as two and two are four, as long as there is mathematical and arithmetical demonstration, so long shall his cruelty, rage, ravage, and oppression remain evident to an astonished posterity. I shall undertake, my lords, when this court meets again, to develope the consequences of this wicked proceeding. I shall then show you, that that part of the Rajah's family which he left behind him, and which Mr. Hastings pretended to take under his protection, was also ruined, undone, and destroyed; and that the once beautiful country of Benares, which he has had the impudence to represent as being still in a prosperous condition, was left by him in such a state as would move pity in any tyrant in the world, except the one who now stands before you.

TRIAL.

TUESDAY, 3RD JUNE, 1794.

THIRD DAY OF REPLY.

(MR. BURKE.)

MY LORDS, We are called, with an awful voice, to come forth, and make good our charge against the prisoner at your bar; but as a long time has elapsed since your lordships heard that charge, I shall take the liberty of requesting my worthy fellow-manager near me to read that part to your lordships which I am just now going to observe upon, that you may be the better able to apply my observations to the letter of the charge.

[Mr. Wyndham reads.]

"That the said Warren Hastings, having as aforesaid expelled the said Cheit Sing from his dominions, did, of his own usurped authority, and without any communication with, or any approbation given by, the other members of the council, nominate and appoint Rajah Mehipnerain to the government of the provinces of Benares, and did appoint his father

Durbedgy Sing as administrator of his authority, and did give to the British resident, Mr. Markham, a controlling authority over both; and did further abrogate and set aside all treaties and agreements which subsisted between the states of Benares and the British nation; and did arbitrarily and tyrannically, of his mere authority, raise the tribute to the sum of £400,000 sterling, or thereabouts; did further wantonly and illegally impose certain oppressive duties upon goods and merchandise, to the great injury of trade and ruin of the province; and did further dispose of, as his own, the property within the said provinces, by granting the same, or parts thereof, in pensions to such persons as he thought fit.

"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1782, enter into a clandestine correspondence with William Markham, Esq., the then resident at Benares, which said Markham had been by him the said Warren Hastings obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders of the court of directors; and in consequence of the representation of the said Markham did, under pretence that the new excessive rent or tribute was in arrear, and that the affairs of the province were likely to fall into confusion, authorize and empower him, by his own private authority, to remove the said Durbedgy Sing from his office, and deprive him of his estate.

"That the said Durbedgy Sing was, by the private orders and authorities given by the said Warren Hastings, and in consequence of the representations aforesaid, violently thrown into prison, and cruelly confined therein, under the pretence of the non-payment of the arrears of the tribute aforesaid.

"That the widow of Bulwant Sing and the Rajah Mehipnerain did pointedly accuse the said Markham of being the sole cause of any delay in the payment of the tribute aforesaid, and did offer to prove the innocence of the said Durbedgy Sing, and also to prove that the faults ascribed to him were solely the faults of the said Markham; yet the said Warren Hastings did pay no regard whatever to the said representations, nor make any inquiry into the truth of the same, but did accuse the said widow of Bulwant Sing and Rajah aforesaid of gross presumption for the same; and listening to the representation of the person accused (namely, the resident Markham), did continue to confine the said Dur

bedgy Sing in prison, and did invest the resident Markham with authority to bestow his office upon whomsoever he pleased.

"That the said Markham did bestow the said office of administrator of the province of Benares upon a person named Jagger Deo Sing, who, in order to gratify the arbitrary demands of the said Warren Hastings, was obliged greatly to distress and harass the unfortunate inhabitants of the said province.

"That the said Warren Hastings did, sometime in the year 1784, remove the said Jagger Deo Sing from the said office, under pretence of certain irregularities and oppressions, which irregularities and oppressions are solely imputable to him, the said Warren Hastings.

"That the consequence of all these violent changes and arbitrary acts was the total ruin and desolation of the country and the flight of the inhabitants; the said Warren Hastings having found every place abandoned at his approach, even by the officers of the very government which he established; and seeing nothing but traces of devastation in every village, the province in effect without a government, the administration misconducted, the people oppressed, the trade discouraged, and the revenue in danger of a rapid decline. "All which destruction, devastation, oppression, and ruin are solely imputable to the above-mentioned and other arbitrary, illegal, unjust, and tyrannical acts of him, the said Warren Hastings, who, by all and every one of the same, was and is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours."

