respects more than I do the authority of the laws, and I trust I shall not let fall a single word to weaken the ground I mean to tread, by advancing propositions which shall oppose or even evade the strictest rules laid down by the court in questions of this nature. “ Indeed, it would be as unnecessary as it would be indecent ; it will be sufficient for me to call your lordship’s attention to the marked and striking difference between the writing before you, and I may venture to say almost every other, that has been the subject of argument on a rule for a criminal information. “ The writings, or publications, which have been brought before this court, or before grand juries, as libels on individuals, have been attacks on the characters of private men, by writers stimulated sometimes by resentment, sometimes, perhaps, by a mistaken zeal ; or they have been severe and un- founded strictures on the characters of public men, proceeding from officious persons taking upon themselves the censorial office, without temperance or due information, and without any call of duty to examine into the particular department, of which they choose to become the voluntary guardians : — a guardianship which they generally content themselves with holding in a newspaper for two or three posts, and then, with a generosity which shines on all mankind alike, correct every department of the state, and find, at the end of their lucubrations, that they themselves are the only honest men in the community. When men of this description suffer, however we may be occasionally sorry for their misdirected zeal, it is impossible to argue against the law that censures them. “ But I beseech your lordship to compare these men and their works, with my client, and the publication before the court. “ Who is he ?• — What is his duty ? — What has he written ? — To whom has he written ? — And what motive induced him to write ? t 2 252 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ He is Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Hospital of Greenwich, — a palace built for the reception of aged and disabled men, who have maintained the empire of England on the seas, and into the offices and emoluments of which, by the express words of the charter,* as well as by the evident spirit of the nstitution, no landmen are to be admitted. “ His duty — in the treble capacity of Lieutenant-Governor, Director, and a General Governor, is, in conjunction with others, to watch over the in- ternal economy of this sacred charity ; to see that the setting days of these brave and godlike men are spent in comfort and peace, and that the ample revenues, appropriated by this generous nation to their support, are not per- verted and misapplied. “ He has written, that this benevolent and politic institution has degenerated from the system established by its wise and munificent founders ; — that its governors consist indeed of a great number f of illustrious names and reverend characters, but whose different labours and destinations in the most important offices of civil life rendered a deputation indispensably necessary for the or- dinary government of the Hospital ; — that the difficulty of convening this splendid corporation had gradually brought the management of its affairs more particularly under the direction of the Admiralty ; — that a new charter has been surreptitiously obtained, in repugnance to the original institution, which enlarges and confirms that dependence ; — that the present First Lord of the Admiralty (who, for reasons sufficiently obvious, does not appear pub- licly in this prosecution) has, to serve the base and worthless purposes of corruption, introduced his prostituted freeholders of Huntingdon into places destined for the honest freeholders of the seas ; — that these men (among whom are the prosecutors) are not only landmen, in defiance of the charter, and wholly dependent on the Admiralty in their views and situations, but, to the reproach of all order and government, are suffered to act as Directors and Officers of Greenwich, while they themselves hold the very subordinate offices, the control of which is the object of that direction ;J — and inferring from thence (as a general proposition) that men in such situations cannot, as human nature is constituted, act with that freedom and singleness which their duty requires, he justly attributes to these causes the grievances which his gallant brethren actually suffer, and which are the generous subject of his complaint. “ He has written this, my lord, not to the public at large, which has no jurisdiction to reform the abuses he complains of ; but to those only whose express duty it is to hear and to correct them ; and I trust they will be * The words of the charter are — “ Provided that all officers to be employed in the said Hospital be seafaring men, or such who have lost their limbs or been otherwise disabled in the sea service.” f Nearly 200 ; including the chief officers of State, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Judges, Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, and the principal public officers. % In allusion to the persons filling the offices of superintendents of the contracts for the supply of the Hospital being themselves interested therein. LORI) ERSKINE. 253 solemnly heard and corrected. He has not published, but only distributed his book among the governors, to produce inquiry, and not to calumniate. “ The motive which induced him to write , and to which I shall by and by claim the more particular attention of the court, was to produce reformation — a reformation which it was his most pointed duty to attempt, which he has laboured with the most indefatigable zeal to accomplish, and against which every other channel was blocked up. “ My lord, I will point to the proof of all this : I will show your lordship that it was his duty to investigate — that the abuses he has investigated do really exist, and arise from the ascribed causes — that he has presented them to a competent jurisdiction, and not to the public — and that he was under the indispensable necessity of taking the step he has done to save Greenwich Hospital from ruin. “Your lordship will observe, by this subdivision, that I do not wish to form a specious desultory defence : because, feeling that every link of such sub- division will in the investigation produce both law and fact in my favour, I have spread the subject open before the eye of the court, and invite the strictest scrutiny. Your lordship will likewise observe by this arrangement, that I mean to confine myself to the general lines of his defence ; the various affidavits have already been so ably and judiciously commented on by my learned leaders, to whom I am sure Captain Baillie must ever feel himself under the highest obligations, that my duty has become narrowed to the pro- vince of throwing his defence within the closest compass, that it may leave a distinct and decided impression. “ And first, my lord, as to its being his particular duty to inquire into the different matters which are the subject of his publication, and of the prose- cutors’ complaint : I believe, my lords, I need say little on this head to convince your lordships, who are yourselves Governors of Greenwich Hospital, that the defendant, in the double capacity of Lieutenant-Governor and Director, is most indispensably bound to superintend everything that can affect the prosperity of the institution, either in internal economy or appropriation of revenue ; but I cannot help reading two copies of letters from the Admiralty in the year 1742 — I read them from the publication, because their authenticity is sworn to by the defendant in his affidavit — and I read them to show the sense of that board with regard to the right of inquiry and complaint in all officers of the Hospital, even in the departments not allotted to them by their commissions. “ ‘ To Sir John Jennings, Governor of Greenwich Hospital. “‘Admiralty Office, April 19, 1742. “ ‘ Sir, — The Directors of Greenwich Hospital having acquainted my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, upon complaint made to them that the men have been defrauded of part of their just allowance of broth and pease- soup, by the smallness of the pewter dishes, which, in their opinion, have been artificially beaten flat, and that there arts other frauds and abuses 254 THE MODERN ORATOR. attending this affair, to the prejudice of the poor men ; I am commanded by their lordships to desire you to call the officers together in council, and to let them know, that their lordships think them very blameable for suffering such abuses to be practised, which could not have been done without their ex- treme indolence in not looking into the affairs of the Hospital ; that their own establishment in the Hospital is for the care and protection of the poor men, and that it is their duty to look daily into everything, and to remedy every disorder ; and not to discharge themselves by throwing it upon the under-officers and servants ; and that their lordships, being determined to go to the bottom of this complaint, do charge them to find out and inform them at whose door the fraud ought to be laid, that their lordships may give such directions herein as they shall judge proper. “ 4 I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, 44 4 Thos. Corbet.’ “ 4 To Sir John Jennings , Governor of Greenwich Hospital. 44 4 Admiralty Office, May 7th, 1742. 44 4 Sir, — My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having referred to the Directors of Greenwich Hospital, the report made by yourself and officers of the said Hospital in council, dated the 23rd past, relating to the flatness of the pewter dishes made use of to hold the broth and pease-pottage served out to the pensioners ; the said Directors have returned hither a reply, a copy of which I am ordered to send you enclosed : they have herein set forth a fact which has a very fraudulent appearance, and it imports little by what means the dishes became shallow ; but if it be true, what they assert, that the dishes hold but little more than half the quantity they ought to do, the poor men must have been greatly injured ; and the allegations in the officers’ report, that the pensioners have made no complaint, does rather aggravate their conduct, in suffering the men’s patience to be so long imposed upon. 44 4 My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty do command me to express myself in such a manner as may show their wrath and displeasure at such a proceeding. You will please to communicate this to the officers of the house in council. 44 4 Their lordships do very well know that the Directors have no power but in the management of the revenue and estates of the Hospital, and in carry- ing on the works of the building, nor did they assume any on this occasion ; but their lordships shall always take well of them any informations that tend to rectify any mistakes or omissions whatsoever, concerning the state of the Hospital. 44 4 1 am, Sir, your obedient servant, 44 4 Thos. Corbet.’ 44 From these passages it is plain, that the Admiralty then was sensible of the danger of abuses in so extensive an institution, that it encouraged com- plaints from all quarters, and instantly redressed them ; for although Cor- LORI) ERSK1NE. 255 zuption was not then an infant, yet the idea of making a job of Greenwich Hospital never entered her head ; and, indeed, if it had, she could hardly have found, at that time of day, a man with a heart callous enough to consent to such a scheme, or with forehead enough to carry it into public execution. “ Secondly, my lord, that the abuses he has investigated do in truth exist, and arise from the ascribed causes. “ And, at the word truth, I must pause a little to consider, how far it is a defence on a rule of this kind, and what evidence of the falsehood of the supposed libel the court expects from prosecutors, before it will allow the information to be filed, even where no affidavits are produced by the defendant in his exculpation.* “ That a libel upon an individual is not the less so for being true,f I do not, under certain restrictions, deny to be law ; nor is it necessary for me to deny it, because this is not a complaint in the ordinary course of law,| but an application to the court to exert an eccentric, extraordinary, voluntary juris- diction, beyond the ordinary course of justice — a jurisdiction which, I am authorised from the best authority to say, this court will not exercise, unless the prosecutors come pure and unpolluted ; denying upon oath the truth of every word and sentence which they complain of as injurious : for although, in common cases, the matter may be not the less libellous because true, yet the court will not interfere by information, for guilty, or even equivocal characters, but will leave them to its ordinary process. If the court does not see palpable malice and falsehood on the part of the defendant, and clear innocence on the part of the prosecutor, it will not stir ; it will say , 4 This may be a libel ; this may deserve punishment ; but go to a grand jury, or bring your actions : all men are equally entitled to the protection of the laws, but all men are not equally entitled to an extraordinary interposition and protection, beyond the common distributive forms of justice.’ “ This is the true constitutional doctrine of informations, and made a * A criminal information is a written suggestion of an offence committed, filed in the Court of Queen’s Bench, at the instance of an individual by the leave of the court, without the intervention of a grand jury. The court will not, therefore, give such leave, unless the party applying disclose fully, on affidavit, all the material facts of the case, and satisfy the court that a grand jury would, on such evidence, sanction an in- dictment if preferred ; and if the cause of the application for leave to file a criminal information be a libel on an individual, the court always require the prosecutor to deny the truth of the charge on oath. f In the case of an indictment for libel, the truth of the alleged libel could not, until very recently, have been set up in defence or mitigation of punishment. Now, by 6 and 7 Vic., cap. 96, sec. 6, on the trial of any indictment or information for a defamatory libel, the truth of the matters charged may be inquired into (if the defendant have pleaded as prescribed by this statute), but shall not amount to a defence, unless it was for the public benefit that the said matter charged should be published. + Indictment may be considered the ordinary mode, as distinguished from criminal information, the peculiar mode of prosecution. 256 THE MODERN OEATOE. strong impression upon me, when delivered by your lordship in this court ; the occasion which produced it was of little consequence, but the principle was important. It was an information moved for by General Plasto against the printer of the ‘ Westminster Gazette,’ for a libel published in his paper, charging that gentleman, among other things, with having been tried at the Old Bailey for a felony. The prosecutor’s affidavit denied the charges generally as foul, scandalous, and false ; but did not traverse the aspersion I have just mentioned, as a substantive fact : upon which your lordship told the counsel,* who was too learned to argue against the objection, that the affidavit was defective in that particular, and should be amended before the court would even grant a rule to show cause. For although such general denial would be sufficient where the libellous matter consisted of scurrility, insinuation, general abuse, which is no otherwise traversable than by in- nuendos of the import of the scandal, and a denial of the truth of it, yet that when a libel consisted of direct and positive facts as charges, the court required substantive traverses of such facts in the affidavit, before it would interpose to take the matter from the cognisance of a grand jury. “ This is the law of informations ; and by this touchstone I will try the prosecutors’ affidavits, to show that they will fall of themselves, even without that body of evidence, with which I can in a moment overwhelm them. “ If the defendant be guilty of any crime at all, it is for writing this book : and the conclusion of his guilt or innocence must consequently depend on the scope and design of it, the general truth of it, and the necessity for writing it ; and this conclusion can no otherwise be drawn, than by taking the whole of it together. Your lordships will not shut your eyes, as these prosecutors expect, to the design and general truth of the book, and go entirely upon the insulated passages, culled out, and set heads and points in their wretched affidavits, without context, or even an attempt to unriddle or explain their sense, or bearing on the subject ; for, my lord, they have altogether omitted to traverse the scandalous facts them- selves, and have only laid hold of those warm animadversions which the recital of them naturally produced in the mind of an honest, zealous man, and which, besides, are in many places only conclusions drawn from facts as general propositions, and not aspersions on them as individuals. And where the facts do come home to them as charges, not one of them is denied by the prosecutors. I assert, my lord, that in the Directors’ whole affidavit (which I have read repeatedly, and with the greatest attention) there is not any one fact mentioned b} 7- the defendant, which is substantially denied ; and even when five or six strong and pointed charges are tacked to each other, to avoid meeting naked truth in the teeth, they are not even contradicted by the lump, but a general innuendo is pinned to them all ; — a mere illusory averment, that the facts mean to criminate them, and that they are not criminal ; but the facts themselves remain unattempted and untouched. * Mr. Dunning. LORD ERSKINE. 257 “ Thus, my lord, after reciting in their affidavit the charge of their shameful misconduct in renewing the contract with the Huntingdon butchers, who had just compounded the penalties incurred by the breach of a former contract, and, in that breach of contract, the breach of every principle of hu- manity, as well as of honesty ; — and the charge of putting improper objects of charity into the hospital, while the families of poor pensioners were ex- cluded, and starving ; — and of screening delinquents from inquiry and punish- ment in a pointed and particular instance, and therefore traversable as a substantive fact ; yet, not only there is no such traverse, but, though all these matters are huddled together in a mass, there is not even a general denial ; but one loose innuendo, that the facts in the publication are stated with an intention of criminating the prosecutors, and that, as far as they tend to criminate them, they are false. “ Will this meet the doctrine laid down by your lordship in the case of General Plasto ? Who can tell what they mean by criminality ? Perhaps they think neglect of duty not criminal ; perhaps they think corrupt servility to a patron not criminal ; and that if they do not actively promote abuses, the winking at them is not criminal. But I appeal to the court, whether the Directors’ whole affidavit is not a cautious composition to avoid downright perjury, and yet a glaring absurdity on the face of it ; for since the facts are not traversed, the court must intend them to exist ; and if they do exist, they cannot but be criminal. The very existence of such abuses, in itself crimi- nates those whose offices are to prevent them from existing. Under the shelter of such qualifications of guilt, no man in trust could ever be crimi- nated. But at all events, my lord, since they seem to think that the facts may exist without their criminality — be it so : the defendant, then, does not wish to criminate them ; he wishes only for effectual inquiry and information, that there may be no longer any crimes, and consequently no criminality. But he trusts, in the mean time, and I likewise trust, that, while these facts do exist, the court will at least desire the prosecutors to clear themselves before the general council of governors, to whom the writing is addressed, and not be- fore any packed committee of directors appointed by a noble lord,* and then come back to the court acquitted of all criminality, or, according to the tech- nical phrase, with clean hands for protection. “ Such are the merits of the affidavits exhibited by the Directors ; and the affidavits of the other persons are, without distinction, subject to the same observations. They are made up either of general propositions, converted into charges by ridiculous innuendos, or else of strings of distinct disjointed facts tied together, and explained by one general averment : and after all, the scandal, such as their arbitrary interpretation makes it, is still only denied with the old jesuitical qualification of criminality,— the facts themselves re- maining untraversed, and even untouched. “ They are, indeed, every way worthy of their authors of Mr. Godby.. Meaning Lord Sandwich. 258 THE MODERN ORATOR. the good steward, who, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the captain of the week, received for the pensioners such food as would be rejected by the idle vagrant poor, and endeavoured to tamper with the cook to conceal it ; — and of Mr. Ibbetson,* who converted their wards into apartments for himself, and the clerks of clerks, in the endless subordination of idleness ; a wretch, who has dared, with brutal inhumanity, to strike those aged men, who in their youth would have blasted him with a look. As to Mr. , and Mr. , though I think them reprehensible for joining in this prosecution, yet they are certainly respectable men, and not at all on a level with the rest, nor has the defendant so reduced them. These two, therefore, have in fact no cause of complaint, and, Heaven knows, the others have no title to complain. “ In this enumeration of delinquents, the Rev. Mr. Cookef looks round, as if he thought I had forgotten him. He is mistaken ; — I well remembered him : but his infamy is worn threadbare : Mr. Murphy has already treated him with that ridicule which his folly, and Mr. Peckham with that invective which his wickedness, deserves. I shall therefore forbear to taint the ear of the court further with his name ; a name which would bring dishonour upon his country and its religion, if human nature were not happily compelled to bear the greater part of the disgrace, and to share it amongst mankind. “ But these observations, my lord, are solely confined to the prosecutors’ affidavits, and would, I think, be fatal to them, even if they stood uncontro- verted. But what will the court say, when ours are opposed to them, where the truth of every part is sworn to by the defendant ? What will the court say to the collateral circumstances in support of them, where every material charge against the prosecutors is confirmed ? What will it Isay to the affi- davit that has been made, that no man can come safely to support this injured officer? — that men have been deprived of their places, and exposed to beggary and ruin, merely for giving evidence of abuses, "which have already, by his exertions, been proved before your lordship at Guildhall, whilst he himself has been suspended as a beacon for prudence to stand aloof from, so that in this unconstitutional mode of trial, where the law will not lend its process to bring in truth by force , he might stand unprotected ( by the volun- tary oaths of the only persons who could witness for him ?J His character has, indeed, in some measure, broke through all this malice : the love and veneration which his honest zeal has justly created, have enabled him to pro- * Secretary to the Directors, and first, or confidential clerk of the Admiralty, charged by Captain Baillie with reducing the pensioners’ wards for the accommodation of him- self and his footmen. f One of the chaplains and a director of the hospital, and chaplain to the first Lord of the Admiralty. f In applying for a rule for a criminal information, the evidence, pro and con., is sustained by affidavits which the court cannot compel any person to make ; whereas, in the case of indictments, the personal attendance of the witnesses to give their evidence viva voce before the grand jury may be compelled by subpoena. LORD ERSKINE. 259 duce the proofs which are filed in court ; but many have hung back, and one withdrew his affidavit, avowedly from the dread of persecution, even after it was sworn in court. Surely, my lord, this evidence of malice in the leading powers of the Hospital, would alone be sufficient to destroy their testimony even when swearing collaterally to facts, in which they were not themselves interested ; — how much more when they come as prosecutors, stimulated by resentment, and with the hope of covering their patron’s misdemeanours and their own, by turning the tables on the defendant, and prosecuting him crimi- nally, to stifle all necessary inquiry into the subject of his complaints ? “ Lieutenant Gordon, the first Lieutenant of the Hospital, and the oldest officer in the navy ; Lieutenant William Lefevre ; Lieutenant Charles Lefevre, his son ; Alexander Moore ; Lieutenant William Ansell ; and Captain Allright, have all positively sworn, that a faction of landmen subsists in the Hospital, and that they do in their consciences believe, that the defendant drew upon himself the resentment of the prosecutors, from his activity in correcting this enormous abuse, and from his having restored the wards, that had been cruelly taken away from the poor old men ; — that on that just occasion the whole body of the pensioners surrounded the apartments of their gover- nor, to testify their gratitude with acclamations, which sailors never bestow but on men who deserve them. This simple and honest tribute was the sig- nal for all that has followed ; the leader of these unfortunate people was turned out of office ; and the affidavit of Charles Smith is filed in court, which, I thank my God, I have not been able to read without tears ; — how, indeed, could any man, — when he swears, that, for this cause alone, his place was taken from him; that he received his dismission when languishing with sickness in the infirmary, the consequence of which was, that his unfortunate wife, and several of his helpless, innocent children died in want and misery — the woman actually expiring at the gates of the hospital. That such wretches should escape chains and a dungeon, is a reproach to humanity, and to all order and government ; but that they should become prosecutors , is a degree of effrontery that would not be believed by any man, who did not ac- custom himself to observe the shameless scenes Avhich the monstrous age we live in is every day producing. “ I come now, my lord, to consider to whom, he has written. — This book is not published. It was not printed for sale , but for the more commodious dis- tribution among the many persons who are called upon in duty to examine into its contents. If the defendant had written it to calumniate, he would have thrown it abroad among the multitude : but he swears he wrote it for the attainment of reformation, and therefore confined its circulation to the proper channel, till he saw it was received as a libel, and then he even dis- continued that distribution, and only showed it to his counsel to consider of a defence ; — and no better defence can be made, than that the publication was so limited. “My lord, a man cannot be guilty of a libel, who presents grievances before a competent jurisdiction, although the facts he presents should be false ; 260 THE MODERN ORATOR. he may, indeed, be indicted for a malicious prosecution, and even there, a pro- bable cause would protect him, but he can by no construction be considered as a libeller. “ The case of Lake and King, in 1st Levinz, 240, but which is better re- ported in 1st Saunders, is directly in point ; it was an action for printing a petition to the members of a committee of parliament, charging the plaintiff with gross fraud in the execution of his office. I am aware that it was an action on the case, and not a criminal prosecution ; but I am prepared to show your lordship, that the precedent on that account makes the stronger for us. The truth of the matter, though part of the plea, was not the point in contest; the justification was the presenting it to a proper jurisdiction, and printing it, as in this case, for more commodious distribution ; and it was first of all resolved by the court, that the delivery of the petition to all the members of the committee was justifiable ; — and that it was no libel, whether the matter contained were true or false, it being an appeal in a court of jus - tice,^ and because the parties, to whom it was addressed, had jurisdiction to determine the matter ; — that the intention of the law in prohibiting libels was to restrain men from making themselves their own judges, instead of referring the matter to those whom the constitution had appointed to deter- mine it ; — and that to adjudge such reference to be a libel, would discourage men from making their inquiries with that freedom and readiness, which the law allows, and which the good of society requires. But it was objected, he could not justify th e printing ; for, by that means, it was published to prin- ters and composers ; but it was answered, and resolved by the whole court, that the printing, with intent to distribute them among the members of the committee, was legal ; and that the making many copies by clerks, would have made the matter more public. I said, my lord, that this being an action on the case, and not an indictment or information, made the stronger for us ; and I said so, because the action on the case is to redress the party in damages, for the injury he has sustained as an individual, and which he has a right to recover, unless the defendant can show that the matter is true, or, as in this case, whether true or false, that it is an appeal to justice. Now, my lord, if a defendant’s right to appeal to justice could, in the case of Lake and King, repel a plaintiffs right to damages, although he was actually damnified by the appeal, how much more must it repel a criminal prosecution, which can be undertaken only for the sake of public justice, when the law says, it is for the benefit of public justice to make such appeal ? And that case went to protect even falsehood, and where the defendant was not particularly called upon in duty as an individual to animadvert : — how much more shall it protect us, who were bound to inquire, who have written nothing but truth, and who have addressed what we have written to a com- petent jurisdiction ? * If the libel complained of be contained only in articles of the peace, or in some- other regular proceeding in a court of justice, and not otherwise published, the defen- dant may give this in defence. LORt) ERSKINE. 261 “ I come lastly, my lord, to the motives which induced him to write. “ The government of Greenwich Hospital is divided into three departments: — the council ; the directors ; and the general governors : the defendant is a member of every one of these, and therefore his duty is universal. The council consists of the officers, whose duty it is to regulate the internal economy and discipline of the house, the hospital being, as it were, a large man of war, and the council its commanders ; and therefore, these men, even by the present mutilated charter, ought all to be seamen. Secondly, the directors, whose duty is merely to concern themselves with the appropria- tion of the revenue, in contracting for and superintending supplies, and in keeping up the structure of the hospital ; and lastly, the general court of governors, consisting of almost every man in the kingdom with a sounding name of office : — a mere nullity, on the members of which no blame of neglect can possibly be laid ; for the hospital might as well have been placed under the tuition of the fixed stars, as under so many illustrious persons, in different and distant departments. From the council, therefore, appeals and complaints formerly lay at the Admiralty, the directors having quite a separate duty, and, as I have shown the court, the Admiralty encouraged complaints of abuses, and redressed them. But since the administration of the present First Lord, the face of things has changed. I trust it will be ob- served, that I do not go out of the affidavit to seek to calumniate : my respect for the court would prevent me, though my respect for the said First Lord might not. But the very foundation of my client’s defence depending on this matter, I must take the liberty to point it out to the court. The Admiralty having placed several landmen in the offices that form the council, a majority is often artificially secured there : and when abuses are too flagrant to be passed over in the face of day, they carry their appeal to the Directors, instead of the Admiralty, where, from the very nature of man, in a much more perfect state than the prosecutors, they are sure to be rejected or slurred over ; because these acting directors themselves are not only under the same influence with the complainants, but the subjects of the appeals are most frequently the fruits of their own active delinquencies, or at least the consequence of their own neglects. By this manoeuvre the Admi- ralty is secured from hearing complaints, and the First Lord, when any comes as formerly from an individual, answers with a perfect composure of muscle, that it is coram non judice ; — it does not come through the Directors. The defendant positively swears this to be true ; — he declares that, in the course of these meetings of the council, and of appeals to the Directors, he has been not only uniformly over-ruled, but insulted as governor in the execution of his duty ; and the truth of the abuses which have been the subject of these appeals, as well as the insults I have mentioned, are proved by whole volumes of affidavits filed in court, notwithstanding the numbers who have been deterred by persecution from standing forth as witnesses. “ The defendant also himself solemnly swears this to be true. He swears, that his heart was big with the distresses of his brave brethren, and that his 262 THE MODERN ORATOR. conscience called on him to give them vent ; that he often complained ; that he repeatedly wrote to, and waited on Lord Sandwich, without any effect, or prospect of effect ; and that at last, wearied with fruitless exertions, and disgusted with the iusolence of corruption in the hospital, which hates him for his honesty, he applied to be sent, with all his wounds and infirmities, upon actual service again. The answer he received is worthy of observa- tion : the First Lord told him, in derision, that it would be the same thing everywhere else ; that he would see the same abuses in a ship ; and I do in my conscience believe he spoke the truth, as far as depended on himself. “ What, then, was the defendant to do under the treble capacity of lieute- nant-Governor, of director, and of general governor of the hospital ? My lord, there was no alternative but to prepare, as he did, the statement of the abuses for the other governors, or to sit silent, and let them continue. Had he chosen the last , he might have been caressed by the prosecutors, and still have continued the first inhabitant of a palace, with an easy independent fortune. But he preferred the dictates of honour, and he fulfilled them at the expense of being discarded, after forty years’ gallant service, covered with wounds, and verging to old age. But he respected the laws while he ful- filled his duty ; his object was reformation, not reproach : he preferred a complaint, and stimulated a regular inquiry, but suspended the punishment of public shame till the guilt should be made manifest by a trial. He did not therefore publish , as their affidavits falsely assert, but only preferred a complaint by distribution of copies to the governors, which I have shown the court, by the authority of a solemn legal decision, is not a libel. “Such, my lords, is the case. The defendant, — not a disappointed mali- cious informer, prying into official abuses, because without office himself, but himself a man in office ; not troublesomely inquisitive into other men’s departments, but conscientiously correcting his own ; doing it pursuant to the rules of law, and, what heightens the character, doing it at the risk of his office, from which the effrontery of power has already suspended him without proof of his guilt ; — a conduct not only unjust and illiberal, but highly disrespectful to this court, whose judges sit in the double capacity of ministers of the law, and governors of this sacred and abused institution. Indeed, Lord Sandwich has, in my mind, acted such a part.” [Lord Mansfield here interrupted Mr. Erskine in his address, observing that Lord Sandwich was not before the court.] “ I know, that he is not formally before the court, but, for that very reason, I will bring him before the court : he has placed these men in the front of the battle, in hopes to escape under their shelter, but I will not join in battle with them : their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will drag him to light, who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert, that the Earl of Sandwich has but one road to escape out of this bu- siness without pollution and disgrace : and that is, by publicly disavowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command. If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too common one of LOUD ETtSKINE. 263 having suffered his own personal interest to prevail over his public duty, in placing his voters in the hospital. But if, on the contrary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhorrence of the numerous audience that crowd this court ; if he keeps this injured man suspended, or dares to turn that suspension into a removal, I shall then not scruple to declare him an accomplice in their guilt, a shameless oppressor, a disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to his trust. But as I should he very sorry that the fortune of my brave and honourable friend should depend either upon the exercise of Lord Sandwich’s virtues, or the influence of his fears, I do most earnestly entreat the court to mark the ma- lignant object of this prosecution, and to defeat it. I beseech you, my lords, to consider, that even by discharging the rule, and with costs, the defendant is neither protected nor restored. I trust, therefore, your lord- ships will not rest satisfied with fulfilling your judicial duty, but, as the strongest evidence of foul abuses has, by accident, come collaterally before you, that you will protect a brave and public-spirited officer from the perse- cution this writing has brought upon him, and not suffer so dreadful an example to go abroad into the world, as the ruin of an upright man for having faithfully discharged his duty. “ My lords, this matter is of the last importance. I speak not as an advo- cate alone — I speak to you as a man — as a member of a state whose very existence depends upon her naval strength. If a misgovernment were to fall upon Chelsea Hospital, to the ruin and discouragement of our army, it would be no doubt to be lamented, yet I should not think it fatal ; but if our fleets are to be crippled by the baneful influence of elections, we are lost indeed ! If the seaman, who, while he exposes his body to fatigues and dangers, looking forward to Greenwich as an asylum for infirmity and old age, sees the gates of it blocked up by corruption, and hears the riot and mirth of luxurious landmen drowning the groans and complaints of the wounded helpless com- panions of his glory, he will tempt the seas no more. The Admiralty may press his body , indeed, at the expense of humanity and the constitution, but they cannot press his mind — they cannot press the heroic ardour of a British sailor ; and instead of a fleet to carry terror all round the globe, the Admi- ralty may not much longer be able to amuse us with even the peaceable unsubstantial pageant of a review.^ “ Fine and imprisonment ! The man deserves a palace instead of a prison, who prevents the palace, built by the public bounty of his country, from being converted into a dungeon, and who sacrifices his own security to the interests of humanity and virtue. “ And now, my lord, I have done ; but not without thanking your lord- ship for the very indulgent attention I have received, though in so late a stage of this business, and notwithstanding my great incapacity and inexpe- rience. I resign my client into your hands, and I resign him with a well- founded confidence and hope ; because that torrent of corruption, which has * hi allusion to a naval review which had lately taken place at Portsmouth. 264 THE MODERN ORATOR. unhappily overwhelmed every other part of the constitution, is, by the bless- ing of Providence, stopped here by the sacred independence of the judges. I know that your lordships will determine according to law ; and, therefore, if an information should be suffered to be filed, I shall bow to the sentence, and shall consider this meritorious publication to be indeed an offence against the laws of this country ; but then I shall not scruple to say, that it is high time for every honest man to remove himself from a country in which he can no longer do his duty to the public with safety; where cruelty and inhumanity are suffered to impeach virtue, and where vice passes through a court of justice unpimished and unreproved.” The court discharged the rule. Speech in defence of Lord George Gordon, on his trial for high treason, 5 th February, 1781. On the passing of Sir George Saville’s bill in 1778, for the relief of the English Roman Catholics from the penalties to which they were subject by the Act of 1699, it was proposed that in the next session of Parliament a similar Act should be passed for Scotland ; but the strong proofs given by the Scotch populace of their antipathy to the proposed measure, and the riots which broke out in Edinburgh and Glasgow, where many of the Roman Catholic chapels were destroyed by the mob in their fury, caused it to be abandoned. The religious excitement thus produced in Scotland, soon spread to England, and was much encouraged by Lord George Gordon, a man of a wild and enthusiastic disposition (brother of the Duke of Gordon and a member of the House of Commons), who allowed himself to be nomi- nated president of a society called the ‘ Protestant Association,’ whose object was to procure, by all legal means in their power, a repeal of the late English Toleration Act. But, in large popular assemblies it is impossible to agitate religious questions in a temperate spirit : the real zeal for the protection of the Protestant church, which, without doubt, actuated the original members, grew, as the numbers of the association increased, into a wild fanaticism : in a short time there were no less than eighty-five corresponding societies formed, nominally in defence of Protestantism, but which, there is every reason to believe, took advantage of the popular bigotry to league together under the cloak of Protestantism, for the furtherance of political and seditious objects. On 29th May, 1780, a large public meeting -was held at Coachmakers’ Hall, for the purpose of considering the best means of procuring a repeal of the obnoxious act ; on which occasion Lord George Gordon, who took the chair, made a most violent harangue against the Roman Catholics, insisting that Popery was spreading throughout the kingdom "with frightful rapidity, and concluded by moving that on the following Friday the whole body of the Protestant Association should march in procession to the House of Com- mons with a petition, which he undertook to present, for the repeal of the LORD ERSKINE. 267 act, but declared that, unless 20,000 men attended on the occasion, he would not present the petition. Accordingly, on the 2nd of June, upwards of 40,000 persons assembled in St. George’s fields, and, being divided into companies, marched in procession to the House, where they insulted many of the members whom they considered opposed to their wishes ; and, on Lord G. Gordon’s motion, for taking their petition into immediate consideration, being rejected by a large majority, they conducted themselves in so riotous a manner that the military were obliged to be sent for to disperse them. On being thus driven from the Houses of Parliament, the mob, disappointed in their object, became tumultuous, and proceeded to destroy two Roman Catholic chapels, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Golden-square, which they were allowed to do without interruption. Encouraged by this success, and lured on by the prospect of pillage, they were quickly joined by all the lowest dregs of the metropolis, and for four days London was at the mercy of an infuriated and bigoted populace. Newgate prison became an early object of attack, and was speedily burnt and the prisoners released. Lord Mansfield’s mansion, in Bloomsbury- square, was soon afterwards destroyed, together with all the valuable manuscripts, library, and furniture it contained. On the night of the 7th of June, the scene was terrific: the prisons of the Fleet, King’s Bench, and Bridewell, together with the distilleries in Holborn, and houses in all directions, were to be seen in flames; while the uproar in the streets, from the yells of the intoxicated mob and the discharges of musketry, added to the terror of the citizens. At length, order being restored by the military, although at the sacrifice of 285 lives, Lord George Gordon, as the author of the riots, was arrested for high treason, in levying war against the King, and committed to the Tower. His trial came on at the Old Bailey, on the 5th February, 1781, when Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Erskine appeared as counsel for the prisoner. After Mr. Kenyon had addressed the jury on the conclusion of the case for the prosecution, Mr. Erskine, his junior, would, in the usual course, have immediately followed; but he claimed the right, which > was recognised by the court, of reserving his address until after the close of the evidence for the defence, which being concluded about midnight, Mr. Erskine rose, and delivered the following celebrated speech “Gentlemen or the Jury, “ Mr. Kenyon having informed the Court that we propose to call no other witnesses, jt is now my duty to address myself to you, as counsel for the noble prisoner at the bar, the whole evidence being closed ; — I use the word closed, because it is certainly not finished, since I have been obliged to leave the place in which I sat, to disentangle myself from the volumes of men’s names, which lay there under my feet, whose testimony, had it been necessary for the defence, would have confirmed all the facts that are already in evidence before you. “ Gentlemen, I feel myself entitled to expect, both from you and from the Court, the greatest indulgence and attention ; — I am, indeed, a greater ob- ject of your compassion, than even my noble friend whom I am defending. u 268 THE MODERN ORATOR. He rests secure in conscious innocence, and in the well-placed assurance, that it can suffer no stain in your hands ; — not so with me ; I stand before you a troubled, I am afraid a guilt]) man, in having presumed to accept of the awful task which I am now called upon to perform — a task which my learned friend w r ho spoke before me, though he has justly risen, by extraordinary capacity and experience, to the highest rank in his pro- fession, has spoken of with that distrust and diffidence, which becomes every Christian in a cause of blood. If Mr. Kenyon has such feelings, think what mine must be. Alas ! Gentlemen, who am I ? A young man of little experi- ence, unused to the bar of criminal courts, and sinking under the dreadful consciousness of my defects. I have, however, this consolation, that no igno- rance nor inattention on my part can possibly prevent you from seeing, under the direction of the Judges, that the Crown has established no case of treason. “ Gentlemen, I did expect that the Attorney- General, in opening a great and solemn state prosecution, would have at least indulged the advocates for the prisoner with his notions on the law, as applied to the case before you, in less general terms. It is very common indeed, in little civil actions, to make such obscure introductions by way of trap ; but in criminal cases, it is unusual and unbecoming ; because the right of the Crown to reply, even where no witnesses are called by the prisoner, gives it thereby the advantage of re- plying, without having given scope for observations on the principles of the opening, with which the reply must be consistent. “ One observation he has, however, made on the subject, in the truth of which I heartily concur, viz., That the crime, of which the noble person at your bar stands accused, is the very highest and most atrocious that a mem- ber of civil life can possibly commit ; because it is not, like all other crimes, merely an injury to society from the breach of some of its reciprocal relations, but is an attempt utterly to dissolve and destroy society altogether. “ In nothing, therefore, is the wisdom and justice of our laws so strongly and eminently manifested as in the rigid, accurate, cautious, explicit, unequivocal definition of what shall constitute this high offence ; — for, high treason con- sisting in the breach and dissolution of that allegiance which binds society together, if it were left ambiguous, uncertain, or undefined, all the other laws established for the personal security of the subject would be utterly useless ; since this offence, which, from its nature, is so capable of being created and and judged of by the rules of political expediency on the spur of the occasion, would be a rod at will to bruise the most virtuous members of the community, whenever virtue might become troublesome or obnoxious to a bad government. “ Injuries to the persons and properties of our neighbours, considered as individuals, which are the subjects of all other criminal prosecutions, are not only capable of greater precision, but the powers of the state can be but rarely interested in straining them beyond their legal interpretation ; but if Treason, where the government is directly offended, were left to the judgment of its ministers, without any boundaries, — nay, without the most broad, dis- tinct, and inviolable boundaries marked out by Law, — there could be no LORD ERSKINE. 