He had for some time been requesting the directors to name his successor, but, as they had not done it, he now resolved to leave, and he announced the fact to the court of directors, and that he had appointed Mr. Macpherson, the senior member of council, to supply his place till they sent out a new governor-general. He embarked on the 8th of February, 1785, and arrived in England in June, 1786. He had sent home before him his wife, whose health had begun to suffer from the climate of India, and she had been most of distinction; he had received the most enthusiastic addresses of regret and of admiration as the saviour of India, for he had saved it, for the benefit of the English, though at the cost of the natives. In London, not only at court, but in Leadenhall-street, he met with the same satisfactory honour. He spent the autumn at Cheltenham with his wife, where he was courted and fêted in a manner to warrant his writing to a friend, "I find myself everywhere and universally treated with evidences, apparent even to my own obser On the 1st of June Burke brought forward his first charge vation, that I possess the good opinion of my country." His country had not yet been fully enlightened on his doings-the Rohilla war. The debate was not finished till seven in India-doings, however, which do not seem to have in any degree troubled his own conscience, for he had one of those accommodating ones which have in all ages induced some of the greatest tyrants to regard themselves as the peculiar benefactors of their race. He was busy trying to purchase Daylesford, the old family estate, and anticipating a peerage. o'clock on the morning of the 3rd. In it Fox, Wyndham, Wilbraham, and many others supported the charge. Dundas, Pitt, lord Mornington, the pious Wilberforce, &c., opposed it. It was the first appearance of lord Mornington, afterwards marquis of Wellesley, and destined to figure greatly himself in India. The motion was rejected by one hundred and nineteen against sixty-seven, and it was fondly hoped that the proceedings against Hastings were altogether crushed. Lord Thurlow advised the king to carry out his intention to make Hastings baron Daylesford, and the great talk in the clubs and west-end assemblies was the triumph of Hastings. But the rejoicing was premature. On the 13th of June Fox took up the second charge-the treatment of Cheyte Sing, and Francis, with all the bitterness of his character and of his hatred of Hastings, supported it. So black were the facts now produced that Pitt was compelled to give way. He defended the governor-general for calling on Cheyte Sing to contribute men and money for the war against Mysore; he lauded the firmness, decision, and great ability of Hastings, but he was forced to admit that he had been excessive in his demands on the zemindars of Benares, and must support the charge! But this was only the lull before the storm. Burke and Sheridan were living, and the thunderbolts were already forged which were to shatter his pleasing dream of approval. His agreeable delusion was, indeed, quickly at an end. On the 24th of January parliament met, and an officious friend of Hastings, unfortunately for the ex-governor-general, relying on the manifestation of approbation of Hastings by the court and the fashionable circles, for the people regarded him in a very different light, got up and asked where now was that menace of impeachment which Mr. Burke had so long and often held out? Burke thus challenged, on the 17th of February rose and made a call for papers and correspondence deposited in the India-house, relative to the proceedings of Hastings in India. He also reminded Pitt and Dundas of the motion of the latter on the 29th of May, 1782, in censure of the conduct of Hastings on the occasions This was a thunderstroke to Hastings and his friends. in question. This was nailing the ministers to the question; Fifty of Pitt's followers immediately wheeled round with but Dundas, now at the head of the board of control, re- him; Dundas voted with Pitt, and the motion was carried peated that he still condemned the conduct of Hastings, but by an exact inversion of the numbers which had negatived taken with the services which he had rendered to the coun- the former article on the Rohilla war, one hundred and try in India, he did not conceive that this conduct demanded nineteen against sixty-seven. The very next day Hastings more than censure, certainly not impeachment. Fox sup- presented a magnificent diamond, sent by the nabob of Oude ported Burke, and Pitt defended Hastings, and attacked in a purse containing also a letter to his majesty. The Fox without mercy. There was a feeling abroad that the presentation of this diamond the day after the defeat, at a king was determined to support Hastings, and the proceed-public levee, created universal remark. Caricatures, songs, ings of Pitt, who extenuated now what he had so often con- and epigrams, were issued in abundance. The king was demned, in the cases of the Rohilla war, Cheyte Sing, the represented on his knees, and Hastings putting the diamond begums, &c., confirmed this. Burke's demand for papers into his mouth; in another caricature Hastings was wheeling was refused, but this did not deter Burke. On the 4th of George away in a wheelbarrow, with his crown and sceptre, April he rose again and presented nine articles of impeach- and a label from Hastings' mouth, "What