the mode adopted by Mr. Burke. He observed upon the language of Mr. Law, and justified the term calumniator,' which Mr. Law had made use of. Calumny, in his conception, was, where unjustifiable language was applied to an undeserving object; or where, admitting the object a deserving one, those imputations were not proved. He had too much confidence in the integrity and honour of Mr. Burke, to doubt for a moment that he either would or thought he could prove every thing he had opened against Mr. . Hastings; but that not being the case at present, he did not think him justified in the language he had used, and consequently that Mr. Hastings's counsel situated as they were, were excusable in observing as they had done. Ignorant as he was, he said, he should feel no difficulty in giving his opinion on the whole of the charges together, and though he was of opinion that this mode would be productive of as much expedition as the other, yet even admitting for a moment that it would not, he contended, that neither for that reason, nor any other, ought they to deprive Mr. Hastings of the privilege of choosing what mode of defence he pleased to adopt. Lord Stormont declared, that, after the fullest consideration, he had been able to give the case, he had not a doubt left on his mind as to the impropriety of the mode proposed by the managers to that House. It was, in his opinion, overturning every precedent that House had before adopted, and depriving Mr. Hastings of a privilege he had a right to demand; depriving him of a right which the immutable and eternal laws of justice gave him, to make choice of that mode of defence best calculated to the nature of the charges alleged against him, and the peculiar situation in which he stands. These were privileges, these were liberties, they should be very cautious in being the instrument to destroy. No rank, no character in that House, however eminent, or however innocent, but might be an object, at some future period, of an impeachment; might be placed in the critical situation in which Mr. Hastings then stood. He therefore warned them to be cautious in adopting a mode of proceeding, by which they not only bound themselves, but posterity. The decision of that night would be handed down as an invariable rule in future; and he therefore again warned their lordships to be cautious in that decision. Much had been said of the impossibility of their lordships recollecting, when they came to give their opinions upon the whole of the various facts that had been proved, or such parts of the charges that had been disproved. Did not their lordships take notes? Did not, the clerks of that House do the same? Surely they did; and if their lordships had doubts of this recollection, he saw no objection why the proceedings of each day might not be printed, and distributed for their lordships use. His objections against proceeding charge by charge, were strong and determined. He instanced several: the House of Commons might for aught he knew, make the very evidence adduced to overturn one or two of the charges, proof to support the other. He argued on the case of lord Strafford, and declared the proceedings on that case were not at all analogous to the present. In that case, lord Strafford, on the mode of proceeding charge by charge being proposed to him, immediately gave his assent to it. Lord Strafford, he said, thought it was a very just mode of proceeding; it met his approbation; it was the method he wished to adopt, and therefore he coincided with the proposal. But this assent was not to be considered as a precedent in future; what lord Strafford might consider as a proper mode of proceeding, or what might be a proper mode of proceeding in his case, might, in another instance, appear quite the reverse, and Mr. Hastings was not bound to adopt it. Lord Derby observed, that one of the counsel for Mr. Hastings had mentioned lord Orford's case, but mentioned it in that kind of way, as if it had dropped from him unwarily. That case, as far as it went, was directly contrary to the mode of proceeding Mr. Hastings wished to adopt. He made some observations on the delay that would be created by it. If the charges were heard collectively, some of their lordships might in the interim be taken ill, and being deprived of their attendance could therefore only hear a part, perhaps, of the prosecutor's case, and none of the defence, or vice versâ ; or, if any of their lordships died, their sons who succeeded them would hear a part only of that trial, on which they were to decide. Lord Grantley said, he never knew in his life a prisoner called upon for his defence to a part of an indictment or infor gers had attempted to make a distinction between the first stage of the impeachment of that great man the earl of Strafford, and the latter proceedings when the House was borne down by violence and by tumult. He declared that the whole proceeding, from its commencement to its conclusion, was in the highest degree violent, unjust, and tyrannical. The managers of the Commons had attacked that great man in language so gross, that it disgraced this country, and was never equalled except in the case of sir Walter Raleigh. A licentious and unprincipled fellow, Pym, attacked that noble lord with all the virulence of party faction and malignity enormous as it was, because the earl of Strafford was accused by them of quitting his party; as if it were not meritorious to serve the state instead of a faction; as if it were a crime to quit a gang of highwaymen. That noble lord once, and but once, forgot himself in entreating the forbearance of his execrable persecutors. But, my lords, if we talk of the law and usage of paliament, and are bound by it, what injustice shall we not commit? If we go back into our history, we find that counsel was not allowed in an impeachment for misdemeanors; but now we sit