﻿ENGLISH

READINGS-FOR

SCHOOLS

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YALE UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY﻿1﻿﻿﻿﻿Cngl&fy fteatfngg for fecfjoote

GENERAL EDITOR

WILBUR LUCIUS CROSS

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN YALE UNIVERSITY﻿﻿﻿Thomas Babington Macaulay﻿MACAULAY’S ESSAYS

s\

ON

CLIVE AND HASTINGS

EDITED BY

FREDERICK E. PIERCE

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC
SCHOOL OF YALE UNIVERSITY

AND

SAMUEL THURBER, Jr.

OF THE TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL, NEWTON, MASS.

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY﻿Copyright, 1911,

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

THE QUINN A BODEN CO. PRESS
RAHWAY, N. J.﻿PREFATORY NOTE

The explanatory notes to this volume were mainly
prepared by Mr. Thurber. The Introduction and Ques-
tions on the essays are the work of Professor Pierce.

The General Editor.﻿﻿CONTENTS

Introduction	page

I.	Macaulay’s Career	....	ix

II.	Macaulay as Historian and	Essayist	.	xxii

III.	India before Clive and Hastings .	.	xxix

Descriptive Bibliography .	...	xxxv

Essay on Lord Clive .	.	3

Essay on Warren Hastings	.	.	.	105

Notes and Comment .	...	247

Portrait of Thomas Babington	Macaulay	frontispiece

Portrait of Lord Clive .	.	2

Portrait of Warren Hastings .	.	104

Map of India ....	.	...	246

vii﻿﻿INTRODUCTION

I

MACAULAY’S CAREER

The life of Macaulay extends from the beginning of the
nineteenth century to the eve of our American Civil War.
It was not a long career, covering as it did only fifty-
nine years; but it was thickly crowded with events well
calculated to interest readers and to rouse their ad-
miration for the man. For the author of Clive was not
only a great scholar but also a legislator and national
leader, helping to change the history of the present at the
very time that he was writing the history of the past.

On October 25, 1800, at Rothley Temple in central
England, Thomas Babington Macaulay was born. He
was the oldest of nine children. His father, Zachary
Macaulay, was a grave and rather stern but exceedingly
upright man, who deserves universal respect for his life-
long struggle against negro slavery. Zachary Macaulay
himself was descended from a line of Scotch clergymen ;
his wife, Selina Mills, belonged to an English Quaker
family, one of whom had made some figure in light
literature. From his father the son derived that uncom-
promising rectitude which made him willing to risk his
place for conscience’ sake; from his mother, an unusually
lovable woman, he drew his joviality and sense of humor.

A more precocious child has seldom existed, yet Macau-
ix﻿X

Introduction

lay was precocious in a perfectly healthy and normal way.
“From the time that he was three years old,” says his
nephew Trevelyan, “he read incessantly, for the most
part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the
ground, and a piece of bread-and-butter in his hand.”
Even as a mere youngster he began to show that phenom-
enal memory which remained with him throughout life;
and the multitude of phrases from books which were at
the tip of his childish tongue sometimes led him into the
drollest expressions. Once, when a servant-girl had
thrown away some oyster-shells which he had used to
mark out certain boundaries in his playground, “ he went
straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was en-
tertaining some visitors, walked into the circle, and said,
very solemnly, ‘ Cursed be Sally; for it is written, Cursed
is he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark! ’ ” In writ-
ing as well as in reading his natural bent developed
early. Before he was eight years old he had composed a
survey of history from the Creation to the present day
(which covered about a quire of paper) ; a religious
treatise intended to convert the Hindoos of Travancore
to Christianity; and over three hundred lines of a nar-
rative poem in the style of Sir Walter Scott.

Macaulay spent most of his childhood at Clapham, a
suburb of London. The influences of his home were such
as could not fail to develop his natural gifts. His parents,
though pleased with his brilliancy, were too sensible to
praise him, and trained him to be modest and industrious.
He grew up in a literary atmosphere, where night after
night the children heard their mother read from Shake-
speare or some other famous author. Members of Parlia-
ment also, who were leagued with Zachary Macaulay in
his struggle against slavery, met at his house to discuss
live political questions. Amid such healthy and stimulat-﻿Macaulay’s Career	xi

ing home influences grew up the boy who was to become
the most tireless reader, the most successful essayist, the
most eloquent parliamentary orator, and one of the most
blameless men of his age.

He prepared for college at the school of the Rev. Mr.
Preston in Little Shelford near Cambridge, and entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, in his eighteenth year. Ma-
caulay always looked back on his university career with a
pride that was fully justifiable. Few have turned that
precious period to a better account than he, both in gaining
knowledge from books and in absorbing it through asso-
ciation with men. A good talker and an insatiable lover
of argument, he was constantly whetting in practice de-
bates the logic that later proved so keen in Parliament.
His dislike for mathematics prevented him from gaining
the highest honors, but he made an enviable record in
literature and the classics. In 1819 and again in 1821 he
won the Chancellor’s medal for English verse, the first
time with a poem called Pompeii, the second with one en-
titled Evening. He received his degree of B.A. at the
age of twenty-one, and his M.A. three years later. In
his twenty-fourth year he was elected to a fellowship
of his college, which yielded him an income of three hun-
dred pounds annually. In 1826 he was called to the
Bar, but took little interest in law, and made almost no
use of his new profession until years later in India.

Meanwhile Zachary Macaulay, partly through his neglect
of personal interests in his struggle against slavery, partly
for other reasons, had suffered financial reverses, which left
his family, not poverty-stricken, but reduced to standards
of strict economy. Macaulay, as the oldest son, stepped
manfully into the breach with the three hundred a year of
his fellowship and such sums as he could earn by tutoring
or writing; henceforward for many years he was the head﻿xii	Introduction

and prop of the family. He assumed this burden, as he
assumed many another both heavier and lighter, with that
simple, manly spirit of duty which does noble deeds with-
out stopping to consider whether they are noble or not.
Neither posing as a benefactor nor allowing himself to be
crushed by his new responsibilities, he made himself the
life of the household as well as their financial support.
“Those were to me,” says his sister Hannah to his
nephew, “ years of intense happiness. There might be
money troubles, but they did not touch us. In the after-
noon your uncle always took my sister Margaret and my-
self for a long walk. What anecdotes he used to pour
out about every street, and square, and court, and alley!
Then, after dinner, he always walked up and down the
drawing-room between us chatting till tea-time.” “ That
home,” the nephew goes on to say, “ was never more cheer-
ful than during the eight years which followed the close
of Macaulay’s college life.” And yet in 1832 he was so
poor that he had to pawn his college gold medals.

During his university career he had already begun to
appear before the world in print. In 1823 and 1824 he
published several articles in Knight's Quarterly Maga-
zine, a periodical especially intended for Cambridge men.
In August, 1825, his Milton was published in the Edin-
burgh Review. In more ways than one the appearance
of this essay formed an epoch in his life. It marked the
beginning of his connection with the Review, a connection
which lasted something like twenty years and called forth
nearly forty of his essays, including most of his best. It
marked the beginning of his literary reputation, for
Milton made a deep impression on the public. Jeffrey,
the editor, in acknowledging the essay said, “ The more
I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that
style ”; and Robert Hall, one of the greatest preachers﻿Macaulay’s Career	xiii

of the time, was found lying on the floor between gram-
mar and dictionary, trying to learn enough Italian to
verify Macaulay’s famous comparison between Milton and
Dante. Indirectly also this literary reputation helped
open the way for the author’s political career; for his
writings soon won him the attention and friendship of
men high in power, by whose influence he was first nomi-
nated for Parliament.

Macaulay entered public life by accepting from Lord
Lyndhurst the offer of a position as Commissioner of
Bankruptcy. This was in 1828. Two years later,
through the influence of Lord Lansdowne, he was nomi-
nated Member of Parliament for the borough of Caine,
and elected. In Parliament Macaulay’s ability as a
speaker soon made him prominent. Especially memorable
was his speech in 1831 on Lord John Russell’s Reform
Bill. This measure was one most vital to the future wel-
fare of England, one by which the different districts of the
country were to be more fairly represented in Parlia-
ment in proportion to their size, and by which opportuni-
ties for political corruption were to be greatly reduced.
Macaulay supported this bill with a speech which made
him famous as an orator, just as his essay on Milton had
already made him famous as a writer. According to the
Speaker of the House, not for years had that body been
in a state of such excitement as at the end of this elo-
quent appeal. Sir Thomas Denman said that the words
of the orator “ remained tingling in the ears of all who
heard them, and would last in their memories as long as
they had memories to employ.”

And yet Macaulay lacked some of the most essential
qualities of a great orator. His bearing was somewhat
awkward, his method of speaking monotonous, his voice,
though powerful, lacking in modulation. But he excelled﻿XIV

Introduction

by his earnestness, his logic, his brilliant use of illustra-
tions, and above all by his command of language. A
speech from him was a torrent of well-chosen words,
clear, eloquent, irresistible. When he prepared to speak,
in the days of his highest fame, the House of Commons
filled as if by magic; dignitaries forgot their dignity and
stout men their fat as they rushed through the doors to get
seats and hear him.

For three years after his first triumph Macaulay ap-
plied himself eagerly to the work in Parliament; but he
was also able to spend many leisure hours pleasantly and
profitably among the brilliant leaders of London society,
with whom his gentlemanly bearing and entertaining con-
versation always made him welcome. His letters give
vivid pictures of his varied experiences. Now he is in
Parliament during a stormy all night session—“Toward
eight in the morning the Speaker was almost fainting.
. . . Old Sir Thomas Baring sent for his razor and
Benett, the member for Wiltshire, for his nightcap; and
they were both resolved to spend the whole day in the
House rather than give way.” Now he is being enter-
tained in state by Lady Holland at Holland House—
“ There I found the Dutch Ambassador, M. de Weissem-
bourg, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Smith, and Admiral Adam,
a son of the old Adam who fought the duel with Fox.
We dined like emperors, and jabbered in several lan-
guages. .	. . Lord Holland always begins by drawing

down his shaggy eyebrows, making a face extremely like
his uncle, wagging his head, and saying: ‘Now do you
know, Mr. Macaulay, I do not quite see that. How do
you make it out ? ’ ” Still more interesting is the noble
light in which we see Macaulay’s character revealed
a little later. His own party had brought forward a bill
in regard to the West Indian slaves which he could not﻿XV

Macaulay’s Career

conscientiously support. In order that he might feel
free to oppose it, he offered to resign his office, although
such resignation would have meant financial embarrass-
ment and disaster to his political career. Fortunately
the measure was modified along the lines that he desired;
his resignation was refused; and he was able to keep both
his place and his honor.

In Macaulay’s thirty-fourth year occurred an event to
which we probably owe his essays on Clive and Hastings.
This was his journey to India, whither he went as repre-
sentative of the Government in the Supreme Council of
that country. His chief reason for accepting this position,
which meant years of exile from England and the post-
ponement of his political .career, was the high salary of
the place (£10,000 a year), by means of which he hoped
eventually to place himself and his sisters in a position of
independence and comfort. Not that Macaulay was a
mercenary man; few have cared less for money itself than
he; but he had grown to feel that a man cannot for-
ward what he considers wisest in public life nor produce
as an author the literature which he considers noblest
and best unless he can work to satisfy his own ideas in-
stead of those of others. And to be able to work out his
own ideas, he must have an independent income. He took
with him on the voyage two of the dearest objects of his
affection, a fine collection of books, and his sister Han-
nah. Macaulay always reveled in reading when he had
any leisure, and could go through a book with astonish-
ing swiftness without missing the author’s meaning. Dur-
ing the long weeks at sea he “ devoured Greek, Latin,
Spanish, Italian, French, and English; folios, quartos,
octavos, and duodecimos.”

He landed at Madras, and almost immediately began a
long inland journey to meet Lord William Bentinck, the﻿XVI

Introduction

Governor-General. On his way he passed many places
associated with the English struggles in India, including
Seringapatam, where his uncle Colin (who had served
with honor in the Indian wars) had been imprisoned for
four years. Subsequently he moved to Calcutta, where his
sister Hannah was married. While there, using all the
power which he derived from his personal ability and
high position, he attempted to institute certain much-
needed reforms; and, like most reformers, he soon raised
up a host of enemies. His most objectionable measure—
although one animated by his praiseworthy spirit of fair
play—was an act which forced English and natives alike
to accept the decision of the lower or Sudder court in
civil cases, instead of bringing these cases before the
Supreme Court at Calcutta. Hitherto Englishmen had
had the right of bringing such cases before the Supreme
Court, a privilege denied to the natives; consequently
Macaulay’s reform was simply an insistence on the equal
rights of all men at the Bar of Justice. Another re-
form which aroused much less opposition was in educa-
tion. As president of the committee of public instruction
he opposed teaching the antiquated ideas of history, sci-
ence, and philosophy found in native literature, and sub-
stituted in the schools a study of the literature and lan-
guage of England, thereby starting a system of national
education which has since spread over all India. An
equally praiseworthy achievement was the formation of a
new code of criminal law. Nominally this code was the
work of a committee of which Macaulay was chairman;
but through sickness his colleagues left most of the work
and most of the resulting credit to him. Certain changes in
that document were, of course, found necessary later in
the light of experience, but they concerned matters which
no one man could be expected to foresee. Few systems of﻿Macaulay’s Career	xvii

criminal law have received higher praise, worked better in
practice, and reflected more honor on their originators
than this. Macaulay remained in India nearly four years,
and showed in his career there three of the highest at-
tributes of a public leader: honesty, energy, and broad-
minded common sense. Of his honesty and energy we
have already seen examples in his work as a reformer. An
example of his sound common sense which may appeal to
young readers is found in his remarks about books to be
given as prizes in the Indian schools: “To give a boy
Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers, Dick’s Moral
Improvement, Young’s Intellectual Philosophy, Chalmers’s
Poetical Economy!!! (in passing, I may be allowed to
ask what that means), is quite absurd. . . . We know
Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver, and the Arabian Nights,
and Anson's Voyage, and many other delightful works
which interest even the very young, and which do not lose
their interest to the end of our lives. . . . There is
a marked distinction between a prize book and a school
book. A prize book ought to be a book which a boy re-
ceives with pleasure, and turns over and over, not as a
task, but spontaneously. I have not forgotten my own
schoolboy feelings on this subject.” It is worth adding that
his work in both law and education was voluntary and
unpaid, although he was not rich, and was saving all that
he could to give himself and those dependent on him a com-
petence.

In December, 1837, Macaulay left India to return
home. He had now acquired a moderate fortune, and
for the remainder of his life knew the pleasure of financial
independence. His arrival was a sad one; for during the
voyage his father, who for four years had missed his pres-
ence, died without seeing him. After a short stay in
England he journeyed to Italy, where he spent the rest﻿xviii	Introduction

of that year. There he wrote and revised the first of his
Lays of Ancient Rome among the very scenes where the
events described had happened. He stood himself where
Horatius had stood in defending the bridge, and decided
that the hero’s home must be described as on Mount
Palatinus, so that it would be visible to its owner from
the field of battle.

In the spring of 1839 Macaulay became a candidate
for Parliament from Edinburgh and was elected. In the
autumn of that same year he was made a member of the
Cabinet as Secretary of War. During the remainder of
his life we find his interest divided between the claims of
public service on the one hand and his own desire for
literary work on the other. In his political career he had
both successes and reverses. The successes he received
modestly; the reverses he welcomed, because they gave
him an opportunity to seek the seclusion of his study and
the literary work to which he was so passionately at-
tached. The ministry of which he was a member failed
in less than two years, and he, like all his colleagues,
resigned. He retained, however, his seat in the House
of Commons. In 1847 the voters of Edinburgh, influ-
enced in part by none too worthy motives, failed to re-
turn Macaulay to Parliament. Five years later, however,
they elected him again, a tacit admission that on cooler
thought they still kept their love and respect for their
most famous representative. But although Macaulay
still took considerable part in the government, he never
after 1841 devoted his whole time to it, but reserved a
large amount of leisure for his writing.

Between 1832 and 1839 Macaulay had naturally writ-
ten but little, being too full of other matters. But he
had never wholly broken the tie that bound him to the
world of authorship, and even from India had occasion-﻿Macaulay’s Career	xlx

ally sent articles thousands of miles over water for pub-
lication in The Edinburgh Review. Now in his native
land and less constantly driven by public responsibilities,
he greatly increased his literary activity. Very soon after
his return from India he began the greatest of his works,
The History of England from the Accession of James
the Second, and to this monumental undertaking was de-
voted most of his spare time during the remainder of his
life. Volumes I and II were published in 1848; volumes
III and IV in 1855; volume V in i860 after the author’s
death. Other volumes had been planned, but Macaulay
did not live to write them. The success of the history
was immediate and great. The author had purposed to
write a history so popular in its appeal that it would
supersede the latest novel on the tables of young ladies;
and he had been successful. After the appearance of the
first two volumes Harper and Brothers wrote from Am-
erica that they alone had disposed of over forty thou-
sand copies. The author was deluged with letters of
congratulation. The later instalments met with an equally
warm reception; and the work as a whole has long since
taken its place as one of the great English classics, be-
sides being translated into almost every language of the
civilized world.

The History absorbed most of Macaulay’s later years;
but at intervals he still produced occasional essays, less
ambitious, but admirable of their kind. His Clive and
Hastings appeared soon after his return from India; and
others followed. The Lays of Ancient Rome, his best-known
work in verse, was published in 1842. During the last
six years of his life he also contributed several articles
on famous men to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

England now showed herself eager to heap honors on
one whom she justly regarded as among her foremost﻿XX

Introduction

statesmen and writers. He became Rector of the Uni-
versity of Glasgow, Fellow of the Royal Society, and
High Steward of the Borough of Cambridge. In his
fifty-seventh year he was raised to the peerage as Baron
Macaulay of Rothley. This well-deserved recognition
came none too soon. Ever since 1852 his health had been
failing; and, although he kept bravely in the traces, re-
fusing to surrender, the heart disease which finally killed
him was steadily sapping his strength. His last speeches
in Parliament left him exhausted and panting. A walk
at the rate of half a mile an hour grew too severe a tax
on his enfeebled frame. His spirits, naturally so cheerful,
sank under one of the most depressing diseases known to
man. And a new shadow was cast over his last days by
the proposed departure of his sister, Lady Trevelyan, to
join her husband in India. Macaulay had never mar-
ried; and all the love of a disposition naturally warm
and kindly had centered around his sisters and their chil-
dren. Several years before, his heart had been almost
broken by the death of his sister Margaret; now the de-
parture of Lady Trevelyan, in whose home he had lived
much of the time since her marriage and whom he knew
that he should never see again, seemed too bitter to bear.
But he put a brave face on it all to the last; and for-
tunately death came while those whom he loved were still
with him. On the morning of December 28, 1859, Ma-
caulay, with characteristic generosity, had written a let-
ter inclosing a twenty-five-pound note to a needy young
clergyman. This charitable deed was the last act of his
life. That evening his friends found him sitting dead in
his chair, with a magazine which had lain open before
him all the afternoon still undisturbed. He was buried
in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey at the foot of
Addison’s statue.﻿Macaulay’s Career	xxi

Our best description of Macaulay’s personal appear-
ance says, “ There came up a short manly figure, mar-
velously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one hand in
his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he had little to
boast; but in faces where there is an expression of great
power, or of great good-humor, or both, you do not
regret its absence.” His nephew tells us that “ he had a
massive head, and features of a powerful and rugged
cast; but so constantly lighted up by every joyful and
ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when abso-
lutely quiescent, his face was rather homely than hand-
some.” We have mentioned already his passionate love
of reading. From the time when only three years old he
perused stories between mouthfuls of bread-and-butter to
the hour when his friends found him dead with his open
book beside him, the works of great authors were his con-
stant companions. Few men have gone through so many
books, and his power of retaining what he had read was so
phenomenal that he once said he could produce the whole
of Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress from memory,
although he had never made any special effort to memorize
them.	^

Like all men, Macaulay was not wholly free from
faults; and, like his own hero, Hastings, he would prob-
ably prefer to be shown as he was. He had some rather
narrow prejudices, was occasionally unjust to people
through his inability to understand their different point of
view, was sometimes unwarrantably severe toward states-
men and writers of whom he did not approve. But even
in these directions his errors were sincere; and his trifling
faults are dwarfed by the great virtues that overshadowed
them. He was genial and kindly, thoughtful for others,
brave in the face of discouragement, courteous to women,
generous almost to a fault toward the poor, and so in love﻿XXI1

Introduction

with little children that in the period of his highest fame
he knew no greater pleasure than to take his little nephews
and nieces sight-seeing through London. Above all we
may admire the incorruptible purity of his life, both public
and private. The Encyclopedia Britannica> which is not
given to undeserved flattery, says of him, “ No act incon-
sistent with the strictest honor and integrity has ever
been imputed to him.” What higher praise could be
spoken of any man who for a quarter of a century had
withstood the countless temptations of public life?

II

MACAULAY AS HISTORIAN AND ESSAYIST

It was the ambition of Macaulay to make history as
interesting as fiction, and the past as much alive before his
reader’s mind as the present. Sir Walter Scott, all of
whose great novels appeared during the first thirty years
of Macaulay’s life, had already shown how fascinating a
union could be made between reality and fiction. Macaulay
went one step further, and invested the narrative of a
real past with all the vivid language and human interest
of a novel or drama. He was not alone in this attempt;
his famous contemporary Thomas Carlyle, in many re-
spects a greater writer than himself, essayed the same
task. They wished to make bygone events revive before
their audience as a living spectacle, not a dusty memoir.
The storming of Torquilstone castle in Ivanhoe is not
more vivid and exciting than Carlyle’s description of the
storming of the French Bastile. The best of imaginative
writers have seldom given us a more dramatic death-
bed scene than that which closes Macaulay’s History,﻿Macaulay as Historian an<} Essayist xxiii

when the dying William breathes in the ear of his life-
long friend the message which no one hears, and the at;
tendants find treasured against his naked breast the keep-
sakes of his dead queen.

Out of this attempt by Macaulay to make history pic-
turesque and attractive grew all of his virtues and most
of his faults. Since his faults are less important we will
consider them first. His chief defect is a tendency to
form prejudiced views of the men whose lives he depicts.
This tendency was not due to any intentional unfairness
in the writer; on the contrary, few men have had more
generosity and desire for justice. But Macaulay, with
all his brilliance, lacked the inborn mental gift which
enables a man to weigh evidence impartially. In addition,
those very qualities of a story-tellej" which gave his writ-
ings the fascination of a novel gave them also something
of the novel’s inaccuracy. Consequently, although he loved
justice beyond most men, he too often interprets his char-
acters as better or worse than they were. His estimate of
Clive is. probably a fair one, and may be accepted by the
reader unchallenged. But his estimate of Hastings is al-
most certainly unjust to the greatest statesman that ever
governed India. There is still some difference of opinion
as to how far all the acts of Hastings can be excused;
perhaps he was a man ruled more by his head than his
heart, one who could be hard and remorseless toward in-
dividuals when their plans stood in the way of broader
interests. But clearly his deeds were not as black as
Macaulay, in his honest but mistaken belief, has painted
them.

It is worth while to point out the error underlying some
of Macaulay’s charges. The Rohilla war was due largely
to the faithlessness of the Rohillas themselves, who were
intriguing with the_Mahrattas, the worst foes of the Eng-﻿XXIV

Introduction

lish. The main motive of the war was not money, but a
desire to safeguard the allies of the English, and through
them the English themselves. It is true that the Rohillas
had certain traits of “ gentlemen,” courage, dignity, hos-
pitality ; but the greed and treachery which they combined
with these qualities were the cause of their downfall. The
outrages committed were not nearly as great as Macaulay
supposed. Participators in the war testified that they
saw no Rohillas killed except those who fell in battle.
After the war some of the vanquished, by the stipulations
of a treaty, emigrated to the territory of friends; others
were allowed to remain undisturbed under the new rule.

With the execution of Nuncomar Hastings swore
on oath that he had nothing to do. All existing evi-
dence supports him. The Brahmin was tried, not by
one man but by the whole Supreme Court, which gave
what it considered an impartial sentence. Also the pic-
ture given us of Sir Elijah Impey is unjust. Impey was
probably no worse than many judges, certainly no such
monster of treachery and greed as here depicted.

Likewise Hastings was not “ so little restrained by con-
scientious' scruples” as his biographer believed in his
methods of raising and saving money. He seems to have
been justified in cutting down by one-half the income of
the Nabob of Bengal, for by the cessation of the “ double
government” the Nabob had ceased to be a sovereign
prince, and could no longer need or claim the income of
one. The stoppage of the three hundred thousand pound
tribute to the Great Mogul was justified by the treachery
of that ruler himself, who had joined the Mahrattas and
plotted against the English. The annual tribute had
been paid to him as the price of his friendship, and could
not be expected to continue when the friendship for which
it was paid had turned into hostility. The fine laid on﻿Macaulay as Historian and Essayist xxv

Cheyte Sing may have been excessive; but he was a zemin-
dar, or subordinate, under the Company, and Hastings
clearly had a legal right to fine him. As to the Begums
of Oude, the treasure forced from them was not their
own but state money, which the Vizier had a right to
claim. Also in the insurrection at Benares they had
actually made war on the Company, and thereby for-
feited all title to protection. No one would excuse tor-
ture, but it is uncertain whether the eunuchs were
tortured or not, and certain that they were not so treated
by the order of Hastings.

For these historical inaccuracies we do not wish to cen-
sure Macaulay. Much light has been thrown on the
subject since his day, and the authorities which he followed
were misleading. But it is necessary that our readers
should be warned on the subject, lest they should judge
too hastily a great man’s character according to an er-
roneous estimate.

Macaulay’s misstatements, however, become a fault only
when readers are misled by them. If we can remember
those respects in which the real Hastings differed from
Macaulay’s much sinning hero, if we can consider Macau-
lays’ Hastings as we consider Scott’s King Richard or
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a portrait not always accurate
but always full of literary interest,—then we may enjoy
the good qualities of Macaulay without heeding his defects.
For after all, we do not read the essays on Clive and
Hastings as text-books in history. We can get other
text-books more recent and more thorough. We read
these essays as literature, not because the story is told so
accurately but because it is told so well. It is not always
necessary or even desirable that young readers should
remember every date or understand every historical allu-
sion in the following pages. What they should seek and﻿XXVI

Introduction

learn to appreciate there is the narrative power of the
author, his ability to make the past a series of living events,
not a scrap-heap of mere dead facts.

One of Macaulay’s chief merits as an historical story-
teller is his clearness. He took the greatest pains to gain
this quality, revising and rewriting, correcting and re-
correcting until the meaning of every sentence was as
obvious as possible. The result was well worth the labor.
After the first two volumes of his History appeared, a
large body of workmen thanked him for writing a history
that workingmen could understand; and their tribute is
but one instance of the way that readers generally have
felt toward his work. Of course in the essays on Clive and
Hastings there are many passages which are not clear to
most students in their teens; but this is always because
the subject is a hard one to explain, not because Macaulay
is clumsy in explaining it. The story of wars and gov-
ernments naturally involves many details with which
readers have had no experience, and which they cannot
possibly understand immediately or entirely; in the hands
of any other writer the most obscure of such passages
would have been less intelligible than Macaulay makes
them. In general the meaning of every sentence that he
writes is as transparent as water; through the details of
every paragraph the central thought shines out. Every
shift in his thought has its clear transition sentence, mark-
ing whence he has come and whither he goes.

But there is little value in understanding a writer’s
meaning if we feel no interest in that meaning when
understood. A second vital quality of Macaulay’s style,
what gives it life and interest, is that picturesqueness al-
ready mentioned. He is vivid as well as clear. The in-
cidents which he describes move past us like a great sliding
panorama, picture after picture, as lifelike and glowing﻿Macaulay as Historian and Essayist xxvii

as if an artist had painted them: “ The old people of the
neighborhood still remember to have heard from their
parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty
steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror the in-
habitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the sum-
mit.”—“ Then the prisoners went mad with despair.
They trampled each other down, fought for the places
at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with
which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their
agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards
to fire among them. The jailers in the meantime held
lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic
struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died
away in low gaspings and moanings.”—“ On one bright
summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, lay on
the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain
of his house to join the Isis. There, as three score and
ten years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme
which, through all the turns of his eventful career, was
never abandoned. He would recover the estate which had
belonged to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Dayles-
ford.”—These are examples of what is best in Macaulay.
Who can read them without 'seeing in his mind’s eye,
vivid as if painted on canvas, Bob Clive astride of the
spout, the frantic victims in the Black Hole, and the boy
Warren Hastings forming the romantic dream of a life-
time?

Various minor qualities of Macaulay’s style are used
to aid this picturesque effect. He loves definite, precise
expressions instead of vague, general ones, because the
precise expression gives the reader a more definite pic-
ture. Of a conquered country we are told, not that it is
large, but that it is “about as large as France.” Instead
of saying “ the French sent Dupleix poor troops,” he says,﻿xxviii	Introduction

“ They sent him for troops only the sweepings of the gal-
leys.” Instead of telling us that few of Clive’s accusers
could have withstood the temptations of India, he assures
us that “ not one in a hundred of his accusers would have
shown so much self-command in the treasury of Moor-
shedabad.” He is fond also of comparisons or allusions
based on his wide reading. The downfall of the Moguls
is like that of the old French kings. When describing
how ridiculous and ominous traits mingled in the lives of
rich English “ Nabobs,” he makes them an amalgam of the
most farcical and most terrible characters on the stages of
France and England; and those who have read of these
characters, at once imagine a “Nabob” who makes them
both smile and shudder. This device many times ceases
to be a virtue, because the allusions are often such as only
an audience of unusually wide reading could follow.
Facts which Macaulay says that “ every,schoolboy knows ”
are frequently such as no schoolboy could be expected to
know. But where the subjects alluded to are familiar
to the reader, mention of them gives the passage an added
suggestiveness and color. Biblical phrases are used for
this purpose with especial frequency.

Both of the essays in this edition were first published
in The Edinburgh Review; Clive in 1840, Hastings in
1841. Ostensibly each is a review of a certain book; but;
following a custom common in his day, Macaulay makes
the book under question a mere excuse for an article
of his own on the same subject. Both essays were written
shortly after his return from India, when his brain was full
of that country’s romantic scenery and still more romantic
past. They illustrate at once the characteristic virtues and
the characteristic faults of their author. But we need not
mind the faults, for we can find an antidote against them
jn remembering a few simple facts; and then we can enjoy﻿Macaulay as Historian and Essayist xxix

undisturbed all that is good. Macaulay’s is the imagina-
tive charm of the born story-teller. Every step in his
narrative carries the mind “ either backward, through
many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations
of our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless
seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange
stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange char-
acters from right to left.”

Ill

INDIA BEFORE CLIVE AND HASTINGS

In order to follow intelligently the careers of Clive and
Hastings, we need some idea of Indian history and Indian
conditions. The India which they found was a country
of mixed nationalities and conflicting governments, a land
offering manifold opportunities and manifold temptations.
We cannot consider all these^different peoples one nation
as we should consider the inhabitants of England, nor can
we judge men who are fighting native treachery with
its own weapons as we should judge them in the man-
agement of New York or Massachusetts.

India is one of the most fertile countries in the world;
consequently there has been a constant tendency for war-
like races to press down from the more barren regions of
central Asia and occupy these rich plains by conquest.
From a period back beyond all history down to the Eng-
lish occupation, one invading race after another has con-
quered some part of the country though never all, and has
mixed its descendants with the races that were there be-
fore. As a result of this, the people of different localities
even to-day vary in name, customs, and traits of char-﻿XXX

Introduction

acter. Some are brave, others cowardly; some honest,
others treacherous; some civilized as Europeans, others al-
most savages. In the time of Clive and Hastings, how-
ever, all this great conglomerate mass, the descendants of
different invading races through thousands of years, can
be divided into two great groups, the Hindoos and the
Mohammedans; and under these two groups we will con-
sider them.

The Hindoos (or Hindus) were people who had come
into the country before the time of Christ or shortly after.
However some of them might differ in original stock or
original home, they had lived in union for centuries, and be-
fore the year iooo a.d. had been drawn together into
what was practically one people. In spite of minor varia-
tions, they had in the main a common religion, a com-
mon literature, and common customs. Their religion was
originally Brahminism, which later became modified into
what is now called Hindooism. Socially they were divided
into four great castes, separated from each other by very
sharp lines, without intermarriage or familiar intercourse.
The highest and most influential caste was that of the
Brahmins, composed chiefly of the priests, learned men,
poets, and lawgivers. Next came the caste of warriors,
the Rajputs; although as a class they ranked below the
Brahmins, the king was regularly from their number.
Third in order stood the Vaisyas, including the better type
of farmers, traders, skilled workmen, and the like. By
the time with which we are concerned, however, this
caste had become numerically small. At the bottom was
the fourth caste, called the Sudras, the lowest order of
workmen. The Sudras were descendants of the oldest in-
habitants, trampled into poverty and wretchedness by the
conquering invaders who had formed the three higher
castes.	•﻿India Before Clive and Hastings xxxi

The Mohammedans had come into the land almost
wholly after the year 1000 a.d. Though all invaders, they
were not all of one nationality; they included Turks, Tar-
tars, Persians, and Afghans. But they were all bound to-
gether by a common belief, Mohammedanism, one of
the three great religions of the world. In numbers they
were and are far inferior to the Hindoos; but their
power and influence was out of all proportion to their
numbers. These different races of Mohammedans broke
over the mountain wall of northern India in wave after
wave through more than five centuries. Some met with
reverses; some plundered the land and went away; but
others formed independent or semi-independent kingdoms
in the conquered country, never controlling it all, but
often ruling portions of it as large as a European empire.
Under these conditions India was torn up into numerous
states conflicting with each other. In the main the
struggle was between the incoming Mohammedans and
the long resident Hindoos; but this was not always the
case, for frequently both Mohammedans and Hindoos quar-
reled among themselves, and sometimes part of the Mo-
hamedans would league with part of the Hindoos against
a common enemy.

Gradually one great dynasty, a Mohammedan one, grew
to overshadow all the others in power. In the sixteenth
century Baber, a descendant of the famous Tartar con-
queror Tamerlane, defeated the Hindoo Rajputs in a
great battle and laid the foundation of a strong perma-
nent government. His successors, Humayun, Akbar (per-
haps the greatest and wisest of all Indian rulers), Jahan-
gir, and Shah Jahan, increased their dominions. Aurung-
zebe, the son of Shah Jahan, hoped to be ruler of all
India, and nearly succeeded. But although he widened
his territories, the great empire under him was already﻿xxxii	Introduction

weakening and preparing for revolt and dissolution.
Soon, too, a dangerous enemy rose up against him in the
Mahrattas. They were a body of Hindoos organized
into a new national party under a cruel but able leader
named Sevajee, and from his day until the final conquest
of India by the British, the Mahrattas were a factor in
war with which every ruler and general had to reckon.
Aurungzebe died in 1707; and after his death the great
power which his family had built up crumbled away. His
descendants became mere nominal rulers, with the name
but without the authority of kings.

While the great power founded by Baber was rising
and declining, an English trading company was gradu-
ally building up an organization which was to supplant
both Mohammedan and Hindoo in the control of India.
The English East India Company was organized during
the reign of Elizabeth, which was contemporary with that
of the great Akbar mentioned above. From 1600 to 1858,
consequently throughout the career of Clive and Hastings,
practically all English activities in India were directed
by this Company, the British Crown reserving merely a
right of supervision. The English came to the East not
as conquerors but as traders, doing business by permis-
sion of the Mohammedan rulers at various points along
the coast. But the Indian commerce was so profitable
that they were soon drawn into jealousies and wars with
rival trading organizations from Europe, the Portuguese,
Dutch, and French. Also, as we have seen, different
parts of India were hostile to each other; and an Eng-
lish Company which was the friend of one party became
by that very act the enemy of the other. Hence the agents
and soldiers of the Company were drawn into a long
series of wars which at first were merely a struggle for
existence, but which eventually made them conquerors﻿India Before Clive and Hastings xxxiii

and traders combined, and finally placed all the country
at their feet.

Now let us consider the situation in India when Clive
landed. Aurungzebe, the last real emperor of the line of
Baber and the House of Tamerlane, had been dead some
years. At Delhi in the north, where he and his predeces-
sors had reigned, was still a government; but it was no
longer the one supreme government. A large part of his
wide empire had already revolted from him and formed
into separate Mohammedan states. Mixed with these
Mohammedan states were others under Hindoo rulers,
especially the fierce Mahrattas. India was in a state of
political ferment; and in the absence of any one over-
ruling power, every ambitious adventurer hoped to carve a
kingdom for himself out of the general confusion. On the
shores of this great country with its restless millions were
two little bands of traders, the French and the English.
Other Europeans had either withdrawn, like the Por-
tuguese, or were losing power, like the Dutch. The
supremacy in European commerce lay between these two.
Had India been united it could have erased the petty forces
of both from the map. But Indian hated Indian worse
than he did a foreigner. This is why Clive was able to
crush the ruler of Bengal while the rest of the Indian
rulers, both Hindoo and Mohammedan, looked idly on.
This is why we find the Hindoo Mahrattas fighting in the
English ranks against their Mohammedan enemies. This
is why we find ambitious natives glad to make allies of
either the French or the English in their internal strug-
gles. And this is why we see Clive and Hastings, the serv-
ants of a merchant organization originally weaker than
many of our great American corporations, acting as con-
querors and statesmen in a country as large and populous
as all Europe minus Russia.﻿XXXIV

Introduction

A glance at the geography of India may be of use. The
country naturally divides into two parts. The northern
section, which is the larger, consists of vast plains; near
its center is Delhi, the ancient seat of Mohammedan rule.
At the eastern edge of this section, near the mouth of the
Ganges, is Calcutta, the first station or presidency of the
English East India Company. The rest of India stretch-
ing to the south consists mainly of a great triangular
plateau, called the Deccan. It was peopled chiefly with
Hindoos and was the home of the Mahrattas, who had
their capital at Poonah. On the western shore near the
north of this tableland lies Bombay, the second English
station. Along the east of the Deccan between the plateau
and the shore runs a narrow strip of lowland known as the
Carnatic. On the coast of this territory is Madras, the
third English station, and a little to the south Pondi-
cherry, the seat of the French power in India. There
were some minor trading stations, but these four were the
chief centers of European influence. The country on the
shores of which these settlements clung, holds now nearly
three hundred million inhabitants, and even then may
have contained a larger population than ancient Rome in
her glory.﻿DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

The best biography of Macaulay, and one of the best
biographies ever written, is The Life and Letters of Lord
Macaulay, by his nephew G. O. Trevelyan (2 vols.,
Harper and Brothers, New York). The best brief bi-
ography is J. Cotter Morison’s Macaulay, in English
Men of Letters Series (Harper and Brothers). Edward
T. Mason’s article on Macaulay, in the fourth volume of
his Personal Traits of British Authors (Scribner’s, New
York), gives many interesting pictures of the author’s
career, chiefly excerpts from Trevelyan’s Life. For a
critical study of the man and his writings, some of the
following references may be useful: Walter Bagehot in
Literary Studies; William E. Gladstone in Gleanings of
Past Years; Frederic Harrison in Studies in Early Vic-
torian Literature; John Morley in Critical Miscellanies;
Herbert Paul in Men and Letters; George Saintsbury
in Corrected Impressions; Leslie Stephen in Dictionary of
National Biography and Hours in a Library.

The standard edition of Macaulay’s works is that edited
by his sister, Lady Trevelyan (8 vols., Longmans, Green,
and Co., New York). Dividing his productions mainly
according to their first appearance in book form, we may
classify them as follows:

1842. Lays of Ancient Rome.

Four spirited narrative poems of the old Roman Repub-
lic. Two similar poems on later themes, lvry and The
Armada, were included in a subsequent edition.

XXXV﻿xxxvi	Descriptive Bibliography

1843. Critical and Historical Essays.

Out of nearly forty essays published in The Edinburgh
Review during the eighteen years preceding, this col-
lection includes the most famous. Several are devoted
to literary criticism. The majority are studies in the
lives of prominent writers or statesmen, a field in
which the author appears at his best. They contain
much of his finest work.

1848-60. History of England.

Issued in five volumes. An unusually full and ani-
mated account of eighteen years of English history,
from the accession of James II to the death of William
III, with a condensed survey of earlier history at
the beginning. The work betrays throughout an un-
conscious bias in favor of Macaulay’s own party, the
Whigs; but is one of the most fascinating and read-
able histories in the language.

1854. Speeches Corrected by Himself.

Orations originally given in Parliament and revised
for publication. They are clear, forcible, and rich
with instructive examples from past experience. They
include such topics as the privileges of Jews and Dis-
senters, England’s treatment of Ireland, the cure of
political corruption, and the right of an author’s
family to the profits from his writings.
i860. Miscellaneous Writings.

First published after the author’s death, but in large
part written early. The volume includes various
additional essays originally printed in Knight’s Quar-
terly Magazine and The Edinburgh Review; the lives
of Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, Johnson, and Pitt,
already printed in the eighth edition of the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica; and miscellaneous poems. The
biographies in the Encyclopedia are excellent. The
poems lack the subtle thought and melody of the
best verse, but have their author’s usual vigor and
swing.

Among reference books perhaps the best condensed his-
tory of India is Sir William W. Hunter’s Brief History
of the Indian Peoples (Clarendon Press). The Oxford﻿Descriptive Bibliography xxxvii

Student's History of India (Clarendon Press), and Sir
Alfred Lyall’s Rise of the British Dominion in India
(J. Murray, London), are also condensed and valuable.
For the study of Clive the following books are useful:
Col. G. B. Malleson’s Lord Clive, Rulers of India Series
(Clarendon Press, 1900) ; Col. Sir Charles Wilson’s
Lord Clive, English Men of Action Series (Macmillan
and Co., 1890). Readers wishing to sift the evidence re-
garding Macaulay’s charges against Hastings should con-
sult the following books: G. Forrest, Selections from the
Letters, Dispatches, and other State Papers preserved in
the Foreign Department of the Government of India,
1772-85 (2 vols., Blackwell, Constable, 1910) ; Sydney
C. Grier, The Letters of Warren Hastings to His Wife
(Blackwood, 1905) ; G. W. Hastings, A Vindication of
Warren Hastings (H. Frowde, 1909) ; Sir Alfred Lyall,
Warren Hastings (Macmillan, 1889) ; Sir James Stephen,
The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir
Elijah Impey (2 vols., Macmillan, 1885) ; Sir John
Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla Wor (Clarendon Press,
1892).﻿﻿LORD CLIVE﻿Lord Clive﻿LORD CLIVE

(January, 1840)

The Life of Robert Lord Clive; collected from the Family

Papers, communicated by the Earl of Povjis. By Major

General Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B. 3 vols. 8vo. London:

1836.

We have always thought it strange that, while the
history of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly
known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of
our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves,
excite little interest. Every schoolboy knows who im- 5
prisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa. But
we doubt whether one in ten, even among English gentle-
men of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won the
battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the massacre of Patna,
whether Sujah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travancore, 10
or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet
the victories of Cortes were gained over savages who
had no letters, who were ignorant of the use of metals,
who had not broken in a single animal to labor, who wielded
no better weapons than those which could be made out 15
of sticks, flints, and fish-bones, who regarded a horse-
soldier as a monster, half man and half beast, who took a
harquebusier for a sorcerer, able to scatter the thunder
and lightning of the skies. The people of India, when
we subdued them, were ten times as numerous as the 20
Americans whom the Spaniards vanquished, and were at
the same time quite as highly civilized as the victorious '
Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than

3﻿4	Lord Clive

Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and
costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show
bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or
Cadiz, viceroys whose splendor far surpassed that of
5 Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long
trains of artillery which would have astonished the Great
Captain. It might have been expected that every English-
man who takes any interest in any part of history would
be curious to know how a handful of his countrymen,
io separated from their home by an immense ocean, sub-
jugated, in the course of a few years, one of the greatest
empires in the world. Yet, unless we greatly err, this sub-
ject is, to most readers, not only insipid, but positively dis-
tasteful.

15 Perhaps the fault lies partly with the historians. Mr.
Mill’s book, though it has undoubtedly great and rare
merit, is not sufficiently animated and picturesque to at-
tract those who read for amusement. Orme, inferior to
no English historian in style and power of painting, is
20 minute even to tediousness. In one volume he allots, on
an average, a closely printed quarto page to the events of
every forty-eight hours. The consequence is, that his nar-
rative, though one of the most authentic and one of the
most finely written in our language, has never been very
25 popular, and is now scarcely ever read.

We fear that the volumes before us will not- much at-
tract those readers whom Orme and Mill have repelled.
The materials placed at the disposal of Sir John Malcolm
by the late Lord Powis were indeed of great value. But
30 we cannot say that they have been very skilfully worked
up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise with severity
a work which, if the author had lived to complete and
revise it, would probably have been improved by condensa-
tion and by a better arrangement. We are more dis-﻿Lord Clive

5

posed to perform the pleasing duty of expressing our
gratitude to the noble family to which the public owes so
much useful and curious information.

The effect of the book, even when we make the largest
allowance for the partiality of those who have furnished
and of those who have digested the materials, is, on the
whole, greatly to raise the character of Lord Clive. We
are far indeed from sympathizing with Sir John Malcolm,
whose love passes the love of biographers, and who can
see nothing but wisdom and justice in the actions of his
idol. But we are at least equally far from concurring
in the severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who seems to us to
show less discrimination in his account of Clive than in
any other part of his valuable work. Clive, like most
men who are born with strong passions and tried by
strong temptations, committed great faults. But every per-
son who takes a fair and enlightened view of his whole
career must admit that our island, so fertile in heroes and
statesmen, has scarcely ever produced a man more truly
great either in arms or in council.

The Clives had been settled, ever since the twelfth
century, on an estate of no great value, near Market-
Drayton in Shropshire. In the reign of George the First
this moderate but ancient inheritance was possessed by
Mr. Richard Clive, who seems to have been a plain man
of no great tact or capacity. He had been bred to the
law, and divided his time between professional business and
the avocations of a small proprietor. He married a lady
from Manchester, of the name of Gaskill, and became the
father of a very numerous family. His eldest son,
Robert, the founder of the British empire in India, was
born at the old seat of his ancestors on the twenty-ninth
of September, 1725.

Some lineaments of the character of the man were

5

10

15

20

25

30﻿6

Lord Clive

early discerned in the child. There remain letters written
by his relations when he was in his seventh year; and
from these letters it appears that, even at that early age,
his strong will and his fiery passions, sustained by a con-
5 stitutional intrepidity which sometimes seemed hardly
compatible with soundness of mind, had begun to cause
great uneasiness to his family. “ Fighting,” says one of his
uncles, “ to which he is out of measure addicted, gives his
temper such a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies
io out on every trifling occasion.” The old people of the
neighborhood still remember to have heard from their
parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty
steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror the in-
habitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit.
15 They also relate how/ he formed all the idle lads of the
town into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the
shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and half-
pence, in consideration of which he guaranteed the security
of their windows. He was sent from school to school,
20 making very little progress in his learning, and gaining
for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly
naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious
enough to prophesy that the idle lad would make a great
figure in the world. But the general opinion seems to
25 have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a repro-
bate. His family expected nothing good from such slender
parts and such a headstrong temper. It is not strange,
therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when he was
in his eighteenth year, a writership in the service of the
30 East India Company, and shipped him off to make a for-
tune or to die of a fever at Madras.

Far different were the prospects of Clive from those
of the youths whom the East India College now annually
sends to the Presidencies of our Asiatic empire. I The﻿Lord Clive

7

Company was then purely a trading corporation. Its
territory consisted of a few square^miTes^ for which rent
was paid to the native governments. Its troops were
scarcely numerous enough to man the batteries of three
or four ill-constructed forts, which had been erected for
the protection of the warehouses. The natives, who com-
posed a considerable part of these little garrisons, had not
yet been trained in the discipline of Europe, and were
armed, some with swords and shields, some with bows and
arrows. The business of the servant of the Company
was not, as now, to conduct the judicial, financial, and
diplomatic business of a great country, but to- take stock,
to make advances to weavers, to ship cargoes, and, above
alf^t^lre^'zrn'eye'on private traders who dared to in-
fringe the monopoly. The younger clerks were so miser-
ably paid that they could scarcely subsist without incur-
ring debt; the elder enriched themselves by trading on
their own account; and those who lived to rise to the
top of the service often accumulated considerable
fortunes.

Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, was, at
this time, perhaps, the first in importance of the Com-
pany’s settlements. In the preceding century, Fort St.
George had arisen on a barren spot beaten by a raging
surf; and in the neighborhood a town, inhabited by many
thousands of natives, had sprung up, as towns spring up
in the East, with the rapidity of the prophet’s gourd.
There were already in the suburbs many white villas, each
surrounded by its garden, whither the wealthy agents of
the Company retired, after the labors of the desk and the
warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze which springs up at
sunset from the Bay of Bengal. The habits of these mer-
cantile grandees appear to have been more profuse,
luxurious, and ostentatious, than those of the high judicial

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and political functionaries who have succeeded them. But
comfort was far less understood. Many devices which
now mitigate the heat of the climate, preserve health,
and prolong life, were unknown. There was far less inter-
5 course with Europe than at present. The voyage by the
Cape, which in our time has often been performed within
three months, was then very seldom accomplished in six,
and was sometimes protracted to more than a year. Con-
sequently, the Anglo-Indian was then much more estranged
io from his country, much more addicted to Oriental
usages, and much less fitted to mix in society after his
return to Europe, than the Anglo-Indian of the present
day.

Within the fort and its precinct, the English exercised,
IS by permission of the native government, an extensive
authority, such as every great Indian landowner exer-
cised within his own domain. But they had never dreamed
of claiming independent power. The surrounding coun-
try was ruled by the Nabob of the Carnatic, a deputy of
20 the Viceroy of the Deccan, commonly called the Nizam,
who was himself only a deputy of the mighty prince
designated by our ancestors as the Great Mogul. Those
names, once so august and formidable, still remain.
There is still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a
25 pension allowed to him by the English out of the revenues
of the province which his ancestors ruled. There is still
a Nizam, whose capital is overawed by a British canton-
ment, and to whom a British resident gives, under the
name of advice, commands which are not to be disputed.
30 There is still a Mogul, who is permitted to play at hold-
ing courts and receiving petitions, but who has less power
to help or hurt than the youngest civil servant of the
Company.

Clive!s_y_oyage^was unusually tedious even for that age.﻿Lord Clive

9

The ship remained some months at the Brazils, where the
young adventurer picked up some knowledge of Portu-
guese, and spent all his pocket-money. He did not arrive
in India till more than a year after he had left England.
His situation at Madras was most painful. His funds 5
were exhausted. His pay was small. He had contracted
debts. He was wretchedly lodged, no small calamity in a
climate which can be made tolerable to an European only
by spacious and well-placed apartments. He had been
furnished with letters of recommendation to a gentleman 10
who might have assisted him; but when he landed at Fort
St. George he found that this gentleman had sailed for
England. The lad’s shy and haughty disposition with-
held him from introducing himself to strangers. He was
several months in India before he became acquainted with 15
a single family. The climate affected his health and spirits.
His duties were of a kind ill suited to his ardent and
daring character. He pined for his home, and in his letters
to his relations expressed his feelings in language softer
and more pensive than we should have expected either 20
from the the waywardness of his boyhood or from the
inflexible sternness of his later years.' “I have not en-
joyed,” says he, “ one happy day since I left my native
countryand again, “ I must confess, at intervals, when
I think of my dear native England, it affects me in a very 25
particular manner. ... If I should be so far blest
as to revisit again my own country, but more especially
Manchester, the center of all my wishes, all that I could
hope or desire for would be presented before me in one
view.”	30

One solace he found of the most respectable kind.
The Governor possessed a good library, and permitted
Clive to have access to it. The young man devoted
much of his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time﻿IO

Lord Clive

almost all the knowledge of books that he ever pos-
sessed. As a boy he had been too idle, as a man he soon
became too busy, for literary pursuits.

But neither climate nor poverty, neither study nor
5 the sorrows of a homesick exile, could tame the des-
perate audacity of his spirit. He behaved to his official
superiors as he had behaved to his schoolmasters, and
was several times in danger of losing his situation. Twice,
while residing in the Writers’ Buildings, he attempted to
io destroy himself; and twice the pistol which he snapped at
his own head failed to go off. This circumstance, it is
said, affected him as a similar escape affected Wallen-
stein. After satisfying himself that the pistol was really
well loaded, he burst forth into an exclamation that surely
15 he was reserved for something great.

About this time an event which at first seemed likely
to destroy all his hopes in life suddenly opened before
him a new path to eminence. Europe had been, during
some years, distracted by the war of the Austrian suc-
20 cession. George the Second was the steady ally of Maria
Theresa. The House of Bourbon took the opposite side.
Though England was even then the first of maritime pow-
ers, she was not, as she has since become, more than a match
on the sea for all the nations of the world together; and
25 she found it difficult to maintain a contest against the
united navies of France and Spain. In the eastern seas
France obtained the ascendency. Labourdonnais, governor
of Mauritius, a man of eminent talents and virtues,
conducted an expedition to the continent of India in spite
30 of the opposition of the British fleet, landed, assembled
an army, appeared before Madras, and compelled the
town and fort to capitulate. The keys were delivered up;
the French colors were displayed on Fort St. George;
and the contents of the Company’s warehouses were seized﻿Lord Clive

11

as prize of war by the conquerors. It was stipulated by
the capitulation that the English inhabitants should be
prisoners of war on parole, and that the town should re-
main in the hands of the French till it should be ran-
somed. Labourdonnais pledged his honor that only a
moderate ransom should be required.

But the success of Labourdonnais had awakened the
jealousy of his countryman, Dupleix, governor of Pondi-
cherry. Dupleix, moreover, had already begun to revolve
gigantic schemes, with which the restoration of Madras
to' the English was by no means compatible. He declared
that Labourdonnais had gone beyond his powers; that con-
quests made by the French arms on the continent of India
were at the disposal of the governor of Pondicherry alone;
and that Madras should be razed to the ground. Labour-
donnais was compelled to yield. The anger which the
breach of the capitulation excited among the English was
increased by the ungenerous manner in which Dupleix
treated the principal servants of the Company. The Gov-
ernor and several of the first gentlemen of Fort St. George
were carried under a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted
through the town in a triumphal procession, under the eyes
of fifty thousand spectators. It was with reason thought
that this gross violation of public faith absolved the in-
habitants of Madras from the engagements into which they
had entered with Labourdonnais. Clive fled from the
town by night in the disguise of a Mussulman, and took
refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English settle-
ments subordinate to Madras.

The circumstances in which he was now placed natu-
rally led him to adopt a profession better suited to his
restless and intrepid spirit than the business of examining
packages and casting accounts. He solicited and obtained
an ensign’s commission in the service of the Company, and

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Lord Clive

at twenty-one entered on his military career. His per-
sonal courage, of which he had, while still a writer, given
signal proof by a desperate duel with a military bully who
was the terror of Fort St. David, speedily made him con-
5 spicuous even among hundreds of brave men. He soon
began to show in his new calling other qualities which
had not before been discerned in him, judgment, sagacity,
deference to legitimate authority. He distinguished him-
self highly in several operations against the French,
io and was particularly noticed by Major Lawrence, who
was then considered as the ablest British officer in
Indiar

Clive had been only a few months in the army when
intelligence arrived that peace had been concluded between
15 Great Britain and France. Dupleix was in consequence
compelled to restore Madras to the English Company;
and the young ensign was at liberty to resume his former
business. He did indeed return for a short time to his
desk. He again quitted it in order to assist Major Law-
20 rence in some petty hostilities with the natives, ancf then
again returned to it. While he was thus wavering be-
tween a military and a commercial life, events took place
which decided his choice. The politics of India assumed
a new aspect. There was peace between the English and
25 French Crowns; but there arose between the English and
French Companies trading to the East a war most event-
ful and important, a war in which the prize was nothing
less than the magnificent inheritance of the House of
Tamerlane.

30 The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the
sixteenth century was long one of the most extensive and
splendid in the world. In no European kingdom was
so large a population subject to a single prince, or so
large a revenue poured into the Treasury. The beauty﻿Lord Clive

13

and magnificence of the buildings erected by the sovereigns
of Hindostan amazed even travelers who had seen St.
Peter’s. The innumerable retinues and gorgeous decora-
tions which surrounded the throne of Delhi dazzled even
eyes which were accustomed to the pomp of Versailles.
Some of the great viceroys who held their posts by virtue
of commissions from the Mogul ruled as many subjects as
the King of France or the Emperor of Germany. Even
the deputies of these deputies might well rank, as to ex-
tent of territory and amount of revenue, with the Grand
Duke of Tuscany or the Elector of Saxony.

There can be little doubt that this great empire, power-
ful and prosperous as it appears on a superficial view, was
yet, even in its best days, far worse governed than the
worst governed parts of Europe now are. The administra-
tion was tainted with all the vices of Oriental despotism,
and with all the vices inseparable from the domination
of race over race. The conflicting pretensions of the
princes of the royal house produced a long series of crimes
and public disasters. Ambitious lieutenants of the sov-
ereign sometimes aspired to independence. Fierce tribes
of Hindoos, impatient of a foreign yoke, frequently with-
held tribute, repelled the armies of the government from
the mountain fastnesses, and poured down in arms on the
cultivated plains. In spite, however, of much constant
maladministration, in spite of occasional convulsions which'
shook the whole frame of society, this great monarchy, on
the whole, retained, during some' generations, an outward
appearance of unity, majesty, and energy. But, through-
out the long reign of Aurungzebe, the state, notwith-
standing all that the vigor and policy of the prince could
effect, was hastening to dissolution. After his death, which
took place in the year 1707, the ruin was fearfully rapid.
Violent shocks from without cooperated with an incurable

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decay which was fast proceeding within; and in a few
years the empire had undergone utter decomposition.

The history of the successors of Theodosius bears no
small analogy to that of the successors of Aurungzebe.

5 But perhaps the fall of the Carlovingians furnishes the
nearest parallel to the fall of the Moguls. Charlemagne
was scarcely interred when the imbecility and the disputes
of his descendants began to bring contempt on themselves
and destruction on their subjects. The wide dominion of
10 the Franks was severed into a thousand pieces. Nothing
more than a nominal dignity was left to the abject heirs
of an illustrious name, Charles the Bald, and Charles the
Fat, and Charles the Simple. Fierce invaders, differing
from each other in race, language, and religion, flocked,
15 as if by concert, from the farthest corners of the earth, to
plunder provinces which the government could no longer
defend. The pirates of the Northern Sea extended their
ravages from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, and at length fixed
their seat in the rich valley of the Seine. The Hungarian,
20 in whom the trembling monks fancied that they recog-
nized the Gog or Magog of prophecy, carried back the
plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depths of the
Pannonian forests. The Saracen ruled in Sicily, desolated
the fertile plains at Campania, and spread terror even to
25 the walls of Rome. In the midst of these sufferings, a
great internal change passed upon the empire. The cor-
ruption of death began to ferment into new forms of life.
While the great body, as a whole, was torpid and passive,
every separate member began to feel with a sense, and to
30 move with an energy all its own. Just here, in the most
barren and dreary tract of European history, all feudal
privileges, all modern nobility, take their source. It is to
this point that we trace the power of those princes who,
nominally vassals, but really independent, long governed,﻿Lord Clive

15

with the titles of dukes, marquesses, and counts, almost
every part of the dominions which had obeyed Charle-
magne.

