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 ESSAYS ON GL1VE 
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 MACAULAY'S 
 
 ESSAYS ON CLIVE AND 
 
 HASTINGS 
 
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 Edited 
 
 With Introduction and Notes 
 
 by 
 
 CHARLES ROBERT GASTON, Ph.D. 
 
 EDITOR OF IRVING'S "LIFE OF GOLDSMITH" 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
 
1PZ 
 
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 COPYRIGHT, I9IO, BY 
 CHARLES ROBERT GASTON 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 710.11 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
 PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 
 
 &CLA'4?.56.t>6 
 
TO 
 JAMES MORGAN HART, J.U.D., L.H.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF ENGLISH IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF THE INTEREST 
 
 THAT HE HAS ALWAYS SHOWN IN THE 
 
 WORK OF HIS STUDENTS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/macaulaysessayso04maca 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 In the editing of these essays for school use, there is a tempta- 
 tion to give merely encyclopedic information whenever Macaulay 
 makes a historical or a literary allusion. In this edition an 
 attempt is made to avoid this perfunctory method of annotation. 
 The editor aims to present the necessary information, but to 
 present it in such a way that it will in every case make clear 
 the precise allusion that seems puzzling in the writing of the 
 essayist. Throughout the Introduction and the Notes the pur- 
 pose has been constantly to emphasize the literary reading of 
 two notable essays dealing with epochs in India. It is hoped 
 that no student will feel dismayed by the information contained 
 in the essays and in the annotation, but that on the contrary all 
 readers may relish as does the editor the vigor and brilliance of 
 the distinguished essayist's style. The editor particularly wishes 
 to thank the publishers for their painstaking cooperation in the 
 production of the maps which have been inserted in this edi- 
 tion. Maps are an invaluable aid to any kind of reading of a 
 historical narrative. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prefatory Note v 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 Life of Macaulay (1800-1859) .....*.... ix 
 
 Object of the Reading xvi 
 
 Place of the Essays in the History of English Lit- 
 erature .... xvn 
 
 Sketch of the Life of Lord Clive xviii 
 
 Sketch of the Life of Warren Hastings . . . . xx 
 
 Essay on Clive 1 
 
 Essay on Hastings ..." 93 
 
 Notes on Clive 221 
 
 Notes on Hastings 241 
 
 Subjects for Oral and Written Compositions . . . 265 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 LIFE OF MACAULAY (1800-1859) 
 
 Probably no writer in any language has given so much 
 historical and literary information and misinformation in so 
 entertaining a style to so many persons as Thomas Babington 
 Macaulay. He had a positive passion for facts. Nevertheless, 
 in his thirty-four years as a writer he exhibited such an interest- 
 ing and brilliant antithetical style that he sometimes gave mis- 
 information, unconsciously, in his desire to say something 
 strongly and entertainingly. Very likely he gathered more in- 
 formation before he was twenty-five years old than he did in 
 the last thirty-four years. At any rate, it proves convenient in 
 studying the events of his busy, happy, and mostly prosperous 
 life to consider them in two periods : the period of preparation, 
 from 1800 to 1825; and the period of productiveness, from 
 1825 to 1859. During the second half of the second period he 
 wrote his essays on Clive and Hastings — reviews of the- lives 
 of men prominent in Indian affairs. 
 
 Macaulay's youth was singularly fortunate. His father, 
 Zachary Macaulay, was of good Scotch descent. He is buried 
 in Westminster, along with ' several other noted English advo- 
 cates of the abolition of slavery. Except for Macaulay there is 
 scarcely an Englishman of fame buried in Westminster whose 
 father is also buried there. The place of Thomas B. Macaulay's 
 birth was Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England. He was 
 the eldest of eight children. In 1803 the family moved to 
 Clapham, near London, where they continued to reside for 
 eighteen years. Tom's mother thought that he was a wonderful 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 child, but, in spite of his superior powers of language, she would 
 not permit people to tell him that he was unusually bright for 
 one so young. When only three he enjoyed reading serious 
 books or sitting by the fire conversing with his elders. When 
 only four he had a copious vocabulary. A cup of coffee was 
 spilled on him one day. Solicitously the hostess inquired 
 whether it hurt. He replied, "Thank you, madam, the agony is 
 abated." Tom would often listen, with the consent of his father, 
 to the talk that went on in the Macaulay home when prominent 
 members of Parliament and abolitionists met to discuss ways of 
 advancing the cause of abolition of slavery in the West Indies. 
 As a mere boy Tom wrote an article which he desired should 
 be translated into an Indian dialect so as to persuade the people 
 of Travancore to embrace the Christian religion. By the time he 
 was twelve he had memorized a large part of Scott's " Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel" and "Marmion," Milton's "Paradise Lost," 
 and Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," besides a good deal of the 
 Bible, for he had a wonderful knack of taking in pages at a 
 glance and remembering the contents and the very language 
 for all time. A letter written by him at the age of thirteen 
 shows better than anything else the kind of boy he was, and 
 by implication the kind of parents he had : 
 
 Shelf ord, August 14, 181 3 
 My dear Mamma: 
 
 I must confess that I have been a little disappointed at not re- 
 ceiving a letter from home to-day. I hope, however, for one to-mor- 
 row. My spirits are far more depressed by leaving home than they 
 were last half year. Everything brings home to my recollection. 
 Everything I read, or see, or hear brings it to my mind. You told 
 me I should be happy when I once came here, but not an hour 
 passes in which I do not shed tears at thinking of home. Every 
 hope, however unlikely to be realized, affords me some small conso- 
 lation. The morning on which I went you told me that possibly I 
 might come home before the holidays. If you can confirm that hope, 
 believe me when I assure you there is nothing which I would not 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 give for one instant's sight of home. Tell me in your next, expressly, 
 if you can, whether or no there is any likelihood of my coming home 
 before the holidays. If I could gain papa's* leave, I should select my 
 birthday, October 25, as the time which I should wish to spend at 
 that home which absence renders still dearer to me. I think I see 
 you sitting by papa just after his dinner, reading my letter, and turn- 
 ing to him with an inquisitive glance at the end of the paragraph. 
 I think, too, that I see his expressive shake of the head at it. Oh 
 may I be mistaken ! You cannot conceive what an alteration a favor- 
 able answer would produce on me. If your approbation of my re- 
 quest depends upon my advancing in study, I will work like a cart 
 horse. If you should refuse it, you will deprive me of the most pleas- 
 ing illusion which I ever experienced in my life. Pray do not fail to 
 write speedily. 
 
 Your dutiful and affectionate son, 
 
 T. B. Macaulay 
 
 After attendance at private school he entered Trinity College, 
 Cambridge University, in 18 18. Here he was a brilliant scholar 
 and debater, averse only to the study of mathematics. He won 
 prizes for Latin declamation and for two English poems, 
 "Pompeii," 1819, and " Evening," 1821. The family moved 
 to London in 182 1. That year Macaulay won a scholarship 
 at the university. In 1822 he received the bachelor's degree. 
 In 1823 it became his good fortune to have to do something 
 for his family ; he took private pupils to make up as far as he 
 could for his father's business reverses. He was made Fellow 
 of Trinity in 1824. While he was at college he wrote "The 
 Battle of Ivry " and other ballads for Knight's Quarterly Maga- 
 zine, which was circulated mostly at Cambridge and Eton. At 
 the age of twenty-five he took the master's degree. Now, hav- 
 ing been remarkably industrious during his youth, he had richer 
 stores of information than most persons have at the end of 
 their lives. 
 
 The years when Macaulay made for himself a career in litera- 
 ture' and in politics were, in spite of one or two trying situations, 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 as prosperous and active as could well be imagined. No attempt, 
 however, will be made to do more than relate, in strict chrono- 
 logical order, the principal definite events of his public literary 
 and political career. It is strongly urged that the student find 
 for himself more about these years in one of the most read- 
 able biographies ever written, " The Life and Letters of Lord 
 Macaulay," by his nephew, George Otto Trevelyan. 
 
 The same year in which Macaulay received the master's 
 degree from Cambridge he wrote the famous essay on Milton, 
 the second of a series of forty essays that he contributed to 
 the Edinburgh Review in the years from January, 1825, to 
 October, 1844. At the age of twenty-six he became a barrister 
 in Lincoln's Inn, London. Caring more for politics and litera- 
 ture than for law, he spent more time listening to speeches in 
 the House of Commons, making Whig speeches at political 
 meetings, and writing for the magazines than he spent in the 
 practice of the law. Through the aid of a political opponent, 
 Lord Lyndhurst, he became Commissioner in Bankruptcy in 
 1828. Two years later, through the assistance of Lord Lans- 
 downe, who had been greatly interested by the essay on Mill, 
 Macaulay became a member of Parliament for Calne. His 
 Reform Bill speeches, though uttered in a rapid, somewhat 
 monotonous delivery, gained for him a reputation for eloquence, 
 and when printed were found to be convincing in thought. The 
 literary and political celebrities, whether belonging to his own 
 party, the Whigs, or to the opposing party, praised the vigorous 
 new member. Yet when his commissionership and his college 
 fellowship both came to an end in 1832, he had to pawn his 
 college gold medals, notwithstanding his very considerable and 
 growing reputation ; it is said that at this time he scarcely knew 
 where to turn for a morsel of bread. 
 
 However, the financial trouble soon passed away, for he was 
 made a commissioner of the Board of Control of Indian affairs, 
 and a year later became secretary of the board. In Parliament 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 he was now representing the manufacturing city of Leeds. 
 His speech in 1833 on the bill for the renewal of the charter 
 of the East India Company was considered a remarkable effort. 
 In February, 1834, he sailed for India at a salary of ,£10,000 
 a year for five years as law member of the Supreme Council 
 of India. One reason why he consented to go to India was that, 
 though he had no desire whatever for riches, he did wish a 
 reasonable income for life, and the Indian position promised 
 him such an income if he would be careful to save from his 
 large salary. His greatest work for the distant empire was done 
 as president of a commission for composing a criminal code for 
 India. This code was published in 1837, but did not become 
 law till i860. Another Indian service of permanent value was 
 his work as president of a committee which founded the educa- 
 tional system of India. 
 
 He returned to England in 1838. Soon after his return, he 
 was on the point of fighting a duel with a man whose book he 
 had mercilessly criticized in the Edinburgh Review, but the 
 duel was averted by friends of the parties. In the autumn of 
 1838 he traveled in Italy. 
 
 In March, 1839, ne De g an his " History of England," which 
 is more fascinating than most novels (Macaulay read thousands 
 of novels). He did not accomplish much at first on the His- 
 tory, because the people of Edinburgh invited him to stand for 
 a seat in Parliament as their representative. He was elected 
 in 1839 and continued to represent Edinburgh for eight years. 
 Soon after his election he became Secretary of War, holding 
 the position for two years. His essay on Clive appeared in 
 the Edinburgh Review in January, 1840, and his Hastings in 
 October, 1841. In 1842 he was instrumental in the passage 
 of a copyright law giving to authors sole ownership of their 
 writings for forty-two years after publication. He published 
 his "Lays of Ancient Rome" in 1842. The next year, since 
 publishers were bringing out his essays without paying him 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 anything for them, he felt obliged to publish a complete copy- 
 righted edition. He became paymaster-general in 1846. The 
 following year, because of his active support of the toleration 
 acts and his general air of independence, he lost his Edinburgh 
 seat in the House and retired from political life to finish his 
 "History of England." 
 
 Volumes I and II of the History appeared in 1848. Their 
 author was installed Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 
 1849. He declined a Cambridge professorship of modern his- 
 tory and a cabinet position. In 1852, owing to the tremendous 
 amount of work that he had done in so short a time, his health 
 broke down ; but he was that year urged to represent Edin- 
 burgh again in Parliament, and did so. His last speech in the 
 House was made in July, 1853. He prepared civil-service rules 
 and examinations for India in 1854. He published Volumes 
 III and IV of his History in 1855, receiving in the next 
 year ,£20,000 in royalties. For his articles on Goldsmith and 
 Johnson, contributed in 1856 to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 he refused any payment, saying that these were labors of love 
 and that he needed for his own wants, he having never married, 
 no more money than he had. On account of ill health he gave 
 up his seat in Parliament in 1856. Now, when he was near- 
 ing the end of his life, he took up his residence in Holly Lodge, 
 near Kensington Palace, London. In 1857 he was made 
 Baron Macaulay of Rothley, but rarely took his seat in the 
 House of Lords. That year, too, he was made high steward 
 of the borough of Cambridge. He kept working on his His- 
 tory till his death, December 28, 1859, at Holly Lodge. He 
 was buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 In looking back over this biography a reader cannot fail to 
 be astonished at the immense amount of work that Macaulay 
 was able to do. His literary activity, as the greatest essayist 
 of his time in his particular field of biography, and as the most 
 popular writer after Scott, would alone seem to be enough for 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 a busy life of an extraordinary man. His work in Parliament 
 as a speaker of unquestioned oratorical power and keen intel- 
 lectual grasp of great questions would alone make enough 
 activity for all but the most exceptional members. His con- 
 structive, permanently effective work in advancing important 
 reforms in India and in England would fill up more than three- 
 score years of activity for most men. But Macaulay carried on 
 all these lines of activity without seeming to be worried by any 
 of them, and had time besides for a social life as a splendid 
 talker in the homes of the wits of the age and as an affectionate 
 uncle in his sister's home. There is no English writer who 
 stands in the same class with Macaulay as the embodiment of 
 energy ; no writer compares with him in the practical accom- 
 plishment of the things that his keen, restless mind set before 
 him to accomplish. The keynote of his life was hard work with 
 a cheerful outlook. Only his History remains incomplete. 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 i. What have you learned in this book or elsewhere regarding 
 the domestic life of Macaulay? 
 
 2. What do you consider to be the use of knowing anything about 
 the life of an author whose book you have read or are reading ? 
 
 3. What did the world do for Macaulay? 
 
 4. What did he do for the world ? 
 
 5. What kind of preparation did he have for his life work? 
 
 6. What official positions did he hold ? 
 
 7. What kinds of writing did he do ? 
 
 8. What writings of his have you read? Why have you read so 
 many ? Why have you not read more ? 
 
 9. In exactly one hundred words write a biography of Macaulay. 
 Imagine that you are spending a certain amount of money (words) 
 and see how you can spend your money to get the best returns for 
 it. If you look at such a task as this in the right light you will soon 
 come to see the value of words and the necessity for proportion. 
 
 10. From Macaulay's schoolboy letter to his mother what can 
 you infer concerning the temper and character of his parents? 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 OBJECT OF THE READING 
 
 The essays on Clive and Hastings are to be read not as his- 
 tory but as literature. This makes a great deal of difference 
 to the student approaching the reading of the two essays for 
 the first time. Bewilderment will be the state of the ordinary 
 reader who plunges into even the first paragraph of Clive with 
 the idea of understanding offhand every obscure historical 
 allusion. That cannot be hoped for from school readers of 
 to-day. Not " every schoolboy " does know the things that 
 Macaulay thinks the schoolboy knows. In the matter of the 
 history presented in these two essays the best that the average 
 reader can do is to get a fairly good grip on the essential facts 
 in the career of Robert Clive which made him recognized by 
 historians as the British empire builder in India, and of the 
 essential facts in the career of Warren Hastings which made 
 him the great administrator of Indian affairs. If, besides the 
 obvious large facts in the lives of these two men, the reader 
 can understand some of the picturesque details and something 
 of the general historical events involved, he may consider that 
 he has enough of the information in the case to go on with the 
 main purpose of the reading, which is to secure a grip on the 
 method of literary presentation of historical facts as illustrated 
 by Macaulay. Macaulay does not aim so much to instruct as to 
 interest and entertain. It is his way of writing with which the 
 reader of the essays in a course in literature is most concerned. 
 
 The pupil, then, need not feel discouraged if parts of the 
 essays make him sleepy. It might be a good idea first to hurry 
 through the essays, skimming the cream of lively narrative, 
 e.g. Give's defense of Arcot and his contest for a seat in 
 Parliament. It would be advisable, after such a hurried glance 
 through the pages, to take a second look a little more carefully. 
 The first view would show the most interesting narrative parts ; 
 the second would make the main divisions clear and would 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 take in as many details as it might seem advisable to try to 
 absorb in the time at the disposal of the reader. A final general- 
 view would clinch the main facts in the careers of the two 
 Englishmen most concerned in the evolution of English control 
 in India, and would give a final impression of the author's 
 characteristic manner of writing as illustrated in these essays. 
 
 PLACE OF THE ESSAYS IN THE HISTORY OF 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 The Clive and Hastings represent Macaulay's historical as 
 opposed to his literary essays. By common consent Macaulay 
 is recognized as having done better work in his historical than 
 in his literary essays, for, though he had an eye for the pictur- 
 esque and could tell graphically the outward events of a man's 
 life or of a national epoch, he lacked the subtlety of understand- 
 ing and fineness of feeling necessary to supreme success in dis- 
 cussing the essence of a spiritually minded man's writings or in 
 penetrating to the core of a period of national literature. Yet 
 because of this very limitation of his he was able better to please 
 his contemporaries than any other nonimaginative writer of the 
 time. His series of fascinating review articles made an era in 
 the history of literature. 
 
 It was this series that alone was able to rival in popularity 
 in the Victorian age the immense output of novels produced by 
 Eliot, Dickens, and Thackeray, to mention only a few of the 
 popular novelists of the time. Macaulay's essays, particularly 
 his historical essays, put human interest consistently to the front. 
 Macaulay and the contemporary writers of essays — Carlyle, 
 for instance — thought that history should deal with " human 
 beings of passions, caprices, moods, loves and hates, dwelling 
 in a world of interesting costumes, arms, architecture, ideas 
 and beliefs " (Lang). Consequently the historical writing of 
 these men, whether in the form of long histories or shorter 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 essays, was as entertaining as instructive. It was literature 
 because it was done with art and imbued with a powerful 
 personality. The historical essays of Macaulay belong, then, 
 in the front rank of the entertaining and instructive essays 
 produced in the early Victorian age of English literature. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLIVE 
 
 Sir William Hunter in " A Brief History of Indian Peoples " 
 strikingly characterizes the work of Lord Clive by saying that 
 from Clive's victory at Plassey dates the English supremacy in 
 India, and from his second administration as governor date the 
 English efforts at good government in India. This authoritative 
 view of the achievements of Clive corresponds well with the 
 estimate in Macaulay's essay. In fact, the essay of Macaulay 
 is to be trusted in the main as giving a fair and accurate account 
 of the life of Clive. Yet, since Macaulay inserts few dates, a 
 succinct narrative of the principal events of Lord Clive's life 
 may assist the reader to follow the essay. 
 
 Robert Clive, born September 29, 1725, near Market-Drayton 
 in Shropshire, England, was the eldest of the thirteen children 
 of an impoverished country squire. In school he was constantly 
 in trouble because of his high temper and mischievous spirit. 
 In 1743 he was offered a clerkship in the East India service. 
 The next year, after an unusually long voyage, during which 
 he learned Portuguese, he reached Madras penniless. Having 
 small pay and no friends, he soon tried to kill himself. In 1746 
 he was taken prisoner by Labourdonnais, but escaped to Fort 
 St. David. Entering the military 7 service as ensign, in 1747, he 
 next year distinguished himself by his bravery at the unsuccess- 
 ful siege of Pondicherry. He became lieutenant under Major 
 Stringer Lawrence. Then he was promoted to be commissariat 
 officer. He was twice in charge of reinforcements sent to 
 Trichinopoly, and in 1750 became captain, in charge of several 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 hundred men. He captured Arcot. capital of the Carnatic, in 
 1 7 5 1 . Then with only eighty European soldiers and fewer than 
 two hundred native soldiers he successfully defended Arcot 
 while it was besieged by seven thousand troops from Septem- 
 ber 23 to November 14. 1751. Taking the offensive, he now 
 defeated the French and natives in several engagements, and 
 helped Major Lawrence capture Trichinopoly. He married, in 
 1752, Margaret Maskelyne. In poor health he returned to Eng- 
 land, 1753. There he paid his father's debts, and was elected 
 to Parliament but was not seated. 
 
 In 1755 he was again in Bombay, having now been appointed 
 lieutenant colonel. He captured the pirate stronghold, Gheriah, 
 in 1756. He took charge of Fort St. David just before the 
 Calcutta Black Hole massacre, and set out at once to avenge 
 the atrocity. He captured Calcutta in 1757, forcing the native 
 ruler responsible for the massacre, Surajah Dowlah. Nabob of 
 Bengal, to sue for peace. Next he captured Chandernagore. 
 When he discovered treacherous intentions in the Nabob, he 
 abetted a conspiracy by which the Nabob's general, Meer Jaf- 
 fier, was to become Nabob. Omichund, a Hindoo go-between 
 who threatened to betray the conspiracy. Clive tricked by means 
 of two treaties, one genuine, the other false. Thus gaining time, 
 he thoroughly defeated the Nabob at the battle of Plassey, 
 June, 1757. After this he made Meer Jaffier Nabob, who soon 
 permitted Surajah Dowlah to be put to death. From Meer Jaf- 
 fier Clive accepted a large present and the quitrent of the Com- 
 pany's territory. As soon as the news of the victor}' of Plassey 
 reached the directors, they made Clive Governor of Bengal, 
 1758. In 1759 he defeated a Dutch armament that had 
 entered the Hoogley to found a rival colony. He returned to 
 England in 1760. A rich man, he was promptly raised to the 
 Irish peerage as Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey. In 1764 he was 
 chosen Knight of the Bath. Great abuses having arisen in the 
 Indian administration, Lord Clive was sent out to make reforms. 
 
xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 He reached Bengal as Governor for the second time, May, 
 1765. His reforms in both the civil and the military service 
 were far-reaching and drastic. By pensioning the Nabob of 
 Bengal he secured to the Company the supreme power in the 
 province. Out of a legacy from Meer Jaffier he established a 
 fund for invalid officers of the Company. With health gone, he 
 returned to England in 1767. There was a parliamentary inquiry 
 into his acts, 1 772-1773, marked by much bitterness but end- 
 ing only in a gentle censure. Though honored by being installed 
 as Knight of the Bath and Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire, 
 Clive became sick and gloomy, a victim of opium. He com : 
 mitted suicide, November, 1774. 
 
 The best accounts of his life and services to England will be 
 found in the following books, at least one of which may be 
 accessible to the reader who desires more detailed information : 
 Malcolm, " Life of Robert, Lord Clive " (3 vols., London, 1836), 
 the book on which Macaulay based his review article ; Malleson, 
 " Founders of the Indian Empire : Lord Clive " (London, 1882) ; 
 Mill, " History of British India, " Vol. Ill ; Orme, " History of 
 the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan 
 from the year 1745 " (London, 1803). 
 
 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 In Sichel's biography of Richard B. Sheridan, published in 
 1909, this summarizing sentence follows a long discussion of 
 the speeches which Sheridan made against Hastings during the 
 impeachment trial : " Warren Hastings was a pioneer of empire, 
 a great, ruling Englishman, and he did his duty according to his 
 lights." It is worth while to try to sift out the conflicting state- 
 ments concerning the deeds of this great pioneer of empire and 
 see in brief just what he did during his long life. Born in Oxford- 
 shire, December 6, 1732, he lived as a child with his grandfather 
 in the rectory of Daylesford House, near Adlestrop, a few miles 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 northwest of Oxford. His father's elder brother, Howard, sent 
 him to school in 1740 to Newington Butts and in 1742 to 
 Westminster School. Here he stood first in a competition for a 
 scholarship, Elijah Impey standing three places below him, and 
 here he continued his studies till 1 748. At the death of his uncle 
 he was sent to a private tutor's to prepare for the East Indian 
 civil service. In October, 1750, he arrived at Calcutta. Serving 
 in Calcutta as a clerk for the Company, he was promoted to 
 be its representative at Cossimbazar. Here he was taken 
 prisoner by the Nabob of Bengal and sent to Moorshedabad. 
 His ability to speak the Persian and Hindostanee languages 
 was a valuable aid to him at this time in his negotiations with / 
 the native princes. In 1757 he served as a soldier with Clivew 
 He was agent for the Company at Moorshedabad, 1 757-1 760, 
 and member of the Council at Calcutta, 1761-1764. He was 
 dispatched on an important mission to Patna in 1762. Moder- 
 ately rich, he returned to England, 1764. By the evidence he 
 gave on Indian affairs, 1766, before a parliamentary committee, 
 he made something of a stir in England. During his visit to 
 his native land he wasted his money. 
 
 In 1769 he returned to India as second in council at Madras. 
 On the voyage out he fell in love with Baroness Imhoff. He 
 became governor of Bengal, 1772, with residence at Calcutta. 
 His chief work at this time was the change he accomplished in 
 the financial and judicial system of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, 
 bringing these provinces closely under the direction of the 
 Company. In 1773, in accordance with a treaty made nine 
 years* before, he assisted Sujah Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, against 
 the Rohillas. He largely suppressed wandering bands of robbers. 
 
 The Regulating Act of 1773 made Hastings Governor-Gen- 
 eral. As such he was opposed by a majority of the Council, 
 but in the end he always had his way. He was accused by 
 Nuncomar of having taken a bribe. He in turn accused Nun- 
 comar of conspiracy and sent a conditional resignation to the 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Company. Before the case of Nuncomar was taken up, that 
 high-caste Brahmin was hanged for forgery, 1775, on a charge 
 brought by an obscure native, the case being decided by 
 Supreme Court Justice Elijah Impey. Hastings sold the privi- 
 lege of the opium trade for a term of years, and thus increased 
 the public revenues. Having the support of the Supreme Court, 
 1777, he continued as Governor in spite of the acceptance in 
 London of his tentatively offered resignation. He was soon 
 vindicated by the Court of Proprietors. He married the 
 Baroness Imhoff, whose reputation Macaulay unjustly slurs. 
 He checked the rising power of the Mahrattas. In a duel in 
 1780 he wounded Francis, and thus became untrammeled by 
 the bitter opposition of this fellow member of council. He 
 drove Hyder Ali from the Carnatic and attacked the French 
 settlements. He heavily fined Cheyte Sing of Benares in 1781. 
 He is charged with having been a party to the imprisonment 
 of the Begums of Oude and with having mercilessly stripped 
 them of their land and wealth. He founded the learned Asiatic 
 Society, 1784, and returned to England, 1785. 
 
 Triumphant in nearly every act of his in India, he was 
 buffeted about in England for the next ten years. The House 
 of Commons passed a vote of censure, 1786, for his fining 
 Cheyte Sing so heavily. He was impeached, 1787, on the 
 charge of corruption and cruelty in his Indian administration. 
 The trial lasted from 1788 to 1795. Though he was acquitted, 
 he had to spend ,£70,000 in the conduct of his defense. This 
 sum was made up to him, however, by the Company. 
 
 He lived in retirement at Daylesford, 1 795-1818, receiving 
 a few home honors in his old age — membership in the Privy 
 Council, a doctor's degree from Oxford, public presentation to 
 the allied sovereigns by the Prince Regent in London, and re- 
 spectful reception by the House of Commons standing with 
 bared heads. He died in 18 18 and is honored by a bust in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 The reader who desires further to pursue the subject of the 
 life and administration of Hastings will find it advisable to con- 
 sult some or all of the books named below : Lyall, " Warren 
 Hastings" (London, 1889), the most satisfactory book yet 
 written in this field ; Malleson, " Life of Warren Hastings " 
 (London, 1894), a more detailed book than Lyall's but im- 
 pressing one as not impartial ; Trotter, " Warren Hastings " 
 (London, 1878); Lawson, "Private Life of Warren Hastings" 
 (London, 1895), made interesting by its many pictures; Gleig, 
 " Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings " (3 vols., London, 
 1841), the book which Macaulay took as excuse for his essay; 
 Strachey, "Hastings and the Rohilla War" (Oxford, 1892), 
 in which it is shown that, contrary to Macaulay's assertions, 
 Hastings did not sell the Rohillas to the Nabob of Oude merely 
 to enrich the Company, and that he did not tolerate nor permit 
 undue violence against the Rohillas by the Nabob ; Stephen, 
 " The Story of Nuncomar and Impeachment of Sir Elijah 
 Impey," which authoritatively and finally disproves the story 
 of the judicial murder of Nuncomar by Hastings and Impey. 
 Stephen shows that the accusation of corruption brought by 
 Nuncomar against Hastings had no validity, that the charge 
 brought by a certain Indian lawyer of the forging of a bond by 
 Nuncomar was sustained not by Impey alone but by a full vote 
 of the Supreme Court, that Hastings is absolutely cleared of 
 having maliciously framed an accusation against Nuncomar for 
 the purpose of silencing him, and that Impey's part in the trial 
 of Nuncomar was that of a fair and upright judge. A book con- 
 firming the conclusions just mentioned and going even further 
 in defense of Hastings is G. W. Hastings's "A Vindication of 
 Warren Hastings" (London, 1909). Lastly, a valuable book 
 containing documentary evidence on the subject of Hastings's 
 acts is Forrest's "Administration of Warren Hastings," 1772- 
 1785 (Calcutta, 1892). 
 
& I A N 
 
 longitude East 
 
LORD CLIVE 
 
 We have always thought it strange that, while the history 
 of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly known to all 
 the nations of Europe, the great actions of our countrymen 
 in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little inter- 
 est. Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and 5 
 who strangled Atahualpa; but we doubt whether one in ten, 
 even among English gentlemen of highly cultivated minds, can 
 tell who won the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the massacre 
 of Patna, whether Sujah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travan- 
 core, or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet 10 
 the victories of Cortes were gained over savages who had no 
 letters, who were ignorant -of the use of metals, who had not 
 broken in a single animal to labor, who wielded no better 
 weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, flints, 
 and fishbones, who regarded a horse soldier as a monster, half 1 5 
 man and half beast, who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer, able 
 to scatter the thunder and lightning of the skies. The people 
 of India, when we subdued them, were ten times as numerous 
 as the Americans whom the Spaniards vanquished, and were at 
 the same time quite as highly civilized as the victorious Span- 20 
 iards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa 
 or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and costly than the 
 cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the 
 richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendor far 
 surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry 25 
 and long trains of artillery which would have astonished the 
 Great Captain. It might have been expected that every 
 
2 LORD CLIVE 
 
 Englishman who takes any interest in any part of history would 
 be curious to know how a handful of his countrymen, separated 
 from their home by an immense ocean, subjugated, in the 
 course of a few years, one of the greatest empires in the world. 
 5 Yet, unless we greatly err, this subject is, to most readers, not 
 only insipid but positively distasteful. 
 
 Perhaps the fault lies partly with the historians. Mr. Mill's 
 book, though it has undoubtedly great and rare merit, is not 
 sufficiently animated and picturesque to attract those who read 
 
 10 for amusement. Orme, inferior to no English historian in style 
 and power of painting, is minute even to tediousness. In one 
 volume he allots, on an average, a closely printed quarto page 
 to the events of every forty-eight hours. The consequence is 
 that his narrative, though one of the most authentic and one of 
 
 15 the most finely written in our language, has never been very 
 popular, and is now scarcely ever read. 
 
 We fear that the volumes before us will not much attract 
 those readers whom Orme and Mill have repelled. The mate- 
 rials placed at the disposal of Sir John Malcolm by the late 
 
 20 Lord Powis were indeed of great value. But we cannot say that 
 they have been very skillfully worked up. It would, however, 
 be unjust to criticise with severity a work which, if the author 
 had lived to complete and revise it, would probably have been 
 improved by condensation and by a better arrangement. We 
 
 25 are more disposed to perform the pleasing duty of expressing 
 our gratitude to the noble family to which the public owes so 
 much useful and curious information. 
 
 The effect of the book, even when we make the largest 
 allowance for the partiality of those who have furnished and 
 
 30 of those who have digested the materials, is, on the whole, 
 greatly to raise the character of Lord Clive. We are far indeed 
 from sympathizing with Sir John Malcolm, whose love passes 
 the love of biographers, and who can see nothing but wisdom 
 and justice in the actions of his idol. But we are at least equally 
 
LORD CLIVE 3 
 
 far from concurring in the severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who 
 seems to us to show less discrimination in his account of Clive 
 than in any other part of his valuable work. Clive, like most 
 men who are born with strong passions and tried by strong 
 temptations, committed great faults. But every person who 5 
 takes a fair and enlightened view of his whole career must 
 admit that our island, so fertile in heroes and statesmen, has 
 scarcely ever produced a man more truly great either in arms 
 or in council. 
 
 The Clives had been settled, ever since the twelfth century, 10 
 on an estate of no great value, near Market-Dray ton, in Shrop- 
 shire. In the reign of George the First this moderate but 
 ancient inheritance was possessed by Mr. Richard Clive, who 
 seems to have been a plain man of no great tact or capacity. 
 He had been bred to the law, and divided his time between 15 
 professional business and the avocations of a small proprietor. 
 He married a lady from Manchester, of the name of Gaskill, 
 and became the father of a very numerous family. His eldest 
 son, Robert, the founder of the British empire, in India, was 
 born at the old seat of his ancestors on the twenty-ninth of 20 
 September, 1725. 
 
 Some lineaments of the character of the man were early 
 discerned in the child. There remain letters written by his 
 relations when he was in his seventh year; and from these 
 letters it appears that even at that early age his strong will 25 
 and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity 
 which sometimes seemed hardly compatible with soundness 
 of mind, had begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. 
 "Fighting," says one of his uncles, "to which he is out of 
 measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and impe- 30 
 riousness, that he flies out on every trifling occasion." The 
 old people of the neighborhood still remember to have heard 
 from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the 
 lofty steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror the 
 
4 LORD CLIVE 
 
 inhabitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. 
 They also relate how he formed all the idle lads of the town 
 into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the shopkeepers 
 to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consideration 
 5 of which he guaranteed the security of their windows. He was 
 sent from school to school, making very little progress in his 
 learning, and gaining for himself everywhere the character of 
 an exceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, 
 was sagacious enough to prophesy that the idle lad would make 
 
 10 a great figure in the world. But the general opinion seems to 
 have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. 
 His family expected nothing good from such slender parts and 
 such a headstrong temper. It is not strange, therefore, that 
 they gladly accepted for him, when he was in his eighteenth 
 
 15 year, a writership in the service of the East India Company, 
 and shipped him off to make a fortune or to die of a fever 
 at Madras. 
 
 Far different were the prospects of Clive from those of the 
 youths whom the East India College now annually sends to the 
 
 20 Presidencies of our Asiatic empire. The Company was then 
 purely a trading corporation. Its territory consisted of a few 
 square miles, for which rent was paid to the native governments. 
 Its troops were scarcely numerous enough to man the batteries 
 of three or four ill-constructed forts, which had been erected 
 
 25 for the protection of the warehouses. The natives, who com- 
 posed a considerable part of these little garrisons, had not yet 
 been trained in the discipline of Europe, and were armed, some 
 with swords and shields, some with bows and arrows. The 
 business of the servant of the Company was not, as now, to 
 
 30 conduct the judicial, financial, and diplomatic business of a 
 great country, but to take stock, to make advances to weavers, 
 to ship cargoes, and, above all, to keep an eye on private traders 
 who dared to infringe the monopoly. The younger clerks were 
 so miserably paid that they could scarcely subsist without 
 
LORD CLIVE 5 
 
 incurring debt; the elder enriched themselves by trading on 
 their own account, and those who lived to rise to the top of 
 the service often accumulated considerable fortunes. 
 
 Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, was, at this 
 time, perhaps, the first in importance of the Company's settle- 5 
 ments. In the preceding century Fort St. George had arisen 
 on a barren spot beaten by a raging surf ; and in the neighbor- 
 hood a town, inhabited by many thousands of natives, had 
 sprung up, as towns spring up in the East, with the rapidity of 
 the prophet's gourd. There were already in the suburbs many 10 
 white villas, each surrounded by its garden, whither the wealthy 
 agents of the Company retired, after the labors of the desk and 
 the warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze which springs up at 
 sunset from the Bay of Bengal. The habits of these mercantile 
 grandees appear to have been more profuse, luxurious, and 15 
 ostentatious than those of the high judicial and political func- 
 tionaries who have succeeded them. But comfort was far less 
 understood. Many devices which now mitigate the heat of the 
 climate, preserve health, and prolong life were unknown. There 
 was far less intercourse with Europe than at present. The 20 
 voyage by the Cape, which in our time has often been per- 
 formed within three months, was then very seldom accom-- 
 plished in six, and was sometimes protracted to more than a 
 year. Consequently the Anglo-Indian was then much more 
 estranged from his country, much more addicted to Oriental 25 
 usages, and much less fitted to mix in society after his return 
 to Europe than the Anglo-Indian of the present day. 
 
 Within the fort and its precincts the English governors exer- 
 cised, by permission of the native rulers, an extensive authority, 
 such as every great Indian landowner exercised within his own 30 
 domain. But they had never dreamed of claiming independent 
 power. The surrounding country was governed by the Nabob 
 of the Carnatic, a deputy of the Viceroy of the Deccan, com- 
 monly called the Nizam, who was himself only a deputy of the 
 
6 LORD CLIVF, 
 
 mighty prince designated by our ancestors as the Great Mogul. 
 Those names, once so august and formidable, still remain. 
 There is still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a pension 
 allowed to him by the English out of the revenues of the prov- 
 5 ince which his ancestors ruled. There is still a Nizam, whose 
 capital is overawed by a British cantonment, and to whom a 
 British resident gives, under the name of advice, commands 
 which are not to be disputed. There is still a Mogul, who is 
 permitted to play at holding courts and receiving petitions, but 
 
 10 who has less power to help or hurt than the youngest civil 
 servant of the Company. 
 
 Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even for that age. The 
 ship remained some months at the Brazils, where the young 
 adventurer picked up some knowledge of Portuguese and spent 
 
 15 all his pocket money. He did not arrive in India till more than 
 a year after he had left England. His situation at Madras was 
 most painful. His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. 
 He had contracted debts. He was wretchedly lodged, no small 
 calamity in a climate which can be made tolerable to a European 
 
 20 only by spacious and well-placed apartments. He had been fur- 
 nished with letters of recommendation to a gentleman who might 
 have assisted him ; but when he landed at Fort St. George he 
 found that this gentleman had sailed for England. The lad's 
 shy and haughty disposition withheld him from introducing him- 
 
 25 self to strangers. He was several months in India before he 
 became acquainted with a single family. The- climate affected 
 his health and spirits. His duties were of a kind ill suited to 
 his ardent and daring character. He pined for his home, and 
 in his letters to his relations expressed his feelings in language 
 
 30 softer and more pensive than we should have expected either 
 from the waywardness of his boyhood or from the inflexible 
 sternness of his later years. " I have not enjoyed," says he, 
 "one happy day since I left my native country"; and again, 
 " I must confess, at intervals, when I think of my dear native 
 
LORD CLIVE 7 
 
 England, it affects me in a very particular manner. ... If I 
 should be so far blest as to revisit again my own country, but 
 more especially Manchester, the center of all my wishes, all 
 that I could hope or desire for would be presented before me 
 in one view." 5 
 
 One solace he found of the most respectable kind. The Gov- 
 ernor possessed a good library, and permitted Clive to have 
 access to it. The young man devoted much of his leisure to 
 reading, and acquired at this time almost all the knowledge of 
 books that he ever possessed. As a boy he had been too idle, 10 
 as a man he soon became too busy, for literary pursuits. 
 
 But neither climate nor poverty, neither study nor the sor- 
 rows of a homesick exile, could tame the desperate audacity of 
 his spirit. He behaved to his official superiors as he had behaved 
 to his schoolmasters, and was several times in danger of losing 1 5 
 his situation. Twice, while residing in the Writers' Buildings, 
 he attempted to destroy himself ; and twice the -pistol which he 
 snapped at his own head failed to go off. This circumstance, 
 it is said, affected him as a similar escape affected Wallenstein. 
 After satisfying himself that the pistol was really well loaded, 20 
 he burst forth into an exclamation that surely he was reserved 
 for something great. 
 
 About this time an event which at first seemed likely to de- 
 stroy all his hopes in life suddenly opened before him a new 
 path to eminence. Europe had been, during some years, dis- 25 
 tracted by the war of the Austrian succession. George the 
 Second was the steady ally of Maria Theresa. The house of 
 Bourbon took the opposite side. Though England was even 
 then the first of maritime powers, she was not, as she has since 
 become, more than a match on the sea for all the nations of the 30 
 world together ; and she found it difficult to maintain a contest 
 against the united navies of France and Spain. In the eastern 
 seas France obtained the ascendancy. Labourdonnais, governor 
 of Mauritius, a man of eminent talents and virtues, conducted 
 
8 LORD CLIVE 
 
 an expedition to the continent of India in spite of the opposition 
 of the British fleet, landed, assembled an army, appeared before 
 Madras, and compelled the town and fort to capitulate. The 
 keys were delivered up ; the French colors were displayed on 
 5 Fort St. George ; and the contents of the Company's ware- 
 houses were seized as prize of war by the conquerors. It was 
 stipulated by the capitulation that the English inhabitants should 
 be prisoners of war on parole, and that the town should remain 
 in the hands of the French till it should be ransomed. Labour- 
 
 10 donnais pledged his honor that only a moderate ransom should 
 be required. 
 
 But the success of Labourdonnais had awakened the jealousy 
 of his countryman, Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. Dupleix, 
 moreover, had already begun to revolve gigantic schemes, with 
 
 1 5 which the restoration of Madras to the English was by no means 
 compatible. He declared that Labourdonnais had gone beyond 
 his powers; that conquests made by the French arms on the 
 continent of India were at the disposal of the governor of Pondi- 
 cherry alone ; and that Madras should be razed to the ground. 
 
 20 Labourdonnais was compelled to yield. The anger which the 
 breach of the capitulation excited among the English was in- 
 creased by the ungenerous manner in which Dupleix treated 
 the principal servants of the Company. The Governor and sev- 
 eral of the first gentlemen of Fort St. George were carried 
 
 2 5 under a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted through the town 
 in a triumphal procession under the eyes of fifty thousand spec- 
 tators. It was with reason thought that this gross violation of 
 public faith absolved the inhabitants of Madras from the engage- 
 ments into which they had entered with Labourdonnais. Clive 
 
 30 fled from the town by night in the disguise of a Mussulman, 
 and took refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English 
 settlements subordinate to Madras. 
 
 The circumstances in which he was now placed naturally 
 led him to adopt a profession better suited to his restless and 
 
LORD CLIVE 9 
 
 intrepid spirit than the business of examining packages and cast- 
 ing accounts. He solicited and obtained an ensign's commission 
 in the service of the Company, and at twenty-one entered on his 
 military career. His personal courage, of which he had, while 
 still a writer, given signal proof by a desperate duel with a 5 
 military bully who was the terror of Fort St. David, speedily 
 made him conspicuous even among hundreds of brave men. He 
 soon began to show in his new calling other qualities which had 
 not before been discerned in him : judgment, sagacity, deference 
 to legitimate authority. He distinguished himself highly in 10 
 several operations against the French, and was particularly 
 noticed by Major Lawrence, who was then considered as the 
 ablest British officer in India. 
 
 Clive had been only a few months in the army when intelli- 
 gence arrived that peace had been concluded between Great 15 
 Britain and France. Dupleix was in consequence compelled to 
 restore Madras to the English Company, and the young ensign 
 was at liberty to resume his former business. He did indeed 
 return for a short time to his desk. He again quitted it in order 
 to assist Major Lawrence in some petty hostilities with the na- 20 
 tives, and then again returned to it. (While he was thus wavering 
 between a military and a commercial life, events took place which ^. 
 decided his choice. ./ The politics of India assumed a new aspect. 
 There was peace between the English and French Crowns, but 
 there arose between the English and French Companies trading 25 
 to the East a war most eventful and important, a war in which 
 the prize was nothing less than the magnificent inheritance of 
 the house of Tamerlane. 
 
 The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the six- 
 teenth century was long one of the most extensive and splendid 30 
 in the world. In no European kingdom was so large a popula- 
 tion subject to a single prince, or so large a revenue poured into 
 the treasury. The beauty and magnificence of the buildings 
 erected by the sovereigns of Hindostan amazed even travelers 
 
IO LORD CLIVE 
 
 who had seen St. Peter's. The innumerable retinues and gor- 
 geous decorations which surrounded the throne of Delhi dazzled 
 even eyes which were accustomed to the pomp of Versailles. 
 Some of the great viceroys who held their posts by virtue of 
 5 commissions from the Mogul ruled as many subjects as the 
 King of France or the Emperor of Germany. Even the deputies 
 of these deputies might well rank, as to extent of territory and 
 amount of revenue, with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, or the 
 Elector of Saxony. 
 
 io There can be little doubt that this great empire, powerful and 
 prosperous as it appears on a superficial view, was yet, even in 
 its best days, far worse governed than the worst governed parts 
 of Europe now are. The administration was tainted with all the 
 vices of Oriental despotism and with all the vices inseparable 
 
 15 from the domination of race over race. The conflicting pre- 
 tensions of the princes of the royal house produced a long 
 series of crimes and public disasters. Ambitious lieutenants of 
 the sovereign sometimes aspired to independence. Fierce tribes 
 of Hindoos, impatient of a foreign yoke, frequently withheld 
 
 20 tribute, repelled the armies of the government from the moun- 
 tain fastnesses, and poured down in arms on the cultivated 
 plains. In spite, however, of much constant maladministration, 
 in spite of occasional convulsions which shook the whole frame 
 of society, this great monarchy, on the whole, retained, during 
 
 25 some generations, an outward appearance of unity, majesty, and 
 energy. But throughout the long reign of Aurungzebe, the 
 state, notwithstanding all that the vigor and policy of the prince 
 could effect, was hastening to dissolution. After his death, which 
 took place in the year 1707, the ruin was fearfully rapid. 
 
 30 Violent shocks from without cooperated with an incurable 
 decay which was fast proceeding within, and in a few years the 
 empire had undergone utter decomposition. 
 
 The history of the successors of Theodosius bears no small 
 analogy to that of the successors of Aurungzebe. But perhaps 
 
LORD CLIVE II 
 
 the fall of the Carlovingians furnishes the nearest parallel to the 
 fall of the Moguls. Charlemagne was scarcely interred when 
 the imbecility and the disputes of his descendants began to 
 bring contempt on themselves and destruction on their subjects. 
 The wide dominion of the Franks was severed into a thousand 5 
 pieces. Nothing more than a nominal dignity was left to the 
 abject heirs of an illustrious name, Charles the Bald, and Charles 
 the Fat, and Charles the Simple. Fierce invaders, differing from 
 each other in race, language, and religion, flocked, as if by con- 
 cert, from the farthest corners of the earth, to plunder provinces 10 
 which the government could no longer defend. The pirates of 
 the Northern Sea extended their ravages from the Elbe to the 
 Pyrenees, and at length fixed their seat in the rich valley of the 
 Seine. The Hungarian, in whom the trembling monks fancied 
 that they recognized the Gog or Magog of prophecy, carried 15 
 back the plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depths of the 
 Pannonian forests. The Saracen ruled in Sicily, desolated the 
 fertile plains of Campania, and spread terror even to the walls 
 of Rome. In the midst of these sufferings, a great internal 
 change passed upon the empire. The corruption of death began 20 
 to ferment into new forms of life. While the great body, as a 
 whole, was torpid and passive, every separate member began to 
 feel with a sense and to move with an energy all its own. Just 
 here, in the most barren and dreary tract of European history, 
 all feudal privileges, all modern nobility, take their source. It 25 
 is to this point that we trace the power of those princes who, 
 nominally vassals but really independent, long governed, with 
 the titles of dukes, marquises, and counts, almost every part of 
 the dominions which had obeyed Charlemagne. 
 
 Such or nearly such was the change which passed on the 30 
 Mogul empire during the forty years which followed the death 
 of Aurungzebe. A succession of nominal sovereigns, sunk in 
 indolence and debauchery, sauntered away life in secluded 
 palaces, chewing bhang, fondling concubines, and listening to 
 
12 LORD CLIVE 
 
 buffoons. A succession of ferocious invaders descended through 
 the western passes, to prey on the defenseless wealth of Hindo- 
 stan. A Persian conqueror crossed the Indus, marched through 
 the gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those treasures of 
 5 which the magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier, the 
 Peacock Throne, on which the richest jewels of Golcondahad 
 been disposed by the most skillful hands of Europe, and the in- 
 estimable Mountain of Light, which, after many strange vicissi- 
 tudes, lately shone in the bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now 
 
 10 destined to adorn the hideous idol of Orissa. The Afghan soon 
 followed to complete the work of devastation which the Persian 
 had begun. The warlike tribes of Rajpootana threw off the 
 Mussulman yoke. A band of mercenary soldiers occupied Rohil- 
 cund. The Seiks ruled on the Indus. The Jauts spread dismay 
 
 15 along the Jumna. The highlands which border on the western 
 seacoast of India poured forth a yet more formidable race, a 
 race which was long the terror of every native power, and which, 
 after many desperate and doubtful struggles, yielded only to the 
 fortune and genius of England. It was under the reign of 
 
 20 Aurungzebe that this wild clan of plunderers first descended 
 from their mountains ; and soon after his death every corner 
 of his wide empire learned to tremble at the mighty name of 
 the Mahrattas. Many fertile viceroyalties were entirely subdued 
 by them. Their dominions stretched across the peninsula from 
 
 25 sea to sea. Mahratta captains reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in 
 Guzerat, in Berar, and in Tanjore. Nor did they, though they 
 had become great sovereigns, therefore cease to be freebooters. 
 They still retained the predatory habits of their forefathers. 
 Every region which was not subject to their rule was wasted by 
 
 30 their incursions. Wherever their kettledrums were heard, the peas- 
 ant threw his bag of rice on his shoulder, hid his small savings in 
 his girdle, and fled with his wife and- children to the mountains 
 or the jungles, to the milder neighborhood of the hyena and the 
 tiger. Many provinces redeemed their harvests by the payment 
 
LORD CLIVE 13 
 
 of an annual ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still 
 bore the imperial title stooped to pay this ignominious black- 
 mail. The camp fires of one rapacious leader were seen from 
 the walls of the palace of Delhi. Another, at the head of his 
 innumerable cavalry, descended year after year on the rice fields 5 
 of Bengal. Even the European factors trembled for their maga- 
 zines. Less than a hundred years ago it was thought necessary 
 to fortify Calcutta against the horsemen of Berar ; and the name 
 of the Mahratta ditch still preserves the memory of the danger. 
 
 Wherever the viceroys of the Mogul retained authority, they 10 
 became sovereigns. They might still acknowledge in words the 
 superiority of the house of Tamerlane ; as a Count of Flanders 
 or a Duke of Burgundy might have acknowledged the superiority 
 of the most helpless driveler among the later Carlovingians. 
 They might occasionally send to their titular sovereign a com- 1 5 
 plimentary present, or solicit from him a title of honor. In 
 truth, however, they were no longer lieutenants removable at 
 pleasure, but independent hereditary princes. In this way origi- 
 nated those great Mussulman houses which formerly ruled 
 Bengal and the Carnatic, and those which still, though in a state 20 
 of vassalage, exercise some of the powers of royalty at Lucknow 
 and Hyderabad. 
 
 In what was this confusion to end? Was the strife to con- 
 tinue during centuries? Was it to terminate in the rise of 
 another great monarchy ? Was the Mussulman or the Mahratta 25 
 to be the Lord of India ? Was another Baber to descend from 
 the mountains, and to lead the hardy tribes of Cabul and Cho- 
 rasan against a wealthier and less warlike race ? None of these 
 events seemed improbable. But scarcely any man, however 
 sagacious, would have thought it possible that a trading company, 30 
 separated from India by fifteen thousand miles of sea, and 
 possessing in India only a few acres for purposes of commerce, 
 would, in less than a hundred years, spread its empire from 
 Cape Comorin to the eternal snow of the Himalayas ; would 
 
14 LORD CLIVE 
 
 compel Mahratta and Mohammedan to forget their mutual feuds 
 in common subjection ; would tame down even those wild races 
 which had resisted the most powerful of the Moguls ; and, hav- 
 ing united under its laws a hundred millions of subjects, would 
 5 carry its victorious arms far to the east of the Burrampooter, 
 and far to the west of the Hydaspes, dictate terms of peace at 
 the gates of Ava, and seat its vassal on the throne of Candahar. 
 The man who first saw that it was possible to found a European 
 empire on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy was Dupleix. His 
 
 io restless, capacious, and inventive mind had formed this scheme, 
 at a time when the ablest servants of the English Company were 
 busied only about invoices and bills of lading. Nor had he only 
 proposed to himself the end. He had also a just and distinct 
 view of the means by which it was to be attained. He clearly 
 
 15 saw that the greatest force which the princes of India could 
 bring into the field would be no match for a small body of men 
 trained in the discipline, and guided by the tactics, of the West. 
 He saw also that the natives of India might, under European 
 commanders, be formed into armies such as Saxe or Frederic 
 
 20 would be proud to command. He was perfectly aware that the 
 most easy and convenient way in which a European adventurer 
 could exercise sovereignty in India was to govern the motions, 
 and to speak through the mouth, of some glittering puppet 
 dignified by the title of Nabob or Nizam. The arts both of war 
 
 25 and policy, which a few years later were employed with such 
 signal success by the English, were first understood and prac- 
 ticed by this ingenious and aspiring Frenchman. 
 
 The situation of India was such that scarcely any aggression 
 could be without a pretext, either in old laws or in recent prac- 
 
 30 tice. All rights were in a state of utter uncertainty ; and the 
 Europeans who took part in the disputes of the natives con- 
 founded the confusion by applying to Asiatic politics the public 
 law of the West and analogies drawn from the feudal system. 
 If it was convenient to treat a Nabob as an independent prince, 
 
LORD CLIVE 15 
 
 there was an excellent plea for doing so. He was independent 
 in fact. If it was convenient to treat him as a mere deputy of 
 the Court of Delhi, there was no difficulty ; for he was so in 
 theory. If it was convenient to consider his office as a heredi- 
 tary dignity, or as a dignity held during life only, or as a dignity 5 
 held only during the good pleasure of the Mogul, arguments 
 and precedents might be found for every one of those views. 
 The party who had the heir of Baber in their hands represented 
 him as the undoubted, the legitimate, the absolute sovereign, 
 whom all subordinate authorities were bound to obey. The 10 
 party against whom his name was used did not want plausible 
 pretexts for maintaining that the empire was de facto dissolved, 
 and that, though it might be decent to treat the Mogul with 
 respect, as a venerable relic of an order of things which had 
 passed away, it was absurd to regard him as the real master of 15 
 Hindostan. 
 
 In the year 1748 died one of the most powerful of the new 
 masters of India, the great Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy of the 
 Deccan. His authority descended to his son, Nazir Jung. Of 
 the provinces subject to this high functionary, the Carnatic was 20 
 the wealthiest and the most extensive. It was governed by an 
 ancient Nabob, whose name the English corrupted into Ana- 
 verdy Khan. 
 
 But there were pretenders to the Government both of the 
 viceroy alty and of the subordinate province. Mirzapha Jung, 25 
 a grandson of Nizam al Mulk, appeared as the competitor of 
 Nazir Jung. Chunda Sahib, son-in-law of a former Nabob of 
 the Carnatic, disputed the title of Anaverdy Khan. In the 
 unsettled state of Indian law it was easy for both Mirzapha 
 Jung and Chunda Sahib to make out something like a claim of 30 
 right. In a society altogether disorganized they had no diffi- 
 culty in finding greedy adventurers to follow their standards. 
 They united their interests, invaded the Carnatic, and applied 
 for assistance to the French, whose fame had been raised by 
 
1 6 LORD CLIVE 
 
 their success against the English in the recent war on the coast 
 of Coromandel. 
 
 Nothing could have happened more pleasing to the subtle 
 and ambitious Dupleix. To make a Nabob of the Carnatic, to 
 5 make a Viceroy of the Deccan, to rule under their names the 
 whole of southern India : this was indeed an attractive prospect. 
 He allied himself with the pretenders, and sent four hundred 
 French soldiers, and two thousand sepoys, disciplined after the 
 European fashion, to the assistance of his confederates. A 
 
 10 battle was fought. The French distinguished themselves greatly. 
 Anaverdy Khan was defeated and slain. His son Mohammed 
 Ali, who was afterwards well known in England as the Nabob 
 of Arcot, and who owes to the eloquence of Burke a most 
 unenviable immortality, fled with a scanty remnant of his army 
 
 15 to Trichinopoly ; and the conquerors became at once masters 
 of almost every part of the Carnatic. 
 
 This was but the beginning of the greatness of Dupleix. 
 After some months of fighting, negotiation, and intrigue, his 
 ability and good fortune seemed to have prevailed everywhere. 
 