as a court of justice, bound, as every court ought to be, by the eternal and immutable laws of justice. There was not a single impeachment, during the last century, in which there were not the strongest marks of tyranny, injustice and oppression; and even the impeachment of Sacheverel, in the present century, contained an instance of injustice, which he trusted never would happen again; when the House of Lords determined upon a point of law contrary to the unanimous opinion of the judges. In the present impeachment, he trusted their lordships would not depart from the known established laws of the land. The Commons might impeach, their lordships were to try the cause; and the same rules of evidence, the same attention to the laws, which obtained in the courts below, would, he was confident, be preserved by their lordships. He contended that it was highly improper to compel a person, situated as Mr. Hastings was, to answer one charge without hearing the whole. mation, until he had heard the whole. He challenged the lord Loughborough to give him a single instance in his recollection, where a prisoner was so situated. What, call upon a man for his defence, when he has only heard part of the charges alleged against him! Was ever such a thing heard of? He argued upon lord Strafford's case, and declared there was no comparison between that and the present. Lord Strafford wished for that mode of proceeding; and so far it made for Mr. Hastings: for they did not attempt to compel him to it, but put it as a question. The Lord Chancellor declared himself firmly of opinion with lord Grantley. A deal of nice critical inquiry, he observed, had been made use of to no purpose. He affirmed that the motion of lord Loughborough was futile and absurd. That he believed no man in England understood the English language better than Mr. Fox. That his first proposition was clear and perspicuous, namely, that all the articles should be taken separately, and that the defendant should be required to answer separately to each. But to prevent the possibility of a doubt, he had called upon Mr. Fox, still farther to elucidate his meaning, and the answer was plain and direct. It became their lordships, therefore, to determine, now and for all, and to prevent future appeals. If he were to judge from what had already appeared, occasions would necessarily arise, which would compel their lordships to adjourn from Westminster-hall to their own House, which of itself was rather a tedious duty; therefore they ought not to suffer it unnecessarily. He said he had not heard a single argument in support of the motion of the learned lord. It was the duty of a judge to do justice without any consideration of conveniency, and to do justice according to the laws of England. With respect to the law and usage of parliament, of which he had heard so much, the Chancellor utterly disclaimed all know ledge of such law. It had no existence. In times of barbarism, indeed, when to impeach a man was ruin to him by the strong hand of power, tumult or by faction, the law and usage of parliament were quoted in order to justify the most impetuous or atrocious acts. But in these enlightened days he hoped that no man would be tried but by the law of the land, which was admirably calculated to protect innocence and to punish guilt. In West- The Duke of Norfolk dissented, and minster-hall one of the honourable mana-justified Pym and the Commons. The Earl of Carlisle agreed with the Chancellor in his conclusions, but thought he spoke strange in some instances. The House divided on lord Loughbo- | charge and of the defence can be accurough's motion: Contents, 33: Not-Con- rately compared and determined, or even tents, 88. Protest against the Mode of Proceeding upon the Impeachmeat of Mr. Hastings.] It was then ordered, that the Commons be informed, that they do proceed to produce all their evidence in support of their impeachment, before the defendant be called upon for his defence. "Dissentient, "1. Because we hold it to be primarily essential to the due administration of justice, that they who are to judge, have a full, clear, and distinct knowledge of every part of the question, on which they are ultimately to decide; and in a cause of such magnitude, extent, and variety as the present, where issue is joined on acts done at times and places so distant; and with relation to persons so different, as well as on crimes so discriminate from each other by their nature and tendency, we conceive that such knowledge cannot but with extreme difficulty be obtained, without a separate consideration of the several articles exhibited. "2. Because we cannot, with equal facility, accuracy, and confidence, apply and compare the evidence adduced, and more especially the arguments urged by the prosecutors on one side, and the defendant on the other, if the whole charge be made one cause, as if the several articles be heard in the nature of separate causes. "3. Because, admitting it to be a clear and acknowledged principle of justice, that the defendant against a criminal accusation, should be at liberty to make his defence in such form and manner as he shall deem most to his advantage; we are of opinion that such principle is only true so far forth, as the use and operation thereof shall not be extended to defeat the ends of justice, or to create difficulties and delays equivalent to a direct defeat thereof; and because we are of opinion that the proposition made by the managers of the House of Commons, if it had been agreed to would not have deprived the defendant in this prosecution of the fair and allowable benefit of such principle, taken in its true sense, in as much as it tended only to oblige him to apply his defence specially, and distinctly to each of the distinct and separate articles of the impeachment in the only mode in which the respective merits of the retained in the memory, and not to limit or restrain him in the form and manner of constructing, explaining, or establishing such defence. "4. Because in the case of the earl of Middlesex, and that of the earl of Strafford, and other cases of much less magnitude, extent, and variety, than the present, this House has directed the proceedings to be according to the mode now proposed by the managers on the part of the Commons. "5. Because, even if no precedent had existed, yet and from the new and distinguishing circumstance of the present case, it would have been the duty of this House to adopt the only mode of proceeding, which, founded on simplicity, can insure perspicuity, and obviate confusion. 