Such or nearly such was the change which passed on the
Mogul empire during the forty years which followed the 5
death of Aurungzebe. A succession of nominal sovereigns,
sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away life in
secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling concubines, and
listening to buffoons. A succession of ferocious invaders
descended through the western passes, to prey on the de- 10
fenseless wealth of Hindostan. A Persian conqueror
crossed the Indus, marched through the gates of Delhi, and
bore away in triumph those treasures of which the mag-
nificence had astounded Roe and Bernier, the Peacock
Throne, on which the richest jewels of Golconda had 15
been disposed by the most skilful hands of Europe, and the
inestimable Mountain of Light, which, after many strange
vicissitudes, lately shone in the bracelet of Runjeet Sing,
and is now destined to adorn the hideous idol of Orissa.
The Afghan soon followed to complete the work of devas- 20
tation which the Persian had begun. The warlike tribes of
Rajpootana threw off the Mussulman yoke. A band of
mercenary soldiers occupied Rohilcund. The Sjgiks ruled
on the Indus. The Jauts spread dismay along the Jumna.
The highlands which border on the western seacoast 25
of India poured forth a yet more formidable race, a race
which was long the terror of every native power, and
which, after many desperate and doubtful struggles, yielded
only to the fortune and genius of England. It was under
the reign of Aurungzebe that this wild clan of plunderers 30
first descended from their mountains; and soon after his
death, every corner of his wide empire learned to tremble at
the mighty name of the Mahrattas. Many fertile vice-
royalties were entirely subdued by them. Their dominions﻿16

Lord Clive

stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea. Mahratta
captains reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in Guzerat, in
Berar, and in Tanjore. Nor did they, though they had be-
come great sovereigns, therefore cease to be freebooters.

5 They still retained the predatory habits of their forefathers.
Every region which was not subject to their rule was
wasted by their incursions. Wherever their kettledrums
were heard, the peasant threw his bag of rice on his
shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with
io his wife and children to the mountains or the jungles, to
the milder neighborhood of the hyena and the tiger. Many
provinces redeemed their harvests by the payment of an
annual ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still
bore the imperial title stooped to pay this ignominious
15 blackmail. The camp-fires of one rapacious leader were
seen from the walls of the palace of Delhi. Another, at
the head of his innumerable cavalry, descended year after
year on the rice-fields of Bengal. Even the European
factors trembled for their magazines. Less than a hundred
20 years ago, it was thought necessary to fortify Calcutta
against the horsemen of Berar; and the name of the Mah-
ratta ditch still preserves the memory of the danger.

Wherever the viceroys of the Mogul retained authority
they became sovereigns. They might still acknowledge
25 in words the superiority of the House of Tamerlane; as a
Count of Flanders or a Duke of Burgundy might have
acknowledged the superiority of the most helpless driveler
among the later Carlovingians. They might occasionally
send to their titular sovereign a complimentary present,
30 or solicit from him a title of honor. In truth, however,
they were no longer lieutenants removable at pleasure, but
independent hereditary princes. In this way originated
those great Mussulman houses which formerly ruled Ben-
gal and the Carnatic, and those which still, though in a﻿Lord Clive

17

state of vassalage, exercise some of the powers of royalty at
Lucknow and Hyderabad.

In what was this confusion to end? Was the strife to
continue during centuries? Was it to terminate in the
rise of another great monarchy? Was the Mussulman 5
or the Mahratta to be the Lord of India? Was another
Baber to descend from the mountains, and to lead the
hardy tribes of Cabul and Chorasan against a wealthier
and less warlike race? None of these events seemed im-
probable. But scarcely any man, however sagacious, would 10
have thought it possible that a trading company, separated
from India by fifteen thousand miles of sea, and possessing
in India only a few acres for purposes of commerce, would,
in less than a hundred years, spread its empire from Cape
Comorin to the eternal snow of the Himalayas; would 15
compel Mahratta and Mohammedan to forget their mutual
feuds in common subjection; would tame down even those
wild races which had resisted the most powerful of the
Moguls; and, having united under its laws a hundred mil-
lions of subjects, would carry its victorious arms far to the 20
east of the Burrampooter, and far to the west of the Hy-
daspes, dictate terms of peace at the gates of Ava, and
seat its vassal on the throne of Candahar.

The man who first saw that it was possible to found
an Europeanjempire on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy 25
was Dupleix. His restless, capacious, and inventive mind
had formed this scheme, at a time when the ablest servants
of, the English Company were busied only about invoices
and bills of lading. Nor had he only proposed to him-
self the end. He had also a just and distinct view of the 30
means by which it was to be attained. He clearly saw
that the greatest force which the princes of India could
bring into the field would be no match for a small body of
men trained in the discipline, and guided by the tactics, of﻿18

Lord Clive

the West. He saw also that the natives of India might,
under European commanders, be formed into armies, such
as Saxe or Frederic would be proud to command. He was
perfectly aware that the most easy and convenient way in
5 which an European adventurer could exercise sovereignty
in India was to govern the motions, and to speak through
the mouth of some glittering puppet dignified by the title
of Nabob or Nizam. The arts both of war and policy,
which a few years later were employed with such signal
io success by the English, were first understood and practised
by this ingenious and aspiring Frenchman.

The situation of India was such that scarcely any ag-
gression could be without a pretext either in old laws
or in recent practice. All rights were in a state of utter
IS uncertainty; and the Europeans who took part in the dis-
putes of the natives confounded the confusion, by applying
to Asiatic politics the public law of the West and analogies
drawn from the feudal system. If it was convenient to
treat a Nabob as an independent prince, there was an
20 excellent plea for doing so. He was independent in fact.
If it was convenient to treat him as a mere deputy of the
Court of Delhi, there was no difficulty; for he was so in
theory. If it was convenient to consider his office as an
hereditary dignity, or as a dignity held during life only,
25 or as a dignity held only during the good pleasure of the
Mogul, arguments and precedents might be found for
every one of those views. The party who had the heir of
Baber in their hands represented him as the undoubted, the
legitimate, the absolute sovereign, whom all subordinate
30 authorities were bound to obey. The party against whom
his name was used did not want plausible pretexts for
maintaining that the empire was in fact dissolved; and
that, though it might be decent to treat the Mogul with
respect, as a venerable relic of an order of things which had﻿Lord Clive

19

passed away, it was absurd to regard him as the real master
of Hindostan.

In the year 1748, died one of the most powerful of
the new masters of India, the great Nizam al Mulk,
Viceroy of the Deccan. His authority descended to his
son, Nazir Jung. Of the provinces subject to this high
functionary, the Carnatic was the wealthiest and the most
extensive. It was governed by an ancient Nabob, whose
name the English corrupted into Anaverdy Khan.

But there were pretenders to the government both of
the viceroyalty and of the subordinate province. Mirzapha
Jung, a grandson of Nizam al Mulk, appeared as the
competitor of Nazir Jung. Chunda Sahib, son-in-law of
a former Nabob of the Carnatic, disputed the title of
Anaverdy Khan. In the unsettled state of Indian law, it
was easy for both Mirzapha Jung and Chunda Sahib to
make out something like a claim of right. In a society alto-
gether disorganized, they had no difficulty in finding
greedy adventurers to follow their standards. They united
their interests, invaded the Carnatic, and applied for as-
sistance to the French, whose fame had been raised by
their success against the English in the recent war on the
coast of Coromandel.

Nothing could have happened more pleasing to the subtle
and ambitious Dupleix. To make a Nabob of the Car-
natic, to make a Viceroy of the Deccan, to rule under
their names the whole of southern India; this was indeed
an attractive prospect. He allied himself with the pre-
tenders, and sent four hundred French soldiers, and two
thousand sepoys, disciplined after the European fashion, to
the assistance of his confederates. A battle was fought.
The French distinguished themselves greatly. Anaverdy
Khan was defeated and slain. His son, Mohammed Ali,
who was afterwards well known in England as the

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Lord Clive

Nabob of Arcot, and who owes to the eloquence of Burke
a most unenviable immortality, fled with a scanty remnant
of his army to Trichinopoly; and the conquerors became
at once masters of almost every part of the Carnatic.

5 This was but the beginning of the greatness of Dupleix.
After some months of fighting, negotiation, and intrigue,
his ability and good fortune seemed to have prevailed
everywhere. Nazir Jung perished by the hands of his own
followers; Mirzapha Jung was master of the Deccan; and
io the triumph of French arms and French policy was com-
plete. At Pondicherry all was exultation and festivity.
Salutes were fired from the batteries, and Te Deum sung
in the churches. The new Nizam came thither to visit his
allies; and the ceremony of his installation was per-
15 formed there with great pomp. Dupleix, dressed in the
garb worn by Mohammedans of the highest rank, entered
the town in the same palanquin with the Nizam, and, in
the pageant which followed, took precedence of all the
court. He was declared Governor of India from the river
20 Kristna to Cape Comorin, a country about as large as
France, with authority superior even to that of Chunda
Sahib. He was intrusted with the command of seven
thousand cavalry. It was announced that no mint would
be suffered to exist in the Carnatic except that at Pondi-
25 cherry. A large portion of the treasures which former
Viceroys of the Deccan had accumulated found its way into
the coffers of the French governor. It was rumored that
he had received two hundred thousand pounds sterling in
money, besides many valuable jewels. In fact, there could
30 scarcely be any limit to his gains. He now ruled thirty
millions of people with almost absolute power. No honor
or emolument could be obtained from the government but
by his intervention. No petition, unless signed by him, was
perused by the Nizam.﻿21

Lord Clive

Mirzapha Jung survived his elevation only a few
months. But another prince of the same house was raised
to the throne by French influence, and ratified all the
promises of his predecessor. Dupleix was now the great-
est potentate in India. His countrymen boasted that his
name was mentioned with awe even in the chambers of the
palace of Delhi. The native population looked with
amazement on the progress which, in the short space of
four years, an European adventurer had made towards
dominion in Asia. Nor was the vainglorious Frenchman
content with the reality of power. He loved to display
his greatness with arrogant ostentation before the eyes of
his subjects and of his rivals. Near the spot where his
policy had obtained its chief triumph, by the fall of Nazir
Jung and the elevation of Mirzapha, he determined to
erect a column, on the four sides of which four pompous
inscriptions, in four languages, should proclaim his glory
to all the nations of the East. Medals stamped with em-
blems of his successes were buried beneath the foundations
of this stately pillar, and round it arose a town bearing the
haughty name of Dupleix Fatihabad, which is, being in-
terpreted, the City of the Victory of Dupleix.

The English had made some feeble and irresolute at-
tempts to stop the rapid and brilliant career of the rival
Company, and continued to recognize Mohammed Ali as
Nabob of the Carnatic. But the dominions of Mohammed
Ali consisted of Trichinopoly alone; and Trichinopoly was
now invested by Chunda Sahib and his French auxiliaries.
To raise the siege seemed impossible. The small force
which was then at Madras had no commander. Major
Lawrence had returned to England, and not a single officer
of established character remained in the settlement. The
natives had learned to look with contempt on the mighty
nation which was soon to conquer and to rule them. They

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Lord Clive

had seen the French colors flying on Fort St. George; they
had seen the chiefs of the English factory led in triumph
through the streets of Pondicherry; they had seen the
arms and counsels of Dupleix everywhere successful, while
S the opposition which the authorities of Madras had made
to his progress had served only to expose their own weak-
ness and to heighten his glory. At this moment the valor
and genius of an obscure English youth suddenly turned
the tide of fortune.

io Clive was now twenty-five years old. After hesitating
for some time between a military and a commercial life,
he had at length been placed in a post which partook of
both characters, that of commissary to the troops, with
the rank of captain. The present emergency called forth
15 all his powers. He represented to his superiors that, unless
some vigorous effort were made, Trichinopoly would fall,
the house of Anaverdy Khan would perish, and the French
would become the real masters of the whole peninsula of
India. It was absolutely necessary to strike some daring
20 blow. If fin attack were made on Arcot, the capital of the
Carnatic and the favorite residence of the Nabobs, it was
not impossible that the siege of Trichinopoly would be
raised. The heads of the English settlement, now thor-
oughly alarmed by the success of Dupleix, and apprehen-
25 sive that, in the event of a new war between France and
Great Britain, Madras would be instantly taken and de-
stroyed, approved of Clive’s plan, and intrusted the execu-
tion of it to himself. The young captain was put at the
head of two hundred English soldiers, and three hundred
30 sepoys, armed and disciplined after the European fashion.
Of the eight officers who commanded this little force under
him only two had ever been in action, and four of the
eight were factors of the Company, whom Clive’s example
had induced to offer their services. The weather wa,s﻿Lord Clive

23

stormy; but Clive pushed on, through thunder, lightning,
and rain, to the gates of Arcot. The garrison, in a panic,
evacuated the fort, and the English entered it without a
blow.

But Clive well knew that he should not be suffered 5
to retain undisturbed possession of his conquest. He
instantly began to collect provisions, to throw up works,
and to make preparations for sustaining a siege. The gar-
rison, which had fled at his approach, had now recovered
from its dismay, and, having been swollen by large re- 10
inforcements from the neighborhood to a force of three
thousand men, encamped close to the town. At dead of
night, Clive marched out of the fort, attacked the camp
by surprise, slew great numbers, dispersed the rest, and
returned to his quarters without having lost a single man. 15

The intelligence of these events was soon carried to
Chunda Sahib, who, with his French allies, was be-
sieging Trichinopoly. He immediately detached four
thousand men from his camp, and sent them to Arcot.
They were speedily joined by the remains of the force 20
which Clive had lately scattered. They were further
strengthened by two thousand men from .Vellore, and by
a still more important reinforcement of a hundred and
fifty French soldiers whom Dupleix despatched from
Pondicherry. The whole of this army, amounting to about 25
ten thousand men, was under the command of Rajah
Sahib, son of Chunda Sahib.

Rajah Sahib proceeded to invest the fort of Arcot,
which seemed quite incapable of sustaining a siege. The
walls were ruinous, the ditches dry, the ramparts too nar- 30
row to admit the guns, the battlements too low to protect
the soldiers. The little garrison had been greatly reduced
by casualties. It now consisted of a hundred and twenty
Europeans and two hundred sepoys. Only four officers﻿Lord Clive

24

were left; the stock of provisions was scanty; and the
commander, who had to conduct the defense under circum-
stances so discouraging, was a young man of five and
twenty, who had been bred a bookkeeper.

5 During fifty days the siege went on. During fifty
days the young captain maintained the defense, with a
firmness, vigilance, and ability, which would have done
honor to the oldest marshal in Europe. The breach, how-
ever, increased day by day. The garrison began to feel
10 the pressure of hunger. Under such circumstances, any
troops so scantily provided with officers might have been
expected to show signs of insubordination; and the danger
was peculiarly great in a force composed of men differing
widely from each other in extraction, color, language,
15 manners, and religion. But the devotion of the little
band to its chief surpassed anything that is related of the
Tenth Legion of Caesar, or of the Old Guard of Napoleon.
The sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty
fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to
20 the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the
natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was
strained away from the rice, would suffice for themselves.
History contains no more touching instance of military
fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.

25 An attempt made by the government of Madras to
relieve the place had failed. But there was hope from
another quarter. A body of six thousand Mahrattas, half
soldiers, half robbers, under the command of a chief named
Morari Row, had been hired to assist Mohammed Ali;
30 but thinking the French power irresistible, and the triumph
of Chunda Sahib certain, they had hitherto remained in-
active on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The fame of the
defense of Arcot roused them from their torpor. Morari
Row declared that he had never before believed that Eng-﻿Lord Clive

25

lishmen could fight, but that he would willingly help them
since he saw that they had spirit to help themselves.
Rajah Sahib learned that the Mahrattas were in motion.

It was necessary for him to be expeditious. He first tried
negotiation. He offered large bribes to Clive, which were 5
rejected with scorn. He vowed that, if his proposals were
not accepted, he would instantly storm the fort, and put
every man in it to the sword. Clive told him in reply,
with characteristic haughtiness, that his father was an
usurper, that his army was a rabble, and that he would 10
do well to think twice before he sent such poltroons into a
breach defended by English soldiers.

Rajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. The day
was well suited to a bold military enterprise. It was the
great Mohammedan festival which is sacred to the memory 15
of Hosein, the son of Ali. The history of Islam contains
nothing more touching than the event which gave rise to
that solemnity. The mournful legend relates how the
chief of the Fatimites, when all his brave followers had
perished round him, drank his latest draught of water, and 20
uttered his latest prayer, how the assassins carried his head
in triumph, how the tyrant smote the lifeless lips with his
staff, and how a few old men recollected with tears that
they had seen those lips pressed to the lips of the Prophet
of God. After the lapse of near twelve centuries, the recur- 25
rence of this solemn season excites the fiercest and saddest
emotions in the bosoms of the devout Moslem of India.
They work themselves up to such agonies of rage and
lamentation that some, it is said, have given up the ghost
from the mere effect of mental excitement. They believe 30
that whoever, during this festival, falls in arms against
the infidels, atones by his death for all the sins of his life,
and passes at once to the garden of the Houris. It was
at this time that Rajah Sahib determined to assault Arcot.﻿26

Lord Clive

Stimulating drugs were employed to aid the effect of re-
ligious zeal, and the besiegers, drunk with enthusiasm,
drunk with bang, rushed furiously to the attack.

Clive had received secret intelligence of the design,
5 had made his arrangements, and, exhausted by fatigue, had
thrown himself on his bed. He was awakened by the
alarm, and was instantly at his post. The enemy advanced,
driving before them elephants whose foreheads were armed
with iron plates. It was expected that the gates would
io yield to' the shock of these living battering-rams. But the
huge beasts no sooner felt the English musket balls than
they turned round, and rushed furiously away, trampling
on the multitude which had urged them forward. A
raft was launched on the water which filled one part of
15 the ditch. Clive, perceiving that his gunners at that post
did not understand their business, took the management
of a piece of artillery himself, and cleared the raft in a
few minutes. Where the moat was dry, the assailants
mounted with great boldness; but they were received with
20 a fire so heavy and so well directed, that it soon quelled
the courage even of fanaticism and of intoxication. The
rear ranks of the English kept the front ranks supplied with
a constant succession of loaded muskets, and every shot
told on the living mass below. After three desperate
25 onsets, the besiegers retired behind the ditch.

The struggle lasted about an hour. Four hundred of
the assailants fell. The garrison lost only five or six
men. The besieged passed an anxious night, looking for
a renewal of the attack. But when day broke, the enemy
30 were no more to be seen. They had retired, leaving to the
English several guns and a large quantity of ammunition.

The news was received at Fort St. George with trans-
ports of joy and pride. Clive was justly regarded as a
man equal to any command. Two hundred English sol-﻿Lord Clive

27

diers and seven hundred sepoys were sent to him, and with
this force he instantly commenced offensive operations.

He took the fort of Timery, effected a junction with a
division of Morari Row’s army, and hastened, by forced
marches, to attack Rajah Sahib, who was at the head of 5
about five thousand men, of whom three hundred were
French. The action was sharp; but Clive gained a com-
plete victory. The military chest of Rajah Sahib fell into
the hands of the conquerors. Six hundred sepoys, who
had served in the enemy’s army, came over to Clive’s quar- 10
ters, and were taken into the British service. Conjeveram
surrendered without a blow. The governor of Arnee
deserted Chunda Sahib, and recognized the title of Mo-
hammed Ali.

Had the entire direction of the war been intrusted to 15
Clive, it would probably have been brought to a speedy
close. But the timidity and incapacity which appeared in
all the movements of the English, except where he was
personally present, protracted the struggle. The Mah-
rattas muttered that his soldiers were of a different race 20
from the British whom they found elsewhere. The effect
of this languor was, that in no long time Rajah Sahib, at
the head of a considerable army, in which were four
hundred French troops, appeared almost under the guns
of Fort St. George, and laid waste the villas and gardens 25
of the gentlemen of the English settlement. But he was
again encountered and defeated by Clive. More than
a hundred of the French were killed or taken, a loss more
serious than that of thousands of natives. The victorious
army marched from the field of battle to Fort St. David. 30
On the road lay the City of the Victory of Dupleix, and
the stately monument which was designed to commemorate
the triumphs of France in the East. Clive ordered both
the city and the monument to be razed to the ground. He﻿28

Lord Clive

was induced, we believe, to take this step, not by per-
sonal or national malevolence, but by a just and profound
policy. The town and its pompous name, the pillar and
its vaunting inscriptions, were among the devices by which
S Dupleix had laid the public mind of India under a spell.
This spell it was Clive’s business to break. The natives
had been taught that France was confessedly the first
power in Europe, and that the English did not presume to
dispute her supremacy. No measure could be more effec-
io tual for the removing of this delusion than the public and
solemn demolition of the French trophies.

The government of Madras, encouraged by these events,
determined to send a strong detachment, under Clive, to
reinforce the garrison of Trichinopoly. But just at this
15 conjuncture, Major Lawrence arrived from England, and
assumed the chief command. From the waywardness and
impatience of control which had characterized Clive, both
at school and in the counting-house, it might have been
expected that he would not, after such achievements, act
20 with zeal and good humor in a subordinate capacity. But
Lawrence had early treated him with kindness; and it is
bare justice to Clive to say that, proud and overbearing
as he was, kindness was never thrown away upon him.
He cheerfully placed himself under the orders of his old
25 friend, and exerted himself as strenuously in the second
post as he could have done in the first. Lawrence well
knew the value of such assistance. Though himself gifted
with no intellectual faculty higher than plain good sense,
he fully appreciated the powers of his brilliant coadjutor.
30 Though he had made a methodical study of military tactics,
and, like all men regularly bred to a profession, was dis-
posed to look with disdain on interlopers, he had yet liberal-
ity enough to acknowledge that Clive was an exception to
common rules/' “ Some people,” he wrote, “ are pleased to﻿Lord Clive

29

term Captaifi Clive fortunate and lucky; but, in my
opinion, from the knowledge I have of the gentleman, he
deserved and might expect from his conduct everything
as it fell out;—a man of an undaunted resolution, of
a cool temper, and of a presence of mind which never left 5
him in the greatest danger; born a soldier; for, without
a military education of any sort, or much conversing with
any of the profession, from his judgment and good sense,
he led on an army like an experienced officer and a brave
soldier, with a prudence that certainly warranted success.” 10
The French had no commander to oppose to the two
friends. Dupleix, not inferior in talents for negotiation
and intrigue to any European who has borne a part in the
revolutions of India, was ill qualified to direct in person
military operations. He had not been bred a soldier, and 15
had no inclination to become one. His enemies accused
him of personal cowardice; and he defended himself in a
strain worthy of Captain Bobadil. He kept away from
shot, he said, because silence and tranquillity were pro-
pitious to his genius, and he found it difficult to pursue 20
his meditations amidst the noise of fire-arms. He was thus
under the necessity of intrusting to others the execution of
his great warlike designs; and he bitterly complained
that he was ill served. He had indeed been assisted by
one officer of eminent merit, the celebrated Bussy. But 25
Bussy had marched northward with the Nizam, and was
fully employed in looking after his own interests, and
those of France, at the court of that prince. Among the
officers who remained with Dupleix, there was not a single
man of capacity; and many of them were boys, at whose 30
ignorance and folly the common soldiers laughed.

The English triumphed everywhere. The besiegers of
Trichinopoly were themselves besieged and compelled to
capitulate. Chunda Sahib fell into the hands of the Mah-﻿Lord Clive

30

rattas, and was put to death, at the instigation prob-
ably of his competitor, Mohammed Ali. The spirit of
Dupleix, however, was unconquerable, and his resources
inexhaustible. From his employers in Europe he no longer
5 received help or countenance. They condemned his policy.
They gave him no pecuniary assistance. They sent him
for troops only the sweepings of the galleys. Yet still he
persisted, intrigued, bribed, promised, lavished his private
fortune, strained his credit, procured new diplomas from
10 Delhi, raised up new enemies to the government of
Madras on every side, and found tools even among the
allies of the English Company. But all was in vain.
Slowly, but steadily, the power of Britain continued to
increase, and that of France to decline.

15 The health of Clive had never been good during his
residence in India; and his constitution was now so much
impaired that he determined to return to England. Be-
fore his departure he undertook a service of considerable
difficulty, and performed it with his usual vigor and dex-
20 terity. The forts of Covelong and Chingleput were occu-
pied by French garrisons. It was determined to send a
force against them. But the only force available for this
purpose was of such a description that no officer but
Clive would risk his reputation by commanding it. It
25 consisted of five hundred newly levied sepoys, and two
hundred recruits who had just landed from England, and
who were the worst and lowest wretches that the Com-
pany’s crimps could pick up in the flash-houses of London.
Clive, ill and exhausted as he was, undertook to make an
30 army of this undisciplined rabble, and marched with them
to Covelong. A shot from the fort killed one of these
extraordinary soldiers; on which all the rest faced about
and ran away, and it was with the greatest difficulty that
Clive rallied them. On another occasion, the noise of a﻿Lord Clive

3i

gun terrified the sentinels so much that one of them was
found, some hours later, at the bottom of a well. Clive
gradually accustomed them to danger, and, by exposing
himself constantly in the most perilous situations, shamed
them into courage. He at length succeeded in forming a 5
respectable force out of his unpromising materials. Cove-
long fell. Clive learned that a strong detachment was
marching to relieve it from Chingleput. He took meas-
ures to prevent the enemy from learning that they were
too late, laid an ambuscade for them on the road, killed a 10
hundred of them with one fire, took three hundred prison-
ers, pursued the fugitives to the gates of Chingleput, laid
siege instantly to that fastness, reputed one of the strong-
est in India, made a breach, and was on the point of
storming when the French commandant capitulated and 15
retired with his men.

Clive returned to Madras victorious, but in a state of
health which rendered it impossible for him to remain
there long. ' He married at this time a young lady of the
name of Maskelyne, sister of the eminent mathematician 20
who long held the post of Astronomer Royal. She is
described as handsome and accomplished; and her hus-
band’s letters, it is said, contain proofs that he was de-
votedly attached to her.

Almost immediately after the marriage, Clive embarked 25
with his bride for England. He returned a very different
person from the poor slighted boy who had been sent
out ten years before to seek his fortune. He was only
twenty-seven; yet his country already respected him as one
of her first soldiers. There was then general peace in 30
Europe. The Carnatic was the only part of the world
where the English and French were in arms against each
other. The vast schemes of Dupleix had excited no small
uneasiness in the city of London; and the rapid turn of﻿Lord Clive

32

fortune, which was chiefly owing to the courage and
talents of Clive, had been hailed with great delight.
The young captain was known at the India House by the
honorable nickname of General Clive, and was toasted
S by that appellation at the feasts of the Directors. On
his arrival in England, he found himself an object of gen-
eral interest and admiration. The East India Company
thanked him for his services in the warmest terms, and
bestowed on him a sword set with diamonds. With rare
10 delicacy he refused to receive this token of gratitude un-
less a similar compliment were paid to his friend and
commander, Lawrence.

It may easily be supposed that Clive was most cordially
welcomed home by his family, who were delighted by
15 his success, though they seem to have been hardly able to
comprehend how their naughty idle Bobby had become so
great a man. His father had been singularly hard of
belief. Not until the news of the defense of Arcot arrived
in England was the old gentleman heard to growl out
20 that, after all, the booby had something in him. His ex-
pressions of approbation became stronger and stronger
as news arrived of one brilliant exploit after another;
and he was at length immoderately fond and proud of his
son.

25 Clive’s relations had very substantial reasons for re-
joicing at his return. Considerable sums of prize money
had fallen to his share; and he had brought home a
moderate fortune, part of which he expended in extricating
his father from pecuniary difficulties, and in redeeming the
30 family estate. The remainder he appears to have dissipated
in the course of about two years. He lived splendidly,
dressed gayly even for those timps, kept a carriage and
saddle horses, and, not content with these ways of getting
rid of his money, resorted to the most speedy and effectual﻿Lord Clive

33

of all modes of evacuation, a contested election followed
by a petition.

At the time of the general election of 1754, the govern-
ment was in a very singular state. There was scarcely any
formal opposition. The Jacobites had been cowed by the 5
issue of the last rebellion. The Tory party had fallen
into utter contempt. It had been deserted by all the men
of talents who had belonged to it, and had scarcely given
a symptom of life during some years. The small faction
which had been held together by the influence and prom- 10
ises of Prince Frederic, had been dispersed by his death.
Almost every public man of distinguished talents in the
kingdom, whatever his early connections might have been,
was in office, and called himself a Whig. But this ex-
traordinary appearance of concord was quite delusive. 15
The administration itself was distracted by bitter enmities
and conflicting pretensions. The chief object of its mem-
bers was to depress and supplant each other. The prime
minister, Newcastle, weak, timid, jealous, and perfidious,
was at once detested and despised by some of the most 20
important members of his government, and by none more
than by Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. This able,
daring, and ambitious man seized every opportunity of
crossing the First Lord of the Treasury, from whom he
well knew that he had little to dread and little to hope; 25
for Newcastle was through life equally afraid of break-
ing with men of parts and of promoting them.

Newcastle had set his heart on returning two members
for St. Michael, one of those wretched Cornish boroughs
which were swept away by the Reform Act in 1832. He 30
was opposed by Lord Sandwich, whose influence had long
been paramount there; and Fox exerted himself strenu-
ously in Sandwich’s behalf. Clive, who had been intro-
duced to Fox, and very kindly received by him, was﻿Lord Clive

34

brought forward on the Sandwich interest, and was re-
turned. But a petition was presented against the return,
and was backed by the whole influence of the Duke of
Newcastle.

S The case was heard, according to the usage of that
time, before a committee of the whole House. Questions
respecting elections were then considered merely as
party questions. Judicial impartiality was not even af-
fected. Sir Robert Walpole was in the habit of saying
io openly that, in election battles, there ought to be no
quarter. On the present occasion the excitement was
great. The matter really at issue was, not whether Clive
had been properly or improperly returned, but whether
Newcastle or Fox was to be master of the new House of
15 Commons, and consequently first minister. The contest
was long and obstinate, and success seemed to lean some-
times to one side and sometimes to the other. Fox put
forth all his rare powers of debate, beat half the lawyers
in the House at their own weapons, and carried division
20 after division against the whole influence of the Treasury.
The committee decided in Clive’s favor. But when the
resolution was reported to the House, things took a dif-
ferent course. The remnant of the Tory Opposition,
contemptible as it was, had yet sufficient weight to turn
25 the scale between the nicely balanced parties of Newcastle
and Fox. Newcastle the Tories could only despise. Fox
they hated, as the boldest and most subtle politician
and the ablest debater among the Whigs, as the steady
friend of Walpole, as the devoted adherent of the*Duke
30 of Cumberland. After wavering till the last moment,
they determined to vote in a body with the Prime Min-
ister’s friends. The consequence was that the House, by a
small majority, rescinded the decision of the committee,
and Clive was unseated.﻿Lord Clive

35

Ejected from Parliament and straitened in his means,
he naturally began to look again towards India. The
Company and the Government were eager to avail them-
selves of his services. A treaty favorable to England had
indeed been concluded in the Carnatic. Dupleix had been
superseded, and had returned with the wreck of his im-
mense fortune to Europe, where calumny and chicanery
soon hunted him to his grave. But many signs indicated
that a war between France and Great Britain was at hand;
and it was therefore thought desirable to send an able
commander to the Company’s settlements in India. The
Directors appointed Clive governor of Fort St. David.
The King gave him the commission of a lieutenant-
colonel in the British army, and in 1755 he again sailed
for Asia.

The first service on which he was employed after his
return to the East was the reduction of the stronghold
of Gheriah. This fortress, built on a craggy promon-
tory, and almost surrounded by the ocean, was the den of
a pirate named Angria, whose barks had long been the
terror of the Arabian Gulf. Admiral Watson, who com-
manded the Engljsh squadron in the Eastern seas, burned
Angria’s fleet, while Clive attacked the fastness by land.
The place soon fell, and a booty of a hundred and fifty
thousand pounds sterling was divided among the con-
querors.

After this exploit, Clive proceeded to his government
of Fort St. David. Before he had been there two months,
he received intelligence which called forth all the energy
of his bold and active mind.

Of the provinces which had been subject to the House
of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of In-
dia possessed such natural advantages, both for agriculture
and for commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hun-

5

10

15

20

25

30﻿Lord Clive

36

dred channels to the sea, has formed a vast plain of rich
mold which, even under the tropical sky, rivals the verdure
of an English April. The rice-fields yield an increase such
as is elsewhere unknown. Spices, sugar, vegetable oils, are
5 produced with marvelous exuberance. The rivers afford
an inexhaustible supply of fish. The desolate islands along
the seacoast, overgrown by noxious vegetation, and swarm-
ing with deer and .tigers, supply the cultivated districts
with abundance of salt. The great stream which fertilizes
10 the soil is, at the same time, the chief highway of Eastern
commerce. On its banks, and on those of its tributary
waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capi-
tals, and the most sacred shrines of India. The tyranny
of man had for ages struggled in vain against the over-
15 flowing bounty of nature. In spite of the Mussulman
despot and of the Mahratta freebooter, Bengal was known
through the East as the garden of Eden, as the rich king-
dom. Its population multiplied exceedingly. Distant
provinces were nourished from the overflowing of its
20 granaries; and the noble ladies of London and Paris were
clothed in the delicate produce of its looms. The race
by whom this rich tract was peopled, enervated by a soft
climate and accustomed to peaceful employments, bore the
same relation to other Asiatics which the Asiatics gen-
25 erally bear to the bold and energetic children of Europe.
The Castilians have a proverb, that in Valencia the earth
is water and the men women; and the description is at
least equally applicable to the vast plain of the Lower
Ganges. Whatever the Bengalee does, he does languidly.
30 His favorite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from
bodily exertion; and, though voluble in dispute and singu-
larly pertinacious in the war of chicane, he seldom engages
in a personal conflict, and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier.
We doubt whether there be a hundred genuine Bengalees﻿Lord Clive

37

in the whole army of the East India Company. There
never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by
nature and by habit for a foreign yoke.

The great commercial companies of Europe had long
possessed factories in Bengal. The French were settled, 5
as they still are, at Chandernagore on the Hoogley.
Higher up the stream the Dutch traders held Chinsurah.
Nearer to the sea, the English had built Fort William.

A church and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity. A
row of spacious houses, belonging to the chief factors of 10
the East India Company, lined the banks of the river;
and in the neighborhood had sprung up a large and busy
native town, where some Hindoo merchants of great opu-
lence had fixed their abode. But the tract now covered
by the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a few mis- 15
erable huts thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned
to waterfowl and alligators, covered the site of the pres-
ent Citadel, and the Course, which is now daily crowded
at sunset with the gayest equipages of Calcutta. For the
ground on which the settlement stood, the English, like 20
other great landholders, paid rent to the government; and
they were, like other great landholders, permitted to
exercise a certain jurisdiction within their domain.

The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and
Bahar, had long been governed by a viceroy, whom the 25
English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the other
viceroys of the Mogul, had become virtually independent.
He died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to his
grandson, a youth under twenty years of age, who bore the
name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental despots are perhaps 30
the worst class of human beings; and this unhappy boy
was one of the worst specimens of his class. His under-
standing was naturally feeble, and his temper naturally
unamiable. His education had been such as would have﻿Lord Clive

38

enervated even a vigorous intellect, and perverted even a
generous disposition. He was unreasonable, because no-
body ever dared to reason with him, and selfish, because he
had never been made to feel himself dependent on the good
5 will of others. Early debauchery had unnerved his body
and his mind. He indulged immoderately in the use of
ardent spirits, which inflamed his weak brain almost to
madness. His chosen companions were flatterers, sprung
from the dregs of the people, and recommended by noth-
10 ing but buffoonery and servility. It is said that he had
arrived at that last stage of human depravity, when cruelty
becomes pleasing for its own sake, when the sight of pain
as pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offense
punished, no danger averted, is an agreeable excitement.
15 It had early been his amusement to torture beasts and
birds; and, when he grew up, he enjoyed with still keener
relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.

From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English.
It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never
20 opposed. He had also formed a very exaggerated notion
of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering
them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable
of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been
even greater than he imagined, would not compensate
25 him for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which
Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence
to some other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily
found. The English, in expectation of a war with France,
had begun to fortify their settlement without special per-
30 mission from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed
to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not
been delivered up. On such grounds as these Surajah
Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.

The servants of the Company at Madras had been﻿Lord Clive

39

forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers.
Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terri-
fied and bewildered by the approaching danger. The gov-
ernor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah’s cruelty,
was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, and
took refuge in the nearest ship. The military comman-
dant thought that he could not do better than follow so
good an example. The fort was taken after a feeble
resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the
hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with
regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered
Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, to be
brought before him. His Highness talked about the in-
solence of the English, and grumbled at the smallness of
the treasure which he had found; but promised to spare
their lives, and retired to rest.

Then was committed that great crime, memorable for
its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retri-
bution by which it was followed. The English captives
were left at the mercy of the guards, and the guards de-
termined to secure them for the night in the prison of the
garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the
Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor,
that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close
and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square.
The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the
summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal
can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by
lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans. The num-
ber of the prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When
they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the
soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account
of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they
laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They

5

io

15

20

25

30﻿Lord Clive

40

soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they
entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut
down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into
the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was in-
5 stantly shut and locked upon them.

Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which
Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had
wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, ap-
proaches the horrors which were recounted by the few
10 survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They
strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that
extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large
bribes to the jailers. But the answer was that nothing
could be done without the Nabob’s orders, that the
15 Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody
woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair.
They trampled each other down, fought for the places at
the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which
the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies,
20 raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire
among them. The jailers in the meantime held lights to
the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic strug-
gles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in
low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob
25 had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be
opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could
make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side
the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had al-
ready begun to do its loathsome work. When at length
30 a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such
as their own mothers would not have known, staggered
one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly
dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in
number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up.﻿Lord Clive

4i

But these things, which, after the lapse of more than
eighty years, cannot be told or read without horror,
awakened neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of the
savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment on the mur-
derers. He showed no tenderness to the survivors. Some 5
of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be got, were
suffered to depart; but those from whom it was thought
that anything could be extorted were treated with exe-
crable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was carried be-
fore the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened him, and 10
sent him up the country in irons, together with some
other gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more
than they chose to tell about the treasures of the Com-
pany. These persons, still bowed down by the sufferings
of that great agony, were lodged in miserable sheds, and 15
fed only with grain and water, till at length the interces-
sions of the female relations of the Nabob procured their
release. One Englishwoman had survived that night.
She was placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshe-
dabad.	20

Surajah Dowlah, in the meantime, sent letters to his
nominal sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest
in the most pompous language. He placed a garrison in
Fort William, forbade any Englishman to dwell in the
neighborhood, and directed that, in memory of his great 25
actions, Calcutta should thenceforward be called Alina-
gore, that is to say, the Port of God.

In August the news of the fall of Calcutta reached
Madras, and excited the fiercest and bitterest resentment.
The cry of the whole settlement was for vengeance. 30
Within forty-eight hours after the arrival of the intelli-
gence, it was determined that an expedition should be
sent to the Hoogley, and that Clive should be at the head
of the land forces. The naval armament was under the﻿Lord Clive

42

command of Admiral Watson. Nine hundred English in-
fantry, fine troops and full of spirit, and fifteen hundred
sepoys composed the army which sailed to punish a Prince
who had more subjects than Louis the Fifteenth or the
5 Empress Maria Theresa. In October the expedition
sailed; but it had to make its way against adverse winds,
and did not reach Bengal till December.

The Nabob was reveling in fancied security at Moor-
shedabad. He was so profoundly ignorant of the state of
10 foreign countries that he often used to say that there were
not ten thousand men in all Europe; and it had never
occurred to him as possible, that the English would dare
to invade his dominions. But, though undisturbed by any
fear of their military power, he began to miss them greatly.
15 His revenues fell off; and his ministers succeeded in mak-
ing him understand that a ruler may sometimes find it
more profitable to protect traders in the open enjoyment
of their gains than to put them to the torture for the
purpose of discovering hidden chests of gold and jewels.
20 He was already disposed to permit the Company to re-
sume its mercantile operations in his country, when he
received the news that an English armament was in the
Hoogley. He instantly ordered all his troops to assemble
at Moorshedabad, and marched towards Calcutta.

25 Clive had commenced operations with his usual vigor.
He took Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort Wil-
liam, recovered Calcutta, stormed and sacked Hoogley.
The Nabob, already disposed to make some concessions to
the English, was confirmed in his pacific disposition by
30 these proofs of their power and spirit. He accordingly
made overtures to the chiefs of the invading armament,
and offered to restore the factory, and to give compensa-
tion to those whom he had despoiled.

Clive’s profession was war; and he felt that there was﻿Lord Clive

43

something discreditable in an accommodation with Sura-
jah- Dowlah. But his power was limited. A committee,
chiefly composed of servants of the Company who had
fled from Calcutta, had the principal direction of affairs;
and these persons were eager to be restored to their posts 5
and compensated for their losses. The government of
Madras, apprised that war had commenced in Europe, and
apprehensive of an attack from the French, became impa-
tient for the return of the armament. The promises of
the Nabob were large, the chances of a contest doubtful; 10
and Clive consented to treat, though he expressed his
regret that things should not be concluded in so glorious
a manner as he could have wished.

With this negotiation commences a new chapter in
the life of Clive. Hitherto he had been merely a soldier, 15
carrying into effect, with eminent ability and valor, the
plans of others. Henceforth he is to be chiefly regarded
as a statesman; and his military movements .are to be con-
sidered as subordinate to his political designs. That in his
new capacity he displayed great ability, and obtained great 20
success, is unquestionable. But it is also unquestionable that
the transactions in which he now began to take a part
have left a stain on his moral character.

We can by no means agree with Sir John Malcolm,
who is obstinately resolved to see nothing but honor and 25
integrity in the conduct of his hero. But we can as little
agree with Mr. Mill, who has gone so far as to say that
Clive was a man “ to whom deception, when it suited his
purpose, never, cost a pang.” Clive seems to us to have
been constitutionally the very opposite of a knave, bold 3a
even to temerity, sincere even to indiscretion, hearty in
friendship, open in enmity. Neither in his private life, nor
in those parts of his public life in which he had to do with
his countrymen* do we find any signs of a propensity to.﻿Lord Clive

44

cunning On the contrary, in all the disputes in which he
was engaged as an Englishman against Englishmen, from
his boxing-matches at school to those stormy altercations at
the India House and in Parliament, amidst which his later
5 years were passed, his very faults were those of a high and
magnanimous spirit. The truth seems to have been that he
considered Oriental politics as a game in which nothing
was unfair. He knew that the standard of morality
among the natives of India differed widely from that
io established in England. He knew that he had to deal
with men destitute of what in Europe is called honor, with
men who would give any promise without hesitation, and
break any promise without shame, with men who would
unscrupulously employ corruption, perjury, forgery, to
15 compass their ends. His letters show that the great dif-
ference between Asiatic and European morality was con-
stantly in his thoughts. He seems to have imagined,
most erroneously in our opinion, that he could effect noth-
ing against such adversaries, if he was content to be bound
20 by ties from which they were free, if he went on telling
truth, and hearing none, if he fulfilled, to his own hurt,
all his engagements with confederates who never kept an
engagement that was not to their advantage. Accord-
ingly this man, in the other parts of his life an honorable
25 English gentleman and a soldier, was no sooner matched
against an Indian intriguer, than he became himself an
Indian intriguer, and descended, without scruple, to false-
hood, to hypocritical caresses, to the substitution of docu-
ments, and to the counterfeiting of hands.

30 The negotiations between the English and the Nabob
were carried on chiefly by two agents, Mr. Watts, a
servant of the Company, and a Bengalee of the name of
Omichund. This Omichund had been one of the wealthi-
est native merchants resident at Calcutta, and had sus-﻿Lord Clive

45

tained great losses in consequence of the Nabob’s expedi-
tion against that place. In the course of his commercial
transactions, he had seen much of the English, and was
peculiarly qualified to serve as a medium of communication
between them and a native court. He possessed great
influence with his own race, and had in large measure
the Hindoo talents, quick observation, tact, dexterity,
perseverance, and the Hindoo vices, servility, greediness,
and treachery.

The Nabob behaved with all the faithlessness of an
Indian statesman, and with all the levity of a boy whose
mind had been enfeebled by power and self-indulgence.
He promised, retracted, hesitated, evaded. At one time
he advanced with his army in a threatening manner to-
wards Calcutta; but when he saw the resolute front which
the English presented, he fell back in alarm, and consented
to make peace with them on their own terms. The
treaty was no sooner concluded than he formed new de-
signs against them. He intrigued with the French au-
thorities at Chandernagore. He invited Bussy to march
from the Deccan to the Hoogley, and to drive the English
out of Bengal. All this was well known to Clive and
Watson. They determined accordingly to strike a decisive
blow, and to attack Chandernagore, before the force there
could be strengthened by new arrivals, either from the
south of India, or from Europe. Watson directed the
expedition by water, Clive by land. The success of the
combined movements was rapid and complete. The fort,
the garrison, the artillery, the military stores, all fell into
the hands of the English. Near five hundred European
troops were among the prisoners.

The Nabob had feared and hated the English, even
while he was still able to oppose to them their French
rivals. The French were now vanquished; and he began

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20

25

30﻿46	Lord Clive

to regard the English with still greater fear and still
greater hatred. His weak and unprincipled mind oscil-
lated between servility and insolence. One day he sent
a large sum to Calcutta, as part of the compensation due
5 for the wrongs which he had committed. The next day
he sent a present of jewels to Bussy, exhorting that dis-
tinguished officer to hasten to protect Bengal “ against
Clive, the daring in war, on whom,” says his Highness,
“ may all bad fortune attend.” He ordered his army
io to march against the English. He countermanded his
orders. He tore Clive’s letters. He then sent answers in
the most florid language of compliment. He ordered
Watts out of his presence, and threatened to impale him.
lie again sent for Watts, and begged pardon for the in-
15 suit. In the meantime, his wretched maladministration,
his folly, his dissolute manners, and his love of the lowest
company, had disgusted all classes of his subjects, soldiers,
traders, civil functionaries, the proud and ostentatious
Mohammedans, the timid, supple, and parsimonious Hin-
20 doos. A formidable confederacy was formed against him,
in which were included Roydullub, the minister of finance,
Meer Jaffier, the principal commander of the troops, and
Jugget Seit, the richest banker in India. The plot was
confided to the English agents, and a communication was
25 opened between the malcontents at Moorshedabad and
the committee at Calcutta.

In the committee there was much hesitation; but Clive’s
voice was given in favor of the conspirators, and his vigor
and firmness bore down all opposition. It was deter-
30 mined that the English should lend their pbwerful assist-
ance to depose Surajah Dowlah, and to place Meer Jaffier
on the throne of Bengal. In return, Meer Jaffier promised
ample compensation to the Company and its servants, and
a liberal donative to the army, the navy, and the com-﻿Lord Clive

47

mittee. The odious vices of Surajah Dowlah, the wrongs
which the English had suffered at his hands, the dangers to
which our trade must have been exposed had he continued
to reign, appear to us fully to justify the resolution of
deposing him. But nothing can justify the dissimulation 5
which Clive stooped to practise. He wrote to Surajah
Dowlah in terms so affectionate "that they for a time
lulled that weak prince into perfect security. , The same
courier who carried this “ soothing letter,” as Clive calls
it, to the Nabob, carried to Mr. Watts a letter in the fol- 10
lowing terms: “Tell Meer Jaffier to fear nothing. I will
join him with five thousand men who never turned their
backs. Assure him I will march night and day to his
assistance, and stand by him as long as I have a man left.”

It was impossible that a plot which had so many rami- 15
fications should long remain entirely concealed. Enough
reached the ears of the Nabob to arouse his suspicions.
But he was soon quieted by the fictions and artifices which
the inventive genius of Omichund produced with miracu-
lous readiness. All was going well; the plot was nearly 20
ripe; when Clive learned that Omichund was likely to
play false. The artful Bengalee had been promised a
liberal compensation for all that he had lost at Calcutta.
But this would not satisfy him. His services had been
great. He held the thread of the whole intrigue. By 25
one word breathed in the ear of Surajah Dowlah he could
undo all that he had done. The lives of Watts, of Meer
Jaffier, of all the conspirators, were at his mercy; and
he determined to take advantage of his situation and to
make his own terms. He demanded three hundred thou- 30
sand pounds sterling as the price of his secrecy and of his
assistance. The committee, incensed by the treachery,
and appalled by the danger, knew not what course to
take. But Clive was more than Omichund’s match in﻿Lord Clive

48

Omichund’s own arts. The man, he said, was a villain.
Any artifice which would defeat such knavery was justi-
fiable. The best course would be to promise what was
asked. Omichund would soon be at their mercy; and then
5 they might punish him by withholding from him, not only
the bribe which he now demanded, but also the com-
pensation which all the other sufferers of Calcutta were
to receive.

His advice was taken. But how was the wary and
10 sagacious Hindoo to be deceived? He had demanded
that an article touching his claims should be inserted in
the treaty between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he
would not be satisfied unless he saw it with his own eyes.
Clive had an expedient ready. Two treaties were drawn
15 up, one on white paper, the other on red, the former
real, the latter fictitious. In the former Omichund’s name
was not mentioned; the latter, which was to be shown to
him, contained a stipulation in his favor.

But another difficulty arose. Admiral Watson had
20 scruples about signing the red treaty. Omichund’s vigi-
lance and acuteness were such that the absence of so im-
portant a name would probably awaken his suspicions.
But Clive was not a man to do anything by halves. We
almost blush to write it. He forged Admiral Watson’s
25 name.

All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly
from Moorshedabad. Clive put his troops in motion,
and wrote to the 'Nabob in a tone very different from that
of his previous letters. He set forth all the wrongs
30 which the British had suffered, offered to submit the points
in dispute to the arbitration of Meer Jaffier, and concluded
by announcing that, as the rains were about to set in, he
and his men would do themselves the honor of waiting on
his Highness for an answer.﻿Lord Clive

49

Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force,
and marched to encounter the English. It had been agreed
that Meer Jaffier should separate himself from the Nabob,
and carry over his division to Clive. But, as the decisive
moment approached, the fears of the conspirator over- 5
powered his ambition. Clive had advanced to Cossim-
buzar; the Nabob lay with a mighty power a few miles
off at Plassey; and still Meer Jaffier delayed to fulfil his
engagements, and returned evasive answers to the earnest
remonstrances of the English general.	10

Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could
place no confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of
his confederate; and, whatever confidence he might place
in his own military talents, and in the valor and discipline
of his troops, it was no light thing to engage an army 15
twenty times as numerous as his own. Before him lay
a river over which it was easy to advance, but over which,
if things went ill, not one of his little band would ever
return. On this occasion, for the first and for the last
time, his dauntless spirit, during a few hours, shrank from 20
the fearful responsibility of making a decision. He called
a council of war. The majority pronounced against fight-
ing; and Clive declared his concurrence with the majority.
Long afterwards, he said that he had never called but one
council of war, and that, if he had taken the advice of 25
that council, the British would never have been masters of
Bengal. But scarcely had the meeting broken up when he
was himself again. He retired alone under the shade
of some trees, and passed near an hour there in thought.

He came back determined to put everything to the hazard, 30
and gave orders^that all should be in readiness for pass-
ing the river on the morrow.

The river was passed; and, at the close of a toilsome
day’s march, the army, long after sunset, took up its﻿Lord Clive

50

quarters in a grove of mango trees near Plassey, within
a mile of the enemy. Clive was unable to sleep; he heard
through the whole night the sound of drums and cymbals
from the vast camp of the Nabob. It is not strange that
5 even his stout heart should now and then have sunk, when
he reflected against what odds, and for what a prize, he
was in a few hours to contend.

Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful.
His mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by wild
10 and horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the greatness
and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dread-
ing every one who approached him, dreading to be left
alone, he sat gloomily in his tent, haunted, a Greek poet
would have said, by the furies of those who had cursed
15 him with their last breath in the Black Hole.

The day broke, the day which was to decide the fate
of India. At sunrise, the army of the Nabob, pouring
through many openings from the camp, began to move
towards the grove where the English lay. Forty thousand
20 infantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and
arrows, covered the plain. They were accompanied by
fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged
by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from
behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, under the
25 direction of a few French auxiliaries, were perhaps more
formidable. The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn,
not from the effeminate population of Bengal, but from
the bolder race which inhabits the northern provinces;
and the practised eye of Clive could perceive that both the
30 men and the horses were more powerful than those of the
Carnatic. The force which he had to oppose to this great
multitude consisted of only three thousand men. But of
these nearly a thousand were English; and all were led
by English officers, and trained in the English discipline.﻿Lord Clive

5i

Conspicuous in the ranks of the little army were the men
of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment, which still bears on its
colors, amidst many honorable additions won under Well-
ington in Spain and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and
the proud motto, Primus in Indis.	5

The battle commenced with a cannonade in which the
artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while
the few field-pieces of the English produced great effect.
Several of the most distinguished officers in Surajah
Dowlah’s service fell. Disorder began to spread through 10
his ranks. His own terror increased every moment. One
of the conspirators urged on him the expediency of re-
treating. The insidious advice, agreeing as it did with
what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. He
ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his 15
fale. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops
to advance. The confused and dispirited multitude gave
way before the onset of disciplined valor. No mob at-
tacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely
routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ven- 20
tured to confront the English, were swept down the stream
of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah
were dispersed, never to reassemble. Only five hundred of
the vanquished were slain. But their camp, their guns,
their baggage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle, 25
remained in the power of the conquerors. With the loss
of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty wounded, Clive
had scattered an army of nearly sixty thousand men, and
subdued an empire larger and more populous than Great
Britain.	30

Meer Jaffier had given no assistance to the English
during the action. But as soon as he saw that the fate
of the day was decided, he drew off his division of the
army, and, when the battle was over, sent his congratula-﻿Lord Clive

52

tions to his ally. The next morning he repaired to the
English quarters,- not a little uneasy as to the reception
which awaited him there. He gave evident signs of alarm
when a guard was drawn out to receive him with the
S honors due to his rank. But his apprehensions were speed-
ily removed. Clive came forward to meet him, embraced
him, saluted him as Nabob of the three great provinces of
Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, listened graciously to his
apologies, and advised him to march without delay to
10 Moorshedabad.

Surajah Dowlah had fled from the field of battle with
all the speed with which a fleet camel could carry him,
and arrived at Moorshedabad in little more than twenty-
four hours. There he called his councilors round him.
15 The wisest advised him to put himself into the hands of
the English, from whom he had nothing worse to fear than
deposition and confinement. But he attributed this sug-
gestion to treachery. Others urged him to try the chance
of war again. He approved the advice, and issued orders
20 accordingly. But he wanted spirit to adhere even dur-
ing one day to a manly resolution. He learned that
Meer Jaffier had arrived; and his terrors became insup-
portable. Disguised in a mean dress, with a casket of
jewels in his hand, he let himself down at night from a
25 window of his palace, and, accompanied by only two
attendants, embarked on the river for Patna.

In a few days Clive arrived at Moorshedabad, escorted
by two hundred English soldiers and three hundred sepoys.
For his residence had been assigned a palace, which was
30 surrounded by a garden so spacious that all the troops
who accompanied him could conveniently encamp within
it. The ceremony of the installation of Meer Jaffier was
instantly performed. Clive led the new Nabob to the seat
of honor, placed him on it, presented to him, after the﻿Lord Clive

53

immemorial fashion of the East, an offering of gold,
and then, turning to the natives who filled the hall,
congratulated them on the good fortune which had
freed them from a tyrant. He was compelled on this occa-
sion to use the services of an interpreter; for it is remark-
able that, long as he resided in India, intimately ac-
quainted as he was with Indian politics and with the
Indian character, and adored as he was by his Indian
soldiery, he never learned to express himself with facility
in any Indian language. He is said indeed to have been
sometimes under the necessity of employing, in his inter-
course with the natives of India, the smattering of Portu-
guese which he had acquired, when a lad, in Brazil.

The new sovereign was now called upon to fulfil the
engagements into which he had entered with his allies.
A conference was held at the house of Jugget Seit, the
great banker, for the purpose of making the necessary
arrangements. Omichund came thither, fully believing
himself to stand high in the favor of Clive, who, with
dissimulation surpassing even the dissimulation of Bengal,
had up to that day treated him with undiminished kind-
ness. The white treaty was produced and read. Clive
then turned to Mr. Scrafton, one of the servants of the Com-
pany, and said in English, “ It is now time to undeceive
Omichund.” “ Omichund,” said Mr. Scrafton in Hindo-
stanee, “the red treaty is a trick. You are to have
nothing.” Omichund fell back insensible into the arms
of his attendants. He revived; but his mind was irrep-
arably ruined. Clive, who, though little troubled by
scruples of conscience in his dealings with Indian poli-
ticians, was not inhuman, seems to have been touched.
He saw Omichund a few days later, spoke to him kindly,
advised him to make a pilgrimage to one of the great
temples of India, in the hope that change of scene might

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30﻿54	Lord Clive

restore his health, and was even disposed, notwithstand-
ing all that had passed, again to employ him in the
public service. But, from the moment of that sudden
shock, the unhappy man sank gradually into idiocy. He
5 who had formerly been distinguished by the strength
of his understanding and the simplicity of his habits, now
squandered the remains of his fortune on childish trinkets,
and loved to exhibit himself dressed in rich garments, and
hung with precious stones. In this abject state he lan-
10 guished a few months, and then died.

We should not think it necessary to offer any remarks
for the purpose of directing the judgment of our readers
with respect to this transaction, had not Sir John Mal-
colm undertaken to defend it in all its parts. He regrets,
15 indeed, that it was necessary to employ means so liable
to abuse as forgery; but he will not admit that any blame
attaches to those who deceived the deceiver. He thinks
that the English were not bound to keep faith with one
who kept no faith with them, and that, if they had ful-
20 filled their engagements with the wily Bengalee, so sig-
nal an example of successful treason would have produced
a crowd of imitators. Now, we will not discuss this
point on any rigid principles of morality. Indeed, it is
quite unnecessary to do so; for, looking at the question as
25 a question of expediency in the lowest sense of the word,
and using no arguments but such as Machiavelli might
have employed in his conferences with Borgia, we are con-
vinced that Clive was altogether in the wrong, and that
he committed, not merely a crime, but a'blunder. That
30 honesty is the best policy is a maxim which we firmly be-
lieve to be-generally correct, even with respect to the tem-
poral interests of individuals; but, with respect to societies,
the rule is subject to still fewer exceptions, and that for
this reason, that the life of societies is longer than the﻿Lord Clive

55

life of individuals. It is possible to mention men who
have owed great worldly prosperity to breaches of private
faith. But we doubt whether it be possible to mention a
state which has on jthe whole been a gainer by a breach
of public faith. The entire history of British India is an 5
illustration of the great truth, that it is not prudent to
oppose perfidy to perfidy, and that the most efficient
weapon with which men can encounter falsehood is truth. >
During a long course of years, the English rulers of India,
surrounded by allies and enemies whom no engagement 10
could bind, have generally acted with sincerity and up-
rightness; and the event has proved that sincerity and
uprightness are wisdom. English valor and English in-
telligence have done less to extend and to preserve our
Oriental empire than English veracity. „A11 that we 15
could have gained by imitating the doublings, the evasions,
the fictions, the perjuries which have been employed
against us is as nothing, when compared with what we
have gained by being the one power in India on whose
word- reliance can be placed. No oath which superstition 20
can devise, no hostage however precious, inspires a hun-
dredth part of the confidence which is produced by the
“yea, yea,” and “nay, nay,” of a British envoy. No
fastness, however strong by art or nature, gives to its in-
mates a security like that enjoyed by the chief who, passing 25
through the territories of powerful and deadly enemies,
is armed with the British guarantee. The mightiest
princes of the East can scarcely, by the offer of enormous
usury, draw forth any portion of the wealth which is
concealed under the hearths of their subjects. The British 30
Government offers little more than four per cent.; and
avarice hastens to bring forth tens of millions of rupees
from its most secret repositories. A hostile monarch may
promise mountains of gold to our sepoys, on condition﻿Lord Clive

56

that they will desert the standard of the Company. The
Company promises only a moderate pension after a long
service. But every sepoy knows that the promise of the
Company will be kept; he knows that if he lives a hun-
5 dred years his rice and salt are as secure as the salary
of the Governor-General; and he knows that there is not
another state in India which would not, in spite of the
most solemn vows, leave him to die of hunger in a ditch
as soon as he had ceased to be useful. The greatest ad-
10 vantage which a government can possess is to be the one
trustworthy government in the midst of governments
which nobody can trust. This advantage we enjoy in
Asia. Had we acted during the last two generations on
the principles which Sir John Malcolm appears to have
15 considered as sound, had we as often as we had to deal
with people like Omichund, retaliated by lying and forg-
ing, and breaking faith, after their fashion, it is our firm
belief that no courage or capacity could have upheld
our empire.

20 Sir John Malcolm admits that Clive’s breach of faith
could be justified only by the strongest necessity. As we
think that breach of faith not only unnecessary, but most
inexpedient, we need hardly say that we altogether con-
demn it.

25 Omichund was not the only victim of the revolution.
Surajah Dowlah was taken a few days after his flight
and was brought before Meer Jaffier. There he flung
himself on the ground in convulsions of fear, and with
tears and loud cries implored the mercy which he had never
30 shown. Meer Jaffier hesitated; but his son Meeran, a
youth of seventeen, who in feebleness of brain and savage-
ness of nature greatly resembled the wretched captive, was
implacable. Surajah Dowlah was led into a secret cham-
ber, to which in a short time the ministers of death were﻿Lord Clive

57

sent. In this act the English bore no part; and Meer
Jaffier understood so much of their feelings, that he
thought it necessary to apologize to them for having
avenged them on their most malignant enemy.

The shower of wealth now fell copiously on the Com-
pany and its servants. A sum of eight hundred thousand
pounds sterling, in coined silver, was sent down the river
from Moorshedabad to Fort William. The fleet which
conveyed this treasure consisted of more than a hundred
boats, and performed its triumphal voyage with flags fly-
ing and music playing. Calcutta, which a few months
before had been desolate, was now more prosperous than
ever. Trade revived; and the signs of affluence appeared
in every English house. As to Clive, there was no limit
to his acquisitions but his own moderation. The treasury
of Bengal was thrown open to him. There were piled up,
after the usage of Indian princes, immense masses of coin,
among which might not seldom be detected the florins and
byzants with which, before any European ship had turned
the Cape of Good Hope, the Venetians purchased the
stuffs and spices of the East. Clive walked between
heaps of gold and silver, crowned with rubies and dia-
monds, and was at liberty to help himself. He accepted
between two and three hundred thousand pounds.

‘'The pecuniary transactions between Meer Jaffier and
Clive were sixteen years later condemned by the public
voice, and severely criticised in Parliament. They are
vehemently defended by Sir John Malcolm. The accusers
of the victorious general represented his gains as the wages
of corruption, or as plunder extorted at the point of the
sword from a helpless ally. The biographer, on the other
hand, considers these great acquisitions as free gifts, honor-
able alike to the donor and to the receiver, and compares
them to the rewards bestowed by foreign powders on Marl-

5

10

15

20

25

30﻿Lord Clive

58

borough, on Nelson, and on Wellington. It had always,
he says, been customary in the East to give and receive
presents; and there was, as yet, tio Act of Parliament
positively prohibiting English functionaries in India from
5 profiting by this Asiatic usage. This reasoning, we own,
does not quite satisfy us. We do not suspect Clive of
selling the interests of his employers or his country; but
we cannot acquit him of having done what, if not in itself
evil, was yet of evil example. Nothing is more clear than
10 that a general ought to be the servant of his own govern-
ment, and of no other. It follows that whatever rewards
he receives for his services ought to be given either by his
own government, or with the full knowledge and appro-
bation of his own government. This rule ought to be
15 strictly maintained even with respect to the merest bauble,
with respect to a cross, a medal, or a yard of colored rib-
bon. But how can any government be well served, if
those who command its forces are at liberty, without its
permission, without its privity, to accept princely fortunes
20 from its allies? It is idle to say that there was then no
Act of Parliament prohibiting the practice of taking
presents from Asiatic sovereigns. It is not on the Act
which was passed at a later period for the purpose of
preventing any such taking of presents, but on grounds
25 which were valid before that Act was passed, on grounds
of common law and common sense, that we arraign the
conduct of Clive. There is no Act that we know of,
prohibiting the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
from being in the pay of continental powers, but it is not
30 the less true that a Secretary who should receive a secret
pension from France would grossly violate his duty, and
would deserve severe punishment. Sir John Malcolm
compares the conduct of Clive with that of the Duke of
Wellington. Suppose,—and we beg pardon for putting﻿Lord Clive

59

such a supposition even for the sake of argument,—
that the Duke of Wellington had, after the campaign of
1815, and while he commanded the army of occupation
in France, privately accepted two hundred thousand
pounds from Louis the Eighteenth, as a mark of gratitude 5
for the great services which his Grace had rendered to
the House of Bourbon; what would be thought of such a
transaction? Yet the statute-book no more forbids the
taking of presents in Europe now than it forbade the
taking of presents in Asia then.	10

At the same time, it must be admitted that, in Clive’s
case, there were many extenuating circumstances. He
considered himself as the general, not of the Crown, but
of the Company. The Company had, by implication at
least, authorized its agents to enrich themselves by means 15
of the liberality of the native princes, and by other means
still more objectionable. It was hardly to be expected
that the servant should entertain stricter notions of his
duty than were entertained by his masters. Though Clive
did not distinctly acquaint his employers with what had 20
taken place, and request their sanction, he did not, on the
other hand, by studied concealment, show that he was
conscious of having done wrong. On the contrary, he
avowed with the greatest openness that the Nabob’s bounty
had raised him to affluence. Lastly, though we think that 25
he ought not in such a way to have taken anything, we
must admit that he deserves praise for having taken so
little. He accepted twenty lacs of rupees. It would have
cost him only a word to make the twenty forty. It was
a very easy exercise of virtue to declaim in England 30
against Clive’s rapacity; but not one in a hundred of his
accusers would have shown so much self-command in the
treasury of Moorshedabad.

Meer Jaffier could be upheld on the throne only by the﻿6o

Lord Clive

hand which had placed him on it. He was not, indeed,
a mere boy; nor had he been so unfortunate as to be born
in the purple. He was not, therefore, quite so imbecile
or quite so depraved as his predecessor had been. But he
5 had none of the talents or virtues which his post required;
and his son and heir, Meeran, was another Surajah Dow-
lah. The recent revolution had unsettled the minds of
men. Many chiefs were in open insurrection against the
new Nabob. The viceroy of the rich and powerful prov-
io ince of Oude, who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul,
was now in truth an independent sovereign, menaced
Bengal with invasion. Nothing but the talents and au-
thority of Clive could support the tottering government.
While things were in this state, a ship arrived with
15 despatches which had been written at the India Hotise
before the news of the battle of Plassey had reached Lon-
don. The Directors had determined to place the English
settlements in Bengal under a government constituted in
the most cumbrous and absurd manner; and, to make the
20 matter worse, no place in the arrangement was assigned to
Clive. The persons who were selected to form this new
government, greatly to their honor, took on themselves the
responsibility of disobeying these preposterous orders, and
invited Clive to exercise the supreme authority. He con-
25 sented; and it soon appeared that the servants of the
Company had only anticipated the wishes of their em-
ployers. The Directors, on receiving news of Clive’s
brilliant success, instantly appointed him governor of their
possessions in Bengal, with the highest marks of gratitude
30 and esteem. His power was now boundless, and far sur-
passed even that which Dupleix had attained in the south
of India. Meer Jaffier regarded him with slavish awe.
On one occasion, the Nabob spoke with severity to a native
chief of high rank, whose followers had been engaged in﻿Lord Clive

61

a brawl with some of the Company’s sepoys. “ Are you
yet to learn,” he said, “ who that Colonel Clive is, and in
what station God has placed him? ” The chief, who, as a
famous jester and an old friend of Meer Jaffier, could
venture to take liberties, answered, “ I affront the
Colonel! I, who never get up in the morning without
making three low hows to his jackass! ” This was hardly
an exaggeration.' Europeans and natives were alike at
Clive’s feet. The English regarded him as the only man
who could force Meer Jaffier to keep his engagements with
them. Meer Jaffier regarded him as the only man who
could protect the new djyjasty against turbulent subjects
and encroaching neighbors.

It is but justice to say that Clive used his power ably
and vigorously for the advantage of his country. He sent
forth an expedition against the tract lying to the north of
the Carnatic. In this tract the French still had the
ascendency; and it was important to dislodge them. The
conduct of the enterprise was intrusted to an officer of
the name of Forde, who was then little known, but in
whom the keen eye of the Governor had detected military
talents of a high order. The success of the expedition
was rapid and splendid.

While a considerable part of the army of Bengal was
thus engaged at a distance, a new and formidable danger
menaced the western frontier. The Great Mogul was a
prisoner at Delhi in the hands of a subject. His eldest
son, named Shah Alum, destined to be, during many years,
the sport of adverse fortune, and to be a tool in the hands,
first of the Mahrattas, and then of the English, had fled
from the palace of his father. His birth wras still revered
in India. Some powerful princes, the Nabob of Oude in
particular, were inclined to favor him. Shah Alum found
it easy to draw to his standard great numbers of the

5

io

15

20

25

30﻿6 2

Lord Clive

military adventurers with whom every part of the coun-
try swarmed. An army of forty thousand men, of
various races and religions, Mahrattas, Rohillas, Jauts,
and Afghans, was speedily assembled round him; and he
5 formed the design of overthrowing the upstart whom the
English had elevated to a throne, and of establishing his
own authority throughout Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar.

Meer Jaffier’s terror was extreme; and the only ex-
pedient which occurred to him was to purchase, by the
io payment of a large sum of money, an accommodation with
Shah Alum. This expedient had been repeatedly em-
ployed by those who, before him, had ruled the rich and
unwarlike provinces near the mouth of the Ganges. But
Clive treated the suggestion with a scorn worthy of his
15 strong sense and dauntless courage. “ If you do this,” he
wrote, “ you will have the Nabob of Oude, the Mahrattas,
and many more, come from all parts of the confines of
your country, who will bully you out of money till you
have none left in your treasury. I beg your Excellency
20 will rely on the fidelity of the English, and of those troops
which are attached to you.” He wrote in a similar
strain to the governor of Patna, a brave native soldier
whom he highly esteemed. “Come to no terms; defend
your city to the last. Rest assured that the English are
25 stanch and firm friends, and that they never desert a cause
in which they have once taken a part.”

He kept his word. Shah Alum had invested Patna,
and was on the point of~ proceeding to storm, when he
learned that the Colonel was advancing by forced marches.
30 The whole army which was approaching consisted of only
four hundred and fifty Europeans and two thousand five
hundred sepoys. But Clive and his Englishmen were now
objects of dread over all the East. As soon as his advanced
guard appeared, the besiegers fled before him. A few﻿Lord Clive

63

French adventurers who were about the person of the
prince advised him to try the chance of battle; but in vain.

In a few days this great army, which had been regarded
with so much uneasiness by the court of Moorshedabad,
melted away before the mere terror of the British name. 5
' The conqueror returned in triumph to Fort William.
The joy of Meer Jaffier was as unbounded as his fears
had been, and led him to bestow on his preserver a
princely token of gratitude. The quit-rent which the
East India Company were bound to pay to the Nabob 10
for the extensive lands held by them to the south of Cal-
cutta amounted to near thirty thousand pounds sterling a
year. The whole of this splendid estate, sufficient to
support with dignity the highest rank of the* British peer-
age, was now conferred on Clive for life.	15

This present we think Clive justified in accepting.

It was a present which, from its very nature, could be
no secret. In fact, the Company itself was his tenant,
and by its acquiescence, signified its approbation of Meer
Jaffier’s grant.	20

But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last long.

He had for some time felt that the powerful ally who had
set him up might pull him down, and had been looking
round for support against the formidable strength by
which he had himself been hitherto supported. He knew 25
that it would be impossible to find among the natives of
India any force which would look the Colonel’s little
army in the face. The French power in Bengal was ex-
tinct. But the fame of the Dutch had anciently been
great in the Eastern seas; and it was not yet distinctly 30
known in Asia how much the power of Holland had
declined in Europe. Secret communications passed be-
tween the court of Moorshedabad and the Dutch factory
at Chinsurah; and urgent letters were sent from Chin-﻿Lord Clive

64

surah, exhorting the government of Batavia to fit out an
expedition which might balance the power of the Eng-
lish in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, eager to
extend the influence of their country, and still more eager
5 to obtain for themselves a share of the wealth which had
recently raised so many English adventurers to opulence,
equipped a powerful armament. Seven large ships from
Java arrived unexpectedly in the Hoogley. The military
force on board amounted to fifteen hundred men, of whom
10 about one half were Europeans. The enterprise was well
timed. Clive had sent such large detachments to oppose
the French in the Carnatic that his army was now inferior
in number to that , of the Dutch. He knew that Meer
Jaffier secretly favored the invaders. He knew that he
15 took on himself a serious responsibility if he attacked the
forces of a friendly power; that the English ministers
could not wish to see a war with Holland added to that
in which they were already engaged with France; that
they might disavow his acts; that they might punish him.
20 He had recently remitted a great part of his fortune to
Europe, through the Dutch East India Company; and he
had therefore a strong interest in avoiding any quarrel.
But he was satisfied that, if he suffered the Batavian
armament to pass up the river and to join the garrison
25 of Chinsurah, Meer Jaffier would throw himself into the
arms of these new allies, and that the English ascendency
in Bengal would be exposed to most serious danger. He
took his resolution with characteristic boldness, and was
most ably seconded by his officers, particularly by Colonel
30 Forde, to whom the most important part of the operations
was intrusted. The Dutch attempted to force a passage.
The English encountered them both by land and water.
On both elements the enemy had a great superiority of
force. On both they were signally defeated. Their﻿Lord Clive

65

ships were taken. Their troops were put to a total rout.
Almost all the European soldiers, who constituted the
main strength of the invading army, were killed or taken.
The conquerors sat down before Chinsurah; and the chiefs
of that settlement, now thoroughly humbled, consented to 5
the terms which Clive dictated. They engaged to build
no fortifications, and to raise no troops beyond a small
force necessary for the police of their factories; and it
was distinctly provided that any violation of these cove-
nants should be punished with instant expulsion from 10
Bengal.

Three months after this great victory, Clive sailed for
England. At home, honors and rewards awaited him, not
indeed equal to his claims or to his ambition, but still
such as, when his age, his rank in the army, and his original 15
place in society are considered, must be pronounced rare
and splendid. He was raised to the Irish peerage, and
encouraged to expect an English title. George the Third,
who had just ascended the throne, received him with great
distinction. The ministers paid him marked attention; 20
and Pitt, whose influence in the House of Commons and
in the country was unbounded, was eager to*mark his
regard for one whose exploits had contributed so much
to the luster of that memorable period. The great orator
had already in Parliament described Clive as a heaven- 25
born general, as a man who, bred to the labor of the desk,
had displayed a military genius which might excite the
admiration of the King of Prussia. There were then no
reporters in the gallery; but these words, emphatically
spoken by the first statesman of the age, had passed from 30
mouth to mouth, had been transmitted to Clive in Bengal,
and had greatly delighted and flattered him. Indeed,
since the death of Wolfe, Clive was the only English
general of whom his countrymen had much reason to be﻿66

Lord Clive

proud. The Duke of Cumberland had been generally
unfortunate; and his single victory, having been gained
over his countrymen and used with merciless severity, had
been more fatal to his popularity than his many defeats.

5 Conway, versed in the learning of his profession, and
personally courageous, wanted vigor and capacity.
Granby, honest, generous, and as brave as a lion, had
neither science nor genius. Sackville, inferior in knowl-
edge and abilities to none of his contemporaries, had in-
io curred, unjustly as we believe, the imputation most fatal
to the character of a soldier. It was under the command
of a foreign general that the British had triumphed at
Minden and Warburg. The people, therefore, as was
natural, greeted with pride and delight a captain of their
IS own, whose native courage and self-taught skill had
placed him on a level with the great tacticians of Ger-
many.

The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie
with the first grandees of England. There remains proof
20 that/he had remitted more than a hundred and eighty
thousand pounds through the Dutch East India Com-
pany, and more than forty thousand pounds through the
English Company. The amount which he had sent home
through private houses was also considerable. He had in-
25 vested great sums in jewels, then a very common mode of
remittance from India. His purchases of diamonds at
Madras alone amounted to twenty-five thousand pounds.
Besides a great mass of ready money, he had his Indian
estate, valued by himself at twenty-seven thousand a year.
30 His whole annual income, in the opinion of Sir John
Malcolm, who is desirous to state it as low as possible,
exceeded forty thousand pounds; and incomes of forty
thousand pounds at the time of the accession of George
the Third were at least as rare as incomes of a hundred﻿Lord Clive

67

thousand pounds now. We may safely affirm that no
Englishman who started with nothing has ever, in any
line of life, created such a fortune at the early age of
thirty-four.

It would be unjust not to add that Clive made a credit- 5 .
able use of his riches. As soon as the battle of Plassey
had laid ,the foundation of his fortune, he sent ten thou-
sand pounds to his sisters, bestowed as much more on other
poor friends and relations, ordered his agent to pay eight
hundred a year to his parents, and to insist that they 10
should keep a carriage, and settled five hundred a year on
his old commander Lawrence, whose means were very
slender. The whole sum which Clive expended in this
manner may be calculated at fifty thousand pounds.

He now set himself to cultivate Parliamentary inter- 15
est. His purchases of land seem to have been made in a
great measure with that view, and, after the general elec-
tion of 1761, he found himself in the House of Commons,
at the head of a body of dependents whose support must
have been important to any administration. In English 20
politics, however, he did not take a prominent part. His
first attachments, as we have seen, were to Mr. Fox; at a
later period he was attracted by the genius and success
of Mr. Pitt; but finally he connected himself in the closest
manner with George Grenville. Early in the session of 25
1764, when the illegal and impolitic persecution of that
worthless demagogue Wilkes -had strongly excited the
public mind, the town was amused by an anecdote, which
we have seen in some unpublished memoirs of Horace
Walpole. Old Mr. Richard Clive, who since his son’s 30
elevation had been introduced into society for which his
former habits had not well fitted him, presented himself at
the levee. The King asked him where Lord Clive was.

“ He will be in town very soon,” said the old gentleman,﻿68

Lord Clive

loud enough to be heard by the whole circle, “ and then
your Majesty will have another vote.”

But in truth all Clive’s views were directed towards
the country in which he had so eminently distinguished
5 himself as a soldier and a statesman; and it was by con-
siderations relating to India that his conduct as a public
man in England was regulated. The power of the Com-
pany, though an anomaly, is in our time, we are firmly
persuaded, a beneficial anomaly. In the time of Clive,
io it was not merely an anomaly, but a nuisance. There
was no Board of Control. The Directors were for the
most part mere traders, ignorant of general politics, igno-
rant of the peculiarities of the empire which had strangely
become subject to them. The Court of Proprietors,
IS wherever it chose to interfere, was able to have its way.
That court was more numerous, as well as more powerful,
than at present; for then every share of five hundred
pounds conferred a vote. The meetings were large,
stormy, even riotous, the debates indecently virulent. All
20 the turbulence of a Westminster election, all the trickery
and corruption of a Grampound election, disgraced the
proceedings of this assembly on questions of the most
solemn importance. Fictitious votes were manufactured
on a gigantic scale. Clive himself laid out a hundred
25 thousand pounds in the purchase of stock, which he then
divided among nominal proprietors on whom he could
depend, and whom he brought down in his train to every
discussion and every ballot. Others did the same, though
not to quite so enormous an extent.

30 The interest taken by the public of England in Indian
questions was then far greater than at present, and the
reason is obvious. At present a writer enters the service
young; he climbs slowly; he is fortunate if, at forty-five,
he can return to his country with an annuity of a thou-﻿Lord Clive

69

sand a year, and with savings amounting to thirty thou-
sand pounds. A great quantity of wealth is made by Eng-
lish functionaries in India; but no single functionary makes
a very large fortune, and what is made is slowly, hardly,
and honestly earned. Only four or five high political of- 5
fices are reserved for public men from England. The
residencies, the secretaryships, the seats in the boards of
revenue and in the Sudder courts are all filled by men
who have given the best years of life to the service of the
Company; nor can any talents however splendid or any 10
connections however powerful obtain those lucrative posts
for any person who has not entered by the regular door,
and mounted by the regular gradations. Seventy years
ago, less money was brought home from the East than in
our time. But it was divided among a very much smaller 15
number of persons, and immense sums were often accu-
mulated in a few months. Any Englishman, whatever
his age might be, might hope to be one of the lucky emi-
grants. If he made a good speech in Leadenhall Street,
or published a clever pamphlet in defense of the chair- 20
man, he might be sent out in the Company’s service, and
might return in three or four years as rich as Pigot or as
Clive. Thus the India House was a lottery-office, which
invited everybody to take a chance, and held out ducal
fortunes as the prizes destined for the lucky few. As 25
soon as it was known that there was a part of the world
where a lieutenant-colonel had one morning received as a
present an estate as large as that of the Earl of Bath or
the Marquess of Rockingham, and where it seemed that
such a trifle as ten or twenty thousand pounds was to be 3Q
had by any British functionary for the asking, society be-
gan to exhibit all the symptoms of the South Sea year, a
feverish excitement, an ungovernable impatience to be
rich, a contempt for slow, sure, and moderate gains.﻿Lord Clive

70

At the head of the preponderating party in the India
House, had long stood a powerful, able, and ambitious
director of the name of Sulivan. He had conceived a
strong jealousy of Clive, and remembered with bitterness
5 the audacity with which the late governor of Bengal had
repeatedly set at naught the authority of the distant Di-
rectors of the Company. An apparent reconciliation took
place after Clive’s arrival; but enmity remained deeply
rooted in the hearts of both. The whole body of Directors
10 was then chosen annually. At the election of 1763, Clive
attempted to break down the power of the dominant fac-
tion. The contest was carried on with a violence which he
describes as tremendous. Sulivan was victorious, and has-
tened to take his revenge. The grant of rent which Clive
15 had received from Meer Jaffier was, in the opinion of the
best English lawyers, valid. It had been made by ex-
actly the same authority from which the Company had
received their chief possessions in Bengal, and the Com-
pany had long acquiesced in it. The Directors, how-
20 ever, most unjustly determined to confiscate it, and Clive
was forced to file a bill in Chancery against them.

But a great and sudden turn in affairs was at hand.
Every ship from Bengal had for some time brought alarm-
ing tidings. The internal misgovernment of the province
25 had reached such a point that it could go no further.
What, indeed, was to be expected from a body of public
servants exposed to temptation such that, as Clive once
said, flesh and blood could not bear it, armed with irre-
sistible power, and responsible only to the corrupt, tur-
3obulent, distracted, ill-informed Company, situated at such
a distance that the average interval between the sending
of a despatch and the receipt of an answer was above a
year and a half ? Accordingly, during the five years which
followed the departure of Clive from Bengal, the mis-﻿Lord Clive

7i

government of the English was carried to a point such as
seems hardly compatible with the very existence of society.
The Roman proconsul, who, in a year or two, squeezed
out of a province the means of rearing m'arble palaces and
baths on the shores of Campania, of drinking from amber, 5
of feasting on singing birds, of exhibiting armies of gladi-
ators and flocks of camelopards; the Spanish viceroy, who,
leaving behind him the curses of Mexico or Lima, entered
Madrid with a long train of gilded coaches and of
sumpter-horses trapped and shod with silver, were now 10
outdone. Cruelty, indeed, properly so called, was not
among the vices of the servants of the Company. But
cruelty itself could hardly have produced greater evils than
sprang from their unprincipled eagerness to be rich. They
pulled down their creature, Meer Jaffier. They set up in 15
his place another Nabob, named Meer Cossim. But
Meer Cossim had ’parts and a will; and, though suffi-
ciently inclined to oppress his subjects himself, he could
not bear to see them ground to the dust by oppressions
which yielded him no profit, nay, which destroyed his 20
revenue in the very source. The English accordingly
pulled down Meer Cossim, and set up Meer Jaffier again;
and Meer Cossim, after revenging himself by a massacre
surpassing in atrocity that of the Black Hole, fled to the
dominions of the Nabob of Oude. At every one of these 25
revolutions, the new prince divided among his foreign
masters whatever could be scraped together in the treas-
ury of his fallen predecessor. The immense population
of his dominions was given up as a prey to those who had
made him a sovereign, and who could unmake him. The 30
servants of the Company obtained, not for their employers,
but for themselves, a monopoly of almost the whole inter-
nal trade. They forced the natives to buy dear and to
sell cheap. They insulted with impunity the tribunals,﻿Lord Clive

72

the police, and the fiscal authorities of the country. They
covered with their protection a set of native dependents
who ranged through the provinces, spreading desolation
and terror wherever they appeared. Every servant of a
5 British factor was armed with all the power of his master;
and his master was armed with all the power of the
Company. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumu-
lated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings
were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness. They
10 had been accustomed to live under tyranny, but never un-
der tyranny like this. They found the little finger of the
Company thicker than the loins of Surajah Dowlah. Un-
der their old masters they had at least one resource: when
the evil became insupportable, the people rose and pulled
15 down the government. But the English government was
not to be so shaken off. That government, oppressive as
the most oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was
strong with all the strength of civilization. It resembled
the government of evil Genii, rather than the govern-
20 ment of human tyrants. Even despair could not inspire
the soft Bengalee with courage to confront men of Eng-
lish breed, the hereditary nobility of mankind, whose skill
and valor had so often triumphed in spite of tenfold odds.
The unhappy race never attempted resistance. Sometimes
25 they submitted in patient misery. Sometimes they fled
from the white man, as their fathers had been used to
fly from the Mahratta; and the palanquin of the English
traveler was often carried through silent villages and
towns, which the report of his approach had made deso-
30 late.

The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally objects
of hatred to all the neighboring powers; and to all the
haughty race presented a dauntless front. The English
armies, everywhere outnumbered, were everywhere vie-﻿Lord Clive

73

torious. A succession of commanders, formed in the^school
of Clive, still maintained the fame of their country. “ It
must be acknowledged,” says the Mussulman historian of
those times, “ that this nation’s presence of mind, firmness
of temper, and undaunted bravery, are past all question.
They join the most resolute courage to the most cautious
prudence; nor have they their equals in the art of rang-
ing themselves in battle array and fighting in order. If
to so many military qualifications they knew how to join
the arts of government, if they exerted as much ingenuity
and solicitude in relieving the people of God, as they do
in whatever concerns their military affairs, no nation in
the world would be preferable to them, or worthier of
command. But the people under their dominion groan
everywhere, and are reduced to poverty and distress. Oh
God! come to the assistance of thine afflicted servants, and
deliver them from the oppressions which they suffer.”

It was impossible, however, that even the military
establishment should long continue exempt from the vices
which pervaded every other part of the government.
Rapacity, luxury, and the spirit of insubordination, spread
from the civil service to the officers of the army, and from
the officers to the soldiers. The evil continued to grow
till every mess-room became the seat of conspiracy and
cabal, and till the sepoys could be kept in order only by
wholesale executions.

At length the state of things in Bengal began to excite
uneasiness at home. A succession of revolutions; a dis-
organized administration; the natives pillaged, yet the
Company not enriched; every fleet bringing back fortunate
adventurers who were able to purchase manors and to
build stately dwellings, yet bringing back also alarming
accounts of the financial prospects of the government; war
on the frontiers; disaffection in the army; the national

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character disgraced by excesses resembling those of Verres
and Pizarro; such was the spectate which dismayed those
who were conversant with Indian affairs. The general
cry was that Clive, and Clive alone, could save the empire
5 which he had founded.

This feeling manifested itself in the strongest manner
at a very full General Court of Proprietors. Men of all
parties, forgetting their feuds and trembling for their
dividends, exclaimed that Clive was the man whom the
io crisis required, that the oppressive proceedings which
had been adopted respecting his estate ought to be
dropped, and that he ought to be entreated to return to
India.

Clive rose. As to his estate, he said, he would make
15 such propositions to the Directors, as would, he trusted,
lead to an amicable settlement. But there was a still
greater difficulty. It was proper to tell them that he
never would undertake the government of Bengal while
his enemy Sulivan was chairman of the Company. The
20 tumult was violent. Sulivan could scarcely obtain a hear-
ing. An overwhelming majority of the assembly was on
Clive’s side. Sulivan wished to try the result of a ballot.
But, according to the by-laws of the Company, there can
be no ballot except on a requisition signed by nine pro-
25 prietors; and, though hundreds were present, nine per-
sons could not be found to set their hands to such a
requisition.

Clive was in consequence nominated Governor and
Commander-in-chief of the British possessions in Bengal.
30 But he adhered to his declaration, and refused to enter
on his office till the event of the next election of Directors
should be known. The contest was obstinate; but Clive
triumphed. Sulivan, lately absolute master of the India
House, was within a vote of losing his own seat; and both﻿Lord Clive	75

the chairman and the deputy-chairman were friends of the
new governor.

Such were the circumstances under which Lord Clive
sailed for the third and last time to India. In May, 1765,
he reached Calcutta; and he found the whole machine of 5
government even more fearfully disorganized than he had
anticipated. Meer Jaffier, who had some time before lost
his eldest son, Meeran, had died while Clive was on his
voyage out. The English functionaries at Calcutta had
already received from home strict orders not to accept 10
presents from the native princes. But, eager for gain, and
unaccustomed to respect the commands of their distant,
ignorant, and negligent masters, they again set up the
throne of Bengal to sale. About one hundred and forty
thousand pounds sterling were distributed among nine of 15
the most powerful servants of the Company; and, in con-
sideration of this bribe, an infant son of the deceased
Nabob was placed on the seat of his father. The news
of the ignominious bargain met Clive on his arrival. In
a private letter, written, immediately after his landing, 20
to an intimate friend, he poured out his feelings in lan-
guage which, proceeding from a man so daring, so resolute,
and so little given to theatrical display of sentiment, seems
to us singularly touching. “Alas!” he says, “how is
the English name sunk! I could not avoid paying the 25
tribute of a few tears to the departed and lost fame of the
British nation—irrecoverably so, I fear. However, I do
declare by that great Being who is the searcher of all
hearts, and to whom we must be accountable if there be a
hereafter, that I am come out with a mind superior to all 30
corruption, and that I am determined to destroy these great
and growing evils, or perish in the attempt.”

The Council met, and Clive stated to them his full
determination to make a thorough reform, and to use for﻿Lord Clive

76

that purpose the whole of the ample authority, civil and
military, which had been confided to him. Johnstone, one
of the boldest and worst men in the assembly, made some
show of opposition. Clive interrupted him, and haughtily
5 demanded whether he meant to question the power of the
new government. Johnstone was cowed, and disclaimed
any such intention. All the faces round the board grew
long and pale, and not another syllable of dissent was
uttered.

10 r Clive redeemed his pledge^ He remained in India about
a year and a half; and in that short time effected one of
the most extensive, difficult, and salutary reforms that ever
vwas accomplished by any statesman. This was the part
of his life on which he afterwards looked back with
15 most pride. He had it in his power to triple his already
splendid fortune; to connive at abuses while pretending to
remove them; to conciliate the good-will of all the English
in Bengal, by giving up to their rapacity a helpless and
timid race, who knew not where lay the island which sent
20 forth their oppressors, and whose complaints had little
chance of' being heard across fifteen thousand miles of
ocean. He knew that, if he applied himself in earnest to
the work of reformation, he should raise every bad passion
in arms against him. He knew how unscrupulous, how
25 implacable, would be the hatred of those ravenous ad-
venturers who, having counted on accumulating in a few
months fortunes sufficient to support peerages, should find
all their hopes frustrated. But he had chosen the good
part; and he called up all the force of his mind for a
30 battle far harder than that of Plassey. At first success
seemed hopeless; but soon all obstacles began to bend be-
fore that iron courage and that vehement will. The re-
ceiving of presents from the natives was rigidly prohibited.
The private trade of the servants of the Company was put﻿Lord Clive

77

down. The whole settlement seemed to be set, as one
man, against these measures. But the inexorable gov-
ernor declared that, if he could not find support at Fort
William, he would procure it elsewhere, and sent for some
civil servants from Madras to assist him in carrying on the 5
administration. The most factious of his opponents he
turned out of their offices. The rest submitted to what
was inevitable; and in a very short time all resistance
was quelled.

But Clive was far too wise a man not to see that the 10
recent abuses were partly to be ascribed to a cause which
could not fail to produce similar abuses as soon as the
pressure of his strong hand was withdrawn. The Com-
pany had followed a mistaken policy with respect to the
remuneration of its servants. The salaries were too low 15
to afford even those indulgences which are necessary to
the health and comfort of Europeans in a tropical climate.

To lay by a rupee from such scanty pay was impossible.

It could not be supposed that men of even average abilities
would consent to pass the best years of life in exile, under 20
a burning sun, for no other consideration than these stinted
wages. It had accordingly been understood, from a very
early period, that the Company’s agents were at liberty
to enrich themselves by their private trade. This prac-
tice had been seriously injurious to the commercial inter- 25
ests of the corporation. That very intelligent observer,

Sir Thomas Roe, in the reign of James the First, strongly
urged the Directors to apply a remedy to the abuse.
“Absolutely prohibit the private trade,” said he; “for
your business will be better done. I know this is harsh. 30
Men profess they come not for bare wages. But you will
take away this plea if you give great wages to their con-
tent; and then you know what you part from.”

In spite of this excellent advice, the Company adhered﻿Lord Clive

78

to the old system, paid low salaries, and connived at the
indirect gains of the agents. The pay of a member of
Council was only three hundred pounds a year. Yet it
was notorious that such a functionary could not live in
5 India for less than ten times that sum; and it could not
be expected that he would be content to live even hand-
somely in India without laying up something against the
time of his return to England. This system, before the
conquest of Bengal, might affect the amount of the divi-
10 dends payable to the proprietors, but could do little harm
in any other way. But the Company was now a ruling
body. Its servants might still be called factors, junior
merchants, senior merchants. But they were in truth
proconsuls, propraetors, procurators of extensive regions.
15 They had immense power. Their regular pay was uni-
versally admitted to be insufficient. They were, by the
ancient usage of the service, and by the implied permis-
sion of their employers, warranted in enriching them-
selves by indirect means; and this had been the origin of
20 the frightful oppression and corruption which had deso-
lated Bengal. Clive saw clearly that it was absurd to
give men power, and to require them to live in penury.
He justly concluded that no reform could be effectual
which should not be coupled with a plan for liberally
25 remunerating the civil servants of the Company. The
Directors, he knew, were not disposed to sanction any
increase of the salaries out of their own treasury. The
only course which remained open to the Governor was one
which exposed him to much misrepresentation, but which
30 we think him fully justified in adopting. He appropriated
to the support of the service the monopoly of salt, which has
formed, down to our own time, a principal head of Indian
revenue; and he divided the proceeds according to a scale
which seems to have been not unreasonably fixed. He was﻿Lord Clive

79

in consequence accused by his enemies, and has been ac-
cused by historians, of disobeying his instructions, of vio-
lating his promises, of authorizing that very abuse which
it was his special mission to destroy, namely, the trade of
the Company’s servants. But every discerning and im-
partial judge will admit that there was really nothing
in common between the system which he set up and that
which he was sent to destroy. The monopoly of salt
had been a source of revenue to the governments of India
before Clive was born. It continued to be so long after his
death. The civil servants were clearly entitled to a main-
tenance out of the revenue; and all that Clive did was
to charge a particular portion of the revenue with their
maintenance. He thus, while he put an end to the prac-
tices by which gigantic fortunes had been rapidly accumu-
lated, gave to every British functionary employed in the
East the means of slowly, but surely, acquiring a com-
petence. 'Yet, such is the injustice of mankind that none
of those acts which are the real stains of his life has drawn
on him so much obloquy as this measure, which was in
truth a reform necessary to the success of all his other
reforms.

He had quelled the opposition of the civil service; that
of the army was more formidable. Some of the retrench-
ments which had been ordered by the Directors affected
the interests of the military service; and a storm arose,
such as even Caesar would not willingly have faced. It
was no light thing to encounter the resistance of those
who held the power of the sword, in a country governed
only by the sword. Two hundred English officers en-
gaged in a conspiracy against the government, and deter-
mined to resign their commissions on the same day, not
doubting that Clive would grant any terms rather than
see the army, on which alone the British empire in the

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Lord Clive

East rested, left without commanders. They little knew
the unconquerable spirit with which they had to deal.
Clive had still a few officers round his person on whom he
could rely. He sent to Fort St. George for a fresh
5 supply. He gave commissions even to mercantile agents
who were disposed to support him at this crisis; and he
sent orders that every officer who resigned should be in-
stantly brought up to Calcutta. The conspirators found
that they had miscalculated. The governor was inex-
io orable. The troops were steady. The sepoys, over whom
Clive had always possessed extraordinary influence, stood
by him with unshaken fidelity. The leaders in the plot
were arrested, tried, and cashiered. The rest, humbled
and dispirited, begged to be permitted to withdraw their
15 resignations. Many of them declared their repentance
even with tears. The younger offenders Clive treated
with lenity. To the ringleaders he was inflexibly severe;
but his severity was pure from all taint of private malevo-
lence. While he sternly upheld the just authority of his
20 office, he passed by personal insults and injuries with
magnanimous disdain. One of the conspirators was ac-
cused of having planned the assassination of the governor;
but Clive would not listen to the charge. “The officers,”
he said, “ are Englishmen, not assassins.”

25 While he reformed the civil service and established his
authority over the army, he was equally successful in his
foreign policy. His landing on Indian ground was the
signal for immediate peace. The Nabob of Oude, with a
large army, lay aty that time on the frontier of Bahar. He
30 had been joined by many Afghans and Mahrattas, and
there was no small reason to expect a general coalition
of all the native powers against the English. But the
name of Clive quelled in an instant all opposition. The
enemy implored peace in the humblest language, and﻿Lord Clive	81

submitted to such terms as the new governor chose to
dictate.

At the same time, the government of Bengal was placed
on a new footing. The power of the English in that prov-
ince had hitherto been altogether undefined. It was un- 5
known to the ancient constitution of the empire, and it
had been ascertained by no compact. It resembled the
power which, in the last decrepitude of the Western Em-
pire, was exercised over Italy by the great chiefs of for-
eign mercenaries, the Ricimers and the Odoacers, who put 10
up and pulled down at their pleasure a succession of
insignificant princes, dignified with the names of Caesar and
Augustus. But as in Italy, so in India, the warlike
strangers at length found it expedient to give to a domina-
tion which had been established by arms the sanction of 15
law and ancient prescription. Theodoric thought it politic
to obtain from the distant court of Byzantium a commis-
sion appointing him ruler of Italy; and Clive, in the same
manner, applied to the Court of Delhi for a formal grant
of the powers of which he already possessed the reality. 20
The Mogul was absolutely helpless; and, though he mur-
mured, had reason to be well pleased that the English
were disposed to give solid rupees, which he never could
have extorted from them, in exchange for a few Persian
characters which cost him nothing. A bargain was speed- 25
ily struck; and the titular sovereign of Hindostan issued a
warrant, empowering the Company to collect and adminis-
ter the revenues of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar.

There was still a Nabob, who stood to the British
authorities in the same relation in which the last driveling 30
Chilperics and Childerics of the Merovingian line stood
to their able and vigorous Mayors of the Palace, to Charles
Martel and to Pepin. At one time Clive had almost
made up his mind to discard this phantom altogether; but﻿82	Lord Clive

he afterwards thought that it might be convenient still to
use the name of the Nabob, particularly in dealings with
other European nations. The French, the Dutch, and the
Danes would, he conceived, submit far more readily to the
5 authority of a native Prince, whom they had always been
accustomed to respect, than to that of a rival trading
corporation. This policy may, at that time, have been
judicious. But the pretense was soon found to be too
flimsy to impose on anybody; and it was altogether laid
io aside. The heir of Meer Jaffier still resides at Moorshe-
dabad, the ancient capital of his house, still bears the title
of Nabob, is still accosted by the English as “Your High-
ness,” and is still suffered to retain a portion of the regal
state which surrounded his ancestors. A pension of a
IS hundred and sixty thousantt-pounds a year is annually paid
to him by the government, -flis carriage is surrounded by
guards, and preceded by attendants with silver maces.
His person and his dwelling are exempted from the ordi-
nary authority of the ministers of justice. But he has not
20 the smallest share of political power, and is, in fact, only a
noble and wealthy subject of the Company.

It would have been easy for Clive, during his second
administration in Bengal, to accumulate riches such as no
subject in Europe possessed. He might, indeed, without
25 subjecting the rich inhabitants of the province to any
pressure beyond that to which their mildest rulers had
accustomed them, have received presents to the amount
of three hundred thousand pounds a year. The neighbor-
ing princes would gladly have paid any price for his favor.
30 But he appears to have strictly adhered to the rules which
he had laid down for the guidance of others. The Rajah
of Benares offered him diamonds of great value. The
Nabob of Oude pressed him to accept a large sum of
money, and a casket of costly jewels. Clive courteously﻿Lord Clive	83

but peremptorily refused; and it should be observed that
he made no merit of his refusal, and that the facts did
not come to light till after his death. He kept an exact
account of his salary, of his share of the profits accruing
from the trade in salt, and of those presents which, accord-
ing to the fashion of the East, it would be churlish to
refuse. Out of the sum arising from these resources he
defrayed the expenses of his situation. The surplus he
divided among a few attached friends who had accom-
panied him to India. He always boasted, and, as far
as we can judge, he boasted with truth, that his last ad-
ministration diminished instead of increasing his fortune.

One large sum indeed he accepted. Meer Jaffier had
left him by will above sixty thousand pounds sterling
in specie and jewels; and the rules which had been recently
laid down extended only to presents from the living, and
did not affect legacies from the dead. Clive took the
money, but not for himself. He made the whole over
to the Company, in trust for officers and soldiers in-
valided in their service. The fund which still bears his
name owes its origin to this princely donation.

After a stay of eighteen months, the state of his health
made it necessary for him to return to Europe. At the close
of January, *767, he quitted for the last time the country
on whose destinies he had exercised so mighty an influence.

Elis second return from Bengal was not, like his first,
greeted by the acclamations of his countrymen. Numerous
causes were already at work which embittered the re-
maining years of his life, and hurried him to an untimely
grave. His old enemies at the India House were still
powerful and active; and they had been reinforced by a
large band of allies, whose violence far exceeded their
own. The whole crew of pilferers and oppressors from
whom he had rescued Bengal persecuted him with the

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implacable rancor which belongs to such abject natures.
Many of them even invested their property in India stock,
merely that they might be better able to annoy the man
whose firmness had set bounds to their rapacity. Lying
5 newspapers were set up for no purpose but to abuse him;
and the temper of the public mind was then such, that
these arts, which under ordinary circumstances would
have been ineffectual against truth and merit, produced
an extraordinary impression.

10 The great events which had taken place in India had
called into existence a new class of Englishmen, to whom
their countrymen gave the name of Nabobs. These per-
sons had generally sprung from families neither ancient
nor opulent; they had generally been sent at an early age
15 to the East; and they had there acquired large fortunes,
which they had brought back to their native land. It
was natural that, not having had much opportunity of
mixing with the best society, they should exhibit some of
the awkwardness and some of the pomposity of upstarts.
20 It was natural that, during their sojourn in Asia, they
should have acquired some tastes and habits surprising,
if not disgusting, to persons who never had quitted Eu-
rope. It was natural that, having enjoyed great considera-
tion in the East, they should not be disposed to sink into
25 obscurity at home; and as they had money, and had not
birth or high connection, it was natural that they should
display a little obtrusively the single advantage which they
possessed. Wherever they settled there was a kind of
feud between them and the old nobility and gentry,
30 similar to that which raged in France between the farmer-
general and the marquess. This enmity to the aristoc-
racy long continued to distinguish the servants of the
Company. More than twenty years after the time of
which we are now speaking, Burke pronounced that﻿Lord Clive

85

among the Jacobins might be reckoned “ the East Indians
almost to a man, who cannot bear to find that their
present importance does not bear a proportion to their
wealth.”

The Nabobs soon became a most unpopular class of
men. Some of them had in the East displayed eminent
talents, and rendered great services to the state; but at
home their talents were not shown to advantage, and their
services were little known. That they had sprung from
obscurity, that they had acquired great wealth, that they
exhibited it insolently, that they spent it extravagantly,
that they raised the price of everything in their neighbor-
hood, from fresh eggs to rotten boroughs, that their
liveries outshone those of dukes, that their coaches were
finer than that of the Lord Mayor, that the examples of
their large and ill-governed households corrupted half
the servants in the country, that some of them, with all
their magnificence, could not catch the tone of good so-
ciety, but, in spite of the stud and the crowd of menials,
of the plate and the Dresden china, of the venison and
the Burgundy, were still low men; these were things
which excited, both in the class from which they had
sprung and in the class into which they attempted to force
themselves, the bitter aversion which is the effect of mingled
envy and contempt. But when it was also rumored
that the fortune which had enabled its possessor to
eclipse the Lord Lieutenant on the race-ground, or to carry
the county against the head of a house as old as Domes-
day Book, had been accumulated by violating public faith,
by deposing legitimate princes, by reducing whole provinces
to beggary, all the higher and better as well as all the low
and evil parts of human nature were stirred against the
wretch who had obtained by guilt and dishonor the riches
which he now lavished with arrogant and inelegant pro-

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Lord Clive

fusion. The unfortunate Nabob seemed to be made up of
those foibles against which comedy has pointed the most
merciless ridicule, and of those crimes which have thrown
the deepest gloom over tragedy, of Turcaret and Nero,
5 of Monsieur Jourdain and Richard the Third. A tem-
pest of execration and derision, such as can be com-
pared only to that outbreak of public feeling against the
Puritans which took place at the time of the Restoration,
burst on the servants of the Company. The humane man
io was horror-struck at the way in which they had got their
money, the thrifty man at the way in which they spent it.
The dilettante sneered at their want of taste. The mac-
caroni black-balled them as vulgar fellows. Writers the
most unlike in sentiment and style, Methodists and liber-
15 tines, philosophers and buffoons, were for once on the
same side. It is hardly too much to say that, during a
space of about thirty years, the whole lighter literature
of England was colored by the feelings which we have
described. Foote brought on the stage an Anglo-Indian
20 chief, dissolute, ungenerous, and tyrannical, ashamed of
the humble friends of his youth, hating the aristocracy,
yet childishly eager to be numbered among them, squan-
dering his wealth on pandars and flatterers, tricking out
his chairmen with the most costly hot-house flowers, and
25 astounding the ignorant with jargon about rupees, lacs,
and jaghires. Mackenzie, with more delicate humor, de-
picted a plain country family raised by the Indian ac-
quisitions of one of its members to sudden opulence, and
exciting derision by an awkward mimicry of the manners
30 of the great. Cowper, in that lofty expostulation which
glows with the very spirit of the Hebrew poets, placed
the oppression of India foremost in the list of those na-
tional crimes for which God had punished England with
years of disastrous war, with discomfiture in her own seas,﻿Lord Clive

87

and with the loss of her transatlantic empire. If any of
our readers will take the trouble to search in the dusty
recesses of circulating libraries for some novel published
sixty years ago, the chance is that the villain or sub-
villain of the story will prove to be a savage old Nabob, 5
with an immense fortune, a tawny complexion, a bad liver,
and a worse heart.

Such, as far as we can now judge, was the feeling of
the country respecting Nabobs in general. And Clive
was eminently the Nabob, the ablest, the most celebrated, 10
the highest in rank, the highest in fortune, of all the
fraternity. His wealth was exhibited in a manner which
could not fail to excite odium. He lived with great mag-
nificence in Berkeley Square. He reared one palace in
Shropshire and another at Claremont. His parliamentary 15
influence might vie with that of the greatest families.
But in all this splendor and power envy found something
to sneer at. On some of his relations wealth and dignity
seem to have sat as awkwardly as on Mackenzie’s Margery
Mushroom. Nor was he himself, with all his great quali- 20
ties, free from those weaknesses which the satirists of that
age represented as characteristic of his whole class. In
the field, indeed, his habits were remarkably simple. He
was constantly on horseback, was never seen but in his
uniform, never wore silk, never entered a palanquin, and 25
was content with the plainest fare. But when he was no
longer at the head of an army, he laid aside this Spartan
temperance for the ostentatious luxury of a Sybarite. *
Though his person was ungraceful, and though his harsh
features were redeemed from vulgar ugliness only by 30
their stern, dauntless, and commanding expression, he
was fond of rich and gay clothing, and replenished his
wardrobe with absurd profusion. Sir John Malcolm
gives us a letter worthy of Sir Matthew Mite, in which﻿88

Lord Clive

Clive orders “ two hundred shirts, the best and finest
that can be got for love or money.” A few follies of
this description, grossly exaggerated by report, produced
an unfavorable impression on the public mind. But this
S was not the worst. Black stories, of which the greater
part were pure inventions, were circulated respecting his
conduct in the East. He had to bear the whole odium,
not only of those bad acts to which he had once or twice
stooped, but of all the bad acts of all the English in India,
io of bad acts committed when he was absent, nay, of bad
acts which he had manfully opposed and severely pun-
ished. The very abuses against which he had waged an
honest, resolute, and successful war, were laid to his ac-
count. He was, in fact, regarded as the personification
15 of all the vices and weaknesses which the public, with or
without reason, ascribed to the English adventurers in
Asia. We have ourselves heard old men, who knew
nothing of his history, but who still retained the prejudices
conceived in their youth, talk of him as an incarnate
20 fiend. Johnson always held this language. Brown, whom
Clive employed to lay out his pleasure grounds, was
amazed to see in the house of his noble employer a chest
which had once been filled with gold from the treasury
of Moorshedabad, and could not understand how the
25 conscience of the criminal could suffer him to sleep with
such an object so near to his bedchamber. The peasantry
of Surrey looked with mysterious horror on the stately
house which was rising at Claremont, and whispered that
the great wicked lord had ordered the walls to be made
30 so thick in order to keep out the devil, who would one
day carry him away bodily. Among the gaping clowns
who drank in this frightful story was a worthless ugly lad
of the name of Hunt, since widely known as William
Huntington, S.S.; and the superstition which was strangely﻿Lord Clive

89

mingled with the knavery of that remarkable impostor
seems to have derived no Small nutriment from the tales
which he heard of the life and character of Clive.

In the meantime, the impulse which Clive had given
to the administration of Bengal was constantly becoming
fainter and fainter. His policy was to a great extent
abandoned; the abuses which he had suppressed began
to revive; and at length the evils which a bad government
had engendered were aggravated by one of those fearful
visitations which the best government cannot avert. In
the summer of 1770, the rains failed; the earth was
parched up; the tanks were empty; the rivers shrank
within their beds; and a famine, such as is known only in
countries where every household depends for support on
its own little patch of cultivation, filled the whole valley
of the Ganges with misery and death. Tender and deli-
cate women, whose veils had never been lifted before the
public gaze, came forth from the inner chambers in which
Eastern jealousy had kept watch over their beauty, threw
themselves on the earth before the passers-by, and, with
loud wailings, implored a handful of rice for their chil-
dren. The Hoogley every day rolled down thousands of
corpses close to the porticos and gardens of the English
conquerors. The very streets of Calcutta were blocked
up by the dying and the dead. The lean and feeble sur-
vivors had not energy enough to bear the bodies of their
kindred to the funeral pile or the holy river, or even to
scare away the jackals and vultures, who fed on human
remains in the face of day. The extent of the mortality
was never ascertained; but it was popularly reckoned by
millions. This melancholy intelligence added to the ex-
citement which already prevailed in England on Indian
subjects. The proprietors of East India stock were un-
easy about their dividends. All men of common humanity

5

10

15

20

25

30﻿Lord Clive

90

were touched by the calamities of our unhappy subjects;
and indignation soon began to mingle itself with pity. It
was rumored that the Company’s servants had created the
famine by engrossing all the rice of the country; that they
5 had sold grain for eight, ten, twelve times the price at
which they had bought it; that one English functionary
who, the year before, was not worth a hundred guineas,
had, during that season of misery, remitted sixty thou-
sand pounds to London. These charges wTe believe to
10 have been unfounded. That servants of the Company had
ventured, since Clive’s departure, to deal in rice, is prob-
able. That, if they dealt in rice, they must have gained
by the scarcity, is certain. But there is no reason for
thinking that they either produced or aggravated an evil
15 which physical causes sufficiently explain. The outcry
which was raised against them on this occasion was, we
suspect, as absurd as the imputations which, in times of
dearth at home, were once thrown by statesmen and judges,
and are still thrown by two or three old women, on the
20 corn factors. It was, however, so loud and so general
that it appears to have imposed even on an intellect raised
so high above vulgar prejudices as that of Adam Smith.
What was still more extraordinary, these unhappy events
greatly increased the unpopularity of Lord Clive. He had
25 been some years in England when the famine took place.
None of his acts had the smallest tendency to produce such
a calamity. If the servants of the Company had traded
in rice, they had done so in direct contravention of the
rule which he had laid down, and, while in power, had
30 resolutely enforced. But, in the eyes of his countrymen,
he was, as we have said, the Nabob, the Anglo-Indian
character personified; and, while he was building and
planting in Surrey, he was held responsible for all the
effects of a dry season in Bengal.﻿Lord Clive

9i

Parliament had hitherto bestowed very little attention
on our Eastern possessions. Since the death of George
the Second, a rapid succession of weak administrations,
each of which was in turn flattered and betrayed by the
Court, had held the semblance of power. Intrigues in 5
the palace, riots in the capital, and insurrectionary move-
ments in the American colonies, had left the advisers of
the crown little leisure to study Indian politics. When
they did interfere, their interference was feeble and ir-
resolute. Lord Chatham indeed, during the short period 10
of his ascendency in the councils of George the Third,
had meditated a bold attack on the Company. But his
plans were rendered abortive by the strange malady
which about that time began to overcloud his splendid
genius.	15

At length, in 1772, it was generally felt that Parlia-
ment could no longer neglect the affairs of India. The
Government was stronger than any which had held power
since the breach between Mr. Pitt and the great Whig
connection in 1761. No pressing question of domestic or 20
European policy required the attention of public men.
There was a short and delusive lull between two tempests.
The excitement produced by the Middlesex election was
over; the discontents of America did not yet threaten civil
war; the financial difficulties of the Company brought 25
on a crisis; the Ministers were forced to take up the sub-
ject; and the whole storm, which had long been gathering,
now broke at once on the head of Clive.

His situation was indeed singularly unfortunate. He
was hated throughout the country, hated at the India 30
House, hated, above all, by those wealthy and powerful
servants of the Company, whose rapacity and tyranny he
had withstood. He had to bear the double odium of his
bad and of his good actions, of every Indian abuse and of﻿Lord Clive

92

every Indian reform. The state of the political world was
such that he could count on the support of no powerful
connection. The party to which he had belonged, that
of George Grenville, had been hostile to the Govern-
5 ment, and yet had never cordially united with the other
sections of the Opposition, with the little band which
still followed the fortunes of Lord Chatham, or with the
large and respectable body of which Lord Rockingham
was the acknowledged leader. George Grenville was now
10 dead; his followers were scattered; and Clive, unconnected
with any of the powerful factions which divided the Par-
liament, could reckon only on the votes of those members
who were returned by himself. His enemies, particularly
those who were the enemies of his virtues, were unscrupu-
15 lous, ferocious, implacable. Their malevolence aimed at
nothing less than the utter ruin of his fame and fortune.
They wished to see him expelled from Parliament, to see
his spurs chopped off, to see his estate confiscated; and
it may be doubted whether even such a result as this
20 would have quenched their thirst for revenge.

Clive’s parliamentary tactics resembled his military tac-
tics. Deserted, surrounded, outnumbered, and with every-
thing at stake, he did not even deign to stand on the
defensive, but pushed boldly forward to the attack. At
25 an early stage of the discussions on Indian affairs he rose,
and in a long and elaborate speech vindicated himself from
a large part of the accusations which had been brought
against him. He is said to have produced a great impres-
sion on his audience. Lord Chatham, who, now the
30 ghost of his former self, loved to haunt the scene of his
glory, was that night under the gallery of the House of
Commons, and declared that he had never heard a finer
speech. It was subsequently printed under Clive’s direc-
tion, and, when the fullest allowance has been made for the﻿Lord Clive

93

assistance which he may have obtained from literary
friends, proves him to have possessed, not merely strong
sense and a manly spirit, but talents both for disquisition
and declamation which assiduous culture might have im-
proved into the highest excellence. He confined his 5
defense on this occasion to the measures of his last admin-
istration, and succeeded so far that his enemies thence-
forth thought it expedient to direct their attacks chiefly
against the earlier part of his life.

The earlier part of his life unfortunately presented some 10
assailable points to their hostility. A committee was
chosen by ballot to inquire into the affairs of India; and
by this committee the whole history of that great revolu-
tion which threw down Surajah Dowlah and raised Meer
Jaflier was sifted with malignant care. Clive was sub- 15
jected to the most unsparing examination and cross-
examination, and afterwards bitterly complained that he,
the Baron of Plassey, had been treated like a sheep-stealer.
The boldness and ingenuousness of his replies would alone
suffice to show how alien from his nature were the frauds 20
to which, in the course of his Eastern negotiations, he had
sometimes descended. He avowed the arts which he had
employed to deceive Omichund, and resolutely said that
he was not ashamed of them, and that, in the same cir-
cumstances, he would again act in the same manner. He 25
admitted that he had received immense sums from Meer
Jaffier; but he denied that, in doing so, he had violated
any obligation of morality or honor. He laid claim, on
the contrary, and not without some reason, to the praise
of eminent disinterestedness. He described in vivid lan- 30
guage the situation in which his victory had placed him; a
great prince dependent on his pleasure; an opulent city
afraid of being given up to plunder; wealthy bankers
bidding against each other for his smiles; vaults piled with﻿94	Lord Clive

gold and jewels thrown open to him alone. “ By God,
Mr. Chairman,” he exclaimed, “ at this moment I stand
astonished at my own moderation.”

The inqbiry was so extensive that the Houses rose before
5 it had been completed. It was continued in the following
session. When at length-the committee had concluded its
labors, enlightened and impartial men had little difficulty
in making up their minds as to the result. It was clear
that Clive had been guilty of some acts which it is im-
io possible to vindicate without attacking the authority of
all the most sacred laws which regulate the intercourse of
individuals and of states. But it was equally clear that
he had displayed great talents, and even great virtues;
that he had rendered eminent services both to his country
15 and to the people of India; and that it was in truth not
for his dealings with Meer Jaffier, nor for the fraud which
he had practised on Omichund, but for his determined
resistance to avarice and tyranny, that he was now called
in question.

20 Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of set-off.
The greatest desert cannot be pleaded in answer to a charge
of the slightest transgression. If a man has sold beer on
Sunday morning, it is no defense that he has saved the
life of a fellow-creature at the risk of his own. If he
25 has harnessed a Newfoundland dog to his little child’s
carriage, it is no defense that he was wounded at Water-
loo. But it is not in this way that we ought to deal with
men who, raised far above ordinary restraints, and tried
by far more than ordinary temptations, are entitled
30 to a more than ordinary measure of indulgence. Such
men should be judged by their contemporaries as they will
be judged by posterity. Their bad actions ought not, in-
deed, to be called good; but their good and bad actions
ought to be fairly weighed; and if on the whole the good﻿Lord Clive

95

preponderate, the sentence ought to be one, not merely of
acquittal, but of approbation. Not a single great ruler
in history can be absolved by a judge who fixes his eye
inexorably on one or two unjustifiable acts. Bruce the
deliverer of Scotland, Maurice the deliverer of Germany, 5
William the deliverer of Holland, his great descendant the
deliverer of England, Murray the good regent, Cosmo
the father of his country, Henry the Fourth of France,
Peter the Great of Russia, how would the best of them
pass such a scrutiny? History takes wider views; and 10
the best tribunal for great political cases is the tribunal
which anticipates the verdict of history.

