15,909,178, thereby leaving an excess of the income over the
expenditure to the amount of L61,107. In his account of the state of
finances on the 18th of May, Pitt referred to this report as a proof
of their flourishing condition. Sheridan, however, still questioned
the correctness of the figures; and on the 3rd of June he moved forty
resolutions, calculated to discredit the management of the finances, and
to show that he could have taken--spendthrift as he was--better care
of the public money. These resolutions were all rejected; and ministers
brought forward sixteen counter resolutions, which went to prove that
the finances had never been so well managed before, and that there was
every prospect, not only of keeping the expenditure within the limits of
the income, but of reducing the national debt. This was visionary; but,
at all events, Pitt was enabled to provide for the services of the year
without a loan or any additional taxes. On a subsequent day, Dundas laid
a flattering account of the finances in India before the commons; the
revenues there, he stated, amounted to L7,000,000, and after defraying
all expenses, there was left a clear surplus of nearly L1,500,000. His
statement was questioned by Paul Benfield who had recently returned
from India, and who asserted that he could prove it to be erroneous, but
for the late period of the session.

IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.

Early in this session a question arose, whether an impeachment by the
house of commons did not remain _in statu quo_, notwithstanding the
intervention of a dissolution of parliament. Upon the solution of this
question it depended whether the present parliament could take up the
proceedings against Hastings where they had been left by the last, or
whether they must be commenced anew. Much discussion arose upon the
question; lawyers and members of parliament alike being at issue upon
it; but Burke finally succeeded in carrying this motion:--"That it
appears that an impeachment by this house, &c, against Warren Hastings,
Esq., late Governor-general of Bengal, for sundry high crimes and
misdemeanors, is now depending." The trial, therefore, was to be resumed
at the point where it was left by the recent parliament; and in order to
shorten it, on the 14th of February, Burke moved "that, in consideration
of the length of time which has already elapsed since carrying up the
impeachment against Warren Hastings, Esq., it appears to this house
to