CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS
By Lord Macaulay
With a Memoir and Index
In Six Volumes
Vol. V.
New York: Published by Sheldon and Company.
1860
[Illustration: 0011]
ESSAYS
WARREN HASTINGS (1)
(_Edinburgh Review_), October, 1841.
We {1}are inclined to think that we shall best meet the wishes of our
readers, if, instead of minutely examining this 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 uncovered 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 regard for his memory, if from no other feeling,
his friends would have done well to lend 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
(1) _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.
{2}fame. He might also have felt with pride that the splendour of his
fame would bear many spots. He would have wished posterity to have a
likeness of him, though an unfavourable likeness, rather than a daub
at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither him nor anybody else.
“Paint me as I am,” said Oliver Cromwell, while 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
characteristic in his countenance to be lost, in the vain attempt
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 with valour, 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 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 valour and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendour
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 theme both to
poets and to historians. His family received from the Tudors the earldom
of Huntingdon, which, after long {3}dispossession, was regained in our
time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in romance.
The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be
considered as the heads of this distinguished family. The main stock,
indeed, prospered less than some of the younger shoots. But the
Daylesford family, though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly
considered, till, about two hundred years ago, it was overwhelmed 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 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 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 of the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate,
was deplorable. 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. 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.
Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth {4}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 the
peasantry; nor did any thing in his garb or fare indicate 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 ploughmen observed, 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
greatness of his progenitors, of their splendid housekeeping, their
loyalty, and their valour. 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 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 intellect 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 legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. And
when his long public life, so singularly chequered with good and
evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it was to
Daylesford that he retired to die. {5}When he was eight years old, his
uncle Howard determined 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 removed to Westminster school, then
flourishing under the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils
affectionately called him, was one of the masters. Churchill, Column,
Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were among the 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 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 himself Hastings the Governor-General only as the Hastings with
whom he had rowed on the Thames and played in the cloister, and refused
to believe that so good-tempered a fellow could have done any thing 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 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 combinations
of powerful and deadly enemies. He had never been compelled to make a
choice between innocence and greatness, 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
{6}kind and noble natures may be hurried by the rage of conflict and the
lust of dominion.
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 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. His 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 has nephew to the care of a
friend and distant relation, named Chiswick. This gentleman, 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 favourite pupil to Oxford. But Mr. Chiswick
was inflexible. He thought the years which had already been wasted on
hexameters and pentameters 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 {7}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 Secretary’s office at
Calcutta, and laboured there during two years. Fort William was then
purely a 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 generals. The war of the
succession was raging in the Carnatic; and the tide had been suddenly
turned against 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.
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 Moorshedabad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad a
relation, if we may compare small things with great, such as the city
of London bears to Westminster. Moorshedabad was the abode of the prince
who, by an authority ostensibly derived from the Mogul, but really
independent, ruled the three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and
Bahar. At Moorshedabad were the court, the harem, 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 small factory
subordinate to that of Fort William. {8}Here, during several years,
Hastings was employed in making bargains for stuff’s with native
brokers. While he was thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the
government, and declared war against the English. The defenceless
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 Nabob marched on
Calcutta; the governor and the commandant 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 Warren 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 immediate neighbourhood of the court. He thus
became a diplomatic 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 conspirators. 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 {9}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 consequently 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, was at the head of a new and anomalous empire.
On one side was a band of English functionaries, daring, intelligent,
eager to be rich. On the other side was a great native population,
helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch under oppression. To keep the
stronger race from preying 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 restraint; and then was seen what
we believe to be the most frightful of all spectacles, the strength of
civilisation without its mercy. To all other despotism there is a cheek,
imperfect indeed, and liable to gross abuse, but still sufficient to
preserve society from the last extreme of misery. A time comes when the
evils of submission are obviously greater than those of resistance, when
fear itself begets a sort of courage, {10}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 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 Englishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of
men against daemons. The only protection which the conquered could find
was in the moderation, the clemency, and the enlarged 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 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 as
speedily as possible, that he might return home before his constitution
had suffered from the heat, to many 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, and the circumstance that little is known, must be considered as
honourable to him. He could not protect the natives: all that he could
do was to abstain from plundering and oppressing them; and this he
appears to have done. It is certain that at this time he continued poor;
and it is 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 {11}had borne a share in those abuses, the
able and 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 advantageous to his reputation. It brought many lamentable
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 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 was neither sordid nor rapacious. He
was far too enlightened a man to look on a great empire merely as a
buccanier would look on a galleon. Had his heart been much worse than it
was, his understanding would have preserved him from that extremity of
baseness. He was an unscrupulous, perhaps an unprincipled statesman; but
still he was a statesman, and not a freebooter.