Reasonable and moderate men of all parties felt this
in Clive’s case. They could not pronounce him blameless;
but they were not disposed to abandon him to that low- 15
minded and rancorous pack who had run him down and
were eager to worry him to death. Lord North, though
not very friendly to him, was not disposed to go to ex-
tremities against him. While the inquiry was still in
progress, Clive, who had some years before been created a 20
Knight of the Bath, was installed with great pomp in
Henry the Seventh’s Chapel. He was soon after ap-
pointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire. When he
kissed hands, George the Third, who had always been
partial to him, admitted him to a private audience, 25
talked to him half an hour on Indian politics, and was
visibly affected when the persecuted general spoke of his
services and of the way in which they had been
requited.

At length the charges came in a definite form before 30
the House of Commons. Burgoyne, chairman of the com-
mittee, a man of wit, fashion, and honor, an agreeable
dramatic writer, an officer whose courage was never ques-
tioned, and whose skill was at that time highly esteemed,﻿Lord Clive

96

appeared as the accuser. The members of the administra-
tion took different sides; for in that age all questions
were open questions, except such as were brought forward
by the Government, or such as implied some censure on
5 the Government. Thurlow, the Attorney General, was
among the assailants. Wedderburne, the Solicitor Gen-
eral, strongly attached to Clive, defended his friend with
extraordinary force of argument and language. It is a
curious circumstance that, some years later, Thurlow was
10 the most conspicuous champion of Warren Hastings, while
Wedderburne was among the most unrelenting persecutors
of that great though not faultless statesman. Clive spoke
in his own defense, at less length and with less art than in
the preceding year, but with much energy and pathos. He
15 recounted his great actions and his wrongs; and, after bid-
ding his hearers remember that they were about to decide
not only on his honor but on their own, he retired from
the House.

The Commons resolved that acquisitions made by the
20 arms of the State belong to the State alone, and that it
is illegal in the servants of the State to appropriate such
acquisitions to themselves. They resolved that this whole-
some rule appeared to have been systematically violated
by the English functionaries in Bengal. On a subsequent
25 day they went a step farther, and resolved that Clive had,
by means of the power which he possessed as commander
of the British forces in India, obtained large sums from
Meer Jaffier. Here the Commons stopped. They had
voted the major and minor of Burgoyne’s syllogism; but
30 they shrank from drawing the logical conclusion. When
it was moved that Lord Clive had abused his powers, and
set an evil example to the servants of the public, the
previous question was put and carried. At length, long
after the sun had risen on an animated debate, Wedder-﻿Lord Clive

97

burne moved that Lord Clive had at the same time ren-
dered great and meritorious services to his country; and
this motion passed without a division.

The result of this memorable inquiry appears to us,
on the whole, honorable to the justice, moderation, and dis- 5
cernment of the Commons. They had, indeed, no*great
temptation to do wrong. They would have been very bad
judges of an accusation brought against Jenkinson or
against Wilkes. But the question respecting Clive was
not a party question; and the House accordingly acted with 10
the good sense and good feeling which may always be
expected from an assembly of English gentlemen, not
blinded by faction.

The equitable and temperate proceedings of the British
Parliament were set off to the greatest advantage by a foil. 15
The wretched government of Louis the Fifteenth had
murdered, directly or indirectly, almost every Frenchman
who had served his country with distinction in the East.
Labourdonnais was flung into the Bastile, and, after years
of suffering, left it only to die. Dupleix, stripped of his 20
immense fortune, and broken-hearted by humiliating at-
tendance in antechambers, sank into an obscure grave.
Lally was dragged to the common place of execution with
a gag between his lips. The Commons of England, on the
other hand, treated their living captain with that dis- 25
criminating justice which is seldom shown except to the
dead. They laid down sound general principles; they deli-
cately pointed out where he had deviated from those prin-
ciples; and they tempered the gentle censure with liberal
eulogy. The contrast struck Voltaire, always partial to 30
England, and always eager to expose the abuses of the
Parliaments of France. Indeed he seems, at this time,
to have meditated a history of the conquest of Bengal.

He mentioned his design to Dr. Moore when that amusing﻿Lord Clive

98

writer visited him at Ferney. Wedderburne took great
interest in the matter, and pressed Clive to furnish ma-
terials. Had the plan been carried into execution, we have
no doubt that Voltaire would have produced a book con-
5 taining much lively and picturesque narrative, many- just
and humane sentiments poignantly expressed, many' gro-
tesque blunders, many sneers at the Mosaic chronology,
much scandal about the Catholic missionaries, and much
sublime theophilanthropy, stolen from the New Testament,
10 and put into the mouths of virtuous and philosophical
Brahmins.

Clive was now secure in the enjoyment of his fortune
and his honors. He was surrounded by attached friends
and relations; and he had not yet passed the season of
15 vigorous bodily and mental exertion. But clouds had long
been gathering over his mind, and now settled on it in
thick darkness. From early youth he had been subject to
fits of that strange melancholy “ which rejoiceth exceed-
ingly and is glad when it can find the grave.” While still
20 a writer at Madras, he had twice attempted to destroy
himself. Business and prosperity had produced a salutary
effect on his spirits. In India, while he was occupied by
great affairs, in England, while wealth and rank had still
the charm of novelty, he had borne up against his con-
25 stitutional misery; but he had now nothing to do, and
nothing to wish for. His active spirit in an inactive situa-
tion drooped and withered like a plant in an uncon-
genial air. The malignity with which his enemies had
pursued him, the indignity with which he had been treated
30 by the committee, the censure, lenient as it was, which
the House of Commons had pronounced, the knowledge
that he was regarded by a large portion of his countrymen
as a cruel and perfidious tyrant, all concurred to irritate
and depress him. In the meantime his temper was tried﻿Lord Clive

99

by acute physical suffering. During his long residence
in tropical climates, he had contracted several painful dis-
tempers. In order to obtain ease he called in the help of
opium; and he was gradually enslaved by this treacherous
ally. To the last, however, his genius occasionally flashed 5
through the gloom. It was said that he would sometimes,
after sitting silent and torpid for hours, rouse himself to
the discussion of some great question, would display in
full vigor all the talents of the soldier and the states-
man, and would then sink back into his melancholy 10
repose.

The disputes with America had now become so serious
that an appeal to the sword seemed inevitable; and the
Ministers were desirous to avail themselves of the services
of Clive. Had he still been what he was when he raised 15
the siege of Patna, and annihilated the Dutch army and
navy at the mouth of the Ganges, it is not improbable that
the resistance of the Colonists would have been put down,
and that the inevitable separation would have been deferred
for a few years. But it was too late. His strong mind 20
was fast sinking under many kinds of suffering. On the
twenty-second of November, 1774, he died by his own
hand. He had just completed his forty-ninth year.

In the awful close of so much prosperity and glory, the
vulgar saw only a confirmation of all their prejudices; and 25
some men of real piety and genius so far forgot the maxims
both of religion and of philosophy as confidently to ascribe
the mournful event to the just vengeance of God, and to
the horrors of an evil conscience. It is with very dif-
ferent feelings that we contemplate the spectacle of a great 30
mind ruined by the weariness of satiety, by the pangs
of wounded honor, by fatal diseases, and more fatal
remedies.

Clive committed great faults; and we have not at-﻿IOO

Lord Clive

tempted to disguise them. But his faults, when weighed
against his merits, and viewed in connection with his
temptations, do not appear to us to deprive him* of
his right to an honorable place in the estimation of
5 posterity.

From his first visit to India dates the renown of the
English arms in the East. Till he appeared, his country-
men were despised as mere peddlers, while the French
were revered as a people formed for victory and command,
io His courage and capacity dissolved the charm. With the
defense of Arcot commences that long series of Oriental
triumphs which closes with the fall of Ghizni. Nor must
we forget that he was only twenty-five years old when
he approved himself ripe for military command. This
IS is a rare if not a singular distinction. It is true that Alex-
ander, Conde, and Charles the Twelfth won great battles
at a still earlier age; but those princes were surrounded
by veteran generals of distinguished skill, to whose sug-
gestions must be attributed the victories of the Granicus,
20 of Rocroi, and of Narva. Clive, an inexperienced youth,
had yet more experience than any of those who served
under him. He had to form himself, to form his officers,
and to form his army. The only man, as far as we
recollect, who at an equally early age ever gave equal
25 proof of talents for war, was Napoleon Bonaparte.

From Clive’s second visit to India dates the political
ascendency of the English in that country. His dexterity
and resolution realized, in the course of a few mqnths,
more than all the gorgeous visions which had floated be-
30 fore the imagination of Dupleix. Such an extent of cul-
tivated territory, such an amount of revenue, such a mul-
titude of subjects, was never added to the dominion of
Rome by the most successful proconsul. Nor were such
wealthy spoils ever borne under arches of triumph, down﻿Lord Clive

IOI

the Sacred Way, and through the crowded Forum, to the
threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The fame of those who
subdued Antiochus and Tigranes grows dim when com-
pared with the splendor of the exploits which the young
English adventurer achieved at the head of an army not 5
eq\jal in numbers to one half of a Roman legion.

From Clive’s third visit to India dates the purity of
the administration of our Eastern empire. When he
landed in Calcutta in 1765, Bengal was regarded as a
place to which Englishmen were sent only to get rich, 10
by any means, in the shortest possible time. He first made
dauntless and unsparing war on that gigantic system of
oppression, extortion, and corruption. In that war he
manfully put to hazard his ease, his fame, and his splendid
fortune. The same sense of justice which forbids us to 15
conceal or extenuate the faults of his earlier days compels
us to admit that those faults were nobly repaired. If the
reproach of the Company and of its servants has been
taken away, if in India the yoke of foreign masters, else-
where the heaviest of all yokes, has been found lighter 20
than that of any native dynasty, if to that gang of public
robbers which formerly spread terror through the whole
plain of Bepgal, has succeeded a body of functionaries
not more highly distinguished by ability and diligence
than by integrity, disinterestedness, and public spirit, if 25
we now see such men as Munro, Elphinstone, and Met-
calfe, after leading victorious armies, after making and
deposing kings, return, proud of their honorable poverty,
from a land which once held out to every greedy factor
the hope of boundless wealth, the praise is in no small meas- 30
ure due to Clive. His name stands high on the roll of
conquerors. But it is found in a better list, in the list of
those who have done and suffered much for the happiness
of mankind. To the warrior, history will assign a place﻿102

Lord Clive

in the same rank with Lucullus and Trajan. Nor will she
deny to the reformer a share of that veneration with
which France cherishes the memory of Turgot, and with
which the latest generations of Hindoos will contemplate
5 the statue of Lord William Bentinck.﻿WARREN HASTINGS﻿Warren Hastings﻿WARREN HASTINGS

(1841)

Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, First Governor-
General of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, by the
Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1841.

This book seems to have been manufactured in pur-
suance of a contract, by which the representatives of War-
ren Hastings, on the one part, bound themselves to furnish
papers, and Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself
to furnish praise. It is but just to say that the covenants 5
on both sides have been most faithfully kept; and the result
is before us in the form of three big bad volumes, full of
undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric.

If it were worth while to examine this performance in
detail, we could easily make a long article by merely 10
pointing out inaccurate statements, inelegant expressions,
and immoral doctrines. But it would be idle to waste
criticism on a bookmaker; and, whatever credit Mr. Gleig
may have justly earned by former works, it is* as a book-
maker, and nothing more, that he now comes before us. 15
More eminent men than Mr. Gleig have written nearly
as ill as he, when they have stooped to similar drudgery.

It would be unjust to estimate Goldsmith by the History
of Greece, or Scott by the Life of Napoleon. Mr. Gleig
is neither a Goldsmith nor a Scott; but it would be unjust 20
to deny that he is capable of something better than these
Memoirs. It would also, we hope and believe, be unjust to

105﻿io6	Warren Hastings

charge any Christian minister with the guilt of deliberately
maintaining some propositions which we find in this book.
It is not too much to say, that Mr. Gleig has written
several passages, which bear the same relation to the Prince
5 of Machiavelli that the Prince of Machiavelli bears to the
Whole Duty of Man, and which would excite amazement
in a den of robbers, or on board of a schooner of pirates.
But we are willing to attribute these offenses to haste, to
thoughtlessness, and to that disease of the understanding
io which may be called the Furor Biographicus, and which
is to writers of lives what the goitre is to an Alpine shep-
herd, or dirt-eating to a negro slave.

We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the
wishes of our readers, if, instead of minutely examining this
15 book, we attempt to give, in a way necessarily hasty and
imperfect, our own view of the life and character of Mr.
Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not exactly that of
the House of Commons which impeached him in 1787;
neither is it that of the House of Commons which uncov-
20 ered and stood up to receive him in 1813. He had great
qualities, and he rendered great services to the state. But
to represent him as a man of stainless virtue is to make
him ridiculous; and from a regard for his memory, if from
no other feeling, his friends would have done well to lend
25 no countenance to such adulation. We believe that, if he
were now living, he would have sufficient judgment and
sufficient greatness of mind to wish to be shown as he was.
He must have known that there were dark spots on his
fame. He might also have felt with pride that the
30 splendor of his fame would bear many spots. He would
have wished posterity to have a likeness of him, though
an unfavorable likeness, rather than a daub at once in-
sipid and unnatural, resembling neither him nor anybody
else. “ Paint me as I am,” said Oliver Cromwell, while﻿Warren Hastings	107

sitting to young Lely. “If you leave out the scars and
wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling.” Even in such a
trifle, the great Protector showed both his good sense and
his magnanimity. He did not wish all that was charac-
teristic in his countenance to be lost, in the vain attempt 5
to give him the regular features and smooth blooming
cheeks of the curl-pated minions of James the First. He
was content that his face should go forth marked with all
the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war,
by sleepless nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse; but 10
with valor, policy, authority, and public care written in all
its princely lines. If men truly great knew their own
interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds to be
portrayed.

Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illustrious 15
race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree can be traced
back to the great Danish sea-king, whose sails were long
the terror of both coasts of the British Channel, and who,
after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last to
the valor and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted 20
splendor of the line of Hastings needs no illustration from
fable. One branch of that line wore, in the fourteenth
century, the coronet of Pembroke. From another branch
sprang the renowned Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of
the White Rose, whose fate has furnished so striking a 25
theme both to poets and to historians. His family received
from the Tudors the earldom of Huntingdon, which, after
long dispossession, was regained in our time by a series of
events scarcely paralleled in romance.

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcester- 30
shire, claimed to be considered as the heads of this dis-
tinguished family. The main stock, indeed, prospered
less than some of the younger shoots. But the Dayles-
ford family, though nqt ennobled, was wealthy and highly﻿108	Warren Hastings

considered, till,.about two hundred years ago, it was over-
whelmed by the great ruin of the civil war. The Hastings
of that time was a zealous cavalier. He raised money on
his lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, joined
5 the royal army, and, after spending half his property in
the cause of King Charles, was glad to ransom himself by
making over most of the remaining half to Speaker Lenthal.
The old seat at Daylesford still remained in the family;
but it could no longer be kept up; and in the following
io generation it was sold to a merchant of London.

Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of
Daylesford had presented his second son to the rectory of
the parish in which the ancient residence of the family
stood. The living was of little value; and the situation
15 of the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, was de-
plorable. He was constantly engaged in lawsuits about
his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and was at
length utterly ruined. His eldest son, Howard, a well-
conducted young man, obtained a place in the Customs.
20 The second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless boy, married
before he was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, and died
in the West Indies, leaving to the care of his unfortunate
father a little orphan, destined to strange and memorable
vicissitudes of fortune.

25 Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth
of December, 1732. His mother died a few days later,
and he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather.
The child was early sent to the village school, where he
learned his letters on the same bench with the sons of
30 the peasantry. Nor did anything in his garb or fare indi-
cate that his life was to take a widely different course
from that of the young rustics with whom he studied and
played. But no cloud could overcast the dawn of so much
genius and so much ambition. The very plowmen ob-﻿Warren Hastings	109

served, and long remembered, how kindly little Warren
took to his book. The daily sight of the lands which his
ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into the
hands of strangers, filled his young brain with wild fancies
and projects. He loved to hear stories of the wealth and 5
greatness of his progenitors, of their splendid housekeeping,
their loyalty, and their valor. On one bright summer day,
the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the
rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to
join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten years later he 10
told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through all
the turns of his eventful career, was never abandoned. He
would recover the estate which had belonged to his fathers.
He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose,
formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his in- 15
tellect expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his
plan with that calm but indomitable force of will which
was the most striking peculiarity of his character. When,
under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics,
his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legisla- 20
tion, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long
public life, so singularly checkered with good and evil,
with glory and obloquy, had at length closed for ever,
it was to Daylesford that he retired to die.

When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard deter- 25
mined to take charge of him, and to give him a liberal
education. The boy went up to London, and was sent
to a school at Newington, where he was well taught but ill
fed. He always attributed the smallness of his stature to
the hard and scanty fare of this seminary. At ten he was 30
removed to Westminster school, then flourishing under the
care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils affec-
tionately called him, was one of the masters. Churchill,
Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were among the﻿no	Warren Hastings

students. With Cowper Hastings formed a friendship
which neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimilarity
of opinions and pursuits, could wholly dissolve. It does
not appear that they ever met after they had grown to
5 manhood. But forty years later, when the voices of many
great orators were crying for vengeance on the oppressor
of India, the shy and secluded poet could image to him-
self Hastings the Governor-General only as the Hastings
with whom he had rowed on the Thames and played in the
io cloister, and refused to believe that so good-tempered a
fellow could have done anything very wrong. His own life
had been spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among
the water-lilies of the Ouse. He had preserved in no
common measure the innocence of childhood. His spirit
15 had indeed been severely tried, but not by temptations
which impelled him to any gross violation of the rules of
social morality. He had never been attacked by combina-
tions of powerful and deadly enemies. He had never been
compelled to make a choice between innocence and great-
20 ness, between crime and ruin. Firmly as he held in theory
the doctrine of human depravity, his habits were such
that he was unable to conceive how far from the path of
right even kind and noble natures may be hurried by the
rage of conflict and the lust of dominion.

25 Hastings had another associate at Westminster of whom
we shall have occasion to make frequent mention, Elijah
Impey. We know little about their school days. But,
we think, we may safely venture to guess that, whenever
Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually
30 naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as
fag in the worst part of the prank.

Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an
excellent swimmer, boatman, and scholar. At fourteen
he was first in the examination for the foundation. His﻿Warren Hastings	hi

name in gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory still
attests his victory over many older competitors. He stayed
two years longer at the school, and was looking forward
to a studentship at Christ Church, when an event happened
which changed the whole course of his life. Howard
Hastings died, bequeathing his nephew to the care of a
friend and distant relation, named Chiswick. This gentle-
man, though he did not absolutely refuse the charge, was
desirous to rid himself of it as soon as possible. Dr.
Nichols made strong remonstrances against the cruelty of
interrupting the studies of a youth who seemed likely
to be one of the first scholars of the age. He even offered
to bear the expense of sending his favorite pupil to Oxford.
But Mr. Chiswick was inflexible. He thought the years
which had already been wasted on hexameters and pen-
tameters quite sufficient. He had it in his power to
obtain for the lad a writership in the service of the East
India Company. Whether the young adventurer, when
once shipped off, made a fortune, or died of a liver
complaint, he equally ceased to be a burden to anybody.
Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster
school, and placed for a few months at a commercial
academy, to study arithmetic and book-keeping. In
January, 1750, a few days after he had completed his
seventeenth year, he sailed for Bengal, and arrived at
his destination in the October following.

He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secre-
tary’s office at Calcutta, and labored there during two
years. Fort William was then a purely commercial
settlement. In the south of India the encroaching policy
of Dupleix had transformed the servants of the English
Company, against their will, into diplomatists and gen-
erals. The war of the succession was raging in the
Carnatic; and the tide had been suddenly turned against

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30﻿112	Warren Hastings

the French by the genius of young Robert Clive. But
in Bengal the European settlers, at peace with the natives
and with each other, were wholly occupied with ledgers
and bills of lading.

5 After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta,
Hastings was sent up the country to Cossimbazar, a town
which lies on the Hoogley, about a mile from Moorshe-
dabad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad a relation,
if we may compare small things with great, such as the
io city of London bears to Westminster. Moorshedabad
was the abode of the prince who, by an authority osten-
sibly derived from the Mogul, but really independent,
ruled the three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and
Bahar. At Moorshedabad were the court, the harem,
IS and the public offices. Cossimbazar was a port and a
place of trade, renowned for the quantity and excellence
of the silks which were sold in its marts, and constantly
receiving and sending forth fleets of richly laden barges.
At this important point, the Company had established a
20 small factory subordinate to that of Fort William. Here,
during several years, Hastings was employed in making
bargains for stuffs with native brokers. While he was
thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the govern-
ment, and declared war against the English. The de-
25 fenseless settlement of Cossimbazar, lying close to the
tyrant’s capital, was instantly seized. Hastings was
sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, in consequence of
the humane intervention of the servants of the Dutch
Company, was treated with indulgence. Meanwhile the
30 Nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor and the com-
mandant fled; the town and citadel were taken, and
most of the English prisoners perished in the Black
Hole.

In these events originated the greatness of Warren﻿Warren Hastings	113

Hastings. The fugitive governor and his companions
had taken refuge on the dreary islet of Fulda, near the
mouth of the Hoogley. They were naturally desirous
to obtain full information respecting the proceedings of
the Nabob; and no person seemed so likely to furnish it
as Hastings, who was a prisoner at large in the immedi-
ate neighborhood of the court. He thus became a diplo-
matic agent, and soon established a high character for
ability and resolution. The treason which at a later period
was fatal to Surajah Dowlah was already in progress;
and Hastings was admitted to the deliberations of the con-
spirators. But the time for striking had not arrived. It
was necessary to postpone the execution of the design;
and Hastings, who was now in extreme peril, fled to Fulda.

Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedition from
Madras, commanded by Clive, appeared in the Hoogley.
Warren, young, intrepid, and excited probably by the
example of the Commander of the Forces, who, having
like himself been a mercantile agent of the Company, had
been turned by public calamities into a soldier, determined
to serve in the ranks. During the early operations of the
war he carried a musket. But the quick eye of Clive soon
perceived that the head of the young volunteer would be
more useful than his arm. When, after the battle of
Plassey, Meer Jaffier was proclaimed Nabob of Bengal,
Hastings was appointed to reside at the court of the new
prince as agent for the Company.

He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 1761,
when he became a member of Council, and was conse-
quently forced to reside at Calcutta. This was during the
interval between Clive’s first and second administration,
an interval which has left on-the fame of the East India
Company a stain, not wholly effaced by many years of just
and humane government. Mr. .Vansittart, the Governor,

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30﻿114	Warren Hastings

was at the head of a new and anomalous empire. On the
one side was a band of English functionaries, daring, in-
telligent, eager to be rich. On the other side was a great
native population, helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch
5 under oppression. To keep the stronger race from prey-
ing on the weaker was an undertaking which tasked to
the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. Vansittart,
with fair intentions, was a feeble and inefficient ruler.
The master caste, as was natural, broke loose from all re-
io straint; and then was seen what we believe to be the most
frightful of all spectacles, the strength of civilization with-
out its mercy. To all other despotism there is a check,
imperfect indeed, and liable to gross abuse, but still suffi-
cient to preserve society from the last extreme of misery.
15 A time comes when the evils of submission are obviously
greater than those of resistance, when fear itself begets a
sort of courage, when a convulsive burst of popular rage
and despair warns tyrants not to presume too far on the
patience of mankind. But against misgovernment such as
20 then afflicted Bengal it was impossible to struggle. The
superior intelligence and energy of the dominant class made
their power irresistible. A war of Bengalees against Eng-
lishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of men
against demons. The only protection which the conquered
25 could find was in the moderation, the clemency, the en-
larged policy of the conquerors. That protection, at a
later period, they found. But at first English power
came among them unaccompanied by English morality.
There was an interval between the time at which they
30 became our subjects, and the time at which we began to
reflect that we were bound to discharge towards them
the duties of rulers. During that interval the business of
a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of the
natives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as﻿Warren Hastings	115

speedily as possible, that he might return home before his
constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry a peer’s
daughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give
balls in St. James’s Square. Of the conduct of Hastings
at this time little is known; but the little that is known, 5
and the circumstance that little is known, must be con-
sidered as honorable to him. He could not protect the
natives; all that he could do was to abstain from plunder-
ing and oppressing them; and this he appears to have done.

It is certain that at this time he continued poor; and it is 10
equally certain that by cruelty and dishonesty he might
easily have become rich. It is certain that he was never
charged with having borne a share in the worst abuses
which then prevailed; and it is almost equally certain that,
if he had borne a share in those abuses, the able and 15
bitter enemies who afterwards persecuted him would not
have failed to discover and to proclaim his guilt. The
keen, severe, and even malevolent scrutiny to which his
whole public life was subjected, a scrutiny unparalleled,
as we believe, in the history of mankind, is in one respect 20
advantageous to his reputation. It brought many lamen-
table blemishes to light; but it entitles him to be considered
pure from every blemish which has not been brought to
light.

The truth is that the temptations to which so many 25
English functionaries yielded in the time of Mr. Vansittart
were not temptations addressed to the ruling passions of
Warren Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecuniary
transactions; but he wTas neither sordid nor rapacious.
He was far too enlightened a man to look on a great em- 30
pire merely as a buccaneer would look on a galleon. Had
his heart been much worse than it was, his understanding
would have preserved him from that extremity of base-
ness. He was an unscrupulous, perhaps an unprincipled,﻿ii 6	Warren Hastings

statesman; but still he was a statesman, and not a free-
booter.

In 1764 Hastings returned to England. He had real-
ized only a very moderate fortune; and that moderate
5 fortune was soon reduced to nothing, partly by his praise-
worthy liberality, and partly by his mismanagement. To-
wards his relations he appears to have acted very generously.
The greater part of his savings he left in Bengal, hoping
probably to obtain the high usury of India. But high
10 usury and bad security generally go together; and Hastings
lost both interest and principal.

He remained four years in England. Of his life at
this time very little is known. But it has been asserted,
and is highly probable, that liberal studies and the society
15 of men of letters occupied a great part of his time. It is
to be remembered to his honor that, in days when the
languages of the East were regarded by other servants of
the Company merely as the means of communicating with
weavers and money-changers, his enlarged and accom-
20 plished mind sought in Asiatic learning for new forms of
intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of government
and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid
much attention to departments of knowledge which lie
out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate the
25 value of his favorite studies. He conceived that the cul-
tivation of Persian literature might with advantage be
made a part of the liberal education of an English gentle-
man; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said
that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning
30 had never, since the revival of letters, been wholly neg-
lected, was to be the seat of the institution which he
contemplated. An endowment was expected from the
munificence of the Company; and professors thoroughly
competent to interpret Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be en-﻿Warren Hastings	117

gaged in the East. Hastings called on Johnson, with the
hope, as it should seem, of interesting in this project a
man who enjoyed the highest literary reputation, and who
was particularly connected with Oxford. The interview
appears to have left on Johnson’s mind a most favor- 5
able impression of the talents and attainments of his visitor.
Long after, when Hastings was ruling the immense popu-
lation of British India, the old philosopher wrote to him,
and referred in the most courtly terms, though with great
dignity, to their short but agreeable intercourse.	• 10

Hastings soon began to look again towards India. He
had little to attach him to England; and his pecuniary
embarrassments were great. He solicited his old masters
the Directors for employment. They acceded to his re-
quest, with high compliments both to his abilities and to 15
his integrity, and appointed him a Member of Council at
Madras. It would be unjust not to mention that, though
forced to borrow money for his outfit, he did not withdraw
any portion of the sum which he had appropriated to the
relief of his distressed relations. In the spring of 1769 20
he embarked on board of the Duke of Grafton, and com-
menced a voyage distinguished by incidents which might
furnish matter for a novel.

Among the passengers in the Duke of Grafton was a
German of the name of Imhoff. He called himself a 25
Baron; but he was in distressed circumstances, and was
going out to Madras as a portrait-painter,' in the hope of
picking up some of the pagodas which were then lightly
got and as lightly spent by the English in India. The
Baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have 30
somewhere read, of Archangel. This young woman who,
born under the Arctic circle, was destined to play the part
of a Queen under the tropic of Cancer, had an agreeable
person, a cultivated mind, and manners in the highest de-﻿118	Warren Hastings

gree engaging. She despised her husband heartily, and,
as the story which we have to tell sufficiently proves, not
without reason. She was interested by the conversation
and flattered by the attentions of Hastings. The situation
5 was indeed perilous. No place is so propitious to the
formation either of close friendships or of deadly enmities
as an Indiaman. There are very few people who do not
find a voyage which lasts several months insupportably
dull. Anything is welcome which may break that long
io .monotony, a sail, a shark, an albatross, a man overboard.
Most passengers find some resource in eating twice as
many meals as on land. But the great devices for killing
the time are quarreling and flirting. The facilities for
both these exciting pursuits are great. The inmates of
15 the ship are thrown together far more than in any country-
seat or boarding-house. None can escape from the rest
except by imprisoning himself in a cell in which he can
hardly turn. All food, all exercise, is taken in company.
Ceremony is to a great extent banished. It is every day
20 in the power of a mischievous person to inflict innumerable
annoyances; it is every day in the power of an amiable
person to confer little services. It not seldom happens
that serious distress and danger call forth, in genuine
beauty and deformity, heroic virtues and abject vices
25 which, in the ordinary intercourse of good society, might
remain during many years unknown even to intimate
associates. Under such circumstances met Warren Hast-
ings and the Baroness Imhoff, two persons whose accom-
plishments would have attracted notice in any court of
30 Europe. The gentleman had no domestic ties. The
lady was tied to a husband for whom she had no regard,
and who had no regard for his own honor. An attach-
ment sprang up, which was soon strengthened by events
such as could hardly have occurred on land. Hastings fell﻿Warren Hastings	119

ill. The Baroness nursed him with womanly tenderness,
gave him his medicines with her own hand, and even sat up
in his cabin while he slept. Long before the Duke of
Grafton reached Madras, Hastings was in love. But his
love was of a most characteristic description. Like his 5
hatred, like his ambition, like all his passions, it was strong,
but not impetuous. It was calm, deep, earnest, patient of
delay, unconquerable by time. Imhoff was called into
council by his wife and his wife’s lover. It was arranged
that the Baroness should institute a suit for a divorce in 10
the courts of Franconia, that the Baron should afford
every facility to the proceeding, and that, during the years
which might elapse before the sentence should be pro-
nounced, they should continue to live together. It was
also agreed that Hastings should bestow some very sub- 15
stantial marks of gratitude on the complaisant husband,
and should, when the marriage was dissolved, make the
lady his wife, and adopt the children whom she had already
borne to Imhoff.

At Madras, Hastings found the trade of the Company 20
in a very disorganized state. His own tastes would have
led him rather to political than to commerpial pursuits;
but he knew that the favor of his employers depended
chiefly on their dividends, and that their dividends de-
pended chiefly on the investment. He therefore, with 25
great judgment, determined to apply his vigorous mind
for a time to this department of business, \yhich had been
much neglected, since the servants of the Company had
ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors and nego-
tiators.	3c

In a very few months he effected an important reform.
The Directors notified to him their high approbation, and
were so much pleased with his conduct that they deter-
mined to place him at the head of the government of﻿120	Warren Hastings

Bengal. Early in 1772 he quitted Fort St. George for
his new post. The Imhoffs, who were still man and
wife, accompanied him, and lived at Calcutta on the same
plan which they had already followed during more than
5 two years.

When Hastings took his seat at the head of the council
board, Bengal was still governed according to the system
which Clive had devised, a system which was, perhaps, skil-
fully contrived for the purpose of facilitating and con-
10 cealing a great revolution, but which, when that revolution
was complete and irrevocable, could produce nothing but
inconvenience. There were two governments, the real
and the ostensible. The supreme power belonged to the
Company, and was in truth the most despotic power that
15 can be conceived. The only restraint on the English mas-
ters of the country was that which their own justice and
humanity imposed on them. There was no constitutional
check on their will, and resistance to them was utterly
hopeless.

20 But, though thus absolute in reality, the English had
not yet assumed the style of sovereignty. They held their
territories as, vassals of the throne of Delhi; they raised
their revenues as collectors appointed by the imperial com-
mission ; their public seal was inscribed with the imperial
25 titles; and their mint struck only the imperial coin.

There was still a Nabob of Bengal, who stood to the
English rulers of his country in the same relation in which
Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the last Merovingians
to Charles Martel and Pepin. He lived at Moorshedabad,
30 surrounded by princely magnificence. He was approached
with outward marks of reverence, and his name was used in
public instruments. But in the government of the country
he had less real share than the youngest writer or cadet in
the Company’s service.﻿Warren Hastings	121

The English council which represented the Company at
Calcutta was constituted on a very different plan from that
which has since been adopted. At present the Governor
is, as to all executive measures, absolute. He can declare
war, conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove
them, in opposition to the unanimous sense of those who sit
with him in council. They are, indeed, entitled to know
all that is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, to re-
fnonstrate, to send protests to England. But it is with the
Governor that the supreme power resides, and on him that
the whole responsibility rests. This system, which was
introduced by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas in spite of the
strenuous opposition of Mr. Burke, we conceive to be on
the whole the best that was ever devised for the govern-
ment of a country where no materials can be found for a
representative constitution. In the time of Hastings the
Governor had only one vote in council, and, in case of an
equal division, a casting vote. It therefore happened not
unfrequently that he was overruled on the gravest ques-
tions; and it was possible that he might be wholly excluded,
for years together, from the real direction of public affairs.

The English functionaries at Fort William had as yet
paid little or no attention to the internal government of
Bengal. The only branch of politics about which they
much busied themselves was negotiation with the native
princes. The police, the administration of justice, the
details of the collection of revenue, were almost entirely
neglected. We may remark that the phraseology of the
Company’s servants still bears the traces of this state of
things. To this day they always use the word “ political ”
as synonymous with “ diplomatic.” We could name a gen-
tleman still living, who was described by the highest au-
thority as an invaluable public servant, eminently fit to
be at the head of the internal administration of a whole

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30﻿122	Warren Hastings

presidency, but unfortunately quite ignorant of all political
business.

The internal government of Bengal the English rulers
delegated to a great native minister, who was stationed at
5 Moorshedabad. All military affairs, and, with the excep-
tion of what pertains to mere ceremonial, all foreign affairs,
were withdrawn from his control; but the other depart-
ments of the administration were entirely confided to him.
His own stipend amounted to near a hundred thousand
io pounds sterling a year. The personal allowance of the
Nabob, amounting to more than three hundred thousand
pounds a year, passed through the minister’s hands, and
was, to a great extent, at his disposal. The collection of
the revenue, the administration of justice, the maintenance
15 of order, were left to this high functionary; and for the
exercise of his immense power he was responsible to none
but the British masters of the country.

A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid, was
naturally an object of ambition to the ablest and most
20 powerful natives. Clive had found it difficult to decide
between conflicting pretensions. Two candidates stood
out prominently from the crowd, each of them the repre-
sentative of a race and of a religion.

One of these was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussul-
25 man of Persian extraction, able, active, religious after the
fashion of his people, and highly esteemed by them. In
England he might perhaps have been regarded as a corrupt
and greedy politician. But, tried by the lower standard of
Indian morality, he might be considered as a man of in-
30 tegrity and honor.

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name has,
by a terrible and melancholy event, been inseparably asso-
ciated with that of Warren Hastings, the Maharajah
Nuncomar. This man had played an important part in all﻿Warren Hastings	123

the revolutions which, since the time of Surajah Dowlah,
had taken place in Bengal. To the consideration which
in that country belongs to high and pure caste, he added
the weight which is derived from wealth, talents, and ex-
perience. Of his moral character it is difficult to give a
notion to those who are acquainted with human nature
only as it appears in our island. What the Italian is to
the Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what
the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to
other Bengalees. The physical organization of the Ben-
galee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant
vapor bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate,
his movements languid. During many ages he has been
trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds.
Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his
constitution and his situation are equally unfavorable.
His mind bears a singular analogy to his body. It is weak
even to helplessness for purposes of manly resistance; but
its suppleness and its tact move the children of sterner
climates to admiration not unmingled with contempt. All
those arts which are the natural defense of the weak are
more familiar to this subtle race than to the Ionian of the
time of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the dark ages. What the
horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what
the sting- is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old
Greek song, is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large
promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstan-
tial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons,
offensive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges.
All those millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies
of the Company. But as usurers, as money-changers, as
sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear
a comparison with them. With all his softness, the Ben-
galee is by no means placable in his enmities or prone to

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30﻿124	Warren Hastings

pity. 'The pertinacity with which he adheres to his pur-
poses yields only to the immediate pressure of fear. Nor
does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often want-
ing to his masters. To inevitable evils he is sometimes
5 found to oppose a passive fortitude, such as the Stoics at-
tributed to their ideal sage. An European warrior, who
rushes on a battery of cannon with a loud hurrah, will
sometimes shriek under the surgeon’s knife, and fall into
an agony of despair at the sentence of death. But the Ben-
io galee, who would see his country overrun, his house laid
in ashes, his children murdered or dishonored, without hav-
ing the spirit to strike one blow, has yet been known to
endure torture with the firmness of Mucius, and to mount
the scaffold with the steady step and even pulse of Al-
15 gernon Sidney.

In Nuncomar, the national character was strongly and
with exaggeration personified. The Company’s servants
had repeatedly detected him in the most criminal intrigues.
On one occasion he brought a false charge against another
20 Hindoo, and tried to substantiate it by producing forged
documents. On another occasion it was discovered that,
while professing the strongest attachment to the English,
he was engaged in several conspiracies against them, and in
particular that he was the medium of a correspondence be-
25 tween the court of Delhi and the French authorities in
the Carnatic. For these and similar practices he had been
long detained in confinement. But his talents and influ-
ence had not only procured his liberation, but had obtained
for him a certain degree of consideration even among the
30 British rulers of his country.

Clive was extremely unwilling to place a Mussulman
at the head of the administration of Bengal. On the other
hand, he could not bring himself to confer immense power
on a man to whom every sort of villainy had repeatedly﻿Warren Hastings	125

been brought home. Therefore, though the Nabob, over
whom Nuncomar had by intrigue acquired great influence,
begged that the artful Hindoo might be intrusted with
the government, Clive, after some hesitation, decided hon-
estly and wisely in favor of Mahommed Reza Khan.
When Hastings became Governor, Mahommed Reza Khan
had held power seven years. An infant son of Meer
Jaffier was now Nabob; and the guardianship of the young
prince’s person had been confided to the minister.

Nuncomar, stimulated at once by cupidity and malice,
had been constantly attempting to hurt his successful
rival. This was not difficult. The revenues of Bengal,
under the administration established by Clive, did not
yield such a surplus as had been anticipated by the
company; for, at that time, the most absurd notions
were entertained in England respecting the wealth of
India. Palaces of porphyry, hung with the richest bro-
cade, heaps of pearls and diamonds, vaults from which
pagodas and gold mohurs were measured out by the bushel,
filled the imagination even of men of business. Nobody
seemed to be aware of what nevertheless was most un-
doubtedly the truth, that India was a poorer country than
countries which in Europe are reckoned poor, than Ire-
land, for example, or than Portugal. It was confidently
believed by Lords of the Treasury and members for the city
that Bengal would not only defray its own charges, but
would afford an increased dividend to the proprietors of
India stock, and large relief to the English finances.
These absurd expectations were disappointed; and the Di-
rectors, naturally enough, chose to attribute the disappoint-
ment rather to the mismanagement of Mahommed Reza
Khan than to their, own ignorance of the country intrusted
to their care. They were confirmed in their error by
the agents of Nuncomar; for Nuncomar had agents even

5

10

15

20

2 5

30﻿126	Warren Hastings

in Leadenhall Street. Soon after Hastings reached Cal-
cutta, he received a letter addressed by the Court of
Directors, not to the Council generally, but to himself in
particular. He was directed to remove Mahommed Reza
5 Khan, to arrest him, together with all his family and all
his partisans, and to institute a strict inquiry into the
whole administration of the province. It was added that
the Governor would do well to avail himself of the assist-
ance of Nuncomar in the investigation. The vices of
io Nuncomar were acknowledged. But even from his vices,
it was said, much advantage might at such a conjuncture
be derived; and, though he could not safely be trusted,
it might still be proper to encourage him by hopes of
reward.

15 The Governor bore no good will to Nuncomar. Many
years before, they had known each other at Moorshedabad;
and then a quarrel had arisen between them which all the
authority of their superiors could hardly compose. Widely
as they differed in most points, they resembled each other
20 in this, that both were men of unforgiving natures. To
Mahommed Reza Khan, on the other hand, Hastings had
no feelings of hostility. Nevertheless he proceeded to exe-
cute the instructions of the Company with an alacrity
which he never showed, except when instructions were in
25 perfect conformity with his own views. He had, wisely as
we think, determined to get rid of the system of double
government in Bengal. The orders of the Directors fur-
nished him with the means of effecting his purpose, and
dispensed him from the necessity of discussing the matter
30 with his Council. He took his measures with his usual
vigor and dexterity. At midnight, the palace of Mahom-
med Reza Khan at Moorshedabad was surrounded by a
battalion of sepoys. The minister was roused from his
slumbers and informed that he was a prisoner. With the﻿Warren Hastings	127

Mussulman gravity, he bent his head and submitted him-
self to the will of God. He fell not alone. A chief named
Schitab Roy had been intrusted with the government of
Bahar. His valor and his attachment to the English
had more than once been signally proved. On that 5
memorable day on which the people of Patna saw from
their walls the whole army of the Mogul scattered by the
little band of Captain Knox, the voice of the British
conquerors assigned the palm of gallantry to the brave
Asiatic. “ I never,” said Knox, when he introduced 10
Schitab Roy, covered with blood and dust, to the Engr
lish functionaries assembled in the factory, “ I never saw
a native fight so before.” Schitab Roy was involved in the
ruin of Mahommed Reza Khan, was removed from office,
and was placed under arrest. The members of the Council 15
received no intimation of these measures till the prisoners
were on their road to Calcutta.

The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was post-
poned on different pretenses. He was detained in an easy
confinement during many months. In the meantime, the 20
great revolution which Hastings had planned was carried
into effect. The office of minister was abolished. The
internal administration was transferred to the servants of
the Company. A system, a very imperfect system, it is
true, of civil and criminal justice, under English super- 25
intendence, was established. The Nabob was no longer to
have even an ostensible share in the government; but he
was still to receive a considerable annual allowance, and
to be surrounded with the state of sovereignty. As he was
an infant, it was necessary to provide guardians for his 30
person and property. His person was intrusted to a lady
of his father’s harem, known by the name of the Munny
Begum. The office of treasurer of the household was
bestowed on a son of Nuncomar, named Goordas. Nun-﻿128

Warren Hastings

comar’s services were wanted; yet he could not safely be
trusted with power; and Hastings thought it a master-
stroke of policy to reward the able and unprincipled
parent by promoting the inoffensive child.

5 The revolution completed, the double government dis-
solved, the Company installed in the full sovereignty of
Bengal, Hastings had no motive to treat the late ministers
with rigor. Their trial had been put off on various pleas
till the new organization was complete. They were then
io brought before a committee, over which the Governor pre-
sided. Schitab Roy was speedily acquitted with honor.
A formal apology was made to him for the restraint to
which he had been subjected. All the Eastern marks of
respect were bestowed on him. He was clothed in a
15 robe of state, presented with jewels and with a richly
harnessed elephant, and sent back to his government at
Patna. But his health had suffered from confinement;
his high spirit had been cruelly wounded; and soon after
his liberation he died of a broken heart.

20 The innocence of Mahommed Reza Khan was not so
clearly established. But the Governor was not disposed
to deal harshly. After a long hearing, in which Nuncomar
appeared as the accuser, and displayed both the art and
the inveterate rancor which distinguished him, Hastings
25 pronounced that the charges had not been made out, and
ordered the fallen minister to be set at liberty.

Nuncomar had purposed to destroy the Mussulman
administration, and to rise on its ruin. Both his malevo-
lence and his cupidity had been disappointed. Hastings
30 had made him a tool, had used him for the purpose of
accomplishing the transfer of the government from Moor-
shedabad to Calcutta, from native to European hands.
The rival, the enemy, so long envied, so implacably per-
secuted, had been dismissed unhurt. The situation so﻿Warren Hastings	129

long and ardently desired had been abolished. It was
natural that the Governor should be from that time an
object of the most intense hatred to the vindictive Brah-
min. As yet, however, it was necessary to suppress such
feelings. The time was coming when that long ani- 5
mosity was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle.

In the meantime, Hastings was compelled to turn his
attention to foreign affairs. The object of his diplomacy
was at this time simply to get money. The finances of
his government were in an embarrassed state; and this 10
embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some
means, fair or foul. The principle which directed all his
dealings with his neighbors is fully expressed by the old
motto of one of the great predatory families of Teviotdale,
“Thou shalt want ere I want.” He seems to have laid 15
it down, as a fundamental proposition which could not be
disputed, that, when he had not as many lacs of rupees as
the public service required, he was to take them from any-
body who had. One thing, indeed, is to be said In ex-
cuse for him. The pressure applied to him by his em- 20
ployers at home, was such as only the highest virtue could
have withstood, such as left him no choice except to com-
mit great wrongs, or to resign his high post, and with
that post all his hopes of fortune and distinction. The
Directors, it is true, never enjoined or applauded any 25
crime. Far from it. Whoever examines their letters
written at that time will find there many just and hu-
mane sentiments, many excellent precepts, in short, an
admirable code of political ethics. But every exhortation
is modified or nullified by a demand for money. “ Govern 30
leniently, and send more money; practise strict justice
and moderation towards neighboring powers, and send
more money;” this is in truth the sum of almost all the
instructions that Hastings ever received from home. Now﻿130	Warren Hastings

these instructions, being interpreted, mean simply, “ Be
the father and the oppressor of the people; be just and un-
just, moderate and rapacious.” The Directors dealt with
India, as the church, in the good old times, dealt with
5 a heretic. They delivered the victim over to the execu-
tioners, with an earnest request that all possible tender-
ness might be shown. We by no means accuse or suspect
those who framed these despatches of hypocrisy. It is
probable that, writing fifteen thousand miles from the
10 place where their orders were to be carried into effect,
they never perceived the gross inconsistency of which they
were guilty. But the inconsistency was at once manifest
to their vicegerent at Calcutta, who, with an empty
treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own salary often
15 in arrear, with deficient crops, with government tenants
daily running away, was called upon to remit home an-
other half million without fail. Hastings saw that it was
absolutely necessary for him to disregard either the moral
discourses or the pecuniary requisitions of his employers.
20 Being forced to disobey them in something, he had to con-
sider what kind of disobedience they would most readily
pardon; and he correctly judged that the safest course
would be to neglect the sermons and to find the rupees.

A mind so fertile as his, and so little restrained by
25 conscientious scruples, speedily discovered several modes
of relieving the financial embarrassments of the govern-
ment. The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal was re-
duced at a stroke from three hundred and twenty thou-
sand pounds a year to half that sum. The Company had
30 bound itself to pay near three hundred thousand pounds
a year to the Great Mogul, as a mark of homage for the
provinces which he had intrusted to their care; and they
had ceded to him the districts of Corah and Allahabad.
On the plea that the Mogul was not really independent,﻿Warren Hastings	131

but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings deter-
mined to retract these concessions. He accordingly de-
clared that the English would pay no more tribute, and
sent troops to occupy Allahabad and Corah. The situa-
tion of these places was such, that there would be little 5
advantage and great expense in retaining them. Hastings,
who wanted money and not territory, determined to
sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. The rich
province of Oude had, in the general dissolution of
the Mogul Empire, fallen to the share of the great 10
Mussulman house by which it is still governed. About
twenty years ago, this house, by the permission of the
British government, assumed the royal title; but, in the
time of Warren Hastings, such. an assumption would
have been considered by the Mohammedans of India as a 15
monstrous impiety. The Prince of Oude, though he held
the power, did not venture to use the style of sover-
eignty. To the appellation of Nabob or Viceroy, he added
that of Vizier of the monarchy of Hindostan, just as
in the last century the Electors of Saxony and Branden-20
burg, though independent of the Emperor, and often in
arms against him, were proud to style themselves his
Grand Chamberlain and Grand Marshal. Sujah Dow-
lah, then Nabob Vizier, was on excellent terms with
the English. He had a large treasure. Allahabad and 25
Corah were so situated that they might be of use to him
and could be of none to the Company. The buyer and
seller soon came to an understanding; and the prov-
inces which had been torn from the Mogul were made
over to the government of Oude for about half a million 30
sterling.

But there was another matter still more important to
be settled by the Vizier and the Governor. The fate '
of a brave people was to be decided. It was decided in a﻿132	Warren Hastings

manner which has left a lasting stain on the fame of
Hastings and of England.

The people of Central Asia had always been to the
inhabitants of India what the warriors of the German
5 forests were to the subjects of the decaying monarchy
of Rome. The dark, slender, and timid Hindoo shrank
from a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit
of the fair race, which dwelt beyond the passes. There
is reason to believe that, at a period anterior to the dawn
10 of regular history, the people who spoke the rich and
flexible Sanscrit came from regions lying far beyond the
Hyphasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed their yoke on
the children of the soil. It is certain that, during the last
ten centuries, a succession of invaders descended from
15 the west on Hindostan; nor was the course of conquest
ever turned back towards the setting sun, till that memo-
rable campaign in which the cross of Saint George was
planted on the walls of Ghizni.

The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from
20 the other side of the great mountain ridge; and it had
always been their practice to recruit their army from the
hardy and valiant race from which their own illustrious
house sprang. Among the military adventurers who were
allured to the Mogul standards from the neighborhood
25 of Cabul and Candahar, were conspicuous several gallant
bands, known by the name of the Rohillas. Their services
had been rewarded with large tracts of land, fiefs of the
spear, if we may use an expression drawn from an
analogous state of things, in that fertile plain through
30 which the Ramgunga flows from the snowy heights of
Kumaon to join the Ganges. In the general confusion
which followed the death of Aurungzebe, the warlike
colony became virtually independent. The Rohillas were
distinguished from the other inhabitants of India by a﻿Warren Hastings	133

peculiarly fair complexion. They were more honorably
distinguished by courage in war, and by skill in the arts
of peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape
Comorin, their little territory enjoyed the blessings of
repose undfcr the guardianship of valor. Agriculture and 5
commerce flourished among them; nor were they negligent
of rhetoric and poetry. Many persons now living have
heard aged men talk with regret of the golden days when
the Afghan princes ruled in the vale of Rohilcund.

Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich 10
district to his own principality. Right, or show of right,
he had absolutely none. His claim was in no respect
better founded than that of Catherine to Poland, or that
of the Bonaparte family to Spain. The Rohillas held
their country by exactly the same title by which he held 15
his, and had governed their country far better than his
had ever been governed. Nor were they a people whom
it was perfectly safe to attack. Their land was indeed an
open plain destitute of natural defenses; but their veins
were full of the high blood of Afghanistan. As soldiers, 20
they had not the steadiness which is seldom found except
in company with strict discipline; but their impetuous
valor had been proved on many fields of battle. It was
said that their chiefs, when united by common peril,
could bring eighty thousand men into the field. Sujah 25
Dowlah had himself seen them fight, and wisely shrank
from a conflict with them. There was in India one army,
and only one, against which even those proud Caucasian
tribes could not stand. It had been abundantly proved that
neither tenfold odds, nor the martial ardor of the boldest 30
Asiatic nations, could avail aught against English science
and resolution. Was it possible to induce the Governor
of Bengal to let out to hire the irresistible energies of
the imperial people, the skill against which the ablest﻿• 134	Warren Hastings

chiefs of Hindostan were helpless as infants, the discipline
which had so often triumphed over the frantic struggles of
fanaticism and despair, the unconquerable British cour-
age which is never so sedate and stubborn as towards the
5 close of a doubtful and murderous day?

This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and what Hast-
ings granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each of the
negotiators had what the other wanted. Hastings was in
need of funds to carry on the government of Bengal, and
io to send remittances to London; and Sujah Dowlah had
an ample revenue. Sujah Dowlah was bent on subjugat-
ing the Rohillas; and Hastings had at his disposal the
only force by which the Rohillas could be subjugated.
It was agreed that an English army should be lent to the
15 Nabob Vizier, and that, for the loan, he should pay four
hundred thousand pounds sterling, besides defraying all
the charge of the troops while employed in his service.

“ I really cannot see,” says Mr. Gleig, “ upon what
grounds, either of politica’l or moral justice, this proposi-
20 tion deserves to be stigmatized as infamous.” If we
understand the meaning of words, it is infamous to com-
mit a wicked action for hire, and it is wicked to engage in
war without provocation. In this particular war, scarcely
one aggravating circumstance was wanting. The object
25 of the Rohilla war was this, to deprive a large popula-
tion, who had never done us the least harm, of a good
government, and to place them, against their will, under
an execrably bad one. Nay, even this is not all. Eng-
land now descended far below the level even of those
30 petty German princes who, about the same time, sold us
troops to fight the Americans. The hussar-mongers of
Hesse and Anspach had at least the assurance that the
expeditions on which their soldiers were to be employed
would be conducted in conformity with the humane rules﻿Warren Hastings	135

of civilized warfare. Was the Rohilla war likely to be
so conducted? Did the Governor stipulate that it should
be so conducted? He well knew what Indian warfare
was. He well knew that the power which he covenanted
to put into Sujah Dowlah’s hands would, in all probabil- 5
ity, be atrociously abused; and he required no guarantee,
no promise that it should not be so abused. He did not
even reserve to himself the right of withdrawing his aid
in case of abuse, however gross. We are almost ashamed
to notice Major Scott’s absurd plea, that Hastings was 10
justified in letting out English troops to slaughter the
Rohillas, because the Rohillas were not of Indian race,
but a colony from a distant country. What were the
English themselves? Was it for them to proclaim a
crusade for the expulsion of all intruders from the coun- 15
tries watered by the Ganges? Did it lie in their mouths to
contend that a foreign settler who establishes an empire
in India is a caput lupinumf What would they have
said if any other power had, on such a ground, attacked
Madras or Calcutta without the slightest provocation? 20
Such a defense was wanting to make the infamy of the
transaction complete. The atrocity of the crime, and the
hypocrisy of the apology, are worthy of each other.

One of the three brigades of which the Bengal army
consisted was sent under Colonel Champion to join Sujah 25
Dowlah’s forces. The Rohillas expostulated, entreated,
offered a large ransom, but in vain. They then resolved to
defend themselves to the last. A bloody battle was fought.

“ The enemy,” says Colonel Champion, “ gave proof of a
good share of military knowledge; and it is impossible to 30
describe a more obstinate firmness of resolution than they
displayed.” The dastardly sovereign of Oude fled from
the field. The English were left unsupported; but their
fire and their charge were irresistible. It was not, how-﻿136	Warren Hastings

ever, till the most distinguished chiefs had fallen, fighting
bravely at the head of their troops, that the Rohilla ranks
gave way. Then the Nabob Vizier and his rabble made
their appearance, and hastened to plunder the camp of the
5 valiant enemies, whom they had never dared to look in
the face. The soldiers of the Company, trained in an
exact discipline, kept unbroken order, while the tents were
pillaged by these worthless allies. But many voices were
heard to exclaim, “ We have had all the fighting, and those
10 rogues are to have all the profit.”

Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the
fair valleys ?md cities of Rohilcund. The whole country
was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people
fled from their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring
15 famine and fever, and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny
of him, to whom an English and a Christian government
had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance, and their
blood, and the honor of their wives and daughters.
Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier,
20 and sent strong representations to Fort William; but the
Governor had made no conditions as to the mode in which
the war was to be carried on. He had troubled him-
self about nothing but his forty lacs; and, though he might
disapprove of Sujah Dowlah’s wanton barbarity, he did
25 not think himself entitled to interfere, except by offering
advice. This delicacy excites the admiration of the bi-
ographer. “Mr. Hastings,” he says, “could not himself
dictate to the Nabob, nor permit the commander of the
Company’s troops to dictate how the war was to be car-
30 ried on.” No, to be sure. Mr. Hastings had only to
put down by main force the brave struggles of innocent
men fighting for their liberty. Their military resistance
crushed, his duties ended; and he had then only to fold
his arms and look on, while their villages were burned,﻿Warren Hastings	137

their children butchered, and their women violated. Will
Mr. Gleig seriously maintain this opinion? Is any rule
more plain than this, that whoever voluntarily gives to
another irresistible power over human beings is bound to
take order that such power shall not be barbarously abused.
But we beg pardon of our readers for arguing a point so
clear.

We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful story.
The war ceased. The finest population in India was sub-
jected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce
and agriculture languished. The rich province which
had tempted the cupidity of Sujah Dowlah became the
most miserable part even of his miserable dominions. Yet
is the injured nation not extinct. At long intervals gleams
of its ancient spirit have flashed forth; and even at this
day, valor, and self-respect, and a chivalrous feeling rare
among Asiatics, and a bitter remembrance of the great
crime of England, distinguish that noble Afghan race. To
this day they are regarded as the best of all sepoys at the
cold steel; and it was very recently remarked, by one who
had enjoyed great opportunities of observation, that the
only natives of India to whom the word “ gentleman ”
can with perfect propriety be applied, are to be found
among the Rohillas.

Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings,
it cannot be denied that the financial results of his policy
did honor to his talents. In less than two years after he
assumed the government, he had, without imposing any
additional burdens on the people subject to his authority,
added about four hundred and fifty thousand pounds to
the annual income of the Company, besides procuring
about a million in ready money. He had also relieved the
finances of Bengal from military expenditure, amounting
to near a quarter of a million a year, and had thrown that

5

10

15

20

25

30﻿138	Warren Hastings

charge on the Nabob of Oude. There can be no doubt
that this was a result which, if it had been obtained by
honest means, would have entitled him to the warmest
gratitude of his country, and which, by whatever means
5 obtained, proved that he possessed great talents for ad-
ministration.

In the meantime, Parliament had been engaged in long
and grave discussions on Asiatic affairs. The ministry
of Lord North, in the session of 1773, introduced a
10 measure which made a considerable change in the con-
stitution of the Indian government. This law, known
by the name of the Regulating Act, provided that the
presidency of Bengal should exercise a control over the
other possessions of the Company; that the chief of that
15 presidency should be styled Governor-General; that he
should be assisted by four Councilors; and that a supreme
court of judicature, consisting of a chief justice and three
inferior judges, should be established at Calcutta. This
court was made independent of the Governor-General and
20 Council, and was intrusted with a civil and criminal
jurisdiction of immense and, at the same time, of unde-
fined extent.

The Governor-General and Councilors were named in
the act, and were to hold their situations for five years.
25 Hastings was to be the first Governor-General. One of
the four new Councilors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced
servant of the Company, was then in India. The other
three, General Clavering, Mr. Monson, and Mr. Francis,
were sent out from England.

