ART. XVI. The Debates at the Eaft India Houfe, on Wednesday, the 13th of May 1795, on a Motion made by Mr. Fackfon for excluding Proprietors from vsting on Questions in which he has direct pecuniary Interest. And alfo on the Motions brought forward by Mr. Lufhing on, on Friday 29th of May, for the Payment of the Legal Expences incurred by Mr. Haflings in making his Defence. To which is prefixed a Summary of the Debate on the 13th of March last, for raising Three Thoufand Seamen, in Lieu of the Three Regiments voted to Government by the General Court, on the 23d of October 1794; and alfo of the Debate on the 25th of March, on Two Questions brought forward by Mr. Henchman, relative to the Shipping Concerns of the Company, and on other Topics. Reported by William Woodfull. pp. 223. 4to. Debrett. London, 1796. ART. XVII. The Debates at the Eaft India Houfe, on Wednesday the 14th of October 1795, to confider the Proceedings of the Court of Directors on the Refolution of the General Court of the 29th of May last, refpecting the Payment of the Law Expences incurred by Warren Haftings, Efq., when the following Refolu tions, moved by Alderman Lushington, were difcuffed and adopted. 1. That this Court obferve, with great Concern, that their Refolutions of the 2d and 3d of June, with respect to the Payment of the Law Expences incurred by Warren Haftings, Efq. in the late Impeachment, and for granting him an Annuity as a Reward for his Services to the East India Company, have not been carried into Effect. 11. That it is the Opinion of this Court, that the faid Law Expences may become a Charge upon the Revenues in India, and be paid with the Confent of the Commiffioners for the Affairs in India. III. That the Chairman and Deputy Chair man be requested to wait upon the Right Honourable the Com miffioners for the Affairs of India, and to express the earnest Wish of this Court that they be pleased to concur in the Payment of the Law Expences of Mr. Haflings, and in granting an Annuity to him agreeably to the Refolution of this Court.' With a Brif Statement of the Account given by the Chairman, at the laft General Court, held on Wednesday the 17th Infant, of what had paffed between the Board of Commiffioners, their Prefident, and himself and the Deputy Chairman, fince the 14th of October, in Confequence of the preceding Refolutions. To which is prefixed, a Summary of what paffed at the Quarterly General Court on Wednesday the 16th of September 795. Reported by William Woodfall. pp. 86. 4to. Debrett. London, 1796. WE E do not hold it to be within the province of our Journal to take notice of debates, not even the debates in parliament. In these two publications, relating chiefly to Mr. Haftings, there there is fomewhat peculiar that recommends them to the attention of a literary reviewer. Mr. Haftings, by what it has been his lot to do and to fuffer, is a more interefting and fplendid character than any now living, General Washington alone, perhaps, excepted. He is a literary character, too, and, in the appearances he makes in thefe Reports, difplays all that precifion of argument, and delicacy of tafte and fentiment, that the highest degree of cultivation is wont to produce in the beft conftituted minds. And his merits and his fufferings feem to have inspired à warmth and a force of cloquence, neither common, nor to be expected in the debates of merchants; though on the grand fcale of the Eaft India Company. The refolution of the 29th of May, it is needlefs to mention, was carried. It was refolved, that the legal expences incurred by Mr. Haftings, fhould be paid, and that he fhould have a handfome penfion. But fome doubts and debates arofe about the quantum of that penfion; and alfo about the legality of the mode in which, or the fund from which it fhould be given, as is stated in The Hiftory of the Trial of Warren Haftings, Efq.' of which we have already given an account in a former Number. The connexion between virtuous emotion and eloquence, and alfo between readiness of reply and an excitement of the powers of the mind, are illuftrated by the following answer of Mr. Lufhington to Mr. Grant: With refpect to the remark of an honourable director (Mr. Grant), that the present and late proceedings of this court would have a profpective and a retrospective effect in India-God forbid,' faid Mr. Lufhington, that it fhould not; I mean that the conduct of the Eaft India Company towards Mr. Haftings fhould not lefs mark * Both faved their country by the heroism of their conduct, and the refources of their mind; both excel in writing, as well as in both public and private life; although, as a literary character, Mr. Washington is not to be compared to Mr. Haftings. But this is not the only fet off, on the fide of Mr. Haflings, that balances the advantage of General Washington's biavery, proved in the field. An envenomed perfecutor of Mr. Haftings can atteft his perfonal courage; but the fet off we allude to is the advantage Mr. Haftings had over Mr. Washington (we are not comparing their comforts, but their heroifm) in being perfecuted, and having an opportunity of displaying the most unfhaken fortitude under perfecution. Mr. Washington was made Prefident of the United States of America; but Mr. Haftings gathered fresh laurels from a profecution conceived by perfonal animofity and political jealoufy, and carried on, nearly as long as the fiege of Troy, by the combined abilities, wit, and fancy, of Irishmen, Englishmen, and Scotchmen. T 2 ⚫ their ⚫ their gratitude to him, than it will hold forth to all future go ⚫vernors this falutary conviction, that while, on great and emergent occafions, they make the welfare and the fafety of the empire their principal object, we will not bafely defert them. Occafions did arife, during the adminiftration of Mr. Haftings, in which, by a cold, phlegmatic difcharge of his official duty, he would have loft India. Such occafions may arife again; and if, for adding above two millions a year to your revenues; if, for preferving the empire of India to you, which his majefty's minifters have repeatedly declared he did, you leave him to be involved in utter ruin, from the means which he took to defend thofe acts to which you owe your fafety and profperity; will any man ever ferve you again from any other motive than a cold attention to his own interests? India was not acquired, nor preferved, nor can it, in times of danger, be maintained by a cold difcharge of official duty.' In an appendix to the laft