1787 pursued, he said that, although, for reasons he should state, he thought himself bound to vote with the gentleman who had brought the charge, yet he wished it to be understood that he did not accede to the whole of the grounds of the accusation contained in the charge, or the inferences that had been drawn from them. "The resumption of the jaghires was a measure which, in his opinion, might in certain situations have been justified: but the situation of the India company, as guarantee of the treaty, laid them under the strongest obligations, perhaps, to have positively and at all events resisted, but, at least, not to have prompted it. "The seizure of the treasures being supported neither by any formal proceedings of justice, nor any state necessity, it was, he said, impossible not to condemn it; and it was greatly aggravated by making the "nabob the instrument; the son the instrument of robbing the mother." "With respect to many other collateral circumstances urged in aggra"vation of the charge, he thought them either not criminal, or not proved against Mr. Hastings."-This and six other charges were brought forward, and determined in the affirmative.-In the mean-time, the report made by Mr. Burke from the committee named to prepare the articles of impeachment having been confirmed by the house, it was voted that Mr. Hastings should be impeached, in the name of the house of commons and of all the commons of Great Britain, of high crimes and misdemeanors; and Mr. Burke, who was commissioned to convey the impeachment, was instructed to declare, that they would, with all convenient speed, exhibit articles against him, and make good the same.†--Whereupon Mr. Burke repaired to the bar of the house of peers, attended by a majority of the commons, and made the impeachment, in the form delivered to him.Mr. Hastings, being then conducted to the bar of the house by the serjeant at arms, was taken into the custody of the black rod: but on his giving sureties, himself in £.20,000 and two others in £.10,000, he was admitted to bail. A few days after, the proceedings were again broken off by the prorogation of parliament. ‡ Whilst the attention of government was chiefly engaged in these legislative and judicial transactions, it was not inattentive to the affairs of the + May 11. May 30. f Ann. Regist. 171. the continent, and especially to those of the Dutch states; which were rendered interesting not only by friendship for a near relation of the crown, but by the concern which this kingdom had ever conceived itself to have in the support of that prince and the maintenance of the existing government in the provinces.-His majesty, therefore, finding that the court of Versailles was preparing to aid the revolters in the provinces, thought it incumbent on him, and expedient, to unite with the king of Prussia for the support and re-establishment of the stadtholder. With that view an augmentation was made of our military and naval forces; and a treaty of subsidy was concluded with the landgrave of Hesse, || to engage him to keep 12,000 men in readiness for the service of the prince of Orange.But the inactivity of France, and the success of the Prussian arms, rendered a further interposition unnecessary: and the result was an amicable explanation between the courts of London and Versailles relative to their respective armaments.+ g Nor was this the only foreign affair which interested the British cabinet. -His Britannic majesty could not but be sensible of the unfriendly conduct of the Russian empress in preferring the alliance of France; with which power, she, this year, entered into a commercial treaty, which, in effect, superseded that with England."-He could not see with indifference the negotiations between the courts of Vienna and Petersburg. These had excited a suspicion of further views of conquest on the Turkish empire, which had been much heightened by the empress's progress to the Crimea at this time; and her interviews with the emperor and the king of Poland.-He thought it politic, therefore, to counteract the designs of these potentates, and if possible, to make the sultan an instrument to resent the empress's conduct and restrain her power. With that view the British minister at Constantinople united with his Prussian majesty's ambassador in his endeavours to convince the grand vizier of the expediency of his sovereign's availing himself of the bad state of preparation in which the two imperial courts at present were, either to engage in hostilities with them, or to force them to accede to terms of accommodation advantageous to the Porte. i HOLLAND. 1787 1787 HOLLAND. CONFERENCES were opened by the ministers of France and Prussia with the leaders of the Louvestein party at the Hague; and these were communicated to the stadtholder, who held his court at Nimeguen. But the result was such as might have been expected from negotiations wherein the parties concerned were rancorously inimical to each other; and in which the mediating powers, as well as the parties themselves, were known to be actuated by principles and motives of action diametrically opposite to each other. His Prussian majesty, breathing the same spirit with the princess of Orange, his sister, insisted on the actual restoration of the prince to the authority which the constitution vested in the offices which he had filled; whilst the French ministers, desirous to see the aristocrats triumphant, encouraged them in such insolent demands as either would answer that purpose, by virtually investing them with the whole sovereign power, or would frustrate the negotiations.