On this day Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the renowned British playwright and Parliamentarian, concluded his four-day speech before the High Court of Parliament in Westminster Hall, summing up the second charge against Warren Hastings. The former Governor-General of Bengal was facing impeachment.

Sheridan, who delighted audiences with his sharp but genial satire in plays such as The School for Scandal and The Rivals, made an impassioned speech on Hastings’s conduct in dealing with the situation of the Begums of Oudh. On the final day, at 4.30pm, with Sheridan exhausted by his four-hour-long argument, the courts adjourned.

Hastings would be acquitted of almost all charges, which included corruption and the responsibility of the death of Maharaja Nandakumar.

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