书城英文图书加拿大学生文学读本(第5册)
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第71章 PERORATION OF OPENING SPEECH AGAINST WARREN HASTIN

In the name of the Commons of England,I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings,in this last moment of my application to you.

My Lords,what is it that we want here to a great act of national justice.Do we want a cause,my Lords?You have the cause of oppressed princes,of undone women of the first rank,of desolated provinces,and of wasted kingdoms.

Do you want a criminal,my Lords?When was there so much iniquity ever laid to the charge of any one?No,my Lords,you must not look to punish any other such delinquent from India.Warren Hastings has not left substance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent.

My Lords,is it a prosecutor you want?You have before you the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors;and I believe,my Lords,that the sun,in his beneficent progress round the world,does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men,separated from a remote people by the material bounds and barriers of nature,united by the bond of a social and moral communityall the Commons of England resenting,as their own,the indignities and cruelties that are offered to all the people of India.

Do we want a tribunal?My Lords,no example ofantiquity,nothing in the modern world,nothing in the range of human imagination,can supply us with a tribunal like this.My Lords,here we see virtually,in the mind’s eye,that sacred majesty of the Crown,under whose authority you sit and whose power you exercise.We have here all the branches of the royal family,in a situation between majesty and subjection,between the sovereign and the subjectoffering a pledge in that situation,for the support of the rights of the Crown and the liberties of the people,both which extremities they touch.

My Lords,we have a great hereditary peerage here;those who have their own honour,the honour of their ancestors,and of their posterity,to guard,and who will justify,as they always have justified,that precision in the Constitution by which justice is made an hereditary office.My Lords,we have here a new nobility,who have risen and exalted themselves by various merits,by great civil and military services,which have extended the fame of this country from the rising to the setting sun.My Lords,you have here,also,the lights of our religion;you have the bishops of England.My Lords,you have that true image of the primitive church in its ancient form,in its ancient ordinances,purified from the superstitions and vices which a long succession of ages will bring upon the best institutions.

My Lords,these are the securities which we have in all the constituent parts of the body of this House.We know them,we reckon,we rest upon them,and commit safely the interests of India and of humanity into your hands.Therefore,it is with confidence that,ordered by theCommons,I impeach Warren Hastings,Esquire,of high crimes and misdemeanours.I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled,whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed.I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of Great Britain,whose national character he has dishonoured.I impeach him in the name of the people of India,whose laws,rights,and liberties he has subverted,whose property 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.