 20 Nazir Jung perished by the hands of his own followers ; Mir- 
 zapha Jung was master of the Deccan ; and the triumph of 
 French arms and French policy was complete. At Pondicherry 
 all was exultation and festivity. Salutes were fired from the 
 batteries, and Te Deum sung in the churches. The new Nizam 
 
 25 came thither to visit his allies ; and the ceremony of his installa- 
 tion was performed there with great pomp. Dupleix, dressed 
 in the garb worn by Mohammedans of the highest rank, entered 
 the town in the same palanquin with the Nizam, and, in the 
 pageant which followed, took precedence of all the court. He 
 
 30 was declared Governor of India from the river Kristna to Cape 
 Comorin, a country about as large as France, with authority 
 superior even to that of Chunda Sahib. He was intrusted with 
 the command of seven thousand cavalry. It was announced 
 that no mint would be suffered to exist in the Carnatic except 
 
LORD CLIVE 17 
 
 that at Pondicherry. A large portion of the treasures which 
 former Viceroys of the Deccan had accumulated found its way 
 into the coffers of the French governor. It was rumored that 
 he had received two hundred thousand pounds sterling in money, 
 besides many valuable jewels. In fact, there could scarcely be 5 
 any limit to his gains. He now ruled thirty millions of people 
 with almost absolute power. No honor or emolument could be 
 obtained from the government but by his intervention. No 
 petition unless signed by him was perused by the Nizam. 
 
 Mirzapha Jung survived his elevation only a few months. 10 
 But another prince of the same house was raised to the throne 
 by French influence, and ratified all the promises of his prede- 
 cessor. Dupleix was now the greatest potentate in India. His 
 countrymen boasted that his name was mentioned with awe 
 even in the chambers of the palace of Delhi. The native popu- 15 
 lation looked with amazement on the progress which, in the 
 short space of four years, a European adventurer had made 
 towards dominion in Asia. Nor was the vainglorious French- 
 man content with the reality of power. He loved to display his 
 greatness with arrogant ostentation before the eyes of his sub- 20 
 jects and of his rivals. Near the spot where his policy had 
 obtained its chief triumph, by the fall of Nazir Jung and the 
 elevation of Mirzapha, he determined to erect a column, on the 
 four sides of which four pompous inscriptions, in four languages, 
 should proclaim his glory to all the nations of the East. Medals 25 
 stamped with emblems of his successes were buried beneath 
 the foundations of this stately pillar, and round it arose a town 
 bearing the haughty name of Dupleix Fatihabad, which is, being 
 interpreted, the City of the Victory of Dupleix. 
 
 The English had made some feeble and irresolute attempts 30 
 to stop the rapid and brilliant career of the rival Company, and 
 continued to recognize Mohammed Ali as Nabob of the Car- 
 natic. But the dominions of Mohammed Ali consisted of Trich- 
 inopoly alone ; and Trichinopoly was now invested by Chunda 
 
1 8 LORD CLIVE 
 
 Sahib and his French auxiliaries. To raise the siege seemed 
 impossible. The small force which was then at Madras had no 
 commander. Major Lawrence had returned to England, and 
 not a single officer of established character remained in the 
 5 settlement. The natives had learned to look with contempt on 
 the mighty nation which was soon to conquer and to rule them. 
 They had seen the French colors flying on Fort St. George ; 
 they had seen the chiefs of the English factory led in triumph 
 through the streets of Pondicherry ; they had seen the arms 
 
 10 and counsels of Dupleix everywhere successful, while the oppo- 
 sition which the authorities of Madras had made to his progress 
 had served only to expose their own weakness and to heighten 
 his glory. At this moment the valor and genius of an obscure 
 English youth suddenly turned the tide of fortune. 
 
 15 Clive was now twenty-five years old. After hesitating for 
 some time between a military and a commercial life, he had at 
 length been placed in a post which partook of both characters, 
 that of commissary to the troops, with the rank of captain. The 
 present emergency called forth all his powers. He represented 
 
 20 to his superiors that unless some vigorous efforts were made, 
 Trichinopoly would fall, the house of Anaverdy Khan would 
 perish, and the French would become the real masters of the 
 whole peninsula of India. It was absolutely necessary to strike 
 some daring blow. If an attack were made on Arcot, the capital 
 
 25 of the Carnatic, and the favorite residence of the Nabobs, it 
 was not impossible that the siege of Trichinopoly would be 
 raised. The heads of the English settlement, now thoroughly 
 alarmed by the success of Dupleix, and apprehensive that, in 
 the event of a new war between France and Great Britain, 
 
 30 Madras would be instantly taken and destroyed, approved of 
 Clive's plan, and intrusted the execution of it to himself. The 
 young captain was put at the head of two hundred English 
 soldiers, and three hundred sepoys armed and disciplined after 
 the European fashion. Of the eight officers who commanded 
 
LORD OLIVE 19 
 
 this little force under him, only two had ever been in action, 
 and four of the eight were factors of the Company, whom Clive's 
 example had induced to offer their services. The weather was 
 stormy; but Clive pushed on, through thunder, lightning, and 
 rain, to the gates of Arcot. The garrison, in a panic, evacuated 5 
 the fort, and the English entered it without a blow. 
 
 But Clive well knew that he should not be suffered to retain 
 undisturbed possession of his conquest. He instantly began to 
 collect provisions, to throw up works, and to make preparations 
 for sustaining a siege. The garrison, which had fled at his 10 
 approach, had now recovered from its dismay, and, having been 
 swollen by large reinforcements from the neighborhood to a 
 force of three thousand men, encamped close to the town. At 
 dead of night Clive marched out of the fort, attacked the camp 
 by surprise, slew great numbers, dispersed the rest, and returned 1 5 
 to his quarters without having lost a single man. 
 
 The intelligence of these events was soon carried to Chunda 
 Sahib, who, with his French allies, was besieging Trichinopoly. 
 He immediately detached four thousand men from his camp, 
 and sent them to Arcot. They were speedily joined by the 20 
 remains of the force which Clive had lately scattered. They 
 were further strengthened by two thousand men from Vellore, 
 and by a still more important reinforcement of a hundred and 
 fifty French soldiers whom Dupleix dispatched from Pondi- 
 cherry. The whole of this army, amounting to about ten thou- 25 
 sand men, was under the command of Rajah Sahib, son of 
 Chunda Sahib. 
 
 Rajah Sahib proceeded to invest the fort of Arcot, which 
 seemed quite incapable of sustaining a siege. The walls were 
 ruinous, the ditches dry, the ramparts too narrow to admit the 30 
 guns, the battlements too low to protect the soldiers. The little 
 garrison had been greatly reduced by casualties. It now con- 
 sisted of a hundred and twenty Europeans and two hundred 
 sepoys. Only four officers were left; the stock of provisions 
 
20 LORD CLIVE 
 
 was scanty; and the commander, who had to conduct the 
 defense under circumstances so discouraging, was a young 
 man of five-and-twenty, who had been bred a bookkeeper. 
 During fifty days the siege went on. During fifty days the 
 5 young captain maintained the defense, with a firmness, vigilance, 
 and ability which would have done honor to the oldest marshal 
 in Europe. The breach, however, increased day by day. The 
 garrison began to feel the pressure of hunger. Under such 
 circumstances any troops so scantily provided with officers 
 
 10 might have been expected to show signs of insubordination ; 
 and the danger was peculiarly great in a force composed of 
 men differing widely from each other in extraction, color, lan- 
 guage, manners, and religion. But the devotion of the little 
 band to its chief surpassed anything that is related of the 
 
 15 Tenth Legion of Caesar or of the Old Guard of Napoleon. 
 The sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, 
 but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Euro- 
 peans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. 
 The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, 
 
 20 would suffice for themselves. History contains no more touch- 
 ing instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a com- 
 manding mind. 
 
 An attempt made by the Government of Madras to relieve 
 the place had failed. But there was hope from another quarter. 
 
 25 A body of six thousand Mahrattas, half soldiers, half robbers, 
 under the command of a chief named Morari Row, had been 
 hired to assist Mohammed Ali ; but thinking the French power 
 irresistible, and the triumph of Chunda Sahib certain, they had 
 hitherto remained inactive on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The 
 
 30 fame of the defense of Arcot roused them from their torpor. 
 Morari Row declared that he had never before believed that 
 Englishmen could fight, but that he would willingly help them 
 since he saw that they had spirit to help themselves. Rajah 
 Sahib learned that the Mahrattas were in motion. It was 
 
LORD CLIVE 21 
 
 necessary for him to be expeditious. He first tried negotiation. 
 He offered large bribes to Clive, which were rejected with scorn. 
 He vowed that if his proposals were not accepted, he would 
 instantly storm the fort and put every man in it to the sword. 
 Clive told him in reply, with characteristic haughtiness, that his 5 
 father was a usurper, that his army was a rabble, and that he 
 would do well to think twice before he sent such poltroons into 
 a breach defended by English soldiers. 
 
 Rajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. The day was well 
 suited to a bold military enterprise. It was the great Moham- 10 
 medan festival which is sacred to the memory of Hosein, the 
 son of Ali. The history of Islam contains nothing more touch- 
 ing than the event which gave rise to that solemnity. The 
 mournful legend relates how the chief of the Fatimites, when 
 all his brave followers had perished round him, drank his latest 15 
 draft of water, and uttered his latest prayer, how the assas- 
 sins carried his head in triumph, how the tyrant smote the life- 
 less lips with his staff, and how a few old men recollected with 
 tears that they had seen those lips pressed to the lips of the 
 Prophet of God. After the lapse of near twelve centuries the 20 
 recurrence of this solemn season excites the fiercest and saddest 
 emotions in the bosoms of the devout Moslems of India. They 
 work themselves up to such agonies of rage and lamentation 
 that some, it is said, have given up the ghost from the mere 
 effect of mental excitement. They believe that whoever, during 25 
 this festival, falls in arms against the infidels, atones by his death 
 for all the sins of his life, and passes at once to the garden of 
 the Houris. It was at this time that Rajah Sahib determined 
 to assault Arcot. Stimulating drugs were employed to aid the 
 effect of religious zeal, and the besiegers, drunk with enthusiasm, 30 
 drunk with bhang, rushed furiously to the attack. 
 
 Clive had received secret intelligence of the design, had made 
 his arrangements, and, exhausted by fatigue, had thrown himself 
 on his bed. He was awakened by the alarm, and was instantly 
 
22 LORD CLIVE 
 
 at his post. The enemy advanced, driving before them elephants 
 whose foreheads were armed with iron plates. It was expected 
 that the gates would yield to the shock of these living battering- 
 rams. But the huge beasts no sooner felt the English musket- 
 5 balls than they turned round and rushed furiously away, tramp- 
 ling on the multitude which had urged them forward. A raft 
 was launched on the water which filled one part of the ditch. 
 Clive, perceiving that his gunners at that post did not under- 
 stand their business, took the management of a piece of artillery 
 
 10 himself, and cleared the raft in a few minutes. Where the moat 
 was dry, the assailants mounted with great boldness ; but they 
 were received with a fire so heavy and so well directed that it 
 soon quelled the courage even of fanaticism and of intoxication. 
 The rear ranks of the English kept the front ranks supplied 
 
 15 with a constant succession of loaded muskets, and every shot 
 told on the living mass below. After three desperate onsets, 
 the besiegers retired behind the ditch. 
 
 The struggle lasted about an hour. Four hundred of the 
 assailants fell. The garrison lost only five or six men. The 
 
 20 besieged passed an anxious night, looking for a renewal of the 
 attack. But when day broke, the enemy were no more to be 
 seen. They had retired, leaving to the English several guns 
 and a large quantity of ammunition. 
 
 The news was received at Fort St. George with transports 
 
 25 of joy and pride. Clive was justly regarded as a man equal to 
 any command. Two hundred English soldiers and seven hun- 
 dred sepoys were sent to him, and with this force he instantly 
 commenced offensive operations. He took the fort of Timery, 
 effected a junction with a division of Morari Row's army, and 
 
 30 hastened by forced marches to attack Rajah Sahib, who was at 
 the head of about five thousand men, of whom three hundred 
 were French. The action was sharp, but Clive gained a com- 
 plete victory. The military chest of Rajah Sahib fell into the 
 hands of the conquerors. Six hundred sepoys who had served: 
 
LORD CLIVE 23 
 
 in the enemy's army came over to Clive's quarters and were 
 taken into the British service. Conjeveram surrendered without 
 a blow. The governor of Arnee deserted Chunda Sahib and 
 recognized the title of Mohammed Ali. 
 
 Had the entire direction of the war been intrusted to Clive, 5 
 it would probably have been brought to a speedy close. But 
 the timidity and incapacity which appeared in all the movements 
 of the English, except where he was personally present, pro- 
 tracted the struggle. The Mahrattas muttered that his soldiers 
 were of a different race from the British whom they found else- 10 
 where. The effect of this languor was that in no long time 
 Rajah Sahib, at the head of a considerable army, in which were 
 four hundred French troops, appeared almost under the guns 
 of Fort St. George and laid waste the villas and gardens of the 
 gentlemen of the English settlement. But he was again encoun- 1 5 
 tered and defeated by Clive. More than a hundred of the French 
 were killed or taken, a loss more serious than that of thousands 
 of natives. The victorious army marched from the field of battle 
 to Fort St. David. On the road lay the City of the Victory of 
 Dupleix, and the stately monument which was designed to com- 20 
 memorate the triumphs of France in the East. Clive ordered 
 both the city and the monument to be razed to the ground. 
 He was induced, we believe, to take this step, not by personal 
 or national malevolence, but by a just and profound policy. 
 The town and its pompous name, the pillar and its vaunting 25 
 inscriptions, were among the devices by which Dupleix had laid 
 the public mind of India under a spell. This spell it was Clive's 
 business to break. The natives had been taught that France 
 was confessedly the first power in Europe, and that the English 
 did not presume to dispute her supremacy. No measure could 30 
 be more effectual for the removing of this delusion than the 
 public and solemn demolition of the French trophies. 
 
 The Government of Madras, encouraged by these events, 
 determined to send a strong detachment under Clive to 
 
24 LORD CLIVE 
 
 reenforce the garrison of Trichinopoly. But just at this conjunc- 
 ture Major Lawrence arrived from England and assumed the 
 chief command. From the waywardness and impatience of con- 
 trol which had characterized Clive, both at school and in the 
 5 countinghouse, it might have been expected that he would not, 
 after such achievements, act with zeal and good humor in a sub- 
 ordinate capacity. But Lawrence had early treated him with 
 kindness ; and it is bare justice to Clive to say that, proud and 
 overbearing as he was, kindness was never thrown away upon 
 
 10 him. He cheerfully placed himself under the orders of his old 
 friend and exerted himself as strenuously in the second post 
 as he could have done in the first. Lawrence well knew the 
 value of such assistance. Though himself gifted with no intel- 
 lectual faculty higher than plain good sense, he fully appreciated 
 
 15 the powers of his brilliant coadjutor. Though he had made a 
 methodical study of military tactics, and, like all men regularly 
 bred to a profession, was disposed to look with disdain on inter- 
 lopers, he had yet liberality enough to acknowledge that Clive 
 was an exception to common rules. " Some people," he wrote, 
 
 20 " are pleased to term Captain Clive fortunate and lucky ; but, 
 in my opinion, from the knowledge I have of the gentleman, 
 he deserved and might expect from his conduct everything as it 
 fell out ; a man of an undaunted resolution, of a cool temper, 
 and of a presence of mind which never left him in the greatest 
 
 25 danger, born a soldier ; for, without a military education of any 
 sort, or much conversing with any of the profession, from his 
 judgment and good sense he led on an army like an experienced 
 officer and a brave soldier, with a prudence that certainly war- 
 ranted success." 
 
 30 The French had no commander to oppose to the two friends. 
 Dupleix, not inferior in talents for negotiation and intrigue to 
 any European who has borne a part in the revolutions of India, 
 was not qualified to direct in person military operations. He 
 had not been bred a soldier, and had no inclination to become 
 
LORD CLIVE 25 
 
 one. His enemies accused him of personal cowardice ; and he 
 defended himself in a strain worthy of Captain Bobadil. He 
 kept away from shot, he said, because silence and tranquillity 
 were propitious to his genius, and he found it difficult to pursue 
 his meditations amidst the noise of firearms. He was thus 5 
 under the necessity of intrusting to others the execution of his 
 great warlike designs ; and he bitterly complained that he was 
 ill served. He had indeed been assisted by one officer of emi- 
 nent merit, the celebrated Bussy. But Bussy had marched north- 
 ward with the Nizam and was fully employed in looking after 10 
 his own interests and those of France at the court of that prince. 
 Among the officers who remained with Dupleix, there was not 
 a single man of capacity ; and many of them were boys, at 
 whose ignorance and folly the common soldiers laughed. 
 
 The English triumphed everywhere. The besiegers of Trich- 15 
 inopoly were themselves besieged and compelled to capitulate. 
 Chunda Sahib fell into the hands of the Mahrattas, and was put 
 to death, at the instigation probably of his competitor, Moham- 
 med Ali. The spirit of Dupleix, however, was unconquerable, 
 and his resources inexhaustible. From his employers in Europe 20 
 he no longer received help or countenance. They condemned 
 his policy. They gave him no pecuniary assistance. They sent 
 him for troops only the sweepings of the galleys. Yet still he 
 persisted, intrigued, bribed, promised, lavished his private for- 
 tune, strained his credit, procured new diplomas from Delhi, 25 
 raised up new enemies to the government of Madras on every 
 side, and found tools even among the allies of the English Com- 
 pany. But all was in vain. Slowly but steadily the power of 
 Britain continued to increase, and that of France to decline. 
 
 The health of Clive had never been good during his residence 30 
 in India ; and his constitution was now so much impaired that 
 he determined to return to England. Before his departure he 
 undertook a service of considerable difficulty and performed it 
 with his usual vigor and dexterity. The forts of Covelong and 
 
26 LORD CLIVE 
 
 Chingleput were occupied by French garrisons. It was deter- 
 mined to send a force against them. But the only force available 
 for this purpose was of such a description that no officer but 
 Clive would risk his reputation by commanding it. It consisted 
 5 of five hundred newly levied sepoys, and two hundred recruits 
 who had just landed from England, and who were the worst 
 and lowest wretches that the Company's crimps could pick up 
 in the flash houses of London. Clive, ill and exhausted as he 
 was, undertook to make an army of this undisciplined rabble, 
 
 10 and marched with them to Covelong. A shot from the fort 
 killed one of these extraordinary soldiers ; on which all the rest 
 faced about and ran away, and it was with the greatest difficulty 
 that Clive rallied them. On another occasion, the noise of a 
 gun terrified the sentinels so much that one of them was found, 
 
 15 some hours later, at the bottom of a well. Clive gradually accus- 
 tomed them to danger, and, by exposing himself constantly in 
 the most perilous situations, shamed them into courage. He 
 at length succeeded in forming a respectable force out of his 
 unpromising materials. Covelong fell. Clive learned that a 
 
 20 strong detachment was marching to relieve it from Chingleput. 
 He took measures to prevent the enemy from learning that they 
 were too late, laid an ambuscade for them on the road, killed a 
 hundred of them with one fire, took three hundred prisoners, 
 pursued the fugitives to the gates of Chingleput, laid siege 
 
 25 instantly to that fastness, reputed one of the strongest in India, 
 made a breach, and was on the point of storming when the 
 French commandant capitulated and retired with his men. 
 
 Clive returned to Madras victorious, but in a state of health 
 which rendered it impossible for him to remain there long. He 
 
 30 married at this time a young lady of the name of Maskelyne, 
 sister of the eminent mathematician who long held the post of 
 Astronomer Royal. She is described as handsome and accom- 
 plished ; and her husband's letters, it is said, contain proofs 
 that he was devotedly attached to her. 
 
LORD CLIVE 27 
 
 Almost immediately after the marriage Clive embarked with 
 his bride for England. He returned a very different person 
 from the poor slighted boy who had been sent out ten years 
 before to seek his fortune. He was only twenty-seven ; yet his 
 country already respected him as one of her first soldiers. There 5 
 was then general peace in Europe. The Carnatic was the only 
 part of the world where the English and French were in arms 
 against each other. The vast schemes of Dupleix had excited 
 no small uneasiness in the city of London ; and the rapid turn 
 of fortune, which was chiefly owing to the courage and talents 10 
 of Clive, had been hailed with great delight. The young captain 
 was known at the India House by the honorable nickname of 
 General Clive, and was toasted by that appellation at the feasts 
 of the Directors. On his arrival in England he found himself 
 an object of general interest and admiration. The East India 15 
 Company thanked him for his services in the warmest terms, 
 and bestowed on him a sword set with diamonds. With rare 
 delicacy, he refused to receive this token of gratitude unless 
 a similar compliment were paid to his friend and commander, 
 Lawrence. 20 
 
 It may easily be supposed that Clive was most cordially wel- 
 comed home by his family, who were delighted by his success, 
 though they seem to have been hardly able to comprehend how 
 their naughty idle Bobby had become so great a man. His 
 father had been singularly hard of belief. Not until the news 25 
 of the defense of Arcot arrived in England was the old gentle- 
 man heard to growl out that, after all, the booby had something 
 in him. His expressions of approbation became stronger and 
 stronger as news arrived of one brilliant exploit after another ; 
 and he was at length immoderately fond and proud of his son. 30 
 
 Clive's relations had very substantial reasons for rejoicing at 
 his return. Considerable sums of prize money had fallen to his 
 share ; and he had brought home a moderate fortune, part of 
 which he expended in extricating his father from pecuniary 
 
28 LORD CLIVE 
 
 difficulties and in redeeming the family estate. The remainder 
 he appears to have dissipated in the course of about two years. 
 He lived splendidly, dressed gayly even for those times, kept a 
 carriage and saddle horses, and, not content with these ways of 
 5 getting rid of his money, resorted to the most speedy and effec- 
 tual of all modes of evacuation, a contested election followed 
 by a petition. 
 
 At the time of the general election of 1754 the Government 
 was in a very singular state. There was scarcely any formal 
 
 10 opposition. The Jacobites had been cowed by the issue of the 
 last rebellion. The Tory party had fallen into utter contempt. 
 It had been deserted by all the men of talents who had belonged 
 to it, and had scarcely given a symptom of life during some 
 years. The small faction which had been held together by the 
 
 15 influence and promises of Prince Frederic had been dispersed 
 by his death. Almost every public man of distinguished talents 
 in the kingdom, whatever his early connections might have been, 
 was in office, and called himself a Whig. But this extraordinary 
 appearance of concord was quite delusive. The administration 
 
 20 itself was distracted by bitter enmities and conflicting preten- 
 sions. The chief object of its members was to depress and 
 supplant each other. The prime minister, Newcastle, weak, 
 timid, jealous, and perfidious, was at once detested and despised 
 by some of the most important members of his government, 
 
 25 and- by none more than by Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. 
 This able, daring, and ambitious man seized every opportunity 
 of crossing the First Lord of the Treasury, from whom he well 
 knew that he had little to dread and little to hope ; for New- 
 castle was through life equally afraid of breaking with men of 
 
 30 parts and of promoting them. 
 
 Newcastle had set his heart on returning two members for 
 St. Michael, one of those wretched Cornish boroughs which 
 were swept away by the Reform Act in 1832. He was opposed 
 by Lord Sandwich, whose influence had long been paramount 
 
LORD CLIVE 29 
 
 there; and Fox exerted himself strenuously in Sandwich's behalf. 
 Clive, who had been introduced to Fox and very 7 kindly received 
 by him, was brought forward on the Sandwich interest and was 
 returned. But a petition was presented against the return and 
 was backed by the whole influence of the Duke of Newcastle. 5 
 
 The case was heard, according to the usage of that time, 
 before a committee of the whole House. Questions respecting 
 elections were then considered merely as party questions. 
 Judicial impartiality was not even affected. Sir Robert Walpole 
 was in the habit of saying openly that in election battles there 10 
 ought to be no quarter. On the present occasion the excitement 
 was great. The matter really at issue was, not whether Clive 
 had been properly or improperly returned, but whether New- 
 castle or Fox was to be master of the new House of Commons, 
 and consequently first minister. The contest was long and 15 
 obstinate, and success seemed to lean sometimes to one side 
 and sometimes to the other. Fox put forth all his rare powers 
 of debate, beat half the lawyers in the House at their own 
 weapons, and carried division after division against the whole 
 influence of the Treasury. The committee decided in Give's 20 
 favor. But when the resolution was reported to the House, 
 things took a different course. The remnant of the Ton- 
 Opposition, contemptible as it was. had yet sufficient weight 
 to turn the scale between the nicely balanced parties of New- 
 castle and Fox. Newcastle the Tories could only despise. Fox 25 
 they hated, as the boldest and most subtle politician and the 
 ablest debater among the Whigs, as the steady friend of Walpole, 
 as the devoted adherent of the Duke of Cumberland. After 
 wavering till the last moment, they determined to vote in a 
 body with the Prime Minister's friends. The consequence was 30 
 that the House, by a small majority, rescinded the decision of 
 the committee, and Clive was unseated. 
 
 Ejected from Parliament and straitened in his means, he 
 naturally began to look again towards India. The Company 
 
30 LORD CLIVE 
 
 and the Government were eager to avail themselves, of his 
 services. A treaty favorable to England had indeed been con- 
 cluded in the Carnatic. Dupleix had been superseded and had 
 returned with the wreck of his immense fortune to Europe, 
 5 where calumny and chicanery soon hunted him to his grave. 
 But many signs indicated that a war between France and Great 
 Britain was at hand ; and it was therefore thought desirable to 
 send an able commander to the Company's settlements in India. 
 The Directors appointed Clive governor of Fort St. David. The 
 
 10 King gave him the commission of a lieutenant colonel in the 
 British army, and in 1755 he again sailed for Asia. 
 
 The first service on which he was employed after his return 
 to the East was the reduction of the stronghold of Gheriah. 
 This fortress, built on a craggy promontory, and almost sur- 
 
 15 rounded by the ocean, was the den of a pirate named Angria, 
 whose barks had long been the terror of the Arabian Gulf. 
 Admiral Watson, who commanded the English squadron in the 
 Eastern seas, burned Angria's fleet, while Clive attacked the 
 fastness by land. The place soon fell, and a booty of a hun- 
 
 20 dred and fifty thousand pounds sterling was divided among the 
 conquerors. 
 
 After this exploit Clive proceeded to his government of Fort 
 St. David. Before he had been there two months he received 
 intelligence which called forth all the energy of his bold and 
 
 25 active mind. 
 
 Of the provinces which had been subject to the house of 
 Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India pos- 
 sessed such natural advantages, both for agriculture and for 
 commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hundred channels 
 
 30 to the sea, has formed a vast plain of rich mold, which, even 
 under the tropical sky, rivals the verdure of an English April. 
 The rice fields yield an increase such as is elsewhere unknown. 
 Spices, sugar, vegetable oils, are produced with marvelous exu- 
 berance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible supply of fish. The 
 
LORD CLIVE 31 
 
 desolate islands along the seacoast, overgrown by noxious vege- 
 tation and swarming with deer and tigers, supply the cultivated 
 districts with abundance of salt. The great stream which ferti- 
 lizes the soil is, at the same time, the chief highway of Eastern 
 commerce. On its banks, and on those of its tributary waters, 5 
 are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capitals, and the 
 most sacred shrines of India. The tyranny of man had for 
 ages struggled in vain against the overflowing bounty of nature. 
 In spite of the Mussulman despot "and of the Mahratta free- 
 booter, Bengal was known through the East as the garden of 10 
 Eden, as the rich kingdom. Its population multiplied exceed- 
 ingly. Distant provinces were nourished from the overflowing 
 of its granaries ; and the noble ladies of London and Paris were 
 clothed in the delicate produce of its looms. The race by whom 
 this rich tract was peopled, enervated by a soft climate and 15 
 accustomed to peaceful avocations, bore the same relation to 
 other Asiatics which the Asiatics generally bear to the bold and 
 energetic children of Europe. The Castilians have a proverb 
 that in Valencia the earth is water and the men women ; and 
 the description is at least equally applicable to the vast plain of 20 
 the Lower Ganges. Whatever the Bengalee does he does lan- 
 guidly. His favorite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from 
 bodily exertion ; and, though voluble in dispute, and singularly 
 pertinacious in the war of chicane, he seldom engages in a per- 
 sonal conflict and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. We doubt 25 
 whether there be a hundred genuine Bengalese in the whole 
 army of the East India Company. There never, perhaps, 
 existed a people so thoroughly fitted by nature and by habit 
 for a foreign yoke. 
 
 The great commercial companies of Europe had long pos- 30 
 sessed factories in Bengal. The French were settled, as they 
 still are, at Chandernagore on the Hoogley. Higher up the stream 
 the Dutch traders held Chinsurah. Nearer to the sea the Eng- 
 lish had built Fort William. A church and ample warehouses 
 
32 LORD CLIVE 
 
 rose in the vicinity. A row of spacious houses, belonging to 
 the chief factors of the East India Company, lined the banks 
 of the river ; and in the neighborhood had sprung up a large 
 and busy native town, where some Hindoo merchants of great 
 5 opulence had fixed their abode. But the tract now covered by 
 the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a few miserable huts 
 thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned to waterfowl and 
 alligators, covered the site of the present Citadel and the 
 Course, which is now daily crowded at sunset with the gayest 
 
 10 equipages of Calcutta. For the ground on which the settlement 
 stood, the English, like other great landholders, paid rent to the 
 Government ; and they were, like other great landholders, per- 
 mitted to exercise a certain jurisdiction within their domain. 
 The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, 
 
 15 had long been governed by a viceroy, whom the English called 
 Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul, 
 had become virtually independent. He died in 1756, and the 
 sovereignty descended to his grandson, a youth under twenty 
 years of age, who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental 
 
 20 despots are perhaps the worst class of human beings ; and this 
 unhappy boy was one of the worst specimens of his class. His 
 understanding was naturally feeble, and his temper naturally 
 unamiable. His education had been such as would have ener- 
 vated even a vigorous intellect and perverted even a generous 
 
 25 disposition. He was unreasonable, because nobody ever dared 
 to reason with him ; and selfish, because he had never been 
 made to feel himself dependent on the good will of others. Early 
 debauchery had unnerved his body and his mind. He indulged 
 immoderately in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed his 
 
 30 weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions were 
 flatterers, sprung from the dregs of the people, and recom- 
 mended by nothing but buffoonery and servility. It is said that 
 he had arrived at that last stage of human depravity, when 
 cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake, — when the sight of 
 
LORD CLIVE 33 
 
 pain as pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offense 
 punished, no danger averted, is an agreeable excitement. It 
 had early been his amusement to torture beasts and birds ; and 
 when he grew up, he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery 
 of his fellow creatures. 5 
 
 From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was 
 his whim to do so ; and his whims were never opposed. He 
 had also formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth which 
 might be obtained by plundering them ; and his feeble and 
 uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the riches 10 
 of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would 
 not compensate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, 
 of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence 
 to some other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found. 
 The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to 1 5 
 fortify their settlement without special permission from the Nabob. 
 A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge at 
 Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as these 
 Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William. 
 
 The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by 20 
 Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal 
 were still mere traders, and were terrified and bewildered by 
 the approaching danger. The Governor, who had heard much 
 of Surajah Dowlah's cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, 
 jumped into a boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship. The 25 
 military commandant thought that he could not do better than 
 follow so good an example. The fort was taken after a feeble 
 resistance ; and great numbers of the English fell into the hands 
 of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp 
 in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, 30 
 the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before 
 him. His Highness abused the insolence of the English, and 
 grumbled at the smallness of the treasure which he had found ; 
 but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest. 
 
34 LORD CLIVE 
 
 Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its sin- 
 gular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by 
 which it was followed. The English captives were left to the 
 mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them 
 5 for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by 
 the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single Euro- 
 pean malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have 
 been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet 
 square. The air holes were small and obstructed. It was the 
 
 io summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can 
 scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty 
 halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of the 
 prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were 
 ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were 
 
 15 joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of 
 the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the 
 absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. 
 They expostulated ; they entreated ; but in vain. The guards 
 threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were 
 
 20 driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was 
 instantly shut and locked upon them. 
 
 Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino 
 told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody 
 lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which 
 
 25 were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried 
 for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who ^even 
 in that extremity retained some presence of mind, offered large 
 bribes to the jailers. But the answer was that nothing could 
 be done without the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob was asleep, 
 
 30 and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the 
 prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other 
 down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pit- 
 tance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers 
 mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the 
 
LORD CLIVE 35 
 
 guards to fire among them. The jailers, in the meantime, held 
 lights to the bars and shouted with laughter at the frantic strug- 
 gles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low 
 gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept 
 off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it 5 
 was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the 
 survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on 
 which the burning climate had already begun to do its loath- 
 some work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three 
 ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have 10 
 known, staggered one by one out of the charnel house. A pit 
 was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three 
 in number, were flung into it promiscuously, and covered up. 
 
 But these things, which, after the lapse of more than eighty 
 years, cannot be told or read without horror, awakened neither 15 
 remorse nor pity in the bosom of the savage Nabob. He in- 
 flicted no punishment on the murderers. He showed no tender- 
 ness to the survivors. Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing 
 was to be got, were suffered to depart ; but those from whom 
 it was thought that anything could be extorted were treated 20 
 with execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was carried 
 before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened him, and 
 sent him up the country in irons, together with some other 
 gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more than they 
 chose to tell about the treasures of the Company. These 25 
 persons, still bowed down by the sufferings of that great 
 agony, were lodged in miserable sheds, and fed only with 
 grain and water, till at length the intercessions of the female 
 relations of the Nabob procured their release. One English- 
 woman had survived that night. She was placed in the harem 30 
 of the Prince at Moorshedabad. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah, in the meantime, sent letters to his nominal 
 sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest in the most pom- 
 pous language. He placed a garrison in Fort William, forbade 
 
36 LORD CLIVE 
 
 any Englishman to dwell in the neighborhood, and directed that, 
 in memory of his great actions, Calcutta should thenceforward 
 be called Alinagore, that is to say, the Port of God. 
 
 In August the news of the fall of Calcutta reached Madras, 
 5 and excited the fiercest and bitterest resentment. The cry of 
 the whole settlement was for vengeance. Within forty-eight 
 hours after the arrival of the intelligence it was determined that 
 an expedition should be sent to the Hoogley, and that Clive 
 should be at the head of the land forces. The naval armament 
 
 10 was under the command of Admiral Watson. Nine hundred 
 English infantry, fine troops and full of spirit, and fifteen hun- 
 dred sepoys, composed the army which sailed to punish a 
 Prince who had more subjects than Louis the Fifteenth or the 
 Empress Maria Theresa. In October the expedition sailed; but 
 
 1 5 it had to make its way against adverse winds, and did not reach 
 Bengal till December. 
 
 The Nabob was reveling in fancied security at Moorshedabad. 
 He was so profoundly ignorant of the state of foreign countries 
 that he often used to say that there were not ten thousand men 
 
 20 in all Europe ; and it had never occurred to him as possible, 
 that the English would dare to invade his dominions. But, 
 though undisturbed by any fear of their military power, he be- 
 gan to miss them greatly. His revenues fell off; and his 
 ministers succeeded in making him understand that a ruler 
 
 25 may sometimes find it more profitable to protect traders in the 
 open enjoyment of their gains than to put them to the torture 
 for the purpose of discovering hidden chests of gold and jewels. 
 He was already disposed to permit the Company to resume its 
 mercantile operations in his country, when he received the news 
 
 30 that an English armament was in the Hoogley. He instantly 
 ordered all his troops to assemble at Moorshedabad, and 
 marched towards Calcutta. 
 
 Clive had commenced operations with his usual vigor. He 
 took Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered 
 
LORD CLIVE 37 
 
 Calcutta, stormed and sacked Hoogley. The Nabob, already dis- 
 posed to make some concessions to the English, was confirmed 
 in his pacific disposition by these proofs of their power and spirit. 
 He accordingly made overtures to the chiefs of the invading 
 armament, and offered to restore the factory, and to give com- 5 
 pensation to those whom he had despoiled. 
 
 Clive's profession was war ; and he felt that there was some- 
 thing discreditable in an accommodation with Surajah Dowlah. 
 But his power was limited. A committee, chiefly composed of 
 servants of the Company who had fled from Calcutta, had the 10 
 principal direction of affairs ; and these persons were eager to 
 be restored to their posts and compensated for their losses. 
 The Government of Madras, apprised that war had commenced 
 in Europe, and apprehensive of an attack from the French, be- 
 came impatient for the return of the armament. The promises 15 
 of the Nabob were large, the chances of a contest doubtful ; 
 and Clive consented to treat, though he expressed his regret 
 that things should not be concluded in so glorious a manner as 
 he could have wished. 
 
 With this negotiation commences a new chapter in the life 20 
 of Clive. Hitherto he had been merely a soldier, carrying into 
 effect, with eminent ability and valor, the plans of others. 
 Henceforth he is to be chiefly regarded as a statesman; and 
 his military movements are to be considered as subordinate to 
 his political designs. That in his new capacity he displayed 25 
 great talents, and obtained great success, is unquestionable. 
 But it is also unquestionable, that the transactions in which he 
 now began to take a part have left a stain on his moral 
 character. 
 
 We can by no means agree with Sir John Malcolm, who is 30 
 obstinately resolved to see nothing but honor and integrity in 
 the conduct of his hero. But we can as little agree with Mr. 
 Mill, who has gone so far as to say that Clive was a man " to 
 whom deception, when it suited his purpose, never cost a pang." 
 
38 LORD CLIVE 
 
 Clive seems to us to have been constitutionally the very opposite 
 of a knave, bold even to temerity, sincere even to indiscretion, 
 hearty in friendship, open in enmity. Neither in his private life, 
 nor in those parts of his public life in which he had to do with 
 5 his countrymen, do we find any signs of a propensity to cunning. 
 On the contrary, in all the disputes in which he was engaged as 
 an Englishman against Englishmen, from his boxing matches at 
 school to those stormy altercations at the India House and in 
 Parliament, amidst which his later years were passed, his very 
 
 10 faults were those of a high and magnanimous spirit. The truth 
 seems to have been that he considered Oriental politics as a 
 game in which nothing was unfair. He knew that the standard 
 of morality among the natives of India differed widely from that 
 established in England. He knew that he had to deal with men 
 
 1 5 destitute of what in Europe is called honor, with men who would 
 give any promise without hesitation, and break any promise 
 without shame, with men who would unscrupulously employ 
 corruption, perjury, forgery, to compass their ends. His letters 
 show that the great difference between Asiatic and European 
 
 20 morality was constantly in his thoughts. He seems to have 
 imagined, most erroneously in our opinion, that he could effect 
 nothing against such adversaries, if he was content to be bound 
 by ties from which they were free ; if he went on telling truth 
 and hearing none ; if he fulfilled, to his own hurt, all his engage- 
 
 25 ments with confederates who never kept an engagement that 
 was not to their advantage. Accordingly this man, in the other 
 parts of his life an honorable English gentleman and a soldier, 
 was no sooner matched against an Indian intriguer than he be- 
 came himself an Indian intriguer, and descended without scruple 
 
 30 to falsehood, to hypocritical caresses, to the substitution of docu- 
 ments, and to the counterfeiting of hands. 
 
 The negotiations between the English and the Nabob were 
 carried on chiefly by two agents, Mr. Watts, a servant of the 
 Company, and a Bengalee of the name of Omichund. This 
 
LORD CLIVE 39 
 
 Omichund had been one of the wealthiest native merchants 
 resident at Calcutta, and had sustained great losses in conse- 
 quence of the Nabob's expedition against that place. In the 
 course of his commercial transactions he had seen much of the 
 English, and was peculiarly qualified to serve as a medium of 5 
 communication between them and a native court. He possessed 
 great influence with his own race, and had in large measure 
 the Hindoo talents, — quick observation, tact, dexterity, per- 
 severance ; and the Hindoo vices, — servility, greediness, and 
 treachery. 10 
 
 The Nabob behaved with all the faithlessness of an Indian 
 statesman, and with all the levity of a boy whose mind had been 
 enfeebled by power and self-indulgence. He promised, retracted, 
 hesitated, evaded. At one time he advanced with his army in a 
 threatening manner towards Calcutta; but when he saw the 15 
 resolute front which the English presented, he fell back in 
 alarm, and consented to make peace with them on their own 
 terms. The treaty was no sooner concluded than he formed 
 new designs against them. He intrigued with the French 
 authorities at Chandernagore. He invited Bussy to march 20 
 from the Deccan to the Hoogley, and to drive the English out 
 of Bengal. All this was well known to Clive and Watson. 
 They determined accordingly to strike a decisive blow, and to 
 attack Chandernagore, before the force there could be strength- 
 ened by new arrivals, either from the south of India or from 25 
 Europe. Watson directed the expedition by water, Clive by 
 land. The success of the combined movements was rapid and 
 complete. The fort, the garrison, the artillery, the military 
 stores, all fell into the hands of the English. Near five hun- 
 dred European troops were among the prisoners. 30 
 
 The Nabob had feared and hated the English, even while 
 he was still able to oppose to them their French rivals. The 
 French were now vanquished ; and he began to regard the 
 English with still greater fear and still greater hatred. His 
 
40 LORD CLIVE 
 
 weak and unprincipled mind oscillated between servility and 
 insolence. One day he sent a large sum to Calcutta, as part 
 of the compensation due for the wrongs which he had com- 
 mitted. The next day he sent a present of jewels to Bussy, 
 5 exhorting that distinguished officer to hasten to protect Bengal 
 " against Clive, the daring in war, on whom," says his High- 
 ness, " may all bad fortune attend." He ordered his army to 
 march against the English. He countermanded his orders. 
 He tore Clive's letters. He then sent answers in the most 
 
 10 florid language of compliment. He ordered Watts out of his 
 presence, and threatened to impale him. He again sent for 
 Watts, and begged pardon for the insult. In the meantime 
 his wretched maladministration, his folly, his dissolute manners, 
 and his love of the lowest company had disgusted all classes of 
 
 15 his subjects, — soldiers, traders, civil functionaries, the proud and 
 ostentatious Mohammedans, the timid, supple, and parsimonious 
 Hindoos. A formidable confederacy was formed against him, 
 in which were included Roydullub, the minister of finance, Meer 
 Jaffier, the principal commander of the troops, and Jugget Seit, 
 
 20 the richest banker in India. The plot was confided to the Eng- 
 lish agents, and a communication was opened between the mal- 
 contents at Moorshedabad and the committee at Calcutta. 
 
 / In the committee there was much hesitation; but Clive's 
 voice was given in favor of the conspirators, and his vigor and 
 
 25 firmness bore down all opposition. It was determined that the 
 English should lend their powerful assistance to depose Surajah 
 Dowlah, and to place Meer Jaffier on the throne of Bengal. In 
 return Meer Jaffier promised ample compensation to the Com- 
 pany and its servants, and a liberal donative to the army, the 
 
 30 navy, and the committee. The odious vices of Surajah Dowlah, 
 the wrongs which the English had suffered at his hands, the 
 dangers to which our trade must have been exposed had he 
 continued to reign, appear to us fully to justify the resolution 
 of deposing him. But nothing can justify the dissimulation 
 
LORD CLIVE 41 
 
 which Clive stooped to practice. He wrote to Surajah Dowlah 
 in terms so affectionate that they for a time lulled that weak 
 prince into perfect security. The same courtier who carried 
 this " soothing letter," as Clive calls it, to the Nabob, carried 
 to Mr. Watts a letter in the following terms : " Tell Meer 5 
 Jaffier to fear nothing. I will join him with five thousand men 
 who never turned their backs. Assure him I will march night 
 and day to his assistance, and stand by him as long as I have 
 a man left." 
 
 It was impossible that a plot which had so many ramifica- 10 
 tions should long remain entirely concealed. Enough reached 
 the ears of the Nabob to arouse his suspicions. But he was 
 soon quieted by the fictions and artifices which the inventive 
 genius of Omichund produced with miraculous readiness. All 
 was going well ; the plot was nearly ripe when Clive learned 1 5 
 that Omichund was likely to play false. The artful Bengalee 
 had been promised a liberal compensation for all that he had 
 lost at Calcutta. But this would not satisfy him. His services 
 had been great. He held the thread of the whole intrigue. By 
 one word breathed in the ear of Surajah Dowlah, he could undo 20 
 all that he had done. The lives of Watts, of Meer Jaffier, of all 
 the conspirators, were at his mercy ; and he determined to take 
 advantage of his situation and to make his own terms. He de- 
 manded three hundred thousand pounds sterling as the price 
 of his secrecy and of his assistance. The committee, incensed 25 
 by the treachery and appalled by the danger, knew not what 
 course to take. But Clive was more than Omichund's match 
 in Omichund's own arts. The man, he said, was a villain. Any 
 artifice which would defeat such knavery was justifiable. The 
 best course would be to promise what was asked. Omichund 30 
 would soon be at their mercy ; and then they might punish him 
 by withholding from him not only the bribe which he now de- 
 manded, but also the compensation which all the other sufferers 
 of Calcutta were to receive. 
 
42 
 
 LORD CLIVE 
 
 His advice was taken. .But how was the wary and saga- 
 cious Hindoo to be deceived? He had demanded that an 
 article touching his claims should be inserted in the treaty 
 between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he would not be 
 5 satisfied unless he saw it with his own eyes. Clive had an 
 expedient ready. Two treaties were drawn up, one on white 
 paper, the other on red ; the former real, the latter fictitious. In 
 the former Omichund's name was not mentioned ; the latter, 
 which was to be shown to him, contained a stipulation in his favor. 
 
 10 But another difficulty arose. Admiral Watson had scruples 
 about signing the red treaty. Omichund's vigilance and acute- 
 ness were such that the absence of so important a name would 
 probably awaken his suspicions. But Clive was not a man to 
 do anything by halves. We almost blush to write it. He forged 
 
 i s Admiral Watson's name. 
 
 All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly from 
 Moorshedabad. Clive put his troops in motion, and wrote to 
 the Nabob in a tone very different from that of his previous 
 letters. He set forth all the wrongs which the British had suf- 
 
 20 fered, offered to submit the points in dispute to the arbitration 
 of Meer Jaffier, and concluded by announcing that, as the rains 
 were about to set in, he and his men would do themselves the 
 honor of waking on his Highness for an answer. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force, and 
 
 25 marched to encounter the English. It had been agreed that 
 Meer Jaffier should separate himself from the Nabob and 
 carry over his division to Clive. But, as the decisive moment 
 approached, the fears of the conspirator overpowered his ambi- 
 tion. Clive had advanced to Cossimbuzar ; the Nabob lay with 
 
 30 a mighty power a few miles off at Plassey ; and still Meer 
 Jaffier delayed to fulfill his engagements, and returned evasive 
 answers to the earnest remonstrances of the English general. 
 
 Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could place no 
 confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of his confederate ; 
 
LORD CLIVE 43 
 
 and whatever confidence he might place in his own military 
 talents and in the valor and discipline of his troops, it was 
 no light thing to engage an army twenty times as numerous 
 as his own. Before him lay a river over which it was easy 
 to advance, but over which, if things went ill, not one of his 5 
 little band would ever return. On this occasion, for the first 
 and for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a few hours, 
 shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a decision. 
 He called a council of war. The majority pronounced against 
 fighting ; and Clive declared his concurrence with the majority. 10 
 Long afterwards he said that he had never called but one 
 council of war, and that, if he had taken the advice of that 
 council, the British would never have been masters of Bengal. 
 But scarcely had the meeting broken up when he was himself 
 again. He retired alone under the shade of some trees, and 15 
 passed near an hour there in thought. He came back deter- 
 mined to put everything to the hazard, and gave orders that all 
 should be in readiness for passing the river on the morrow. 
 
 The river was passed ; and at the close of a toilsome day's 
 march the army, long after sunset, took up its quarters in a 20 
 grove of mango trees near Plassey, within a mile of the enemy. 
 Clive was unable to sleep ; he heard, through the whole night, 
 the sound of drum's and cymbals from the vast camp of the 
 Nabob. It is not strange that even his stout heart should now 
 and then have sunk, when he reflected against what odds, and 25 
 for what a prize, he was in a few hours to contend. 
 
 Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. His 
 mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by wild and 
 horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the greatness and nearness 
 of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every one who 30 
 approached him, dreading to be left alone, he sat gloomily in 
 his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies 
 of those who had cursed him with their last breath in the 
 Black Hole. 
 
44 LORD CLIVE 
 
 The day broke, the day which was to decide the fate of India. 
 At sunrise the army of the Nabob, pouring through many open- 
 ings from the camp, began to move towards the grove where 
 the English lay. Forty thousand infantry, armed with firelocks, 
 5 pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered the plain. They were 
 accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each 
 tugged by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from 
 behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, under the direction 
 of a few French auxiliaries, were perhaps more formidable. 
 
 10 The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn, not from the effemi- 
 nate population of Bengal, but from the bolder race which 
 inhabits the northern provinces ; and the practiced eye of Clive 
 could perceive that both the men and the horses were more 
 powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force which he had 
 
 15 to oppose to this great multitude consisted of only three 
 thousand men. But of these nearly a thousand were English; 
 and all were led by English officers and trained in the English 
 discipline. Conspicuous in the ranks of the little army were the 
 men of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment, which still bears on its colors, 
 
 20 amidst many honorable additions won under Wellington in Spain 
 and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and the proud motto, Primus 
 in Indis. 
 
 The battle commenced with a cannonade in which the artillery 
 of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while the few field- 
 
 25 pieces of the English produced great effect. Several of the most 
 distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah's service fell. Disorder 
 began to spread through his ranks. His own terror increased 
 every moment. One of the conspirators urged on him the 
 expediency of retreating. The insidious advice, agreeing as it 
 
 30 did with what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. 
 He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. 
 Clive snatched the moment and ordered his troops to advance. 
 The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset 
 of disciplined valor. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was 
 
LORD CLIVE 45 
 
 ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, 
 who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down 
 the stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah 
 Dowlah were dispersed, never to reassemble. Only five hundred 
 of the vanquished were slain, but their camp, their guns, their 5 
 baggage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle, remained in 
 the power of the conquerors. With the loss of twenty-two sol- 
 diers killed and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of 
 nearly sixty thousand men, and subdued an empire larger and 
 more populous than Great Britain. 10 
 
 Meer Jaffier had given no assistance to the English during 
 the action. But as soon as he saw that the fate of the day was 
 decided, he drew off his division of the army, and when the 
 battle was over sent his congratulations to his ally. The next 
 morning he repaired to the English quarters, not a little uneasy 15 
 as to the reception which awaited him there. He gave evident 
 signs of alarm when a guard was drawn out to receive him with 
 the honors due to his rank. But his apprehensions were 
 speedily removed. Clive came forward to meet him, embraced 
 him, saluted him as Nabob of the three great provinces of 20 
 Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, listened graciously to his apologies, 
 and advised him to march without delay to Moorshedabad. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah had fled from the field of battle with all the 
 speed with which a fleet camel could carry him, and arrived at 
 Moorshedabad in little more than twenty-four hours. There he 25 
 called his councilors round him. The wisest advised him to put 
 himself into the hands of the English, from whom he had 
 nothing worse to fear than deposition and confinement. But he 
 attributed this suggestion to treachery. Others urged him to 
 try the chance of war again. He approved the advice and issued 30 
 orders accordingly. But he wanted spirit to adhere, even during 
 one day, to a manly resolution. He learned that Meer Jaffier 
 had arrived, and his terrors became insupportable. Disguised 
 in a mean dress, with a casket of jewels in his hand, he let 
 
46 LORD CLIVE 
 
 himself down at night from a window of his palace, and, accom- 
 panied by only two attendants, embarked on the river for Patna. 
 In a few days Clive arrived at Moorshedabad, escorted by 
 two hundred English soldiers and three hundred sepoys. For 
 5 his residence had been assigned a palace, which was surrounded 
 by a garden so spacious that all the troops who accompanied 
 him could conveniently encamp within it. The ceremony of the 
 installation of Meer Jaffier was instantly performed. Clive led 
 the new Nabob to the seat of honor, placed him on it, presented 
 
 10 to him, after the immemorial fashion of the East, an offering of 
 gold, and then, turning to the natives who filled the hall, con- 
 gratulated them on the good fortune which had freed them 
 from a tyrant. He was compelled on this occasion to use the 
 services of an interpreter ; for it is remarkable that, long as he 
 
 15 resided in India, intimately acquainted as he was with Indian 
 politics and with the Indian character, and adored as he was by 
 his Indian soldiery, he never learned to express himself with 
 facility in any Indian language. He is said, indeed, to have been 
 sometimes under the necessity of employing, in his intercourse 
 
 20 with natives of India, the smattering of Portuguese which he 
 had acquired when a lad in Brazil. 
 
 The new sovereign was now called upon to fulfill the engage- 
 ments into which he had entered with his allies. A conference 
 was held at the house of Jugget Seit, the great banker, for the 
 
 25 purpose of making the necessary arrangements. Omichund 
 came thither, fully believing himself to stand high in the favor 
 of Clive, who, with dissimulation surpassing even the dissimula- 
 tion of Bengal, had, up to that day, treated him with undimin- 
 ished kindness. The white treaty was produced and read. 
 
 30 Clive then turned to Mr. Scrafton, one of the servants of the 
 Company, and said in English, " It is now time to undeceive 
 Omichund." " Omichund," said Mr. Scrafton in Hindostanee, 
 " the red treaty is a trick. You are to have nothing." Omichund 
 fell back insensible into the arms of his attendants. He revived ; 
 
LORD CLIVE 47 
 
 but his mind was irreparably ruined. Clive, who, though little 
 troubled by scruples of conscience in his dealings with Indian 
 politicians, was not inhuman, seems to have been touched. He 
 saw Omichund a few days later, spoke to him kindly, advised 
 him to make a pilgrimage to one of the great temples of India, 5 
 in the hope that change of scene might restore his health, and 
 was even disposed, notwithstanding all that had passed, again 
 to employ his talents in the public service. But, from the 
 moment of that sudden shock, the unhappy man sank gradually 
 into idiocy. He, who had formerly been distinguished by the 10 
 strength of his understanding and the simplicity of his habits, 
 now squandered the remains of his fortune on childish trinkets, 
 and loved to exhibit himself dressed in rich garments and hung 
 with precious stones. In this abject state he languished a few 
 months and then died. 15 
 
 We should not think it necessary to offer any remarks for 
 the purpose of directing the judgment of our readers with 
 respect to this transaction, had not Sir John Malcolm under- 
 taken to defend it in all its parts. He regrets, indeed, that it 
 was necessary to employ means so liable to abuse as forgery; 20 
 but he will not admit that any blame attaches to those who 
 deceived the dece'iver. He thinks that the English were not 
 bound to keep faith with one who kept no faith with them, and 
 that, if they had fulfilled their engagements with the wily Ben- 
 galee, so signal an example of successful treason would have 25 
 produced a crowd of imitators. Now we will not discuss this 
 point on any rigid principles of morality. Indeed, it is quite 
 unnecessary to do so ; for, looking at the question as a ques- 
 tion of expediency in the lowest sense of the word, and using 
 no arguments -but such as Machiavelli might have employed in 30 
 his conferences with Borgia, we are convinced that Clive was 
 altogether in the wrong, and that he committed not merely a 
 crime but a blunder. That honesty is the best policy is a maxim 
 which we firmly believe to be generally correct, even with respect 
 
48 LORD CLIVE 
 
 to the temporal interests of individuals ; but, with respect to socie- 
 ties, the rule is subject to still fewer exceptions, and that, for this 
 reason, that the life of societies is longer than the life of indi- 
 viduals. It is possible to mention men who have owed great 
 5 worldly prosperity to breaches of private faith. But we doubt 
 whether it be possible to mention a state which has, on the whole, 
 been a gainer by a breach of public faith. The entire history of 
 British India is an illustration of the great truth, that it is not 
 prudent to oppose perfidy to perfidy, and that the most efficient 
 
 10 weapon with which men can encounter falsehood is truth. Dur- 
 ing a long course of years the English rulers of India, sur- 
 rounded by allies and enemies whom no engagement could 
 bind, have generally acted with sincerity and uprightness ; and 
 the event has proved that sincerity and uprightness are wisdom. 
 
 15 English valor and English intelligence have done less to extend 
 and to preserve our Oriental empire than English veracity. All 
 that we could have gained by imitating the doublings, the eva- 
 sions, the fictions, the perjuries which have been employed 
 against us, is as nothing, when compared with what we have 
 
 20 gained by being the one power in India on whose word reliance 
 can be placed. No oath which superstition can devise, no hos- 
 tage, however precious, inspires a hundredth part of the confi- 
 dence which is produced by the " yea, yea " and " nay, nay " 
 of a British envoy. No fastness, however strong by art or nature, 
 
 25 gives to its inmates a security like that enjoyed by the chief who, 
 passing through the territories of powerful and deadly enemies, 
 is armed with the British guarantee. The mightiest princes of 
 the East can scarcely, by the offer of enormous usury, draw 
 forth any portion of the wealth which is concealed under the 
 
 30 hearths of their subjects. The British Government offers little 
 more than four per cent ; and avarice hastens to bring forth 
 tens of millions of rupees from its most secret repositories. A 
 hostile monarch may promise mountains of gold to our sepoys, 
 on condition that they will desert the standard of the Company. 
 
