The reason which Pitt gave for his action on the Benares vote was simple enough. He said that, although the action of Hastings towards the Rajah was in itself justifiable, yet that the manner of the action was not justifiable. Chait Singh deserved to be fined, but not to be fined in an exorbitant and tyrannical manner. The explanation might very well be considered sufficient. A high-minded minister might feel bound to condemn the conduct of an official whom he admired, if that conduct had pushed a legal right to an illegal length. But Pitt's decision came with such a shock to the friends, and even to the enemies of Hastings, that public rumor immediately set to work to find some other less simple and less honest reason for Pitt's action. One rumor ascribed it to an {280} interview with Dundas, in which Dundas had succeeded, after hours of argument, in inducing Pitt to throw Warren Hastings over. Another suggested that Pitt was spurred by anger at a declaration of Thurlow's that he and the King between them would make Hastings a peer, whether the minister would or no. A third suggested that Pitt was jealous of the royal favor to Mr. and Mrs. Hastings; while a fourth asserted that Pitt deliberately sacrificed Hastings in order to afford the Opposition other quarry than himself. But there is no need to seek for any other motive than the motive which Pitt alleged. It was quite sufficient to compel an honorable man to give the vote that Pitt gave. Blow after blow fell upon Hastings. The terrible attacks of Burke were for a time eclipsed by the dazzling brilliancy of Sheridan's attack upon him in the famous Begum speech. Those who heard that speech speak of it with reverence and with passion as one of the masterpieces of the world. In the form in which it is preserved, or rather in which it has failed to be preserved for us, it is hard, if not impossible, to find merit calling for the rapture which it aroused in the minds of men familiar with magnificent oratory, and perfectly competent to judge. That it did arouse rapture is beyond doubt, and for the moment it was even more effective in injuring Hastings than the more profound but less flaming utterances of Burke. The testimony of Fox, the testimony of Byron, alike are offered in its unqualified praise.