Was it not possible that he might become a formidable rival in the Cabinet?  It had probably got abroad that very singular communications had taken place between Thurlow and Major Scott, and that, if the First Lord of the Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a peerage, the Chancellor was ready to take the responsibility of that step on himself.  Of all ministers, Pitt was the least likely to submit with patience to such an encroachment on his functions.  If the Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was at an end.  The proceeding, however it might terminate, would probably last some years.  In the meantime, the accused person would be excluded from honours and public employments, and could scarcely venture even to pay his duty at Court.  Such were the motives attributed by a great part of the public to the young minister, whose ruling passion was generally believed to be avarice of power.

The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions respecting Hastings.  In the following year, those discussions were resumed.  The charge touching the spoliation of the Begums was brought forward by Sheridan, in a speech which was so imperfectly reported that it may be said to be wholly lost, but which was without doubt, the most elaborately brilliant of all the productions of his ingenious mind.  The impression which it produced was such as has never been equalled.  He sat down, not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the gallery joined.  The excitement of the House was such that no other speaker could obtain a hearing; and the debate was adjourned.  The ferment spread fast through the town.  Within four and twenty hours, Sheridan was offered a thousand pounds for the copyright of the speech, if he would himself correct it for the press.  The impression made by this remarkable display of eloquence on severe and experienced critics, whose discernment may be supposed to have been quickened by emulation, was deep and permanent.  Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the literary or in the parliamentary performances of Sheridan, the finest that had been delivered within the memory of man.  Mr. Fox, about the same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland what was the best speech ever made in the House of Commons, assigned the first place, without hesitation, to the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude charge.

When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused that his friends were coughed and scraped down.  Pitt declared himself for Sheridan’s motion; and the question was carried by a hundred and seventy-five votes against sixty-eight.

The Opposition, flushed with victory and strongly supported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary transactions.  The friends of Hastings were discouraged, and, having now no hope of being able to avert an impeachment, were not very strenuous in their exertions.  At length the House, having agreed to twenty articles of charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, and to impeach the late Governor-General of High Crimes and Misdemeanours.  Hastings was at the same time arrested by the Serjeant-at-Arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers.