THREE:The other charges having been voted, on the 25th of April Burke brought up the articles of impeachment. There was a long debate, in which Wilkes, who had completely changed his politics, and had cultivated a friendship with Warren Hastings and his wife, made a very effective speech in his defence. He tried to shift the blame from Hastings to the Company. Pitt again pointed out the fact that honourable members had not been showing the innocence of Hastings, but raising all manner of set-offs for his crimesa course which he had before said he had hoped would have been abandoned; that for his part,[339] without going to the length of all the charges brought forward, he saw sufficient grounds for an impeachment. He could conceive a State compelled by sudden invasion and an unprovided army, to lay violent hands on the property of its subjects, but then such a State must be infamous if it did not, on the first opportunity, make ample satisfaction. But was this the principle on which Mr. Hastings had acted? No; he neither avowed the necessity nor the exaction. He made criminal charges, and, under colour of them, levied immoderate penalties, which, if he had a right to take them at all, he would be highly criminal in taking in such a shape; but which, having no right to take, the mode of taking rendered much more heinous and culpable.No sooner was the sentence passed than his judges were seized with a vehement desire to procure a pardon for the admiral. They made the most urgent entreaties to the Admiralty for that purpose, and Captain Augustus Keppel authorised Horace Walpole to say that he and four others of the members of the Council had something of importance to communicate, and desired to be relieved from their oath of secresy. The House of Commons was quite ready to pass a Bill for the purpose, and the king respited the admiral till all such inquiries had been made. But when the Bill had been passed by one hundred and fifty-three to twenty-three, it turned out that these five officers had nothing of consequence to disclose. Still Lord Temple, who was at the head of the Admiralty, was greatly averse from the carrying out of the sentence, which, in fact, was much disproportioned to the crime. Pitt also interceded with the king, and renewed applications were made to the Admiralty; but, on the other hand, the people were smarting under the loss of Minorca, and demanded the execution of the sentence. Hand-bills were posted up, "Hang Byng, or take care of the King." The House of Lords, when the Commons' Bill was carried up to them, however, settled the matter. Murray and Lord Hardwicke demanded of every member of the court-martial at the bar of the House whether they knew of any matter which showed their sentence to be unjust, or to have been influenced by any undue motive; and as all declared they did not, the Lords dismissed the Bill. The[126] sentence was therefore fixed for execution on the 14th of March. Byng, both during the trial, and now when brought on board the Monarch in Portsmouth Harbour to be shot, showed no symptoms of fear. When one of his friends, to prevent a man from coming in to measure Byng for his coffin, said, standing up by him, "Which of us is the taller?" Byng immediately replied, "Why this ceremony? I know what it means; let the man measure me for a coffin." On the deck he wished to have his eyes left unbound; but when told it might frighten the soldiers and distract their aim, he said, "Let it be done, then; if it would not frighten them, they would not frighten me." He fell dead at the discharge (March 14, 1757).
FORE:Bolingbroke, now restored to his estates, though the attainder still deprived him of his seat in the House of Lords, endeavoured to create a new species of opposition in Parliament. He retained his influence with the Duchess of Kendal, and cultivated that of the ultra-Tories. Still more, he soon discovered that William Pulteney, the most eloquent man in the House, had grown disgusted with Walpole, who could never bear any man of pre-eminent ability near the throne except himself. Pulteney had been one of the steadiest friends of the late queen's Government, and of the Protestant succession. Under George he had been made Secretary at War. He had adhered to Walpole when he was sent to the Tower for corruption, and in the great schism of 1717. Yet Walpole had carefully excluded him from any high post in the Cabinet, and had endeavoured to veil his jealousy of him by offering to procure him a peerage, by which he would have removed him from the active sphere of the House of Commons. Pulteney saw the object, and rejected the specious favour. Instead of conferring on Pulteney some[53] office worthy of his talents, Walpole then put him into that of Cofferer of the Household. In the state of indignation which this paltry appointment raised in him Bolingbroke soon induced Pulteney to put himself at the head of a large body of Oppositionists, under the title of "Patriots." In this character he made some smart attacks on Walpole and his heavy drafts on the Civil List for his friends, for which he was dismissed, and joined Bolingbroke in a bold attempt to write down the Minister. Between them the celebrated paper The Craftsman was planned and established, and they became the bitterest and most persevering assailants of Walpole.
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FORE:[565]
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FORE:
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FORE:At Wilmington Lord Cornwallis remained about three weeks, uncertain as to his plan of operations. His forces amounted to only about one thousand five hundred men; he therefore determined, at length, to march into Virginia, and join the expedition there. He made his march without encountering any opposition, reaching Presburg on the 20th of May. Thereupon Lord Cornwallis found himself at the head of a united force of seven thousand men. Sir Henry Clinton's effective troops at New York amounted only to ten thousand nine hundred and thirty-one men, and the little detachment under Lord Rawdon only to nine hundred.
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