a man buys he ment against Hastings, and in the course of the week twelve may sell!" Sheridan passed some very severe witticisms on more articles. To these a twenty-second article was after- the circumstance in the house of commons. On the other wards added. These articles included all those extraordinary hand, it was stated that the diamond had only reached transactions which we have already detailed - the Rohilla Hastings on the 2nd of June, but this did not remove the war; the affair of Benares; of the great mogul; the treaties significance of its presentation precisely the day after this with and coercions in Oude; the outrages on the begums adverse vote; and the session closed on the 11th of July and their ministers; the hanging of Nuncomar, the attempts with the rest of the charges hanging over the ex-governor's upon Fyzoola Khan, the Rohilla chief, &c. head in ominous gloom. The affair was now becoming serious, and Hastings demanded to be heard at the bar, where he appeared on the 1st of May, and read a long defence, which did not go to a denial of the charges, but a justification of them, from the need of money to save India, and from the approbation awarded to these actions both in India and at the India-house. But this was no answer to Burke's accusations, which did not relate to the benefits he might have conferred on the English in India, or on the company, but to the crimes and atrocities perpetrated on the natives. Nobody doubted the satisfaction of the company, which had pouched forty lacs of rupees, or of the English in India, who were there to get all the money they could from the natives. With this continuous narrative of Indian affairs we close this chapter, having now brought them to the present date of general history. CHAPTER XI. REIGN OF GEORGE III. (Continued.) The King attacked by a Mad Woman-Dissipations of the Prince of Wale Offers of Money to him from France-Arrangements for the Younger Princes-Death of Frederick of Prussia-Impending Troubles betw.xt Prussia and Holland-Proposed Commercial Treaty with France-Ques tion regarding Scotch Peers-Beaufoy's Motion for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Act rejected-Prince of Wales' Debts and Marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert-Transportation to New South Wales-Abases 12 the Post Office-Lord Elcho unseated as the Eldest Son of a Scotch Peer -Burke proceeds with his Impeachment of Hastings-Various Charges A.D. 1786.] DISSIPATIONS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. Admitted by the Lords to Bail-Parliament adjourned-Troubles in 381 admitted—A Committee appointed to conduct the Impeachment-Hast- | prince to maintain more respect for his father, never disings impeached at the Bar of the Lords-Hastings taken into Custody played the slightest disposition to act so generous and truly Holland-Insurrection in Belgium-Lord Rawdon on Naval Promotion-politic a part. On this account the prince hated him, and Pitt's Declaratory Indian Bill-Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey--Trial of Hastings in Westminster Hall-Parliament prorogued-Insanity of the King-Debates on a Regency-Irish Address-King's sudden RecoveryCongratulations, &c.-Report on the Slave Trade-Pitt's Schemes of Finance-Hastings' Trial resumed-Differences betwixt the King and Prince of Wales-Death of Charles Edward, the Pretender-War betwixt Russia and Turkey-Ditto, betwixt Russia and Sweden-Ditto, betwixt Austria and Turkey-Affairs of Sweden-Austrian Troubles in Hungary and the Netherlands-Death of Joseph II. of Austria. On the 2nd of August, 1786, as the king descended from his carriage at the door of the garden leading from St. James's Park into the palace, a woman struck him on the chest with a knife, which fortunately was so much weakened by frequent grinding that it doubled, and did not penetrate. The woman made a second thrust, but her arm was arrested by one of the king's footmen, and the knife wrenched from her grasp. The king humanely cried out, "I am not hurt! take care of the poor woman! don't hurt her!" Being conveyed before the privy council, she was discovered to be a very mad woman, of the name of Margaret Nicholson, from Stocktonon-Tees. She was a needle-woman, who had the insane fancy that the throne belonged rightfully to her, and that unless she asserted her right, it would lead to a deluge of bloodshed in England for a thousand generations. She was then examined by the royal physicians, and her insanity being by them confirmed, she was consigned to Bedlam, where she lived forty years without recovering in any degree her soundness of mind. The king on this occasion displayed equal courage and humanity. He had come up from Windsor to hold a levee, and he appeared there in the best spirits. The opposition displayed a spirit quite the reverse. They treated the whole affair as ridiculous, though, had the knife been stronger, the king would in all probability have been a dead man. When deputations came up from different towns with addresses of congratulation, and the king knighted some of the mayors, they styled them as "knights of St. Margaret." George, with much better sense and feeling, only laughed at their spiteful jests. But not so lightly to be passed over was their determined encouragement of the heir-apparent in his wild course of disregard both of parental authority and common decency. The two great friends of the prince