His very expressive pause, his eyes still steadfastly fixed on Mr. Hastings, gave me ample opportunity for speaking - though I had some little difficulty how to get out what I wished to say. However, in the midst of his reverie, I broke forth, but not without great hesitation, and, very humbly, I said, “Could you pardon me, Mr. Windham, If I should forget, for a moment, that you are a committee man, and speak to you frankly?”
He looked surprised, but laughed at the question, and very eagerly called out “Oh yes, yes, pray speak out, I beg it!”
“Well, then, may I venture to say to you that I believe it utterly impossible for any one, not particularly engaged on the contrary side, ever to enter a court of justice, and not instantly, and involuntarily, wish well to the prisoner!”
His surprise subsided by this general speech, which I had not courage to put in a more pointed way, and he very readily answered, “’Tis natural, certainly, and what must almost unavoidably be the first impulse; yet, where justice—”
I stopped him; I saw I was not comprehended, and thought else he might say something to stop me.
“May I,” I said, “ go yet a little farther?
“Yes,” cried he, with a very civil smile, “and I feel an assent beforehand.”
“ Supposing then, that even you, if that may be supposed, could be divested of all knowledge of the particulars of this affair, and in the same state of general Ignorance that I confess myself to be, and could then, like me, have seen Mr. Hastings make his entrance into this court, and looked at him when he was brought to that bar; not even you, Mr. Windham, could then have reflected on such a vicissitude for him, on all he has left and all he has lost, and not have given him, like me, all your best wishes the moment you beheld him.”
The promised assent came not, though he was too civil to contradict me; but still I saw he Understood me only in a general sense. I feared going farther : a weak advocate is apt to be a mischievous one and, as I knew nothing, it was not to a professed enemy I could talk of what I only believed. Recovering, now, from the strong emotion with which the sight of Mr. Hastings had filled him, he looked again around the court, and pointed out several of the principal characters present, with arch and striking remarks upon each of them, all uttered with high spirit, but none with ill-nature.
(“Pitt,” cried he, “is not here! — a noble stroke that for the annals of his administration! A trial is brought on by the whole House of Commons In a body, and he is absent at the very opening! However,” added he, with a very meaning laugh, “I’m glad of it, for ’tis to his eternal disgrace!”
Mercy! thought I, what a friend to kindness Is party!
“Do you see Scott?” cried he.
“No, I never saw him; pray show him to me,”
“There he is, in green; just now by the Speaker, now moved by the committee; in two minutes more he will be somewhere else, skipping backwards and forwards; what a grasshopper it is!”
“I cannot look at him,” cried I, “without recollecting a very extraordinary letter from him, that I read last summer in the newspaper, where he answers some attack that he says has been made upon him, because the term is used of ‘a very insignificant fellow,’ and he printed two or three letters in ‘The Public Advertiser,’ in following days, to prove, with great care and pains, that he knew it was all meant as an abuse of himself, from those words!”
“And what,” cried he, laughing, “do you say to that notion now you see him?”
“That no one,” cried I, examining him with my glass, “can possibly dispute his claim!”
What pity that Mr. Hastings should have trusted his cause to so frivolous an agent! I believe, and indeed it is the general belief, both of foes and friends, that to his officious and injudicious zeal the present prosecution is wholly owing.
Next, Mr. Windham pointed out Mr. Francis to me. ‘TIS a singular circumstance, that the friend who most loves and the enemy Who most hates Mr. Hastings should bear the same name!(264) Mr. Windham, with all the bias of party, gave me then the highest character of this Mr. Francis, whom he called one of the most ill-used of men. Want of documents how to answer forced me to be silent, oppositely as I thought. But it was a very unpleasant situation to me, as I saw that Mr. Windham still conceived me to have no other interest than a common, and probably to his mind, a weak compassion for the prisoner — that prisoner who, frequently looking around, saw me, I am certain, and saw with whom I was engaged.
The subject of Mr. Francis again drew him back to Mr. Hastings, but with more severity of mind. “A prouder heart,” cried he, “an ambition more profound, were never, I suppose, lodged in any mortal mould than in that man! With what a port he entered! did you observe him? his air! I saw not his face, but his air his port!”
“Surely there,” cried I, “he could not be to blame! He comes upon his defence; ought he to look as if he gave himself up?”
“Why no; ’tis true he must look what vindication to himself he can; we must not blame him there.”
Encouraged by this little concession, I resolved to venture farther, and once more said “May I again, Mr. Windham, forget that you are a committee-man, and say something not fit for a committee man to hear?”
“O yes!” cried he, laughing very much, and looking extremely curious.
“I must fairly, then, own myself utterly ignorant upon this subject, and — and — may I go on?”
“I beg you will!”
“Well, then, — and originally prepossessed in favour of the object!”
He quite started, and with a look of surprise from which all pleasure was separated, exclaimed— “Indeed!”
“Yes!” cried I, “’tis really true, and really out, now!”
“For Mr. Hastings, prepossessed!” he repeated, in a tone that seemed to say — do you not mean Mr. Burke “Yes,” I said, “for Mr. Hastings! But I should not have presumed to own it just at this time, — so little as I am able to do honour to my prepossession by any materials to defend it, — but that you have given me courage, by appearing so free from all malignity in the business. Tis, therefore, Your own fault!”
“But can you speak seriously,” cried he, “ “when You say you know nothing of this business?”
“Very seriously: I never entered into it at all; it was always too intricate to tempt me.”
“But, surely you must have read the charges?”
“No; they are so long, I had never the courage to begin.”
The conscious look with which he heard this, brought — all too late — to my remembrance, that one of them was drawn up, and delivered in the House, by himself! I was really very sorry to have been so unfortunate; but I had no way to call back the words, so was quiet, perforce.
“Come then,” cried he, emphatically, “to hear Burke! come and listen to him, and you will be mistress of the whole. Hear Burke, and read the charges of the Begums, and then you will form your judgment without difficulty.”
I would rather (thought I) hear him upon any other subject: but I made no answer; I only said, “Certainly, I can gain nothing by what is going forward to-day. I meant to come to the opening now, but it seems rather like the shutting up!”
He was not to be put off. “You will come, however, to hear Burke? To hear truth, reason, justice, eloquence! You will then see, in other colours, ‘That man!’ There is more cruelty, more oppression, more tyranny, in that little machine, with an arrogance, a self-confidence, unexampled, unheard of!”
MISS BURNEY BATTLES FOR THE ACCUSED.
“Indeed, sir!” cried I; “that does not appear, to those who know him and — I — know him a little.”
“Do you?” cried he earnestly; “personally, do you know him?”
“Yes; and from that knowledge arose this prepossession I have confessed.”
“Indeed, what you have seen of him have you then so much approved?”
“Yes, very much! I must own the truth!”
“But you have not seen much of him? “No, not lately.
My first knowledge of him was almost immediately upon his coming from India; I had heard nothing of all these accusations; I had never been in the way of hearing them, and knew not even that there were any to be heard. I saw him, therefore, quite without prejudice, for or against him; and indeed, I must own, he soon gave me a strong interest in his favour.”
The surprise with which he heard me must have silenced me on the subject, had it not been accompanied with an attention so earnest as to encourage me still to proceed. It is evident to me that this committee live so much shut Lip with one another, that they conclude all the world of the same opinions with themselves, and universally imagine that the tyrant they think themselves pursuing is a monster in every part of his life, and held in contempt and abhorrence by all mankind. Could I then be sorry, seeing this, to contribute my small mite towards clearing, at least, so very wide a mistake? On the contrary, when I saw he listened, I was most eager to give him all I could to hear,
“I found him,” I continued, “so mild, so gentle, so extremely pleasing in his manners—”
“Gentle!” cried he, with quickness.
“Yes, Indeed; gentle even to humility—”
“Humility? Mr. Hastings and humility!”
“Indeed it is true; he is perfectly diffident in the whole of his manner, when engaged in conversation; and so much struck was I, at that very time, by seeing him so simple, so unassuming, when just returned from a government that had accustomed him to a power superior to our monarchs here, that it produced an effect upon my mind in his favour which nothing can erase!”
“Yes, Yes!” cried he, with great energy, “you will give it up! you must lose it, must give it up! it will be plucked away, rooted wholly out of your mind .”
“Indeed, sir,” cried I, steadily, “I believe not!”
“You believe not?” repeated he, with added animation; “then there will be the more glory in making you a convert!”
If “conversion” is the word, thought I, I would rather make than be made.
“But — Mr. Windham,” cried I, “all my amazement now is at your condescension in speaking to me upon this business at all, when I have confessed to you my total ignorance of the subject, and my original prepossession in favour of the object. Why do you not ask me when I was at the play? and how I liked the last opera?”
He laughed; and we talked on a little while in that strain, till again, suddenly fixing his eyes on poor Mr. Hastings, his gaiety once more vanished, and he gravely and severely examined his countenance. “’Tis surely,” cried he, “an unpleasant one. He does not know, I suppose, ’tis reckoned like his own!”
“How should he,” cried I, “look otherwise than unpleasant here?”
“True,” cried he; “yet still, I think, his features, his look, his whole expression, unfavourable to him. I never saw him but once before; that was at the bar of the House of Commons and there, as Burke admirably said, he looked, when first he glanced an eye against him, like a hungry tiger, ready to howl for his prey!”
“Well,” cried I, “I am sure he does not look fierce now!
Contemptuous, a little, I think he does look!”
I was sorry I used this word; yet its truth forced it to escape me. He did not like it; he repeated it; he could not but be sure the contempt could only be levelled at his prosecutors. I feared discussion, and flew off as fast as I could, to softer ground. “It was not,” cried I, “with that countenance he gave me my prepossession! Very differently, indeed, he looked then!”
“And can he ever look pleasant? can that face ever obtain an expression that is pleasing?”
“Yes, indeed and in truth, very pleasant! It was in the country I first saw him, and without any restraint on his part; I saw him, therefore, perfectly natural and easy. And no one, let me say, could so have seen him without being pleased with him — his quietness and serenity, joined to his intelligence and information—”
“His information? — in what way?”
