Volume X Part 6 (2/2)

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

Do we want a tribunal? My Lords, no example of antiquity, nothing in the modern world, nothing in the range of human imagination, can supply us with a tribunal like this. My Lords, here we see virtually, in the mind's eye, that sacred majesty of the crown, under whose authority you sit, and whose power you exercise. We see in that invisible authority, what we all feel in reality and life, the beneficent powers and protecting justice of his Majesty. We have here the heir-apparent to the crown, such as the fond wishes of the people of England wish an heir-apparent of the crown to be. We have here all the branches of the royal family, in a situation between majesty and subjection, between the sovereign and the subject,--offering a pledge in that situation for the support of the rights of the crown and the liberties of the people, both which extremities they touch. My Lords, we have a great hereditary peerage here,--those who have their own honor, the honor of their ancestors and of their posterity to guard, and who will justify, as they have always justified, that provision in the Const.i.tution by which justice is made an hereditary office. My Lords, we have here a new n.o.bility, who have risen and exalted themselves by various merits,--by great military services which have extended the fame of this country from the rising to the setting sun. We have those who, by various civil merits and various civil talents, have been exalted to a situation which they well deserve, and in which they will justify the favor of their sovereign, and the good opinion of their fellow-subjects, and make them rejoice to see those virtuous characters that were the other day upon a level with them now exalted above them in rank, but feeling with them in sympathy what they felt in common with them before. We have persons exalted from the practice of the law, from the place in which they administered high, though subordinate, justice, to a seat here, to enlighten with their knowledge and to strengthen with their votes those principles which have distinguished the courts in which they have presided.

My Lords, you have here also the lights of our religion, you have the bishops of England. My Lords, you have that true image of the primitive Church, in its ancient form, in its ancient ordinances, purified from the superst.i.tions and the vices which a long succession of ages will bring upon the best inst.i.tutions. You have the representatives of that religion which says that their G.o.d is love, that the very vital spirit of their inst.i.tution is charity,--a religion which so much hates oppression, that, when the G.o.d whom we adore appeared in human form, He did not appear in a form of greatness and majesty, but in sympathy with the lowest of the people, and thereby made it a firm and ruling principle that their welfare was the object of all government, since the Person who was the Master of Nature chose to appear Himself in a subordinate situation. These are the considerations which influence them, which animate them, and will animate them, against all oppression,--knowing that He who is called first among them, and first among us all, both of the flock that is fed and of those who feed it, made Himself ”the servant of all.”

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

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

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament a.s.sembled, whose Parliamentary trust he has betrayed.

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

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated.

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

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Vakeel states Mofussil Jumma, of Salbarry, for 1,191

S* R* 96,229 Purchase money 53,755 ------ Per annum, loss 42,474

SPEECHES

IN

THE IMPEACHMENT

OF

WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE,

LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.

SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.

April and May, 1789.

NOTE.

After Mr. Burke had concluded the opening speeches, the first article of the impeachment was brought forward, on the 22d of February, 1788, by Mr. Fox, and supported by Mr. Grey on the 25th.

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