-The states of Holland, as their ultimatum, although they did not refuse to restore the prince to his station of stadtholder and captain-general, would have accompanied his restoration with such stipulations as would have rendered these offices nominal; his authority, by their propositions, being under the control of the states of Holland in what related to the nomination to the senates and regencies, the ordering of the troops, and the command of the garrison of the Hague."— These terms being deemed inadmissible, monsieur de Rayneval took his departure for Paris in the month of january; having acquitted himself of his commission, by foiling the Prussian monarch's pacific designs, whilst he, at the same time, made a shew of conciliatory intentions. After the unsuccessful issue of these negotiations, the passions of men became more inflamed; and the provinces were a scene of intrigue among the superior, and of mutiny and tumult among the inferior ranks of people. The prince of Orange had for his friends the men of landed property and the clergy; and for his adherents a great majority of the nation; who felt no personal a Ann. Regist. 1787. 5. Idem. 14. personal animosity towards him on account of the opposition of interests, and honoured his name for the services which his ancestors had rendered the republic. On the other hand, he had for his enemies the opulent merchants, who viewed with an eye of jealousy those honours which wealth could not procure them, and were desirous of accomplishing such a revolution as should open them the way to the highest dignities as well as offices in the state. Thus was the root of envy planted in the minds of men, which produced its usual bitter fruit of enmity and civil discord. -- An attempt was made by the friends of peace, who were sincerely interested in the welfare of their country, to restore that blessing by an arrangement among the parties; which, whilst it circumscribed the powers of the stadtholder and captain-general, was intended to restrain the aristocracy and set bounds to a lawless democracy. Seventy-nine magistrates of the different towns and states of the republic associated themselves for that purpose. But their proposals of mutual concession was ill-suited to the present state of the public mind: the animosity, which betrayed itself in mutual crimination of each other's conduct, rendered their efforts fruitless; and every day added something to the causes of variance among them.Encouraged by addresses of approbation from the different towns of Holland, the prince's enemies in that province attempted to procure his suspension from the offices of stadtholder and admiral-general, as he had already been from that of captain-general: but they were disappointed by the number of deputies that appeared in his favour, in an assembly called for the purpose of deliberating on this important question. †a d Several other circumstances favoured the stadtholder's cause at this period. One of these was that bias towards his interests which discovered. itself in the senate of Amsterdam; a city which had signalized itself by its exertions in the republican cause; but which, it was feared by the Louvestein party, would now be prevailed on by the senators in the prince's interest to declare in his favour. Under the impression made by this defection, and the apprehension that the states of Holland might follow the example of so powerful and respectable a body, the aristocrats embraced the hazardous resolution of coalescing with the democrats, and employing the 1787 • Ann. Regist, 1787. 14. + January 10. d Idem. 266. • Idem. 281. 1787 : the armed burghers to effect their purposes.-The effects of this coalition soon appeared. These new allies of the Louvestein party became their willing agents in freeing them from the resistance they had lately experienced from the majority of the prince's friends in the senate-house, and compelling that body to depose seven of their members who were known to be most adverse to the resolution. ' Another circumstance very auspicious to the prince's interests was the declaration of the states-general and the council of state for the seven provinces, a body of the highest dignity, in his favour. These assemblies, considering themselves as the guardians of the whole confederate provinces, had stood aloof during the contest among the members of that body in which they presided. But when they perceived the danger which threatened the public welfare from the coalition which had taken place, and the extremity to which affairs were hastening, they thought it incumbent on them to interpose to prevent the provinces from becoming subject to the tyranny of a triumphant democracy. The occasion of this interposition was given by some incidents which occurred in the province of Utrecht.-The opposition between the prince's adversaries in its capital and his partisans in the provincial states, then assembled at Amersfort, grew daily more violent. Extreme animosity, which had hitherto vented itself in bitter reproaches, and in charging each other with designs against the national welfare, now threatened to involve the provinces in civil war. The states at Amersfort, incensed at an attempt of their opponents in Utrecht to embarrass and distress them, and dreading the effects of a co-operation between them and their partisans in the province of Holland, resolved on the strong measure of cutting off their communication with Amsterdam, as a preparative for reducing the city of Utrecht to submission by force of arms. At this crisis the council of state discovered an intention to take a decided part in the contest. In order to deter the prince's enemies in the province of Holland from supporting their partisans at Utrecht, they passed a resolution,|| forbidding all colonels or commandants from marching their troops upon the territories of any other province, without the consent of the states general, or the council of state, April 23. f Ann. Regist. 19. Hist. of United States. 283. April 28. |