[Mr. Burke proceeded.]

My lords, you have heard the charge; and you are now going to see the prisoner at your bar in a new point of view. I will now endeavour to display him in his character of a legislator in a foreign land not augmenting the territory, honour, and power of Great Britain, and bringing the acquisition under the dominion of law and liberty, but desolating a flourishing country, that to all intents and purposes was our own;-a country which we had conquered from freedom, from tranquillity, order, and prosperity, and submitted, through him, to arbitrary power, misrule, anarchy, and ruin. We now see the object of his corrupt vengeance utterly destroyed, his family

what we should have done; what all who love their country, who love their liberty, who love their laws, who love their property, who love their sovereign, would have done on such an occasion. They looked upon him as their sovereign, although degraded. They were unacquainted with any authority superior to his, and the phantom of tyranny which performed these oppressive acts was unaccompanied by that force which justifies submission, by affording the plea of necessity. An unseen tyrant and four miserable companies of sepoys executed all the horrible things that we have mentioned. The spirit of the Rajah's subjects was roused by their wrongs, and encouraged by the contemptible weakness of their oppressors. The whole country rose up in rebellion, and surely in justifiable rebellion. Every writer on the law of nations, every man that has written, thought, or felt upon the affairs of government, must write, know, think, and feel, that a people so cruelly scourged and oppressed, both in the person of their chief and in their own persons, were justified in their resistance. They were roused to vengeance, and a short but most bloody war followed.

We charge the prisoner at your bar with all the consequences of this war. We charge him with the murder of our sepoys, whom he sent unarmed to such a dangerous enterprise. We charge him with the blood of every man that was shed in that place; and we call him, as we have called him, a tyrant, an oppressor, and a murderer. We call him murderer in the largest and fullest sense of the word; because he was the cause of the murder of our English officers and sepoys, whom he kept unarmed and unacquainted with the danger to which they would be exposed by the violence of his transactions. He sacrificed to his own nefarious views every one of those lives, as well as the lives of the innocent natives of Benares, whom he designedly drove to resistance by the weakness of the force opposed to them, after inciting them, by tyranny and insult, to that display of affection towards their sovereign which is the duty of all good subjects.

My lords, these are the iniquities which we have charged upon the prisoner at your bar; and I will next call your lordships' attention to the manner in which these iniquities have been pretended to be justified. You will perceive a great difference in the manner in which this prisoner is tried,

and of which he so much complains, and the manner in which he dealt with the unfortunate object of his oppression. The latter thus openly appeals to his accuser: You are," says he, "upon the spot. It is happy for me that you are so. You can now inquire into my conduct." Did Mr. Hastings so inquire? No, my lords, we have not a word of any inquiry; he even found fresh matter of charge in the answer of the Rajah; although if there is any fault in this answer, it is its extremely humble and submissive tone. If there was anything faulty in his manner, it was his extreme humility and submission. It is plain he would have almost submitted to anything. He offered, in fact, £220,000 to redeem himself from greater suffering. Surely no man going into rebellion would offer £220,000 of the treasure which would be so essential to his success; nor would any government that was really apprehensive of rebellion call upon the suspected person to arm and discipline two thousand horse. My lords, it is evident no such apprehensions were entertained; nor was any such charge made until punishment had commenced. A vague accusation was then brought forward, which was answered by a clear and a natural defence, denying some parts of the charge, evading and apologizing for others, and desiring the whole to be inquired into. To this request the answer of the Governor-General was, That won't do, you shall have no inquiries. And why? Because I have arbitrary power, you have no rights, and I can and will punish you without inquiry. I admit that if his will is the law, he may take the charge before punishment, or the punishment before the charge, or he may punish without making any charge. If his will is the law, all I have been saying amounts to nothing. But I have endeavoured to let your lordships see, that in no country upon the earth is the will of a despot law. It may produce wicked, flagitious, tyrannical acts, but in no country is it law.

The duty of a sovereign in cases of rebellion, as laid down in the Hedaia, agrees with the general practice in India. It was usual, except in cases of notorious injustice and oppression, whenever a rebellion or a suspicion of a rebellion existed, to admonish the rebellious party and persuade him to return to his duty. Causes of complaint were removed and misunderstandings explained, and, to save the effusion of