Thus the closing weeks of this life at Court were spent in comparative tranquillity, though there were intervals of great weakness and depression. “On the opening of this month,” says the Diary for June, “her Majesty told me that the next day Mr. Hastings was to make his defence, and warmly added, ‘I would give the world you could go to it!’” There was no resisting such an appeal, and accordingly, under date of June 2nd, we read: “I went once more to Westminster Hall, which was more crowded than on any day since the trial commenced, except the first. Peers, commoners, and counsel, peeresses, commoneresses, and the numerous indefinites, crowded every part, with a just and fair curiosity to hear one day’s defence, after seventy-three of accusation.” Miss Burney heard the accused read his vindication, and listened with an interest which she knew would be shared by the King and Queen; she heard something also about herself, which she did not communicate to their Majesties. She attended to the story of Hastings when told by himself as she had never attended to it before; her sympathy followed him when he expressed disdain of his persecutors, when he arraigned the late Minister, Lord North, of double-dealing, and the then Minister, Mr. Pitt, of cowardly desertion. She shared his indignation when the Managers interrupted him; she exulted when the Lords quelled the interruption by cheering the speaker, and when Lord Kenyon, who presided in the place of the Chancellor, said, ‘Mr. Hastings, proceed.’ She contrasted the fortitude of the defendant, who for so many days had been silent under virulent abuse, with the intemperate eagerness of his assailants, who could not exercise the like self-control even for three brief hours. In short, she felt as warm-hearted women always have felt, and as it is suspected that even icy politicians, men of light and leading on their respective sides, occasionally do feel in the present enlightened age. “The conclusion of the defence,” continues this excited partisan, “I heard better, as Mr. Hastings spoke considerably louder from this time: the spirit of indignation animated his manner, and gave strength to his voice. You will have seen the chief parts of his discourse in the newspapers; and you cannot, I think, but grow more and more his friend as you peruse it. He called pathetically and solemnly for instant judgement; but the Lords, after an adjournment, decided to hear his defence by evidence, and in order, the next Session. How grievous such continued delay to a man past sixty, and sighing for such a length of time for redress from a prosecution as yet unparalleled in our annals!”