sociates for the representatives of British faith | and British justice in India!" Oh Faith! Oh Justice! I conjure 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 honor, shrink back aghast from the deleterious shade--where all existences, nefarious and vile, have sway-where, amid the black agents on one side and Middleton with Impey on the other, the great figure of the piece-characteristic in his place, aloof and independent from the puny profligacy in his train, but far from idle and inactive, turning a malignant eye on all mischief that awaits him; the multiplied apparatus of temporizing expedients and intimidating instruments, now cringing on his prey, and fawning on his vengeance-now quickening the limping pace of craft, and forcing every stand that retiring nature can make to the heart; the attachments and the decorums of life; each emotion of tenderness and honor; and all the distinctions of national pride; with a long catalogue of crimes and aggravations beyond the reach of thought for human malignity to perpetrate or human vengeance to punish; lower than perdition—blacker than despair 133 themselves treated with It might, my Lords, have been hoped, for the The Beguns honor of the human heart, that the Begums were themselves exempted from great severity. a share in these sufferings, and that they had been wounded only through the sides of their ministers. The reverse of this, however, is the fact. Their palace was surrounded by a guard, which was withdrawn by Major Gilpin to avoid the growing resentments of the people, and replaced by Mr. Middleton, through his fears of that "dreadful responsibility" which was imposed upon him by Mr. Hastings. The women, also, of the Khord Mahal, who were not involved in the Begums' supposed crimes; who had raised no sub-rebellion of their own; and who, it has been proved, lived in a distinct dwelling, were causelessly implicated, nevertheless, 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 beaten with bludgeons, and forced back by the soldiery to the scene of madness which they had quitted. These are acts, my Lords, which, 33 This apostrophe to Faith and Justice is finely conceived, and, if carried out with the simplicity and conciseness which a man like Lord Chatham would have given it, might have formed one of the most magnificent passages in our language. But it was the besetting sin of Mr. Sheridan to overdo. He has here marred a noble idea by overlaying it with accessories-by an accumulation of circumstances and of glaring epithets, which divert the attention from the leading thought, and thus, to a great extent, destroy the effect. It might be a useful exercise for the student in oratory, to write out this passage in more simple and concise terms, such as we may suppose would have Deen used by Lord Chatham or Lord Erskine. I will not offer when told, need no comment. a single syllable to awaken your Lordships' feelings; but leave it to the facts which have been stated to make their own impression.34 Mr. Hastings for the con VI. The inquiry which now only remains, my Lords, is, whether Mr. Hastings is to be answerable for the crimes commit- responsible ted by his agents? It has been fully duct of his proved that Mr. Middleton signed the agents. treaty with the superior Begum in October, 34 All these statements have been confirmed by subsequent investigations; and Mr. Mill has added others connected with them, which are necessary to fill out the picture. "The Begums gave up the treasures; but the eunuchs were not yet released. More money was absolutely required, and new severities were employed. The sufferings to which they were thus exposed drew from the eunuchs the offer of an engagement for the payment of the demanded sum, which they undertook to complete within the period of one month, from their own credit and effects. The engagement was taken, but the confinement of the eunuchs was not relaxed; the mother and grandmother of the Nabob remained under guard; and the resident was commanded to make with them no settlement whatsoever. The prisoners entreated their release, declaring their inability to procure any finement. So far from any relaxation of their suffarther sums of money while they remained in conferings, higher measures of severity were enjoined. After they had lain two months in irons, the commanding officer advised a temporary release from fetters on account of their health, which was rapidly sinking; but the instructions of the resident compelled him to refuse the smallest mitigation of their torture. They were threatened with being removed to Lucknow [to the fortress of Chunargar], where unless they performed, without delay, what they they would only be subjected to severer coercion, averred themselves unable to perform. They were accordingly soon after removed to Lucknow, and cruelties inflicted upon them, of which the nature is not disclosed; of which the following letter, addressed by the assistant resident to the commanding officer of the English guard, is a disgraceful proof. 