1785.1* RETURN OF WARREN HASTINGS TO ENGLAND. and discontented people, on whom a long-continued drought had brought distress and want. "Yet," he wrote, "I have reason to fear that the cause existed principally in a defective, if not corrupt, and oppressive administration." Devastation was apparent in every village, trade was discouraged, the revenue in danger from a violent appropriation of its means. When at Lucknow, he withdrew a detachment of our troops from the frontier of Oude, because the nabob complained that it ate up his revenues, and yielded by its services no equivalent return. While at Lucknow he was not indisposed to enter into some kind of treaty with the Mogul at Delhi, but as the idea was not encouraged by his colleagues, it was abandoned. Before undertaking this journey to Lucknow, he had sent Mrs. Hastings home, as her health was declining, and none who knew his affection for her could doubt that in this separation he had resolved to resign and follow her as soon as he possibly could. Thus he wrote to the directors informing them of his intended return home, and that, no successor having been appointed by them, his duties would be undertaken temporarily by Mr. Macpherson, the senior member of the Council. Among his last duties was to further the erection of a monument to Mr. Augustus Cleveland, long a collector of revenue and administrator of justice in Bengal, who died a few days after embarking for England, in January, 1784; and on whose death his cousin, Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, wrote a long monody, a few copies of which were printed in London in 1786, and again in his Memoirs in 1843. As soon as it was known he was about to depart, he received complimentary addresses from all classes at Calcutta, to which he returned on the 4th of November, after an absence of nine months. As a benefactor to the people of Bengal, he had been, by them, ever regarded with affection and respect. The natives viewed him as a generous sovereign, and the civilians with respect and esteem; but among the troops this was blended with enthusiastic admiration, as he had ever treated them with honour, and reposed in them the most perfect confidence. When about this time, Colonel Pearse's column, which performed the memorable march to Madras, returned, after four years' absence, to Calcutta, reduced from 5,000 to 2,000 bayonets, he heaped every distinction upon the survivors. He visited their cantonments, and conversed with the officers and soldiers, and made a lasting impression on the minds of them all, every favour being doubled by the manner in which it was conferred. 261 An officer of rank and distinction (Major-General Sir Henry Worsley) who, when a young subaltern, was an eyewitness of this scene, in a letter written years after to Sir John Malcolm, says: "Mr. Hastings, dressed in a plain blue coat, with his head uncovered, rode along the ranks. The troops had the most striking appearance of hardy veterans; they were all as black as ink, contrasted with the sleek, olive skins of our home corps. The sight of that day, and the feeling it excited, have never been absent from my mind; to it and to the affecting orders which Mr. Hastings issued, I am satisfied, I in a great degree owe whatever professional pride and emulation I have since possessed."* Colonel Thomas Deane Pearse died in 1789, at Dum-Dum, where a column was erected to his memory. One of the last acts of Hastings in Calcutta, was to issue a general order to the Bengal army, expressing in the strongest terms his sense of its high military services, and thanking it for them. "The dark faces of the sepoys looked darker at his departure. Veterans, scarred with wounds, were seen weeping, and voices which meant to shout, broke down into a feeble note and wailing." Within three weeks of his return to Calcutta, he had written to the directors thus: "If the next regular advices should contain either the express acceptance of my resignation of the service, or your tacit acquiescence, I shall relinquish my office to the gentleman who stands next to me in the prescribed order of succession, and return to England as soon as the ship Berrington can be made ready to sail." On the 1st of February, 1785, he formally delivered the keys of Fort William, and of the treasury, to Mr. Macpherson, the senior member of Council, and on the 8th he walked, a plain private gentleman, unostentatiously to the place of embarkation, his friends and admirers forming a long lane, down which he passed from the palace. Many boats and barges escorted him far down the Hooghly, and some sorrowful friends there were, who did not leave him till the dismal, black, and swampy Kedgeree was left behind, till the ship had rounded the Sand-heads, the pilot had left her, and she was ploughing the Bay of that Bengal which he was now quitting for ever. On the homeward voyage he was accompanied by his friends, Anderson and Shore (afterwards Lord Teignmouth), who says he found him "a delightful companion, pouring forth the stores of his cultivated mind.”