CHARGES AGAINST MR. HASTINGS. — COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. — DEBTS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
The calm security into which Mr. Pitt’s administration had settled, after the victory which the Tory alliance of King and people had gained for him, left but little to excite the activity of party spirit, or to call forth those grand explosions of eloquence, which a more electric state of the political world produces. The orators of Opposition might soon have been reduced, like Philoetetes wasting his arrows upon geese at Lemnos, [Footnote: “Pinnigero, non armigero in corpore tela exerceantur.” — Accius, ap. Ciceron. lib. vii. e.] to expend the armory of their wit upon the Grahams and Rolles of the Treasury bench. But a subject now presented itself — the Impeachment of Warren Hastings — which, by embodying the cause of a whole country in one individual, and thus combining the extent and grandeur of a national question, with the direct aim and singleness of a personal attack, opened as wide a field for display as the most versatile talents could require, and to Mr. Sheridan, in particular, afforded one of those precious opportunities, of which, if Fortune but rarely offers them to genius, it is genius alone that can fully and triumphantly avail itself.
The history of the rise and progress of British power in India — of that strange and rapid vicissitude, by which the ancient Empire of the Moguls was transferred into the hands of a Company of Merchants in Leadenhall Street — furnishes matter perhaps more than any other that could be mentioned, for those strong contrasts and startling associations, to which eloquence and wit often owe their most striking effects. The descendants of a Throne, once the loftiest in the world, reduced to stipulate with the servants of traders for subsistence — the dethronement of Princes converted into a commercial transaction, and a ledger-account kept of the profits of Revolutions — the sanctity of Zenanus violated by search-warrants, and the chicaneries of English Law transplanted, in their most mischievous luxuriance, into the holy and peaceful shades of the Bramins, — such events as these, in which the poetry and the prose of life, its pompous illusions and mean realities, are mingled up so sadly and fantastically together, were of a nature, particularly when recent, to lay hold of the imagination as well as the feelings, and to furnish eloquence with those strong lights and shadows, of which her most animated pictures are composed.
It is not wonderful, therefore, that the warm fancy of Mr. Burke should have been early and strongly excited by the scenes of which India was the theatre, or that they should have (to use his own words) “constantly preyed upon his peace, and by night and day dwelt on his imagination.” His imagination, indeed, — as will naturally happen, where this faculty is restrained by a sense of truth — was always most livelily called into play by events of which he had not himself been a witness; and, accordingly, the sufferings of India and the horrors of revolutionary France were the two subjects upon which it has most unrestrainedly indulged itself. In the year 1780 he had been a member of the Select Committee, which was appointed by the House of Commons to take the affairs of India into consideration, and through some of whose luminous Reports we trace that powerful intellect, which “stamped an image of itself” on every subject that it embraced. Though the reign of Clive had been sufficiently fertile in enormities, and the treachery practised towards Ornichund seemed hardly to admit of any parallel, yet the loftier and more prominent iniquities of Mr. Hastings’s government were supposed to have thrown even these into shadow. Against him, therefore, — now rendered a still nobler object of attack by the haughty spirit with which he defied his accusers, — the whole studies and energies of Mr. Burke’s mind were directed.
It has already been remarked that to the impetuous zeal, with which Burke at this period rushed into Indian politics, and to that ascendancy over his party by which he so often compelled them to “swell with their tributary urns his flood,” the ill-fated East India Bill of Mr. Fox in a considerable degree owed its origin. In truth, the disposition and talents of this extraordinary man made him at least as dangerous as useful to any party with which he connected himself. Liable as he was to be hurried into unsafe extremes, impatient of contradiction, and with a sort of feudal turn of mind, which exacted the unconditional service of his followers, it required, even at that time, but little penetration to foresee the violent schism that ensued some years after, or to pronounce that, whenever he should be unable to command his party, he would desert it.
The materials which he had been collecting on the subject of India, and the indignation with which these details of delinquency had filled him, at length burst forth (like that mighty cloud, described by himself as “pouring its whole contents over the plains of the Carnatic”) in his wonderful speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts [Footnote: Isocrates, in his Encomium upon Helen, dwells much on the advantage to an orator of speaking upon subjects from which but little eloquence is expected — [Greek: pezi ton phaulon chai tapeinon]. There is little doubt, indeed, that surprise must have considerable share in the pleasure, which we derive from eloquence on such unpromising topics as have inspired three of the most masterly speeches that can be selected from modern oratory — that of Burke on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts — of Grattan on Tithes, and of Mr. Fox on the Westminster Scrutiny.] — a speech, whose only rivals perhaps in all the records of oratory, are to be found among three or four others of his own, which, like those poems of Petrarch called Sorelle from their kindred excellence, may be regarded as sisters in beauty, and equalled only by each other.
