themselves as framers of minutes and despatches, Hastings stands at the
head. He was indeed the person who gave to the official writing of the
Indian governments the character which it still retains. He was
matched against no common antagonist. But even Francis was forced
to acknowledge, with sullen and resentful candour, 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 inconvenient 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
fondness 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 encouragement 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 into India
the learning of the West. To make the young natives of Bengal familiar
with Milton and Adam Smith, to substitute the geography, {98}astronomy,
and surgery of Europe for the dotage of the Brahminical Superstition, 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 virtuous rider. Still it is impossible to
refuse high commendation to a man who, taken from a ledger to govern 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 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 honourable career. That distinguished body
selected him to be its first president; but, with excellent taste and
feeling, he declined the honour in favour 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 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 government might warrant
them in apprehending persecution 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 to lay open to English scholars the
secrets of the old Brahminical theology and jurisprudence. {99}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 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 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 affection felt for him
by the civil service was singularly ardent and constant. Through all his
disasters and perils, his 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 profession. 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. He was intimately acquainted with
their feelings and usages. On one or two occasions, for great ends, he
deliberately 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 shock their national or religious
prejudices. His administration was indeed in many respects faulty; but
the Bengalee standard of good government was not high. Under {100}the
Nabobs, the hurricane of Mahratta cavalry had passed annually over the
rich alluvial plain. But even the Mahratta shrank from a conflict with
the mighty children of the sea; and the immense rice harvests of the
Lower Ganges were safely withered in, under the protection of the
English sword. The first English conquerors had been more rapacious and
merciless even than the Mahrattas; 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 recollect 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 success
of Hastings and the manner in which he extricated himself from every
difficulty made him an object of superstitious admiration; and the more
than regal splendour which he sometimes displayed dazzled a people who
have much in common with children. Even now, alter the 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.
The gravest offence of which Hastings was guilty did not affect his
popularity with the people of Bengal; for those offences were committed
against neighbouring states. Those offences, as our readers must have
perceived, we are not disposed to vindicate; yet, in order that the
censure may be justly apportioned to the transgression, it is fit that
the motive of the criminal should be taken into consideration. The
motive which {101}prompted the worst acts of Hastings was misdirected
and ill-regulated public spirit. The rules of justice, the sentiments of
humanity, the 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 common sense of mankind, which in questions
of this sort seldom goes far wrong, will always recognize a distinction
between crimes which originate in an inordinate zeal for the
commonwealth, and crimes which originate in selfish cupidity. To the
benefit of this distinction Hastings 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 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 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 infallibly have
returned to his country the richest subject in Europe. We speak within
compass, when we say that, without applying any extraordinary pressure
he might easily have obtained from the reminders of the Company’s
provinces and from neighbouring princes, in the course of thirteen
years, more than three millions {102}sterling, and might have outshone
the splendour 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 of
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 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 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 mill, was compelled to send her to
England. He seems to have loved her with that 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
manner in which he fitted up the round-house of an Indiaman for her
accommodation, on the profusion of sandal-wood 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
companion during the voyage. We may remark here that the letters of
Hastings to his wife are exceedingly characteristic. They are tender,
and full of indications of esteem and confidence; but, at the same time,
a little more ceremonious than is usual in so intimate a relation.
The solemn courtesy with which he compliments “his elegant Marian”
{103}reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which Sir Charles
Grandison bowed over Miss Byron’s hand in the cedar parlour.
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 which 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 embarked. 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 _Otiam Divos rogat_. This little poem was inscribed to Mr.
Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, a man of whose integrity, humanity,
and honour, 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 {104}of the favour 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
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.”
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
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 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 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 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 {105}he can take a place among English
statesmen. The working of a representative system, the war of parties,
the arts of debate, the influence of 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 acuteness deludes him. His very
vigour causes him to stumble. 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 band; 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 bands of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord
Loughborough, one of the few great advocates who have also been great
in the House of Commons. To the defence of Clive, therefore, nothing was
wanting, neither learning nor knowledge 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 rumoured
that his services were rewarded with Oriental munificence; and we
believe that He received much more than Hastings could conveniently
spare. The Major obtained a seat in Parliament, and was there regarded
as the organ of {106}his employer. It was evidently impossible that a
gentleman so situated could speak with the authority which belongs to
an independent position. Nor had the agent of Hastings the talents
necessary for obtaining the ear of an assembly which, accustomed to
listen to great orators, had naturally become fastidious. He was always
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 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_,
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 trunkmakers and the pastrycooks. As to
this gentleman’s capacity for conducting a delicate question through
Parliament, 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.”
In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, the general aspect
of affairs was favourable 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 the
vigour of his body, but not that of his mind; and Lord Lansdowne, who,
though unconnected with any party, retained the importance which belongs
to great talents and knowledge. {107}The ministers were generally
believed to be favourable to the late Governor-General. They owed their
power to the clamour 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 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 inclined to extenuate the evils which had been made the
plea for administering so violent a remedy; and such, in fact, was their
general disposition. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in particular, whose
great place and force of intellect 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 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. There was only one
objection to granting all that so eminent a servant of the public could
ask. The resolution 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 King to bestow any mark of
approbation on the person censured? If Major Scott is to be trusted, Mr.
Pitt declared 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 important member of {108}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 changes had taken place. He was surrounded by new allies;
he had fixed his hopes on new objects; and whatever may have been his
good qualities,--and he had many,--flattery itself never reckoned rigid
consistency in the number.
From the Ministry, therefore, Hastings had every reason 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 and 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 desirous to engage in so serious an undertaking as
the impeachment of an Indian Governor. Such an impeachment must last
for years. It must impose on the chiefs of the party an immense load of
labour. Yet it could scarcely, in any manner, affect the event of the
great political game. The followers of the coalition were therefore
more inclined 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 mention. The wits of Brooks’s aimed their
keenest sarcasms both at his public and at his domestic life. Some
fine diamonds which he had presented, as it was rumoured, to the royal
family, and a certain richly carved ivory bed which the Queen had done
him the honour to accept from him, were favourite {109}subjects of
ridicule. One lively poet proposed, that the great acts of the fair
Marian’s present husband should be immortalized by the pencil of his
predecessor; 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 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 malevolence, the gorgeous appearance of Mrs.
Hastings at St. James’s, the galaxy of jewels, torn from Indian Begums,
which adorned her head dress, her necklace gleaming with future votes,
and the depending questions that shone upon her ears. Satirical attacks
of this description, 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, and had already
established a character there for industry and ability. He laboured
indeed under one most unfortunate defect, want of fluency. But he
occasionally expressed himself with a dignity and energy worthy of
the greatest orators. Before he had been many days in parliament, he
incurred the bitter dislike of Pitt, who constantly 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 mistook his malevolence
for virtue, nursed it, as preachers tell us that we {110}ought to
nurse our good dispositions, and paraded it, on all occasions, with
Pharisaical ostentation.