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upon the morals and habits of the rising generation. I have judged that it was proper, from this year forward, to place more equality in the distribution of the departmental expenses, and to afford succour to those of my departments, such as the Mincio and the Lower Po, which find themselves burthened by the necessity of defending themselves against the ravages of the waters.The finances are in the most prosperous situation, and all payments are free of arrears. My people of Italy is of all the nations of Europe the least loaded with taxes. No new burthens shall be laid on them; and if there be any change made in any contribution, if the enregistrement is established in the project of budget, according to a moderate tarif, it is for the purpose of diminishing more onerous impositions: the Terrier is full of imperfections, which manifest themselves every day. To remedy them, I shall vanquish the obstacles which are opposed to such operations, much less by the nature of things than by private interest; I, however, do not hope to arrive at results, such as may cause to be avoided the inconvenience of raising a tax until the period it may reach to.

I have taken measures to order the clergy a proper endowment, which they have been deprived of for these ten years past; and if I have made some unions of converts, I wished to preserve, and it is my intention to protect those who devote themselves to services of public utility, or who, placed in the country parts, are in places and in circumstances wherein they supply the want of secular clergy. I have at the same time provided that the bishops should have the means to be useful to the poor, and I only wait, to occupy myself with the lot of the curates, for the information which I have ordered to be quickly collected upon their real situation: I know that many of them, especially in the mountains, are in a penury which I have the most pressing desire to put an end to.Independent of the road of Simplon, which will be finished this year, and at which four thousand workmen are working at this moment, in the part alone that crosses the kingdom of Italy, I have ordered that the bridge of Volano should be begun, and that such important works should be undertaken without delay, and pursued with activity.I have neglected none of the objects upon which my experience in administration could be useful to my people of Italy. Before I return across the mountains, I shall go over a part of the

departments to become nearer acquainted with their wants.I shall leave depositary of my authority this young prince, whom I have brought up from his infancy, and who will be animated with my spirit. I have besides taken measures to direct myself the most important affairs of the state.--Orators of my council will present to you a project of law authorising to my Chancellor Keeper of the Seals, Melzi, to act for four years in the quality of depositary of my anthority, as vice-president; a domain which, remaining in his family, may attest to his descendants the satisfaction I nave felt from its services. I think I have given fresh proofs of my constant resolution to fulfil towards my people of Italy every thing they expect from me. I hope that in their turn they will be desirous of occupying the place that I destine for them in my thoughts; and they never will attain it, but by persuading. themselves that the force of arms is the principal support of states.It is time that that youth who live in the idleness of greatcities, should cease to fear the fatigues and dangers of war, and that they should enable themselves to make their country be respected, if they wish their country to be respectable.-Gentlemen of the legislative body, vie in zeal with my council of state, and by that concourse of wills towards the sole aim of the public prosperity, give to my representative the support he should receive from you.--The British government having received, with an evasive answer, the propositions I made to it, and the King of EngJend having immediately rendered them public by insulting my people in his parliament, I have seen the hopes considerably weakened, which I had conceived of the re-establishment of peace. However, the French squadrons have since obtained successes to which I attach importance only because they must farther convince my enemies of the inutility of a war which affords them nothing to gain and every thing to lose. The divisions of the flotillas and the frigates built at the expense of the finances of my kingdom of Italy, and which at present make a part of the French forces, have rendered useful services in many circumstances. I preserve the hope that the peace of the Continent will not be troubled; and at all events, I find myself in a position to fear none of the chances of war; I shall be in the midst of you the very moment my presence would become necessary for the preservation of my kingdom of Italy.

VOL. VIII. No. 2.]

[PRICE 10D.

33]

ON IMPEACHMENTS.

SIR,-During the discussions which have taken place in the last month, much has been said, and written, as to the inconveniency, the delay, and the expense attendant upon trials by impeachment. But it was well observed, that those who indiscriminately condema trials by impeachment, find fault with the constitution of Great Britain.-It is impossible for a man to consider the conduct of the House of Lords setting as a court of justice, without being fully convinced that it is a fair, an honourable, and an impartial tribuna. If, indeed, we were to go back to the earer period of our history, we should find that impeachments have often originated in violence, and terminated in injustice. This remark, however, does not apply to later periods. Even in the reign of Charles the First, when the Commons impeached the Earl of Stafford, the trial before the Lords was conducted with decency, and even with justice. No judgment was pronounced, because the Commons changed that mode of proceeding before the close of the trial. They voted a bill of attainder, and the populace, encouraged by the leading members of the Commons, compelled the House of Lords and the King to pass the bill-In the next reign Lord Stafford fell a victim to the public dread of popery. He was impeached by the Commons, and found guilty by the Lords, as a party to a plot which had no existence; but the same fate. would have awaited him, had he been tried by a jury, since many innocent men were condemned and executed on the same evidence that was produced against Lord Stafford. Four whig lords were impeached by a tory House of Commons at the close of Ang William's reign. The charge was a state crime, advising his Majesty to consent to the celebrated partition treaty. This was, in truth, a mere party business, a tory leid,