269 public freedom, and the condition of an Englishman would be no better than a slave’s at the foot of a Sultan ; since there is little difference whether a man dies by the stroke of a sabre, without the forms of a trial, or by the most pompous ceremonies of justice, if the crime could be made at pleasure by the state to fit the fact that was to be tried. “Would to God, Gentlemen of the Jury, that this were an observation of theory alone, and that the page of our history was not blotted with so many melancholy, disgraceful proofs of its truth ; but these proofs, melancholy and disgraceful as they are, have become glorious monuments of the wisdom of our fathers, and ought to be a theme of rejoicing and emulation to us. For from the mischiefs constantly arising to the state from every extension of the ancient law of treason, the ancient law of treason has been always restored, and the constitution at different periods washed clean ; though, unhappily, with the blood of oppressed and innocent men. “When I speak of the ancient lawof treason, I mean the venerable statute of King Edward the Third, * on which the indictment you are now trying is framed; — a statute made, as its preamble sets forth, for the more precise definition of this crime, which had not, by the common law, been sufficiently explained ; and consisting of different and distinct members, the plain unex- tended letter of which was thought to be a sufficient protection to the person and honour of the Sovereign, and an adequate security to the laws committed to his execution. I shall mention only two of the number, the others not being in the remotest degree applicable to the present accusation. “ To compass , or imagine , the death of the King ; such imagination, or purpose of the mind (visible only to its great Author), being manifested by some open act ; an institution obviously directed, not only to the security of his natural person, but to the stability of the government ; the life of the prince being so interwoven with the constitution of the state, that an attempt to destroy the one, is justly held to be a rebellious conspiracy against the other. “ Secondly, which is the crime charged in the indictment, To levy ivar against him in his realm; — a term that one would think could require no explanation, nor admit of any ambiguous construction, amongst men who- are willing to read laws according to the plain signification of the language in which they are written ; but which has, nevertheless, been an abundant source of that constructive cavil, which this sacred and valuable act was made expressly to * This Statute (25 Edw. III., st. 5, c. 2.) enacts and declares “That if a person doth compass or imagine the death of the King, Queen, or their eldest son and heir, or if he vio- late and deflower the King’s wife, or companion, or eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King’s eldest son, or if he levy war against the King in his realm, or adhere to his enemies, give them aid and comfort in his realm or elsewhere, and thereof be probably (or proveably) attainted of open deed; and if a man counterfeit the King’s great or privy Seal, or his money, or bring false money into the kingdom like to the money of England to make payment therewith in deceit of the King and his people ; or if he kill the Chancellor, Treasurer, or any of the King’s justices in either bench, Justices of Assize, &c., being in their places doing their offices ; these cases are to be adjudged Treason.” XT 2 270 THE MODERN ORATOR. prevent. The real meaning of this branch of it, as it is bottomed in policy, reason, and justice, — as it is ordained in plain unambiguous words, — as it is confirmed by the precedents of justice, and illustrated by the writings of the great lights of the law in different ages of our history, — I shall, before I sit down, impress upon your minds as a safe, unerring standard by which to measure the evidence you have heard. At present I shall only say, that far and wide as judicial decisions have strained the construction of levying war, beyond the warrant of the statute, to the discontent of some of the greatest ornaments of the profession, they hurt not me ; — as a citizen I may disapprove of them, but as advocate for the noble person at your bar, I need not im- peach their authority ; because none of them have said more than this — that war may be levied against the King in his realm, not only by an insurrection to change or to destroy the fundamental constitution of the government itself by rebellious war, but, by the same war, to endeavour to suppress the execu- tion of the laws it has enacted, or to violate and overbear the protection they afford, not to individuals (which is a private wrong), but to any general class or description of the community, by 'premeditated open acts of violence, hostility , and force. “ Gentlemen, I repeat these words, and call solemnly on the Judges to attend to what I say, and to contradict me if I mistake the law, — by premeditated , open acts of violence, hostility, and force — nothing equivocal — nothing ambi- guous — no intimidations, or overawings, which signify nothing precise or certain, because what frightens one man, or set of men, may have no effect upon another ; but that which compels and coerces — open violence and force. “ Gentlemen, this is not only the whole text, but, I submit it to the learned Judges, under whose correction I am happy to speak, an accurate explanation of the statute of treason, as far as it relates to the present subject, taken in its utmost extent of judicial construction, and which you cannot but see, not only in its letter, but in its most strained signification, is confined to acts which immediately , openly, and unambiguously , strike at the very root and being of government, and not to any other offences, however injurious to its peace. “ Such were -the boundaries of high treasonmarked out in thereign of Edward the Third ; and as often as the vices of bad princes, assisted by weak submis- sive parliaments, extended state offences beyond the strict letter of that act, so often the virtue of better princes and wiser parliaments brought them back again. “ A long list of new treasons, accumulated in the wretched reign of Richard the Second, from which (to use the language of the act that repealed them) ‘no man knew what to do or say for doubt of the pains of death,’ were swept away in the first year of Henry the Fourth, his successor ; and many more, which had again sprung up in the following distracted arbitrary reigns, putting tumults and riots on a footing with armed rebellion, were again levelled in the first year of Queen Mary, and the statute of Edward made once more the standard of treasons. The acts, indeed, for securing his present Majesty's illustrious house from the machinations of those very Papists, who are now so LORD ERSKINE. 271 highly in favour, have, since that time, been added to the list; but those not being- applicable to the present case, the ancient statute is still our only guide ; which is so plain and simple in its object, so explicit and correct in its terms, as to leave no room for intrinsic error ; and the wisdom of its authors has shut the door against all extension of its plain letter ; declaring, in the very body of the act itself, that nothing out of that plain letter should be brought within the pale of treason by inference or construction, but that, if any such cases happened, they should be referred to the Parliament. “ This wise restriction has been the subject of much just eulogium by all the most celebrated writers on the criminal law of England. Lord Coke says, the Parliament that made it was, on that account, called Benedictum , or Blessed : and the learned and virtuous Judge Hale, a bitter enemy and opposer of constructive treason, speaks of this sacred institution with that enthusiasm, which it cannot but inspire in the breast of every lover of the just privileges of mankind. “Gentlemen, in these mild days, when juries are so free, and judges so independent, perhaps all these observations might have been spared as unne- cessary ; — but they can do no harm ; and this history of treason, so honourable to England, cannot (even imperfectly as I have given it) be unpleasant to Eng- lishmen. At all events, it cannot be thought an inapplicable introduction to saying, that Lord George Gordon, who stands before you indicted for that crime, is not — cannot be guilty of it, unless he has levied war against the King in his realm, contrary to the plain letter, spirit, and intention of the act of the twenty-fifth of Edward the Third ; to be extended by no new or occa- sional constructions, — to be strained by no fancied analogies, — to be measured by no rules of political expediency, — to be judged of by no theory, — to be determined by the wisdom of no individual, however wise, — but to be ex- pounded by the simple, genuine letter of the law. “ Gentlemen, the only overt act charged in the indictment is — the assem- bling the multitude, which we all of us remember went up with the petition of the associated Protestants on the second day of last June ; and, in address- ing myself to a humane and sensible jury of Englishmen, sitting in judgment on the life of a fellow-citizen, more especially under the direction of a Court so filled as this is, I trust I need not remind you, that the purposes of that multitude, as originally assembled on that day, and the purposes and acts of him who assembled them, are the sole objects of investigation; and that all the dismal consequences which followed, and which naturally link themselves with this subject in the firmest minds, must be altogether cut off, and ab- stracted from your attention, — further than the evidence warrants their admission. Indeed, if the evidence had been co-extensive with these conse- quences ; if it had been proved that the same multitude, under the direction of Lord George Gordon, had afterwards attacked the Bank, broke open the prisons, and set London in a conflagration, I should not now be addressing you. Do me the justice to believe, that I am neither so foolish as to imagine I could have defended him, nor so profligate to wish it if I could. But when 272 THE MODERN ORATOR. it has appeared, not only by the evidence in the cause, but by the evidence of the thing itself, — by the issues of life, which may be called the evidence of Heaven, that these dreadful events were either entirely unconnected with the assembling of that multitude to attend the petition of the Protestants, or, at the very worst, the unforeseen, undesigned, unabetted, and deeply regretted consequences of it, I confess the seriousness and solemnity of this trial sink and dwindle away. Only abstract from your minds all that misfortune, acci- dent, and the wickedness of others have brought upon the scene, and the cause requires no advocate. When I say that it requires no advocate, I mean that it requires no argument to screen it from the guilt of treason. For though I am perfectly convinced of the purity of my noble friend’s intentions, yet I am not bound to defend his prudence, nor to set it up as a pattern for imitation ; since you are not trying him for imprudence, for indiscreet zeal, or for want of foresight and precaution, but for a deliberate and malicious predetermi- nation to overpower the laws and government of his country, by hostile, rebellious force. “ The indictment, therefore, first charges, that the multitude, assembled on the 2nd of June, 4 were armed and arrayed in a warlike manner : ’ which, in- deed, if it had omitted to charge, we should not have troubled you with any defence at all, because no judgment could have been given on so defective an indictment ; for the statute never meant to put an unarmed assembly of citizens on a footing with armed rebellion ; and the crime, whatever it is, must always appear on the record to warrant the judgment of the Court. “ It is certainly true, that it has been held to be matter of evidence, and dependent on circumstances, what numbers, or species of equipment and order, though not the regular equipment and order of soldiers, shall constitute an army, so as to maintain the averment in the indictment of a warlike array ; and likewise, what kind of violence, though not pointed at the King’s person, or the existence of the government, shall be construed to be war against the King. But as it has never yet been maintained in argument, in any court of the kingdom, or even speculated upon in theory, that a multitude, without either weapons offensive or defensive of any sort or kind, and yet not supply- ing the want of them by such acts of violence as multitudes sufficiently great can achieve without them, was a hostile army within the statute ; — as it has never been asserted by the wildest adventurer in constructive treason, that a multitude, armed with nothing, threatening nothing, and doing nothing, w^as an army levying war ; I am entitled to say, that the evidence does not support the first charge in the indictment ; but that, on the contrary, it is manifestly false — false in the knowledge of the Crown, which prosecutes it — false in the knowledge of every man in London, w r ho w r as not bed-ridden on Friday the 2nd of June, and who saw the peaceable demeanour of the associated Protestants. “ But you will hear, no doubt, from the Solicitor- General (for they have saved all their intelligence for the reply) that fury supplies arms ’—furor arma LORD ERSKINE. 273 ministrat ; — and the case of Damaree * will, I suppose, be referred to ; whero the people assembled had no banners or arms, but only clubs and bludgeons r yet the ringleader, who led them on to mischief, was adjudged to be guilty of high treason for levying war. This judgment it is not my purpose to im- peach, for I have no time for digression to points that do not press upon me. In the case of Damaree, the mob, though not regularly armed, were provided with such weapons as best suited their mischievous designs : their designs were, besides, open and avowed, and all the mischief was done that could have been accomplished, if they had been in the completest armour : — they burnt Dissent- ing meeting-houses protected by law, and Damaree was taken at their head, in flagrante delicto , with a torch in his hand, not only in the very act of de- stroying one of them, but leading on his followers, in person , to the avowed destruction of all the rest. There could, therefore, be no doubt of his purpose and intention, nor any great doubt that the perpretation of such purpose was, from its generality, high treason, if perpretated by such a force as distin- guishes a felonious riot from a treasonable levying of war.f The principal doubt, therefore, in that case was, whether such an unarmed riotous force was war, within the meaning of the statute ; and on that point very learned men have differed ; nor shall I attempt to decide between them, because in this one point they all agree. Gentlemen, I beseech you to attend to me here. I say, on this point they all agree, that it is the intention of assembling them, which forms the guilt of treason. I will give you the words of high autho- rity, the learned Foster ; whose private opinions will, no doubt, be pressed upon you as a doctrine and law, and which, if taken together, as all opinions ought to be, and not extracted in smuggled sentences to serve a shallow trick, I am contented to consider as authority. “ That great judge, immediately after supporting the case of Damaree, as a levying war within the statute, against the opinion of Hale, in a similar case, viz. the destruction of bawdy-houses, % which happened in his time, says, ‘The true criterion therefore seems to be — Quo animo did the parties assemble ? — ■ with what intention did they meet ?* “ On that issue, then, by which I am supported by the whole body of the criminal law of England ; concerning which there are no practical precedents of the Courts that clash, nor even abstract opinions of the closet that differ, I come forth with boldness to meet the Crown: for even supposing that peace- able multitude, — though not hostilely arrayed, — though without one species of weapon among them, — though assembled without plot or disguise by a pub- lic advertisement, exhorting, nay commanding peace, and inviting the magis- * In this case a mob assembled, for the purpose of destroying all the Protestant Dissenting meeting-houses, and actually pulled down two. 8 State Trials, 218. Foster, 208. f To constitute a treasonable levying of war, there must be an insurrection ; there must be foroe accompanying that insurrection ; and it must be for an object of a general nature. Regina v. Frost, 9 Carrington and Payne, 129. X 1 Hale, 132. 274 THE MODERN ORATOR. trates to be present to restore it, if broken, — though composed of thousands who are now standing around you, unimpeached and unreproved, yet who are all principals in treason, if such assembly was treason ; supposing, I say, this multitude to be nevertheless an army within the statute, still the great ques- tion would remain behind, on which the guilt or innocence of the accused must singly depend, and which it is our exclusive province to determine : — namely, whether they were assembled by my noble Client, for the traitorous purpose charged in the indictment?* For war must not only be levied, but it must be levied against the King in his realm ; i. e., either directly against his person to alter the constitution of the government, of which he is the head, or to suppress the laws committed to his execution, by rebellious force. You must find that Lord George Gordon assembled these men with that traitorous intention ; you must find not merely a riotous illegal petitioning, — not a tumultuous, indecent importunity to influence Parliament, — not the compul- sion of motive, from seeing so great a body of people united in sentiment and clamorous supplication, — but the absolute, unequivocal compulsion of force, from the hostile acts of numbers united in rebellious conspiracy and arms. “ This is the issue you are to try : for crimes of all denominations consist wholly in the purpose of the human will producing the act : Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea. — The act does not constitute guilt, unless the mind be guilty. This is the great text from which the whole moral of penal justice is deduced : it stands at the top of the criminal page, throughout all the volumes of our humane and sensible laws, and Lord Chief Justice Coke, whose chapter on this crime is the most authoritative and masterly of all his valuable works, ends almost every sentence with an emphatical repetition of it. “ The indictment must charge an open act , because the purpose of the mind, which is the object of trial, can only be known by actions ; or, again to use the words of Foster, who has ably and accurately expressed it, 4 the traitorous purpose is the treason, the overt act, the means made use of to effectuate the intentions of the heart.’ But why should I borrow the language of Foster, or of any other man, when the language of the indictment itself is lying before our eyes ? What does it say ? Does it directly charge the overt act as in it- self constituting the crime ? No ; it charges that the prisoner 4 maliciously and traitorously did compass , imagine , and intend to raise and levy war and rebellion ayainst the King ; this is the malice prepense of treason ; and that to fulfil and bring to effect such traitorous compassings and intentions , he did, on the day mentioned in the indictment, actually assemble them, and levy war and rebellion against the King. Thus the law, which is made to correct and punish the wickedness of the heart, and not the unconscious deeds of the body, goes up to the fountain of human agency, and arraigns the lurking mischief of the soul, dragging it to light by the evidence of open acts. The hostile mind is the crime ; and, therefore, unless the matters that are in evidence * There is no doubt .that actual violence was not contemplated by those who en- couraged the assembly of the people, on the second of June* although they sought to obtain the object of their petition by improper intimidation. LORD EltSKIITE. 275 before you, do, beyond all doubt or possibility of error, convince you that the prisoner is a determined traitor in his heart , he is not guilty. “ It is the same principle which creates all the various degrees of homicide, from that which is excusable, to the malignant guilt of murder. The fact is the same in all ; the death of the man is the imputed crime ; but the intention makes all the difference ; and he who killed him is pronounced a murderer, — a single felon, — or only an unfortunate man, as the circumstances, by which his mind is deciphered to the jury, show it to have been cankered by deliberate wickedness, or stirred up by sudden passions. “ Here an immense multitude was, beyond all doubt, assembled on the second of June; but whether he that assembled them be guilty of high treason, of a high misdemeanour, or only of a breach of the act of King Charles the Second*' against tumultuous petitioning (if such an act still exists), depends wholly upon the evidence of his purpose in assembling them, — to be gathered by you, and by you alone, from the whole tenor of his conduct; and to be gathered, not by inference, or probability, or reasonable presumption, but, in the words of the act, proveably ; that is, in the full unerring force of demonstration. You are called, upon your oaths, to say, not whether Lord George Gordon assembled the multitudes in the place charged in the indictment, — for that is not denied ; but whether it appears, by the facts produced in evidence for the Crown, when confronted with the proofs which we have laid before you, that he assembled them in hostile array, and with a hostile mind, to take the laws into his own hands by main force, and to dissolve the constitution of the government, unless his petition should be listened to by Parliament. “ That is your exclusive province to determine. The Court can only tell you what acts the law, in its general theory, holds to be high treason, on the general assumption that such acts proceed from traitorous purposes : but they must leave it to your decision, and to yours alone, whether the acts proved appear, in the present instance, under all the circumstances, to have arisen from the causes which form the essence of this high crime. “ Gentlemen, you have now heard the law of treason ; first, in the abstract, and secondly, as it applies to the general features of the case : and you have heard it with as much sincerity as if I had addressed you upon my oath from the bench where the Judges sit. I declare to you solemnly, in the presence of that great Being at whose bar we must all hereafter appear, that * By 13 Car. II., st. 1, c. 5, passed in consequence of the tumults on the opening of the memorable Parliament of 1640, it is provided, That no petition to the King or either House of Parliament, for any alteration in church or state, shall be signed by above twenty persons, unless the matter thereof be approved by three justices of the peace, or the major part of the Grand Jury in the county ; and in London by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council : nor shall any petition be presented by more than ten persons at a time. But under these regulations, it is declared by the Bill of Bights, 1 W. and M., st. 2, c. 2, that the subject hath a right to petition. Upon the trial of Lord George Gordon, the Court of King’s Bench declared that they were clearly of opinion that the Statute 13 Car. II., was not in any degree affected by the Bill of Bights. Dougl. 571. 276 THE MODERN ORATOR. I have used no one art of an advocate, but have acted the plain unaffected part of a Christian man, instructing the consciences of his fellow- citizens to do justice. If I have deceived you on the subject, I am myself deceived ; and if I am misled through ignorance, my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no pains to understand it. “ I am not stiff in opinions ; but before I change any one of those that I have given you to-day, I must see some direct monument of justice that contradicts them, for the law of England pays no respect to theories, however ingenious, or to authors, however wise ; and therefore, unless you hear me refuted by a series of direct precedents, and not by vague doctrine, if you wish to sleep in peace, follow me. “ And now the most important part of our task begins, namely, the appli- cation of the evidence to the doctrines I have laid down ; for trial is nothing more than the reference of facts to a certain rule of action, and a long reca- pitulation of them only serves to distract and perplex the memory, without enlightening the judgment, unless the great standard principle by which they are to be measured is fixed, and rooted in the mind. When that is done (which, I am confident, has been done by you), everything worthy of obser- vation falls naturally into its place, and the result is safe and certain. “ Gentlemen, it is already in proof before you (indeed it is now a matter of history), that an act of Parliament passed in the session of 1778, for the repeal of certain restrictions, which the policy of our ancestors had imposed upon the Roman Catholic religion, to prevent its extension, and to render its limited toleration harmless ; — restrictions, imposed not because our ancestors tookupon them to pronounce that faith to be offensive to God, but because it was incompatible with good faith to man ; — being utterly inconsistent with alle- giance to a Protestant government, from their oaths and obligations, to which it gave them not only a release, but a crown of glory, as the reward of treachery and treason. “ It was, indeed, with astonishment, that I heard the Attorney- General stig- matise those wise regulations of our patriot ancestors with the title of factious and cruel impositions on the consciences and liberties of their fellow-citizens. Gentlemen, they were, at the time, wise and salutary regulations ; — regu- lations to which this country owes its freedom, and his Majesty his crown, — a crown which he wears under the strict entail of professing and protecting that religion which they were made to repress ; and which I know my noble friend at the bar joins with me, and with all good men, in wishing that he and his posterity may wear for ever. “ It is not my purpose to recall to your minds the fatal effects which bigotry has, in former days, produced in this island. I will not follow the example the Crown has set me, by making an attack upon your passions, on subjects foreign to the object before you ; I will not call your attention from those flames, kindled by a villanous banditti (which they have thought fit, in defiance of evidence, to introduce), by bringing before your eyes the more cruel flames, in which the bodies of our expiring, meek, patient, Christian LORD ERSKINE. 277 fathers were, little more than a century ago, consuming in Smithfield ; I will not call up from the graves of martyrs, all the precious holy blood that has been spilt in this land, to save its established government and its reformed religion from the secret villany and the open force of Papists ; — the cause does not stand in need even of such honest arts, and I feel my heart too big voluntarily to recite such scenes, when I reflect that some of my own, and my best and dearest progenitors, from whom I glory to be descended, ended their innocent lives in prisons and in exile, only because they were Protestants. “ Gentlemen, whether the great lights of science and of commerce, which, since those disgraceful times, have illuminated Europe, may, by dispelling these shocking prejudices, have rendered the Papists of this day as safe and trusty subjects as those who conform to the national religion established by law, I shall not take upon me to determine. It is wholly unconnected with the present inquiry : we are not trying a question either of divinity or civil policy ; and I shall, therefore, not enter at all into the motives or merits of the act, that produced the Protestant petition to Parliament. It was certainly introduced by persons who cannot be named by any good citizen, without affection and respect * ** but this I will say, without fear of contradiction, that it was sudden and unexpected ; that it passed with uncommon precipitation, considering the magnitude of the object ; that it underwent no discussion ; and that the heads of the church, the constitutional guardians of the national religion, were never consulted upon it. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that many sincere Protestants were alarmed ; and they had a right to spread their apprehensions. It is the privilege, and the duty, of all the subjects of England to watch over their religious and civil liberties, and to approach either their representatives or the Throne, with their fears and their complaints, — a privilege which has been bought with the dearest blood of our ancestors, and which is confirmed to us by law, as our ancient birthright and inheritance. “ Soon after the the repeal of the act, the Protestant Association began, and, from small beginnings, extended over England and Scotland. A deed of association was signed, by all legal means to oppose the growth of Popery; and which of the advocates for the Crown will stand up, and say, that such an union was illegal ? Their union was perfectly constitutional ; there was no obligation of secresy ; their transactions were all public ; a committee was appointed for regularity and correspondence ; and circular letters were sent to all the dignitaries of the church, inviting them to join with them in the protection of the national religion. “ All this happened before Lord George Gordon was a member of, or the most distantly connected with it ; for it was not till November, 1779, that the London Association made him an offer of their chair, by an unanimous * The bill was brought in by Sir George Saville, and supported, amongst others, by Mr. Dunning, Mr. Thurlow, and Lord Beauchamp, and passed into an Act without any opposition xn the House of Commons, and with very slight opposition in the Lords, and the King was known to have been favourable to it. 278 THE MODERN ORATOR. resolution, communicated to him, unsought and unexpected, in a public letter^ signed by the secretary in the name of the whole body ; and from that day, to the day he was committed to the Tower, I will lead him by the hand in your view, that you may see there is no blame in him. Though all his behaviour was unreserved and public, and though watched by wicked men for purposes of vengeance, the Crown has totally failed in giving it such a context as can justify, in the mind of any reasonable man, the conclusion it seeks to establish. “This will fully appear hereafter ; but let us first attend to the evidence on the part of the Crown. “ The first witness to support this prosecution is, “William Hay — a bankrupt in fortune he acknowledged himself to be, and I am afraid he is a bankrupt in conscience. Such a scene of impudent, ridiculous inconsistency, would have utterly destroyed his credibility, in the most trifling civil suit ; and I am, therefore, almost ashamed to remind you of his evidence, when I reflect that you will never suffer it to glance across your minds, on this solemn occasion. “ This man, whom I may now, without offence or slander, point out to you as a dark Popish spy, who attended the meetings of the London Association, to pervert their harmless purposes, conscious that the discovery of his character would invalidate all his testimony, endeavoured at first to conceal the activity of his zeal, by denying that he had seen any of the destructive scenes imputed to the Protestants ; yet, almost in the same breath, it came out, by his own confession, that there was hardly a place, public or private, where riot had erected her standard, in which he had not been ; nor a house, prison, or chapel, that was destroyed, to the demolition of which he had not been a witness. He was at Newgate, the Fleet, at Langdale’s, and at Coleman- street ; at the Sardinian ambassador’s, and in Great Queen street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. "What took him to Coachmakers’ Hall? He went there, as he told us, to watch their proceedings, because he expected no good from them ; and to justify his prophecy of evil, he said, on his examination by the Crown, that, as early as December, he had heard some alarming republican language. What language did he remember ? — ‘ Why, that the Lord Advocate of Scotland was called only Harry Dundas.’ Finding this too ridiculous for so grave an occasion, he endeavoured to put some words about the breach of the King’s coronation oath* 1 into the prisoner’s mouth, as proceeding from himself ; which it is notorious he read out of an old Scotch book, published near a century ago, on the abdication of King James the Second. “ Attend to his cross examination : he was sure he had seen Lord George Gordon at Greenwood’s room in January ; but when Mr. Kenyon, who knew Lord George had never been there, advised him to recollect himself, he desired to consult his notes. First, he is positively sure from his memory, that he had seen him there : then he says, he cannot trust his memory without refer- * Hay swore that Lord Gordon had declared that the King had broken his coro- nation oath. LORD ERSKINE. 279 ring to his papers : — on looking at them, they contradict him ; and he then confesses, that he never saw Lord George Gordon at Greenwood’s room in January, when his note was taken, nor at any other time. But why did he take notes ? He said it was, because he foresaw what would happen. How fortunate the Crown is, gentlemen, to have such friends to collect evidence by anticipation ! When did he begin to take notes ? He said, on the 21st of February, which was the first time, he had been alarmed at what he had seefi and heard, although, not a minute before, he had been reading a note taken at Greenwood’s room in January , and had sworn that he had attended their meetings, from apprehensions of consequences, as early as December. “ Mr. Kenyon, who now saw him bewildered in a maze of falsehood, and suspecting his notes to have been a villanous fabrication to give the show of correctness to his evidence, attacked him with a shrewdness for which he was wholly unprepared. You remember the witness had said, that he always took notes when he attended any meetings where he expected their delibera- tions might be attended with dangerous consequences. ‘ Give me one in- stance says Mr. Kenyon, ‘ in the whole course of your life , where you ever took notes before .’ Poor Mr. Hay was thunderstruck ; — the sweat ran down his face, and his countenance bespoke despair, — not recollection : 4 Sir, I must have an instance ; tell me when and where ?’ Gentlemen, it was now too late ; some instance he was obliged to give, and, as it was evident to every- body that he had one still to choose, I think he might have chosen a better. He had taken notes at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland , six and twenty years before. What ! did he apprehend dangerous consequences from the deliberations of the grave elders of the Kirk ? Were they levying war against the King ? At last, when he is called upon to say to whom he com- municated the intelligence he had collected, the spy stood confessed indeed : at first he refused to tell, saying he was his friend, and that he was not obliged to give him up ; and when forced at last to speak, it came out to be Mr. Butler, a gentleman universally known, and who, from what I know of him, I may be sure never employed him, or any other spy, because he is a man every way respectable, but who certainly is not only a papist, but the person who was employed in all their proceedings, to obtain the late indul- gences from parliament. He said Mr. Butler was his particular friend, yet professed himself ignorant of his religion. I am sure he could not be desired to conceal it ; — Mr. Butler makes no secret of his religion ; — it is no reproach to any man who lives the life he does ; but Mr. Hay thought it of moment to his own credit in the cause, that he himself might be thought a Protestant, unconnected with papists, and not a popish spy. “ So ambitious, indeed, was the miscreant of being useful in this odious character, through every stage of the cause, that after staying a little in St. George’s Fields, he ran home to his own house in St. Dunstan’s churchyard, and got upon the leads, where he swore he saw the very same man , carrying the very same flag , he had seen in the fields. Gentlemen, whether the peti- tioners employed the same standard-man through the whole course of their 280 THE MODERN ORATOR. peaceable procession is certainly totally immaterial to the cause, but the circum- stance is material to show the wickedness of the man. ‘How,’ says Mr. Kenyon, ‘ do you know that it was the same person you saw in the fields ? Were you acquainted with him?’ ‘No.’ ‘How then?’ ‘Why, he looked like a brewer’s servant.’ Like a brewer's servant ! — ‘ What, were they not all in their Sunday’s clothes ?’ ‘ Oh ! yes, they were all in their Sunday’s clothes.’ ‘Was the man with the flag then alone in the dress of his trade?’ ‘No.’ ‘ Then how do you know he was a brewer’s servant ?’ Poor Mr. Hay ! — nothing hut sweat and confusion again. At last, after a hesitation, which everybody thought would have ended in his running out of court, he said, ‘ he knew him to be a brewer’s servant, because there was something particular in the cut of his coat , the cut of his breeches , and the cut of his stockings .’ “ You see, Gentlemen, by what strange means villany is detected ; perhaps he might have escaped from me, but he sunk under that shrewdness and sa- gacity, which ability, without long habits, does not provide. Gentlemen, you will not, I am sure, forget, whenever you see a man about whose apparel there is anything particular, to set him down for a brewer’s servant. “ Mr. Hay afterwards went to the lobby of the House of Commons. What took him there ? — He thought himself in danger ; and therefore, says Mr. Kenyon, you thrust yourself voluntarily into the very centre of danger. That would not do. Then he had a particular friend , whom he knew to be in the lobby, and whom he apprehended to be in danger. — ‘ Sir, who was that par- ticular friend ? — Out with it : — Give us his name instantly.’ All in confusion again. Not a word to say for himself ; and the name of this person who had the honour of Mr. Hay's friendship , will probably remain a secret for ever. “ It may be asked, are these circumstances material ? and the answer is obvious : They are material ; because, when you see a witness running into every hole and corner of falsehood, and, as fast as he is made to bolt out of one, taking cover in another, you will never give credit to what that man relates, as to any possible matter which is to aflect| the life or reputation of a fellow- citizen accused before you. God forbid that you should. I might, therefore, get rid of this wretch altogether, without making a single remark on that part of his testimony, which bears upon the issue you are trying ; but the Crown shall have the full benefit of it all ; — I will defraud it of nothing he has said. Notwithstanding all his folly and wickedness, let us for the present take it to be true, and see what it amounts to. What is it he states to have passed at Coachmakers’ Hall ? That Lord George Gordon desired the multitude to behave with unanimity and firmness, as the Scotch had done. Gentlemen, there is no manner of doubt that the Scotch behaved with una- nimity and firmness, in resisting the relaxation of the penal laws against pa- pists, and that by that unanimity and firmness they succeeded ;* but it was by the constitutional unanimity and firmness of the great body of the people of Scotland, whose example Lord George Gordon recommended, and not by * The violent popular opposition manifested towards the proposed Act extending the Itoman Oatholic Belief Bill to Scotland, caused it to be abandoned. LORD ERSKINE. 281 the riots and burning , which they attempted to prove had been committed in Edinburgh in 1778. “ I will tell you myself, Gentlemen, as one of the people of Scotland, that there then existed, and still exist, eighty-five societies of Protestants, who have been, and still are, uniformly firm in opposing every change in that system of laws, established to secure the revolution, and Parliament gave way in Scotland to their united voice, and not to the firebrands of the rabble. It is the duty of Parliament to listen to the voice of the people ; — for they are the servants of the people ; and when the constitution of church or state is believed, whether truly or falsely, to be in danger, I hope there never will be wanting men (notwithstanding the proceedings of to-day) to desire the people to persevere and be firm. Gentlemen, has the Crown proved that the Pro- testant brethren of the London association fired the mass-houses in Scotland, or acted in rebellious opposition to law, so as to entitle it to wrest the pri- soner’s expressions into an excitation of rebellion against the state, or of violence against the properties of English papists, by setting up their firm- ness as an example ? Certainly not. They have not even proved the naked fact of such violences, though such proof would have called for no resistance ; since to make it bear as rebellious advice to the Protestant Association of London, it must have been first shown, that such acts had been perpetrated or encouraged by the Protestant societies in the north. “ Who has dared to say this ? No man. — The rabble in Scotland certainly did that which has since been done by the rabble in England, to the disgrace and reproach of both countries ; but in neither country was there found one man of character or condition, of any description, who abetted such enormities, nor any man, high or low, of any of the associated Protestants, here there, who were either convicted, tried, or taken on suspicion. “ As to what this man heard, on the 29th of May, it was nothing more than the proposition of going up in a body to St. George’s Fields, to consider how the petition should be presented, with the same exhortations to firmness as before. The resolution made on the motion has been read, and when I come to state the evidence on the part of my noble friend, I will show you the impossibility of supporting any criminal inference, from what Mr. Hay afterwards puts in his mouth in the lobby, even taking it to be true. I wish here to be accurate [ looking on a card on which he had taken down his words~\ ; He says : ‘ Lord George desired them to continue stedfastly to adhere to so good a cause as theirs was ; — promised to persevere in it himself, and hoped , though there ivas little expectation at present from the House of Commons , that they would meet with redress from their mild and gracious Sovereign, who , no doubt , would recommend it to his ministers to repeal it .’ This was all he heard, and I will show you how this wicked man himself, (if any belief is to be given to him,) entirely overturns and brings to the ground the evidence of Mr. Bowen,' * on which the Crown rests singly for the proof of words which The Chaplain of the House of Commons. 282 THE MODERN ORATOR. are more difficult to explain. Gentlemen, was this the language of rebellion ? If a multitude were at the gates of the House of Commons, to command and insist on a repeal of this law, why encourage their hopes by reminding them that they had a mild and gracious sovereign ? If war was levying against him, there was no occasion for his mildness and graciousness. If he had Said, 4 Be firm and persevere , we shall meet with redress from the prudence of the Sovereign,’ it might have borne a different construction ; because, whether he was gracious or severe, his prudence might lead him to submit to the necessity of the times. The words sworn to were, therefore, perfectly clear and unambiguous — ‘ Persevere in your zeal and supplications , and you will meet with redress from a mild and gracious King , ivho will recommend it to his Min- ister to repeal it .’ Good God ! if they were to wait till the King, whether from benevolence or fear, should direct his Minister to influence the proceedings of Parliament, how does it square with the charge of instant coercion or in- timidation of the House of Commons ? If the multitude were assembled with the premeditated design of producing immediate repeal by terror or arms, is it possible to suppose that their leader would desire them to be quiet, and refer them to those qualities of the prince, which, however eminently they might belong to him, never could be exerted on subjects in rebellion to his authority ? In what a labyrinth of nonsense and contradiction do men in- volve themselves, when, forsaking the rules of evidence, they would draw conclusions from words in contradiction to language, and in defiance of com- mon sense ? “ The next witness that is called to you by the Crown is, Mr. Metcalf. He was not in the lobby, but speaks only to the meeting in Coachmakers’ Hall, on the 29th of May, and in St. George’s Fields. He says, that at the former, Lord George reminded them, that the Scotch had succeeded by their unanimity — and hoped that no one, who had signed the petition, would be ashamed or afraid to show himself in the cause ; that he was ready to go to the gallows for it ; that he would not present the petition of a lukewarm people ; that he desired them to come to St. George’s Fields, distinguished with blue cockades, and that they should be marshalled in four divisions. Then he speaks to having seen them in the fields, in the order which has been described ; and Lord George Gordon in a coach, surrounded with a vast concourse of people, with blue ribands, forming like soldiers, but was not near enough to hear whether the prisoner spoke to them or not. Such is Mr. Metcalf’s evidence, — and after the attention you have honoured me with, and which I shall have occasion so often to ask again on the same sub- ject, I shall trouble you with but one observation, viz., That it cannot, with- out absurdity, be supposed, that if the assembly at Coachmakers’ Hall had been such conspirators, as they are represented, their doors would have been open to strangers, like this witness, to come in to report their pro- ceedings. “ The next witness is Mr. Anstruther, who speaks to the language and deportment of the noble prisoner, both at Coachmakers’ Hall, on the 29th of LORD ERSKINE. 283 May, and afterwards on the 2nd of J une, in the lobby of the House of Com- mons. It will be granted to me, I am sure, even by the advocates of the Crown, that this gentleman, not only from the clearness and consistency of his testimony, but from his rank and character in the world, is infinitely more worthy of credit than Mr. Hay, who went before him; and if the circumstances of irritation and confusion under which the Rev. Mr. Bowen confessed himself to have heard and seen, what he told you he heard and saw, I may likewise assert, without any offence to the reverend gentleman, and without drawing any parallel between their credits, that where their accounts of this transaction differ, the preference is due to the former. Mr. Anstruther very properly prefaced his evidence with this declaration : — e I do not mean to speak accurately to words ; it is impossible to recollect them at this distance of time.' I believe I have used his very expression, and such expression it well became him to use in a case of blood. But words, even if they could be accurately remembered, are to be admitted with great reserve and caution, when the purpose of the speaker is to be measured by them. They are transient and fleeting ; frequently the effect of a sudden transport, — easily misunderstood, — and often unconsciously misrepresented. It may be the fate of the most innocent language, to appear ambiguous, or even malignant, when related in mutilated detached passages, by people to whom it is not addressed, and who know nothing of the previous design, either of the speaker, or of those to whom he spoke. Mr. Anstruther says, that he heard Lord George Gordon desire the petitioners to meet him on the Friday following, in St. George’s Fields, and that if there were fewer than twenty thousand people, he would not present the petition, as it would not be of consequence enough ; and that he recommended to them the example of the Scotch, who, by their firmness, had carried their point. “ Gentlemen, — I have already admitted that they did by firmness carry it. But has Mr. Anstruther attempted to state any one expression, that fell from the prisoner, to justify the positive unerring conclusion, or even the pre- sumption, that the firmness of the Scotch Protestants, by which the point was carried in Scotland, was the resistance and riots of the rabble ? No, gen- tlemen ; he singly states the words, as he heard them in the hall on the 29th, and all that he afterwards speaks to in the lobby, repels so harsh and dan- gerous a construction. The words sworn to at Coachmakers’ Hall are, ‘ that he recommended temperance and firmness .’ Gentlemen, if his motives are to be judged by words, for heaven’s sake let these words carry their popular meaning in language. Is it to be presumed, without proof, that a man means one thing, because he says another ? Does the exhortation of temper- ance and firmness apply most naturally to the constitutional resistance of the Protestants of Scotland, or to the outrages of ruffians who pulled down the houses of their neighbours ? Is it possible, with decency, to say in a court of justice, that the recommendation of temperance is the excitation to villany and frenzy ? But the words, it seems, are to be construed, not from their own signification, but from that which follows them, viz., by that the x 284 THE MODERN ORATOR. Scotch carried their point. Gentlemen, is it in evidence before you, that by rebellion the Scotch carried their point ; or that the indulgences to Papists were not extended to Scotland, because the rabble had opposed their extension ? Has the Crown authorised either the court, or its law servants, to tell you so ? Or can it be decently maintained, that parliament was so weak or infamous, as to yield to a wretched mob of vagabonds at Edinburgh, what it has since refused to the earnest prayers of a hundred thousand Protestants in Lon- don ? No, Gentlemen of the Jury, Parliament was not, I hope, so aban- doned. But the Ministers knew that the Protestants of Scotland were, to a man, abhorrent of that law ; and though they never held out resistance, if Government should be disposed to cram it down their throats by force, yet such a violence to the united sentiments of a whole people appeared to be a measure so obnoxious, so dangerous, and withal so unreasonable, that it was wisely and judiciously dropped, to satisfy the general wishes of the nation, and not to avert the vengeance of those low incendiaries, whose misdeeds have rather been talked of than proved. “ Thus, Gentlemen, the exculpation of Lord George’s conduct, on the 29th of May, is sufficiently established by the very evidence, on which the Crown asks you to convict him : since, in recommending temperance and firm- ness after the example of Scotland , you cannot be justified in pronouncing, that he meant more than the firmness of the grave and respectable people in that country, to whose constitutional firmness the legislature had before acceded, instead of branding it with the title of rebellion ; and who, in my mind, deserve thanks from the King, for temperately and firmly resisting every innovation, which they conceived to be dangerous to the national religion, independently of which his Majesty (without a new limitation by Parliament) has no more title to the crown than I have. “ Such, Gentlemen, is the whole amount of all my noble friend’s previous communication with the petitioners, whom he afterwards assembled to con- sider, how their petition should be presented. This is all, not only that men of credit can tell you on the part of the presecution, but all that even the worst vagabond who ever appeared in a court — the very scum of the earth — thought himself safe in saying, upon oath, on the present occasion. Indeed, Gentlemen, when I consider my noble friend’s situation, his open, unreserved temper, and his warm and animated zeal for a cause which rendered him obnoxious to so many wicked men ; speaking daily and publicly to mixed multitudes of friends and foes, on a subject which affected his passions, I confess, I am astonished that no other expressions, than those in evidence before you, have found their way into this court. That they have not found their way is surely a most satisfactory proof that there was nothing in his heart which even youthful zeal could magnify into guilt, or that want of caution could betray. “ Gentlemen, Mr. Anstruther’s evidence, when he speaks of the lobby of the House of Commons, is very much to be attended to. He says, ‘ I saw Lord George leaning over the gallery ,’ which position, joined with what he LORI) ERSKINE. 285 mentioned of his talking with the chaplain, marks the time, and casts a strong doubt on Bowen’s testimony, which you will find stands, in this only material part of it, single and unsupported. ‘ I then heard him,’ continues Mr. Anstruther, ‘ tell them, they had been called a mob, in the House, and that peace officers had been sent to disperse them, (peaceable petitioners :) but that by steadiness and firmness they might carry their point ; as he had no doubt his Majesty, who was a gracious prince, would send to his ministers to repeal the act, when he heard his subjects were coming up for miles round, and wishing its repeal.’ How coming up? In rebellion and arms to compel it ? No ! all is still put on the graciousness of the Sovereign, in listening to the unanimous wishes of his people. If the multitude then assembled had been brought together to intimidate the House by their firmness, or to coerce it by their numbers, it was ridiculous to look forward to the King’s influence over it, when the collection of future multitudes should induce him to employ it. The expressions were therefore quite unambiguous, nor could malice itself have suggested another construction of them, were it not for the fact, that the House was at that time surrounded, not by the petitioners, whom the noble prisoner had assembled, but by a mob who had mixed with them, and who, therefore, w'hen addressed by him, were instantly set down as his followers. He thought he was addressing the sober members of the Associa- tion, who, by steadiness and perseverance, could understand nothing more than perseverance in that conduct he had antecedently prescribed, as steadi- ness signifies a uniformity, not a change of conduct ; and I defy the Crown to find out a single expression, from the day he took the chair at the Associa- tion, to the day I am speaking of, that justifies any other construction of steadiness and firmness, than that which I put upon it before. “ What would be the feelings of our venerable ancestors, who framed the statute of treasons to prevent their children being drawn into the snares of death, unless proveably convicted by overt acts, if they could hear us disput- ing, whether it was treason to desire harmless unarmed men to be firm and of good heart, and to trust to the graciousness of their King ? “ Here Mr. Austruther closes his evidence, which leads me to Mr. Bowen, who is the only man — I beseech you, Gentlemen of the Jury, to attend to this circumstance — Mr. Bowen is the only man who has attempted, directly or indirectly, to say, that Lord George Gordon uttered a syllable to the multi- tude in the lobby, concerning the destruction of the mass-houses in Scotland. Not one of the Crown’s witnesses, not even the wretched abandoned Hay, who was kept, as he said, in the lobby the whole afternoon, from anxiety for his pretended friend, has ever glanced at any expression resembling it. They all finish with the expectation which he held out, from a mild and gracious Sovereign. Mr. Bowen alone goes on further, and speaks of the successful riots of the Scotch : but speaks of them in such a manner, as, so far from conveying the hostile idea, which he seemed sufficiently desirous to convey, tends directly to wipe off the dark hints and insinuations which have been made to supply the place of proof upon that subject — a subject which should x 2 286 THE MODERN ORATOR. not have been touched on, without the fullest support of evidence, and where nothing but the most unequivocal evidence ought to have been received. He says ‘his Lordship began by bidding them be quiet , peaceable, and steady — not ‘ steady ’ alone ; though, if that had been the expression, singly by itself, I should not be afraid to meet it ; but, ‘ Be quiet, peaceable, and steady .’ Gentlemen, I am indifferent what other expressions of dubious interpretation are mixed with these, for you are trying whether my noble friend came to the House of Commons with a decidedly hostile mind ; and as I shall, on the re- capitulation of our own evidence, trace him in your view without spot or stain down to the very moment when the imputed words were spoken, you will hardly forsake the whole innocent context of his behaviour, and torture your inventions to collect the blackest system of guilt, starting up in a moment, without being previously concerted, or afterwards carried into execution. “ First, what are the words by which you are to be convinced that the Legislature was to be frightened into compliance, and to be coerced if terror should fail ? ‘ Be quiet , peaceable, and steady ; — You are a good people — Yours is a good cause: — His Majesty is a gracious monarch , and when he hears that all his people, ten miles round , are collecting , he will send to his Ministers to repeal the act .’ By what rules of construction can such an address to unarmed, defenceless men, be tortured into treasonable guilt r It is impossible to do it without pronouncing, even in the total absence of all proof of fraud or deceit in the speaker, that quiet signifies tumult and uproar , and that peace signifies tear and rebellion. “ I have before observed, that it w'as most important for you to remember, that with this exhortation to quiet and confidence in the King, the evidence of all the other witnesses closed ; even Mr. Anstruther, who was a long time afterw r ards in the lobby, heard nothing further : so that if Mr. Bowen had been out of the case altogether, w r hat would the amount have been ? Why simply, that Lord George Gordon having assembled an unarmed, inoffensive multitude in St. George’s Fields, to present a petition to Parliament, and finding them becoming tumultuous, to the discontent of Parliament and the discredit of the cause, desired them not to give it up, but to continue to show their zeal for the legal object in wdiich they were engaged ; to manifest that zeal quietly and peaceably, and not to despair of success ; since, though the House w r as not disposed to listen to it, they had a gracious Sovereign, w r ho would second the wishes of his people. This is the sum and substance of the whole. They were not, even by anyone ambiguous expression, encouraged to trust to their numbers, as sufficient to overawe the House, or to their strength to compel it, or to the prudence of the state in yielding to necessity — but to the indulgence of the King, in compliance with the wushes of his peo- ple. Mr. Bowen, however, thinks proper to proceed; and I beg that you will attend to the sequel of his evidence. He stands single in all the rest that he says, which might entitle me to ask you absolutely to reject it ; but I have no objection to your believing every word of it if you can: because, if inconsistencies prove anything, they prove that there w r as nothing of that deliberation in the prisoner's expressions which can. justify the inference of LORD ERSKINE. 287 guilt. I mean to be correct as to his words [ looking at his ivords which he had noted down], He says, ‘ That Lord George told the people, that an attempt had been made to introduce the bill into Scotland, and that they had no redress till the mass-houses were pulled down. That Lord Weymouth* then sent official assurances that it should not be extended to them.' 1 Gentlemen, why is Mr. Bowen called by the Crown to tell you this ? The reason is plain : because the Crown, conscious that it could make no case of treaso,n from the rest of the evidence, in sober judgment of law — aware that it had proved no purpose or act of force against the House of Commons, to give countenance to the accusation, much less to warrant a conviction, found it necessary to hold up the noble prisoner, as the wicked and cruel author of all those calamities, in which every man’s passions might be supposed to come in to assist his judg- ment to decide. They therefore made him speak in enigmas to the multitude : not telling them to do mischief in order to succeed, but that by mischief in Scotland success had been obtained. “ But were the mischiefs themselves, that did happen here, of a sort to support such conclusion ? Can any man living, for instance, believe that Lord George Gordon could possibly have excited the mob to destroy the house of that great and venerable magistrate, who has presided so long in this high tri- bunal, that the oldest of us do not remember him with any other impression than the awful form and figure of justice : a magistrate, who had always been the friend of the Protestant Dissenters, against the ill-timed jealousies of the establishment — his countrymen too — and, without adverting to the partiality not unjustly imputed to men of that country, a man of whom any country might be proud ? No, Gentlemen, it is not credible, that a man of noble birth and liberal education (unless agitated by the most implacable personal resentment, which is not imputed to the prisoner), could possibly consent to the burning of the house of Lord Mansfield. “ If Mr. Bowen, therefore, had ended here, I can hardly conceive such a construction could be decently hazarded, consistent with the testimony of the witnesses we have called ; how much less, when, after the dark insinua- tions which such expressions might otherwise have been argued to convey, the very same person, on whose veracity or memory they are only to be believed, and who must be credited or discredited in toto, takes out the sting himself, by giving them such an immediate context and conclusion, as renders the proposition ridiculous, which his evidence is brought forward to establish ; for he says, that Lord George Gordon instantly afterwards addressed himself thus : — ‘ Beware of evil-minded persons who may mix among you and do mischief, the blame of which will be imputed to you .’ “ Gentlemen, if you reflect on the slander, which I told you fell upon the Protestants in Scotland by the acts of the rabble there, I am sure you will see the words are capable of an easy explanation. But as Mr. Bowen con- cluded with telling you, that he heard them in the midst of noise and confusion, and as I can only take them from him, I shall not make an attempt to * Then Secretary for the Southern Department. 288 THE MODERN ORATOR. collect them into one consistent discourse, so as to give them a decided meaning in favour of my client, because I have repeatedly told you, that words, imperfectly heard and partially related, cannot be so reconciled. But this I will say — that he must be a ruffian and not a lawyer, who would dare to tell an English jury, that such ambiguous words, hemmed closely in between others not only innocent, but meritorious, are to be adopted to constitute guilt; by rejecting both introduction and sequel, with which they are absolutely irreconcilable and inconsistent : for if ambiguous words, when coupled with actions, decipher the mind of the actor, so as to establish the presumption of guilt, will not such as are plainly innocent and unambiguous go as far to repel such presumption ? Is innocence more difficult of proof than the most malignant wickedness r Gentlemen, I see your minds revolt at such shocking propositions. I beseech you to forgive me ; I am afraid that my zeal has led me to offer observations, which I ought in justice to have believed every honest mind would suggest to itself with pain and abhorrence, without being illustrated and enforced. 44 1 now come more minutely to the evidence on the part of the prisoner. 44 1 before told you, that it was not till November 1779, when the Protes- tant Association was already fully established, that Lord George Gordon w r as elected president by the unanimous voice of the whole body, unlooked for and unsolicited ; and it is surely not an immaterial circumstance, that at the very first meeting where his lordship presided, a dutiful and respectful petition, the same which was afterwards presented to Parliament, was read and approved of ; — a petition which, so far from containing anything threatening or offensive, conveyed not a very oblique reflection upon the behaviour of the people in Scotland : taking notice that as England and that country were now one, and as official assurances had been given that the law should not pass there, they hoped the peaceable and constitutional de- portment of the English Protestants would entitle them to the approbation of Parliament. 44 It appears by the evidence of Mr. Erasmus Middleton,* a very respectable clergyman and one of the committee of the Association, that a meeting had been held on the 4th of May, at which Lord George was not present ; that at that meeting a motion had been made for going up with the petition in a body, but which not being regularly put from the chair, no resolution was come to upon it ; and that it was likewise agreed on, but in the same irre- gular manner, that there should be no other public meeting, previous to the presenting the petition ; — that this last resolution occasioned great discon- tent, and that Lord George was applied to by a large and respectable number of the Association to call another meeting, to consider of the most prudent and respectful method of presenting their petition : but it appears that, before he complied with their request, he consulted with the committee on the propriety of compliance, who all agreeing to it, except the secretary, * The hist witness called for the Prisoner. LORD ERSKINE. 289 his lordship advertised the meeting, which was afterwards held on the 29 th of May. The meeting was therefore the act of the ivhole Association ; and as to the original difference between my noble friend and the committee, on the expediency of the measure, it is totally immaterial ; since Mr Middleton, who was one of the number who differed from him on that subject (and whose evidence is therefore infinitely more to be relied on), told you, that his whole deportment was so clear and unequivocal, as to entitle him to assure you, on his most solemn oath, that he in his conscience believed his views were per- fectly constitutional and pure. This most respectable clergyman further swears, that he attended all the previous meetings of the society, from the day the prisoner became president to the day in question, and that, knowing they were objects of much jealousy and malice, he watched his behaviour with anxiety, lest his zeal should furnish matter for misrepresentation ; but that he never heard an expression escape him which marked a disposition to violate the duty and subordination of a subject, or which could lead any man to believe that his objects were different from the avowed and legal objects of the Association. We could have examined thousands to the same fact, for, as I told you when I began to speak, I was obliged to leave my place to disencumber myself from their names. “This evidence of Mr. Middleton’s, as to the 29th of May, must, I should think, convince every man how dangerous and unjust it is, in witnesses, however perfect their memories, or however great their veracity, to come into a criminal court where a man is standing for his life or death, retailing scraps of sentences, which they had heard by thrusting themselves, from curiosity, into places where their business did not lead them ; ignorant of the views and tempers of both speakers and hearers, attending only to a part, and, perhaps innocently, misrepresenting that part, from not having heard the whole. “The witnesses for the Crown all tell you, that Lord George said he would not go up with the petition unless he was attended by 20,000 people who had signed it : and there they think proper to stop, as if he had said nothing further ; leaving you to say to yourselves, What possible purpose could he have in assembling such a multitude, on the very day the House was to receive the petition ? Why should he urge it, when the committee had before thought it inexpedient ? And why should fie refuse to present it, unless he was so attended ? Hear what Mr. Middleton says. He tells you, that my noble friend informed the petitioners, that if it was decided they were not to attend to consider how their petition should be presented, he would with the greatest pleasure go up with it alone ; but that, if it was re- solved they should attend it in person, he expected twenty thousand at the least should meet him in St. George’s Fields, for that otherwise the petition would be considered as a forgery ; it having been thrown out in the House and elsewhere, that the repeal of the bill was not the serious wish of the people at large, and that the petition was a mere list of names in parchment, and not of men in sentiment. Mr. Middleton added, That Lord George 290 THE MODERN ORATOR. adverted to the same objections having been made to many other petitions, and he therefore expressed an anxiety to show Parliament how many were actually interested in its success, which he reasonably thought would be a strong inducement to the House to listen to it. The language imputed to him falls in most naturally with this purpose : ‘ I wish Parliament to see who and what you are ; dress yourselves in your best clothes ’ — which Mr. Hay (who, I suppose, had been reading the indictment) thought it would be better to call ‘Array yourselves.’ He desired that not a stick should be seen among them, and that, if anyman insulted another, or was guilty of any breach of the peace, he was to be given up to the magistrates. Mr. Attor- ney-General, to persuade you that this was all colour and deceit, says, ‘How was a magistrate to face forty thousand men? How were offenders in such a multitude to be amenable to the civil power ? ’ What a shameful perversion of a plain peaceable purpose ! To be sure, if the multitude had been assem. bled to resist the magistrate, offenders could not be secured. But they themselves were ordered to apprehend all offenders amongst them, and to deliver them up to justice: They themselves were to surrender their fellows to civil authority if they offended. “But it seems that Lord George ought to have foreseen that so great a multitude could not be collected without mischief. Gentlemen, we are not trying whether he might or ought to have foreseen mischief, but whether he wickedly and traitorously preconcerted and designed it. But if he be an object of censure for not foreseeing it, what shall we say to government, that took no step to prevent it, — that issued no proclamation, warning the people of the danger and illegality of such an assembly ? If a peaceable multitude, with a petition in their hands, be an army, — and if the noise and confusion inseparable from numbers, though without violence or the purpose of violence, constitute war, — what shall be said of that government, which remained from Tuesday to Friday, knowing that an army was collecting to levy war by public advertisement, yet had not a single soldier, — no, nor even a constable, to protect the state ? “ Gentlemen, I come forth to do that for Government, which its own servant, the Attorney- General, has not done, — I come forth to rescue it from the eternal infamy which would fall upon its head, if the language of its own advocate were to be believed. But Government has an unanswerable defence. It neither did nor could possibly enter into the head of any man in authority to prophesy — human wisdom could not divine, that wicked and desperate men, taking advantage of the occasion, which, perhaps, an imprudent zeal for religion had produced, would dishonour the cause of all religions, by the dis- graceful acts which followed. “ Why, then, is it to be said that Lord George Gordon is a traitor, who, without proof of*any hostile purpose to the government of his country, only did not foresee, what nobody else foresaw, — what those people, whose business it is to foresee every danger that threatens the state, and to avert it by the interference of magistracy, though they could not but read the advertisement, neither did nor could possibly apprehend ? LORD ERSKINE. 291 “ How are these observations attempted to be answered ? Only by asserting, without evidence, or even reasonable argument, that all this was colour and deceit. Gentlemen, I again say, that it is scandalous and reproachful, and not to be justified by any duty, which can possibly belong to an advocate at the bar of an English court of justice, to declaim, without any proof, or at- tempt of proof, that all a man’s expressions, however peaceable, however quiet, however constitutional, however loyal, are all fraud and villany. Look, Gentlemen, to the issues of life, which I before called the evidence of Heaven : I call them so still. Truly may I call them so, when, out of a book compiled by the Crown from the petition in the House of Commons, and containing the names of all who signed it, and which was printed in order to prevent any of that number being summoned upon the jury to try this indictment, not one criminal , or even a suspected, name is to be found amongst this defamed host of petitioners. “ After this, Gentlemen, I think the Crown ought, in decency, to be silent. I see the effect this circumstance has upon you, and I know I am warranted in my assertion of the fact. If I am not, why did not the Attorney- General produce the record of some convictions, and compare it with the list ? I thank them, therefore, for the precious compilation, which, though they did not produce, they cannot stand up and deny. “ Solomon says, ‘ Oh that mine adversary would write a book /’ So say I. My adversary has written a book, and out of it I am entitled to pronounce, that it cannot again be decently asserted, that Lord George Gordon, in exhorting an innocent and unimpeached multitude to be peaceable and quiet, was excit- ing them to violence against the state. “ What is the evidence, then, on which this connexion with the mob is to be proved ? Only that they had blue cockades* Are you or am I answerable for every man who wears a blue cockade ? If a man commits murder in my livery, or in yours, without command, counsel, or consent, is the murder ours ? In all cumulative , constructive treasons, you are to judge from the tenor of a man’s behaviour, not from crooked and disjointed parts of it. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. No man can possibly be guilty of this crime by a sudden impulse of the mind, as he may of some others ; and, certainly, Lord George Gordon stands upon the evidence at Coachmakers’ Hall as pure and white as snow. He stands so upon the evidence of a man who had differed with him as to the expediency of his conduct, yet who swears, that, from the time he took the chair till the period which is the subject of in- quiry, there was no blame in him. “ You, therefore, are bound as Christian men to believe, that, when he came to St. George’s Fields that morning, he did not come there with the hostile purpose of repealing a law by rebellion. * The members of the Association, at the meeting in St. George’s Fields, were dis- tinguished by wearing blue cockades on which were inscribed the words, “No Popery !” 292 THE MODERN ORATOR. 44 But still it seems all his behaviour at Coachmakers’ Hall was colour and deceit. Let us see, therefore, whether this body of men, when assembled, answered the description of that which I have stated to be the purpose of him who assembled them. Were they a multitude arrayed for terror or force ? On the contrary, you have heard, upon the evidence of men whose veracity is not to be impeached, that they were sober, decent, quiet, peace- able tradesmen ; — that they were all of the better sort ; — all well-dressed and well-behaved ; — and that there was not a man among them who had anyone weapon, offensive or defensive. Sir Philip Jennings Clerked tells you, he went into the Fields ; that he drove through them, talked to many individuals among them, who all told him that it was not their wish to per- secute the Papists, but that they were alarmed at the progress of their religion from their schools. Sir Philip further told you, that he never saw a more peaceable multitude in his life ; and it appears upon the oaths of all who were present,! that Lord George Gordon went round among them, de- siring peace and quietness. “Mark his conduct when he heard from Mr. Evans,! that a low riotous set of people were assembled in Palace Yard. Mr. Evans, being a member of the Protestant Association, and being desirous that nothing bad might happen from the assembly, went in his carriage with Mr. Spinage to St. George’s Fields, to inform Lord George that there were such people assem- bled (probably Papists) who were determined to do mischief. The moment he told him of what he heard, whatever his original plan might have been, he instantly changed it on seeing the impropriety of it. 4 Do you intend,’ said Mr. Evans, 4 to carry up all these men with the petition to the House of Commons ?’ ‘ Oh no ! no ! not by any means ; I do not mean to carry them all up.’ ‘ Will you give me leave,’ said Mr. Evans, 4 to go round to the different divisions, and tell the people it is not your lordship’s purpose ?’ He answered, 4 By all means.’ And Mr. Evans accordingly went, but it was impossible to guide such a number of people, peaceable as they were. They were all desirous to go forward; and Lord George was at last obliged to leave the Fields, exhausted with heat and fatigue, beseeching them to be * This gentleman, in giving evidence on behalf of the prisoner, deposed to the peaceable behaviour of the members of the Association, who formed the original pro- cession to carry up the petition, and whom he distinguished from the mob which afterwards assembled tumultuously about the House of Commons. f Sir James Lowther, another of the prisoner’s witnesses, proved that Lord George Gordon and Sir Philip Jennings Clerke accompanied him in his carriage from the House, and the former entreated the multitudes collected to disperse quietly to their homes. + A surgeon, who also was examined for the defence, and deposed that he saw Lord George Gordon in the midst of one of the companies in St. George’s Fields, and that it appeared his wish, at that time, from his conduct and expressions, that, to prevent all disorder, he should not be attended by the multitude across Westminster Bridge. This gentleman’s evidence was confirmed by that of other witnesses. LORD ERSKINE. 293 peaceable and quiet. Mrs. Whitingham set him down at the House of Commons ; and at the very time that he thus left them in perfect harmony and good order, it appears, by the evidence of Sir Philip Jennings Clerke, that Palace Yard was in an uproar, filled with mischievous boys and the lowest dregs of the people. “ Gentlemen, I have all along told you, that the Crown was aware that it had no case of treason, without connecting the noble prisoner with conse- quences, which it was in some luck to find advocates to state, without proof to support it. I can only speak for myself ; that, small as my chance is (as times go), of ever arriving at high office, I would not accept of it on the terms of being obliged to produce against a fellow-citizen that which I have been witness to this day ; for Mr. Attorney-General perfectly well knew the innocent and laudable motive with which the protection was given, that he exhibited as an evidence of guilt ;* yet it was produced to insinuate, that Lord George Gordon, knowing himself to be the ruler of those villains, set himself up as a saviour from their fury. We called Lord Stormont to ex- plain this matter to you, who told you that Lord George Gordon came to Buckingham House, and begged to see the King, saying, he might be of great use in quelling the riots ; and can there be on earth a greater proof of conscious innocence ? for if he had been the wicked mover of them, would he have gone to the King to have confessed it, by offering to recall his followers from the mischiefs he had provoked ? No ! But since, notwith- standing a public protest issued by himself and the Association, reviling the authors of mischief, the Protestant cause was still made the pretext, he thought his public exertions might be useful, ^s they might tend to remove the prejudices which wicked men had diffused. The King thought so like- wise, and, therefore (as appears by Lord Stormont), refused to see Lord George till he had given the test of his loyalty by such exertions. But sure I am, our gracious Sovereign meant no trap for innocence, nor ever recom- mended it as such to his servants. “ Lord George’s language was simply this : — ‘ The multitude pretended to be perpetrating these acts, under the authority of the Protestant petition ; I assure your Majesty they are not the Protestant Association, and I shall be glad to be of any service in suppressing them.’ I say, by God, that man is a ruffian, who shall, after this, presume to build upon such honest, artless conduct, as an evidence of guilt. Gentlemen, if Lord George Gordon had been guilty of high treason (as is assumed to-day) in the face of the whole Parliament, how are all its members to defend themselves from the mis- * A witness, of the name of Richard Pond, called in support of the prosecution, had sworn, that, hearing his house was about to be pulled down, he applied to the prisoner for protection, and in consequence received the following document signed by him : — “All true friends to Protestants, I hope, will be particular, and do no injury to the property of any true Protestant, as I am well assured the proprietor of this house is a staunch and worthy friend to the cause. — G. Gordon.” 294 THE MODERN ORATOR. prision* of suffering such a person to go at large and to approach his Sove- reign? The man who conceals the perpetration of treason, is himself a traitor ; but they are all perfectly safe, for nobody thought of treason till fears arising from another quarter bewildered their senses. The King, therefore, and his servants, very wisely accepted his promise of assistance, and he flew with honest zeal to fulfil it. Sir Philip Jennings Clerke tells you, that he made use of every expression which it was possible for a man in such circumstances to employ. He begged them, for God's sake, to disperse and go home ; declared his hope, that the petition would be granted, but that rioting was not the way to effect it. Sir Philip said he felt himself bound, without being particularly asked, to say everything he could in protection of an injured and innocent man, and repeated again, that there was not an art which the prisoner could possibly make use of, that he did not zealously employ ; but that it was all in vain. ‘ I began,’ says he, ‘ to tremble for myself, when Lord George read the resolution of the House, which was hostile to them, and said their petition would not be taken into consideration till they were quiet.’ But did he say, ‘ Therefore, go on to burn and destroy ?’ On the contrary, he helped to pen that motion, and read it to the multitude, as one which he himself had approved . After this he went into the coach with Sheriff Pugh, in the city; and there it was, in the presence of the very magistrate, whem he was assisting to keep the peace, that he publicly signed the protection which has been read in evidence against him ; although Mr. Fisher, who now stands in my presence, confessed, in the Privy Council, that he himself had granted similar protections to various people — yet he was dismissed , as having done nothing but his duty. “This is the plain and simple truth; and for this just obedience to his Majesty’s request, do the King’s servants come to-day into his court, where he is supposed in person to sit, to turn that obedience into the crime of high treason, and to ask you to put him to death for it. “ Gentlemen, you have now heard, upon the solemn oaths of honest, disin- terested men, a faithful history of the conduct of Lord George Gordon, from the day that he became a member of the Protestant Association, to the day that he was committed a prisoner to the Tower. And I have no doubt, from the attention with which I have been honoured from the beginning, that you have still kept in your minds the principles to which I entreated you would apply it, and that you have measured it by that standard. “ You have, therefore, only to look back to the whole of it together ; to reflect on all you have heard concerning him ; to trace him in your recol- lection, through every part of the transaction ; and, considering it with one manly liberal view, to ask your own honest hearts, whether you can say that this noble and unfortunate youth is a wicked and deliberate traitor, who f Misprision of treason consists in the bare knowledge and concealment of treason, without any degree of assent thereto, for any assent makes the party a principal traitor. — Blackstone, Comm. iv. 120. LORD ERSKIKE. 295 deserves by your verdict to suffer a shameful and ignominious death, which will stain the ancient honours of his house for ever. “ The crime which the Crown would have fixed upon him is, that he assem- bled the Protestant Association round the House of Commons, not merely to influence and persuade Parliament by the earnestness of their supplica- tions, but actually to coerce it by hostile rebellious force ; that finding him- self disappointed in the success of that coercion, he afterwards incited his followers to abolish the legal indulgences to Papists, which the object of the petition was to repeal, by the burning of their houses of worship, and the destruction of their property, which ended at last in a general attack on the property of all orders of men, religious and civil, on the public treasures of the nation, and on the very being of the government.* “ To support a charge of so atrocious and unnatural a complexion, the laws of the most arbitrary nations would require the most incontrovertible proof. Either the villain must have been taken in the overt act of wicked- ness, or, if he worked in secret upon others, his guilt must have been brought out by the discovery of a conspiracy, or by the consistent tenor of crimi- nality ; the very worst inquisitor that ever dealt in blood would vindicate the torture, by plausibility at least, and by the semblance of truth. “ What evidence, then, will a jury of Englishmen expect from the servants of the Crown of England, before they deliver up a brother accused before them, to ignominy and death ? What proof will their consciences require ? What will their plain and manly understandings accept of ? What does the immemorial custom of their fathers, and the written law of this land, warrant them in demanding ? Nothing less, in any case of blood, than the clearest and most unequivocal conviction of guilt. But in this case the act has not even trusted to the humanity and justice of our general law, but has said, in plain, rough, expressive terms — proveably — that is, says Lord Coke, not upon conjectural presumptions , or inferences , or strains of wit , but upon direct and plain proof. ‘For the King, Lords, and Commons,’ continues that great lawyer, ‘did not use the word probably ^ for then a common argument might have served ; but proveably , which signifies the highest force of demonstra- tion.’ And what evidence, Gentlemen of the Jury, does the Crown offer to you in compliance with these sound and sacred doctrines of justice ? A few broken, interrupted, disjointed words, without context or connexion — uttered by the speaker in agitation and heat — heard, by those who relate them to you, in the midst of tumult and confusion — and even those words, mutilated as they are, in direct opposition to, and inconsistent with, repeated and earnest declarations delivered at the very same time and on the very same occasion, related to you by a much greater number of persons, and absolutely incompat- ible with the whole tenor of his conduct. Which of us all, Gentlemen, would be safe, standing at the bar of God or man, if we were not to be judged * At the time of the interference of the military, the mob had attacked the Pay Office, and were attempting to break into the Bank ; and, to aid the work of the incen- diaries, a large party had been sent to cut the pipes of the New Liver. 296 THE MODERN ORATOR. by the regular current of our lives and conversations, but by detached and unguarded expressions, picked out by malice, and recorded, without context or circumstances, against us ? Yet such is the only evidence, on which the Crown asks you to dip your hands, and to stain your consciences, in the inno- cent blood of the noble and unfortunate youth who stands before you — on the single evidence of’the words you have heard from their witnesses, (for of what but words have you heard ?) — which, even if they had stood uncontro- verted by the proofs that have swallowed them up, or unexplained by circum- stances which destroy their malignity, could not, at the very -worst, amount in law to more than a breach of the act against tumultuous petitioning (if such an act still exists) ; since the worst malice of his enemies has not been able to bring up one single witness to say, that he ever directed , countenanced , or approved rebellious force against the legislature of this country. It is, therefore, a matter of astonishment to me, that men can keep the natural colour in their cheeks, when they ask for human life, even on the Crown’s original case, though the prisoner had made no defence. But will they still continue to ask for it after what they have heard ? I will just remind the Solicitor-Gene- ral, before he begins his reply, what matter he has to encounter. He has to encounter this : — That the going up in a body was not even originated by Lord George, but by others in his absence — that when proposed by him officially as Chairman, it was adopted by the ivhole Association, and conse- quently was their act as much as his — that it was adopted, not in a conclave, but with open doors, and the resolution published to all the world — that it was known of course to the ministers and magistrates of the country, who did not even signify to him, or to any body else, its illegality or danger — that decency and peace were enjoined and commanded — that the regularity of the proces- sion, and those badges of distinction, which are now cruelly turned into the charge of an hostile array against him, were expressly and publicly directed for the preservation of peace and the prevention of tumult — that while the House was deliberating, he repeatedly entreated them to behave with decency and peace, and to retire to their houses ; though he knew not that he was speaking to the enemies of his cause — that when they at last dispersed, no man thought or imagined that treason had been committed — that he retired to bed, where he lay unconscious that ruffians were ruining him, by their disorders in the night — that on Monday he published an advertisement, re- viling the authors of the riots : and, as the Protestant cause had been wickedly made the pretext for them, solemnly enjoined all w r ho washed well to it to be obedient to the laws (nor has the Crowui even attempted to prove that he had either given, or that he afterwards gave, secret instructions in opposition to that public admonition) — that he afterwards begged an audience to receive the King’s commands — that he waited on the Ministers — that he attended his duty in Parliament — and, when the multitude (amongst whom there was not a man of the associated Protestants) again assembled on the Tuesday, under pretence of the Protestant cause, he offered his services, and read a resolution of the House to them, accompanied with every expostulation LORD ERSKINE. 