LORD CLIVE 49 
 
 The Company promises only a moderate pension after a long 
 service. But every sepoy knows that the promise of the Com- 
 pany will be kept ; he knows that if he lives a hundred years, 
 his rice and salt are as secure as the salary of the Governor- 
 General ; and he knows that there is not another state in India 5 
 which would not, in spite of the most solemn vows, leave him 
 to die of hunger in a ditch as soon as he had ceased to be useful. 
 The greatest advantage which a government can possess is to 
 be the one trustworthy government in the midst of governments 
 which nobody can trust. This advantage we enjoy in Asia. 10 
 Had we acted during the last two generations on the principles 
 which Sir John Malcolm appears to have considered as sound ; 
 had we, as often as we had to deal with people like Omichund, 
 retaliated by lying, and forging, and breaking faith, after their 
 fashion, it is our firm belief that no courage or capacity could 15 
 have upheld our empire. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm admits that Clive's breach of faith could 
 be justified only by the strongest necessity. As we think that 
 breach of faith not only unnecessary, but most inexpedient, we 
 need hardly say that we altogether condemn it. 20 
 
 Omichund was not the only victim of the revolution. Surajah 
 Dowlah was taken a few days after his flight, and was brought 
 before Meer Jafner. There he flung himself on the ground in 
 convulsions of fear, and with tears and loud cries implored the 
 mercy which he had never shown. Meer Jafner hesitated ; but 25 
 his son Meeran, a youth of seventeen, who in feebleness of brain 
 and savageness of nature greatly resembled the wretched captive, 
 was implacable. Surajah Dowlah was led into a secret chamber, 
 to which in a short time the ministers of death were sent. In this 
 act the English bore no part ; and Meer Jafner understood so 30 
 much of their feelings that he thought it necessary to apologize to 
 them for having avenged them on their most malignant enemy. 
 
 The shower of wealth now fell copiously on the Company 
 and its servants. A sum of eight hundred thousand pounds 
 
50 LORD CLIVE 
 
 sterling, in coined silver, was sent down the river from Moor- 
 shedabad to Fort William. The fleet which conveyed this treas- 
 ure consisted of more than a hundred boats, and performed its 
 triumphal voyage with flags flying and music playing. Calcutta, 
 5 which a few months before had been desolate, was now more 
 prosperous than ever. Trade revived, and the signs of afflu- 
 ence appeared in every English house. As to Clive, there was 
 no limit to his acquisitions but his own moderation. The treas- 
 ury of Bengal was thrown open to him. There were piled up, 
 
 10 after the usage of Indian princes, immense masses of coin, 
 among which might not seldom be detected the florins and 
 bezants with which, before any European ship had turned the 
 Cape of Good Hope, the Venetians purchased the stuffs and 
 spices of the East. Clive walked between heaps of gold and 
 
 15 silver, crowned with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty 
 to help himself. He accepted between two and three hundred 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 ._ The pecuniary transactions between Meer Jaffier and Clive 
 were sixteen years later condemned by the public voice and 
 
 20 severely criticised in Parliament. They are vehemently defended 
 by Sir John Malcolm. The accusers of the victorious general 
 represented his gains as the wages of corruption, or as plunder 
 extorted at the point of the sword from a helpless ally. The 
 biographer, on the other hand, considers these great acquisitions 
 
 25 as free gifts, honorable alike to the donor and to the receiver, 
 and compares them to the rewards bestowed by foreign powers 
 on Marlborough, on Nelson, and on Wellington. It had always, 
 he says, been customary in the East to give and receive presents ; 
 and there was, as yet, no Act of Parliament positively prohibit- 
 
 30 ing English functionaries in India from profiting by this Asiatic 
 usage. This reasoning, we own, does not quite satisfy us. We 
 do not suspect Clive of selling the interests of his employers 
 or his country ; but we cannot acquit him of having done what, 
 if not in itself evil, was yet of evil example. Nothing is more 
 
LORD CLIVE 51 
 
 clear than that a general ought to be the servant of his own 
 government, and of no other. It follows that whatever rewards 
 he receives for his services ought to be given either by his own 
 government, or with the full knowledge and approbation of his 
 own government. This rule ought to be strictly maintained even 5 
 with respect to the merest bauble, with respect to a cross, a 
 medal, or a yard of colored ribbon. But how can any govern- 
 ment be well served, if those who command its forces are at 
 liberty, without its permission, without its privity, to accept 
 princely fortunes from its allies? It is idle to say that there 10 
 was then no Act of Parliament prohibiting the practice of tak- 
 ing presents from Asiatic sovereigns. It is not on the Act 
 which was passed at a later period for the purpose of prevent- 
 ing any such taking of presents, but on grounds which were 
 valid before that Act was passed, on grounds of common law 15 
 and common sense, that we arraign the conduct of Clive. 
 There is no Act that we know of, prohibiting the Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs from being in the pay of con- 
 tinental powers. But it is not the less true that a Secretary 
 who should receive a secret pension from France would grossly 20 
 violate his duty and would deserve severe punishment. Sir 
 John Malcolm compares the conduct of Clive with that of the 
 Duke of Wellington. Suppose — and we beg pardon for put- 
 ting such a supposition even for the sake of argument — that 
 the Duke of Wellington had, after the campaign of 18 15, and 25 
 while he commanded the army of occupation in France, pri- 
 vately accepted two hundred thousand pounds from Louis the 
 Eighteenth, as a mark of gratitude for the great services which 
 his Grace had rendered to the house of Bourbon ; what would 
 be thought of such a transaction ? Yet the statute book no 30 
 more forbids the taking of presents in Europe now than it 
 forbade the taking of presents in Asia then. 
 
 At the same time it must be admitted that, in Clive's case, 
 there were many extenuating circumstances. He considered 
 
52 LORD CLIVE 
 
 himself as the general not of the Crown but of the Company. 
 The Company had, by implication at least, authorized its agents 
 to enrich themselves by means of the liberality of the native 
 princes, and by other means still more objectionable. It was 
 5 hardly to be expected that the servant should entertain stricter 
 notions of his duty than were entertained by his masters. 
 Though Clive did hot distinctly acquaint his employers with 
 what had taken place, and request their sanction, he did not, 
 on the other hand, by studied concealment, show that he was 
 
 10 conscious of having done wrong. On the contrary, he avowed 
 with the greatest openness that the Nabob's bounty had raised 
 him to affluence. Lastly, though we think that he ought not in 
 such a way to have taken anything, we must admit that he de- 
 serves praise for having taken so little. He accepted twenty 
 
 15 lacs of rupees. It would have cost him only a word to make 
 the twenty forty. It was a very easy exercise of virtue to de- 
 claim in England against Clive 's rapacity ; but not one in a 
 hundred of his accusers would have shown so much self- 
 command in the treasury of Moorshedabad. 
 
 20 Meer Jaffier could be upheld on the throne only by the 
 hand which had placed him on it. He was not, indeed, a 
 mere boy ; nor had he been so unfortunate as to be born in 
 the purple. He was not therefore quite so imbecile or quite so 
 depraved as his predecessor had been. But he had none of the 
 
 25 talents or virtues which his post required ; and his son and 
 heir, Meeran, was another Surajah Dowlah. The recent revolu- 
 tion had unsettled the minds of men. Many chiefs were in 
 open insurrection against the new Nabob. The viceroy of the 
 rich and powerful province of Oude, who, like the other vice- 
 
 30 roys of the Mogul, was now in truth an independent sovereign, 
 menaced Bengal with invasion. Nothing but the talents and 
 authority of Clive could support the tottering government. 
 While things were in this state a ship arrived with dispatches 
 which had been written at the India House before the news of 
 
LORD CLIVE 53 
 
 the battle of Plassey had reached London. The Directors had 
 determined to place the English settlements in Bengal under a 
 government constituted in the most cumbrous and absurd 
 manner ; and, to make the matter worse, no place in the 
 arrangement was assigned to Clive. The persons who were 5 
 selected to form this new government, greatly to their honor, 
 took on themselves the responsibility of disobeying these pre- 
 posterous orders, and invited Clive to exercise the supreme 
 authority. He consented ; and it soon appeared that the serv- 
 ants of the Company had only anticipated the wishes of their 10 
 employers. The Directors, on receiving news of Clive's brilliant 
 success, instantly appointed him governor of their possessions 
 in Bengal, with the highest marks of gratitude and esteem. 
 His power was now boundless, and far surpassed even that 
 which Dupleix had attained in the south of India. Meer Jaffier 15 
 regarded him with slavish awe. On one occasion the Nabob 
 spoke with severity to a native chief of high rank, whose fol- 
 lowers had been engaged in a brawl with some of the Com- 
 pany's sepoys. " Are you yet to learn," he said, " who that 
 Colonel Clive is, and in what station God has placed him ? " 20 
 The chief, who, as a famous jester and an old friend of Meer 
 Jaffier, could venture to take liberties, answered : " I affront the 
 Colonel ! I, who never get up in the morning without making 
 three low bows to his jackass ! " This was hardly an exaggera- 
 tion. Europeans and natives were alike at Clive's feet. The 25 
 English regarded him as the only man who could force Meer 
 Jaffier to keep his engagements with them. Meer Jaffier re- 
 garded him as the only man who could protect the new dynasty 
 against turbulent subjects and encroaching neighbors. 
 
 It is but justice to say that Clive used his power ably and 30 
 vigorously for the advantage of his country. He sent forth an 
 expedition against the tract lying to the north of the Carnatic. 
 In this tract the French still had the ascendancy, and it was 
 important to dislodge ' them. The conduct of the enterprise 
 
54 LORD CLIVE 
 
 was intrusted to an officer of the name of Forde, who was 
 then little known, but in whom the keen eye of the Governor 
 had detected military talents of a high order. The success of 
 the expedition was rapid and splendid. 
 5 While a considerable part of the army of Bengal was thus 
 engaged at a distance, a new and formidable danger menaced 
 the western frontier. The Great Mogul was a prisoner at 
 Delhi in the hands of a subject. His eldest son, named 
 Shah Alum, destined to be, during many years, the sport of 
 
 10 adverse fortune, and to be a tool in the hands first of the 
 Mahrattas and then of the English, had fled from the palace 
 of his father. His birth was still revered in India. Some 
 powerful princes, the Nabob of Oude in particular, were in- 
 clined to favor him. Shah Alum found it easy to draw to his 
 
 1 5 standard great numbers of the military adventurers with whom 
 every part of the country swarmed. An army of forty thou- 
 sand men, of various races and religions, Mahrattas, Rohillas, 
 Jauts, and Afghans, was speedily assembled round him; and 
 he formed the design of overthrowing the upstart whom the 
 
 20 English had elevated to a throne, and of establishing his own 
 authority throughout Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. 
 
 Meer Jaffier's terror was extreme ; and the only expedient 
 which occurred to him was to purchase, by the payment of a 
 large sum of money, an accommodation with Shah Alum. 
 
 25 This expedient had been repeatedly employed by those who, 
 before him, had ruled the rich and unwarlike provinces near 
 the mouth of the Ganges. But Clive treated the suggestion 
 with a scorn worthy of his' strong sense and dauntless courage. 
 " ,If you do this," he wrote, " you will have the Nabob of 
 
 30 Oude, the Mahrattas, and many more, come from all parts of 
 the confines of your country, who will bully you out of money 
 till you have none left in your treasury. I beg your excellency 
 will rely on the fidelity of the English, and of those troops 
 which are attached to you." He wrote, in a similar strain, to 
 
LORD CLIVE 55 
 
 the governor of Patna, a brave native soldier whom he highly 
 esteemed. " Come to no terms ; defend your city to the last. 
 Rest assured that the English are stanch and firm friends, and 
 that they never desert a cause in which they have once taken 
 a part." 5 
 
 He kept his word. Shah Alum had invested Patna, and was 
 on the point of proceeding to storm, when he learned that the 
 Colonel was advancing by forced marches. The whole army 
 which was approaching consisted of only four hundred and 
 fifty Europeans and twenty-five hundred sepoys. But Clive 10 
 and his Englishmen were now objects of dread over all the 
 East. As soon as his advanced guard appeared, the be- 
 siegers fled before him. A few French adventurers who were 
 about the person of the prince advised him to try the chance 
 of battle ; but in vain. In a few days this great army, which 1 5 
 had been regarded with so much uneasiness by the court of 
 Moorshedabad, melted away before the mere terror of the 
 British name. ' 
 
 The conqueror returned in triumph to Fort William. The 
 joy of Meer Jafner was as unbounded as his fears had been, 20 
 and led him to bestow on his preserver a princely token of 
 gratitude. The quitrent which the East India Company were 
 bound to pay to the Nabob for the extensive lands held by 
 them to the south of Calcutta amounted to near thirty thou- 
 sand pounds sterling a year. The whole of this splendid estate, 25 
 sufficient to support with dignity the highest rank of the British 
 peerage, was now conferred on Clive for life. 
 
 This present we think Clive justified in accepting. It was a 
 present which, from its very nature, could be no secret. In 
 fact, the Company itself was his tenant, and by its acquies- 30 
 cence signified its approbation of Meer Jafner's grant. 
 
 But the gratitude of Meer Jafner did not last long. He had 
 for some time felt that the powerful ally who had set him up 
 might pull him down, and had been looking round for support 
 
56 LORD CLIVE 
 
 against the formidable strength by which he had himself been 
 hitherto supported. He knew that it would be impossible to 
 find among the natives of India any force which would look 
 the Colonel's little army in the face. The French power in 
 5 Bengal was extinct. But the fame of the Dutch had anciently 
 been great in the Eastern seas ; and it was not yet distinctly 
 known in Asia how much the power of Holland had declined 
 in Europe. Secret communications passed between the court 
 of Moorshedabad and the Dutch factory at Chinsurah; and 
 
 10 urgent letters were sent from Chinsurah, exhorting the Govern- 
 ment of Batavia to fit out an expedition which might balance 
 the power of the English in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, 
 eager to extend the influence of their country, and still more 
 eager to obtain for themselves a share of the wealth which 
 
 15 had recently raised so many English adventurers to opulence, 
 equipped a powerful armament. Seven large ships from Java 
 arrived unexpectedly in the Hoogley. The military force on 
 board amounted to fifteen hundred men, of whom about one 
 half were Europeans. The enterprise was well timed. Clive 
 
 20 had sent such large detachments to oppose the French in the 
 Carnatic that his army was now inferior in number to that of 
 the Dutch. He knew that Meer Jaffier secretly favored the 
 invaders. He knew that he took on himself a serious re- 
 sponsibility if he attacked the forces of a friendly power ; that 
 
 25 the English ministers could not wish to see a war with Holland 
 added to that in which they were already engaged with France ; 
 that they might disavow his acts ; that they might punish him. 
 He had recently remitted a great part of his fortune to Europe, 
 through the Dutch East India Company ; and he had there- 
 
 30 fore a strong interest in avoiding any quarrel. But he was 
 satisfied that if he suffered the Batavian armament to pass up 
 the river and to join the garrison of Chinsurah, Meer Jaffier 
 would throw himself into the arms of these new allies, and 
 that the English ascendancy in Bengal would be exposed to 
 
LORD CLIVE 57 
 
 most serious danger. He took his resolution with characteristic 
 boldness, and was most ably seconded by his officers, particularly 
 by Colonel Forde, to whom the most important part of the 
 operations was intrusted. The Dutch attempted to force a 
 passage. The English encountered them both by land and 5 
 water. On both elements the enemy had a great superiority 
 of force. On both they were signally defeated. Their ships 
 were taken. Their troops were put to a total rout. Almost 
 all the European soldiers, who constituted the main strength 
 of the invading army, were killed or taken. The conquerors 10 
 sat down before Chinsurah, and the chiefs of that settlement, 
 now thoroughly humbled, consented to the terms which Clive 
 dictated. They engaged to build no fortifications, and to raise 
 no troops beyond a small force necessary for the police of 
 their factories ; and it was distinctly provided that any viola- 1 5 
 tion of these covenants should be punished with instant ex- 
 pulsion from Bengal. 
 
 Three months after this great victory Clive sailed for Eng- 
 land. At home honors and rewards awaited him, not indeed 
 equal to his claims or to his ambition, but still such as, when 20 
 his age, his rank in the army, and his original place in society 
 are considered, must be pronounced rare and splendid. He 
 was raised to the Irish peerage and encouraged to expect an 
 English title. George the Third, who had just ascended the 
 throne, received him with great distinction. The ministers paid 25 
 him marked attention ; and Pitt, whose influence in the House 
 of Commons and in the country was unbounded, was eager to 
 mark his regard for one whose exploits had contributed so 
 much to the luster of that memorable period. The great orator 
 had already in Parliament described Clive as a heaven-born 30 
 general, as a man who, bred to the labor of the desk, had dis- 
 played a military genius which might excite the admiration of 
 the King of Prussia. There were then no reporters in the 
 gallery ; but these words, emphatically spoken by the first 
 
58 LORD CLIVE 
 
 statesman of the age, had passed from mouth to mouth, had 
 been transmitted to Clive in Bengal, and had greatly delighted 
 and nattered him. Indeed, since the death of Wolfe, Clive was 
 the only English general of whom his countrymen had much 
 5 reason to be proud. The Duke of Cumberland had been 
 generally unfortunate ; and his single victory, having been 
 gained over his countrymen, and used with merciless severity, 
 had been more fatal to his popularity than his many defeats. 
 Conway, versed in the learning of his profession and personally 
 
 10 courageous, wanted vigor and capacity. Granby, honest, gener- 
 ous, and as brave as a lion, had neither science nor genius. 
 Sackville, inferior in knowledge and abilities to none of his con- 
 temporaries, had incurred, unjustly as we believe, the imputa- 
 tion most fatal to the character of a soldier. It was under the 
 
 15 command of a foreign general that the British had triumphed 
 at Minden and Warburg. The people, therefore, as was natural, 
 greeted with pride and delight a captain of their own, whose 
 native courage and self-taught skill had placed him on a level 
 with the great tacticians of Germany. 
 
 20 The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie with 
 the first grandees of England. There remains proof that he 
 had remitted more than a hundred and eighty thousand pounds 
 through the Dutch East India Company, and more than forty 
 thousand pounds through the English Company. The amount 
 
 25 which he had sent home through private houses was also con- 
 siderable. He had invested great sums in jewels, then a very 
 common mode of remittance from India. His purchases of 
 diamonds, at Madras alone, amounted to twenty-five thousand 
 pounds. Besides a great mass of ready money, he had his 
 
 30 Indian estate, valued by himself at twenty-seven thousand a 
 year. His whole annual income, in the opinion of Sir John 
 Malcolm, who is desirous to state it as low as possible, ex- 
 ceeded forty thousand pounds ; and incomes of forty thousand 
 pounds at the time of the accession of George the Third were 
 
LORD CLIVE 59 
 
 at least as rare as incomes of a hundred thousand pounds now. 
 We may safely affirm that no Englishman who started with 
 nothing has ever, in any line of life, created such a fortune at 
 the early age of thirty-four. 
 
 It would be unjust not to add that Clive made a creditable 5 
 use of his riches. As soon as the battle of Plassey had laid the 
 foundation of his fortune, he sent ten thousand pounds to his 
 sisters, bestowed as much more on other poor friends and rela- 
 tions, ordered his agent to pay eight hundred a year to his parents, 
 and to insist that they should keep a carriage, and settled five 10 
 hundred a year on his old commander Lawrence, whose means 
 were very slender. The whole sum which Clive expended in this 
 manner may be calculated at fifty thousand pounds. 
 
 He now set himself to cultivate parliamentary interest. 
 His purchases of land seem to have been made in a great 15 
 measure with that view, and, after the general election of 
 1 761, he found himself in the House of Commons, at the 
 head of a body of dependents whose support must have been 
 important to any administration. In English politics, how- 
 ever, he did not take a prominent part. His first attach- 20 
 ments, as we have seen, were to Mr. Fox ; at a later period 
 he was attracted by the genius and success of Mr. Pitt; but 
 finally he connected himself in the closest manner with George 
 Grenville. Early in the session of 1764, when the illegal and 
 impolitic persecution of that worthless demagogue Wilkes had 25 
 strongly excited the public mind, the town was amused by an 
 anecdote, which we' have seen in some unpublished memoirs of 
 Horace Walpole. Old Mr. Richard Clive, who, since his son's 
 elevation, had been introduced into society for which his former 
 habits had not well fitted him, presented himself at the levee. 30 
 The King asked him where Lord Clive was. " He will be in 
 town very soon," said the old gentleman, loud enough to be 
 heard by the whole circle, " and then your Majesty will have 
 another vote." 
 
6o LORD CLIVE 
 
 But in truth all Clive's views were directed towards the 
 country in which he had so eminently distinguished himself 
 as a soldier and a statesman ; and it was by considerations 
 relating to India that his conduct as a public man in England 
 5 was regulated. The power of the Company, though an 
 anomaly, is in our time, we are firmly persuaded, a beneficial 
 anomaly. In the time of Clive it was not merely an anomaly 
 but a nuisance. There was no Board of Control. The 
 Directors were for the most part mere traders, ignorant of 
 
 10 general politics, ignorant of the peculiarities of the empire 
 which had strangely become subject to them. The Court of 
 Proprietors, wherever it chose to interfere, was able to have 
 its way. That court was more numerous, as well as more 
 powerful, than at present ; for then every share of five hun- 
 
 15 dred pounds conferred a vote. The meetings were large, 
 stormy, even riotous, the debates indecently virulent. All the 
 turbulence of a Westminster election, all the trickery and cor- 
 ruption of a Grampound election, disgraced the proceedings of 
 this assembly on questions of the most solemn importance. 
 
 20 Fictitious votes were manufactured on a gigantic scale. Clive 
 himself laid out a hundred thousand pounds in the purchase of 
 stock, which he then divided among nominal proprietors on 
 whom he" could depend, and whom he brought down in his 
 train to every discussion and every ballot. Others did the 
 
 25 same, though not to quite so enormous an extent. 
 
 The interest taken by the public of England in Indian ques- 
 tions was then far greater than at present," and the reason is 
 obvious. At present a writer enters the service young; he 
 climbs slowly; he is fortunate if, at forty-five, he can return 
 
 30 to his country with an annuity of a thousand a year and with 
 savings amounting to thirty thousand pounds. A great quantity 
 of wealth is made by English functionaries in India, but no 
 single functionary makes a very large fortune, and what is 
 made is slowly, hardly, and honestly earned. Only four or five 
 
LORD CLIVE 6 1 
 
 high political offices are reserved for public men from England. 
 The residencies, the secretaryships, the seats in the boards of 
 revenue and in the Sudder courts, are all filled by men who 
 have given the best years of life to the service of the Com- 
 pany ; nor can any talents however splendid or any connec- 5 
 tions however powerful obtain these lucrative posts for any 
 person who has not entered by the regular door and mounted 
 by the regular gradations. Seventy years ago less money was 
 brought home from the East than in our time ; but it was 
 divided among a very much smaller number of persons, and 10 
 immense sums were often accumulated in a few months. Any 
 Englishman, whatever his age might be, might hope to be one 
 of the lucky emigrants. If he made a good speech in Leaden- 
 hall Street, or published a clever pamphlet in defense of the 
 chairman, he might be sent out in the Company's service, and 15 
 might return in three or four years as rich as Pigot or as Clive. 
 Thus the India House was a lottery office, which invited every- 
 body to take a chance, and held out ducal fortunes as the 
 prizes destined for the lucky few. As soon as it was known 
 that there was a part of the world where a lieutenant colonel 20 
 had one morning received as a present an estate as large as 
 that of the Earl of Bath or the Marquis of Rockingham, and 
 where it seemed that such a trifle as ten or twenty thousand 
 pounds was to be had by any British functionary for the asking, 
 society began to exhibit all the symptoms of the South Sea 25 
 year, — a feverish excitement, an ungovernable impatience to 
 be rich, a contempt for slow, sure, and moderate gains. 
 
 At the head of the preponderating party in the India House 
 had long stood a powerful, able, and ambitious director of the 
 name of Sulivan. He had conceived a strong jealousy of Clive, 30 
 and remembered with bitterness the audacity with which the 
 late governor of Bengal had repeatedly set at nought the 
 authority of the distant Directors of the Company. An appar- 
 ent reconciliation took place after Clive's arrival, but enmity 
 
62 LORD CLIVE 
 
 remained deeply rooted in the hearts of both. The whole body 
 of Directors was then chosen annually. At the election of 
 1763 Clive attempted to break down the power of the dominant 
 faction. The contest was carried on with a violence which he 
 5 describes as tremendous. Sulivan was victorious and hastened 
 to take his revenge. The grant of rent which Clive had re- 
 ceived from Meer Jaffier was, in the opinion of the best Eng- 
 lish lawyers, valid. It had been made by exactly the same 
 authority from which the Company had received their chief 
 
 10 possessions in Bengal, and the Company had long acquiesced 
 in it. The Directors, however, most unjustly determined to 
 confiscate it, and Clive was forced to file a bill in Chancery 
 against them. 
 
 But a great and sudden turn in affairs was at hand. Every 
 
 1 5 ship from Bengal had for some time brought alarming tidings. 
 The internal misgovernment of the province had reached such 
 a point that it could go no further. What, indeed, was to be 
 expected from a body of public servants exposed to temptation 
 such that, as Clive once said, flesh and blood could not bear it, 
 
 20 armed with irresistible power, and responsible only to the cor- 
 rupt, turbulent, distracted, ill-informed Company, situated at 
 such a distance that the average interval between the sending 
 of a dispatch and £he receipt of an answer was above a year 
 and a half ? Accordingly during the five years which followed 
 
 25 the departure of Clive from Bengal, the misgovernment of the 
 English was carried to a point such as seems hardly compatible 
 with the very existence of society. The Roman proconsul, who, 
 in a year or two, squeezed out of a province the means of rear- 
 ing marble palaces and baths on the shores of Campania, of 
 
 30 drinking from amber, of feasting on singing birds, of exhibiting 
 armies of gladiators and flocks of camelopards ; the Spanish 
 viceroy, who, leaving behind him the curses of Mexico or Lima, 
 entered Madrid with a long train of gilded coaches and of 
 sumpter horses trapped and shod with silver, were now outdone. 
 
LORD CLIVE 63 
 
 Cruelty, indeed, properly so called, was not among the vices of 
 the servants of the Company ; but cruelty itself could hardly 
 have produced greater evils than sprang from their unprincipled 
 eagerness to be rich. They pulled down their creature, Meer 
 Jaffier. They set up in his place another Nabob, named Meer 5 
 Cossim. But Meer Cossim had talents and a will ; and, though 
 sufficiently inclined to oppress his subjects himself, he could not 
 bear to see them ground to the dust by oppressions which yielded 
 him no profit, nay, which destroyed his revenue in its very 
 source. The English accordingly pulled down Meer Cossim 10 
 and set up Meer Jaffier again ; and Meer Cossim, after reveng- 
 ing himself by a massacre surpassing in atrocity that of the 
 Black Hole, fled to the dominions of the Nabob of Oude. At 
 every one of these revolutions the new prince divided among 
 his foreign masters whatever could be scraped together from 15 
 the treasury of his fallen predecessor. The immense population 
 of his dominions was given up as a prey to those who had 
 made him a sovereign and who could unmake him. The 
 servants of the Company obtained, not for their employers but 
 for themselves, a monopoly of almost the whole internal trade. 20 
 They forced the natives to buy dear and to sell cheap. They 
 insulted with impunity the tribunals, the police, and the fiscal 
 authorities of the country. They covered with their protection 
 a set of native dependents who ranged through the provinces, 
 spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared. Every 25 
 servant of a British factor was armed with all the power of his 
 master ; and his master was armed with all the power of the 
 Company. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated 
 at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced 
 to the extremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed 30 
 to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this. They 
 found the little finger of the Company thicker than the loins of 
 Surajah Dowlah. Under their old masters they had at least one 
 resource : when the evil became insupportable the people rose 
 
64 LORD CLIVE 
 
 and pulled down the Government. But the English Government 
 was not to be shaken off. That Government, oppressive as the 
 most oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was strong with 
 all the strength of civilization. It resembled the government of 
 
 5 evil genii rather than the government of human tyrants. Even 
 despair could not inspire the soft Bengalee with courage to con- 
 front men of English breed, the hereditary nobility of mankind, 
 whose skill and valor had so often triumphed in spite of tenfold 
 odds. The unhappy race never attempted resistance. Some- 
 
 10 times they submitted in patient misery. Sometimes they fled 
 from the white man, as their fathers had been used to fly from 
 the Mahratta ; and the palanquin of the English traveler was 
 often carried through silent villages and towns, which the report 
 of his approach had made desolate. 
 
 15 The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally objects of hatred 
 to all the neighboring powers ; and to all the haughty race 
 presented a dauntless front. Their armies, everywhere out- 
 numbered, were everywhere victorious. A succession of com- 
 manders, formed in the school of Clive, still maintained the 
 
 20 fame of their country. " It must be acknowledged," says the 
 Mussulman historian of those times, "that this nation's pres- 
 ence of mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted bravery are 
 past all question. They join the most resolute courage to the 
 most cautious prudence ; nor have they their equals in the art 
 
 25 of ranging themselves in battle array and fighting in order. If 
 to so many military qualifications they knew how to join the 
 arts of government, if they exerted as much ingenuity and 
 solicitude in relieving the people of God as they do in what- 
 ever concerns their military affairs, no nation in the world 
 
 30 would be preferable to them, or worthier of command. But 
 the people under their dominion groan everywhere, and are 
 reduced to poverty and distress. O God ! come to the assist- 
 ance of thine afflicted servants, and deliver them from the 
 oppressions which they suffer." 
 
LORD CLIVE 65 
 
 It was impossible, however, that even the military establish- 
 ment should long continue exempt from the vices which per- 
 vaded every other part of the Government. Rapacity, luxury, 
 and the spirit of insubordination spread from the civil service 
 to the officers of the army, and from the officers to the soldiers. 5 
 The evil continued to grow till every mess room became the 
 seat of conspiracy and cabal, and till the sepoys could be 
 kept in order only by wholesale executions. 
 
 At length the state of things in Bengal began to excite un- 
 easiness at home. A succession of revolutions ; a disorganized 10 
 administration; the natives pillaged, yet the Company not en- 
 riched; every fleet bringing back fortunate adventurers who 
 were able to purchase manors and to build stately dwellings, 
 yet bringing back also alarming accounts of the financial pros- 
 pects of the Government ; war on the frontiers ; disaffection in 1 5 
 the army ; the national character disgraced by excesses resem- 
 bling those of Verres and Pizarro ; such was the spectacle 
 which dismayed those who were conversant with Indian affairs. 
 The general cry was that Clive, and Clive alone, could save the 
 empire which he had founded. 20 
 
 This feeling manifested itself in the strongest manner at a 
 very full General Court of Proprietors. Men of all parties, 
 forgetting their feuds and trembling for their dividends, ex- 
 claimed that Clive was the man whom the crisis required, 
 that the oppressive proceedings which had been adopted re- 25 
 specting his estate ought to be dropped, and that he ought 
 to be entreated to return to India. 
 
 Clive rose. As to his estate, he said, he would make such 
 propositions to the Directors as would, he trusted, lead to an 
 amicable settlement. But there was a still greater difficulty. 30 
 It was proper to tell them that he never would undertake 
 the government of Bengal while his enemy, Sulivan, was chair- 
 man of the Company. The tumult was violent. Sulivan could 
 scarcely obtain a hearing. An overwhelming majority of the 
 
66 LORD CLIVE 
 
 assembly was on Clive's side. Sulivan wished to try the result 
 of a ballot. But, according to the by-laws of the Company, 
 there can be no ballot except on a requisition signed by nine 
 proprietors ; and, though hundreds were present, nine persons 
 5 could not be found to set their hands to such a requisition. 
 
 Clive was in consequence nominated Governor and Com- 
 mander in chief of the British possessions in Bengal. But he 
 adhered to his declaration, and refused to enter on his office 
 till the event of the next election of Directors should be 
 
 io known. The contest was obstinate ; but Clive triumphed. 
 Sulivan, lately absolute master of the India House, was within 
 a vote of losing his own seat : and both the chairman and the 
 deputy chairman were friends of the new Governor. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which Lord Clive sailed 
 
 15 for the third and last. time to India. In May, 1765, he reached 
 Calcutta ; and he found the whole machine of government even 
 more fearfully disorganized than he had anticipated. Meer 
 Jaffier, who had some time before lost his eldest son. Meeran, 
 had died while Clive was on his voyage out. The English 
 
 20 functionaries at Calcutta had already received from home strict 
 orders not to accept presents from the native princes. But, 
 eager for gain, and unaccustomed to respect the commands of 
 their distant, ignorant, and negligent masters, they again set 
 up the throne of Bengal to sale. About one hundred and forty 
 
 25 thousand pounds sterling was distributed among nine of the 
 most powerful servants of the Company ; and, in consideration 
 of this bribe, an infant son of the deceased Nabob was placed 
 on the seat of his father. The news of the ignominious bargain 
 met Clive on his arrival. In a private letter written, immediately 
 
 30 after his landing, to an intimate friend, he poured out his feel- 
 ings in language which, proceeding from a man so daring, so 
 resolute, and so little given to theatrical display of sentiment, 
 seems to us singularly touching. " Alas ! " he says, " how is the 
 English name sunk ! I could not avoid paying the tribute of a 
 
LORD CLIVE 67 
 
 few tears to the departed and lost fame of the British nation 
 — irrecoverably so, I fear. However, I do declare, by that 
 great Being who is the searcher of all hearts, and to whom 
 we must be accountable if there be a hereafter, that I am 
 come out with a mind superior to all corruption, and that I 5 
 am determined to destroy these great and growing evils, or 
 perish in the attempt." 
 
 The Council met, and Clive stated to them his full deter- 
 mination to make a thorough reform, and to use for that 
 purpose the whole of the ample authority, civil and military, 10 
 which had been confided to him. Johnstone, one of the boldest 
 and worst men in the assembly, made some show of opposi- 
 tion. Clive interrupted him, and haughtily demanded whether 
 he meant to question the power of the new Government. 
 Johnstone was cowed, and disclaimed any such intention. All 15 
 the faces round the board grew long and pale; and not 
 another syllable of dissent was uttered. 
 
 Clive redeemed his pledge. He remained in India about a 
 year and a half; and in that short time effected one of the 
 most extensive, difficult, and salutary reforms that ever was 20 
 accomplished by any statesman. This was the part of his life 
 on which he afterwards looked back with most pride. He had 
 it in his power to triple his already splendid fortune ; to con- 
 nive at abuses while pretending to remove them ; to conciliate 
 the good will of all the English in Bengal, by giving up to their 25 
 rapacity a helpless and timid race, who knew not where lay the 
 island which sent forth their oppressors, and whose complaints 
 had little chance of being heard across fifteen thousand miles 
 of ocean. He knew that, if he applied himself in earnest to 
 the work of reformation, he should raise every bad passion in 30 
 arms against him. He knew how unscrupulous, how implaca- 
 ble, would be the hatred of these ravenous adventurers, who, 
 having counted on accumulating in a few months fortunes 
 sufficient to support peerages, should find all their hopes 
 
68 LORD CLIVE 
 
 frustrated. But he had chosen the good part ; and he called 
 up all the force of his mind for a battle far harder than that 
 of Plassey. At first success seemed hopeless ; but soon all 
 obstacles began to bend before that iron courage and that 
 5 vehement will. The receiving of presents from the natives was 
 rigidly prohibited. The private trade of the servants of the 
 Company was put down. The whole settlement seemed to be 
 set, as one man, against these measures. But the inexorable 
 Governor declared that, if he could not find support at Fort 
 
 10 William, he would procure it elsewhere, and sent for some 
 civil servants from Madras to assist him in carrying on the 
 administration. The most factious of his opponents he turned 
 out of their offices. The rest submitted to what was inevitable ; 
 and in a very short time all resistance was quelled. 
 
 1 5 But Clive was far too wise a man not to see that the recent 
 abuses were partly to be ascribed to a cause which could not 
 fail to produce similar abuses as soon as the pressure of his 
 strong hand was withdrawn. The Company had followed a 
 mistaken policy with respect to the remuneration of its serv- 
 
 20 ants. The salaries were too low to afford even those indulgences 
 which are necessary to the health and comfort of Europeans in 
 a tropical climate. To lay by a rupee from such scanty pay 
 was impossible. It could not be supposed that men of even 
 average abilities would consent to pass the best years of life 
 
 25 in exile, under a burning sun, for no other consideration than 
 these stinted wages. It had accordingly been understood, from 
 a very early period, that the Company's agents were at liberty 
 to enrich themselves by their private trade. This practice had 
 been seriously injurious to the commercial interests of the 
 
 30 corporation. That very intelligent observer, Sir Thomas Roe, 
 in the reign of James the First, strongly urged the Directors to 
 apply a remedy to the abuse. " Absolutely prohibit the private 
 trade," said he; " for your business will be better done. I know 
 this is harsh. Men profess they come not for bare wages. But 
 
LORD CLIVE 69 
 
 you will take away this plea if you give great wages to their 
 content ; and then you know what you part from." 
 
 In spite of this excellent advice, the Company adhered to the 
 old system, paid low salaries, and connived at the indirect gains 
 of the agents. The pay of a member of Council was only three 5 
 hundred pounds a year. Yet it was notorious that such a func- 
 tionary could not live in India for less than ten times that sum ; 
 and it could not be expected that he would be content to live 
 even handsomely in India without laying up something against 
 the time of his return to England. This system, before the 10 
 conquest of Bengal, might affect the amount of the dividends 
 payable to the proprietors, but could do little harm in any other 
 way. But the Company was now a ruling body. Its servants 
 might still be called factors, junior merchants, senior merchants. 
 But they were in truth proconsuls, propraetors, procurators of 15 
 extensive regions. They had immense power. Their regular 
 pay was universally admitted to be insufficient. They were, by 
 the ancient usage of the service and by the implied permission 
 of their employers, warranted in enriching themselves by indirect 
 means ; and this had been the origin of the frightful oppression 20 
 and corruption which had desolated Bengal. Clive saw clearly 
 that it was absurd to give men power and to require them to 
 live in penury. He justly concluded that no reform could be 
 effectual which should not be coupled with a plan for liberally 
 remunerating the civil servants of the Company. The Directors, 25 
 he knew, were not disposed to sanction any increase of the sala- 
 ries out of their own treasury. The only course which remained 
 open to the Governor was one which exposed him to much mis- 
 representation, but which we think him fully justified in adopt- 
 ing. He appropriated to the support of the service the monopoly 30 
 of salt, which has formed, down to our own time, a principal 
 head of Indian revenue ; and he divided the proceeds according 
 to a scale which seems to have been not unreasonably fixed. 
 He was irt consequence accused by his enemies, and has been 
 
yo LORD CLIVE 
 
 accused by historians, of disobeying his instructions, of violating 
 his promises, of authorizing that very abuse which it was his 
 special mission to destroy, namely, the trade of the Company's 
 servants. But every discerning and impartial judge will admit 
 5 that there was really nothing in common between the system 
 which he set up and that which he was sent to destroy. The 
 monopoly of salt had been a source of revenue to the govern- 
 ments of India before Clive was born. It continued to be so 
 long after his death. The cixil servants were clearly entitled to 
 
 10 a maintenance out of the revenue ; and all that Clive did was 
 to charge a particular portion of the revenue with their main- 
 tenance. He thus, while he put an end to the practices by 
 which gigantic fortunes had been rapidly accumulated, gave 
 to every British functionary employed in the East the means 
 
 15 of slowly but surely acquiring a competence. Yet such is the 
 injustice of mankind that none of those acts which are the 
 real stains of his life has drawn on him so much obloquy as 
 this measure, which was in truth a reform necessary to the 
 success of all his other reforms. 
 
 20 He had quelled the opposition of the civil service ; that of the 
 army was more formidable. Some of the retrenchments which 
 had been ordered by the Directors affected the interests of the 
 military service ; and a storm arose, such as even Caesar would 
 not willingly have faced. It was no light thing to encounter the 
 
 25 resistance of those who held the power of the sword, in a country 
 governed only by the sword. Two hundred English officers en- 
 gaged in a conspiracy against the Government and determined 
 to resign their commissions on the same day, not doubting that 
 Clive would grant any terms rather than see the army, on which 
 
 30 alone the British empire in the East rested, left without com- 
 manders. They little knew the unconquerable spirit with which 
 they had to deal. Clive had still a few officers round his person 
 on whom he could rely. He sent to Fort St. George for a fresh 
 supply. He gave commissions even to mercantile agents who 
 
LORD CLIVE 71 
 
 were disposed to support him at this crisis ; and he sent orders 
 that every officer who resigned should be instantly brought up 
 to Calcutta. The conspirators found that they had miscalculated. 
 The Governor was inexorable. The troops were steady. The 
 sepoys, over whom Clive had always possessed extraordinary 5 
 influence, stood by him with unshaken fidelity. The leaders in 
 the plot were arrested, tried, and cashiered. The rest, humbled 
 and dispirited, begged to be permitted to withdraw their resig- 
 nations. Many of them declared their repentance even with 
 tears. The younger offenders Clive treated with lenity. To the 10 
 ringleaders he was inflexibly severe ; but his severity was pure 
 from all taint of private malevolence. While he sternly upheld 
 the just authority of his office, he passed by personal insults and 
 injuries with magnanimous disdain. One of the conspirators was 
 accused of having planned the assassination of the Governor ; 1 5 
 but Clive would not listen to the charge. "The officers," he 
 said, " are Englishmen, not assassins." 
 
 While he reformed the civil service and established his author- 
 ity over the army, he was equally successful in his foreign policy. 
 His landing on Indian ground was the signal for immediate 20 
 peace. The Nabob of Oude, with a large army, lay at that 
 time on the frontier of Bahar. He had been joined by many 
 Afghans and Mahrattas, and there was no small reason to expect 
 a general coalition of all the native powers against the English. 
 But the name of Clive quelled in an instant all opposition. The 25 
 enemy implored peace in the humblest language, and submitted 
 to such terms as the new Governor chose to dictate. 
 
 At the same time the Government of Bengal was placed on 
 a new footing. The power of the English in that province had 
 hitherto been altogether undefined. It was unknown to the 30 
 ancient constitution of the empire, and it had been ascertained 
 by no compact. It resembled the power which, in the last 
 decrepitude of the Western Empire, was exercised over Italy 
 by the great chiefs of foreign mercenaries, the Ricimers and 
 
J2 LORD CLIVE 
 
 the Odoacers, who put up and pulled down at their pleasure a 
 succession of insignificant princes, dignified with the names of 
 Caesar and Augustus. But as in Italy, so in India, the warlike 
 strangers at length found it expedient to give to a domination 
 5 which had been established by arms the sanction of law and 
 ancient prescription. Theodoric thought it politic to obtain from 
 the distant court of Byzantium a commission appointing him 
 ruler of Italy ; and Clive, in the same manner, applied to the 
 Court of Delhi for a formal grant of the powers of which he 
 
 10 already possessed the reality. The Mogul was absolutely help- 
 less, and, though he murmured, had reason to be well pleased 
 that the English were disposed to give solid rupees, which he 
 never could have extorted from them, in exchange for a few 
 Persian characters which cost him nothing. A bargain was 
 
 1 5 speedily struck ; and the titular sovereign of Hindostan issued 
 a warrant empowering the Company to collect and administer 
 the revenues of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. 
 
 There was still a Nabob, who stood to the British authorities 
 in the same relation in which the last driveling Chilperics and 
 
 20 Childerics of the Merovingian line stood to their able and vigor- 
 ous Mayors of the Palace, to Charles Martel and to Pepin. At 
 one time Clive had almost made up his mind to discard this 
 phantom altogether ; but he afterwards thought that it might be 
 convenient still to use the name of the Nabob, particularly in 
 
 25 dealings with other European nations. The French, the Dutch, 
 and the Danes would, he conceived, submit far more readily 
 to the authority of the native Prince, whom they had always 
 been accustomed to respect, than to that of a rival trading 
 corporation. This policy may, at that time, have been judicious. 
 
 30 But the pretense was soon found to be too flimsy to impose on 
 anybody; and it was altogether laid aside. The heir of Meer 
 Jamer still resides at Moorshedabad, the ancient capital of his 
 house, still bears the title of Nabob, is still accosted by the Eng- 
 lish as " Your Highness," and is still suffered to retain a portion 
 
LORD CLIVE 73 
 
 of the regal state which surrounded his ancestors. A pension of 
 a hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year is annually paid to 
 him by the Government. His carriage is surrounded by guards 
 and preceded by attendants with silver maces. His person and 
 his dwelling are exempted from the ordinary authority of the 5 
 ministers of justice. But he has not the smallest share of politi- 
 cal power, and is, in fact, only a noble and wealthy subject of 
 the Company. 
 
 It would have been easy for Clive, during his second adminis- 
 tration in Bengal, to accumulate riches such as no subject in 10 
 Europe possessed. He might indeed, without subjecting the 
 rich inhabitants of the province to any pressure beyond that to 
 which their mildest rulers had accustomed them, have received 
 presents to the amount of three hundred thousand pounds a 
 year. The neighboring princes would gladly have paid any 15 
 price for his favor. But he appears to have strictly adhered to 
 the rules which he had laid down for the guidance of others. 
 The Rajah of Benares offered him diamonds of great value. The 
 Nabob of Oude pressed him to accept a large sum of money 
 and a casket of costly jewels. Clive courteously but peremp- 20 
 torily refused ; and it should be observed that he made no merit 
 of his refusal, and that the facts did not come to light till after 
 his death. He kept an exact account of his salary, of his share 
 of the profits accruing from the trade in salt, and of those 
 presents which, according to the fashion of the East, it would 25 
 be churlish to refuse. Out of the sum arising from these 
 resources he defrayed the expenses of his situation. The sur- 
 plus he divided among a few attached friends who had accom- 
 panied him to India. He always boasted, and, as far as we can 
 judge, he boasted with truth, that his last administration dimin- 30 
 ished instead of increasing his fortune. 
 
 One large sum indeed he accepted. Meer Jaffier had left him 
 by will above sixty thousand pounds sterling in specie and 
 jewels ; and the rules which had been recently laid down 
 
74 LORD CLIVE 
 
 extended only to presents from the living, and did not affect 
 legacies" from the dead. Clive took the money, but not for 
 himself. He made the whole over to the Company, in trust for 
 officers and soldiers invalided in their service. The fund which 
 5 still bears his name owes its origin to this princely donation. 
 After a stay of eighteen months the state of his health 
 made it necessary for him to return to Europe. At the close 
 of January, 1767, he quitted for the last time the country on 
 whose destinies he had exercised so mighty an influence. 
 
 10 His second return from Bengal was not, like his first, greeted 
 by the acclamations of his countrymen. Numerous causes were 
 already at work which embittered the remaining years of his 
 life and hurried him to an untimely grave. His old enemies at 
 the India House were still powerful and active ; and they had 
 
 15 been reenforced by a large band of allies whose violence far 
 exceeded their own. The whole crew of pilferers and oppressors 
 from whom he had rescued Bengal persecuted him with the 
 implacable rancor which belongs to such abject natures. Many 
 of them even invested their property in India stock, merely that 
 
 20 they might be better able to annoy the man whose firmness had 
 set bounds to their rapacity. Lying newspapers were set up for 
 no purpose but to abuse him ; and the temper of the public 
 mind was then such, that these arts, which, under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances, would have been ineffectual against truth and merit, 
 
 25 produced an extraordinary impression. 
 
 The great events which had taken place in India had called 
 into existence a new class of Englishmen, to whom their country- 
 men gave the name of Nabobs. These persons had generally 
 sprung from families neither ancient nor opulent; they had 
 
 30 generally been sent at an early age to the East ; and they had 
 there acquired large fortunes, which they had brought back to 
 their native land. It was natural that, not having had much 
 opportunity of mixing with the best society, they should exhibit 
 some of the awkwardness and some of the pomposity of upstarts. 
 
LORD CLIVE 75 
 
 It was natural that, during their sojourn in Asia, they should 
 have acquired some tastes and habits surprising, if not disgust- 
 ing, to persons who never had quitted Europe. It was natural 
 that, having enjoyed great consideration in the East, they should 
 not be disposed to sink into obscurity at home ; and as they 5 
 had money, and had not birth or high connection, it was natural 
 that they should display a little obtrusively the single advantage 
 •which they possessed. Wherever they settled there was a kind 
 of feud between them and the old nobility and gentry, similar 
 to that which raged in France between the farmer-general and 10 
 the marquis. This enmity to the aristocracy long continued to 
 distinguish the servants of the Company. More than twenty 
 years after the time of which we are now speaking, Burke pro- 
 nounced that among the Jacobins might be reckoned " the East 
 Indians almost to a man, who cannot bear to find that their 15 
 present importance does not bear a proportion to their wealth." 
 The Nabobs soon became a most unpopular class of men. 
 Some of them had in the East displayed eminent talents and 
 rendered great services to the state ; but at home their talents 
 were not shown to advantage and their services were little 20 
 known. That they had sprung from obscurity, that they had 
 acquired great wealth, that they exhibited it insolently, that 
 they spent it extravagantly, that they raised the price of every- 
 thing in their neighborhood, from fresh eggs to rotten boroughs, 
 that their liveries outshone those of dukes, that their coaches 25 
 were finer than that of the Lord Mayor, that the examples of 
 their large and ill-governed households corrupted half the serv- 
 ants in the country, that some of them, with all their magnifi- 
 cence, could not catch the tone of good society, but, in spite of 
 the stud and the crowd of menials, of the plate and the Dresden 30 
 china, of the venison and the Burgundy, were still low men; 
 these were things which excited, both in the class from which 
 they had sprung and in the class into which they attempted to 
 force themselves, the bitter aversion which is the effect of 
 
y6 LORD CLIVE 
 
 mingled envy and contempt. But when it was also rumored 
 that the fortune which had enabled its possessor to eclipse the 
 Lord Lieutenant on the race ground, or to carry the county 
 against the head of a house as old as Domesday Book, had 
 5 been accumulated by violating public faith, by deposing legiti- 
 mate princes, by reducing whole provinces to beggary, all the 
 higher and better as well as all the low and evil parts of human 
 nature were stirred against the wretch who had obtained by 
 guilt and dishonor the riches which he now lavished with arro- 
 
 10 gant and inelegant profusion. The unfortunate Nabob seemed 
 to be made up of those foibles against which comedy has 
 pointed the most merciless ridicule, and of those crimes which 
 have thrown the deepest gloom over tragedy, of Turcaret and 
 Nero, of Monsieur Jourdain and Richard the Third. A tempest 
 
 15 of execration and derision, such as can be compared only to 
 that outbreak of public feeling against the Puritans which took 
 place at the time of the Restoration, burst on the servants of 
 the Company. The humane man was horror-struck at the way 
 in which they had got their money, the thrifty man at the way 
 
 20 in which they spent it. The dilettante sneered at their want 
 of taste. The macaroni black-balled them as vulgar fellows. 
 Writers the most unlike in sentiment and style, Methodists 
 and libertines, philosophers and buffoons, were for once on 
 the same side. It is hardly too much to say that, during a 
 
 25 space of about thirty years, the whole lighter literature of Eng- 
 land was colored by the feelings which we have described. 
 Foote brought on the stage an Anglo-Indian chief, dissolute, 
 ungenerous, and tyrannical, ashamed of the humble friends of 
 his youth, hating the aristocracy, yet childishly eager to be 
 
 30 numbered among them, squandering his wealth on panders and 
 flatterers, tricking out his chairmen with the most costly hot- 
 house flowers, and astounding the ignorant with jargon about 
 rupees, lacs, and jaghires. Mackenzie, with more delicate humor, 
 depicted a plain country family raised by the Indian acquisitions 
 
LORD CLIVE 77 
 
 of one of its members to sudden opulence, and exciting derision 
 by an awkward mimicry of the manners of the great. Cowper, 
 in that lofty expostulation which glows with the very spirit of 
 the Hebrew poets, placed the oppression of India foremost in 
 the list of those national crimes for which God had punished 5 
 England with years of disastrous war, with discomfiture in her 
 own seas, and with the loss of her transatlantic empire. If any 
 of our readers will take the trouble to search in the dusty re- 
 cesses of circulating libraries for some novel published sixty 
 years ago, the chance is that the villain or subvillain of the 10 
 story will prove to be a savage old Nabob, with an immense 
 fortune, a tawny complexion, a bad liver, and a worse heart. 
 
 Such, as far as we can now judge, was the feeling of 
 the country respecting Nabobs in general. And Clive was 
 eminently the Nabob, the ablest, the most celebrated, the 15 
 highest in rank, the highest in fortune, of all the fraternity. 
 His wealth was exhibited in a manner which could not fail 
 to excite odium. He lived with great magnificence in Berkeley 
 Square. He reared one palace in Shropshire and another at 
 Claremont. His parliamentary influence might vie with that 20 
 of the greatest families. But in all this splendor and power 
 envy found something to sneer at. On some of his relations 
 wealth and dignity seem to have sat as awkwardly as on 
 Mackenzie's Margery Mushroom. Nor was he himself, with 
 all his great qualities, free from those weaknesses which the 25 
 satirists of that age represented as characteristic of his whole 
 class. In the field, indeed, iris habits were remarkably simple. 
 He was constantly on horseback, was never seen but in his 
 uniform, never wore silk, never entered a palanquin, and was 
 content with the plainest fare. But when he was no longer at 30 
 the head of an army, he laid aside this Spartan temperance for 
 the ostentatious luxury of a Sybarite. Though his person was 
 ungraceful, and though his harsh features were redeemed from 
 vulgar ugliness only by their stern, dauntless, and commanding 
 
78 LORD CLIVE 
 
 expression, he was fond of rich and gay clothing, and replen- 
 ished his wardrobe with absurd profusion. Sir John Malcolm 
 gives us a letter worthy of Sir Matthew Mite, in which Clive 
 orders " two hundred shirts, the best and finest that can be got 
 5 for love or money." A few follies of this description, grossly 
 exaggerated by report, produced an unfavorable impression on 
 the public mind. But this was not the worst. Black stories, of 
 which the greater part were pure inventions, were circulated 
 respecting his conduct in the East. He had to bear the whole 
 
 10 odium not only of those bad acts to which he had once or 
 twice stooped, but of all the bad acts of all the English in 
 India ; of bad acts committed when he was absent ; nay, of bad 
 acts which he had manfully opposed and severely punished. 
 ^The very abuses against which he had waged an honest, 
 5 resolute, and successful war were laid to his account. He 
 was, in fact, regarded as the personification of all the vices 
 and weaknesses which the public, with or without reason, 
 ascribed to the English adventurers in Asia. We have our- 
 selves heard old men, who knew nothing of his history, but 
 
 20 who still retained the prejudices conceived in their youth, talk 
 of nim as an incarnate fiend. Johnson always held this lan- 
 guage. Brown, whom Clive employed to lay out his pleasure 
 grounds, was amazed to see in the house of his noble employer 
 a chest which had once been filled with gold from the treasury 
 
 25 of Moorshedabad, and could not understand how the conscience 
 of the criminal could suffer him to sleep with such an object so 
 near to his bedchamber. The peasantry of Surrey looked with 
 mysterious horror on the stately house which was rising at 
 Claremont, and whispered that the great wicked lord had 
 
 30 ordered the walls to be made so thick in order to keep out 
 the devil, who would one day carry him away bodily. Among 
 the gaping clowns who drank in this frightful story was a 
 worthless ugly lad of the name of Hunter, since widely known 
 as William Huntington, S.S. ; and the superstition which was 
 
LORD CLIVE 79 
 
 strangely mingled with the knavery of that remarkable im- 
 postor seems to have derived no small nutriment from the 
 tales which he heard of the life and character of Clive. 
 