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the Earl of Jersey, was equally guilty of this crime, if the act was criminal, but being a tory, he escaped impeachment. The Commons declined to support their impeachment, and the Lords were acquitted of course.In the reign of Anne, a turbulent parson was impeached for preaching a seditious sermon, and after a regular trial, was found guilty. This was also a party question, and though the man was guilty, the whigs had reason to lament that they made him of consequence enough to bring him to so solemn a trial, as the cry of the church being in danger, was artfully adopted by the tories, and was the first cause of the overthrow of Lord Godolphin's administration. In the reign of George the First, several lords were impeached for high treason. The charge was fully and speedily proved, and sentence pronounced without delay.In the same reign the Earl of Oxford was impeached for high treason, and high crimes and misdemeanors, though it was much doubted, whether, if the article charging the first could have been proved, it would have amounted to high treason. had been minister daring the four last years of Queen Anne, and the crime was, concluding the peace of Utrecht, which had been approved of by two parliaments in that reign, though so strongly condemned by the whig House of Commo is of her successor. Lord Oxford lay two years a prisoner in the Tower, and then petitioned either for a trial or a discharge. The Lords called upon the Commons to proceed, and the trial commenced in West ainster Hall. The Commons began by opening a very trifling charge. The Lords directed them to proceed first with the article of high treason, observing, that if foun, guilty of that charge, Lord Oxford would forfeit both life and estate, which would refer it useless to proceed farther. The Cmons insisted on

He

their right, to begin with which article they thought proper. The Lords contended, and apparently with very good sense, that as a court of justice they were to direct the pro.ceedings. They therefore appointed a day for continuing the trial. The Commons positively prohibited any of their members from attending on that day, and on the Lords going into Westminster Hall, and no prosecutors appearing, Lord Oxford was unanimously acquitted.Such is the public history of this extraordinary case, but it was generally believed that the original movers of this prosecution, songht a quarrel on finding that their impeachment could not be successfully prosecuted, a state crime except in times of violence, being very difficult to be defined or proved.There was also in the same reign an impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, of a nobleman, Lord Macclesfield, who had been Lord Chancellor, and who was not only high in the esteem and confidence of the King, but powerfully connected with the great families of the kingdom. The charge was for corruption in his office as Chancellor of Great Britain. The charge was proved, and he was found guilty by the unanimous voice of his peers.In the reign of George the Second, there were several impeachinents for high treason, in consequence of the rebellion of 1745. The charge in each impeachment was proved, and sentence followed without delay.- -From the preceding statement it is clear, that from the period of the revolution to the commencement of the present reign, every impeachment that the Commons have prosecuted to a legal termination, they prosecuted successfully, and with very little delay or inconvenience.The impeachment of the four whig lords, in the reign of William, and of Lord Oxford in the reign of George the First, they never did prosecute. They were terminated by a quarrel with the Lords, on points of form. The charges were of a particular nature, hard to be defined, and difficult to be proved. The partition treaty was as strongly approved of by one party in the nation as it was conderaned by another; and while the whigs censured, the tories applanded the peace of Utrecht. Neither the whig lords, nor the Earl of Oxford, were supposed to be actuated by corrupt motives, and the extent of the state crime in any of these cases, could only have been an error in judgment.

-Mach has been said, of the dely and expense attending the impeachmeat of Mr. Hastings, and if that precedent was to be followed, mot undoubtedly to man would wish to see an impeachment i . future.----The same argument might be

urged with some degree of force against a bill of pains and penalties, because that mode of proceeding was instituted against Sir Thomas Rumbold, and dropped in the third year of it.But no man who is acquainted with the proceedings on the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, can think that it forms a precedent likely, or indeed possible to be followed up in future. The charge against him was not a charge of high treason which is capable of proof, or of being invalidated in a very short time, nor simply of the corruption in the execution of a great office, which is also capable of being speedily substantiated or disproved, but it was a charge comprehending the whole of his conduct as the sovereign of a great empire, civil, military, judicial, and financial, during a government of thirteen years, to which was added corruption in office, and a waste of public money for private purposes. That charges so extensive, and which the life of man appears too short to go through, came to be voted by the House of Commons, strikes us now as extraordinary, and that they were so voted, was owing to a departure from former precedents.--The general mode of originating impeachments, has been to move, in the first instance, that the party should be impeached. That vote being carried, a committee has been appointed to draw up the articles. which having been presented, were approved, or altered by the House; then carried to the Lords and managers appointed to make them good practice in