of Wales were Fox and Sheridan. If the intellectual qualities of these two remarkable men had been equalled by their moral ones, no fitter companions for a young prince could have been found. But, unfortunately, they were as distinguished for their drinking and dissipation, and Fox for his reckless gambling, as for their talents. Pitt and they were in violent opposition, and as Pitt, with his cold, unimpulsive nature, stood firmly by the king, Fox and Sheridan were, as matters of party, as warmly the advocates of the prince. Hence the king and his son, sufficiently at strife on the ground of the prince's extravagance and debauchery, were rendered doubly so by the faction fire of their respective adherents. Pitt, who might have softened greatly the hostile feeling betwixt the royal father and son, by recommending less parsimony on the part of the king, and kindly endeavouring to induce the piqued himself on talking of him in the strongest terms. On the other hand, the king had always had an unconquerable aversion to Fox since he carried so high a hand towards his majesty when in office, and Fox and Sheridan, as well as their followers, returning the feeling, incited the prince to more open defiance of the parental counsels. This was precisely the position which the king of England and his successor had occupied ever since the Hanoverian family came to the throne; and every good subject must have regarded it with pain. But Fox and Sheridan were far from the worst companions of the prince of Wales. The duke of Chartres, now become, by the death of his father, duke of Orleans, and who was afterwards too notorious as Philip Egalité, had made a very familiar acquaintance with the prince. He had come over in 1784, and now he returned again in 1786, and the prince and he ran a wild career of gambling, betting, and every species of debauchery. At Epsom, Newmarket, and the prince's favourite abode, Brighton, they ran into a perfect abyss of debt and riot. The artful Frenchman then proposed to the prince that the best way to get rid of his embarrassments was to receive a loan, and a pension from France, which he undertook to manage for him. This was what Charles II. and James II. had, and for a time they had rendered themselves independent of parliament by it. The prince appears to have jumped at the tempting bait, which would leave him free to pursue his wild career in spite of parliament, of Pitt, and of his pious and penurious father. He did not seem to have troubled himself to reflect what was the end of the Stuart kings who had made themselves pensioners of France. But, fortunately for the honour of both England and the prince, the thing got wind. The duke of Portland heard of it, and immediately mentioned it to Sheridan. Not contented with this, the duke wrote to Sheridan, impressing the necessity of avoiding this fatal snare. He assured him that he had received confirmation of the truth of the report. "The particulars," he wrote, "varied in no respect from those I related to you, except in the addition of a pension, which is to take place immediately on the event which entitles the creditors to payment, and is to be granted for life to a nominee of the D of Os. The loan was mentioned in a mixed company by two of the Frenchwomen and a Frenchman, none of whose names I know, in Calonne's presence, who interrupted them by asking how they came to know anything of the matter; then set them right in two or three particulars which they had misstated, and afterwards begged them for God's sake not to talk of it, because it might be their complete ruin." Portland adds, "I am going to Bulstrode, but will return at a moment's notice, if I can be of the least use in getting rid of this odious engagement, or preventing its being entered into, if it should not yet be completed." The matter being thus necessarily crushed, great pains were taken by the prince's friends to make it appear that he rejected the offer the moment it was made, and there were many exclamations on their part of "how great!" "how noble!” Thus, at the very moment that Sheridan was in parlia ment more than hinting that the king was capable of being the ground that George III. was partial to the house of bribed by Warren Hastings' diamond, he was the confidant Orange. They managed to have the king of France apof the king's son in an attempt at far more fatal bribery. pointed, and M. de Rayneval, the French minister, met It does not appear that even this danger relaxed the king's baron von Goertz, the Prussian minister, at the Hague. But purse-strings, and, in truth, such relaxation, with the prince's so far from settling anything, these ministers only quarhabits, could only have been an additional curse to him. relled violently and parted. Before the end of the year, the But it seems to have hastened arrangements for getting the French keeping up their agitation amongst the people, the rest of the royal sons out of the Circean corruptions of prince of Orange took up arms, and posting himself in London. The duke of York and the duke of Kent were Guelderland with his spirited princess, held that province sent to Germany, and put under officers there to study the and the adjoining one of Utrecht. The towns of Hattem Prussian military system; and the dukes of Cambridge, and Elburg made a show of resistance, but were soon Sussex, and Cumberland were sent to Germany too, as stu- reduced by the