might have fuffered the repeal to pass; but by preffing the repeal with a boldness and precipitancy which allowed no falvo for the honor of government, they could expect no other than a decided and acrimonious oppofition. It is nevertheless very remarkable in one view, that the measure in question should be oppofed with fuch pertinacy by the executive government, fince the very object of the repeal was merely to remove a reftraint upon the exercise of its prerogative. And if the object of thefe fucceffive applications had been attained in its utmost extent, it would still have depended upon the pleasure of the crown, whether a fingle diffenter should have been employed in any office for which a compliance with the test was previously neceffary. The conduct of the diffenters, too eagerly folicitous to remove a stigma which they were confcious they did not deferve, muft indeed be acknowledged unwife and indefenfible. But when was wifdom fuppofed the characteriftic of a promifcuous and countlefs multitude? The conduct of government was alfo at leaft equally unwife. But from the government of a great nation we have a right to expect wisdom; and from the palpable want of it during the prefent reign, evils and mischiefs beyond all power of calculation have refuited. After the fatal experience of

thirty

prevent them by acting a contrary part, and trying that which never yet has had in any part of the world fo fatal effects. To go on in the old way of continuing grievances and burdens, is only to pave the way to the fame evils whenever time and opportunity fhall offer; and this as certainly as that the fame human nature will be worked upon in the fame manner by the fame methods: or as certainly as that the fame caufes, all things concurring, will ever produce the fame effects. Thofe evils were begun by partiality and oppreffion, and therefore the true lafting effectual remedy would be for government to abolish all partiality as to civil rights, and all hardship wherever there is equal affection to the civil government, properly fo called. Admitting, for argument fake, the difaffection of the diffenters to the government at former periods, if that difaffection to the civil conftitution, teftified by former actions, were a juft ground for making fuch exclufive acts, then certainly the truest affection to the prefent civil conftitution, teftified through a long series of years, and in times the most critical and dangerous, is the jufteft reafon in the world for putting an end to thefe acts." Such were the noble fentiments, and fuch the generous and enlightened policy with which the diffenters were not only uniformly treated, but publicly defended, by those men in whom the house of Brunfwic once placed their truft and confidence.

thirty years, that most important of all political truths remained to be difcovered-that mankind are with infinitely more eafe and efficacy to be governed by mildness than feverity.

Shortly after the decifion of the houfe upon this bufinefs, Mr. Flood, fo long celebrated as a patriot and orator in the Irish houfe of commons, and who had fat fome years almoft undistinguished in the British parliament, brought forward a plan of parliamentary reform, in conformity to which an additional number of reprefentatives, to the amount of one hundred, was to be admitted into the legislative body, in a proportional ratio to the population of each county, by the election of the refident householders only. This was a bold and happy effort at reform; and it was fupported by the mover in a very able and eloquent fpeech, in which, adverting to the present state of things in France, he declared " that it was the want of timely and temperate reforms that had made a revolution neceffary in that country. Thofe who oppofed fuch reforms might be enemies to revolution in their hearts, but they were friends to it by their folly."

This motion was vehemently oppofed by Mr. Windham, member for Norwich, the obfequious and devoted admirer of Mr. Burke, who adopted in their full extent all his eccentricities and deviations from the rule of right, but who followed him in his fuperior lines of character, his genius, and his eloquence, with very unequal fteps. "At the close of the American war, Mr. Windham faid, a deluge of opinions had been let loofe, a clamor had been raifed, and a parliamentary reform demanded-as a remedy for the evils we felt from it. Happily thofe wild notions had long fince fubfided; the danger, however, was now breaking out afresh; and were he otherwife a friend to the propofition, he should have objected to it on account of the time at which it was introduced. Where was the

man

man who would be mad enough to advife them to repair their house in the hurricane feafon ?"

Mr. Pitt entirely coincided in these reasonings of Mr. Windham, and declared, "that were the motion before them the precife propofition he himself had formerly offered, he should now vote against it from a conviction of its actual impropriety. But at a more feasonable opportunity he would MOST CERTAINLY again fubmit his ideas the fubject to the confideration of the house."

upon

Mr. Fox declared, "that he faw no reason why we fhould be ftruck with a panic on account of the fituation of affairs in France; and in allufion to Mr. Windham's metaphorical argument, he affirmed, that no feafon could be more proper to begin a repair than when a hurricane was near and ready to burft forth." Mr. Flood perceiving the general fentiments of the house, even of thofe members who had formerly favored the idea of parliamentary `reform, to be adverse to the motion, at length affented to withdraw his propofition.