297 which a zeal for peace could possibly inspire — that he afterwards, in pursuance of the King’s direction, attended the magistrates in their duty ; honestly and honourably exerting all his powers to quell the fury of the multitude ; a conduct which, to the dishonour of the Crown, has been scandalously turned against him, by criminating him with protections granted publicly in the coach of the Sheriff of London, whom he was assisting in his office of magistracy ; although protections of a similar nature were, to the knowledge of the whole Privy Council, granted by Mr. Fisher himself, who now stands in my presence un- accused and unreproved, but who, if the Crown that summoned him durst have called him, would have dispersed to their confusion the slightest impu- tation of guilt. “ What, then, has produced this trial for high treason ; or given it, when produced, the seriousness and solemnity it wears ? what, but the inversion of all justice, by judging from consequences, instead of from causes and designs ? what, but the artful manner in which the Crown has endeavoured to blend the petitioning in a body, and the zeal with which an animated disposition conducted it, with the melancholy crimes that followed ? crimes, which the shameful indolence of our magistrates — which the total extinction of all police and government suffered to be committed in broad day, and in the delirium of drunkenness, by an unarmed banditti, without a head — without plan or object — and without a refuge from the instant gripe of justice : a banditti, with whom the associated Protestants, and their President, had no manner of connexion, and whose cause they overturned, dishonoured, and ruined. “ How unchristian, then, is it to attempt, without evidence, to infect the imaginations of men who are sworn dispassionately and disinterestedly to try the trivial offence of assembling a multitude with a petition to repeal a law (which has happened so often in all our memories), by blending it with the fatal catastrophe, on which every man’s mind may be supposed to retain some degree of irritation ? O fie ! O fie ! Is the intellectual seat of justice to be thus impiously shaken? Are your benevolent propensities to be thus disappointed and abused ? Do they wish you, while you are listening to the evidence, to connect it with unforeseen consequences, in spite of reason and truth ? Is it their object to hang the millstone of prejudice around his innocent neck to sink him ? If there be such men, may Heaven forgive them for the attempt, and inspire you with fortitude and wisdom, to discharge your duty with calm, steady, and reflecting minds. “ Gentlemen, I have no manner of doubt that you will. I am sure you cannot but see, notwithstanding my great inability, increased by a perturba- tion of mind (arising, thank God ! from no dishonest cause), that there has been not only no evidence on the part of the Crown, to fix the guilt of the late commotions upon the prisoner, but that, on the contrary, we have been able to resist the probability, I might almost say the possibility, of the charge, not only by living witnesses, whom we only ceased to call because the trial would never have ended, but by the evidence of all the blood that has paid the forfeit of that guilt already ; an evidence that I will take upon me to say is 298 THE MODERN ORATOR. the strongest, and most unanswerable, which the combination of natural events ever brought together since the beginning of the world for the deliverance of the oppressed: since in the late numerous trials for acts of violence and depre- dation, though conducted by the ablest servants of the Crown, with a laudable eye to the investigation of the subject which now engages us, no one fact appeared, which showed any plan, any object, any leader ; since, out of forty- four thousand persons, who signed the petition of the Protestants, not one was to be found among those w r ho were convicted, tried, or even apprehended on suspicion ; and since, out of all the felons who were let loose from prisons, and who assisted in the destruction of our property, not a single wretch was to be found, who could even attempt to save- his own life by the plausible promise of giving evidence to-day. “ What can overturn such a proof as this ? Surely a good man might, without superstition, believe, that such a union of events was something more than natural, and that a Divine Providence was watchful for the pro- tection of innocence and truth. “ I may now, therefore, relieve you from the pain of hearing me any longer, and be myself relieved from speaking on a subject which agitates and distresses me. Since Lord Gorge Gordop stands clear of every hostile act or purpose against the Legislature of his country, or the properties of his fellow-sub- jects — since the whole tenor of his conduct repels the belief of the traitorous intention charged by the indictment — my task is finished. I shall make no address to your passions — I will not remind you of the long and rigorous imprisonment he has suffered ; I will not speak to you of his great youth, of his illustrious birth, and of his uniformly animated and generous zeal in Parliament for the constitution of his country. Such topics might be useful in the balance of a doubtful case ; yet even then I should have trusted to the honest hearts of Englishmen to have felt them without excitation. At pre- sent, the plain and rigid rules of justice and truth are sufficient to entitle me to your verdict.” The Solicitor-General having replied, Lord Mansfield summed up : and the Jury, after retiring to consider, returned a verdict of “ Not guilty.” Speech in support of a rule for a new trial of the indictment against the Dean of St. Asaph, for publishing a seditious libel, 15th November, 1784. In the year 1783, when public attention was directed to the necessity of reform in Parliament, Mr. Jones (afterwards Sir William Jones, one of the judges of the Supreme Court at Bengal), composed a tract in furtherance of that measure, under the title of “ A Dialogue between a Farmer and a Coun- try Gentleman, on the Principles of Government,” in which he explained, in a familiar style, the leading principles of government, and the existing defects in the representation of the people in Parliament. Shortly afterwards, Sir W. Jones, having married the eldest daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph, LORD ERSKINE. *299 the latter became acquainted with the tract, and, highly approving it, sub- mitted it to a committee of gentlemen in Flintshire, who had formed them- selves into an association for the promotion of reform. These gentlemen were so pleased with the tract as to pass a vote in approbation of it. In con- sequence of this, the court party took umbrage, and, violently upbraiding the Committee for their open adoption of the pamphlet, publicly branded the dia- logue with the most opprobrious epithets ; whereupon the Dean of St. Asaph, considering himself implicated, and that the best means of vindicating the work and its supporters would be to submit it to public opinion, decided on adopting that course ; and, prefixing a short preface explaining his motives, issued it to the public. For this publication, which the government de- clined to notice, an indictment was preferred against the Dean, by Mr. Fitz- maurice, brother of the Marquis of Lansdowne ; and the indictment, having been removed by certiorari to the Court of King’s Bench, came on for trial at the assizes at Shrewsbury, in August, 1784. Mr. Erskine, in his speech for the defence, insisted on two great principles : — 1st, That the jury were not restricted to finding the mere fact of the publishing, without regard to the nature of the matter published, but that they had the right of determin- ing whether the matter charged in the indictment as a libel were a libel or not ; and, 2ndly, That the intention and motive in the publishing must be taken into consideration, and that, if the publication was not with a criminal motive, it could not be held as libellous. In summing up the case to the jury, Mr. Justice Buller, after denying his right, as judge, to say whether the pamphlet were a libel or not, directed them that, if they were satisfied that the defendant published the pamphlet in point of fact, they were bound to return a verdict of ‘ Guilty,’ leaving the question as to the libellous nature of the publication for the decision of the Court. The jury having brought in a verdict of “ Guilty of publishing only,” a warm discussion took place be- tween the Judge and Mr. Erskine as to how it should be recorded ; and the verdict ultimately taken was, that the Dean “ was guilty of publishing, but whether a libel or not they did not find.” In Michaelmas term following (Nov. 8), Mr. Erskine moved for a new trial, on the ground of misdirection of the Judge; and a rule nisi having been granted, the same came on for argument on the 15th of November, when Mr. Erskine, in its support, made the following speech, which Mr. Fox re- peatedly pronounced to be, in his opinion, the finest argument in the English language : — “ I am now to have the honour to address myself to your lordship in support of the rule granted to me by the Court upon Monday last ; which, as Mr. Bearcroft has truly said, and seemed to mark the observation with peculiar emphasis, is a rule for a new trial. Much of my argument, according to his notion, points another way ; whether its direction be true, or its force adequate to the object, it is now my business to show. “ In rising to speak at this time, I feel all the advantage conferred by the Y 300 THE MODERN ORATOR. reply over those whose arguments are to be answered ; but I feel a disad- vantage likewise which must suggest itself to every intelligent mind. In following the objections of so many learned persons, offered under different arrangements upon a subject so complicated and comprehensive, there is much danger of being drawn from that method and order, which can alone fasten conviction upon unwilling minds, or drive them from the shelter which ingenuity never fails to find in the labyrinth of a desultory discourse. “ The sense of that danger, and my own inability to struggle against it, led me originally* to deliver to the Court certain written and maturely considered propositions, from the establishment of which I resolved not to depart, nor to be removed, either in substance or in order, in any stage of the proceed- ings, and by which I must therefore this day unquestionably stand or fall. “ Pursuing this system, I am vulnerable two ways, and in two ways only. Either it must be shown that my propositions are not valid in law ; or, admitting their validity, that the learned Judge’s charge to the Jury at Shrewsbury was not repugnant to them : there can be no other possible objections to my application for a new trial. My duty to-day is, therefore, obvious and simple : it is, first, to re-maintain those propositions ; and then to show, that the charge delivered to the Jury at Shrewsbury was founded upon the absolute denial and reprobation of them. “ I begin, therefore, by saying again, in my own original words, that when a bill of indictment is found, or an information filed, charging any crime or misdemeanour known to the law of England, and the party accused puts himself upon the country by pleading the general issue — not guilty ; the Jury are generally charged with his deliverance from that crime, and not specially from the fact or facts , in the commission of which the indictment or information charges the crime to consist ; much less from any single fact, to the exclusion of others charged upon the same record. “ Secondly, that no act, which the law in its general theory holds to be criminal, constitutes in itself a crime, abstracted from the mischievous inten- tion of the actor : and that the intention, even where it becomes a simple inference of legal reasons from a fact or facts established, may and ought to be collected by the Jury, with the Judge’s assistance ; because the act charged, though established as a fact in a trial on the general issue, does not necessa- rily and unavoidably establish the criminal intention by any abstract conclu- sion of law : the establishment of the fact being still no more than full evidence of the crime, but not the crime itself; unless the Jury render it so themselves, by referring it voluntarily to the Court by special verdict. “ These two propositions, though worded with cautious precision, and in technical language, to prevent the subtlety of legal disputation in opposition to the plain understanding of the world, neither do nor were intended to convey any 'other sentiment than this : viz., that in all cases where the law either directs or permits a person accused of a crime to throw himself upon a * On moving for the rule Nisi. LORD ERSKINE. 301 Jury for deliverance, by pleading generally that he is not guilty ; the Jury, thus legally appealed to, may deliver him from the accusation by a general verdict of acquittal founded (as in common sense it evidently must be) upon an investigation as general and comprehensive as the charge itself from which it is a general deliverance. “ Having said this, I freely confess to the Court, that I am much at a loss for any further illustration of my subject; because I cannot find any matter by which it might be further illustrated, so clear, or so indisputable, either in fact or in law, as the very proposition itself which upon this trial has been brought into question. Looking back upon the ancient constitution, and examining with painful research the original jurisdictions of the country, I am utterly at a loss to imagine from what sources these novel limitations of the rights of Juries are derived. Even the bar is not yet trained to the dis- cipline of maintaining them. My learned friend Mr. Bearcroft * solemnly abjures them : — he repeats to-day what he avowed at the trial, and is even jealous of the imputation of having meant less than he expressed ; for when speaking this morning of the right of the Jury to judge of the whole charge, your Lordship corrected his expression, by telling him he meant the power , and not the right ; he caught instantly at your words, disavowed your expla- nation, and, with a consistency which does him honour, declared his adherence to his original admission in its full and obvious extent. ‘ I did not mean,’ said he, ‘merely to acknowledge that the Jury have the power ; for their power nobody ever doubted ; and, if a judge was to tell them they had it not, they would only have to laugh at him, and convince him of his error, by finding a general verdict which must be recorded : I meant, therefore, to consider it as a right, as an important privilege, and of great value to the constitution.’ “ Thus Mr. Bearcroft and I are perfectly agreed ; I never contended for more than he has voluntarily conceded. I have now his express authority for repeating, in my own former words, that the Jury have not merely the power to acquit, upon a view of the whole charge, without control or punish- ment, and without the possibility of their acquittal being annulled by any other authority ; but that they have a constitutional, legal right to do it ; a right Jit to he exercised ; and intended by the wise founders of the government, to be a protection to the lives and liberties of Englishmen, against the encroach- ments and perversions of authority in the hands of fixed magistrates. “ But this candid admission on the part oi Mr. Bearcroft, though very honourable to himself, is of no importance to me ; since, from what has already fallen from your Lordship, I am not to expect a ratification of it from the Court ; it is therefore my duty to establish it. I feel all the importance of my subject, and nothing shall lead me to-day to go out of it. I claim all the attention of the Court, and the right to state every authority which applies in my judgment to the argument, without being supposed to introduce them for other purposes than my duty to my client and the constitution of my country warrants and approves. * One of the counsel for the prosecution. y 2 302 THE MODERN ORATOR. “It is not very usual, in an English court of justice, to be driven back to the earliest history and original elements of the constitution, in order to establish the first principles which mark and distinguish English law : — they are always assumed, and, like axioms in science, are made the foundations of reasoning without being proved. Of this sort our ancestors, for many cen- turies, must have conceived the right of an English jury to decide upon every question which the forms of the law submitted to their final decision ; since, though they have immemorially exercised that supreme jurisdiction, we find no trace in any of the ancient books of its ever being brought into question. It is but as yesterday, when conqmred with the age of the law itself, that judges, unwarranted by any former judgments of their predecessors, without any new commission from the Crown, or enlargement of judicial authority from the legislature, have sought to fasten a limitation upon the rights and privileges of jurors, totally unknown in ancient times, and palpably destruc- tive of the very end and object of their institution. “ No fact, my lord, is of more easy demonstration ; for the history and laws of a free country lie open — even to vulgar inspection. “ During the whole Saxon era, and even long after the establishment of the Norman government, the whole administration of justice, criminal and civil, was in the hands of the people, without the control or intervention of any judicial authority, delegated to fixed magistrates by the Crown. The tenants of every manor administered civil justice to one another in the court-baron of their lord; and their crimes were judged of in the leet, every suitor of the manor giving his voice as a juror, and the steward being only the registrar, and not the judge. On appeals from these domestic jurisdictions to the county court, and to the tourn of the sheriff, or in suits and prosecu- tions originally commenced in either of them, the sheriff’s authority extended no further than to summon the jurors, to compel their attendance, ministerially to regulate their proceedings, and to enforce their decisions;* and even * The constitution of the county court in the Saxon era is involved in much doubt. Hallam, speaking of it (Mid. Ages, ii., 392), says, “ In this assembly, held monthly, or, at least, more than once in the year (for there seems some ambiguity, or, perhaps, fluc- tuation, as to this point), by the bishop, and the alderman or earl, or, in his absence, the sheriff, the oath of allegiance was administered to all freemen, breaches of the peace were inquired into, crimes were investigated, and claims were determined. I assign all these functions to the county court, upon the supposition, that no other sub- sisted during the Saxon times, and that the separation of the sheriff’s tourn for criminal jurisdiction had not yet taken place ; which, however, I cannot pretend to determine.’’ It seems very questionable, whether, in the county court, the disputes were submitted to juries taken from the same rank in life as the suitors. The authorities tend to show (see Hallam, Mid. Ages, ii., 394, and note), that the thanes (the owners of land, or gentry), and they alone, to the exclusion of all inferior freemen, were the judges of civil contro- versies ; and the questions submitted to them were decided according to the majority of voices. The inferior freemen, or ceorls, were called on to attend the meetings, as suitors to the court, but only on account of the oath of allegiance which they were to take, or other duties which they owed, and not to exercise any judicial power ; “ un- less we conceive that the disputes of the ceorls were decided by judges of their own rank.” The evidence of trial by jury during the Anglo-Saxon age is, at most, dubious. LORI) ERSKINE. 303 where he was specially empowered by the King’s writ of justices'* * * § to proceed in causes of superior value, no judicial authority was thereby conferred upon himself, but only a more enlarged jurisdiction on the jurors, who were to try the cause mentioned in the writ. “ It is true that the sheriff cannot now intermeddle in pleas of the Crown ; but with this exception, which brings no restrictions on juries, these jurisdic- tions remain untouched at this day : intricacies of property have introduced other forms of proceeding, but the constitution is the same. “ This popular judicature was not confined to particular districts, or to inferior suits and misdemeanours, but pervaded the whole legal constitution ; for, when the Conqueror, to increase the influence of his crown, erected that great superintending court of justice in his own palace, to receive appeals criminal and civil from every court in the kingdom, and placed at the head of it the capitalis justiciarius totins Anglice,\ of whose original authority the chief justice of this court is but a partial and feeble emanation : even that great magistrate was in the aula regis merely ministerial ; every one of the King’s tenants, who owed him service in right of a barony, had a seat and a voice in that high tribunal ; and the office of justiciar was but to record and to enforce their judgments. “ In the reign of King Edward the First, when this great office was abol- ished, and the present courts at Westminster established by a distribution of its powers, J the barons preserved that supreme superintending jurisdiction which never belonged to the justiciar, but to themselves only as the jurors in the King’s court; a jurisdiction which, when nobility, from being territorial and feodal, became personal and honorary, was assumed and exercised by the peers of England, who, without any delegation of judicial authority from the Crown, form to this day the supreme and final court of English law, judging in the last resort for the whole kingdom, and sitting upon the lives of the peerage, in their ancient and genuine character, as the pares of one another. § “ When the courts at Westminster were established in their present forms, * The Writ of Justicies was a writ directed to the sheriff in some special cases, by virtue of which he might hold plea of debt in his county court for a large sum, whereas, by his ordinary power, he was limited to sums under forty shillings. f The King’s Court was composed of the Chief Justiciary, the Chancellor, the Con- stable, Marshal, Chamberlain, Steward, and Treasurer, with any others whom the King might appoint. The Court of Exchequer, in which all revenue matters were transacted, formed a branch of this court. The Chief Justiciary was the greatest subject in Eng- land : besides presiding in the King’s court, and in the Exchequer, he was originally, by virtue of his office, the Regent of the kingdom during the absence of the Sovereign. + Though Edward settled the jurisdiction of the several courts, the separation of the Exchequer first, and afterwards of the Common Pleas, from the King’s Court, took place long before. The detachment of the latter had its beginning, in Madox’s opinion, as early as in the reign of Richard I. ; but it was completely established by the Magna Charta of 17 John, and then first made stationary at Westminster. § During a trial before the House of Peers, every Peer present on the trial is to judge both of the law and the fact. Foster , 142. Hence no special verdict can be given on the trial of a Peer. 304 THE MODERN ORATOR. and when the civilisation and commerce of the nation had introduced more intricate questions of justice, the judicial authority in civil cases could not but enlarge its bounds ; the' rules of property in a cultivated state of society became by degrees beyond the compass of the unlettered multitude ; and in certain well-known restrictions undoubtedly fell to the judges ; yet more, perhaps, from necessity than by consent, as all judicial proceedings were artfully held in the Norman language,*' to which the people were strangers. “ Of these changes in judicature, immemorial custom, and the acquiescence of the legislature, are the evidence which establish the jurisdiction of the Courts on the true principle of English law, and measure the extent of it by their ancient practice. “ But no such evidence is to be found of the least relinquishment or abridg- ment of popular judicature, in cases of crimes ; on the contrary, every page of our history is filled with the struggles of our ancestors for its preservation. “ The law of property changes with new objects, and becomes intricate as it extends its dominion; but crimes must ever be of the same easy investigation — they consist wholly in intention, and the more they are multiplied by the policy of those who govern, the more absolutely the public freedom depends upon the people’s preserving the entire administration of criminal justice to themselves. In a question of property between two private individuals, the Crowm can have no possible interest in preferring the one to the other ; but it may have an interest in crushing both of them together, in defiance of every principle of humanity and justi6e, if they should put themselves forward in a contention for public liberty, against a government seeking to emancipate itself from the dominion of the laws. No man in the least acquainted w r ith the history of nations, or of his own country, can refuse to acknowdedge, that if the administration of criminal justice were left in the hands of the Crown, or its deputies, no greater freedom could possibly exist, than government might choose to tolerate from the convenience or policy of the day. “ My lord, this important truth is no discovery or assertion of mine, but is to be found in every book of the law : whether we go up to the most ancient authorities, or appeal to the writings of men of our ow r n times, we meet with it alike in the most emphatical language. Mr. Justice Blackstone, by no means biassed tow r ards democratical government, having in the third volume of his Commentaries explained the excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases, expresses himself thus (vol. iv. p. 349) : ‘ But it holds much stronger in criminal cases, since, in times of difficulty and danger, more is to be appre- hended from the violence and partiality of judges appointed by the Crown, in suits between the King and the subject, than in disputes between one indi- vidual and another, to settle the boundaries of private property. Our law has, therefore, wisely placed this strong and twofold barrier of a present- ment and trial by jury, between the liberties of the people and the prerogative f All pleadings were, by order of William I., conducted in Norman-French. By act 36 Edward III., cap. 15 (A.D. 1363), the use of the French language in legal proceed- ings was abolished. LORD ERSKINE. 305 of the Crown : without this barrier, justices of oyer and terminer named by the Crown might, as in France or in Turkey, imprison, dispatch, or exile, any man that was obnoxious to government, by an instant declaration that such was their will and pleasure. So that the liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, which none will be so hardy as to make, but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it.’ “ But this remark, though it derives new force in being adopted by so great an authority, was no more original in Mr. Justice Blackstone than in me : the institution and authority of juries is to be found in Bracton, who wrote about five hundred years before him. ‘ The curia and the pares, says he, ‘were necessarily the judges in all cases of life, limb, crime, and dis- herison of the heir in capite. The King could not decide, for then he would have been both prosecutor and judge; nether could his justices, for they represent him.’ “ Notwithstanding all this, the learned Judge was pleased to say, at the trial, that there was no difference between civil and criminal cases.* I say, on the contrary, independent of these authorities, that there is not, even to vulgar observation, the remotest similitude between them. “ There are four capital distinctions between prosecutions for crimes, and civil actions, every one of which deserves consideration. “First, in the jurisdiction necessary to found the charge. “ Secondly, in the manner of the defendant’s pleading to it. “ Thirdly, in the authority of the verdict which discharges him. “Fourthly, in the independence and security of the jury from all the con- sequences in giving it. “ As to the first, it is unnecessary to remind your lordships, that, in a civil case, the party who conceives himself aggrieved, states his complaint to the court — avails himself at his own pleasure of its process — compels an answer from the defendant by its authority — or, taking the charge pro confesso against him on his default, is entitled to final judgment and execution for his debt, without any interposition of a jury. But in criminal cases it is otherwise; the court has no cognisance of them, without leave from the people forming a grand inquest, f If a man were to commit a capital offence in the face of all the judges of England, their united authority could not put him upon his * In his charge to the jury, Mr. Justice Buller had said, “ The law acts equally and justly, as the pamphlet itself states : it is equal between the prosecutor and defendant : and whatever appears upon the record is not for our decision here, but may be the sub- ject of future consideration in the court out of which the record comes : and afterwards, if either party thinks fit, they have a right to carry it to the dernier resort , and have the opinion of the House of Lords upon it ; and therefore that has been the uniform and established answer, not only in criminal but civil cases. The law is the same in both , and there is not a gentleman round this table who does not know that is the constant and uniform answer which is given in such cases.” f The intervention of a grand jury is not necessary where the prisoner is committed for trial by the coroner. 306 THE MODERN ORATOR. trial : they could file no complaint against him, even upon the records of the supreme criminal court, but could only commit him for safe custody, which is equally competent to every common justice of the peace — the grand jury alone could arraign him, and in their discretion might likewise finally dis- charge him, by throwing out the bill, with the names of all your lordships as witnesses on the back of it. If it shall be said, that this exclusive power of the grand jury does not extend to lesser misdemeanours, which may be prosecuted by information ; I answer, that for that very reason it becomes doubly necessary to preserve the power of the other jury which is left. In the rules of pleading, there is no distinction between capital and lesser of- fences ; and the defendant’s plea of not guilty (which universally prevails as the legal answer to every information or indictment, as opposed to special pleas to the court in civil actions), and the necessity imposed upon the Crown to join the general issue, are absolutely decisive of the present question. “ Every lawyer must admit, that the rules of pleading were originally estab- lished to mark and to preserve the distinct jurisdictions of the court and the jury, by a separation of the law from the fact, wherever they were intended to be separated. A person charged with owing a debt, or having committed a trespass, &c., & c., if he could not deny the facts on which the actions were founded, was obliged to submit his justification for matter of law by a special plea to the court upon the record ; to wdiich plea the plaintiff might demur ,* and submit the legal merits to the judges. By this arrangement, no power was ever given to the Jury, by an issue joined before them, but when a right of decision, as comprehensive as the issue, went along with it : if a defendant in such civil actions pleaded the general issue instead of a special plea, aiming at a general deliverance from the charge, by showing his justification to the Jury at the trial ; the court protected its own jurisdiction, byrefusing all evidence of the facts on which such justification was founded. The extension of the general issue beyond its ancient limits, and in deviation from its true principle, has introduced some confusion into this simple and harmonious system ; but the law is substantially the same. No man, at this day, in any of those actions where the ancient forms of our jurisprudence are still wisely preserved, can possibly get at the opinion of a jury upon any question, not intended by the constitution for their decision. In actions of debt, detinue, breach of covenant, trespass, or replevin, the defendant can only submit the mere fact to the Jury ; the law must be pleaded to the Court: if, dreading the opinion of the judges, he conceals his justification under the cover of a general plea, in hopes of a more favourable construction of his defence at the trial, its very existence can never even come within the knowledge of the jurors ; every legal defence must arise out of facts, and the authority of the judge is interposed, to prevent their appearing before a tribunal which, in such cases, has no competent jurisdiction over them. “ By imposing this necessity of pleading every legal justification to the * I. e.y might allege, that, admitting the facts, the justification set up is not sufficient in law, which would be a question for the decision of the Court, and not of the Jury. LORI) ERSKINE. 307 court, and by this exclusion of all evidence on the trial beyond the negation of the fact, the courts indisputably intended to establish, and did in fact effectually secure, the judicial authority over legal questions from all encroach- ment or violation ; and it is impossible to find a reason in law, or in common sense, why the same boundaries between the fact and the law should not have been at the same time extended to criminal cases by the same’ rules of plead- ing, if the jurisdiction of the Jury had been designed to be limited to the fact, as in civil actions. “ But no such boundary was ever made or attempted ; on the contrary, every person, charged with any crime by an indictment or information, has been in all times, from the Norman conquest to this hour, not only permitted, but even bound, to throw himself upon his country for deliverance, by the general plea of ‘Not guilty;’ and may submit his whole defence to the Jury, whether it be a negation of the fact, or a justification of it in law ; * and the judge has no authority, as in a civil case, to refuse such evidence at the trial, as out of the issue, and as coram non jadice ; an authority which in common sense he certainly would have, if the Jury had no higher jurisdiction in the one case than in the other. The general plea thus sanctioned by im- memorial custom, so blends the law and the fact together, as to be inseparable but by the voluntary act of the Jury in finding a special verdict : the general investigation of the whole charge is therefore before them ; and although the defendant admits the fact laid in the information or indictment, he neverthe- less, under his general plea, gives evidence of others which are collateral, referring them to the judgment of the jury, as a legal excuse or justification, and receives from their verdict a complete, general, and conclusive deliver- ance. f “ Mr. Justice Blackstone, in the fourth volume of his Commentaries, page 339, says, ‘ The traitorous or felonious intent are the points and very gist of the indictment, and must be answered directly by the general negative, ‘ Not guilty and the Jury will take notice of any defensive matter, and give their verdict accordingly, as effectually as if it were specially pleaded.’ * Special pleas in criminal cases seldom occur in consequence of the great extent of evidence which may be given under the plea of ‘Not Guilty : ’ but exceptions do occur in which special pleas are necessary ; as, for instance, the pleas of autrefois acquit f autrefois convict , autrefois attaint , and pardon. So also demurrers may occur in criminal cases : but till latterly they have been seldom adopted ; as, until the Act 7 Geo. IV. c. 64, ss. 20, 21, the defendant might have had the same advantage upon the plea of ‘Not Guilty’, or by motion in arrest of judgment, that he could have had upon demurrer: but material alteration in this respect was made by that statute. f The Jury, however, may bring in a special verdict “ setting forth all the circumstances of the case, and praying the judgment of the court ; whether, for instance, on the facts stated, it be murder, manslaughter, or no crime at all. This is where they doubt the matter of law, 'and therefore choose to leave it to the determination of the court ; though they have an unquestionable right of determining upon all the circumstances, and find- ing a general verdict if they think proper so to hazard a breach of their oaths ; and if their verdict be notoriously wrong, they may be punished, and the verdict set aside by attaint at the suit of the King, but not at the suit of the prisoner.’’— Blackstone, Comm. IV. c. 27. 308 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ This, therefore, says Sir Matthew Hale, in his Pleas of the Crown, page 258, is, upon all accounts, the most advantageous plea for the defendant : ‘ It would be a most unhappy case for the Judge himself, if the prisoner’s fate depended upon his directions — unhappy also for the prisoner ; for if the Judge’s opinion must rule the verdict, the trial by jury would be useless.’ “ My lord, the conclusive operation of the verdict when given, and the security of the Jury from all consequences in giving it, render the contrast between criminal and civil cases striking and complete. No new trial can be granted, as in a civil action : your lordships, however you may disapprove of the acquittal, have no authority to award one ; for there is no precedent of any such upon record ; and the discretion of the Court is circumscribed by the law. “ Neither can the jurors be attainted by the Crown. In Bushel’s case, Vaughan’s Reports, page 146, that learned and excellent judge expressed himself thus : — 4 There is no case in all the law, of an attaint for the King, nor any opinion but that of Thyrning’s, 10th of Henry IV., title Attaint, 60 and 64, for which there is no warrant in law, though there be other specious authority against it, touched by none that have argued this case.’ ” Lord Mansfield. “ To be sure it is so.” Mr. Erskine. “ Since that is clear, my lord, I shall not trouble the Court further upon it. Indeed I have not been able to find any one authority for such an attaint, but a dictum in Fitzherbert’s Natura Brevium, page 107 ; and, on the other hand, the doctrine of Bushel’s case is expressly agreed to in very modern times : vide Lord Raymond’s Reports, vol. i., p. 469. “ If, then, your lordships reflect but for a moment upon this comparative view of criminal and civil cases which I have laid before you, how can it be seriously contended, not merely that there is no difference, but that there is any the remotest similarity between them ? In the one case, the power of accusation begins from the Court ; in the other from the people only ; form- ing a grand jury. In the one, the defendant must plead a special justification, the merits of which can only be decided by the judges ; in the other, he may throw himself for general deliverance upon his country. In the first, the Court may award a new trial, if the verdict for the defendant be contrary to the evidence or the law ; in the last, it is conclusive and unalterable ; and, to crown the whole, the King never had that process of attaint which be- longed to the meanest of his subjects. “ When these things are attentively considered, I might ask those who are still disposed to deny the right of the jury to investigate the whole charge, whether such a solecism can be conceived to exist in any human govern- ment, much less in the most refined and exalted in the world, as that a power of supreme judicature should be conferred at random by the blind forms of the law, where no right was intended to pass with it ; and which * An attaint is a writ to inquire whether a jury of twelve men gave a false verdict (Finch, 484), that so the judgment following thereupon may be reversed, and the Jury punished, Very few instances of attaints appear later than the sixteenth century. LORD ERSKINE. 309 was, upon no occasion and under no circumstance, to be exercised ; which, though exerted notwithstanding, in every age and in a thousand instances, to the confusion and discomfiture of fixed magistracy, should never be checked by authority, but should continue on from century to century ; the revered guardian of liberty and of life, arresting the arm of the most head- strong governments in the worst of times, without any power in the Crown or its judges to touch, without its consent, the meanest wretch in the king- dom, or even to ask the reason and principle of the verdict which acquits him. That such a system should prevail in a country like England, without either the original institution or the acquiescing sanction of the Legislature, is impossible. Believe me, my lord, no talents can reconcile, no authority can sanction, such an absurdity : the common sense of the world revolts at it. 44 Having established this important right in the Jury, beyond all possi- bility of cavil or controversy, I will now show your lordship that its exist- ence is not merely consistent with the theory of the law, but is illustrated and confirmed by the universal practice of all judges ; not even excepting Mr. Justice Forster himself, whose writings have been cited in support of the contrary opinion. How a man expresses his abstract ideas is but of little little importance when an appeal can be made to his plain directions to others, and to his own particular conduct : but even none of his expressions, when properly considered and understood, militate against my position. “ In his justly celebrated book on the Criminal Law, page 256, he ex- presses himself thus : — 4 The construction which the law putteth upon fact stated and agreed or fodnd by a jury, is in all cases undoubtedly the proper province of the Court.'' Now, if the adversary is disposed to stop here, though the author never intended he should, as is evident from the rest of the sentence, yet I am willing to stop with him, and to take it as a substan- tive proposition; for the slightest attention must discover that it is not repugnant to anything which I have said. Facts stated and agreed , or facts found , by a jury, which amount to the same thing, constitute a special ver- dict ; and who ever supposed that the law upon a special verdict was not the province of the Court ? Where, in a trial upon a general issue, the parties choose to agree upon facts and to state them, or the Jury choose voluntarily to find them without drawing the legal conclusion themselves, who ever denied that in such instances the Court is to draw it ? That Forster meant nothing more than that the Court was to judge of the law, when the Jury thus voluntarily prays its assistance by special verdict, is evi- dent from his words which follow ; for he immediately goes on to say — 4 In cases of doubt and real difficulty , it is therefore commonly recommended to the Jury to state facts and circumstances in a special verdict but neither here, nor in any other part of his works, is it said or insinuated that they are bound to do so, but at their own free discretion. Indeed, the very term recommended , admits the contrary, and requires no commentary. I am sure I shall never dispute the wisdom or expediency of such a recommendation 310 THE MODERN ORATOR. in those cases of doubt, because the more I am contending for the existence of such an important right, the less it would become me to be the advocate of rashness and precipitation in the exercise of it. It is no denial of juris- diction to tell the greatest magistrate upon earth to take good counsel in cases of real doubt and difficulty. Judges upon trials, whose authority to state the law is indisputable, often refer it to be more solemnly argued before the Court ; and this Court itself often holds a meeting of the twelve judges before it decides on a point upon its own records, of which the others have confessedly no cognisance till it comes before them by the writ of error of one of the parties. These instances are monuments of wisdom, integrity* and discretion ; but they do not bear, in the remotest degree, upon jurisdic- tion : the sphere of jurisdiction is measured by what may or may not be decided by any given tribunal with legal effect, not by the rectitude or error of the decision. If the Jury, according to these authorities, may determine the whole matter by their verdict, and if the verdict, when given, is not only final and unalterable, but must be enforced by the authority of the judges, and executed, if resisted, by the whole power of the state — upon what prin- ciple of government or reason can it be argued not to be law ? That the Jury are in this exact predicament is confessed by Forster ; for he concludes with saying, that when the laiv is clear, the Jury , under the direction of the Court , in 'point of laio may , and if they are well advised will , always find a general verdict conformably to such directions. “ This is likewise consistent with my position : if the law be clear, we may presume that the Judge states it clearly to the Jury; and if he does, un- doubtedly the Jury, if they are well advised, will find according to such . directions ; for they have not a capricious discretion to make law at their pleasure, but are bound in conscience, as well as judges are, to find it truly ; and, generally speaking, the learning of the Judge who presides at the trial affords them a safe support and direction. “ The same practice of judges in stating the law to the Jury, as applied to the particular case before them, appears likewise in the case of the King against Oneby, 2nd Lord Raymond, page 1494. ‘On the trial the Judge directs the Jury thus : If you believe such and such 'witnesses who have sworn to such and such facts, the hilling of the deceased appears to be with malice prepense : but if you do not believe them, then you ought to find him guilty of manslaughter ; and the Jury may, if they think proper, give a general verdict of murder or manslaughter : but if they decline giving a general verdict, and will find the facts specially, the Court is then to form their judgment from the facts found, whether the defendant be guilty or not guilty, that is, whether the act was done with malice and deliberation, or not.’ Surely language can express nothing more plainly or unequivocally, than that where the general issue is pleaded to an indictment, the law and the fact are both before the Jury ; and that the former can never be sepa- rated from the latter, for the judgment of the Court, unless by their own spontaneous act : for the words are, ‘ If they decline giving a general verdict. LORD ERSKINE. 311 and ivill find the facts specially, the Court is then to form their judgment from the facts found.’ So that, after a general issue joined, the authority of the Court only commences when the Jury chooses to decline the decision of the law by a general verdict ; the right of declining which legal determina- tion is a privilege conferred on them by the statute of Westminster 2nd, and by no means a restriction of their powers. “ But another very important view of the subject remains behind : for, supposing I had failed in establishing that contrast between criminal and civil cases, which is now too clear not only to require, but even to justify another observation, the argument would lose nothing by the failure ; the similarity between criminal and civil cases derives all its application to the argument from the learned Judge’s supposition, that the jurisdiction of the Jury over the law was never contended for in the latter, and consequently, on a principle of equality, could not be supported in the former ; whereas I do contend for it, and can incontestibly establish it in both. This applica- tion of the argument is plain from the words of the charge : ‘ If the Jury could find the law, it would undoubtedly hold in civil cases as well as crim- inal ; but was it ever supposed that a jury was competent to say the opera- tion of a fine, or a recovery, or a warranty ,* which are mere questions of law ?’ “To this question I answer, that the competency of the Jury in such cases is contended for to the full extent of my principle, both by Lyttleton and by Coke. They cannot, indeed, decide upon them de piano , which, as Vaughan truly says, is unintelligible, because an unmixed question of law can by no possibility come before them for decision ; but whenever (which very often happens) the operation of a fine, a recovery, a warranty, or any other record or conveyance known to the law of England comes forward, mixed with the fact on the general issue, the Jury have then most unques- tionably a right to determine it; and, what is more, no other authority possibly can ; because, when the general issue is permitted by law, these questions cannot appear on the record for the judgment of the Court, and although it can grant a new trial, yet the same question must ultimately be determined by another Jury. This is not only self-evident to every lawyer, but, as I said, is expressly laid down by Lyttleton in the 368th section : * A fine, 'which was an amicable composition, originally of an actual, and afterwards of a fictitious suit, was adopted principally as a mode of enabling a tenant in tail to acquire an estate in fee, determinable on the failure of the issue in tail ; or to acquire a title by non-claim ; or to bar the rights and pass the estates of married women. A common recovery was a judgment recovered in a fictitious suit, and its principal use was to enable a tenant in tail to bar not only the estate tail, but also all remainders over, and to acquire an absolute estate in fee simple. Tines and recoveries are now abolished by 3 and 4 Wm, IV., c. 74, and more simple modes of assurance employed to effect their objects. A warranty was a covenant real annexed to lands, whereby the grantor of the estate, for himself and his heirs, did warrant and secure to the grantee the estate so granted, and covenanted to yield other lands and tenements equal to the value of the estate granted, in case of the grantee being evicted. 312 THE MODERN ORATOR. — ‘ Also in such case where the inquest may give their verdict at large, if they will take upon them the knowledge of the law upon the matter, they may give their verdict generally as it is put in their charge ; as in the case aforesaid they may well say, that the lessor did not disseise the lessee if they will.’ Coke, in his commentary on this section, confirms Lyttleton ; saying, that in doubtful cases they should find specially for fear of an attaint ; and it is plain that the statute of Westminster the 2nd, was made either to give or to confirm the right of the Jury to find the matter specially, leaving their jurisdiction over the law as it stood by the common law. The words of the statute of Westminster 2nd, chapter 30th, are, ‘ Ordinatum est quod justitiarii ad assisas capiendas assignati , non compellant juratores dicere precise si sit disseisina vel non; dummodo voluerint dicere veritatem facti et petere auxilium justitiariorum.’ From these words it should appear, that the jurisdiction of the Jury over the law, when it came before them on the general issue, was so vested in them by the constitution, that the exercise of it in all cases had been considered to be compulsory upon them, and that this act was a legislative relief from that compulsion in the case of an assize of disseizin. It is equally plain, from the remaining words of the act, that their jurisdiction remained as before, — ‘ Sed si sponte velint dicere quod disseisina est vel non , admittatur eorum veredictum sub suo periculo.' “ But the most material observation upon this statute, as applicable to the present subject, is, that the terror of the attaint from which it was passed to relieve them, having (as has been shown) no existence in cases of crime, the act only extended to relieve the Jury at their discretion from finding the law in civil actions : and, consequently, it is only from custom, and not from positive law, that they are not even compellable to give a general verdict involving a judgment of law on every criminal trial. “ These principles and authorities certainly establish, that it is the duty of the Judge, on every trial where the general issue is pleaded, to give to the Jury his opinion on the law as applied to the case before them ; and that they must find a general verdict, comprehending a judgment of law, unless they choose to refer it specially to the Court. “ But we are here in a case where it is contended, that the duty of the Judge is the direct contrary of this ; that he is to give no opinion at all to the Jury upon the law as applied to the case before them ; that they like- wise are to refrain from all consideration of it, and yet that the very same general verdict, comprehending both fact and law, is to be given by them as if the whole legal matter had been summed up by the one, and found by thje other. “ I confess I have no organs to comprehend the principle on which such a practice proceeds. I contended for nothing more at the trial than the very practice recommended by Forster and Lord Raymond. I addressed myself to the Jury upon the law with all possible respect and deference, and, indeed, with very marked personal attention to the learned Judge. So far from urging, the Jury dogmatically to think for themselves without his constitu- tional assistance, I called for his opinion on the question of libel ; saying, LORD ERSKINE. 313 that if he should tell them distinctly the paper indicted was libellous, though I should not admit that they were bound at all events to give effect to it if they felt it to be innocent ; yet I was ready to agree that they ought not to go against the charge without great consideration ; but that if he should shut himself up in silence, giving no opinion at all upon the criminality of the paper from which alone any guilt could be fastened on the publisher, and should narrow their consideration to the publication, I entered my protest against their finding a verdict affixing the epithet of guilty to the mere fact of publishing a paper, the guilt of which had not been investigated. If, after this address to the Jury, the learned Judge had told them, that in his opinion the paper was a libel, but still leaving it to their judgments, and like- wise the defendant’s evidence to their consideration, had further told them, that he thought it did not exculpate the publication ; and if in consequence of such directions the Jury had found a verdict for the Crown, I should never have made my present motion for a new trial ; because I should have considered such a verdict of * Guilty’ as founded upon the opinion of the Jury on the whole matter as left to their consideration, and must have sought my remedy by arrest of judgment on the record. “ But the learned Judge took a direct contrary course ; he gave no opinion at all on the guilt or innocence of the paper ; he took no notice of the de- fendant’s evidence of intention ; he told the Jury, in the most explicit terms, that neither the one nor the other were within their jurisdiction ; and upon the mere fact of publication directed a general verdict comprehending the epithet of Guilty , after having expressly withdrawn from the Jury every consideration of the merits of the paper published, or the intention of the publisher, from which it is admitted on all hands the guilt of publication could alone have any existence. “ My motion is, therefore, founded upon this obvious and simple prin- ciple — that the defendant has had, in fact, no trial; having been found guilty without any investigation of his guilt , and without any power left to the Jury to take cognisance of his innocence. I undertake to show, that the Jury could not possibly conceive or believe, from the Judge’s charge, that they had any jurisdiction to acquit him ; however they might have been im- pressed even with the merit of the publication, or convinced of his merito- rious intention in publishing it : nay, what is worse, while the learned Judge totally deprived them of their whole jurisdiction over the question of libel, and the defendant’s seditious intention, he, at the same time, directed a general verdict of ‘ Guilty,’ which comprehended a judgment upon both. “ When I put this construction on the learned Judge’s direction, I found myself wholly on the language in which it was communicated ; and it will be no answer to such construction, that no such restraint was meant to be con- veyed by it. If the learned Judge’s intentions were even the direct contrary of his expressions, yet if, in consequence of that which was expressed though not intended, the Jury were abridged of a jurisdiction which belonged to them by law, and in the exercise of which the defendant had an interest, he is equally a sufferer, and the verdict given under such misconception of 314 THE MODERN ORATOR. authority is equally void : my application ought, therefore, to stand or fall by the charge itself, upon which I disclaim all disingenuous cavilling. I am certainly bound to show, that, from the general result of it, fairly and liberally interpreted, the Jury could not conceive that they had any right to extend their consideration beyond the bare fact of publication, so as to acquit the defendant by a judgment founded on the legality of the dialogue, or the honesty of the intention in publishing it. “ In order to understand the learned Judge’s direction, it must be recol- lected that it was addressed to them in answer to me, who had contended for nothing more than that these two considerations ought to rule the verdict ; and it will be seen that the charge, on the contrary, not only excluded both of them by general inference, but by expressions, arguments, and illustra- tions the most studiously selected to convey that exclusion, and to render it binding on the consciences of the Jury. After telling them, in the very beginning of his charge, that the single question for their decision was, whether the defendant had published the pamphlet ? he declared to them, that it was not even allowed to him , as the Judge trying the cause , to say whether it was or was not a libel : for that if he should say it w r as no libel, and they, following his direction, should acquit the defendant, they would thereby deprive the prosecutor of his writ of error upon the record, which was one of his dearest birthrights. The law, he said, was equal between the prosecutor and the defendant ; that a verdict of acquittal would close the matter for ever, depriving him of his appeal ; and that whatever, there- fore, was. upon the record ivas not for their decision, but might be carried, at the pleasure of either party, to the House of Lords. “ Surely, language could not convey a limitation upon the right of the Jury over the question of libel, or the intention of the publisher, more positive or more universal. It was positive, inasmuch as it held out to them that such a jurisdiction could not be entertained without injustice ; and it was universal, because the principle had no special application to the par- ticular circumstances of that trial ; but subjected every defendant upon every prosecution for a libel, to an inevitable conviction on the mere proof of pub- lishing anything , though both Judge and Jury might be convinced that the thing published was innocent and even meritorious. “ My lord, I make this commentary, without the hazard of contradiction from any man whose reason is not disordered. For if the Prosecutor, in every case, has a birthright by law to have the question of libel left open upfn the record, which it can only be by a verdict of conviction on the single fact of publishing ; no legal right can at the same time exist in the jury to shut out that question by a verdict of acquittal founded upon the merits of the publication, or the innocent mind of the publisher. Rights that are repugnant and contradictory canuot be co-existent. The jury can never have a constitutional right to do an act beneficial to the defendant, which, when done, deprives the prosecutor of a right which the same constitution has vested in him. No right can belong to one person, the exercise of which, in LORD ERSKINE. 315 every instance, must necessarily work a wrong to another. If the prosecutor of a libel has, in every instance, the privilege to try the merits of his prose- cution before the Judges, the Jury can have no right, in any instance, to preclude his appeal to them, by a general verdict for the defendant. “ The Jury therefore, from this part of the charge, must necessarily have felt themselves absolutely limited (I might say even in their powers) to the fact of publication ; because the highest restraint upon good men is to con- vince them that they cannot break loose from it without injustice : and the power of a good subject is never more effectually destroyed than when he is made to believe that the exercise of it will be a breach of his duty to the public, and a violation of the laws of his country. “ But since equal justice between the prosecutor and the defendant is the pretence for this abridgment of jurisdiction, let us examine a little how it is affected by it. Do the prosecutor and the defendant really stand upon an equal footing, by this mode of proceeding ? With what decency this can be alleged, I leave those to answer who know that it is only by the indulgence of Mr. Bearcroft, of counsel for the prosecution, that my reverend client is not at this moment in prison,* while we are discussing this notable equality. Besides, my lord, the judgment of this Court, though not final in the consti- stution, and therefore not binding on the prosecutor, is absolutelyconclusive on the defendant. If your lordships pronounce the record to contain no libel, and arrest the judgment on the verdict, the prosecutor may carry it to the House of Lords, and, pending his writ of error, it remains untouched by your lordship’s decision. But, if judgment be against the defendant, it is only at the discretion of the Crown (as it is said), and not of right, that he can prosecute any writ of error at all ; and even if he finds no obstruction in that quarter, it is but at the best an appeal for the benefit of public liberty, from which he himself can have no personal benefit ; for the writ of error being no supersedeas, the punishment is inflicted on him in the mean time. In the case of Mr. Horne,* this court imprisoned him for publishing a libel upon its own judgment, pending his appeal from its justice ; and he had suffered the utmost rigour which the law imposed upon him as a criminal, at the time that the House of Lords, with the assistance of the twelve judges of England, were gravely assembled to determine whether he had been guilty of any crime. I do not mention this case as hard or rigorous on Mr. Horne, as an individual, — it is the general course of practice ; but surely that practice ought to put an end to this argument of equality between pro- secutor and prisoner. It is adding insult to injury, to tell an innocent man who is in a duugeon, pending his writ of error, and of whose innocence both Judge and Jury were convinced at the trial, that he is in equal scales with his * Lord Mansfield ordered the Dean to be committed on the motion for the new trial, and said he had no discretion to suffer him to be at large, without consent, after his appearance in Court, on conviction. Upon which, Mr. Bearcroft gave his consent that the Dean should remain at large upon bail, f Afterwards Mr. Horne Tooke. 1 316 THE MODERN ORATOR. prosecutor, who is at large, because he has an opportunity of deciding after the expiration of his punishment, that the prosecution had been unfounded and his sufferings unjust. By parity of reasoning, a prisoner in a capital case might he hanged in the mean time, for the benefit of equal justice, leaving his executors to fight the battle out with his prosecutor upon the record, through every court in the kingdom ; by which at last his attainder might he reversed, and the blood of his posterity remain uncorrupted. What justice can be more impartial or equal ? “ So much for this right of the prosecutor of a libel to compel a jury, in every case, generally to convict a defendant on the fact of publication, or to find a special verdict, — a right unheard of before since the birth of the constitu- tion, — not even founded upon any equality in fact, even if such a shocking parity could exist in law, and not even contended to exist in any other case, where private men become the prosecutors of crimes for the ends of public justice. It can have, generally speaking, no existence in any prosecution for felony ; because the general description of the crime in such indictments, for the most part, shuts out the legal question in the particular instance from appearing on the record : and, for the same reason, it can have no place even in appeals of death, &c., the only cases where prosecutors appear as the revengers of their own private wrongs, and not as the representatives of the Crown. “ The learned Judge proceeded next to establish the same universal limi- tation upon the power of the Jury, from the history of different trials, and the practice of former judges who presided at them ; and while I am complaining of what I conceive to be injustice, I must take care not to be unjust myself. I certainly do not, nor ever did, consider the learned Judge’s misdirection in his charge to be peculiar to himself : it was only the resistance of the defen- dant’s evidence, and what passed after the Jury returned into court with the verdict, that I ever considered to be a departure from all precedents : the rest had undoubtedly the sanction of several modern cases ; and I wish, therefore, to be distinctly understood, that I partly found my motion for a new trial in opposition to these decisions. It is my duty to speak with defe- rence of all the judgments of this Court ; and I feel an additional respect for some of those I am about to combat, because they are your Lordship’s ; but, comparing them with the judgments of your predecessors for ages, which is the highest evidence of English law, I must be forgiven if I pre- sume to question their authority. “ My lord, it is necessary that I should take notice of some of them as they occur in the learned Judge’s charge ; for, although he is not responsible for the rectitude of those precedents which he only cited in support of it, yet the defendant is unquestionably entitled to a new trial, if their principles are not ratified by the Court : for whenever the learned Judge cited prece- dents to warrant the limitation on the province of the Jury imposed by his own authority, it was such an adoption of the doctrines they contained as made them a rule to the Jury in their decision. LORD ERSKINE. 317 ‘‘First, then, the learned Judge, to overturn my argument with the Jury for their jurisdiction over the whole charge, opposed your lordship’s esta- blished practice for eight-and- twenty years ; and the weight of this great authority was increased by the general manner in which it was stated ; for I find no expressions of your lordship’s, in any of the reported cases, which go the length contended for. I find the practice, indeed, fully warranted by them ; but I do not meet with the principle, which can alone vindicate that practice, fairly and distinctly avowed. The learned Judge then referred to the charge of Chief Justice Raymond, in the case of the King and Franklin,^ in which the universal limitation contended for is indeed laid down, not only in the most unequivocal expressions, but the ancient jurisdiction of juries, resting upon all the authorities I have cited, treated as a ridiculous notion which had been just taken up, a little before the year 1731, and which no man living had ever dreamed of before. The learned Judge observed, that Lord Raymond stated to the Jury on Franklin’s trial that there were three questions : the first was, the fact of publishing the “ Craftsman” — secondly, whether the averments in the information were true — but that the third, viz., whether it was a libel, was merely a question of law , with which the Jury had nothing to do , as had been then of late thought by some people who ought to have known better. “ This direction of Lord Raymond’s was fully ratified and adopted in all its extent, and given to the Jury, on the present trial, with several others of the same import, as an unerring guide for their conduct ; and surely human ingenuity could not frame a more abstract and universal limitation upon their right to acquit the defendant by a general verdict ; for Lord Raymond’s ex- pressions amount to an absolute denial of the right of the Jury to find the defendant not guilty, if the publication and innuendos are proved. ‘ Libel or no libel, is a question of law, with which you, the Jury, have nothing to do.' How, then, can they have any right to give a general verdict consistently with this declaration? Can any man in his senses collect that he has a right to decide on that with which he has nothing to do ? “ But it is needless to comment on these expressions, for the Jury were like- wise told by the learned Judge himself that, if they believed the fact of publi- cation, they were bound to find the defendant guilty ; and it will hardly be contended that a man has a right to refrain from doing that which he is bound to do. “ Mr. Cowper, as counsel for the prosecution, took upon him to explain * On the trial of the information against Franklin, 1731, for publishing the “ Crafts- man,’’ Lord Raymond, in summing up, left three questions to the Jury, saying, — “The first is as to the fact of publication ; secondly, whether the averments in the informa- tion are true, or not ; and thirdly, whether it is a libel. There are but two questions for your consideration : the third is merely a question of law, with which the Jury have nothing to do, as has now of late been thought by some people who ought to know better ; but we must always take care to distinguish between matters of law and matters of fact, and they are not to be confounded.” z 2 318 THE MODERN ORATOR. what was meant by this expression ; and I seek for no other construction : ‘ The learned Judge,’ said he, ‘ did not mean to deny the right of the Jury, hut only to convey, that there was a religious and moral obligation upon them to refrain from the exercise of it.’ Now, — if the principle which im- posed that obligation had been alleged to be special , applying only to the particular case of the Dean of St. Asaph , and consequently consistent with the right of the Jury to a more enlarged jurisdiction in other instances, — tell- ing the Jury that they were bound to convict, on proof of publication, might be plausibly construed into a recommendation to refrain from the exercise of their right in that case , and not to a general denial of its existence ; but the moment it is recollected that the principle which bound them was not parti- cular to the instance, but abstract and universal, binding alike in every pro- secution for a libel, it requires no logic to pronounce the expression to be an absolute, unequivocal, and universal denial of the right : common sense tells every man, that to speak of a person’s right to do a thing, which yet, in every possible instance where it might be exerted he is religiously and morally bound not to exert, is not even sophistry, but downright vulgar nonsense. But the Jury were not only limited by these modem precedents, which cer- tainly have an existence, but were, in my mind, limited with still greater effect by the learned Judge’s declaration, that some of those ancient autho- rities on which I had principally relied for the establishment of their juris- diction, had not merely been overruled, but were altogether inapplicable. I particularly observed how much ground I lost with the Jury, when they were told from the Bench, that even in Bushel’s case, on which I had so greatly depended, the very reverse of my doctrine had been expressly esta- blished — the Court having said unanimously in that case, according to the learned Judge’s statement, that if the Jury be asked what the law is, they cannot say, and having likewise ratified in express terms the maxim, Ad qucestionem legis non respondent juratores. “ My lord, this declaration from the Bench, which I confess not a little staggered and surprised me, rendered it my duty to look again into Vaughan, where Bushel’s case is reported. I have performed that duty, and now take . upon me positively to say, that the words of Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, which the learned Judge considered as a judgment of the Court, denying the jurisdiction of the Jury over the law, where a general issue is joined before them , were, on the contrary, made use of by that learned and excellent per- son, to expose the fallacy of such a misapplication of the maxim alluded to, by the Counsel against Bushel ; declaring that it had no reference to any case where the law and the fact were incorporated by the plea of Not guilty, and confirming the right of the Jury to find the law upon every such issue, in terms the most emphatical and expressive. This is manifest from the whole report. “ Bushel, one of the jurors on the trial of Penn and Mead, had been com- mitted by the Court for finding the defendant not guilty, against the direc- tion of the Court in matter of law ; and being brought before the Court of LORD ERSKINE. 319 Common Pleas by habeas corpus, this cause of commitment appeared upon the face of the return to the writ. It was contended by the Counsel against Bushel, upon the authority of this maxim, that the commitment was legal, since it appeared by the return, that Bushel had taken upon him to find the law against the direction of the Judge, and had been therefore legally impri- soned for that contempt. It was upon that occasion that Chief Justice Vaughan, with the concurrence of the whole Court, repeated the maxim, Ad qucestionem legis non respondent juratores, as cited by the Counsel for the Crown, but denied the application of it to impose any restraint upon jurors trying any crime upon the general issue. His language is too remarkable to be forgotten, and too plain to be misunderstood. Taking the words of the return to the habeas corpus, viz., ‘ That the Jury did acquit against the direc- tion of the Court in matter of law’ — ‘ These words,’ said this great lawyer, ‘ taken literally and de piano, are insignificant and unintelligible ; for no issue can be joined of matter of law ; no jury can be charged with the trial of matter of law barely. No evidence ever was or can be given to a jury of what is law or not ; nor any oath given to a jury to try matter of law alone ; nor can any attaint lie for such a false oath. Therefore we must take off this veil and colour of words, which make a show of being something, but are in fact nothing ; for if the meaning of these words, 4 Finding against the direction of the Court in matter of law,'' be, that if the Judge, having heard the evidence given in court (for he knows no other), shall tell the Jury, upon this evidence, that the law is for the plaintiff or the defendant, and they, under the pain of fine and imprisonment, are to find accordingly, every one sees that the Jury is but a troublesome delay, great charge, and of no use in determining right and wrong ; which were a strange and new-found conclu- sion, after a trial so celebrated for many hundreds of years in this country.’ “Lord Chief Justice Vaughan’s argument is, therefore, plainly this: — Adverting to the arguments of the Counsel, he says, You talk of the maxim, Ad qucestionem legis non respondent juratores; but it has no sort of application to your subject. The words of your return, — viz., that Bushel did acquit against the direction of the Court in matter of law, — are unintelligible, and, as applied to the case, impossible. The Jury could not be asked, in the ab- stract, what was the law ; they could not have an issue of the law joined before them ; they could not be sworn to try it. Ad qucestionem legis non respondent juratores ; therefore, to say literally and de piano that the Jury found the law against the Judge’s direction, is absurd. They could not be in a situation to find it, — an unmixed question of law could not be before them, — the Judge could not give any positive directions of law upon the trial ; for the law can only arise out of facts, and the Judge cannot know what the facts are till the Jury have given their verdict. Therefore, con- tinued the Chief Justice, let us take off this veil and colour of words, which make a show of being something, but are in fact nothing ; let us get rid of the fallacy of applying a maxim, which truly describes the jurisdiction of the Courts over issues of law, to destroy the jurisdiction of jurors, in cases where 320 THE MODERN ORATOR. law and fact are blended together upon a trial ; since, if the Jury at the trial are bound to receive the law from the Judge, every one sees that it is a mere mockery, and of no use in determining right and wrong. “ This is the plain common sense of the argument ; and it is impossible to suggest a distinction between its application to Bushel’s case and to the present, except that the right of imprisoning the jurors was there contended for, in order to enforce obedience to the directions of the Judge. But this distinction, if it deserves the name, though held up by Mr. Bearcroft as very important, is a distinction without a difference. For if, according to Vaughan, the free agency of the Jury over the whole charge, uncontrolled by the J udge’s direction, constitutes the whole of that ancient mode of trial, it signifies nothing by what means that free agency is destroyed ; whether by the imprisonment of conscience or of body ; by the operation of their virtues or of their fears. Whether they decline exerting their jurisdiction, from being told that the exertion of it is a contempt of religious and moral order, or a contempt of the Court punishable by imprisonment, their jurisdiction is equally taken away. “ My lord, I should be very sorry improperly to waste the time of the Court; but I cannot help repeating once again, that if, in consequence of the learned Judge’s directions, the Jury, from a just deference to learning and authority, from a nice and modest sense of duty, felt themselves not at liberty to deliver the defendant from the whole indictment, he has not been tried : because, though he was entitled by law to plead generally that he was not guilty, though he did in fact plead it accordingly, and went down to trial upon it, but the Jury have not been permitted to try that issue, but have been directed to find at all events a general verdict of guilty, with a positive injunction not to investigate the guilt, or even to listen to any evidence of innocence. “ My lord, I cannot help contrasting this trial with that of Colonel Gor- don’s but a few sessions past, in London. I had in my hand but this moment, an accurate note of Mr. Baron Eyre’s charge to the Jury on that occasion ; I will not detain the Court by looking for it amongst my papers, because I believe I can correctly repeat the substance of it.” Earl of Mansfield. “The case of the King against Cosmo Gordon ?” Mr. Erskine. “Yes, my lord: Colonel Gordon was indicted for the mur- der of General Thomas, whom he had killed in a duel : and the question was, whether, if the Jury were satisfied of that fact, the prisoner was to be convic- ted of murder? That was, according to Forster, as much a question of law, as libel or no libel ; but Mr. Baron Eyre did not, therefore, feel himself at liberty to withdraw it from the J ury. After stating (greatly to his honour) the hard condition of the prisoner, who was brought to a trial for life, in a case where the positive law and the prevailing manners of the times were so strongly in opposition to one another, that he was afraid the punishment of individuals would never be able to beat down an offence so sanctioned ; he addressed the Jury nearly in these words : ‘ Nevertheless, gentlemen, I LORD ERSKINE. 321 am bound to declare to you, what the law is as applied to this case, in all the different views in which it can be considered by you upon the evidence. Of this law and of the facts as you shall fnd them , your verdict must be compounded; and I persuade myself, that it will be such a one as to give satisfaction to your own consciences.’ “ Now, if Mr. Baron Eyre, instead of telling the Jury that a duel, how- ever fairly and honourably fought, was murder by the law of England, and, leaving them to find a general verdict under that direction, had said to them, that whether such a duel was murder or manslaughter, was a question with which neither he nor they had anything to do, and on which he should there- fore deliver no opinion ; and had directed them to find that the prisoner was guilty of killing the deceased in a deliberate duel, telling them, that the Court would settle the rest ; that would have been directly consonant to the case of the Dean of St. Asaph. By this direction the prisoner would have been in the hands of the Court, and the Judges, not the Jury, would have decided upon the life of Colonel Gordon. “ But the two learned Judges differ most essentially indeed. Mr. Baron Eyre conceives himself bound in duty to state the law as applied to the par- ticular facts, and to leave it to the Jury. Mr. Justice Buffer says, he is not bound nor even allowed so to state or apply it, and withdraws it entirely from their consideration. Mr. Baron Eyre tells the Jury that their verdict is to be compounded of the fact and the law. Mr. Justice Buffer, on the contrary, that it is to be confined to the fact only, the law being the exclusive province of the Court. My lord, it is not for me to settle differences of opinion-between the Judges of England, nor to pronounce which of them is wrong : but since they are contradictory and inconsistent, I may hazard the assertion that they cannot both be right : the authorities which I have cited, and the general sense of mankind which settles everything else, must determine the rest. “ My lord, I come now to a very important part of the case, untouched, I believe, before in any of the arguments on this occasion. “I mean to contend, that the learned Judge’s charge to the Jury cannot be supported even upon its own principles ; for, supposing the Court to be of opinion that all I have said in opposition to these principles is inconclusive, and that the question of libel, and the intention of the publisher, were pro- perly withdrawn from the consideration of the Jury, stiff I think I can make it appear that such a judgment would only render the misdirection more palpable and striking. “ I may safely assume, that the learned Judge must have meant to direct the Jury either to find a general or a special verdict; or, to speak more gen- erally, that one of these two verdicts must be the object of every charge : because I venture to affirm, that neither the records of the Courts, the reports of their proceedings, nor the writings of lawyers, furnish any account of a third. There can be no middle verdict between both; the Jury must either try the whole issue generally, or find the facts specially, referring the legal conclusion to the Court. 322 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ I may affirm, with certainty, that the general verdict, ex vi termini, is universally as comprehensive as the issue, and that, consequently, such a verdict on an indictment, upon the general issue, Not guilty, universally and unavoidably involves a judgment of law, as well as fact ; because the charge comprehends both, and the verdict, as has been said, is co-extensive with it. Both Coke and Littleton give this precise definition of a general verdict; for they both say, that if the Jury will find the law, they may do it by a general verdict, which is ever as large as the issue. If this be so, it follows by necessary consequence, that if the Judge means to direct the Jury to find generally against a defendant, he must leave to their consideration everything which goes to the constitution of such a general verdict, and is therefore bound to permit them to come to, and to direct them how to form that gene- ral conclusion from the law and the fact, which is involved in the term ‘ guilty.’ For it is ridiculous to say, that guilty is a fact; it is a conclusion of law from a fact, and therefore can have no place in a special verdict, where the legal conclusion is by the Court. “ In this case the defendant is charged not with having published this pamphlet, but with having published a certain false, scandalous, and wicked libel, with a seditious and rebellious intention ; he pleads that he is not guilty in manner and form as he is accused ; which plea is admitted on all hands to be a denial of the whole charge, and consequently does not merely put in issue the fact of publishing the pamphlet, but the truth of the whole indictment, that is, the publication of the libel set forth in it, with the intention charged by it. “When this issue comes down for trial, the Jury must either find the whole charge or a part of it ; and admitting, for argument sake, that the Judge has a right to dictate either of these two courses, he is undoubtedly bound in law to make his direction to the Jury conformable to the one or the other. If he means to confine the Jury to the fact of publishing, considering the guilt of the defendant to be a legal conclusion for the Court to draw from that fact, specially found on the record, he ought to direct the Jury to find that fact without affixing the epithet of ‘ guilty’ to the finding. But, if he will have a general verdict of ‘guilty,’ which involves a judgment of law as well as fact, he must leave the law to the consideration of the Jury ; since, when the word ‘ guilty,’ is pronouced by them, it is so well understood to com- prehend everything charged by the indictment, that the associate or his clerk instantly records, that the defendant is guilty in manner and form as he is accused, that is, not simply that he has published the pamphlet contained in the indictment ; — but that he is guilty of publishing the libel with the wicked intentions charged on him by the record. “Now, if this effect of a general verdict of ‘guilty’ is reflected on for a moment, the illegality of directing one upon the bare fact of publishing, will appear in the most glaring colours. The learned Judge says to the Jury, Whether this be a libel is not for your consideration; I can give no opinion on that subject without injustice to the prosecutor ; and as to what Mr. LORD ERSKINE. 323 Jones swore* concerning the defendant’s motives for the publication, that is likewise not before you : for if you are satisfied in point of fact that the defendant published this pamphlet, you are bound to find him guilty. Why guilty, my lord, when the consideration of guilt is withdrawn ? He confines the Jury to the finding of a fact* and enjoins them to leave the legal conclu- sion from it to the Court ; yet, instead of directing them to make that fact the subject of a special verdict, he desires them in the same breath to find a general one ; to draw the conclusion without any attention to the premises : to pronounce a verdict which, upon the face of the record, includes a judg- ment upon their oaths that the paper is a libel, and that the publisher’s intentions in publishing it were wicked and seditious, although neither the one nor the other made any part of their consideration. My lord, such a verdict is a monster in law, without precedent in former times, or root in the constitution. If it be true, on the principle of the charge itself, that the fact of publication was all that the Jury were to find, and all that was necessary to establish the defendant’s guilt — if the thing published be a libel, why was not that fact found, like all other facts, upon special verdicts ? Why was an epithet, which is a legal conclusion from the fact, extorted from a jury who who were restrained from forming it themselves ? The verdict must be taken to be general or special : if general, it has found the whole issue without a co-extensive examination : if special, the word ‘ guilty,’ which is a conclusion from facts, can have no place in it. Either this word ‘ guilty’ is operative or unessential ; an epithet of substance, or of form. It is impos- sible to controvert that proposition, and I give the gentlemen their choice of the alternative. If they admit it to be operative and of real substance, or, to speak more plainly, that the fact of publication found specially, without the epithet of ‘ guilty,’ would have been an imperfect verdict, inconclusive of the defendant’s guilt, and on which no judgment could have followed, then it is impossible to deny that the defendant has suffered injustice ; because such an admission confesses that a criminal conclusion from a fact has been obtained from the Jury, without permitting them to exercise that judgment which might have led them to a conclusion of innocence ; and that the word ‘guilty’ has been obtained from them at the trial, as a mere matter of form, although the verdict without it, stating only the fact of publication which they were directed to find, to which they thought the finding alone enlarged, * Mr. Edward Jones was called for the defence, and deposed that he was a member of the Flintshire Committee ; that it was intended by them to print the Dialogue in Welsh; that the Dean said he had received the pamphlet so late from Sir William Jones, that he had not had time to read it ; that he told the Dean that he had collected the opinions of gentlemen which were, that it might do harm ; and that, thereupon, the Dean told him that he was obliged to him for his information ; that he should be sorry to publish anything that tended to sedition ; and it was for that reason that it was not published in Welsh. He further stated that it was not till after the Dialogue had been spoken of in very opprobrious terms, and the Dean’s character reflected on, that the Dean stated he felt bound to show that it was not seditious, and that he ought to publish it in vindication of the Committee. 324 THE MODERN ORATOR. and beyond which they had never enlarged their inquiry, would have been an absolute verdict of acquittal. If, on the other hand, to avoid this insuper- able objection to the charge, the word ‘ guilty’ is to be reduced to a mere word of form, and it is to be contended that the fact of publication, found specially, would have been tantamount ; be it so : — let the verdict be so recorded ; — let the word 4 guilty’ be expunged from it, and I instantly sit down ; — I trouble your lordships no further : — I withdraw my motion for a new trial, and will maintain in arrest of judgment, that the Dean is not con- victed. But if this is not conceded to me, and the word ‘guilty,’ though argued to be but form, and though, as such, obtained from the Jury, is still preserved upon the record, and made use of against the defendant as sub- stance ; it will then become us (independently of all consideration as lawyers), to consider a little how that argument is to be made consistent with the honour of gentlemen, or that fairness of dealing which cannot but have place wherever justice is administered. “ But in order to establish that the word ‘guilty’ is a word of essential substance ; that the verdict would have been imperfect without it ; and that therefore the defendant suffers by its insertion ; I undertake to show your lordship, upon every principle and authority of law, that if the fact of publica- tion, which was all that was left to the Jury, had been found by special verdict, no judgment could have been given on it. “ My Lord, I will try this by taking the fullest finding which the facts in evidence could possibly have warranted. Supposing then, for instance, that the Jury had found that the defendant published the paper according to the tenor of the indictment ; that it was written of and concerning the King and his Government; and that the innuendos were likewise as averred, K. meaning the present King, and P. the present Parliament of Great Britain : on such a finding, no judgment could have been given by the Court, even if the record had contained a complete charge of a libel. No principle is more unquestionable, than that to warrant any judgment upon a special verdict, the Court which can presume nothing that is not visible on the record, must see sufficient matter upon the face of it, which, if taken to be true, is conclusive of the defendant’s guilt. They must be able to say, if this record be true, the defendant cannot be innocent of the crime which it charges on him. But, from the facts of such a verdict the Court could arrive at no such legitimate conclusion ; for it' is admitted on all hands, and indeed expressly laid down by your lordship, in the case of the King against Wood- fall, that publication even of a libel is not conclusive evidence of guilt ; for that the defendant may give evidence of an innocent publication.* “ Looking, therefore, upon a record containing a good indictment of a libel, and a verdict finding that the defendant published it, but without the * Lord Mansfield’s words were, “ There maybe cases where the fact of the publication even of a libel, may be justified or excused as lawful or innocent ; for no fact which is not criminal, even though the paper be a libel, can amount to a publication of which a defendant ought to be found guilty.” LORD ERSKINE. 