Mr. Holwell throws much light on this policy, which became the standing law of the empire.

"In the unfortunate wars which followed the death of Manz O'Din Sevajee, Cheit Sing (the great rajah we have just mentioned) with a select body of Rhajapoots, by a wellconducted retreat, recovered Agra; and was soon after reconciled to the king (the Mogul) and admitted to his favour; conformable to the steady policy of this government in keeping a good understanding with the principal rajahs, and more especially with the head of this house, who is ever capable of raising and fomenting a very formidable party upon any intended revolution in this despotic and precarious monarchy."

You see that it was the monarchy that was precarious, not the rights of the subordinate chiefs. Your lordships see that, notwithstanding our ideas of oriental despotism, under the successors of Tamerlane these principal rajahs, instead of being called wretches, and treated as such, as Mr. Hastings has thought it becoming to call and treat them, when they were in arms against their sovereign were regarded with respect, and were admitted to easy reconciliations; because in reality, in their occasional hostilities, they were not properly rebellious subjects, but princes, often asserting their natural rights and the just constitution of the country.

This view of the policy which prevailed during the dynasty of Tamerlane naturally conducts me to the next, which is the fourth era in this history-I mean the era of the emperor Akber. He was the first of the successors of Tamerlane who obtained possession of Bengal. It is easy to show of what nature his conquest was. It was over the last Mahomedan dynasty. He too, like his predecessor Tamerlane, conquered the prince, not the country. It is a certain mark that it was not a conquered country in the sense in which we commonly call a country conquered,-that the natives, great men and land-holders, continued in every part in the possession of their estates, and of the jurisdictions annexed to them. It is true that in the several wars for the succession to the Mogul empire, and in other of their internal wars, severe revenges were taken, which bore resemblance to those taken in the war of the Roses in this country, where it was the common course, in the heat of blood,-" Off with his head,

so much for Buckingham."-Yet, where the country again recovered its form and settlement, it recovered the spirit of a mild government. Whatever rigour was used with regard to the Mahomedan adventurers from Persia, Turkey, and other parts, who filled the places of servile grandeur in the Mogul court, the Hindoos were a favoured, protected, gently treated people.

The next, which is the fifth era, is a troubled and vexatious period the era of the independent soubahs of Bengal. Five of these soubahs, or viceroys, governed from about the year 1717, or thereabouts. They grew into independence partly by the calamities and concussions of that empire, which happened during the disputes for the succession of Tamerlane and partly, and indeed principally, by the great shock which the empire received when Thamas Kouli Khân broke into that country, carried off its revenues, overturned the throne, and massacred not only many of the chief nobility, but almost all the inhabitants of the capital city. This rude shock, which that empire was never able to recover, enabled the viceroys to become independent: but their independence led to their ruin. Those who had usurped upon their masters, had servants who usurped upon them. Allaverdy Khân murdered his master, and opened a way into Bengal for a body of foreign invaders, the Mahrattas, who cruelly harassed the country for several years. Their retreat was at length purchased, and by a sum which is supposed to amount to £5,000,000 sterling. By this purchase he secured the exhausted remains of an exhausted kingdom, and left it to his grandson, Surajah w Dowlah, in peace and poverty. On the fall of Surajah w Dowlah, in 1756, commenced the last, which is the sixth,the era of the British empire.

On the fifth dynasty I have only to remark to your lordships, that at its close the Hindoo chiefs were almost everywhere found in possession of the country; that though Allaverdy Khân was a cruel tyrant, though he was an untitled usurper, though he racked and tormented the people under his government, urged, however, by an apparent necessity from an invading army of one hundred thousand horse in his dominions; yet under him the rajahs still preserved their rank, their dignity, their castles, their houses, their seigni

ories, all the insignia of their situation, and always the right, sometimes also the means, of protecting their subordinate people, till the last and unfortunate era of 1756.

Through the whole of this sketch of history I wish to impress but one great and important truth upon your minds; namely, that through all these revolutions in government, and changes in power, an Hindoo polity, and the spirit of an Hindoo government, did more or less exist in that province, with which he was concerned, until it was finally to be destroyed by Mr. Hastings.