30 The ablest of the new Councilors was, beyond all doubt,
Philip Francis. His acknowledged compositions prove
that he possessed considerable eloquence and information.
Several years passed in the public offices had formed him
to habits of business. His enemies have never denied that﻿Warren Hastings	139

he had a fearless and manly spirit; and his friends, we are
afraid, must acknowledge that his estimate of himself
was extravagantly high, that his temper was irritable,
that his deportment was often rude and petulant, and
that his hatred was of intense bitterness and long duration. 5
It is scarcely possible to mention this eminent man
without adverting for a moment to the question which
his name at once suggests to every mind. Was he the
author of the Letters of Junius? Our own firm belief
is that he was. The- evidence is, we think, such as would 10
support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceed-
ing. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar hand-
writing of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position,
pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the
most important facts which can be considered as clearly 15
proved: first, that he was acquainted with the technical
forms of the secretary of state’s office; secondly, that he
was intimately acquainted with the business of the war-
office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended
debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, 20
particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly,
that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier
to the place of deputy secretary-at-war; fifthly, that he
was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland.
Now, Francis passed some years in the secretary of state’s 25
office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war-office.

He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770,
heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of these
speeches were actually printed from his notes. He re-
signed his clerkship at the war-office from resentment at 30
the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Hol-
land that he was first introduced into the public service.
Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found
in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do﻿140	Warren Hastings

not believe that more than two of them can be found in
any other person whatever. If this argument does not
settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on
circumstantial evidence.

5 The internal evidence seems to us to point the same
way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to
that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is
generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged com-
positions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the
10 anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at all
events, is one which may be urged with at least equal
force against every claimant that has ever been mentioned,
with the single exception of Burke; and it would be a
waste of time to prove that Burke was not Junius. And
15 what conclusion, after all, can be drawn from mere in-
feriority? Every writer must produce his best work; and
the interval between his best work and his second best
work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say that
the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior
20 to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or four
of Corneille’s tragedies to the rest, than three or four of
Ben Jonson’s comedies to the rest, than the Pilgrim's
Progress to the other works of Bunyan, than Don
Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is cer-
25 tain that Junius, whoever he may have been, was a most
unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which
bear the signature of Junius; the letter to the King,
and the letters to Horne Tooke, have little in common,
except the asperity; and asperity was an ingredient seldom
30 wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of
Francis.

Indeed one of the strongest reasons for believing that
Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance between the
two men. It is not difficult, from the letters which, under﻿Warren Hastings	14!

various signatures, are known to have been written by
Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others,
to form a tolerably correct notion of his character. He
was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and
magnanimity, a man whose vices were not of a sordid 5
kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest
degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence,
and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for
public virtue. “ Doest thou well to be angry?” was
the question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. 10
And he answered, “ I do well.” This was evidently the
temper of Junius; and to this cause we attribute the
savage cruelty which disgraces several of his letters. No
man is so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion,
confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be added 15
that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by
common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic
politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity
which perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare,
he regarded the most defective parts of old institutions 20
with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded the cause
of Old Sarum with fervor, and contemptuously told the
capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted
votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of
Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might 25
stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip
Francis.

It is not strange that the great anonymous writer
should have been willing at that time to leave the coun-
try which had been so powerfully stirred by his eloquence. 30
Everything had gone against him. That party which he
clearly preferred to every other, the party of George
Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief;
and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to﻿142	Warren Hastings

the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by the
Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must
have been alike an object of aversion to Junius. His
opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the Min-
5 istry; his opinions on colonial affairs from the Opposi-
tion. Under such circumstances, he had thrown down
his pen in misanthropical despair. His farewell letter to
Woodfall bears date the nineteenth of January, 1773. In
that letter, he declared that he must be an idiot to write
10 again; that he had meant well by the cause and the public;
that both were given up; that there were not ten men
who would act steadily together on any question. “ But
it is all alike,” he added, “vile and contemptible. You
have never flinched that I know of; and I shall always
15 rejoice to hear of your prosperity.” These were the last
words of Junius. In a year from that time, Philip
Francis was on his voyage to Bengal.

With the three new Councilors came out the judges
of the Supreme Court. The chief justice was Sir Elijah
20 Impey. He was an old acquaintance of Hastings; and it
is probable that the Governor-General, if he had searched
through all the Inns of Court, could not have found an
equally serviceable tool. But the members of Council
were by no means in an obsequious mood. Hastings
25 greatly disliked the new form of government, and had no
very high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard of
this, and were disposed to be suspicious and punctilious.
When men are in such a frame of mind, any trifle is
sufficient to give occasion for dispute. The members of
30 Council expected a salute of twenty-one guns from the bat-
teries of Fort William. Hastings allowed them only
seventeen. They landed in ill-humor. The first civilities
were exchanged with cold reserve. On the morrow com-
menced that long quarrel which, after distracting British﻿Warren Hastings	143

India, was renewed in England, and in which all the most
eminent statesmen and orators of the age took active part
on one or the other side.

Hastings was supported by Barwell. They had not al-
ways been friends. But the arrival of the new members of 5
Council from England naturally had the effect of uniting
the old servants of the Company. Clavering, Monson,
and Francis formed the majority. They instantly wrested
the government out of the hands of Hastings; condemned,
certainly not without justice, his late dealings with the 10
Nabob Vizier; recalled the English agent from Oude, and
sent thither a creature of their own; ordered the brigade
which had conquered the unhappy Rohillas to return to
the Company’s territories; and instituted a severe inquiry
into the conduct of the war. Next, in spite of the Gov- 15
ernor-General’s remonstrances, they proceeded to exercise,
in the most indiscreet manner, their new authority over
the subordinate presidencies; threw all the affairs of
Bombay into confusion; and interfered, with an incredible
union of rashness and feebleness, in the intestine disputes 20
of the Mahratta government. At the same time, they
fell on the internal administration of Bengal, and attacked
the whole fiscal and judicial system, a system which was
undoubtedly defective, but which it was very improbable
that gentlemen fresh from England would be competent to 25
amend. The effect of their reforms was that all protection
to life and property was withdrawn, and that gangs of
robbers plundered and slaughtered with impunity in the
very suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings continued to live
in the Government-house, and to draw the salary of 30
Governor-General. He continued even-to take the lead at
the council-board in the transaction of ordinary business;
for his opponents could not but feel that he knew much
of which they were ignorant, and that he decided, both﻿144	Warren Hastings

surely and speedily, many questions which to them would
have been hopelessly puzzling. But the higher powers of
government and the most valuable patronage had been
taken from him.

5 The natives soon found this out. They considered him
as a fallen man; and they acted after their kind. Some
of our readers may have seen, in India, a cloud of crows
pecking a sick vulture to death, no bad type of what hap-
pens in that country, as often as fortune deserts one who
io has been great and dreaded. In an instant, all the syco-
phants who had lately been ready to lie for him, to forge
for him, to pander for him, to poison for him, hastened to
purchase the favor of his victorious enemies by accusing
him. An Indian government has only to let it be under-
15 stood that it wishes a particular man to be ruined; and,
in twenty-four hours, it will be furnished with grave
charges, supported by depositions so full and circum-
stantial that any person unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity
would regard them as decisive. It is well if the signature
20 of the destined victim is not counterfeited at the foot of
some illegal compact, and if some treasonable paper is not
slipped into a hiding-place in his house. Hastings was now
regarded as helpless. The power to make or mar the for-
tune of every man in Bengal had passed, as it seemed,
25 into the hands of the new Councilors. Immediately
charges against the Governor-General began to pour in.
They were eagerly welcomed by the majority, who, to do
them justice, were men of too much honor knowingly to
countenance false accusations, but who were not sufficiently
30 acquainted with the East to be aware that, in that part
of the world, a very little encouragement from power
will call forth, in a week, more Oateses, and Bedloes, and
Dangerfields, than Westminster Hall sees in a century.

It would have been strange indeed if, at such a junc-﻿Warren Hastings	145

ture, Nuncomar had remained quiet. That bad man was
stimulated at once by malignity, by avarice, and by am-
bition. Now was the time to be avenged on his old
enemy, to wreak a grudge of seventeen years, to establish
himself in the favor of the majority of the Council, to 5
become the greatest native in Bengal. From the time
of the arrival of the new Councilors, he had paid the most
marked court to them, and had in consequence been ex-
cluded, with all indignity, from the Government-house.

He now put into the hands of Francis, with great cere- 10
mony, a paper containing several charges of the most
serious description. By this document Hastings was ac-
cused of putting offices up to sale, and of receiving bribes
for suffering offenders to escape. In particular, it was
alleged that Mahommed Reza Khan had been dismissed 15
with impunity, in consideration of a great sum paid to the
Governor-General.

Francis read the paper in Council. A violent alterca-
tion followed. Hastings complained in bitter terms of
the way in which he was treated, spoke with contempt of 20
Nuncomar and of Nuncomar’s accusation, and denied the
right of the Council to sit in judgment on the Governor.

At the next meeting of the Board, another communica-
tion from Nuncomar was produced. He requested that
he might be permitted to attend the Council, and that he 25
might be heard in support of his assertions. Another tem-
pestuous debate took place. The Governor-General main-
tained that the council-room was not a proper place for
such an investigation; that from persons who were heated
by daily conflict with him he could not expect the fairness 30
of judges; and that he could not, without betraying the
dignity of his post, submit to be confronted with such
a man as Nuncomar. The majority, however, resolved to
go into the charges. Hastings rose, declared the sitting at﻿146	Warren Hastings

an end, and left the room, followed by Barwell. The
other members kept their seats, voted themselves a coun-
cil, put Clavering in the chair, and ordered Nuncomar to
be called in. Nuncomar not only adhered to the original
5 charges, but, after the fashion of the East, produced a
large supplement. He stated that Hastings had received a
great sum for appointing Rajah Goordas treasurer of the
Nabob’s household,' and for committing the care of his
Highness’s person to the Munny Begum. He put in a let-
10 ter purporting to bear the seal of the Munny Begum, for
the purpose of establishing the truth of his story. The
seal, whether forged, as Hastings affirmed, or genuine, as
we are rather inclined to believe, proved nothing. Nun-
comar, as everybody knows who knows India, had only to
15 tell the Munny Begum that such a letter would give
pleasure to the majority of the Council, in order to pro-
cure her attestation. The majority, however, voted that
the charge was made out; that Hastings had corruptly
received between thirty and forty thousand pounds; and
20 that he ought to be compelled to refund.

The general feeling among the English in Bengal was
strongly in favor of the Governor-General. In talents
for business, in knowledge of the country, in general
courtesy of demeanor, he was decidedly superior to his
25 persecutors. The servants of the Company were natu-
rally disposed to side with the most distinguished member
of their own body against a clerk from the war-office, who,
profoundly ignorant of the native languages and of the
native character, took on himself to regulate every de-
30 partment of the administration. Hastings, however, in
spite of the general sympathy of his countrymen, was in
a most painful situation. There was still an appeal to
higher authority in England. If that authority took part
with his enemies, nothing was left to him but to throw up﻿Warren Hastings	147

his office. He accordingly placed his resignation in the
hands of his agent in London, Colonel Macleane. But
Macleane was instructed not to produce the resignation
unless it should be fully ascertained that the feeling at the
India House was adverse to the Governor-General.	5

The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. He
held a daily levee, to which his countrymen resorted in
crowds, and to which, on one occasion, the majority of
the Council condescended to repair. His house was an
office for the purpose of receiving charges against the 10
Governor-General. It was said that, partly by threats,
and partly by wheedling, the villainous Brahmin had in-
duced many of the wealthiest men of the province to send
in complaints. But he was playing a perilous game. It
was not safe to drive to despair a man of such resources 15
and of such determination as Hastings. Nuncomar, with
all his acuteness, did not understand the nature of the in-
stitutions under which he lived. He saw that he had
with him the majority of the body which made treaties,
gave places, raised taxes. The separation between political 20
and judicial functions was a thing of which he had no con-
ception. It had probably never occurred to him that there
was in Bengal an authority perfectly independent of the
Council, an authority which could protect one whom the
Council wished to destroy, and send to the gibbet one 25
whom the Council wished to protect. Yet such was the
fact. The Supreme Court was, within the sphere of its
own duties, altogether independent of the Government.
Hastings, with his usual sagacity, had seen how much
advantage he might derive from possessing himself of this 30
stronghold; and he had acted accordingly. The Judges,
especially the Chief Justice, were hostile to the majority
of the Council. The time had now come for putting this
formidable machinery into action.﻿148	Warren Hastings

On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the news that
Nuncomar had been taken up on a charge of felony, com-
mitted, and thrown into the common jail. The crime
imputed to him was that six years before he had forged
5 a bond. The ostensible prosecutor was a native. But it
was then, and still is, the opinion of everybody, idiots
and biographers excepted, that Hastings was the real
mover in the business.

The rage of the majority rose to the highest point,
10 They protested against the proceedings of the Supreme
Court, and sent several urgent messages to the Judges,
demanding that Nuncomar should be admitted to bail.
The Judges returned haughty and resolute answers. All that
the Council could do was to heap honors and emoluments
15 on the family of Nuncomar; and this they did. In the
meantime the assizes commenced; a true bill was found;
and Nuncomar was brought before Sir Elijah Impey and
a jury composed of Englishmen. A great quantity of
contradictory swearing, and the necessity of having every
20 word of the evidence interpreted, protracted the trial to a
most unusual length. At last a verdict of guilty was re-
turned, and the Chief Justice pronounced sentence of
death on the prisoner.

That Impey ought to have respited Nuncomar we hold
25 to be perfectly clear. Whether the whole proceeding
was not illegal, is a question. But it is certain that, what-
ever may have been, according to technical rules of con-
struction, the effect oi? the statute under which the trial
took place, it was most unjust to hang a Hindoo for
30 forgery. The law which made forgery capital in Eng-
land was passed without the smallest reference to the
state of society in India. It was unknown to the natives
of India. It had never been put in execution among them,
certainly not for want of delinquents. It was in the high-﻿Warren Hastings	149

est degree shocking to all their notions. They were not
accustomed to the distinction which many circumstances,
peculiar to our own state of society, have led us to make
between forgery and other kinds of cheating. The coun-
terfeiting of a seal was, in their estimation, a common act 5
of swindling; nor had it ever crossed their minds that it
was to be punished as severely as gang-robbery or assassina-
tion. A just judge would, beyond all doubt, have reserved
the case for the consideration of the sovereign. But Impey
would not hear of mercy or delay.	10

The excitement among all classes was great. Francis
and Francis’s few English adherents described the
Governor-General and the Chief Justice as the worst of
murderers. Clavering, it was said, swore that, even at the
foot of the gallows, Nuncomar should be rescued. The 15
bulk of the European society, though strongly attached
to the Governor-General, could not but feel compassion
for a man who, with all his crimes, had so long filled so
large a space in their sight, who had been great and
powerful before the British empire in India began to exist, 20
and to whom, in the old times, governors and members of
council, then mere commercial factors, had paid court for
protection. The feeling of the Hindoos was infinitely
stronger. They were, indeed, not a people to strike one
blow for their countryman. But his sentence filled them 25
with sorrow and dismay.	Tried even by their low

standard of morality, he was a bad man. But, bad as
he was, he was the head of their race and religion, a
Brahmin of the Brahmins. He had inherited the purest
and highest caste. He had practised with the greatest 30
punctuality all those ceremonies to which the superstitious
Bengalees ascribe far more importance than to the correct
discharge of the social duties. They felt, therefore, as
a devout Catholic in the dark ages would have felt, at﻿150	Warren Hastings

seeing a prelate of the highest dignity sent to the gallows
by a secular tribunal. According to their old national laws,
a Brahmin could not be put to death for any crime what-
ever. And the crime for which Nuncomar was about to
S die was regarded by them in much the same light in which
the selling of an unsound horse, for a sound price, is re-
garded by a Yorkshire jockey.

The Mussulmans alone appear to have seen with exulta-
tion the fate of the powerful Hindoo, who had attempted
10 to rise by means of the ruin of Mahommed Reza
Khan. The Mahommedan historian of those times takes
delight in aggravating the charge. He assures us that
in Nuncomar’s house a casket was found containing
counterfeits of the seals of all the richest men of the
15 province. We have never fallen in with any other
authority for this story, which in itself is by no means
improbable.

The day drew near; and Nuncomar prepared himself to
die with that quiet fortitude with which the Bengalee,
20 so effeminately timid in personal conflict, often encounters
calamities for which there is no remedy. The sheriff,
with the humanity which is seldom wanting in an English
gentleman, visited the prisoner on the eve of the execution,
and assured him that no indulgence, consistent with the
25 law, should be refused to him. Nuncomar expressed his
gratitude with great politeness and unaltered composure.
Not a muscle of his face moved. Not a sigh broke from
him. He put his finger to his forehead, and calmly
said that fate would have its way, and that there was
30 no resisting the pleasure of God. He sent his compli-
ments to Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and charged
them to protect Rajah Goordas, who was about to be-
come the head of the Brahmins of Bengal. The sheriff
withdrew, greatly agitated by what had passed, and﻿Warren Hastings	151

Nuncomar sat composedly down to write notes and ex-
amine accounts.

The next morning, before the sun was in his power,
an immense concourse assembled round the place where
the gallows had been set up. Grief and horror were on 5
every face; yet to the last the multitude could hardly
believe that the English really purposed to take the life
of the great Brahmin. At length the mournful proces-
sion came through the crowd. Nuncomar sat up in his
palanquin, and looked round him with unaltered serenity. 10
He had just parted from those who were most nearly
connected with him. Their cries and contortions had
appalled the European ministers of justice, but had not
produced the smallest effect on the iron stoicism of the
prisoner. The only anxiety which he expressed was that 15
men of his own priestly caste might be in attendance to
take charge of his corpse. He again desired to be remem-
bered to his friends in the Council, mounted the scaffold
with firmness, and gave the signal to the executioner. The
moment that the drop fell, a howl of sorrow and despair 20
rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds turned
away their faces from the polluting sight, fled with loud
wailings towards the Hoogley, and plunged into its holy
waters, as if to purify themselves from the guilt of hav-
ing looked on such a crime. These feelings were not 25
confined to Calcutta. The whole province was greatly
excited; and the population of Dacca, in particular, gave
strong signs of grief and dismay.

Of Impey’s conduct it is impossible to speak too se-
verely. We have already said that, in our opinion, he 30
acted unjustly in refusing to respite Nuncomar. No
rational man can doubt that he took this course in order
to gratify the Governor-General. If we had ever had
any doubts on that point, they would have been dispelled﻿152	Warren Hastings

by a letter which Mr. Gleig has published. Hastings,
three or four years later, described Impey as the man
“ to whose support he was at one time indebted for
the safety of his fortune, honor, and reputation.” These
5 strong words can refer only to the case of Nuncomar; and
they must mean that Impey hanged Nuncomar in order to
support Hastings. It is, therefore, our deliberate opinion
that Impey, sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death
in order to serve a political purpose.

10 But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a somewhat
different light. He was struggling for fortune, honor,
liberty, all that makes life valuable. He was beset by
rancorous and unprincipled enemies. From his colleagues
he could expect no justice. He cannot be blamed for
15 wishing to crush his accusers. He was indeed bound to
use only legitimate means for that end. But it was not
strange that he should have thought any means legitimate
which were pronounced legitimate by the sages of the law,
by men whose peculiar duty it was to deal justly between
20 adversaries, and whose education might be supposed to have
peculiarly qualified them for the discharge of that duty.
Nobody demands from a party the unbending equity of a
judge. The reason that judges are appointed is, that even
a good man cannot be trusted to decide a cause in which
25 he is himself concerned. Not a day passes on which an
honest prosecutor does not ask for what none but a dis-
honest tribunal would grant. It is too much to expect that
any man, when his dearest interests are at stake, and his
strongest passions excited, will, as against himself, be more
30 just than the sworn dispensers of justice. To take an anal-
ogous case from the history of our own island: suppose
that Lord Stafford, when in the Tower on suspicion of
being concerned in the Popish plot, had been apprised
that Titus Oates had done something which might, by a﻿Warren Hastings	153

questionable construction, be brought under the head of
felony. Should we severely blame Lord Stafford, in the
supposed case, for causing a prosecution to be instituted,
for furnishing funds, for using all his influence to inter-
cept the mercy of the Crown? We think not. If a 5
judge, indeed, from favor to the Catholic lords, were to
strain the law in order to hang Oates, such a judge would
richly deserve impeachment. But it does not appear to us
that the Catholic lord, by bringing the case before the
judge for decision, would materially overstep the limits 10
of a just self-defense.

While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that this
memorable execution is to be attributed to Hastings, we
doubt whether it can with justice be reckoned among his
crimes. That his conduct was dictated by a profound 15
policy is evident. He was in a minority in Council. It
was possible that he might long be in a minority.

He knew the native character well. He knew in
what abundance accusations are certain to flow in against
the most innocent inhabitant of India who is under 20
the frown of power. There was not in the whole
black population of Bengal a place-holder, a place-hunter,
a government tenant, who did not think that he might
better himself by sending up a deposition against the
Governor-General. Under these circumstances, the per- 25
secuted statesman resolved to teach the whole crew of
accusers and witnesses that, though in a minority at the
council-board, he was still to be feared. The lesson which
he gave them was indeed a lesson not to be forgotten.
The head of the combination which had been formed 30
against him, the richest, the most powerful, the most art-
ful of the Hindoos, distinguished by the favor of those
who then held the government, fenced round by the super-
stitious reverence of millions, was hanged in broad day﻿154	Warren Hastings

before many thousands of people. Everything that could
make the warning impressive, dignity in the sufferer,
solemnity in the proceeding, was found in this case. The
helpless rage and vain struggles of the Council made the
5 triumph more signal. From that moment the conviction
of every native was that it was safer to take the part of
Hastings in a minority than that of Francis in a majority,
and that he who was so venturous as to join in running
down the Governor-General might chance, in the phrase
io of the Eastern poet, to find a tiger, while beating the
jungle for a deer. The voices of a thousand informers
were silenced in an instant. From that time, whatever
difficulties Hastings might have to encounter, he was
never molested by accusations from natives of India.

15 It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters
of Hastings to Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours
after the death of Nun'comar. While the whole settlement
was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood
were weeping over the remains of their chief, the con-
20 queror in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic
self-possession, to write about the Tour to the Hebrides,
Jones’s Persian Grammar, and the history, traditions,
arts, and natural productions of India.

In the meantime, intelligence of the Rohilla war, and
25 of the first disputes between Hastings and his colleagues,
had reached London. The Directors took part with the
majority, and sent out a letter filled with severe reflections
on the conduct of Hastings. They condemned, in strong
but just terms, the iniquity of undertaking offensive wars
30 merely for the sake of pecuniary advantages. But they
utterly forgot that, if Hastings had by illicit means ob-
tained pecuniary advantages, he had done so, not for his
own benefit, but in order to meet their demands. To
enjoin honesty, and to insist on having what could not be﻿Warren Hastings	155

honestly got, was then the constant practice of the Com-
pany. As Lady Macbeth says of her husband, they
“ would not play false, and yet would wrongly win.”

The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been ap-
pointed Governor-General for five years, empowered the 5
Crown to remove him on an address from the Company.
Lord North was desirous to procure such an address. The
three members of Council who had been sent out from
England were men of his own choice. General Claver-
ing, in particular, was supported by a large parliamentary 10
connection, such as no cabinet could be inclined to dis-
oblige. The wish of the Minister was to displace Hast-
ings, and to put Clavering at the head of the govern-
ment. In the Court of Directors parties were very
nearly balanced. Eleven voted against Hastings; ten for 15
him. The Court of Proprietors was then convened. The
great sale-room presented a singular appearance. Letters
had been sent by the Secretary of the Treasury, exhorting
all the supporters of government who held India stock
to be in attendance. Lord Sandwich marshaled the 20
friends of the administration with his usual dexterity and
alertness. Fifty peers and privy councilors, seldom seen
so far eastward, were counted in the crowd. The debate
lasted till midnight. The opponents of Hastings had a
small superiority on the division; but a ballot was de- 25
manded; and the result was that the Governor-General
triumphed by a majority of above a hundred votes over the
combined efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. The
ministers were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even
Lord North lost his temper, no ordinary occurrence with 30
him, and threatened to convoke Parliament before Christ-
mas, and to bring in a bill for depriving the Company of
all political power, and for restricting it to its old business
of trading in silks and teas.﻿156	Warren Hastings

Colonel Macleane, who through all this conflict had
zealously supported the cause of Hastings, now thought
that his employer was in imminent danger of being
turned out, branded with parliamentary censure, perhaps
5 prosecuted. The opinion of the crown lawyers had al-
ready been taken respecting some parts of the Governor-
General’s conduct. It seemed to be high time to think
of securing an honorable retreat. Under these circum-
stances, Macleane thought himself justified in producing
10 the resignation with which he had been intrusted. The
instrument was not in very accurate form; but the Direc-
tors were too eager to be scrupulous. They accepted the
resignation, fixed on Mr. Wheler, one of their own body,
to succeed Hastings, and sent out orders that General
15 Clavering, as senior member of Council, should exercise
the functions of Governor-General till Mr. Wheler should
arrive.

But, while these things were passing in England, a
great change had taken place in Bengal. Monson was
20 no more. Only four members of the government were
left. Clavering and Francis were on one side, Barwell and
the Governor-General on the other; and the Governor-
General had the casting vote. Hastings, who had been
during two years destitute of all power and patronage,
25 became at once absolute. He instantly proceeded to re-
taliate on his adversaries. Their measures were reversed;
their creatures were displaced. A new valuation of the
lands of Bengal, for the purposes of taxation, was ordered;
and it was provided that the whole inquiry should be
30 conducted by the Governor-General, and that all the let-
ters relating to it should run in his name. He began, at
the same time, to revolve vast plans of conquest and
dominion, plans which he lived to see realized, though
not by himself. His project was to form subsidiary alii-﻿Warren Hastings	157

ances with the native princes, particularly with those of
Oude and Berar, and thus to make Britain the paramount
power in India. While he was meditating these great
designs, arrived the intelligence that he had ceased to be
Governor-General, that his resignation had been accepted, 5
that Wheler was coming out immediately, and that, till
Wheler arrived, the chair was to be filled by Clavering.

Had Hastings still been in a minority, he would prob-
ably have retired without a struggle; but he was now the
real master of British India, and he was not disposed to 10
quit his high place. He asserted that he had never given
any instructions which could warrant the steps taken at
home. What his instructions had been, he owned he had
forgotten. If he had kept a copy of them he had mislaid
it. But he was certain that he had repeatedly declared to 15
the Directors that he would not resign. He could not
see how the court, possessed of that declaration from him-
self, could receive his resignation from the doubtful hands
of an agent. If the resignation were invalid, all the pro-
ceedings which were founded on that resignation were 20
null, and Hastings was still Governor-General.

He afterwards affirmed that, though his agents had
not acted in conformity with his instructions, he would
nevertheless have held himself bound by their acts, if
Clavering had not attempted to seize the supreme power 25
by violence. Whether this assertion were or were not
true, it cannot be doubted that the imprudence of Claver-
ing gave Hastings an advantage. The General sent for
the keys of the fort and of the treasury, took possession of
the records, and held a council at which Francis attended. 30
Hastings took the chair in another apartment, and Barwell
sat with him. Each of the two parties had a plausible
show of right. There was no authority entitled to their
obedience within fifteen thousand miles. It seemed that﻿158	Warren Hastings

there remained no way of settling the dispute except an
appeal to arms; and from such an appeal Hastings, con-
fident of his influence over his countrymen in India, was
not inclined to shrink. He directed the officers of the
5 garrison at Fort William and of all the neighboring sta-
tions to obey no orders but his. At the same time, with
admirable judgment, he offered to submit the case to the
Supreme Court, and to abide by its decision. By making
this proposition he risked nothing; yet it was a proposi-
10 tion which his opponents could hardly reject. Nobody
could be treated as a criminal for obeying what the
judges should solemnly pronounce to be the lawful gov-
ernment. The boldest man would shrink from taking
arms in defense of what the judges should pronounce to
15 be usurpation. Clavering and Francis, after some delay,
unwillingly consented to abide by the award of the court.
The court pronounced that the resignation was invalid,
and that therefore Hastings was still Governor-General
under the Regulating Act; and the defeated members of
20 the Council, finding that the sense of the whole settle-
ment was against them, acquiesced in the decision.

About this time arrived the news that, after a suit
which had lasted several years, the Franconian courts
had decreed a divorce between Imhoff and his wife. The
25 Baron left Calcutta, carrying with him the means of buy-
ing an estate in Saxony. The lady became Mrs. Hast-
ings. The event was celebrated by great festivities; and
all the most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, without dis-
tinction of parties, were invited to the Government-house.
30 Clavering, as the Mohammedan chronicler tells the story,
was sick in mind and body, and excused himself from join-
ing the splendid assembly. But Hastings, whom, as it
should seem, success in ambition and in love had put into
high good-humor, would take no denial. He went hin>﻿Warren Hastings	159

self to the General’s house, and at length brought his
vanquished rival in triumph to the gay circle which sur-
rounded the bride. The exertion was too much for a
frame broken by mortification as well as by disease.
Clavering died a few days later.	5

Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor-
General, and was forced to content himself with a seat at
the council-board, generally voted with Francis. But the
Governor-General, with Barwell’s help and his own cast-
ing vote, was still the master. Some change took place at 10
this time in the feeling both of the Court of Directors
and of the Ministers of the Crown. All designs against
Hastings were dropped; and, when his original term of
five years expired, he was quietly reappointed. The truth
is, that the fearful dangers to which the public interests 15
in every quarter were now exposed, made both Lord North
and the Company unwilling to part with a Governor
whose talents, experience, and resolution, enmity itself
was compelled to acknowledge.

The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and vie- 20
torious empire, on the throne of which George the Third
had taken his seat eighteen years before, with brighter
hopes than had attended the accession of any of the long
line of English sovereigns, had, by the most senseless
misgovernment, been brought to the verge of ruin. In 25
America millions of Englishmen were at war with the
country from which their blood, their language, their
religion, and their institutions were derived, and to which,
but a short time before, they had been as strongly attached
as the inhabitants of Norfolk and Leicestershire. The 30
great powers of Europe, humbled to the dust by the vigor
and genius which had guided the councils of George the
Second, now rejoiced in the prospect of a signal revenge.
The time was approaching when our island, while strug-﻿160	Warren Hastings

gling to keep down the United States of America, and
pressed with a still nearer danger by the too just dis-
contents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, Spain,
and Holland, and to be threatened by the armed neutrality
S of the Baltic; when even our maritime supremacy was to
be in jeopardy; when hostile fleets were to command the
Straits of Calpe and the Mexican Sea; when the British
flag was to be scarcely able to protect the British Chan-
nel. Great as were the faults of Hastings, it was happy
io for our country that at that conjuncture, the most terrible
through which she has ever passed, he was the ruler of her
Indian dominions.

An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be appre-
hended. The danger was that the European enemies
15 of England might form an alliance with some native
power, might furnish that power with troops, arms, and
ammunition, and might thus assail our possessions on
the side of the land. It was chiefly from the Mahrattas
that Hastings anticipated danger. The original seat of
20 that singular people was the wild range of hills which
runs along the western coast of India. In the reign of
Aurungzebe the inhabitants of those regions, led by the
great Sevajee, began to descend on the possessions of their
wealthier and less warlike neighbors. The energy, feroc-
25 ity, and cunning of the Mahrattas, soon made them the
most conspicuous among the new powers which were gen-
erated by the corruption of the decaying monarchy. At
first they were only robbers. They soon rose to the dig-
nity of conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire
30 were turned into Mahratta principalities. Freebooters,
sprung from low castes, and accustomed to menial em-
ployments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the
head of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast region of
Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the﻿Warren Hastings	161

Herdsmen, founded that dynasty which still reigns in
Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed
great in Malwa. One adventurous captain made his nest
on the impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became the
lord of the thousand villages which are scattered among 5
the green rice-fields of Tanjore.

That was the time, throughout India, of double gov-
ernment. The form and the power were everywhere
separated. The Mussulman Nabobs who had become
sovereign princes, the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam at 10
Hyderabad, still called themselves the viceroys of the
House of Tamerlane. In the same manner the Mah-
ratta states, though really independent of each other, pre-
tended to be members of one empire. They all acknowl-
edged, by words and ceremonies, the supremacy of the 15
heir of Sevajee, a roi faineant who chewed bang and
toyed with dancing girls in a state prison at Sattara, and
of his Peshwa or mayor of the palace, a great hereditary
magistrate, who kept a court with kingly state at Poonah,
and whose authority was obeyed in the spacious provinces 20
of Aurungabad and Bejapoor.

Some months before war was declared in Europe the
government of Bengal was alarmed by the news that a
French adventurer, who passed for a man of quality, had
arrived at Poonah. It was said that he had been received 25
there with great distinction, that he had delivered to the
Peshwa letters and presents from Louis the Sixteenth,
and that a treaty, hostile to England, had been concluded
between France and the Mahrattas.

Hastings immediately resolved to strike the first blow. 30
The title of the Peshwa was not undisputed. A portion
of the Mahratta nation was favorable to a pretender.
The Governor-General determined to espouse this pre-
tender’s interest, to move an army across the peninsula of﻿162	Warren Hastings

India, and to form a close alliance with the chief of the
house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, and who, in power
and dignity, was inferior to none of the Mahratta
princes.

5 The army had marched, and the negotiations with Berar
were in progress, when a letter from the English consul
at Cairo brought the news that war had been proclaimed
both in London and Paris. All the measures which the
crisis required were adopted by Hastings without a mo-
io ment’s delay. The French factories in Bengal were
seized. Orders were sent to Madras that Pondicherry
should instantly be occupied. Near Calcutta, works were
thrown up which were thought to render the approach of
a hostile force impossible. A maritime establishment was
15 formed for the defense of the river. Nine new battalions
of sepoys were raised, and a corps of native artillery was
formed out of the hardy Lascars of the Bay of Bengal.
Having made these arrangements, the Governor-General
with calm confidence pronounced his presidency secure
20 from all attack, unless the Mahrattas should march
against it in conjunction with the French.

The expedition which Hastings had sent westward
was not so speedily or completely successful as most of
his undertakings. The commanding officer procrastinated.
25 The authorities at Bombay blundered. But the Governor-
General persevered. A new commander repaired the
errors of his predecessor. Several brilliant actions spread
the military renown of the English through regions where
no European flag had ever been seen. It is probable that,
30 if a new and more formidable danger had not compelled
Hastings to change his whole policy, his plans respecting
the Mahratta empire would have been carried into com-
plete effect.

The authorities in England had wisely sent out to﻿Warren Hastings	163

Bengal, as commander of the forces and member of the
Council, one of the most distinguished soldiers of that
time. Sir Eyre Coote had, many years before, been con-
spicuous among the founders of the British empire in the
East. At the council of war which preceded the battle 5
of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in opposition to the
majority, that daring course which, after some hesitation,
was adopted, and which was crowned with such splendid
success. He subsequently commanded in the south of
India against the brave and unfortunate Lally, gained the 10
decisive battle of Wandewash over the French and their
native allies, took Pondicherry, and made the English
power supreme in the Carnatic. Since those great ex-
ploits near twenty years had elapsed. Coote had no
longer the bodily activity which he had shown in earlier 15
days; nor was the vigor of his mind altogether unim-
paired. He was capricious and fretful, and required
much coaxing to keep him in good-humor. It must, we
fear, be added that the love of money had grown upon
him, and that he thought more about his allowances, and 20
less about his duties, than might have been expected from
so eminent a member of so noble a profession. Still he
was perhaps the ablest officer that was then to be found in
the British army. Among the native soldiers his name
was great and his influence unrivaled. Nor is he yet 25
forgotten by them. Now and then a white-bearded old
sepoy may still be found, who loves to talk of Porto
Novo and Pollilore. It is but a short time since one of
those aged men came to present a memorial to an English
officer, who holds one of the highest employments in India. 30
A print of Coote hung in the room. The veteran recog-
nized at once that face and figure which he had not seen
for more than half a century, and, forgetting his salaam
to the living, halted, drew himself up, lifted his hand,﻿164	Warren Hastings

and with solemn reverence paid his military obeisance to
the dead.

Coote, though he did not, like Barwell, vote constantly
with the Governor-General, was by no means inclined to
5 join in systematic opposition, and on most questions con-
curred with Hastings, who did his best, by assiduous court-
ship, and by readily granting the most exorbitant allow-
ances, to gratify the strongest passions of the old soldier.

It seemed likely at this time that a general reconcilia-
10 tion would put an end to the quarrels which had, during
some years, weakened and disgraced the government of
Bengal.. The dangers of the empire might well induce
men of patriotic feeling,—and of patriotic feeling neither
Hastings nor Francis was destitute,—to forget private
15 enmities, and to co-operate heartily for the general good.
Coote had never been concerned in faction. Wheler was
thoroughly tired of it. Barwell had made an ample for-
tune, and, though he had promised that he would not leave
Calcutta while his help was needed in Council, was most
20 desirous to return to England, and exerted himself to
promote an arrangement which would set him at liberty.

A compact was made, by which Francis agreed to
desist from opposition, and Hastings engaged that the
friends of Francis should be admitted to a fair share of
25 the honors and emoluments of the service. During a few
months after this treaty there was apparent harmony at
the council-board.

Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary; for at
this moment internal calamities, more formidable than
30 war itself, menaced Bengal. The authors of the Regulat-
ing Act of 1773 had established two independent powers,
the one judicial, the other political; and, with a care-
lessness scandalously common in English legislation, had
omitted to define the limits of either. The judges took﻿Warren Hastings	165

advantage of the indistinctness, and attempted to draw to
themselves supreme authority, not only within Calcutta,
but through the whole of the great territory subject to the
presidency of Fort William. There are few Englishmen
who will not admit that the English law, in spite of mod- 5
ern improvements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy as
might be wished. Still, it is a system which has grown
up among us. In some points, it has been fashioned to
suit our feelings; in others, it has gradually fashioned our
feelings to suit itself. Even to its worst evils we are 10
accustomed; and therefore, though we may complain of
them, they do not strike us with the horror and dismay
which would be produced by a new grievance of smaller
severity. In India the case is widely different. English
law, transplanted to that country, has all the vices from 15
which we suffer here; it has them all in a far higher de-
gree; and it has other vices, compared with which the
worst vices from which we suffer are trifles. Dilatory
here, it is far more dilatory in a land where the help of
an interpreter is needed by every judge and by every 20
advocate. Costly here, it is far more costly in a land
into which the legal practitioners must be imported from
an immense distance. All English labor in India, from the
labor of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-
Chief, down to that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be 25
paid for at a higher rate than at home. No man will be
banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for nothing. The
rule holds good with respect to the legal profession. No
English barrister will work, fifteen thousand miles from all
his friends, with the thermometer at ninety-six in the shade, 30
for the emoluments which will content him in chambers
that overlook the Thames. Accordingly, the fees at Cal-
cutta are about three times as great as the fees of West-
minster Hall; and this, though the people of India are,﻿166

Warren Hastings

beyond all comparison, poorer than the people of England.
Yet the delay and the expense, grievous as they are, form
the smallest part of the evil which English law, imported
without modifications into India, could not fail to pro-
5 duce. The strongest feelings of our nature, honor, re-
ligion, female modesty, rose up against the innovation.
Arrest on mesne process was the first step in most civil
proceedings; and to a native of rank arrest was not
merely a restraint, but a foul personal indignity. Oaths
io were required in every stage of every suit; and the feel-
ing of a Quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than that
of a respectable native. That the apartments of a woman
of quality should be entered by strange men, or that her
face should be seen by them, are, in the East, intolerable
15 outrages, outrages which are more dreaded than death,
and which can be expiated only by the shedding of blood.
To these outrages the most distinguished families of Ben-
gal, Bahar, and Orissa, were now exposed. Imagine
what the state of our own country would be, if a jurispru-
20 dence were on a sudden introduced among us, which
should be to us what our jurisprudence was to our Asiatic
subjects. Imagine what the state of our country would
be, if it were enacted that any man, by merely swearing
that a debt was due to him, should acquire a right to in-
25 suit the persons of men of the most honorable and sacred
callings and of women of the most shrinking delicacy,
to horsewhip a general officer,, to put a bishop in the
stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called forth the
blow of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the effect
30 of the attempt which the Supreme Court made to extend
its jurisdiction over the whole of the Company’s territory.

A reign of terror began, of terror heightened by
mystery; for even that which was endured was less hor-
rible than that which was anticipated. No man knew﻿Warren Hastings	167

what was next to be expected from this strange tribunal.

It came from beyond the black water, as the people of
India, with mysterious horror, call the sea. It consisted of
judges not one of whom was familiar with the usages of
the millions over whom they claimed boundless authority. 5
Its records were kept in unknown characters; its sentences
were pronounced in unknown sounds. It had already col-
lected round itself an army of the worst part of the native
population, informers, and false witnesses, and common
barrators, and agents of chicane, and above all, a banditti 10
of bailiffs’ followers, compared with whom the retainers
of the worst English spunging-houses, in the worst times,
might be considered as upright and tender-hearted. Many
natives, highly considered among their countrymen, were
seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the common jail, 15
not for any crime even imputed, not for any debt that
had been proved, but merely as a precaution till their
cause should come to trial. There were instances in
which men of the most venerable dignity, persecuted
without a cause by extortioners, died of rage and shame in 20
the grip of the vile alguazils of Impey. The harems of
noble Mohammedans, sanctuaries respected in the East
by governments which respected nothing else, were burst
open by gangs of bailiffs. The Mussulmans, braver and
less accustomed to submission than the Hindoos, some- 25
times stood on their defense; and there w^ere instances in
which they shed their blood in the doorway, while defend-
ing, sword in hand, the sacred apartments of their women.
Nay, it seemed as if even the faint-hearted Bengalee, who
bad crouched at the feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had 30
been mute during the administration of Vansittart, would
at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta inva-
sion had ever spread through the province such dismay as
this inroad of English lawyers. All the injustice of former﻿168	Warren Hastings

oppressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing
when compared with the justice of the Supreme Court.

Every class of the population, English and native, with
the exception of the ravenous pettifoggers who fattened on
5 the misery and terror of an immense community, cried
out loudly against this fearful oppression. But the judges
were immovable. If a bailiff was resisted, they ordered
the soldiers to be called out. If a servant of the Com-
pany, in conformity with the orders of the government,
io withstood the miserable catchpoles who, with Impey’s
writs in their hands, exceeded the insolence and rapacity
of gang-robbers, he was flung into prison for a contempt.-
The lapse of sixty years, the virtue and wisdom of many
eminent magistrates who have during that time adminis-
15 tered justice in the Supreme Court, have not effaced from
the minds of the people of Bengal the recollection of
those evil days.

The members of the government were, on this subject,
united as one man. Hastings had courted the judges, he
20 had found them useful instruments; but he was not dis-
posed to make them his own masters, or the masters of
India. His mind was large; his knowledge of the native
character most accurate. He saw that the system pur-
sued by the Supreme Court was degrading to the govem-
25 ment and ruinous to the people; and he resolved to oppose
it manfully. The consequence was, that the friendship,
if that be the proper word for such a connection, which
had existed between him and Impey, was for a time com-
pletely dissolved. The government placed itself firmly
30 between the tyrannical tribunal and the people. The
Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest excesses. The
Governor-General and all the members of Council were
served with writs, calling on them to appear before the
King’s justices, and to answer for their public acts. This﻿Warren Hastings	169

was too much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused to obey
the call, set at liberty the persons wrongfully detained
by the Court, and took measures for resisting the out-
rageous proceedings of the sheriffs’ officers, if necessary, by
the sword. But he had in view another device which 5
might prevent the necessity of an appeal to arms. He
was seldom at a loss for an expedient; and he knew Impey
well. The expedient, in this case, was a very simple one,
neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey was, by act
of Parliament, a judge, independent of the government of 10
Bengal, and entitled to a salary of eight thousand a
year. Hastings proposed to make him also a judge in
the Company’s service, removable at the pleasure of the
government of Bengal; and to give him, in that capacity,
about eight thousand a year more. It was understood 15
that, in consideration of this new salary, Impey would
desist from urging the high pretensions of his court. If he
did urge these pretensions, the government could, at a
moment’s notice, eject him from the new place which had
been created for him. The bargain was struck; Bengal 20
was saved; an appeal to force was averted; and the
Chief Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

Of Impey’s conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It
was of a piece with almost every part of his conduct
that comes under the notice of history. No other such 25
judge has dishonored the English ermine, since Jeffreys
drank himself to death in the Tower. But we cannot
agree with those who have blamed Hastings for this trans-
action. The case stood thus. The negligent manner in
which the Regulating Act had been framed put it in the 30
power of the Chief Justice to throw a great country into
the most dreadful confusion. He was determined to use
his power to the utmost, unless he was paid to be still; and
Hastings consented to pay him. The necessity was to be﻿170	Warren Hastings

deplored. It is also to be deplored that pirates should be
able to exact ransom, by threatening to make their cap-
tives walk the plank. But to ransom a captive from pirates
has always been held a humane and Christian act; and
5 it would be absurd to charge tKe payer of the ransom
with corrupting the virtue of the corsair. This, we seri-
ously think, is a not unfair illustration of the relative
position of Impey, Hastings, and the people of India.
Whether it was right in Impey to demand or to accept
10 a price for powers which, if they really belonged to
him, he could not abdicate, which, if they did not belong
to him, he ought never to have usurped, and which in
neither case he could honestly sell, is one question. It is
quite another question, whether Hastings was not right
15 to give any sum, however large, to any man, however
worthless, rather than either surrender millions of human
beings to pillage, or rescue them by civil war.

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may,
indeed, be suspected that personal aversion to Impey was
20 as strong a motive with Francis as regard for the wel-
fare of the province. To a mind burning with resent-
ment, it might seem better to leave Bengal to the oppressors
than to redeem it by enriching them. It is not improb-
able, on the other hand, that Hastings may have been the
25 more willing to resort to an expedient agreeable to the
Chief Justice, because that high functionary had already
been so serviceable, and might, when existing dissensions
were composed, be serviceable again.

But it was not on this point alone that Francis was
30 now opposed to Hastings. The peace between them
proved to be only a short and hollow truce, during which
their mutual aversion was constantly becoming stronger.
At length an explosion took place. Hastings publicly
charged Francis with having deceived him, and with hav-﻿Warren Hastings	171

ing induced Barwell to quit the service by insincere prom-
ises. Then came a dispute, such as frequently arises
even between honorable men when they may make im-
portant agreements by mere verbal communication. An
impartial historian will probably be of opinion that they 5
had misunderstood each other; but their minds were so
much embittered that they imputed to each other nothing
less than deliberate villainy. “ I do not,” said Hastings,
in a minute recorded on the Consultations of the Gov-
ernment, “I do not trust to Mr. Francis’s promises of 10
candor, convinced that he is incapable of it. I judge
of his public conduct by his private, which I have found
to be void of truth and honor.” After the Council had
risen, Francis put a challenge into the Governor-General’s
hand. It was instantly accepted. They met, and fired. 15
Francis was shot through the body. He was carried to
a neighboring house, where it appeared that the wound,
though severe, was not mortal. Hastings inquired repeat-
edly after his enemy’s health, and proposed to call on
him; but Francis coldly declined the visit. Fie had a 20
proper sense, he said, of the Governor-General’s polite-
ness, but could not consent to any private interview.
They could meet only at the council-board.

In a very short time it was made signally manifest to
how great a danger the Governor-General had, on this 25
occasion, exposed his country. A crisis arrived with which
he, and he alone, was competent to deal. It is not too
much to say that, if he had been taken from the head of
affairs, the years 1780 and 1781 would have been as fatal
to our power in Asia as to our power in America.	30

The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of appre-
hension to Hastings. The measures which he had adopted
for the purpose of breaking their power had at first been
frustrated by the errors of those whom he was compelled﻿172	Warren Hastings

to employ; but his perseverance and ability seemed likely
to be crowned with success, when a far more formidable
danger showed itself in a distant quarter.

About thirty years before this time, a Mohammedan
S soldier had begun to distinguish himself in the wars of
Southern India. His education had been neglected; his
extraction was humble. His father had been a petty officer
of revenue; his grandfather a wandering dervise. But
though thus meanly descended, though ignorant even of
10 the alphabet, the adventurer had no sooner been placed at
the head of a body of troops than he approved himself a
man born for conquest and command. Among the crowd
of chiefs who were struggling for a share of India, none
could compare with him in the qualities of the captain
15 and the statesman. He became a general; he became a
sovereign. Out of the fragments of old principalities,
which had gone to pieces in the general wreck, he formed
for himself a great, compact, and vigorous empire. That
empire he ruled with the ability, severity, and vigilance
20 of Louis the Eleventh. Licentious in his pleasures, im-
placable in his revenge, he had yet enlargement of mind
enough to perceive how much the prosperity of subjects
adds to the strength of governments. He was an oppres-
sor; but he had at least the merit of protecting his people
25 against all oppression except his own. He was now in
extreme old age; but his intellect was as clear, and his
spirit as high, as in the prime of manhood. Such was the
great Hyder Ali, the founder of the Mohammedan king-
dom of Mysore, and the most formidable enemy with
30 whom the English conquerors of India have ever had to
contend.

Had Hastings been governor of Madras, Hyder would
have been either made a friend, or vigorously encountered
as an enemy. Unhappily the English authorities in the﻿Warren Hastings	173

south provoked their powerful neighbor’s hostility, with-
out being prepared to repel it. On a sudden, an army of
ninety thousand men, far superior in discipline and effi-
ciency to any other native force that could be found in
India, came pouring through those wild passes which, 5
worn by mountain torrents, and dark with jungle, lead
down from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of the
Carnatic. This great army was accompanied by a hun-
dred pieces of cannon; and its movements were guided by
many French officers, trained in the best military schools of 10
Europe.

Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in
many British garrisons flung down their arms. Some
forts were surrendered by treachery and some by despair.

In a few days the whole open country north of the Coleroon 15
had submitted. The English inhabitants of Madras could
already see by night, from the top of Mount St. Thomas,
the eastern sky reddened by a vast semicircle of blazing
villages. The white villas, to which our countrymen re-
tire after the daily labors of government and of trade, 20
when the cool evening breeze springs up from the bay,
were now left without inhabitants; for bands of the fierce
horsemen of Mysore had already been seen prowling
among the tulip-trees and near the gay verandas. Even
the town was not thought secure, and the British mer- 25
chants and public functionaries made haste to crowd
themselves behind the cannon of Fort St. George.

There were the means, indeed, of assembling an army
which might have defended the presidency, and even
driven the invader back to his mountains. Sir Hector 30
Munro was at the head of one considerable force; Baillie
was advancing with another. United, they might have
presented a formidable front even to such an enemy as
Hyder. But the English commanders, neglecting those﻿174	Warren Hastings

fundamental rules of the military art of which the pro-
priety is obvious even to men who had never received
a military education, deferred their junction, and were
separately attacked. Baillie’s detachment was destroyed.

5 Munro was forced to abandon his baggage, to fling his
guns into the tanks, and to save himself by a retreat which
might be called a flight. In three weeks from the com-
mencement of the war, the British empire in Southern
India had been brought to the verge of ruin. Only a
io few fortified places remained to us. The glory of
our arms had departed. It was known that a great
French expedition might soon be expected on the coast
of Coromandel. England, beset by enemies on every
side, was in no condition to protect such remote depend-
15 encies.

Then it was that the fertile genius and serene cour-
age of Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. A
swift ship, flying before the south-west monsoon, brought
the evil tidings in few days to Calcutta. In twenty-four
20 hours the Governor-General had framed a complete plan
of policy adapted to the altered state of affairs. The
struggle with Hyder was a struggle for life and death.
All minor objects must be sacrificed to the preservation of
the Carnatic. The disputes with the Mahrattas must be
25 accommodated. A large military force and a supply of
money must be instantly sent to Madras. But even these
measures would be insufficient, unless the war, hitherto
so grossly mismanaged, were placed under the direction
of a vigorous mind. It was no time for trifling. Hast-
30 ings determined to resort to an extreme exercise of power,
to suspend the incapable governor of Fort St. George, to
send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose Hyder, and to intrust that
distinguished general with the whole administration of
the war.﻿Warren Hastings	175

In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had
now recovered from his wound, and had returned to the
Council, the Governor-Generals wise and firm policy was
approved by the majority of the board. The reinforce-
ments were sent off with great expedition, and reached
Madras before the French armament arrived in the Indian
seas. Coote, broken by age and disease, was no longer the
Coote of Wandewash; but he was still a resolute and skil-
ful commander. The progress of Hyder was arrested;
and in a few months the great victory of Porto Novo re-
trieved the honor of the English arms.

In the meantime Francis had returned to England, and
Hastings was now left perfectly unfettered. Wheler had
gradually been relaxing in his opposition, and, after the
departure of his vehement and implacable colleague, co-
operated heartily with the Governor-General, whose in-
fluence over the British in India, always great, had, by the
vigor and success of his recent measures, been consider-
ably increased.

But, though the difficulties arising from factions within
the Council were at an end, another class of difficulties
had become more pressing than ever. The financial em-
barrassment was extreme. Hastings had to find the
means, not only of carrying on the government of Bengal,
but of maintaining a most costly war against both Indian
and European enemies in the Carnatic, and of making re-
mittances to England. A few years before this time he had
obtained relief by plundering the Mogul and enslaving
the Rohillas; nor were the resources of his fruitful mind
by any means exhausted.

His first desigawas on Benares, a city which in wealth,
population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost
of Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million
of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth of

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lofty alleys, rich with shrines, and minarets, and balconies,
and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hun-
dreds. The traveler could scarcely make his way through
the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. The
S broad and stately flights of steps which descended from
these swarming haunts to the bathing-places along the
Ganges were wrorn every day by the footsteps of an in-
numerable multitude of worshippers. The schools and
temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from every province
10 where the Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds of
devotees came thither every month to die; for it was be-
lieved that a peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who
should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river.
Nor was superstition the only motive which allured stran-
15 gers to that great metropolis. Commerce had as many
pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the venerable
stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich mer-
chandise. From the looms of Benares went forth the most
delicate silks that adorned the balls of St. James’s and of
20 Versailles; and in the bazaars the muslins of Bengal and
the sabers of Oude were mingled with the jewels of
Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. This rich capital,
and the surrounding tract, had long been under the imme-
diate rule of a Hindoo prince, who rendered homage to the
25 Mogul emperors. During the great anarchy of India, the
lords of Benares became independent of the court of Delhi,
but were compelled to submit to the authority of the
Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by this formidable neighbor,
they invoked the protection of the English. The English
30 protection was given; and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a
solemn treaty, ceded all his rights over Benares to the
Company. From that time the Rajah was the vassal of
the government of Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy,
and engaged to send an annual tribute to Fort William.﻿Warren Hastings	177

This tribute Cheyte Sing, the reigning prince, had paid
with strict punctuality.

About the precise nature of the legal relation between
the Company and the Rajah of Benares, there has been
much warm and acute controversy. On the one side, it
has been maintained that Cheyte Sing was merely a great
subject on whom the superior power had a right to call
for aid in the necessities of the empire. On the other side,
it has been contended that he was an independent prince,
that the only claim which the Company had upon him was
for a fixed tribute, and that, while the fixed tribute was
regularly paid, as it assuredly was, the English had no
more right to exact any further contribution from him
than to demand subsidies from Holland or Denmark.
Nothing is easier than to find precedents and analogies in
favor of either view.

Our own impression is that neither view is correct.
It was too much the habit of English politicians to take it
for granted that there was in India a known and definite
constitution by which questions of this kind were to be
decided. The truth is that, during the interval which
elapsed between the fall of the House of Tamerlane and
the establishment of the British ascendency, there was no
such constitution. The old order of things had passed
away; the new order of things was not yet formed. All
was transition, confusion, obscurity. Everybody kept his
head as he best might, and scrambled for whatever he
could get. There have been similar seasons in Europe.
The time of the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire
is an instance. Who would think of seriously discussing
the question, what extent of pecuniary aid and of obedi-
ence Hugh Capet had a constitutional right to demand
from the Duke of Britanny or the Duke of Normandy?
The words “ constitutional right ” had, in that state of

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30﻿178	Warren Hastings

society, no meaning. If Hugh Capet laid hands on all
the possessions of the Duke of Normandy, this might be
unjust and immoral; but it would not be illegal, in the
sense in which the ordinances of Charles the Tenth were
5 illegal. If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy
made war on Hugh Capet, this might be unjust and im-
moral ; but it would not be illegal, in the sense in which
the expedition of Prince Louis Bonaparte was illegal.

Very similar to this was the state of India sixty years ago.
10 Of the existing governments not a single one could lay
claim to legitimacy, or could plead any other title than
recent occupation. There was scarcely a province in which
the real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty were not
disjoined. Titles and forms were still retained which
15 implied that the heir of Tamerlane was an absolute ruler,
and that the Nabobs of the provinces were his lieutenants.
In reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs were in some
places independent princes. In other places, as in Bengal
and the Carnatic, they had, like their master, become
20 mere phantoms, and the Company was supreme. Among
the Mahrattas, again, the heir of Sevajee still kept the
title of Rajah; but he was a prisoner, and his prime
minister, the Peshwa, had become the hereditary chief of
the state. The Peshwa, in his turn, was fast sinking into
25 the same degraded situation to which he had reduced the
Rajah. It was, we believe, impossible to find, from the
Himalayas to Mysore, a single government which was at
once a government de facto and a government de jure,
which possessed the physical means of making itself
30 feared by its neighbors and subjects, and which had at
the same time the authority derived from law and long
prescription.

Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden from
most of his contemporaries, that such a state of things﻿Warren Hastings	179

gave immense advantages to a ruler of great talents and
few scruples. In every international question that could
arise, he had his option between the de facto ground and
and the de jure ground; and the probability was that one
of those grounds would sustain any claim that it might
be convenient for him to make, and enable him to resist
any claim made by others. In every controversy, accord-
ingly, he resorted to the plea which suited his immediate
purpose, without troubling himself in the least about con-
sistency; and thus he scarcely ever failed to find what, to
persons of short memories and scanty information, seemed
to be a justification for what he wanted to do. Sometimes
the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, sometimes a monarch.
Sometimes the Vizier is a mere deputy, sometimes an inde-
pendent potentate. If it is expedient for the Company
to show some legal title to the revenues of Bengal, the
grant under the seal of the Mogul is brought forward as
an instrument of the highest authority. When the Mogul
asks for the rents which were reserved to him by that
very grant, he is told that he is a mere pageant, that the
English power rests on a very different foundation from a
charter given by him, that he is welcome to play at royalty
as long as he likes, but that he must expect no tribute from
the real masters of India.

It is true that it was in the power of others, as well
as of Hastings, to practise this legerdemain; but in the
controversies of governments, sophistry is of little use un-
less it be backed by power. There is a principle which
Hastings was fond of asserting -in the strongest terms,
and on which he acted with undeviating steadiness. It is
a principle which, we must own, though it may be
grossly abused, can hardly be disputed in the present
state of public law. It is this, that where an ambiguous
question arises between two governments, there is, if they

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30﻿180	Warren Hastings

cannot agree, no appeal except to force, and that the
opinion of the stronger must prevail. Almost every
question was ambiguous in India. The English govern-
ment was the strongest in India. The consequences are
5 obvious. The English government might do exactly what
it chose.

The English government now chose to wring money
out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly been convenient to
treat him as a sovereign prince; it was now convenient to
io treat him as a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of
Hastings could easily find, in the general chaos of laws
and customs, arguments for either course. Hastings
wanted a great supply. It was known that Cheyte Sing
had a large revenue, and it was suspected that he had
15 accumulated a treasure. Nor was he a favorite at Cal-
cutta. He had, when the Governor-General was in great
difficulties, courted the favor of Francis and Clavering.
Hastings, who, less perhaps from evil passions than from
policy, seldom left an injury unpunished, was not sorry
20 that the fate of Cheyte Sing should teach neighboring
princes the same lesson which the fate of Nuncomar had
already impressed on the inhabitants of Bengal.