'Sir,-The Nabob having determined to inflict corporeal punishment upon the prisoners under your guard, this is to desire that his officers, when they come, may have free access to the prisoners, and be permitted to do with them as they shall see proper.' The women in the Zenana, in the mean while, were, at various times, deprived of food, till they were on the point of perishing for want. The rigors went on increasing till the month of December [that is, for nearly a year], when the resident, convinced by his own experience, and the representation of the officer commanding the guard by which the princesses were coerced, that every thing which force. could accomplish was already performed, removed, of his own authority, the guard from the palace of the Begums, and set at liberty their ministers."See British India, iv., 396-98. Mr. Hastings is referred to by the resident throughout, as requiring all these severities. If any thing could add to the horror which they awaken, it is the fact that he hypocritically pretended to believe that the Nabob wished them to be inflicted, and taught the victims of his cruelty to ascribe their final release to his own clemency. The resident was directed to inform them that the Governor Gen eral was the spring from whence they were restored to their dignity and consequence." 1778. He also acknowledged signing some others of a different date, but could not recollect the authority by which he did it! These treaties were recognized by Mr. Hastings, as appears by the evidence of Mr. Purling, in the year 1780. In that of October, 1778, the jaghire was secured, which was allotted for the support of the women in the Khord Mahal. But still the prisoner pleads that he is not accountable for the cruelties which were exercised. His is the plea which tyranny, aided by its prime minister, treachery, is always sure to set up. Mr. Middleton has attempted to strengthen this ground by endeavoring to claim the whole infamy in those transactions, and to monopolize the guilt! He dared even to aver, that he had been condemned 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 he never would be arraigned; but in the face of this court, and before he left the bar, he was compelled to confess that it was for the lenience, and not the severity of his proceedings, that he had been reproved by the prisoner. he did not order 1135 the same degree accountable to the law, to his country, to his conscience, and to his God! on the council, ceived. The prisoner has endeavored also to get rid of a part of his guilt, by observing His measures that he was but one of the supreme ot chargeable council, and that all the rest had sanc- who were de tioned those transactions with their approbation. Even if it were true that others did participate in the guilt, it can not tend to diminish his criminality. But the fact is, that the council erred in nothing so much as in a reprehensible 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 January following that they saw the mass of falsehood which had been published under the title of "Mr. Hastings' Narrative." They were, then, unaccountably duped to permit a letter to pass, dated the 29th of November, intended to seduce the Directors into a belief that they had received intelligence at that time, which was not the fact. These observations, my Lords, are not meant to cast any obloquy on the council; they undoubtedly were deIt will not, I trust, be concluded, that, be- ceived; and the deceit practiced on them is a deNo excuse that cause Mr. Hastings has not marked cided proof of his consciousness of guilt. When these cruelties every passing shade of guilt, and be- tired of corporeal infliction, Mr. Hastings was by name. cause he has only given the bold out- gratified by insulting the understanding. The line of cruelty, he is therefore to be acquitted. coolness and reflection with which this act was It is laid down by the law of England, that law managed and concerted raises its enormity and which is the perfection of reason, that a person blackens its turpitude. It proves the prisoner ordering an act to be done by his agent is an- to be that monster in nature, a deliberate and swerable for that act with all its consequences, reasoning tyrant! Other tyrants of whom we quod facit per alium, facit per se. Mid-read, such as a Nero, or a Caligula, were urged dleton was appointed, in 1777, the confidential to their crimes by the impetuosity of passion. agent, the second self of Mr. Hastings. The High rank disqualified them from advice, and Governor General ordered the measure. Even perhaps equally prevented reflection. But in if he never saw, nor heard afterward of its con- the prisoner we have a man born in a state of sequences, he was therefore answerable for ev- mediocrity; bred to mercantile life; used to sysery pang that was inflicted, and for all the blood tem; and accustomed to regularity; who was that was shed. But he did hear, and that in- accountable to his masters, and therefore was stantly, of the whole. He wrote to accuse Mid- compelled to think and to deliberate on every dleton of forbearance and of neglect! He com- part of his conduct. It is this cool deliberation, manded him to work upon the hopes and fears I say, which renders his crimes more horrible, of the princesses, and to leave no means untried, and his character more atrocious. until, to speak his own language, which was When, my Lords, the Board of Directors rebetter suited to the banditti of a cavern, "he ob-ceived the advices which Mr. Hastings The inquiry tained possession of the secret hoards of the old thought proper to transmit, though un-recated by ladies." He would not allow even of a delay furnished with any other materials to Mr. Hastings. of two days to smooth the compelled approaches form their judgment, they expressed very strongof a son to his mother, on this occasion! His ly their doubts, and properly ordered an inquiry orders were peremptory. After this, my Lords, into the circumstances of the alleged disaffection can it be said that the prisoner was ignorant of of the Begums, declaring it, at the same time, the acts, or not culpable for their consequences? to be a debt which