MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.

CHAPTER I.

IMPEACHMENT OF MR. HASTINGS.


The motion of Mr. Burke on the 10th of May, 1787, "That Warren Hastings,
Esq., be impeached," having been carried without a division, Mr. Sheridan
was appointed one of the Managers, "to make good the Articles" of the
Impeachment, and, on the 3d of June in the following year, brought
forward the same Charge in Westminster Hall which he had already enforced
with such wonderful talent in the House of Commons.

To be called upon for a second great effort of eloquence, on a subject of
which all the facts and the bearings remained the same, was, it must be
acknowledged, no ordinary trial to even the most fertile genius; and Mr.
Fox, it is said, hopeless of any second flight ever rising to the grand
elevation of the first, advised that the former Speech should be, with
very little change, repeated. But such a plan, however welcome it might
be to the indolence of his friend, would have looked too like an
acknowledgment of exhaustion on the subject to be submitted to by one so
justly confident in the resources both of his reason and fancy.
Accordingly, he had the glory of again opening, in the very same field, a
new and abundant spring of eloquence, which, during four days, diffused
its enchantment among an assembly of the most illustrious persons of the