In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with
France, Cheyte Sing was called upon to pay, in addition to
25 his fixed tribute, an extraordinary contribution of fifty
thousand pounds. In 1779, an equal sum was exacted.
In 1780, the demand was renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the
hope of obtaining some indulgence, secretly offered the
Governor-General a bribe of twenty thousand pounds.
30 Hastings took the money, and his enemies have main-
tained that he took it intending to keep it. He certainly
concealed the transaction, for a time, both from the
Council in Bengal and from the Directors at home; nor
did he ever give any satisfactory reason for the conceal-﻿Warren Hastings	181

ment. Public spirit, or the fear of detection, at last
determined him to withstand the temptation. He paid
over the bribe to the Company’s treasury, and insisted
that the Rajah should instantly comply with the demands
of the English government. The Rajah, after the fashion
of his countrymen, shuffled, solicited, and pleaded poverty.
The grasp of Hastings was not to be so eluded. He
added to the requisition another ten thousand pounds
as a fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the money.

The money was paid. But this was not enough. The
late events in the south of India had increased the finan-
cial embarrassments of the Company. Hastings was
determined to plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to
fasten a quarrel on him. Accordingly, the Rajah was
now required to keep a body of cavalry for the service of
the British government. He objected and evaded. This
was exactly what the Governor-General wanted. He
had now a pretext for treating the wealthiest of his vas-
sals as a criminal. “ I resolved,”—these are the words
of Hastings himself,—“ to draw from his guilt the means
of relief of the Company’s distresses, to make him pay
largely for his pardon, or to exact a severe vengeance for
past delinquency.” The plan was simply this, to demand
larger and larger contributions till the Rajah should be
driven to remonstrate, then to call his remonstrance a
crime, and to punish him by confiscating all his possessions.

Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered
two hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the British
government. But Hastings replied that nothing less than
half a million would be accepted. Nay, he began to
think of selling Benares to Oude, as he had formerly
sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter was one
which could not be well managed at a distance; and
Hastings resolved to visit Benares.

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30﻿182	Warren Hastings

Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark
of reverence, came near sixty miles, with his guards, to
meet and escort the illustrious visitor, and expressed his
deep concern at the displeasure of the English. He even
5 took off his turban, and laid it in the lap of Hastings, a
gesture which in India marks the most profound submis-
sion and devotion. Hastings behaved with cold and
repulsive severity. Having arrived at Benares, he sent
to the Rajah a paper containing the demands of the
io government of Bengal. The Rajah, in reply, attempted
to clear himself from the accusations brought against
him. Hastings, who wanted money and not excuses, was
not to be put off by the ordinary artifices of Eastern
negotiation. He instantly ordered the Rajah to be ar-
15 rested and placed under the custody of two companies of
sepoys.

In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely
showed his usual judgment. It is possible that, having
had little opportunity of personally observing any part
20 of the population of India, except the Bengalees, he was
not fully aware of the difference’between their character
and that of the tribes which inhabit the upper provinces.
He was now in a land far more favorable to the vigor of
the human frame than the Delta of the Ganges; in a land
25 fruitful of soldiers, w7ho have been found worthy to follow
English battalions to the charge and into the breach. The
Rajah w'as popular among his subjects. His administra-
tion had been mild; and the prosperity of the district
w hich he governed presented a striking contrast to the de-
30 pressed state of Bahar under our rule, and a still more
striking contrast to the misery of the provinces which
were cursed by the tyranny of the Nabob Vizier. The
national and religious prejudices with which the English
were regarded throughout India were peculiarly intense﻿Warren Hastings	183

in the metropolis of the Brahminical superstition. It
can therefore scarcely be doubted that the Governor-
General, before he outraged the dignity of Cheyte Sing by
an arrest, ought to have assembled a force capable of
bearing down all opposition. This had not been done.
The handful of sepoys who attended Hastings would
probably have been sufficient to overawe Moorshedabad, or
the Black Town of Calcutta. But they were unequal to
a conflict with the hardy rabble of Benares. The streets
surrounding the palace were filled by an immense mul-
titude, of whom a large proportion, as is usual in Upper
India, wore arms. The tumult became a fight, and the
fight a massacre. The English officers defended them-
selves with desperate courage against overwhelming num-
bers, and fell, as became them, sword in hand. The sepoys
were butchered. The gates were forced. The captive
prince, neglected by his jailers during the confusion, dis-
covered an outlet which opened on the precipitous bank
of the Ganges, let himself down to the water by a string
made of the turbans of his attendants, found a boat, and
escaped to the opposite shore.

If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought himself
into a difficult and perilous situation, it is only just to
acknowledge that he extricated himself with even more
than his usual ability and presence of mind. He had
only fifty men with him. The building in which he had
taken up his residence was on every side blockaded by
the insurgents. But his fortitude remained unshaken.
The Rajah from the other side of the river sent apologies
and liberal offers. They were not even answered. Some
subtle and enterprising men were found who undertook to
pass through the throng of enemies, and to convey the
intelligence of the late events to the English cantonments.
It is the fashion of the natives of India to wear large ear-

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30﻿184	Warren Hastings

rings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid aside,
lest the precious metal should tempt some gang of rob-
bers; and, in place of the ring, a quill or a roll of paper
is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from closing. Hast-
5 ings placed in the ears of his messengers letters rolled up
in the smallest compass. Some of these letters were ad-
dressed to the commanders of the English troops. One
was written to assure his wife of his safety. One was to
the envoy whom he had sent to negotiate with the Mah-
10 rattas. Instructions for the negotiation were needed;
and the Governor-General framed them in that situation
of extreme danger, with as much composure as if he had
been writing in his palace at Calcutta.

Things, however, were not yet at the worst. An Eng-
15 lish officer of more spirit than judgment, eager to dis-
tinguish himself, made a premature attack on the insur-
gents beyond the river. His troops were entangled in
narrow streets, and assailed by a furious population. He
fell, with many of his men; and the survivors were forced
20 to retire.

This event produced the effect which has never failed
to follow every check, however slight, sustained in India
by the English arms. For hundreds of miles round, the
whole country was in commotion. The entire popula-
25 tion of the district of Benares took arms. The fields were
abandoned by the husbandmen, who thronged to defend
their prince. The infection spread to Oude. The op-
pressed people of that province rose up against the Nabob
Vizier, refused to pay their imposts, and put the revenue
30 officers to flight. Even Bahar was ripe for revolt. The
hopes of Cheyte Sing began to rise. Instead of imploring
mercy in the humble style of a vassal, he began to talk the
language of a conqueror, and threatened, it was said, to
sweep the white usurpers out of the land. But the English﻿Warren Hastings	185

troops were now assembling fast. The officers, and even
the private men, regarded the Governor-General with
enthusiastic attachment, and flew to his aid with an
alacrity which, as he boasted, had never been shown on
any other occasion. Major Popham, a brave and skilful 5
soldier, who had highly distinguished himself in the Mah-
ratta war, and in whom the Governor-General reposed the
greatest confidence, took the command. The tumultuary
army of the Rajah was put to rout. His fastnesses were
stormed. In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left 10
his standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations.
The unhappy prince fled from his country for ever. His
fair domain was added to the British dominions. One of
his relations indeed was appointed rajah; but the Rajah
of Benares was henceforth to be, like the Nabob of Bengal, 15
a mere pensioner.

By this revolution, an addition of two hundred thou-
sand pounds a year was made to the revenues of the
Company. But the immediate relief was not as great
as had been expected. The treasure laid up by Cheyte 20
Sing had been popularly estimated at a million sterling.

It turned out to be about a fourth part of that sum; and,
such as it was, it was seized by the army, and divided as
prize-money.

Disappointed in his expectations from Benares, Hast- 25
ings was more violent than he would otherwise have been,
in his dealings with Oude. Sujah Dowlah had long been
dead. His son and successor, Asaph-ul-Dowlah, was one
of the weakest and most vicious even of Eastern princes.
His life was divided between torpi'd repose and the most 30
odious forms of*sensuality. In his court there was bound-
less waste, throughout his dominions wretchedness and
disorder. He had been, under the skilful management of
the English government, gradually sinking from the rank﻿186	Warren Hastings

of an independent prince to that of a vassal of the Com-
pany. It was only by the help of a British brigade that he
could be secure from the aggressions of neighbors who
despised his weakness, and from the vengeance of sub-
S jects who detested his tyranny. A brigade was furnished;
and he engaged to defray the charge of paying and main-
taining it. From that time his independence was at an
end. Hastings was not a man to lose the advantage
which he had thus gained. The Nabob soon began to
10 complain of the burden which he had undertaken to bear.
His revenues, he said, were falling off; his servants were
unpaid; he could no longer support the expense of the
arrangement which he had sanctioned. Hastings would
not listen to these representations. The Vizier, he said,
IS had invited the government of Bengal to send him troops
and had promised to pay for them. The troops had been
sent. How long the troops were to remain in Oude was
a matter not settled by the treaty. It remained, there-
fore, to be settled between the contracting parties. But
20 the contracting parties differed. Who then must decide?
The stronger.

Hastings also argued that, if the English force was
withdrawn, Oude would certainly become a prey to
anarchy, and would probably be overrun by a Mahratta
25 army. That the finances of Oude were embarrassed he
admitted. But he contended, not without reason, that
the embarrassment was to be attributed to the inca-
pacity and vices of Asaph-ul-Dowlah himself, and
that, if less were spent on the troops, the only effect
30 would be that more would be squandered on worthless
favorites.

Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of
Benares, to visit Lucknow, and there to confer with
Asaph-ul-Dowlah. But the obsequious courtesy of the﻿Warren Hastings	187

Nabob Vizier prevented this visit. With a small train
he hastened to meet the Governor-General. An inter-
view took place in the fortress which, from the crest of
the precipitous rock of Chunar, looks down on the waters
of the Ganges.

At first sight it might appear impossible that the negotia-
tions should come to an amicable close. Hastings wanted
an extraordinary supply of money. Asaph-ul-Dowlah
wanted to obtain a remission of what he already owed.
Such a difference seemed to admit of no compromise.
There was, however, one course satisfactory to both sides,
one course by which it was possible to relieve the finances
both of Oude and of Bengal; and that course was adopted.
It was simply this, that the Governor-General and the
Nabob Vizier should join to rob a third party; and the
third party whom they determined to rob was the parent
of one of the robbers.

The mother of the late Nabob, and his wife, who was
the mother of the present Nabob, were known as the
Begums or Princesses of Oude. They had possessed great
influence over Sujah Dowlah, and had, at his death, been
left in possession of a splendid dotation. The domains
of which they received the rents and administered the
government were of wide extent. The treasure hoarded
by the late Nabob, a treasure which was popularly esti-
mated at near three millions sterling, was in their hands.
They continued to occupy his favorite palace at Fyzabad,
the Beautiful Dwelling; while Asaph-ul-Dowlah held his
court in the stately Lucknow, which he had built for
himself on the shores of the Goomti, and had adorned
with noble mosques and colleges.

Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted considerable
sums from his mother. She had at length appealed to
the English; and the English had interfered. A solemn

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compact had been made, by which she consented to give her
son some pecuniary assistance, and he in his turn promised
never to commit any further invasion of her rights. This
compact was formally guaranteed by the government of
5 Bengal. But times had changed; money was wanted; and
the power which had given the guarantee was not ashamed
to instigate the spoiler to excesses such that even he shrank
from them.

It was necessary to find some pretext for a confiscation
io inconsistent, not merely with plighted faith, not merely
with the ordinary rules of humanity and justice, but also
with that great law of filial piety which, even in the wild-
est tribes of savages, even in those more degraded com-
munities which wither under the influence of a corrupt
IS half-civilization, retains a certain authority over the human
mind. A pretext was the last thing that Hastings was
likely to want. The insurrection at Benares had pro-
duced disturbances in Oude. These disturbances it was
convenient to impute to the Princesses. Evidence for the
20 imputation there was scarcely any; unless reports wander-
ing from one mouth to another, and gaining something
by every transmission, may be called evidence. The
accused were furnished with no charge; they were per-
mitted to make no defense; for the Governor-General
25 wisely considered that, if he tried them, he might not be
able to find a ground for plundering them. It was agreed
between him and the Nabob Vizier that the noble ladies
should, by a sweeping act of confiscation, be stripped of
their domains and treasures for the benefit of the Com-
30 pany, and that the sums thus obtained should be accepted
by the government of Bengal in satisfaction of its claims
on the government of Oude.

While Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar, he was com-
pletely subjugated by the clear and commanding intellect﻿Warren Hastings	189

of the English statesman. But, when they had sepa-
rated, the Vizier began to reflect with uneasiness on the
engagement into which he had entered. His mother and
grandmother protested and implored. His heart, deeply
corrupted by absolute power and licentious pleasures, yet 5
not naturally unfeeling, failed him in this crisis. Even the
English resident at Lucknow, though hitherto devoted to
Hastings, shrank from extreme measures. But the Gov-
ernor-General was inexorable. He wrote to the resident
in terms of the greatest severity, and declared that, if the 10
spoliation which had been agreed upon were not instantly
carried into effect, he would himself go to Lucknow, and
do that from which feebler minds recoil with dismay.
The resident, thus menaced, waited on his Highness, and
insisted that the treaty of Chunar should be carried into 15
full and immediate effect. Asaph-ul-Dowlah yielded, mak-
ing at the same time a solemn protestation that he yielded
to compulsion. The lands were resumed; but the treasure
was not so easily obtained. It was necessary to use
violence. A body of the Company’s troops marched to 20
Fyzabad, and forced the gates of the palace. The Prin-
cesses were confined to their own apartments. But still
they refused to submit. Some more stringent mode of
coercion was to be found. A mode was found of which,
even at this distance of time, we cannot speak without 25
shame and sorrow.

There were at Fyzabad two ancient men, belonging to
that unhappy class which a practice, of immemorial an-
tiquity in the East, has excluded from the pleasures of love
and from the hope of posterity. It has always been held 30
in Asiatic courts that beings thus estranged from sym-
pathy with their kind are those whom princes may most
safely trust. Sujah Dowlah had been of this opinion.
He had given his entire confidence to the two eunuchs;﻿190	Warren Hastings

and after his death they remained at the head of the
household of his widow.

These men were, by the orders of the British gov-
ernment, seized, imprisoned, 'ironed, starved almost to
5 death, in order to extort money from the Princesses.
After they had been two months in confinement, their
health gave way. They implored permission to take a
little exercise in the garden of their prison. The officer
who was in charge of them stated that, if they were al-
io lowed this indulgence, there was not the smallest chance
of their escaping, and that their irons really added noth-
ing to the security of the custody in which they were kept.
He did not understand the plan of his superiors. Their
object in these inflictions was not security, but torture;
15 and all mitigation was refused. Yet this was not the
worst. It was resolved by an English government that
these two infirm old men should be delivered to the
tormentors. For that purpose they were removed to
Lucknow. What horrors their dungeon there witnessed
20 can only be guessed. But there remains on the records
of Parliament, this letter, written by a British resident
to a British soldier.

“ Sir, The Nabob having determined to inflict corporal
punishment upon the prisoners under your guard, this is
25 to desire that his officers, when they shall come, may have
free access to the prisoners, and be permitted to do with
them as they shall see proper.”

While these barbarities were perpetrated at Lucknow,
the Princesses were still under duress at Fyzabad. Food
30 was allowed to enter their apartments only in such scanty
quantities that their female attendants were in danger of
perishing with hunger. Month after month this cruelty
continued, till at length, after twelve hundred thousand
pounds had been wrung out of the Princesses, Hastings be-﻿Warren Hastings	191

gan to think that he had really got to the bottom of their
coffers, and that no rigor could extort more. Then at
length the wretched men who were detained at Lucknow
regained their liberty. When their irons were knocked
off, and the doors of their prison opened, their quivering
lips, the tears which ran down their cheeks, and the
thanksgivings which they poured forth to the common
Father of Mussulmans and Christians, melted even the
stout hearts of the English warriors who stood by.

But we must not forget to do justice to Sir Elijah
Impey’s conduct on this occasion. It was not indeed easy
for him to intrude himself into a business so entirely alien
from all his official duties. But there was something in-
expressibly alluring, we must suppose, in the peculiar
rankness of the infamy which was then to be got at Luck-
now. He hurried thither as fast as relays of palanquin-
bearers could carry him. A crowd of people came before
him with affidavits against the Begums, ready drawn in
their hands. Those affidavits he did not read. Some of
them, indeed, he could not read; for they were in the dia-
lects of Northern India, and no interpreter was employed.
He administered the oath to the deponents with all possible
expedition, and asked not a single question, not even
whether they had perused the statements to which they
swore. This work performed, he got again into his
palanquin, and posted back to Calcutta, to be in time for
the opening of term. The cause was one which, by his
own confession, lay altogether out of his jurisdiction.
Under the charter of justice, he had no more right to
inquire into crimes committed by Asiatics in Oude than
the Lord President of the Court of Session of Scotland
to hold an assize at Exeter. He had no right to try the
Begums, nor did he pretend to try them. With what
object, then, did he undertake so long a journey? Evi-

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dently in order that he might give, in an irregular manner,
that sanction which in a regular manner he could not give,
to the crimes of those who had recently hired him; and
in order that a confused mass of testimony which he
5 did not sift, which he did not even read, might acquire an
authority not properly belonging to it, from the signature
of the highest judicial functionary in India.

The time was approaching, however, when he was to
be stripped of that robe which has never, since the Revolu-
10 tion, been disgraced so foully as by him. The state of
India had for some time occupied much of the attention
of the British Parliament. Towards the close of the
American war, two committees of the Commons sat on
Eastern affairs. In one Edmund Burke took the lead.
15 The other was under the presidency of the able and ver-
satile Henry Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scotland.
Great as are the changes which, during the last sixty years,
have taken place in our Asiatic dominions, the reports
which those committees laid on the table of the House will
20 still be found most interesting and instructive.

There was as yet no connection between the Company
and either of the great parties in the state. The ministers
had no motive to defend Indian abuses. On the con-
trary, it was for their interest to show, if possible, that the
25 government and patronage of our Oriental empire might,
with advantage, be transferred to themselves. The votes,
therefore, which, in consequence of the reports made by
the two committees, were passed by the Commons,
breathed the spirit of stern and indignant justice. The
30 severest epithets were applied to several of the measures
of Hastings, especially to the Rohilla war; and it was
resolved, on the motion of Mr. Dundas, that the Company
ought to recall a Governor-General who had brought such
calamities on the Indian people, and such dishonor on the﻿Warren Hastings	193

British name. An act was passed for limiting the juris-
diction of the Supreme Court. The bargain which Hast-
ings had made with the Chief Justice was condemned in
the strongest terms; and an address was presented to the
King, praying that Impey might be ordered home to an-
swer for his misdeeds.

Impey was recalled by a letter from the Secretary of
State. But the proprietors of India Stock resolutely re-
fused to dismiss Hastings from their service, and passed* a
resolution affirming, what was undeniably true, that they
were intrusted by law with the right of naming and re-
moving their Governor-General, and that they were not
bound to obey the directions of a single branch of the
legislature with respect to such nomination or removal.

Thus supported by his employers, Hastings remained
at the head of the government of Bengal till the spring
of 1785. His administration, so eventful and stormy,
closed in almost perfect quiet. In the Council there was
no regular opposition to his measures. Peace was restored
to India. The Mahratta war had ceased. Hyder was no
more. A treaty had been concluded with his son, Tippoo;
and the Carnatic had been evacuated by the armies of
Mysore. Since the termination of the American war,
England had no European enemy or rival in the Eastern
seas.

On a general review of the long administration of
Hastings, it is impossible to deny that, against the great
crimes by which it is blemished, we have to set off great
public services. England had passed through a perilous
crisis. She still, indeed, maintained her place in the
foremost rank of European powers; and the manner in
which she had defended herself against fearful odds had
inspired surrounding nations with a high opinion both of
her spirit and of her strength. Nevertheless, in every

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30﻿194	Warren Hastings

part of the world, except one, she had been a loser. Not
only had she been compelled to acknowledge the inde-
pendence of thirteen colonies peopled by her children, and
to conciliate the Irish by giving up the right of legis-
5 lating for them; but, in the Mediterranean, in the Gulf
of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the continent of
America, she had been compelled to cede the fruits of her
victories in former wars. Spain regained Minorca and
Florida; France regained Senegal, Goree, and several
io West Indian Islands. The only quarter of the world in
which Britain had lost nothing was the quarter in which
her interests had been committed to the care of Hastings.
In spite of the utmost exertions both of European and
Asiatic enemies, the power of our country in the East had
IS been greatly augmented. Benares was subjected; the
Nabob Vizier reduced to vassalage. That our influence
had been thus extended, nay, that Fort William and Fort
St. George had not been occupied by hostile armies, was
owing, if we may trust the general voice of the English
20 in India, to the skill and resolution of Hastings.

His internal administration, with all its blemishes, gives
him a title to be considered as one of the most remark-
able men in our history. He dissolved the double govern-
ment. He transferred the direction of affairs to English
25 hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, he educed at least a
rude and imperfect order. The whole organization by
which justice was dispensed, revenue collected, peace main-
tained throughout a territory not inferior in population to
the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth or of the Emperor
30 Joseph, was formed and superintended by him. He
boasted that every public office, without exception, which
existed when he left Bengal, was his creation. It is quite
true that this system, after all the improvements sug-
gested by the experience of sixty years, still needs improve-﻿Warren Hastings	195

ment, and that it was at first far more defective than it
now is. But whoever seriously considers what it is to
construct from the beginning the whole of a machine so
vast and complex as a government, will allow that what
Hastings effected deserves high admiration. To compare 5
the most celebrated European ministers to him seems to us
as unjust as it would be to compare the best baker in
London with Robinson Crusoe, who, before he could
bake a single loaf, had to make his plow and his harrow,
his fences and his scarecrows, his sickle and his flail, his 10
mill and his oven.

The just fame of Hastings rises still higher, when we
reflect that he was not bred a statesman; that he was
sent from school to a counting-house; and that he was em-
ployed during the prime of his manhood as a commercial 15
agent, far from all intellectual society.

Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom,
when placed at the head of affairs, he could apply for
assistance, were persons who owed as little as himself, or
less than himself, to education. A minister in Europe 20
finds himself, on the first day on which he commences his
functions, surrounded by experienced public servants, the
depositaries of official traditions. Hastings had no such
help. His own reflection, his own energy, were to supply
the place of all Downing Street and Somerset House. 25
Having had no facilities for learning, he was forced to
teach. He had first to form himself, and then to form
his instruments; and this not in a single department, but in
all the departments of the administration.

It must be added, that, while engaged in this most 30
arduous task, he was constantly trammeled by orders from
home, and frequently borne down by a majority in coun-
cil. The preservation of an Empire from a formidable
combination of foreign enemies, the construction of a gov-﻿196	Warren Hastings

ernment in all its parts, were accomplished by him, while
every ship brought out bales o»f censure from his employers,
and while the records of every consultation were filled
with acrimonious minutes by his colleagues. We believe
5 that there never was a public man whose temper was so
severely tried; not Marlborough, when thwarted by the
Dutch Deputies; not Wellington, when he had to deal at
once with the Portuguese Regency, the Spanish Juntas, and
Mr. Percival. But the temper of Hastings was equal to
10 almost any trial. It was not sweet; but it was calm.
Quick and vigorous as his intellect was, the patience
with which he endured the most cruel vexations, till a
remedy could be found, resembled the patience of stupidity.
He seems to have been capable of resentment, bitter and
15 long-enduring; yet his resentment so seldom hurried him
into any blunder, that it may be doubted whether what
appeared to be revenge was anything but policy.

The effect of this singular equanimity was that he al-
ways had the full command of all the resources of one of
20 the most fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly no
complication of perils and embarrassments could perplex
him. For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready;
and, whatever may be thought of the justice and humanity
of some of his contrivances, it is certain that they sel-
25 dom failed to serve the purpose for which they were
designed.

Together with this extraordinary talent for devising
expedients, Hastings possessed, in a very high degree, an-
other talent scarcely less necessary to a man in his situa-
30 tion; we mean the talent for conducting political con-
troversy. It is as necessary to an English statesman in
the East that he should be able to write, as it is to a minis-
ter in this country that he should be able to speak. It is
chiefly by the oratory of a public man here that the na-﻿Warren Hastings	197

tion judges of his powers. It is from the letters and
reports of a public man in India that the dispensers of
patronage form their estimate of him. In each case, the
talent which receives peculiar encouragement is developed,
perhaps at the expense of the other powers. In this coun-
try, we sometimes hear men speak above their abilities.
It is not very unusual to find gentlemen in the Indian
service who write above their abilities. The English
politician is a little too much of a debater; the Indian
politician a little too much of an essayist.

Of the numerous servants of the Company who have
distinguished themselves as framers of minutes and des-
patches, Hastings stands at the head. He was indeed the
person who gave to the official writing of the Indian gov-
ernments the character which it still retains. He was
matched against no common antagonist. But even Francis
was forced to acknowledge, with sullen and resentful
candor, that there was no contending against the pen of
Hastings. And, in truth, the Governor-General’s power
of making out a case, of perplexing what it was incon-
venient that people should understand, and of setting in
the clearest point of view whatever would bear the light,
was incomparable. His style must be praised with some
reservation. It was in general forcible, pure, and polished;
but it was sometimes, though not often, turgid, and, on
one or two occasions, even bombastic. Perhaps the fond-
ness of Hastings for Persian literature may have tended to
corrupt his taste.

And, since we have referred to his literary tastes, it
would be most unjust not to praise the judicious encour-
agement which, as a ruler, he gave to liberal studies
and curious researches. His patronage was extended,
with prudent generosity, to voyages, travels, experiments,
publications. He did little, it is true, towards introducing

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into India the learning of the West. To make the young
natives of Bengal familiar with Milton and Adam Smith,
to substitute the geography, astronomy, and surgery of
Europe for the dotages of the Brahminical superstition,
5 or for the imperfect science of ancient Greece transfused
through Arabian expositions, this was a scheme reserved to
crown the beneficent administration of. a far more virtu-
ous ruler. Still it is impossible to refuse high com-
mendation to a man who, taken from a ledger to govern
10 an empire, overwhelmed by public business, surrounded
by people as busy as himself, and separated by thousands
of leagues from almost all literary society, gave, both
by his example and by his munificence, a great impulse
to learning. In Persian and Arabic literature he was
15 deeply skilled. With the Sanscrit he was not himself
acquainted; but those who first brought that language to
the knowledge of European students owed much to his
encouragement. It was under his protection that the
Asiatic Society commenced its honorable career. That
20 distinguished body selected him to be its first president;
but, with excellent taste and feeling, he declined the honor
in favor of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage
which the students of Oriental letters derived from his
patronage remains to be mentioned. The Pundits of
25 Bengal had always looked with great jealousy on the
attempts of foreigners to pry into those mysteries which
were locked up in the sacred dialect. The Brahminical
religion had been persecuted by the Mahommedans.
What the Hindoos knew of the spirit of the Portuguese
30 government might warrant them in apprehending persecu-
tion from Christians. That apprehension the wisdom
and moderation of Hastings removed. He was the first
foreign ruler who succeeded in gaining the confidence of
the hereditary priests of India, and who induced them to﻿Warren Hastings	199

lay open to English scholars the secrets of the old Brah-
minical theology and jurisprudence.

It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great art
of inspiring large masses of human beings with confidence
and attachment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. If he 5
had made himself popular with the English by giving up
the Bengalees to extortion and oppression, or if, on the other
hand, he had conciliated the Bengalees and alienated the
English, there would have been no cause for wonder.
What is peculiar to him is that, being the chief of a small 10
band of strangers who exercised boundless power over a
great indigenous population, he made himself beloved both
by the subject many and by the dominant few. The affec-
tion felt for him by the civil service was singularly ardent
and constant. Through all his disasters and perils, his 15
brethren stood by him with steadfast loyalty. The army,
at the same time, loved him as armies have seldom loved
any but the greatest chiefs who have led them to victory.
Even in his disputes with distinguished military men, he
could always count on the support of the military profes- 20
sion. While such was his empire over the hearts of his
countrymen, he enjoyed among the natives a popularity,
such as other governors have perhaps better merited, but
such as no other governor has been able to attain. He
spoke their vernacular dialects with facility and precision. 25
He was intimately acquainted with their feelings and
usages. On one or two occasions, for great ends, he de-
liberately acted in defiance of their opinion; but on such
occasions he gained more in their respect than he lost in
their love. In general, he carefully avoided all that could 30
shock their national or religious prejudices. His adminis-
tration was indeed in many respects faulty; but the Ben-
galee standard of good government was not high. Under
the Nabobs, the hurricane of Mahratta cavalry had passed﻿200	Warren Hastings

annually over the rich alluvial plain. But even the Mah-
ratta shrank from a conflict with the mighty children of
the sea; and the immense rice harvests of the Lower
Ganges were safely gathered in, under the protection of
5 the English sword. The first English conquerors had
been more rapacious and merciless even than the Mah-
rattas; but that generation had passed away. Defective as
was the police, heavy as were the public burdens, it is
probable that the oldest man in Bengal could not recol-
io lect a season of equal security and prosperity. For the
first time within living memory, the province was placed
under a government strong enough to prevent others from
robbing, and not inclined to play the robber itself. These
things inspired good-will. At the same time, the constant
15 success of Hastings and the manner in which he extricated
himself from every difficulty made him an object of super-
stitious admiration; and the more than regal splendor
which he sometimes displayed dazzled a people who have
much in common with children. Even now, after the
20 lapse of more than fifty years, the natives of India still
talk of him as the greatest of the English; and nurses sing
children to sleep with a jingling ballad about the fleet
horses and richly caparisoned elephants of Sahib Warren
Hostein.

25 The gravest offenses of which Hastings was guilty did
not affect his popularity with the people of Bengal; for
those offenses were committed against neighboring states.
Those offenses, as our readers must have perceived, we are
not disposed to vindicate; yet, in order that the censure
30 may be justly apportioned to the transgression, it is fit
that the motive of the criminal should be taken into con-
sideration. The motive which prompted the worst acts
of Hastings was misdirected and ill-regulated public spirit.
The rules of justice, the sentiments of humanity, the﻿Warren Hastings	201

plighted faith of treaties, were in his view as nothing,
when opposed to the immediate interest of the state. This
is no justification, according to the principles either of
morality, or of what we believe to be identical with
morality, namely, far-sighted policy. Nevertheless the 5
common-sense of mankind, which in questions of this kind
seldom goes far wrong, will always recognize a distinc-
tion between crimes which originate in an inordinate zeal
for the commonwealth, and crimes which originate in self-
ish cupidity. To the benefit of this distinction Hastings 10
is fairly entitled. There is, we conceive, no reason to
suspect that the Rohilla war, the revolution of Benares, or
the spoliation of the Princesses of Oude, added a rupee
to his fortune. We will not affirm that, in all pecuniary
dealings, he showed that punctilious integrity, that dread 15
of the faintest appearance of evil, which is now the glory
of the Indian civil service. But when the school in which
he had been trained and the temptations to which he was
exposed are considered, we are more inclined to praise him
for his general uprightness with respect to money, than 20
rigidly to blame him for a few transactions which would
now be called indelicate and irregular, but which even
now would hardly be designated as corrupt. A rapacious
man he certainly was not. Had he been so, he would in-
fallibly have returned to his country the richest subject in 25
Europe. We speak within compass, when we say that,
without applying any extraordinary pressure, he might
easily have obtained from the zemindars of the Company’s
provinces and from neighboring princes, in the course
of thirteen years, more than three millions sterling, and 30
might have outshone the splendor of Carlton House and
of the Palais Royal. He brought home a fortune such as
a Governor-General, fond of state, and careless of thrift,
might easily, during so long a tenure of office, save out of﻿202	Warren Hastings

his legal salary. Mrs. Hastings, we are afraid, was less
scrupulous. It was generally believed that she accepted
presents with great alacrity, and that she thus formed,
without the connivance of her husband, a private hoard
5 amounting to several lacs of rupees. We are the more
inclined to give credit to this story, because Mr. Gleig,
who cannot but have heard it, does not, as far as we have
observed, notice or contradict it.

The influence of Mrs. Hastings over her husband
io was indeed such that she might easily have obtained much
larger sums than she was ever accused of receiving. At
length her health began to give way; and the Governor-
General, much against his will, was compelled to send
her to England. He seems to have loved her with that
15 love which is peculiar to men of strong minds, to men
whose affection is not easily won or widely diffused. The
talk of Calcutta ran for some time on the luxurious man-
ner in which he fitted up the round-house of an Indiaman
for her accommodation, on the profusion of sandal-wood
20 and carved ivory which adorned her cabin, and on the
thousands of rupees which had been expended in order
to procure for her the society of an agreeable female com-
panion during the voyage. We may remark here that the
letters of Hastings to his wife are exceedingly characteristic.
25 They are tender, and full of indications of esteem and
confidence; but, at the same time, a little more ceremoni-
ous than is usual in so intimate a relation. The solemn
courtesy with which he compliments “ his elegant Marian ”
reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which
30 Sir Charles Grandison bowed over Miss Byron’s hand in
the cedar parlor.

After some months, Hastings prepared to follow his
wife to England. When it was announced that he was
about to quit his office, the feeling of the society which﻿Warren Hastings	203

he had so long governed manifested itself by many signs.
Addresses poured in from Europeans and Asiatics, from
civil functionaries, soldiers, and traders. On the day on
which he delivered up the keys of office, a crowd of friends
and admirers formed a lane to the quay where he em-
barked. Several barges escorted him far down the river;
and some attached friends refused to quit him till the low
coast of Bengal was fading from the view, and till the
pilot was leaving the ship.

Of his voyage little is known, except that he amused
himself with books and with his pen; and that, among
the compositions by which he beguiled the tediousness of
that long leisure, was a pleasing imitation of Horace’s
Otiurn Divos rogat. This little poem was inscribed to
Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, a man of whose
integrity, humanity, and honor it is impossible to speak
too highly, but who, like some other excellent members of
the civil service, extended to the conduct of his friend
Hastings an indulgence of which his own conduct never
stood in need.

The voyage was, for those times, very speedy. Hastings
was little more than four months on the sea. In June,
1785, he landed at Plymouth, posted to London, appeared
at Court, paid his respects in Leadenhall Street, and then
retired with his wife to Cheltenham.

He was greatly pleased with his reception. The King
treated him with marked distinction. The Queen, who
had already incurred much censure on account of the
favor which, in spite of the ordinary severity of her
virtue, she had shown to the “ elegant Marian,” was not
less gracious to Hastings. The Directors received him
in a solemn sitting; and their chairman read to him a vote
of thanks which they had passed without one dissentient
voice. “ I find myself,” said Hastings, in a letter written

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30﻿204	Warren Hastings

about a quarter of a year after his arrival in England,
“ I find myself everywhere, and universally, treated with
evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I
possess the good opinion of my country.”

5 The confident and exulting tone of his correspondence
about this time is the more remarkable, because he had
already received ample notice of the attack which was in
preparation. Within a week after he landed at Plymouth,
Burke gave notice in the House of Commons of a motion
10 seriously affecting a gentleman lately returned from India.
The session, however, was then so far advanced, that it
was impossible to enter on so extensive and important a
subject.

Hastings, it is clear, was not sensible of the danger of
15 his position. Indeed that sagacity, that judgment, that
readiness in devising expedients, which had distinguished
him in the East, seemed now to have forsaken him; not
that his abilities were at all impaired; not that he was
not still the same man who had triumphed over Francis
20 and Nuncomar, who had made the Chief Justice and the
Nabob Vizier his tools, who had deposed Cheyte Sing,
and repelled Hyder Ali. But an oak, as Mr. Grattan
finely said, should not be transplanted at fifty. A man
who, having left England when a boy, returns to it after
25 thirty or forty years passed in India, will find, be his
talents what they may, that he has much both to learn
and to unlearn before he can take a place among Eng-
lish statesmen. The working of a representative system,
the war of parties, the arts of debate, the influence of
30 the press, are startling novelties to him. Surrounded on
every side by new machines and new tactics, he is as
much bewildered as Hannibal would have been at
Waterloo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His very acute-
ness deludes him. His very vigor causes him to stumble.﻿Warren Hastings	205

The more correct his maxims, when applied to the state
of society to which he is accustomed, the more certain
they are to lead him astray. This was strikingly the case
with Hastings. In India he had a bad hand; but he was
master of the game, and he won every stake. In England
he held excellent cards, if he had known how to play them;
and it was chiefly by his own errors that he was brought
to the verge of ruin.

Of all his errors the most serious was perhaps the choice
of a champion. Clive, in similar circumstances, had made
a singularly happy selection. He put himself into the
hands of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough,
one of the few great advocates w ho have also been great in
the House of Commons. To the defense of Clive, there-
fore, nothing was wanting, neither learning nor knowl-
edge of the world, neither forensic acuteness nor that
eloquence which charms political assemblies. Hastings
intrusted his interests to a very different person, a major
in the Bengal army, named Scott. This gentleman had
been sent over from India some time before as the agent
of the Governor-General. It was rumored that his services
were rewarded with Oriental munificence; and we believe
that he received much more than Hastings could con-
veniently spare. The Major obtained a seat in Parlia-
ment, and w^as there regarded as the organ of his employer.
It wTas evidently impossible that a gentleman so situated
could speak wfith the authority which belongs to an inde-
pendent position. Nor had the agent of Hastings the
talents necessary for obtaining the ear of an assembly
w^hich, accustomed to listen to great orators, had naturally
become fastidious. He was ahvays on his legs; he was
very tedious; and he had only one topic, the merits and
wrongs of Hastings. Everybody who knows the House of
Commons will easily guess what followed. The Major

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30﻿206	Warren Hastings

was soon considered as the greatest bore of his time. His
exertions were not confined to Parliament. There was
hardly a day on which the newspapers did not contain
some puff upon Hastings, signed Asiaticus or Bengalensis,
5 but known to be written by the indefatigable Scott; and
hardly a month in which some bulky pamphlet on the
same subject, and from the same pen, did not pass to the
trunk-makers and the pastry-cooks. As to this gentleman’s
capacity for conducting a delicate question through Parlia-
io ment, our readers will want no evidence beyond that which
they will find in letters preserved in these volumes. We
will give a single specimen of his temper and judgment.
He designated the greatest man then living as “ that
reptile Mr. Burke.”

15 In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, the general
aspect of affairs was favorable to Hastings. The King was
on his side. The Company and its servants were zealous
in his cause. Among public men he had many ardent
friends. Such were Lord Mansfield, who had outlived
20 the vigor of his body, but not that of his mind; and Lord
Lansdowne, who, though unconnected with any party, re-
tained the importance which belongs to great talents
and knowledge. The ministers were generally believed to
be favorable to the late Governor-General. They owed
25 their power to the clamor which had been raised against
Mr. Fox’s East India Bill. The authors of that bill,
when accused of invading vested rights, and of setting
up powers unknown to the constitution, had defended
themselves by pointing to the crimes of Hastings, and by
30 arguing that abuses so extraordinary justified extraordinary
measures. Those who, by opposing that bill, had raised
themselves to the head of affairs, would naturally be in-
clined to extenuate the evils which had been made the plea
for administering so violent a remedy; and such, in fact,﻿Warren Hastings	207

was their general disposition. The Lord Chancellor
Thurlow, in particular, whose great place and force of in-
tellect gave him a weight in the government inferior only
to that of Mr. Pitt, espoused the cause of Hastings with
indecorous violence. Mr. Pitt, though he had censured 5
many parts of the Indian system, had studiously abstained
from saying a word against the late chief of the Indian
government. To Major Scott, indeed, the young minister
had in private extolled Hastings as a great, a wonderful
man, who had the highest claims on the government. 10
There was only one objection to granting all that so
eminent a servant of the public could ask. The resolu-
tion of censure still remained on the journals of the
House of Commons. That resolution was, indeed, unjust;
but, till it was rescinded, could the minister advise the 15
King to bestow any mark of approbation on the person
censured? If Major Scott is to be trusted, Mr. Pitt de-
clared that this was the only reason which prevented the
advisers of the Crown from conferring a peerage on the
late Governor-General. Mr. Dundas was the only im- 20
portant member of the administration who was deeply
committed to a different view of the subject. He had
moved the resolution which created the difficulty; but even
from him little was to be apprehended. Since he had
presided over the committee on Eastern affairs, great 25
changes had taken place. He was surrounded by new
allies; he had fixed his hopes on new objects; and what-
ever may have been his good qualities,—and he had many,

—flattery itself never reckoned rigid consistency in the
number.	30

From the ministry, therefore, Hastings had every rea-
son to expect support; and the ministry was very powerful.
The Opposition was loud and vehement against him. But
the Opposition, though formidable from the wealth and﻿208	Warren Hastings

influence of some of its members, and from the admirable
talents and eloquence of others, was outnumbered in
Parliament, and odious throughout the country. Nor,
as far as we can judge, was the Opposition generally de-
5 sirous to engage in so serious an undertaking as the im-
peachment of an Indian Governor. Such an impeachment
must last for years. It must impose on the chiefs of the
party an immense load of labor. Yet it could scarcely, in
any manner, affect the event of the great political game,
io The followers of the coalition were therefore more in-
clined to revile Hastings than to prosecute him. They
lost no opportunity of coupling his name with the names
of the most hateful tyrants of whom history makes men-
tion. The wits of Brooks’s aimed their keenest sarcasms
IS both at his public and at his domestic life. Some fine
diamonds which he had presented, as it was rumored, to
the royal family, and a certain richly carved ivory bed
which the Queen had done him the honor, to accept from
him, were favorite subjects of ridicule. One lively poet
20 proposed that the great acts of the fair Marian’s present
husband should be immortalized by the pencil of his prede-
cessor; and that Imhoff should be employed to embellish
the House of Commons with paintings of the bleeding
Rohillas, of Nuncomar swinging, of Cheyte Sing letting
25 himself down to the Ganges. Another, in an exquisitely
humorous parody of Virgil’s third eclogue, propounded
the question, what that mineral could be of which the
rays had power to make the most austere of princesses
the friend of a wanton. A third described, with gay
30 malevolence, the gorgeous appearance of Mrs. Hastings
at St. James’s, the galaxy of jewels, torn from Indian
Begums, which adorned her headdress, her necklace gleam-
ing with future votes, and the depending questions that
shone upon her ears. Satirical attacks of this description,﻿Warren Hastings	209

and perhaps a motion for a vote of censure, would have
satisfied the great body of the Opposition. But there were
two men whose indignation was not to be so appeased,
Philip Francis and Edmund Burke.

Francis had recently entered the House of Commons, 5
and had already established a character there for industry
and ability. He labored indeed under one most unfortu-
nate defect, want of fluency. But he occasionally ex-
pressed himself with a dignity and energy worthy of the
greatest orators. Before he had been many days in Parlia- 10
ment, he incurred the bitter dislike of Pitt, who con-
stantly treated him with as much asperity as the laws of
debate-would allow. Neither lapse of years nor change
of scene had mitigated the enmities which Francis had
brought back from the East. After his usual fashion, he 15
mistook his malevolence for virtue, nursed it, as preachers
tell us that we ought to nurse our good dispositions, and
paraded it on al} occasions with Pharisaical ostentation.

The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far purer.
Men unable to understand the elevation of his mind have 20
tried to find out some discreditable motive for the vehe-
mence and pertinacity which he showed on this occasion.
But they have altogether failed. The idle story that he
had some private slight to revenge has long been given
up, even by the advocates of Hastings. Mr. Gleig sup- 25
poses that Burke was actuated by party spirit, that he
retained a bitter remembrance of the fall of the coalition,
that he attributed that fall to the exertions of the East
India interest, and that he considered Hastings as the head
and the representative of that interest. This explanation 30
seems to be sufficiently refuted by a reference to dates.
The hostility of Burke to Hastings commenced long before
the coalition; and lasted long after Burke had become a
strenuous supporter of those by whom the coalition had﻿210	Warren Hastings

been defeated. It began when Burke and Fox, closely
allied together, were attacking the influence of the crown,
and calling for peace with the American republic. It
continued till Burke, alienated from Fox, and loaded with
5 the favors of the crown, died, preaching a crusade against
the French republic. We surely cannot attribute to the
events of 1784 an enmity which began in 1781, and
which retained undiminished force long after persons far
more deeply implicated than Hastings in the events of
10 1784 had been cordially forgiven. And why should we
look for any other explanation of Burke’s conduct than
that which we find on the surface? The plain truth is
that Hastings had committed some great crimes, and that
the thought of those crimes made the blood of Burke boil
15 in his veins. For Burke was a man in whom compassion
for suffering, and hatred of injustice and tyranny, were
as strong as in Las Casas or Clarkson. And although in
him, as in Las Casas and in Clarkson, these noble feel-
ings were alloyed with the infirmity which belongs to
20 human nature, he is, like them, entitled to this great praise,
that he devoted years of intense labor to the service of
a people with whom he had neither blood nor language,
neither religion nor manners in common, and from whom
no requital, no thanks, no applause could be expected.

25 His knowledge of India was such as few, even of those
Europeans who have passed many years in that country,
have attained, and such as certainly was never attained
by any public man who had not quitted Europe. He had
studied the history, the laws, and the usages of the
30 East with an industry, such as is seldom found united to
so much genius and so much sensibility. Others have per-
haps been equally laborious, and have collected an equal
mass of materials. But the manner in which Burke
brought his higher powers of intellect to work on state-﻿Warren Hastings	211

ments of facts, and on tables of figures, was peculiar to
himself. In every part of those huge bales of Indian in-
formation which repelled almost all other readers, his
mind, at once philosophical and poetical, found something
to instruct or to delight. His reason analysed and digested
those vast and shapeless masses; his imagination animated
and colored them. Out of darkness, and dullness, and
confusion, he formed a multitude of ingenious theories and
vivid pictures. He had, in the highest degree, that noble
faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the
future, in the distant and in the unreal. India and its
inhabitants were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere
names and abstractions, but a real country and a real peo-
ple. The burning sun, the strange vegetation of the palm
and the cocoa tree, the rice-field, the tank, the huge trees,
older than the Mogul empire, under which the village
crowds assemble, the thatched roof of the peasant’s hut,
the rich tracery of the mosque where the imaum prays
with his face to Mecca, the drums, and banners, and
gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the air, the grace-
ful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, descending the
steps to the river-side, the black faces, the long beards, the
yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the flowing robes,
the spears and the silver maces, the elephants with their
canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince,
and the close litter of the noble lady, all these things
were to him as the objects amidst which his own life had
been passed, as the objects which lay on the road between
Beaconsfield and St. James’s Street. All India was pres-
ent to the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors
laid gold and perfumes at the feet of sovereigns to the
wild moor where the gypsy camp was pitched, from the
bazaar, humming like a bee-hive with the crowd of buyers
and sellers, to the jungle where the lonely courier shakes

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15

20

25

30﻿212	Warren Hastings

his bunch of iron rings to scare away the hyasnas. He
had just as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares
as of Lord George Gordon’s riots, and of the execution
of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppres-
5 sion in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression
in the streets of London.

He saw that Hastings had been guilty of some most un-
justifiable acts. All that followed was natural and neces-
sary in a mind like Burke’s. His imagination and his
io passions, once excited, hurried him beyond the bounds of
justice and good sense. His reason, powerful as it was,
became the slave of feelings which it should have con-
trolled. His indignation, virtuous in its origin, acquired
too much of the character of personal aversion. He could
15 see no mitigating circumstance, no redeeming merit. His
temper, which, though generous and affectionate, had al-
ways been irritable, had now been made almost savage
by bodily infirmities and mental vexations. Conscious of
great powers and great virtues, he found himself, in age
20 and poverty, a mark for the hatred of a perfidious court
and a deluded people. In Parliament his eloquence was
out of date. A young generation, which knew him not,
had filled the House. Whenever he rose to speak, his
voice was drowned by the unseemly interruption of lads
25 who were in their cradles when his orations on the Stamp
Act called forth the applause of the great Earl of Chatham.
These things had produced on his proud and sensitive
spirit an effect at which we cannot wonder. He could no
longer discuss any question with calmness, or make allow-
30 ance for honest differences of opinion. Those who think
that he was more violent and acrimonious in debates about
India than on other occasions are ill informed respecting
the last years of his life. In the discussions on the Com-
mercial Treaty with the Court of Versailles, on the﻿Warren Hastings	213

Regency, on the French Revolution, he showed even more
virulence than in conducting the impeachment. Indeed
it may be remarked that the very persons who call him a
mischievous maniac, for condemning in burning words
the Rohilla war and the spoliation of the Begums, exalted 5
him into a prophet as soon as he began to declaim, with
greater vehemence, and not with greater reason, against the
taking of the Bastile and the insults offered to Marie
Antoinette. To us he appears to have been neither a
maniac in the former case, nor a prophet in the latter, but 10
in both cases a great and good man, led into extravagance
by a sensibility which domineered over all his faculties.

It may be doubted whether the personal antipathy of
Francis or the nobler indignation of Burke, would have
led their party to adopt extreme measures against Hast- 15
ings, if his own conduct had been judicious. He should
have felt that, great as his public services had been, he
was not faultless, and should have been content to make
his escape, without aspiring to the honors of a triumph.

He and his agent took a different view. They were im- 20
patient for the rewards which, as they conceived, were
deferred only till Burke’s attack should be over. They
accordingly resolved to force on a decisive action with an
enemy for whom, if they had been wise, they would have
made a bridge of gold. (!)n the first day of the session of 25
1786, Major Scott reminded Burke of the notice given in
the preceding year, and asked whether it was seriously in-
tended to bring any charge against the late Governor-
General. This challenge left no course open to the
Opposition, except to come forward as accusers, or to ac- 30
knowledge themselves calumniators. The administration
of Hastings had not been so blameless, nor was the great
party of Fox and North so feeble, that it could be prudent
to venture on so bold a defiance. The leaders of the﻿214	Warren Hastings

Opposition instantly returned the only answer which they
could with honor return; and the whole party was irrevo-
cably pledged to a prosecution.

Burke began his operations by applying for Papers.

5 Some of the documents for which he asked were refused
by the ministers, who, in the debate, held language such
as strongly confirmed the prevailing opinion, that they in-
tended to support Hastings. In April, the charges were
laid on the table. They had been drawn by Burke with
io great ability, though in a form too much resembling that of
a pamphlet. Hastings was furnished with a copy of the
accusation; and it was intimated- to him that he might, if
he thought fit, be heard in his own defense at the bar of
the Commons.

15 Here again Hastings was pursued by the same fatality
which had attended him ever since the day when he set
foot on English ground. It seemed to be decreed that this
man, so politic and so successful in the East, should com-
mit nothing but blunders in Europe. Any judicious ad-
20 viser would have told him that the best thing which he
could do would be to make an eloquent, forcible, and
affecting oration at the bar of the House; but that, if he
could not trust himself to speak, and found it necessary to
. read, he ought to be as concise as possible. Audiences
25 accustomed to extemporaneous ^debating of the highest
excellence are always impatient of long written composi-
tions. Hastings, however, sat down as he would have
done at the Government-house in Bengal, and prepared a
paper of immense length. That paper, if recorded on the
30 consultations of an Indian administration, would have
been justly praised as a very able minute. But it was now
out of place. It fell flat, as the best written defense must
have fallen flat, on an assembly accustomed to the animated
and strenuous conflicts of Pitt and Fox, The rpembers,﻿Warren Hastings	215

as soon as their curiosity about the face and demeanor of
so eminent a stranger was satisfied, walked away to dinner,
and left Hastings to tell his. story till midnight to the
clerks and the Sergeant-at-arms.

All preliminary steps having been duly taken, Burke, 5
in the beginning of June, brought forward the charge re-
lating to the Rohilla war. He acted discreetly in placing
this accusation in the van; for Dundas had formerly
moved, and the House had adopted, a resolution condemn-
ing, in the most severe terms, the policy followed by 10
Hastings with regard to Rohilcund. Dundas had little,
or rather nothing, to say in defense of his own consistency;
but he put a bold face on the matter, and opposed the
motion. Among other things, he declared that, though he
still thought the Rohilla war unjustifiable, he considered 15
the services which Hastings had subsequently rendered to
the state as sufficient to atone even for so great an offense.
Pitt did not speak, but voted with Dundas; and Hastings
was absolved by a hundred and nineteen votes against
sixty-seven.	20

Hastings was now confident of victory. It seemed,
indeed, that he had reason to be so. The Rohilla war
was, of all his measures, that which his accusers might with
greatest advantage assail. It had been condemned by the
Court of Directors. It had been condemned by the House 25
of Commons. It had been condemned by Mr. Dundas,
who had since become the chief minister of the Crown for
Indian affairs. Yet Burke, having chosen this strong
ground, had been completely defeated on it. That, hav-
ing failed here, he should succeed on any point, was gener- 30
ally thought impossible. It was rumored at the clubs and
coffee-houses that one or perhaps two more charges would
be brought forward; that if, on those charges, the sense
of the House of Commons should be against impeachment,﻿216	Warren Hastings

the Opposition would let the matter drop, that Hastings
would be immediately raised to the peerage, decorated
with the star of the Bath, sworn of the privy council, and
invited to lend the assistance of his talents and experience
5 to the India board. Lord Thurlow, indeed, some months
before, had spoken with contempt of the scruples which
prevented Pitt from calling Hastings to the House of
Lords; and had even said that, if the Chancellor of the
Exchequer was afraid of the Commons, there was noth-
io ing to prevent the Keeper of the Great Seal from taking
the royal pleasure about a patent of peerage. The very
title was chosen. Hastings was to be Lord Daylesford.
For, through all changes of scene and changes of fortune,
remained unchanged his attachment to the spot which had
15 witnessed the greatness and the fall of his family, and
which had borne so great a part in the first dreams of his
young ambition.

But in a very few days these fair prospects were over-
cast. On the thirteenth of June, Mr. Fox brought
20 forward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge re-
respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis followed
on the same side. The friends of Hastings were in high
spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual abundance and
felicity of language, the Minister gave his opinion on the
25 case. He maintained that the Governor-General was
justified in calling on the Rajah of Benares for pecuniary
assistance, and in imposing a fine when that assistance
was contumaciously withheld. He also thought that the
conduct of the Governor-General during the insurrection
30 had been distinguished by ability and presence of mind.
He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct of Francis,
both in India and in Parliament, as most dishonest and
malignant. The necessary inference from Pitt’s arguments
seemed to be that Hastings ought to be honorably ac-﻿Warren Hastings	217

quitted; and both the friends and the opponents of the
Minister expected from him a declaration to that effect.

To the astonishment of all parties, he concluded by saying
that, though he thought it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte
Sing for contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too 5
great for the occasion. On this ground, and on this ground
alone, did Mr. Pitt, applauding every other part of the
conduct of Hastings with regard to Benares, declare that
he should vote in favor of Mr. Fox’s motion.

The House was thunderstruck; and it well might be 10
so. For the wrong done to Cheyte Sing, even had it
been as flagitious as Fox and Francis contended, was
a trifle when compared with the horrors which had been
inflicted on Rohilcund. But if Mr. Pitt’s view of the
case of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no ground 15
for an impeachment, or even for a vote of censure. If the
offense of Hastings was really no more than this, that,
having a right to impose a mulct, the amount of which
mulct was not defined, but was left to be settled by his
discretion, he had, not for his own advantage, but for that 20
of the state, demanded too much, was this an offense which
required a criminal proceeding of the highest solemnity,
a criminal proceeding, to which, during sixty years, no
public functionary had been subjected? We can see,
we think, in what way a man of sense and integrity 25
might have been induced to take any course respecting
Hastings, except the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such
a man might have thought a great example necessary,
for the preventing of injustice, and for the vindicating of
the national honor, and might, on that ground, have 30
voted for impeachment both on the Rohilla charge, and on
the Benares charge. Such a man might have thought that
the offenses of Hastings had been atoned for by great serv-
ices, and might, on that ground, have voted against the﻿218	Warren Hastings

impeachment, on both charges. With great diffidence,
we give it as our opinion that the most correct course
would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla
charge, and to acquit on the Benares charge. Had the
5 Benares charge appeared to us in the same light in which
it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should without hesitation have
voted for acquittal on that charge. The one course which
it is inconceivable that any man of a tenth part of Mr.
Pitt’s abilities can have honestly taken was the course
io which he took. He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla
charge. He softened down the Benares charge till, it be-
came no charge at all; and then he pronounced that it
contained matter for impeachment.

Nor must it be forgotten that the principal reason
15 assigned by the ministry for not impeaching Hastings on
account of the Rohilla war was this, that the delinquencies
of the early part of his administration had been atoned
for by the excellence of the later part. Was it not most
extraordinary that men who had held this language could
20 afterwards vote that the later part of his administration
furnished matter for no less than twenty articles of im-
peachment? They first represented the conduct of Hast-
ings in 1780 and 1781 as so highly meritorious that, like
works of supererogation in the Catholic theology, it ought
25 to be efficacious for the canceling of former offenses; and
they then prosecuted him for his conduct in 1780 and
1781.

The general astonishment was the greater, because,
only twenty-four hours before, the members on whom the
30 Minister could depend had received the usual notes from
the Treasury, begging them to be in their places and to
vote against Mr. Fox’s motion. It was asserted by Mr.
Hastings, that, early on the morning of the very day on
which the debate took place, Dundas called on Pitt, woke﻿Warren Hastings	219

him, and was closeted with him many hours. The result
of this conference was a determination to give up the
late Governor-General to the vengeance of the Opposi-
tion. It was impossible even for the most powerful min-
ister to carry all his followers with him in so strange a 5
course. Several persons high in office, the Attorney-
General, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Mulgrave, divided
against Mr. Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood
by the head of the government without asking questions,
were sufficiently numerous to turn the scale. A hundred 10
and nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox’s motion;
seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt.

That good and great man, the late William Wilber-
force, often related the events of this remarkable night.

He described the amazement of the House, and the bitter 15
reflections which were muttered against the Prime Minis-
ter by some of the habitual supporters of government.
Pitt himself appeared to feel that his conduct required
some explanation. He left the treasury bench, sat for
some time next to Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly 20
declared that he had found it impossible, as a man of
conscience, to stand any longer by Hastings. The business,
he said, was too bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are bound to
add, fully believed that his friend was sincere, and that
the suspicions to which this mysterious affair gave rise 25
were altogether unfounded.

Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to
mention. The friends of Hastings, most of whom, it is
to be observed, generally supported the administration,
affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy. 30
Hastings was personally a favorite with the King. He
was the idol of the East India Company and of its serv-
ants. If he were absolved by the Commons, seated
among the Lords, admitted to the Board of Control,﻿220	Warren Hastings

closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious Thur-
low, was it not almost certain that he would soon draw to
himself the entire management of Eastern affairs? Was it
not possible that he might become a formidable rival in
5 the cabinet? It had probably got abroad that very singu-
lar communications had taken place between Thurlow
and Major Scott, and that, if the First Lord of the
Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a peerage,
the Chancellor was ready to take the responsibility of that
io step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was the least likely
to submit with patience to such an encroachment on his
functions. If the Commons impeached Hastings, all dan-
ger was at an end. The proceeding, however it might
terminate, would probably last some years. In the mean-
15 time, the accused person would be excluded from honors
and public employments, and could scarcely venture even
to pay his duty at court. Such were the motives attributed
by a great part of the public to the young minister, whose
ruling passion was generally believed to be avarice of
20 power.

The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions re-
specting Hastings. In the following year, those discus-
sions were resumed. The charge touching the spoliation
of the Begums was brought forward by Sheridan, in a
25 speech which was so imperfectly reported that it may be
said to be wholly lost, but which wras, without doubt, the
most elaborately brilliant of all the productions of his in-
genious mind. The impression which it produced was
such as has never been equaled. He sat down, not merely
30 amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in
which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the
gallery joined. The excitement of the House was such
that no other speaker could obtain a hearing; and the
debate was adjourned. The ferment spread fast through﻿Warren Hastings	221

the town. Within four and twenty hours, Sheridan was
offered a thousand pounds for the copyright of the speech,
if he would himself correct it for the press. The impres-
sion made by this remarkable display of eloquence on
severe and experienced critics, whose discernment may be
supposed to have been quickened by emulation, was deep
and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said
that the speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite
of some faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting
either in the literary of in the parliamentary performances
of Sheridan, the finest that had been delivered within the
memory of man. Mr. Fox, about the same time, being
asked by the late Lord Holland what was the best speech
ever made in the House of Commons, assigned the first
place, without hesitation, to the great oration of Sheridan
on the Oude charge.

