tion. The impassioned words of the great orator had stirred the consciences and the hearts of all when he exclaimed in closing: "Therefore hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all." With violence like this, Burke, made unjust by his very passion for justice, pursued the prosecution. The trial lasted ten years announced in 1785 in the House of Commons, and carried on before the Lords from 1788 with varying interest, it was not until 1795, and when public attention was drawn away from the subject by the great drama of the French Revolution going on almost under their very eyes, that Warren Hastings, now old and almost ruined, was at last acquitted by a House of Lords but few of whose members had been present at the opening of the trial. The prosecutors were dispersed like the judges, drawn into different paths by political passion. Burke no longer fought by the side of Fox, Wyndham had separated from Grey and Sheridan. Public opinion, originally severe towards the accused, had softened; the length of the trial had placed the crimes of Hastings in the list of historical facts; it had brought more and more clearly into view the eminent services he had rendered the country. When he withdrew into the retirement from which he was only to emerge at remote intervals, he carried with him the public good-will, and it remained faithful to him during the rest of his long life. He died at Daylesford, the old family manor, which he had re-purchased and embellished, on the 22d of August, 1818, aged eighty-five. Long before his death America had become a free and independent nation. India was already conquered and submissive to English authority. Henceforth it would be upon the European stage alone that the great dramas and the great actors were to appear. CHAPTER XXXVIII. GEORGE III.-WILLIAM PITT AND THE FRENCH AVING thus dealt with the distant questions that so long agitated the English mind, we now return to matters at home, and with deep satisfaction we find ourselves in the presence of that strong, wise, and judicious minister, who will forever remain the type of the great statesman of a free country. His history is that of his country, of her glory as well as of her misfortunes; he lived for her, dying when he believed her conquered, bearing with him into the tomb the undivulged secret of her final victory and the worthy reward of his untiring efforts. When scarcely twenty-four years of age, William Pitt had refused to accept the power offered him by George III. "I desire," he said, "to declare that I am unconnected with any party whatever. I shall keep myself reserved, and act with whichever side I think is acting right." Before the end of the session Pitt found himself placed at the head of the opposition by his own judgment as well as by the spontaneous movement of public opinion, loudly and with reason opposed to the alliance of Whigs and Tories, of the partisans and the opponents of American independence. The question of Indian affairs was a slippery and dangerous ground; the ministers of the Coalition had, however, determined absolutely to reconstruct the government by the formation of a council of seven persons, empowered to appoint and remove at will all the Company's agents, and to administer affairs independently of all charters and constituted rights. It was upon the fact of the constantly increasing disorder and abuses prevailing in every department of Indian affairs that Fox based his powerful logic. "What is a charter?" said the attorney-general, Lee. "Only a skin of parchment, with a seal of wax dangling at one end of it!" All the English respect for rights and precedents revolted against this cynical reasoning. Necessity is the argument of tyrants," exclaimed Pitt; "it is the creed of slaves." 66 The members of the new Indian council were already designated, and they were men belonging to the most intimate coterie of the Coalition. "The bill which Fox has brought in relation to India," wrote Pitt to his friend, the Duke of Rutland," will, one way or other, be decisive for or against the Coalition. It is, I really think, the boldest and most unconstitutional measure ever attempted, transferring at one stroke, in spite of all charters and compacts, the immense patronage and influence of the East to Charles Fox, in or out of office. I think it will with difficulty, if at all, find its way through our House, and can never succeed in yours. The ministry trust all on this one die, and will probably fail." But all the efforts of the opposition were unsuccessful in the House of Commons; the Indian bill passed by a large majority. Burke lent it the support of his eloquence, already beginning to attack the crimes and abuses upon which later he was to launch all his thunderbolts. He took occasion to eulogize in the House of Commons that friend, from whom he was later formally to separate in the same public and conspicuous manner. "He is traduced and abused for his supposed motives," exclaimed the eloquent orator. "He will remember that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the |