prince; and, at the end of the year, he was dents at the university of Göttingen. William, duke of master of five provinces, and of forces equal or superior to Clarence, was sent to sea as midshipman. The last was those states opposed to him; and it was clear that he could the only popular arrangement. All the German ones were soon master the whole of Holland without Prussian aid, if regarded as the dictations of the queen, and calculated to France were out of the question; and no power but inspire the princes with despotic and anti-English notions. England could prevent her. Serious complications, therefore, showed themselves a-head from this quarter when the British parliament met on the 23rd of January, 1789. Sheridan, and some others of the whig party, once more mentioned the prince's debts, and urged the propriety of something being done to save the honour of the heir apparent; but Pitt turned a deaf ear, and the king informed the prince that he could not sanction the payment of his debts by parliament, nor was he disposed to increase his allowance from the civil list. On this, the prince determined to break up his household, which had been appointed by the king, and cost the prince twenty thousand pounds, to sell his horses and carriages, and to live in a few rooms like a private gentleman. This he did; his fine horses were paraded through the streets on their way to Tattersall's to be sold, and he stopped the building of Carlton House. All this would have been admirable, had it proceeded from a real desire to economise on the part of the prince, in order to satisfy his clamorous creditors, and to commence a real reform of his habits; but the whole was only a mode of mortifying the king and court party by thus exhibiting the heir-apparent as compelled, by the refusal of a proper allowance, to abandon the style befitting his rank, and sink himself into that of a mere lodger of scanty means. If this grand manoeuvre did not accomplish its object at court, it, however, told on his own party, who resolved in the next session to make a grand effort for the liquidation of his debts. Public attention, during the recess, was much occupied with the affairs of Holland. Frederick of Prussia, miscalled The Great, died on the 17th of August of this year. He had attained his seventy-fifth year, but was said to have shortened his days by his habitual gluttony, and was grown as carping and cynical as Diogenes. His successor was his nephew, Frederick William, who determined to restore the expelled stadtholder, the prince of Orange, who had married his sister. Holland, as we have seen, had long been rent by two factions—the aristocratic one, which favoured the house of Orange, and the far more numerous democratic one, which was courted by France. France, indeed, now fast rushing into the vortex of revolution, seemed to have a fatal propensity to foster democracy. It had secured its triumph in America, it was seeking the same object in Holland. Frederick William of Prussia proposed that the king of England should become arbitrator betwixt the prince of Orange and the democratic party; but this was refused on No mention of the disturbances in the Netherlands, however, appeared in the royal speech; but the chief topic was a treaty of commerce and navigation which had been concluded with France, and for which the parliamentary sanction was anticipated. The debates on this subject occupied the two houses of parliament till the 8th of March. In these debates all the advantages of the cheap introduction of French wines and French manufactures were duly set forth by Pitt and the government party, and the mischiefs of French alliance were equally advanced by Fox and the opposition. It is curious to observe how completely reversed were the positions and arguments of these two leaders to what they became afterwards; Pitt developing into the most determined opponent of everything French, and Fox into the ardent advocate of French alliance. Pitt here stood forth as the champion of reduced duties, and Fox of the highest manufacturing interests; Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and Norwich pouring in mountains of petitions against the treaty. Fox contended that this treaty was a direct breach of the Methuen treaty with Portugal, and claimed that the duties on Portuguese wines should be lowered one-third. This was refused. Philip Francis, who was now a prominent opposition member, declared that the treaty was meant, by encouraging the French cause, to degrade and enslave England. Mr. Grey, afterwards lord Grey of Howick, contended that as France had plucked America from us, and established a treaty of commerce with the United States, she was only seeking by this treaty to obtain our goods, and supply America with them, thus engrossing the carrying trade of the world. The folly of many of these arguments is too palpable to need a notice here, and some of the manufacturers of Manchester had the sense to see that the advantage would be on their side, and they petitioned for the treaty. ministers. The question was carried by Amongst other measures carried were, the decision that Scotch peers, becoming English ones, ceased to sit as Scotch elective peers, or to have votes for electing the Scotch peers to parliament; that the eldest sons of Scotch peers could not sit in the English commons; and Pitt's bill for the consolidation of various duties on articles in |