Six years after the American Revolution came to an end Warren
Hastings, Governor-General of India, was impeached for corrupt and
cruel government in that distant province. He was tried before the
House of Lords, gathered in Westminster Hall. On the side of Hastings
was the powerful East India Company, ruling over a territory many
times larger than the whole of Great Britain. Against him were
arrayed the three ablest and most eloquent men in England,--Burke,
Fox, and Sheridan.
"Raising his voice until the oak ceiling resounded, Burke exclaimed at
the close of his fourth great speech, `I impeach Warren Hastings of
high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the
Commons of Great Britain, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him
in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has
sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose
rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into
a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of
both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I
impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all!'"
The trial was continued at intervals for over seven years. It
resulted in the acquittal of the accused (1795); but it was proved
that the chief business of those who went out to India was to wring
fortunes from the natives, and then go back to England to live like
"nabobs," and spend their ill-gotten money in a life of luxury. This
fact, and the stupendous corruption that was shown to exist,
eventually broke down the gigantic monopoly, and British India was
thrown open to the trade of all nations.[1]
[1] See Macaulay's "Essay on Warren Hastings"; also Burke's
"Speeches."
556. Liberty of the Press; Law and Prison Reforms; Abolition of the
Slave Trade.
Since the discontinuance of the censorship of the press (S498), though
newspapers were nominally free to discuss public affairs, yet the
Government had no intention of permitting any severe criticism. On
the other hand, there were men who were determined to speak their
minds through the press on political as on all other matters. In the
early part of the reign, John Wilkes, an able but scurrilous writer,
attacked the policy of the Crown in violent terms (1763). Some years
later (1769), a writer, who signed himself "Junius," began a series of
letters in a daily paper, in which he handled the King and the "King's
friends" still more roughly. An attempt was made by the Government to
punish Wilkes and the publisher of the "Junius" letters, but it
signally failed in both cases. Public feeling was plainly in favor of
the freest political expression,[2] which was eventually conceded.
[2] Later, during the excitement caused by the French Revolution,
there was a reaction from this feeling, but it was only temporary.
Up to this time parliamentary debates had rarely been reported. In
fact, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, members of Parliament would
have run the risk of imprisonment if their criticisms of royalty had
been made public; but now, in 1771, the papers began to contain the
speeches and votes of both Houses on important questions. Every
effort was made to suppress these reports, but again the press gained
the day. Henceforth the nation could learn how far its
representatives really represented the will of the people, and so
could hold them strictly accountable,--a matter of vital importance in
every free government.[3]
[3] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xxvi,
S30.
Another field of reform was also found. The times were brutal. The
pillory still stood in the center of London;[4] and if the unfortunate
offender who was put in it escaped with a shower of mud and other
unsavory missiles, instead of clubs and brickbats, he was lucky
indeed. Gentlemen of fashion arranged pleasure parties to visit the
penitentiaries for women to see the wretched inmates whipped. The
whole code of criminal law was savagely vindictive. Capital
punishment was inflicted for about two hundred offenses, many of which
would now be thought to be sufficiently punished by one or two months'
imprisonment in the house of correction.
[4] The pillory (S531) was not abolished until the accession of Queen
Victoria.
Not only men, but women and children even, were hanged for pilfering
goods or food worth a few shillings.[1] The jails were crowded with
poor wretches whom want had driven to theft, and who were "worked off"
on the gallows every Monday morning in batches of a dozen or twenty,
in sight of the jeering, drunken crowds who gathered to witness their
death agonies.
[1] Five shillings, or $1.25, was the hanging limit; anything stolen
above that sum in money or goods might send the thief to the gallows.
Through the efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly, Jeremy Bentham, and others,
a reform was effected in this bloody code. Next, the labors of the
philanthropic John Howard, and later of Elizabeth Fry, purified the
jails of abuses which had made them not only dens of suffering and
disease, but schools of crime as well.
The laws respecting the pubishment for debt were also changed for the
better, and thousands of miserable beings who were without means to
satisfy their creditors were set free, instead of being kept in
useless lifelong imprisonment. At the same time Clarkson,
Wilberforce, Fox, and Pitt were endeavoring to abolish that relic of
barbarism, the African slave trade. After twenty years of persistent
effort both in Parliament and out, they at last accomplished that
great and beneficent work in 1807.