6. Because we conceive, that the accepting the proposal made by the managers, would have been no less consonant to good policy, than to substantial justice, since by possessing the acknowledged right of preserving their articles as so many successive impeachments, the Commons have an undoubted power of compelling this House in future, virtually to adopt that mode which they now recommend, and if ever they should be driven to stand on this extreme right, jealousies must unavoidably ensue between the two Houses, whose harmony is the vital principle of national prosperity; public justice, if not defeated, might be delayed-the innocent might be harassed, and the guilty might escape. 7. "Because, many of the reasons upon which a different mode of conducting this prosecution has been imposed upon the Commons, as alleged in the debate upon this subject, appear to us of a still more dangerous and alarming tendency, than the measure itself, forasmuch as we cannot hear, but with the utmost astonishment and apprehension, that the Supreme Court of Judicature is to be concluded by the instituted rules of the practice of inferior courts. And that the law of parliament, which we have ever considered, as recognized and reverenced by all who respected and understood the laws and the constitution of this country, has neither form, authority, nor even existence; a doctrine which we conceive to strike directly at the root of all parliamentary proceedings by impeachment, and to be equally destructive of the established rights of the Com mons, and of the criminal jurisdiction of the peers, and consequently to tend to the degradation of both Houses of Parliament, to diminish the rigour of public justice, and to subvert the fundamental principles of the constitution. (Signed)-Portland, Wentworth, Devonshire, Derby, Bedford, Cardiff, Loughborough, Fitzwilliam, Stamford. "Dissentient for the first and second reasons only. Townshend, Harcourt, Leicester. "Dissentient on the first, second, and last reasons. Manchester." Debate in the Commons on the East-India Declaratory Bill.] Feb. 25. Mr. Pitt rose. He observed that his motion for leave to bring in a bill to explain and amend a clause of the act of 1784, appointing commissioners to superintend and control the management of the affairs of the East-India Company, went to a single point only, and therefore, could not give rise to much discussion. It was generally known, that disputes had for some time subsisted between the Directors of the Company and the Commissioners of the Board of Control with regard to four regiments, which his Majesty's ministers had thought proper to send out to India, as an additional security to the British possessions in that part of the globe. The Directors, some of them at least, had been of opinion, that unless they made a requisition to government for farther military assistance, they had it in their option either to bear, or to refuse to bear, the expense of any additional regiments of his Majesty's army, which might be sent to Ipdia. That idea had been much agitated without doors, and the directors had thought proper to consult different counsel upon the subject, who had severally given their opinions; and some of them were so extraordinary, that if they had not been subscribed by the names of respectable gentlemen of the profession, he should scarcely have thought that they were the serious opinions of discerning men. One of these counsel had formerly been a member of that House, and he lamented that he had not still a seat there, since he had much rather, at all times, discuss the opinion of any man to his face than when he was absent. The resolution of sending out four additional regiments for the better protection [VOL. XXVII.] of our Indian possessions was taken in October last, when ministers had reason to feel some alarm, and to look with more than ordinary anxiety to the safety and preservation of every part of the British dominions. Nor was the design merely taken up as a temporary measure, but with a view to a permanent establishment of his Majesty's troops in India. At that time, no unwillingness to receive the regiments on board the Company's ships and provide for their support in India, had been intimated by the Court of Directors; but, on the contrary, the measure had been considered as a wise one, and the suggestion of it had given general satisfaction. Since, however, the storm which threatened had been dispersed, far different sentiments were entertained, the Act of 1781 had been cited, by which the Company were bound to pay for such of his Majesty's army as had, by their requisition, been sent to India, and the opinions to which he had alluded had been taken. In the present case, two questions arose ; 1st. Whether the King had a right to send his troops to any part of his dominions; and, 2d. if he sent them to India, who ought to defray the expense? That his Majesty had an undoubted right, by his royal prerogative, to direct the distribution of his army, no man would dispute. The only question therefore that remained was, whether, if his Majesty, by virtue of his prerogative, thought proper to send four additional regiments