The bufinefs relative to the abolition of the flave trade went on flowly and heavily. Every artifice of procraftination was used on the part of the flave-merchants and planters, and the whole feffion paffed over in the hearing of evidence, and examination of witneffes.

The trial of Mr. Haftings alfo proceeded with most equal languor. On the 16th of February (1790) the charge respecting prefents was recapitulated by Mr. Burke; but in the entire courfe of the feffion the court fat only thirteen days. The enthufiafm of thofe who wished and expected to have seen a great public delinquent brought to fpeedy and exemplary juftice, was faft changing to compaffion for the man who feemed deftined to live a life of impeachment, and to have become the object of a relentless profecution. The evidence on three articles only of the general charge out of twenty was as yet clofed on the part of the commons, after which Mr. Haftings was to enter ` upon

upon his defence, and the commons were to reply; so that in all probability the judges and the witneffes, the accufers and the accused, would be all fwept away by the hand of time before the trial could arrive at its legal termination. The common sense of mankind revolted at this procedure. It appeared manifeft to all, that this was not the mode in which human affairs could or ought to be conducted. The real merits of the caufe were loft in the immenfity of the detail. It was not to be expected or imagined that the public at large could pretend to form any judgment refpecting it. This only without hesitation they inferred, that if Mr. Haftings was fo criminal as he was represented, a fhort and fimple statement of facts would fuffice to prove his guilt. But Westminster hall was converted into a LYCEUM, a fchool of eloquence, and all was feen confused and magnified through the mist of rhetorical declamation.

The house of commons had indeed originally propofed, that the lords fhould decide feparately upon each article, which might doubtless have tended confiderably to shorten the proceedings; but this their lordships refused, as an unfair and partial mode of determining upon the merits of fo complicated a cafe, and in which many of the articles of impeachment were fo intimately connected. Towards the clofe of the feffion, a refolution paffed the houfe of commons, on the motion of Mr. Burke, "That the house do authorize the managers to infift only upon fuch and fo many of the charges as may appear to them conducive to the obtaining speedy and effectual juftice;" and major Scott was, by the order of the house, reprimanded by the speaker in his place, for afcribing, in a certain libellous publication, the procrastination of the trial to the fyftematical artifices of the manager.

On the 31ft of March, 1790, Mr. Dundas brought forward his annual statement of the debts and revenues of the Eaft India company, as required by the regulation act. He reprefented, according to annual custom, their fituati

on

on as in the highest degree profperous and flourishing; and what is very remarkable, he did not conclude his eulogium of the present year, with asking a loan to enable them to avoid the horrors of infolvency. Through the wife and equitable administration of lord Cornwallis, the revenues of Bengal had been advanced during the laft year, without the aid of any new impofition, from one million eight hundred thousand pounds to two millions one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The prefent governor general, on his acceffion to his high office, had ftated the fituation of the provinces as moft wretched and deplorable. In' his difpatch to the court of directors, dated August 2, 1789, he fays, "independent of all other confiderations, it will be of the utmoft importance for promoting the folid intereft of the company, that the PRINCIPAL LANDHOLDERS and TRADERS in the interior parts of the country should be reflored to fuch circumftances as to enable them to fupport their families with decency, according to the customs of their feveral cafes and religions. I am forry to be obliged to fay, that agriculture and internal commerce have for many years been gradually declining; and that at prefent, excepting the clafs of fhroffs and banians, who refide moft entirely in great towns, the inhabitants of these provinces were advancing haftily to a general state of poverty and wretchednefs. In this defcription I must include almost every zemindar in the company's territories." And in his councilminute of September 18, 1789, his lordfhip writes, "I can fafely affert, that ONE THIRD of the company's territory is now a jungle, inhabitated by WILD BEASTS!"

One of the primary and most important measures of the new governor general was, to leafe the lands in perpetuity at an equitable valuation to the actual occupants; in allufion to which momentous transaction his lordship thus forcibly expreffes himself to the directors: "the fecurity of property, and the certainty which each individual will

NOW