"Well, then,--and originally prepossessed in favour of the object!"
He quite started, and with a look of surprise from which all pleasure was separated, exclaimed--"Indeed!"
"Yes!" cried I, ""tis really true, and really out, now!"
"For Mr. Hastings, prepossessed!" he repeated, in a tone that seemed to say--do you not mean Mr. Burke?
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"Yes," I said, "for Mr. Hastings! But I should not have presumed to own it just at this time,--so little as I am able to do honour to my prepossession by any materials to defend it,--but that you have given me courage, by appearing so free from all malignity in the business. Tis, therefore, Your own fault!"
"But can you speak seriously," cried he, " "when You say you know nothing of this business?"
"Very seriously: I never entered into it at all; it was always too intricate to tempt me."
"But, surely you must have read the charges?"
"No; they are so long, I had never the courage to begin."
The conscious look with which he heard this, brought--all too late--to my remembrance, that one of them was drawn up, and delivered in the House, by himself! I was really very sorry to have been so unfortunate; but I had no way to call back the words, so was quiet, perforce.
"Come then," cried he, emphatically, "to hear Burke! come and listen to him, and you will be mistress of the whole. Hear Burke, and read the charges of the Begums, and then you will form your judgment without difficulty."
I would rather (thought I) hear him upon any other subject: but I made no answer; I only said, "Certainly, I can gain nothing by what is going forward to-day. I meant to come to the opening now, but it seems rather like the shutting up!"
He was not to be put off. "You will come, however, to hear Burke? To hear truth, reason, justice, eloquence! You will then see, in other colours, "That man!" There is more cruelty, more oppression, more tyranny, in that little machine, with an arrogance, a self-confidence, unexampled, unheard of!"
MISS BURNEY BATTLES FOR THE ACCUSED.
"Indeed, sir!" cried I; "that does not appear, to those who know him and--I--know him a little."
"Do you?" cried he earnestly; "personally, do you know him?"
"Yes; and from that knowledge arose this prepossession I have confessed."
"Indeed, what you have seen of him have you then so much approved?"
"Yes, very much! I must own the truth!"
"But you have not seen much of him?"
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"No, not lately. My first knowledge of him was almost immediately upon his coming from India; I had heard nothing of all these accusations; I had never been in the way of hearing them, and knew not even that there were any to be heard. I saw him, therefore, quite without prejudice, for or against him ; and indeed, I must own, he soon gave me a strong interest in his favour."
The surprise with which he heard me must have silenced me on the subject, had it not been accompanied with an attention so earnest as to encourage me still to proceed. It is evident to me that this committee live so much shut Lip with one another, that they conclude all the world of the same opinions with themselves, and universally imagine that the tyrant they think themselves pursuing is a monster in every part of his life, and held in contempt and abhorrence by all mankind. Could I then be sorry, seeing this, to contribute my small mite towards clearing, at least, so very wide a mistake? On the contrary, when I saw he listened, I was most eager to give him all I could to hear,
"I found him," I continued, "so mild, so gentle, so extremely pleasing in his manners--"
"Gentle!" cried he, with quickness.
"Yes, Indeed; gentle even to humility--"
"Humility? Mr. Hastings and humility!"
"Indeed it is true; he is perfectly diffident in the whole of his manner, when engaged in conversation; and so much struck was I, at that very time, by seeing him so simple, so una.s.suming, when just returned from a government that had accustomed him to a power superior to our monarchs here, that it produced an effect upon my mind in his favour which nothing can erase!"
"Yes, Yes!" cried he, with great energy, "you will give it up!
you must lose it, must give it up! it will be plucked away, rooted wholly out of your mind ."
"Indeed, sir," cried I, steadily, "I believe not!"
"You believe not?" repeated he, with added animation; "then there will be the more glory in making you a convert!"
If "conversion" is the word, thought I, I would rather make than be made.
"But --Mr. Windham," cried I, "all my amazement now is at your condescension in speaking to me upon this business at all, when I have confessed to you my total ignorance of the subject, and my original prepossession in favour of the object. Why
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do you not ask me when I was at the play ? and how I liked the last opera?"
He laughed; and we talked on a little while in that strain, till again, suddenly fixing his eyes on poor Mr. Hastings, his gaiety once more vanished, and he gravely and severely examined his countenance. ""Tis surely," cried he, "an unpleasant one. He does not know, I suppose, "tis reckoned like his own!"
"How should he," cried I, "look otherwise than unpleasant here?"
"True," cried he; "yet still, I think, his features, his look, his whole expression, unfavourable to him. I never saw him but once before; that was at the bar of the House of Commons and there, as Burke admirably said, he looked, when first he glanced an eye against him, like a hungry tiger, ready to howl for his prey!"
"Well," cried I, "I am sure he does not look fierce now!
Contemptuous, a little, I think he does look!"
I was sorry I used this word; yet its truth forced it to escape me. He did not like it; he repeated it; he could not but be sure the contempt could only be levelled at his prosecutors. I feared discussion, and flew off as fast as I could, to softer ground.
"It was not," cried I, "with that countenance he gave me my prepossession! Very differently, indeed, he looked then!"
"And can he ever look pleasant? can that face ever obtain an expression that is pleasing?"
"Yes, indeed and in truth, very pleasant! It was in the country I first saw him, and without any restraint on his part; I saw him, therefore, perfectly natural and easy. And no one, let me say, could so have seen him without being pleased with him--his quietness and serenity, joined to his intelligence and information--"
"His information?--in what way?"
"In such a way as suited his hearer: not upon committee business--of all that I knew nothing. The only conversation in which I could mix was upon India, considered simply as, a country in which he had travelled; and his communications upon the people, the customs, habits, cities, and whatever I could name, were so instructive as well as entertaining, that I think I never recollect gaining more intelligence, or more pleasantly conveyed, from any conversation in which I ever have been engaged."
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To this he listened with an attention that, but for the secret zeal which warmed me must have silenced and shamed me. I am satisfied this committee have concluded Mr. Hastings a mere man of blood, with slaughter and avarice for his sole ideas! The surprise with which he heard this just testimony to his social abilities was only silent from good-breeding, but his eyes expressed what his tongue withheld; something that satisfied me he concluded