 In the meantime the impulse which Clive had given to 
 the administration of Bengal was constantly becoming fainter 5 
 and fainter. His policy was to a great extent abandoned; 
 the abuses which he had suppressed began to revive ; and 
 at length the evils which a bad government had engendered 
 were aggravated by one of those fearful visitations which 
 the best government cannot avert. In the summer of 1770 10 
 the rains failed ; the earth was parched up ; the tanks were 
 empty ; the rivers shrank within their beds ; and a famine, 
 such as is known only in countries where every household 
 depends for support on its own little patch of cultivation, 
 filled the whole valley of the Ganges with misery and death. 15 
 Tender and delicate women, whose veils had never been 
 lifted before the public gaze, came forth from the inner cham- 
 bers in which Eastern jealousy had kept watch over their 
 beauty, threw themselves on the earth before the passers-by, 
 and, with loud wailings, implored a handful of rice for their 20 
 children. The Hoogley every day rolled down thousands of 
 corpses close to the porticoes and gardens of the English 
 conquerors. The very streets of Calcutta were blocked up 
 by the dying and the dead. The lean and feeble survivors 
 had not energy enough to bear the bodies of their kindred 25 
 to the funeral pile or to the holy river, or even to scare 
 away the jackals and vultures, who fed on human remains 
 in the face of day. The extent of the mortality was never 
 ascertained, but it was popularly reckoned by millions. This 
 melancholy intelligence added to the excitement which already 30 
 prevailed in England on Indian subjects. The proprietors 
 of East India stock were uneasy about their dividends. All 
 men of common humanity were touched by the calamities of 
 our unhappy subjects ; and indignation soon began to mingle 
 
8o LORD CLIVE 
 
 itself with pity. It was rumored that the Company's servants 
 had created the famine by engrossing all the rice of the 
 country ; that they had sold grain for eight, ten, twelve times 
 the price at which they had bought it; that one English 
 5 functionary who, the year before, was not worth a hundred 
 guineas, had, during that season of misery, remitted sixty 
 thousand pounds to London. These charges we believe to 
 have been unfounded. That servants of the Company had 
 ventured, since Clive's departure, to deal in rice, is probable. 
 
 10 That, if they dealt in rice, they must have gained by the 
 scarcity, is certain. But there is no reason for thinking that 
 they either produced or aggravated an evil which physical 
 causes sufficiently explain. The outcry which was raised 
 against them on this occasion was, we suspect, as absurd as 
 
 15 the imputations which, in times of dearth at home, were once 
 thrown by statesmen and judges, and are still thrown by two 
 or three old women, on the corn factors. It was, however, so 
 loud and so general that it appears to have imposed even on 
 an intellect raised so high above vulgar prejudices as that of 
 
 20 Adam Smith. What was still more extraordinary, these un- 
 happy events greatly increased the unpopularity of Lord Clive. 
 He had been some years in England when the famine took 
 place. None of his measures had the smallest tendency to 
 produce such a calamity. If the servants of the Company 
 
 25 had traded in rice, they had done so in direct contravention 
 of the rule which he had laid down, and, while in power, had 
 resolutely enforced. But, in the eyes of his countrymen, he 
 was, as we have said, the Nabob, the Anglo-Indian character 
 personified ; and, while he was building and planting in Surrey, 
 
 30 he was held responsible for all the effects of a dry season 
 in Bengal. 
 
 Parliament had hitherto bestowed very little attention on 
 our Eastern possessions. Since the death of George the 
 Second a rapid succession of weak administrations, each of 
 
LORD CLIVE 8 1 
 
 which was in turn flattered and betrayed by the Court, had 
 held the semblance of power. Intrigues in the palace, riots 
 in the capital, and insurrectionary movements in the American 
 colonies had left the advisers of the Crown little leisure to 
 study Indian politics. Where they did interfere, their inter- 5 
 ference was feeble and irresolute. Lord Chatham, indeed, 
 during the short period of his ascendancy in the councils of 
 George the Third, had meditated a bold and sweeping meas- 
 ure respecting the acquisitions of the Company. But his plans 
 were rendered abortive by the strange malady which about 10 
 that time began to overcloud his splendid genius. 
 
 At length, in 1772, it was generally felt that Parliament 
 could no longer neglect the affairs of India. The Govern- 
 ment was stronger than any which had held power since the 
 breach between Mr. Pitt and the great Whig connection in 15 
 1 76 1. No pressing question of domestic or European policy 
 required the attention of public men. There was a short 
 and delusive lull between two tempests. The excitement pro- 
 duced by the Middlesex election was over; the discontents of 
 America did not yet threaten civil war ; the financial difficulties 20 
 of the Company brought on a crisis ; the Ministers were forced 
 to take up the subject; and the whole storm, which had long 
 been gathering, now broke at once on the head of Clive. 
 
 His situation was indeed singularly unfortunate. He was 
 hated throughout the country, hated at the India House, 25 
 hated, above all, by those wealthy and powerful servants of 
 the Company, whose rapacity and tyranny he had withstood. 
 He had to bear the double odium of his bad and of his good 
 actions, of every Indian abuse and of every Indian reform. 
 The state of the political world was such that he could count 30 
 on the support of no powerful connection. The party to which 
 he had belonged, that of George Grenville, had been hostile to 
 the Government, and yet had never cordially united with the 
 other sections of the Opposition, with the little band which 
 
82 LORD CLIVE 
 
 still followed the fortunes of Lord Chatham, or with the large 
 and respectable body of which Lord Rockingham was the 
 acknowledged leader. George Grenville was now dead ; his 
 followers were scattered ; and Clive, unconnected with any 
 5 of the powerful factions which divided the Parliament, could 
 reckon only on the votes of those members who were re- 
 turned by himself. His enemies, particularly those who were 
 the enemies of his virtues, were unscrupulous, ferocious, im- 
 placable. Their malevolence aimed at nothing less than the 
 
 io utter ruin of his fame and fortune. They wished to see him 
 expelled from Parliament, to see his spurs chopped off, to see 
 his estate confiscated ; and it may be doubted whether even 
 such a result as this would have quenched their thirst for 
 revenge. 
 
 15 Clive's parliamentary tactics resembled his military tactics. 
 Deserted, surrounded, outnumbered, and with everything at 
 stake, he did not even deign to stand on the defensive, but 
 pushed boldly forward to the attack. At an early stage of 
 the discussions on Indian affairs he rose, and in a long and 
 
 20 elaborate speech vindicated himself from a large part of the 
 accusations which had been brought against him. He is said 
 to have produced a great impression on his audience. Lord 
 Chatham, who, now the ghost of his former self, loved to 
 haunt the scene of his glory, was that night under the gallery 
 
 25 of the House of Commons, and declared that he had never 
 heard a finer speech. It was subsequently printed under 
 Clive's direction, and, when the fullest allowance has been 
 made for the assistance which he may have obtained from 
 literary friends, proves him to have possessed not merely 
 
 30 strong sense and a manly spirit, but talents both for disquisi- 
 tion and declamation which assiduous culture might have im- 
 proved into the highest excellence. He confined his defense 
 on this occasion to the measures of his last administration, 
 and succeeded so far that his enemies thenceforth thought it 
 
LORD CLIVE 83 
 
 expedient to direct their attacks chiefly against the earlier part 
 of his life. 
 
 The earlier part of his life unfortunately presented some 
 assailable points to their hostility. A committee was chosen 
 by ballot to inquire into the affairs of India; and by this 5 
 committee the whole history of that great revolution which 
 threw down Surajah Dowlah and raised Meer Jafner was 
 sifted with malignant care. Clive was subjected to the most 
 unsparing examination and cross-examination, and afterwards 
 bitterly complained that he, the Baron of Plassey, had been 10 
 treated like a sheep stealer. The boldness and ingenuousness 
 of his replies would alone suffice to show how alien from his 
 nature were the frauds to which, in the course of his Eastern 
 negotiations, he had sometimes descended. He avowed the 
 arts which he had employed to deceive Omichund, and reso- 15 
 lutely said that he was not ashamed of them, and that in the 
 same circumstances he would again act in the same manner. 
 He admitted that he had received immense sums from Meer 
 Jafner; but he denied that in doing so he had violated any 
 obligation of morality or honor. He laid claim, on the con- 20 
 trary, and not without some reason, to the praise of eminent 
 disinterestedness. He described in vivid language the situation 
 in which his victory had placed him ; a great prince dependent 
 on his pleasure ; an opulent city afraid of being given up to 
 plunder; wealthy bankers bidding against each other for his 25 
 smiles ; vaults piled with gold and jewels thrown open to him 
 alone. " By God, Mr. Chairman," he exclaimed, " at this 
 moment I stand astonished at my own moderation." 
 
 The inquiry was so extensive that the Houses rose before 
 it had been completed. It was continued in the following 30 
 session. When at length the committee had concluded its 
 labors, enlightened and impartial men had little difficulty in 
 making up their minds as to the result. It was clear that 
 Clive had been guilty of some acts which it is impossible 
 
84 LORD CLIVE 
 
 to vindicate without attacking the authority of all the most 
 sacred laws which regulate the intercourse of individuals and 
 of states. But it was equally clear that he had displayed great 
 talents, and even great virtues ; that he had rendered eminent 
 5 services both to his country and to the people of India; and 
 that it was in truth not for his dealings with Meer Jaffier nor 
 for the fraud which he had practiced on Omichund, but for 
 his determined resistance to avarice and tyranny, that he was 
 now called in question. 
 
 10 Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of set-off. The 
 greatest ^ desert cannot be pleaded in answer to a charge 
 of the slightest transgression. If a man has sold beer on 
 Sunday morning, it is no defense that he has saved the 
 life of a fellow creature at the risk of his own. If he has 
 
 15 harnessed a Newfoundland dog to his little child's carriage, 
 it is no defense that he was wounded at Waterloo. But 
 it is not in this way that we ought to deal with men who, 
 raised far above ordinary restraints, and tried by far more 
 than ordinary temptations, are entitled to a more than ordi- 
 
 20 nary measure of indulgence. Such men should be judged 
 by their contemporaries as they will be judged by posterity. 
 Their bad actions ought not, indeed, to be called good; but 
 their good and bad actions ought to be fairly weighed ; and, 
 if on the whole the good preponderate, the sentence ought to 
 
 25 be one not merely of acquittal but of approbation. Not a single 
 great ruler in history can be absolved by a judge who fixes 
 his eye inexorably on one or two unjustifiable acts. Bruce the 
 deliverer of Scotland, Maurice the deliverer of Germany, William 
 the deliverer of Holland, his great descendant the deliverer of 
 
 30 England, Murray the good regent, Cosmo the father of his 
 country, Henry the Fourth of France, Peter the Great of Russia, 
 how would the best of them pass such a scrutiny ? History 
 takes wider views ; and the best tribunal for great politic 
 cases is the tribunal which anticipates the verdict of history. 
 
LORD CLIVE 85 
 
 Reasonable and moderate men of all parties felt this in 
 Clive's case. They could not pronounce him blameless ; but 
 they were not disposed to abandon him to that low-minded 
 and rancorous pack who had run him down and were eager 
 to worry him to death. Lord North, though not very friendly 5 
 to him, was not disposed to go to extremities against him. 
 While the inquiry was still in progress, Clive, who had some 
 years before been created a Knight of the Bath, was installed 
 with great pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. He was 
 soon after appointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire. When 10 
 he kissed hands, George the Third, who had always been 
 partial to him, admitted him to a private audience, talked to 
 him half an hour on Indian politics, and was visibly affected 
 when the persecuted general spoke of his services and of the 
 way in which they had been requited. 15 
 
 At length the charges came in a definite form before the 
 House of Commons. Burgoyne, chairman of the committee, 
 a man of wit, fashion, and honor, an agreeable dramatic 
 writer, an officer whose courage was never questioned and 
 whose skill was at that time highly esteemed, appeared as 20 
 the accuser. The members of the administration took different 
 sides ; for in that age all questions were open questions, ex- 
 cept such as were brought forward by the Government, or 
 such as implied some censure on the Government. Thurlow, 
 the Attorney-General, was among the assailants. Wedderburne, 25 
 the Solicitor-General, strongly attached to Clive, defended his 
 friend with extraordinary force of argument and language. It 
 is a curious circumstance that, some years later, Thurlow was 
 the most conspicuous champion of Warren Hastings, while 
 Wedderburne was among the most unrelenting persecutors of 30 
 that great though not faultless statesman. Clive spoke in his 
 own defense at less length and with less art than in the pre- 
 ceding year, but with much energy and pathos. He recounted 
 his great actions and his wrongs; and, after bidding his 
 
86 LORD CLIVE 
 
 hearers remember that they were about to decide not only on 
 his honor but on their own, he retired from the House. 
 
 The Commons resolved that acquisitions made by the arms 
 of the State belong to the State alone, and that it is illegal in 
 5 the servants of the State to appropriate such acquisitions to 
 themselves. They resolved that this wholesome rule appeared 
 to have been systematically violated by the English function- 
 aries in Bengal. On a subsequent day they went a step farther, 
 and resolved that Clive had, by means of the power which he 
 
 10 possessed as commander of the British forces in India, ob- 
 tained large sums from Meer Jaffier. Here the House stopped. 
 They had voted the major and minor of Burgoyne's syllogism ; 
 but they shrank from drawing the logical conclusion. When it 
 was moved that Lord Clive had abused his powers and set an 
 
 15 evil example to the servants of the public, the previous ques- 
 tion was put and carried. At length, long after the sun had 
 risen on an animated debate, Wedderburne moved that Lord 
 Clive had at the same time rendered great and meritorious 
 services to his country ; and this motion passed without a 
 
 20 division. 
 
 The result of this memorable inquiry appears to us, on the 
 whole, honorable to the justice, moderation, and discernment 
 of the Commons. They had, indeed, no great temptation to do 
 wrong. They would have been very bad judges of an accusa- 
 
 25 tion brought against Jenkinson or against Wilkes. But the 
 question respecting Clive was not a party question; and the 
 House accordingly acted with the good sense and good feeling 
 which may always be expected from an assembly of English 
 gentlemen not blinded by faction. 
 
 30 The equitable and temperate proceedings of the British 
 Parliament were set off to the greatest advantage by a foil. 
 The wretched government of Louis the Fifteenth had mur- 
 dered, directly or indirectly, almost every Frenchman who had 
 served his country with distinction in the East. Labourdonnais 
 
LORD CLIVE 87 
 
 was flung into the Bastille, and, after years of suffering, left 
 it only to die. Dupleix, stripped of his immense fortune, and 
 broken-hearted by humiliating attendance in antechambers, 
 sank into an obscure grave. Lally was dragged to the com- 
 mon- place of execution with a gag between his lips. The 5 
 Commons of England, on the other hand, treated their living 
 captain with that discriminating justice which is seldom shown 
 except to the dead. They laid down sound general prin- 
 ciples ; they delicately pointed out where he had deviated 
 from those principles ; and they tempered the gentle censure 10 
 with liberal eulogy. The contrast struck Voltaire, always 
 partial to England, and always eager to expose the abuses of 
 the Parliaments of France. Indeed, he seems, at this time, to 
 have meditated a history of the conquest of Bengal. He men- 
 tioned his design to Dr. Moore when that amusing writer 15 
 visited him at Ferney. Wedderburne took great interest in 
 the matter and pressed Clive to furnish materials. Had the 
 plan been carried into execution,' we have no doubt that 
 Voltaire would have produced a book containing much lively 
 and picturesque narrative, many just and humane sentiments 20 
 poignantly expressed, many grotesque blunders, many sneers 
 at the Mosaic chronology, much scandal about the Catholic 
 missionaries, and much sublime theophilanthropy, stolen from 
 the New Testament and put into the mouths of virtuous and 
 philosophical Brahmins. 25 
 
 Clive was now secure in the enjoyment of his fortune and 
 his honors. He was surrounded by attached friends and re- 
 lations ; and he had not yet passed the season of vigorous 
 bodily and mental exertion. But clouds had long been gather- 
 ing over his mind, and now settled on it in thick darkness. 30 
 From early youth he had been subject to fits of that strange 
 melancholy " which rejoiceth exceedingly and is glad when it 
 can find the grave." While still a writer at Madras he had 
 twice attempted to destroy himself. Business and prosperity 
 
88 LORD CLIVE 
 
 had produced a salutary effect on his spirits. In India, while 
 he was occupied by great affairs ; in England, while wealth and 
 rank had still the charm of novelty, he had borne up against 
 his constitutional misery. But he had now nothing to do, and 
 5 nothing to wish for. His active spirit in an inactive situation 
 drooped and withered like a plant in an uncongenial air. The 
 malignity with which his enemies had pursued him, the in- 
 dignity with which he had been treated by the committee, the 
 censure, lenient as it was, which the House of Commons had 
 
 10 pronounced, the knowledge that he was regarded by a large 
 portion of his countrymen as a cruel and perfidious tyrant, all 
 concurred to irritate and depress him. In the meantime his 
 temper was tried by acute physical suffering. During his long 
 residence in tropical climates he had contracted several pain- 
 
 15 ful distempers. In order to obtain ease he called in the help 
 of opium, and he was gradually enslaved by this treacherous 
 ally. To the last, however, his genius occasionally flashed 
 through the gloom. It is said that he would sometimes, after 
 sitting silent and torpid for hours, rouse himself to the discus- 
 
 20 sion of some great question, would display in full vigor all the 
 
 talents of the soldier and the statesman, and would then sink 
 
 back into his melancholy repose. 
 
 • The disputes with America had now become so serious that 
 
 an appeal to the sword seemed inevitable ; and the Ministers 
 
 25 were desirous to avail themselves of the services of Clive. 
 Had he still been what he was when he raised the siege of 
 Patna and annihilated the Dutch army and navy at the mouth 
 of the Ganges, it is not improbable that the resistance of the 
 Colonists would have been put down, and that the inevitable 
 
 30 separation would have been deferred for a few years. But it 
 was too late. His strong mind was fast sinking under many 
 kinds of suffering. On the twenty-second of November, 1774, 
 he died by his own hand. He had just completed his forty- 
 ninth year. 
 
LORD CLIVE 89 
 
 In the awful close of so much prosperity and glory the vulgar 
 saw only a confirmation of all their prejudices ; and some men 
 of real piety and genius so far forgot the maxims both of religion 
 and of philosophy as confidently to ascribe the mournful event to 
 the just vengeance of God and to the horrors of an evil con- 5 
 science. It is with very different feelings that we contemplate 
 the spectacle of a great mind ruined by the weariness of satiety, 
 by the pangs of wounded honor, by fatal diseases, and more 
 fatal remedies. 
 
 Clive committed great faults, and we have not attempted to 10 
 disguise them. But his faults, when weighed against his merits, 
 and viewed in connection with his temptations, do not appear 
 to us to deprive him of his right to an honorable place in the 
 estimation of posterity. 
 
 From his first visit to India dates the renown of the English 15 
 arms in the East. Till he appeared, his countrymen were 
 despised as mere peddlers, while the French were revered as a 
 people formed for victory and command. His courage and 
 capacity dissolved the charm. With the defense of Arcot com- 
 mences that long series of Oriental triumphs which closes with 20 
 the fall of Ghizni. Nor must we forget that he was only 
 twenty-five years old when he approved himself ripe for mili- 
 tary command. This is a rare if not a singular distinction. It 
 is true that Alexander, Conde', and Charles the Twelfth won 
 great battles at a still earlier age ; but those princes were 25 
 surrounded by veteran generals of distinguished skill, to whose 
 suggestions must be attributed the victories of the Granicus, of 
 Rocroi,and of Narva. Clive, an inexperienced youth, had yet 
 more experience than any of those who served under him. He 
 had to form himself, to form his officers, and to form his army. 30 
 The only man, as far as we recollect, who at an equally early age 
 ever gave equal proof of talents for war was Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 From Clive's second visit to India dates the political ascend- 
 ancy of the English in that country. His dexterity and resolution 
 
go LORD CLIVE 
 
 realized, in the course of a few months, more than all the 
 gorgeous visions which had floated before the imagination of 
 Dupleix. Such an extent of cultivated territory, such an amount 
 of revenue, such a multitude of subjects, were never added to 
 
 5 the dominion of Rome by the most successful proconsul. Nor 
 were such wealthy spoils ever borne under arches of triumph, 
 down the Sacred Way, and through the crowded Forum, to the 
 threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The fame of those who subdued 
 Antiochus and Tigranes grows dim when compared with the 
 
 10 splendor of the exploits which the young English adventurer 
 achieved at the head of an army not equal in numbers to one 
 half of a Roman legion. 
 
 From Clive's third visit to India dates the purity of the ad- 
 ministration of our Eastern empire. When he landed in Calcutta 
 
 15 in 1765 Bengal was regarded as a place to which Englishmen 
 were sent only to get rich, by any means, in the shortest pos- 
 sible time. He first made dauntless and unsparing war on that 
 gigantic system of oppression, extortion, and corruption. In 
 that war he manfully put to hazard his ease, his fame, and his 
 
 20 splendid fortune. The same sense of justice which forbids us 
 to conceal or extenuate the faults of his earlier days compels us 
 to admit that those faults were nobly repaired. If the reproach 
 of the Company and of its servants has been taken away ; if in 
 India the yoke of foreign masters, elsewhere the heaviest of all 
 
 25 yokes, has been found lighter than that of any native dynasty; 
 if to that gang of public robbers which formerly spread terror 
 through the whole plain of Bengal has succeeded a body of 
 functionaries not more highly distinguished by ability and dili- 
 gence' than by integrity, disinterestedness, and public spirit ; if 
 
 30 we now see such men as Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe, 
 after leading victorious armies, after making and deposing kings, 
 return, proud of their honorable poverty, from a land which 
 once held out to every greedy • factor the hope of boundless 
 wealth, the praise is in no small measure due to Clive. His name 
 
LORD CLIVE 91 
 
 stands high on the roll of conquerors. But it is found in a better 
 list, — in the list of those who have done and suffered much 
 for the happiness of mankind. To the warrior history will as- 
 sign a place in the same rank with Lucullus and Trajan. Nor 
 will she deny to the reformer a share of that veneration with 
 which France cherishes the memory of Turgot, and with which 
 the latest generations of Hindoos will contemplate the statue of 
 Lord William Bentinck. 
 
Madras j „ 
 
 Ft.St.Georse^Z? ti 
 
 andewash Q . 
 Pondicherryrfrf.ioJ] 
 Pt.St.Dand * 
 j} orto Novo * 
 
 L ' -roon R. * 
 
 yore o 
 
 .Trincomalee 
 l{YLOI 
 Colombo'fe 
 
 N D IAN \0 C E AN 
 
 SCALE OF MILES 
 
 75° Longitude Ea3t 80° from Greenwich 
 
 India in 1785 at the Close of Hastings's Administration 
 
 92 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 This book seems to have been manufactured in pursuance 
 of a contract, by which the representatives of Warren Hastings, 
 on the one part, bound themselves to furnish papers, and 
 Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to furnish praise. 
 It is but just to say that the covenants on both sides have been 5 
 most faithfully kept ; and the result is before us in the form of 
 three big bad volumes, full of undigested correspondence and 
 undiscerning panegyric. 
 
 If it were worth while to examine this performance in detail, 
 we could easily make a long article by merely pointing out 10 
 inaccurate statements, inelegant expressions, and immoral doc- 
 trines. But it would be idle to waste criticism on a bookmaker ; 
 and whatever credit Mr. Gleig may have justly earned by 
 former works, it is as a bookmaker, and nothing more, that he 
 now comes before us. More eminent men than Mr. Gleig have 15 
 written nearly as ill as he, when they have stooped to similar 
 drudgery. It would be unjust to estimate Goldsmith by the 
 " History of Greece," or Scott by the " Life of Napoleon." Mr. 
 Gleig is neither a Goldsmith nor a Scott; but it would be unjust to 
 deny that he is capable of something better than these Memoirs. 20 
 It would also, we hope and believe, be unjust to charge any 
 Christian minister with the guilt of deliberately maintaining 
 some propositions which we find in this book. It is not too 
 much to say that Mr. Gleig has written several passages which 
 bear the same relation to " The Prince " of Machiavelli that 25 
 " The Prince " of Machiavelli bears to " The Whole Duty of 
 Man," and which would excite amazement in a den of robbers 
 
 93 
 
94 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 or on board of a schooner of pirates. But we are willing to 
 attribute these offenses to haste, to thoughtlessness, and to that 
 disease of the understanding which may be called the Furor 
 Biographicus, and which is to writers of lives what the goiter is 
 5 to an Alpine shepherd, or dirt eating to a Negro slave. 
 
 We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the wishes 
 of our readers, if, instead of dwelling on the faults of 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 
 
 10 feeling towards him is not exactly that of the House of Com- 
 mons which impeached him in 1787 ; neither is it that of the 
 House of Commons which uncovered and stood up to receive 
 him in 18 13. He had great qualities and he rendered great 
 services. to the state. But to represent him as a man of stainless 
 
 1 5 virtue is to make him ridiculous ; and from regard for his mem- 
 ory, if from no other feeling, his friends would have done well to 
 lend no countenance to such puerile 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 
 
 20 must have known that there were dark spots on his fame. He 
 might also have felt with pride that the splendor of his fame 
 would bear many spots. He would have preferred, we are con- 
 fident, even the severity of Mr. Mill to the puffing of Mr. Gleig. 
 He would have wished posterity to have a likeness of him, 
 
 25 though an unfavorable 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 
 
 30 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 95 
 
 the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war, by 
 sleepless nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse ; but with valor, 
 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. 5 
 
 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 valor and genius of 10 
 Alfred. But the undoubted splendor 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 strik- 1 5 
 ing 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. 
 
 The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, 20 
 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 25 
 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 spend- 
 ing half his property in the cause of King Charles, was 
 glad to ransom himself by making over most of the remain- 30 
 ing 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. 
 
96 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 
 5 the sale of the estate was deplorable. He was constantly en- 
 gaged 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 be- 
 
 10 fore 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 
 
 fS 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 
 
 20 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 
 plowmen observed, and long remembered, how kindly little 
 Warren took to his book. The daily sight of the lands which 
 
 25 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 valor. On one bright summer day the boy, then just 
 
 30 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 97 
 
 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, 5 
 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 check- 
 ered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length 
 closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die. 10 
 
 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 1 5 
 seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster School, then 
 nourishing under the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as 
 his pupils affectionately called him, was one of the masters. 
 Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were among 
 the students. With Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which 20 
 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 25 
 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 anything very wrong. His 
 own life had been spent in praying, musing, and riming among 30 
 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 
 
98 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 never been attacked by combinations of powerful and deadly 
 enemies. He had never been compelled to make a choice be- 
 tween innocence and greatness, between crime and ruin. Firmly 
 as he held in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his habits 
 5 were such that he was unable to conceive how far from the path 
 of right even 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. 
 
 io 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 
 
 1 5 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, 
 
 20 when an event happened which changed the whole course of 
 his life. Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his 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. 
 
 25 Nichols made strong remonstrances against the cruelty of inter- 
 rupting the studies of a youth who seemed likely to be one of 
 the first scholars of the age. He even offered to bear the ex- 
 pense of sending his favorite pupil to Oxford. But Mr. Chiswick 
 was inflexible. He thought the years which had already been 
 
 30 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 99 
 
 accordingly removed from Westminster School and placed for a 
 few months at a commercial academy to study arithmetic and 
 bookkeeping. In January, 1750, a few days after he had com- 
 pleted his seventeenth year, he sailed for Bengal and arrived 
 at his destination in the October following. 5 
 
 He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's office 
 at Calcutta, and labored there during two years. Fort William 
 was then a purely 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 10 
 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. 15 
 
 After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, Hast- 
 ings 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 West- 20 
 minster. Moorshedabad was the abode of the prince who, by 
 an authority ostensibly derived from the Mogul, but really inde- 
 pendent, 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, 25 
 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. Here, during several years, Hastings was em- 30 
 ployed in making bargains for stuffs with native brokers. While 
 he was thus engaged Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the Govern- 
 ment and declared war against the English. The defenseless 
 settlement of Cossimbazar, lying close to the tyrant's capital, 
 
IOO WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 was instantly seized. Hastings was sent a prisoner to Moorshed- 
 abad, 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 
 5 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 
 
 10 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 im- 
 mediate neighborhood of the court. He thus became a diplo- 
 matic agent and soon established a high character for ability and 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 of the 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 
 
 30 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS IOI 
 
 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. 5 
 On the one side \vas 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 oppres- 
 sion. To keep the stronger race from preying on the weaker 
 was an undertaking which tasked to the utmost the talents and 10 
 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, im- 15 
 perfect 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 20 
 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 domi- 
 nant class made their power irresistible. A war of Bengalese 
 against Englishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of 25 
 men against demons. 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 
 unaccompanied by English morality. .There was an interval 30 
 between the time at which they became our subjects, and the 
 time at which we began to reflect that we were bound to dis- 
 charge towards them the duties of rulers. During that interval 
 the business of a servant of the Company was simply to wring 
 
102 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 marry a peer's 
 daughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give balls 
 5 in St. James's Square. Of the conduct of Hastings at this 
 time little is known ; but the little that is known, and the circum- 
 stance that little is known, must be considered as honorable to 
 him. He could not protect the natives ; all that he could do was 
 to abstain from plundering and oppressing them ; and this he 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 he had borne a share in those abuses, the able and bitter ene- 
 mies 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 man- 
 
 20 kind, — 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 
 
 25 functionaries yielded in the time of Mr. Vansittart were not 
 temptations addressed to the ruling passions of Warren Hast- 
 ings. 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 
 
 30 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. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 103 
 
 In 1764 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 5 
 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 10 
 time very little is known. But it has been asserted, 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 honor, that in days when the languages 
 of the East were regarded by other servants of the Company 15 
 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 20 
 of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was 
 inclined to overrate the value of his favorite studies. He con- 
 ceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with 
 advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an Eng- 
 lish gentleman ; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is 25 
 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 30 
 Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. Hastings 
 called on Johnson, with the hope, as it should seem, of interest- 
 ing in this project a man who enjoyed the highest literary reputa- 
 tion, and who was particularly connected with Oxford. The 
 
104 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 interview appears to have left on Johnson's mind a most favor- 
 able impression of the talents and attainments of his visitor. 
 Long after, when Hastings was ruling the immense popula- 
 tion of British India, the old philosopher wrote to him, and 
 5 referred in the most courtly terms, though with great dignity, 
 to their short but agreeable intercourse. 
 
 Hastings soon began to look again towards India. He had 
 little to attach him to England ; and his pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments were great. He solicited his old masters, the Directors, 
 
 10 for employment. They acceded to his request, with high com- 
 pliments 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 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 German of 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 accom- 
 
 25 panied 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 degree engaging. She despised 
 
 30 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 105 
 
 enmitjes as an Indiaman. There are very few people who do 
 not find a voyage which lasts several months insupportably 
 dull. Anything is welcome which may break that long monot- 
 ony, — a sail, a shark, an albatross, a man overboard. Most 
 passengers find some resource in eating twice as many meals 5 
 as on land. But the great devices for killing the time are 
 quarreling and flirting. The facilities for both these exciting 
 pursuits are great. The inmates of the ship are thrown to- 
 gether far more than in any country seat or boarding house. 
 None can escape from the rest except by imprisoning himself 10 
 in a cell in which he can hardly turn. All food, all exercise, 
 are 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 1 5 
 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, 20 
 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 honor. An attachment 
 sprang up, which was soon strengthened by events such as 25 
 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 Dicke of Grafton reached 
 Madras, Hastings was in love. But his love was of a most 30 
 characteristic description. Like his hatred, like his ambition, 
 like all his passions, it was strong but not impetuous. It was 
 calm, deep, earnest, patient of delay, unconquerable by time. 
 Imhoff was called into council by his wife and his wife's lover. 
 
106 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 
 5 should continue to live together. It was also agreed that 
 Hastings should bestow some very substantial marks of grati- 
 tude on the complaisant husband, and should, when the mar- 
 riage was dissolved, make the lady his wife, and adopt the 
 children whom she had already borne to Imhoff. 
 
 10 We are not inclined to judge either Hastings or the baroness 
 severely. There was undoubtedly much to extenuate their fault. 
 But we can by no means concur with the Reverend Mr. Gleig, 
 who carries his partiality to so injudicious an extreme as to de- 
 scribe the conduct of Imhoff — conduct the baseness of which is 
 
 15 the best excuse for the lovers — as " wise and judicious." 
 
 At Madras, Hastings found the trade of the Company in a 
 very disorganized state. His own tastes would have led him 
 rather to political than to commercial pursuits, but he knew 
 that the favor of his employers depended chiefly on their 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 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 wise and judicious plan," — 
 we -quote the words of Mr. Gleig, — which they had already 
 followed during more than two years. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 107 
 
 When Hastings took his seat at the head of the council 
 board, Bengal was still governed according to the system 
 which Clive had devised, — a system which was, perhaps, skill- 
 fully contrived for the purpose of facilitating and concealing 
 a great revolution, but which, when that revolution was com- 5 
 plete 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 10 
 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 terri- 15 
 tories as vassals of the throne of Delhi ; they raised their 
 revenues as collectors appointed by the imperial commission ; 
 their 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 Eng- 20 
 lish 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, sur- 
 rounded by princely magnificence. He was approached with 
 outward marks of reverence, and his name was used in public 25 
 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 3d 
 which has since been adopted. At present the Governor is, 
 as to all executive measures, absolute. He can declare war, 
 conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove them, 
 in opposition to the unanimous sense of those who sit with 
 
108 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 
 5 responsibility rests. This system, which was introduced by 
 Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas in spite of the strenuous opposi- 
 tion 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. 
 
 10 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 infrequently that he was overruled 
 on the gravest questions ; and it was possible that he might 
 be wholly excluded, for years together, from the real direc- 
 
 15 tion 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 
 
 20 police, the administration of justice, the details of the col- 
 lection of revenue, they 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 " diplo- 
 
 25 matic." 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 ad- 
 ministration of a whole presidency, but unfortunately quite 
 ignorant of all political business. 
 
 30 The internal government of Bengal the English rulers dele- 
 gated to a great native minister, who was stationed at Moor- 
 shedabad. 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 109 
 
 were entirely confided to him. His own stipend amounted 
 to near a hundred thousand pounds sterling a year. The per- 
 sonal allowance of the nabobs, 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 collec- 5 
 tion of the revenue, the administration of justice, the mainte- 
 nance 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 10 
 an object of ambition to the ablest and most powerful natives. 
 Clive had found it difficult to decide between conflicting pre- 
 tensions. Two candidates stood out prominently from the 
 crowd, each of them the representative of a race and of a 
 religion. 1 5 
 
 The one was Mohammed 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, 20 
 he might be considered as a man of integrity and honor. 
 
 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 25 
 which, since the 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 30 
 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 Bengalese is to other Hindoos, that was 
 Nuncomar to other Bengalese. The physical organization of 
 
HO WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 the Bengalese is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a con- 
 stant vapor bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs deli- 
 cate, his movements languid. During many ages he has been 
 trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds. 
 5 Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his 
 constitution and his situation are equally unfavorable. 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 
 
 10 to admiration not unmingled with contempt. All those arts 
 which are the natural defense 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 
 
 15 bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to 
 woman, deceit is to the Bengalese. Large promises, smooth ex- 
 cuses, 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 
 
 20 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 bear a comparison with them. 
 With all his softness, the Bengalese is by no means placable 
 in his enmities or prone to pity. The pertinacity with which 
 
 25 he adheres to his purposes yields only to the immediate pres- 
 sure of fear. Nor does he lack a certain kind of courage 
 which is often wanting in his masters. To inevitable evils he 
 is sometimes found to oppose a passive fortitude, such as the 
 Stoics attributed to their ideal sage. A European warrior who 
 
 30 rushes on a battery of cannon with a loud hurrah will some- 
 times shriek under the surgeon's knife and fall into an agony 
 of despair at the sentence of death. But the Bengalese who 
 would see his country overrun, his house laid in ashes, his 
 children murdered or dishonored, without having the spirit to 
 
WARREN HASTINGS III 
 
 strike one blow, has yet been known to endure torture with 
 the firmness of Mucius, and to mount the scaffold with the 
 steady step and even pulse of Algernon Sydney. 
 
 In Nuncomar the national character was strongly and with 
 exaggeration personified. The Company's servants had repeat- 5 
 edly 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 10 
 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 15 
 had obtained for him a certain degree of consideration even 
 among the British rulers of his country. 
 
 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 20 
 whom every sort of villany 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 hesi- 
 tation, decided honestly and wisely in favor of Mohammed 25 
 Reza Khan, who had held his high office seven years when 
 Hastings became Governor. 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 30 
 been constantly attempting to undermine his successful rival. 
 This was not difficult. The revenues of Bengal, under the ad- 
 ministration established by Clive, did not yield such a surplus 
 as had been anticipated by the Company; for, at that time, 
 
112 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 the most absurd notions were entertained in England respect- 
 ing 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 
 5 bushel, filled the imagination even of men of business. Nobody 
 seemed to be aware of what nevertheless was most undoubt- 
 edly 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 
 
 10 treasury and members for the city that Bengal would not only 
 defray its own charges, but would afford an increased dividend 
 to the proprietors of India stock and large relief to the English 
 finances. These absurd expectations were disappointed; and 
 the directors naturally enough chose to attribute the disappoint- 
 
 15 ment rather to the mismanagement of Mohammed Reza 
 Khan than to their own ignorance of the country intrusted to 
 their care. They were confirmed in their error by the agents 
 of Nuncomar ; for Nuncomar had agents even in Leadenhall 
 Street. Soon after Hastings reached Calcutta he received a 
 
 20 letter addressed by the Court of Directors, not to the Council 
 generally, but to himself in particular. He was directed to re- 
 move Mohammed Reza Khan, 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 
 
 25 that the Governor would do well to avail himself of the assist- 
 ance 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 
 
 30 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 risen between them which all the authority 
 of their superiors could hardly compose. Widely as they 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 113 
 
 differed in most points, they resembled each other in this, that 
 both were men of unforgiving natures. To Mohammed 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 5 
 instructions were in perfect conformity with his own views. 
 He had, wisely as we think, determined to get rid of the system 
 of double government in Bengal. The orders of the Directors 
 furnished him with the means of effecting his purpose and dis- 
 pensed him from the necessity of discussing the matter with 10 
 his council. He took his measures with his usual vigor and 
 dexterity. At midnight the palace of Mohammed 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 15 
 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 Bahar. His valor 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 20 
 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, 25 
 " I never saw a native fight so before." Schitab Roy was in- 
 volved in the ruin of Mohammed Reza Khan, was removed 
 from office, and was placed under arrest. The members of the 
 Council received no intimation of these measures till the pris- 
 oners were on their road to Calcutta. 30 
 
 The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was postponed 
 on different pretenses. He was detained in an easy confine- 
 ment during many months. In the meantime the great revolu- 
 tion which Hastings had planned was carried into effect. The 
 
114 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 
 justice, under English superintendence, was established. The 
 5 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 
 
 io of his father's harem, known by the name of the Munny Begum. 
 The office of treasurer of the household was bestowed on a son 
 of Nuncomar, named Goordas. Nuncomar's sendees were 
 wanted, yet he could not safely be trusted with power; and 
 Hastings thought it a master stroke of policy to reward the 
 
 1 5 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, Hast- 
 ings had no motive to treat the late ministers with rigor. Their 
 trial had been put off on various pleas till the new organiza- 
 
 20 tion was complete. They were then brought before a com- 
 mittee, over which the Governor presided. Schitab Roy was 
 speedily acquitted with honor. 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 
 
 25 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 libera- 
 tion he died of a broken heart. 
 
 30 The innocence of M ohammed 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 ac- 
 cuser, and displayed both the art and the inveterate rancor 
 which distinguished him, Hastings pronounced that the charges 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 115 
 
 had not been made out, and ordered the fallen minister to be 
 set at liberty. 
 
 Nuncomar had purposed to destroy the Mussulman adminis- 
 tration and to rise on its ruin. Both his malevolence and his 
 cupidity had been disappointed. Hastings had made him a 5 
 tool, had used him for the purpose of accomplishing the trans- 
 fer of the government from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, from 
 native to European hands. The rival, the enemy, so long en- 
 vied, so implacably persecuted, had been dismissed unhurt. 
 The situation so long and ardently desired had been abolished. 10 
 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. 1 5 
 
 In the meantime Hastings was compelled to turn his atten- 
 tion 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 20 
 principle which directed all his dealings with his neighbors 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 25 
 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 em- 
 ployers at home was such as only the highest virtue could 
 have withstood, such as left him no choice except to commit 30 
 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 
 
Il6 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 mod- 
 5 eration towards neighboring 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 op- 
 pressor of the people ; be just and unjust, moderate and 
 
 10 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 ac- 
 cuse or suspect those who framed these dispatches of hypoc- 
 
 15 risy. 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 
 lieutenant at Calcutta, who, with an empty treasury, with an 
 
 20 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 requisitions of his em- 
 
 25 ployers. 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 con- 
 
 30 scientious scruples speedily discovered several modes of reliev- 
 ing 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 117 
 
 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 Corah 
 and Allahabad. On the plea that the Mogul was not really in- 
 dependent, but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings 5 
 determined to retract these concessions. He accordingly de- 
 clared 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 10 
 not territory, determined to sell them. A purchaser was not 
 wanting. The rich province of Oude had, in the general disso- 
 lution 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 govern- 15 
 ment, assumed the royal title, but in the time of Warren 
 Hastings such an assumption would have been considered by 
 the Mohammedans of India as a monstrous impiety. The 
 Prince of Oude, though he held the power, did not venture to 
 use the style of sovereignty. To the appellation of Nabob or 20 
 Viceroy he added that of Vizier of the monarchy of Hindostan, 
 just as in the last century the Electors of Saxony and Branden- 
 burg, though independent of the Emperor and often in arms 
 against him, were proud to style themselves his Grand Cham- 
 berlain and Grand Marshal. Sujah Dowlah, then Nabob Vizier, 25 
 was on excellent terms with the English. He had a large treas- 
 ure. 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 30 
 over to the Government of Oude 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 
 
118 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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. 
 The people of Central Asia had always been to the inhab- 
 itants of India what the warriors of the German forests were 
 5 to the subjects of the decaying monarchy of Rome. The dark, 
 slender, and timid Hindoo shrank from a conflict with the 
 strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair race which dwelt 
 beyond the passes. There is reason to believe that, at a period 
 anterior to the dawn of regular history, the people who spoke 
 
 J o the rich and flexible Sanskrit came from regions lying far be- 
 yond the Hyphasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed their yoke 
 on the children of the soil. It is certain that, during the last 
 ten centuries, a succession of invaders descended from the west 
 on Hindostan ; nor was the course of conquest ever turned back 
 
 15 towards the setting sun till that memorable campaign in which 
 
 the cross of Saint George was planted on the walls of Ghizni. 
 
 The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from the 
 
 other side of the great mountain ridge; and it had always 
 
 been their practice to recruit their army from the hardy and 
 
 20 valiant race from which their own illustrious house sprang. 
 Among the military adventurers who were allured to the 
 Mogul standards from the neighborhood of Cabul and Can- 
 dahar were conspicuous several gallant bands, known by the 
 name of the Rohillas. Their services had been rewarded with 
 
 25 large tracts of land — fiefs of the spear, if we may use an expres- 
 sion drawn from an analogous state of things, — in that fertile 
 plain through which the Ramgunga flows from the snowy 
 heights of Kumaon to join the Ganges. In the general con- 
 fusion which followed the death of Aurungzebe the warlike 
 
 30 colony became virtually independent. The Rohillas were dis- 
 tinguished from the other inhabitants of India by a peculiarly 
 fair complexion. They were more honorably distinguished by 
 courage in war and by skill in the arts of peace. While anarchy 
 raged from Lahore to Cape Comorin, their little territory 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 19 
 
 enjoyed the blessings of repose under the guardianship of valor. 
 Agriculture and commerce flourished among them ; nor were 
 they negligent of rhetoric and poetry. Many persons now 
 living have heard aged men talk with regret of the golden 
 days when the Afghan prjnces ruled in the vale of Rohilcund. 5 
 
 Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich district 
 to his own principality. Right, or show of right, he had abso- 
 lutely none. His claim was in no respect better founded than 
 that of Catherine to Poland, or that of the Bonaparte family to 
 Spain. The Rohillas held their country by exactly the same 10 
 title by which he held his, and had governed their country far 
 better than his had ever been governed. Nor were they a 
 people whom it was perfectly safe to attack. Their land was 
 indeed an open plain, destitute of natural defenses ; but their 
 veins were full of the high blood of Afghanistan. As soldiers 1 5 
 they had not the steadiness which is seldom found except in 
 company with strict discipline ; but their impetuous valor had 
 been proved on many fields of battle. It was said that their 
 chiefs, when united by common peril, could bring eighty 
 thousand men into the field. Sujah Dowlah had himself seen 20 
 them fight, and wisely shrank from a conflict with them. There 
 was in India one army, and only one, against which even those 
 proud Caucasian tribes could not stand. It had been abundantly 
 proved that neither tenfold odds nor the martial ardor of the 
 boldest Asiatic nations could avail aught against English science 25 
 and resolution. Was it possible to induce the Governor of 
 Bengal to let out to hire the irresistible energies of the imperial 
 people, the skill against which the ablest chiefs of Hindostan 
 were helpless as infants, the discipline which had so often 
 triumphed over the frantic struggles of fanaticism and despair, 30 
 the unconquerable British courage which is never so sedate and 
 stubborn as towards the close of a doubtful and murderous day ? 
 
 This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and what Hastings 
 granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each of the negotiators 
 
120 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 had what the other wanted. Hastings was in need of funds to 
 carry on the Government of Bengal and to send remittances to 
 London ; and Sujah Dowlah had an ample revenue. Sujah 
 Dowlah was bent on subjugating the Rohillas ; and Hastings 
 5 had at his disposal the only force by which the Rohillas could 
 be subjugated. It was agreed that an English army should be 
 lent to the Nabob Vizier, and that, for the loan, he should pay 
 four hundred thousand pounds sterling, besides defraying all 
 the charge of the troops while employed in his service. 
 
 10 " I really cannot see," says the Reverend Mr. Gleig, " upon 
 what grounds, either of political or moral justice, this proposition 
 deserves to be stigmatized as infamous." If we understand the 
 meaning of words, it is infamous to commit a wicked action for 
 hire, and it is wicked to engage in war without provocation. In 
 
 15 this particular war scarcely one aggravating circumstance was 
 wanting. The object of the Rohilla war was this, to deprive a 
 large population, who had never done us the least harm, of a 
 good government, and to place them, against their will, under 
 an execrably bad one. Nay, even this is not all. England now 
 
 20 descended far below the level even of those petty German princes 
 who, about the same time, sold us troops to fight the Americans. 
 The hussarmongers of , Hesse and Anspach had at least the 
 assurance that the expeditions on which their soldiers were to 
 be employed would be conducted in conformity with the humane 
 
 25 rules of civilized warfare. Was the Rohilla war likely to be so 
 conducted ? Did the Governor stipulate that it should be so 
 conducted ? He well knew what Indian warfare was. He well 
 knew that the power which he covenanted to put into Sujah 
 Dowlah's hands would, in all probability, be atrociously abused ; 
 
 30 and he required no guarantee, no promise that it should not be 
 so abused. He did not even reserve to himself the right of 
 withdrawing his aid in case of abuse, however gross. Mr. Gleig 
 repeats Major Scott's absurd plea, that Hastings was justified in 
 letting out English troops to slaughter the Rohillas, because the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 121 
 
 Rohillas were not of Indian race, but a colony from a distant 
 country. What were the English themselves ? Was it for them to 
 proclaim a crusade for the expulsion of all intruders from the 
 countries watered by the Ganges ? Did it lie in their mouths to 
 contend that a foreign settler who establishes' an empire in India 5 
 is a caput lupinum ? What would they have said if any other 
 power had, on such a ground, attacked Madras or Calcutta, 
 without the slightest provocation ? Such a defense was wanting 
 to make the infamy of the transaction complete. The atrocity 
 of the crime and the hypocrisy of the apology are worthy of 10 
 each other. 
 
 One of the three brigades of which the Bengal army con- 
 sisted was sent under Colonel Champion to join Sujah Dowlah's 
 forces. The Rohillas expostulated, entreated, offered a large 
 ransom, but in vain. They then resolved to defend themselves 15 
 to the last. A bloody battle was fought. " The enemy," says 
 Colonel Champion, "gave proof of a good share of military 
 knowledge; and it is impossible to describe a more obstinate 
 firmness of resolution than they displayed." The dastardly 
 sovereign of Oude fled from the field. The English were left 20 
 unsupported ; but their fire and their charge were irresistible. 
 It was not, however, till the most distinguished chiefs had fallen, 
 fighting bravely at the head of their troops, that the Rohilla 
 ranks gave way. Then the Nabob Vizier and his rabble made 
 their appearance and hastened to plunder the camp of the val- 25 
 iant enemies, whom they had never dared to look in the face. 
 The soldiers of the Company, trained in an exact discipline, 
 kept unbroken order, while the tents were pillaged by these 
 worthless allies. But many voices were heard to exclaim, 
 "We have had all the fighting, and those rogues are to 30 
 have all the profit." 
 
 Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the fair 
 valleys and cities of Rohilcund. The whole country was in 
 a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their 
 
122 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 r> homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, and fever, 
 and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny of him, to whom an 
 English and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold 
 their substance, and their blood, and the honor of their wives 
 5 and daughters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob 
 Vizier and sent strong representations to Fort William ; but the 
 Governor had made no conditions as to the mode in which the 
 war was to be carried on. He had troubled himself about 
 nothing but his forty lacs ; and though he might disapprove of 
 
 io Sujah Dowlah's wanton barbarity, he did not think himself 
 entitled to interfere, except by offering advice. This delicacy ex- 
 cites the admiration of the reverend biographer. " Mr. Hastings," 
 he says, " could not himself dictate to the Nabob, nor permit 
 the commander of the Company's troops to dictate how the war 
 
 15 was to be carried on." No, to be sure. Mr. Hastings had only 
 to put down by main force the brave struggles of innocent men 
 fighting for their liberty. Their military resistance crushed, his 
 duties ended ; and he had then only to fold his arms and look 
 on, while their villages were burned, their children butchered, 
 
 20 and their women violated. Will Mr. Gleig seriously maintain 
 this opinion ? Is any rule more plain than this, that whoever 
 voluntarily gives to another irresistible power over human beings, 
 is bound to take order that such power shall not be barbarously 
 abused ? But we beg pardon of our readers for arguing a point 
 
 25 so clear. 
 
 We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful story. The 
 war ceased. The finest population in India was subjected to 
 a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce and agriculture 
 languished. The rich province which had tempted the cupidity 
 
 30 of Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part even of his 
 miserable dominions. Yet is the injured nation not extinct. At 
 long intervals gleams of its ancient spirit have flashed forth ; 
 and even at this day valor, and self-respect, and a chivalrous 
 feeling rare among Asiatics, and a bitter remembrance of the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 23 
 
 great crime of England, distinguish that noble Afghan race. To 
 this day they are regarded as the best of all sepoys at the cold 
 steel; and it was very recently remarked, by one who had 
 enjoyed great opportunities of observation, that the only natives 
 of India to whom the word " gentleman " can with perfect pro- 5 
 priety be applied are to be found among the Rohillas. 
 
 Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings, it cannot 
 be denied that the financial results of his policy did honor to his 
 talents. In less than two years after he assumed the govern- 
 ment, he had, without imposing any additional burdens on the 10 
 people subject to his authority, added about four hundred and 
 fifty thousand pounds to the annual income of the Company, 
 besides procuring about a million in ready money. He had 
 also relieved the finances of Bengal from military expenditure, 
 amounting to near a quarter of a million a year, and had thrown 1 5 
 that charge on the Nabob of Oude. There can be no doubt 
 that this was a result which, if it had been obtained by. honest 
 means, would have entitled him to the warmest gratitude of his 
 country, and which, by whatever means obtained, proved that 
 he possessed great talents for administration. 20 
 
 In the meantime Parliament had been engaged in long 
 and grave discussions on Asiatic affairs. The ministry of Lord 
 North, in the session of 1773, introduced a measure which made 
 a considerable change in the constitution of the Indian Govern- 
 ment. This law, known by the name of the Regulating Act, 25 
 provided that the presidency of Bengal should exercise a. control 
 over the other possessions of the Company ; that the chief of 
 that presidency should be styled Governor-General ; that he 
 should be assisted by four Councilors ; and that a supreme court 
 of judicature, consisting of a chief justice and three inferior 30 
 judges, should be established at Calcutta. This court was made 
 independent of the Governor-General and Council, and was 
 intrusted with a civil and criminal jurisdiction of immense, and, 
 at the same time, of undefined extent. 
 
124 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 The Governor-General and Councilors were named in the act, 
 and were to hold their situations for five years. Hastings was 
 to be the first Governor-General. One of the four new Coun- 
 cilors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced servant of the Company, 
 5 was then in India. The other three, General Clavering, Mr. 
 Monson, and Mr. Francis, were sent out from England. 
 
 The ablest of the new Councilors wa's, beyond all doubt, 
 Philip Francis. His acknowledged compositions prove that he 
 possessed considerable eloquence and information. Several 
 
 10 years passed in the public offices had formed him to habits of 
 business. His enemies have never denied that he had a fearless 
 and manly spirit ; and his friends, we are afraid, must acknowl- 
 edge that his estimate of himself was extravagantly high, that 
 his temper was irritable, that his deportment was often rude 
 
 15 and petulant, and that his hatred was of intense bitterness and 
 of long duration. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to mention this eminent man without 
 adverting for a moment to the question which his name at once 
 suggests to every mind. Was he the author of the " Letters of 
 
 20 Junius " ? Our own firm belief is that he was. The evidence is, 
 we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a 
 criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very 
 peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the 
 position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are 
 
 25 the most important facts which can be considered as clearly 
 proved : first, that he was acquainted with the technical forms 
 of the secretary of state's office ; secondly, that he was inti- 
 mately acquainted with the business of the war office ; thirdly, 
 that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of 
 
 30 Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches 
 of Lord Chatham ; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the ap- 
 pointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of deputy secretary at 
 war; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the 
 first Lord Holland. Now Francis passed some years in the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 125 
 
 secretary of state's office. He was subsequently chief clerk of 
 the war office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, 
 in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham, and some of these 
 speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his 
 clerkship at the war office from resentment at the appointment 5 
 of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first in- 
 troduced into the public service. Now here are five marks, all 
 of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found 
 in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can 
 be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does 10 
 not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. 
 
 The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. 
 The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of 
 Junius ; nor are we disposed to admit — what is generally taken 1 5 
 for granted — that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are 
 very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument 
 from inferiority, at all events, is one which may be urged with 
 at least equal force against every claimant that has ever been 
 mentioned, with the single exception of Burke ; and it would 20 
 be a waste of time to prove that Burke was not Junius. And 
 what conclusion, after all, can be drawn from mere inferiority ? 
 Every writer must produce his best work ; and the interval 
 between his best work and his second-best work may be very 
 wide indeed. Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius are 25 
 more decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis 
 than three or four of Corneille's tragedies to the rest, than three 
 or four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest, than the " Pil- 
 grim's Progress " to the other works of Bunyan, than " Don 
 Quixote " to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain 30 
 that the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a 
 most unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which 
 bear the signature of Junius, the letter to the king and the letters 
 to Home Tooke have little in common except the asperity, and 
 
126 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings 
 or in the speeches of Francis. 
 
 Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis 
 was Junius is the moral resemblance between the two men. It 
 5 is not difficult, from the letters which, under various signatures 
 are known to have been written by Junius, and from his deal- 
 ings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably correct notion 
 of his character. He was clearly a man not destitute of real 
 patriotism and magnanimity, a man whose vices were not of a 
 
 10 sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest 
 degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and 
 prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public 
 virtue. " Doest thou well to be angry ? " was the question asked 
 in old time of the Hebrew prophet. And he answered, " I do 
 
 15 well." This was evidently the temper of Junius, and to this 
 cause we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of 
 his letters. No man is so merciless as he who, under a strong 
 self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may 
 be added that Junius, though allied with the democratic party 
 
 20 by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic 
 politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity which 
 perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare, he regarded 
 the most defective parts of old institutions with a respect amount- 
 ing to pedantry, pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervor, 
 
 25 and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds 
 that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become 
 freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, 
 might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of 
 Philip Francis. 
 
 30 It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have 
 been willing at that time to leave the country which had been 
 so powerfully stirred by his eloquence. Everything had gone 
 against him. That party which he clearly preferred to every 
 other, the party of George Grenville, had been scattered by the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 27 
 
 death of its chief; and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part 
 of it over to the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by 
 the Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must 
 have been alike an object of aversion to Junius. His opinions 
 on domestic affairs separated him from the ministry ; his 5 
 opinions on colonial affairs from the opposition. Under such 
 circumstances he had thrown down his pen in misanthropical 
 despair. His farewell letter to Woodfall bears date the nineteenth 
 of January, 1773. In that letter he declared that he must be 
 an idiot to write again ; that he had meant well by the cause and 10 
 the public ; that both were given up ; that there were not ten men 
 who would act steadily together on any question. " But it is all 
 alike," he added, " vile and contemptible. You have never 
 flinched that I know of ; and I shall always rejoice to hear of 
 your prosperity." These were the'last words of Junius. In a year 15 
 from that time Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengal. 
 