to India, the expense of sending them, and their support, ought to be provided for out of the revenues of India, which they protected? On what principle it was, that gentlemen entertained doubts on this point, he was at a loss to imagine, since, in his mind, nothing could be more clear, than that there was no one step that could have been taken previous to passing the act of 1784 by the Court of Directors, touching the military and political concerns of India, and also the collection, management, and application of the revenues of the territorial possessions, that the commissioners of the Board of Control had not now a right to take by virtue of the powers and authorities vested in them by the Act of 1784. He repeated that he conceived the meaning of the Act of 1784, to be sufficiently obvious: since, however doubts had been entertained by others, and the opinions of counsel confirming those doubts had been taken, and had gone abroad into the world, he thought it better to call upon parlia [F] ment to remove those doubts by a bill. He explained that the four regiments might, if the Company consented to take them on board their ships, be sent out to India at a very inconsiderable expense, and without any inconvenience to the Company's commercial concerns; whereas if transports must be specially provided, the expense would prove enormous. He meant therefore, by the bill, to oblige the company to pay that expense out of their Indian revenues, as had already been intimated to them by the Board of Control. He concluded with moving "That leave be given to bring in a bill for removing any doubt respecting the power of the commissioners for the affairs of India, to direct that the expense of raising, transporting, and maintaining such troops as may be judged necessary for the security of the British territories and possessions in the East Indies, should be defrayed out of the revenues arising from the said territories and possessions." Mr. Baring hoped the House would be cautious of carrying a bill of such magnitude as that in question, since there would be an end to the East-India Company and all their property, if such a bill passed. The power of the King himself was limited; and resistance to any attempt to obtain unlimited and unrestrained power was both constitutional and legal. He declared, that when the Bill of 1784 was in agitation, it had not been intimated to the directors that the Bill gave any such power to the commissioners of control as was now contended for. If they had so understood it, they would not have given their support to a bill that tended to annihilate the Company, and deprive them of all their rights and powers. He went into a discussion of the impolicy of sending out new regiments to India, and said, that they would soon be (like the rest of his Majesty's forces already there) skeletons of regiments. He repeated his wish that the Bill might not be hurried. Mr. For declared, that he had no scruple to affirm, that he was ready to give his negative even to the motion for leave to bring in the Bill proposed, on the principle that sufficient ground had not been laid before the House to prove the necessity for any such bill. The right hon. gentleman well knew that the opinions of counsel upon an existing act of parliament was not a fit ground for the introduction of a declaratory bill. If such opinions did form a 'fit ground for any such bill, there would be no end to passing declaratory laws, because as counsel generally differed in their opinion, there was not an act on the statute book as to the construction of which different opinions would not be given. Declaratory act upon declaratory act would, therefore, be passed and multiplied ad infinitum. Where the judges had expressed a doubt of any law from the bench, and a judicial opinion had been delivered in court of the construction of a statute, that was held to be a fit ground to introduce a bill to explain and amend such statute, but no other ground ought to be taken. Mr. Fox farther observed, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself declared, that the Bill of 1784 was sufficiently explicit to render any declaratory bill unnecessary, and yet he had followed up that declaration with moving to bring in the very sort of bill which he had given it as his opinion was unnecessary. This was treating the opinion of the right hon. gentleman's two learned friends rather cavalierly, because it was to act upon the opinion of those who had professed to entertain doubts of the construction of the Bill of 1784, and to pass by the opinions of the Attorney and Solicitor General against there being any ground for doubt, as opinions of little importance. He stated the difference which he conceived to exist between the Bill of 1784, as now explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the India Bill which he himself had brought into the House, and about which so much had been said within those walls. By his Bill, he meant to suspend for a time the powers of the Court of Directors, and to lodge them in certain commissioners nominated by parliament, and not removable at the pleasure of the crown; except in consequence of an address from either House of Parliament. But the India Bill of the right hon. gentleman empowered his Majesty to appoint a board of superintendency and control removable at his pleasure. Mr. Fox remarked, that the India Bill which he had the honour to propose was so offensive to the right hon. gentleman, that he had exhausted upon it every epithet of obloquy which the English language could afford, describing it as a violation of chartered rights, and a most illegal and unwarrantable assumption of all the powers of the directors. For the first time, it had that day been ventured to be publicly avowed, that the right hon. gentleman's India Bill put the commissioners of the Board of Control in pos |