of his impeachment had been
taught with sufficiently impressive force--the great lesson that
Asiatics have rights, and that Europeans have obligations; that a
superior race is bound to observe the highest current morality of the
time in all its dealings with the subject race. Burke is entitled
to our lasting reverence as the first apostle and great upholder of
integrity, mercy, and honour in the relation between his countrymen
and their humble dependents.

He shared the common fate of those who dare to strike a blow for human
justice against the prejudices of national egotism. But he was no
longer able to bear obloquy and neglect, as he had borne it through
the war with the colonies. When he opened the impeachment of Hastings
at Westminster, Burke was very near to his sixtieth year. Hannah More
noted in 1786 that his vivacity had diminished, and that business and
politics had impaired his agreeableness. The simpletons in the House,
now that they had at last found in Pitt a political chief who could
beat the Whig leaders on their own ground of eloquence, knowledge,
and dexterity in debate, took heart as they had never done under Lord
North. They now made deliberate attempts to silence the veteran by
unmannerly and brutal interruptions, of which a mob of lower class
might have been ashamed. Then suddenly came a moment of such
excitement as has not often been seen in the annals of party. It
became known one day in the autumn of 1788 that the king had gone out
of his mind.

The news naturally caused the liveliest agitation among the Whigs.
When the severity of the attack forced the ministry to make
preparations for a Regency, the friends of the Prince of Wales assumed
that they would speedily return to power, and hastened to form their
plans accordingly. Fox was travelling in Italy with Mrs. Armstead, and
he had been two months away without hearing a word from England.
The Duke of Portland sent a messenger in search of him, and after a
journey of ten days the messenger found him at Bologna. Fox instantly
set off in all haste for London, which he reached in nine days. The
three months that followed were a time of unsurpassed activity and
bitterness, and Burke was at least as active and as bitter as the rest
of them. He was the writer of the Prince of Wales's letter to Pitt,
sometimes set down to Sheridan, and sometimes to Gilbert Elliot. It
makes us feel how naturally the style of ideal kingship, its dignity,
calm, and hi