but only what the meanest and most guilty individual had a right to demand. He did not wish to take the business out of the honourable gentleman's hands. Should the House agree to the motion, he would give him the precedence in any motion he had to propose. All that he wished was, that speedy justice should be done.

Lord Folkestoue said, that he could not have expected that any person would have proposed coming to an imme diate decision on this subject, in the present state of the question, of the House, and of the session. Obstructions had been thrown in the way of the honourable gentleman; and when at last the papers were in the hands of the members, he would ask, whether the other business of the House had allowed them sufficient time to come to a decision upon them Besides, the Oude charge was connected with others, and would derive support and illustration from the evidence in support of them. On this account, the whole discussion should be entered into at once, and the questions respecting Lord Wellesley's conduct be decided at the same time. We had been told that the eyes of India were directed to this House, and he would ask, should a question, involving the interests and independance of so many Indian princes, be hastily decided in an empty House? Besides, from a cause, which every man must concur in lamenting, a right honourable gentleman was necessarily absent, and he thought it material to know the opinion of the leading men in his Majesty's councils on the subject of the charge. He implored the House, therefore, to defer their decision at this late period of the ses sion, and under the present circumstances of the case; and, as the only way of getting rid of the question, he moved, that they do now adjourn.

Colonel Wood was of opinion, that the House should proceed to a decision on the charge without delay, which he maintained to be altogether unnecessary, after the evidence and papers that had been laid before the House.

Dr. Laurence observed, that he could not sit silent when he heard it asserted, that the honourable member who had brought forward the charge had received every indulgence, while in truth he was goaded at one time, and thwarted at another, and it was now endeavoured to precipitate that decision which had hitherto been retarded. This was a question which concerned the guardianship of 50 millions of the natives of India, who had no other protectors

protectors but this House, It was not a question between an individual and Marquis Wellesley; it respected the validity of acts and resolutions in which the fate of millions was concerned. Every dependant power in India was interested in the decision. No one particular charge could be fully comprehended without being accompanied with the evidence on which the others was founded. He did not conceive that such a premature decision would operate to the benefit of Lord Wellesley's character, and whatever might be the present decision of the House in so thin a meeting, he himself would take up the question in the next session of Parliament. As far as lay in his power, it should not be said that the people of India had reason to complain of being defrauded of their just rights.

Mr. Canning expressed his resolution to confine himself entirely to the present question, without entering into the merits of the charge against the noble marquis. He could not, however, pass over the extraordinary threat of the learned gentleman, powerful as it was in his lips, and from the manner in which he delivered it, but which, he must say, was equally in the power of the meanest and most contemptible individual to make against any servant of the Crown, however meritorious. The learned gentleman might propose in the next session to the House to review their decision, but this would remain a point open to their discussion. As to the merits of the question now before them, he observed, that the whole of the session had been from time to time occupied by charges, and by motions for papers by which they were to be supported. These had been brought forward at the chosen time of the accuser. If the principle were admitted, that the House could not decide on one charge before the evidence on all the others was before them, and without being acquainted with the whole system of policy pursued in India, the period of decision might be prolonged to an unlimited extent. The House might be occupied in hearing charges, so long as the hon. gentleman had a supplementary one to propose, while it was impossible that the person accused conld be heard in his own defence. The accusation had been made, and the documents by which it was supported were before the House, and yet after all the evidence had been heard, it was contended, after a new species of justice, that the defence of the noble lord was to be postponed, and that the House, should not come to a decision in the present session. A noble lord had wished the question to be postponed, on ac

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count of the absence of a right honourable member froni illness. This he regretted as much as any man in that House, and he lamented that the House could not have the benefit of his eloquence on the present occasion. But the wish of the noble lord was directly contrary to those sentiments which that right honourable gentleman had express ed. He had formerly stated, that he should think it a great and crying hardship on Marquis Wellesley, if the charges should remain undecided in the present session. This, in deed, he had considered as the settled opinion of the House, and he did not know of any thing that had taken place since to alter that opinion. The present he considered as a mere question of justice. The longer any man had been employed in high offices of state, the more multiplied might be the sources of accusation against him; and, if an accuser was permitted from time to time to delay a decision, it might happen that the only reward such a nian might receive would be, to have the last moments of his life embit tered by anxiety with regard to the decisions of this House. Dr. Laurence and Lord Folkestone explained.

