the best institutions. You have the representatives of that religion which says that their God is love, that the very vital spirit of their institution is charity; a religion which so much hates oppression, that when the God 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 constituent parts of the body of this House. We know then, 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, Esq., of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, 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 in India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose proper ties 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 sexes, in every age, rank, situation, and condition of life.

HENRY GRATTAN

HENR

ENRY GRATTAN was born in 1746; his father, a Protestant, was for many years Recorder of the City of Dublin, and for five years its representative in the Irish Parliament. His mother was a daughter of Thomas Marlay, Chief-Justice of Ireland. Both at school and at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered in 1763, young Grattan greatly distinguished himself. In 1767 he began to keep his terms in the Middle Temple, London, and was called to the Irish bar in 1772. From the time that he left the university, he seems to have given his attention chiefly to politics and to the study of popular oratory. When in 1775 he entered the Irish Parliament, his powers were already under full command, and he became almost immediately the acknowledged leader of the Opposition. It was he more than any other man who secured the repeal of Poyning's Act, and the resultant independence of the Irish Parliament. Before the rebellion of 1798 Grattan had retired to private life, but in 1800, though in feeble health, he re-entered the Irish Parliament for the special purpose of opposing the motion for union with Great Britain. He exerted all his eloquence in condemnation of the measure. After the Union was effected, he withdrew a second time from public life, but in 1805 entered the English Parliament in order to render his assistance to the passing of the Catholic relief bill. He continued to advocate the concession of political rights to Catholics up to his death, in 1820. It is thought that, as regards subject matter, his speeches do not suffer from comparison even with those of Burke, while they are almost. unequalled in respect of the incisive vigor and startling originality of the style.

AGAINST ENGLISH IMPERIALISM

DELIVERED IN THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, APRIL 19, 1780

IR, I have entreated an attendance on this day that

you might, in the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it. If I had lived when the 9th of William took away the woollen manufacture, or when the 6th of George I.

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