ncil, and invited to lend the assistance
of his talents and experience to the India board. Lord Thurlow, indeed,
some months before, had spoken with contempt of the scruples which
prevented Pitt from calling Hastings to the House of Lords; and had even
said, that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was afraid of the Commons,
there was nothing to prevent the Keeper of the Great Seal from taking
the royal pleasure about a patent of peerage. The very title was chosen.
Hastings was to be Lord Daylesford. For, through all changes of scene
and changes of fortune, remained unchanged his attachment to the spot
which had witnessed the greatness and the fall of his family, and which
had borne so great a part in the first dreams of his young ambition.

But in a very few days these fair prospects were overcast. On the
thirteenth of June, Mr. Fox brought forward, with great ability and
eloquence, the charge respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis
followed on the same side. The friends of Hastings were in high spirits
when Pitt rose. With his usual abundance and felicity of language, the
Minister gave his opinion on the case. He maintained that the
Governor-General was justified in calling on the Rajah of Benares for
pecuniary assistance, and in imposing a fine when that assistance was
contumaciously withheld. He also thought that the conduct of the
Governor-General during the insurrection had been distinguished by
ability and presence of mind. He censured, with great bitterness, the
conduct of Francis, both in India and in Parliament, as most dishonest
and malignant. The necessary inference from Pitt's arguments seemed to
be that Hastings ought to be honorably acquitted; and both the friends
and the opponents of the Minister expected from him a declaration to
that effect. To the astonishment of all parties, he concluded by saying
that, though he thought it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for
contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too great for the occasion. On
this ground, and on this ground alone, did Mr. Pitt, applauding every
other part of the conduct of Hastings with regard to Benares, declare
that he should vote in favor of Mr. Fox's motion.

The House was thunderstruck; and it well might be so. For the wrong done
to Cheyte Sing, even had it been as flagitious as Fox and Francis
contended, was a trifle when compared with the horrors which had been
inflicted on Rohilcund. But if Mr. Pitt's view of the case of Ch