Warren Hastings. Image courtesy
Wikimedia Commons/National Portrait Gallery
Warren Hastings was the first-rate scandal. While his equally notorious predecessor and his inspiration, Robert Clive had escaped rather lightly, Hastings had his whole life and career pried open in public in a two-pronged fashion. One, by intense and prolonged public interrogation by Burke & Co. And two, by himself. He had been put on the stand and forced to defend his doings in India.
Burke’s crusade was assisted by a battery of seasoned politicians and splendid orators, foremost of whom was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, arguably England’s most popular dramatist and theatre owner. It was an impeachment, a legal trial. It was also an awesome theatrical production.
It was Sheridan and not Edmund Burke who delivered the first punch to Warren Hastings. In his opening speech on 7 February 1787 before the House of Commons, Sheridan’s masterly performance lasted six hours and was instantly hailed as one of the finest pieces of oratory.
A year later, after finishing his concluding remarks before the House of Lords, Sheridan dramatically swooned backwards into the waiting arms of Edmund Burke, whispering to the Lords, “My Lords, I have done,” before fainting. Gilbert Elliot, a manager for the prosecution on Burke’s team noted how “there were few dry eyes in the assembly.”
***
Also Read
The impeachment of Warren Hastings and the patented British character of the era
***
It was Burke’s turn next, and he administered the same if not greater impact as Sheridan. What Sheridan had done with his skill as a dramatist, Burke had surpassed with his matchless eloquence. TB Macaulay in his Warren Hastings paints the scene after Burke was done with the assembly: “…the ladies in the galleries unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence…were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling-bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard; and Mrs. Sherdian was carried out in a fit.”
Although the impeachment of Warren Hastings was carried out in the solemn climate of both Houses, it was really carried out in the court of public opinion. Arguably, it was the first of its sort measured on the scale of sheer drama. And the crowds swelled each day.
To cite Gilbert Elliot again: “[The audience]… will have to mob…at the door till nine, when the doors open, and then there [is] a rush as there is at the pit of the playhouse when Garrick plays King Lear…The ladies are dressed and mobbing it in the Palace Yard by six…and they sit from nine till twelve before the business begins…Some people and, I believe even…ladies have slept at the coffeehouses adjoining Westminster Hall, that they may be sure of getting to the door in time.”
What the general public didn’t know was the Burke & Co had ransacked the finest traditions of English theatre dating back to Shakespeare’s time and had employed them with devastating effect. To paraphrase the scholar Anna Clark, Burke’s team had ensured that Warren Hastings’ impeachment was the 18th century’s most spectacular scandal.
Even a brief peek into the proceedings reveals the savagery of Burke’s frontal assault against Hastings. Here are some excerpts from his addresses before the House of Lords in 1788 (from February thru May).
“Do you want a criminal, my Lords? When was there so much iniquity ever laid to the charge of any one? No, my Lords, you must not look to punish any other such delinquent from India. Warren Hastings has not left substance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent…”
“He is a robber. He steals, he filches, he plunders, he oppresses, he extorts,– all for the good of the dear East India Company…all in gratitude to the dear perfidious Court of Directors…He is not only a practitioner of bribery, but a professor, a doctor upon the subject…We have not chosen to bring before you a poor, puny trembling delinquent…[rather] we have brought before you the first man of India in rank, authority and station…a captain-general of inquiry, under whom all the fraud, all the peculation, all the tyranny in India are embodied, disciplined, arrayed and paid…”
Members of both Houses were both captivated and convinced, and they not only agreed with Burke but charged Warren Hastings in choicest language. The House of Lords indicted Hastings with “ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper; in short, nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of heart, dyed in the grain of malice, vitiated, corrupted, gangrened to the very core”.
The conservative and the proud Briton in Burke had not only drawn the first blood but had attracted legions of supporters across England. And they descended torrentially. Newspapers, journals, activists and public-spirited individuals rallied behind his cause and vied with one another in blasting Warren Hastings.
Edmund Burke had finally given them the channel for venting their decadal outrage.
To be continued
The author is the founder and chief editor,The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed are personal.
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.