Mr. R. Thornton thought, that any decision the House might come to at present on the conduct of the noble lord, would be precipitate, and would not tend to acquit him in the public estimation. He was aware of the painful situation in which he was placed; but all who were accused, however innocent, must submit to such inconvenience be fore a mature decision takes place. He also wished the matter to be left in the hands of that honourable member who had at first taken it up, and he trusted that the House would give the whole that full deliberation which the country expected, but which could not be done at the present late period of the session.

The Master of the Rolls supported the motion for an immediate decision. He considered the charge as now ripe for a decision, and therefore it was competent for the House to enter upon it, however late might be the period of the session. It was contrary to every principle of justice, that when the charge was before the House, and all the materials by which it was supported, the person accused should not be allowed to call for a decision. The question was, indeed, of importance, but it had already been six months before the House, and they were surely ill qualified for performing their most important functions, if they were not now prepared to decide upon it. By the habeas corpus act, the

meanest individual could call for the speedy decision of the law, and the noble lord was equally entitled to demand the determination of the House. If it were the object of the honourable gentleman who had brought forward the charge to carry it beyond the present session, he thought it the duty of the House to disappoint that object.

Mr. Windham was against going into the committee, or urging the House to a hasty decision on the subject; and he vindicated the principles avowed by an honourable and learned friend near him (Dr. Laurence), of which the speech of a right honourable gentleman was a complete misrepre sentation from one end to the other. That the question was one of the most serious importance, every one must allow but he could by no means agree to such a principle as that, because it was important, it should therefore be decided in the present session. He wished to know where it was that the honourable and learned gentleman found such a doctrine? For his own part he denied the conclusion, as wholly unwarranted by the practice of Parliament. An opinion had been quoted as that of a right honourable friend of his, to which he should certainly be at all times inclined to pay great deference; as if he had said, that the decision of the House on this charge ought to take place in the present session, at all events. But if it were possible his right hon. friend could have expressed such an opinion, without adverting to what might be the state of the House, and the due consideration of the evidence upon which it would have to decide, he must consider such an opinion as not delivered with his usual rectitude. The honourable gentleman who brought forward this charge had been accused of procras tination, because he had not moved for all the papers at once, which he thought necessary to support his allegations, but on the nature of a charge so complicated, how was this practicable? A member asks for a number of papers by general description, and upon reading them, he finds other papers suggested to him, which he also thinks necessary. In the present case this had happened on the side of the de fence, as well as of the accusation, an:l ought not to be imputed as matter of blame to the honourable member who brought forward the charge, any more than to those who resisted it. Another imputation made against the honourable gentleman was, that he contended no decision ought to take place upon the present charge, until the evidence upon all the other charges had been produced. Such arguments VOL. III. 1805-6.

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might be put into his mouth, to answer the purposes of those who were opposed to him, but he (Mr. Windham) never understood the honourable gentleman to use such a pretence, though it was very possible some parts of the present case were so involved in the same circumstances of testimony on other charges as to be best considered with them. But it was said the honourable member procrastinated; that the feelings of the noble marquis were involved; and that here the House must stop and come to a decision. He would say, no he could not find that any unnecessary delay was fairly imputable to the honourable member. He was aware, as well as any man, that the feelings of the noble marquis, upon a charge so important, must be held in painful suspence, but from the nature of the case it was impossible it could be otherwise. It was impossible that every man charged with a crime could be brought to his trial the moment he was accused. The noble marquis might sustain in this case a mere damnum sine injuria, but it was a circumstance common to all cases of a similar nature, and could be no ar gument for pressing the House to a hasty and rash decision, in a case upon which the most cool and mature deliberation was peculiarly necessary. The next point to which he would advert, was the proceeding of the noble lord in taking the management of the charge out of the hands of the member who brought it forward, and placing it in the hands of others, without any management at all; or, what was not better, in the hands of those who avowed themselves to be the friends and advocates of the noble marquis. But he begged to ask, was this the sort of proceeding to which the House would give its countenance, or upon which the friends of the noble marquis would wish to see his conduct vindicated? It had been said by a right honourable gentleman (Mr. Canning) on behalf of the noble marquis, that the more high the station a man filled, the more power he possessed for acts of generosity and beneficence; and the longer he enjoyed that power, the more liable he became to charges of a malicious nature; but, surely, if ever there were cases in which the House should be more ready than in others to entertain impeachments, it was against persons who had filled places of high authority and power, who, while they had the means of doing acts of great generosity and bene ficence, had also the power of doing many acts of injustice and oppression; and who should be made answerable for -such abuses of their power, wherever the proofs could be

made