Though the charges against Mr. Hastings had long been threatened, it was not till the present year that Mr. Burke brought them formally forward. He had been, indeed, defied to this issue by the friends of the Governor-General, whose reliance, however, upon the sympathy and support of the ministry (accorded, as a matter of course, to most State delinquents) was, in this instance, contrary to all calculation, disappointed. Mr. Pitt, at the commencement of the proceedings, had shown strong indications of an intention to take the cause of the Governor-General under his protection. Mr. Dundas, too, had exhibited one of those convenient changes of opinion, by which such statesmen can accommodate themselves to the passing hue of the Treasury-bench, as naturally as the Eastern insect does to the color of the leaf on which it feeds. Though one of the earliest and most active denouncers of Indian mis-government, and even the mover of those strong Resolutions in 1782 [Footnote: In introducing the Resolutions he said, that “he was urged to take this step by an account, which had lately arrived from India, of an act of the most flagrant violence and oppression and of the grossest breach of faith, committed by Mr. Hastings against Cheyte Sing, the Raja of Benares.”] on which some of the chief charges of the present prosecution were founded, he now, throughout the whole of the opening scenes of the Impeachment, did not scruple to stand forth as the warm eulogist of Mr. Hastings, and to endeavor by a display of the successes of his administration to dazzle away attention from its violence and injustice.
This tone, however, did not long continue: — in the midst of the anticipated triumph of Mr. Hastings, the Minister suddenly “changed his hand, and checked his pride.” On the occasion of the Benares Charge, brought forward in the House of Commons by Mr. Fox, a majority was, for the first time, thrown into the scale of the accusation; and the abuse that was in consequence showered upon Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas, through every channel of the press, by the friends of Mr. Hastings, showed how wholly unexpected, as well as mortifying, was the desertion.
As but little credit was allowed to conviction in this change, it being difficult to believe that a Minister should come to the discussion of such a question, so lightly ballasted with opinions of his own as to be thrown from his equilibrium by the first wave of argument he encountered, — various statements and conjectures were, at the time, brought forward to account for it. Jealousy of the great and increasing influence of Mr. Hastings at court was, in general, the motive assigned for the conduct of the Minister. It was even believed that a wish expressed by the King, to have his new favorite appointed President of the Board of Control, was what decided Mr. Pitt to extinguish, by cooperating with the Opposition, every chance of a rivalry, which might prove troublesome, if not dangerous, to his power. There is no doubt that the arraigned ruler of India was honored at this period with the distinguished notice of the Court — partly, perhaps, from admiration of his proficiency in that mode of governing, to which all Courts are, more or less, instinctively inclined, and partly from a strong distaste to those who were his accusers, which would have been sufficient to recommend any person or measure to which they were opposed.
But whether Mr. Pitt, in the part which he now took, was actuated merely by personal motives, or (as his eulogists represent) by a strong sense of impartiality and justice, he must at all events have considered the whole proceeding, at this moment, as a most seasonable diversion of the attacks of the Opposition, from his own person and government to an object so little connected with either. The many restless and powerful spirits now opposed to him would soon have found, or made, some vent for their energies, more likely to endanger the stability of his power; — and, as an expedient for drawing off some of that perilous lightning, which flashed around him from the lips of a Burke, a Fox, and a Sheridan, the prosecution of a great criminal like Mr. Hastings furnished as efficient a conductor as could be desired.
Still, however, notwithstanding the accession of the Minister, and the impulse given by the majorities which he commanded, the projected impeachment was but tardy and feeble in its movements, and neither the House nor the public went cordially along with it. Great talents, united to great power — even when, as in the instance of Mr. Hastings, abused — is a combination before which men are inclined to bow implicitly. The iniquities, too, of Indian rulers were of that gigantic kind, which seemed to outgrow censure, and even, in some degree, challenge admiration.
In addition to all this, Mr. Hastings had been successful; and success but too often throws a charm round injustice, like the dazzle of the necromancer’s shield in Ariosto, before which every one falls
“Con gli occhi abbacinati, e senza mente.”
The feelings, therefore, of the public were, at the outset of the prosecution, rather for than against the supposed delinquent. Nor was this tendency counteracted by any very partial leaning towards his accusers. Mr. Fox had hardly yet recovered his defeat on the India Bill, or — what had been still more fatal to him — his victory in the Coalition. Mr. Burke, in spite of his great talents and zeal, was by no means popular. There was a tone of dictatorship in his public demeanor against which men naturally rebelled; and the impetuosity and passion with which he flung himself into every favorite subject, showed a want of self- government but little calculated to inspire respect. Even his eloquence, various and splendid as it was, failed in general to win or command the attention of his hearers, and, in this great essential of public speaking, must be considered inferior to that ordinary, but practical, kind of oratory, [Footnote: “Whoever, upon comparison, is deemed by a common audience the greatest orator, ought most certainly to be pronounced such by men of science and erudition.” — Hume, Essay 13.] which reaps its harvest at the moment of delivery, and is afterwards remembered less for itself than its effects. There was a something — which those who have but read him can with difficulty conceive — that marred the impression of his most sublime and glowing displays. In vain did his genius put forth its superb plumage, glittering all over with the hundred eyes of fancy — the gait of the bird was heavy and awkward, and its voice seemed rather to scare than attract. Accordingly, many of those masterly discourses, which, in their present form, may proudly challenge comparison with all the written eloquence upon record, were, at the time when they were pronounced, either coldly listened to, or only welcomed as a signal and excuse for not listening at all. To such a length was this indifference carried, that, on the evening when he delivered his great Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts, so faint was the impression it produced upon the House, that Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville, as I have heard, not only consulted with each other as to whether it was necessary they should take the trouble of answering it, but decided in the negative. Yet doubtless, at the present moment, if Lord Grenville — master as he is of all the knowledge that belongs to a statesman and a scholar — were asked to point out from the stores of his reading the few models of oratorical composition, to the perusal of which he could most frequently, and with unwearied admiration, return, this slighted and unanswered speech would be among the number.
