Of all his errors the most serious was perhaps the choice of a champion.  Clive, in similar circumstances, had made a singularly happy selection.  He put himself into the hands of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, one of the few great advocates who have also been great in the House of Commons.  To the defence of Clive, therefore, nothing was wanting, neither learning nor knowledge of the world, neither forensic acuteness nor that eloquence which charms political assemblies.  Hastings intrusted his interests to a very different person, a Major in the Bengal army, named Scott.  This gentleman had been sent over from India some time before as the agent of the Governor-General.  It was rumoured that his services were rewarded with Oriental munificence; and we believe that he received much more than Hastings could conveniently spare.  The Major obtained a seat in Parliament, and was there regarded as the organ of his employer.  It was evidently impossible that a gentleman so situated could speak with the authority which belongs to an independent position.  Nor had the agent of Hastings the talents necessary for obtaining the ear of an assembly which, accustomed to listen to great orators, had naturally become fastidious.  He was always on his legs; he was very tedious; and he had only one topic, the merits and wrongs of Hastings.  Everybody who knows the House of Commons will easily guess what followed.  The Major was soon considered as the greatest bore of his time.  His exertions were not confined to Parliament.  There was hardly a day on which the newspapers did not contain some puff upon Hastings, signed Asiaticus or Bengalensis, but known to be written by the indefatigable Scott; and hardly a month in which some bulky pamphlet on the same subject, and from the same pen, did not pass to the trunkmakers and the pastry-cooks.  As to this gentleman’s capacity for conducting a delicate question through Parliament, our readers will want no evidence beyond that which they will find in letters preserved in these volumes.  We will give a single specimen of his temper and judgment.  He designated the greatest man then living as “that reptile Mr. Burke.”

In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, the general aspect of affairs was favourable to Hastings.  The King was on his side.  The Company and its servants were zealous in his cause.  Among public men he had many ardent friends.  Such were Lord Mansfield, who had outlived the vigour of his body, but not that of his mind; and Lord Lansdowne, who, though unconnected with any party, retained the importance which belongs to great talents and knowledge.  The ministers were generally believed to be favourable to the late Governor-General.  They owed their power to the clamour which had been raised against Mr. Fox’s East India Bill.  The authors of that bill, when accused of invading vested rights, and of setting up powers unknown to the constitution, had defended themselves by pointing to the crimes