Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 by Thomas Moore

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MEMOIRS

OF THE

LIFE OF THE RT. HON.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

BY THOMAS MOORE

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.

Impeachment of Mr. Hastings.

CHAPTER II.

Death of Mr. Sheridan's Father.--Verses by Mrs. Sheridan on the Death of
her Sister, Mrs. Tickell.

CHAPTER III.

Illness of the King.--Regency.--Private Life of Mr. Sheridan.

CHAPTER IV.

French Revolution.--Mr. Burke.--His Breach with Mr. Sheridan.--Dissolution
of Parliament.--Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox.--Russian Armament.--Royal Scotch
Boroughs.

CHAPTER V.

Death of Mrs. Sheridan.

CHAPTER VI.

Drury-Lane Theatre.--Society of "The Friends of the People."--Madame de
Genlis.--War with France.--Whig Seceders.--Speeches in Parliament--Death
of Tickell.

CHAPTER VII.

Speech in Answer to Lord Mornington.--Coalition of the Whig Seceders with
Mr. Pitt.--Mr. Canning.--Evidence on the Trial of Horne Tooke.--The
"Glorious First of June."--Marriage of Mr. Sheridan.--Pamphlet of Mr.
Reeves--Debts of the Prince of Wales.--Shakspeare Manuscripts.--Trial of
Stone.--Mutiny at the Nore.--Secession of Mr. Fox from Parliament.

CHAPTER VIII.

Play of "The Stranger."--Speeches in Parliament.--Pizarro.--Ministry of
Mr. Addington.--French Institute.--Negotiations with Mr. Kemble.

CHAPTER IX.

State of Parties.--Offer of a Place to Mr. T. Sheridan.--Receivership of
the Duchy of Cornwall bestowed upon Mr. Sheridan.--Return of Mr. Pitt to
Power.--Catholic Question.--Administration of Lord Grenville and Mr.
Fox.--Death of Mr. Fox.--Representation of Westminster.--Dismission of
the Ministry.--Theatrical Negotiation.--Spanish Question.--Letter to the
Prince.

CHAPTER X.

Destruction of the Theatre of Drury-Lane by Fire.--Mr. Whitbread--Plan
for a Third Theatre.--Illness of the King.--Regency.--Lord Grey and Lord
Grenville.--Conduct of Mr. Sheridan.--His Vindication of himself.

CHAPTER XI.

Affairs of the new Theatre.--Mr. Whitbread.--Negotiations with Lord Grey
and Lord Grenville.--Conduct of Mr. Sheridan relative to the
Household.--His Last Words in Parliament.--Failure at Stafford.
--Correspondence with Mr. Whitbread.--Lord Byron.--Distresses of
Sheridan.--Illness.--Death and Funeral.--General Remarks.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.

CHAPTER I.

IMPEACHMENT OF MR. HASTINGS.

The motion of Mr. Burke on the 10th of May, 1787, "That Warren Hastings,
Esq., be impeached," having been carried without a division, Mr. Sheridan
was appointed one of the Managers, "to make good the Articles" of the
Impeachment, and, on the 3d of June in the following year, brought
forward the same Charge in Westminster Hall which he had already enforced
with such wonderful talent in the House of Commons.

To be called upon for a second great effort of eloquence, on a subject of
which all the facts and the bearings remained the same, was, it must be
acknowledged, no ordinary trial to even the most fertile genius; and Mr.
Fox, it is said, hopeless of any second flight ever rising to the grand
elevation of the first, advised that the former Speech should be, with
very little change, repeated. But such a plan, however welcome it might
be to the indolence of his friend, would have looked too like an
acknowledgment of exhaustion on the subject to be submitted to by one so
justly confident in the resources both of his reason and fancy.
Accordingly, he had the glory of again opening, in the very same field, a
new and abundant spring of eloquence, which, during four days, diffused
its enchantment among an assembly of the most illustrious persons of the
land, and of which Mr. Burke pronounced at its conclusion, that "of all
the various species of oratory, of every kind of eloquence that had been
heard, either in ancient or modern times; whatever the acuteness of the
bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality of the pulpit could
furnish, had not been equal to what that House had that day heard in
Westminster Hall. No holy religionist, no man of any description as a
literary character, could have come up, in the one instance, to the pure
sentiments of morality, or in the other, to the variety of knowledge,
force of imagination, propriety and vivacity of allusion, beauty and
elegance of diction, and strength of expression, to which they had that
day listened. From poetry up to eloquence there was not a species of
composition of which a complete and perfect specimen might not have been
culled, from one part or the other of the speech to which he alluded, and
which, he was persuaded, had left too strong an impression on the minds
of that House to be easily obliterated."

As some atonement to the world for the loss of the Speech in the House of
Commons, this second master-piece of eloquence on the same subject has
been preserved to us in a Report, from the short-hand notes of Mr.
Gurney, which was for some time in the possession of the late Duke of
Norfolk, but was afterwards restored to Mr. Sheridan, and is now in my
hands.

In order to enable the reader fully to understand the extracts from this
Report which I am about to give, it will be necessary to detail briefly
the history of the transaction, on which the charge brought forward in
the Speech was founded.

Among the native Princes who, on the transfer of the sceptre of Tamerlane
to the East India Company, became tributaries or rather slaves to that
Honorable body, none seems to have been treated with more capricious
cruelty than Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares. In defiance of a solemn
treaty, entered into between him and the government of Mr. Hastings, by
which it was stipulated that, besides his fixed tribute, no further
demands, of any kind, should be made upon him, new exactions were every
year enforced;--while the humble remonstrances of the Rajah against such
gross injustice were not only treated with slight, but punished by
arbitrary and enormous fines. Even the proffer of bribe succeeded only in
being accepted [Footnote: This was the transaction that formed one of the
principal grounds of the Seventh Charge brought forward in the House of
Commons by Mr. Sheridan. The suspicious circumstances attending this
present are thus summed up by Mr. Mill: "At first, perfect concealment of
the transaction--such measures, however, taken as may, if afterwards
necessary, appear to imply a design of future disclosure;--when
concealment becomes difficult and hazardous, then disclosure
made."--_History of British India_.]--the exactions which it was
intended to avert being continued as rigorously as before. At length, in
the year 1781, Mr. Hastings, who invariably, among the objects of his
government, placed the interests of Leadenhall Street first on the list,
and those of justice and humanity _longo intervallo_ after,--finding
the treasury of the Company in a very exhausted state, resolved to
sacrifice this unlucky Rajah to their replenishment; and having as a
preliminary step, imposed upon him a mulct of L500,000, set out
immediately for his capital, Benares, to compel the payment of it. Here,
after rejecting with insult the suppliant advances of the Prince, he put
him under arrest, and imprisoned him in his own palace. This violation of
the rights and the roof of their sovereign drove the people of the whole
province into a sudden burst of rebellion, of which Mr. Hastings himself
was near being the victim. The usual triumph, however, of might over
right ensued; the Rajah's castle was plundered of all its treasures, and
his mother, who had taken refuge in the fort, and only surrendered it on
the express stipulation that she and the other princesses should pass out
safe from the dishonor of search, was, in violation of this condition,
and at the base suggestion of Mr. Hastings himself, [Footnote: In his
letter to the Commanding Officer at Bidgegur. The following are the terms
in which he conveys the hint: "I apprehend that she will contrive to
defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty, by being
suffered to retire _without examination_. But this is your
consideration, and not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers
and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well
entitled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge
of the expediency of the _promised_ indulgence to the Rannee."]
rudely examined and despoiled of all her effects. The Governor-General,
however, in this one instance, incurred the full odium of iniquity
without reaping any of its reward. The treasures found in the castle of
the Rajah were inconsiderable, and the soldiers, who had shown themselves
so docile in receiving the lessons of plunder, were found inflexibly
obstinate in refusing to admit their instructor to a share. Disappointed,
therefore, in the primary object of his expedition, the Governor-General
looked round for some richer harvest of rapine, and the Begums of Oude
presented themselves as the most convenient victims. These Princesses,
the mother and grandmother of the reigning Nabob of Oude, had been left
by the late sovereign in possession of certain government-estates, or
jaghires, as well as of all the treasure that was in his hands at the
time of his death, and which the orientalized imaginations of the English
exaggerated to an enormous sum. The present Nabob had evidently looked
with an eye of cupidity on this wealth, and had been guilty of some acts
of extortion towards his female relatives, in consequence of which the
English government had interfered between them,--and had even guaranteed
to the mother of the Nabob the safe possession of her property, without
any further encroachment whatever. Guarantees and treaties, however, were
but cobwebs in the way of Mr. Hastings; and on his failure at Benares, he
lost no time in concluding an agreement with the Nabob, by which (in
consideration of certain measures of relief to his dominions) this Prince
was bound to plunder his mother and grandmother of all their property,
and place it at the disposal of the Governor-General. In order to give a
color of justice to this proceeding, it was [Footnote: "It was the
practice of Mr. Hastings (says Burke, in his fine speech on Mr. Pitt's
India Bill, March 22, 1786) to examine the country, and wherever he found
money to affix guilt. A more dreadful fault could not be alleged against
a native than that he was rich."] pretended that these Princesses had
taken advantage of the late insurrection at Benares, to excite a similar
spirit of revolt in Oude against the reigning Nabob and the English
government. As Law is but too often, in such cases, the ready accomplice
of Tyranny, the services of the Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, were
called in to sustain the accusations; and the wretched mockery was
exhibited of a Judge travelling about in search of evidence, [Footnote:
This journey of the Chief Justice in search of evidence is thus happily
described by Sheridan in the Speech:--"When, on the 28th of November, he
was busied at Lucknow on that honorable business, and when, three days
after, he was found at Chunar, at the distance of 200 miles, still
searching for affidavits, and, like Hamlet's ghost, exclaiming, 'Swear,'
his progress on that occasion was so whimsically rapid, compared with the
gravity of his employ, that an observer would be tempted to quote again
from the same scene, 'Ha! Old Truepenny, canst thou mole so fast i' the
ground?' Here, however, the comparison ceased; for, when Sir Elijah made
his visit to Lucknow 'to whet the almost blunted purpose' of the Nabob,
his language was wholly different from that of the poet--for it would
have been totally against his purpose to have said,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught."] for the express purpose of proving a
charge, upon which judgment had been pronounced and punishment decreed
already.

The Nabob himself, though sufficiently ready to make the wealth of those
venerable ladies occasionally minister to his wants, yet shrunk back,
with natural reluctance, from the summary task now imposed upon him; and
it was not till after repeated and peremptory remonstrances from Mr.
Hastings, that he could be induced to put himself at the head of a body
of English troops, and take possession, by unresisted force, of the town
and palace of these Princesses. As the treasure, however, was still
secure in the apartments of the women,--that circle, within which even the
spirit of English rapine did not venture,--an expedient was adopted to
get over this inconvenient delicacy. Two aged eunuchs of high rank and
distinction, the confidential agents of the Begums, were thrown into
prison, and subjected to a course of starvation and torture, by which it
was hoped that the feelings of their mistresses might be worked upon, and
a more speedy surrender of their treasure wrung from them. The plan
succeeded:--upwards of 500,000_l_. was procured to recruit the
finances of the Company; and thus, according to the usual course of
British power in India, rapacity but levied its contributions in one
quarter, to enable war to pursue its desolating career in another.

To crown all, one of the chief articles of the treaty, by which the Nabob
was reluctantly induced to concur in these atrocious measures, was, as
soon as the object had been gained, infringed by Mr. Hastings, who, in a
letter to his colleagues in the government, honestly confesses that the
concession of that article was only a fraudulent artifice of diplomacy,
and never intended to be carried into effect.

Such is an outline of the case, which, with all its aggravating details,
Mr. Sheridan had to state in these two memorable Speeches; and it was
certainly most fortunate for the display of his peculiar powers, that
this should be the Charge confided to his management. For, not only was
it the strongest, and susceptible of the highest charge of coloring, but
it had also the advantage of grouping together all the principal
delinquents of the trial, and affording a gradation of hue, from the
showy and prominent enormities of the Governor-General and Sir Elijah
Impey in the front of the picture, to the subordinate and half-tint
iniquity of the Middletons and Bristows in the back-ground.

Mr. Burke, it appears, had at first reserved this grand part in the drama
of the Impeachment for himself; but, finding that Sheridan had also fixed
his mind upon it, he, without hesitation, resigned it into his hands;
thus proving the sincerity of his zeal in the cause, [Footnote: Of the
lengths to which this zeal could sometimes carry his fancy and language,
rather, perhaps, than his actual feelings, the following anecdote is a
remarkable proof. On one of the days of the trial, Lord ----, who was
then a boy, having been introduced by a relative into the Manager's box,
Burke said to him, "I am glad to see you here--I shall be still gladder
to see you there--(pointing to the Peers' seats) I hope you will be _in
at the death_--I should like to _blood_ you."] by sacrificing
even the vanity of talent to its success.

