the
Upper House should give more than a few days to an impeachment. To
expect that their Lordships would give up partridge-shooting, in order
to bring the greatest delinquent to speedy justice, or to relieve
accused innocence by speedy acquittal, would be unreasonable indeed. A
well-constituted tribunal, sitting regularly six days in the week, and
nine hours in the day, would have brought the trial of Hastings to a
close in less than three months. The Lords had not finished their work
in seven years.

The result ceased to be matter of doubt, from the time when the Lords
resolved that they would be guided by the rules of evidence which are
received in the inferior courts of the realm. Those rules, it is well
known, exclude much information which would be quite sufficient to
determine the conduct of any reasonable man, in the most important
transactions of private life. These rules, at every assizes, save scores
of culprits whom judges, jury, and spectators, firmly believe to be
guilty. But when those rules were rigidly applied to offences committed
many years before, at the distance of many thousands of miles,
conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do not blame the
accused and his counsel for availing themselves of every legal advantage
in order to obtain an acquittal. But it is clear that an acquittal so
obtained cannot be pleaded in bar of the judgment of history.

Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings to put a stop to
the trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote of censure upon Burke, for some
violent language which he had used respecting the death of Nuncomar and
the connection between Hastings and Impey. Burke was then unpopular in
the last degree both with the House and with the country. The asperity
and indecency of some expressions which he had used during the debates
on the Regency had annoyed even his warmest friends. The vote of censure
was carried; and those who had moved it hoped that the managers would
resign in disgust. Burke was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what he
considered as the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over his personal
feelings. He received the censure of the House with dignity and
meekness, and declared that no personal mortification or humiliation
should induce him to flinch from the sacred duty which he had
undertaken.

In the following year the Parliament was dissolved, and the friends of
Hastings entertained a hope that the new House of Commons might not b