While the late Edmund Burke was making preparation for the indictment
before the House of Lords, of Warren Hastings, Governor-general of
India, he was told that a person who had long resided in the East
Indies, but who was then an inmate of Bedlam, could supply him with much
useful information. Burke went accordingly to Bedlam, was taken to the
cell of the maniac, and received from him, in a long, rational, and
well-conducted conversation, the results of much and various knowledge
and experience in Indian affairs, and much instruction for the process
then intended. On leaving the cell, Burke told the keeper who attended
him, that the poor man whom he had just visited, was most iniquitously
practised upon; for that he was as much in his senses as man could be.
The keeper assured him that there was sufficient warranty and very good
cause for his confinement. Burke, with what a man in office once called
"Irish impetuosity," known to be one of Burke's characteristics,
insisted that it was an infamous affair, threatened to make the matter
public, or even bring it before parliament. The keeper then said, "Sir,
I should be sorry for you to leave this house under a false impression:
before you do so, be pleased to step back to the poor gentleman's cell,
and ask him what he had for breakfast." Burke could not refuse
compliance with a request so reasonable and easily performed. "Pray,
Sir," says he to his Indian counsellor, "be so obliging as to tell me
what you had for breakfast." The other, immediately putting on the wild
stare of the maniac, cried out, "Hobnails, Sir! It is shameful to think
how they treat us! They give us nothing but hobnails!" and went on with
a "descant wild" on the horrors of the cookery of Bethlehem Hospital.
Burke staid no longer than that his departure might not seem abrupt;
and, on the advantage of the first pause in the talk, was glad to make
his escape. I was present when Paley was much interested and amused by
an account given by one of the company, of a widow lady, who was of
entirely sound mind, except that she believed herself made of glass.
Given the vitrification, her conduct and discourse were consequent and
rational, according to the particulars which Paley drew forth by
numerous questions. Canes and parasols were deposited at the door of her
drawing-room as at the Louvre or Florentine Gallery, and for the same
reason. "You may be hurt by a blow," said she, to one of flesh and
blood; "but I should be broken to pieces: and how could I be
mended?"--_Best's Mems._
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