 With three new Councilors came out the judges of the Su- 
 preme Court. The chief justice was Sir Elijah Impey. He was 
 an old acquaintance of Hastings ; and it is probable that the 
 Governor-General, if he had searched through all the inns of 20 
 court, could not have found an equally serviceable tool. But 
 the members of Council were by no means in an obsequious 
 mood. Hastings greatly disliked the new form of government, 
 and had no very high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard 
 of this, and were disposed to be suspicious and punctilious. 25 
 When men are in such a frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient 
 to give occasion for dispute. The members of Council expected 
 a salute of twenty-one guns from the batteries of Fort William. 
 Hastings allowed them only seventeen. They landed in ill 
 humor. The first civilities were exchanged with cold reserve. 30 
 On the morrow commenced that long quarrel which, after dis- 
 tracting British India, was renewed in England, and in which 
 all the most eminent statesmen and orators of the age took 
 active part on one or the other side. 
 
128 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 Hastings was supported by Barwell. They had not always 
 been friends. But the arrival of the new members of Council 
 from England naturally had the effect of uniting the old servants 
 of the Company. Clavering, Monson, and Francis formed the 
 5 majority. They instantly wrested the government out of the 
 hands of Hastings ; condemned, certainly not without justice, 
 his late dealings with the Nabob Vizier ; recalled the English 
 agent from Oude, and sent thither a creature of their own ; 
 ordered the brigade which had conquered the unhappy Rohillas 
 
 io to return to the Company's territories ; and instituted a severe 
 inquiry into the conduct of the war. Next, in spite of the 
 Governor-General's remonstrances, they proceeded to exercise, 
 in the most indiscreet manner, their new authority over the sub- 
 ordinate presidencies ; threw all the affairs of Bombay into 
 
 15 confusion; and interfered, with an incredible union of rashness 
 and feebleness, in the intestine disputes of the Mahratta Govern- 
 ment. At the same time they fell on the internal administration 
 of Bengal and attacked the whole fiscal and judicial system, a 
 system which was undoubtedly defective, but which it was 
 
 20 very improbable that gentlemen fresh from England would be 
 competent to amend. The effect of their reforms was that all 
 protection to life and property was withdrawn, and that gangs 
 of robbers plundered and slaughtered with impunity in the very 
 suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings continued to live in the Govern- 
 
 25 ment House and to draw the salary of Governor-General. He 
 continued even to take the lead at the council-board in the trans- 
 action of ordinary business ; for his opponents could not but 
 feel that he knew much of which they were ignorant, and that 
 he decided, both surely and speedily, many questions which to 
 
 30 them would have been hopelessly puzzling. But the higher 
 powers of government and the most valuable patronage had 
 been taken from him. 
 
 The natives soon found this out. They considered him as a 
 fallen man ; and they acted after their kind. Some of our 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 29 
 
 readers may have seen, in India, a cloud of crows pecking a 
 sick vulture to death, — no bad type of what happens in that 
 country as often as fortune deserts one who has been great 
 and dreaded. In an instant all the sycophants who had lately 
 been ready to lie for him, to forge for him, to pander for him, 5 
 to poison for him, hasten to purchase the favor of his victorious 
 enemies by accusing him. An Indian government has only to 
 let it be understood that it wishes a particular man to be ruined ; 
 and in twenty-four hours it will be furnished with grave charges, 
 supported by depositions so full and circumstantial that any 10 
 person unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity would regard them 
 as decisive. It is well if the signature of the destined victim is 
 not counterfeited at the foot of some illegal compact, and if 
 some treasonable paper is not slipped into a hiding place in his 
 house. Hastings was now regarded as helpless. The power to 15 
 make or mar the fortune of every man in Bengal had passed, 
 as it seemed, into the hands of the new Councilors. Imme- 
 diately charges against the Governor-General began to pour in. 
 They were eagerly welcomed by the majority, who, to do them 
 justice, were men of too much honor knowingly to countenance 20 
 false accusations, but who were not sufficiently acquainted with 
 the East to be aware that, in that part of the world, a very little 
 encouragement from power will call forth, in a week, more 
 Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dangerfields, than Westminster Hall 
 sees in a century. 25 
 
 It would have been strange indeed if, at such a juncture, 
 Nuncomar had remained quiet. That bad man was stimulated 
 at once by malignity, by avarice, and by ambition. Now was the 
 time to be avenged on his old enemy, to wreak a grudge of 
 seventeen years, to establish himself in the favor of the majority 30 
 of the Council, to become the greatest native in Bengal. From 
 the time of the arrival of the new Councilors, he had paid the 
 most marked court to them, and had in consequence been ex- 
 cluded, with all indignity, from the Government House. He now 
 
130 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 put into the hands of Francis, with great ceremony, a paper con- 
 taining several charges of the most serious description. By this 
 document Hastings was accused of putting offices up to sale, 
 and of receiving bribes for suffering offenders to escape. In 
 5 particular it was alleged that Mohammed Reza Khan had been 
 dismissed with impunity, in consideration of a great sum paid 
 to the Governor-General. 
 
 Francis read the paper in Council. A violent altercation 
 followed. Hastings complained in bitter terms of the way in 
 
 io which he was treated, spoke with contempt of Nuncomar and 
 of Nuncomar's accusation, and denied the right of the Council 
 to sit in judgment on the Governor. At the next meeting of 
 the Board another communication from Nuncomar was pro- 
 duced. He requested that he might be permitted to attend the 
 
 1 5 Council, and that he might be heard in support of his assertions. 
 Another tempestuous debate took place. The Governor-General 
 maintained that the council room was not a proper place for 
 such an investigation ; that from persons who were heated by 
 daily conflict with him he could not expect the fairness of judges ; 
 
 20 and that he could not, without betraying the dignity of his post, 
 submit to be confronted with such a man as Nuncomar. The 
 majority, however, resolved to go into the charges. Hastings 
 rose, declared the sitting at an end, and left the room, followed 
 by Barwell. The other members kept their seats, voted them- 
 
 25 selves a Council, put Clavering in the chair, and ordered Nun- 
 comar to be called in. Nuncomar not only adhered to the original 
 charges, but, after the fashion of the East, produced a large 
 supplement. He stated that Hastings had received a great sum 
 for appointing Rajah Goordas treasurer of the Nabob's house- 
 
 30 hold, and for committing the care of his Highness's person to the 
 Munny Begum. He put in a letter purporting to bear the seal of 
 the Munny Begum, for the purpose of establishing the truth of 
 his story. The seal, whether forged, as Hastings affirmed, or 
 genuine, as we are rather inclined to believe, proved nothing. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 131 
 
 Nuncomar, as everybody knows who knows India, had only to 
 tell the Munny Begum that such a letter would give pleasure to 
 the majority of the Council, in order to procure her attestation. 
 The majority, however, voted that the charge was made out ; 
 that Hastings had corruptly received between thirty and forty 5 
 thousand pounds ; and that he ought to be compelled to refund. 
 
 The general feeling among the English in Bengal was strongly 
 in favor of the Governor-General. In talents for business, in 
 knowledge of the country, in general courtesy of demeanor, he 
 was decidedly superior to his persecutors. The servants of the 10 
 Company were naturally disposed to side with the most dis- 
 tinguished member of their own body against a clerk from the 
 war office, who, profoundly ignorant of the native languages 
 and the native character, took on himself to regulate every de- 
 partment of the administration. Hastings, however, in spite of 15 
 the general sympathy of his countrymen, was in a most painful 
 situation. There was still an appeal to higher authority in 
 England. If that authority took part with his enemies, nothing 
 was left to him but to throw up his office. He accordingly 
 placed his resignation in the hands of his agent in London, 20 
 Colonel Macleane. But Macleane was instructed not to produce 
 the resignation unless it should be fully ascertained that the 
 feeling at the India House was adverse to the Governor-General. 
 
 The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. He held 
 a daily levee,, to which his countrymen resorted in crowds, and 25 
 to which, on one occasion, the majority of the Council con- 
 descended to repair. His house was an office for the purpose of 
 receiving charges against the Governor-General. It was said that, 
 partly by threats and partly by wheedling, the villainous Brahmin 
 had induced many of the wealthiest men of the province to send 30 
 in complaints. But he was playing a perilous game. It was not 
 safe to drive to despair a man of such resources and of such de- 
 termination as Hastings. Nuncomar, with all his acuteness, did 
 not understand the nature of the institutions under which he 
 
132 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 lived. He saw that he had with him the majority of the body 
 which made treaties, gave places, raised taxes. The separation 
 between political and judicial functions was a thing of which he 
 had no conception. It had probably never occurred to him that 
 5 there was in Bengal an authority perfectly independent of the 
 Council, an authority which could protect one whom the Council 
 wished to destroy, and send to the gibbet one whom the Council 
 wished to protect. Yet such was the fact. The Supreme Court 
 was, within the sphere of its own duties, altogether independent 
 
 10 of the Government. Hastings, with his usual sagacity, had seen 
 how much advantage he might derive from possessing himself 
 of this stronghold ; and he had acted accordingly. The judges, 
 especially the Chief Justice, were hostile to the majority of the 
 Council. The time had now come for putting this formidable 
 
 15 machinery into action. 
 
 On a sudden Calcutta was astounded by the news that 
 Nuncomar had been taken up on a charge of felony, committed, 
 and thrown into the common jail. The crime imputed to him 
 was that six years before he had forged a bond. The ostensible 
 
 20 prosecutor was a native. But it was then, and still is, the opinion 
 of everybody, idiots and biographers excepted, that Hastings 
 was the real mover in the business. 
 
 The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. They 
 protested against the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and 
 
 25 sent several urgent messages to the judges, demanding that 
 Nuncomar should be admitted to bail. The judges returned 
 haughty and resolute answers. All that the Council could do 
 was to heap honors and emoluments on the family of Nuncomar; 
 and this they did. In the meantime the assizes commenced ; a 
 
 30 true bill was found; and Nuncomar was brought before Sir 
 Elijah Impey and a jury composed of Englishmen. A great 
 quantity of contradictory swearing and the necessity of having 
 every word of the evidence interpreted, protracted the trial 
 to a most unusual length. At last a verdict of guilty was 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 33 
 
 returned, and the Chief Justice pronounced sentence of death 
 on the prisoner. 
 
 Mr. Gleig is so strangely ignorant as to imagine that the 
 judges had no further discretion in the case, and that the power 
 of extending mercy to Nuncomar resided with the Council. He 5 
 therefore throws on Francis and Francis's party the whole blame 
 of what followed. We should have thought that a gentleman 
 who has published five or six bulky volumes on Indian affairs 
 might have taken the trouble to inform himself as to the funda- 
 mental principles of the Indian Government. The Supreme 10 
 Court had, under the Regulating Act, the power to -respite 
 criminals till the pleasure of the Crown should be known. The 
 Council had, at that time, no power to interfere. 
 
 That Impey ought to have respited Nuncomar we hold to be 
 perfectly clear. Whether the whole proceeding was not illegal, 15 
 is a question. But it is certain that, whatever may have been, 
 according to technical rules of construction, the effect of the 
 statute under which the trial took place, it was most unjust to 
 hang a Hindoo for forgery. The law which made forgery 
 capital in England was passed without the smallest reference to 20 
 the state of society in India. It was unknown to the natives of 
 India. It had never been put in execution among them, certainly 
 not for want of delinquents. It was in the highest degree shock- 
 ing to all their notions. They were not accustomed to the dis- 
 tinction which many circumstances, peculiar to our own state of 25 
 society, have led us to make between forgery and other kinds 
 of cheating. The counterfeiting of a seal was, in their estima- 
 tion, a common act of swindling ; nor had it ever crossed their 
 minds that it was to be punished as severely as gang robbery or 
 assassination. A just judge would, beyond all doubt, have re- 30 
 served the case for the consideration of the sovereign. But 
 Impey would not hear of mercy or delay. 
 
 The excitement among all classes was great. Francis and 
 Francis's few English adherents described the Governor-General 
 
134 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 and the Chief Justice as the worst of murderers. Clavering, it 
 was said, swore that, even at the foot of the gallows, Nuncomar 
 should be rescued. The bulk of the European society, though 
 strongly attached to the Governor-General, could not but feel 
 5 compassion for a man who, with all his crimes, had so long filled 
 so large a space in their sight, who had been great and powerful 
 before the British empire in India began to exist, and to whom, 
 in the old times, governors and members of Council, then mere 
 commercial factors, had paid court for protection. The feeling 
 
 io of the Hindoos was infinitely stronger. They were, indeed, not 
 a people to strike one blow for their countryman. But his 
 sentence filled them with sorrow and dismay. Tried even by 
 their low standard of morality, he was a bad man. But, bad as 
 he was, he was the head of their race and religion, a Brahmin of 
 
 15 the Brahmins. He had inherited the purest and highest caste. 
 He had practiced with the greatest punctuality all those cere- 
 monies to which the superstitious Bengalese ascribe far more im- 
 portance than to the correct discharge of the social duties. They 
 felt, therefore, as a devout Catholic in the dark ages would have 
 
 20 felt at seeing a prelate of the highest dignity sent to the gallows 
 by a secular tribunal. According to their old national laws a 
 Brahmin could not be put to death for any crime whatever. 
 And the crime for which Nuncomar was about to die was 
 regarded by them in much the same light in which the selling 
 
 25 of an unsound horse for a sound price is regarded by a York- 
 shire jockey. 
 
 The Mussulmans alone appear to have seen with exultation 
 the fate of the powerful Hindoo who had attempted to rise by 
 means of the ruin of Mohammed Reza Khan. The Moham- 
 
 30 medan historian of those times takes delight in aggravating the 
 charge. He assures us that in Nuncomar's house a casket was 
 found containing counterfeits of the seals of all the richest men 
 of the province. We have never fallen in with any other author- 
 ity for this story, which in itself is by no means improbable. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 35 
 
 The day drew near ; and Nuncomar prepared himself to die 
 with that quiet fortitude with which the Bengalese, so effeminately 
 timid in personal conflict, often encounters calamities for which 
 there is no remedy. The sheriff, with the humanity which is 
 seldom wanting in an English gentleman, visited the prisoner 5 
 on the eve of the execution, and assured him that no indulgence, 
 consistent with the law, should be refused to him. Nuncomar 
 expressed his gratitude with great politeness and unaltered com- 
 posure. Not a muscle of his face moved. Not a sigh broke 
 from him. He put his finger to his forehead, and calmly said 10 
 that fate would have its way and that there was no resisting the 
 pleasure of God. He sent his compliments to Francis, Clavering, 
 and Monson, and charged them to protect Rajah Goordas, 
 who was about to become the head of the Brahmins of Bengal. 
 The sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated by what had passed, and 15 
 Nuncomar sat composedly down to write notes and examine 
 accounts. 
 
 The next morning, before the sun was in his power, an im- 
 mense concourse assembled round the place where the gallows 
 had been set up. Grief and horror were on every face ; yet to 20 
 the last the multitude could hardly believe that the English 
 really purposed to take the life of the great Brahmin. At length 
 the mournful procession came through the crowd. Nuncomar 
 sat up in his palanquin and looked round him with unaltered 
 serenity. He had just parted from those who were most nearly 25 
 connected with him. Their cries and contortions had appalled 
 the European ministers of justice, but had not produced the 
 smallest effect on the iron stoicism of the prisoner. The only 
 anxiety which he expressed was that men of his own priestly 
 caste might be in attendance to take charge of his corpse. He 30 
 again desired to be remembered to his friends in the Council, 
 mounted the scaffold with firmness, and gave the signal to the 
 executioner. The moment that the drop fell, a howl of sorrow 
 and despair rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds 
 
136 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 turned away their faces from the polluting sight, fled with loud 
 wailings towards the Hoogley, and plunged into its holy waters, 
 as if to purify themselves ^from the guilt of having looked on 
 such a crime. These feelings were not confined to Calcutta. 
 5 The whole province was greatly excited ; and the population of 
 Dacca, in particular, gave strong signs of grief and dismay. 
 
 Of Impey's conduct it is impossible to speak too severely. 
 We have already said that, in our opinion, he acted unjustly in 
 refusing to respite Nuncomar. No rational man can doubt that 
 
 10 he took this course in order to gratify the Governor-General. 
 If we had ever had any doubts on that point, they would have 
 been dispelled by a letter which Mr. Gleig has published. 
 Hastings, three or four years later, described Impey as the man 
 " to whose support he was at one time indebted for the safety of 
 
 15 his fortune, honor, and reputation." These strong words can 
 refer only to the case of Nuncomar ; and they must mean that 
 Impey hanged Nuncomar in order to support Hastings. It is, 
 therefore, our deliberate opinion that Impey, sitting as a judge, 
 put a man unjustly to death in order to serve a political purpose. 
 
 26 But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a somewhat 
 different light. He was struggling for fortune, honor, liberty, — 
 all that makes life valuable. He was beset by rancorous and 
 unprincipled enemies. From his colleagues he could expect no 
 justice. He cannot be blamed for wishing to crush his accusers. 
 
 25 He was indeed bound to use only legitimate means for that end. 
 But it was not strange that he should have thought any means 
 legitimate which were pronounced legitimate by the sages of the 
 law, — by men whose peculiar duty it was to deal justly between 
 adversaries, and whose education might be supposed to have 
 
 30 peculiarly qualified them for the discharge of that duty. Nobody 
 demands from a party the unbending equity of a judge. The 
 reason that judges are appointed is, that even a good man 
 cannot be trusted to decide a cause in which he is himself con- 
 cerned. Not a day passes on which an honest prosecutor does 
 
WARREN HASTINGS I 37 
 
 not ask for what none but a dishonest tribunal would grant. It 
 is too much to expect that any man, when his dearest interests 
 are at stake and his strongest passions excited, will, as against 
 himself, be more just than the sworn dispensers of justice. To 
 take an analogous case from the history of our own island : 5 
 suppose that Lord Stafford, when in the Tower on suspicion of 
 being concerned in the Popish plot, had been apprised that 
 Titus Oates had done something which might, by a questionable 
 construction, be brought under the head of felony. Should we 
 severely blame Lord Stafford, in the supposed case, for causing 10 
 a prosecution to be instituted, for furnishing funds, for using all 
 his influence to intercept the mercy of the Crown ? We think 
 not. If a judge, indeed, from favor to the Catholic lords, were 
 to strain the law in order to hang Oates, such a judge would 
 richly deserve impeachment. But it does not appear to us that 15 
 the Catholic lord, by bringing the case before the judge for deci- 
 sion, would materially overstep the limits of a just self-defense. 
 While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that this mem- 
 orable execution is to be attributed to Hastings, we doubt 
 whether it can with justice be reckoned among his crimes. That 20 
 his conduct was dictated by a profound policy is evident. He 
 was in a minority in Council. It was possible that he might long 
 be in a minority. He knew the native character well. He knew 
 in what abundance accusations are certain to flow in against the 
 most innocent inhabitant of India who is under the frown of 25 
 power. There was not in the whole black population of Bengal 
 a place holder, a place hunter, a Government tenant, who did 
 not think that he might better himself by sending up a deposi- 
 tion against the Governor-General. Under these circumstances 
 the persecuted statesman resolved to teach the whole crew of 30 
 accusers and witnesses that, though in a minority at the council- 
 board, he was still to be feared. The lesson which he gave 
 them was indeed a lesson not to be forgotten. The head of the 
 combination which had been formed against him, the richest, 
 
138 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 the most powerful, the most artful of the Hindoos, distinguished 
 by the favor of those who then held the government, fenced 
 round by the superstitious reverence of millions, was hanged in 
 broad day before many thousands of people. Everything that 
 5 could make the warning impressive, dignity in the sufferer, 
 solemnity in the proceeding, was found in this case. The help- 
 less rage and vain struggles of the Council made the triumph 
 more signal. From that moment the conviction of every native 
 was that it was safer to take the part of Hastings in a minority 
 
 10 than that of Francis in a majority, and that he who was so 
 venturous as to join in running down the Governor-General 
 might chance, in the phrase of the Eastern poet, to find a tiger, 
 while beating the jungle for a deer. The voices of a thousand 
 informers were silenced in an instant. From that time, what- 
 
 15 ever difficulty Hastings might have to encounter, he was never 
 molested by accusations of natives of India. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of 
 Hastings to Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the 
 death of Nuncomar. While the whole settlement was in commo- 
 
 20 tion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping over 
 the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple 
 sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write about the 
 " Tour to the Hebrides," Jones's " Persian Grammar," and the 
 history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India. 
 
 25 In the meantime intelligence of the Rohilla war, and of the 
 first disputes between Hastings and his colleagues, had reached 
 London. The Directors took part with the majority, and sent 
 out a letter filled with severe reflections on the conduct of 
 Hastings. They condemned, in strong but just terms, the iniquity 
 
 30 of undertaking offensive wars merely for the sake of pecuniary 
 advantages. But they utterly forgot that, if Hastings had by 
 illicit means obtained pecuniary advantages, he had done so, not 
 for his own benefit, but in order to meet their demands. To 
 enjoin honesty and to insist on having what could not be 
 
WARREN HASTINGS I 39 
 
 honestly got, was then the constant practice of the Company. 
 As Lady Macbeth says of her husband, they " would not play 
 false, and yet would wrongly win." 
 
 The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been appointed 
 Governor-General for five years, empowered the Crown to 5 
 remove him on an address from the Company. Lord North 
 was desirous to procure such an address. The three members 
 of Council who had been sent out from England were men of 
 his own choice. General Clavering, in particular, was supported 
 by a large parliamentary connection, such as no cabinet could 10 
 be inclined to disoblige. The wish of the Minister was to dis- 
 place Hastings and to put Clavering at the head of the Govern- 
 ment. In the Court of Directors parties were very nearly 
 balanced. Eleven voted against Hastings, ten for him. The 
 Court of Proprietors was then convened. The great salesroom 15 
 presented a singular appearance. Letters had been sent by 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, exhorting all the supporters of 
 Government who held India stock to be in attendance. Lord 
 Sandwich marshaled the friends of the administration with his 
 usual dexterity and alertness. Fifty peers and privy councilors, 20 
 seldom seen so far eastward, were counted in the crowd. The 
 debate lasted till midnight. The opponents of Hastings had a 
 small superiority on the division; but a ballot was demanded, 
 and the result was that the Governor-General triumphed by a 
 majority of above a hundred votes over the combined efforts of 25 
 the Directors and the Cabinet. The ministers were greatly 
 exasperated by this defeat. Even Lord North lost his temper, 
 no ordinary occurrence with him, and threatened to convoke 
 parliament before Christmas, and to bring in a bill for depriving 
 the Company of all political power and for restricting it to its 30 
 old business of trading in silks and teas. 
 
 Colonel Macleane, who through all this conflict had zealously 
 supported the cause of Hastings, now thought that his employer 
 was in imminent danger of being turned out, branded with 
 
140 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 parliamentary censure, perhaps prosecuted. The opinion of the 
 Crown lawyers had already been taken respecting some parts of 
 the Governor-General's conduct. It seemed to be high time to 
 think of securing an honorable retreat. Under these circum- 
 5 stances Macleane thought himself justified in producing the 
 resignation with which he had been intrusted. The instrument 
 was not in very accurate form, but the Directors were too eager 
 to be scrupulous. They accepted the resignation, fixed on Mr. 
 Wheler, one of their own body, to succeed Hastings, and sent 
 
 io out orders that General Clavering, as senior member of Coun- 
 cil, should exercise the functions of Governor-General till Mr. 
 Wheler should arrive. 
 
 But while these things were passing in England a great 
 change had taken place in Bengal. Monson was no more. Only 
 
 15 four members of the Government were left. Clavering and 
 Francis were on one side, Barwell and the Governor-General 
 on the other ; and the Governor-General had the casting vote. 
 Hastings, who had been during two years destitute of all power 
 and patronage, became at once absolute. He instantly pro- 
 
 20 ceeded to retaliate on his adversaries. Their measures were 
 reversed ; their creatures were displaced. A new valuation of 
 the lands of Bengal, for the purposes of taxation, was ordered; 
 and it was provided that the whole inquiry should be conducted 
 by the Governor-General, and that all the letters relating to it 
 
 25 should run in his name. He began, at the same time, to revolve 
 vast plans of conquest and dominion, plans which he lived to 
 see realized, though not by himself. His project was to form 
 subsidiary alliances with the native princes, particularly with 
 those of Oude and Berar, and thus to make Britain the para- 
 
 30 mount power in India. While he was meditating these great 
 designs, arrived the intelligence that he had ceased to be 
 Governor-General, that his resignation had been accepted, that 
 Wheler was coming out immediately, and that, till Wheler 
 arrived, the chair was to be filled by Clavering. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS I4I 
 
 Had Hastings still been in a minority, he would probably 
 have retired without a struggle ; but he was now the real master 
 of British India, and he was not disposed to quit his high place. 
 He asserted that he had never given any instructions which 
 could warrant the steps taken at home. What his instructions 5 
 had been, he owned he had forgotten. If he had kept a copy 
 of them, he had mislaid it. But he was certain that he had 
 repeatedly declared to the Directors that he would not resign. 
 He could not see how the Court, possessed of that declaration 
 from himself, could receive his resignation from the doubtful 10 
 hands of an agent. If the resignation were invalid, all the pro- 
 ceedings which were founded on that resignation were null, and 
 Hastings was still Governor-General. 
 
 He afterwards affirmed that, though his agents had not acted 
 in conformity with his instructions, he would nevertheless have 15 
 held himself bound by their acts, if Clavering had not attempted 
 to seize the supreme power by violence. Whether this assertion 
 were or were not true, it cannot be doubted that the impru- 
 dence of Clavering gave Hastings an advantage. The General 
 sent for the keys of the fort and of the treasury, took possession 20 
 of the records, and held a council at which Francis attended. 
 Hastings took the chair in another apartment and Barwell sat 
 with him. Each of the two parties had a plausible show of right. 
 There was no authority entitled to their obedience within fifteen 
 thousand miles. It seemed that there remained no way of set- 25 
 tling the dispute except an appeal to arms ; and from such an 
 appeal Hastings, confident of his influence over his countrymen 
 in India, was not inclined to shrink. He directed the officers 
 of the garrison of Fort William and of all the neighboring sta- 
 tions to obey no orders but his. At the" same time, with admi- 30 
 rable judgment, he offered to submit the case to the Supreme 
 Court, and to abide by its decision. By making this proposition 
 he risked nothing; yet it was a proposition which his opponents 
 could hardly reject. Nobody could be treated as a criminal for 
 
142 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 obeying what the judges should solemnly pronounce to be the 
 lawful government. The boldest man would shrink from taking 
 arms in defense of what the judges should pronounce to be 
 usurpation. Clavering and Francis, after some delay, unwillingly 
 5 consented to abide by the award of the Court. The Court pro- 
 nounced that the resignation was invalid, and that therefore 
 Hastings was still Governor-General under the Regulating Act ; 
 and the defeated members of the Council, finding that the sense 
 of the whole settlement was against them, acquiesced in the 
 
 10 decision. 
 
 About this time arrived the news that, after a suit which had 
 lasted several years, the Franconian courts had decreed a divorce 
 between Imhoff and his wife. The Baron left Calcutta, carrying 
 with him the means of buying an estate in Saxony. The lady 
 
 15 became Mrs. Hastings. The event was celebrated by great 
 festivities, and all the most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, 
 without distinction of parties, were invited to the Government 
 house. Clavering, as the Mohammedan chronicler tells the story, 
 was sick in mind and body, and excused himself from join- 
 
 20 ing the splendid assembly. But Hastings, whom, as it should 
 seem, success in ambition and in love had put into high good 
 humor, would take no denial. He went himself to the General's 
 house and at length brought his vanquished rival in triumph to 
 the gay circle which surrounded the bride. The exertion was 
 
 25 too much for a frame broken by mortification as well as by 
 disease. Clavering died a few days later. 
 
 Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor-General 
 and was forced to content himself with a seat at the council- 
 board, generally voted with Francis. But the Governor-General, 
 
 30 with Barw ell's help and his own casting vote, was still the 
 master. Some change took place at this time in the feeling both 
 of the Court of Directors and of the Ministers of the Crown. 
 All designs against Hastings were dropped; and when his 
 original term of five years expired, he was quietly reappointed. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 143 
 
 The truth is, that the fearful dangers to which the public inter- 
 ests in every quarter were now exposed, made both Lord North 
 and the Company unwilling to part with a Governor whose 
 talents, experience, and resolution enmity itself was compelled 
 to acknowledge. 5 
 
 The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and victorious 
 empire, on the throne of which George the Third had taken his 
 seat eighteen years before, with brighter hopes than had at- 
 tended the accession of any of the long line of English sover- 
 eigns, had, by the most senseless misgovernment, been brought 10 
 to the verge of ruin. In America millions of Englishmen were 
 at war with the country from which their blood, their language, 
 their religion, and their institutions were derived, and to which, 
 but a short time before, they had been as strongly attached as 
 the inhabitants of Norfolk and Leicestershire. The great powers 15 
 of Europe, humbled. to the dust by the vigor and genius which 
 had guided the councils of George the Second, now rejoiced in 
 the prospect of a signal revenge. The time was approaching 
 when our island, while struggling to keep down the United 
 States of America and pressed with a still nearer danger by the 20 
 too just discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, 
 Spain, and Holland, and to be threatened by the armed neu- 
 trality of the Baltic ; when even our maritime supremacy was to 
 be in jeopardy ; when hostile fleets were to command the Straits 
 of Calpe and the Mexican Sea ; when the British flag was to be 25 
 scarcely able to protect the British Channel. Great as were the 
 faults of Hastings, it was happy for our country that at that con- 
 juncture, the most terrible through which she has ever passed, he 
 was the ruler of her Indian dominions. 
 
 An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be apprehended. 30 
 The danger was that the European enemies of England might 
 form an alliance with some native power, might furnish that 
 power with troops, arms, and ammunition, and might thus 
 assail our possessions on the side of the land. It was chiefly 
 
144 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 from the Mahrattas that Hastings anticipated danger. The 
 original seat of that singular people was the wild range of hills 
 which runs along the western coast of India. In the reign of 
 Aurungzebe the inhabitants of those regions, led by the great 
 5 Sevajee, began to descend on the possessions of their wealthier 
 and less warlike neighbors. The energy, ferocity, and cunning 
 of the Mahrattas soon made them the most conspicuous among 
 the new powers which were generated by the corruption of the 
 decaying monarchy. At first they were only robbers. They 
 
 10 soon rose to the dignity of conquerors. Half the provinces of 
 the empire were turned into Mahratta principalities. Free- 
 booters, sprung from low castes and accustomed to menial em- 
 ployments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the head 
 of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast region of Berar. The 
 
 15 Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the Herdsman, founded 
 that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of 
 Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One adventurous 
 captain made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. An- 
 other became the lord of the thousand villages which are scat- 
 
 20 tered among the green rice fields of Tanjore. 
 
 That was the time, throughout India, of double govern- 
 ment. The form and the power were everywhere separated. 
 The Mussulman nabobs who had become sovereign princes, 
 the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam at Hyderabad still called 
 
 25 themselves the viceroys of the house of Tamerlane. In the 
 same manner the Mahratta states, though really independent of 
 each other, pretended to be members of one empire. They all 
 acknowledged, by words and ceremonies, the supremacy of the 
 heir of Sevajee, a roi faineant who chewed bhang and toyed 
 
 30 with dancing girls in a state prison at Sattara ; and of his 
 Peshwa, or mayor of the palace, a great hereditary magistrate, 
 who kept a court with kingly state at Poonah, and whose 
 authority was obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurungabad 
 and Bejapoor. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 145 
 
 Some months before war was declared in Europe the Govern- 
 ment of Bengal was alarmed by the news that a French adven- 
 turer, who passed for a man of quality, had arrived at Poonah. 
 It was said that he had been received there with great distinc- 
 tion, that he had delivered to the Peshwa letters and presents 5 
 from Louis the Sixteenth, and that a treaty, hostile to England, 
 had been concluded between France and the Mahrattas. 
 
 Hastings immediately resolved to strike the first blow. The 
 title of the Peshwa was not undisputed. A portion of the 
 Mahratta nation was favorable to a pretender. The Governor- 10 
 General determined to espouse this pretender's interest, to move 
 an army across the peninsula of India, and to form a close 
 alliance with the chief of the house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, 
 and who, in power and dignity, was inferior to none of the 
 Mahratta princes. 1 5 
 
 The army had marched, and the negotiations with Berar 
 were in progress, when a letter from the English consul at Cairo 
 brought the news that war had been proclaimed both in London 
 and Paris. All the measures which the crisis required were 
 adopted by Hastings without a moment's delay. The French 20 
 factories in Bengal were seized. Orders were sent to Madras 
 that Pondicherry should instantly be occupied. Near Calcutta 
 works were thrown up which were thought to render the 
 approach of a hostile force impossible. A maritime establish- 
 ment was formed for the defense of the river. Nine new bat- 25 
 talions of sepoys were raised, and a corps of native artillery 
 was formed out of the hardy Lascars of the Bay of Bengal. 
 Having made these arrangements, the Governor-General with 
 calm confidence pronounced his presidency secure from all at- 
 tack, unless the Mahrattas should march against it in conjunc- 30 
 tion with the French. 
 
 The expedition which Hastings had sent westward was not 
 so speedily or completely successful as most of his undertak- 
 ings. The commanding officer procrastinated. The authorities 
 
146 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 at Bombay blundered. But the Governor-General persevered. 
 A new commander repaired the errors of his predecessor. Sev- 
 eral brilliant actions spread the military renown of the English 
 through regions where no European flag had ever been seen. 
 
 5 It is probable that, if a new and more formidable danger had 
 not compelled Hastings to change his whole policy, his plans 
 respecting the Mahratta empire would have been carried into 
 complete effect. 
 
 The authorities in England had wisely sent out to Bengal, as 
 
 10 commander of the forces and member of the Council, one of the 
 most distinguished soldiers of that time. Sir Eyre Coote had, 
 many years before, been conspicuous among the founders of the 
 British empire in the East. At the council of war which pre- 
 ceded the battle of Plassey he earnestly recommended, in op- 
 
 15 position to the majority, that daring course which, after some 
 hesitation, was adopted, and which was crowned with such 
 splendid success. He subsequently commanded in the south of 
 India against the brave and unfortunate Lally, gained the deci- 
 sive battle of Wandewash over the French and their native allies, 
 
 20 took Pondicherry, and made the English power supreme in the 
 Carnatic. Since those great exploits near twenty years had 
 elapsed. Coote had no longer the bodily activity which he had 
 shown in earlier days ; nor was the vigor of his mind altogether 
 unimpaired. He was capricious and fretful, and required much 
 
 25. coaxing to keep him in good humor. It must, we fear, be 
 added that the love of money had grown upon him, and that he 
 thought more about his allowances, and less about his duties, 
 than might have been expected from so eminent a member of 
 so noble a profession. Still he was perhaps the ablest officer 
 
 30 that was then to be found in the British army. Among the 
 native soldiers his name was great and his influence unrivaled. 
 Nor is he yet forgotten by them. Now and then a white- 
 bearded old sepoy may still be found, who loves to talk of Porto 
 Novo and Pollilore. It is but a short time since one of those 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 147 
 
 aged men came to present a memorial to an English officer 
 who holds one of the highest employments in India. A print of 
 Coote hung in the room. The veteran recognized at once that 
 face and figure which he had not seen for more than half a 
 century, and, forgetting his salaam to the living, halted, drew 5 
 himself up, lifted his hand, and with solemn reverence paid his 
 military obeisance to the dead. 
 
 Coote, though he did not, like Barwell, vote constantly with 
 the Governor-General, was by no means inclined to join in 
 systematic opposition, and on most questions concurred with 10 
 Hastings, who did his best, by assiduous courtship, and by 
 readily granting the most exorbitant allowances, to gratify the 
 strongest passions of the old soldier. 
 
 It seemed likely at this time that a general reconciliation 
 would put an end to the quarrels which had, during some years, 1 5 
 weakened and disgraced the Government of Bengal. The 
 dangers of the empire might well induce men of patriotic feeling 
 — and of patriotic feeling neither Hastings nor Francis was 
 destitute — to forget private enmities, and to cooperate heartily 
 for the general good. Coote had never been concerned in fac- 20 
 tion. Wheler was thoroughly tired of it. Barwell had made an 
 ample fortune, and, though he had promised that he would not 
 leave Calcutta while his help was needed in Council, was most 
 desirous to return to England, and exerted himself to promote 
 an arrangement which would set him at liberty. A compact was 25 
 made, by which Francis agreed to desist from opposition, and 
 Hastings engaged that the friends of Francis should be ad- 
 mitted to a fair share of the honors and emoluments of the 
 service. During a few months after this treaty there was ap- 
 parent harmony at the council-board. 3° 
 
 Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary; for at this 
 .moment internal calamities, more formidable than, war itself, 
 menaced Bengal. The authors of the Regulating Act of 1773 
 had established two independent powers, the one judicial, the 
 
148 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 other political ; and, with a carelessness scandalously common 
 in English legislation, had omitted to define the limits of either. 
 The judges took advantage of the indistinctness, and attempted 
 to draw to themselves supreme authority, not only within 
 5 Calcutta, but through the whole of the great territory subject 
 to the presidency of Fort William. There are few Englishmen 
 who will not admit, that the English law, in spite of modern im- 
 provements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy as might be 
 wished. Still, it is a system which has grown up among us. In 
 
 10 some points it has been fashioned to suit our feelings ; in 
 others it has gradually fashioned our feelings to suit itself. 
 Even to its worst evils we are accustomed ; and, therefore, 
 though we may complain of them, they do not strike us with the 
 horror and dismay which would be produced by a new grievance 
 
 1 5 of smaller severity. In India the case is widely different. English 
 law, transplanted to that country, has all the vices from which 
 we suffer here ; it has them all in a far higher degree ; and it has 
 other vices, compared with which the worst vices from which 
 we suffer are trifles. Dilatory here, it is far more dilatory in a 
 
 20 land where the help of an interpreter is needed by every judge 
 and by every advocate. Costly here, it is far more costly in a 
 land into which the legal practitioners must be imported from 
 an immense distance. All English labor in India, from the labor 
 of the Governor-General and the Commander in Chief, down to 
 
 25 that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be paid for at a higher 
 rate than at home. No man will be banished, and banished to 
 the torrid zone, for nothing. The rule holds good with respect 
 to the legal profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen 
 thousand miles from all his friends, with the thermometer at 
 
 30 ninety-six in the shade, for the emoluments which will content 
 him in chambers that overlook the Thames. Accordingly the 
 fees at Calcutta are about three times as great as the fees of 
 Westminster Hall ; and this, though the people of India are, 
 beyond all comparison, poorer than the people of England. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 149 
 
 Yet the delay and the expense, grievous as they are, form the 
 smallest part of the evil which English law, imported without 
 modifications into India, could not fail to produce. The strongest 
 feelings of our nature, honor, religion, female modesty, rose up 
 against the innovation. Arrest on mesne process was the first 5 
 step in most civil proceedings ; and to a native of rank arrest 
 was not merely a restraint, but a foul personal indignity. Oaths 
 were required in every stage of every suit ; and the feeling 
 of a Quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than that of a 
 respectable native. That the apartments of a woman of quality 10 
 should be entered by strange men, or that her face should be 
 seen by them, are, in the East, intolerable outrages, outrages 
 which are more dreaded than death, and which can be expiated 
 only by the shedding of blood. To these outrages the most dis- 
 tinguished families of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa were now 15 
 exposed. Imagine what the state of our own country would be, 
 if a jurisprudence were on a sudden introduced among us, 
 which should be to us what our jurisprudence was to our Asiatic 
 subjects. Imagine what the state of our country would be, if it 
 were enacted that any man, by merely swearing that a debt was 20 
 due to him, should acquire a right to insult the persons of men 
 of the most honorable and sacred callings and of women of the 
 most shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general officer, to put 
 a bishop in the stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called 
 forth the blow of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the 25 
 effect of the attempt which the Supreme Court made to extend 
 its jurisdiction oyer the whole of the Company's territory. 
 
 A reign of terror began, — of terror heightened by mystery ; 
 for even that which was endured was less horrible than that 
 which was anticipated. No man knew what was next to be 30 
 expected from this strange tribunal. It came from beyond the 
 black water, as the people of India, with mysterious horror, 
 call the sea. It consisted of judges not one of whom was 
 familiar with the usages of the millions over whom they claimed 
 
150 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 boundless authority. Its records were kept in unknown charac- 
 ters ; its sentences were pronounced in unknown sounds. It had 
 already collected round itself an army of the worst part of the 
 native population, informers, and false witnesses, and common 
 5 barrators, and agents of chicane, and, above all, a banditti of 
 bailiffs' followers, compared with whom the retainers of the 
 worst English sponging houses, in the worst times, might be 
 considered as upright and tender-hearted. Many natives, highly 
 considered among their countrymen, were seized, hurried up to 
 
 10 Calcutta, flung into the common jail, not for any crime even 
 imputed, not for any debt that had been proved, but merely as 
 a precaution till their cause should come to trial. There were 
 instances in which men of the most venerable dignity, perse- 
 cuted without a cause by extortioners, died of rage and shame 
 
 15 in the gripe of the vile alguazils of Impey. The harems of 
 noble Mohammedans, sanctuaries respected in the East by 
 governments which respected nothing else, were burst open 
 by gangs of bailiffs. The Mussulmans, braver and less accus- 
 tomed to submission than the Hindoos, sometimes stood on 
 
 20 their defense ; and there were instances in which they shed 
 their blood in the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the 
 sacred apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed as if even 
 the faint-hearted Bengalese, who had crouched at the feet of 
 Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute during the administration 
 
 25 of Vansittart, would at length find courage in despair. No 
 Mahratta invasion had ever spread through the province such 
 dismay as this inroad of English lawyers. All the injustice of 
 former oppressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing 
 when compared with the justice of the Supreme Court. 
 
 30 Every class of the population, English and native, with the 
 exception of the ravenous pettifoggers who fattened on the 
 misery and terror of an immense community, cried out loudly 
 against this fearful oppression. But the judges were immovable. 
 If a bailiff was resisted, they ordered the soldiers to be called 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 151 
 
 out. If a servant of the Company, in conformity with the 
 orders of the Government, withstood the miserable catchpoles 
 who, with Impey's writs in their hands, exceeded the insolence 
 and rapacity of gang robbers, he was flung into prison for a 
 contempt. The lapse of sixty years, the virtue and wisdom of 5 
 many eminent magistrates who have, during that time, admin- 
 istered justice in the Supreme Court, have not effaced from 
 the minds of the people of Bengal the recollection of those 
 evil days. 
 
 The members of the Government were, on this subject, 10 
 united as one man. Hastings had courted the judges ; he had 
 found them useful instruments, but he was not disposed to make 
 them his own masters, or the masters of India. His mind was 
 large ; his knowledge of the native character most accurate. 
 He saw that the system pursued by the Supreme Court was 15 
 degrading to the Government and ruinous to the people ; and he 
 resolved to oppose it manfully. The consequence was, that the 
 friendship — if that be the proper word for such a connection 
 — which had existed between him and Impey was for a time 
 completely dissolved. The Government placed itself firmly be- 20 
 tween the tyrannical tribunal and the people. The Chief Justice 
 proceeded to the wildest excesses. The Governor-General and 
 all the members of Council were served with writs, calling on 
 them to appear before the King's justices and to answer for 
 their public acts. This was too much. Hastings, with just 25 
 scorn, refused to obey the call, set at liberty the persons wrong- 
 fully detained by the Court, and took measures for resisting the 
 outrageous proceedings of the sheriffs' officers, if necessary, by 
 the sword. But he had in view another device which might pre- 
 vent the necessity of an appeal to arms. He was seldom at a 30 
 loss for an expedient ; and he knew Impey well. The expedient, 
 in this case, was a very simple one, neither more nor less than 
 a bribe. Impey was, by act of Parliament, a judge, independent 
 of the Government of Bengal, and entitled to a salary of eight 
 
152 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 thousand a year. Hastings proposed to make him also a judge 
 in the Company's service, removable at the pleasure of the 
 Government of Bengal ; and to give him, in that capacity, about 
 eight thousand a year more. It was understood that, in con- 
 5 sideration of this new salary, Impey would desist from urging 
 the high pretensions of his court. If he did urge these preten- 
 sions, the Government could, at a moment's notice, eject him 
 from the new place which had been created for him. The 
 bargain was struck ; Bengal was saved ; an appeal to force was 
 
 10 averted ; and the Chief Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. 
 
 Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It was of a 
 
 piece with almost every part of his conduct that comes under 
 
 the notice of history. No other such judge has dishonored the 
 
 English ermine, since Jeffreys drank himself to death in the 
 
 15 Tower. But we cannot agree with those who have blamed 
 Hastings for this transaction. The case stood thus. The neg- 
 ligent manner in which the Regulating Act had been framed 
 put it in the power of the Chief Justice to throw a great country 
 into the most dreadful confusion. He was determined to use 
 
 20 his power to the utmost, unless he was paid to be still ; and 
 Hastings consented to pay him. The necessity was to be 
 deplored. It is also to be deplored that pirates should be able 
 to exact ransom by threatening to make their captives walk the 
 plank. But to ransom a captive from pirates has always been 
 
 2 5 held a humane and Christian act ; and it would be absurd to 
 charge the payer of the ransom with corrupting the virtue of 
 the corsair. This, we seriously think, is a not unfair illustra- 
 tion of the relative position of Impey, Hastings, and the people 
 of India. Whether it was right in Impey to demand or to ac- 
 
 30 cept a price for powers which, if they really belonged to him, 
 he could not abdicate, which, if they did not belong to him, he 
 ought never to have usurped, and which in neither case he 
 could honestly sell, is one question. It is quite another question, 
 whether Hastings was not right to give any sum, however large, 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 53 
 
 to any man, however worthless, rather than either surrender 
 millions of human beings to pillage or rescue them by civil war. 
 
 Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, indeed, 
 be suspected that personal aversion to Impey was as strong a 
 motive with Francis as regard for the welfare of the province. 5 
 To a mind burning with resentment, it might seem" better to 
 leave Bengal to the oppressors than to redeem it by enriching 
 them. It is not improbable, on the other hand, that Hastings 
 may have been the more willing to resort to an expedient agree- 
 able to the Chief Justice, because that high functionary had 10 
 already been so serviceable, and might, when existing dissensions 
 were composed, be serviceable again. 
 
 But it was not on this point alone that Francis was now 
 opposed to Hastings. The peace between them proved to be 
 only a short and hollow truce, during which their mutual aversion 1 5 
 was constantly becoming stronger. At length an explosion took 
 place. Hastings publicly charged Francis with having deceived 
 him and with having induced Barwell to quit the service by 
 insincere promises. Then came a dispute, such as frequently 
 arises even between honorable men, when they may make 20 
 important agreements by mere verbal communication. An 
 impartial historian will probably be of opinion that they had 
 misunderstood each other ; but their minds were so much em- 
 bittered that they imputed to each other nothing less than delib- 
 erate villany. " I do not," said Hastings, in a minute recorded 25 
 on the Consultations of the Government, " I do not trust to 
 Mr. Francis's promises of candor, convinced that he is incapable 
 of it. I judge of his public conduct by his private, which I have 
 found to be void of truth and honor." After the Council had 
 risen, Francis put a challenge into the Governor-General's hand. 30 
 It was instantly accepted. They met and fired. Francis was 
 shot through the body. He was carried to a neighboring house, 
 where it appeared that the wound, though severe, was not 
 mortal. Hastings inquired repeatedly after his enemy's health, 
 
154 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 and proposed to call on him ; but Francis coldly declined the 
 visit. He had a proper sense, he said, of the Governor-General's 
 politeness, but could not consent to any private interview. They 
 could meet only at the council-board. 
 5 In a very short time it was made signally manifest to how 
 great a danger the Governor-General had, on this occasion, 
 exposed his country. A crisis arrived with which he, and he 
 alone, was competent to deal. It is not too much to say that, if 
 he had been taken from the head of affairs, the years 1780 and 
 
 10 1 781 would have been as fatal to our power in Asia as to our 
 power in America. 
 
 The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of apprehension 
 to Hastings. The measures which he had adopted for the 
 purpose of breaking their power had at first been frustrated 
 
 1 5 by the errors of those whom he was compelled to employ ; but 
 his perseverance and ability seemed likely to be crowned with 
 success, when a far more formidable danger showed itself in a 
 distant quarter. 
 
 About thirty years before this time a Mohammedan soldier 
 
 20 had begun to distinguish himself in the wars of Southern India. 
 His education had been neglected ; his extraction was humble. 
 His father had been a petty officer of revenue ; his grandfather 
 a wandering dervish. But though thus meanly descended, though 
 ignorant even of the alphabet, the adventurer had no sooner 
 
 25 been placed at the head of a body of troops than he approved 
 himself a man born for conquest and command. Among the 
 crowd of chiefs who were struggling for a share of India, none 
 could compare with him in the qualities of the captain and the 
 statesman. He became a general ; he became a sovereign. Out 
 
 30 of the fragments of old principalities which had gone to pieces 
 in the general wreck he formed for himself a great, compact, 
 and vigorous empire. That empire he ruled with the ability, 
 severity, and vigilance of Louis the Eleventh. Licentious in his 
 pleasures, implacable in his revenge, he had yet enlargement 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 55 
 
 of mind enough to perceive how much the prosperity of sub- 
 jects adds to the strength of governments. He was an op- 
 pressor ; but he had at least the merit of protecting his people 
 against all oppression except his own. He was now in extreme 
 old age ; but his intellect was as clear, and his spirit as high, as 5 
 in the prime of manhood. Such was the great Hyder Ali, the 
 founder of the Mohammedan kingdom of Mysore, and the most 
 formidable enemy with whom the English conquerors of India 
 have ever had to contend. 
 
 Had Hastings been Governor of Madras, Hyder would have 10 
 been either made a friend, or vigorously encountered as an 
 enemy. Unhappily the English authorities in the south pro- 
 voked their powerful neighbor's hostility, without being prepared 
 to repel it. On a sudden an army of ninety thousand men, far 
 superior in discipline and efficiency to any other native force 15 
 that could be found in India, came pouring through those wild 
 passes which, worn by mountain torrents, and dark with jungle, 
 lead down from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of the 
 Carnatic. This great army was accompanied by a hundred 
 pieces of cannon ; and its movements were guided by many 20 
 French officers, trained in the best military schools of Europe. 
 
 Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in many 
 British garrisons flung down their arms. Some forts were sur- 
 rendered by treachery and some by despair. In a few days the 
 whole open country north of the Coleroon had submitted. The 25 
 English inhabitants of Madras could already see by night, from 
 the top of Mount St. Thomas, the eastern sky reddened by a 
 vast semicircle of blazing villages. The white villas, to which 
 our countrymen retire after the daily labors of government and 
 of trade, when the cool evening breeze springs up from the bay, 30 
 were now left without inhabitants; for bands of the fierce 
 horsemen of Mysore had already been seen prowling among 
 the tulip trees and near the gay verandas. Even the town 
 was not thought secure, and the British merchants and public 
 
156 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 functionaries made haste to crowd themselves behind the can- 
 non of Fort St. George. 
 
 There were the means indeed of assembling an army which 
 might have defended the presidency, and even driven the in- 
 5 vader back to his mountains. Sir Hector Munro was at the 
 head of one considerable force ; Baillie was advancing with 
 another. United, they might have presented a formidable front 
 even to such an enemy as Hyder. But the English com- 
 manders, neglecting those fundamental rules of the military art 
 
 10 of which the propriety is obvious even to men who have never 
 received a military education, deferred their junction and were 
 separately attacked. Baillie's detachment was destroyed. Munro 
 was forced to abandon his baggage, to fling his guns into the 
 tanks, and to save himself by a retreat which might be called a 
 
 15 flight. In three weeks from the commencement of the war the 
 British empire in Southern India had been brought to the verge 
 of ruin. Only a few fortified places remained to us. The glory 
 of our arms had departed. It was known that a great French 
 expedition might soon be expected on the coast of Coromandel. 
 
 20 England, beset by enemies on every side, was in no condition to 
 protect such remote dependencies. 
 
 Then it was that the fertile genius and serene courage of 
 Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. A swift ship, 
 flying before the southwest monsoon, brought the evil tidings 
 
 25 in few days to Calcutta. In twenty-four hours the Governor- 
 General had framed a complete plan of policy adapted to the 
 altered state of affairs. The struggle with Hyder was a struggle 
 for life and death. All minor objects must be sacrificed to: the 
 preservation of the Carnatic. The disputes with the Mahrattas 
 
 30 must be accommodated. A large military force and a supply of 
 money must be instantly sent to Madras. But even these meas- 
 ures would be insufficient, unless the war, hitherto so grossly 
 mismanaged, were placed under the direction of a vigorous 
 mind. It was no time for trifling. Hastings determined to resort 
 
WARREN HASTINGS I 5 7 
 
 to an extreme exercise of power, to suspend the incapable Gov- 
 ernor of Fort St. George, to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose 
 Hyder, and to intrust that distinguished general with the whole 
 administration of the war. 
 
 In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had- now 5 
 recovered from his wound and had returned to the Council, the 
 Governor-General's wise and firm policy was approved by the 
 majority of the board. The reinforcements were sent off with 
 great expedition and reached Madras before the French arma- 
 ment arrived in the Indian seas. Coote, broken by age and 10 
 disease, was no longer the Coote of Wandewash ; but he was 
 still a resolute and skillful commander. The progress of Hyder 
 was arrested ; and in a few months the great victory of Porto 
 Novo retrieved the honor of the English arms. 
 
 In the meantime Francis had returned to England, and 15 
 Hastings was now left perfectly unfettered. Wheler had gradu- 
 ally been relaxing in his opposition, and, after the departure of 
 his vehement and implacable colleague, cooperated heartily with 
 the Governor-General, whose influence over the British in India, 
 always great, had, by the vigor and success of his recent meas- 20 
 ures, been considerably increased. 
 
 But, though the difficulties arising from factions within the 
 Council were at an end, another class of difficulties had become 
 more pressing than ever. The financial embarrassment was 
 extreme. Hastings had to find the means not only of carrying 25 
 on the Government of Bengal but of maintaining a most costly 
 war against both Indian and European enemies in the Carnatic, 
 and of making remittances to England. A few years before this 
 time he had obtained relief by plundering the Mogul and en- 
 slaving the Rohillas ; nor were the resources of his fruitful mind 30 
 by any means exhausted. 
 
 His first design was on Benares, a city which in wealth, pop- 
 ulation, dignity, and sanctity was among the foremost of Asia. 
 It was commonly believed that half a million of human beings 
 
158 . WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines, 
 and minarets, and balconies, and carved oriels, to which the 
 sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveler could scarcely 
 make his way through the press of holy mendicants and not less 
 5 holy bulls. The broad and stately flights of steps which de- 
 scended from these swarming haunts to the bathing places along 
 the Ganges were worn every day by the footsteps of an innumer- 
 able multitude of worshipers. The schools and temples drew 
 crowds of pious Hindoos from every province where the Brah- 
 
 10 minical faith was known. Hundreds of devotees came thither 
 every month to die ; for it was believed that a peculiarly happy 
 fate awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city into 
 the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which 
 allured strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce had as 
 
 1 5 many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the venerable 
 stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. 
 From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks 
 that adorned the balls of St. James's and of the Petit Trianon, 
 and in the bazaars the muslins of Bengal and the sabers of Oude 
 
 20 were mingled with the jewels of Golconda and the shawls of 
 Cashmere. This rich capital and the surrounding tract had long 
 been under the immediate rule of a Hindoo prince who rendered 
 homage to the Mogul emperors. During the great anarchy of 
 India the lords of Benares became independent of the Court of 
 
 25 Delhi, but were compelled to submit to the authority of the 
 Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by this formidable neighbor, they 
 invoked the protection of the English. The English protection 
 was given ; and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn treaty, 
 ceded all his rights over Benares to the Company. From that 
 
 30 time the Rajah was the vassal of the Government of Bengal, 
 acknowledged its supremacy, and engaged to send an annual 
 tribute to Fort William. This tribute Cheyte Sing, the reigning 
 prince, had paid with strict punctuality. 
 
 Respecting the precise nature of the legal relation between 
 
WARREN HASTINGS I 59 
 
 the Company and the Rajah of Benares there has been much 
 warm and acute controversy. On the one side it has been main- 
 tained that Cheyte Sing was merely a great subject on whom 
 the superior power had a right to call for aid in the necessities 
 of the empire. On the other side it has been contended that he 5 
 was an independent prince, that the only claim which the Com- 
 pany had upon him was for a fixed tribute, and that, while the 
 fixed tribute was regularly paid, as it assuredly was, the English 
 had no more right to exact any further contribution from him 
 than to demand subsidies from Holland or Denmark. Nothing 10 
 is easier than to find precedents and analogies in favor of 
 either view. 
 