From all these combining circumstances it arose that the prosecution of Mr. Hastings, even after the accession of the Minister, excited but a slight and wavering interest; and, without some extraordinary appeal to the sympathies of the House and the country — some startling touch to the chord of public feeling — it was questionable whether the inquiry would not end as abortively as all the other Indian inquests [Footnote: Namely, the fruitless prosecution of Lord Clive by General Burgoyne, the trifling verdict upon the persons who had imprisoned Lord Pigot, and the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Sir Thomas Rumbold, finally withdrawn.] that had preceded it.
In this state of the proceeding, Mr. Sheridan brought forward, on the 7th of February, in the House of Commons, the charge relative to the Begum Princesses of Oude, and delivered that celebrated Speech, whose effect upon its hearers has no parallel in the annals of ancient or modern eloquence. [Footnote: Mr. Burke declared it to be “the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition.” Mr. Fox said, “All that he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapor before the sun,” — and Mr. Pitt acknowledged “that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed every thing that genius or art could furnish, to agitate and control the human mind.”
There were several other tributes, of a less distinguished kind, of which I find the following account in the Annual Register —
“Sir William Dolben immediately moved an adjournment of the debate, confessing, that, in the state of mind in which Mr. Sheridan’s speech had left him, it was impossible for him to give a determinate opinion. Mr. Stanhope seconded the motion. When he had entered the House, he was not ashamed to acknowledge, that his opinion inclined to the side of Mr. Hastings. But such had been the wonderful efficacy of Mr. Sheridan’s convincing detail of facts, and irresistible eloquence, that he could not but say that his sentiments were materially changed. Nothing, indeed, but information almost equal to a miracle, could determine him not to vote for the Charge; but he had just felt the influence of such a miracle, and he could not but ardently desire to avoid an immediate decision. Mr. Mathew Montague confessed, that he had felt a similar revolution of sentiment.”]
When we recollect the men by whom the House of Commons was at that day adorned, and the conflict of high passions and interests in which they had been so lately engaged; — when we see them all, of all parties, brought (as Mr. Pitt expressed it) “under the wand of the enchanter,” and only vying with each other in their description of the fascination by which they were bound; — when we call to mind, too, that he, whom the first statesmen of the age thus lauded, had but lately descended among them from a more aerial region of intellect, bringing trophies falsely supposed to be incompatible with political prowess; — it is impossible to imagine a moment of more entire and intoxicating triumph. The only alloy that could mingle with such complete success must be the fear that it was too perfect ever to come again; — that his fame had then reached the meridian point, and from that consummate moment must date its decline.
Of this remarkable Speech there exists no Report; — for it would be absurd to dignify with that appellation the meagre and lifeless sketch, the
Tenuem sine viribus umbram In faciem aenae,
which is given in the Annual Registers and Parliamentary Debates. Its fame, therefore, remains like an empty shrine — a cenotaph still crowned and honored, though the inmate is wanting. Mr. Sheridan was frequently urged to furnish a Report himself, and from his habit of preparing and writing out his speeches, there is little doubt that he could have accomplished such a task without much difficulty. But, whether from indolence or design, he contented himself with leaving to imagination, which, in most cases, he knew, transcends reality, the task of justifying his eulogists, and perpetuating the tradition of their praise. Nor, in doing thus, did he act perhaps unwisely for his fame. We may now indulge in dreams of the eloquence that could produce such effects, [Footnote: The following anecdote is given as a proof of the irresistible power of this speech in a note upon Mr. Bisset’s History of the Reign of George III.: —
“The late Mr. Logan, well known for his literary efforts, and author of a most masterly defence of Mr. Hastings, went that day to the House of Commons, prepossessed for the accused and against his accuser. At the expiration of the first hour he said to a friend, ‘All this is declamatory assertion without proof:’ — when the second was finished, ‘This is a most wonderful oration:’ — at the close of the third, ‘Mr. Hastings has acted very unjustifiably:’ — the fourth, ‘Mr. Hastings is a most atrocious criminal;’ — and, at last, ‘Of all monsters of iniquity the most enormous is Warren Hastings!’”] as we do of the music of the ancients and the miraculous powers attributed to it, with as little risk of having our fancies chilled by the perusal of the one, as there is of our faith being disenchanted by hearing a single strain of the other.
After saying thus much, it may seem a sort of wilful profanation, to turn to the spiritless abstract of this speech, which is to be found in all the professed reports of Parliamentary oratory, and which stands, like one of those half-clothed mummies in the Sicilian vaults, with, here and there, a fragment of rhetorical drapery, to give an appearance of life to its marrowless frame. There is, however, one passage so strongly marked with the characteristics of Mr. Sheridan’s talent — of his vigorous use of the edge of the blade, with his too frequent display of the glitter of the point — that it may be looked upon as a pretty faithful representation of what he spoke, and claim a place among the authentic specimens of his oratory. Adverting to some of those admirers of Mr. Hastings, who were not so implicit in their partiality as to give unqualified applause to his crimes, but found an excuse for their atrocity in the greatness of his mind, he thus proceeds: —
“To estimate the solidity of such a defence, it would be sufficient merely to consider in what consisted this prepossessing distinction, this captivating characteristic of greatness of mind. Is it not solely to be traced in great actions directed to great ends? In them, and them alone, we are to search for true estimable magnanimity. To them only can we justly affix the splendid title and honors of real greatness. There was indeed another species of greatness, which displayed itself in boldly conceiving a bad measure, and undauntedly pursuing it to its accomplishment. But had Mr. Hastings the merit of exhibiting either of these descriptions of greatness, — even of the latter? He saw nothing great — nothing magnanimous — nothing open — nothing direct in his measures, or in his mind. On the contrary, he had too often pursued the worst objects by the worst means. His course was an eternal deviation from rectitude. He either tyrannized or deceived; and was by turns a Dionysius and a Scapin. [Footnote: The spirit of this observation has been well condensed in the compound name given by the Abbe de Pradt to Napoleon— “Jupiter Scapin.”] As well might the writhing obliquity of the serpent be compared to the swift directness of the arrow, as the duplicity of Mr. Hastings’s ambition to the simple steadiness of genuine magnanimity. In his mind all was shuffling, ambiguous, dark, insidious, and little: nothing simple, nothing unmixed: all affected plainness, and actual dissimulation; a heterogeneous mass of contradictory qualities; with nothing great but his crimes; and even those contrasted by the littleness of his motives, which at once denoted both his baseness and his meanness, and marked him for a traitor and a trickster. Nay, in his style and writing there was the same mixture of vicious contrarieties; — the most grovelling ideas were conveyed in the most inflated language, giving mock consequence to low cavils, and uttering quibbles in heroics; so that his compositions disgusted the mind’s taste, as much as his actions excited the soul’s abhorrence. Indeed this mixture of character seemed, by some unaccountable but inherent quality, to be appropriated, though in inferior degrees, to everything that concerned his employers. He remembered to have heard an honorable and learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas) remark, that there was something in the first frame and constitution of the Company, which extended the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive operations; connecting with their civil policy, and even with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar and the profligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and the military line could be observed auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals; — and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an army employed in executing an arrest; a town besieged on a note of hand; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was they exhibited a government, which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre, and the little traffic of a merchant’s counting-house, wielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the other.”
The effect of this speech, added to the line taken by the Minister, turned the balance against Hastings, and decided the Impeachment.
Congratulations on his success poured in upon Mr. Sheridan, as may be supposed, from all quarters; and the letters that he received from his own family on the occasion were preserved by him carefully and fondly through life. The following extract from one written by Charles Sheridan is highly honorable to both brothers: —
“Dublin Castle, 13th February, 1787.
“MY DEAR DICK,
“Could I for a moment forget you were my brother, I should, merely as an Irishman, think myself bound to thank you, for the high credit you have done your country. You may be assured, therefore, that the sense of national pride, which I in common with all your countrymen on this side of the water must feel on this splendid occasion, acquires no small increase of personal satisfaction, when I reflect to whom Ireland is indebted, for a display of ability so unequalled, that the honor derived from it seems too extensive to be concentred in an individual, but ought to give, and I am persuaded will give, a new respect for the name of Irishman. I have heard and read the accounts of your speech, and of the astonishing impression it made, with tears of exultation — but what will flatter you more — I can solemnly declare it to be a fact, that I have, since the news reached us, seen good honest Irish pride, national pride I mean, bring tears into the eyes of many persons, on this occasion, who never saw you. I need not, after what I have stated, assure you, that it is with the most heartfelt satisfaction that I offer you my warmest congratulations….”
The following is from his eldest sister, Mrs. Joseph Lefanu: —
“16th February, 1787.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,
“The day before yesterday I received the account of your glorious speech. Mr. Crauford was so good as to write a more particular and satisfactory one to Mr. Lefanu than we could have received from the papers. I have watched the first interval of ease from a cruel and almost incessant headache to give vent to my feelings, and tell you how much I rejoice in your success. May it be entire! May the God who fashioned you, and gave you powers to sway the hearts of men and control their wayward wills, be equally favorable to you in all your undertakings, and make your reward here and hereafter! Amen, from the bottom of my soul! My affection for you has been ever ‘passing the love of women.’ Adverse circumstances have deprived me of the pleasure of your society, but have had no effect in weakening my regard for you. I know your heart too well to suppose that regard is indifferent to you, and soothingly sweet to me is the idea that in some pause of thought from the important matters that occupy your mind, your earliest friend is sometimes recollected by you.
“I know you are much above the little vanity that seeks its gratification in the praises of the million, but you must be pleased with the applause of the discerning, — with the tribute I may say of affection paid to the goodness of your heart. People love your character as much as they admire your talents. My father is, in a degree that I did not expect, gratified with the general attention you have excited here: he seems truly pleased that men should say, ‘There goes the father of Gaul.’ If your fame has shed a ray of brightness over all so distinguished as to be connected with you, I am sure I may say it has infused a ray of gladness into my heart, deprest as it has been with ill health and long confinement….”
There is also another letter from this lady, of the same date, to Mrs.
Sheridan, which begins thus enthusiastically: —
“MY DEAR SHERI.