When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly
against the accused that his friends were coughed and
scraped down. Pitt declared himself for Sheridan’s mo-
tion; and the question was carried by a hundred and
seventy-five votes against sixty-eight.

The Opposition, flushed with victory and strongly sup-
ported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring for-
ward a succession of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary
transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged,
and having now no hope of being able to avert an im-
peachment, were not very strenuous in their exertions.
At length the House, having agreed to twenty articles of
charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, and to
impeach the late Governor-General of High Crimes and
Misdemeanors. Hastings was at the same time arrested
by the Sergeant-at-arms, and carried to the bar of the
Peers.

The session was now within ten days of its close. It

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30﻿222	Warren Hastings

was, therefore, impossible that any progress could be
made in the trial till the next year. Hastings was ad-
mitted to bail; and further proceedings were postponed
till the Houses should re-assemble.

5 When Parliament met in the following winter, the
Commons proceeded to elect a committee for managing
the impeachment. Burke stood at the head; and with
him were associated most of the leading members of the
Opposition. But when the name of Francis was read a
io fierce contention arose. It was said that Francis and
Hastings were notoriously on bad terms, that they had
been at feud during many years, that on one occasion
their mutual aversion had impelled them to seek each
other’s lives, and that it would be improper and indelicate
15 to select a private enemy to be a public accuser. It was
urged on the other side with great force, particularly by
Mr. Windham, that impartiality, though the first duty of
a judge, had never been reckoned among the qualities of
an advocate; that in the ordinary administration of crimi-
20 nal justice among the English, the aggrieved party, the
very last person who ought to be admitted into the jury-
box, is the prosecutor; that what was wanted in a manager
was, not that he should be free from bias, but that he
should be able, well informed, energetic, and active. The
25 ability and information of Francis were admitted; and the
very animosity with which he was reproached, whether a
virtue or a vice, was at least a pledge for his energy and
activity. It seems difficult to refute these arguments.
But the inveterate hatred borne by Francis to Hastings
30 had excited general disgust. The House decided that
Francis should not be a manager. Pitt voted with the
majority, Dundas with the minority.

In the meantime, the preparations for the trial had
proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th of February, 1788, the﻿Warren Hastings	223

sittings of the Court commenced. There have been
spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with
jewelry and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up
children, than that which was then exhibited at West-
minster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well
calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, and
imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which
belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and
to the past, were collected on one spot, and in one hour.
All the talents and all the accomplishments which are
developed by liberty and civilization were now displayed,
with every advantage that could be derived both from co-
operation and from contrast. Every step in the proceed-
ings carried the mind either backward, through many
troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of
our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless
seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange
stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange char-
acters from right to left. The High Court of Parlia-
ment was to sit, according to forms handed down from the
days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of
exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Bena-
res, and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude.

The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the
great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded
with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the
hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and
the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the elo-
quence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted
a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall
where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice
with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame.
Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The ave-
nues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept

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10

15

20

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30﻿224	Warren Hastings

clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine,
were marshaled by the heralds under Garter King-at-
arms. The judges in their vestments of state attended
to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and
S seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper House as the
Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their
usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior
Baron present led the way, George Eliott, Lord Heath-
field, recently ennobled for his memorable defense of
io Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and
Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of
Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dig-
nitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last
of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine
15 person and noble bearing. The gray old walls were hung
with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an
audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emula-
tion of an orator. There were gathered together, from all
parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire,
20 grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the repre-
sentatives of every science and of every art. There were
seated round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters
of the house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of
great Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admiration
25 on a spectacle which no other country in the world could
present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic
beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the
imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman
Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause
30 of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate which
still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered
against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by
side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the
age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel﻿Warren Hastings	225

which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so
many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so
many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend
his labors in that dark and profound mine from which he
had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, a treasure too 5
often buried in the earth, too often paraded with in-
judicious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, mas-
sive, and splendid. There appeared the voluptuous charms
of her to whom the heir of the throne had in secret
plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful 10
mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia whose deli-
cate features, lighted up by love and music, art has
rescued from the common decay. Ther.e were the mem-
bers of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised, and
exchanged repartees, under the rich peacock-hangings .of 15
Mrs. Montague. And there the ladies whose lips,
more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the
Westminster election against palace and treasury, shone
round Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire.

The Sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced 20
to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed
not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an
extensive and populous country, had made laws and
treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down
princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself, 25
that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and
that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, ex-
cept virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a
bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving
dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference 30
to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and
self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pen-
sive, but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face
pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, as﻿226	Warren Hastings

legibly as under the picture in the council-chamber at
Calcutta, Mens aequa in arduis; such was the aspect with
which the great Proconsul presented himself to his judges.

His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were
5 afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the high-
est posts in their profession, the bold and strong-minded
Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King’s Bench; the
more humane and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Jus-
tice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer who, near twenty
10 years later, successfully conducted in the same high court
the defense of Lord Melville, and subsequently became
Vice-chancellor and Master of the Rolls.

But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so
much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze
IS of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green
benches and tables for the Commons. The managers,
with Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. The
collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox,
generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the
20 illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and
sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of
the impeachment; and his commanding, copious, and
sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of
various talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord
25 North for the duties of a public prosecutor; and his friends
were left without the help of his excellent sense, his tact,
and his urbanity. But, in spite of the absence of these
two distinguished members of the Lower House, the box
in which the managers stood contained an array of speakers
30 such as perhaps had not appeared together since the great
age of Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan,
the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides.
There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the
art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity﻿Warren Hastings	227

and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of compre-
hension and richness of imagination superior to every
orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially
fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age,
his form developed by every manly exercise, his face beam- 5
ing with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the chival-
rous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded
by such men, did the youngest manager pass unnoticed.

At an age when most of those who distinguish themselves
in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at 10
college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in
Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection was
wanting that could set off to the height his splendid talents
and his unblemished honor. At twenty-three he had been
thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen 15
who appeared as the delegates of the British Commons, at
the bar of the British nobility. All who stood at that
bar, save him alone, are gone, culprit, advocates, accusers.

To the generation which is now in the vigor of life, he is
the sole representative of a great age which has passed 20
away. But those who, within the last ten years, have lis-
tened with delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapes-
tries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated
eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some
estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he 25
was not the foremost.

The charges and the answers of Hastings were first
read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was
rendered less tedious than it would otherwise have been
by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the 30
clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet.
On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied
by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general
introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of﻿228	Warren Hastings

thought and a splendor of diction which more than satis-
fied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he de-
scribed the character and institutions of the natives of
India, recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic
5 empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the con-
stitution of the Company and of the English Presidencies.
Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an
idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in
his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administration
io of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of
morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the
great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration
from the stern and hostile Chancellor, and, for a moment,
seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant.
15 The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays
of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and
perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility,
were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handker-
chiefs were pulled out; smelling-bottles were handed
20 round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard; and Mrs.
Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length the orator
concluded. Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish
oak resounded, “Therefore,” said he, “hath it with all
confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain,
25 that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and mis-
demeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons’
House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I im-
peach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient
honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the
30 people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot,
and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly,
in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both
sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank,
I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all! ”﻿Warren Hastings	229

When the deep murmur of various emotions had sub-
sided, Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords respecting the
course of proceeding to be followed. The wish of the ac-
cusers was that the Court would bring to a close the in-
vestigation of the first charge before the second was
opened. The wish of Hastings and of his counsel was
that the managers should open all the charges, and pro-
duce all the evidence for the prosecution, before the de-
fense began. The Lords retired to their own House to
consider the question. The Chancellor took the side of
Hastings. Lord Loughborough, who was now in op-
position, supported the demand of the managers. The
division showed which way the inclination of the tribunal
leaned. A majority of near three to one decided in favor
of the course for which Hastings contended.

When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr.
Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and
several days were spent in reading papers and hearing
witnesses. The next article was that relating to the
Princesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of the case
was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to
hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly
finished declamation lasted two days; but the Hall was
crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was
said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket.
Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a knowl-
edge of stage effect which his father might have envied,
to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke,
who hugged him with the energy of generous admi-
ration.

June was now far advanced. The session could not
last much longer; and the progress which had been made
in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There
were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the

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25

30﻿230	Warren Hastings

case for the prosecution been heard; and it was now a year
since Hastings had been admitted to bail.

The interest taken by the public in the trial was great
when the Court began to sit, and rose to the height when
5 Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to the Begums.
From that time the excitement went down fast. The
spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. The great
displays of rhetoric were over. What was behind was not
of a nature to entice men of letters from their books in
10 the morning, or to tempt ladies who had left the mas-
querade at two to be out of bed before eight. There
remained examinations and cross-examinations. There
remained statements of accounts. There remained the
reading of papers, filled with words unintelligible to Eng-
15 lish ears, with lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, sun-
nuds and perwannahs, jaghires and nuzzers. There re-
mained bickerings, not always carried on with the best
taste or with the best temper, between the managers of the
impeachment and the counsel for the defense, particularly
20 between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There remained the
endless marches and countermarches of the Peers between
their House and the Hall; for as often as a point of law
was to be discussed, their Lordships retired to discuss it
apart; and the consequence was, as a Peer wittily said,
25 that the judges walked and the trial stood still.

It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when
the trial commenced, no important question, either of
domestic or foreign policy, occupied the public mind. The
proceeding in Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally at-
30 tracted most of the attention of Parliament and of the
public. It was the one great event of that season.
But in the following year the King’s illness, the debates
on the Regency, the expectation of a change of ministry,
completely diverted public attention from Indian affairs;﻿Warren Hastings	231

and within a fortnight after George the Third had re-
turned thanks in St. Paul’s for his recovery, the States-
General of France met at Versailles. In-the midst of the
agitation produced by these events, the impeachment was
for a time almost forgotten.

The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the ses-
sion of 1788, when the proceedings had the interest of
novelty, and when the Peers had little other business
before them, only thirty-five days were given to the im-
peachment. In 1789, the Regency Bill occupied the
Upper House till the session was far advanced. When the
King recovered the circuits were beginning. The judges
left town; the Lords waited for the return of the oracles
of jurisprudence; and the consequence was that during
the whole year only seventeen days were given to the
case of Hastings. It was clear that the matter would be
protracted to a length unprecedented in the annals of
criminal law.

In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment,
though it is a fine ceremony, and though it may have been
useful in the seventeenth century, is not a proceeding
from which much good can now be expected. Whatever
confidence may be placed in the decision of the Peers on
an appeal arising out of ordinary litigation, it is certain
that no man has the least confidence in their impartiality,
when a great public functionary, charged with a great
state crime, is brought to their bar. They are all poli-
ticians. There is hardly one among them whose vote on
an impeachment may not be confidently predicted before
a witness has been examined; and, even if it were possible
to rely on their justice, they would still be quite unfit to
try such a cause as that of Hastings. They sit only dur-
ing half the year. They have to transact much legislative
and much judicial business. The law-lords, whose advice

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30﻿232	Warren Hastings

is required to guide the unlearned majority, are employed
daily in administering justice elsewhere. It is impossible,
therefore, that during a busy session, the Upper House
should give more than a few days to an impeachment. To
5 expect that their Lordships would give up partridge-
shooting, in order to bring the greatest delinquent to
speedy justice, or to relieve accused innocence by speedy
acquittal, would be unreasonable indeed. A well-consti-
tuted tribunal, sitting regularly six days in the week, and
10 nine hours in the day, would have brought the trial of
Hastings to a close in less than three months. The Lords
had not finished their work in seven years.

The result ceased to be matter of doubt, from the
time when the Lords resolved that they would be guided
15 by the rules of evidence which are received in the inferior
courts of the realm. Those rules, it is well known, ex-
clude much information which would be quite sufficient to
determine the conduct of any reasonable man, in the most
important transactions of private life. These rules, at
20 every assizes, save scores of culprits whom judges, jury,
and spectators firmly believe to be guilty. But when those
rules were rigidly applied to offenses committed many
years before, at the distance of many thousands of miles,
conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do
25 not blame the accused and his counsel for availing them-
selves of every legal advantage in order to obtain an ac-
quittal. But it is clear that an acquittal so obtained can-
not be pleaded in bar of the judgment of history.

Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings
30 to put a stop to the trial. In 1789 they proposed a
vote of censure upon Burke, for some violent language
which he had used respecting the death of Nuncomar and
the connection between Hastings and Impey. Burke was
then unpopular in the last degree both with the House﻿Warren Hastings	233

and with the country. The asperity and indecency of
some expressions which he had used during the debates on
the Regency had annoyed even his warmest friends. The
vote of censure was carried; and those who had moved it
hoped that the managers would resign in disgust. Burke 5
was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what he considered as
the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over his personal
feelings. He received the censure of the House with dig-
nity and meekness, and declared that no personal morti-
fication or humiliation should induce him to flinch from 10
the sacred duty which he had undertaken.

In the following year the Parliament was dissolved;
and the friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the
new House of Commons might not be disposed to go on
with the impeachment. They began by maintaining that 15
the whole proceeding was terminated by the dissolution.
Defeated on this point, they made a direct motion that
the impeachment should be dropped; but they were de-
feated by the combined forces of the Government and the
Opposition. It was, however, resolved that, for the 20
sake of expedition, many of the articles should be with-
drawn. In truth, had not some such measure been
adopted, the trial would have lasted till the defendant
was in his grave.

At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pro- 25
nounced; near eight years after Hastings had been brought
by the Sergeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of
the Lords. On the last day of this great procedure
the public curiosity, long suspended, seemed to be revived.
Anxiety about the judgment there could be none; for it 30
had been fully ascertained that there was a great majority
for the defendant. Nevertheless many wished to see the
pageant, and the Hall was as much crowded as on the
first day. But those who, having been present on the first﻿234	Warren Hastings

day, now bore a part in the proceedings of the last, were
few; and most of those few were altered men.

As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken
place before one generation, and the judgment was pro-
S nounced by another. The spectator could not look at the
woolsack, or at the red benches of the Peers, or at the
green benches of the Commons, without seeing something
that reminded him of the instability of all human things,
of the instability of power and fame and life, of the
io more lamentable instability of friendship. The great seal
was borne before Lord Loughborough, who, when the
trial commenced, was a fierce opponent "of Mr. Pitt’s
government, and who was now a member of that gov-
ernment, while Thurlow, who presided in the court when
15 it first sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat scowling
among the junior barons. Of about a hundred and sixty
nobles who walked in the procession on the first day,
sixty had been laid in their family vaults. Still more
affecting must have been the sight of the managers’ box.
20 What had become of that fair fellowship, so closely bound
together by public and private ties, so resplendent with
every talent and accomplishment? It had been scattered
by calamities more bitter than the bitterness of death.
The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full
25 vigor of their genius. But their friendship was at an
end. It had been violently and publicly dissolved, with
tears and stormy reproaches. If those men, once so dear
to each other, were now compelled to meet for the pur-
pose of managing the impeachment, they met as strangers
30 whom public business had brought together, and behaved
to each’ other with cold and distant civility. Burke had
in his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been fol-
lowed by Sheridan and Grey.

Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found﻿Warren Hastings	235

Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing
and to the Begums. On other charges, the majority in
his favor was still greater. On some he was unanimously
absolved. He was then called to the bar, was informed
from the woolsack that the Lords had acquitted him, and
was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully and
retired.

We have said that the decision had been fully ex-
pected. It was also generally approved. At the com-
mencement of the trial there had been a strong and
indeed unreasonable feeling against Hastings. At the
close of the trial there was a feeling equally strong and
equally unreasonable in his favor. One cause of the
change was, no doubt, what is commonly called the
fickleness of the multitude, but what seems to us to be
merely the general law of human nature. Both in in-
dividuals and in masses violent excitement is always fol-
lowed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all
inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and,
on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we
have shown undue rigor. It was thus in the case of
Hastings. The length of his trial, moreover, made him
an object of compassion. It was thought, and not with-
out reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an
ill-used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was
more than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that,
though, in the ordinary course of criminal law, a de-
fendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against
his crimes, a great political cause should be tried on dif-
ferent principles, and that a man who had governed an
empire during thirteen years might have done some very
reprehensible things, and yet might be on the whole de-
serving of rewards and honors rather than of fine and
imprisonment. The press, an instrument neglected by the

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3Q﻿236	Warren Hastings

prosecutors, was used by Hastings and his friends with
great effect. Every ship, too, that arrived from Madras or
Bengal, brought a cuddy full of his admirers. Every
gentleman from India spoke of the late Governor-General
S as having deserved better, and having been treated worse,
than any man living. The effect of this testimony,
unanimously given by all persons who knew the East, was
naturally very great. Retired members of the Indian
services, civil and military, were settled in all corners of
10 the kingdom. Each of them was, of course, in his own
little circle, regarded as an oracle on an Indian question;
and they were, with scarcely one exception, the zealous
advocates of Hastings. It is to be added, that the numer-
ous addresses to the late Governor-General, which his
15 friends in Bengal obtained from the natives and trans-
mitted to England, made a considerable impression. To
these addresses we attach little or no importance. That
Hastings was beloved by the people whom he governed is
true; but the eulogies of pundits, zemindars, Moham-
20 medan doctors, do not prove it to be true. For an Eng-
lish collector or judge would have found it easy to induce
any native who could write to sign a panegyric on, the
most odious ruler that ever was in India. It was said
that at Benares, the very place at which the acts set forth
25 in the first article of impeachment had been committed,
the natives had erected a temple to Hastings; and this
story excited a strong sensation in England. Burke’s
observations on the apotheosis were admirable. He saw
no reason for astonishment, he said, in the incident which
30 had been represented as so striking. He knew something
of the mythology of the Brahmins. He knew that as they
worshipped some gods from love, so they worshipped others
from fear. He knew that they erected shrines, not only
to the benignant deities of light and plenty, but also to﻿Warren Hastings	237

the fiends who preside over smallpox and murder; nor did
he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings to be admitted
into such a Pantheon. This reply has always struck us as
one of the finest that ever was made in Parliament. It is
a grave and forcible argument, decorated by the most bril- 5
liant wit and fancy.

Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything except
character, he would have been far better off if, when first
impeached, he had at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine
of fifty thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. The 10
legal expenses of his defense had been enormous. The
expenses which did not appear in his attorney’s bill were
perhaps larger still. Great sums had been paid to Major
Scott. Great sums had been laid out in bribing news-
papers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. 15
Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Com-
mons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed
in corrupting the press. It is certain that no contro-
versial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest
ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan defended the 20
accused Governor with great ability in prose. For the
lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were bur-
lesqued in Simpkin’s letters. It is, we are afraid, indis-
putable that Hastings stooped so low as to court the aid
of that malignant and filthy baboon John Williams, who 25
called himself Anthony Pasquin. It was necessary to
subsidize such allies largely. The private hoards of Mrs.
Hastings had disappeared. It is said that the banker to
whom they had been intrusted had failed. Still if Hast-
ings had practised strict economy he would, after all his 30
losses, have had a moderate competence; but in the man-
agement of his private affairs he was imprudent. The
dearest wish of his heart had always been to regain Dayles-
ford. At length, in the very year in which his trial com-﻿238	Warren Hastings

menced, the wish was accomplished; and the domain,
alienated more than seventy years before, returned to the
descendant of its old lords. But the manor house was a
ruin; and the grounds round it had, during many years,
5 been utterly neglected. Hastings proceeded to build, to
plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate a grotto;
and, before he was dismissed from the bar of the House
of Lords, he had expended more than forty thousand
pounds in adorning his seat.

10 The general feeling both of the Directors and of the
proprietors of the East India Company was that he
had great claims on them, that his services to them had
been eminent, and that his misfortunes had been the
effect of his zeal for their interest. His friends in Leaden-
15 hall Street proposed to reimburse him for the costs of
his trial, and to settle on him an annuity of five thousand
pounds a year. But the consent of the Board of Control was
necessary; and at the head of the Board of Control was
Mr. Dundas, who had himself been a party to the im-
20 peachment, who had, on that account, been reviled with
great bitterness by the adherents of Hastings, and who,
therefore, was not in a very complying mood. He Refused
to consent to what the Directors suggested. The Directors
remonstrated. A long controversy followed. Hastings,
25 in the meantime, was reduced to such distress, that he
could hardly pay his weekly bills. At length a compromise
was made. An annuity for life of four thousand pounds
was settled on Hastings; and in order to enable him to
meet pressing demands, he was to receive ten years’ an-
30 nuity in advance. The Company was also permitted
to lend him fifty thousand pounds, to be repaid by in-
stalments without interest. This relief, though given
in the most absurd manner, was sufficient to enable the
retired Governor to live in comfort, and even in luxury, if﻿Warren Hastings	239

he had been a skilful manager. But he was careless and
profuse, and was more than once under the necessity of
applying to the Company for assistance, which was liberally
given.

He had security and affluence, but not the power and 5
dignity which, when he landed from India, he had reason
to expect. He had then looked forward to a coronet, a
red riband, a seat at the Council Board, an office at
Whitehall. He was then only fifty-two, and might hope
for many years of bodily and mental vigor. The case 10
was widely different when he left the bar of the Lords.

He was now too old a man to turn his mind to a new
class of studies and duties. He had no chance of receiv-
ing any mark of royal favor while Mr. Pitt remained in
power; and, when Mr. Pitt retired, Hastings was ap- 15
proaching his seventieth year.

Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he interfered in
politics; and that interference was not much to his honor.

In 1804 he exerted himself strenuously to prevent Mr.
Addington, against whom Fox and Pitt had combined, 20
from resigning the Treasury. It is difficult to believe that
a man so able and energetic as Hastings can have thought
that, when Bonaparte was at Boulogne with a great army,
the defense of our island could safely be intrusted to a
ministry which did not contain a single person whom 25
flattery could describe as a great statesman. It is also
certain that, on the important question which had raised
Mr. Addington to power, and on which he differed from
both Fox and Pitt, Hastings, as might have been expected,
agreed with Fox and Pitt, and was decidedly opposed to 30
Addington. Religious intolerance has never been the vice
of the Indian service, and certainly was not the vice of
Hastings. But Mr. Addington had treated him with
marked favor. Fox had been a principal manager of the﻿240	Warren Hastings

impeachment. To Pitt it was owing that there had been
an impeachment; and Hastings, we fear, was on this occa-
sion guided by personal considerations, rather than by a
regard to the public interest.

5 The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly
passed at Daylesford. He amused himself with embellish-
ing his grounds, riding fine Arab horses, fattening prize-
cattle, and trying to rear Indian animals and vegetables in
England. He sent for seeds of a very fine custard-apple,
10 from the garden of what had once been his own villa,
among the green hedgerows of Allipore. He tried also to
naturalize in Worcestershire the delicious leechee, al-
most the only fruit of Bengal which deserves to be
regretted even amidst the plenty of Covent Garden. The
15 Mogul emperors, in the time of their greatness, had in
vain attempted to introduce into Hindostan the goat of the
table-land of Thibet, whose down supplies the looms of
Cashmere with the materials of the finest shawls. Hast-
ings tried, with no better fortune, to rear a breed at
20 Daylesford; nor does he seem to have succeeded better
with the cattle of Bootan, whose tails are in high esteem
as the best fans for brushing away the mosquitoes.

Literature divided his attention with his conservatories
and his menagerie. He had always loved books, and they
25 were now necessary to him. Though not a poet, in any
high sense of the word, he wrote neat and polished lines
with great facility, and was fond of exercising this talent.
Indeed, if we must speak out, he seems to have been more
of a Trissotin than was to be expected from the powers of
30 his mind,- and from the great part which he had played
in life. We are assured in these Memoirs that the first
thing which he did in the morning was to write a copy
of verses. When the family and guests assembled, the
poem made its appearance as regularly as the eggs and﻿Warren Hastings	241

rolls; and Mr. Gleig requires us to believe that, if from
any accident Hastings came to the breakfast-table without
one of his charming performances in his hand, the omission
was felt by all as a grievous disappointment. Tastes differ
widely. For ourselves, we must say that, however good
the breakfasts at Daylesford may have been,—and we are
assured that the tea was of the most aromatic flavor, and
that neither tongue nor venison-pasty was wanting,—we
should have thought the reckoning high if we had been
forced to earn our repast by listening every day to a new
madrigal or sonnet composed by our host. We are glad,
however, that Mr. Gleig has preserved this little feature
of character, though we think it by no means a beauty.
It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of
human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or
disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the strong-
est minds. Dionysius in old times, Frederic in the last
century, with capacity and vigor equal to the conduct of
the greatest affairs, united all the little vanities and affec-
tations of provincial blue-stockings. These great examples
may console the admirers of Hastings for the affliction
of seeing him reduced to the level of the Hayleys and
Sewards.

When Hastings had passed many years in retirement,
and had long outlived the common age of men, he again
became for a short time an object of general attention.
In 1813 the charter of the East India Company was re-
newed ; and much discussion about Indian affairs took
place in Parliament. It was determined to examine wit-
nesses at the bar of the Commons; and Hastings was
ordered to attend. He had appeared at that bar once
before. It was when he read his answer to the charges
which Burke had laid on the table. Since that time
twenty-seven years had elapsed; public feeling had under-

5

10

15

20

25

30﻿242	Warren Hastings

gone a complete change; the nation had now forgotten
his faults, and remembered only his services. The reap-
pearance, too, of a man who had been among the most
distinguished of a generation that had passed away, who
5 now belonged to history, and who seemed to have risen
from the dead, could not but produce a solemn and
pathetic effect. The Commons received him with acclama-
tions, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, when he
retired, rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few
10 who did not sympathize with the general feeling. One
or two of the managers of the impeachment were present.
They sate in the same seats which they had occupied when
they had been thanked for the services which they had
rendered in Westminster Hall; for, by the courtesy of the
15 House, a member who has been thanked in his place is
considered as having a right always to occupy that place.
These gentlemen were not disposed to admit that they
had employed several of the best years of their lives in
persecuting an innocent man. They accordingly kept
20 their seats, and pulled their hats over their brows; but
the exceptions only made the prevailing enthusiasm more
remarkable. The Lords received the old man with similar
tokens of respect. The University of Oxford conferred
on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; and in the Shel-
25 donian Theater the undergraduates welcomed him with
tumultuous cheering.

These marks of public esteem were soon followed by
marks of royal favor. Hastings was sworn of the Privy
Council, and was admitted to a long private audience of
30 the Prince Regent, who treated him very graciously.
When the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia
visited England, Hastings appeared in their train both at
Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, and, though
surrounded by a crowd of princes and great warriors,﻿Warren Hastings	243

was everywhere received with marks of respect and admira-
tion. He was presented by the Prince Regent both to
Alexander and to Frederic William; and his Royal High-
ness went so far as to declare in public that honors far
higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due, and 5
would soon be paid, to the man who had saved the British
dominions in Asia. Hastings now confidently expected a
peerage; but, from some unexplained cause, he was again
disappointed.

He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of 10
good spirits, of faculties not impaired to any painful
or degrading extent, and of health such as is rarely en-
joyed by those who attain such an age. At length, on
the twenty-second of August, 1818, in the eighty-sixth
year of his age, he met death with the same tranquil and 15
decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all the trials
of his various and eventful life.

With all his faults,—and they were neither few nor
small,—only one cemetery was worthy to contain his re-
mains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation where 20
the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great
Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet
resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been
shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust
of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the 25
dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet
the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the
chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which
already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of
Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has 30
ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On
that very spot probably, fourscore years before, the little
Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with
the children of plowmen. Even then his young mind had﻿244	Warren Hastings

revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, how-
ever romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange
as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the
fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased
S the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling. He had pre-
served and extended an empire. .He had founded a polity.
He had administered government and war with more than
the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronized learning
with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been at-
io tacked by the most formidable combination of enemies
that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and
over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had
triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave in
the fullness of age, in peace, after so many troubles, in
15 honor, after so much obloquy.

Those who look on his character without favor or
malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great ele-
ments of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of
others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he
20 was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His
heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with
truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful
ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude
and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command,
25 for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless cour-
age, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests
of the state, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes
of fortune, and never disturbed by either.﻿NOTES AND COMMENT﻿INDIA

IN THE TIME OF
CLIYC and

WARREN HASTINGS

8cale of English Miles

0	100 200 300 400

1	I	I	I	I

Territory

-----—Lands of the Mahrattas

_______Lands of Hyder AH *

RA JPUTA(

) M A L W A

.-JASf-J.I-----

EAR

:hern

OHydcfabi

IMNIONSjkil;'

GheriaM

N G

B E

\ ciTrincomalee
<©CEYL0N﻿NOTES AND COMMENT

(Heavy numerals refer to page; light ones to line)

LORD CLIVE

Early Life of Clive (pages 1-12)

Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B.: a soldier and statesman, for
many years in the service of the East India Company. In 1827
he was made Governor of Bombay.

K.C.B. is an abbreviation for Knight Commander of the Bath.

3, 5. Every schoolboy knows. Macaulay, we must remem-
ber, began his reading at the age of three, and before he was
nine had written a compendium of universal history.

3, 6. Montezuma: king of the Aztec Indians in Mexico, im-
prisoned treacherously in his own capital by the Spanish con-
queror Cortes in 1518. His story is given in Prescott’s Conquest
of Mexico, Book IV, Ch. iii.

3, 6. Atahualpa: treacherously killed by the Spanish captain
Pizarro in 1533, after he had filled a chamber with gold and
silver as a ransom for his freedom. The story of Atahualpa, the
last Inca, or native king of Peru, is told in Prescott’s Conquest
cf Peru, Book II, Ch. vii.

3, 9. Buxar: fought in 1764 between Major Munro and a
native Indian army. Munro’s victory won for the English the
rich province of Oude (pronounced to rime with loud).

3, 9. Patna. In 1763 Meer Cossim, Nabob of Bengal, ex-
asperated at his failure against the English, massacred about
one hundred and fifty defenseless English prisoners in the city
of Patna.

3, 10. Sujah Dowlah. He ruled in Oude from 1754 to 1775.
He must not be confused with Surajah Dowlah, the Nabob of
Bengal.

3, 11. Holkar: a Hindoo and a Mahratta chief who gave the
English much trouble, defeating their armies on several occa-
sions. He died in 1811.

3, 12. The victories of Cortes. Macaulay depreciates un-
247﻿Notes and Comment

248

fairly the great achievements of Cortes. The Aztecs whom he
conquered had dangerous, even if crude, weapons, and were
braver in spirit and stronger in body than most of the Hindoos.

3,	18. Harquebusier: a soldier who carried a harquebus,
or kind of primitive musket.

4,	5. Ferdinand the Catholic. In 1495 the Pope conferred
the title of The Catholic upon Ferdinand V, in whose reign
the Inquisition was established in Spain.

4,	6. The Great Captain: a title (El Gran Capitan) be-
stowed upon a Spanish general, Gonsalvo de Cordova, for his
services in 1495, when he helped to drive Charles VIII, of
France, out of Italy.

4,	16. Mr. Mill’s book: History of India, published in 1818,
and later revised by H. H. Wilson. The author, James Mill,
was the father of John Stuart Mill, the distinguished philosopher
and writer on political economy.

4, 18. Orme: Robert Orme (1728-1801), author of a history of
British India. While a member of the Council of Madras
in 1756, he knew Clive intimately and earnestly supported
him.

4,	29. Lord Powis: the eldest son of Clive, created Earl of
Powis in 1804.

5,	7. Character. Should we to-day use here this word or
reputation? Compare the two.

5,	9. Whose love passes the love of biographers: a
scriptural phrase. See 2 Samuel i, 26.

6,	7. One of his uncles: Mr. Bayley of Manchester. He
wrote the quoted sentence when Clive was only seven years old.
His next remark shows how much of the future Clive, both
good and bad, was in the boy. “ For this reason I do what I can
to suppress the hero, that I may help forward the more valuable
qualities of meekness, benevolence, and patience.” Mr. Bayley
seems to have failed both in “suppressing” and in “helping
forward.”

6,	29. A writership: a subordinate clerical position.

6, 30. East India Company. See Introduction, page xxxii.

6, 33. East India College: a school established by the East
India Company at Haileybury, in Hertfordshire, for the purpose
of fitting young men to enter the India service.

7,	27. The prophet’s gourd: the gourd of Jonah, which was
green one day and withered the next. See Jonah iv, 6-10.﻿Notes and Comment

249

8, 5. The voyage by the Cape. What cape? What is the
usual route to-day, and how long does the voyage take?

8, 19. Nabob: (pronounced nabob, also written nawab), a
Mohammedan title, meaning governor or viceroy. The name
implies a subordinate to an emperor, but practically in Clive’s
time some of the nabobs were independent rulers.

8, 20. Nizam: (nizam), a Hindoo title for a ruler or governor.

8, 22. The Great Mogul: (pronounced Mogul.) A title ap-
plied to the rulers of the Mogul (or Mughal) Empire, the
dynasty founded by Baber.

g, 11. Fort St. George: built by the English for the defense
of Madras.

10, 12. Wallenstein: Commander-in-chief of the forces of
Ferdinand II in the Thirty Years’ War, and the hero of Schiller’s
great dramatic trilogy, Wallenstein’s Camp, The Piccolominis,
and Wallenstein’s Death.

10, 19. The War of the Austrian succession: (1740-1748.)
Maria Theresa, in her claim for the throne of Austria, was
supported by England and Holland. The Elector of Bavaria
was supported by Spain, Prussia, and France. In 1748 the
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave the throne to Maria Theresa.
In American history this struggle is generally spoken of as
King George’s War.

10,	21. The House of Bourbon: a royal family which at
this time included the rulers of both France and Spain.

11,	3. On parole: set free on their word of honor to return
at a stated time or not to engage in hostilities.

11, 8. Pondicherry: occupied by the French first in 1672, and
for many years the capital of their possessions in India. Al-
though captured and held by the English on several occasions,
the city was finally restored to the French in 1816.

11,	34. Ensign: a commissioned officer of the lowest rank in
the British army.

12,	3. A desperate duel. Clive and an ensign in the service
of the Company quarreled over a game of cards, and a duel
followed. Clive fired, but missed his man, who, “ walking up
to him, held the pistol to his head and bade him ask for his life.
After some hesitation he complied; but when further pressed to
withdraw his remarks and promise payment, he replied, ‘ Fire
and be damned! I said you cheated; I say so still, and I will
never pay you.’ The astonished ensign, finding threats useless,﻿Notes and Comment

250

called him a madman, and flung his pistol away.”—Wilson’s
Life of Clive. See Browning’s dramatic poem Clive, in which
this incident is embodied.

12, 10. Major Lawrence. In 1774 the Company erected
a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey, in recognition
of his twenty years of distinguished service in India.

12, 14. Peace: by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.

12, 25. The English and French Companies. One is apt
to forget, since the English have so long ruled India, that up
to the time of Clive the French were greatly in the lead in the
Indian peninsula, both politically and commercially.

12, 29. Tamerlane: invaded India in 1398 and founded the
Mongol, or Mogul Empire, which virtually came to an end with
Aurungzebe (pronounced Awrungzeb), the last of the “Great
Moguls.” See Introduction, page xxxi.

Questions

1. How many comparisons does Macaulay use in the first
paragraph of Clive? 2. What is the nature and what the value
of these comparisons? (If you can find in some popular
history or other work numerous pictures of European cities, ca-
thedrals, armies on the march, etc., you can answer this question
better. John L. Stoddard’s Lectures (Balch Brothers Co., Boston,
1898) contains numerous pictures and descriptions of famous
buildings. Vol. IV deals with India, Vol. V with Spain. 3.
What traits of the future man, both good and bad, appeared in
Clive as a boy? 4. How homesick was Clive during his first
months in India? 5. What good qualities in Clive, not noticeable
in time of peace, did he begin to show after he entered the army?

Survey of Indian History (pages 12-20)

12,	30. Baber . . . Moguls. See Introduction, page xxxi.

13,	1. The beauty and magnificence of the buildings:
for example, the imperial palace at Delhi, which Bishop Heber
regarded as superior to the Kremlin at Moscow; the celebrated
Taj Mahal, and the Pearl Mosque. Pictures and descriptions
of all of these can be found in Vol. IV of J. L. Stoddard’s
Lectures.

13, 5- Versailles. Here about ten miles from Paris, Louis﻿Notes and Comment

251

XIV built a magnificent palace, which during his reign was the
scene of much festivity and pomp. For pictures, see Vol. V of
Stoddard’s Lectures.

13,	8. As the King of France or the Emperor of Ger-
many. Notice Macaulay’s use of concrete examples in his com-
parisons.

14,	3. Theodosius: the last great emperor of the East (379-
395). At his death he divided the empire among his sons.
They proved to be weaklings, utterly incapable of governing
the barbarian generals, who gradually overthrew them and
dissolved the empire of their father.

14, 6. Charlemagne: crowned King of the Franks in 768, and
Emperor of Rome in 800. The kings of his line, called the
Carlovingians, among whom were Charles the Bald, Charles
the Fat, and Charles the Simple, rapidly lost the great empire
over which he had ruled.

14, 17. The pirates of the Northern Sea: the Northmen, or
Normans, who, under Rollo, invaded Normandy and penetrated
even into the Mediterranean.

14, 19. The Hungarian: Attila, the Hun, who ravaged cen-
tral Europe between 432 and 452. He was frequently called
“ The Scourge of God.”

14, 21. Gog or Magog. See Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix; also
Revelation xx.

14, 23. Pannonian. Pannonia was a Roman province in the
southwestern part of Austria-Hungary.

14,	24. Campania: the country around the city of Naples.

15,	8. Bang: a variety of hemp, the leaves of which, chewed,
smoked, or steeped in water, are commonly used in the East as
an intoxicant or narcotic.

15, 11. A Persian conqueror: Nadir Shah, who ravaged the
Indian peninsula in 1739.

15, 14. Roe. Sir Thomas Roe (1568-1644) was sent to the
Mogul Jahangir as an ambassador in 1615 by James I. Roe’s
book on Jahangir and his times gives much valuable informa-
tion about India in the seventeenth century.

15, 14. Bernier: Dr. Frangois Bernier, who, after residing
twelve years at the court of Aurungzebe, wrote an account of his
travels in India, publishing it in 1670-1671.

15, 14. The Peacock Throne: the throne of the emperor at
Delhi, built by Shah Jahan, and estimated to have cost thirty﻿Notes and Comment

252

or forty million dollars. J. L. Stoddard in his Lectures says,
“ Its framework was of solid gold, encrusted with innumerable
precious stones. Above it stretched a golden canopy fringed
with pearls. The back was made to represent two jeweled pea-
cocks, whose colors were reproduced by means of rubies, sap-
phires, emeralds, and diamonds; while, to crown all, upon the
top of this imperial seat was perched a parrot carved from a
single emerald.”

15,	17. Mountain of Light: the Koh-i-nor, the largest and
most valuable of diamonds. Just before Macaulay wrote this
essay Runjeet Sing had presented the great jewel to Juggernaut,
“the hideous idol of Orissa.” In 1849, when the Koh-i-nor came
into the possession of the East India Company, it was presented
to Queen Victoria. A model of it is on exhibition in the Tower
of London among the crown jewels.

15, 20. The Afghan: Ahmed Shah Durani, the founder of the
nation of Afghanistan, who made several destructive forays
through Northern India.

15, 23-24. Seiks; Jauts: Hindoo tribes.

15,	33. Mahrattas: frequently mentioned in both essays. The
name was applied to all the inhabitants of a large district in
west central India. They were of the same races as the other
Hindoos, but acted politically as a separate people. Notice
the construction of this paragraph. Why are the Mahrattas
saved till the end?

16,	21. Mahratta ditch: a ditch made by the English around
Calcutta as a defense against the invading tribes of the Mah-
rattas.

17,	2. Lucknow: the capital of Oude, and a city in 1901
with a population of 264,000. The siege of Lucknow in the great
mutiny of 1857 is one of the most important events in Indian
history. It is the theme of Tennyson’s fine ballad, The Defense
of Lucknow; also of Whittier’s Pipes at Lucknow.

17, 8. Cabul: a province of Afghanistan.

17, 8. Chorasan: a district in the northeastern part of Persia.

17, 14. Cape Comorin: the southern extremity of India.

17, 21. Burrampooter: now spelled Brahmaputra. See map.

17, 21. Hydaspes: the ancient Greek name of the Jelum, one of
the five rivers of the Punjab, and a branch of the Indus. Near
the Hydaspes Alexander the Great defeated an Indian army in
326 B.C.﻿Notes and Comment

253

17,	22. Ava: formerly the capital of Burma, northeast of
Bengal, where, at the close of the first Burmese War in 1826,
the English were able to “ dictate terms of peace.”

17,	23. Candahar: a great city of Afghanistan, where in 1838
the English dethroned one ruler and put up another in his place.

18,	3. Saxe: Maurice de Saxe, generally called Marshal
Saxe, the most brilliant of the French generals in the War of
the Austrian succession.

18, 3. Frederic: Frederick the Great, King of Prussia from
1740 to 1786. One of the foremost warriors of his century.

18, 16. Confounded the confusion. In Paradise Lost, II,
996, Milton says,

“ . . . ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded ...”

18,	22. Delhi: formerly the capital of the Mogul Empire.

19,	30. Sepoys:	a corruption of Sipoohi, a native word for

soldier. The sepoys were native Indian soldiers in the British
army.

20,	1. The eloquence of Burke. Edmund Burke (1729-
1797), one of England’s foremost statesmen and orators, deliv-
ered his brilliant speech, opposing the payment of the Nabob of
Arcot’s debts by the English government, on February 28, 1785.
The speech occupied more than five hours, and included a bitter
denunciation of Pitt’s administration. In spite of its eloquence
and fervor, the speech completely failed of its object. Burke
and Pitt both play important parts in the Essay on Hastings.

Questions

1. How many different invaders and rebels are mentioned on
page 15?	2. How does this long succession of different names

help the general idea of confusion and disunion? 3. How large
was the territory over which Dupleix was declared governor? 4.
Could any turn of events in his native France have made him
ruler of a larger territory? 5. Was his erection of the pillar
due to vanity or policy, or both?

Struggle of the French and English (pages 20-31)

20,	12. Te Deum. Te Deum Laudamus (“Thee, O God,
we praise”) are the opening words of an old Latin hymn, a
favorite one in times of victory or thanksgiving.﻿Notes and Comment

254

21, 10. The vainglorious Frenchman. Macaulay’s “vain-
glorious ” seems to have been written almost in a spirit of envy,
certainly not with good judgment. For were not the display and
show of Dupleix evidences of his farsightedness and knowledge
of Indian character?

21,	2i. Which is, being interpreted: a Biblical phrase.

22,	33. Factors: agents.

24, 17.	The Tenth Legion:	the	legion in which Cssar

placed the greatest confidence.

24,	17. The Old Guard: the flower of Napoleon’s army. It
served with distinction at Waterloo, gallantly covering Na-
poleon’s flight, was disbanded by Louis XVIII in 1815, was re-
organized in 1854, and served in the Crimean War.

25,	16.	Hosein, the son of	Ali.	Ali was the cousin	of

Mohammed and his first disciple. His followers were called
Fatimites because he married Fatima, the favorite daughter of
Mohammed. Ali was killed in 661. Hosein was murdered in
680. The anniversary of his death is celebrated on September 14.

25, 24.	The Prophet of God: Mohammed. The Koran	de-
clares, “	There is no God but	God,	and Mohammed is	his

prophet.”

25, 33. Garden of the Houris: the Mohammedan paradise,
described in the Koran, Chs. lv, lvi. The Houris are maidens
who are to be “ the companions of the faithful ” in paradise.

28,	2. A just and profound policy. See note on “ the vain-
glorious Frenchman,” page 21. Could not these words be as
well applied to Dupleix as to Clive?

29,	18. Captain Bobadil: a bragging, pompous coward in
Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour.

29,	25. Bussy: probably the ablest officer ever sent to India by
France. For many years he was virtually the ruler of Hy-
derabad.

30,	28. Crimps: members of press-gangs who decoyed or
kidnapped boys and men for military or naval service.

30, 28. Flash-houses: houses where smuggled or stolen goods
were received and stored.

Questions

1. What did Clive plan to accomplish by attacking Arcot?
2. Did the attack lead to the desired result? 3. How far did﻿Notes and Comment

255

Clive’s early successes depend on taking the enemy by surprise?
4. What were the odds against him when Rajah Sahib besieged
him in Arcot? 5. Does the siege give us any evidence that
Clive could win men’s affections? 6. Was Clive’s victory over
Rajah Sahib at Arcot due to the Englishmen’s bravery or the
Mohammedans’ cowardice? What percentage of the attacking
party were killed? (Compare with the percentage of soldiers
killed in the fiercest battles of our Civil War, as shown in the
World’s Almanac, for instance.) 7. What virtues did Clive
show in his relations with Major Lawrence? 8. What strong
and what weak traits of character were revealed in Dupleix?
9. What qualities must Clive have possessed to transform such
green material as he led against Covelong into gallant soldiers?

Clive’s First Return to England (pages 31-35)

31, 25. Clive embarked . . . for England: this was in
February, 1753, eight years after his arrival in India. How
old was he?

33, 5. The Jacobites: adherents of the Stuarts, after they
had been deposed from the English throne.

33, 6. The Tory party: one of the two great English
political parties. Macaulay belonged to the other party, the
Whigs, and is prejudiced in many of his remarks about the
Tories.

33, 11. Prince Frederic: died in 1751. He was the son of
George II, and the father of George III.

33, 19. Newcastle: Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister and
First Lord of the Treasury. Though a weak and vacillating
statesman, he managed, by intrigue and bribery, to keep him-
self in office for nearly forty years.

33, 22. Henry Fox: the father of Charles James Fox, an
orator and statesman who plays an important part in the life
of Warren Hastings.

33, 24. The First Lord of the Treasury: here identical
with the Prime Minister.

33, 29. St. Michael: a small borough, consisting of only four
farms, near Truro in Cornwall. It was one of the worst of the
so-called “ rotten boroughs.” Up to 1832 English towns sent
representatives to Parliament according to a distribution made
centuries before, which had been reasonable at the time but was﻿Notes and Comment

2 56

now ridiculously unjust. Certain towns, originally too small
to deserve a representative, had now grown into great manu-
facturing cities and still had no one to uphold their rights in
Parliament. Other places, originally large, had shrunk to tiny
hamlets, but still had the right of electing a member to Parlia-
ment. In these latter districts a campaign fund or the influ-
ence of a great noble could elect any one; hence their name of
“rotten boroughs.” The Reform Act of 1832, in the passing of
which Macaulay took an important part, did away with this
state of affairs and put the whole representative system of the
country on a fairer basis.

34, 1. Clive . . . was brought forward. Clive was not a
resident of St. Michael, but English law did not require that
he should be.

34, 9. Sir Robert Walpole: one of England’s leading states-
men.

34, 29. The Duke of Cumberland: the second son of George
II.

Questions

1. What do we find to praise, and what to blame, in the way
Clive spent his money? 2. What causes led him to return to
India? 3. Was it fortunate or unfortunate for him that he
failed to get into Parliament?

Clive’s Second Residence in India (pages 35-43)

36,	18. Multiplied exceedingly:	a common Biblical ex-

pression.

36,	26. The Castilians. The inhabitants of Castile in north-
ern Spain always despised the Valencians on the shores of the
Mediterranean.

37,	5. Factories: trading stations, not manufacturing plants.

37, 15. Chowringhee: at the time Macaulay wrote (1840),

a suburb of Calcutta where resided the wealthy English mer-
chants.

37,	18. The Course: a noted pleasure drive in Calcutta,
leading past Fort William and the race courses.

38,	30. A rich native whom he longed to plunder: Raja-
raj-bullub, who, fearing that he would be robbed and murdered
by Surajah Dowlah, had sent his son with the greater part of his﻿Notes and Comment

257

fortune to Calcutta to be under the protection of the English.

39, 17. That great crime. Fuller accounts of the Nabob’s
atrocious deed may be found in Col. Charles Wilson’s Life of
Clive and The Rise of the British Dominion in India by Sir
Alfred Lyall. One of the survivors of the night in the Black
Hole, Mr. John Z. Holwell, published a narrative of the affair
in 1758.

39,	27. The summer solstice. The night of June 20, 1756,
was the one spent in the Black Hole.

40, 7. Ugolino. The story of Ugolino is told by Dante in
the Inferno, canto xxxiii, and by Chaucer in the Monkes Tale.
Ugolino tells how he and his sons were locked in a deserted
tower and left there to starve by the Archbishop Ruggieri; and
how the father watched his boys die before his face, himself
unable to help them.

43,	7. War had commenced in Europe: the so-called Seven
Years’ War, known in America as the French and Indian War.

Questions

1. Contrast the conduct of the governor and military com-
mandant at Calcutta with that of Clive. 2. Contrast the Eng-
lish defense of Fort William with Clive’s defense of Arcot. 3.
How does the number of Englishmen imprisoned in the Black
Hole compare with the number of Clive’s Englishmen besieged
in Arcot? 4. What direct promise did Surajah Dowlah violate
by allowing his prisoners to be shut up in the Black Hole?
5. What chain of events shifted the scene of Clive’s activities
from southern to northern India ?

Clive as Statesman in India (pages 43-65)

44,	29. Hands: handwriting of different persons.

46, 6. Bussy. See note on page 29.

46, 8. Daring in war. Clive was known throughout India
as Sabat Jung (“Daring in War”).

49,	16. Before him lay a river: the Bhagirathi, the northern
part of the Hoogley.

50,	14. The furies: avenging spirits or goddesses in classic
mythology.

50, 16. The day broke: June 23, 1757.﻿Notes and Comment

258

51, 29. An empire larger and more populous than Great
Britain. To-day the Indian Peninsula is practically all under
British jurisdiction. In area it nearly equals one half of the
United States, and it has about one fifth of the population of
the world.

53,	28. His mind was .	.	. ruined. Another view of

Omichund’s case is given in the Oxford Student’s History of
India. He does not seem to have been so completely crushed,
and some of his apparently childish actions may have sprung
from Hindoo duplicity.

54,	26. Machiavelli: Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), poet,
dramatist, novelist, and unscrupulous statesman. His name has
become a synonym for merciless policy and political cunning.

54, 27. Borgia: Caesar Borgia (1476-1507), son of Pope
Alexander VI, and probably one of the most evil men that
ever lived. He had his brother murdered, butchered his enemies
without mercy, and was skilled in the art of poisoning. He is
avowedly the hero of Machiavelli’s most famous work, The
Prince.

54,	30. Honesty is the best policy: an old proverb, found
in Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard's Almanac.

55,	23. “Yea, yea” . . . “nay, nay”: Biblical language.
See Matt. v. 37, and James v, 12.

55, 32. Rupee: a silver coin worth, in Clive’s time, about
fifty cents.

57, 18. Florin: a gold coin first issued in Florence in 1252.

57, 19. Byzant: a gold coin, worth “fifteen pounds,” ac-
cording to Johnson.- It was first made in Byzantium, or Con-
stantinople.

57, 24. He accepted between two and three hundred
thousand pounds. The total amount which Clive took from
Meer Jaffier was 188,000 pounds.

57, 34. Rewards bestowed by foreign powers. Marlbor-
ough, for his victory at Blenheim in 1704, was made Prince of
Mindelheim in Bavaria, by Emperor Joseph I. After the battle
of the Nile in 1798, Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, created Nel-
son a duke with an estate of about 3,000 pounds a year. Well-
ington’s victory over the French in 1813 at Vittoria won for him
the title of Duke of Vittoria, and valuable property in Granada.

Notice in this paragraph Macaulay’s plan of argument. Do
you agree with him or with Malcolm?﻿Notes and Comment	259

59, 28. Twenty lacs of rupees. A lac is 100,000. Twenty
lacs of rupees would be about a million dollars.

63,	9. The quit-rent: here simply rent. An interesting word
to examine in any large dictionary.

64,	1. Batavia: the capital of the Dutch possessions in Java.

Questions

1. How did Surajah Dowlah’s own faults and errors lead to
his downfall? 2. Were the English justified in plotting to re-
place him by Meer Jaffier? 3. What sentence of Macaulay
definitely states his answer to the above question? 4. How far
can we justify Clive in his dealings with Omichund? 5. How
does his conduct contrast with that of Admiral Watson? 6.
What would have happened to Clive’s army had it been defeated
at Plassey? 7. How vivid and detailed is Macaulay’s picture
of the Nabob’s army marching out to battle? 8. Compare
the percentage of Surajah Dowlah’s army killed with the per-
centage killed in Rajah Sahib’s army when he assaulted Arcot.
What does this comparison show as to the courage of the two
armies? 9. How far can Clive be justified for accepting such
large sums from.Meer Jaffier? 10. Is Macaulay right in justi-
fying the acceptance of Meer Jaffier’s bounty after the downfall
of Shah Alum, and not the earlier gifts? n. How did the
weakness of Meer Jaffier’s character increase the power of
Clive and the English?

Clive’s Second Return to England (pages 65-75)

65,	12. Clive sailed for England. That was in February,
1760. In the four years which Clive had spent in India he had
made the English masters of the rich province of Bengal and the
strongest power in the peninsula.

65, 17. The Irish Peerage. He was made Baron Clive of
Plassey, an honor which gave him a seat in the House of Com-
mons, but not in the House of Lords.

65, 21. Pitt: William Pitt, the elder, afterwards Earl of Chat-
ham. He is the subject of two of Macaulay’s historical essays.

65, 24. That memorable period. In the previous year, 1759,
besides their victories in India, the English had defeated the
French at Minden, at Cape Lagos, and in Quiberon Bay. In﻿260	Notes and Comment

America they had captured Quebec and taken possession of
Canada.

65,	28. King of Prussia: Frederick the Great, who is re-
ported to have said of a young volunteer, “ If he wishes to learn
the art of war, let him go to Clive.”

65, 28. No reporters. Galleries for reporters were not
erected in Parliament until 1834. Up to 1771 the publication of
debates and proceedings was forbidden by law. Macaulay, in
his Life of Johnson, the thirteenth paragraph, tells how John-
son’s employer evaded this prohibition by printing real debates
in Parliament as imaginary debates in the senate of Lilliput,
the land of pigmies.

65,	33- Wolfe: Major-General James Wolfe, who was killed at
the battle of Quebec, September 13, 1759.

66,	1. The Duke of Cumberland: the second son of George
II. “ His single victory ” was over the forces of the Pretender,
Charles Edward Stuart, at Culloden, in 1746. He treated the
Jacobites so cruelly during the battle, and afterward, that he won
for himself the nickname of “ The Butcher.”

66,	5. Conway: General Henry Conway, who served during
the Seven Years’ War.

66, 7. Granby: John Manners, Marquis ofk Granby, served
with distinction on the Continent.

66, 8. Sackville. Lord George Germain Sackville, for re-
fusing to charge the retreating French at Minden, was court-
martialed and declared “ forever unworthy to serve his country
as a soldier.”

66,	12. A foreign general. At Minden in 1759, and at War-
burg the following year, the English forces were commanded by
Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick.

67,	27. Wilkes. John Wilkes, a bitter enemy of the govern-
ment, was three times elected to Parliament from Middlesex,
but was refused admission by the House of Commons. In 1774
he was finally allowed to take his seat, after a struggle which
had lasted for nearly six years.

68,	11. Board of Control. This board, consisting of six
members of the Privy Council, was first created by Pitt in 1784,
and had extensive powers over the East India Company in
regulating Indian affairs. The Court of Proprietors at the time
of which Macaulay speaks included all men who owned as much
as 500 pounds of the Company’s stock. This body of Proprietors﻿Notes and Comment

261

annually elected twenty-four Directors from their own number.

68,	20. A Westminster election. Turbulent elections took
place in Westminster in 1689, and again in 1.784 when Charles
Fox was a candidate for Parliament.

68,	21. A Grampound election. Grampound was a rotten
borough in Cornwall, notorious for bribery and political cor-
ruption. It was abolished in 1821. See note on St. Michael,
page 33.

69,	7. The residencies. A resident was an agent or repre-
sentative of the Governor-General at the court of a native
ruler.

69, 8. Sudder courts: courts of civil and criminal jurisdic-
tion provided and supported by the East India Company.

69, 19. Leadenhall Street: the location of the East India
Company’s offices at London in the time of Clive.

69, 22. Pigot: George Pigot (1719-1777), Governor of Madras
in the time of Clive. He is said to have amassed a fortune of
$2,000,000 while in India. He spent half a million in purchasing
an estate in Staffordshire; and a single diamond which he left
was finally sold for $150,000.

69,	32. The South Sea year. The South Sea Company was
founded in 1711 for trade with South America and the West
Indies. In expectation of immense profits the directors inflated
the stock to enormous values. As a result, there was a fever
of speculation; poor and rich put all they had into “South
Sea prizes”; stock rose to 1,000 pounds a share, and then, in
1720, the year to which Macaulay alludes, fell to 135 pounds
a share. In a single month the bubble burst, ruining thousands
of people of all classes throughout England.

70,	21. In Chancery. Clive filed in court a complaint, set-
ting forth his grievances and petitioning for relief.

71,	3. The Roman proconsul: probably Lucullus, procon-
sul in Asia from 74 to 66 B.c. While in office he showed great
ability, but he was famous for his extravagant style of living.

71, 7. The Spanish viceroy. Macaulay may here refer in
a general way to Spanish viceroys, or he may have in mind
Hernando Pizarro, brother of the conqueror of Peru. When
Hernando Pizarro returned to Spain in 1534, loaded with the
ill-gotten spoils of Peru, according to Prescott, “ the custom-
house was filled with solid ingots [bars of gold], and with vases
of different forms . . . all of pure gold.”﻿262

Notes and Comment

71,	23. A massacre: the massacre of one hundred and forty-
eight defenseless Englishmen at Patna, 1763.

72,	11. The little finger . . . thicker than the loins.
This is scriptural language. See I Kings xii, 10. What does the
phrase mean?

72,	27. Palanquin: a sort of carriage or litter, borne on the
shoulders of men by means of projecting poles, and used in
India for conveying a single person from one place to another.
Compare the Sedan chair and the Japanese Jin-riki-sha. The
Century Dictionary has good illustrations of them all.

73,	3. The Mussulman historian:	Seid Gholam Hosein

Khan, who wrote a history of the last seven emperors of Hin-
dostan, and of the wars in Bengal down to 1783.

74,	1. Verres: (112-43 b.c.) one of the worst of corrupt Roman
politicians, as Pizarro, conqueror of Peru, was one of the worst
of Spanish plunderers in the New World. While governor of
Sicily, Verres amassed so much ill-gotten money that he boasted
he would be rich for life, “ even if he had to surrender two-
thirds of it to bribe a Roman jury.”

Questions

1. What circumstances other than Clive’s own ability helped
to make him applauded as a military hero? 2. What virtues
and faults did Clive show in the use made of his money?

3.	Why were the English at that time so interested in India?

4.	Was their motive a worthy one? 5. Does this attitude of
his contemporaries raise or lower our estimate of Clive? 6.
Were the men who governed India in Clive’s absence better or
worse than he? 7. What excuse would Clive have for refusing
to leave England while Sulivan was chairman of the Company?

Clive’s Third Residence in India (pages 75-83)

76, 28. Had chosen the good part. See Luke x, 42.

77, 27. Sir Thomas Roe. See note on page 15.

78,	14. Proconsuls, propraetors, procurators: Roman mili-
tary and civil officers in the provinces.