 Our own impression is that neither view is correct. It was 
 too much the habit of English politicians to take it for granted 
 that there was in India a known and definite constitution by 15 
 which questions of this kind were to be decided. The truth is 
 that, during the interval which elapsed between the fall of the 
 house of Tamerlane and the establishment of the British 
 ascendancy, there was no such constitution. | The old order 
 of things had passed away. The new order of things was not 20 
 yet formed. All was transition, confusion, obscurity. Every- 
 body kept his head as he best might, and scrambled for 
 whatever he could get. There have been similar seasons 
 in Europe. The time of the dissolution of the Carlovingian 
 empire is an instance. Who would think of seriously discussing 25 
 the question, what extent of pecuniary aid and of obedience 
 Hugh Capet had a constitutional right to demand from the Duke 
 of Brittany or the Duke of Normandy ? The words " constitu- 
 tional right " had, in that state of society, no meaning. If Hugh 
 Capet laid hands on all the possessions of the Duke of Nor- 30 
 mandy, this might be unjust and immoral ; but it would not be 
 illegal, in the sense in which the ordinances of Charles the Tenth 
 were illegal. If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy made 
 war on Hugh Capet, this might be unjust and immoral ; but it 
 
l6o WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 would not be illegal, in the sense in which the expedition of 
 Prince Louis Bonaparte was illegal. 
 
 Very similar to this was the state of India sixty years ago. 
 Of the existing governments not a single one could lay claim to 
 5 legitimacy or could plead any other title than recent occupation. 
 There was scarcely a province in which the real sovereignty and 
 the nominal sovereignty were not disjoined. Titles and forms 
 were still retained which implied that the heir of Tamerlane was 
 an absolute ruler, and that the Nabobs of the provinces were 
 
 10 his lieutenants. In reality he was a captive. The Nabobs were 
 in some places independent princes. In other places, as in 
 Bengal and the Carnatic, they had, like their master, become 
 mere phantoms, and the Company was supreme. Among the 
 Mahrattas again the heir of Sevajee still kept the title of Rajah ; 
 
 1 5 but he was a prisoner, and his prime minister, the Peshwa, had 
 become the hereditary chief of the state. The Peshwa, in his 
 turn, was fast sinking into the same degraded situation to which 
 he had reduced the Rajah. It was, we believe, impossible to 
 find, from the Himalayas to Mysore, a single government which 
 
 20 was at once a government de facto and a government de jure, 
 which possessed the physical means of making itself feared by 
 its neighbors and subjects, and which had at the same time the 
 authority derived from law and long prescription. 
 
 Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden from most of 
 
 25 his contemporaries, that such a state of things gave immense 
 advantages to a ruler of great talents and few scruples. In 
 every international question that could arise he had his option 
 
 / between the de facto ground and the de jure ground; and the 
 probability was that one of those grounds would sustain any 
 
 30 claim that it might be convenient for him to make, and enable 
 him to resist any claim made by others. In every controversy, 
 accordingly, he resorted to the plea which suited his immediate 
 purpose, without troubling himself in the least about consistency ; 
 and thus he scarcely ever failed to find what, to persons of short 
 
WARREN HASTINGS l6l 
 
 memories and scanty information, seemed to be a justification 
 for what he wanted to do. Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is 
 a shadow, sometimes a monarch. Sometimes the Vizier is a 
 mere deputy, sometimes an independent potentate. If it is 
 expedient for the Company to show some legal title to the 5 
 revenues of Bengal, the grant under the seal of the Mogul is 
 brought forward as an instrument of the highest authority. 
 When the Mogul asks for the rents which were reserved to 
 him by that very grant, he is told that he is a mere pageant, 
 that the English power rests on a very different foundation 10 
 from a charter given by him, that he is welcome to play at 
 royalty as long as he likes, but that he must expect no tribute 
 from the real masters of India. 
 
 It is true that it was in the power of others, as well as of 
 Hastings, to practice this legerdemain; but in the controversies 15 
 of governments sophistry is of little use unless it be backed by 
 power. There is a principle which Hastings was fond of assert- 
 ing in the strongest terms, and on which he acted with undeviat- 
 ing steadiness. It is a principle which, we must own, though it 
 may be grossly abused, can hardly be disputed in the present 20 
 state of public law. It is this, that where an ambiguous question 
 arises between two governments, there is, if they cannot agree, 
 no appeal except to force, and that the opinion of the stronger 
 must prevail. Almost every question was ambiguous in India. 
 The English Government was the strongest in India. The conse- 25 
 quences are obvious. The English Government might do exactly 
 what it chose. 
 
 The English Government now chose to wring money out of 
 Cheyte Sing. It had formerly been convenient to treat him- as 
 a sovereign prince ; it was now convenient to treat him as a 30 
 subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hastings could easily find, 
 in the general chaos of laws and customs, arguments for either 
 course. Hastings wanted a great supply. It was known that 
 Cheyte Sing had a large revenue, and it was suspected that he 
 
162 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 had accumulated a treasure. Nor was he a favorite at Calcutta. 
 He had, when the Governor-General was in great difficulties, 
 courted the favor of Francis and Clavering. Hastings, who, less 
 we believe from evil passions than from policy, seldom left an 
 5 injury unpunished, was not sorry that the fate of Cheyte Sing 
 should teach neighboring princes the same lesson which the 
 fate of Nuncomar had already impressed on the inhabitants of 
 Bengal. 
 
 In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with France, 
 
 10 Cheyte Sing -was called upon to pay, in addition to his fixed 
 tribute, an extraordinary contribution of fifty thousand pounds. 
 In 1779 an equal sum was exacted. In 1780 the demand was 
 renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the hope of obtaining some indul- 
 gence, secretly offered the Governor-General a bribe of twenty 
 
 15 thousand pounds. Hastings took the money, and his enemies 
 have maintained that he took it intending to keep it. He cer- 
 tainly concealed the transaction for a time, both from the 
 Council in Bengal and from the Directors at home ; nor did he 
 ever give any satisfactory reason for the concealment. Public 
 
 20 spirit or the fear of detection, however, determined him to with- 
 stand the temptation. He paid over the bribe to the Com- 
 pany's treasury, and insisted that the Rajah should instantly 
 comply with the demands of the English Government. The 
 Rajah, after the fashion of his countrymen, shuffled, solicited, 
 
 25 and pleaded poverty. The grasp of Hastings was not to be so 
 
 eluded. He added to the requisition another ten thousand 
 
 pounds as a fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the money. 
 
 The money was paid. But this was not enough. The late 
 
 events in the south of India had increased the financial embar- 
 
 30 rassments of the Company. Hastings was determined to plunder 
 Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to fasten a quarrel on him. Ac- 
 cordingly the Rajah was now required to keep a body of cavalry 
 for the service of the British Government. He objected and 
 evaded. This was exactly what the Governor-General wanted. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 163 
 
 He had now a pretext for treating the wealthiest of his vassals 
 as a criminal. " I resolved " — these are the words of Hastings 
 himself — " to draw from his guilt the means of relief to the 
 Company's distresses, to make him pay largely for his pardon, 
 or to exact a severe vengeance for past delinquency." The plan 5 
 was simply this, to demand larger and larger contributions till 
 the Rajah should be driven to remonstrate, then to call his 
 remonstrance a crime, and to punish him by confiscating all 
 his possessions. 
 
 Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered two 10 
 hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the British Government. 
 But Hastings replied that nothing less than half a million would 
 be accepted. Nay, he began to think of selling Benares to Oude, 
 as he had formerly sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter 
 was one which could not be well managed at a distance ; and 1 5 
 Hastings resolved to visit Benares. 
 
 Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark of rev- 
 erence, came near sixty miles, with his guards, to meet and 
 escort the illustrious visitor, and expressed his deep concern at 
 the displeasure of the English. He even took off his turban, and 20 
 laid it in the lap of Hastings, a gesture which in India marks 
 the most profound submission and devotion. Hastings behaved 
 with cold and repulsive severity. Having arrived at Benares, he 
 sent to the Rajah a paper containing the demands of the Govern- 
 ment of Bengal. The Rajah, in reply, attempted to clear him- 25 
 self from the accusations brought against him. Hastings, who 
 wanted money and not excuses, was not to be put off by the 
 ordinary artifices of Eastern negotiation. He instantly ordered 
 the Rajah to be arrested and placed under the custody of two 
 companies of sepoys. 30 
 
 In taking these strong measures Hastings scarcely showed 
 his usual judgment. It is probable that, having had little oppor- 
 tunity of personally observing any part of the population of 
 India, except the Bengalese, he was not fully aware of the 
 
1 64 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 difference between their character and that of the tribes which 
 inhabit the upper provinces. He was now in a land far more 
 favorable to the vigor of the human frame than the Delta of the 
 Ganges ; in a land fruitful of soldiers, who have been found 
 5 worthy to follow English battalions to the charge and into the 
 breach. The Rajah was popular among his subjects. His ad- 
 ministration had been mild; and the prosperity of the district 
 which he governed presented a striking contrast to the depressed 
 state of Bahar under our rule, and a still more striking contrast 
 
 10 to the misery of the provinces which were Cursed by the tyranny 
 of the Nabob Vizier. The national and religious prejudices with 
 which the English were regarded throughout India were pecul- 
 iarly intense in the metropolis of the Brahminical superstition. 
 It can therefore scarcely be doubted that the Governor-General, 
 
 15 before he outraged the dignity of Cheyte Sing by an arrest, 
 ought to have assembled a force capable of bearing down all 
 opposition. This had not been done. The handful of sepoys 
 who attended Hastings would probably have been sufficient to 
 overawe Moorshedabad or the Black Town of Calcutta. But 
 
 20 they were unequal to a conflict with the hardy rabble of Benares. 
 The streets surrounding the palace were filled by an immense 
 multitude, of whom a large proportion, as is usual in Upper 
 India, wore arms. The tumult became a fight, and the fight a 
 massacre. The English officers defended themselves with des- 
 
 25 perate courage against overwhelming numbers, and fell, as 
 became them, sword in hand. The sepoys were butchered. The 
 gates were forced. The captive prince, neglected by his jailers 
 during the confusion, discovered an outlet which opened on the 
 precipitous bank of the Ganges, let himself down to the water 
 
 30 by a string made of the turbans of his attendants, found a boat, 
 and escaped to the opposite shore. 
 
 If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought himself into 
 a difficult and perilous situation, it is only just to acknowledge 
 that he extricated himself with even more than his usual ability 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 165 
 
 and presence - of mind. He had only fifty men with him. The 
 building in which he had taken up his residence was on every 
 side blockaded by the insurgents. But his fortitude remained 
 unshaken. The Rajah from the other side of the river sent apol- 
 ogies and liberal offers. They were not even answered. Some 5 
 subtle and enterprising men were found who undertook to pass 
 through the throng of enemies, and to convey the intelligence 
 of the late events to the English cantonments. It is the fashion 
 of the natives of India to wear large earrings of gold. When 
 they travel the rings are laid aside, lest the precious metal should 10 
 tempt some gang of robbers, and, in place of the ring, a quill 
 or roll of paper is inserted in the orifice, to prevent it from 
 closing. Hastings placed in the ears of his messengers letters 
 rolled up in the smallest compass. Some of these letters were 
 addressed to the commanders of the English troops. One was 15 
 written to assure his wife of his safety. One was to the envoy 
 whom he had sent to negotiate with the Mahrattas. Instructions 
 for the negotiations were needed ; and the Governor-General 
 framed them in that situation of extreme danger, with as much 
 composure as if he had been writing in his palace at Calcutta. 20 
 
 Things, however, were not yet at the worst. An English of- 
 ficer of more spirit than judgment, eager to distinguish himself, 
 made a premature attack on the insurgents beyond the river. 
 His troops were entangled in narrow streets and assailed by a 
 furious population. He fell with many of his men; and the 25 
 survivors were forced to retire. . : 
 
 This event produced the effect which has never failed to 
 follow every check," however slight, sustained in India by: the. 
 English arms. For hundreds of miles round, the whole country 
 was in . commotion. The entire population of the district of 30 
 Benares took arms. The fields were abandoned by the husband- 
 men, who thronged to defend their prince. The infection spread 
 to Oude. The oppressed people of that province rose up against 
 the Nabob Vizier, refused to pay their imposts, and put the 
 
1 66 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 revenue officers to flight. Even Bahar was ripe for revolt. The 
 hopes of Cheyte Sing began to rise. Instead of imploring mercy 
 in the humble style of a vassal, he began to talk the language 
 of a conqueror, and threatened, it was said, to sweep the white 
 5 usurpers out of the land. But the English troops were now as- 
 sembling fast. The officers, and even the private men, regarded 
 the Governor-General with enthusiastic attachment, and flew to 
 his aid with an alacrity which, as he boasted, had never been 
 shown on any other occasion. Major Popham, a brave and 
 
 10 skillful soldier, who had highly distinguished himself in the 
 Mahratta war, and in whom the Governor-General reposed the 
 greatest confidence, took the command. The tumultuary army 
 of the Rajah was put to rout. His fastnesses were stormed. In 
 a few hours above thirty thousand men left his standard and 
 
 1 5 returned to their ordinary avocations. The unhappy prince fled 
 from his country forever. His fair domain was added to the 
 British dominions. One of his relations indeed was appointed 
 Rajah. But the Rajah of Benares was henceforth to be, like 
 the Nabob of Bengal, a mere pensioner. 
 
 20 By this revolution an addition of two hundred thousand 
 pounds a year was made to the revenues of the Company. But 
 the immediate relief was not as great as had been expected. 
 The treasure laid up by Cheyte Sing had been popularly esti- 
 mated at a million sterling. * It turned out to be about a fourth 
 
 25 part of that sum ; and such, as it was, it was seized by the army 
 and divided as prize money. 
 
 Disappointed in his expectations from Benares, Hastings was 
 more violent than he would otherwise have been, in his dealings. 
 with Oude. Sujah Dowlah had long been dead. His son and 
 
 3a successor, Asaph-ul-Dowlah, was one of the weakest and most 
 vicious even of Eastern princes. His life was divided between 
 torpid repose and the most odious forms of sensuality. In his 
 court there was boundless waste, throughout his dominions 
 wretchedness and disorder. He had: been, under the skillful 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 167 
 
 management of the English Government, gradually sinking from 
 the rank of an independent prince to that of a vassal of the 
 Company. It was only by the help of a British brigade that he 
 could be secure from the aggressions of neighbors who despised 
 his weakness, and from the vengeance of subjects who detested 5 
 his tyranny. A brigade was furnished ; and he engaged to de- 
 fray the charge of paying and maintaining it. From that time 
 his independence was at an end. Hastings was not a man to 
 lose the advantage which he had thus gained. The Nabob soon 
 began to complain of the burden which he had undertaken to 10 
 bear. His revenues, he said, were falling off ; his servants were 
 unpaid ; he could no longer support the expense of the arrange- 
 ment which he had sanctioned. Hastings would not listen to 
 these representations. The Vizier, he said, had invited the 
 Government of Bengal to send him troops, and had promised 15 
 to pay for them. The troops had been sent. How long the 
 troops were to remain in Oude was a matter not settled by the 
 treaty. It remained, therefore, to be settled between the con- 
 tracting parties. But the contracting parties differed. Who, 
 then, must decide ? The stronger. 20 
 
 Hastings also argued that, if the English force was with- 
 drawn, Oude would certainly become a prey to anarchy and 
 would probably be overrun by a Mahratta army. That the 
 finances of Oude were embarrassed he admitted. But he con- 
 tended, not without reason, that the embarrassment was to be 25 
 attributed to the incapacity and vices of Asaph-ul-Dowlah 
 himself, and that, if less were spent on the troops, the only 
 effect would be that more would be squandered on worthless 
 favorites. 
 
 Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of Benares, 30 
 to visit Lucknow, and there to confer with Asaph-ul-Dowlah. 
 But the obsequious courtesy of the Nabob Vizier prevented this 
 visit. With a small train he hastened to meet the Governor- 
 General. An interview took place in the fortress which, from 
 
168 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 the crest of the precipitous rock of Chunar, looks down on the 
 waters of the Ganges. 
 
 At first sight it might appear impossible that the negotiation 
 should come to an amicable close. Hastings wanted an extraor- 
 5 dinary supply of money. Asaph-ul-Dowlah wanted to obtain 
 a remission of what he already owed. Such a difference seemed 
 to admit of no compromise. There was, however, one course 
 satisfactory to both sides, one course by which it was possible 
 to relieve the finances both of Oude and of Bengal ; and that 
 
 10 course was adopted. It was simply this, that the Governor- 
 General and the Nabob Vizier should join to rob a third party ; 
 and the third party whom they determined to rob was the 
 parent of one of the robbers. 
 
 The mother of the late Nabob, and his wife, who was the 
 
 15 mother of the present Nabob, were known as the Begums or 
 Princesses of Oude. They had possessed great influence over 
 Sujah Dowlah, and had, at his death, been left in possession of 
 a splendid dotation. The domains of which they received the 
 rents and administered the government were of wide extent. 
 
 20 The treasure hoarded by the late Nabob — a treasure which was 
 popularly estimated at near three millions sterling — was in their 
 hands. They continued to occupy his favorite palace at Fyzabad, 
 the Beautiful Dwelling ; while Asaph-ul-Dowlah held his court 
 in the stately Lucknow, which he had built for himself on the 
 
 25 shores of the Goomti and had adorned with noble mosques and 
 colleges. 
 
 Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted considerable sums 
 from his mother. She had at length appealed to the English ; 
 and the English had interfered. A solemn compact had been 
 
 30 made, by which she consented to give her son some pecuniary 
 assistance, and he in his turn promised never to commit any" 
 further invasion of her rights. This compact was formally guar- 
 anteed by the Government of Bengal. But times had changed ; 
 money was wanted; and the power which had given the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 69 
 
 guarantee was not ashamed to instigate the spoiler to excesses 
 such that even he shrank from them. 
 
 It was necessary to find some pretext for a confiscation 
 inconsistent, not merely with plighted faith, not merely with the 
 ordinary rules of humanity and justice, but also with that great 5 
 law of filial piety which, even in the wildest tribes of savages, 
 even in those more degraded communities which wither under 
 the influence of a corrupt half civilization, retains a certain 
 authority over the human mind. A pretext was the last thing 
 that Hastings was likely to want. The insurrection at Benares 10 
 had produced disturbances in Oude. These disturbances it was 
 convenient to impute to the Princesses. Evidence for the impu- 
 tation there was scarcely any ; unless reports wandering from 
 one mouth to another, and gaining something by every trans- 
 mission, may be called evidence. The accused were furnished 15 
 with no charge ; they were permitted to make no defense ; for 
 the Governor-General wisely considered that, if he tried them, 
 he might not be able to find a ground for plundering them. It 
 was agreed between him and the Nabob Vizier that the noble 
 ladies should, by a sweeping measure of confiscation, be stripped 20 
 of their domains and treasures for the benefit of the Company, 
 and that the sums thus obtained should be accepted by the 
 Government of Bengal in satisfaction of its claims on the 
 Government of Oude. 
 
 While Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar he was completely 25 
 subjugated by the clear and commanding intellect of the English 
 statesman. But when they had separated the Vizier began to 
 reflect with uneasiness on the engagement into which he had 
 entered. His mother and grandmother protested and implored. 
 His heart, deeply corrupted by absolute power and licentious 30 
 pleasures, yet not naturally unfeeling, failed him in this crisis. 
 Even the English resident at Lucknow, though hitherto devoted 
 to Hastings, shrank from extreme measures. But the Governor- 
 General was inexorable. He wrote to the resident in terms of 
 
I/O WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 the greatest severity, and declared that if the spoliation which 
 had been agreed upon were not instantly carried into effect, 
 he would himself go to Lucknow, and do that from which feebler 
 minds recoil with dismay. The resident, thus menaced, waited 
 5 on his Highness, and insisted that the treaty of Chunar should 
 be carried into full and immediate effect. Asaph-ul-Dowlah 
 yielded, making at the same time a solemn protestation that 
 he yielded to compulsion. The lands were resumed; but the 
 treasure was not so easily obtained. It was necessary to use 
 
 10 violence. A body of the Company's troops marched to Fyzabad 
 and forced the gates of the palace. The Princesses were con- 
 fined to their own apartments. But still they refused to submit. 
 Some more stringent mode of coercion was to be found. A mode 
 was found of which, even at this distance of time, we cannot 
 
 15 speak without shame and sorrow. 
 
 There were at Fyzabad two ancient men, belonging to that 
 unhappy class which a practice, of immemorial antiquity, in 
 the East, has excluded from the pleasures of love and from the 
 hope of posterity. It has always been held in Asiatic courts 
 
 20 that beings thus estranged from sympathy with their kind are 
 those whom princes may most safely trust. Sujah Dowlah had 
 been of this opinion. He had given his entire confidence to the 
 two eunuchs, and after his death they remained at the head of 
 the household of his widow. 
 
 25 These two men were, by the orders of the British Govern- 
 ment, seized, imprisoned, ironed, starved almost to death, in 
 order to extort money from the Princesses. After they had 
 been two months in confinement their health gave way. They 
 implored permission to take a little exercise in the garden of 
 
 30 their prison. The officer who was in charge of them stated that, 
 if they were allowed this indulgence, there was not the smallest 
 chance of their escaping, and that their irons really added 
 nothing to the security of the custody in which they were kept. 
 He did not understand the plan of his superiors. Their object 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 71 
 
 in these inflictions was not security but torture ; and all mitiga- 
 tion was refused. Yet this was not the worst. It was resolved 
 by an English government that these two infirm old men should 
 be delivered to the tormentors. For that purpose they were re- 
 moved to Lucknow. What horrors their dungeon there wit- 5 
 nessed can only be guessed. But there remains on the records 
 of Parliament this letter, written by a British resident to a 
 British soldier. 
 
 " Sir, the Nabob having determined to inflict corporal punish- 
 ment upon the prisoners under your guard, this is to desire that 10 
 his officers, when they shall come, may have free access to the 
 prisoners, and be permitted to do with them as they shall see 
 proper." 
 
 While these barbarities were perpetrated at Lucknow the 
 Princesses were still under duress at Fyzabad. Food was al- 15 
 lowed to enter their apartments only in such scanty quantities 
 that their female attendants were in danger of perishing with 
 hunger. Month after month this cruelty continued, till at length, 
 after twelve hundred thousand pounds had been wrung out of 
 the Princesses, Hastings began to think that he had really got 20 
 to the bottom of their revenue, and that no rigor could extort 
 more. Then at length the wretched men who were detained at 
 Lucknow regained their liberty. When their irons were knocked 
 off and the doors of their prison opened, their quivering lips, 
 the tears which ran down their cheeks, and the thanksgivings 25 
 which they poured forth to the common Father of Mussulmans 
 and Christians melted even the stout hearts of the English 
 warriors who stood by. 
 
 There is a man to whom the conduct of Hastings, through 
 the whole of these proceedings, appears not only excusable but 30 
 laudable. There is a man who tells us that he " must really be 
 pardoned if he ventures to characterize as something preemi- 
 nently ridiculous and wicked, the sensibility which would bal- 
 ance against the preservation of British India a little personal 
 
172 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 suffering, which was applied only so long as the sufferers refused 
 to deliver up a portion of that wealth, the whole of which their 
 own and their mistresses' treason had forfeited." We cannot, 
 we must own, envy the reverend biographer either his singular 
 5 notion of what constitutes preeminent wickedness, or his equally 
 singular perception of the preeminently ridiculous. Is this the 
 generosity of an English soldier ? Is this the charity of a Chris- 
 tian priest ? Could neither of Mr. Gleig's professions teach him 
 the first rudiments of morality ? Or is morality a thing which 
 
 10 may be well enough in sermons, but which has nothing to do 
 with biography ? 
 
 But we must not forget to do justice to Sir Elijah Impey's 
 conduct on this occasion. It was not, indeed, easy for him to 
 intrude himself into a business so entirely alien from all his of- 
 
 15 ficial duties. But there was something inexpressibly alluring, 
 we must suppose, in the peculiar rankness of the infamy which 
 was then to be got at Lucknow. He hurried thither as fast as 
 relays of palanquin bearers could carry him. A crowd of people 
 came before him with affidavits against the Begums, ready drawn 
 
 20 in their hands. Those affidavits he did not read. Some of them, 
 indeed, he could not read ; for they were in the dialects of North- 
 ern India, and no interpreter was employed. He administered 
 the oath to the deponents with all possible expedition, and asked 
 not a single question, not even whether they had perused the 
 
 25 statements to which they swore. This work performed, he got 
 again into his palanquin and posted back to Calcutta, to be in 
 time for the opening of term. The cause was one which, by 
 his own confession, lay altogether out of his jurisdiction. Under 
 the charter of justice he had no more right to inquire into 
 
 30 crimes committed by natives in Oude than the Lord President 
 of the Court of Session of Scotland to hold an assize at Exeter. 
 He had no right to try the Begums, nor did he pretend to try 
 them. With what object, then, did he undertake so long a 
 journey ? Evidently in order that he might give, in an irregular 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 73 
 
 manner, that sanction which in a regular manner he could not 
 give to the crimes of those who had recently hired him ; and 
 in order that a confused mass of testimony which he did not 
 sift, which he did not even read, might acquire an authority, not 
 properly belonging to it, from the signature of the highest judi- 5 
 cial functionary in India. 
 
 The time was approaching, however, when he was to be 
 stripped of that robe which has never, since the Revolution, been 
 disgraced so foully as by him. The state of India had for some 
 time occupied much of the attention of the British Parliament. 10 
 Towards the close of the American war two committees of the 
 Commons sat on Eastern affairs. In one Edmund Burke took 
 the lead. The other was under the presidency of the able and 
 versatile Henry Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scotland. Great 
 as are the changes which, during the last sixty years, have taken 1 5 
 place in our Asiatic dominions, the reports which those com- 
 mittees laid on the table of the House will still be found most 
 interesting and instructive. 
 
 There was as yet no connection between the Company and 
 either of the great parties in the state. The ministers had no 20 
 motive to defend Indian abuses. On the contrary, it was for 
 their interest to show, if possible, that the government and 
 patronage of our . Oriental empire might, with advantage, be 
 transferred to themselves. The votes, therefore, which, in con- 
 sequence of the reports made by the two committees, were 25 
 passed by the Commons breathed the spirit of stern and in- 
 dignant justice. The severest epithets were applied to several 
 of the measures of Hastings, especially to the Rohilla war ; and 
 it was resolved, on the motion of Mr. Dundas, that the Com- 
 pany ought to recall a Governor-General who had brought such 30 
 calamities on the Indian people and such dishonor on the British 
 name. An act was passed for limiting the jurisdiction of the 
 Supreme Court. The bargain which Hastings had made with 
 the Chief Justice was condemned in the strongest terms ; and 
 
174 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 an address was presented to the King, praying that Impey 
 might be ordered home to answer for his misdeeds. 
 
 Impey was recalled by a letter from the Secretary of State. 
 But the proprietors of India Stock resolutely refused to dismiss 
 5 Hastings from their service, and passed a resolution affirming, 
 what was undeniably true, that they were intrusted by law with 
 the right of naming and removing their Governor-General, and 
 that they were not bound to obey the directions of a single 
 branch of the legislature with respect to such nomination or 
 
 10 removal. 
 
 Thus supported by his employers, Hastings remained at the 
 head of the Government of Bengal till the spring of 1785. His 
 administration, so eventful and stormy, closed in almost perfect 
 quiet. In the Council there was no regular opposition to his 
 
 15 measures. Peace was restored to India. The Mahratta war had 
 ceased. Hyder was no more. A treaty had been concluded 
 with his son, Tippoo ; and the Carnatic had been evacuated by 
 the armies of Mysore. Since the termination of the American 
 war England had no European enemy or rival in the East- 
 
 20 ern seas. 
 
 On a general review of the long administration of Hastings 
 it is impossible to deny that, against the great crimes by which 
 it is blemished, we have to set off great public services. England 
 had passed through a perilous crisis. She still, indeed, main- 
 
 25 tained her place in the foremost rank of European powers ; and 
 the manner in which she had defended herself against fearful 
 odds had inspired surrounding nations with a high opinion both 
 of her spirit and of her strength. Nevertheless, in every part 
 of the world, except one, she had been a loser. Not only had 
 
 30 she been compelled to acknowledge the independence of thirteen 
 colonies peopled by her children, and to conciliate the Irish by 
 giving up the right of legislating for them ; but, in the Medi- 
 terranean, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the 
 continent of America, she had been compelled to cede the fruits 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 75 
 
 of her victories in former wars. Spain regained Minorca and 
 Florida; France regained Senegal, Goree, and several West 
 Indian islands. The only quarter of the world in which Britain 
 had lost nothing was the quarter in which her interests had 
 been committed to the care of Hastings. In spite of the utmost 5 
 exertions both of European and Asiatic enemies, the power of 
 our country in the East had been greatly augmented. Benares 
 was subjected ; the Nabob Vizier reduced to vassalage. That 
 our influence had been thus extended, nay, that Fort William 
 and Fort St. George had not been occupied by hostile armies, 10 
 was owing, if we may trust the general voice of the English in 
 India, to the skill and resolution of 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 trans- 15 
 ferred the direction of affairs to English hands. Out of a frightful 
 anarchy he educed at least a rude and imperfect order. The 
 whole organization by which justice was dispensed, revenue col- 
 lected, peace maintained throughout a territory not inferior in 
 population to the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth or of the 20 
 Emperor Joseph, was formed and superintended by him. He 
 boasted that every public office, without exception, which existed 
 when he left Bengal, was his creation. It is quite true that this 
 system, after all the improvements suggested by the experience 
 of sixty years, still needs improvement, and that it was at first 25 
 far more defective than it now is. But whoever seriously con- 
 siders what it is to construct from the beginning the whole of 
 a machine so vast and complex as a government will allow that 
 what Hastings effected deserves high admiration. To compare 
 the most celebrated European ministers to him seems to us as 30 
 unjust as it would be to compare the best baker in London with 
 Robinson Crusoe, who, before he could bake a single loaf, had to 
 make his plow and his harrow, his fences and his scarecrows, 
 his sickle and his flail, his mill and his oven. 
 
176 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 countinghouse ; and that he was employed during the 
 
 prime of his manhood as a commercial agent, far from all 
 
 5 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. A minister in Europe finds himself, on the first day 
 
 10 on which he commences his functions, surrounded by experi- 
 enced public servants, the depositories of official traditions. 
 Hastings had no such help. His own reflection, his own energy, 
 were to supply the place of all Downing Street and Somerset 
 House. Having had no facilities for learning, he was forced to 
 
 15 teach. He had first to form himself, and then to form his in- 
 struments ; and this not in a single department, but in all the 
 departments of the administration. 
 
 It must be added that, while engaged in this most arduous 
 task, he was constantly trammeled by orders from home and 
 
 20 frequently borne down by a majority in Council. The preserva- 
 tion of an Empire from a formidable combination of foreign 
 enemies, the construction of a government in all its parts, were 
 accomplished by him, while every ship brought out bales of 
 censure from his employers, and while the records of every con- 
 
 25 sultation were filled with acrimonious minutes by his colleagues. 
 We believe that there never was a public man whose temper 
 was so severely tried ; not Marlborough, when thwarted by the 
 Dutch Deputies ; not Wellington, when he had to deal at once 
 with the Portuguese Regency, the Spanish Juntas, and Mr. 
 
 30 Percival. But the temper of Hastings was equal to almost 
 any trial. It was not sweet ; but it was calm. Quick and vigor- 
 ous as his intellect was, the patience with which he endured the 
 most cruel vexations, till a remedy could be found, resembled 
 the patience of stupidity. He seems to have been capable of 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 177 
 
 resentment, bitter and long-enduring; yet his resentment so 
 seldom hurried him into any blunder that it may be doubted 
 whether what appeared to be revenge was anything but policy. 
 
 The effect of this singular equanimity was that he always had 
 the full command of all the resources of one of the most fertile 5 
 minds that ever existed. Accordingly no complication of perils 
 and embarrassments could perplex him. For every difficulty he 
 had a contrivance ready ; and, whatever may be thought of the 
 justice and humanity of some of his contrivances, it is certain 
 that they seldom failed to serve the purpose for which they 10 
 were designed. 
 
 Together with this extraordinary talent for devising expedi- 
 ents, Hastings possessed, in a very high degree, another talent 
 scarcely less necessary to a man in his situation ; we mean the 
 talent for conducting political controversy. It is as necessary to 1 5 
 an English statesman in the East that he should be able to write, 
 as it is to a minister in this country that he should be able to 
 speak. It is chiefly by the oratory of a public man here that the 
 nation judges of his powers. It is from the letters and reports 
 of a public man in India that the dispensers of patronage form 20 
 their estimate of him. In each case the talent which receives 
 peculiar encouragement is developed, perhaps at the expense of 
 the other powers. In this country we sometimes hear men 
 speak above their abilities. It is not very unusual to find gentle- 
 men in the Indian service who write above their abilities. The 25 
 English politician is a little too much of a debater ; the Indian 
 politician is a little too much of an essayist. 
 
 Of the numerous servants of the Company who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves as framers of minutes and dispatches, 
 Hastings stands at the head. He was, indeed, the person who 30 
 gave to the official writing of the Indian governments the charac- 
 ter which it still retains. He was matched against no common 
 antagonist. But even Francis was forced to acknowledge, with 
 sullen and resentful candor, that there was no contending against 
 
178 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 the pen of Hastings. And, in truth, the Governor-General's 
 power of making out a case, of perplexing what it was incon- 
 venient that people should understand, and of setting in the 
 clearest point of view whatever would bear the light, was incom- 
 5 parable. His style must be praised with some reservation. It 
 was in general forcible, pure, and polished; but it was some- 
 times, 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. 
 
 10 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, to- 
 
 1 5 wards 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, astronomy, and surgery of 
 Europe for the dotages of the Brahminical superstition, or for 
 the imperfect science of ancient Greece transfused through 
 
 20 Arabian expositions, this was a scheme reserved to crown the 
 beneficent administration of a far more virtuous ruler. 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 
 
 25 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 Sanskrit he was not himself acquainted ; but those who 
 first brought that language to the knowledge of European 
 
 30 students owed much to his encouragement. It was under his 
 protection that the Asiatic Society commenced its honorable 
 career. That distinguished body selected him to be its first pres- 
 ident ; but, with excellent taste and feeling, he declined the honor 
 in favor of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage which 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 79 
 
 the students of Oriental letters derived from his patronage re- 
 mains 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. 
 Their religion had been persecuted by the Mohammedans. 5 
 What they knew of the spirit of the Portuguese Government 
 might warrant them in apprehending persecution from Chris- 
 tians. That apprehension the wisdom and moderation of Hast- 
 ings removed. He was the first foreign ruler who succeeded in 
 gaining the confidence of the hereditary priests of India, and 10 
 who induced them to lay open to English scholars the secrets 
 of the old Brahminical theology and jurisprudence. 
 
 It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great art of inspir- 
 ing large masses of human beings with confidence and attach- 
 ment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. If he had made him- 15 
 self popular with the English by giving up the Bengalese to 
 extortion and oppression, or if, on the other hand, he had con- 
 ciliated the Bengalese 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 20 
 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 singu- 
 larly ardent and constant. Through all his disasters and perils 
 his brethren stood by him with steadfast loyalty. The army, at 25 
 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 30 
 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 pre- 
 cision. He was intimately acquainted with their feelings and 
 
180 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 gen- 
 eral he carefully avoided all that could shock their national or 
 5 religious prejudices. His administration was indeed in many 
 respects faulty ; but the Bengalese standard of good government 
 was not high. Under 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 chil- 
 
 10 dren of the sea ; and the immense rice harvests of the Lower 
 Ganges were safely gathered in, under the protection of the 
 English sword; The first English conquerors had been more 
 rapacious and merciless even than the Mahrattas ; but that gen- 
 eration had passed away. Defective as was the police, heavy as 
 
 15 were the public burdens, it is probable that the oldest man in 
 Bengal could not recollect a season of equal security and pros- 
 perity. 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 
 
 20 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 splendor which he sometimes displayed 
 dazzled a people who have much in common with children. 
 
 25 Even now, after 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. 
 
 30 The gravest offenses of which Hastings was guilty did not 
 affect his popularity with the people of Bengal ; for those 
 offenses were committed against neighboring states. Those 
 offenses, as our readers must have perceived, we are not dis- 
 posed to vindicate ; yet, in order that the censure may be justly 
 
WARREN HASTINGS l8l 
 
 apportioned to the transgression, it is fit that the motive of the 
 criminal should be taken into consideration. The motive which 
 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 5 
 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, 10 
 will always recognize a distinction between crimes which origi- 
 nate in an inordinate zeal for the commonwealth, and crimes 
 which originate in selfish cupidity. To the benefit of this distinc- 
 tion Hastings is fairly entitled. There is, we conceive, no reason 
 to suspect that the Rohilla war, the revolution of Benares, or 1 5 
 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 20 
 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 transac- 
 tions which would now be called indelicate and irregular, but 
 which even now would hardly be designated as corrupt. A rapa- 25 
 cious man he certainly was not. Had he been so, he would in- 
 fallibly 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 zemindars of the Company's provinces and 30 
 from neighboring princes, in the course of thirteen years, more 
 than three millions sterling, and might have outshone the splen- 
 dor of Carlton House and of the Palais Royal. He brought 
 home a fortune such as a Governor-General, fond of state and 
 
1 82 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 
 5 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. 
 
 io 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 will, 
 was compelled to send her to England. He seems to have loved 
 
 1 5 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 roundhouse of an Indiaman for her ac- 
 commodation, on the profusion of sandalwood and carved ivory 
 
 20 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 exceed- 
 ingly characteristic. They are tender and full of indications of 
 
 25 esteem and confidence, but at the same time a little more cere- 
 monious than is usual in so intimate a relation. The solemn 
 courtesy with which he compliments " his elegant Marian " 
 reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which Sir 
 Charles Grandison bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the cedar 
 
 30 parlor. 
 
 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 83 
 
 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 5 
 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 10 
 pleasing imitation of Horace's Otium divos rogat. This little 
 poem was inscribed to Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, 
 a man of whose integrity, humanity, and honor it is impossible 
 to speak too highly ; but who, like some other excellent mem- 
 bers of the civil service, extended to the conduct of his friend 15 
 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 20 
 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 in- 
 curred much censure on account of the favor which, in spite of 25 
 the ordinary severity of her virtue, she had shown to the "ele- 
 gant 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 dis- 
 sentient voice. " I find myself," said Hastings, in a letter 30 
 written about a quarter of a year after his arrival in England, 
 " I find myself everywhere, and universally, treated with evi- 
 dences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess 
 the good opinion of my country." 
 
1 84 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 The confident and exulting tone of his correspondence about 
 this time is the more remarkable because he had already re- 
 ceived ample notice of the attack which was in preparation. 
 Within a week after he landed at Plymouth, Burke gave notice 
 5 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 
 
 10 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 
 
 i s 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 
 
 20 has much both to learn and to unlearn before he can take a 
 place among English statesmen. The working of a representa- 
 tive 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 
 
 25 as Hannibal would have been at Waterloo, or Therhistocles at 
 Trafalgar. His very acuteness deludes him. His very vigor 
 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 
 
 30 the case with Hastings. In India he had a bad hand ; 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. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 85 
 
 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 hands of 
 Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, one of the few 
 great advocates who have also been great in the House of 5 
 Commons. To the defense 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 gentle- 10 
 man had been sent over from India some time before as the 
 agent of the Governor-General. It was rumored 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 15 
 there regarded as the organ of 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, 20 
 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 25 
 not confined to Parliament. There was hardly a day on which 
 the newspapers did not contain some puff upon Hastings signed 
 by Asiaticus or Henga/ensis, but known to be written by the in- 
 defatigable Scott; and hardly a month in which some bulky 
 pamphlet on the same subject, and from the same pen, did not 30 
 pass to the trunk makers and the pastry cooks. 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 
 
1 86 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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 favorable to Hastings. The King was on 
 5 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 vigor of his body, 
 but not that of his mind ; and Lord Lansdowne, who, though 
 unconnected with any party, retained the importance which 
 
 10 belongs to great talents and knowledge. The ministers were 
 generally believed to be favorable to the late Governor-General. 
 They owed their power to the clamor 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 
 
 15 powers unknown to the constitution, had defended them- 
 selves 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 
 
 20 the evils which had been made the plea for administering so 
 violent a remedy; and such, in fact, was their general disposi- 
 tion. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in particular, whose great 
 place and force of intellect gave him a weight in the Govern- 
 ment inferior only to that of Mr. Pitt, espoused the cause of 
 
 25 Hastings with indecorous violence. Mr. Pitt, though he had 
 censured many parts of the Indian system, had studiously ab- 
 stained 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 
 
 30 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 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 87 
 
 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 Government 
 from conferring a peerage on the late Governor-General. Mr. 
 Dundas was the only important member of the administration 5 
 who was deeply committed to a different view of the subject. 
 He had moved the resolutions which created the difficulty ; but 
 even from him little was to be apprehended. Since he presided 
 over the committee on Eastern affairs, great changes had taken 
 place. He was surrounded by new allies ; he had fixed his 10 
 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 1 5 
 Opposition was loud and vehement against him. But the Oppo- 
 sition, 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 through- 
 out the country. Nor, as far as we can judge, was the Opposi- 20 
 tion generally desirous to engage in so serious an undertaking 
 as the impeachment of an Indian Governor. Such an impeach- 
 ment must last for years. It must impose on the chiefs of the 
 party an immense load of labor. Yet it could scarcely, in any 
 manner, affect the event of the great political game. The fol- 25 
 lowers 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 30 
 life. Some fine diamonds which he had presented, as it was 
 rumored, to the royal family, and a certain richly carved ivory 
 bed which the Queen had done him the honor to accept from 
 him, were favorite subjects of ridicule. One lively poet proposed 
 
1 88 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 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, 
 5 of Cheyte Sing letting himself down to the Ganges. Another, 
 in an exquisitely humorous parody of Vergil'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 malevo- 
 
 10 lence, the gorgeous appearance of Mrs. Hastings at St. James's, 
 the galaxy of jewels, torn from Indian Begums, which adorned 
 her headdress, 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, 
 
 15 would have satisfied the great body of the Opposition. But 
 there were two men whose indignation was not to be so ap- 
 peased, Philip Francis and Edmund Burke. 
 
 Francis had recently entered the House of Commons, and 
 had already established a character there for industry and talent. 
 
 20 He labored 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 
 
 25 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 malev- 
 olence for virtue, nursed it, as preachers tell us that we ought 
 to nurse our good dispositions, and paraded it, on all occasions, 
 
 30 with Pharisaical ostentation. 
 
 The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far purer. 
 Men unable to understand the elevation of his mind have tried 
 to find out some discreditable motive for the vehemence and 
 pertinacity which he showed on this occasion. But they have 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 1 89 
 
 altogether failed. The idle story that he had some private slight 
 to revenge has long been given up, even by the advocates of 
 Hastings. Mr. Gleig supposes that Burke was actuated by 
 party spirit, that he retained a bitter remembrance of the fall of 
 the coalition, that he attributed that fall to the exertions of the 5 
 East India interest, and that he considered Hastings as the head 
 and the representative of that interest. This explanation seems 
 to be sufficiently refuted by a reference to dates. The hostility of 
 Burke to Hastings commenced long before the coalition ; and 
 lasted long after Burke had become a strenuous supporter of 10 
 those by whom the coalition had been defeated. It began when 
 Burke and Fox, closely allied together, were attacking the influ- 
 ence of the crown and calling for peace with the American 
 republic. It continued till Burke, alienated from Fox and loaded 
 with the favors of the crown, died, preaching a crusade against 15 
 the French republic. It seems absurd to attribute to the events 
 of 1784 an enmity which began in 1781, and which retained 
 undiminished force long after persons far more deeply implicated 
 than Hastings in the events of 1784 had been cordially forgiven. 
 And why should we look for any other explanation of Burke's 20 
 conduct than that which we find on the surface ? The plain 
 truth is that Hastings had committed some great crimes, and 
 that the thought of those crimes made the blood of Burke 
 boil in his veins. For Burke was a man in whom compassion 
 for suffering and hatred of injustice and tyranny were as 25 
 strong as in Las Casas or Clarkson. And although in him, as 
 in Las Casas and in Clarkson, these noble feelings were alloyed 
 with the infirmity which belongs to human nature, he is, like 
 them, entitled to this great praise, that he devoted years of 
 intense labor to the service of a people with whom he had neither 30 
 blood nor language, neither religion nor manners in common, and 
 from whom no requital, no thanks, no applause could be expected. 
 His knowledge of India was such as few even of those Euro- 
 peans who have passed many years in that country have attained, 
 
190 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 and such as certainly was never attained by any public man who 
 had not quitted Europe. He had studied the history, the laws, 
 and the usages of the East with an industry such as is seldom 
 found united to so much genius and so much sensibility. Others 
 5 have perhaps been equally laborious, and have collected an equal 
 mass of materials. But the manner in which Burke brought his 
 higher powers of intellect to work on statements of facts and 
 on tables of figures was peculiar to himself. In every part of 
 those huge bales of Indian information which repelled almost all 
 
 10 other readers, his mind, at once philosophical and poetical, found 
 something to instruct or to delight. His reason analyzed and 
 digested those vast and shapeless masses ; his imagination ani- 
 mated and colored them. Out of darkness, and dullness, and 
 confusion, he formed a multitude of ingenious theories and vivid 
 
 15 pictures. He had, in the highest degree, that noble faculty 
 whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future, in the 
 distant and in the unreal. India and its inhabitants were not to 
 him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, but 
 a real country and a real people. The burning sun, the strange 
 
 20 vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree, the rice field, the tank, 
 the huge trees, older than the Mogul empire, under which the 
 village crowds assemble, the thatched roof of the peasant's hut, 
 the rich tracery of the mosque where the imaum prays with his 
 face to Mecca, the drums, and banners, and gaudy idols, the dev- 
 
 25 otees swinging in the air, the graceful maiden, with the pitcher 
 
 on her head, descending the steps to the riverside, the black 
 
 faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, the turbans 
 
 " and the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, the 
 
 elephants with their canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin 
 
 30 of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady, all those 
 things were to him as the objects amidst which his own life had 
 been passed, as the objects which lay on the road between 
 Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All India was present to 
 the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 19 1 
 
 perfumes at the feet of sovereigns, to the wild moor where the 
 gypsy camp was pitched ; from the bazaars, humming like bee- 
 hives with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle where 
 the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to scare away 
 the hyenas. He had just as lively an idea of the insurrection at 5 
 Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execu- 
 tion of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppression 
 in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets 
 of London. 
 
 He saw that Hastings had been guilty of some most unjustifi- 10 
 able acts. All that followed was natural and necessary in a mind 
 like Burke's. His imagination and his passions, once excited, 
 hurried him beyond the bounds of justice and good sense. His 
 reason, powerful as it was, became the slave of feelings which 
 it should have controlled. His indignation, virtuous in its origin, 1 5 
 acquired too much of the character of personal aversion. He 
 could see no mitigating circumstance, no redeeming merit. 
 His temper, which, though generous and affectionate, had al- 
 ways been irritable, had now been made almost savage by 
 bodily infirmities and mental vexations. Conscious of great 20 
 powers and great virtues, he found himself, in age and poverty, 
 a mark for the hatred of a perfidious court and a deluded 
 people. In Parliament his eloquence was out of date. A young 
 generation, which knew him not, had filled the House. When- 
 ever he rose to speak, his voice was drowned by the unseemly 25 
 interruptions of lads who were in their cradles when his orations 
 on the Stamp Act called forth the applause of the great Earl of 
 Chatham. These things had produced on his proud and sensi- 
 tive spirit an effect at which we cannot wonder. He could no 
 longer discuss any question with calmness or make allowance 30 
 for honest differences of opinion. Those who think that he was 
 more violent and acrimonious in debates about India than on 
 other occasions are ill informed respecting the last years of his 
 life. In the discussions on the Commercial Treaty with the 
 
192 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 Court of Versailles, on the Regency, on the French Revolution, 
 he showed even more virulence than in conducting the impeach- 
 ment. Indeed, it may be remarked that the very persons who 
 called him a mischievous maniac, for condemning in burning 
 5 words the Rohilla war and the spoliation of the Begums, exalted 
 him into a prophet as soon as he began to declaim, with greater 
 vehemence and not with greater reason, against the taking of 
 the Bastille and the insults offered to Marie Antoinette. To us 
 he appears to have been neither a maniac in the former case, 
 
 10 nor a prophet in the latter, but in both cases a great and good 
 man, led into extravagance by a tempestuous sensibility which 
 domineered over all his faculties. 
 
 It may be doubted whether the personal antipathy of Francis 
 or the nobler indignation of Burke would have led their party 
 
 1 5 to adopt extreme measures against Hastings, if his own conduct 
 had been judicious. He should have felt that, great as his public 
 services had been, he was not faultless ; and should have been 
 content to make his escape, without aspiring to the honors of a 
 triumph. He and his agent took a different view. They were 
 
 20 impatient for the rewards which, as they conceived, were de- 
 ferred only till Burke's attack should be over. They accordingly 
 resolved to force on a decisive action, with an enemy for whom, 
 if they had been wise, they would have made a bridge of gold. 
 On the first day of the session of 1786 Major Scott reminded 
 
 25 Burke of the notice given in the preceding year, and asked 
 whether it was seriously intended to bring any charge against 
 the late Governor-General. This challenge left no course open 
 to the Opposition except to come forward as accusers or to 
 acknowledge themselves calumniators. The administration of 
 
 30 Hastings had not been so blameless, nor was the great party 
 of Fox and North so feeble, that it could be prudent to venture 
 on so bold a defiance. The leaders of the Opposition instantly 
 returned the only answer which they could with honor return ; 
 and the whole party was irrevocably pledged to a prosecution. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 193 
 
 Burke began his operations by applying for papers. Some 
 of the documents for which he asked were refused by the 
 ministers, who, in the debate, held language such as strongly 
 confirmed the prevailing opinion that they intended to sup- 
 port Hastings. In April the charges were laid on the table. 5 
 They had been drawn by Burke with great ability, though in a 
 form too much resembling that of a pamphlet. Hastings was 
 furnished with a copy of the accusation ; and it was intimated 
 to him that he might, if he thought fit, be heard in his own 
 defense at the bar of the Commons. 10 
 
 Here again Hastings was pursued by the same fatality which 
 had attended him ever since the day when he set foot on 
 English ground. It seemed to be decreed that this man, so 
 politic and so successful in the East, should commit nothing but 
 blunders in Europe. Any judicious adviser would have told him 15 
 that the best thing which he could do would be to make an 
 eloquent, forcible, and affecting oration at the bar of the House ; 
 but that, if he could not trust himself to speak, and found it 
 necessary to read, he ought to be as concise as possible. Audi- 
 ences accustomed to extemporaneous debating of the highest 20 
 excellence are always impatient of long written compositions. 
 Hastings, however, sat down as he would have done at the 
 Government House in Bengal, and prepared a paper of im- 
 mense length. That paper, if recorded on the consultations of 
 an Indian administration, would have been justly praised as 25 
 a very able minute. But it was now out of place. It fell 
 flat, as the best written defense must have fallen flat, on an 
 assembly accustomed to the animated and strenuous conflicts of 
 Pitt and Fox. The members, as soon as their curiosity about 
 the face and demeanor of so eminent a stranger was satisfied, 30 
 walked away to dinner, and left Hastings to tell his story till 
 midnight to the clerks and the Sergeant at arms. 
 
 All preliminary steps having been duly taken, Burke, in the 
 beginning of June, brought forward the charge relating to the 
 
I 9 4 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 Rohilla war. He acted discreetly in placing this accusation in 
 the van ; for Dundas had formerly moved, and the House had 
 adopted, a resolution condemning, in the most severe terms, 
 the policy followed by Hastings with regard to Rohilcund. 
 5 Dundas had little, or rather nothing, to say in defense of his 
 own consistency ; but he put a bold face on the matter and op- 
 posed the motion. Among other things, he declared that, though 
 he still thought the Rohilla war unjustifiable, he considered the 
 services which Hastings had subsequently rendered to the state 
 
 io as sufficient to atone even for so great an offense. Pitt did not 
 speak, but voted with Dundas ; and Hastings was absolved by 
 a hundred and nineteen votes against sixty-seven. 
 
 Hastings was now confident of victory. It seemed, indeed, 
 that he had reason to be so. The Rohilla war was, of all his 
 
 1 5 measures, that which his accusers might with greatest advantage 
 assail. It had been condemned by the Court of Directors. It 
 had been condemned by the House of Commons. It had been 
 condemned by Mr. Dundas, who had since become the chief 
 minister of the Crown for Indian affairs. Yet Burke, having 
 
 20 chosen this strong ground, had been completely defeated on it. 
 That, having failed here, he should succeed on any point, was 
 generally thought impossible. It was rumored at the clubs and 
 coffeehouses that one or perhaps two more charges would be 
 brought forward ; that if, on those charges, the sense of the 
 
 25 House of Commons should be against impeachment, the Oppo- 
 sition would let the matter drop ; that Hastings would be imme- 
 diately raised to the peerage, decorated with the star of the Bath, 
 sworn of the Privy Council, and invited to lend the assistance of 
 his talents and experience to the India board. Lord Thurlow, 
 
 30 indeed, some months before, had spoken with contempt of the 
 scruples which prevented Pitt from calling Hastings to the 
 House of Lords ; and had even said that, if the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer was afraid of the Commons, there was nothing 
 to prevent the Keeper of the Great Seal from taking the royal 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 195 
 
 pleasure about a patent of peerage. The very title was chosen. 
 Hastings was to be Lord Daylesford. For, through all changes 
 of scene and changes of fortune, remained unchanged his attach- 
 ment to the spot which had witnessed the greatness and the fall 
 of his family, and which had borne so great a part in the first 5 
 dreams of his young ambition. 
 
 But in a very few days these fair prospects were overcast. 
 On the thirteenth of June Mr. Fox brought forward, with great 
 ability and eloquence, the charge respecting the treatment of 
 Cheyte Sing. Francis followed on the same side. The friends 10 
 of Hastings were in high spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual 
 abundance and felicity of language, the Minister gave his opinion 
 on the case. He maintained that the Governor-General was 
 justified in calling on the Rajah of Benares for pecuniary assist- 
 ance and in imposing a fine when that assistance was contu- 1 5 
 maciously withheld. He also thought that the conduct of the 
 Governor-General during the insurrection had been distinguished 
 by ability and presence of mind. He censured, with great bitter- 
 ness, the conduct of Francis, both in India and in Parliament, 
 as most dishonest and malignant. The necessary inference from 20 
 Pitt's arguments seemed to be that Hastings ought to be honor- 
 ably acquitted ; and both the friends and the opponents of the 
 Minister expected from him a declaration to that effect. To the 
 astonishment of all parties, he concluded by saying that, though 
 he thought it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for contu- 25 
 macy, yet the amount of the fine was too great for the occasion. 
 On this ground, and on this ground alone, did Mr. Pitt, applaud- 
 ing every other part of the conduct of Hastings with regard to 
 Benares, declare that he should vote in favor of Mr. Fox's 
 motion. 30 
 
 The House was thunderstruck ; and it well might be so. For 
 the wrong done to Cheyte Sing, even had it been as flagitious 
 as Fox and Francis contended, was a trifle when compared with 
 the horrors which had been inflicted on Rohilcund. But if Mr. 
 
196 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 Pitt's view of the case of Cheyte Sing were correct,- there was 
 no ground for an impeachment or even for a vote of censure. 
 If the offense of Hastings was really no more than this, that, 
 having a right to impose a mulct, the amount of which mulct 
 5 was not defined, but was left to be settled by his discretion, he 
 had, not for his own advantage, but for that of the state, 
 demanded too much, was this an offense which required a crim- 
 inal proceeding of the highest solemnity, a criminal proceeding, 
 to which, during sixty years, no public functionary had been 
 
 10 subjected ? We can see, we think, in what way a man of sense 
 and integrity might have been induced to take any course re- 
 specting Hastings, except the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such 
 a man might have thought a great example necessary, for the 
 preventing of injustice, and for the vindicating of the national 
 
 1 5 honor, and might, on that ground, have voted for impeachment 
 both on the Rohilla charge and on the Benares charge. Such a 
 man might have thought that the offenses of Hastings had been 
 atoned for by great services, and might, on that ground, have 
 voted against the impeachment, on both charges. With great 
 
 20 diffidence we give it as our opinion that the most correct course 
 would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla 
 charge and to acquit on the Benares charge. Had the Benares 
 charge appeared to us in the same light in which it appeared to 
 Mr. Pitt, we should, without hesitation, have voted for acquittal 
 
 25 on that charge. The one course which it is inconceivable that 
 any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt's abilities can have honestly 
 taken was the course which he took. He acquitted Hastings on 
 the Rohilla charge. He softened down the Benares charge till 
 it became no charge at all ; and then he pronounced that it 
 
 30 contained matter for impeachment. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that the principal reason assigned 
 by the ministry for not impeaching Hastings on account of the 
 Rohilla war was this, that the delinquencies of the early part of 
 his administration had been atoned for by the excellence of the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 197 
 
 later part. Was it not most extraordinary that men who had 
 held this language could afterwards vote that the later part of 
 his administration furnished matter for no less than twenty 
 articles of impeachment ? They first represented the conduct of 
 Hastings in 1780 and 1781 as so highly meritorious that, like 5 
 works of supererogation in the Catholic theology, it ought to be 
 efficacious for the canceling of former offenses ; and they then 
 prosecuted him for his conduct in 1780 and 1781. 
 