“Nothing but death could keep me silent on such an occasion as this. I wish you joy — I am sure you feel it: ‘oh moments worth whole ages past, and all that are to come.’ You may laugh at my enthusiasm if you please — I glory in it….”
In the month of April following, Mr. Sheridan opened the Seventh Charge, which accused Hastings of corruption, in receiving bribes and presents. The orator was here again lucky in having a branch of the case allotted to him, which, though by no means so susceptible of the ornaments of eloquence as the former, had the advantage of being equally borne out by testimony, and formed one of the most decided features of the cause. The avidity, indeed, with which Hastings exacted presents, and then concealed them as long as there was a chance of his being able to appropriate them to himself, gave a mean and ordinary air to iniquities, whose magnitude would otherwise have rendered them imposing, if not grand.
The circumstances, under which the present from Cheyte Sing was extorted shall be related when I come to speak of the great Speech in Westminster Hall. The other strong cases of corruption, on which Mr. Sheridan now dwelt, were the sums given by the Munny Begum (in return for her appointment to a trust for which, it appears, she was unfit), both to Hastings himself and his useful agent, Middleton. This charge, as far as regards the latter, was never denied — and the suspicious lengths to which the Governor-general went, in not only refusing all inquiry into his own share of the transaction, but having his accuser, Nuncomar, silenced by an unjust sentence of death, render his acquittal on this charge such a stretch of charity, as nothing but a total ignorance of the evidence and all its bearings can justify.
The following passage, with which Sheridan wound up his Speech on this occasion, is as strong an example as can be adduced of that worst sort of florid style, which prolongs metaphor into allegory, and, instead of giving in a single sentence the essence of many flowers, spreads the flowers themselves, in crude heaps, over a whole paragraph: —
“In conclusion (he observed), that, although within this rank, but infinitely too fruitful wilderness of iniquities — within this dismal and unhallowed labyrinth — it was most natural to cast an eye of indignation and concern over the wide and towering forest of enormities — all rising in the dusky magnificence of guilt; and to fix the dreadfully excited attention upon the huge trunks of revenge, rapine, tyranny, and oppression; yet it became not less necessary to trace out the poisonous weeds, the baleful brushwood, and all the little, creeping, deadly plants, which were, in quantity and extent, if possible, more noxious. The whole range of this far-spreading calamity was sown in the hot-bed of corruption; and had risen, by rapid and mature growth, into every species of illegal and atrocious violence.”
At the commencement of the proceedings against Hastings, an occurrence, immediately connected with them, had brought Sheridan and his early friend Halhed together, under circumstances as different as well can be imagined from those under which they had parted as boys. The distance, indeed, that had separated them in the interval was hardly greater than the divergence that had taken place in their pursuits; for, while Sheridan had been converted into a senator and statesman, the lively Halhed had become an East Indian Judge, and a learned commentator on the Gentoo Laws. Upon the subject, too, on which they now met, their views and interests were wholly opposite, — Sheridan being the accuser of Hastings, and Halhed his friend. The following are the public circumstances that led to their interview.
In one of the earliest debates on the Charges against the Governor- general, Major Scott having asserted that, when Mr. Fox was preparing his India Bill, overtures of accommodation had been made, by his authority, to Mr. Hastings, added, that he (Major Scott) “entertained no doubt that, had Mr. Hastings then come home, he would have heard nothing of all this calumny, and all these serious accusations.” Mr. Fox, whom this charge evidently took by surprise, replied that he was wholly ignorant of any such overtures, and that “whoever made, or even hinted at such an offer, as coming from him, did it without the smallest shadow of authority.” By an explanation, a few days after, from Mr. Sheridan, it appeared that he was the person who had taken the step alluded to by Major Scott. His interference, however, he said, was solely founded upon an opinion which he had himself formed with respect to the India Bill, — namely, that it would be wiser, on grounds of expediency, not to make it retrospective in any of its clauses. In consequence of this opinion, he had certainly commissioned a friend to inquire of Major Scott, whether, if Mr. Hastings were recalled, he would come home; — but “that there had been the most distant idea of bartering with Mr. Hastings for his support of the Indian Bill, he utterly denied.” In conclusion, he referred, for the truth of what he had now stated, to Major Scott, who instantly rising, acknowledged that, from inquiries which he had since made of the gentleman deputed to him by Mr. Sheridan on the occasion, he was ready to bear testimony to the fairness of the statement just submitted to the House, and to admit his own mistake in the interpretation which he had put on the transaction.
It was in relation to this misunderstanding that the interview took place in the year 1786 between Sheridan and Halhed — the other persons present being Major Scott and Doctor Parr, from whom I heard the circumstance. The feelings of this venerable scholar towards “iste Scotus” (as he calls Major Scott in his Preface to Bellendenus) were not, it is well known, of the most favorable kind; and he took the opportunity of this interview to tell that gentleman fully what he thought of him:— “for ten minutes,” said the Doctor, in describing his aggression, “I poured out upon him hot, scalding abuse— ’twas lava, Sir!”
Among the other questions that occupied the attention of Mr. Sheridan during this session, the most important were the Commercial Treaty with France, and the Debts of the Prince of Wales.
The same erroneous views by which the opposition to the Irish Commercial Propositions was directed, still continued to actuate Mr. Fox and his friends in their pertinacious resistance to the Treaty with France; — a measure which reflects high honor upon the memory of Mr. Pitt, as one of the first efforts of a sound and liberal policy to break through that system of restriction and interference, which had so long embarrassed the flow of international commerce.
