The attack was being prepared, however, and Burke had already announced it. The coalition ministry had fallen, precisely on the India bill. It had presented a violent address against Hastings; a vote of the House of Commons had condemned it.
What would be the attitude of the new cabinet, at the head of which William Pitt reigned as master, of which Dundas formed part, he who had lately proclaimed the faults of the governor-general, no one knew. The entire opposition was in arms against Warren Hastings. Francis had entered the House of Commons and pursued his enemy with his persistent hate. The accusation brought by Burke on the subject of the war against the Rohillas was rejected by a great majority. When Fox attacked the governor-general's conduct in the affair of Benares, Mr. Pitt, who had been deemed favorable to Warren Hastings, declared that the governor had had a right to impose a fine on the fugitive prince, but that the penalty had not been proportioned to the offense. To the general stupefaction he then supported Mr. Fox's proposition. "The affair is too bad; I cannot sustain him," he said to his intimate friend Wilberforce. An eloquent speech of Sheridan ended in deciding the House. The Commons voted twenty heads of accusation, and the trial was carried before the House of Lords.
It began on the 13th of February, 1788, with extreme brilliancy. The reputation of the accused and that of the lawyers was effaced by that of his accusers, the most eloquent of their eloquent epoch. Pitt alone took no part in the discussion. { 335} Fox, Sheridan, Wyndham, and young Lord Grey had left to Burke the honor of making the first speech. He spoke at length. Chancellor Thurlow himself, although favorable to Warren Hastings, could not withhold a murmur of satisfaction. The impassioned tones of the great orator stirred all consciences, moved all hearts, when he cried at last, in a voice of thunder, "This is why the House of Commons of Great Britain has ordered me, in all assurance, to impeach Warren Hastings of crimes and grave offenses. I impeach him in the name of the House of Commons, whose confidence he has deceived; I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has soiled; I impeach him in the name of the Hindoo people, whose rights he has trodden under foot and whose country he has made a desert; finally, in the name of nature herself, in the name of men and women, in the name of all times, in the name of all ranks, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all."