 The general astonishment was the greater, because, only 
 twenty-four hours before, the members on whom the Minister 10 
 could depend had received the usual notes from the Treasury, 
 begging them to be in their places and to vote against Mr. Fox's 
 motion. It was asserted by Mr. Hastings that, early on the 
 morning of the very day on which the debate took place, Dundas 
 called on Pitt, woke him, and was closeted with him many 15 
 hours. The result of this conference was a determination to 
 give up the late Governor-General to the vengeance of the 
 Opposition. It was impossible even for the most powerful minis- 
 ter to carry all his followers with him in so strange a course. 
 Several persons high in office, the Attorney-General, Mr. Glen- 20 
 ville, and Lord Mulgrave, divided against Mr. Pitt. But the 
 devoted adherents who stood by the head of the Government 
 without asking questions were sufficiently numerous to turn the 
 scale. A hundred and nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox's 
 motion ; seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt. 25 
 
 That good and great man, the late William Wilberforce, often 
 related the events of this remarkable night. He described the 
 amazement of the House, and the bitter reflections which were 
 muttered against the Prime Minister by some of the habitual 
 supporters of government. Pitt himself appeared to feel that 30 
 his conduct required some explanation. He left the Treasury 
 bench, sat for some time next to Mr. Wilberforce, and very 
 earnestly declared that he had found it impossible, as a man of 
 conscience, to stand any longer by Hastings. The business, he 
 
198 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 said, was too bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are bound to add, fully 
 believed that his friend was sincere, and that the suspicions to 
 which this mysterious affair gave rise were altogether unfounded. 
 Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to men- 
 5 tion. The friends of Hastings, most of whom, it is to be 
 observed, generally supported the administration, affirmed that 
 the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy. Hastings was per- 
 sonally a favorite with the King. He was the idol of the East 
 India Company and of its servants. If he were absolved by the 
 
 10 Commons, seated among the Lords, admitted to the Board of 
 Control, closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious 
 Thurlow, was it not almost certain that he would soon draw to 
 himself the entire management of Eastern affairs ? Was it not 
 possible that he might become a formidable rival in the cabinet ? 
 
 15 It had probably got abroad that very singular communications 
 had taken place between Thurlow and Major Scott, and that, 
 if the First Lord of the Treasury was afraid to recommend 
 Hastings for a peerage, the Chancellor was ready to take the 
 responsibility of that step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was 
 
 20 the least likely to submit with patience to such an encroachment 
 on his functions. If the Commons impeached Hastings, all 
 danger was at an end. The proceeding, however it might 
 terminate, would probably last some years. In the meantime 
 the accused person would be excluded from honors and public 
 
 25 employments, and could scarcely venture even to pay his duty 
 at Court. Such were the motives attributed by a great part of the 
 public to the young Minister, whose ruling passion was generally 
 believed to be avarice of power. 
 
 The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions respecting 
 
 30 Hastings. In the following year those discussions were resumed. 
 The charge touching the spoliation of the Begums was brought 
 forward by Sheridan, in a speech which was so imperfectly re- 
 ported that it may be said to be wholly lost, but which was, with- 
 out doubt, the most elaborately brilliant of all the productions of 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 199 
 
 his ingenious mind. The impression which it produced was such 
 as has never been equaled. He sat down, not merely amidst 
 cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in which the 
 Lords below the bar and the strangers in the gallery joined. 
 The excitement of the House was such that no other speaker 5 
 could obtain a hearing; and the debate was adjourned. The 
 ferment spread fast through the town. Within four and twenty 
 hours Sheridan was offered a thousand pounds for the copy- 
 right of the speech, if he would himself correct it for the press. 
 The impression made by this remarkable display of eloquence 10 
 on severe and experienced critics, whose discernment may be 
 supposed to have been quickened by emulation, was deep and 
 permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the 
 speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of 
 taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the literary or in 15 
 the parliamentary performances of Sheridan, the finest that had 
 been delivered within the memory of man. Mr. Fox, about the 
 same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland what was 
 the best speech ever made in the House of Commons, assigned 
 the first place, without hesitation, to the great oration of Sheridan 20 
 on the Oude charge. 
 
 When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly 
 against the accused that his friends were coughed and scraped 
 down. Pitt declared himself for Sheridan's motion ; and the 
 question was carried by a hundred and seventy-five votes 25 
 against sixty-eight. 
 
 The Opposition, flushed with victory and strongly supported 
 by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succes- 
 sion of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary transactions. The 
 friends of Hastings were discouraged, and, having now no hope 30 
 of being able to avert an impeachment, were not very strenuous 
 in their exertions. At length the House, having agreed to twenty 
 articles of charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords and 
 to impeach the late Governor-General of High Crimes and 
 
200 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 Misdemeanors. Hastings was at the same time arrested by the 
 Sergeant at arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers. 
 
 The session was now within ten days of its close. It was, 
 
 therefore, impossible that any progress could be made in the 
 
 5 trial till the next year. Hastings was admitted to bail ; and 
 
 further proceedings were postponed till the Houses should 
 
 reassemble. . 
 
 When Parliament met in the following winter, the Commons 
 proceeded to elect a committee for managing the impeachment. 
 
 10 Burke stood at the head, and with him were associated most 
 of the leading members of the Opposition. But when the name 
 of Francis was read a fierce contention arose. It was said that 
 Francis and Hastings were notoriously on bad terms, that they 
 had been at feud during many years, that on one occasion their 
 
 15 mutual aversion had impelled them to seek each other's lives, 
 and that it would be improper and indelicate to select a private 
 enemy to be a public accuser. It was urged on the other side 
 with great force, particularly by Mr. Windham, that impartiality, 
 though the first duty of a judge, had never been reckoned 
 
 20 among the qualities of an advocate ; that in the ordinary ad- 
 ministration of criminal justice among the English the aggrieved 
 party, the very last person who ought to be admitted into the 
 jury box, is the prosecutor ; that what was wanted in a manager 
 was, not that he should be free from bias, but that he should 
 
 25 be able, well informed, energetic, and active. The ability and 
 information of Francis were admitted ; and the very animosity 
 with which he was reproached, whether a virtue or a vice, was 
 at least a pledge for his energy and activity. It seems difficult 
 to refute these arguments. But the inveterate hatred borne by 
 
 30 Francis to Hastings had excited general disgust. The House 
 decided that Francis should not be a manager. Pitt voted with 
 the majority, Dundas with the minority. 
 
 In the meantime the preparations for the trial had proceeded 
 rapidly; and on the thirteenth of February, 1788, the sittings 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 201 
 
 of the Court commenced. There have been spectacles more 
 dazzling to the eye*, more gorgeous with jewelry and cloth of 
 gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which 
 was then exhibited at Westminster ; but, perhaps, there never 
 was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, 5 
 a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of inter- 
 est which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present 
 and to the past, were collected on one spot, and in one hour. 
 All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed 
 by liberty and civilization were now displayed, with every ad- 10 
 vantage that could be derived both from cooperation and from 
 contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either 
 backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when 
 the foundations of our constitution were laid ; or far away, over 
 boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange 1 5 
 stars, worshiping strange gods, and writing strange characters 
 from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, 
 according to forms handed down from the days of the Plan- 
 tagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny 
 over the lord of the holy city of Benares and over the ladies 20 
 of the princely house of Oude. 
 
 The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall 
 of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclama- 
 tions at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had 
 witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of 25 
 Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a 
 moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just 
 resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High 
 Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half re- 
 deemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. 30 
 The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept 
 clear by cavalry. The Peers, robed in. gold and ermine, were 
 marshaled by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The 
 judges in their vestments of state attended to give advice on 
 
202 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three fourths 
 of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in 
 solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribu- 
 nal. The junior baron present led the way, George Eliott, Lord 
 5 Heathneld, recently ennobled for his memorable defense of 
 Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. 
 The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl 
 Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the 
 brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the Prince of 
 
 10 Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The 
 gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were 
 crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or 
 the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from 
 all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, 
 
 15 grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representa- 
 tives of every science and of every art. There were seated 
 round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the house 
 of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and 
 Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no 
 
 20 other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in 
 the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a 
 scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the 
 historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero 
 pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a 
 
 25 senate which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus 
 thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, 
 side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of 
 the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel 
 which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many 
 
 30 writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble 
 matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend his labors in that 
 dark and profound mine from which he had extracted a vast 
 treasure of erudition, a treasure too often buried in the earth, 
 too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 203 
 
 but still precious, massive, and splendid. There appeared the 
 voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of the throne had 
 in secret plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful 
 mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia whose delicate fea- 
 tures, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the 5 
 common decay. There were the members of that brilliant so- 
 ciety which quoted, criticized, and exchanged repartees, under 
 the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the 
 ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, 
 had carried the Westminster election against palace and Treasury, 10 
 shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. 
 
 The Sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to 
 the bar and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not un- 
 worthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and 
 populous country, and made laws and treaties, had sent forth 15 
 armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high 
 place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that 
 most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no 
 title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man and 
 not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriv- 20 
 ing dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference 
 to the Court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self- 
 respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive, but not 
 gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and worn, but 
 serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the picture in 25 
 the council chamber at Calcutta, Mens aequo, in arduis ; such 
 was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself 
 to his judges. 
 
 His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were after- 
 wards raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts 30 
 in their profession, the bold and strong-minded Law, after- 
 wards Chief Justice of the King's Bench ; the more humane 
 and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas ; and Plomer, who, near twenty years later, successfully 
 
204 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 conducted in the same high court the defense of Lord Melville, 
 and subsequently became Vice Chancellor and Master of the 
 Rolls. 
 
 But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much 
 5 notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery 
 a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for 
 the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, ap- 
 peared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to re- 
 mark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, 
 
 10 had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a 
 bag and sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of 
 the impeachment ; and his commanding, copious, and sonorous 
 eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various talents. 
 Age and blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duties of a 
 
 1 5 public prosecutor ; and his friends were left without the help of 
 
 his excellent sense, his tact, and his urbanity. But, in spite of 
 
 , the absence of these two distinguished members of the Lower 
 
 House, the box in which the managers stood contained an array 
 
 of speakers such as perhaps had not appeared together since 
 
 20 the great age of Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and 
 Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. 
 There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the art of 
 adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste 
 of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness 
 
 25 of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern. 
 There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared the 
 finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly 
 exercise, his face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the in- 
 genious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though 
 
 30 surrounded by such men, did the youngest manager pass un- 
 noticed. At an age when most of those who distinguish them- 
 selves in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at 
 college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in Parlia- 
 ment. No advantage of fortune or connection was wanting that 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 205 
 
 could set off to the height his splendid talents and his unblem- 
 ished honor. At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to 
 be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the 
 delegates of the British Commons, at the bar of the British 
 nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone — 5 
 culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in 
 the vigor of life he is the sole representative of a great age 
 which has passed away. But those who, within the last ten 
 years, have listened with delight, till the morning sun shone on 
 the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated 10 
 eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate 
 of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the 
 foremost. 
 
 The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. 
 The ceremony occupied two whole days and was rendered less 15 
 tedious than it would otherwise have been by the silver voice 
 and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near 
 relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. 
 Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was 
 intended to be a general introduction' to all the charges. With 20 
 an exuberance of thought and a splendor of diction which more 
 than satisfied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he 
 described the character and institutions of the natives of India, 
 recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of 
 Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the 25 
 Company and of the English Presidencies. Having thus at- 
 tempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of Eastern 
 society, as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he pro- 
 ceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings as systemati- 
 cally conducted in defiance of morality and public law. The 30 
 energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of 
 unwonted admiration from the stern and hostile Chancellor, and, 
 for a moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the 
 defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such 
 
206 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, 
 and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility, 
 were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were 
 pulled out ; smelling bottles were handed round ; hysterical sobs 
 5 and screams were heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in 
 a fit. At length the orator concluded. Raising his voice till 
 the old arches of Irish oak resounded, " Therefore," said he, 
 " hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of 
 Great Britain that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes 
 
 10 and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Com- 
 mons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I 
 impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient 
 honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people 
 of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose 
 
 15 country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of 
 human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of 
 every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common 
 enemy and oppressor of all ! " 
 
 When the deep murmur of various emotions had subsided, 
 
 20 Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords respecting the course of 
 proceeding to be followed. The wish of the accusers was that 
 the Court would bring to a close the investigation of the first 
 charge before the second was opened. The wish of Hastings 
 and of his counsel was that the managers should open all the 
 
 2 5 charges, and produce all the evidence for the prosecution, before 
 the defense began. The Lords retired to their own House to 
 consider the question. The Chancellor took the side of Hastings. 
 Lord Loughborough, who was now in opposition, supported the 
 demand of the managers. The division showed which way the 
 
 30 inclination of the tribunal leaned. A majority of near three to 
 
 one decided in favor of the course for which Hastings contended. 
 
 When the Court sat again Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, 
 
 opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days 
 
 were spent in reading papers and hearing witnesses. The next 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 20/ 
 
 article was that relating to the Princesses of Oude. The conduct 
 of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curi- 
 osity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling 
 and highly finished declamation lasted two days ; but the Hall 
 was crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was said 5 
 that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, 
 when he concluded, contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect 
 which his father might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, 
 into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of 
 generous admiration. 10 
 
 June was now far advanced. The session could not last much 
 longer, and the progress which had been made in the impeach- 
 ment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty charges. 
 On two only of these had even the case for the prosecution 
 been heard ; and it was now a year since Hastings had been 1 5 
 admitted to bail. 
 
 The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when 
 the Court began to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan 
 spoke on the charge relating to the Begums. From that time 
 the excitement went down fast. The spectacle had lost the 20 
 attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. 
 What was behind was not of a nature to entice men of letters 
 from their books in the morning or to tempt ladies who had left 
 the masquerade at two to be out of bed before eight. There 
 remained examinations and cross-examinations. There remained 25 
 statements of accounts. There remained the reading of papers, 
 filled with words unintelligible to English ears, with lacs and 
 crores, zemindars and aumils, sunnuds and perwannahs, jaghires 
 and nuzzurs. There remained bickerings, not always carried on 
 with the best taste or with the best temper, between the man- 30 
 agers of the impeachment and the counsel for the defense, 
 particularly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There remained 
 the endless marches and countermarches of the Peers between 
 their House and the Hall : for as often as a point of law was 
 
208 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 to be discussed, their Lordships retired to discuss it apart ; and 
 the consequence was, as a peer wittily said, that the judges 
 walked and the trial stood still. 
 
 It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788 when the trial 
 5 commenced, no important question, either of domestic or 
 foreign policy, excited the public mind. The proceeding in 
 Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally attracted most of the 
 attention of Parliament and of the public. It was the one great 
 event of that season. But in the following year the King's ill- 
 
 10 ness, the debates on the Regency, the expectation of a change 
 of ministry, completely diverted public attention from Indian 
 affairs ; and within a fortnight after George the Third had re- 
 turned thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery, the States-General 
 of France met at Versailles. In the midst of the agitation pro- 
 
 1 5 duced by these events the impeachment was for a time almost 
 forgotten. 
 
 The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 
 1788, when the proceedings had the interest of novelty, and 
 when the Peers had little other business before them, only 
 
 20 thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In 1789 the 
 Regency Bill occupied the Upper House till the session was far 
 advanced. When the. King recovered, the circuits were begin- 
 ning. The judges left town ; the Lords waited for the return of 
 the oracles of jurisprudence ; and the consequence was that 
 
 25 during the whole year only seventeen days were given to the case 
 of Hastings. It was clear that the matter would be protracted 
 to a length unprecedented in the annals of criminal law. 
 
 In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment, though it 
 is a fine ceremony, and though it may have been useful in the 
 
 30 seventeenth century, is not a proceeding from which much good 
 can now be expected. Whatever confidence may be placed in 
 the decisions of the Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary 
 litigation, it is certain that no man has the least confidence in 
 their impartiality, when a great public functionary, charged with 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 209 
 
 a- great state crime, is brought to their bar. They are all politi- 
 cians. There is hardly one among them whose vote on an 
 impeachment may not be confidently predicted before a witness 
 has been examined ; and, even if it were possible to rely on their 
 justice, they would still be quite unfit to try such a cause as that 5 
 of Hastings. They sit only during half the year. They have to 
 transact much legislative and much judicial business. The law 
 Lords, whose advice is required to guide the unlearned majority, 
 are employed daily in administering justice elsewhere. It is 
 impossible, therefore, that during a busy session the Upper 10 
 House should give more than a few days to an impeachment. 
 To expect that their Lordships would give up partridge shooting, 
 in order to bring the .greatest delinquent to speedy justice, or to 
 relieve accused innocence by speedy acquittal, would be unrea- 
 sonable indeed. A well-constituted tribunal, sitting regularly six 1 5 
 days in the week, and nine hours in the day, would have brought 
 the trial of Hastings to a close in less than three months. The 
 Lords had not finished their work in seven years. 
 
 The result ceased to be matter of doubt, from the time when 
 the Lords resolved that they would be guided by the rules of 20 
 evidence which are received in the inferior courts of the realm. 
 Those rules, it is well known, exclude much information which 
 would be quite sufficient to determine the conduct of any reason- 
 able man, in the most important transactions of private life. 
 Those rules, at every assizes, save scores of culprits whom 25 
 judges, jury, and spectators firmly believe to be guilty. But 
 when those rules were rigidly applied to offenses committed 
 many years before, at the distance of many thousand miles, 
 conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do not 
 blame the accused and his counsel for availing themselves of 30 
 every legal advantage in order to obtain an acquittal. But it is 
 clear that an acquittal so obtained cannot be pleaded in bar of 
 the judgment of history. 
 
 Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings to 
 
2IO WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 put a stop to the trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote of censure 
 upon Burke for some violent language which he had used 
 respecting the death of Nuncomar and the connection between 
 Hastings and Impey. Burke was then unpopular in the last 
 5 degree both with the House and with the country. The asper- 
 ity and indecency of some expressions which he had used during 
 the debates on the Regency had annoyed even his warmest 
 friends. The vote of censure was carried ; and those who had 
 moved it hoped that the managers would resign in disgust. 
 
 10 Burke was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what he considered as 
 the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over his personal 
 feelings. He received the censure of the House with dignity 
 and meekness and declared that no personal mortification or 
 humiliation should induce him to flinch from the sacred duty 
 
 15 which he had undertaken. 
 
 In the following year the Parliament was dissolved, and the 
 friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the new House of 
 Commons might not be disposed to go on with the impeachment. 
 They began by maintaining that the whole proceeding was 
 
 20 terminated by the dissolution. Defeated on this point, they made 
 a direct motion that the impeachment should be dropped ; but 
 they were defeated by the combined forces of the Government 
 and the Opposition. It was, however, resolved that, for the sake 
 of expedition, many of the articles should be withdrawn. In 
 
 25 truth, had not some such measure been adopted, the trial would 
 have lasted till the defendant was in his grave. 
 
 At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pro- 
 nounced, near eight years after Hastings had been brought by 
 the Sergeant at arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. 
 
 30 On the last day of this great procedure the public curiosity, 
 long suspended, seemed to be revived. Anxiety about the judg- 
 ment there could be none ; for it had been fully ascertained that 
 there was a great majority for the defendant. Nevertheless 
 many wished to see the pageant, and the Hall was as much 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 211 
 
 crowded as on the first day. But those who, having been pres- 
 ent on the first day, now bore a part in the proceedings of the 
 last, were few ; and most of those few were altered men. 
 
 As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken place 
 before one generation, and the judgment was pronounced 5 
 by another. The spectator could not look at the woolsack, or 
 at the red benches of the Peers, or at the green benches of the 
 Commons, without seeing something that reminded him of the 
 instability of all human things, of the instability of power and 
 fame and life, of the more lamentable instability of friendship. 10 
 The great seal was borne before Lord Loughborough, who 
 when the trial commenced was a fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's 
 government, and who was now a member of that government, 
 while Thurlow, who presided in the Court when it first sat, 
 estranged from all his old allies, sat scowling among the junior 15 
 barons. Of about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked in 
 the procession on the first day sixty had been laid in their family 
 vaults. Still more affecting must have been the sight of the 
 managers' box. What had become of that fair fellowship, so 
 closely bound together by public and private ties, so resplend- 20 
 ent with every talent and accomplishment ? It had been scat- 
 tered by calamities more bitter than the bitterness of death. 
 The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full vigor of 
 their genius. But their friendship was at an end. It had 
 been violently and publicly dissolved with tears and stormy 25 
 reproaches. If those men, once so dear to each other, were 
 now compelled to meet for the purpose of managing the im- 
 peachment, they met as strangers whom public business had 
 brought together, and behaved to each other with cold and 
 distant civility. Burke had in his vortex whirled away Windham. 30 
 Fox had been followed by Sheridan and Grey. 
 
 Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found 
 Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to 
 the Begums. On other charges the majority in his favor was 
 
212 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He was 
 then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that 
 the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. 
 He bowed respectfully and retired. 
 5 We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It 
 was also generally approved. At the commencement of the 
 trial there had been a strong and indeed unreasonable feeling 
 against Hastings. At the close of the trial there was a feeling 
 equally strong and equally unreasonable in his favor. One 
 
 10 cause of the change was, no doubt, what is commonly called 
 the fickleness of the multitude, but what seems to us to be 
 merely the general law of human nature. Both in individuals 
 and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, 
 and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate what- 
 
 15 ever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show 
 undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor. It was 
 thus in the case of Hastings. The length of his trial, moreover, 
 made him an object of compassion. It was thought, and not 
 without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill— 
 
 20 used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was more 
 than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, though, in 
 the ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not allowed 
 to set off his good actions against his crimes, a great political 
 cause should be tried on different principles, and that a man 
 
 25 who had governed an empire during thirteen years might have 
 done some very reprehensible things, and yet might be on the 
 whole deserving of rewards and honors rather than of fine and 
 imprisonment. The press, an instrument neglected by the pros- 
 ecutors, was used by Hastings and his friends with great effect. 
 
 30 Every ship, too, that arrived from Madras or Bengal, brought 
 a cuddy full of his admirers. Every gentleman from India spoke 
 of the late Governor-General as having deserved better, and 
 having been treated worse, than any man living. The effect of 
 this testimony unanimously given by all persons who knew the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 21 3 
 
 East, was naturally very great. Retired members of the Indian 
 services, civil and military, were settled in all corners of the 
 kingdom. Each of them was, of course, in his own little circle, 
 regarded as an oracle on an Indian question ; and they were, 
 with scarcely one exception, the zealous advocates of Hastings. 5 
 It is to be added, that the numerous addresses to the late Gov- 
 ernor-General, which his friends in Bengal obtained from the 
 natives and transmitted to England, made a considerable impres- 
 sion. To these addresses we attach little or no importance. That 
 Hastings was beloved by the people whom he governed is true ; 10 
 but the eulogies of pundits, zemindars, Mohammedan doctors, 
 do not prove it to be true. For an English collector or judge 
 would have found it easy to induce any native who could write 
 to sign a panegyric on the most odious ruler that ever was in 
 India. It was said that at Benares — the very place at which 1 5 
 the acts set forth in the first article of impeachment had been 
 committed, — the natives had erected a temple to Hastings ; and 
 this story excited a strong sensation in England. Burke's ob- 
 servations on the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no reason 
 for astonishment, he said, in the incident which had been repre- 20 
 sented as so striking. He knew something of the mythology of 
 the Brahmins. He knew that as they worshiped some gods 
 from love, so they worshiped others from fear. He knew that 
 they erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of light 
 and plenty, but also to the fiends who preside over smallpox 25 
 and murder. Nor did he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings 
 to be admitted into such a Pantheon. This reply has always 
 struck us as one of the finest that ever was made in Parlia- 
 ment. It is a grave and forcible argument, decorated by the 
 most brilliant wit and fancy. 30 
 
 Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything except char- 
 acter he would have been far better off if, when first impeached, 
 he had at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of fifty thousand 
 pounds. He was a ruined man. The legal expenses of his 
 
214 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 defense had been enormous. The expenses which did not appear 
 in his attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. Great sums had 
 been paid to Major Scott. Great sums had been laid out in 
 bribing newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating 
 5 tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Com- 
 mons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in cor- 
 rupting the press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, 
 from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left 
 unemployed. Logan defended the accused Governor with great 
 
 10 ability in prose. For the lovers of verse the speeches of the 
 managers were burlesqued in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are 
 afraid, indisputable that Hastings stooped so low as to court 
 the aid of that malignant and filthy baboon, John Williams, who 
 called himself Anthony Pasquin. It was necessary to subsidize 
 
 15 such allies largely. The private hoards of Mrs. Hastings had 
 disappeared. It is said that the banker to whom they had been 
 intrusted had failed. Still, if Hastings had practiced strict 
 economy, he would, after all his losses, have had a moderate 
 competence ; but in the management of his private affairs he 
 
 20 was imprudent. The dearest wish of his heart had always been 
 to regain Daylesford. At length, in the very year in which his 
 trial commenced, the wish was accomplished ; and the domain, 
 alienated more than seventy years before, returned to the de- 
 scendant of its old lords. But the manor house was a ruin ; and 
 
 25 the grounds round it had, during many years, been utterly 
 neglected. Hastings proceeded to build, to plant, to form a 
 sheet of water, to excavate a grotto ; and before he was dis- 
 missed from the bar of the House of Lords he had expended 
 more than forty thousand pounds in adorning his seat. 
 
 30 The general feeling both of the Directors and of the pro- 
 prietors of the East India Company was that he had great 
 claims on them, that his services to them had been eminent, 
 and that his misfortunes had been the effect of his zeal for 
 their interest. His friends in Leadenhall Street proposed to 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 215 
 
 reimburse him for the costs of his trial, and to settle on him an 
 annuity of five thousand pounds a year. But the consent of the 
 Board of Control was necessary ; and at the head of the Board 
 of Control was Mr. Dundas, who had himself been a party to 
 the impeachment, who had, on that account, been reviled with 5 
 great bitterness by the adherents of Hastings, and who, there- 
 fore, was not in a very complying mood. He refused to consent 
 to what the Directors suggested. The Directors remonstrated. 
 A long controversy followed. Hastings, in the meantime, was 
 reduced to such distress that he could hardly pay his weekly 10 
 bills. At length a compromise was made. An annuity of four 
 thousand a year was settled on Hastings ; and in order to enable 
 him to meet pressing demands, he was to receive ten years' an- 
 nuity in advance. The company was also permitted to lend him 
 fifty thousand pounds, to be repaid by instalments without inter- i 5 
 est. This relief, though given in the most absurd manner, was 
 sufficient to enable the retired Governor to live in comfort and 
 even in luxury, if he had been a skillful manager. But he was 
 careless and profuse, and was more than once under the neces- 
 sity of applying to the Company for assistance, which was 20 
 liberally given. 
 
 He had security and affluence, but not the power and dignity 
 which, when he landed from India, he had reason to expect. 
 He had then looked forward to a coronet, a red riband, a seat 
 at the Council Board, an office at Whitehall. He was then only 25 
 fifty-two, and might hope for many years of bodily and mental 
 vigor. The case was widely different when he left the bar of 
 the Lords. He was now too old a man to turn his mind to a 
 new class of studies and duties. He had no chance of receiving 
 any mark of royal favor while Mr. Pitt remained in power; and 30 
 when Mr. Pitt retired Hastings was approaching his seven- 
 tieth year. 
 
 Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he interfered in 
 politics ; and that interference was not much to his honor. In 
 
2l6 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 1804 he exerted himself strenuously to prevent Mr. Addington, 
 against whom Fox and Pitt had combined, from resigning the 
 Treasury. It is difficult to believe that a man so able and ener- 
 getic as Hastings can have thought that, when Bonaparte was at 
 5 Boulogne with a great army, the defense of our island could 
 safely be intrusted to a ministry which did not contain a single 
 person whom flattery could describe as a great statesman. It is 
 also certain that, on the important question which had raised 
 Mr. Addington to power, and on which he differed from both 
 
 10 Fox and Pitt, Hastings, as might have been expected, agreed 
 with Fox and Pitt, and was decidedly opposed to Addington. 
 Religious intolerance has never been the vice of the Indian 
 service, and certainly was not the vice of Hastings. But Mr. 
 Addington had treated him with marked favor. Fox had been 
 
 1 5 a principal manager of the impeachment. To Pitt it was owing 
 that there had been an impeachment ; and Hastings, we fear, 
 was on this occasion guided by personal considerations, rather 
 than by a regard to the public interest. 
 
 The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly passed at 
 
 20 Daylesford. He amused himself with embellishing his grounds, 
 riding fine Arab horses, fattening prize cattle, and trying to rear 
 Indian animals and vegetables in England. He sent for seeds 
 of a very fine custard apple, from the garden of what had once 
 been his own villa, among the green hedgerows of Allipore. He 
 
 25 tried also to naturalize in. Worcestershire the delicious leechee, 
 almost the only fruit of Bengal which deserves to be regretted 
 even amidst the plenty of Covent Garden. The Mogul em- 
 perors, in the time of their greatness, had in vain attempted to 
 introduce into Hindostan the goat of the table-land of Tibet, 
 
 30 whose down supplies the looms of Cashmere with the materials 
 of the finest shawls. Hastings tried, with no better fortune, to 
 rear a breed at Daylesford ; nor does he seem to have succeeded 
 better with the cattle of Bootan, whose tails are in high esteem 
 as the best fans for brushing away the mosquitoes. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 217 
 
 Literature divided his attention with his conservatories and 
 his menagerie. He had always loved books, and they were now 
 necessary to him. Though not a poet, in any high sense of the 
 word, he wrote neat and polished lines with great facility and 
 was fond of exercising this talent. Indeed, if we must speak out, 5 
 he seems to have been more of a Trissotin than was to be ex- 
 pected from the powers of his mind, and from the great part 
 which he had played in life. We are assured in these Memoirs 
 that the first thing which he did in the morning was to compose 
 a copy of verses. When the family and guests assembled, the 10 
 poem made its appearance as regularly as the eggs and rolls ; 
 and Mr. Gleig requires us to believe that, if from any accident 
 Hastings came to the breakfast table without one of his charm- 
 ing performances in his hand, the omission was felt by all as a 
 grievous disappointment. Tastes differ widely. For ourselves 15 
 we must say that, however good the breakfasts at Daylesford 
 may have been, — and we are assured that the tea was of the 
 most aromatic flavor, and that neither tongue nor venison pasty 
 was wanting, — we should have thought the reckoning high if 
 we had been forced to earn our repast by listening every day 20 
 to a new madrigal or sonnet composed by our host. We are 
 glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has preserved this little feature of 
 character, though we think it by no means a beauty. It is good 
 to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and 
 to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses 25 
 which are found in the strongest minds. Dionysius in old times, 
 Frederic in the last century, with capacity and vigor equal to 
 the conduct of the greatest affairs, united all the little vanities 
 and affectations of provincial bluestockings. These great ex- 
 amples may console the admirers of Hastings for the affliction 30 
 of seeing him reduced to the level of the Hayleys and Sewards. 
 
 When Hastings had passed many years in retirement, and had 
 long outlived the common age of men, he again became for a 
 short time an object of general attention. In 18 13 the charter 
 
218 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 of the East India Company was renewed ; and much discus- 
 sion about Indian affairs took place in Parliament. It was de- 
 termined to examine witnesses at the bar of the Commons ; and 
 Hastings was ordered to attend. He had appeared at that bar 
 5 once before. It was when he read his answer to the charges 
 which Burke had laid on the table. Since that time twenty- 
 seven years had elapsed ; public feeling had undergone a com- 
 plete change ; the nation had now forgotten his faults and re- 
 membered only his services. The reappearance, too, of a man 
 
 10 who had been among the most distinguished of a generation 
 that had passed away, who now belonged to history, and who 
 seemed to have risen from the dead, could not but produce a 
 solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons received him with 
 acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and when he 
 
 15 retired, rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few who 
 did not sympathize with the general feeling. One or two of the 
 managers of the impeachment were present. They sat in the 
 same seats which they had occupied when they had been 
 thanked for the services which they had rendered in West- 
 
 20 minster Hall ; for, by the courtesy of the House, a member 
 who has been thanked in his place is considered as having a 
 right always to occupy that place. These gentlemen were not 
 disposed to admit that they had employed several of the best 
 years of their lives in persecuting an innocent man. They ac- 
 
 25 cordingly kept their seats and pulled their hats over their 
 brows ; but the exceptions only made the prevailing enthusiasm 
 more remarkable. The Lords received the old man with similar 
 tokens of respect. The University of Oxford conferred on him 
 the degree of Doctor of Laws ; and, in the Sheldonian Theater, 
 
 30 the undergraduates welcomed him with tumultuous cheering. 
 
 These marks of public esteem were soon followed by marks 
 
 of royal favor. Hastings was sworn of the Privy Council and 
 
 was admitted to a long private audience of the Prince Regent, 
 
 who treated him very graciously. When the Emperor of Russia 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 219 
 
 and the King of Prussia visited England, Hastings appeared in 
 their train both at Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, and, 
 though surrounded by a crowd of princes and great warriors, 
 was everywhere received by the public with marks of respect 
 and admiration. He was presented by the Prince Regent both 5 
 to Alexander and to Frederic William ; and his Royal Highness 
 went so far as to declare in public that honors far 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 unex- 10 
 plained cause, he was again disappointed. 
 
 He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of good 
 spirits, of faculties not impaired to any painful or degrading ex- 
 tent, and of health such as is rarely enjoyed by those who attain 
 such an age. At length, on the twenty-second of August, 18 18, 15 
 in the eighty-sixth year of his age, he met death with the same 
 tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all the 
 trials of his various and eventful life. 
 
 With all his faults, — and they were neither few nor small, — 
 only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that 20 
 temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty 
 generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has during 
 many ages afforded a quiet resting place to those whose minds 
 and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great 
 Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled 25 
 with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. 
 Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the 
 chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which 
 already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hast- 
 ings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever 30 
 borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very 
 spot probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly 
 clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of plow- 
 men. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which 
 
220 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely 
 that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the 
 poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only 
 had he repurchased the old lands and rebuilt the old dwelling. 
 5 He had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a 
 polity. He had administered government and war with more 
 than the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronized learning 
 with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked 
 by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever 
 
 io sought the destruction of a single victim ; and over that com- 
 bination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. 
 He had at length gone down to his grave in the fullness of 
 age : in peace, after so many troubles ; in honor, after so 
 much obloquy. 
 
 15 Those who look on his character without favor or malevo- 
 lence will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all social 
 virtue, in respect for the rights of others and in sympathy for 
 the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were 
 somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But while we 
 
 20 cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a 
 merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the ampli- 
 tude and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, 
 for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, 
 his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the 
 
 25 state, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune 
 and never disturbed by either. 
 
NOTES ON LORD CLIVE 
 
 (The figures in heavy-faced type refer to pages, the figures in lighter type to lines.) 
 
 1 5 Every schoolboy knows : not all of the historical allusions are 
 familiar to schoolboys. It is even doubtful whether many schoolboys 
 would know where to look up some of the allusions. Macaulay, as is 
 often his method, himself explains who imprisoned Montezuma, namely, 
 Cortes. Another Spanish explorer and conqueror, Pizarro, caused 
 Atahualpa, king in Peru, to be strangled. The Spanish cities of Sara- 
 gossa, Toledo, Seville, Barcelona, and Cadiz ought to need no further 
 explanation for students who remember their geography. Ferdinand the 
 Catholic, with his queen, Isabella, brought all of Spain into one king- 
 dom, which the king and queen ruled with great splendor. Queen Isa- 
 bella provided Columbus with money to sail westward. The Great Captain 
 was Hernandez de Cordova, who materially aided King Ferdinand in 
 the wars against the Moors and helped the king of Naples in his war 
 with the king of France. 
 
 1 7 highly cultivated minds : Macaulay is no doubt correct in thinking 
 that not one university man in ten could tell that Major Munro in 1764 
 won the battle of Buxar against Sujah Dowlah and his allies, Shah Alum 
 and Mir Cossim (Nabob of Bengal) ; that Mir Cossim in 1763 perpetrated 
 the massacre of Patna, in which the head of the Patna trading post, 
 over a hundred and fifty other Englishmen, and two thousand sepoys 
 were cut to pieces, a massacre which later in the essay is said to have 
 surpassed in atrocity that of the Black Hole ; that Sujah Dowlah ruled in 
 Oude, in the northern part of India, and not in Travancore, in the ex- 
 treme south ; that Holkar, one of the chiefs of the powerful race called 
 Mahrattas, was a Hindoo and not a Mussulman. 
 
 2 2 handful of his countrymen : this is no exaggeration. The sentence 
 serves as topic for the whole essay. Clive, as leader of the handful of 
 Englishmen, subjugated in the course of a few years one of the greatest 
 empires in the world. Macaulay- does not limit himself to the exploits 
 of Clive ; the essay covers the whole period of Indian history in the 
 events of which Clive was chiefly concerned. 
 
 221 
 
222 NOTES 
 
 2 7 the historians : James Mill, author of " History of British India," 
 and Robert Orme, author of " History of the Military Transactions of 
 the British Nation in Indostan from the year 1745." 
 
 2 17 volumes before us : Macaulay's method of reviewing a book was 
 one commonly employed in the first half of the nineteenth century 
 when a distinguished group of essayists filled the pages of Knight's 
 Quarterly and the Edinburgh Review. The book that he was ostensibly 
 reviewing Macaulay would use as the basis for a long article on the 
 general subject which was touched by the book being reviewed. After 
 two or three paragraphs on the book he would approach the large sub- 
 ject involved and would make later only casual references to the book 
 that served as his text. In " Lord Clive " he nominally reviews Sir John 
 Malcolm's three-volume " Life of Robert, Lord Clive," a book the chief 
 merit of which is that it is enriched by extracts from Clive's corre- 
 spondence. The materials for the book were placed at the disposal of 
 Malcolm by Clive's eldest son, Edward, who in 1804 was made Earl of 
 Powis in recognition of his services as governor of Madras from 1798 
 to 1803 ; Macaulay speaks of Edward Clive as the late Lord Powis, be- 
 cause he died only the year before the essay was published. The essay 
 was first published in the Edinburgh Review in January, 1840, though the 
 author began work on it nearly a year before. 
 
 2 32 passes the love of biographers : an adaptation of Scriptural phra- 
 seology — " Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women " 
 (2 Samuel i. 26). Like the contemporary essayist Ruskin, Macaulay 
 quotes or adapts many Scriptural phrases. Other passages in " Lord 
 Clive " taken from the Bible or suggested by the Bible are as follows : 
 "with the rapidity of the prophet's gourd," 5 9, from Jonah iv. 6-10; 
 " Gog or Magog of prophecy," 11 15, from Revelations xx. 8 ; " given up 
 the ghost," 21 24, from Acts v. 5 ; " ' yea, yea,' and '■ nay, nay,' " 48 23, 
 from Matthew v. 37 and James v. 12; "wages of corruption," 50 22, 
 from Romans vi. 23 ; " little- finger . . . thicker than the loins," 63 32, from 
 1 Kings xii. 10; "had chosen the good part," 681, from Luke x. 42 ; 
 "which rejoiceth exceedingly," 87 32, from Job iii. 22. 
 
 3 11 Market-Dray ton, in Shropshire : guide books now find nothing 
 else to say about this small town except' that Clive was born here, and 
 as a boy climbed the lofty steeple of St. Stephen's Church. Market- 
 Drayton is about forty miles southwest of Manchester. 
 
 3 29 one of his uncles : Bayley, husband of Clive's mother's sister. 
 Living with the Bayley s, Clive spent part of his youth near the city of 
 Manchester. 
 
 4 6 school to school : the schools were at Lostocke in Cheshire and at 
 
LORD CLIVE 223 
 
 Market-Drayton ; in the city of London, — the Merchant Taylors' School ; 
 and at Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. The master who prophe- 
 sied that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world was Dr. 
 Eaton of Lostocke, whose words were, " If that lad should live to be a 
 man, and an opportunity be given for the exertion of his talents, few 
 names would be greater than his." 
 
 415 writership : ' clerkship.' — East India Company: for the method 
 of conducting the Company see the note on " Directors," 27 14. 
 
 4 16 shipped him off : by reference to 98 33 and 99 6 it will be seen 
 that both Clive and Hastings started as junior clerks in the Indian civil 
 service. 
 
 4 17 Madras : the geography of India as touched upon in these essays 
 will prove puzzling without frequent reference to the maps. It will be 
 well to fix in mind the location of Madras and the Carnatic province on 
 the southeastern or Coromandel coast, Calcutta and the Bengal province 
 in the northeast, and Bombay on the western or Malabar coast. With 
 these fixed points and districts to go by, it will not be so difficult 
 to understand the location of the smaller trading posts, native cities, 
 and provinces that are being constantly mentioned. Besides the two 
 maps in this book, the maps numbered 104 and 105 in the atlas of the 
 Century Dictionary, if available, will be found useful, for they contain 
 practically all places referred to in the essays. Moreover, the Century 
 atlas is provided with a complete and convenient index. A book of 
 even more value, though not so likely to be found in every school or 
 city library, is Edward Thornton's " A Gazetteer of the Territories under 
 the Government of the East India Company and of the Native States 
 on the Continent of India." This gazetteer was published in London 
 in 1857 by W. H. Allen & Co. 
 
 4 19 East India College : young men who had been named to be clerks 
 in the service spent two preparatory years at the college founded by the 
 East India Company in 1806 at Haileybury, Hertfordshire. The studies 
 included law and Oriental languages. In 1858, after the establishment of 
 a competitive system for the appointment of clerks had taken away from 
 the East India directors their privilege of naming clerks without exam- 
 ination, the old college was closed. The present Haileybury College 
 was founded in 1862 (Haydn's " Dictionary of Dates"). — now: one of the 
 author's favorite words in the essays, for he continually compares con- 
 ditions of the times of Clive and Hastings with conditions which he 
 knew in 1838 when he himself lived in India. 
 
 4 20 Presidencies : chief administrative divisions, of which there were 
 three, namely, Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. 
 
224 NOTES 
 
 5 13 cool breeze : the vivid detail brightens up the paragraph and helps 
 to make Macaulay's writing " sufficiently animated and picturesque to 
 attract those who read for amusement" (2 9). Those who read merely 
 for instruction might try the article on India in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
 nica. There they will find, for example, that the average annual mean 
 temperature in the Madras region is over 8o degrees. 
 
 5 17 But : have you already noticed Macaulay's abundant use of this 
 connective ? What characteristic of his style is indicated by the free 
 use of "but" ? 
 
 5 27 Anglo-Indian of the present day : starting work on the essay as 
 soon as he returned to London from India in 1839, Macaulay realized 
 keenly the feelings of Anglo-Indians, that is, Englishmen who had 
 returned from service in India. 
 
 5 31 independent power : it was not until the completion of the work 
 of Clive and Hastings that the English governors could claim much 
 independent power. See numerous references in later paragraphs. 
 
 5 32 Nabob . . . Nizam . . . Great Mogul : in the two essays there are 
 repeated references to the various titles of rulers in India. " Nabob " is a 
 Hindoo term for viceroy or governor, especially under the old Mogul 
 empire. " Dowlah " is the Mohammedan title equivalent to governor. 
 " Nizam," " Great Mogul," " Shah," " Padishah," " Rajah," " Maharajah," 
 " Khan," and " Peshwa" are all terms meaning chief ruler or king. More 
 specifically, Nizam means a native ruler of Hyderabad; Great Mogul 
 means emperor of Delhi, where Tamerlane established his capital ; Shah 
 and Padishah (Persian in origin) signify king or ruler, but are now in 
 India often merely common additions to surnames ; Rajah is an Anglo- 
 Indian word meaning a Hindoo chief or prince in a tribal state, but is often 
 used as a mere title of distinction ; Maharajah is a title of some native 
 Hindoo rulers ; Khan means, in some Asiatic countries, a sovereign ruler, 
 but is in India usually nothing but a title like the English " esquire," 
 applicable to almost any person of repute ; Peshwa meant formerly a 
 chief of the Mahrattas. w Vizier " is a title applied to a high official in a 
 Mohammedan country, especially a minister of state (see the Standard 
 Dictionary). 
 
 In order to understand Macaulay's use of some of these terms, one 
 must know something of the early history of India. The nominal ruler 
 when Clive arrived at Madras was the emperor, known by the title of 
 Great Mogul. This Mogul had come gradually into his place of power 
 and had gradually lost it. Two races, each professing the Mohammedan 
 religion, in turn swept over the native Hindoos. The first of these races 
 were the Afghans ; the next, the Mongols or Moguls. In the eleventh 
 
LORD CLIVE 225 
 
 century a king from Afghanistan occupied part of northern India. In 
 the thirteenth century the Afghans took the Deccan, the great south 
 central province, and soon ruled all India. In the fourteenth century 
 Mongolian or Mogul chiefs, defeating the Afghan rulers, passed from 
 central Asia beyond the Indus River. Tamerlane, a powerful Mogul 
 chief, captured Delhi and made the name of the Moguls feared even in 
 the far south. The next century, with the departure of the Mogul tribes 
 to their native Central Asia, the whole land of India was in a state of 
 local independence or of troubled Afghan rule. Then in the sixteenth 
 century Baber, the Tiger, a descendant of Tamerlane, conquered the 
 Afghan rulers and brought nearly all the Hindoos into the Mogul em- 
 pire (see 9 29). Other Mogul emperors, Akbar the Great, Jehangir, 
 Shah Jehan, and Aurungzebe, continued the Mogul rule on a scale of 
 unsurpassed magnificence at the capital, Agra, which was adorned with 
 the wonderful Taj Mahal and other magnificent buildings (see 9 33). Au- 
 rungzebe, "the king of the world," tyrannized over the native Hindoos 
 and favored the foreign Mohammedans to such an extent that there was 
 bound to be a recoil. About the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 the Mogul power began actually to decline, though nominally the Great 
 Mogul, as Macaulay says, continued in such authority that the Nizam or 
 Viceroy of the Deccan was only his deputy. 
 
 6 3 There is still : note the three successive sentences beginning in 
 the same way. This rhetorical effect, called repeated structure, is a help 
 to clearness and force of expression. 
 
 6 7 resident : as used before the organization of the civil service, the 
 word meant a person residing in a place as the chief of one of the com- 
 mercial establishments of the East India Company. Later, the word 
 meant a representative of the viceroy at an important native court, as 
 at Lucknow or Delhi. Compare " residencies," 61 2. 
 
 6 17 His pay was small : what is the effect of the short sentences used 
 here ? 
 
 6 22 Fort St. George : the official name for Madras. 
 
 7 10 As a boy : one of the best of the numerous Macaulay balances. 
 7 12 But neither climate nor : the first half of this sentence serves as 
 
 a transition to a new line of thought which is developed in the para- 
 graph. There are numerous examples of this linking together of the 
 parts of the essay. 
 
 7 19 Wallenstein : this is the sort of historical allusion that makes the 
 reading of the essay difficult for one who lacks a background of his- 
 torical information. Really the comparison only confuses the average 
 reader, for the allusion adds nothing to the idea, which was already plain 
 
226 NOTES 
 
 without the comparison. Wallenstein (i 583-1634) was a general in the 
 Thirty Years' War between Roman Catholic and Protestant forces in 
 Germany. Schiller has put the story of Wallenstein into a great tragedy. 
 
 7 23 an event : the humiliation of the English governor of Madras 
 (see the next paragraph). Macaulay, following a favorite method of his 
 in the essays, stops the direct course of the narrative of Clive's life, and 
 introduces explanatory historical matter intended to make the particu- 
 lar narrative plainer when it is resumed. What other illustrations of this 
 method appear in the two essays ? 
 
 8 17 conquests made by the French arms : the French influence in 
 India began at Surat (north of Bombay) in 1666, with the establishment 
 of the first French trading post. After suffering a number of setbacks 
 from the Dutch colonizers, the French, in 1741, when Dupleix became 
 governor of Pondicherry, began to go forward in power. The " gigantic 
 schemes " of conquest which Dupleix attempted to carry out are told in 
 the following paragraphs of the essay. 
 
 8 29 Clive fled : observe that the narrative of Clive's actions in India 
 is here resumed. 
 
 95 a desperate duel : over Clive's charge that the bully had cheated 
 at cards. What duel did Hastings engage in ? 
 
 9 20 Major Lawrence : in his old age Major Stringer Lawrence received 
 an annual pension of ^500 from Clive in recognition of his early kind- 
 ness to the young soldier. 
 
 9 29 Baber and his Moguls : see note 5 32. The substance of the ex- 
 planatory history given on pages 9-18 is that, in the confusion resulting 
 from the struggle between the Mohammedans and the Hindoos, an am- 
 bitious Frenchman, Dupleix, allying himself with claimants to great 
 provinces on the east coast and in central India, became practical mas- 
 ter of thirty million people, and had apparently little to fear from Eng- 
 lish rivalry. These pages might be cut out in an abridgment of the 
 essay. What is the author's purpose in inserting them ? 
 
 9 34 travelers who had seen St. Peter's : Sir Thomas Roe and Fran- 
 cois Bernier, named on page 12, line 5, wrote accounts of the astonish- 
 ing things they saw in India, — things which were astonishing even to men 
 who had seen St. Peter's. For Roe's advice on the Indian problem see 
 page 68, line 30. Another traveler, Tavernier, saw the Kohinoor dia- 
 mond at the court of Aurungzebe. The reason why Macaulay mentioned 
 St. Peter's was no doubt his own memory of that great building. In his 
 journal, November 18, 1838, he writes concerning his first visit to St. 
 Peter's at Rome : " I was for a minute fairly stunned by the magnifi- 
 cence and harmony of the interior. I never in my life saw, and never, 
 
LORD CLIVE 227 
 
 I suppose, shall see again, anything so astonishingly beautiful. I really 
 could have cried with pleasure. I rambled about for half an hour or 
 more, paying little or no attention to details, but enjoying the effect of 
 the sublime whole." 
 
 10 3 Versailles : the group of palaces at Versailles, near Paris, seems 
 of dazzling brilliancy even now when the palaces are merely show places 
 and the furnishings are arranged stiffly for exhibition. Macaulay's point 
 is that the magnitude of St. Peter's and the luxury of Versailles were as 
 nothing compared with the pomp of the Mogul emperors. 
 
 10 33 no small analogy : like so many of Macaulay's historical analogies 
 or parallels or comparisons, this one, by which the successors of Aurung- 
 zebe are compared with the successors of Theodosius, though meant to 
 elucidate, really confuses, for the reader probably knows no more about 
 Theodosius than about Aurungzebe. Theodosius, a powerful emperor 
 of Rome, was succeeded by his sons, Arcadius and Honorius, who were 
 weaklings ; and they in turn were succeeded by other weaklings, so that the 
 mighty Holy Roman Empire was easily broken up by the Germanic tribes 
 and the Huns that attacked the frontiers and finally reached Rome itself. 
 
 11 34 chewing bhang: Macaulay's way of expressing contempt for use- 
 lessness. Bhang is a stimulating drug extracted from hemp. 
 
 12 3 A Persian conqueror : Nadir Shah carried off the treasures of 
 Delhi in 1739. The Peacock Throne is variously estimated to have been 
 worth from thirty to sixty million dollars. The peacock's tail was made 
 of blue sapphires and diamonds from the mines of Golconda, near Hyder- 
 abad. The body was of gold inlaid with gems, among them a splendid 
 ruby. In front of the breast was suspended a pear-shaped, fifty-carat 
 pearl. The Mountain of Light may well be called " inestimable." It is the 
 famous Kohinoor diamond, now kept in Windsor Castle, though a model 
 of it is on exhibition with the other crown jewels in the Tower, Lon- 
 don. This diamond came into the hands of the English in 1849 on their 
 conquest of the Punjab, and was presented to Queen Victoria by the 
 East India Company in 1850. 
 
 12 10 The Afghan : Ahmed Shah invaded India in 1748. 
 
 1212 Rajpootana: in northwest India. The Hindoos who dwelt in Raj - 
 pootana were, like the Rohillas, the Seiks, the Jauts, and the Mahrattas, 
 — all in northwestern India, — stronger and more courageous than the 
 Bengalese of northeastern India. 
 
 12 13 Rohilcund : the inhabitants of Rohilcund, that is the Rohillas, 
 were roving mountaineer warriors. Compare 118 24-119 20. 
 
 12 14 Seiks : starting in the fifteenth century as reformers of Hin- 
 dooism, the Seiks or Sikhs made headway in the Punjab, until they 
 
228 NOTES 
 
 conquered the whole of it. The Punjab was annexed by the English 
 in 1849, a f ter a series of battles with the Sikhs had been won by the 
 English. The Sikh soldier customarily prayed to his sword. See the 
 Century Dictionary of Names. — Jauts : these warlike people, living 
 in the north of India, with their capital near Agra, were conquered by the 
 English in 1826. 
 
 12 23 Mahrattas : a Hindoo race settled in northwestern India. 
 
 12 33 milder . . . tiger : characteristically lively and specific diction. 
 
 13 5 innumerable cavalry : what other examples do you find of un- 
 qualifiedly strong statements. 
 
 13 9 Mahratta ditch : an earthwork dug in 1742 about Calcutta to keep 
 out the Mahrattas of the district of Berar. What is the function of the 
 semicolon in this sentence ? 
 
 13 10 Wherever the viceroys : contrast the abrupt opening of this 
 paragraph with the smooth connection between most of the paragraphs. 
 
 13 31 fifteen thousand miles : by the route then followed, before the 
 building of the Suez Canal. 
 
 14 12 only : criticize the word order. 
 
 14 19 Saxe or Frederic : again historical allusions are made for the 
 purpose of comparison. Maurice, Comte de Saxe, best known as Mar- 
 shal Saxe, 1696-1750, won many victories for France in the War of the 
 Austrian Succession, notably that of Fontenoy over the English and 
 their allies in 1745. Frederic the Great was king of Prussia from 1740 
 to 1786. 
 
 14 31 confounded the confusion : a phrase taken from line 996 of the 
 second book of Milton's " Paradise Lost." It is said that Macaulay could 
 repeat from memory the whole of this poem. 
 
 15 8 heir of Baber : explained by the word Mogul in the next sentence. 
 
 16 1 success . . . war : besides capturing Madras, the French success- 
 fully defended Pondicherry from an attack by the English. 
 
 16 13 eloquence of Burke : for appreciative characterizations of Burke, 
 turn to pages 190 and 204. 
 
 16 24 Te Deum ; a Latin hymn of thanks and rejoicing which begins 
 Te Deum laudamus, that is, " Thee, God, we praise." What is the syntax 
 of Te Deum as used by Macaulay ? 
 
 16 28 palanquin : what does Macaulay gain for his narrative by the 
 introduction of this and similar strange words ? 
 
 16 30 Cape Comorin : southernmost point of India. 
 
 17 18 vainglorious Frenchman : what other adjectives are applied to 
 Dupleix ? Macaulay's national prejudices are wont to appear sharply in 
 his writings. 
 
LORD CLIVE 229 
 
 18 1 seemed impossible : by magnifying in advance the difficulties of 
 a situation and then showing how Clive or Hastings overcame them 
 with limited resources, the author extravagantly praises the two men. 
 
 18 3 had returned : have you observed Macaulay's fondness for the 
 pluperfect? Running rapidly over events that had happened, he had 
 a way of preparing by his pluperfect summary for a narrative of events 
 to be told in detail in regular order. 
 
 18 13 obscure English youth : observe the author's art in withholding 
 the name till the opening of the next paragraph. 
 
 18 15 twenty-five years old : note the method of dating the event. 
 Would you understand the essay better if the year of each important 
 event were given by the author ? 
 
 18 24 Arcot : the fort, which was large but not strong, was established 
 in 17 1 6. 
 
 19 4 thunder, lightning, and rain : Macaulay's retentive memory often 
 called to his mind, while he was writing, phrases from the Bible or 
 Milton or Shakespeare or other English classics. The phraseology here 
 is taken from " Macbeth," I, i. Where do you find in the book another 
 quotation from this play ? 
 
 20 15 Tenth Legion of Caesar : by alluding to Caesar's most trusted legion 
 and to Napoleon's most seasoned soldiers, does the essayist help you to 
 understand better the nature of the devotion of Clive's soldiers to him ? 
 
 20 20 no more touching : see the same phrase two paragraphs later. 
 Does the repetition make you conjecture that both the assertions are 
 exaggerated ? 
 
