been violently and publicly dissolved, with tears and
stormy reproaches. If those men, once so dear to each other, were now
compelled to meet for the purpose of managing the impeachment, they met
as strangers whom public business had brought together, and behaved to
each other with cold and distant civility. Burke had in his vortex
whirled away Windham. Fox had been followed by Sheridan and Grey.

Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings guilty on
the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges,
the majority in his favor was still greater. On some, he was unanimously
absolved. He was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack
that the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed
respectfully and retired.

We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was also
generally approved. At the commencement of the trial there had been a
strong and indeed unreasonable feeling against Hastings. At the close
of the trial there was a feeling equally strong and equally unreasonable
in his favor. One cause of the change was, no doubt, what is commonly
called the fickleness of the multitude, but what seems to us to be
merely the general law of human nature. Both in individuals and in
masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by
reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have
overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we
have shown undue rigor. It was thus in the case of Hastings. The length
of his trial, moreover, made him an object of compassion. It was
thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was
still an ill-used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was more
than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, though, in the
ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not allowed to set off
his good actions against his crimes, a great political cause should be
tried on different principles, and that a man who had governed an empire
during thirteen years might have done some very reprehensible things,
and yet might be on the whole deserving of rewards and honors rather
than of fine and imprisonment. The press, an instrument neglected by the
prosecutors, was used by Hastings and his friends with great effect.
Every ship, too, that arrived from Madras or Bengal, brought a cuddy
full of his admirers. Every gentleman from India spoke of the late
Gover