Hastings Moderate Fortune. 129 said with regard to those insignificant persons who formed the governing body at Calcutta, from Plassey to the end of Hastings' rule, his hands and those of Clive were the least stained of any. After three years in office, Hastings returned to England in 1764, a few months before Clive left for India, with a very moderate fortune, which was soon reduced to nothing by his praiseworthy liberality to poor relations and the rascality of his agents in Bengal, in whose hands he had placed the greatest part of his savings. 130 CHAPTER XV. THE GOVERNMENT AT MADRAS DURING THE WARS WITH HYDER ALY. A.D. 1759-1772. HASTINGS remained nearly five years in Eng land without employment, when he began to look again towards India. He had little to attach him to England, and his pecuniary embarrassments were considerable. He solicited employment from his former masters, the directors of the East India Company, and they gladly accepted his services, with high compliments both to his abilities and integrity, while appointing him at once to the office of Member of Council at Madras. It is recorded to his honour, that though forced to borrow money for his outfit, he refrained from withdrawing any portion of the sum which he had appropriated to the relief of those relatives who were poorer than himself. In the spring of 1769 he sailed for India, and for the next eighteen years was exclusively engaged in consolidating that wondrous superstructure whose foundation was laid by the mighty genius of Clive-the British Empire in India, and which, under the fostering care of the Anglo-Saxon race, has now become, during the reign of her gracious Majesty the Queen-Empress Victoria, the greatest power the world has ever seen. Wars with Hyder Aly. 131 Before, however, entering upon the subject of Hastings' rule at Madras, it may be well to give a brief sketch of the political events which had occurred in that presidency previous to his becoming a member of the Council, and which resulted in the expulsion of the French from every part of India, and the complete supremacy of the English over their European rivals. The Seven Years' War between England and France, which commenced in 1756, was carried on as vigorously in India as in Europe. A few months before Clive quitted Calcutta, the English fleet under Admiral Pococke had two indecisive actions with the French off the coast of Coromandel, though the effect of the last was to compel the French fleet to take refuge first at Pondicherry, and then to retreat to the Mauritius, notwithstanding General Lally's urgent entreaty with the French Admiral to the contrary. By this Lally's position was materially weakened; and in order to do something for the honour of France, he calculated upon being able to make a successful attempt on the English settlement at Madras. His own officers were, however, in despair, chiefly on account of there being no funds for carrying on the campaign. Having at length collected about £10,000, of which the greater portion came from Lally himself, the French commander seriously set himself to the task of capturing the city and the fort, one of his officers, the Count d'Estaign, wisely remarking that "it was better to die by a musketshot under the walls of Madras, than to starve at Pondicherry." Lally laid siege to Madras, and after nine weeks' continuance, with considerable loss to both sides, and a breach in the walls having been effected, he was about to storm the fort on February 16th, 1759, when an English fleet, with a reinforcement of six hundred king's troops, arrived in the roads, and the opportunity of capturing Madras was lost to the French. for ever and a day. Lally retreated to Arcot, and his troops having been for some time without pay, and running short of provisions as well as of powder and shot, thought they could better themselves by breaking out into open mutiny. Having succeeded in quelling the mutiny, and having obtained sufficient funds to set his troops in motion, Lally encountered the English under Colonel (afterwards Sir Eyre) Coote, who had recently arrived at Madras, on the plains of Wandiwash. The forces were pretty nearly equal in point of numbers, the English having a larger number of Sepoy troops, while the French had more Europeans; and the result was a complete overthrow of the French, who lost upwards of six hundred Europeans, independent of the loss amongst the Sepoys; and if the English native cavalry had only done their duty, the French army might have been entirely destroyed during their enforced retreat. The condition of the French in the Carnatic during the spring of 1760 was now rendered desperate, as all their previous conquests had passed away, save the city of Pondicherry, which the English army under Coote were prepared to invest before the close of the year. The city was sorely straitened for provisions; and Lally, the French commander, at length adopted the dreadful expedient of expelling between one and two thousand natives, of all sexes and ages, Wars with Hyder Aly. 133 without provisions, who wandered for seven days between the city walls and the British army, subsisting upon roots of grass, or whatever they could find in the earth. Coote's desire was to compel them to return to the city, until, finding that they were mercilessly fired upon by their French protectors, Coote, with the generosity of an Englishman, allowed them to pass through his lines into the open country. On the 15th of January, 1761, when there were only two days' provision remaining, Lally surrendered the city and fortress to the British. The troops taken captive amounted to upwards of two thousand, and the cannon to five hundred; while one hundred mortars, together with immense stores of powder and shot, attested the value of the conquest. Thus the capture of Madras by Labourdonnais, in 1746, was more than revenged by Coote's capture of Pondicherry in 1761; for the French power in India, after a vast expenditure of lives and money, was now completely overthrown, as three places alone remained to them when Pondicherry fell,-Tiagar and Ginjee in the Carnatic, which were reduced a few months later, and Matré on the western coast, which capitulated in the following year to Monson; so that in 1762 the French attempt to rival the British power in India came to an end. It is true that by the peace between England and France in 1763, Pondicherry was restored to the French, who retained possession of it until the breaking out of the French revolutionary war in 1793, when it was captured by an English force under Colonel Braithwaite, and India knew the French no more. The treatment which Lally received from his |