his right hand upon his breast, pronounced "Not guilty, upon my honour;" and so the ceremony went on as to the rest. Having thus collected the judgment of their lordships on the sixteen charges, the Lord Chancellor declared that a large majority of the twenty-nine lords present had answered the said several questions in the negative, and then declared, “That Warren Hastings, Esq., was acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited against him for high crimes and misdemeanours, and all things contained therein."

Then the defendant was ordered to be called to the bar, and kneeling, was bid to rise.

The Lord Chancellor said: "Warren Hastings, Esq., I am to acquaint you that you are acquitted of the articles of impeachment, &c. exhibited against you by the House of Commons for high crimes and misdemeanours, and all things contained therein; and you are discharged, paying your fees.”

Mr. Hastings bowed respectfully and retired.

The Lord Chancellor then put the question, "Is it your lordships' pleasure to adjourn to your chamber of parliament ?" Ordered and their lordships adjourned accordingly to their chamber of parliament. Thus was Hastings legally, though not unanimously, absolved. It should moreover be particularly remembered, that whatever share Hastings had in the oppression of the Rohillas, or in the death of Nuncomar, those matters were not included in his impeachment. The real judgment to be passed on the existence and extent of Hastings' offences rests with posterity. One result of the impeachment was undoubtedly better government in India, and complete security of life and property to all the varied races subject to the sway of England there. The acquittal did not change the opinion of Edmund Burke; to the end of his life he retained the firmest conviction of Hastings' guilt. On the other hand, Hastings' innocence was maintained with a party spirit.

The general Court of Directors of the East India Company, on

DEATH OF HASTINGS-DEATH OF FRANCIS.

223

the 2d March, 1796, announced that they had come to the resolution of granting an annuity of 40007., from the 24th June, 1785, for twenty-eight years and a half, payable during that period to Mr. Hastings, his heirs and executors. This resolution was confirmed by the Board of Control. The law-costs of Mr. Hastings had reached the sum of 71,0801., and much of this was still owing. The Court of Directors advanced funds to aid in the liquidation. Hastings in 1789 had carried into effect an object of his aspirations, said to be an early and a fond one,-viz. the repurchase of the estate of Daylesford, the seat of his ancestors, which had not been more than seventy-five years out of the possession of the family, and near which he had passed his childhood. At Daylesford, Hastings spent the remainder of his life in absolute privacy. He was twice only, and that momentarily, before the public again. In 1804 he took an active part in endeavouring to prevent Mr. Addington, created Viscount Sidmouth in 1805, from resigning the premiership. In 1813, when parliament was deliberating on the renewal of the East India Company's charter, Hastings, then past eighty, was examined by the House of Commons; and as he retired, the members present spontaneously rose and uncovered, an act of honour or sympathy, or of both, to the venerable octogenarian, who in his time had done great deeds, whether good or evil—once the ruler and augmentor of a mighty empire, and then the object of the most illustrious, impeachment known to his country's annals. Warren Hastings died at his seat at Daylesford, on the 22d August, 1818, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. Alas for the vanity of worldly wishes!-a recent advertisement in the Times announced Daylesford for sale again, and sold it has consequently been. The close of the year 1818 brought two other deaths worthy of note in Hastings' history. His leading counsel, Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough, expired the 13th December of that year. And on the very last day of the same month the vaults of Mortlake Church, Surrey, received the remains of Hast

ings' inveterate enemy Sir Philip Francis, who had been created a Knight of the Bath in 1806, and who survived just four months the man whose elevation and prosperity he had utterly undone. The mystery of Junius, linked with Burke and Sir Philip, seems somehow or other to sleep in Francis' grave. The motive of Sir Philip's conduct towards Hastings is also a problem; and it rests for the awful Tribunal, that can search into all human thoughts, to solve the solemn question, whether Sir Philip Francis did what he did in envy, or whether, like Edmund Burke, he was an accuser

"in a general honest thought,

And common good to all."

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;

Nor number nor example with him wrought

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,

Though single.

Verses from Milton's Paradise Lost, b. v., placed by Sir Joshua Reynolds under a print of Burke's portrait published in 1791.

THE REGENCY QUESTION-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION-BURKE'S OPPOSITION TO IT: HIS CONDUCT RELATIVE TO FRANCE IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT-PUBLICATION OF HIS REFLECTIONS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND OF HIS OTHER WORKS ON THE SAME SUBJECT-BURKE'S RETIREMENT FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

THE last chapter, which was devoted entirely to India and Warren Hastings, brought, as far as those subjects were concerned, Burke's biography down to 1795. It therefore becomes necessary to go a few years back, to record his course through other political events, one of which was the most important that occupied his public life.

In the autumn of 1788, the first decided attack of that melancholy malady to which George III. afterwards fell a victim was announced, and caused the celebrated regency question. In the lengthened debates that ensued, Burke, with his usual energy and eloquence, took a leading part; he supported Fox, Sheridan, and Lord North, agreeing with them that the Prince of Wales, under the unforeseen and calamitous circumstances of the case, had an indisputable claim to exercise unrestrictedly the executive power, in the name and on behalf of the sovereign, it being left to the two houses of parliament to pronounce the exact time when his royal highness should take possession of his authority. Pitt, on the other hand, insisted that the prince had no exclusive right, and that it belonged to the houses of Lords and Commons to make such provision as they thought proper to supply the temporary incapacity of the royal office. Hence the contest, in which Pitt had the power of the British parliament and the popular voice in England with him. The Irish parliament sided with his opponents. On the 30th December, 1788, Pitt addressed a letter to the Prince of Wales, submitting to him the plan of limited regency he proposed. The able answer of his royal highness to this communication is said to have been composed by Edmund Burke. Pitt, nothing daunted by that reply, carried through parliament five restrictive resolutions, and would have passed the Regency Bill, in the shape he wished, but for the opportune recovery of the king, which was announced in the House of Lords on the 10th March, 1789, and which put a stop at once to these unpleasant proceedings.