The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 447: TRIAL OF HASTINGS, ETC.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

TRIAL OF HASTINGS, ETC.

During this session the trial of Hastings occupied twenty-two days but no decision took place. Towards the close of the session the attention of parliament was also drawn to the situation of India. In presenting his annual statement of the income and expenditure of British India, Dundas drew a flattering picture of its happiness and prosperity; stating that the surplus of the Bengal revenue for the preceding year was more than one million pounds sterling. Francis denied every thing that Dundas said; asserted that one-third of the company’s territory was inhabited only by wild beasts; and prognosticated nothing but disgrace, defeat, and ruin from the war which was still carried on against Tippoo. Francis said that the seizures for non-payment of the land-revenue were notorious, and that he held in his hand two advertisements, one of which announced the sale of seventeen, and the other of forty-two villages.