“In such a way as suited his hearer: not upon committee business — of all that I knew nothing. The only conversation in which I could mix was upon India, considered simply as, a country in which he had travelled; and his communications upon the people, the customs, habits, cities, and whatever I could name, were so instructive as well as entertaining, that I think I never recollect gaining more intelligence, or more pleasantly conveyed, from any conversation in which I ever have been engaged. To this he listened with an attention that, but for the secret zeal which warmed me must have silenced and shamed me. I am satisfied this committee have concluded Mr. Hastings a mere man of blood, with slaughter and avarice for his sole ideas! The surprise with which he heard this just testimony to his social abilities was only silent from good-breeding, but his eyes expressed what his tongue withheld; something that satisfied me he concluded
I had undesignedly been duped by him. I answered this silence by saying “There was no object for hypocrisy, for it was quite in retirement I met with him : it was not lately; it is near two years since I have seen him; he had therefore no point to gain with me, nor was there any public character, nor any person whatever, that Could induce him to act a part; yet was he all I have said-informing, Communicative, instructive, and at the same time, gentle and highly pleasing.”
“Well,” said he, very civilly, “I begin the less to wonder, now, that You have adhered to his side; but—”
“To see him, then,” cried I, stopping his ‘but,’— “to see him brought to that bar! and kneeling at it! — indeed, Mr. Windham, I must own to you, I could hardly keep my seat — hardly forbear rising and running out of the Hall.”
“Why, there,” cried he, “I agree with you! ’Tis certainly a humiliation not to be wished or defended: it is, indeed, a mere ceremony, a mere formality; but it is a mortifying one, and so obsolete, so unlike the practices of the times, so repugnant from a gentleman to a gentleman, that I myself looked another way: it hurt me, and I wished it dispensed with.”
“O, Mr. Windham,” cried I, surprised and pleased, “and can you be so liberal?”
“Yes,” cried he, laughing, “but ’tis only to take you in!”
Afterwards he asked what his coat was, whether blue Or purple; and said, “is it not customary for a prisoner to come black?”
“Whether or not,” quoth I, “I am heartily glad he has not done it; why should he seem so dismal, so shut out from hope?”
“Why, I believe he is in the right. I think he has judged that not ill.”
“O, don’t be so candid,” cried I, “I beg you not.”
“Yes, yes, I must; and you know the reason,” cried he, gaily; but presently exclaimed, “one unpleasant thing belong ing to being a manager is that I must now go and show myself in the committee.” And then he very civilly bowed, and went down to his box, leaving me much persuaded that I had never yet been engaged in a conversation so curious, from its circumstances, in my life. The warm well-wisher myself of the prisoner, though formerly the warmest admirer of his accuser, engaged, even at his trial and in his presence, in so open a discussion with one of his principal prosecutors; and the queen herself in full view, unavoidably beholding me in close and eager conference with an avowed member of the opposition!
These circumstances made me at first enter into discourse with Mr. Windham with the utmost reluctance; but though I wished to shun him, I could not, when once attacked, decline to converse with him. It would but injure the cause of Mr. Hastings to seem to fear hearing the voice of his accusers; and it could but be attributed to undue court-influence had I avoided any intercourse with an acquaintance so long ago established as a member of the opposition.
A WEARIED M.P.-MR. CRUTCHLEY REAPPEARS.
In the midst of the opening of a trial such as this, so important to the country as well as to the individual who is tried, what will you say to a man — a member of the House of Commons who kept exclaiming almost perpetually, just at my side, “What a bore!- -when will it be over? — Must one come
any more? — I had a great mind not to have come at all. — Who’s that? — Lady Hawkesbury and the Copes? — Yes. — A pretty girl, Kitty. — Well, when will they have done? — I wish they’d call the question — I should vote it a bore at once! just such exclamations as these were repeated, without intermission, till the gentleman departed: and who should it be that spoke with so much legislative wisdom but Mr. W — !
In about two or three hours — this reading still lasting — Mr. Crutchley came to me again. He, too, was so wearied, that he was departing; but he stayed some time to talk over our constant topic — my poor Mrs. Thrale. How little does he suspect the interest I unceasingly take in her — the avidity with which I seize every opportunity to gather the smallest intelligence concerning her!
One little trait of Mr. Crutchley, so characteristic of that queerness which distinguishes him, I must mention. He said he questioned whether he should comme any more: I told him I had imagined the attendance of every member to be indispensable. “No,” cried he, “ten to one if another day they are able to make a house!”
“The Lords, however, I suppose, must come?”
“Not unless they like it.”
“ But I hear if they do not attend they have no tickets.”
“Why, then, Miss Primrose and Miss Cowslip must stay away too!”
I had the pleasure to find him entirely for Mr. Hastings, and to hear he had constantly voted on his side through every stage of the business. He is a very independent man, and a man of real good character, and, with all his oddity, of real understanding. We compared notes very amicably upon this subject, and both agreed that those who looked for every flaw in the conduct of a man in so high and hazardous a station, ought first to have weighed his merits and his difficulties.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 577
