th
had shown that there was nothing incompatible with justice in a
contribution by Ireland to the public debt of Great Britain. That
debt, he argued, had been contracted in support of the government
established by the Revolution; a government to which the Protestants
of Ireland owed not only the whole authority which they enjoyed in
their own country, but every security which they possessed for their
liberty, property, and religion. The neighbourhood of Ireland to the
shores of the mother country introduced an element into the problem,
which must have taught every unimpassioned observer that the American
solution would be inadequate for a dependency that lay at our very
door. Burke could not, in his calmer moments, have failed to recognise
all this. Yet he lent himself to the party cry that Pitt was taking
his first measures for the re-enslavement of Ireland. Had it not been
for what he himself called the delirium of the preceding session, and
which had still not subsided, he would have seen that Pitt was in
truth taking his first measures for the effective deliverance of
Ireland from an unjust and oppressive subordination. The same delirium
committed him to another equally deplorable perversity, when
he opposed, with as many excesses in temper as fallacies in
statesmanship, the wise treaty with France, in which Pitt partially
anticipated the commercial policy of an ampler treaty three-quarters
of a century afterwards.

A great episode in Burke's career now opened. It was in 1785 that
Warren Hastings returned from India, after a series of exploits as
momentous and far-reaching, for good or evil, as have ever been
achieved by any English ruler. For years Burke had been watching
India. With rising wonder, amazement, and indignation he had steadily
followed that long train of intrigue and crime which had ended in the
consolidation of a new empire. With the return of Hastings he felt
that the time had come for striking a severe blow, and making a signal
example. He gave notice (June 1785) that he would, at a future day,
make a motion respecting the conduct of a gentleman just returned from
India.

Among minor considerations, we have to remember that Indian affairs
entered materially into the great battle of parties. It was upon
an Indian bill that the late ministry had made shipwreck. It was
notoriously by the aid of potent Indian interests that the new
ministry had acquired a portion of its majority. To expose the
misd