was due to the honor and It is true, he did not direct the guards, the fam- justice of the British nation. This inquiry, howine, and the bludgeons; he did not weigh the ever, Mr. Hastings thought it absolutely necesfetters, nor number the lashes to be inflicted on sary to elude. He stated to the council, in anhis victims; but yet he is just as guilty as if he swer, "that it would revive those animosities had borne an active and personal share in each that subsisted between the Begums and the Natransaction. It is as if he had commanded that bob [Asoph Dowlah], which had then subsided. the heart should be torn from the bosom, and If the former were inclined to appeal to a foreign enjoined that no blood should follow. He is in jurisdiction, they were the best judges of their own feeling, and should be left to make their own complaint." All this, however, my Lords, is nothing to the magnificent paragraph which concludes this communication. "Besides," says ordered dep about the would be perfect in the spirits and the aspirings of men !-where the mind rises; where the heart expands; where the countenance is ever placid and benign; where her favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate; to hear their cry and to help them; to rescue and relieve, to succor and save; majestic, from its mercy; venerable, from its utility; uplifted, without pride; firm, without obduracy; beneficent in each pref Peroration. he, "I hope it will not be a departure from offiHis remarks cial language to say, that the Majesty Majesty of of Justice ought not to be approached Justice. 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 man of sense and honor, is rather Oriental in his imagination, and not learned in the sublime and beau-erence; lovely, though in her frown! tiful from the immortal leader of this prosecu- On that Justice I rely deliberate and sure, tion, was caught by this bold, bombastic quibble, abstracted from all party purpose and and joined in the same words, "that the majesty political speculation; not on words, but of justice ought not to be approached without on facts. You, my Lords, who hear me, I consolicitation." But, my Lords, do you, the judg- jure, by those rights which it is your best prives of this land, and the expounders of its rightful ilege to preserve; by that fame which it is your laws, do you approve of this mockery, and call best pleasure to inherit; by all those feelings it the character of justice, which takes the form which refer to the first term in the series of exof right to excite wrong? No, my Lords, jus- istence, the original compact of our nature, our tice is not this halt and miserable object; it is controlling rank in the creation. This is the call not the ineffective bawble of an Indian pagod; it on all to administer to truth and equity, as they is not the portentous phantom of despair; it is would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse with the most exalted bliss possible or conceivof reason, and found in some unhallowed grove able for our nature; the self-approving conof superstitious darkness and political dismay !sciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we No, my Lords. In the happy reverse of all this, I turn from the disgusting caricature to the real image! Justice I have now before me august and pure! The abstract idea of all that look for will be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world! My Lords, I have done. CHARLES JAMES FOX. CHARLES JAMES Fox was born on the 24th of January, 1749, and was the second son of Henry Fox (the first Lord Holland), and Lady Georgiana Lennox, daughter of the second Duke of Richmond. The father, as heretofore mentioned, was the great antagonist of Lord Chatham. He was a man of amiable feelings, but dissolute habits; poor (as the natural consequence) during most of his life, and governed in his politics by the master principle of the Walpole school-love of power for the sake of money. In 1757, he obtained the appointment of Paymaster of the Forces. This office, as then managed, afforded almost boundless opportunities for acquiring wealth; and so skillfully did he use his advantages, that within eight years he amassed a fortune of several hundred thousand pounds. A part of this money he spent in erecting a magnificent house on his estate at Kingsgate, in the Isle of Thanet. Upon a bleak promontory," says one of his contemporaries, "projecting into the German Ocean, he constructed a splendid villa worthy of Lucullus, and adorned it with a colonnade in front of the building, such as Ictinus might have raised by order of Pericles." Here Charles spent a portion of his early years, and the estate fell to him, as a part of his patrimony, after his father's death. Lord Holland's oldest son, Stephen, being affected with a nervous disease which impaired his faculties, Charles, who gave early proofs of extraordinary talent, became the chief object of pride and hope to the family. His father resolved to train him up for public life, and to make him what he himself had always endeavored to be, a leader in fashionable dissipation, and yet an orator and a statesman. He had lived in the days of Bolingbroke, and it would almost seem as if he intended to make that gifted but profligate adventurer the model of his favorite child. He began by treating him with extreme indulgence. His first maxim was, "Let nothing be done to break his spirit," and with this view he permitted no one either to contradict or to punish the boy. On the contrary, he encouraged him in the wildest whims and ca prices. When about five years old, Charles was standing one day by his father as he wound up his watch, and said, "I have a great mind to break that watch." 