The wisdom of leaving trade to find its own way into those channels which the reciprocity of wants established among mankind opens to it, is one of those obvious truths that have lain long on the highways of knowledge, before practical statesmen would condescend to pick them up. It has been shown, indeed, that the sound principles of commerce which have at last forced their way from the pages of thinking men into the councils of legislators, were more than a hundred years since promulgated by Sir Dudley North; [Footnote: McCulloch’s Lectures on Political Economy] — and in the Querist of Bishop Berkeley may be found the outlines of all that the best friends not only of free trade but of free religion would recommend to the rulers of Ireland at the present day. Thus frequently does Truth, before the drowsy world is prepared for her, like
“The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabin’d loophole peep.”
Though Mr. Sheridan spoke frequently in the course of the discussions, he does not appear to have, at any time, encountered the main body of the question, but to have confined himself chiefly to a consideration of the effects which the treaty would have upon the interests of Ireland; — a point which he urged with so much earnestness, as to draw down upon him from one of the speakers the taunting designation of “Self-appointed Representative of Ireland.”
Mr. Fox was the most active antagonist of the Treaty; and his speeches on the subject may be counted among those feats of prowess, with which the chivalry of Genius sometimes adorns the cause of Error. In founding, as he did, his chief argument against commercial intercourse upon the “natural enmity” between the two countries, he might have referred, it is true, to high Whig authority:— “The late Lord Oxford told me,” says Lord Bolingbroke, “that my Lord Somers being pressed, I know not on what occasion or by whom, on the unnecessary and ruinous continuation of the war, instead of giving reasons to show the necessity of it, contented himself to reply that he had been bred up in a hatred to France.” — But no authority, however high, can promote a prejudice into a reason, or conciliate any respect for this sort of vague, traditional hostility, which is often obliged to seek its own justification in the very mischiefs which itself produces. If Mr. Fox ever happened to peruse the praises, which his Antigallican sentiments on this occasion procured for him, from the tedious biographer of his rival, Mr. Gifford, he would have suspected, like Phocion, that he must have spoken something unworthy of himself, to have drawn down upon his head a panegyric from such a quarter.
Another of Mr. Fox’s arguments against entering into commercial relations with France, was the danger lest English merchants, by investing their capital in foreign speculations, should become so entangled with the interests of another country as to render them less jealous than they ought to be of the honor of their own, and less ready to rise in its defence, when wronged or insulted. But, assuredly, a want of pugnacity is not the evil to be dreaded among nations — still less between two, whom the orator had just represented as inspired by a “natural enmity” against each other. He ought rather, upon this assumption, to have welcomed the prospect of a connection, which, by transfusing and blending their commercial interests, and giving each a stake in the prosperity of the other, would not only soften away the animal antipathy attributed to them, but, by enlisting selfishness on the side of peace and amity, afford the best guarantee against wanton warfare, that the wisdom of statesmen or philosophers has yet devised.
Mr. Burke, in affecting to consider the question in an enlarged point of view, fell equally short of its real dimensions; and even descended to the weakness of ridiculing such commercial arrangements, as unworthy altogether of the contemplation of the higher order of statesmen. “The Right Honorable gentleman,” he said, “had talked of the treaty as if it were the affair of two little counting-houses, and not of two great countries. He seemed to consider it as a contention between the sign of the Fleur-de-lis, and the sign of the Red Lion, which house should obtain the best custom. Such paltry considerations were below his notice.”
In such terms could Burke, from temper or waywardness of judgment, attempt to depreciate a speech which may be said to have contained the first luminous statement of the principles of commerce, with the most judicious views of their application to details, that had ever, at that period, been presented to the House.
The wise and enlightened opinions of Mr. Pitt, both with respect to trade, and another very different subject of legislation, Religion, would have been far more worthy of the imitation of some of his self- styled followers, than those errors which they are so glad to shelter under the sanction of his name. For encroachments upon the property and liberty of the subject, for financial waste and unconstitutional severity, they have the precedent of their great master ever ready on their lips. But, in all that would require wisdom and liberality in his copyists — in the repugnance he felt to restrictions and exclusions, affecting either the worldly commerce of man with man, or the spiritual intercourse of man with his God, — in all this, like the Indian that quarrels with his idol, these pretended followers not only dissent from their prototype themselves, but violently denounce, as mischievous, his opinions when adopted by others.
In attributing to party feelings the wrong views entertained by the Opposition on this question, we should but defend their sagacity at the expense of their candor; and the cordiality, indeed, with which they came forward this year to praise the spirited part taken by the Minister in the affairs of Holland — even allowing that it would be difficult for Whigs not to concur in a measure so national — sufficiently acquits them of any such perverse spirit of party, as would, for the mere sake of opposition, go wrong because the Minister was right. To the sincerity of one of their objections to the Treaty — namely, that it was a design, on the part of France, to detach England, by the temptation of a mercantile advantage, from her ancient alliance with Holland and her other continental connections — Mr. Burke bore testimony, as far as himself was concerned, by repeating the same opinions, after an interval of ten years, in his testamentary work, the “Letters on a Regicide Peace.”