325 epithet of ‘guilty/ the Court could not pronounce that he published it with the malicious intention which is the essence of the crime :*■ — they could not say what might have passed at the trial; — for anything that appeared to them, he might have given such evidence of innocent motive, necessity, or mistake, as might have amounted to excuse or justification. They would say, that the facts stated upon the verdict would have been fully sufficient in the absence of a legal defence, to have warranted the Judge to have directed, and the Jury to have given a general verdict of guilty, comprehending the intention which constitutes the crime; hut that to warrant the Bench, which is ignorant of everything at the trial, to presume that intention, and thereupon to pronounce judgment on the record, the Jury must not merely find full evidence of the crime, but such facts as compose its legal definition. This wise principle is supported by authorities which are perfectly familiar. “ If, in an action of trover, f the plaintiff proves property in himself, posses- sion in the defendant, and a demand and refusal of the thing charged to be converted ; this evidence unanswered is full proof of a conversion ; and if the defendant could not show to the Jury why he had refused to deliver the plaintiff’s property on a legal demand of it, the Judge would direct them to find him guilty of the conversion. But on the same facts found by special verdict, no judgment could be given by the Court : the Judges would say, if the special verdict contains the whole of the evidence given at the trial, the Jury should have found the defendant guilty ; for the conversion was fully proved ; but we cannot declare these facts to amount to a conversion, for the defendant’s intention was a fact, which the J ury should have found from the evidence, over which we have no jurisdiction. So, in the case put by Lord CokeJ — I believe in his first institute 115, — If a modus is found to have existed beyond memory till within thirty years before the trial, the Court cannot upon such facts found by special verdict pronounce against the modus : but any one of your lordships would certainly tell the Jury, that upon such evidence they were warranted in finding against it. In all cases of prescrip- tion, the universal practice of judges is to direct juries, by analogy to the statute of limitations, to decide against incorporeal rights, which for many * A libel is defined to be a malicious defamation expressed in printing, or writing, or by signs and pictures, &c., tending to injure the reputation of another; and thereby exposing such person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. Malice may be inferred from the libel itself, without any extrinsic evidence of it. f Trover is an action which may be maintained by any person, who has either an absolute or special property in goods, for recovering the value of such goods from ano- ther, who having, or being supposed to have, obtained possession of such goods by lawful means, has wrongfully converted them to his own use. X A modus decimandi, commonly called a modus only, is where there is, by custom, a particular manner of tithing allowed, different from the general law of taking tithes in kind, which are the actual tenth part of the annual increase. By 2 and 3 Wm. IV. c. 100, the time required to establish a modus, is now much shortened ; but previously to this act, a modus , to be good, must have been proved to have existed from the time of legal memory, that is, from the first year of Richard I., A.D. 1189, 326 THE MODERN ORATOR. years have been relinquished ; but such modern relinquishments, if stated upon the record by special verdict, would in no instance warrant a judgment against any prescription. The principle of the difference is obvious and universal : the Court looking at a record can presume nothing ; it has nothing to do with reasonable probabilities, but is to establish legal certainties by its judgments. Every crime is, like every other complex idea, capable of a legal definition : if all the component parts which go to its formation are put as facts upon the record, the Court can pronounce the perpetrator of them a criminal ; but if any of them are wanting, it is a chasm in fact, and cannot be supplied. Wherever intention goes to the essence of the charge, it must be found by the Jury ; it must be either comprehended under the word guilty in the general verdict, or specifically found as a fact by the special verdict. This was solemnly decided by the Court in Huggins’s case, in 2nd Lord Raymond, 1581, which was a special verdict of murder from the Old Bailey. It was an indictment against John Huggins and James Barnes, for the mur- der of Edward Arne. The indictment charged that Barnes made an assault upon Edward Arne, being in the custody of the other prisoner Huggins, and detained him for six weeks in a room newly built over the common sewer of the prison, where he languished and died : the indictment further charged, that Barnes and Huggins well knew that the room was unwholesome and dangerous : the indictment then charged that the prisoner Huggins, of his malice aforethought, was present, aiding, and abetting Barnes to commit the murder aforesaid. This was the substance of the indictment. “The special verdict found that Huggins was warden of the Fleet by letters patent: that the other prisoner Barnes was servant to Huggins, deputy in the care of all the prisoners, and of the deceased, a prisoner there. That the prisoner Barnes, on the 7th of September, put the deceased Arne in a room over the common sewer, which had been newly built, knowing it be newly built and damp, and situated as laid in the indictment : and that , fifteen days before the prisoner s death , Huggins likeicise well knew that the room was new built , damp , and situated as laid. They found that , fifteen days before the death of the prisoner, Huggins was present in the room, and saw him there under duress of imprisonment, but then and there turned away , and Barnes locked the door , and that from that time , till his death , the deceased remained locked up. “ It was argued before the twelve Judges, in Serjeants Inn, whether Hug- gins was guilty of murder. It was agreed that he was not answerable crimi- nally, for the act of his deputy, and could not be guilty, unless the criminal intention was brought personally home to himself. And it is remarkable how strongly the Judges required the fact of knowledge and malice to be stated on the face of the verdict, as opposed to evidence of intention, and inference from a fact. “ The Court said, It is chiefly relied on that Huggins was present in the room, and saw Arne sub duritie imprisonamenti , et se avertit; but he might be present, and not know all the circumstances ; the words are vidit sub duritie ; but he might see him under duress, and not know he was under duress : it LORD ERSKINE. 327 was answered that, seeing him under duress, evidently means, he knew he was under duress ; but, says the Court, * We cannot take things by inference in this manner ; his seeing is but evidence of his knowledge of these things ; and therefore the Jury , if the fact would have borne it, should have found that Huggins knew he was there without his consent ; which not being done , we can- not intend these things nor infer them ; we must judge of facts , and not from the evidence of facts and cited Kelynge, 78 ; that whether a man be aiding and abetting a murder is matter of fact, and ought to be expressly found by a jury. “ The application of these last principles and' authorities to the case before the Court is obvious and simple. The criminal intention is a fact, and must be found by the Jury; and that finding can only be expressed upon the record by the general verdict of Guilty which comprehends it, or by the special enumeration of such facts as do not merely amount to evidence of, but which completely and conclusively constitute, the crime. But it has been shown, and is, indeed, admitted, that the publication of a libel is only prima facie evidence of the complex charge in the indictment, and not such a fact as amounts in itself, when specially stated, to conclusive guilt ; since, as the Judges cannot tell how the criminal inference from the fact of publishing a libel, might have been rebutted at the trial ; no judgment can follow from a special finding, that the defendant published the paper indicted, according to the tenor laid in the indictment. It follows from this, that if the Jury had only found the fact of publication, which was all that was left to them, with- out affixing the epithet of Guilty , which could only be legally affixed by an investigation not permitted to them ; a venire facias de novo must have been awarded because of the uncertainty of the verdict as to the criminal intention : whereas, it will now be argued, that if the Court shall hold the Dialogue to be a libel, the defendant is fully convicted ; because the verdict does not merely find that he published, which is a finding consistent with innocence, but finds him guilty of publishing, which is a finding of the criminal publi- cation charged by the indictment. “ My lord, how I shall be able to defend my innocent client against such an argument, I am not prepared to say ; I feel all the weight of it ; but that feeling, surely entitles me to greater attention, when I complain of that which subjects him to it, without the warrant of the law. It is the weight of such an argument that entitles me to a new trial ; for the Dean of St. Asaph is not only found guilty, without any investigation of his guilt by the Jury, but without that question being even open to your lordships on the record. Upon the record the Court can only say the Dialogue is, or is not, a libel ; but if it should pronounce it to be one, the criminal intention of the defendant in publishing it is taken for granted by the word Guilty ; although it has not only not been tried, but evidently appears from the verdict itself, not to have been found by the Jury. Their verdict is, ‘ Guilty of publishing ; but whether a libel or not, they do not find.’ And, it is, therefore, impossible to say, that they can have found a criminal motive in publishing a paper, on the crimi- 328 THE MODERN ORATOR. nality of which they have formed no judgment. Printing and publishing that which is legal, contains in it no crime ; — the guilt must arise from the publication of a libel ; and, there is, therefore, a palpable repugnancy on the face of the verdict itself, which first finds the Dean guilty of publishing, and then renders the finding a nullity, by pronouncing ignorance in the Jury whether the thing published comprehends any guilt. “To conclude this part of the subject, the epithet of Guilty — as I set out with at first — must either be taken to be substance, or form. If it be sub- stance, and, as such, conclusive of the criminal intention of the publisher, should the thing published be hereafter adjudged to be a libel, I ask a new trial, because the defendant’s guilt in that respect has been found without having been tried ; if, on the other hand, the word guilty is admitted to be but a word of form, then let it be expunged, and I am not hurt by the verdict. “ Having now established, according to my two first propositions, that the Jury upon every general issue, joined in a criminal case, have a constitutional jurisdiction over the whole charge ; I am next, in support of my third, to contend, that the case of a libel forms no legal exception to the general prin- ciples which govern the trial of all other crimes ; that the argument for the difference, — viz., because the whole charge always appears on the record — is false in fact, and that, even if true, it would form no substantial difference in law. “ As to the first, I still maintain that the whole case does by no means necessarily appear on the record. The Crown may indict part of the publi- cation, which may bear a criminal construction when separated from the con- text, and the context omitted having no place in the indictment, the defen- dant can neither demur to it, nor arrest the judgment after a verdict of Guilty ; because the Court is absolutely circumscribed by what appears on the record, and the record contains a legal charge of a libel. “ I maintain, likewise, that, according to the principles adopted upon this trial, he is equally shut out from such defence before the Jury ; for though he may read the explanatory context in evidence, yet he can derive no advan- tage from reading it, if they are tied down to find him guilty of publishing the matter which is contained in the indictment, however its innocence may be established by a view of the whole work. The only operation which, look- ing at the context, it can have upon a jury is, to convince them that the matter upon the record, however libellous when taken by itself, was not in- tended to convey the meaning which the words indicted import in language, when separated from the general scope of the 'writing : but upon the principle contended for, they could not acquit the defendant upon any such opinion, for that would be to take upon them the prohibited question of libel, which is said to be matter of law for the Court. “ My learned friend, Mr. Bearcroft, appealed to his audience with an air of triumph, whether any sober man could believe, that an English Jury, in the case I put from Algernon Sidney, would convict a defendant of publishing LORD ERSKINE. 329 the Bible, should the Crown indict a member of a verse which was blasphe- mous in itself if separated from the context * My lord, if my friend had attended to me, he would have found, that, in considering such suppo- sition as an absurdity, he was only repeating my own words. I never supposed that a jury would act so wickedly, or so absurdly, in a case where the principle contended for by my friend Mr. Bearcroft carried so palpable a face of injustice, as in the instance which I selected to expose it; and which I therefore selected to show, that there were cases in which the supporters of the doctrine were ashamed of it, and obliged to deny its operation : for it is impossible to deny that, if the Jury can look at the context, in the case put by Sidney, and acquit the defendant on the merits of the thing published, they may do it in cases which will directly operate against the principle he seems to support. This will appear from other instances, where the injustice is equal, but not equally striking. “ Suppose the Crown were to select some passage from Locke, upon Government ; as, for instance , 4 that there was no difference between the King and the Constable , when either of them exceeded their authority.'’ That assertion, under certain circumstances, if taken by itself, without the context, might be highly seditious, and the question, therefore, would be, quo animo it was written : — perhaps the real meaning of the sentence might not be discover- able by the immediate context without a view of the whole chapter, — per- haps of the whole book ; therefore — to do justice to the defendant, upon the the very principle by which Mr. Bearcroft, in answering Sidney’s case, can alone acquit the publisher of his Bible, — the Jury must look into the whole Essay on Government, and form a judgment of the design of tlm author, and the meaning of his work.” Lord Mansfield. “ To be sure they may judge from the whole work.” Mr. Erskine. “ And what is this, my lord, but determining the question of libel which is denied to day ? for, if a jury may acquit the publisher of any part of Mr. Locke on Government, from a judgment arising out of a view of the whole book, though there be no innuendosf to be filled up as facts in the indictment, — what is it that bound the Jury to convict the Dean of St. Asaph, as the publisher of Sir William Jones’s Dialogue, on the bare fact, of publication, without the right of saying that his observations as well as Mr. Locke’s, were speculative, abstract, and legal ?” * The case supposed a bookseller having published the Bible, and being indicted thus, “ That, intending to promote atheism and irreligion, he had blasphemously printed and published, the following false and profane libel — * There is no God ” and, in moving for the Rule Nisi , Mr. Erskine argued, that consistently with the principles which governed the Judge, in the Dean of St. Asaph’s case, the Court would in such a case forbid the Jury looking at the context, by which it would appear that the words formed part only of a verse in the Psalms, ‘ The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,’ and would direct them only to consider the fact, whether the defendant published the words laid in the indictment. f By innuendos in indictments and other pleadings, is meant, an explanation of a 330 THE MODERN ORATOR. Lord Mansfield. “They certainly may, in all cases, go into the "whole context.” Mr. Er shine. “And why may they go into the context ? Clearly, my lord, to enable them to form a correct judgment of the meaning of the part indicted, even though no particular meaning be submitted to them by aver- ments in the indictment ; and, therefore, the very permission to look at the context for such a purpose (where there are no innuendos to be filled up by them as facts), is a palpable admission of all I am contending for, namely, the right of the Jury to judge of the merits of the paper, and the intention of its author. “But it is said, that, though a jury have a right to decide that a paper, criminal as far as it appears on the record, is, nevertheless, legal when explained by the whole work of which it is a part ; yet, that they shall have no right to say that the whole work itself, if it happens to be all indicted, is innocent and legal. This proposition, my lord, upon the bare stating of it, seems too preposterous to be seriously entertained ; yet there is no alterna- tive between maintaining it in its full extent, and abandoning the whole argument. “If the defendant is indicted for publishing part of the verse in the Psalms, ‘There is no God,’ it is asserted that the Jury may look at the con- text, and, seeing that the whole verse did not maintain that blasphemous proposition, but only that the fool had said so in his heart, may acquit the defendant upon a judgment that it is no libel to impute such imagination to a fool: but if the whole verse had been indicted, namely, ‘The fool has said in his heart, There is no God the Jury, on the principle contended for, would be restrained from the same judgment of its legality, and must convict of blasphemy on the fact of publishing, leaving the question of libel untouched on the record. “ If, in the same manner, only part of this very dialogue had been indicted instead of the whole, it is said, even by your lordship, that the Jury might have read the context, and then, nothwithstanding the fact of publishing, might have collected from the whole its abstract and speculative nature, and have acquitted the defendant upon that judgment of it ; and yet it is con- tended that they have no right to form the same judgment of it upon the present occasion, although the whole be before them upon the face of the indictment, but are bound to convict the defendant upon the fact of publish- ing, notwithstanding they should have come to the same judgment of its legality, which it is admitted they might have come to, on trying an indict- ment for the publication of a part. Really, my lord, the absurdities and word, by reference to something that has preceded it. An innuendo can only explain in cases where something already appears upon the record to ground the explanation. Thus, in an action against a man for the words^“He is a thief,” if, in any previous part of the record, the words had been charged to have been spoken of and concerning the plaintiff, in any subsequent part, the defendant’s meaning in the use of the word “ He,” in “ He is a thief” may be explained by innuendo, “ thereby meaning the said plaintiff LORD ERSKINE. 331 gross departures from reason, which must be hazarded to support this doctrine, are endless. “ The criminality of the paper is said to be a question of law, yet the meaning of it, from which alone the legal interpretation can arise, is admitted to be a question of fact. If the text he so perplexed and dubious as to require innuendos to explain, to point and to apply obscure expression or construction, the Jury alone, as judges of fact, are to interpret and to say what sentiments the author must have meant to convey by his writing : yet, if the writing be so plain and intelligible as to require no averments of its meaning, it then becomes so obscure and mysterious as to be a question of law, and beyond the reach of the very same men, who, but a moment before, were interpreters for the Judges ; and though its object be most obviously peaceable and its author innocent, they are bound to say upon their oaths, that it is wicked and seditious, and the publisher of it guilty. “As a question of fact the Jury are to try the real sense and construction of the words indicted, by comparing them with the context ; and yet, if that context itself, which affords the comparison, makes part of the indictment, the whole becomes a question of law, and they are then bound down to con- vict the defendant on the fact of publishing it, without any jurisdiction over the meaning. To complete the juggle, the intention of the publisher may likewise be shown as a fact, by the evidence of any extrinsic circumstances, such as the context, to explain the writing, or the circumstances of mistake or ignorance under which it was published ; and yet, in the same breath, the intention is pronounced to be an inference of law from the act of publication, which the Jury cannot exclude, but which must depend upon the future judgment of the Court. “ But the danger of this system is no less obvious than its absurdity. I do not believe that its authors ever thought of inflicting death upon English- men, without the interposition of a jury ; yet its establishment^ would un- questionably extend to annihilate the substance of that trial in every prose- cution for high treason, where the publication of any writing was laid as the overt act. I illustrated this by a case, when I moved for a rule, and called upon my friends for an answer to it; but no notice has been taken of it by any of them. This was just what I expected: when a convincing answer cannot be found to an objection, those who understand controversy never give strength to it by a weak one. “ I said, and I again repeat, that if an indictment charges that a defendant did traitorously intend, compass, and imagine the death of the King ; and, in order to carry such treason into execution, published a paper, which it sets out literatim on the face of the record, the principle which is laid down to-day would subject that person to the pains of death by the single authority of the Judges, without leaving anything to the Jury, but the bare fact of publishing the paper. For, if that fact were proved and the defendant called no witnesses, the Judge who tried him would be warranted, nay bound in duty by the principle in question, to say to the Jury, — Gentlemen, the 2 A 332 THE MODERN ORATOR. overt act of treason charged upon the defendant, is the publication of this paper, intending to compass the death of the King ; the fact is proved, and you are therefore bound to convict him : the treasonable intention is an inference of law from the act of publishing ; and if the thing published does not, upon a future examination, intrinsically support that inference, the Court will arrest the judgment, and your verdict will not affect the prisoner. “ My lord, I will rest my whole argument upon the analogy between these two cases, and give up every objection to the doctrine when applied to the one, if, upon the strictest examination, it shall not be found to apply equally to the other. “ If the seditious intention be an inference of law, from the fact of publish- ing the paper which this indictment charges to be a libel, — is not the treasonable intention equally an inference from the fact of publishing that paper, which the other indictment charges to be an overt act of treason ? In the one case, as in the other, the writing or publication of a paper is the whole charge ; and the substance of the paper so written or published makes all the difference between the two offences. If that substance be matter of law where it is a seditious libel, it must be matter of law where it is an act of treason : and if, because it is law, the Jury are excluded from judging it in the one instance, their judgment must suffer an equal abridgment in the other. The consequence is obvious. If the Jury, by an appeal to their con- sciences, are to be thus limited in the free exercise of that right which was given them by the constitution, to be a protection against judicial authority, where the weight and majesty of the Crown is put into the scale against an obscure individual, — the freedom of the press is at an end: for how can it be said that the press is free because everything may be published without a previous license, if the publisher of the most meritori- ous work which the united powers of genius and patriotism ever gave to the world may be prosecuted by information of the King’s Attorney- General, without the consent of the Grand Jury, — may be convicted by the Petty Jury, on the mere fact of publishing (who indeed, without perjuring themselves, must on this system inevitably convict him), and must then depend upon Judges, who may be the supporters of the very Administration whose measures are questioned by the defendant, and who must therefore either give judgment against him or against themselves. “ To all this Mr. Bearcroft shortly answers, Are you not in the hands of the same judges, with respect to your property, and even to your life, when special verdicts are found in murder, felony, and treason ? In these cases do prisoners run any hazard from the application of the law by the Judges, to the facts found by the Juries ? Where can you possibly be safer ? “ My lord, this is an argument which I can answer without indelicacy or offence, because your lordship’s mind is much too liberal to suppose that I insult the Court by general observations on the principles of our legal go- vernment. However safe we might be, or might think ourselves, the constitu- tion never intended to invest judges with a discretion, which cannot be tried LOUD ERSKINE. 333 and measured by the plain and palpable standard of law ; and in all the cases put by Mr. Bearcroft, no such loose discretion is exercised as must be enter- tained by a judgment on a seditious libel, and therefore the cases are not parallel. “ On a special verdict for murder, the life of the prisoner does not depend upon the religious, moral, or philosophical ideas of the Judges, concerning the nature of homicide : no ; precedents are searched for, and if he is con- demned at all, he is judged exactly by the same rule as others have been judged by before him ; his conduct is brought to a precise, clear, intelligible standard, and cautiously measured by it : it is the law, therefore, and not the Judge, which condemns him. It is the same in all indictments, or civil actions, for slander upon individuals. “ Reputation is a personal right of the subject — indeed, the most valuable of any — and it is, therefore, secured by law, and all injuries to it clearly ascertained. Whatever slander hurts a man in his trade — subjects him to danger of life, liberty, or loss of property — or tends to render him infamous — is the subject of an action, and, in some instances, of an indictment.*' But in all these cases, where the malus animus is found by the Jury, the Judges are in like manner a safe repository of the legal consequence ; because such libels may be brought to a well-known standard of strict and positive law : they leave no discretion in the Judges. The determination of what words, when written or spoken of another, are actionable, or the subject of an indictment, leaves no more latitude to a court sitting in judgment on the record, than a question of title does in a special verdict in ejectment. “ But I beseech your lordship to consider by what rule the legality or illegality of this Dialogue is to be decided by the Court as a question of law upon the record. Mr. Bearcroft has admitted, in the most unequivocal terms — what, indeed, it was impossible for him to deny — that every part of it, when viewed in the abstract, was legal ; but he says, there is a great distinction to be taken between speculation and exhortation, and that it is this latter which makes it a libel. I readily accede to the truth of the obser- vation ; but how your lordship is to determine that difference as a question of law, is past my comprehension ; for if the Dialogue, in its phrase and composition, be general, and its libellous tendency arises from the purpose of the writer to raise discontent by a seditious application of legal doctrines, that purpose is surely a question of fact, if ever there was one, and must therefore be distinctly averred in the indictment, to give the cognizance of it as a fact to the J ury, without which no libel can possibly appear upon the record. This is well known to be the only office of the innuendo ; because the Judges can presume nothing, which the strictest rules of grammar do not warrant them to collect intrinsically from the writing itself. “ Circumscribed by the record, your lordship can form no judgment of the * The general rule is, that wherever an action will lie for slander, without laying special damage, an indictment will lie for the same words, if reduced to writing and published. 2 a 2 334 THE MODERN ORATOR. tendency of this Dialogue to excite sedition by anything but the mere words. You must look at it as if it was an old manuscript dug out of the ruins of Herculaneum : you can collect nothing from the time when, or the circum- stances under which, it was published — the person by whom, and those amongst whom, it was circulated ; yet these may render a paper, at one time and under some circumstances, dangerously wicked and seditious, which, at another time and under different circumstances, might be innocent and highly meritorious. If puzzled by a task so inconsistent with the real sense and spirit of judicature, your lordship should spurn the fetters of the record, and, judging with the reason rather than the infirmities of men, should take into your consideration the state of men’s minds on the subject of equal re- presentation at this moment, and the great disposition of the present times to revolution in government, — if, reading the record with these impressions, your lordships should be led to a judgment not warranted by an abstract consideration of the record, — then, besides that such a judgment would be founded on facts not in evidence before the Court, and not within its juris- diction if they were, let me further remind your lordships that, even if those objections to the premises were removed, the conclusion would be no con- clusion of law. Your decision on the subject might be very sagacious as politicians, as moralists, as philosophers, or as licensers of the press ; but they would have no resemblance to the judgments of an English court of w justice, because it could have no warrant from the act of your predecessors, nor afford any precedent to your successors. “ But all these objections are perfectly removed, when the seditious ten- dency of a paper is considered as a question of fact : we are then relieved from the absurdity of legal discussion, separated from all the facts from which alone the law can arise ; for the Jury can do what (as I observed before) your lordships cannot do in judging by the record, — they can examine by evidence all those circumstances that tend to establish the seditious ten- dency of the paper, from which the Court is shut out — they may know themselves, or it may be proved before them, that it has excited sedition already — they may collect from witnesses that it has been widely circulated and seditiously understood— or, if the prosecution (as is ■wisest) precedes these consequences, and the reasoning must be a priori, surely gentlemen living in the country are much better judges than your lordship, what has or has not a tendency to disturb the neighbourhood in which they live, and that very neighbourhood is the forum of criminal trial. “ If they know that the subject of the paper is the topic that agitates the country around them, — if they see danger in that agitation, and have reason to think that the publisher must have intended it, — they say he is guilty. If, on the other hand, they consider the paper to be legal, and enlightened in principle, likely to promote a spirit of activity and liberty in times when the activity of such a spirit is essential to the public safety, and have reason to believe it to be written and published in that spirit, they say, as they ought to do, that the writer or the publisher is not guilty. Whereas your lordships’ judgment upon the language of the record must ever be in the LORD ERSKINE. 33 O pure abstract ; operating blindly and indiscriminately upon all times, circum- stances, and intentions ; making no distinction between the glorious attempts of a Sidney or a Russel, struggling against the terrors of despotism under the Stuarts, and those desperate adventurers of the year forty -five, who libelled the person, and excited rebellion against the mild and gracious government, of our late excellent sovereign King George the Second. “ My lord, if the independent gentlemen of England are thus better qua- lified to decide from cause of knowledge, it is no offence to the Court to say, that they are full as likely to decide with impartial justice as judges ap- pointed by the Crown. Your lordships have but a life interest in the public property, but they have an inheritance in it for their children. Their landed property depends upon the security of the government, and no man who wantonly attacks it can hope or expect to escape from the selfish lenity of a jury. On the first principles of human action they must lean heavily against him. It is only when the pride of Englishmen is insulted by such doctrines as I am opposing to-day, that they may be betrayed into a verdict delivering the guilty, rather than surrender the rights by which alone inno- cence in the day of danger can be protected. “ I venture, therefore, to say, in support of one of my original proposi- tions, that — where a writing indicted as a libel neither contains, nor is averred by the indictment to contain, any slander of an individual, so as to fall within those rules of law which protect personal reputation, but whose criminality is charged to consist, as in the present instance, in its tendency to stir up general discontent — the trial of such an indictment neither involves, nor can in its obvious nature involve, any abstract question of law for the judgment of a court, but must wholly depend upon the judg- ment of the Jury on the tendency of the writing itself to produce such con- sequences, when connected with all the circumstances which attended its publication. “ It is unnecessary to push this part of the argument further, because I have heard nothing from the Bar against the position which it maintains ; none of the gentlemen have, to my recollection, given the Court any one single reason, good or bad, why the tendency of a paper to stir up discontent against Government, separated from all the circumstances which are ever shut out from the record, ought to be considered as an abstract question of law. They have not told us where we are to find any matter in the books, to enable us to argue such questions before the Court ; or where your lord- ships yourselves are to find a rule for your judgments on such subjects. I confess that to me it looks more like legislation, or arbitrary power, than English judicature. If the Court can say, this is a criminal writing — not because we know that mischief was intended by its author, or is even con- tained in itself, but because fools, believing the one and the other, may do mischief in their folly, — the suppression of such writings under particular circumstances may be wise policy in a state ; but upon what principle it can be criminal law in England, to be settled in the abstract by judges, I confess with humility that I have no organs to understand. 336 THE MODERN ORATOR. “Mr. Leycester felt the difficulty of maintaining such a proposition by any argument of law, and therefore had recourse to an argument of fact. ‘ If,’ says my learned friend, £ what is or is not a seditious libel, be not a question of law for the Court, but of fact for the Jury, upon what principle do defendants, found guilty of such libels by a general verdict, defeat the judgment for error on the record ; and what is still more in point, upon what principle does Mr. Erskine himself, if he fails in his present motion, mean to ask your lordships to arrest this very judgment by saying that the Dialogue is not a libel ?’ “ My lord, the observation is very ingenious, and God knows the argument requires that it should ; but it is nothing more. The arrest of judgment which follows after a verdict of Guilty for publishing a writing, which on inspection of the record exhibits to the Court no specific offence against the law, is no impeachment of my doctrine. I never denied such a jurisdiction to the Court. My position is, that no man shall be punished for the criminal breach of any law, until a jury of his equals have pronounced him guilty in mind as well as in act. Actus non facit reurn nisi mens sit rea. “ But I never asserted that a jury had the power to make criminal law, as well as to administer it ; and therefore it is clear that they cannot deliver over a man to punishment, if it appears by the record of his accusation — which it is the office of judicature to examine — that he has not offended against any positive law ; because, however criminal he may have been in his disposition, which is a fact established by the verdict, yet statute and precedents can alone decide what is by law an indictable offence. “ If, for instance, a man were charged by an indictment with having held a discourse in words highly seditious, and were found guilty by the Jury, it is evident that it is the province of the Court to arrest that judgment ; because, though the Jury have found that he spoke the words as laid in the indict- ment, with the seditious intention charged upon him, which they, and they only, could find ; yet, as the words are not punishable by indictment, as when committed to writing, the Court could not pronounce judgment : the declaration of the Jury, that the defendant was guilty in manner and form as accused, could evidently never warrant a judgment, if the accusation itself contained no charge of an offence against the law. “ In the same manner, if a butcher were indicted for privately putting a sheep to causeless and unnecessary torture in the exercise of his trade, but not in public view, so as to be productive of evil example, and the Jury should find him guilty, I am afraid that no judgment could follow ; because, though done malo animo , yet neither statute nor precedent have perhaps determined it to be an indictable offence : it would be difficult to draw the line. An indictment would not lie for every inhuman neglect of the suffer- ings of the smallest innocent animals which Providence has subjected to us : “ * Yet the poor beetle, which we tread upon, In corporal suffering feels a pang as great As when a giant dies.’ LORD ERSKINE. 337 “ A thousand other instances might be brought of acts base and immoral, and prejudicial in their consequences, which are yet not indictable by law. “ In the case of the King against Brewer, in Cowper’s Reports, it was held that knowingly exposing to sale and selling gold under sterling for standard gold is not indictable ; because the act refers to goldsmiths only, and private cheating is not a common-law offence.* Here, too, the declara- tion of the Jury that the defendant is guilty in manner and form as accused, does not change the nature of the accusation. The verdict does not go be- yond the charge ; and if the charge he invalid in law, the verdict must be invalid also. All these cases, therefore, and many similar ones which might be put, are clearly consistent with my principle. I do not seek to erect jurors into legislators or judges ; — there must be a rule of action in every society, which it is the duty of the legislature to create, and of judicature to expound when created ; — I only support their right to determine guilt or innocence where the crime charged is blended by the general issue with the intention of the criminal ; more especially when the quality of the act itself, even independent of that intention, is not measurable by any precise prin- ciple or precedent of law, but is inseparably connected with the time when, the place where, and the circumstances under which, the defendant acted. “ My lord, in considering libels of this nature, as opposed to slander on individuals, to be mere questions of fact, or at all events to contain matter fit for the determination of the Jury, I am supported not only by the general practice of Courts, but even of those very practisers themselves, who, in prosecuting for the Crown, have maintained the contrary doctrine. “ Your lordships will, I am persuaded, admit that the general practice of the profession — more especially of the very heads of it, prosecuting, too, for the public — is strong evidence of the law. Attorney- generals have seldom entertained such a jealousy of the King’s judges in state prosecutions, as to lead them to make presents of jurisdiction to juries, which did not belong to them of right by the constitution of the country. Neither can it be sup- posed that men in high office and of great experience should, in every instance, though differing from each other in temper, character, and talents, uniformly fall into the same absurdity of declaiming to juries upon topics totally irrelevant, when no such inconsistency is found to disfigure the pro- fessional conduct of the same men in other cases. Yet I may appeal to your lordship’s recollection, without having recourse to the state trials, whether, upon every prosecution for a seditious libel within living memory, the Attorney-general has not uniformly stated such writings at length to the Jury, pointed out their seditious tendency which rendered them criminal, and exerted all his powers to convince them of their illegality, as the very point on which their verdict for the Crown was to be founded. “ On the trial of Mr. Horne, for publishing an advertisement in favour of the widows of those American subjects who had been murdered by the * But cheating is now, by 7 and 8 Geo. IV., c. 29, s. 53, a statutable offence. 338 THE MODERN ORATOR. King's troops at Lexington,* * * § did the present Chancellor,! then Attorney- general, content himself with saying that he had proved the publication, and that the criminal quality of the paper which raised the legal inference of guilt against the defendant was matter for the Court ? No, my lord ; he went at great length into its dangerous and pernicious tendency, and applied himself with skill and ability to the understandings and the consciences of the jurors. This instance is in itself decisive of his opinion. That great magistrate could not have acted thus upon the principle contended for to-day. He never was an idle declaimer : close and masculine argument is the characteristic of his understanding. “ The character and talents of the late Lord Chief Justice De Grey no less entitle me to infer his opinion from his uniform conduct. In all such prosecutions, while he was in office, he held the same language to juries ; and particularly in the case of the King against Woodfall,J — to use the expression of a celebrated writer on the occasion, § — ‘ he tortured his faculties for more than an hour, to convince them that Junius’s letter was a libel.’ “ The opinions of another Crown lawyer, who has since passed through the first offices of the law, and filled them with the highest reputation, I am not driven to collect alone from his language as an Attorney-general ; because he carried them with him to the seat of justice. Yet one case is too remarkable to be omitted. “ Lord Camden, prosecuting Doctor Shebbeare, told the Jury that he did not desire their verdict upon any other principle than their solemn conviction of the truth of the information, which charged the defendant with a wicked design to alienate the hearts of the subjects, of this country from their king upon the throne. “ To complete the account : my learned friend, Mr. Bearcroft, though last, not least in favour, upon this very occasion, spoke above an hour to the Jury at Shrewsbury, to convince them of the libellous tendency of the Dialogue, which soon afterwards the learned Judge desired them wholly to dismiss from their consideration, as matter with which they had no concern. The * Mr. Horne (afterwards Horne Tooke), in 1775, being a member of the “Society for Constitutional Information,” and eager for celebrity, moved, at a meeting of that Society, “ That a subscription be raised for the widow's, orphans, and aged parents of their American fellow-subjects, who, preferring death to slavery, were, for this reason only, murdered by the King’s troops at Lexington and Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775.” The sum of £100 was voted, and Mr. Horne took on himself the responsibility of signing the order for transmitting it to Dr. Franklin ; in consequence of W'hich he was prosecuted, and sentenced to pay £200, to be imprisoned one year, and to find se- curities for three. f Lord Thurlow. X "Woodfall, the printer, was prosecuted in 1770, for the publication of the celebrated Letter of Junius to the King. On the trial before Lord Mansfield, in consequence of his Lordship’s direction to the Jury, excluding from them the question of the letter being a libel or not, a verdict was returned of “ Guilty of printing and publishing only § Junius. See the Preface to “ Junius’s Letters.’’ LORD ERSKINE. 