at the trid. Such has been the every instance since the revolution.-In the case of Mr. Hastings, the proceedings were reversed, and hence arose the immense mass of criminating charges preferred against that gentleman, and the great delay and the enormous expense attending the trial, which did indeed last as long as the siege of Troy. The notice of neving a prosecution against him was given in 1785. The proceedings in the House of Commons lasted the two

following sessions, when the impeachment was voted, and the articles carried to the Lords. The trial began in 1798, and the prosecution closed in 1791. The defence in 1793. The reply in 1794. And, in 1795 Mr. Hastings was acquitted of all the charges.

-Strange and paradoxical as it may appear, yet the fact is true, that the Commons never did come to any distinct vote on the criminating allegations contained in the articles preferred against Mr. Hastings, and that they did not do so, was owing to the mode of proceeding which was adopted. This will le proved by stating what was that mode.- Mr. Hastings returned from Bengl, after having been thirteen years at the

head of that government. In that period he increased the resources of the Bengal government, more than two millions sterling a year. He left it in perfect tranquillity, incumbered with a very trifling debt, and during the general war, which the contest with America had occasioned, he counteracted every effort made by France, in concert with Hyder Aly and the Mahrattas, against the British empire in India. On his

arrival in England he received the unanimous thanks of the two Courts of Directors, and Proprietors, his masters, for his long, faithful, and able services. It was a fact of public notoriety, that his character was highly esteemed by the natives whom he had so long governed, and by his British fellow subjects in India. There was not a single complaint against him from any quarter, and his Majesty's ministers expressly disavowed the most distant idea of instituting a criminal prosecution against him.Under these circumstances, therefore, if a member had proposed a vote of impeachment according to the usual precedents the business had ended at once.—Mr. Burke began by moving for certain papers, from which the House, as he said, would naturally ground their impeachment of Mr. Hastings. These were granted. Motions of a criminatory nature were moved, and negatived. Mr. Burke was next desired to present his charges, which if adopted by the House would naturally lead to an impeachment. These charges he did present. They were twenty-four, and each contained a very great number of criminal allegations. It was stated that these charges if they were voted, were not to be deemed articles of impeachment, but that on a subsequent stage of the proceeding, they were to be referred to a secret committee, who were to frame them into articles, which if approved by the House, were then to be presented to the House of Lords. -After these charges had been printed, Mr. Hastings was heard at the bar of the House.-A debate followed on the first, and as Mr. Burke said, the most important charge which was negatived. The next debate, and that which was decisive of the impeachment, was on the charge, called Benares. This contained no more than eighteen criminal allegations. . But the mode adopted, and which led to all the subsequent delay in the trial was, to move that the Benares charge contained mutter for impeachment. Mr. Pitt, who spoke with infinite ability and eloquence, not only defended Mr. Hastings against seventeen of the criminal allegations, but declared that his conduct was in the highest degree meritorious. On one point, and on

one only, he condemned Mr. Hastings, and this was, for his intention of imposing a fine of forty or fifty lacks of rupees on the Rajah of Benares for his delinquency. The deinquency he fully admitted, but he conceived that the intended punishment went beyond the offence. Now, the charge expressly stated that the Rajah had been guilty of no offence, and that every demand made by Mr. Hastings upon him, to contribute his proportion to the expense of the war, was an act of injus ice, and a breach of treaty.The common sense mode of proceeding, certainly would have been to have put a question on each of the eighteen criminal allegations, as the only mode by which the sense of the House could have been fairly taken, If that had been done, it is probable at least, that upon. seventeen criminatory charges, the majority might have voted with Mr. Pitt, and had that been the case, it is very possible, that atter approving all Mr. Hastings had done, the House might have paused before they voted to impeach Mr. Hastings for what he had intended to do, and which intention never was communicated to the Rajah, nor carried into effect. With this vote the proceedings closed for the session. In the next session many other charges were voted precisely in the same way; each charge containing a great variety of criminal allegations, but the motion upon each charge, being, that it contained matter for impeachment. Mr. Pitt delivered his statement on each charge, and specifically stated the point on each, which he thought contained a ground for impeachment.If, therefore, the House had divided on the different allegations, the probability is, that when the articles were put into forms, the points of the charge would have been very few, very intelligible, and the impeachment of Mr. Hastings might have been finished, as Lord Macclesfield's was, in twenty days.After Mr. Burke's charges had been gone through, a secret committee was appointed to draw up the articles of impeachment. This committee consisted of gentlemen who conceived that Mr. Hastings was crin.inal in every thing that he had done. It was extremely natural, therefore, that they should make their articles a transcript almost of Mr. Burke's charges. The only change was, that they were put in a more technical ard legal form. They were presented to the House, read a first time pro forma, and ordered to be printed.--When read a second time, it was to be supposed, that each article would have been debated, and tit Mr. Fitt, agreeably to his original and d• clared jatention, would have moved to leave out such allegations charged to be criminal.