The following letters from him, relative to the Impeachment, will be read
with interest. The first is addressed to Mrs. Sheridan, and was written,
I think, early in the proceedings; the second is to Sheridan himself:--

"MADAM,

"I am sure you will have the goodness to excuse the liberty I take with
you, when you consider the interest which I have and which the Public
have (the said Public being, at least, half an inch a taller person than
I am) in the use of Mr. Sheridan's abilities. I know that his mind is
seldom unemployed; but then, like all such great and vigorous minds, it
takes an eagle flight by itself, and we can hardly bring it to rustle
along the ground, with us birds of meaner wing, in coveys. I only beg
that you will prevail on Mr. Sheridan to be with us _this day_, at
half after three, in the Committee. Mr. Wombell, the Paymaster of Oude,
is to be examined there _to-day_. Oude is Mr. Sheridan's particular
province; and I do most seriously ask that he would favor us with his
assistance. What will come of the examination I know not; but, without
him, I do not expect a great deal from it; with him, I fancy we may get
out something material. Once more let me entreat your interest with Mr.
Sheridan and your forgiveness for being troublesome to you, and do me the
justice to believe me, with the most sincere respect,

"Madam, your most obedient

"and faithful humble Servant,

_"Thursday, 9 o'clock._

"EDM. BURKE."

"MY DEAR SIR,

"You have only to wish to be excused to succeed in your wishes; for,
indeed, he must be a great enemy to himself who can consent, on account
of a momentary ill-humor, to keep himself at a distance from you.

"Well, all will turn out right,--and half of you, or a quarter, is worth
five other men. I think that this cause, which was originally yours, will
be recognized by you, and that you will again possess yourself of it. The
owner's mark is on it, and all our docking and cropping cannot hinder its
being known and cherished by its original master. My most humble respects
to Mrs. Sheridan. I am happy to find that she takes in good part the
liberty I presumed to take with her. Grey has done much and will do every
thing. It is a pity that he is not always toned to the full extent of his
talents.

"Most truly yours,

_"Monday._

"EDM. BURKE.

"I feel a little sickish at the approaching day. I have read much--too
much, perhaps,--and, in truth, am but poorly prepared. Many things, too,
have broken in upon me." [Footnote: For this letter, as well as some
other valuable communications, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr.
Burgess,--the Solicitor and friend of Sheridan during the last twenty
years of his life.]

Though a Report, however accurate, must always do injustice to that
effective kind of oratory which is intended rather to be heard than read,
and, though frequently, the passages that most roused and interested the
hearer, are those that seem afterwards the tritest and least animated to
the reader, [Footnote: The converse assertion is almost equally true. Mr.
Fox used to ask of a printed speech, "Does it read well?" and, if
answered in the affirmative, said, "Then it was a bad speech."] yet, with
all this disadvantage, the celebrated oration in question so well
sustains its reputation in the perusal, that it would be injustice,
having an authentic Report in my possession, not to produce some
specimens of its style and spirit.

In the course of his exordium, after dwelling upon the great importance
of the inquiry in which they were engaged, and disclaiming for himself
and his brother-managers any feeling of personal malice against the
defendant, or any motive but that of retrieving the honor of the British
name in India, and bringing down punishment upon those whose inhumanity
and injustice had disgraced it,--he thus proceeds to conciliate the Court
by a warm tribute to the purity of English justice:--

"However, when I have said this, I trust Your Lordships will not believe
that, because something is necessary to retrieve the British character,
we call for an example to be made, without due and solid proof of the
guilt of the person whom we pursue:--no, my Lords, we know well that it
is the glory of this Constitution, that not the general fame or character
of any man--not the weight or power of any prosecutor--no plea of moral
or political expediencey--not even the secret consciousness of guilt,
which may live in the bosom of the Judge, can justify any British Court
in passing any sentence, to touch a hair of the head, or an atom in any
respect, of the property, of the fame, of the liberty of the poorest or
meanest subject that breathes the air of this just and free land. We
know, my Lords, that there can be no legal guilt without legal proof, and
that the rule which defines the evidence is as much the law of the land
as that which creates the crime. It is upon that ground we mean to stand."