79,	2. Accused by historians: especially by James Mill.

80,	13. Cashiered: discharged without honorable dismissal.

81,	10. The Ricimers and the Odoacers: German mer-﻿Notes and Comment

263

cenary generals in the service of Rome, who became succes-
sively the rulers of the decadent Roman empire in fact, though
not in name. Ricimer was called the King-maker because he
crowned and deposed four nominal emperors who were his
puppets.

81, 16. Theodoric: king of the Ostrogoths. He conquered
and killed Odoacer in 489, and ruled over Italy until his death
in 526.

81, 17. Byzantium: the former name of Constantinople.

81,	31. The Merovingian line. A line of ancient French or
Frankish kings. Its earlier kings were able men; but their suc-
cessors became mere tools in the hands of their Mayors of the
Palace, who were of one family, and w’hose descendant Charle-
magne eventually became king both in fact and in name.

82,	4. The Danes, who played an unimportant part in the
history of India, sold their few possessions to the English in
1845-

Questions

1. What side of Clive’s nature is shown in the letter quoted
by Macaulay? 2. What evidence of Clive’s power to command
men have we in his third residence in India? 3. What evi-
dence of his sound common sense as a statesman? 4. How
long did this third residence in India last, and how much did
he accomplish during that time? 5. How far do the opening
sentences of the different paragraphs in this section sum up the
whole section ?	6. How is the last sentence of this section

peculiarly appropriate for Clive’s final departure from India
(page 83, line 25) ?

Clive's Final Return to England and Death (pages 83-102)

84, 30. Farmer-general. During the eighteenth century the
French government did not collect taxes, but sold the right of
collection to private persons who were known as fermiers
generaux, or farmers-general. This system, which was bor-
rowed from ancient Rome, caused misery and hardship among
the people of France; for the greedy tax-collector soon learned
how to pay to the state but a small part of the immense sums
which he collected by extortion and abuse. The French Revo-﻿Notes and Comment

264

lution was in part due to this method of collecting the revenue.

85, 1. Jacobins: properly members of a French revolutionary
society, but here Englishmen with Jacobin ideas.

85,	28. Domesday Book: a book made by William the
Conqueror, twenty years after the Conquest, for the purpose
of recording once for all the names of landowners, the values
of estates, the extent of various properties, etc. This first re-
markable census of Norman England is still in existence.

86,	4-5. Turcaret . . . Nero . . . Monsieur Jourdain

.	.	. Richard the Third. Macaulay’s comparison would

be familiar to the readers for whom he wrote. Turcaret was a
stupid, unprincipled character in Le Sage’s comedy, Turcaret,
written in 1709. Nero, the Roman tyrant, had appeared in drama
on both the French and the English stage. Monsieur Jourdain is
the hero of Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who excites
laughter and “ derision by an awkward mimicry of the manners
of the great.” Richard III appears as a cold-blooded and
brutal despot in Shakespeare’s play of that name.

86, 12. The Dilettante: a London club, formed in 1734, with
the double object of encouragement of the arts and of social
intercourse. Reynolds, Fox, Garrick, and Windham were among
the more noted members. Two famous groups of its members
were painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The efforts of the club
in the cause of the five arts were continued with vigor until
recent times,—in fact, the society still exists and holds convivial
meetings on the first Sunday of every month from February to
July.

86, 12. The Maccaroni: a London club of the latter part of
the eighteenth century, said to have taken its name from the
favorite dish of its members. Horace Walpole, a famous and
sarcastic contemporary, said of The Maccaroni, “ It is composed
of all the traveled young men who wear long curls and spying
glasses.”

86, 19. Foote: actor and writer, who in 1772 produced a
comedy called The Nabob.

86, 24. Chairmen. See note on “palanquin,” page 72, and
the illustration in Century Dictionary under sedan.

86, 26. Jaghires: land revenues.

86, 26. Mackenzie: Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), a Scotch
writer and dramatist, whose novel, The Man of Feeling, was
at one time immensely popular. In No. 36 of a serial called﻿Notes and Comment

265

The Lounger he wrote under the name of Margery Mushroom.
One of the Mushroom family is represented as having returned
from India, a “Nabob” with immense wealth. Immediately
the whole Mushroom family attempt to move in high society;
and “ Margery’s ” article describes their perplexities and un-
fortunate mistakes. They learn by heart what pictures they are
to admire and what etiquette to observe at table; but memory
fails them, and mortifying slips result.

86,	30. Cowper. William Cowper (1731-1800), the author
of John Gilpin, The Loss of the Royal George, Solitude of
Alexander Selkirk, and many other poems. He was a favorite
with Macaulay, who often refers to him in his essays. The
lines to which Macaulay refers here are in the poem Expostula-
tion, an arraignment of England for her national sins. They
are as follows:

“Hast thou, though suckled at fair Freedom’s breast,
Exported slavery to the conquered East?

Pulled down the tyrants India served with dread,

And raised thyself, a greater, in their stead?

Gone thither armed and hungry, returned full,

Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul,

A despot big with power obtained by wealth,

And that obtained by rapine and by stealth?

With Asiatic vices stored thy mind,

But left their virtues and thine own behind;

And, having trucked thy soul, brought home the fee,

To tempt the poor to sell himself to thee?”

87,	15. Claremont: a vast estate in Surrey which Clive
purchased.

87,	28. Sybarite. The inhabitants of Sybaris, an ancient city
in southern Italy, were noted for their luxury and intemperance.

87,	34. Sir Matthew Mite: a rich East Indian merchant in
Foote’s comedy, The Nabob.

88,	20. Johnson. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). On the
other hand, Johnson was a friend and admirer of Hastings.

88, 20. Brown: later gardener at Windsor and Hampton
Court.

88, 33. Hunt: (1744-1813), a sensational preacher and writer
of religious tracts, more commonly known as William Hunting-﻿266	Notes and Comment

ton. He put the letters S.S. after his name and explained them
as follows:

“ As I cannot get a D.D. for the want of cash, neither can I
get an M.A. for want of learning; therefore I am compelled to
fly for refuge to S.S., by which I mean Sinner Saved.”

89,	27. The holy river: the Ganges.

90,	20. Corn factors: wholesale dealers in grain.

90,	22. Adam Smith: (1723-1790), author of The Wealth of
Nations, and one of the first great political economists.

91,	2. George the Second. He died on October 25, 1760.

91,	10. Lord Chatham: the elder Pitt, Earl of Chatham.

91, 13. The strange malady: a kind of melancholy, in which

he remained for nearly three years, living meanwhile apart from
the world and his family.

91,	23. The Middlesex election. See note on “ Wilkes,”
page 67.

92,	4. George Grenville: Prime Minister from 1763 to 1765.
It was he who began to impose the hateful taxes on the American
colonies.

92,	6. The Opposition: the party out of power, the minority.

92, 18. To see his spurs chopped off. His enemies wished
to see him degraded and expelled from the Order of the Bath,
in which he was a Knight.

94,	4. The Houses rose. Parliament adjourned.

95,	4-9. Bruce, etc. Robert Bruce; Maurice, Duke of Saxony;
William the Silent, Prince of Orange; William III of England;
James Stuart, Earl of Murray, and half-brother of Mary Queen
of Scots; Cosmo de Medici, ruler of Florence; Henry of
Navarre, leader of the Huguenots; Peter the Great, Czar of
Russia (1689-1725)—all were among the greatest men of their
times; yet in them all history has found some things to
condemn,—intrigue, licentiousness, cruelty, treachery, even
murder.

95, 17. Lord North: Prime Minister 1771-1782, that is,
through the period of the American Revolution.

95, 21. Knight of the Bath: a high order of knighthood be-
stowed by the king in appreciation of great and unusual service.
The badge is a jeweled star of eight points. The order received
its name from a bath, symbolical of purification, which originally
was part of the preparatory ceremony.

95, 22. Henry the Seventh’s chapel: a beautiful chapel in﻿Notes and Comment	267

Westminster Abbey, mentioned in the account of Westminster
Abbey in Irving’s Sketch-Book.

95,	31. Burgoyne:	John Burgoyne, member of Parliament,

and later the officer in command of the British army which
surrendered to Gates at Saratoga, October 17, 1777.

96,	4. The Government: the party in power, in contrast
to the Opposition.

96,	33. The previous question was put and carried: a com-
mon way of putting an end to a- debate, and preventing a vote
on the main question.

97,	8. Jenkinson: Charles Jenkinson (1727-1808), Secretary
of War during the ministry of Lord North. Owing partly to the
fact that he was more or less of an upstart, and partly to the
fact that he was a favorite of the king, he was bitterly hated
in Parliament. He was particularly active in prosecuting the
war against the American colonies.

97,	23. Lally: a French general of Irish descent, who was
completely defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at Wandewash, India, in
1760.

97, 30. Voltaire: poet, historian, dramatist, critic, the most
celebrated French author of the eighteenth century.

97,	34. Dr. Moore: surgeon to the English ambassador at
Paris in the time of Voltaire. He was father of General Moore
whose burial is described in Wolfe’s poem, beginning:

“ Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the rampart we hurried.”

98,	9. Theophilanthropy: love to both God and man.

98,	18. Which rejoiceth exceedingly. See Job iii, 22.

100, 12. The fall of Ghizni. Ghizni, or Ghazni, was cap-
tured by an English army under the command of Sir John Keane,
in 1839, just before Macaulay began to write the Essay on Lord
Clive. After the third Afghan War the city was restored to the
Afghans, who have possession of it to-day.

100, 16. Alexander, Conde, and Charles the Twelfth.
Alexander the Great won the important victory of Granicus
in 334 B.c., when he was but twenty-two. At the same age, the
Prince of Conde defeated a Spanish army at Rocroi in 1643.
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden in 1700, with an army of
eight thousand men, annihilated a Russian army of nearly eighty﻿268

Notes and Comment

thousand who were besieging the city of Narva. At that time
he was only eighteen years old.

ioi, i. Sacred Way. Down the Sacred Way (via sacra),
and through the Forum, was the regular route of the triumphal
procession awarded to victorious Roman generals. In the Tem-
ple of Jupiter on the Tarpeian Hill the generals offered sacri-
fices.

ioi, 3. Antiochus: king of Syria, defeated at the battle of
Magnesia in Asia Minor by Lucius Scipio, the brother of the
more illustrious Scipio Africanus who conquered Hannibal.
Scipio at Magnesia won against threefold odds and in the face
of the greatest general in Asia.

101, 3. Tigranes: king of Armenia, defeated by Lucullus in the
battle of Tigranocerta, though he finally surrendered to Pompey
in 66 B.c.

101,	26. Munro, Elphinstone, Metcalfe. Sir Thomas
Munro was Governor of Madras from 1820 to 1827. Mount-
stewart Elphinstone, one of the most famous of Indian states-
men, was Governor of Bombay from 1819 to 1827. Sir Charles
Metcalfe was Governor-General of India from 1835 to 1837.
Which one of these three knew Macaulay in India?

102,	1. Lucullus: the victor over Tigranes, as explained
above. He was able in war, boundlessly extravagant in peace.
In connection with the latter trait, he has been mentioned be-
fore in this essay.

102, 1. Trajan: Emperor of Rome 98-117 a.d., and conqueror
of Armenia, Dacia, and Parthia. In his reign the Roman empire
reached its greatest size.

102, 3. Turgot: Minister of Finance under Louis XVI, re-
former, philosopher, statesman. Had his advice been taken by
the king the French Revolution might possibly have been averted.

102, 5. Lord William Bentinck: Governor-General of India
from 1828 to 1835, and the first Englishman to rule India
primarily for the Hindoo population. He introduced many
praiseworthy reforms and was generally beloved by all classes
of people. When the editor of the Edinburgh Review objected
to the seemingly extravagant praise in the closing words of the
Essay on Lord Clive, Macaulay wrote to him the following char-
acteristic sentence: “I cannot consent to leave out the well-
earned compliment to my dear old friend, Lord William Ben-
tinck, of whom Victor Jacquemont said, as truly as wittily, that﻿Notes and Comment

269

he was William Penn, on the throne of the Mogul, and at the
head of 200,000 soldiers.” The inscription on the statue of
Lord William Bentinck in Calcutta was written by Macaulay.

Questions

r. What connection has the discussion about English "Na-
bobs” with the history of Clive? 2. How many picturesque
details does Macaulay introduce in his description of these
“Nabobs”? 3. Do the past events of Clive’s life at all excuse
his vanities about dress, etc.? 4. Why is the incident of Brown
and the treasure chest mentioned? 5. Point out the vivid word-
pictures which Macaulay gives while describing the Indian
famine. 6. How does Macaulay’s use of contrast on page 90
(lines 32-34) bring out the absurdity of the position he attacks?
7. On page 91 (line 28) why is Clive the last word of the
paragraph? 8. State in your own language just what position
the House of Commons took in its judgment on Clive. 9. What
would have been the effect on American history had Clive re-
tained life and health ten years longer? 10. What, according to
Macaulay, were the three great achievements of Clive?

WARREN HASTINGS
Early Life of Hastings (pages 105-119)

105, 1. This book. Just after the publication of Gleig’s pon-
derous work, Macaulay wrote to the editor of the Edinburgh
Review, “ I think the new Life of Hastings the worst book that
I ever saw.” Compare this criticism with such references to the
Memoirs as occur later in these pages. Mr. Gleig, the author,
served with distinction in the army and afterward entered the
church. Other books of his are much better than the Life of
Hastings.

Several passages in the Edinburgh essay especially severe on
Mr. Gleig are omitted in Lady Trevelyan’s edition. Of th,ese we
have retained the two opening paragraphs as a sample of Ma-
caulay’s caustic criticism. In form, in style, and especially in
tone, these opening paragraphs may profitably be compared with
the opening paragraphs of the Essay on Addison.﻿Notes and Comment

270

106,	5. The Prince: the masterpiece of the Italian writer and
statesman Machiavelli (1469-1527), a book upholding deceit and
ruthlessness in government.

106,	6. The Whole Duty of Man: a religious book very
popular in the eighteenth century.

106,	19. Uncovered: That is, they removed their hats, which
were customarily worn in the House of Commons.

107,	1. Lely: Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), a famous Dutch
artist who painted portraits of' Charles I, Cromwell, and
Charles II.

107,	17. The great Danish sea-king: Hasting, a chief of
the Scandinavian vikings. He was defeated by Alfred the
Great in 894.

107,	23. Coronet of Pembroke: that is, they became Earls
of Pembroke.

107, 24. The renowned Chamberlain. William, Lord Hast-
ings, was a stanch adherent of the House of York. Though
made Lord High Chamberlain by Edward IV, he was put to
death by Richard III in 1483. See Shakespeare’s Richard III,
Act III, scene iv.

107, 25. The White Rose: the emblem of the House of York.

107,	28. A series of events. In 1819 a Captain Hastings
was called to the House of Lords as the eleventh Earl of Hunt-
ingdon. The earldom had lapsed on the death of the tenth
Earl in 1789 without male heirs. Since Captain Hastings did
not himself care to press his claim, a lawyer, Mr. Bell, bore at
his own risk all the expense of proving the title. In this un-
usual circumstance lay the romance to which Macaulay refers.

108,	4. The mint at Oxford. Oxford was the headquarters
of the royalist party, or Cavaliers; London of Parliament and
the Puritans.

108,	7. Lenthal: Speaker of the House of Commons in the
time of Cromwell.

108,	12. Presented his second son to the rectory: gave
his son the position of clergyman in the parish.

108,	17. Tithes: a word well worth examining in any large
dictionary. Also the word living, line 14.

109,	10. Isis: another name for the upper Thames.

109,	31. Westminster school: one of the oldest of English
schools, re-established by Queen Elizabeth in 1560, and reorgan-
ized in 1868 as one of the seven great “public schools” of Eng-﻿Notes and Comment	271

land. It is perhaps most famous for the Westminster Play, a
Latin comedy produced by the scholars every year.

109, 33-34. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cow-
per: all men of letters of Hastings’ time. William Cowper
(1731-1800) is the only one whose work is still generally read.

no, 19. Innocence and greatness, etc. What connection
do these words, and those that go before, have with Warren
Hastings ?

no, 26. Elijah Impey. Sir Elijah Impey (1732-1809) was
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, studied law, and served
as Chief Justice of Bengal from 1774 to 1789.

no, 31. Fag: a schoolboy who acts as servant for another of
a higher class.

no, 34. Foundation: a scholarship.

in, 4. Christ Church: one of the largest and most illustrious
of the numerous colleges into which Oxford University is
divided.

in, 17. Writership: a position as clerk or bookkeeper in the
East India Company.

in, 17. East India Company. See Introduction, page xxxii.

in, 19. A liver complaint. Compare the concluding sen-
tences of this paragraph with the concluding sentence of para-
graph six in the Essay on Clive. As you read, try to find
other striking similarities of thought and wording.

hi, 25. Bengal: a vague term, somewhat loosely applied
in the eighteenth century to that vast region in northeastern India
watered by the Ganges. Consult map.

hi, 29. Fort William: erected by the English in 1696 as a
defense for Calcutta.

hi, 33. War of the succession: the war of the Austrian
succession, 1741-1748, in which England took the side of Austria;
France that of Bavaria.

112, 11. The prince: Aliverdy Khan, Nabob of Bengal. Ma-
caulay gives a remarkable character sketch of his grandson,
Surajah Dowlah, in the Essay on Clive.

112, 12. The Mogul. The title “The Great Mogul,” or
Mughal, was given by the English to the sovereign at Delhi,
still nominal ruler of the Empire of Hindostan.

112, 28. The Dutch Company. The Dutch East India Com-
pany, formed in 1602 by the uniting of several small trading
posts, became, a hundred years later, a formidable rival of﻿Notes and Comment

272

the French and English companies in the East. Its existence
virtually came to an end in 1795.

112,	30. The Nabob: that is, Surajah Dowlah.

113,	9. The treason: that is, the plot described in Clive,
which led to the battle of Plassey, overthrew Surajah Dowlah,
and placed Meer Jaffier on his throne.

113, 15. The expedition from Madras: the armament sent
from Madras to Calcutta with Clive, to avenge the outrage of
the Black Hole.

113, 29. A member of Council: one of the Governor’s
Council.

113, 34. Mr. Vansittart: the English Governor of Bengal
from 1760 to 1764, during Clive’s absence from India.

115,	3. Rotten Boroughs in Cornwall. For an explana-
tion of “ rotten boroughs ” see note on “ St. Michael,” Clive,
Page 33.

115, 4. St. James’s Square: an aristocratic quarter of Lon-
don.

115,	20. As we believe. Notice the use of this editorial
“we” throughout the essay. Why does Macaulay use it? What
is its effect?

116,	34. Hafiz and Ferdusi: classic Persian poets of the
tenth and fourteenth centuries.

117,	1. Johnson: Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the au-
thor of Rasselas and the Lives of the Poets, and the compiler
of the first large dictionary of the English language. Ma-
caulay’s life of Johnson, written in 1856 for the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, is probably the most widely read of his shorter
essays.

117, 14. The Directors. The Directors of the East India
Company were twenty-four in number and had general charge
of the East India Company’s affairs.

117, 17. Madras: now a city with a population of more than
half a million. It was settled by the English in 1639 and pro-
tected, in the time of Hastings, by Fort St. George.

117,	28. Pagodas. In its original meaning a pagoda was a
heathen temple; here it is a gold coin, worth about $1.90, and
so called because a pagoda was stamped on one side of it.

118,	7. Indiaman: the name generally applied to a merchant
vessel plying between England and India.

119,	11. The courts of Franconia. Franconia was a Ger-﻿Notes and Comment	273

man duchy. It was probably the husband’s original home, hence
the place where divorce would naturally be sought.

Questions

i. What marked differences were there between the char-
acteristics of Clive and Hastings as boys? 2. How are these
differences to be explained when both men alike possessed great
courage and indomitable will? 3. Was it fortunate or un-
fortunate for Hastings that he was unable to finish his educa-
tion? 4. How long was he in India without taking part in
politics? (For date of Black Hole tragedy see notes to Clive.)
5. What circumstances first opened the way to his political
career? 6. Wherein is the conduct of Hastings during Van-
sittart’s governorship highly praiseworthy? 7. How did the
actions of Hastings and Clive resemble each other on their
first return to England? 8. Wherein did they differ on these
occasions ?

Hastings as Governor of the Province of Bengal (pages
119-138)

120, 7. The system which Clive had devised. Under
Clive’s dual form of government questions of finance and trade
were nominally handled by the English; questions of justice by
the native prince. But in reality the English often were sole
rulers and the Nabob a figurehead.

120, 22. The throne of Delhi: seat of the descendants of
Baber, who were still nominally emperors of India but really
almost powerless.

120, 28. Augustulus . . . Odoacer. Augustulus, or “ Little
Augustus,” when a child of but six years, was placed on the
throne of the Western Roman Empire by the German Odoacer
and his mercenaries. After one year the “ barbarian ” took
advantage of the boy’s weakness, dethroned him, and ruled over
the empire himself.

120, 28. Merovingians: a dynasty of Frankish kings in Gaul,
who, after ruling in France for more than two centuries, gradu-
ally lost power until they finally became the subjects of their
powerful nobles, or Mayors of the Palace. Two of these
“ Mayors,” Charles Martel and his son Pepin, at last deposed﻿Notes and Comment

274

Chilperic and brought to an end the line of Merovingian kings.

121,	3. At present: that is, in 1841, when the essay was
written. Now the control of Indian affairs is vested in the
Secretary of State for India, subject to whom is the Governor-
General, who is generally spoken of as the Viceroy.

121,	12. Mr. Pitt. In 1784 William Pitt, then Prime Minister
of England, passed his famous “ India Bill,” which provided
for a Board of Control over the East India Company.

121,	12. Mr. Dundas: (1742-1811), a Scotch lawyer, a mem-
ber of Parliament, and a co-worker with Pitt on the “ India
Bill ” of 1784.

121,	13. Mr. Burke: Edmund Burke, author of Conciliation
with America. He is spoken of in notes to Clive, page 20.

122,	24. Mussulman: same as Mohammedan (Mahometan).

122,	31. Hindoo Brahmin: the highest of the Hindoo castes;

named from the god Brahma.

122,	33. Maharajah: a title of distinction,—great king or
monarch.

123,	10. The Bengalee. Compare with this description of
the Bengalee character a similar passage in Macaulay’s Clive,
beginning page 36, line 21.

123,	22-23. Ionian . . . Juvenal. The people of Ionian
Asia Minor were always spoken of with reproach as weak and
effeminate by writers of the time of the Roman satirist, Juvenal
(60?-I40? a.d.).

123,	30. All those millions do not furnish one sepoy.
A similar thought is expressed in Clive, at bottom of page 36.
A sepoy is a native Indian soldier in the English army.

124,	5. Stoics: a school of philosophers who believed that
man should overcome his passions and encounter both joy and
grief with indifference. By “ their ideal sage ” Macaulay prob-
ably means Zeno, the founder of the school. As you read on,
do you find Warren Hastings somewhat of a Stoic?

124,	13. Mucius: a Roman soldier, who, when threatened by
Lars Porsena with torture, thrust his hand into the flame to
show his courage. According to the legend, Porsena released
him.

124,	15. Algernon Sidney: (1622-1683), an English states-
man, who, after the Restoration, was unjustly accused of com-
plication in the Rye House Plot, was arrested, and condemned
by Judge Jeffreys. He met death calmly and nobly. See﻿Notes and Comment	275

Green’s Short History of the English People, page 641, if you
wish a fuller account.

125, 19. Mohurs: coins worth about $7.25 each.

125, 25. Lords of the Treasury: ministers of finance in
England.

125, 25. Members for the city. Many members of Parlia-
ment representing the city of London were interested in the
East India Company.

127, 32. Munny Begum: queen mother and widow of Meer
Jaffier.

129,	8. The object of his diplomacy, etc. With this state-
ment of Macaulay later historians generally do not agree. See
Introduction, page xxiv.

129,	14. Teviotdale: a border county of Scotland.

i2g, 17. Rupee: an Indian coin worth approximately fifty
cents.

130,	33- Corah and Allahabad: provinces surrounding the
cities of the same name. See map, just south of Oude.

131,	12. About twenty years ago. When would this be?

132,	11. Sanscrit: the oldest of Indo-European languages. It
has been replaced in India by many modern Hindoo dialects, and
is no longer a spoken language.

132, 12. The Hyphasis and the Hystaspes. Their modern
names are the Sutlej and the Jelum. See northwestern border
of India in map.

132, 18. Ghizni. The English flag was carried beyond the
Punjab in 1839 and planted on Ghizni, one of the most powerful
of Afghan fortresses.

132, 26. The Rohillas. See Introduction, pages xxiii-xxiv.

132,	32. Aurungzebe: emperor of Hindostan and virtually the
last of the Great Moguls. He died in 1707.

133,	T3- Catherine: Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796.

133, 14. Bonaparte. In 1808 Napoleon conquered Spain and
placed his brother Joseph upon the throne. Notice how often
Macaulay makes use of his wide reading for effective historical
comparisons.

134,	31. Hussar-mongers: petty German princes who sold
the service of their professional soldiers to England during the
American Revolution.

135,	10. Major Scott: a British officer, friend and admirer of
Hastings, and later his personal agent in London.﻿Notes and Comment

276

i35» 18. Caput lupinum: literally “a wolf’s head”; an out-
law or robber to be killed on sight, as one would kill a wolf.

136, ix. The horrors of Indian war were let loose. Later
research indicates that these “ horrors ” were not nearly as bad
as Macaulay supposed.

Questions

1. Why was the position held by Mohammed Reza Khan so
important? 2. Why was Hastings so willing to put an end to
this office? 3. What great differences in character between the
different inhabitants of India are illustrated by Nuncomar and
Schitab Roy? 4. What means did Hastings take of raising
money, and how much did he raise? 5. How large was the
allowance of the Nabob of Bengal even after Hastings had re-
duced it? 6. Was this act of his an unjust one? (See Introduc-
tion, page xxiv.) 7. Point out any errors or exaggerations of
which Macaulay is guilty in describing the Rohilla war. 8.
What praiseworthy emotions does he show in discussing this
subject, even where his facts are wrong?

Hastings as Governor-General of India.—His Struggle
with His Council (pages 138-156)

139, 9. Letters of Junius. “Junius” was the signature
attached to a number of letters published from 1768 to 1772 in the
London Public Advertiser, a journal edited by Woodfall. These
letters, containing bitter criticisms of King George III and his
ministers, were widely read and discussed in their day, partly
because of the ability with which they were written, but more be-
cause of the mystery which surrounded their authorship. Even
to-day no one knows certainly who wrote the Letters of Junius,
though many critics now are inclined to agree with the con-
clusions that Macaulay reaches in these paragraphs.

The whole subject offers fascinating and almost unlimited
possibilities for study to one interested in the curiosities of litera-
ture. For a bibliography, see the article on Sir Philip Francis in
the Dictionary of National Biography, also the article on Junius
in the Ne<w International Encyclopaedia.

140, 21. Corneille: (1606-1684), one of the first and great-
est of French dramatists.﻿Notes and Comment

277

140,	22. Ben Jonson:	(1573-1637), a leading English

dramatist, the contemporary and friend of Shakespeare.

140,	23. Bunyan (1628-1688). Besides the Pilgrim’s Progress,
Bunyan wrote The Holy War, Grace Abounding, and several
other works of inferior value.

140, 24. Cervantes: (1547-1616), a Spanish novelist and one
of the world’s greatest imaginative writers. Lowell included
his Don Quixote among the four best books of all time.

140,	28. Horne Tooke: (1736-18x2), an English politician
and philologer.

141,	2. Woodfall: Henry Woodfall, printer of the Public
Advertiser, in which the Letters of Junius appeared.

141, 10. The Hebrew prophet. See Jonah iv, 9.

141,	22. Old Sarum: one of the most noted of the “rotten
boroughs.” Though without a house or an inhabitant, Old
Sarum in the time of Hastings had two “ representatives ” in
Parliament, whereas Manchester and Leeds, which had rapidly
grown to great cities, were without any representation at all.

141,	32. George Grenville: one of George Ill’s prime min-
isters. He used all his influence to pass the Stamp Act which
precipitated our American Revolution.

142,	2. The Middlesex election. See note on Clive,
page 67.

142,	19. Sir Elijah Impey. Macaulay’s treatment of Impey
throughout the essay is severe, and at times extremely unjust.

142,	22. Inns of Court: four law colleges in London.

142, 30. Twenty-one guns: a royal salute.

142, 32. Seventeen: a salute for a viceroy or a governor.
Who was right in this matter of the salute, Hastings or the
council ?

144, 32-33. Oateses . . . Bedloes . . . Dangerfields: im-
postors who, in the reign of Charles II, declared that they had
discovered a “ Popish Plot ” against the English government, and
who, by their perjuries, caused many innocent people, among
them Lord Strafford, to be put to death.

146, 27. A clerk from the war-office: that is, Francis.

148, 1. On a sudden. Here Macaulay again gives the reader
a false impression. In The Story of Nuncomar and the Im-
peachment of Sir Elijah Impey, Vol. I, 93-96, J. F. Stephen says
that the “ charge of felony ” did not come “ on a sudden,” but
that the suit from which the charge of forgery developed had﻿Notes and Comment

278

been in the lower courts, at various times, for more than three
years before the Supreme Court arrived in Calcutta.

148,	7. Idiots and biographers excepted: a characteristic
touch. Lord Melbourne is reported to have said, “ I wish I
were as cock-sure of any one thing as Macaulay is of every-
thing.” Unfortunately in this particular case Macaulay is
wrong.

149,	29. Brahmin of the Brahmins: a member of the high-
est caste, or hereditary class, among the Hindoos.

151,	23. Hoogley: one of the mouths of the Ganges, the
sacred river of India.

152,	10. The conduct of Hastings. It is well to remember
that the majority of critics to-day do not agree with Macaulay in
his condemnation of Impey, or in his explanation of Hastings’
connection with the trial of Nuncomar. See Introduction, page
xxiv.

154, 21. Tour to the Hebrides: written by Dr. Samuel John-
son, and published in 1775.

154,	22. Jones’s Persian Grammar. Sir William Jones, the
first great English Oriental scholar and founder of the Royal
Asiatic Society, published his Persian Grammar in 1771. His
beautiful translation of the Sanscrit drama, Sakuntala, intro-
duced European scholars to the wonderful literature of the East.
So highly was he honored by the East India Company that they
erected a monument to his memory in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a
statue in Bengal. He was a member of Dr. Johnson’s “ Club.”

155,	3- “ Would not play false,” etc. See Shakespeare’s
Macbeth, Act I, scene v.

155, 4. The Regulating Act: passed in 1773, three years
before the execution of Nuncomar.

155, 7. Lord North: Prime Minister 1771-1782. What part
did he play in American history?

155,	22. Seldom seen so far eastward. The offices of the
East India Company, which now are in St. James’s Park, West-
minster, were formerly in Leadenhall Street, in the eastern part
of the city proper, which then, as to-day, was the least fashion-
able part of London, and naturally was seldom visited by
“ peers and privy councilors.”

156,	5. Crown lawyers: the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-
General, and others who give advice to the Government in legal
matters.﻿Notes and Comment	279

Questions

1. What light is thrown on the character of Francis by the
discussion of the Letters of Junius? 2. Is there any other reason
why Macaulay should introduce this discussion? 3. Are your
sympathies with Hastings or with the Councilors opposed to
him in their disagreements? 4. How much can be said in favor
of the motives of Francis and his supporters? 5. In favor
of what they actually achieved? 6. Was the trial of Nuncomar
long or short? 7. Which would it have been, if, as Macaulay
asserts, the court had determined beforehand to convict him?
8. How much does the phrase quoted from Hastings’ letter really
prove? 9. What side of Hastings’ character is shown in con-
nection with his letter to Dr. Johnson? 10. Was Hastings
justified in refusing to resign? n. Did the English in Bengal
generally approve or disapprove of his course? 12. What atti-
tude toward it did the Government and Directors of the Com-
pany finally take, and why?

Trouble with Natives and First Mysore War (pages 156-175)

159, 22. Eighteen years before: that is, in 1760. The
“formidable crisis” in English history was between 1778 and
1781.

159,	31. The vigor and genius: of William Pitt the Elder,
whose ministry George III had overthrown in 1761.

160, 4. The armed neutrality of the Baltic. In 1780
Russia, Sweden, and Denmark formed an alliance against Eng-
land.

160, 7. Calpe: Gibraltar.

160, 22. The reign of Aurungzebe: 1658-1707. For the
names in this paragraph, and the history involved, consult the
sketch of India in the Introduction, pages xxxi-xxxii.

161, 16. Roi faineant: “ a lazy, or sluggard king.”

161, 16. Bang. See note on Clive, page 15.

161, 18. Mayor of the palace. See note on “Merovingians,”
Clive, page 81.

161,	28. Treaty . . . had been concluded. That was in

1777.

162,	10. The French factories . . . were seized. These
events took place in 1778.﻿28o

Notes and Comment

162, 17. Lascars: native sailors of northern India.

162,	30. A new and more formidable danger. These
words refer undoubtedly to the troubles with Hyder Ali, the ac-
count of which begins definitely on page 172, line 2. Notice the
wording in lines 2-3, page 172.

163,	10. Lally: commander of the French forces in India from
1756-1761. On his return to France in 1761 he was tried for
cowardice, unjustly condemned, and beheaded.

163, 11. Wandewash: fought in 1760.

163, 27. Porto Novo and Pollilore: two battles in which
Coote defeated the armies of Hyder Ali in 1781.

163, 33. Salaam: the Oriental salutation,—“ peace.”

165,	5-6. The English law ... is neither . . . cheap
nor . . . speedy. This fact is one of the themes of Dickens’s
Bleak House. Is the remark of Macaulay appropriate to Ameri-
can law to-day?

166,	7. Mesne process. Consult any large dictionary.

166,	29. Wat Tyler: a peasant of Kent who, in 1380, killed
with a single blow a tax-gatherer that had insulted his
daughter.

167,	10. Barrators: unprincipled encouragcrs of lawsuits.

167, 12. Spunging-houses: temporary prisons for debtors.

The men who ran them were grasping and exorbitant.

167, 21. Alguazil: a Spanish term for an inferior officer of
justice.

169, 22. Rich, quiet, and infamous. Notice the curious con-
junction of words. This is a good illustration of Macaulay’s
method of constructing a sentence for rhetorical effect, some-
times even to the prejudice of facts. Stephen, in volume II of
his Nuncomar and Irnpey, gives one a very different picture
of the Chief Justice.

169, 26. Ermine: the white fur which adorned the robes
of judges,—hence, figuratively, the judicial bench.

169, 26. Jeffreys:	(1648-1689), a cruel and unscrupulous

judge who held the fearful “bloody assize” in 1685, and whose
name has become infamous in history.

171,	32. The measures. See pages 161-162 for the account
of operations against the Mahrattas.

172,	2. A far more formidable danger: Hyder Ali.

172, 8. Dervise: a poor Mohammedan monk.

172, 20. Louis the Eleventh: (1423-1483), one of the shrewd-﻿Notes and Comment	281

est, most deceitful, yet most capable kings of France. He plays
an important part in Scott’s Quentin Durward.

173,	Coleroon. See map of India, southeastern part.

173,	17. Mount St. Thomas: a hill eight or ten miles inland
from Madras. Burke’s description of Hyder Ali’s invasion, in
his Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debts, is well worth reading
at this point.

174,	6. Tanks. The tanks are huge reservoirs built by the
English for irrigating purposes.

174,	18. Monsoon. From April to October the wind in the
Indian Ocean blows regularly from the southwest, and during
the winter just as regularly from the northeast.

175,	10. Porto Novo. The “great victory of Porto Novo,”
which brought an end to the first Mysore War, was in 1781.
After Hastings left India, Tippoo, Hyder Ali’s son, combined
forces with the Nizam against the English in the second Mysore
war, 1790-1792. The third Mysore war ended in the defeat
and death of Tippoo at the great battle of Seringapatam
(Seringapatam) in 1799.

Questions

1. What plans did Hastings form in regard to the Mahrattas?
2. Why were these plans not carried out? 3. What does Ma-
caulay’s narrative gain by introducing the incident of the old
sepoy and Sir Eyre Coote’s picture? 4. Point out as many ex-
amples as you can of Macaulay’s vivid word-pictures and use
of contrast in his account of Impey’s aggressions on the natives.
5. “ Hyder Ali unexpectedly led a well-drilled army of ninety
thousand men from Mysore into the Carnatic.”—Compare this
sentence with Macaulay’s, page 173, line 2. Which sentence
would suggest to an artist the more vivid picture of Hyder
Ali’s marching army? 6. How many definite details for a series
of pictures are contained in the paragraph beginning, “ Hyder
was everywhere triumphant”? 7. Does Wheler’s respect for
Hastings appear to have diminished or increased as he came to
know Hastings better?

How Hastings Wrung Money from Cheyte Sing and the
Begums of Oude (pages 175-193)

176,	22. Golconda: a town near Hyderabad (Hyderabad),
famous for its cutting of diamonds.﻿282	Notes and Comment

176,	22. Cashmere: (Cashmere) northwest of India, in the
Himalayas.

176,	31. A solemn treaty. This treaty, which Macaulay con-
siders that Hastings violated, was made in 1775, when Hastings
had little power in the Council.

177,	1. Cheyte Sing. For another side of Hastings’ treat-
ment of Cheyte Sing, see Introduction, page xxv.

177, 32- Hugh Capet: chosen king of France on the death
of the last ruler of the Carlovingian dynasty. In his reign
(987-996) France had not yet become a united nation, and the
respective rights of the king and his semi-independent -great
nobles were very indefinite.

178,	4. Charles the Tenth: the Bourbon king of France
(1824-1830) whose blind stubbornness and despotism gave rise
to the saying, “ A Bourbon learns nothing and forgets nothing.”

178,	8. Prince Louis: the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
He became Emperor of the French in 1851. The “ illegal ex-
pedition,” to which Macaulay refers, was an unsuccessful attempt
in 1836 to overthrow the power of Louis Philippe.

178, 9. Sixty years ago: that is, in 1780, when Hastings
was at the height of his power in India.

178,	28. De facto . . . de jure: “in actual fact” (whether
legal or not) and “ by legal right.”

179,	26. Legerdemain: trickery.

183, 8. The Black Town of Calcutta. The northern part
of Calcutta, inhabited by Hindoos and Mohammedans, is called
the Black_Town, in contrast to the southern part where the
Europeans^ live.

185,	i^nTie Rajah of Benares (pronounced Benarez).
This title was not abolished until 1871.

186,	33. Lucknow: explained in note on Clive, page 17.

187,	22. Dotation: sum of money, bequest.

188,	9. It was necessary to find some pretext. Macaulay
again presents here a somewhat prejudiced account of Hastings’
relation with the Begums of Oude. See Introduction, page xxv.

192, 8. The time was approaching. It was in 1784 that
Pitt’s famous India Bill gave Parliament a right to interfere in
Indian affairs, and brought the Company directly under a
Board of Control in England.

192, 9. The Revolution: the Revolution of 1688 that drove
James II from England. The reference is to the infamous﻿Notes and Comment	283

Chief Justice Jeffreys, who lost power along with his royal mas-
ter James.

192,	22. Either of the great parties: Whigs and Tories.
Their successors to-day are called the Liberals and the Con-
servatives.

193,	13. A single branch: that is, the House of Commons,
which, without the House of Lords, had alone passed the reso-
lutions in the preceding paragraph.

Questions

i. How full a picture of Benares could an artist paint from
the details given by Macaulay? 2. What two possible motives
does Macaulay suggest why Hastings paid over Cheyte Sing’s
bribe to the Company’s treasury? 3. How much would our esti-
mate of Hastings be influenced by our choice between these two
suggested motives? 4. What romantic events, admirable ma-
terial for an historical novel, can be found in the escape of
Cheyte Sing from captivity and the adventures of Hastings in
Benares? 5. How far is Macaulay’s account of Hastings’ deal-
ings with the Begums correct? (See Introduction and Notes.)
6. If Macaulay believed that facts were as he stated them, as
he almost certainly did, what do we find to admire in his atti-
tude? 7. “Finally their irons were knocked off, and they were
allowed to go out of prison.”—Compare this sentence with Ma-
caulay’s (page 191, line 4), and show how Macaulay’s is su-
perior.

Review of Hastings’ Career in India (pages 193-202)

193,	27. Against . . . great crimes . . . set off great
public services. Compare this reasoning with a similar thought
in Clive, page 100.

194,	4. The Irish. They had their own Parliament from
1782 to 1800.

194, 8. Minorca and Florida: regained by England in 1802.

194, 9. Senegal: a settlement on the west coast of Africa.

194, 9. Goree: an island near Senegal.

194, 29. Emperor Joseph: Joseph II, of Germany (1741-

i79°).

I95> 25. Downing Street. It contains the Foreign Office﻿Notes and Comment

284

and the Exchequer; hence the term “Downing Street” has be-
come a synonym for the administration.

195,	25. Somerset House, in the Strand, contains the Inland
Revenue department and other government offices.

196,	6. Marlborough: one of the most famous English gen-
erals and statesmen in the War of the Spanish succession,—the
hero of Blenheim (1704) and Ramillies (1706). His plans were
often thwarted by the subordinate officers of his army, which
was composed of troops from England, Germany, and Holland.

196, 7. Wellington: Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington,
one of the greatest of English generals and victor over Napoleon
at Waterloo in 1815. In the Peninsular War (1808) he had a
complication of difficulties with the Prince Regent of Portugal,
with the Spanish juntas, or representative bodies, and even, ac-
cording to some, with Percival, the Prime Minister of England
at the time. Wellington at one time served against the Mah-
rattas in India.

198, 7. A far more virtuous ruler: Sir William Bentinck,
also praised by Macaulay in the last sentence of the Essay on
Clive.

198, 19. Asiatic Society: founded in 1784. See note on
Jones’s Persian Grammar, page 154.

198, 24. Pundits: Brahmin scholars.

198, 29. The Portuguese: probably the first Europeans to
settle in India. They tried to force their religion upon the
natives.

201, 3. This is no justification, etc. Do you agree with
Macaulay’s statement in this sentence?

201, 28. Zemindars: (zemindars) collectors of revenue.

201, 31. Carlton House: a palace in London, the residence of
the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.

201,	32. Palais Royal: a magnificent and costly mansion in
Paris, built by Cardinal Richelieu, who bequeathed it, in 1642,
to King Louis XIII.

202,	18. Round-house: the cabin on the quarter-deck.

202, 30. Sir Charles Grandison: the ideal fine gentleman
and immaculate hero of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Sir Charles
Grandison, published in 1753. Macaulay was an insatiable
reader of novels; indeed, he once said that he thought he could
rewrite the eight volumes of Sir Charles Grandison from
memory.﻿Notes and Comment	285

Questions

1. How just and how forcible is Macaulay’s comparison be-
tween Hastings and Robinson Crusoe (page 195, lines 5-11)?
2. With what great difficulties had Hastings been forced to
contend in India? 3. How serious are similar difficulties as you
see them, on a smaller scale, in the life around you? 4. What
is said about Hastings as a writer and patron of scholarship?
5. Did these qualities develop in him tfn account of or in spite
of his education and mode of life? 6. Compare Macaulay’s
remarks on the government of Hastings (pages 199-201) with the
words of Burke’s famous accusation (page 228).	7. What evi-

dence have we of Hastings’ love for his wife?

Hastings' Return to England (pages 202-213)

203, 13. Horace: a Roman lyric and satiric poet (65 b.c.-
8 B.c.). Otium Divos rogat (“every one prays the gods for quiet
and ease”) is the first line of one of his odes.

203, 27. The Queen: Charlotte, wife of George III.

203,	30. Elegant Marian. Macaulay’s “ elegant ” is evi-
dently sarcastic. The circumstances attending the divorce of
Hastings’ wife from Imhoff had naturally caused a good deal of
unpleasant gossip.

204,	22. Mr. Grattan: Henry Grattan (1746-1820), a noted
Irish statesman and orator.

204, 32. Hannibal (247-183? b.c.): one of the greatest of
ancient generals, leader of the Carthaginians against Rome in
the Second Punic War.

204, 33. Waterloo: fought on June 18, 1815.

204, 33. Themistocles: Athenian admiral and statesman,
who defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis in 480 B.c.

204, 33. Trafalgar: a battle fought in 1805 near the coast
of Spain in which Nelson defeated the allied fleets of France
and Spain.

206, 8. Trunk-makers and pastry-cooks. Before wood and
straw pulp made wrapping-paper cheap, it was the custom to use
sheets of unsalable books and pamphlets for lining trunks and
wrapping up pastry. In his essay on Johnson Macaulay says of
“ The Club,” “ The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on
new books were speedily known over all London, and were﻿286

Notes and Comment

sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the
sheets to the trunk-makers and the pastry-cooks.”

206,	26. Mr. Fox’s East India Bill. Fox’s India Bill, which
was introduced and defeated in 1783, must not be confused with
the India Bill of Pitt, which was passed in 1784, and which
Macaulay frequently mentions. It was owing to the defeat of
Fox’s bill that Fox and Burke were driven from office.

207,	1. Lord Chancellor Thurlow. It is interesting to re-
member that this gentleman was among the assailants of Clive.

207, 8. The young minister. William Pitt the younger was
Prime Minister of England at twenty-five.

207,	12. Resolution of censure: the vote passed by the
House of Commons just before Impey’s recall. See page 192.

208, io. The coalition. The Coalition Ministry of 1783, con-
sisting of Fox, Lord North, and Burke, tried to overthrow the
ministry of Lord Lansdowne.

208, 14. Brooks’s: a Whig club-house and gathering place
for such men as Burke, Sheridan, Fox, Gibbon, and Walpole,
all of whom were opponents of Hastings.

208,	33. Depending questions. The suggestion is, of course,
that many delicate and embarrassing questions might be easily
settled by Mrs. Hastings’ ear-rings, when they had been con-
verted into corruption funds.

209,	19. The zeal of Burke was . . . purer. The follow-
ing paragraphs show Macaulay’s great admiration for Edmund
Burke. He once said, when planning an article on Burke’s
writings for the Edinburgh Review: “ It is a subject altogether
unmanageable. There is no want of material. On the con-
trary, facts and thoughts, both interesting and new, are abundant.
But this very abundance bewilders me. The stage is too small
for the actors.”

210,	17. Las Casas or Clarkson: Las Casas (1484-1566), a
Catholic bishop in South America, who several times went to the
Spanish court to plead the cause of the South American Indians.
Clarkson (1760-1846), a Quaker and co-worker with Wilberforce
and Macaulay’s father in the movement to abolish slavery in
the West Indies.

211,	15. The tank: a reservoir for irrigation.

211, 18. Imaum: the Mohammedan priest, who, when he
prays, always turns toward the sacred city of Mecca, the birth-
place of Mohammed.﻿Notes and Comment	287

211,	23. The yellow streaks of sect. The Brahmins painted
yellow stripes on their foreheads.

211,	29. Beaconsfield: the village in Buckinghamshire where
Burke had his villa. His city residence was in St. James’s
Street.

212,	3. Gordon’s Riots. In 1780 a turbulent mob' under
the leadership of Lord George Gordon, a half-crazy fanatic,
marched to the House of Commons and demanded that the anti-
Catholic laws be re-enacted. Rioting and pillaging of Catholic
chapels lasted for six days. The riots play an important part
in Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge.

212,	4. Dr. Dodd: a London preacher executed for forgery in

1777.

212, 25. Stamp Act. Burke delivered his great speech on the
repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. This Act was one of the
causes of the American Revolution.

212,	26. Earl of Chatham: William Pitt the elder, father of

the Pitt who figures in these essays, and subject of two of
Macaulay’s best essays.	*

213,	1. The Regency. In 1788, when George III became
insane, there was an animated discussion in Parliament as to
whether or not the Prince of Wales could assume the regency
without the action of the House of Commons.

213,	8. The Bastile: the notorious prison of Paris, destroyed
by revolutionists in 1789.

213, 8. Marie Antoinette: guillotined with her husband,
King Louis XVI, in 1793.

Questions

1. Who showed the better judgment in dealing with enemies
and accusers in England, Hastings or Clive? 2. Which of them
had spent the more time in England and had the better op-
portunity for getting in touch with English political life?
3. Wherein was Major Scott a bad choice as a champion? 4.
What rare intellectual gift of Burke’s is described on page 211?
5. How does Macaulay in this description show that he himself
possessed that very gift? 6. Ht>w far does his success as a
writer depend on the possession of that gift? 7. What good
motives and what unworthy motives influenced both the friends
and enemies of Hastings in their choice of sides?﻿288	Notes and Comment

Hastings Impeached by the House of Commons (pages 213-

222)

216, 3. The Bath: a high order of knighthood.

216, 3. Sworn of the privy council: created a member of
the king’s personal advisory council.

216, 10. Keeper of the Great Seal: the Chancellor; that is,
Thurlow.

216, 11. Patent of peerage: a written document conferring
a title of nobility.

218,	24. Works of supererogation: in the Catholic Church,
voluntary deeds of piety or charity, beyond one’s duty, performed
in the hope that they may cancel former sins.

218,	31. The Treasury: that is, from Pitt, the First Lord of
the Treasury.

219,	3. The Opposition: the party not in power; here, the
Whigs.

219,	13. Wilberforce:	William Wilberforce (1759-1833),

statesman and philanthropist, the leader of the opposition to
slavery in the West Indies, and to the slave-trade in general.
He was a friend and co-worker of Macaulay’s father.

220,	21. Prorogation: adjournment of Parliament.

220,	24. Sheridan: Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816),
statesman and dramatist. Two of his comedies, The Rivals and
The School for Scandal, are still acted on the stage with un-
failing popularity. In his own time, however, he was probably
more widely known as an orator, and as a leading member of
the Whig party in Parliament, than as a writer.

221,	7. Windham:	(1750-1810), another eminent Whig

statesman who held office under Pitt.

221,	30. To impeach. The House of Lords acted as judges
of the man whom the House of Commons impeached.

Questions

1. What errors of judgment on Hastings’ part paved the way
for his impeachment? 2. How much influence did the speech
of Pitt have on the action of the House? 3. What unworthy
motives were imputed to Pitt for his course? 4. If he had
such motives, did he succeed in his purpose? 5. Does Macaulay
give any definite evidence to prove that Pitt had such motives?﻿Notes and Comment

289

6. “ Pitt told Mr. Wilberforce that the business was too bad and
he could not conscientiously support'Hastings longer.”—How is
Macaulay’s statement (page 219, line 19) superior to the above?

Hastings is Tried Before the House of Lords (pages 222-235)

223, 19. From right to left. If Macaulay refers here to the
languages of modern India, his statement is incorrect; for they
are descended from the Indo-Pali alphabet, which is written,
like our own, from left to right. The Arian-Pali alphabet of the
ancient Sanscrit was written from right to left.

223, 25. William Rufus: William II. In 1097, he began the
construction of Westminster Hall, in which the trial of Hastings
took place. The hall, which adjoins the present Houses of Par-
liament, is 68 feet wide, 92 feet high, and 290 feet long.

223, 27. Bacon: Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), convicted of
accepting bribes while Lord Chancellor.

223, 28. Somers:	(1661-1716), an English statesman and

judge who was impeached in 1701 for accepting illegal grants
of land from the king. He was acquitted.

223, 29. Strafford: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
(1593-1641), an adviser and friend of Charles I. He was be-
headed in 1641.

223,	31. Charles: Charles I, beheaded in 1649.

224,	2. Garter King-at-Arms: chief of the college of heralds.

224, 7. The junior Baron: the last man who has been called

to the House of Lords. Eliott’s famous defense of Gibraltar
lasted three years, from 1780 to 1783.

224, 12. Earl Marshal: so called because the dukedom of
Norfolk is the oldest in Great Britain.

224, 14. Prince of Wales: later King George IV.

224, 23. Brunswick. This house, more commonly called the
House of Hanover, still occupies the throne.

224, 26. Siddons: Sarah Siddons, the greatest actress of her
day, then at the height of her fame. Reynolds painted her as the
Tragic Muse, and Gainsborough’s still more famous painting of
her is now in the National Gallery in London.

224, 28. The historian of the Roman Empire: Edward
Gibbon (1737-1794).

224, 29. Cicero: (106-43 b.c.), the most celebrated of Roman﻿Notes and Comment

290

orators. He attacked Verres with great vigor and eloquence for
the latter’s extortionate government of Sicily.

224, 31. Tacitus (54?-ii7? a.d.) : a Roman historian.

224, 32. Oppressor of Africa: Marius Priscus, a Roman
governor of Africa.

224,	33. The greatest painter: Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-
i792), painter of some of the best of English portraits.

225,	9. Her to whom, etc.: Mrs. Fitzherbert, who in 1785
was secretly married to the Prince of Wales.

225, 11. Saint Cecilia: the wife of Richard B. Sheridan, the
author and statesman who was one of Hastings’ accusers before
the Lords. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her in the character of
Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. See Dryden’s Ode to
Saint Cecilia, and any large encyclopaedia for the legend of Saint
Cecilia’s martyrdom.

225, 16. Mrs. Montague: Elizabeth Montague, an authoress
and leader of society. Not to be confused with Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu of Pope’s time.

225,	19. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She was said
to have gained at least one vote for Fox, in his contest for Parlia-
ment in 1784, by bribing a butcher with a kiss. Her portraits
by Gainsborough and Reynolds are masterpieces.

226,	2. Mens aequa in arduis: “A mind serene in time of
trouble.” Macaulay often refers to Hastings’ “ noble equanimity.”

226, 3. Proconsul: the title of a Roman governor of a
province.

226, 11. Lord Melville: the Mr. Dundas mentioned fre-
quently in the essay.

226,	20. Wearing a bag. The bag was “ a sort of silken
purse formerly tied to men’s hair”; a bag-wig.

226, 24. Age and blindness. And yet Lord North was at
this time only fifty-six years old.

226,	30. The great age of Athenian eloquence: about the
middle of the fourth century B.c., when both Demosthenes and
Hyperides were at the height of their fame.

227,	24. Earl Grey: Prime Minister of England at the time
of the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832, when Macaulay took
a prominent part in the debates of Parliament.

228,	13. Chancellor: Thurlow, whose sympathies were with
Hastings.

229,	27. His father: Thomas Sheridan, a famous actor.﻿Notes and Comment	291

230,	15-16. Lac = 100,000; crore = 100 lacs; zemindar =
tax collector; aumil = court officer; sunnuds = charters; per-
wannahs = official orders; jaghires = assignments of the prod-
uce from tracts of land; nuzzers = presents given to superior
officers.

230» 33- The Regency. See note to page 213.

231,	2. The States-General of France: the French repre-
sentative assembly, whose meeting marked the beginning of the
French Revolution.

231, 6. The trial . . . went on languidly. The trial began
in Westminster Hall on February 12, 1788, and terminated in
the acquittal of Hastings on April 23, 1795.

231,	12. The circuits: the circuit courts held by the judges
throughout the country.

232,	33. Burke was then unpopular. Burke’s unpopularity
was largely due to the fact that he did not believe in the
French Revolution. In his Reflections on the Revolution in
France he said, “ Whenever a separation is made between liberty
and justice, neither is safe.” Burke, however, stood practically
alone in Parliament, for both Whigs and Tories looked with
approval upon the Revolution and the great principles that lay
under it.

233,	12. Parliament was dissolved: a new House of Com-
mons then had to be elected.

234,	6. The woolsack. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth
a woolsack was placed in the House of Lords as the Chancellor’s
seat, to remind the peers of an act which had been passed
prohibiting the exportation of wool from England,—hence the
term woolsack, which to-day is still given to the seat of the
Lord Chancellor.

Questions

1. What fine descriptive pictures does Macaulay give of the
trial of Hastings? 2. What associations which might fire the
imagination surrounded both the subject of the trial and the
place where it was held? 3. What great men and women of
the past are made to appear before us, as if in a living audience,
at this trial ?	4. What would be your emotions in the actual

presence of such an audience? 5. Describe the picture of Hast-
ings given hy Macaulay, 6, “ Men have listened until sunrise﻿Notes and Comment

292

to the speeches of Earl Grey.”—What does the above sentence
omit which Macaulay gives us (page 227, line 21) ?	7. Were

Burke’s remarks about Hastings just? 8. Were the emotions
which inspired those remarks praiseworthy? 9. How does Burke
compare in these respects with Macaulay himself? 10. How
long did the trial last? u. What does Macaulay say about the
ability of the Lords to render a just decision? 12. Does he think
that their present decision was unjust?

The Old Age of Hastings (pages 235-244)

236, 3. Cuddy: cabin.

236, 19. Pundits, zemindars: Indian scholars and collectors
of revenue.

236,	28. Apotheosis: deification.

237,	3. Pantheon: a temple dedicated to all the gods col-
lectively. From the Greek words pan (all) and iheos (god).

237, 20. Logan: John Logan (1748-1788), a Scotch poet and
historian of some note. Burke pronounced his Ode to the Cuckoo,
beginning, “ Hail! beauteous stranger of the grove! ” “the most
beautiful lyric in the language.”

237, 23. Simpkin’s letters: doggerel verses satirizing and
imitating the speeches of Hastings’ accusers.

237, 26. Anthony Pasquin: a cynical Roman shoemaker of
the fifteenth century who made satirical and libelous remarks
about his neighbors. The word Pasquinade still perpetuates
his memory. Consult dictionary.

239, 7. A coronet: a peerage and a seat in the House of
Lords.

239, 8. A red riband: the emblem of the Order of the Bath.
See note to page 95, line 21.

239, x9- Mr. Addington:a weak and inefficient Prime Min-
ister from 1801 to 1804.

239,	23. Bonaparte was at Boulogne. He had an army
and fleet there in 1804, planning to invade England. This crisis
brought Pitt back to power.

240,	11. Allipore: twenty-five miles southeast of Calcutta.

240, 14. Covent Garden: the largest London fruit market.

240, 21. Bootan: a province lying between Thibet and British

India.

240, 29. Trissotin:a character in one of Moliere’s comedies,﻿Notes and Comment	293

Les Femmes Savantes, who makes ludicrous attempts to be a
poet and a gallant.

241,	17. Dionysius: a distinguished ancient general and
tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily. He essayed to be a poet, but his
poems were hissed at the Olympic games.

241,	17. Frederic: Frederick the Great (1712-1786), King of
Prussia. He was the first soldier of his time but an affected
pedant in literary matters, composing bad verses and writing
and speaking bad French, because he thought French a more
polite language than German.

241, 20. Blue-stockings: ladies too much engrossed in litera-
ture. The derivation of the word forms a most interesting sub-
ject to investigate in any large encyclopaedia.

241,	22. Hayleys and Sewards: writers of the eighteenth
century, now practically forgotten.

242,	30. Prince Regent. Before he became king, George
IV reigned as Prince Regent during the long period of his
father’s insanity.

242,	31. Emperor of Russia: Alexander I. His visit to Eng-
land occurred in 1814.

242,	31. King of Prussia: Frederick William III.

243,	21. The Great Abbey: Westminster Abbey.

243,	24. The Great Hall: Westminster Hall, the hall of Wil-
liam Rufus, in which the trial took place.

244,	8. Richelieu: a famous Cardinal and French states-
man of the seventeenth century.

244,	9. Cosmo. While Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the six-
teenth century, this member of the illustrious Medici family be-
came noted as a patron of art, literature, and science.

Questions

1. Which had been treated the more severely by the English
Government in proportion to his merits, Hastings or Clive?
2. Which was the more embittered by his treatment? 3. How
did their careers in India bring out the similarities in the char-
acters of Clive and Hastings? 4. How did their lives after
leaving India bring out the differences in their characters? 5.
How is one of these differences shown in the manner of their
death? 6. What picturesque details does Macaulay introduce in
describing the old age of Flastings?﻿﻿English IReatongs for Schools

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