as he had declared to be in his opinion highly meritorious. But instead of taking this line, the question was, whether the articles should be read a second time, and voted. In other words, whether the House should, or should not vote the impeachment. It was determined by a majority that the articles should be read a second time. Aletter from Mr. Hastings was read by a member during the debate, in which he expressed his anxiety for a trial, if the House should enter the articles on their journals: of course when on a subsequent day the impeachment was moved, that question was carried without a debate or a division.The causes which led to this conclusion are obvious. The business had been two years before the House, of course the members were heartily tired of it. Confidence must be placed somewhere, and possibly, the House thought that the managers who were to support the impeachment, were the best judges, as to the points on which it should be supported. This, however, was unfortunate reasoning, and not only caused so great a delay on the trial, but involved the House in endless contradictions during the course of it.-A few days after the first seven articles were presented and voted, thirteen additional articles were presented, and ordered to be printed. But, so rapid was now the proceedings, that these thirteen articles, which make a tolerably sized volume, were actually voted, before the printed copies were delivered to the members.--During each of the remaining seven years that this trial lasted, the minister of India, opened his budget, in which he solemnly declared in each year, that Bengal under the British administration had been in a progressive state of improvement, as to agriculture, population, and commerce, and that the natives had been infinitely happier under our government, than under the administration of any of their native princes. The documents presented to the House by the India minister, and voted to be correct, and entered on the journals, proved the truth of his statement beyond the possibility of a doubt. From these documents it appeared, that in 1772, the annual resources of Bengal were three millions sterling. That in 1785, when Mr. Hastings quitted it they were more than five millions, and that the increase was owing to the improvement of the revenues of Bengal and Benares, and to our subsidiary treaty with the Nabob Vizier of Oude, all of which formed the most material of the charges which the Commons, in Westminster Hali, were supporting against Mr. Hastings. In that great court how different a representation was made of the present and past state of Bengal, from that

which the India minister delivered in the House of Commons. In Westminster Hall it was affirmed, and the articles so stated, that by the measures of Mr. Hastings, enormous losses had been sustained by the East India Company, and disgrace and dishonour brought upon the English nation.-Tɔ what causes are we to attribute this unexampled contradiction. To one, and one only, namely, the new mode adopted by a former House of Commons in voting the impeachment. But, are we, therefore, to argue against all future impeachments? Is the error which that House fell into likely to form a precedent? Very far from it. In the case now pending, the old parliamentary mode has been adopted. An impeachment has been voted in the first instance. A committee is appointed to draw up the articles of impeachment., and there can be no doubt, that they will be duly considered before they are voted by the House. In addition to this, what future impeachment is likely to embrace every important, and even every. unimportant act, in an administration of thirteen years.If any gentleman should now have the curiosity to read over the twenty articles preferred against Mr. Hastings, he will find that they contain at least five hundred criminal allegations. Had the whole been gone through, the trial instead of lasting seven, would have continued fifty seven years, provided the managers, the defendant, and the lords had lived so long.And after all, could this be called the impeachment of Mr. Hastings. Very far from it. It was, in fact, the trial of the British nation, and the East-India Company. The fact of an increase of two millions sterling in the annual resources of the Bengal government during his administration was admitted. The fact of his having supported the British empire in India during a long and arduous war, by the extraordinary sums that he acquired, was also admitted. The managers asserted that the revenues were improved, and the extraordinary resources provided by rapine, violence, oppression, injustice, and breach of faith. Had they proved these assertions by evidence, what must have been the consequence. Mr. Sheridan boldly and fairly stated what the consequence must be; redress to the injured, at an expense of many millions sterling, and an abandonment in future, of those extra revenues, for which the India minister takes annual credit.Another circumstance in which this impeachment differs from any one that preceded, or that can fullow it, is not less extraordinary. The words in the preamble to the articles are, that the measures of Mr. Hastings were attended