The other important question which I have mentioned as engaging, during the session of 1787, the attention of Mr. Sheridan, was the application to Parliament for the payment of the Prince of Wales’s debts. The embarrassments of the Heir Apparent were but a natural consequence of his situation; and a little more graciousness and promptitude on the part of the King, in interposing to relieve His Royal Highness from the difficulties under which he labored, would have afforded a chance of detaching him from his new political associates, of which, however the affection of the Royal parent may have slumbered, it is strange that his sagacity did not hasten to avail itself. A contrary system, however, was adopted. The haughty indifference both of the monarch and his minister threw the Prince entirely on the sympathy of the Opposition. Mr. Pitt identified himself with the obstinacy of the father, while Mr. Fox and the Opposition committed themselves with the irregularities of the son; and the proceedings of both parties were such as might have been expected from their respective connections — the Royal mark was but too visible upon each.
One evil consequence, that was on the point of resulting from the embarrassed situation in which the Prince now found himself, was his acceptance of a loan which the Duke of Orleans had proffered him, and which would have had the perilous tendency of placing the future Sovereign of England in a state of dependence, as creditor, on a Prince of France. That the negotiations in this extraordinary transaction had proceeded farther than is generally supposed, will appear from the following letters of the Duke of Portland to Sheridan: —
“Sunday noon, 13 Dec.
“DEAR SHERIDAN,
“Since I saw you I have received a confirmation of the intelligence which was the subject of our conversation. The particulars varied in no respect from those I related to you — except in the addition of a pension, which is to take place immediately on the event which entitles the creditors to payment, and is to be granted for life to a nominee of the D. of O —— s. The loan was mentioned in a mixed company by two of the Frenchwomen and a Frenchman (none of whose names I know) in Calonne’s presence, who interrupted them, by asking, how they came to know any thing of the matter, then set them right in two or three particulars which they had misstated, and afterwards begged them, for God’s sake, not to talk of it, because it might be their complete ruin.
“I am going to Bulstrode — but will return at a moment’s notice, if I can be of the least use in getting rid of this odious engagement, or preventing its being entered into, if it should not be yet completed.
“Yours ever,
“P.”
“DEAR SHERIDAN,
“I think myself much obliged to you for what you have done. I hope I am not too sanguine in looking to a good conclusion of this bad business. I will certainly be in town by two o’clock.
“Yours ever,
“P.”
“Bulstrode, Monday, 14. Dec.
“9 A. M.”
Mr. Sheridan, who was now high in the confidence of the Prince, had twice, in the course of the year 1786, taken occasion to allude publicly to the embarrassments of His Royal Highness. Indeed, the decisive measure which this Illustrious Person himself had adopted, in reducing his establishment and devoting a part of his income to the discharge of his debts, sufficiently proclaimed the true state of affairs to the public. Still, however, the strange policy was persevered in, of adding the discontent of the Heir-Apparent to the other weapons in the hands of the Opposition; — and, as might be expected, they were not tardy in turning it to account. In the spring of 1787, the embarrassed state of His Royal Highness’s affairs was brought formally under the notice of parliament by Alderman Newenham.
During one of the discussions to which the subject gave rise, Mr. Rolle, the member for Devonshire, a strong adherent of the ministry, in deprecating the question about to be agitated, affirmed that “it went immediately to affect our Constitution in Church and State.” In these solemn words it was well understood, that he alluded to a report at that time generally believed, and, indeed, acted upon by many in the etiquette of private life, that a marriage had been solemnized between the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert — a lady of the Roman Catholic persuasion, who, with more danger to her own peace than to that of either Church or State, had for some time been the distinguished object of His Royal Highness’s affection.
Even had an alliance of this description taken place, the provisions of the Royal Marriage Act would have nullified it into a mere ceremony, inefficient, as it was supposed, for any other purpose than that of satisfying the scruples of one of the parties. But that dread of Popery, which in England starts at its own shadow, took alarm at the consequences of an intercourse so heterodox; and it became necessary, in the opinion of the Prince and his friends, to put an end to the apprehensions that were abroad on the subject.
Nor can it be denied that, in the minds of those who believed that the marriage had been actually solemnized, [Footnote: Home Tooke, in his insidious pamphlet on the subject, presumed so far on this belief as to call Mrs. Fitzherbert “Her Royal Highness.”] there were, in one point of view, very sufficient grounds of alarm. By the Statute of William and Mary, commonly called the Bill of Rights, it is enacted, among other causes of exclusion from the throne, that “every person who shall marry a Papist shall be excluded and for ever be incapable to inherit the crown of this realm.” — In such cases (adds this truly revolutionary Act) “the people of these realms shall be and are hereby absolved of their allegiance.” Under this Act, which was confirmed by the Act of Settlement, it is evident that the Heir-Apparent would, by such a marriage as was now attributed to him, have forfeited his right of succession to the throne. From so serious a penalty, however, it was generally supposed, he would have been exempted by the operation of the Royal Marriage Act (12 George III.), which rendered null and void any marriage contracted by any descendant of George II. without the previous consent of the King, or a twelve months’ notice given to the Privy Council.