339 real fact is, that the doctrine is too absurd to be acted upon — too distorted in principle to admit of consistency in practice. It is contraband in law, and can only be smuggled by those who introduce it. It requires great talents and great address to hide its deformity : in vulgar hands it becomes con- temptible. “ Having supported the rights of juries, by the uniform practice of Crown lawyers, let us now examine the question of authority, and see how this Court itself, and its Judges, have acted upon trials for libels in former times ; for, according to Lord Raymond, in Franklin’s case,* as cited by Mr. Justice Buller, at Shrewsbury, the principle I am supporting had, it seems, been only broached about the year 1731, by some men of party spirit, and then, too, for the very first time. “ My lord, such an observation in the mouth of Lord Raymond, proves how dangerous it is to take up as doctrine every thing flung out at Nisi Prius ; above all, upon subjects which engage the passions and interests of Govern- ment. The most solemn and important trials with which history makes us acquainted, discussed too at the bar of this court, when filled with judges the most devoted to the Crown, afford the most decisive contradiction to such an unfounded and unguarded assertion. “ In the famous case of the seven Bishops, f the question of libel or no libel was held unanimously by the Court of King’s Bench trying the cause at the bar, to be matter for the consideration and determination of the Jury ; and the Bishops’ petition to the King, which was the subject of the information, was accordingly delivered to them, when they withdrew to consider of their verdict. “ Thinking this case decisive, I cited it at the trial, and the answer it received from Mr. Bearcroft was, that it had no relation to the point in dis- pute between us, for that the bishops were acquitted not upon the question of libel, but because the delivery of the petition to the King was held to be no publication. “ I was not a little surprised at this statement, but my turn of speaking was then past ; fortunately, to-day it is my privilege to speak last, and I have now lying before me the fifth volume of the State Trials, where the case of the bishops is printed, and where it appears that the publication was ex- pressly proved, — that nothing turned upon it in the judgment of the Court,— and that the charge turned wholly upon the question of libel, which was ex- pressly left to the Jury by every one of the Judges. Lord Chief Justice Wright, in summing up the evidence, told them that a question had at first arisen about the publication, it being insisted on, that the delivery of the petition to the King had not been proved ; that the Court was of the same * See ante p. 317. f Committed to the Tower by James II., A.D. 1688, and prosecuted for petitioning the King against their being required to promulgate his second declaration of indul- gence in favour of the Roman Catholics. 340 THE MODERN ORATOR. opinion ; and that he was just going to have directed them to find the bishops not guilty, when in came my Lord President (such sort of witnesses were, no doubt, always at hand when wanted), who proved the delivery to his Majesty. 6 Therefore,’ continued the Chief Justice, ‘ if you believe it was the same petition, it is a publication sufficient, and we must, therefore, come to inquire whether it be a libel.’ 44 He then gave his reasons for thinking it within the case de libellis famosis , and concluded, by saying to the Jury, 4 In short, I must give you my opinion : I do take it to be a libel ; if my brothers have any thing to say to it, I sup- pose they will deliver their opinion.’ What opinion? — not that the Jury had no jurisdiction to judge of the matter, but an opinion for the express purpose of enabling them to give that judgment which the law required at their hands. “ Mr. Justice Holloway then followed the Chief Justice ; and so pointedly was the question of libel or no libel, and not the publication, the only matter which remained in doubt, and which the Jury, with the assistance of the Court, were to decide upon, that when the learned Judge went into the facts which had been in evidence, the Chief Justice said to him, 4 Look you ; by the way, brother, I did not ask you to sum up the evidence, but only to de- liver your opinion to the Jury, whether it be a libel or no.’ The Chief Justice’s remark, though it proves my position, was, however, very unneces- sary ; for, but a moment before, Mr. Justice Holloway had declared he did not think it was a libel, but, addressing himself to the Jury, had said, 4 It is left to you , gentlemen .’ 44 Mr. Justice Powell, who likewise gave his opinion that it was no libel, said to the Jury, 4 But the matter of it is before you , and I leave the issue of it to God and your own consciences : ’ and so little was it in the idea of any one of the Court, that the Jury ought to found their verdict solely upon the evi- dence of the publication, without attending to the criminality or innocence of the petition, that the Chief J ustice himself consented, 'on their withdrawing from the bar, that they should carry "with them all the materials for coming to a judgment as comprehensive as the charge ; and, indeed, expressly directed that the information, the libel, the declarations under the great seal, and even the statute book, should be delivered to them. 44 The happy issue of this memorable trial, in the acquittal of the bishops by the Jury, exercising jurisdiction over the whole charge, freely admitted to them as legal, even by King James’s judges, is admitted by two of the gentle- men to have prepared and forwarded the glorious era of the Revolution. Mr. Bower, in particular, spoke with singular enthusiasm concerning this ver- dict, choosing — for reasons sufficiently obvious — to ascribe it to a special miracle wrought for the safety of the nation, rather than to the right lodged in the Jury to save it by its laws and constitution. 44 My learned friend, finding his argument like nothing upon the earth, was obliged to ascend to heaven to support it. Having admitted that the Jury not only acted like just men towards the bishops, but as patriot citizens LORD ERSKINE. 341 towards their country, and not being able, without the surrender of his whole argument, to allow either their public spirit or their private justice to have been consonant to the laws, he is driven to make them the instruments of divine Providence to bring good out of evil, and holds them up as men in- spired by God to perjure themselves in the administration of justice, in order, by the by, to defeat the effects of that wretched system of judicature, which he is defending to-day as the constitution of England. For if the King’s judges could have decided the petition to be a libel, the Stuarts might yet have been on the throne. “ My lord, this is an argument of a priest, not of a lawyer : and even if faith and not law were to govern the question, I should be as far from sub- scribing to it as a religious opinion. “ No man believes more firmly than I do, that God governs the whole universe by the gracious dispensations of his providence, and that all the nations of the earth rise and fall at his command ; but, then, this wonderful system is carried on by the natural, though, to us, the often hidden, relation between effects and causes, which wisdom adjusted from the beginning, and which foreknowledge at the same time rendered sufficient, without disturb- ing either the laws of nature or of civil society. “ The prosperity and greatness of empires ever depended, and ever must depend, upon the use their inhabitants make of their reason in devising wise laws, and the spirit and virtue with which they watch over their just execu- tion ; and it is impious to suppose, that men, who have made no provision for their own happiness or security in their attention to their government, are to be saved by the interposition of Heaven in turning the hearts of their tyrants to protect them. “ But if every case in which judges have left the question of libel to juries in opposition to law, is to be considered as a miracle, England may vie with Palestine ; and Lord Chief Justice Holt steps next into view as an apostle ; for that great Judge, in Tutchin’s case, left the question of libel to the Jury, in the most unambiguous terms. After summing up the evidence of writing and publishing, he said to them as follows : — “ ‘ You have now heard the evidence, and you are to consider whether Mr. Tutchin be guilty. They say they are innocent papers, and no libels ; and they say nothing is a libel but what reflects upon some particular person. But this is a very strange doctrine, — to say it is not a libel reflecting on the government, endeavouring to possess the people, that the government is mal- administered by corrupt persons, that are employed in such or such stations, either in the navy or army. ‘“To say that corrupt officers are appointed to administer affairs, is cer- tainly a reflection on the government. If people should not be called to ac- count for possessing the people with an ill opinion of the government, no government can subsist. Fot it is very necessary for all governments that the people should have a good opinion of it ; and nothing can be worse to any government, than to endeavour to procure animosities, as to the manage- 342 THE MODERN ORA.TOR. ment of it : this has been always looked upon as a crime, and no government can be safe without it be punished.’ “ Having made these observations, did the Chief Justice tell the Jury that whether the publication in question fell within that principle, so as to be a libel on government, was a matter of law for the Court, with which they had no concern ? Quite the contrary : he considered the seditious tendency of the paper as a question for their sole determination, saying to them, “ ‘ Now you are to consider, whether these words I have read to you, do not tend to beget an ill opinion of the administration of government ; to tell us, that those that are employed know nothing of the matter, and those that do know are not employed. Men are not adapted to offices, but offices to men, out of a particular regard to their interest, and not to their fitness for the places. This is the purport of these papers.’ “ In citing the words of judges in judicature, I have a right to suppose their discourse to be pertinent and relevant, and that, when they state the defendant’s answer to the charge, and make remarks on it, they mean that the Jury should exercise a judgment under their direction : this is the prac- tice we must certainly impute to Lord Holt, if we do him the justice to suppose that he meant to convey the sentiments which he expressed. So that, when we come to sum up this case, I do not find myself so far behind the learned gentleman, even in point of express authority ; putting all reason, and the analogies of law which unite to support me, wholly out of the question. “ There is Court of King's Bench against Court of King’s Bench ; — Chief Justice Wright against Chief Justice Lee ; — and Lord Holt against Lord Raymond : as to living authorities, it would be invidious to class them : but it is a point on which I am satisfied myself, and on which the -world will be satisfied likewise, if ever it comes to be a question. “ But even if I should be mistaken in that particular, I cannot consent im- plicitly to receive any doctrine as the law of England, though pronounced to be such by magistrates the most respectable, if I find it to be in direct viola- tion of the very first principles of English judicature. The great jurisdictions of the country are unalterable except by parliament, and, until they are changed by that authority, they ought to remain sacred : the J udges have no power over them. What parliamentary abridgment has been made upon the rights of juries since the trial of the bishops, or since Tutchin’s case, when they were fully recognised by this Court ? None. Lord Raymond and Lord Chief Justice Lee ought, therefore, to have looked there — to their predecessors — for the law, instead of setting up a new one for their suc- cessors. “ But supposing the Court should deny the legality of all these propo- sitions, or, admitting their legality, should resist the conclusions I have drawn from them : then I have recourse to my last proposition, in which I am sup- ported even by all those authorities, on which the learned Judge relies for the doctrines contained in his Charge ; to wit : — LORD ERSKINE. 343 44 4 That, in all cases where the mischievous intention, which is agreed to be the essence of the crime, cannot be collected by simple inference from the fact charged, because the defendant goes into evidence to rebut such infe- rence, the intention then becomes a pure unmixed question of fact, for the consideration of the Jury.’ 4 * I said the authorities of the King against Woodfall and Almon were with me. In the first, which is reported in fifth Burrow, your lordship expressed yourself thus : — 4 Where an act, in itself indifferent, becomes criminal when done with a particular intent, there the intent must be proved and found. But where the act is itself unlawful, as in the case of a libel, the proof of justification or excuse lies on the defendant ; and in failure thereof the law implies a criminal intent' Most luminously expressed to convey this senti- ment, viz., that when a man publishes a libel, and has nothing to say for himself, — no explanation or exculpation, — a criminal intention need not be proved. I freely admit that it need not ; it is an inference of common sense, not of law. But the publication of a libel, does not exclusively show criminal intent, but is only an implication of law, in failure of the defendant's proof. Your lordship immediately afterwards, in the same case, explained this fur- ther. 4 There may be cases where the publication may be justified or ex- cused as lawful or innocent; for no fact which is not criminal, though the paper be a libel, can amount to such a publication of which a defendant ought to be found guilty.’ But no question of that kind arose at the trial, that is, at the trial of Woodfall. WTiy ? Your lordship imme- diately explained why — 4 Because the defendant called no witnesses expressly saying, that the publication of a libel is not in itself a crime, unless the in- tent be criminal ; and that it is not merely in mitigation of punishment, but that such a publication does not warrant a verdict of Guilty. 4 * In the case of the King against Almon, a magazine containing one of Junius’s letters, was sold at Almon's shop : there was proof of that sale at the trial. Mr. Almon called no witnesses, and was foimd guilty. To found a motion for a new trial, an affidavit was offered from Mr. Almon, that he was not privy to the sale, nor knew his name was inserted as a publisher ; and that this practice of booksellers being inserted as publishers by their cor- respondents, without notice, was common in the trade. 44 Your lordship said, 4 Sale of a book in a bookseller's shop, is primd facie evidence of publication by the master, and the publication of a libel is prxma facie evidence of criminal intent : it stands good, till answered by the defen- dant : it must stand till contradicted or explained ; and if not contradicted \ explained , or exculpated , becomes tantamount to conclusive , when the defendant calls no witnesses.' 44 Mr. J ustice Aston said, 4 Primd facie evidence not answered , is sufficient to ground a verdict upon : if the defendant had a sufficient excuse, he might have proved it at the trial : his having neglected it where there was no sur- prise, is no ground for a new one.’ Mr. Justice Willes and Mr. Justice Ashurst agreed upon those express principles. 344 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ These cases declare the law, beyond all controversy, to be, that publica- cation, even of a libel, is no conclusive proof of guilt, but oniy prima facie evidence of it till answered ; and that, if the defendant can show that his in- tention was not criminal, he completely rebuts the inference arising from the publication ; because, though it remains true, that he published, yet, accord- ing to your lordship’s express words, it is not such a publication of which a defendant ought to be found guilty. Apply Mr. Justice Buller’s summing up to this law, and it does not require even a legal apprehension to dis- tinguish the repugnancy. “ The advertisement was proved to convince the Jury of the Dean’s motive for publishing ; Mr. Jones’s testimony went strongly to aid it ;* and the evidence to character, though not sufficient in itself, was admissible to be thrown into the scale. But not only no part of this was left to the Jury, but the whole of it was expressly removed from their consideration, although, in the cases of Woodfall and Almon, it was as expressly laid down to be within their cognisance, and a complete answer to the charge, if satisfactory, to the minds of the Jurors. “ In support of the learned Judge’s charge, there can be, therefore, but the two arguments, which I stated on moving for the rule. Either that the defendant’s evidence, namely, the advertisement — Mr. Jones’s evidence in confirmation of its being bona fide — and the evidence to character, to strengthen that construction — were not sufficient proof that the Dean believed the publication meritorious, and published it in vindication of his honest in- tentions : or else, that, even admitting it to establish that fact, it did not amount to such an exculpation as to be evidence on Not guiltyf so as to warrant a verdict. I still give the learned Judge the choice of the alter- native. 6 * As to the first, viz., whether it showed honest intention in point of fact, that was a question for the Jury. If the learned Judge had thought it was not sufficient evidence to warrant the Jury’s believing that the Dean’s motives were such as he had declared them, I conceive he should have given his opinion of it as a point of evidence, and left it there. I cannot con- descend to go further ; it would be ridiculous to argue a self-evident proposition. “ As to the second, viz., that even if the Jury had believed from the evi- dence, that the Dean’s intention was wholly innocent, it would not have warranted them in acquitting, and, therefore, should not have been left to them upon Not guilty ; that argument can never be supported. For if the Jury had declared, ‘ We find that the Dean published this pamphlet, whether a libel or not, we do not find : and we find further, that, believing it in his conscience to be meritorious and innocent, he, bond fide , published it with the prefixed advertisement, as a vindication of his character from the reproach of seditious intentions, and not to excite sedition :’ it is impossible to say, * See ante note, p. 323. LORD ERSKINE. 345 without ridicule, that on such a special verdict the Court could have pro- nounced a criminal judgment. “ Then why was the consideration of that evidence, by which those facts might have been found, withdrawn from the Jury, after they brought in a verdict guilty of publishing only, which, in the King against Woodfall, was only said not to negative the criminal intention, because the defendant called no witnesses ? Why did the learned Judge confine his inquiries to the innuendos, and finding them agreed to direct the epithet of Guilty, without asking the Jury if they believed the defendant's evidence to rebut the criminal inference ? Some of them positively meant to negative the criminal inference, by adding the word only , and all would have done it, if they had thought themselves at liberty to enter upon that evidence. But they were told expressly that they had nothing to do with the consideration of that evi- dence, which, if believed, would have warranted that verdict. The conclu- sion is evident ; if they had a right to consider it, and their consideration might have produced such a verdict, and if such a verdict would have been an acquittal, it must be a misdirection. “ 4 But,’ says Mr. Bower, — ‘ if this advertisement, prefixed to the publication, by which the Dean professed his innocent intention in publishing it, should have been left to the Jury as evidence of that intention, to found an acquittal on, even taking the Dialogue to be a libel, no man could ever be convicted of publishing any thing, however dangerous ; for, he would only have to tack an advertisement to it by way of preface, professing the excellence of its principles, and the sincerity of its motives, and his defence would be complete. “ My lord, I never contended for any such position. If a man of education, like the Dean, were to publish a writing so palpably libellous, that no igno- rance or misapprehension imputable to such a person could prevent his discovering the mischievous design of the author, no jury would believe such an advertisement to be bond fide , and would, therefore, be bound in conscience to reject it, as if it had no existence : the effect of such evidence must be to convince the Jury of the defendant’s purity of mind, and must, therefore, depend upon the nature of the writing itself, and all the circumstances attend- ing its publication. “ If, upon reading the paper, and considering the whole of the evidence, they have reason to think, that the defendant did not believe it to be illegal, and did not publish it with the seditious purpose charged by the indictment, he is not guilty upon any principle or authority of law, and would have been acquitted even in the Star-chamber : for it was held by that court, in Lambe’s case, in the eighth year of King J ames the First, as reported by Lord Coke, who then presided in it, that every one who should be convicted of a libel, must be the writer or contriver, or a malicious publisher, knowing it to be a libel. “ This case of Lambe being of too high authority to be opposed, and too much in point to be passed over, Mr. Bower endeavours to avoid its force by 346 THE MODERN ORATOR. giving it a new construction of his own : he says, that not knowing a writing to be a libel, in the sense of that case, means, not knowing the contents of the thing published : as by conveying papers sealed up, or having a sermon and a libel, and delivering one by mistake for the other. In such cases, he says, ignorantia facti excusat , because the mind does not go with the act ; sed ignorantia legis non excusat ; and, therefore, if the party knows the contents of the paper which he publishes, his mind goes with the act of publication, though he does not find out any thing criminal, and he is bound to abide by the legal consequences. “ This is to make criminality depend upon the consciousness of an act, and not upon the knowledge of its quality, which would involve lunatics and chil- dren in all the penalties of criminal law : for whatever they do is attended with consciousness, though their understanding does not reach to the con- sciousness of offence. “ The publication of a libel, not believing it to be one after having read it, is a much more favourable case than publishing it unread by mistake ; the one, nine times in ten, is a culpable negligence, which is no excuse at all ; for a man cannot throw papers about the world without reading them, and afterwards say he did not know their contents were criminal : but, if a man reads a paper, and not believing it to contain any thing seditious, having col- lected nothing of that tendency himself, publishes it amongst his neighbours as an innocent and useful work, he cannot be convicted as a criminal pub- lisher. How he is to convince the Jury that his purpose was innocent, though the thing published be a libel, must depend upon circumstances ; and these circumstances he may, on the authority of all the cases, ancient and modern, lay before the Jury in evidence ; because, if he can establish the innocence of his mind, he negatives the very gist of the indictment. “ * In all crimes,’ says Lord Hale, in his Pleas of the Crown, ‘ the intention is the principal consideration: it is the mind, that makes the taking of another’s goods to be felony, or a bare trespass only : it is impossible to pre- scribe all the circumstances evidencing a felonious intent, or the contrary ; but the same must be left to the attentive consideration of Judge and Jury ; wherein the best rule is, in dubiis, rather to incline to acquittal than con- viction.’ “ In the same work, he says 4 By the statute of Philip and Mary, touching importation of coin counterfeit of foreign money, it must, to make it treason, be with the intent to utter and make payment of the same ; and the intent in this case, may be tried and found by circumstances of fact, by words, letters, and a thousand evidences besides the bare doing of the fact.’ “ This principle is illustrated by frequent practice, where the intention is found by the Jury as a fact in a special verdict. It occurred, not above a year ago, at East Grinstead, on an indictment for burglary, before Mr. Justice Ashurst, where I was myself counsel for the prisoner. It was clear upon the evidence, that he had broken into the house by force, in the night, but I con- tended that it appeared from proof, that he had broken and entered with an LORD ERSKINE. 347 intent to rescue his goods, which had been seized that day by the officers of excise ; which rescue, though a capital felony by modem statute, was but a trespass, temp. Henry VIII., and consequently not a burglary. “ Mr. Justice Ashurst saved this point of law, which the twelve Judges afterwards determined for the prisoner ; but, in order to create the point of law, it was necessary that the prisoner’s intention should be ascertained as a fact ; and, for this purpose, the learned Judge directed the Jury to tell him with what intention they found that the prisoner broke and entered the house, which they did by answering, ‘ To rescue his goods which verdict was recorded. “ In the same manner, in the case of the King against Pierce, at the Old Bailey, the intention was found by the Jury as a fact in the special verdict. The prisoner, having hired a horse and afterwards sold him, was indicted for felony ; but the Judges doubting Avhether it was more than a fraud, unless he originally hired him intending to sell him, recommended it to the Jury to find a special verdict, comprehending their judgment of his intention from the evidence. Here the quality of the act depended on the intention, which intention it was held to be the exclusive province of the J ury to determine, before the Judges could give the act any legal denomination. “ My lord, I am ashamed to have cited so many authorities to establish the first elements of the law ; but it has been my fate to find them disputed. The whole mistake arises from confounding criminal with civil cases. If a printer’s servant, without his master’s consent or privity, inserts a slanderous article against me in his newspaper, I ought not in justice to indict him ; and if I do, the Jury on such proof should acquit him ; but it is no defence to an action, for he is responsible to me civiliter for the damage which I have sustained from the newspaper, which is his property. Is there anything new in this principle ? So far from it, that every student knows it is as applicable to all other cases ; but people are resolved, from some fatality or other, to distort every principle of law into nonsense, when they come to apply it to printing ; as if none of the rules and maxims which regulate all the transactions of society had any reference to it. “ If a man, rising in his sleep, walks into a china shop, and breaks every- thing about him, his being asleep is a complete answer to an indictment for a trespass ; but he must answer in an action for everything he has broken. “ If the proprietor of the York coach, though asleep in his bed at that city, has a drunken servant on the box at London, who drives over my leg and breaks it, he is responsible to me in damages for the accident ; but I cannot indict him as the criminal author of my misfortune. What distinc- tion can be more obvious and simple ? “ Let us only, then, extend these principles, which were never disputed in other criminal cases, to the crime of publishing a libel; and let us at the same time allow to the Jury, as our forefathers did before us, the same jurisdic- tion in that instance which we agree in rejoicing to allow them in all others, and the system of English law will be wise, harmonious, and complete. 2 B 348 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ My lord, I have now finished my argument, having answered the several objections to my five original propositions, and established them by all the principles and authorities which appear to me to apply, or to be necessary for their support. In this process, I have been unavoidably led into a length not more inconvenient to the Court than to myself, and have been obliged to question several judgments which had been before questioned and confirmed. “ They, however, who may be disposed to censure me for the zeal which has animated me in this cause, will at least, I hope, have the candour to give me credit for the sincerity of my intentions. It is surely not my inte- rest to stir opposition to the decided authorities of the Court in which I practise. With a seat here within the bar, at my time of life, and looking no further than myself, I should have been contented with the law as I found it, and have considered how little might be said with decency, rather than how much ; but feeling as I have ever done upon the subject, it was impos- sible I should act otherwise. It was the first command and counsel to my youth, always to do what my conscience told me to be my duty, and to leave the consequences to God. I shall carry with me the memory, and, I hope, the practice, of this parental lesson to the grave. I have hitherto followed it, and have no reason to complain that the adherence to it has been even a temporal sacrifice : I have found it, on the contrary, the road to prosperity and wealth, and shall point it out as such to my children. It is impossible in this country to hurt an honest man ; but even if it were possible, I should little deserve that title, if I could, upon any principle, have consented to tamper or temporise with a question which involves in its determination and its consequences, the liberty of the press, and, in that liberty, the very ex- istence of every part of the public freedom.” Notwithstanding this convincing argument, the Court delivered an unani- mous judgment, confirming the doctrine delivered by Mr. Justice Buller, on the trial at Shrewsbury, and discharged the rule for a new trial ; but Mr. Erskine subsequently moved successfully in arrest of judgment. Owing to the exertions of Mr. Erskine and Mr. Fox, in defence of the rights of juries, the Act of 32 Geo. 3, c. 60, was subsequently passed; which, after reciting that “ doubts had arisen whether, on the trial of an indictment or information for the making or publishing any libel where an issue or issues are joined between the King and the defendant on the plea of not guilty pleaded, it be competent to the Jury impanelled to try the 6ame to give their verdict upon the whole matter in issue” — enacts, that “ on every such trial the J ury sworn to try the issue may give a general verdict of guilty or not guilty upon the whole matter put in issue upon such indict- ment or information, and shall not be required or directed by the Court or Judge before whom the indictment or information shall be tried to find the defendant or defendants guilty merely on the proof of the publication by such defendant or defendants of the paper charged to be a libel, and of the sense ascribed to the same in such indictment or information.” LORT) ERSKINE. 349 Speech in defence of John Stockdale, 9th December, 1789. On the occasion of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the Governor- general of Bengal, for high crimes and misdemeanours, the articles of impeachment were prepared by Mr. Edmund Burke, and, instead of being couched in the usual dry formal language of law, were remarkable for the same fervour of language which characterised all the compositions of their author. Contrary to the principles of impartial justice, these articles were permitted to be published throughout the kingdom, while the impeachment itself was still pending, and undoubtedly created a strong prejudice against the accused ; to counteract which, the Rev. Mr. Logan, a minister of Leith, composed a defence of Mr. Hastings, entitled “ A Review of the Principal Charges against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Governor-general of Bengal,” which was published, at his request, by Mr. Stockdale, a bookseller in Piccadilly, in the regular course of his business. This pamphlet, being very extensively circulated, and containing strong and, as it was asserted, libellous observations on the House of Commons — imputing their proceedings to motives of personal animosity, and not a regard to public justice — Mr. Fox, who was one of the managers of the impeachment, complained of it to the House ; and, on his motion, a vote passed unanimously that an address be presented to the King, praying his Majesty to direct his Attorney-general to file an information against Mr. Stockdale, as the publisher of a libel upon the Commons’ House of Parliament. An information was accordingly filed, and came on for trial in the Court of King’s Bench, before Lord Kenyon and a special jury, on the 9th of December, 1789 ; when, the Attorney-general (Sir A. Macdonald) having fairly opened the case, and proved the publica- tion, Mr. Erskine, as counsel for the defendant, addressed the Jury as follows : — “Gentlemen of the Jury, “ Mr. Stockdale, who is brought as a criminal before you for the publica- tion of this book, has, by employing me as his advocate, reposed what must appear to many an extraordinary degree of confidence ; since, although he well knows that I am personally connected in friendship with most of those, whose conduct and opinions are principally arraigned by its author,* he nevertheless commits to my hands his defence and justification. “ From a trust apparently so delicate and singular, vanity is but too apt to whisper an application to some fancied merit of one’s own ; but it is proper, for the honour of the English bar, that the world should know that such things happen to all of us daily, and of course ; and that the defendant, without any knowledge of me, or any confidence that was personal, was only not afraid to follow up an accidental retainer, from the knowledge he has of the general character of the profession. Happy indeed is it for this * Mr. Erskine was a particular admirer of Mr. Burke, to whose productions he was in the constant habit of referring in terms of the highest admiration. 2 b 2 350 THE MODERN ORATOR. country, that whatever interested divisions may characterise other places , of which I may have occasion to speak to-day, however the counsels of the highest departments of the state may be occasionally distracted by personal considerations, they never enter these walls to disturb the administration of justice : whatever may be our public principles, or the private habits of our lives, they never cast even a shade across the path of our professional duties. If this be the characteristic even of the bar of an English court of justice, what sacred impartiality may not every man expect from its jurors and its bench ? “ As, from the indulgence which the Court was yesterday pleased to give to my indisposition, this information was not proceeded on when you were attending to try it, it is probable you were not altogether inattentive to what passed at the trial of the other indictment, prosecuted also by the House of Commons : and therefore, without a restatement of the same principles, and a similar quotation of authorities to support them, I need only remind you of the law applicable to this subject, as it was then admitted by the Attorney- general, in concession to my propositions, and confirmed by the higher authority of the Court, namely : — “ First, that every information or indictment must contain such a descrip- tion of the crime, that the defendant may know what crime it is which he is called upon to answer. “ Secondly, that the Jury may appear to be warranted in their conclusion of guilty or not guilty. “ And, lastly, that the Court may see such a precise and definite transgres- sion upon the record, as to be able to apply the punishment which judicial discretion my dictate, or w r hich positive law may inflict. “ It was admitted also to follow as a mere corollary from these propositions, that where an information charges a writing to be composed or published of and concerning the Commons of Great Britain, with an intent to bring that body into scandal and disgrace with the public, the author cannot be brought within the scope of such a charge, unless the Jury, on examina- tion and comparison of the whole matter written or published, shall be satisfied that the particular passages charged as criminal, when explained by the context, and considered as part of one entire work, were meant and intended by the author to vilify the House of Commons as a body, and were written of and concerning them in parliament assembled. “ These principles being settled, we are now to see what the present information is. “ It charges that the defendant, — ‘ unlawfully, wickedly, and maliciously devising, contriving, and intending to asperse, scandalise, and vilify the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled ; and most wickedly and audaciously to represent their proceedings as corrupt and unjust, and to make it believed and thought, as if the Commons of Great Britain in Parlia- ment assembled, were a most wicked, tyrannical, base, and corrupt set of persons, and to bring them into disgrace with the public, — the defendant LORD ERSKINE. 351 published — What ? Not those latter ends of sentences which the Attorney- general has read from his brief, as if they had followed one another in order in this book ; — not those scraps and tails of passages which are patched together upon this record, and pronounced in one breath, as if they existed without intermediate matter in the same page, and without context any- where. No: this is not the accusation, even mutilated as it is ; for the information charges, that, with intention to vilify the House of Commons , the defendant published the whole book, describing it on the record by its title : ‘ A Review of the Principal Charges against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Governor-general of Bengal:* in which , amongst other things , the matter 'par- ticularly selected is to he found* Your inquiry, therefore, is not confined to, whether the defendant published those selected parts of it; and whether, looking at them as they are distorted by the information, they carry in fair construction the sense and meaning which the innuendoes put upon them ; but whether the author of the entire work , — I say the author, since, if he could defend himself, the publisher unquestionably can, — whether the author wrote the volume which I hold in my hand, as a free, manly, bond fde dis- quisition of criminal charges against his fellow-citizen ; or whether the long, eloquent discussion of them, which fills so many pages, was a mere cloak and cover for the introduction of the supposed scandal imputed to the selected passages ; the mind of the writer all along being intent on traducing the House of Commons, and not on fairly answering their charges against Mr. Hastings ? “This, gentlemen, is the principal matter for your consideration; and therefore, if, after you shall have taken the book itself into the chamber which will be provided for you, and shall have read the whole of it with impartial attention, — if, after the performance of this duty, you can return here, and with clear consciences pronounce upon your oaths that the impression made upon you by these pages is, that the author wrote them with the wicked, seditious, and corrupt intentions charged by the information ; — you have then my full permission to find the defendant guilty ; but if, on the other hand, the general tenor of the composition shall impress you with respect for the author, and point him out to you as a man mistaken perhaps himself, but not seeking to deceive others, — if every line of the work shall present to you an intelligent animated mind, glowing with a Christian compassion towards a fellow-man, whom he believed to be innocent, and with a patriot zeal for the liberty of his country, which he considered as wounded through the sides of an oppressed fellow-citizen, — if this shall be the impression on your con- sciences and understandings, when you are called upon to deliver your verdict ; — then hear from me, that you not only work private injustice, but oreak up the press of England, and surrender her rights and liberties for ever, if you convict the defendant. f The principal' parts selected by the Attorney-general are specified and commented on by Mr. Erskine, in a subsequent part of this speech. 352 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ Gentlemen, to enable you to form a true judgment of the meaning of this book, and of the intention of its author, and to expose the miserable juggle that is played off in the information, by the combination of sentences which, in the work itself, have no bearing upon one another— I will first give you the publication as it is charged upon the record and presented by the Attorney- general in opening the case for the Crown ; and I will then, by reading the interjacent matter, which is studiously kept out of view, convince you of its true interpretation. “ The information, beginning with the first page of the book, charges as a libel upon the House of Commons the following sentence : ‘ The House of Commons has now given its final decision with regard to the merits and demerits of Mr. Hastings. The Grand Inquest of England have de- livered their charges, and preferred their impeachment; their allegations are referred to proof ; and from the appeal to the collective wisdom and justice of the nation in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the question comes to be determined whether Mr. Hastings be guilty or not guilty ? ’ “ It is but fair, however, to admit, that this first sentence, which the most ingenious malice cannot torture into a criminal construction, is charged by the information rather as introductory to what is made to follow it, than as libellous in itself; for the Attorney-general, from this introductory passage in the first page, goes on at a leap to page thirteenth , and reads — almost without a stop, as if it immediately followed the other — this sentence : 4 What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and falsehood ?’ “From these two passages thus standing together, without the intervenient matter which occupies thirteen pages , one would imagine, that, — instead of investigating the probability or improbability of the guilt imputed to Mr. Hastings — instead of carefully examining the charges of the Commons, and the defence of them which had been delivered before them, or which was preparing for the Lords,— the author had immediately, and in a moment after stating the mere fact of the impeachment, decided that the act of the Commons originated from misrepresentation and falsehood. “ Gentlemen, in the same manner a veil is cast over all that is written in the next seven pages : for, knowing that the context would help to the true construction, not only of the passages charged before, but of those in the sequel of this information, the'^Attorney-general, aware that it would con- vince every man who read it that there was no intention in the author to calumniate the House of Commons, passes over, by another leap, to page twenty ; and in the same manner, without drawing his breath, and as if it directly followed the two former sentences in the first and thirteenth pages , reads from page twentieth— 4 An impeachment of error in judgment with regard to the quantum of a fine, and for an intention that never was executed, and never known to the offending party, characterises a tribunal of inquisi- tion rather than a Court of Parliament.’ “From this passage, by another vault, he leaps over one-and -thirty pages LORD ERSKINE. 35S more, to page fifty -one ; where he reads the following sentence, which he mainly relies on, and upon which I shall by and by trouble you with some observations : ‘ Thirteen of them passed in the House of Commons, not only without investigation, but without being read; and the votes were given without inquiry, argument, or conviction. A majority had determined to impeach; opposite parties met each other, and ‘jostled in the dark,’ to perplex the political drama, and bring the hero to a tragic catastrophe.’ “ From thence, deriving new vigour from every exertion, he makes his last grand stride over forty -four pages more , almost to the end of the book, charg- ing a sentence in the ninety-fifth page. “ So that out of a volume of one hundred and ten pages , the defendant is only charged with a few scattered fragments of sentences, picked out of three or four. Out of a work consisting of about two thousand five hundred and thirty lines , of manly, spirited eloquence, only forty or fifty lines are culled from different parts of it, and artfully put together, so as to rear up a libel, out of a false context, by a supposed connexion of sentences with one ano- ther, which are not only entirely independent, but which, when compared with their antecedents, bear a totally different construction. — In this manner, the greatest works upon government, the most excellent books of science, the sacred Scriptures themselves, might be distorted into libels ; by forsaking the general context, and hanging a meaning upon selected parts : — thus, as in the text put by Algernon Sidney, ‘ The fool has said in his heart, There is no God,’ the Attorney-general, on the principle of the present proceed- ing against this pamphlet, might indict the publisher of the Bible for blas- phemously denying the existence of heaven, in printing ‘ There is no God ,’ for 1 these words alone, without the context, would be selected by the information, and the Bible, like this book, would be underscored to meet it. Nor could the defendant, in such a case, have any possible defence, unless the Jury were permitted to see, by the book itself, that the verse, instead of denying the existence of the Divinity, only imputed that imagination to a fool.* “ Gentlemen, having now gone through the Attorney-general’s reading, the book shall presently come forward and speak for itself. But before I can venture to lay it before you, it is proper to call your attention to how matters stood at the time of its publication: without which the author’s meaning and intention cannot possibly be understood. “ The Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, had accused Mr. Hastings, as Governor-general of Bengal, of high crimes and mis- demeanors ; and their jurisdiction, for that high purpose of national justice, was unquestionably competent. But it is proper you should know the nature of this inquisitorial capacity. The Commons, in voting an im- peachment, may be compared to a grand jury, finding a bill of indictment for the Crown : neither the one nor the other can be supposed to proceed, * See note ante p. 329. 