is known. But it has been asserted, and is highly probable, that liberal
studies and the society 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 accomplished 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 value of his favorite studies. He conceived
that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made
a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up
a plan with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, in
which Oriental learning had never, since the revival of letters, been
wholly neglected, 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 engaged 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 favorable impression of the talents and attainments of his
visitor. Long after, when Hastings was ruling the immense population 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.
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 request, with high compliments both to his abilities and to 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 he embarked on board of the Duke of Grafton, and commenced 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 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 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 degree 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
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
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 quarrelling and flirting.
The facilities for both these exciting pursuits are great. The inmates
of 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 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 which, in the ordinary intercourse of good society, might remain
during many years unknown even to intimate associates. Under such
circumstances met Warren Hastings and the Baroness Imhoff, two persons
whose accomplishments would have attracted notice in any court of
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 attachment sprang up, which was soon strengthened by events
such as could hardly have occurred on land. Hastings fell 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 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 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 pronounced, they should continue to live together. It
was also agreed that Hastings should bestow some very substantial 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 in a very
disorganized state. His own tastes would have led him rather to
political than to commercial pursuits; but he knew that the favor of his
employers depended chiefly on their dividends, and that their dividends
depended chiefly on the investment. He therefore, with great judgment,
determined to apply his vigorous mind for a time to this department of
business, which had been much neglected, since the servants of the
Company had ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors and
negotiators.
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 determined to place him at the head of the
government of 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 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, skilfully contrived for the purpose of
facilitating and concealing 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 can be conceived. The only restraint on the English
masters 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.
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 commission; their public seal was inscribed with the
imperial 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, 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.
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
remonstrate, 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 government 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 questions; 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 that
gentleman still living, who was described by the highest authority as an
invaluable public servant, eminently fit to be at the head of the
internal administration of a whole 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 Moorshedabad. All military
affairs, and with the exception of what pertains to mere ceremonial all
foreign affairs, were withdrawn from his control; but the other
departments of the administration were entirely confided to him. His own
stipend amounted to near a hundred thousand 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 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 powerful natives. Clive had
found it difficult to decide between conflicting pretensions. Two
candidates stood out prominently from the crowd, each of them the
representative of a race and of a religion.
One of these was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussulman 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 integrity and honor.
His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name has, by a terrible and
melancholy event, been inseparably associated with that of Warren
Hastings, the Maharajah Nuncomar. This man had played an important part
in all 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 experience. 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 Bengalese. The physical
organization of the Bengalee 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 defence 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 circumstantial 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 Bengalee is by no means placable in his
enmities or prone to pity. The pertinacity with which he adheres to his
purposes yields only to the immediate pressure of fear. Nor does he lack
a certain kind of courage which is often wanting to his masters. To
inevitable evils he is sometimes found to oppose a passive fortitude,
such as the Stoics attributed to their ideal sage. A 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 Bengalee who would see his country
overrun, his house laid in ashes, his children murdered or dishonored,
without having 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 Algernon Sydney.
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 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 between 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 influence had not only procured his
liberation, but had obtained for him a certain degree of consideration
even among the 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
repeatedly been brought home. Therefore, though the Nabob, over whom
Nuncomar had by intrigue acquired great influence, begged that the
artful Hindoo might be entrusted with the government, Clive, after some
hesitation, decided honestly 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 brocade, 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 undoubtedly the truth, that India was a poorer country than
countries which in Europe are reckoned poor, than Ireland, 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 directors, naturally enough,
chose to attribute the disappointment rather to the mismanagement of
Mahommed Reza Khan than to their own ignorance of the country entrusted
to their care. They were confirmed in their error by the agents of
Nuncomar; for Nuncomar had agents even in Leadenhall Street. Soon after
Hastings reached Calcutta, 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 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 assistance
of Nuncomar in the investigation. The vices of 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.
The Governor bore no good will to Nuncomar. Many years before, they had
known each other at Moorshedabad; and then a quarrel had risen between
them which all the authority of their superiors could hardly compose.
Widely as they differed in most points, they resembled each other 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 execute the instructions of the Company with an alacrity
which he never showed except when instructions were in 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 furnished him with the means of effecting his purpose, and
dispensed him from the necessity of discussing the matter with his
council. He took his measures with his usual vigor and dexterity. At
midnight, the palace of Mahommed 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 the Mussulman
gravity, he bent his head and submitted himself to the will of God. He
fell not alone. A chief named Schitab Roy had been entrusted with the
government of Bahar. His valor and his attachment to the English had
more than once been signally proved. On that 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 Schitab Roy, covered with blood
and dust, to the English 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 received no intimation of
these measures till the prisoners were on their road to Calcutta.
The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was postponed on different
pretences. He was detained in an easy confinement during many months. In
the meantime, the 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 superintendence, 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 person and property. His person was entrusted to a
lady of his father's haram, known by the name of the Munny Begum. The
office of treasurer of the household was bestowed on a son of Nuncomar,
named Goordas. Nuncomar'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.
The revolution completed, the double government dissolved, 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
brought before a committee, over which the Governor presided. 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 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.
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 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 malevolence and his cupidity had been
disappointed. Hastings had made him a tool, had used him for the purpose
of accomplishing the transfer of the government from Moorshedabad to
Calcutta, from native to European hands. The rival, the enemy, so long
envied, so implacably persecuted, had been dismissed unhurt. The
situation so 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 Brahmin. As yet, however, it was
necessary to suppress such feelings. The time was coming when that long
animosity was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle.