is scarcely a house in the kingdom that does not feel some con cern and interest, that makes all reform of our eastern government appear officious and disgusting, and on the whole a most discouraging attempt. In such an attempt you hurt those who are able to return kindness or to resent injury. If you succeed, you save those who cannot so much as give you thanks. All these things show the difficulty of the work we have on our hand: but they show its necessity too. Our Indian government is in its best state a grievance; it is necessary that the correctives should be uncommonly vigorous, and the work of men sanguine, warm, and even impassioned in the cause. But it is an arduous thing to plead against abuses of a power which originates from our own country, and affects those whom we are used to consider as strangers. BURKE'S EULOGY ON FOX. HAVING done my duty to the bill, let me say a word to the author. I should leave him to his own noble sentiments, if the unworthy and illiberal language with which he has been treated, beyond all example of parliamentary liberty, did not make a few words necessary; not so much in justice to him, as to my own feelings. I must say, then, that it will be a distinction honorable to the age, that the rescue of the greatest number of the human race that ever were so grievously oppressed, from the greatest tyranny that was ever exercised, has fallen to the lot of abilities and dispositions equal to the task; that it has fallen to one who has the enlargement to comprehend, the spirit to undertake, and the eloquence to support, so great a measure of hazardous benevolence. His spirit is not owing to his ignorance of the state of men and things; he well knows what snares are spread about his path, from personal animosity, from court intrigues, and possibly from popular delusion. But he has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people whom he has never seen. This is the road that all heroes have trod before him. He is traduced and abused for his supposed motives. He will remember, that obloquy is a neces sary ingredient in the composition of all true glory he will remember, that it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in the nature and constitution of things, that calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph. These thoughts will support a mind, which only exists for honor, under the burthen of temporary reproach. He is doing indeed a great good; such as rarely falls to the lot, and almost as rarely coincides with the desires, of any man. Let him use his time. Let him give the whole length of the reins to his benevolence., He is now on a great eminence, where the eyes of mankind are turned to him. He may live long, he may do much. But here is the summit. He never can exceed what he does this day. He has faults; but they are faults that, though they may in a small degree tarnish the lustre, and sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In those faults, there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional despotism, or want of feeling for the distresses of mankind. His are faults which might exist in a descendant of Henry the Fourth of France, as they did exist in that father of his country. Henry the Fourth wished that he might live to see a fowl in the pot of every peasant in his kingdom. That sentiment of homely benevolence was worth all the splendid sayings that are recorded of kings. But he wished perhaps for more than could be obtained, and the goodness of the man exceeded the power of the king. But this gentleman, a subject, may this day say this at least, with truth, that he secures the rice in his pot to every man in India. A poet of antiquity thought it one of the first distinctions to a prince whom he meant to celebrate, that through a long succession of generations, he had been the progenitor of an able and virtuous citizen, who by force of the arts of peace, had corrected governments of oppression, and suppressed wars of rapine. Indole proh quanta juvenis, quantumque daturus - Ille super Gangem, super exauditus et Indos, Fulmine compescit linguæ. I This was what was said of the predecessor of the only person to whose eloquence it does not wrong that of the mover of this bill to be compared. But the Ganges and the Indus are the patrimony of the fame of my honorable friend, and not of Cicero. confess, I anticipate with joy, the reward of those, whose whole consequence, power, and authority, exist only for the benefit of mankind; and I carry my mind to all the people, and all the names and descriptions, that, relieved by this bill, will bless the labors of this parliament, and the confidence which the best House of Commons has given to him who the best deserves it. The little cavils of party will not be heard, where freedom and happiness will be felt. There is not a tongue, a nation, or religion in India, which will not bless the presiding care and manly beneficence of this house, and of him who proposes to you this great work. Your names will never be separated before the throne of the Divine Goodness, in whatever language, or with whatever rites, pardon is asked for sin, and reward for those who imitate the Godhead in his universal bounty to his creatures. These honors you deserve, and they will surely be paid, when all the jargon of influence, and party, and patronage, are swept