WARREN HASTINGS. (OCTOBER, 1841.) Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal. Com piled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G. R. GLEIG, M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1841. willingly let them die, were there mixed | thing unworthy of men who were diswith all that was loveliest and gayest tinguished by the friendship of Lord in the society of the most splendid of Holland. capitals. They will remember the peculiar character which belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place. They will remember how the last debate was discussed in one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in another; while Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Sir Joshua's Baretti; while Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation; while WE are inclined to think that we shall Talleyrand related his conversations | best meet the wishes of our readers, if, with Barras at the Luxembourg, or instead of minutely examining this his ride with Lannes over the field of book, we attempt to give, in a way neAusterlitz. They will remember, above cessarily hasty and imperfect, our own all, the grace, and the kindness, far more view of the life and character of Mr. admirable than grace, with which the Hastings. Our feeling towards him is princely hospitality of that ancient not exactly that of the House of Commansion was dispensed. They will re-mons which impeached him in 1787; member the venerable and benignant neither is it that of the House of Comcountenance and the cordial voice of mons which uncovered and stood up to him who bade them welcome. They receive him in 1813. He had great will remember that temper which years qualities, and he rendered great services of pain, of sickness, of lameness, of con- to the state. But to represent him as a finement, seemed only to make sweeter man of stainless virtue is to make him and sweeter, and that frank politeness, ridiculous; and from regard for his which at once relieved all the embar-memory, if from no other feeling, his rassment of the youngest and most friends would have done well to lend timid writer or artist, who found him- no countenance to such adulation. We self for the first time among Ambassadors and Earls. They will remember that constant flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with observation and anecdote; that wit which never gave a wound; that exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading; that goodness of heart which appeared in every look and accent, and gave additional value to every talent and acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They will remember that, in the last lines which he traced, he ex-great Protector showed both his good pressed his joy that he had done nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey; and they will have reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back on many troubled years, they cannot accuse themselves of having done any 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 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 any body 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 sense and his magnanimity. He did not wish all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost, in the vain at. tempt 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 | last Hastings of Daylesford had preforth marked with all the blemishes sented his second son to the rectory of which had been put on it by time, by the parish in which the ancient resiwar, 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 seaking, 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 dispossession, was regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in romance. dence 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, & 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 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 The lords of the manor of Dayles- of so much genius and so much amford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be bition. The very ploughmen observed, considered as the heads of this distin- and long remembered, how kindly guished family. The main stock, indeed, little Warren took to his book. The prospered less than some of the younger daily sight of the lands which his anshoots. But the Daylesford family, cestors had possessed, and which had though not ennobled, was wealthy and passed into the hands of strangers, highly considered, till, about two hun-filled his young brain with wild fancies dred years ago, it was overwhelmed by and projects. He loved to hear stories the great ruin of the civil war. The of the wealth and greatness of his proHastings 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 ranson 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 genitors, 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 | rules of social morality. He had never infancy and poverty, grew stronger as been attacked by combinations of powerhis intellect expanded and as his for- ful and deadly enemies. He had never tune rose. He pursued his plan with been compelled to make a choice bethat calm but indomitable force of will tween innocence and greatness, between which was the most striking peculiarity crime and ruin. Firmly as he held in of his character. When, under a tro- theory the doctrine of human depravity, pical sun, he ruled fifty millions of his habits were such that he was unable Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares to conceive how far from the path of of war, finance, and legislation, still right even kind and noble natures may pointed to Daylesford. And when his be hurried by the rage of conflict and long public life, so singularly che- the lust of dominion. quered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed for ever, it was to Daylesford that he re-occasion to make frequent mention, tired to die. Hastings had another associate at Westminster of whom we shall have 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 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 foundation. His name in gilded letters of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as on the walls of the dormitory still athis pupils affectionately called him, tests his victory over many older comwas one of the masters. Churchill, petitors. He stayed two years longer Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, at the school, and was looking forward were among the students. With to a studentship at Christ Church, when Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship an event happened which changed the which neither the lapse of time, nor a whole course of his life. Howard Hastwide dissimilarity of opinions and pur-ings died, bequeathing his nephew to suits, could wholly dissolve. It does the care of a friend and distant relation, not appear that they ever met after named Chiswick. This gentleman, they had grown to manhood. But though he did not absolutely refuse the forty years later, when the voices of charge, was desirous to rid himself of many great orators were crying for it as soon as possible. Dr. Nichols vengeance on the oppressor of India, made strong remonstrances against the the shy and secluded poet could image cruelty of interrupting the studies of a to himself Hastings the Governor-youth who seemed likely to be one of General only as the Hastings with the first scholars of the age. He even whom he had rowed on the Thames offered to bear the expense of sending 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 vic'ation of the But his favourite pupil to Oxford. body. Warren was accordingly re-settlement of Cossimbazar, lying close moved from Westminster school, and to the tyrant's capital, was instantly placed for a few months at a commer- seized. Hastings was sent a prisoner cial 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. 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. 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 Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the the abode of the prince who, by an expedition from Madras, commanded authority ostensibly derived from the by Clive, appeared in the Hoogley. Mogul, but really independent, ruled Warren, young, intrepid, and excited the three great provinces of Bengal, probably by the example of the ComOrissa, and Bahar. At Moorshedabad mander of the Forces who, having like were the court, the harem, and the himself been a mercantile agent of the public offices. Cossimbazar was a port Company, had been turned by public and a place of trade, renowned for the calamities into a soldier, determined to quantity and excellence of the silks serve in the ranks. During the early which were sold in its marts, and con-operations of the war he carried a stantly receiving and sending forth musket. But the quick eye of Clive fleets of richly laden barges. At this soon perceived that the head of the important point, the Company had es- young volunteer would be more useful tablished a small factory subordinate than his arm. When, after the battle to that of Fort William. Here, during of Plassey, Meer Jaffier was proclaimed several years, Hastings was employed Nabob of Bengal, Hastings was apin making bargains for stuffs with na- pointed to reside at the court of the tive brokers. While he was thus en-new prince as agent for the Company. gaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to He remained at Moorshedabad till the government, and declared war the year 1761, when he became a Memagainst the English. The defenceless ber of Council, and was consequently possible, that he might return home before his constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry 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 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. forced to reside at Calcutta. This was | wring out of the natives a hundred or two during the interval between Clive's first hundred thousand pounds as speedily as 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 civilization without its mercy. To all other despotism there is a check, 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, 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 dæmons. The only protection which the conquered could find was in the moderation, the clemency, the enlarged policy of the conquerors. That protection, at a later period, they found. But at first English power came among them anaccompanied 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 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 buccaneer 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 1764 Hastings returned to England. He had realised only a very mo |