My lords, I have gone through all the eras precedent to those of the British power in India, and am come to the first of those eras. Mr. Hastings existed in India, and was a servant of the Company, before that era, and had his education between both. He is an antediluvian with regard to the British dominion in Bengal. He was coëxistent with all the acts and monuments of that revolution, and had no small share in all the abuses of that abusive period which preceded his actual government. But, as it was during that transit from eastern to western power that most of the abuses had their origin, it will not be perfectly easy for your lordships thoroughly to enter into the nature and circumstances of them, without an explanation of the principal events that happened from the year 1756, until the commencement of Mr. Hastings's government; during a good part of which time we do not often lose sight of him. If I find it agreeable to your lordships; if I find that you wish to know these annals of Indian suffering and British delinquency; if you desire that I should unfold the series of the transactions from 1756 to the period of Mr. Hastings's government in 1771;-that you may know how far he promoted what was good; how far he rectified what was evil; how far he abstained from innovation in tyranny, and contented himself with the old stock of abuse; -your lordships will have the goodness to consult the strength which, from late indisposition, begins almost to fail me. And if you think the explanation is not time lost in this new world, and in this new business, I shall venture to sketch out, as briefly and with as much perspicuity as I can give them, the leading events of that obscure and perplexed period which intervened between the British settlement in 1757 and Mr. Hastings's government. If I should be so

happy as to succeed in that attempt, your lordships' minds will be prepared for hearing this cause. Then your lordships will have a clear view of the origin and nature of the abuses which prevailed in that government before Mr. Hastings obtained his greatest power, and since that time; and then we shall be able to enter fully and explicitly into the nature of the cause; and I should hope that it will pave the way, and make everything easy for your subsequent justice.

I therefore wish to stop at this period, in which Mr. Hastings became active in the service, pretty near the time when he began his political career;-and here, my lords, I pause, wishing your indulgence at such time as will suit your convenience for pursuing the rest of this eventful history.

TRIAL.

FOURTH DAY, 16TH FEBRUARY, 1788.

(MR. BURKE.)

MY LORDS,-In what I had the honour of laying before your lordships yesterday, and in what I may further trouble you with to-day, I wish to observe a distinction, which if I did not lay down so perfectly as I ought, I hope I shall now be able to mark it out with sufficient exactness and perspicuity.

First, I beg leave to observe that what I shall think necessary to state as matter of preliminary explanation, in order to give your lordships a true idea of the scene of action—of the instruments which Mr. Hastings employed-and the effects which they produced-all this I wish to be distinguished from matter brought to criminate. Even the matter as stated by me, which may be hereafter brought to criminate, so far as it falls to my share at present, is only to be considered, in this stage of the business, as merely illustrative. Your lordships are to expect, as undoubtedly you will require, substantial matter of crimination to be laid open for that

purpose, at the moment when the evidence to each charge is ready to be produced to you. Thus your lordships will easily separate historical illustration from criminal opening. For instance, if I stated yesterday to your lordships, as I did, the tyranny and cruelty of one of the usurping viceroys, whose usurpation and whose vices led the way to the destruction of his country, and the introduction of a foreign power -I do not mean to charge Mr. Hastings with any part of that guilt. What bears upon Mr. Hastings is, his having avowedly looked to such a tyrant and such a usurper as his model, and followed that pernicious example with a servile fidelity.

When I have endeavoured to lay open to your lordships anything abusive, or leading to abuse, from defects or errors in the constitution of the Company's service-I did not mean to criminate Mr. Hastings on any part of those defects and errors. I state them to show, that he took advantage of the imperfections of the institution to let in his abuse of the power with which he was intrusted. If, for a further instance, I have stated that in general the service of the India Company was insufficient in legal pay or emolument, and abundant in the means of illegal profit, I do not state that defect as owing to Mr. Hastings. But I state it as a fact, to show in what manner and on what pretences he did, fraudulently, corruptly, and for the purposes of his own ambition, take advantage of that defect; and, under colour of reformation, make an illegal, partial, corrupt rise of emoluments to certain favoured persons, without regard to the interests of the service at large: increasing rather than lessening the means of illicit emolument, as well as loading the Company with many heavy and ruinous expenses in avowed salaries and allowances.

Having requested your lordships to keep in mind-which I trust you would do even without my taking the liberty of suggesting it to you these necessary distinctions, I shall revert to the period at which I closed yesterday-that great and memorable period which has remotely given occasion to the trial of this day.

My lords, to obtain empire is common: to govern it well has been rare indeed. To chastise the guilt of those who