+ *E. I. U.S. Mag., 1834. +"Life of Lord Teignmouth," Though connected with the history of India, all that follows in this matter is somewhat apart from it, and thus we shall glance at it briefly. Though he might, it is said, have brought home a personal fortune, amounting to three millions sterling, he was content with less than £130,000 -less than had been made by Mr. Barwell, and In the next session of Parliament, the Commons other councillors; much less than the amassings of resolved to impeach both Warren Hastings and many minor civilians, and greatly less than Sir Sir Elijah Impey, who had now been about a year in Philip Francis had gleaned in six years, while England. Francis, who was now in Parliament, had Hastings had spent more than thirty years in India, ever since his return from India devoted his whole and of these, thirteen as Governor-General. In energy, talent, and certainly extraordinary abilities, June, he landed at Plymouth, and travelled post to attacking the administration of that country. to London, confident of a warm reception by the "The ex-member of Council at Calcutta was imking and people. Nor was he disappointed at first, pelled by ambition and revenge, two of the strongest at least; for it was acknowledged, says Macaulay, of human passions, and both of them more violent that our influence in the East had been extended, and intense in the heart of Francis, than they "nay, that Fort William and Fort St. George had are often found to be in English human nature. not been occupied by hostile armies, was owing, Francis's ambition was to become Governor-General if we may trust the general voice of the Eng- of India, and to add to the great wealth which he lish in India, to the skill and resolution of had accumulated there." Hastings. His internal administration, with all its blemishes, gives him a title to be considered as one of the most remarkable men in our history. He dissolved the double government; he transferred the direction of affairs to English hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, he educed at least a rude and imperfect order. The whole organisation by which justice was dispensed, revenue collected, peace maintained throughout a territory not inferior in population to the dominions of Lewis the Sixteenth, or the Emperor Joseph, was formed and superintended by him. . . . The just fame of Hastings rises still higher, when we reflect that he was not bred a statesman; that he was sent from school to a counting-house; and that he was employed during the prime of his manhood as a commercial agent, far from all intellectual society. Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, when placed at the head of affairs, he could apply for assistance, were persons who owed as little as himself, or less than himself, to education." He and Mrs. Hastings were most graciously received by the king and queen, and in Leadenhall Street, the Court of Directors received him at a solemn sitting, when the chairman read a vote of thanks for his great services—a vote which had not one dissentient voice; but he knew that for years his old enemy, Francis, had been plotting and writing against him; and he knew that in the last session of Parliament, Edmund Burke, whom that gentleman had won completely over, had given notice of a motion that might prove tatal to his honour and future peace; yet, when Lord North, after scores of sounding speeches from Fox and Burke, had not been impeached for the loss of America, it did seem hard to Hastings that he should be impeached for saving India. He was spurred to hatred by the result of his duel with Hastings, and he cherished vengeance against Impey for having pronounced upon him, while resident in Calcutta, a sentence mulcting him in heavy damages, when once he became amenable to a civil prosecution. Impey defended himself at the bar of the House of Commons on the 4th of February, 1788, and fully exculpated himself in the matter of the trial and execution of Nuncomar, the first of six specific charges brought against him; but in spite of his acquittal, and that the other five charges were abandoned, the affair of Nuncomar (like the Rohilla war, the story of Cheyte Sing, and the oppression of the Begums of Oude) was pressed against Hastings. His impeachment, and the votes for it, the examination of witnesses, the masses of documentary evidence, collected at a vast distance and at great expense, and the grand trial itself in Westminster Hall, were drawn out to the weary period of nine long years, till on the 17th of April, 1795, the great Warren Hastings was declared not guilty upon every charge; but so enormous were the expenses brought upon him by these vicious and most protracted proceedings, that for some time there seemed a chance of him ending his days in a debtor's prison. He was reduced to such distress that he could scarcely pay his weekly bills; but eventually an annuity of £4,000 per annum was settled upon