of Benares for pecuniary assistance, and in imposing a fine when that assistance was contumaciously withheld.  He also thought that the conduct of the Governor-General during the insurrection had been distinguished by ability and presence of mind.  He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct of Francis, both in India and in Parliament, as most dishonest and malignant.  The necessary inference from Pitt’s arguments seemed to be that Hastings ought to be honourably acquitted; and both the friends and the opponents of the Minister expected from him a declaration to that effect.  To the astonishment of all parties, he concluded by saying that, though he thought it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too great for the occasion.  On this ground, and on this ground alone, did Mr. Pitt, applauding every other part of the conduct of Hastings with regard to Benares, declare that he should vote in favour of Mr. Fox’s motion.

The House was thunderstruck; and it well might be so.  For the wrong done to Cheyte Sing, even had it been as flagitious as Fox and Francis contended, was a trifle when compared with the horrors which had been inflicted on Rohilcund.  But if Mr. Pitt’s view of the case of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no ground for an impeachment, or even for a vote of censure.  If the offence of Hastings was really no more than this, that, having a right to impose a mulct, the amount of which mulct was not defined, but was left to be settled by his discretion, he had, not for his own advantage, but for that of the State, demanded too much, was this an offence which required a criminal proceeding of the highest solemnity, a criminal proceeding, to which during sixty years, no public functionary had been subjected?  We can see, we think, in what way a man of sense and integrity might have been induced to take any course respecting Hastings, except the course which Mr. Pitt took.  Such a man might have thought a great example necessary, for the preventing of injustice, and for the vindicating of the national honour, and might, on that ground, have voted for impeachment both on the Rohilla charge, and on the Benares charge.  Such a man might have thought that the offences of Hastings had been atoned for by great services, and might, on that ground, have voted against the impeachment, on both charges.  With great diffidence, we give it as our opinion that the most correct course would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares charge.  Had the Benares charge appeared to us in the same light in which it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, without hesitation, have voted for acquittal on that charge.  The one course which it is inconceivable that any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt’s abilities can have honestly taken was the course which he took.  He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla charge.  He softened down the Benares charge till it became no charge at all; and then he pronounced that it contained matter for impeachment.