That this Act would have nullified the alleged marriage of the Prince of Wales there is, of course, no doubt; — but that it would also have exempted him from the forfeiture incurred by marriage with a Papist, is a point which, in the minds of many, still remains a question. There are, it is well known, analogous cases in Law, where the nullity of an illegal transaction does not do away the penalty attached to it. [Footnote: Thus, a man, by contracting a second marriage, pending the first marriage, commits a felony; and the crime, according to its legal description, consists in marrying, or contracting a marriage — though what he does is no more a marriage than that of the Heir-Apparent would be under the circumstances in question.
The same principle, it appears, runs through the whole Law of Entails both in England and Scotland, and a variety of cases might be cited, in which, though the act done is void, yet the doing of it creates a forfeiture.] To persons, therefore, who believed that the actual solemnization of the marriage could be proved by witnesses present at the ceremony, this view of the case, which seemed to promise an interruption of the Succession, could not fail to suggest some disquieting apprehensions and speculations, which nothing short, it was thought, of a public and authentic disavowal of the marriage altogether would be able effectually to allay.
If in politics Princes are unsafe allies, in connections of a tenderer nature they are still more perilous partners; and a triumph over a Royal lover is dearly bought by the various risks and humiliations which accompany it. Not only is a lower standard of constancy applied to persons of that rank, but when once love-affairs are converted into matters of state, there is an end to all the delicacy and mystery that ought to encircle them. The disavowal of a Royal marriage in the Gazette would have been no novelty in English history; [Footnote: See, in Ellis’s Letters of History, vol. iii. the declarations of Charles II. with respect to his marriage with “one Mrs. Walters,” signed by himself and published in the London Gazette.] and the disclaimer, on the present occasion, though intrusted to a less official medium, was equally public, strong, and unceremonious.
Mr. Fox, who had not been present in the House of Commons when the member for Devonshire alluded to the circumstance, took occasion, on the next discussion of the question, and, as he declared, with the immediate authority of the Prince, to contradict the report of the marriage in the fullest and most unqualified terms: — it was, he said, “a miserable calumny, a low malicious falsehood, which had been propagated without doors, and made the wanton sport of the vulgar; — a tale, fit only to impose upon the lowest orders, a monstrous invention, a report of a fact which had not the smallest degree of foundation, actually impossible to have happened.” To an observation from Mr. Rolle that “they all knew there was an act of Parliament which forbade such a marriage; but that, though it could not be done under the formal sanction of the law, there were ways in which it might have taken place, and in which that law, in the minds of some persons, might have been satisfactorily evaded,” — Mr. Fox replied, that— “he did not deny the calumny in question merely with regard to certain existing laws, but that he denied it in toto, in point of fact as well as of law: — it not only never could have happened legally, but it never did happen in any way whatsoever, and had from the beginning been a base and malicious falsehood.”
Though Mr. Rolle, from either obstinacy or real distrust, refused, in spite of the repeated calls of Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Grey, to declare himself satisfied with this declaration, it was felt by the minister to be at least sufficiently explicit and decisive, to leave him no further pretext in the eyes of the public, for refusing the relief which the situation of the Prince required. Accordingly a message from the Crown on the subject of His Royal Highness’s debts was followed by an addition to his income of L10,000 yearly out of the Civil List; an issue of L161,000 from the same source, for the discharge of his debts, and L20,000 on account of the works at Carlton House.
In the same proportion that this authorized declaration was successful in satisfying the public mind, it must naturally have been painful and humiliating to the person whose honor was involved in it. The immediate consequence of this feeling was a breach between that person and Mr. Fox, which, notwithstanding the continuance, for so many years after, of the attachment of both to the same illustrious object, remained, it is understood, unreconciled to the last.
If, in the first movement of sympathy with the pain excited in that quarter, a retractation of this public disavowal was thought of, the impossibility of finding any creditable medium through which to convey it, must soon have suggested itself to check the intention. Some middle course, however, it was thought, might be adopted, which, without going the full length of retracting, might tend at least to unsettle the impression left upon the public, and, in some degree, retrieve that loss of station, which a disclaimer, coming in such an authentic shape, had entailed. To ask Mr. Fox to discredit his own statement was impossible. An application was, therefore, made to a young member of the party, who was then fast rising into the eminence which he has since so nobly sustained, and whose answer to the proposal is said to have betrayed some of that unaccommodating highmindedness, which, in more than one collision with Royalty, has proved him but an unfit adjunct to a Court. The reply to his refusal was, “Then I must get Sheridan to say something;” — and hence, it seems, was the origin of those few dexterously unmeaning compliments, with which the latter, when the motion of Alderman Newenham was withdrawn, endeavored, without in the least degree weakening the declaration of Mr. Fox, to restore that equilibrium of temper and self-esteem, which such a sacrifice of gallantry to expediency had naturally disturbed. In alluding to the offer of the Prince, through Mr. Fox, to answer any questions upon the subject of his reported marriage, which it might be thought proper to put to him in the House, Mr. Sheridan said,— “That no such idea had been pursued, and no such inquiry had been adopted, was a point which did credit to the decorum, the feelings, and the dignity of Parliament. But whilst His Royal Highness’s feelings had no doubt been considered on this occasion, he must take the liberty of saying, however some might think it a subordinate consideration, that there was another person entitled, in every delicate and honorable mind, to the same attention; one, whom he would not otherwise venture to describe or allude to, but by saying it was a name, which malice or ignorance alone could attempt to injure, and whose character and conduct claimed and were entitled to the truest respect.”