him, and the Company for whom he had done so much, was allowed to lend him £50,000, to be repaid by instalments. He survived his acquittal twenty-three yearstime which he spent in that place which it had ever been the dearest wish of his heart to regain— Daylesford, which his forefathers had lost in the great Civil War. In 1813, he appeared for the last time in public, when examined as a witness on some Indian affairs before Parliament, when the Commons received him with universal acclamations. A chair was set for the old man, and all rose and uncovered when he withdrew. The Lords received him with equal respect. The University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and in the Sheldonian Theatre, the undergraduates welcomed him with the most tumultuous cheering. "These marks of public esteem, were soon followed by others of royal favour. Hastings was sworn of the Privy Council, and admitted to a long audience of the Prince Regent, who treated him very graciously. When the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia visited England, Hastings appeared in their train at Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, and though surrounded by a crowd of princes and great warriors, 263 was everywhere received with marks of respect and admiration. He was presented by the Prince Regent both to Alexander and to Frederick William; and his Royal Highness went so far as to declare in public that honours yet higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due and would soon be paid to the man who had saved the British dominions in Asia. Hastings now confidently expected a peerage, but from some unexplained cause, he was disappointed." Peacefully and tranquilly he passed away on the 22nd of August, 1818, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, after so many troubles and so much unmerited obloquy. He was buried behind the chancel of Daylesford Church, in the grave of his forefathers, where "on that very spot probably, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen.” CHAPTER LII. MR. PITT'S BILL FOR INDIA-ACQUISITION OF PENANG, ETC. BEFORE the return of Warren Hastings to England, and even while he was sailing on the sea, various parliamentary proceedings, of which India was the subject, took place. Within the space of nine months, three statesmen of distinction aspired to legislate for that distant region. The first Bill had been proposed by Mr. Dundas so early as 1783; the second by Fox, but the third was brought forward by Mr. Pitt, who had now reached the summit of his popularity. It was in the summer of 1784 that he again introduced that which was known as his great Bill for the future government of India. By this measure a Board of Control, composed of a certain number of commissioners, of the rank of Privy Councillors, was established, the members of which were to be appointed by the king, and removable at his pleasure. This board was to check, superintend, and control the civil and military government, and the revenue of the Company. All despatches transmitted to the Court of Directors were previously to be submitted to the inspection of the board, to which the directors were to pay due obedience in all matters pertaining to the government and revenue of India. The points, the directors were to appeal to his Majesty Lastly, a high tribunal was created, for the trial of Indian delinquents. It was to consist of three judges, one from each court, four peers, and six members of the Lower House, who were authorised to judge without appeal; to award, in case of conviction, the punishment of fine or imprisonment, and to declare the party convicted incapable of serving the East India Company in any capacity. These were the leading features of Mr. Pitt's Bill. His perpetual opponent, Fox, drew attention to its supposed weak points in one of his forcible In the case of orders not connected with these speeches. "It established a weak government, might divert his fancy, but they were not the | at the first blush, the features of openness, fairness, principles on which a statesman would found his system. By the negative power vested in the commissioners, the chartered rights of the Company, on which such stress had been laid, were insidiously undermined and virtually annihilated. If it were right to vest such powers in a board of Privy Councillors, let it be done explicitly and openly, and show the Company and the world that what they dared to do, they dared to justify. and responsibility. The present plan was full of darkness and disguise. In a covert and concealed mode, an immense patronage was transferred to the Crown, which, already possessing a dangerous and formidable ascendency over the other branches of the legislature, could not but open a new door to every species of collusion, and in an alarming degree accelerate the progress of corruption. It was calculated to establish an Indian Government "Founded on principles so heterogeneous, how of the island of Great Britain. Against the clauses |