Among those ready equivocations and disavowals, to which Mr. Hastings had
recourse upon every emergency, and in which practice seems to have
rendered him as shameless as expert, the step which he took with regard
to his own defence during the trial was not the least remarkable for
promptness and audacity. He had, at the commencement of the prosecution,
delivered at the bar of the House of Commons, as his own, a written
refutation of the charges then pending against him in that House,
declaring at the same time, that "if truth could tend to convict him, he
was content to be, himself, the channel to convey it." Afterwards,
however, on finding that he had committed himself rather imprudently in
this defence, he came forward to disclaim it at the bar of the House of
Lords, and brought his friend Major Scott to prove that it had been drawn
up by Messrs. Shore, Middleton, &c. &c.--that he himself had not even
seen it, and therefore ought not to be held accountable for its contents.
In adverting to this extraordinary evasion, Mr. Sheridan thus shrewdly
and playfully exposes all the persons concerned in it:--

"Major Scott comes to your bar--describes the shortness of
time--represents Mr. Hastings as it were _contracting for_ a
character--putting his memory _into commission_--making
_departments_ for his conscience. A number of friends meet together,
and he, knowing (no doubt) that the accusation of the Commons had been
drawn up by a Committee, thought it necessary, as a point of punctilio,
to answer it by a Committee also. One furnishes the raw material of fact,
the second spins the argument, and the third twines up the conclusion;
while Mr. Hastings, with a master's eye, is cheering and looking over
this loom. He says to one, 'You have got my good faith in your
hands--_you_, my veracity to manage. Mr. Shore, I hope you will make
me a good financier--Mr. Middleton, you have my humanity in
commission.'--When it is done, he brings it to the House of Commons, and
says, 'I was equal to the task. I knew the difficulties, but I scorn
them: here is the truth, and if the truth will convict me, I am content
myself to be the channel of it.' His friends hold up their heads, and
say, 'What noble magnanimity! This must be the effect of conscious and
real innocence.' Well, it is so received, it is so argued upon,--but it
fails of its effect.

"Then says Mr. Hastings,--'That my defence! no, mere
journeyman-work,--good enough for the Commons, but not fit for Your
Lordships' consideration.' He then calls upon his Counsel to save
him:--'I fear none of my accusers' witnesses--I know some of them well--I
know the weakness of their memory, and the strength of their
attachment--I fear no testimony but my own--save me from the peril of my
own panegyric--preserve me from that, and I shall be safe.' Then is this
plea brought to Your Lordships' bar, and Major Scott gravely
asserts,--that Mr. Hastings did, at the bar of the House of Commons,
vouch for facts of which he was ignorant, and for arguments which he had
never read.

"After such an attempt, we certainly are left in doubt to decide, to
_which_ set of his friends Mr. Hastings is least obliged, those who
assisted him in making his defence, or those who advised him to deny it."

He thus describes the feelings of the people of the East with respect to
the unapproachable sanctity of their Zenanas:--

"It is too much, I am afraid, the case, that persons, used to European
manners, do not take up these sort of considerations at first with the
seriousness that is necessary. For Your Lordships cannot even learn the
right nature of those people's feelings and prejudices from any history
of other Mahometan countries,--not even from that of the Turks, for they
are a mean and degraded race in comparison with many of these great
families, who, inheriting from their Persian ancestors, preserve a purer
style of prejudice and a loftier superstition. Women there are not as in
Turkey--they neither go to the mosque nor to the bath--it is not the thin
veil alone that hides them--but in the inmost recesses of their Zenana
they are kept from public view by those reverenced and protected walls,
which, as Mr. Hastings and Sir Elijah Impey admit, are held sacred even
by the ruffian hand of war or by the more uncourteous hand of the law.
But, in this situation, they are not confined from a mean and selfish
policy of man--not from a coarse and sensual jealousy--enshrined rather
than immured, their habitation and retreat is a sanctuary, not a
prison--their jealousy is their own--a jealousy of their own honor, that
leads them to regard liberty as a degradation, and the gaze of even
admiring eyes as inexpiable pollution to the purity of their fame and the
sanctity of their honor.

"Such being the general opinion (or prejudices, let them be called) of
this country, Your Lordships will find, that whatever treasures were
given or lodged in a Zenana of this description must, upon the evidence
of the thing itself, be placed beyond the reach of resumption. To dispute
with the Counsel about the original right to those treasures--to talk of
a title to them by the Mahometan law!--their title to them is the title
of a Saint to the relics upon an altar, placed there by Piety, [Footnote:
This metaphor was rather roughly handled afterwards (1794) by Mr. Law,
one of the adverse Counsel, who asked, how could the Begum be considered
as "a Saint," or how were the camels, which formed part of the treasure,
to be "placed upon the altar?" Sheridan, in reply, said, "It was the
first time in his life he had ever heard of _special pleading_ on a
_metaphor_, or a _bill of indictment_ against a trope. But such
was the turn of the learned Counsel's mind, that, when he attempted to be
humorous, no jest could be found, and, when serious, no fact was
visible."] guarded by holy Superstition, and to be snatched from thence
only by Sacrilege."

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