The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. | Page 2

well as the matters which have therein
occurred, do well merit the attentive consideration of this House. We
have therefore endeavored with all diligence to employ the powers that
have been granted and to execute the orders that have been given to us,
and to report thereon as speedily as possible, and as fully as the time
would admit.
Your Committee has considered, first, the mere fact of the duration of
the trial, which they find to have commenced on the 13th day of
February, 1788, and to have continued, by various adjournments, to the
said 17th of March. During that period the sittings of the Court have
occupied one hundred and eighteen days, or about one third of a year.
The distribution of the sitting days in each year is as follows.
Days. In the year 1788, the Court sat 35 1789, 17 1790, 14 1791, 5
1792, 22 1793, 22 1794, to the 1st of March, inclusive 3 ---- Total 118
Your Committee then proceeded to consider the causes of this duration,
with regard to time as measured by the calendar, and also as measured
by the number of days occupied in actual sitting. They find, on
examining the duration of the trial with reference to the number of
years which it has lasted, that it has been owing to several prorogations
and to one dissolution of Parliament; to discussions which are supposed
to have arisen in the House of Peers on the legality of the continuance
of impeachments from Parliament to Parliament; that it has been owing
to the number and length of the adjournments of the Court, particularly
the adjournments on account of the Circuit, which adjournments were
interposed in the middle of the session, and the most proper time for
business; that it has been owing to one adjournment made in
consequence of a complaint of the prisoner against one of your
Managers, which took up a space of ten days; that two days'
adjournments were made on account of the illness of certain of the
Managers; and, as far as your Committee can judge, two sitting days
were prevented by the sudden and unexpected dereliction of the

defence of the prisoner at the close of the last session, your Managers
not having been then ready to produce their evidence in reply, nor to
make their observations on the evidence produced by the prisoner's
counsel, as they expected the whole to have been gone through before
they were called on for their reply. In this session your Committee
computes that the trial was delayed about a week or ten days. The
Lords waited for the recovery of the Marquis Cornwallis, the prisoner
wishing to avail himself of the testimony of that noble person.
With regard to the one hundred and eighteen days employed in actual
sitting, the distribution of the business was in the manner following.
There were spent,--
Days In reading the articles of impeachment, and the defendant's
answer, and in debate on the mode of proceeding 3
Opening speeches, and summing up by the Managers 19
Documentary and oral evidence by the Managers 51
Opening speeches and summing up by the defendant's counsel, and
defendant's addresses to the Court 22
Documentary and oral evidence on the part of the defendant 23 ---- 118
The other head, namely, that the trial has occupied one hundred and
eighteen days, or nearly one third of a year. This your Committee
conceives to have arisen from the following immediate causes. First,
the nature and extent of the matter to be tried. Secondly, the general
nature and quality of the evidence produced: it was principally
documentary evidence, contained in papers of great length, the whole
of which was often required to be read when brought to prove a single
short fact. Under the head of evidence must be taken into consideration
the number and description of the witnesses examined and
cross-examined. Thirdly, and principally, the duration of the trial is to
be attributed to objections taken by the prisoner's counsel to the
admissibility of several documents and persons offered as evidence on

the part of the prosecution. These objections amounted to sixty-two:
they gave rise to several debates, and to twelve references from the
Court to the Judges. On the part of the Managers, the number of
objections was small; the debates upon them were short; there was not
upon them any reference to the Judges; and the Lords did not even
retire upon any of them to the Chamber of Parliament.
This last cause of the number of sitting days your Committee considers
as far more important than all the rest. The questions upon the
admissibility of evidence, the manner in which these questions were
stated and were decided, the modes of proceeding, the great uncertainty
of the principle