In the meantime the trial went on languidly. Legal doubts and
difficulties were constantly suggested by the counsel for the prisoner,
and time was frittered away in their consideration by the peers; and
before this single charge could be settled, their lordships decided
to postpone the trial to the first Tuesday in the next session of
parliament. These delays caused great vexation both to the accused and
the accusers. Hastings, indeed, declared that if he had foreseen such
an interminable process, he would rather have pleaded guilty at the
commencement of the process; and that, if he had done so, he should have
been a gainer as regards money. Early in the session, in fact, Hastings
had presented a petition to the lords, complaining of the great hardship
to which the duration of the trial subjected him; mentioning the death
of several of his judges, the long detention of witnesses necessary for
his defence, the probability of his being deprived of many of them by
various accidents; and reminding their lordships of the shattered state
of his own health, and that his cost had been so great, that, even
if his life should be spared to the end of the trial, he might become
destitute of the means of defence, and thereby run the fearful chance of
having his character blasted by unrefuted criminations; there being no
hope of defending himself effectually without money. On the other hand,
Burke and the managers complained of the delays as tending to favour the
accused. On one occasion, when their lordships, after long consideration
in their own chamber--whither they almost invariably retired to solve
all doubt and difficulties--decided that certain evidence taken out
of the minutes at Calcutta should not be admitted, he exclaimed, with
impassioned vehemence:--"Plunder on; the laws intended to restrain you
are mere scarecrows. Accumulate wealth by any means, however illegal,
profligate, infamous. You are sure of impunity; for the natives of India
are, by their religion, debarred from appearing against you out of their
own country; and circumstantial evidence will not be received." But
neither the complaints of the accused nor the accusers quickened the
proceedings of the peers. They still walked leisurely from the hall
to their chamber, and from their chamber to the hall, whence it was
jocosely said by Lord Stanhope, that "the judges walked, but the trial
stood still."

PARLIAMENT PROROGUED.

Parliament was prorogued by c