of thefe publications is a letter from Mr. Lufhington to Mr. Haftings, in which, at the fame time. that he congratulates the late governor-general on the resolutions of the court in his favour, he hints at certain reports concern ing the magnitude of his fortune, and a fuggeftion that had been made, that a diftinction had been attempted to be made between his fortune and Mrs. Haftings's.' As to his own for tune, Mr. Haftings, in anfwer, afferts, under the most folemn appeal, and fhews by the moft accurate statement, verified by the most fatisfactory evidence, direct or probable, that, on the 31st of Jan. 1786, it amounted only to 79,313; which fum had been fo reduced by law expences, intereft for borrowed money, and domeftic expences, though these never exceeded 3,500l. a year, that when he received certain remittances from India*, was on the verge of penury, and in fear of wanting the means of acquiring the common neceffaries of life. With regard to Mrs. Haftings's fortune, Mr. Haftings avows, that in 1777 he had beftowed on her, as a marriage fettlement, a lack of Suia rupees, and no more; not as an act of liberality, but as a compliance, in courfe, with the univerfal ufage of the community of which he was a member. This is fatisfactory. But, fays Mr. Haftings, if it should be furmised (and, God help me! I have had too much experience of the inventive malice of one part of mankind, not to fufpect and obviate fuch a calumny), tha though I abstained from the acquifition of wealth by indirect means in my own person, I permitted it in her's; or that she may have From the generofity of individuals, granted for the express purpofe of relieving his wants, and amounting to 17,00l. 8 • availed availed herself of the influence of my station to raise money ⚫ without my connivance; I know not how to refute fuch an imputation, but by a folemn declaration, and I do moft folemnly declare, that I never did, knowingly, permit her to receive money in prefents; that I do not believe that she could < have received them without fome intimation or notice of it reaching me; and that I am morally certain fhe poffeffes, and • has ever poffeffed, too fenfibly an anxiety for my reputation, to attempt or meditate an act, which either in my sense of it, or that of the world, would reflect difhonour upon it.' As the name of Mrs. Haftings had been implicated in the calumnies which had been heaped on the governor-general, it was fit that the fhould be thus nobly defended; and we gladly embrace an opportunity of circulating this lady's defence; for if fame, which we doubt not, make a juft report, her mind is neither uncongenial, nor her character and accomplishments unworthy of those of her husband. In a letter from Mr. Haftings, 20th Nov. 1795, to the Court of Directors, claiming full payment of his legal expence, we recognised, throughout, the elegant manner and turn of Mr. Haftings, but were particularly arrefted by the following touches. There is very great, we had almoft faid, Afiatic delicacy, in the manner in which he introduces himself in this letter: Ho nourable Sirs, It is with great reluctance that I offer to trouble your honourable court.' Of his legal expences, he fays, they were incurred by no fault of mine, but by my defence, not more of my own than of the national honour; for the fame guilt, if it had been established, would have equally attached to the receipt and poffeffion of ill-acquired property, as to the means by which it was obtained.'-If this was intended, as fome will probably fuppofe, as a farcasm, it is as just as it is dexterous and alert. But, for our parts, we are not inclined to fuppofe that any thing was intended befides a plain ftatement of the fimple, though ferious truth. We are confirmed * It may be permitted to conjecture, that the polifh of Mr. Haf tings's ftyle is, in some measure, owing to a converfancy with oriental literature and manners. + We do not like this term of law-french, although it is now used fo commonly, and, in the prefent inftance, by fo fine a writer. Dr. Heylin, mafter of Westminster school, and author of Theological Lectures, &c. who was a platonifing Chriftian, and a man of great fimplicity of manners, as well as fublimity of genius, in his converfation as well as writings, painted the errors and follies of f firmed in this opinion by the following paffage in a poftfcript to ART. XVIII. Confiderations on the Univerfality and Uniformity of the Theocracy. By a Layman of the Church of England. Pp. 217. 4s. Johnfon. London, 1796. ΤΗ HIS layman, adopting the Mofaic history of man's creation, affumes him to have been the immediate object of his Creator's care; and that both his mental and bodily wants were fupplied by fupernatural means *. Having traced the feveral modes of the fupernatural communications made to man, and endeavoured to form fome criterion by which to distinguish what are really divine revelations, from what are indifcriminately claffed with them; and having explained and vindicated the narrative of the great events of the creation, and fall of man, as recorded in the book of Genefis, he paffes on to the account given there of that other great event, the deftruction of mankind by a general deluge.' Yet our author is inclined to think that the deluge was not general, but only partial; and that the number of men, then upon the earth, could not be more than fufficient to people as much of Afia and Africa as was afterwards contained in the Affyrian empire.'-As to what is faid of the antediluvian longevity, he fuppofes that they computed their years by the revolutions of the moon. As they [the fons of Noah] all had been inftructed by Noah, cach tribe carried with them the information of the divine will, which had been communicated to him before the flood: as well as what had afterwards been communicated to him and his fons. Some traditional knowledge of the religious tenets and practice of Noah, may there-fore be expected to be found among every people; and it is the first .men in fo true and natural a manner, that fome people confidered them as defigned exertions of ridicule. The ingenious, learned, and worthy Doctor was greatly furprised when it was told him that he was taken for a wit, His obfervations on this fubject are ingenious, juft, and indeed, from the abfurdities that muft attend any other fyftem, fatisfactory. The ravings of Maillet and Monboddo, who would trace the origin of man to a kind of fea-monster, are matter not of reasoning but of ridicule. great |