In 1704 Hastings returned to England. He had realized only a very
moderate fortune; and that moderate fortune was soon reduced to nothing,
partly by his praiseworthy liberality, and partly by his mismanagement.
Towards 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 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, {12}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 honour 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 He out of the common track, he was
inclined to overrate the value of his favourite 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 favourable impression of the talents and attainments of his
visiter. 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. {13}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 by 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 decree 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. Any thing is welcome which may {14}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
honour. 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, {15}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
disorganised state. His own tastes would have led him rather to
political than to commercial pursuits: but he knew that the favour
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 {16}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; the 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 {17}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 a 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. {18}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
honour.
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 {19}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 Bengalees. The physical organization
of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant
vapour 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
unfavourable. 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 {20}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. 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 Bengalee, who would see his country
overrun, his house laid in ashes, his children murdered or dishonoured,
without having the spirit to strike one blow, has yet been known to
endure torture with the firmness of Mucins, and to mount the scaffold
with the steady step and even pulse of Algernon 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 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 amoung the British rulers of his country {21}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 intrusted with the government, Clive, after some hesitation, decided
honestly and wisely in favour 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 the reputation of 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 a afford an increased dividend to the
proprietors of India stock, and large relief to the English finances.
{22}These absurd expectations were disappointed; and the Directors,
naturally enough, chose to attribute the disappointment rather to the
mismanagement of Mahommed Reza Kahn than to their own ignorance of the
country intrusted to their care. They were continued 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 Kahn,
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 arisen 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 {23}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 vigour 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 intrusted with the
government of Ballar. His valour 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 mean time, 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 {24}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 intrusted to a
lady of his father’s harem, known by the name of the Munny Begnin. The
office of treasurer of the household was bestowed on a son of Kuncomar,
named Goordas. Nuncomar’s services were wanted; yet he could not safely
be trusted with power; and Hastings thought it a masterstroke 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 rigour. 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 honour. 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 {25}both the art
and the inveterate rancour which distinguished him, Hastings pronounced
that the charge 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.
In the mean time, 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 embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some means,
fair or foul. The principle which directed all his dealings with his
neighbours 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 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 anybody who had. One thing,
indeed, is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to him by
his {26}employers at home, was such that only the highest virtue could
have withstood, such as left him no choice except to commit 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 crime. Far from it. Whoever examines their letters written
at that time will find there many just and humane 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 leniently, and send more money; practise strict justice and
moderation towards neighbouring powers, and send more money;” this is in
truth the sum of almost all the instructions that Hastings ever received
from home. Now these instructions, being interpreted, mean simply, “Be
the father and the oppressor of the people; be just and unjust, moderate
and rapacious.” The Directors dealt with India, as the church, in the
good old times, dealt with a heretic. They delivered the victim over to
the executioners, with an earnest request that all possible tenderness
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 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 in arrear, with deficient crops, with government tenants
daily running away, was called upon to remit home another half million
without fail. Hastings saw that it was absolutely necessary for him to
disregard either the moral discourses or the pecuniary {27}requisitions
of his employers. Being forced to disobey them in something, He had to
consider 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 conscientious
scruples, speedily discovered several modes of relieving; the financial
embarrassments of the government. The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal
was reduced at a stroke from three hundred and twenty thousand pounds
a year to half that sum. The Company had 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 Corali and Allahabad. On the plea that
the Mogul was not really independent, but merely a tool in the hands of
others, Hastings determined to retract these concessions. He accordingly
declared that the English would pay no more tribute, and sent troops to
occupy Allahabad and Corah. The situation of these places was such, that
there would be little 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
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 Mahommedans of India as a monstrous impiety.
The Prince of Oude, though he held the power, did not venture to use
the style of {28}sovereignty. To the appellation of Nabob or Viceroy, be
added that of Vizier of the monarchy of Hindustan, just as in the last
century the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, though independent
of the Emperor, and often in arms against him, were proud to style
themselves his Grand Chamberlain and Grand Marshal. Sujah Dowlah, then
Nabob Vizier, was on excellent terms with the English. He had a large
treasure. Allahabad and 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 provinces which had been torn from the
Mogul were made over to the government of Onde for about half a million
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 a manner which has left a lasting stain on the fame of
Hastings and of England.