'No, Charles, that would be foolish." But indeed I must do it-I must.” Nay," replied the father, "if you have so violent an inclination, I won't balk it," giving the watch to the boy, who instantly dashed it on the floor. Amid all this indulgence, however, his studies were not neglected; he showed surprising quickness in performing his tasks, and the same ready and retentive memory for which he was remarkable in after life. His father made him, from childhood, his companion and equal, encouraging him to converse freely at table, and to enter into all the questions discussed by public men who visited the family. Charles usually acquitted himself to the admiration of all, and was no doubt indebted to this early habit of thinking and speaking with freedom, for that frankness and intrepidity, amounting often to rashness, which distinguished him as an orator. Lord Holland, in the mean time, was steadily aiming at the object he had in view. He wrought upon his son's pride; he inflamed him with that love of superiority which is usually the most powerful excitement of genius; he continually pointed him to public life, as the great theater of his labors and triumphs. Under such influences, his progress at a private school of distinction, where he was sent from childhood, was uncommonly rapid; the severe discipline pursued having the effect at once to repress his irregularities, and to turn his passion for superiority in the right direction. Here he laid the foundation of that intimate acquaintance with the classics, for which he was distinguished beyond most men of his age. He can hardly be said to have studied Latin or Greek after he was sixteen years old. So thoroughly was he grounded in these languages from boyhood, that he read them throughout life much as he read English, and could turn to the great authors of antiquity at any moment, not as a mental effort, but for the recreation and delight he found in their pages. This was especially true of the Greek writers, which were then less studied in England than at present. He took up Demosthenes as he did the speeches of Lord Chatham, and dwelt with the same zest on the Greek tragedians as on the plays of Shakspeare. As an instance of this, Mr. Trotter, who attended him at the close of life, mentions, that Mr. Fox once entered the room, just as he was beginning to read the Alcestis of Euripides. "You will soon find something you like," said he "tell me when you come to it." Mr. Fox, who had not opened the book for many years, watched the reader's countenance till he came to the description of Alcestis, after praying for her children, as she mourned so pathetically over her lot, when he broke out with a kind of triumph at the effect produced by the exquisite tenderness of the passage. In the wildest excesses of his life, the classics were still his companions; in the midst of public business, he corresponded with Gilbert Wakefield on the nicest questions of Greek criticism; he usually led to the subject in conversation with literary men; and we see in the Memoirs of the poet Campbell what delight he expressed at their first interview, in finding how perfectly they agreed on some disputed points in Virgil. As an orator, he was much indebted to his study of the Greek writers for the simplicity of his taste, his severe abstinence from every thing like mere ornament, the terseness of his style, the point and stringency of his reasonings, and the all-pervading cast of intellect which distinguishes his speeches, even in his most vehement bursts of impassioned feeling. Charles was next sent to Eaton, where he joined associates who were less advanced than himself in classical literature. This made him a leader in their studies and amusements. In every thing that called for eloquence, especially, whether in public meetings or private debate, or the contentions of the play-ground, he held an acknowledged pre-eminence. On such occasions, he always manifested those kind and generous feelings for which he was distinguished throughout life; espousing the cause of the weaker party, and exerting all his powers of oratory in behalf of those who were injured or neglected through prejudice or partiality for others. Never content with mediocrity, he endeavored to surpass his companions in every thing he undertook; and his habits of self-indulgence unfortunately taking a new direction, he now became a leader in all the dissipation of the school. To complete the mischief, his father took him, at the age of fourteen, on a trip to the Spa in Germany, at that time the great center of gambling for Europe; and, incredible as it may seem, he there initiated him in all the mysteries of the gaming-table! At the end of three months, Charles returned to Eaton with that fatal passion which so nearly proved his ruin for life, and immediately introduced gambling among his companions to an extent never before heard of in a public school. Under his influence, one of the boys, it is said, contracted debts of honor to the amount of ten thousand pounds, which he felt bound to pay when he arrived at manhood! At the end of six years Charles was removed to Oxford, where he continued two years, still maintaining the highest rank as a scholar. Notwithstanding his love of pleasure, he must have devoted most of his time at the university to severe study; for his tutor, Dr. Newcombe, remarks, in a letter which Mr. Fox was fond of showing in after life," Application like yours requires some intermission, and you are the only |