FORE:The peace with Spain was also ratified in London on the 1st of March. By this, Spain, so far as diplomatic contracts could effect it, was for ever separated from France. Philip acknowledged[14] the Protestant succession, and renounced the Pretender. He confirmed the Assiento, or exclusive privilege of the English supplying the Spanish West Indies and South American colonies with slaves, one-fourth of the profit of which the queen reserved to herselfa strange proof of the small idea of the infamy of this traffic which prevailed then in England, whilst so truly benevolent a woman could calmly appropriate money so earned to her own use. Gibraltar and Minorca were also confirmed to England, on condition that the Spanish inhabitants should enjoy their own property and their religion. There was a guarantee given by Philip for the pardon and security of the Catalans. They were to be left in possession of their lives, estates, and honours, with certain exceptions, and even these were at liberty to quit the country and remove to Italy with their effects. But the Catalans, who had taken up arms for Charles of Austria at our suggestion, were greatly incensed at the dishonourable manner in which we had abandoned them and the cause, and, putting no faith in the word of Philip, they still remained in arms, and soon found themselves overrun with French troops, which deluged their country with blood, and compelled them to submit. Amid all the disgraceful circumstances which attended the peace of Utrecht, none reflected more infamy on England than its treatment of the people of Catalonia.
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FORE:Warren Hastings was summoned to the bar, and there kneeling, the Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, intimated the charge against him, and assured him that, as a British subject, he would receive full justice from the highest British court. Hastings replied, in a clear and firm voice, that he had the highest confidence in the justice and integrity of that august court. The clerks of the court then commenced reading the charges against him, and the answers to them, and this reading occupied the whole of that day and the following one; and on the third, Burke rose to deliver his opening speech. This occupied the whole of four days, beginning on the 15th, and terminating on the 19th of February. The effect of that speech, notwithstanding its enormous length, was such as had scarcely ever been witnessed in a court of justice before. As he detailed the horrors practised by Hastings on the princes and people of India, both the orator and his audience were convulsed with terror and agitation. Ladies fainted away in the galleries; Mrs. Sheridan, amongst others, had to be carried out insensible: the faces of the strongest men, as well as of the more sensitive women, were flushed with emotion, or bathed in tears. In his peroration Burke far exceeded even himself. He appeared raised, enlarged into something ethereal by his subject, and his voice seemed to shake the very walls and roof of that ancient court. Finally, he exclaimed:"I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high crimes and misdemeanours. I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name, and by virtue of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated. I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation, and condition of life. And I conjure this high and sacred court to let not these proceedings be heard in vain." Such was the effect of this wonderful torrent of eloquence that Hastings himself said, "For half an hour I looked up at the orator in a reverie of wonder; and during that space I actually felt myself the most culpable man on earth; but I recurred to my own bosom, and there found a consciousness that consoled me under all I heard and all I suffered."In this year the Spanish Legion, which had been sent to help the Constitutionalists in Spain was dissolved, after an inglorious career. It had been constantly attacked by the Conservatives in Parliament. Thus, in the Session of 1837, Lord Mahon, who had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Sir Robert Peel's Government, reviewed the line of policy pursued by Lord Palmerston. He complained that the public had been kept in a[454] state of ignorance whether they were at peace or at war, and in his opinion it was a peace without tranquillity and a war without honour. The object of the Quadruple Alliance had been to appease the civil dissensions in Portugal, and not to sanction the intervention of France and Britain in Spain. He lamented the policy that led to the additional articles signed in 1834, which stipulated for a certain degree of interference. But Lord Palmerston had thought proper to proceed still further, in suspending the Foreign Enlistment Act, and allowing 12,000 Englishmen to enlist under the banners of the Queen of Spain. More than 540,000 had been already expended in the war; and in Lord Mahon's opinion the influence of Great Britain in Spain had not been augmented by these measures, in proof of which he alleged that British merchants got less fair play there than French merchants. Lord Palmerston defended his policy against the attacks of Lord Mahon and other speakers. The Quadruple Treaty, he contended, contemplated assistance to the Constitutional party in Spain as well as in Portugal. It was concluded because there was a civil war in Portugal; and when the civil war was transferred to Spain, the same parties who took part with Portugal by treaty were bound at an early period to extend its provisions to Spain, its object being expressly "the pacification of the Peninsula by the expulsion of the two Infants from it." He differed widely from Lord Mahon in thinking the suspension of the Foreign Enlistment Act was disgraceful to the Government. Examples of the same kind were to be found in the most brilliant periods of the history of England.
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