354 THE MODERN ORATOR. but upon the matter which is brought before them ; neither of them can find guilt without accusation, nor the truth of accusation 'without evidence. When, therefore, w r e speak of the accuser , or accusers , of a person indicted for any crime, although the Grand Jury are the accusers in form , by giving effect to the accusation; yet, in common parlance, "we do not consider them as the responsible authors of the prosecution. If I were to write of a most wicked indictment, found against an innocent man, which was preparing for trial, nobody who read it would conceive I meant to stigmatise the Grand J ury that found the bill ; but it would be inquired immediately, who was the pro- secutor, and who were the witnesses on the back of it ? In the same manner I mean to contend, that if this book is read with only common attention, the whole scope of it will be discovered to be this : That, in the opinion of the author, Mr. Hastings had been accused of mal- administration in India, from the heat and spleen of political divisions in Parliament, and not from any zeal for national honour or justice ; that the impeachment did not originate from Government, but from a faction banded against it, which, by misrepre- sentation and violence, had fastened it on an unwilling House of Commons ; that, prepossessed with this sentiment (which, however unfounded, makes no part of the present business, since the publisher is not called before you for defaming individual members of the Commons, but for a contempt of the Commons as a body), the author pursues the charges, article by article ; — enters into a warm and animated vindication of Mr. Hastings, by regular answers to each of them ; and that, as far as the mind and soul of a man can be visible, I might almost say, embodied in his writings, his intention throughout the whole volume appears to have been to charge with injustice the ‘private accusers of Mr. Hastings, and not the House of Commons as a body : which undoubtedly rather reluctantly gave way to, than heartily adopted, the impeachment. This will be found to be the palpable scope of the book ; and no man who can read English, and who, at the same time, will have the candour and common sense to take up his impressions from what is written in it, instead of bringing his own along with him to the reading of it, can possibly understand it otherwise. “ But it may be said, that admitting this to be the scope and design of the author, what right had he to canvass the merits of an accusation upon the records of the Commons ; more especially while it was in the course of legal procedure ? This, I confess, might have been a serious question ; but the Commons, us prosecutors of this information , seem to have waived or forfeited their right to ask it. Before they sent the Attorney-general into this place, to punish the publication of answers to their charges, they should have recol- lected that their own want of circumspection in the maintenance of their privileges, and in the protection of persons accused before them, had given to the public the charges themselves , which should have been confined to their own journals. The course and practice of Parliament might warrant the printing of them for the use of their own members; but there the publica- tion should have stopped, and all further progress been resisted by authority. LORD ERSKINE. 355 If they were resolved to consider answers to their charges as a contempt of their privileges, and to punish the publication of them by such severe pro- secutions, it would have well become them to have begun first with those printers who, by publishing the charges themselves throughout the whole king- dom, or rather throughout the whole civilised world, were anticipating the passions and judgments of the public against a subject of England upon his trial, so as to make the publication of answers to them not merely a privilege, but a debt and duty to humanity and justice. The Commons of Great Britain claimed and exercised the privileges of questioning the innocence of Mr. Hastings by their impeachment ; but as, however questioned, it was still to be presumed and protected, until guilt was established by a judgment, he whom they had accused had an equal claim upon their justice, to guard him from prejudice and misrepresentation until the hour of trial. “Had the Commons, therefore, by the exercise of their high, necessary, and legal privileges, kept the public aloof from all canvass of their proceedings, by an early punishment of printers, who, without reserve or secresy, had sent out the charges into the world from a thousand presses in every form of pub- lication, they would have then stood upon ground to-day, from whence no argument of policy or justice could have removed them; because nothing can be more incompatible with either, than appeals to the many upon sub- jects of judicature, which, by common consent, a few are appointed to determine, and which must be determined by facts and principles, which the multitude have neither leisure nor knowledge to investigate. But then, let it be remembered, that it is for those who have the authority to accuse and punish, to set the example of, and to enforce this reserve, which is so neces- sary for the ends of justice. Courts of law, therefore, in England never endure the publication of their records : and a prosecutor of an indictment would be attached for such a publication ; and, upon the same principle, a defendant would be punished for anticipating the justice of his country, by the publication of his defence, the public being no party to it, until the tri- bunal appointed for its determination be open for its decision. “ Gentlemen, you have a right to take judicial notice of these matters, without the proof of them by witnesses ; for jurors may not only, without evidence, found their verdicts on facts that are notorious, but upon what they know privately themselves, after revealing it upon oath to one another ; and therefore you are always to remember, that this book was written when the charges against Mr. Hastings, to which it is an answer, were, to the knowledge of the Commons (for we cannot presume our watchmen to have been asleep), publicly hawked about in every pamphlet, magazine, and newspaper in the kingdom. You well know with what a curious appetite these charges were devoured by the whole public, interesting as they were, not only from their importance, but from the merit of their composition ; certainly not so in- tended by the honourable and excellent composer to oppress the accused, but because the commonest subjects swell into eloquence under the touch of his sublime genius. Thus, by the remissness of the Commons, who are now 356 THE MODERN ORATOR. the prosecutors of this information , a subject of England, who was not even charged with contumacious resistance to authority, much less a proclaimed outlaw, and therefore fully entitled to every protection which the customs and statutes of the kingdom hold out for the protection of British liberty, saw himself pierced with the arrows of thousands and ten thousands of libels. “ Gentlemen, before I venture to lay the book before you, it must be yet further remembered (for the fact is equally notorious), that under these inauspicious circumstances, the trial of Mr. Hastings at the bar of the Lords had actually commenced long before its publication. “ There the most august and striking spectacle was daily exhibited, which the world ever witnessed. A vast stage of justice was erected, awful from its high authority, splendid from its illustrious dignity, venerable from the learning and wisdom of its judges, captivating and affecting from the mighty concourse of all ranks and conditions which daily flocked into it, as into a theatre of pleasure ; there, when the whole public mind was at once awed and softened to the impression of every human affection, there ap- peared, day after day, one after another, men of the most powerful and exalted talents, eclipsing by their accusing eloquence the most boasted harangues of antiquity ; rousing the pride of national resentment by the boldest invectives against broken faith and violated treaties, and shaking the bosom with alternate pity and horror by the most glowing pictures of in- sulted nature and humanity ; ever animated and energetic, from the love of fame, which is the inherent passion of genius ; firm and indefatigable, from a strong prepossession of the justice of their cause.* “ Gentlemen; when the author sat down to write the book now before you, all this terrible, unceasing, exhaustless artillery of warm zeal, matchless vigour of understanding, consuming and devouring eloquence, united with the highest dignity, was daily, and without prospect of conclusion, pouring forth upon one private unprotected man, who was bound to hear it, in the face of the whole people of England, with reverential submission and silence. I do not complain of this as I did of the publication of the charges, because it is what the law allowed and sanctioned in the course of a public trial : but when it is remembered that we are not angels, but weak fallible men, and that even the noble Judges of that high tribunal are clothed beneath their ermines with the common infirmities of man’s nature, it will bring us all to a proper temper for considering the book itself, which will in a few moments be laid before you. But first, let me once more remind you, that it was under all these circumstances, and amidst the blaze of passion and preju- dice, which the scene I have been endeavouring faintly to describe to you might be supposed likely to produce, that the author, whose name I will now give to you, sat down to compose the book which is prosecuted to-day as a libel. * See Mr. Sheridan’s speech on this occasion in support of the second charge in the impeachment, ante p. 137. LORD ERSKINE. 357 “ The history of it is very short and natural. “ The Rev. Mr. Logan, minister of the gospel at Leith, in Scotland, a clergyman of the purest morals, and, as you will see by and by, of very superior talents, well acquainted with the human character, and knowing the difficulty of bringing back public opinion after it is settled on any subject, took a warm, unbought, unsolicited interest in the situation of Mr. Hastings, and determined, if possible, to arrest and suspend the public judgment con- cerning him. He felt for the situation of a fellow-citizen, exposed to a trial which, whether right or wrong, is undoubtedly a severe one, — a trial, cer- tainly not confined to a few criminal acts like those we are accustomed to, but comprehending the transactions of a whole life, and the complicated policies of numerous and distant nations, — a trial, which had neither visible limits to its duration,* bounds to its expense, nor circumscribed compass for the grasp of memory or understanding, — a trial, which had therefore broke loose from the common form of decision, and had become the universal topic of discussion in the world, superseding not only every other grave pursuit, but every fashionable dissipation. “Gentlemen, the question you have, therefore, to try upon all this matter is extremely simple. It is neither more nor less than this : At a time when the charges against Mr. Hastings were, by the implied consent of the Com- mons, in every hand, and on every table — when, by their Managers, the light- ning of eloquence was incessantly consuming him, and flashing in the eyes of the public — when every man was with perfect impunity saying, and writing, and publishing, just what he pleased of the supposed plunderer and devasta- tor of nations, — would it have been criminal in Mr. Hastings himself to have reminded the public that he was a native of this free land, entitled to the common protection of her justice, and that he had a defence, in his turn, to offer to them, the outlines of which he implored them in the mean time to receive, as an antidote to the unlimited and unpunished poison in circulation against him ? This is, without colour or exaggeration, the true question you are to decide. But I assert, without the hazard of contradiction, that if Mr. Hastings himself could have stood justified or excused in your eyes for publishing this volume in his own defence, the author, if he wrote it bona fide to defend him, must stand equally excused and justified; and if the author be justified, the publisher cannot be criminal, unless you had evidence that it was published by him, with a different spirit and intention from those in which it was written. The question, therefore, is correctly what I just now stated it to be : Could Mr. Hastings have been condemned to infamy for writing this book ? “ Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation, to be driven to put such a question in England. Shall it be endured, that a subject of this country * The trial began 13th February, 1788, and was protracted until 17th April, 1795 (occupying one hundred and forty-eight days), when Mr. Hastings was acquitted by a large majority on every separate article charged against him. The costs of the defence amounted to £76,080. 358 THE MODERN ORATOR. (instead of being arraigned and tried for some single act in her ordinary courts, where the accusation, as soon, at least, as it is made public, is followed within a few hours by the decision) may be impeached by the Commons for the transactions of twenty years, — that the accusation shall spread as wide as the region of letters, — that the accused shall stand, day after day, and year after year, as a spectacle before the public, which shall be kept in a perpetual state of inflammation against him ; yet that he shall not, without the severest penalties, be permitted to submit anything to the judgment of mankind in his defence? If this be law (which it is for you to-day to decide), such a man has no trial : that great hall, built by our fathers for English justice, is no longer a court, but an altar ; — and an Englishman, instead of being judged in it by god and his country, is a VICTIM AND A SACRIFICE. “You will carefully remember, that I am not presuming to question either the right or duty of the Commons of Great Britain to impeach ; neither am I arraigning the propriety of their selecting, as they have done, the most ex- traordinary persons for ability which the age has produced, to manage their impeachment.* Much less am I censuring the Managers themselves, charged with the conduct of it before the Lords, who were undoubtedly bound, by their duty to the House, and to the public, to expatiate upon the crimes of the persons whom they had accused. None of these points are questioned by me, nor are in this place questionable. I only desire to have it decided, whether, — if the Commons, when national expediency happens to call in their judgment for an impeachment, shall, instead of keeping it on their own records, and carrying it with due solemnity to the Peers for trial, permit it without censure and punishment to be sold like a common news- paper in the shop of my client, so crowded with their own members, that no plain man, without privilege of Parliament, can hope even for a sight of the fire in the winter’s day, — every man buying it, reading it, and comment- ing upon it, — the gentleman himself who is the object of it, or his friend in his absence, may not, without stepping beyond the bounds of English freedom, put a copy of what is thus published into his pocket, and send back to the very same shop for publication a bond fide , rational, able answer to it, in order that the bane and antidote may circulate together, and the public be kept straight till the day of decision. If you think, Gentlemen, that this common duty of self-preservation, to the accused himself, which nature writes as a law upon the hearts of even savages and brutes, is nevertheless too high a privilege to be enjoyed by an impeached and suffering English- man ; or if you think it beyond the offices of humanity and justice, when brought home to the hand of a brother or a friend, you will say so by your verdict of Guilty ; the decision will then be yours ; and the consolation mine , that I laboured to avert it. A very small part of the misery which will follow * Amongst others who assisted Mr. Burke in the management of the impeachment, were Fox, Sheridan, and Grey, LOUD EttSKINE. 359 from it, is likely to light upon me ; the rest will be divided amongst your- selves and your children . “ Gentlemen, I observe plainly and with infinite satisfaction, that you are shocked and offended at my even supposing it possible you should pronounce such a detestable judgment ; and that you only require of me to make out to your satisfaction, as I promised, that the real scope and object of this book is a bond jide defence of Mr. Hastings, and not a cloak and cover for scandal on the House of Commons. I engage to do this, and I engage for nothing more. I shall make an open, manly defence ; I mean to torture no expressions from their natural constructions, to dispute no innuendos on the record, should any of them have a fair application ; nor to conceal from your notice any un- guarded intemperate expressions, which may, perhaps, be found to chequer the vigorous and animated career of the work. Such a conduct might, by accident, shelter the defendant ; but it would be the surrender of the very principle on which alone the liberty of the English press can stand ; and I shall never defend any man from a temporary imprisonment, by the perma- nent loss of my own liberty, and the ruin of my country. I mean, therefore, to submit to you, that though you should find a few lines in page thirteen, or twenty-one ; a few more in page fifty-one, and some others in other places ; containing expressions bearing on the House of Commons, even as a body, which, if written as independent paragraphs by themselves, would be inde- fensible libels, yet, that you have a right to pass them over in judgment, provided the substance clearly appears to be a bond Jide conclusion, arising from the honest investigation of a subject which it was lawful to investigate, and the questionable expressions, the visible effusion of a zealous temper, engaged in an honourable and legal pursuit. After this preparation, I am not afraid to lay the book in its genuine state before you. “ The pamphlet begins thus : — ‘ The House of Commons has now given its final decision with regard to the merits and demerits of Mr. Hastings. The Grand Inquest of England have delivered their charges, and preferred their impeachment : their allegations are referred to proof ; and, from the appeal to the collective wisdom and justice of the nation in the supreme tri- bunal of the kingdom, the question comes to be determined, whether Mr. Hastings be guilty or not guilty ? “ Now if, immediately after what I have just read to you, — which is the the first part charged by the information, — the author had said, ‘ Will accu- sations, built on such a baseless fabric, prepossess the public in favour of the impeachment? What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and false- hood?’ every man would have been justified in pronouncing that he was attacking the House of Commons ; because the groundless accusations men- tioned in the second sentence, could have no reference but to the House itself mentioned by name in the first and only sentence which preceded it. “ But, Gentlemen, to your astonishment I will now read ivhat intervenes between these two passages ; from which you will see, beyond a possibility of 360 THE MODERN ORATOR. doubt, that the author never meant to calumniate the House of Commons, but to say that the accusations of Mr. Hastings before the whole House grew out of a Committee of Secresy established some years before, and was after- wards brought forward by the spleen of private enemies, and a faction in the Government. This will appear not only from the grammatical construction of the words, but from what is better than words, — from the meaning which a person writing as a friend of Mr. Hastings must be supposed to have in- tended to convey. Why should such a friend attack the House of Commons ? Will any man gravely tell me that the House of Commons, as a body, ever wished to impeach Mr. Hastings ? Do we not all know that they con- stantly hung back from it, and hardly knew where they were, or what to do, when they found themselves entangled with it ? My learned friend the Attorney-general is a member of this assembly : perhaps he may tell you by and by what he thought of it, and whether he ever marked any disposition in the majority of the Commons hostile to Mr. Hastings. But why should I dis- tress my friend by the question ? the fact is sufficiently notorious ; and what I am going to read from the book itself — which is left out in the information — is too plain for controversy. “ ‘ Whatever may be the event of the impeachment, the proper exercise of such power is a valuable privilege of the British constitution, a formidable guardian of the public liberty, and the dignity of the nation. The only danger is, that, from the influence of faction, and the awe which is annexed to great names, they may be prompted to determine before they inquire, and to pro- nounce judgment without examination “ Here is the clue to the whole pamphlet. The author trusts to, and re- spects, the House of Commons, but is afraid their mature and just examination may be disturbed by faction. Now, does he mean Government, by faction ? Does he mean the majority of the Commons, by faction ? Will the House, which is the prosecutor here, sanction that application of the phrase ; or will the Attorney- general admit the majority to be the true innuendo of faction? I wish he would ; I should then have gained something at least by this ex- traordinary debate ; but I have no expectation of the sort ; such a concession would be too great a sacrifice to any prosecution, at a time when everything is considered as faction that disturbs the repose of the Minister in Parliament, But, indeed, gentlemen, some things are too plain for argument. The author certainly means my friends, who, whatever qualifications may belong to them, must be contented with the appellation of faction, while they oppose the Minister in the House of Commons ; but the House having given this mean- ing to the phrase of faction for its own purposes, cannot in decency change the interpretation, in order to convict my client. I take that to be beyond the privilege of Parliament. “ The same bearing upon individual members of the Commons, and not on the Commons as a body, is obvious throughout. Thus, after saying, in page 9, that the East India Company had thanked Mr. Hastings for his meri- torious services — which is unquestionably true, — he adds, ‘ that mankind LORD ERSKINE. 361 would abide by their deliberate decision, rather than by the intemperate assertion of a committee .’ “ This he writes after the impeachment was found by the Commons at large ; but he takes no account of their proceedings ; imputing the whole to the original committee, that is, the Committee of Secresy ;* so called, I suppose, from their being the authors of twenty volumes in folio, which will remain a secret to all posterity, as nobody will ever read them. The same construc- tion is equally plain from what immediately follows : — ‘ The report of the Committee of Secresy also states, that the happiness of the native inhabitants of India has been deeply affected, their confidence in English faith and lenity shaken and impaired, and the character of this nation wantonly and wickedly degraded.’ “ Here again you are grossly misled by the omission of nearly twenty-one pages. For the author, though he is here speaking of this committee by name , which brought forward the charges to the notice of the House, and which he continues to do onward to the next selected paragraph ; yet, by arbi- trarily sinking the whole context, he is taken to be speaking to the House as a body , when, in the passage next charged by the information, he reproaches the accusers of Mr. Hastings : although, so far is he from considering them as the House of Commons, that in the very same page he speaks of the articles as the charges, not even of the Committee, but of Mr. Burke alone, the most active and intelligent member of that body, having been circulated in India by a relation of that gentleman : — 4 The Charges of Mr. Burke have been carried to Calcutta, and carefully circulated in India.’ “ Now, if we were considering these passages of the work as calumniating a body of gentlemen, many of whom I must be supposed highly to respect, or as reflecting upon my worthy friend whose name I have mentioned, it would give rise to a totally different inquiry, which it is neither my duty nor yours to agitate ; but surely, the more that consideration obtrudes itself upon us, the more clearly it demonstrates that the author’s whole direction was against the individual accusers of Mr. Hastings, and not against the House of Com- mons, which merely trusted to the matter they had collected. “ Although, from a caution which my situation dictates, as representing another, I have thought it my duty thus to point out to you the real intention of the author, as it appears by the fair construction of the work, yet I protest, that in my own apprehension it is very immaterial whether he speaks of the Committee or of the House, provided you shall think the whole volume a bond fide defence of Mr. Hastings. This is the great point I am, by all my observations, endeavouring to establish, and which, I think, no man who reads the following short passages can doubt. Very intelligent persons have, * The Secret Committee and the Select Committee for inquiring into the general management of the state of affairs in India, were first appointed in 1781. In 1782, the Committees having made their reports, which were exceedingly voluminous, Mr. Dundas, the Chairman of the Secret Committee, moved no less than 1 1 1 resolutions, and concluded with a censure on the conduct of Warren Hastings. 362 THE MODERN ORATOR, indeed, considered them, if founded in facts, to render every other amplifica- tion unnecessary. The first of them is as follows : — ‘ It was known at that time, that Mr. Hastings had not only descended from a public to a private station, hut that he was persecuted with accusations and impeachments. But none of these suffering millions have sent their complaints to this country : not a sigh nor a groan has been wafted from India to Britain. On the con- trary, testimonies the most honourable to the character and merit of Mr. Hastings, have been transmitted by those very princes whom he has been supposed to have loaded with the deepest injuries.’ “ Here, Gentlemen, we must be permitted to pause together a little ; for, in examining whether these pages were written as an honest answer to the charges of the Commons, or as a prostituted defence of a notorious criminal, whom the writer believed to be guilty, truth becomes material at every step. For if, in any instance, he be detected of a wilful misrepresentation, he is no longer an object of your attention. “ Will the Attorney-general proceed, then, to detect the hypocrisy of our author, by giving us some details of the proofs by which these personal enor- mities have been established, and which the writer must be supposed to have been acquainted with ? I ask this as the defender of Mr. Stockdale, not of Mr. Hastings, with whom I have no concern. I am sorry, indeed, to be so often obliged to repeat this protest ; but I really feel myself embarassed with those repeated coincidences of defence which thicken on me as I advance, and which were, no doubt, overlooked by the Commons when they directed this interlocutory inquiry into his conduct. I ask, then, as counsel for Mr. Stockdale, whether, when a great state criminal is brought for justice at an immense expense to the public, accused of the most oppressive cruelties, and charged with the robbery of princes and the destruction of nations, it is not open to any one to ask, Who are his accusers ? "What are the sources and the authorities of these shocking complaints ? Where are the ambassadors or memorials of those princes whose revenues he has plundered ? Where are the witnesses for those unhappy men in whose persons the rights of humanity have been violated ? How deeply buried is the blood of the innocent, that it does not rise up in retributive judgment to confound the guilty ! These, surely, are questions, which, when a fellow- citizen is upon a long, painful, and expensive trial, humanity has a right to propose ; which the plain sense of the most unlettered man may be expected to dictate, and which all history must provoke from the more enlightened. When Cicero impeached Verres* before the great tribunal of Home, of similar cruelties and depre- dations in her provinces, the Roman people were not left to such inquiries. All Sicily surrounded the Forum, demanding justice upon her plunderer and * Yerres was, as praetor and governor of Sicily, guilty of such extortion and oppres- sion, that the Sicilian people brought an accusation against him in the Senate, and Cicero conducted the impeachment. Yerres was defended by Hortensius, a celebrated orator ; but, aware of the justice of the accusation, he left Rome without waiting the result. LORD ERSKINE. 363 spoiler, with tears and imprecations. It was not by the eloquence of the orator, but by the cries and tears of the miserable, that Cicero prevailed in that illustrious cause. Verres fled from the oaths of his accusers and their witnesses, and not from the voice of Tully. To preserve the fame of his eloquence, he composed his five celebrated speeches, but they were never delivered against the criminal, because he had fled from the city, appalled with the sight of the persecuted and the oppressed. It may be said that the cases of Sicily and India are widely different ; perhaps they may be ; whether they are or not, is foreign to my purpose. I am not bound to deny the possibility of answers to such questions ; I am only vindicating the right to ask thzm. “Gentlemen, the author, in the other passage which I marked out to your at- tention goes on thus : — ‘ Sir John Macpherson and Lord Cornwallis, his succes- sors in office, have given the same voluntary tribute of approbation to his mea- sures as Governor-general of India. A letter from the former, dated the 10th of August, 1786, gives the following account of our dominions in Asia: ‘ The native inhabitants of this kingdom are the happiest and best-protected sub- jects in India : our native allies and tributaries confide in our protection ; the country powers are aspiring to the friendship of the English ; and from the King of Tidore, towards New Guinea, to Timur Shaw, on the banks of the Indus, there is not a state that has not lately given us proofs of confidence and respect.’ ’ “ Still pursuing the same test of sincerity, let us examine this defensive allegation. “Will the Attorney-general say that he does not believe such a letter from Lord Cornwallis ever existed ? No : for he knows that it is as authentic as any document from India upon the table of the House of Commons. What, then, is the letter ? The native inhabitants of this kingdom, says Lord Cornwallis (writing from the very spot), are the happiest and best protected subjects in India, &c., &c., &c. The inhabitants of this kingdom! Of ivhat kingdom f Of the very kingdom which Mr. Hastings has just returned from governing for thirteen years, and for the misgovernment and desolation of which, he stands every day as a criminal, or rather as a spectacle, before us. This is matter for serious reflection, and fully entitles the author to put the question which immediately follows : ‘ Does this authentic account of the administration of Mr. Hastings, and of the state of India, correspond with the gloomy picture of despotism and despair drawn by the Committee of Secresy ? ’ “ Had that picture been even drawn by the House of Commons itself, he would have been fully justified in asking this question ; but you observe it has no bearing on it ; the last words not only entirely destroy that interpreta- tion but also the meaning of the very next passage, which is selected by the information as criminal, namely, ‘ What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and falsehood ? ’ 2 c 364 THE MODERN ORATOR. “ This passage, which is charged as a libel on the Commons, when thus compared with its immediate antecedent, can bear but one construction. It is impossible to contend that it charges misrepresentation on the House that found the impeachment, but upon the Committee of Secresy just before ad- verted to, who were supposed to have selected the matter, and brought it before the whole House for judgment. “ I do not mean, as I have often told you, to vindicate any calumny on that honourable committee, or upon any individual of it, any more than upon the Commons at large ; but the defendant is not charged by this INFORMATION WITH ANY SUCH OFFENCES. “ Let me here pause once more to ask you, whether the book in its genuine state, as far as we have advanced in it, makes the same impression on your minds now, as when it was first read to you in detached passages ; and whether, if I were to tear off the first part of it which I hold in my hand, and give it to you as an entire work, the first and last passages which have been selected as libels on the Commons, would now appear to be so, when blended with the interjacent parts ? I do not ask your answer : I shall have it in your verdict. The question is only put to direct your attention in pur- suing the remainder of the volume to this main point — Is it an honest serious defence ? For this purpose, and as an example for all others, I will read the author’s entire answer to the first article of charge concerning Cheit Sing, the Zemindar of Benares,^ and leave it to your impartial judg- ments to determine, whether it be a mere cloak and cover for the slander imputed by the information to the concluding sentence of it, which is the only part attacked ; or whether, on the contrary, that conclusion itself, when embodied with what goes before it, does not stand explained and justified ? “ 4 The first article of impeachment,’ continues our author, ‘ is concerning Cheit Sing, the Zemindar of Benares. Bulwart Sing, the father of this Rajah was merely an aumil , or farmer and collector of the revenues for Sujah ul Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, and Vizir of the Mogul empire. When, on the decease of his father, Cheit Sing was confirmed in the office of collector for the Vizir, he paid 200,000 pounds as a gift or nuzzeranah, and an additiona rent of 30,000 pounds per annum. “ As the father was no more than an aumil , the son succeeded only to hisl rights and pretensions. But by a sunnud granted to him by the Nabob Sujah Dowlah in September 1773, through the influence of Mr Hastings, he acquired a legal title to property in the land, and was raised from the office of aumil to the rank of Zemindar. About four years after the death of Bulwart Sing, the Governor-general and council of Bengal obtained the sovereignty paramount of the province of Benares. On the transfer of this sovereignty the governor and council proposed a new grant to Cheit Sing, confirming his former privileges, and conferring upon him the addition of the * See ante p. 106, LORD ERSKINE. 365 sovereign rights of the Mint, and the powers of criminal justice with regard to life and death. He was then recognised by the Company as one of their Zemindars ; a tributary subject, or feudatory vassal, of the British empire in Hindostan. The feudal system, which was formerly supposed to be peculiar to our Gothic ancestors, has always prevailed in the East. In every description of that form of government, notwithstanding accidental variations, there are two associations expressed or understood ; one for internal security, the other for external defence. The King or Nabob confers protection on the feudatory baron as tributary prince, on condition of an annual revenue in the time of peace, and of military service, partly commutable for money, in the time of war. The feudal incidents in the middle ages in Europe, the fine paid to the superior on marriage , wardship , relief, &c., correspond to the annual tribute in Asia. Military service in war, and extraordinary aids in the event of extraordinary emergencies, were common to both.* When the Governor- general of Bengal, in 1778, made an extraordinary demand on the Zemindar of Benares for five lacks of rupees, the British empire, in that part of the world, was surrounded with enemies which threatened its destruction. In 1779, a general confederacy was formed among the great powers of Hindostan for the expulsion of the English from their Asiatic dominions. At this crisis the expectation of a French armament augmented the general calamities of the country. Mr. Hastings is charged by the committee with making his first demand under the false pretence that hostilities had commenced with France. Such an insidious attempt to pervert a meritorious action into a crime is new, even in the history of im- peachments. On the 7th of July, 1778, Mr. Hastings received private in- telligence from an English merchant at Cairo, that war had been declared by Great Britain on the 23rd of March, and by France on the 30th of April. Upon this intelligence, considered as authentic, it was determined to attack all the French settlements in India. The information was afterwards found * Notwithstanding this analogy, the powers and privileges of a Zemindar have never been so well ascertained and defined as those of a baron in the feudal ages. Though the office has usually descended to the posterity of the Zemindar, under the ceremony of fine and investiture, a material decrease in the cultivation, or decline in the population of the district, has sometimes been considered as a ground to dispossess him. When Zemindars have failed in their engagements to the state, though not to the extent to justify expulsion, supervisors have been often sent into the Zemindaries, who have farmed out the lands, and exercised authority under the Duannee laws, in- dependent of the Zemindar. These circumstances strongly mark their dependence on the Nabob. About a year after the departure of Mr. Hastings from India, the question concerning the rights of Zemindars was agitate:! at great length in Calcutta ; and after the fullest and most accurate investigation, the Governor-general and Council gave it as their deliberate opinion to the Court of Directors, that the property of the soil is not in the Zemindar, but in the government ; and that a Zemindar is merely an officer of government appointed to collect its revenues. Cheit Sing understood himself to stand in this predicament. “ I am,” said he on various occasions, “ the servant of the Circar (government), and ready to obey your orders.” The name and office of Zemindar is not of Hindoo, but Mogul institution. 2 c 2 366 THE MODERN ORATOR. to be premature ; but in the latter end of August a secret dispatch was received from England, authorising and appointing Mr, Hastings to take the measures whieh he had already adopted in the preceding month. The Directors and the Board of Control have expressed their approbation of this transaction, by liberally rewarding Mr. Baldwyn, the merchant, for sending the earliest intelligence he could procure to Bengal. It was two days after Mr. Hastings’s information of the French war, that he formed the resolution of exacting the five lacks of rupees* from Cheit Sing, and would have made similar exactions from all the dependencies of the Company in India, had they been in the same circumstances. The fact is, that the great Zemindars of Bengal pay as much to government as their lands can afford. — Cheit Sing’s collections were above fifty lacks, and his rent not twenty-four. “ ‘ The right of calling for extraordinary aids and military service in times of danger, being universally established in India, as it was formerly in Europe during the feudal times, the subsequent conduct of Mr. Hastings is explained and vindicated. The Governor-general and Council of Bengal having made a demand upon a tributary Zemindar for three successive years, and that demand having been resisted by their vassal, they are justified in his punishment. The necessities of the Company, in consequence of the critical situation of their affairs in 1781, calling for a high fine — the ability of the Zemindar, who possessed near two crores of rupees in money and jewels, to pay the sum required — his backwardness to comply with the de- mands of his superiors — his disaffection to the English interest, and desire of revolt, which even then began to appear, and were afterwards conspi- cuous, fully justify Mr. Hastings in every subsequent step of his conduct. In the whole of his proceedings it is manifest that he had not early formed a design hostile to the Zemindar, but was regulated by events which he could neither foresee nor control. When the necessary measures which he had taken for supporting the authority of the Coinpany, by punishing a refractory vassal, were thwarted and defeated by the barbarous massacre of the British troops, and the rebellion of Cheit Sing, the appeal was made to arms, an unavoidable revolution took place in Benares, and the Zemindar became the author of his own destruction.’ “ Here follows the concluding passage, which is arraigned by the informa- tion : — “ ‘ The decision of the House of Commons on this charge against Mr. Hastings, is one of the most singular to be met with in the annals of Parlia- ment. The Minister, who was followed by the majority, vindicated him in everything that he had done , and found him blameable only for what he intended to do ; justified every step of his conduct , and only criminated his proposed intention of converting the crimes of the Zemindar to the benefit of the state, by a fine of fifty lacks of rupees. An impeachment of error in judgment with regard to the quantum of a fine, and for an intention that never * See ante p, 106, and also p. 127. LORD EESKIINE. 387 ' was executed , and never known to the offending party, characterises a tribunal of inquisition rather than a court of Parliament.’ “ Gentlemen, I am ready to admit that this sentiment might have been expressed in language more reserved and guarded ; but you will look to the sentiment itself, rather than to its dress, — to the mind of the writer, and not to the bluntness with which he may happen to express it. It is obviously the language of a warm man, engaged in the honest defence of his friend, and who is brought to what he thinks a just conclusion in argument, which, perhaps, becomes offensive in proportion to its truth. Truth is undoubtedly no warrant for writing what is reproachful of any private man. If a member of society lives within the law, then, if he offends, it is against God alone, and man has nothing to do with him ; and if he transgress the laws, the libeller should arraign him before them, instead of presuming to try him himself. But as to writings on general subjects , which are not charged as an infringement on the rights of individuals, but as of a seditious tendency, it is far otherwise. When, in the progress either of legislation, or of high national justice in Parliament, they, who are amenable to no law, are sup- posed to have adopted through mistake or error a principle which, if drawn into precedent, might be dangerous to the public, I shall not admit it to be a libel in the course of a legal and bond jide publication, to state that such a principle had in fact been adopted. The people of England are not to be kept in the dark touching the proceedings of their own representatives. Let us, therefore, coolly examine this supposed offence, and see what it amounts to. “ First, was not the conduct of the right honourable gentleman, whose name is here mentioned, exactly what it is represented ? Will the Attorney- general, who was present in the House of Commons, say that it was not ? Did not the Minister vindicate Mr. Hastings in what he had done* and was not his consent to that article of the impeachment founded on the intention only of levying a fine on the Zemindar for the service of the state, beyond the quantum which he, the Minister, thought reasonable ? What else is this but an impeachment of error in judgment in the quantum of a fine ? “ So much for the first part of the sentence, which, regarding Mr. Pitt only, is foreign to our purpose ; and as to the last part of it, which imputes the sentiments of the Minister to the majority that followed him with their votes on the question, that appears to me to be giving handsome credit to the majority for having voted from conviction, and not from courtesy to the Minister. To have supposed otherwise, I dare not say, would have been a more natural libel, but it would certainly have been a greater one. The sum and Substance, therefore, of the paragraph is only this, — that an impeach- ment for an error in judgment is not consistent with the theory or the prac- tice of the English Government. So say I. I say, without reserve, speak- ing merely in the abstract, and not meaning to decide upon the merits of * Mr. Pitt expressed his opinion that, admitting the right of Mr. Hastings to tax. the Zemindar, his general conduct in the business had been unnecessarily severe. 868 THE MODERN ORATOR. Mr. Hastings’s cause, that an impeachment for an error in judgment is con- trary to the whole spirit of English criminal justice, which, though not bind- ing on the House of Commons, ought to be a guide to its proceedings. I say that the extraordinary jurisdiction of impeachment ought never to be assumed to expose error, or to scourge misfortune, but to hold up a terrible example to corruption and wilful abuse of authority by extra legal pains. If public men are always punished with due severity, when the source of their misconduct appears to have been selfishly corrupt and criminal, the public can never suffer when their errors are treated with gentleness. From such protection to the magistrate, no man can think lightly of the charge of magistracy itself, when he sees, by the language of the saving judgment, that the only title to it is an honest and zealous intention. If at this moment, Gentlemen, or indeed in any other in the whole course of our history, the people of England were to call upon every man in this impeaching House of Commons, who had given his voice on public questions, or acted in authority eivil or military, to answer for the issues of our councils and our wars, and if honest single intentions for the public service were refused as answers to impeachments, we should have many relations to mourn for, and many friends to deplore. For my own part, Gentlemen, I feel, I hope, for my country as much as any man that inhabits it ; but I would rather see it fall, and be buried in its ruins, than lend my voice to wound any minister, or other responsible person, however unfortunate, who had fairly followed the lights of his understanding and the dictates of his conscience for their pre- servation. “ Gentlemen, this is no theory of mine ; it is the language of English law, and the protection which it affords to every man in office, from the highest to the lowest trust of Government. In no one instance that can be named, foreign or domestic, did the Court of King’s Bench ever interpose its extra- ordinary jurisdiction, by information, against any magistrate for the widest departure from the rule of his duty, without the plainest and clearest proof of corruption . To every such application, not so supported, the constant answer has been, Go to a grand jury with your complaint. God forbid that a magis- trate should suffer from an error in judgment, if his purpose was honestly to discharge his trust. We cannot stop the ordinary course of justice ; but wherever the Court has a discretion, such a magistrate is entitled to its pro - tection. I appeal to the noble Judge, and to every man who hears me, for the truth and universality of this position. And it would be a strange sole- cism, indeed, to assert that — in a case where the supreme court of criminal justice in the nation would refuse to interpose an extraordinary though a legal jurisdiction, on the principle that the ordinary execution of the laws should never be exceeded, but for the punishment of malignant guilt — the Commons, in their higher capacity, growing out of the same constitution, should reject that principle, and stretch them still further by a jurisdiction still more eccentric. Many impeachments have taken place, because the law could not adequately punish the objects of them ; but whoever heard of one