76 ENGLAND 1787 Burke's motion "that the said W. Hastings, esqnire, be impeached of High Crimes and Misdemeanors,^' having been carried, the majority of the Commons immediately attended Mr. Burke to the bar of the House of Peers, where he solemnly impeached Mr. Hastings accordingly. On the fol- lowing day he reported to the House that he had been to the bar of the House of Lords in obedience to their commands. The great and there, in the name of the House of Commons and of all iinpcNKjh* ment the Commons of Great Britain, impeached Warren Hastings, esquire, of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.* The ex- governor of Bengal then succeeded the Prince of Wales as the centre of attraction in English politics ; Mrs. Pitzherbert and her marriage ceased to monopolise the conversation of society, and the approaching trial before the Peers was looked upon as one of the monumental events of English history. . That was the great sensation of the day ; and in the midst of all the excitement it occasioned the Sirius and her convoy set sail for their destination without the faintest demon- stration of public interest in the matter. It was not even recognised as a national event in the historical records of the The Bxpedi- time. The comprehensive summary of contemporary history Jin originated by Burke, and known as the Annual Register^ made no mention of it in its chronicle of passing events.f Strangely enough, the indifference with which it was re- garded at the time seems to have influenced later historians to such an extent that they have all apparently agreed to ignore it. Massey's History of the Reign of George the Third, for instance — a work professedly written to illus- trate not only the Political and the Military but the Social History of England during that period — does not contain the slightest reference to it ; and yet Massey wrote as late as 1863. A history of the reign of Elizabeth, or of the reign
- Parliamentaiy History for 1787, voL zxyI, p. 1147. The trial began
in the following year, lasted for se^en years, and ended in a verdict of acquittal. t Post, p. 466. ffliflh Digitized by Google