into oblivion. I have spoken what I think, and what I feel, of the mover of this bill. An honorable friend of mine, speaking of his merits, was charged with having made a studied panegyric. I don't know what his was. Mine, I am sure, is a studied panegyric; the fruit of much meditation; the result of the observation of near twenty years. For my own part, I am happy that I have lived to see this day; I feel myself overpaid for the labors of eighteen years, when, at this late period, I am able to take my share, by one humble vote, in destroying a tyranny that exists to the disgrace of this nation, and the destruction of so large a part of the human species. SHERIDAN ON THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS. SHOULD a stranger survey the land formerly Sujah Dowlah's, and seek the cause of its calamity-should he ask, what monstrous madness had ravaged thus, with wide-spread war-what desolating foreign foe-what disputed succession-what religious zeal-what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and with malice and mortal enmity to man, has withered with the gripe of death every growth of nature and humanity-all the means of delight, and each original, simple principle of bare existence? the answer will be, if any answer dare be given, No, alas! not one of these things! no desolating foreign foe !-no disputed succession !-no religious super-serviceable zeal! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity-we sink under the pressure of their supportwe writhe under the gripe of their pestiferous alliance ! Thus they suffered-in barren anguish, and ineffectual bewailings. And, O audacious fallacy !—says the defence of Mr. Hastings-What cause was there for any incidental ills, but their own resistance? The cause was nature in the first-born principles of man. It grew with his growth; it strengthened with his strength! It taught him to understand; it enabled him to feel. For where there is human fate, can there be a penury of human feeling?— Where there is injury, will there not be resentment ?-Is not despair to be followed by courage? The God of Battles pervades and penetrates the inmost spirit of man, and rousing him to shake off the burthen that is grievous, and the yoke that is galling, will reveal the law written in his heart, and the duties and privileges of his nature-the grand, universal compact of man with man !—That power is delegated in trust, for the good of all who obey it-That the rights of men must arm against man's oppression-for that indifference were treason to human state, and patience nothing less than blasphemy-against the laws which govern the world! It was in some degree observable, that not one of the private letters of Mr. Hastings .had been produced at any time. Even Middleton, when all confidence was broken between them, by the production of his private correspondence at Calcutta, either feeling for his own safety or sunk under the fascinating influence of his master, did not dare attempt a retaliation! The letters of Middleton, however, were sufficient to prove the situation of the Nabob, when pressed to the measure of resuming the Jaghires, in which he had been represented as acting wholly from himself. He was there described as lost in sullen melancholy-with feelings agitated beyond expression, and with every mark of agonized sensibility. To such a degree was this apparent, that even Middleton was moved to interfere for a temporary respite, in which he might be more reconciled to the measure. I am fully of opinion, said he, that the despair of the nabob must impel him to violence; I know also that the violence must be fatal to himself -but yet I think, that with his present feelings, he will disregard all consequences. Mr. Johnson, also, the assistant Resident, wrote at the same time to Mr. Hastings to aver to him that the measure was dangerous, that it would require a total reform of the collection, which could not be made without a campaign! This was British justice! this was British humanity! Mr. Hastings ensures to the allies of the company in the strongest terms their prosperity and his protection ;-the former he secures by sending an army to plunder them of their wealth and to desolate their soil-his protection is fraught with a similar security;-like that of a vulture to a lamb-grappling in its vitals!—thirsting for its blood-scaring off each petty kite that hovers around—and then, with an insulting perversion of terms, calling sacrifice, protection! An object for which history searches for any similarity in vain -The deep-searching annals of Tacitus-the luminous philosophy of Gibbon-all the records of man's enormity, from original sin to this period in which we pronounce it, dwindle into comparative insignificance of enormity-both in aggravations of vile principles, and extent of their consequential ruin! The victims of this oppression were confessedly destitute of all power to resist their oppressors; but that debility, which from other bosoms would have claimed some compassion, with respect to the mode of suffering, here excited but the ingenuity of torture! Even when every feeling of the nabob was subdued, nature made a lingering, feeble stand within his bosom: but even then that cold unfeeling spirit of malignity, with whom his doom was fixed, returned with double acrimony to its purpose, and compelled him |