 21 2 large bribes : what was Clive's later record with regard to bribes ? 
 21 10 Mohammedan festival : mention other spellings of the word 
 
 Mohammedan. The festival was in honor of Hosein, who was a son of 
 Mohammed's first disciple, Ali, and his wife, Fatima. Hosein, called 
 later in the paragraph the chief of the Fatimites, was assassinated by 
 order of a rival, Yazid, the Khalif, whom the author calls the tyrant. 
 Islam, which literally means obedience to God, is another term for 
 Mohammedanism. Still another term is " Mussulmanism." What is the 
 author's purpose in telling the effect of the festival on Mohammedans ? 
 Compare the account of the siege of Arcot in some other history with 
 the lively, graphic narrative of Macaulay. 
 
 21 27 garden of the Houris : Mohammedan paradise. 
 
 22 13 of fanaticism and of intoxication : for the meaning, see the last 
 sentence of the preceding paragraph. Why does the author repeat " of " ? 
 
 23 24 just and profound policy : does Macaulay usually induce you to 
 accept his opinion ? Does he here ? 
 
230 NOTES 
 
 23 27 a spell. This spell : the method of closely connecting sentences 
 by repeating at the beginning of one sentence the last word or phrase of 
 the preceding sentence has been aptly called "echo" by Professor J.M. 
 Hart (" A Handbook of English Composition," p. 14). How many 
 examples of " echo " do you find in the two essays ? 
 
 24 8 bare justice : frequently Macaulay speaks of doing justice to 
 some one ; he often uses such expressions as " justice," " justified," " un- 
 just," " impartial," " judge," and " injustice." With all these references to 
 the impartiality of his attitude, does he convince you of his lack of bias ? 
 
 25 2 Captain Bobadil : what is the use of such literary allusions as 
 this ? Bobadil is a boaster in Ben Jonson's comedy, " Every Man in 
 His Humour." 
 
 25 18 probably : is this a good word to use in the writing of history ? 
 
 25 29 decline : what word would contrast better with " increase " ? 
 
 26 6 worst and lowest wretches : called in the next sentence an " un- 
 disciplined rabble " and in the sentence after that called sarcastically 
 " extraordinary soldiers." Does the author's constant attempt to depre- 
 ciate the means that Clive employed and to exaggerate the insignificant 
 opposition with which he had to contend grow a little tiresome to you ? 
 
 26 8 flash houses : that is, houses frequented by criminals and dis- 
 solute idlers, both men and women. 
 
 26 30 married : why does not the author give more space to an 
 account of Clive's family life ? 
 
 27 14 Directors : the method of management of the East India Com- 
 pany was changed several times. In the time of Clive, a person who 
 owned ^500 of stock was a Proprietor. The Proprietors made the reg- 
 ulations for the Company, and annually elected twenty-four Directors. 
 The Directors administered the affairs of the Company. In 1773, the 
 year before Clive died, Parliament passed a regulating act which cur- 
 tailed the powers of the Directors. In 1784 the India Bill established 
 a Parliamentary Board of Control to approve or annul acts of the 
 Directors. 
 
 28 6 evacuation: 'squandering.' 
 
 28 8 the Government : what have the next two pages to do with the 
 main theme of the essay ? 
 
 28 27 First Lord of the Treasury : in the English cabinet the prime 
 minister held official position as first lord of the treasury. Compare 
 29 20, where " the Treasury " means the prime minister. 
 
 28 29 breaking . . . promoting : what words of the preceding part of 
 the sentence do these two words explain ? What is the use of the semi- 
 colon in this sentence ? 
 
LORD CLIVE 231 
 
 28 33 Reform Act in 1832 : this act abolished such " wretched " bor- 
 oughs as that referred to by Macaulay. Many boroughs of insignificant 
 population and importance had come to be known as " rotten boroughs." 
 They were represented in Parliament when great manufacturing cities 
 like Manchester were unrepresented. The Reform Act distributed rep- 
 resentation more fairly. See note on " Old Sarum," 126 24. 
 
 29 7 committee of the whole House : to expedite business, legislative 
 bodies often find it convenient to consider the whole body for the time 
 as a committee. Often in committees of the whole House the attendance 
 is small, since the actions of the committee must be approved by the 
 House in regular session. In the case referred to there were numerous 
 committee votes in favor of the " returning " or electing of Clive. A vote 
 was taken thus : those favoring one side passed into one room and those 
 favoring the other passed into another room ; this was called a " divi- 
 sion." Later, in the case of Clive, the House of Commons in regular 
 session rejected the action of itself when it had met as a committee. 
 
 30 13 the East : like " Asia " of the preceding sentence, this is used 
 to avoid repetition of the word " India." 
 
 30 26 Of the provinces : abrupt sequence. Pages 30-36 are devoted 
 to the Black Hole incident, which has nothing directly to do with Clive, 
 but is one of Macaulay's most vivid bits of writing. 
 
 30 28 for agriculture and for commerce : note how the details in five 
 following sentences develop the idea of the advantages of Bengal in 
 agriculture, and then the details of the next two sentences develop the 
 idea of the advantages for commerce. It is a pleasure to follow the sys- 
 tematic workings of Macaulay's mind as he unfolds a general statement. 
 What is the theme of the whole paragraph of which these key words 
 are a part ? 
 
 31 26 a hundred genuine Bengalese : note how the specific detail 
 clinches Macaulay's general assertion as to the enervated Bengalese. 
 A similar idea is found on page no, line 19, " All those millions do not 
 furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company." 
 
 32 8 the Course : a driveway in the suburbs of Calcutta. 
 
 32 16 Aliverdy Khan : a usurper, Nabob of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar 
 from 1740 to 1756. He was succeeded as Nabob by his grandson, 
 Surajah Dowlah, eighteen years old (Hunter's " India," Dutcher's edi- 
 tion, in the History of the Nations Series, published by Morris of 
 Philadelphia, p. 182). 
 
 33 24 frightened out of his wits : familiar, colloquial diction. What 
 other instances do you find of colloquial language in the essays ? 
 
 3410 summer solstice : June 20, 1756. 
 
232 NOTES 
 
 34 22 Nothing in history or fiction : compare " a massacre surpassing 
 in atrocity that of the Black Hole," 63 12, and comment on Macaulay's 
 consistency. — Ugolino : an Italian nobleman represented by Dante in his 
 " Inferno " as frozen in a lake of ice and devouring the head of an enemy 
 who had starved him to death in prison. He is referred to also in the 
 essay on Milton. 
 
 35 4 The day broke : short, crisp sentences give the effect of vigor 
 and liveliness to a narrative. 
 
 36 4 In August : year 1 7 56. 
 
 36 13 more subjects : another instance of Macaulay's trying to empha- 
 size the difficulties to be overcome by Clive. The population of Bengal 
 at that time was estimated at about thirty millions, though no approxi- 
 mately accurate census was taken in India till much later than this period. 
 
 36 15 did not reach Bengal till December : the distance from Madras 
 to Calcutta is about one thousand miles. 
 
 37 8 accommodation: 'agreement.' 
 
 37 13 war had commenced in Europe : the Seven Years' War between 
 Frederick II of Prussia and the allies, Austria, Russia, and France, lasted 
 from 1756 to 1763. 
 
 37 23 statesman : in making a topical outline of the essay, would you 
 make as two of the main headings Clive's acts as a soldier (pages 7- 
 37), and Clive's acts as a statesman (pages 37-74) ? What material do 
 you find in these pages not directly relevant to the work of Clive as a 
 soldier and a statesman ? 
 
 37 28 a stain : observe the key words in later paragraphs which bring 
 out the nature of the stain on Clive's moral character : " intriguer," 
 " hypocritical caresses," " substitution of documents," " counterfeiting 
 of hands," "dissimulation," "artifice," "expedient," "forged," "breach 
 of faith," " wages of corruption," and " rapacity." 
 
 39 31 The Nabob : is anything gained by the same opening for two 
 successive paragraphs ? 
 
 40 16 Mohammedans . . . Hindoos : the two chief religions of India. 
 They are still in conflict, for the recent reforms of Lord Morley, as 
 governor-general, are said by one of the leading Hindoos to have 
 divided India into two huge compartments, Hindoo and Mohammedan. 
 The reform of Lord Morley is objected to by the Indian Association of 
 Calcutta because " the Hindu population strongly objects to class rep- 
 resentation being granted the Mohammedan community beyond their 
 numerical strength." 
 
 42 30 mighty power : what is Macaulay's purpose in using this phrase 
 with regard to the opposition to Clive ? See in the next paragraph, " an 
 
LORD CLIVE 233 
 
 army twenty times as numerous as his own," and several paragraphs 
 later, " only three thousand men." The numbers of the opposing armies 
 as given by Macaulay are substantially the same as the figures in 
 Malleson's life of Clive. Malleson puts the numbers as somewhat less 
 for Clive and more for the Nabob. 
 
 43 13 masters of Bengal : the essayist does not in this sentence over- 
 estimate the importance of the battle of Plassey in the history of British 
 operations in India, nor does he three paragraphs later in the phrase, 
 " the day which was to decide the fate of India." He does not give details 
 of the important battle of Buxar, referred to in the first paragraph, be- 
 cause Clive was not the commander at Buxar. It is Clive with whom 
 this essay is mainly concerned, though the author glances at the cur- 
 rents of the whole Indian history of the time. 
 
 43 19 The river was passed : study the paragraph sequence. Macaulay 
 leads up to the passing of the river almost as if he had in mind 
 Caesar's famous moment of decision which led him to cross the 
 Rubicon. 
 
 44 11 the bolder race : the forces of the Nabob were largely of the 
 warlike race of Rajpoots. 
 
 44 21 Primus in Indis: 'First in India.' 
 
 46 21 a lad in Brazil : Malcolm says that Clive had an easy command 
 of the Portuguese language. 
 
 46 30 servants : employees in the civil service. 
 
 46 32 Omichund : deceived by the two treaties, one false and the other 
 genuine, he lost his reason for a time, but only for a time. Soon he was 
 at his old business again (Malleson's life of Clive). 
 
 47 17 judgment of our readers : study Macaulay's method of argu- 
 ment. Do his powers in this kind of writing appear equal to his skill in 
 narrative and descriptive composition ? 
 
 47 30 Machiavelli : this Italian statesman of Florence (1469-1 527) rep- 
 resents to the popular mind the acme of expedient subtlety in political 
 manipulation; he believed that the end justifies the means. He remained 
 for some months with Caesar Borgia in conference regarding Borgia's 
 intentions toward the Florentine republic. Machiavelli's " II Principe," 
 that is, " The Prince," written at a time when Italian politics were unprin- 
 cipled, is severely condemned by Macaulay in his essay on Machiavelli. 
 One of Macaulay's most striking criticisms is this : " Principles which 
 the most hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted 
 accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of palliating sophism, even to 
 his own mind, are professed without the slightest circumlocution, and 
 assumed as the fundamental axioms of all political science." 
 
234 NOTES 
 
 48 2 that, for this reason : the sentence is puzzling at first reading 
 because the antecedent of " that " is not obvious. Macaulay means that 
 the rule is subject to still fewer exceptions for the reason that the life 
 of societies is longer than the life of individuals. 
 
 49 33 shower of wealth : Malcolm gives the details of the treaty as 
 reported by Clive to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors in 
 17 58. One of the provisions was that one hundred lacs of rupees, equiv- 
 alent to ;£i, 000,000, were to be paid to the Company in consideration 
 of the loss at Calcutta and the expenses of the campaign. Another pro- 
 vision was that seventy-seven lacs were to be paid to the Council and 
 Clive for distribution among the sufferers at Calcutta — English, Arme- 
 nians, Moors, etc. Notice how picturesquely Macaulay tells of this shower 
 of wealth that fell upon the Company and Clive. 
 
 50 13 Venetians purchased : before Vasco da Gama passed around the 
 Cape of Good Hope to the East in 1498, the Venetians had practical 
 control of the trade with the East, the only route being by way of Venice, 
 Constantinople, Bagdad, and the Persian Gulf. Florins were coins of 
 Florence, and byzants were coins of Byzantium or Constantinople. 
 
 50 1G between two and three hundred thousand pounds : really a little 
 less than ^"200,000. Clive himself said, " When I recollect entering the 
 treasury of Moorshedabad, with the heaps of gold and silver to the right 
 hand and to the left, and these crowned with jewels, I stand astonished at 
 my own moderation." See also 83 27. Note how Macaulay transforms these 
 general words of Clive into the specific terms " rubies" and " diamonds." 
 
 50 20 vehemently defended : Macaulay is hardly fair to Malcolm, who 
 merely asserts what Mill also asserts, — that there was no law to forbid 
 Clive's conduct, which was parallel to the Duke of Marlborough's accept- 
 ing the principality of Mindelheim from Emperor Joseph I in 1705 ; to 
 Nelson's accepting in 1798 the estate of Bronte in Sicily from Fer- 
 dinand IV, king of Naples ; and to Wellington's accepting the dukedom 
 of Vittoria from Ferdinand VII, king of Spain, in 1813, all by the con- 
 sent of the English queen or king of the time. 
 
 52 28 viceroy of . . . Oude : that is, Sujah Dowlah, whose province of 
 Oude became practically independent of Mogul authority in 1753, and 
 whose armies were able after that to hold in check the powerful Mahratta 
 freebooters who threatened to overrun all of northwestern India. 
 
 52 34 India House : the London office of the East India Company 
 was at the corner of Leadenhall Street and Lime Street, in the eastern 
 part of London. Charles Lamb was a clerk there for over thirty years', 
 and James Mill, author of a history of India, was another of the 
 clerks who became famous. 
 
LORD CLIVE 235 
 
 53 32 tract . . . north of the Carnatic : ceded in 1753 to the French 
 by the Nizam of Hyderabad. 
 
 55 30 his tenant : that is, the Company had agreed to pay the thirty 
 thousand pounds annually to Nabob Meer Jaffier, but now the Nabob 
 turned the money over to Clive, so that the Company became in a sense 
 the tenant of Clive. 
 
 56 11 Batavia : a Dutch settlement, capital of the island of Java, and 
 one of the chief Dutch colonies. 
 
 57 18 sailed for England : February 5, 1760. 
 
 57 23 Irish peerage : he was made Baron of Plassey, but, being in the 
 Irish peerage, he had no seat in the House of Lords. As a baron he is 
 usually referred to as Lord Clive. 
 
 57 26 Pitt : William Pitt, the elder, better known as the Earl of Chat- 
 ham. Macaulay wrote two Edinburgh Review essays about the Earl of 
 Chatham, one published in 1834, the other in 1844. 
 
 57 33 King of Prussia : compare 14 19. Frederick the Great is said to 
 have told a commander in chief that a certain young nobleman would 
 better go to Clive if desirous of learning the art of war. Frederick is 
 referred to at the end of the paragraph as one of the " great tacticians of 
 Germany." — no reporters : reports of the House of Commons, where Pitt 
 was a " great orator," were not made verbatim, but were written outside 
 from memory by listeners like Dr. Samuel Johnson. It was not until 
 1834 that a box was built in which reporters were allowed to sit and 
 take down the exact proceedings of the House. 
 
 58 4 the only English general : what is Macaulay's purpose in belittling 
 the work of other English generals, except Wolfe ? Wolfe captured 
 Quebec in 1759. The Duke of Cumberland's single victory gained over 
 his countrymen was won in the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion in 
 Scotland in 1746; he was so cruel that he was dubbed "the butcher." 
 Conway was a general of no particular achievements in the Seven Years' 
 War. Granby, also in the Seven Years' War, helped in the battle of 
 Minden. Sackville was commander of the cavalry at Minden ; disobey- 
 ing an order to charge the French, he was accused of cowardice, " the 
 imputation most fatal to the character of a soldier." The chief com- 
 mand at Minden in 1759 an( ^ at Warburg the next year, when the French 
 were defeated by the allied English and Prussians, was held' by Prince 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick, the foreign general. It is characteristic of 
 Macaulay's style to substantiate a general statement by such specific 
 instances as those named in this paragraph. 
 
 59 25 worthless demogogue Wilkes : Green gives in his " Short His- 
 tory of the English People " a graphic account of Wilkes's attempts to 
 
236 NOTES 
 
 be seated as a member from Middlesex. Pitt denounced Wilkes as a 
 " worthless profligate." 
 
 60 18 Grampound election : the Cornish borough of Grampound was 
 disfranchised in 1820 because of its notorious corruption in elections. 
 
 60 24 ballot : each proprietor dropped in a box one ball for each block 
 of five hundred pounds of stock owned by him. 
 
 61 3 Sudder courts : the principal civil and criminal courts. 
 
 61 16 Pigot : this governor of Madras made ^"400,000 in India. 
 
 6125 South Sea year: that is, 1720, when the shares of the South 
 Sea Company, which had been chartered in 17 11 to trade with Spanish 
 South America, jumped in value from one hundred pounds to a thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 63 32 little finger : this application of Biblical phraseology produces 
 an extraordinarily vivid figure of speech. What have you observed 
 regarding the nature and the number of Macaulay's figures of speech ? 
 
 65 8 wholesale executions : for instance, Major Munro blew twenty- 
 four mutinous Sepoy leaders from the cannon's mouth in 1764 at Patna. 
 
 65 17 Verres : as praetor of Sicily, Verres so oppressed the Sicilians 
 that they accused him before the Roman Senate, Cicero being the 
 orator who brought the accusation. 
 
 66 15 In May, 1765, he reached Calcutta : when you make your topi- 
 cal outline of the entire essay, would it be better, instead of dividing 
 into main headings as mentioned in note 37 23, to make the main groups 
 Clive's first stay in India, his first return to England, his second stay, 
 his second return, his third stay, and his final return ? 
 
 69 15 proconsuls, propraetors, procurators : terms used in the govern- 
 ment of the Roman Empire. See dictionary for distinctions in meaning. 
 
 69 30 monopoly of salt : there is still a tax on salt in India. What is 
 the particular importance of salt in a tropical country ? 
 
 70 1 accused by historians : for instance, Mill and Thornton. 
 
 71 7 cashiered : dishonorably dismissed from the service. 
 
 71 34 chiefs of foreign mercenaries : in the decline of the Western Ro- 
 man Empire invading chiefs like Ricimer and Odoacer held the real 
 power in the empire. Ricimer made five different emperors in less than 
 twenty years. Odoacer was the barbarian leader who overthrew the 
 Western Roman Empire in 476 a.d. He was himself overcome by the 
 Emperor Theodoric, who, out of policy, had for a time allied himself with 
 the emperor of the Eastern Empire at the distant court of Byzantium. 
 
 72 20 Merovingian line : on page 13, line 14, Macaulay spoke of the 
 " most helpless driveler among the later Carlovingians." Now he speaks 
 of the " last driveling Chilperics and Childerics of the Merovingian 
 
LORD CLIVE 237 
 
 line." These allusions to the Carlovingian and Merovingian emperors 
 can be looked up in detail in any history of medieval Europe. The 
 point is that such kings as Chilperic and Childeric were merely nominal 
 rulers, while others held the real power. There is a similar allusion 
 in the Hastings essay. 
 
 72 25 other European nations : besides the French, the Dutch, and the 
 Danes, specifically mentioned here by Macaulay, the Venetians, the Gen- 
 oese, and the Portuguese were also concerned in the history of the 
 trade and the political control by European nations in India. The trade 
 of the Venetians and Genoese was overland, before an all-sea route to 
 India had been discovered. The Portuguese, after the landing of Vasco 
 da Gama in India, monopolized the trade for half a century. Then the 
 Dutch, becoming the greatest maritime power in Europe, took most of 
 the trade. The English began to get a hold in 1602. The Danes had an 
 East India Company which was early established, but went out of exist- 
 ence in 1728. The French power began in 1664 with the establishment 
 of the French East India Company. Of all the European powers the 
 English have been the strongest in India for the longest time. 
 
 74 4 fund which still bears his name : this was true when written in 
 1840, but in 1858 the money was distributed among Clive's heirs after 
 the government of India came entirely into the hands of the nation as 
 represented by the king or queen. 
 
 74 12 embittered the remaining years : pages 74-88 tell of the embitter- 
 ment of Clive's last years, from 1767 to 1774, in spite of his wealth and 
 some tokens of royal favor. The sentence serves as a general topic for 
 all these paragraphs. Macaulay in most of his essays uses this device 
 of a topic sentence for introducing a long stretch of paragraphs. A top- 
 ical heading for pages 74-88 might be : Odium of Clive in England in 
 spite of wealth and some royal favor, 1767-1774. 
 
 74 28 Nabobs : note the two different senses in which this word is 
 used. Pages 75-77 are of a general nature, explaining the feeling in 
 England toward nabobs as used in one sense of the word. 
 
 75 10 farmer-general : another of Macaulay's historical comparisons. 
 Farmer-generals in France grew rich from paying a lump sum for the 
 taxes of a district and then collecting a great deal more from the inhabi- 
 tants. Rich as these taxgatherers became, they were scorned by the 
 French nobility. Similar, Macaulay says, was the attitude of the English 
 nobility toward the upstart rich nabobs. 
 
 75 30 the stud : ' a collection of breeding horses and mares ' (Webster) . 
 
 76 4 Domesday Book : this book, now on exhibition in the Record 
 Office Museum on Chancery Lane, London, consists of two parchment 
 
238 NOTES 
 
 volumes. The book contains, among other statistical features, a record 
 of the owners of English farm and wood lands in 1086. Thus a family 
 recorded in the Domesday Book would be of very ancient descent. 
 
 76 11 foibles against which comedy : following his usual custom, 
 Macaulay illustrates this by mentioning two characters of celebrated 
 comedies ; namely, Turcaret, a coarse, rich stock operator, the hero of 
 Le Sage's comedy entitled "Turcaret"; and Monsieur Jourdain, a rich 
 tradesman, who, in old age, wants to become a polished gentleman, in 
 Moliere's " Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme." 
 
 76 12 crimes . . . tragedy : the references are possibly to the Nero of 
 Racine's tragedy " Britannicus " and to the Richard III of Shakespeare's 
 tragedy « Richard III." 
 
 76 20 dilettante : * a lover of the fine arts.' 
 
 76 21 macaroni black-balled : that is, the men of fashion voted against 
 the admission of the nabobs to membership in the fashionable clubs. 
 For a familiar use of the word " macaroni," recall the song " Yankee 
 Doodle." 
 
 76 25 the whole lighter literature : as usual, the essayist develops his 
 general statement by adding a catalogue of names. Foote and Mackenzie 
 were comic dramatists of the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
 Cowper was the poet referred to again in the eighth paragraph of 
 " Hastings." The Sir Matthew Mite of the next paragraph is a character 
 in Foote's comedy " The Nabob." 
 
 77 18 Berkeley Square : in a fashionable part of London (see Bae- 
 deker's M London" ). 
 
 78 9 He had to bear the whole odium : again Macaulay is the advocate, 
 presenting the subject of his biography in the best possible light. See 
 also 81 28, " He had to bear the double odium of his bad and of his good 
 actions, of every Indian abuse and of every Indian reform." 
 
 78 21 Johnson : if Samuel Johnson, the great literary dictator of the 
 eighteenth century, had prejudices against nabobs, how do you account 
 for his having been well disposed toward Warren Hastings, as explained 
 in the essay on Hastings ? 
 
 78 34 William Huntington, S.S. : a religious impostor who lived wick- 
 edly but pretended that he had seen Christ in the body. S.S. stood for 
 " Sinner Saved." 
 
 79 15 misery and death : note how these general words are expanded 
 into extraordinarily vivid specific details in the sentences that follow. 
 
 80 20 Adam Smith : a political economist, author of " The Wealth 
 of Nations," which is declared by Green in Chapter X of " A Short His- 
 tory of the English People " to rank among the greatest of books, if 
 
LORD CLIVE 239 
 
 books are to be measured by the effect which they have produced on 
 the fortunes of mankind. 
 
 81 18 between two tempests : explained by the next sentence. Ob- 
 serve that Macaulay, from the English point of view, thinks of the 
 American Revolutionary War as a civil war. 
 
 81 30 The state of the political world : the author does not neglect his 
 opportunity offered by this sentence to give an encyclopedic catalogue 
 of names. Look up Gre?iville, Chatham, and Rockingham in any ency- 
 clopedia or English history. 
 
 82 24 under the gallery : the seats for distinguished visitors are still 
 beneath the galleries. 
 
 83 12 alien from : would you say alien to ? 
 
 83 29 rose : ' adjourned.' 
 
 84 15 harnessed a Newfoundland dog : harnessing a dog to a carriage 
 was made a criminal offense in 1839. Macaulay not infrequently 
 brightens up an essay by an« allusion to familiar current events. 
 
 84 23 good and bad actions : Macaulay himself develops toward Clive 
 something of the " love that passes the love of biographers " (2 32). Has 
 Macaulay any interest in Clive except that of the open-minded historian 
 and critic ? Does he convince you that Clive's good outweighed his bad 
 actions, and that he was unfairly treated by his contemporaries ? 
 
 85 8 Knight of the Bath : on each side of the superb Chapel of 
 Henry VII in Westminster Abbey are thirty-six quaintly carved choir 
 stalls, each stall being appropriated to a Knight of the Order of the 
 Bath, an order established by George I in 1725. 
 
 85 10 Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire : on being invested with the office, 
 by which he represented the king in the county or shire, he had to 
 kiss the hand of the sovereign to show his allegiance. 
 
 85 17 Burgoyne : from Macaulay's description what new idea do you 
 obtain of General Burgoyne ? 
 
 86 3 The Commons resolved : state as simply as you can just what the 
 House voted concerning Clive. 
 
 86 15 previous question : by carrying the previous question the 
 opponents of Clive prevented the effort of his friends to sidetrack this 
 particular resolution without a vote. In the English Parliament, when 
 the previous question is carried the vote must be taken. When the 
 previous question is lost, the original motion is not given further 
 consideration. 
 
 86 33 almost every Frenchman : see in earlier paragraphs of the essay 
 what Macaulay says about the achievements of Labourdonnais, Dupleix, 
 and Lally. 
 
240 NOTES 
 
 87 1 the Bastille : on the site of this old Parisian prison, torn down by 
 the people in the French Revolution, there is now a high tower, the 
 view from the top of which well repays one for the hard, dark climb. 
 
 87 19 Voltaire would have produced : what is the use of this digression ? 
 
 88 33 died by his own hand : in the house at No. 45 Berkeley Square, 
 referred to previously in the essay. 
 
 89 15 From his first visit : do you enjoy the beautiful structure of 
 Macaulay's concluding paragraph ? 
 
 90 9 Antiochus and Tigranes : the first was subdued by Pompey, B.C. 
 65 ; the second by Lucullus, B.C. 69. Do you consider that the fame of 
 either Pompey or Lucullus was great ? 
 
 91 4 Trajan : emperor of Rome, 98-117 a.d. His victories were over 
 the Dacians and the Parthians. There are many monuments to him in 
 Rome. 
 
 91 8 Lord William Bentinck : could you rephrase the last sentence 
 so that the final impression should be not of Bentinck, governor-general 
 of India from 1828 to 1835, but of Lord Clive, who is the subject of the 
 essay and who should be made most prominent at the end ? When the 
 editor of the Edinburgh Review criticized this last sentence, Macaulay 
 made a slight change, but persisted in giving final emphasis to his high 
 estimation of Bentinck's services in India. 
 
NOTES ON WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 93 1 this book : like the Clive, the Hastings essay is nominally a 
 review of a biography. Slashing the biography in a few introductory 
 paragraphs, Macaulay passes on to his own estimate of the worth of 
 Hastings's career and to a vivid narrative of the striking events in which 
 Hastings was the central figure. The biography so summarily disposed 
 of by the essayist was the Rev. George R. Gleig's " Memoirs of the Life 
 of Warren Hastings, First Governor-General of Bengal," compiled from 
 original papers and first published in 1841 in three octavo volumes. As 
 soon as Macaulay read the book he wrote to the editor of the Edinburgh 
 Review that he considered the new Life of Hastings the worst book he 
 ever saw (Trevelyan's " The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," II, 92). 
 
 93 22 Christian minister : that is, Gleig. 
 
 94 3 Furor Biographicus : a Latin phrase meaning biographical pas- 
 sion or excitement or frenzy ; about equivalent in meaning to the expres- 
 sion used in the fourth paragraph of " Clive." 
 
 94 19 as he was : the positiveness with which Macaulay presents his 
 ideas seems to carry readers along unsuspectingly to believe implicitly 
 what he says. Really the view which is given of Hastings in this essay, 
 while in the main accepted as correct by sober and accurate historians, 
 is so marred by inaccuracies in statement of fact and by party prejudice in 
 interpretation of facts that the best authorities now consider Macaulay's 
 portraiture not entirely satisfactory. In subsequent notes attention will 
 be called to a few points on which later writers on Hastings's career 
 disagree with Macaulay. 
 
 94 28 Lely : Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), a native of Westphalia, went 
 to England in the reign of Charles I and became a fashionable portrait 
 painter. He painted the portrait of Cromwell about 1650. In the reign 
 of Charles II he painted the beauties of the court. 
 
 95 8 great Danish sea king : Hasting, or Hastings, after ravaging the 
 coast of France with his piratical crew, invaded England in 894 and was 
 defeated by King Alfred the Great. 
 
 95 14 chamberlain : one of the ancestors of Hastings, that is, William, 
 Lord Hastings, was appointed lord chamberlain of the royal household 
 
 241 
 
242 NOTES 
 
 of Edward IV. Sir Thomas More and David Hume are historians who 
 have written about this Lord Hastings, and Shakespeare in" Richard III " 
 uses him as one of the persons of the play (III, iv). For an account of 
 the Wars of the Roses, in which Lord Hastings took part, and for an 
 account of his execution, see the sixth chapter of Green's " Short History 
 of the English People." 
 
 95 18 events scarcely paralleled in romance : that is, events in the life 
 of Warren Hastings as related further on in the essay. Unconsciously 
 here Macaulay gives a characterization of the kind of narrative that he 
 is always prone to write when dealing with stirring historical events. 
 His essays on historical themes have the flavor of romance and ar.e as 
 fascinating as romantic novels. 
 
 95 26 the civil war : a term applied to the internal disturbances in 
 England from 1642 to 1660. The Cavaliers supported King Charles I. 
 As he was beheaded his supporters necessarily suffered loss of property. 
 Speaker Lenthal, of the House of Commons, presided from 1640 to 1653. 
 
 95 33 was sold : see page 214 for a reference to the reacquisition of 
 the Daylesford estate by a Hastings. One peculiarity of a Macaulay 
 essay is that it explains itself so often. Early in the essay a statement 
 will be made. Then that statement will be cleared up perhaps a hun- 
 dred pages later. Hence in the annotation there are bound to appear 
 many cross references which aim to save the time of the reader in look- 
 ing for points that he dimly remembers were alluded to at some earlier 
 place in the essay. 
 
 96 1 Before this transfer : the linking effect of such transition phrases 
 as this is interesting to notice throughout the essay. Time and again 
 this essayist begins a paragraph with a word, a phrase, or a sentence 
 directly taking up and carrying along the thought expressed at the end 
 of a preceding paragraph. 
 
 96 6 tithes : a tenth part of the produce of the land or an equivalent 
 money payment was supposed to be given to the clergy by the lord of 
 the manor, that is, the person of high rank who held direct title to 
 the land. 
 
 96 12 vicissitudes of fortune : the first six paragraphs are introductory. 
 They dispose of the book which called forth the essay, and they tell of 
 Hastings's ancestors. Then comes the phrase, " vicissitudes of fortune," 
 which is developed in the rest of the essay. 
 
 97 5 most striking peculiarity of his character : not usually successful 
 in estimating the hidden forces that make a man's character, Macaulay 
 in the case of Hastings was able somehow to comprehend the person- 
 ality well enough for him to characterize Hastings about as he has been 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 243 
 
 characterized by later historians. Note that Macaulay almost never for- 
 gets in a later part of his essay what he has said in an early part. He 
 sees the end before he begins. Compare the characterization of Hastings 
 here with that in the last sentence of the essay. 
 
 97 13 Newington : a London suburb. 
 
 97 16 Westminster School : if you pass through the cloisters of West- 
 minster Abbey to the buildings beyond, you may perhaps some day see 
 a troop of boys from the school come rushing by on their way to the 
 cricket field, mortar boards on their heads and gowns flowing in the 
 breeze. 
 
 97 19 Cowper : what is the purpose of the description of Cowper ? 
 Is this a digression ? 
 
 98 8 another associate : though the description of the poet Cowper is 
 accurate, the numerous references to Impey are not supported by re- 
 cent historical research and unbiased study of the documentary evidence. 
 For instance, see note 127 18. 
 
 98 16 the foundation : a scholarship established by funds provided at 
 the time of starting an endowed school. 
 
 98 19 studentship at Christ Church : scholarship at Christ Church Col- 
 lege, Oxford, to be held two years, at about four hundred dollars a year. 
 
 98 30 hexameters and pentameters : in the great English public schools 
 like Westminster much time was spent on Latin and Greek composi- 
 tion, that is, the writing of verse in Latin and Greek, six feet to a line 
 and five feet to a line. 
 
 99 7 Fort William : the official name for Calcutta, as Fort St. George 
 was for Madras. 
 
 99 11 war of the succession : the French aided certain pretenders to 
 the government of the Carnatic when the powerful Nizam al Mulk died 
 in 1748. Clive defeated the pretenders, as related on pages 15-24. 
 
 99 15 ledgers and bills of lading : note the lively, specific way of say- 
 ing " purely commercial business " as opposed to diplomacy and war. 
 
 99 20 city of London bears to Westminster : the metropolitan district 
 generally known as London embraces a number of boroughs, including 
 the region where the Lord Mayor lives. This smaller region is known 
 technically as the city of London. In the city are the Bank of London 
 and the great commercial houses. Westminster is the part of the met- 
 ropolitan district where the Houses of Parliament and St. James's Palace 
 and Buckingham Palace are situated. The city is the trading center, 
 and Westminster is the center of court life. So it was with Cossimba- 
 zar and Moorshedabad : the first was the " place of trade," the second 
 the place of the court. 
 
244 NOTES 
 
 99 32 Surajah Dowlah : this viceroy or nabob of Bengal, at the age of 
 eighteen successor to his grandfather, Aliverdy Khan, was of an ungovern- 
 able temper (see page 32, lines 16-19). Within two months after his 
 accession he was at war with the English. In pursuit of one of his own 
 family who had escaped from his vengeance, he led his army toward 
 Calcutta. The English who remained in Calcutta were shut up by 
 Surajah Dowlah's command in the Black Hole, or military jail of Fort 
 William. For an account of Surajah Dowlah's death see page 49. Sura- 
 jah Dowlah must not be confused with Sujah Dowlah, nabob of Oude 
 (page 1, line 9). 
 
 100 6 Black Hole : turn back to " Clive " and read again the extraor- 
 dinary description of the atrocity. 
 
 100 7 In these events : why is this phrase put first in the sentence ? 
 How Hastings's greatness originated in these events is explained later 
 in the paragraph. 
 
 100 12 prisoner at large : in restraint, but allowed to move about 
 freely within definite limits. 
 
 100 15 The treason : two confederates, namely, the minister of finance 
 of Surajah Dowlah and a rich banker, conspired to supplant Surajah 
 Dowlah and to put Mir Jaffier, the commander in chief of his army, in 
 his place. Clive supported the conspirators. By the victory of Plassey, 
 1757, Clive was able to carry out the plans of the confederates and put 
 Mir Jaffier on the throne in place of Surajah Dowlah. 
 
 100 21 Soon after his arrival at Fulda : another instance of Macaulay's 
 method of knitting paragraphs closely together. 
 
 100 34 member of Council : the Company's interests in Calcutta were 
 at that time looked after by a president and a council of merchants, 
 The members of the council received small salaries, but were allowed 
 to make as much as they could from private trading. It was this 
 privilege which caused the scandalous administration told of on page 
 101 and related even more fully and graphically in the essay on 
 Clive (pages 62-68). What have pages 101-102 to do with Warren 
 Hastings ? 
 
 101 12 master caste : equivalent to " dominant class," used later in 
 the paragraph. Both expressions refer to the English. 
 
 102 5 St. James's Square : an aristocratic place of residence ever since 
 it was first laid out in the reign of Charles II (Baedeker's " London"). 
 
 102 19 unparalleled ... in the history of mankind : a characteristic 
 exaggeration. 
 
 102 21 lamentable blemishes : what blemishes does the author later 
 discuss ? 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 245 
 
 102 25 Mr. Vansittart : in the interval between the first and the second 
 administration of Clive, the governor was Henry Vansittart (1 760-1 764). 
 
 102 30 galleon : Macaulay's vocabulary you have no doubt discovered 
 to be rich and picturesque, but rarely eccentric. Such of his words as are 
 not familiar to the average reader are in most instances easy to find in 
 an unabridged dictionary. Here the interesting words " buccaneer," 
 " galleon," and " freebooter " are particularly effective. The only real dif- 
 ficulty in this author's use of words is that sometimes he employs a 
 word in a technical sense, as, for example, " living " and " resident " 
 previously explained. 
 
 102 33 a statesman : in his authoritative book, " A Brief History of 
 Indian Peoples," Sir William Hunter tells of the unsuccessful efforts of 
 Governor Vansittart and the junior member of council, Warren Hastings, 
 to settle the general rising against the English which took place in 1763. 
 
 103 11 little is known : observe other expressions along here, indica- 
 ting a cautious method of making assertions : " it has been asserted," 
 " is probable," " it is said," " as it should seem," " appears to have left." 
 Have you formed the opinion that Macaulay is in general extremely 
 careful not to make unwarranted statements ? 
 
 103 31 Hafiz and Ferdusi : medieval Persian poets. 
 
 104 10 acceded to : what different words might have been used here, 
 each giving a slightly different shade of meaning but all having about 
 the same general significance ? 
 
 104 18 matter for a novel : if you have any knack in writing fiction, 
 try your hand at a story of Hastings's voyage on the Indiaman. 
 
 104 20 Imhoff : what is Macaulay's purpose in belittling this man ? As 
 a matter or fact, Imhoff was really a German officer of some standing, 
 — the third son of Baron Christopher Imhoff, a descendant of a crusader. 
 
 104 23 pagodas : gold coins having a " pagoda " stamped upon them. 
 The value was about two dollars. In the period of maladministration of 
 Bengal the expression " to shake the pagoda tree " became popular, for 
 the English officials took delight in changing from one nabob to another 
 and receiving from each new nabob vast donations on his accession. 
 
 104 25 somewhere read : an omnivorous reader, Macaulay held tena- 
 ciously in his memory all that he read. Stephen, in " The Story of 
 Nuncomar," says that Macaulay undoubtedly read the detail in the 
 " Siyyar Mutaqherin," Vol. II, p. 476, translator's note, " Born at Arch- 
 angel." The detail about the birthplace of the Baroness Imhoff shows 
 the specificness, the concreteness in which Macaulay fairly revels. 
 
 105 2 a voyage : note the lively general narrative of a sea voyage 
 followed by the more lively particular narrative of Hastings's voyage. 
 
246 NOTES 
 
 105 20 met : why is the verb put before the subject? 
 
 106 30 new post : the governor of Bengal lived at Calcutta (Fort 
 William). Hastings had been residing at Madras (Fort St. George). 
 
 107 22 Augustulus ... to Odoacer : the relation of the last Roman 
 emperors to the German generals is explained in note 71 34. 
 
 107 27 cadet : inferior officer in the military service, usually serving 
 without a commission for the purpose of learning the art of war. 
 
 108 6 Mr. Pitt : William Pitt, the younger, as prime minister secured 
 the passage in 1784 of an East India bill which established a system 
 of dual control of India by the English government and the English 
 East India Company. This act, somewhat amended at various times, 
 continued in operation till 1858 (Hunter's " India"). 
 
 108 9 no materials ... for a representative constitution : the latest 
 dispatches from India indicate that the Indian policy of the British gov- 
 ernment is changing and that the natives of India are to be allowed a 
 considerably larger share in the government. In fact, an embryo consti- 
 tution which admits the natives to an important share in the legislation 
 of the country went into effect November 15, 1909. 
 
 109 14 each of them the representative of a race and of a religion : one 
 was of the Persian race and the Mussulman or Mohammedan religion ; 
 the other was of the Hindoo race and the Brahmin religion. 
 
 109 20 lower standard of Indian morality : what is the purpose in the 
 essayist's constant insistence on this point ? 
 
 109 31 What the Italian . . . Bengalese : this type of sentence is a fa- 
 vorite of Macaulay's. He uses it again later in the paragraph : " What 
 the horns are to the buffalo," etc. In the sentence the national pride 
 of the author is evident from his implication that the Englishman is of 
 stronger physique than the Italian. Note how lucidly the latter part of 
 the sentence, " what the Bengalese is to other Hindoos, that was Nun- 
 comar to other Bengalese," is explained in the rest of the paragraph and 
 in the next paragraph. 
 
 110 12 Ionian : in the third satire of the Latin poet Juvenal the 
 " Ionian " is characterized as subtle and versatile. 
 
 110 13 Jew of the dark ages : for instance, the imaginary Isaac of 
 York in Scott's novel " Ivanhoe." 
 
 110 15 the old Greek song : according to which the beauty of women 
 stood to them in place of shield and sword and gave them victory over 
 arms and fire. With this explanation observe now the significance 
 of "weapons, offensive and defensive," in the next sentence. The 
 idea is that the Bengalese won his victories by deceit instead of by 
 physical force. 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 247 
 
 110 32 the Bengalese . . . endure torture : the Bengalese still show 
 firmness under pain, but during the summer of 1909 they also showed 
 w spirit to strike blows " on several occasions. The Indian papers have 
 printed much recently concerning the callousness and the boldness of 
 the Bengalese terrorists in their attacks on British officials. 
 
 111 2 firmness of Mucius : in the index of almost any Roman history 
 reference can be found to the narrative of the exploit of Caius Mucius, 
 who, a prisoner condemned to be burned to death, saved his life by thrust- 
 ing his right hand into the fire and watching it burn to a crisp. For his 
 bravery his life was spared, and he was named Scaevola, " the left- 
 handed " (Lippincott's " Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary "). Some 
 writers consider that the interesting story about Mucius was invented 
 to explain why he was called <" left-handed." 
 
 Ill 3 Algernon Sydney : implicated in the Rye House Plot and be- 
 headed in 1683. 
 
 Ill 8 substantiate : mention other verbs about equivalent in meaning. 
 Is this the best word for the place ? 
 
 111 22 Therefore, though the Nabob : notice the skill shown in the dis- 
 position of the phrases in this sentence. 
 
 112 34 compose : what is the meaning of the word as used here ? 
 114 10 Munny Begum : widow of Mir Jaffier. M Begum " means prin- 
 cess ; " munny," mother. 
 
 114 15 inoffensive child : for the sake of a balanced structure the es- 
 sayist distorts the facts. Goordas was really of age. 
 
 115 4 his malevolence and his cupidity : on page in, line 30, the cupid- 
 ity and the malice of Nuncomar were mentioned. Note Macaulay's 
 method of announcing a subject, developing it by specific details, and 
 then clinching it at the end before passing on to the development of a 
 new idea. 
 
 115 15 desperate and deadly struggle : another instance of the method 
 of a novelist in hinting about future events. Suggesting that one group 
 of characters will be heard of later, a novelist will often leave the group 
 for a time to bring up to the same point the narrative of the actions of 
 another group. You will observe that Macaulay's method here is some- 
 thing like this. What are the merits of the plan ?. 
 
 115 22 predatory families of Teviotdale : the Cranstouns were a power- 
 ful family in the raids on the Scottish border. In his "' Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel " Scott relates the romantic adventures of Henry of 
 Cranstoun. 
 
 117 7 pay no more tribute : the Mogul emperor, Shah Alam, had be- 
 come subservient to the strong Mahratta race, enemies of the English 
 
248 NOTES 
 
 in northwestern India. Payment of tribute to him was therefore equiv- 
 alent to payment to enemies of the British, and Hastings decided to 
 save money by stopping the payments of tribute to the Mogul. 
 
 117 11 determined to sell them : as the terms which Hastings made 
 with the purchaser of the districts of Corah and Allahabad (which were 
 some five hundred miles northwest of Calcutta) brought censure later 
 upon Hastings, it is well to explain just what the terms of the sale were. 
 The purchaser, Macaulay tells clearly enough, was Sujah Dowlah (line 25), 
 prince or nabob vizier of the province of Oude. This prince wished to 
 obtain the districts of Corah and Allahabad because they were adjacent 
 to his own territory. Also adjacent to his boundaries was the province 
 of Rohilcund, occupied by the courageous and prosperous Rohillas 
 (see 1213). The lands of these people, who had been living in the 
 Rohilcund valley for thirty-five years, were coveted by Sujah Dowlah. 
 The bargain which Hastings made with Sujah Dowlah was, that in re- 
 turn for the districts of Corah and Allahabad the Company was to receive 
 over half a million pounds sterling and the Company was to lend Sujah 
 Dowlah a force to help to subdue the Rohillas. It is this transaction 
 which Macaulay so energetically condemns in pages 1 1 7-1 23. The matter 
 is put in a somewhat different light, much more favorable to Hastings, in 
 Hunter's " India " : 
 
 "On the partition of the Gangetic valley in 1765, Clive had allotted 
 the provinces of Allahabad and Corah to the Emperor Shah Alam. The 
 emperor, now in the hands of the Mahrattas, made them over to his 
 new masters. Warren Hastings held that by so doing his majesty had 
 forfeited his title to these provinces. Hastings accordingly resold them 
 to the vizier of Oude. By this measure he freed the Company from a 
 military charge of nearly half a million sterling, and obtained a price of 
 over half a million for the Company. The terms of sale included the 
 loan of British troops to subdue the Rohilla Afghans, who had seized 
 and for some time kept hold of a tract on the northwestern frontier of 
 Oude. The Rohillas were Mohammedans and foreigners ; they had 
 cruelly lorded it over the Hindu peasantry ; and they were now intrigu- 
 ing with the Mahrattas, the most dangerous foes of the English. The 
 vizier of Oude, supported by the British troops lent to him by Hastings, 
 completely defeated the Rohillas. He compelled most of their fighting 
 men to seek new homes on the other side of the Ganges River, in a 
 neighboring and equally fertile district, but one in which they could no 
 longer open the northern frontier of Oude to the Mahrattas." 
 
 11714 twenty years ago: in 1819 the prince of Oude took the title 
 of Shah or king. A prince of Oude would not have dared to take the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 249 
 
 title in Hastings's time, for then all the Mohammedans acknowledged 
 the headship of the Great Mogul ; no matter how powerful a prince 
 might really be, and no matter how little he yielded to the authority of 
 the nominal emperor, still he did feel it a religious duty to acknowledge 
 the Mogul as his chief. 
 
 118 15 the setting sun : that is, the west. The last two sentences of 
 this paragraph are a fine example of picturesqueness of style. Instead 
 of making bare and unadorned statements, the essayist uses specific 
 and vivid terms. Study the two sentences with this in mind, looking 
 especially at " rich and flexible Sanskrit," " Hyphasis and Hystaspes," 
 " children of the soil," " cross of Saint George." Then write a sober 
 paraphrase of the sentences. 
 
 118 16 Ghizni: in 1839 the English took the fortress of Ghizni 
 which was away up near Cabul in Afghanistan, and so, as Macaulay 
 says, turned the tide of conquest back toward the west, whereas before 
 this the course of conquest had always been from the Afghan territory 
 toward India. 
 
 118 34 from Lahore to Cape Comorin : why is this a more interesting 
 expression than its equivalent, " all India," would have been ? 
 
 119 31 unconquerable. British courage : find other illustrations of 
 Macaulay's characteristic patriotism. 
 
 120 10 Reverend Mr. Gleig : one of the few allusions by the essayist 
 to the author of the book that he was nominally reviewing. 
 
 120 21 to fight the Americans : does it seem refreshing to you to rec- 
 ognize at once one of the countless historical parallels found in the essay? 
 
 121 G caput lupinum : Latin, meaning 'wolf's head.' The whole sen- 
 tence means, Was it becoming for the English, who were themselves 
 foreign settlers, to maintain that a foreign settler who founds an empire 
 in India is a menace that might very properly be cut off ? What kind 
 of argument does Macaulay employ along here ? 
 
 121 9 atrocity of the crime : note Macaulay's positive, stinging method 
 of expression. 
 
 121 14 offered a large ransom : in the historical research made to get 
 all the facts of the Rohilla campaign, no record has been discovered of 
 the offer of any payment by the Rohilla leader for the breaking off of 
 hostilities. 
 
 121 19 dastardly : as an exercise for increasing your vocabulary, gather 
 together the condemnatory adjectives used in pages 1 19-122. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, the forces of Sujah Dowlah fought bravely and the vizier 
 himself was no coward. 
 
 122 23 to take order : ' to make sure,' 5 to take precautions.' 
 
250 NOTES 
 
 122 24 arguing a point so clear : what do you find to be the merits 
 and defects of Macaulay's argumentative passages ? 
 
 123 2 at the cold steel : of the methods of fighting employed in war- 
 fare, which one is referred to here ? 
 
 124 3 the first Governor-General : Hastings's administration is dis- 
 cussed in pages 124-183. This would be one of the main divisions in 
 a topical outline of the essay. What would be the more important sub- 
 divisions under this large heading ? 
 
 124 19 " Letters of Junius " : what was the author's purpose in devot- 
 ing any space at all to trying to prove that Francis was Junius ? The letters 
 were published in the Public Advertiser, beginning January 21, 1769. 
 They were on current political abuses and were addressed to prominent 
 public men. Besides Francis, other persons to whom at one time or 
 another the authorship of the letters has been attributed are William 
 Burke, William Gerard Hamilton, John Wilkes, Sergeant Adair, Rev. J. 
 Rosenhagen, John Roberts, Charles Lloyd, Samuel Dyer, General Lee, 
 the Duke of Portland, Hugh Boyd', Lord George Sackville, and Earl 
 Temple. Though he always denied the authorship, Sir Philip Francis 
 is now generally believed to have written the letters signed by the pen 
 name, Junius. 
 
 125 27 Corneille's tragedies : by reference to a biographical dictionary 
 explain the literary allusions of this sentence. What is their use in the 
 essay ? 
 
 126 7 Woodfall : the printer of the Junius letters. 
 126 13 " Doest . . . angry " : from Jonah iv. 9. 
 
 126 24 Old Sarum : Macaulay's strictures on the letters of Junius, 
 which supported the old, faulty representation, seem natural when one 
 remembers the part Macaulay took in the session of Parliament that 
 amended the representation. Old Sarum was a little Wiltshire village, 
 which, although completely decayed, returned two members to Parlia- 
 ment until 1832, when the Reform Bill was passed. 
 
 127 2 over to the ministerial benches : the seating of members in 
 the House of Commons is still the same. The members supporting 
 the party in power sit in the ministerial benches on the right side of the 
 Speaker ; the members of the opposition are seated on the left side. 
 
 127 18 Sir Elijah Impey : Macaulay's sweeping condemnation of the 
 part Chief Justice Impey played in Indian affairs is not borne out by 
 the findings of reputable later historians who have painstakingly exam- 
 ined the facts in the case. Impey faithfully cooperated with Hastings 
 in the long quarrel with Francis, but cannot justly be called a tool of 
 Plastings, for all of Impey's acts were directed by a high public spirit 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 25 I 
 
 rather than by a base desire merely to serve a friend by perverting facts 
 in a process of law. 
 
 127 28 twenty-one guns : the number of shots to be fired as a salute 
 to officials is regulated precisely. At the present time the matter has to 
 be attended to with the greatest care when war vessels visit a friendly 
 port or when one sovereign visits another. A salute of twenty-one guns 
 is given to a sovereign or a member of his family or to the president 
 or other head of a government. A salute of seventeen guns is given to 
 a governor-general or a governor. 
 
 127 31 that long quarrel : what were the incidents of the quarrel end- 
 ing in the breakdown and the death of Clavering ? What were the further 
 incidents ending in the return of Francis to England ? What were the 
 still further incidents ending in the acquittal of Hastings ? The sentence 
 on page 127, lines 31-34, serves as a topic sentence for the rest of the 
 essay. Where does the narrative of the events of the quarrel in India 
 end ? Where is the ending of the narrative of the events of the quarrel 
 in England ? 
 
 129 24 Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dangerfields : Titus Oates and two 
 accomplices, Bedloe and Dangerfield, alleged in 1678 that there was a 
 plot to kill King Charles II and destroy "Protestantism in England. 
 This alleged Popish Plot was soon found to be supported only by 
 the perjuries of Oates and Bedloe. Here, instead of using the color- 
 less term " perjurers," Macaulay employs the specific, vivid way of 
 saying the same thing by naming several notorious English perjurers, 
 Oates, Bedloe, and Dangerfield. — Westminster Hall: in this building 
 many of the greatest cases in English law have been heard. Here 
 Charles I was condemned to death and Warren Hastings acquitted. 
 Compare 201 23. 
 
 129 27 Nuncomar : in the narrative of the downfall of Nuncomar, 
 Macaulay again writes like a novelist. Does he rouse your feelings 
 against Nuncomar as a novelist would against the villain of a story ? 
 Compare note 186 32. 
 
 129 29 a grudge of seventeen years : Nuncomar's first trouble with 
 Hastings was in 1758. 
 
 132 21 idiots and biographers : another slur at Gleig, the biographer 
 of Hastings. 
 
 132 29 assizes : by learning the meanings of the legal terms used 
 along here, one might increase one's vocabulary very considerably: 
 M assizes," " true bill," " jury," " evidence," " verdict," " statute," M for- 
 gery," " swindling," and "assassination," pages 132 and 133 ; " advocate," 
 "practitioners, 
 
252 NOTES 
 
 "tribunal," "barrators," "bailiffs," "sponging houses," "jail," and 
 "magistrates," pages 148-151. 
 
 134 7 before the British empire in India : when did the " empire " begin 
 to exist ? 
 
 134 22 could not be put to death : Brahmins had, however, before this 
 been put to death by the operation of English law, even if contrary to the 
 old national law of India. Malleson in " The Life of Warren Hastings," 
 p. 237, says that the theory that a Brahmin could not be put to death for 
 any crime whatever had been departed from in a thousand instances. 
 
 135 33 a howl of sorrow and despair : the narrative of the death of 
 Nuncomar shows Macaulay's characteristic vividness in the use of 
 specific and picturesque details. 
 
 136 2 holy waters : the waters were considered holy because the 
 Hoogley was one of the mouths of the sacred Ganges River. 
 
 137 5 analogous case : gather together the analogous or parallel cases 
 that Macaulay cites in order to make plain his statements regarding 
 events in the lives of Hastings and Clive. What countries are referred 
 to in these citations of parallel historical events ? 
 
 137 6 Lord Stafford : accused by Titus Oates of complicity in the al- 
 leged Popish Plot, Lord Stafford, leader of the Roman Catholic party, 
 was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was impeached and be- 
 headed in 1680, though he was in all probability innocent. 
 
 137 20 crimes : enumerate the crimes of Hastings condemned by 
 Macaulay. See note 186 32. 
 
 138 23 "Tour to the Hebrides": in this book Dr. Samuel Johnson 
 tells of a tour that he made with James Boswell to the Hebrides, islands 
 on the west coast of Scotland. — Jones's "Persian Grammar": Sir 
 William Jones, an eminent scholar in comparative philology, published 
 a Persian grammar in 1771. 
 
 139 21 eastward : the East India House was on Leadenhall Street, 
 in the eastern part of London. The peers lived in the west of London. 
 
 140 13 while these things were passing : what phrase equivalent to 
 this clause is used at the beginning of three paragraphs of the essay ? 
 
 140 31 arrived : why is the verb placed before the subject? 
 
 143 1 the fearful dangers : how was the American Revolution pro- 
 gressing in 1778 ? Where else was England engaged in war or threatened 
 with war ? 
 
 143 10 senseless misgovernment : is Macaulay prompted by party bias 
 to make so severe a criticism ? How does this characterization com- 
 pare with that in Green's " A Short History of the English People " or 
 in any other English history that you find available for reference ? 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 253 
 
 143 17 guided the councils : the statesman who by his strong policy 
 guided wisely the affairs of government in the reign of George II was 
 William Pitt, the elder. 
 
 143 24 Straits of Calpe : that is, Gibraltar. Calpe was the ancient 
 name of the rock of Gibraltar, one of the pillars of Hercules. See 
 " Century Dictionary " (proper names) for pronunciation of the word. 
 
 144 29 roi fainiant: sluggish, lazy king. Ludwig V, known as le 
 Faineant, was the last of the Carolingian kings of the Franks (Ploetz's 
 "Epitome of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern History"). 
 
 145 34 The commanding officer procrastinated : what does the narrator 
 gain by writing this short sentence and the three very short sentences 
 that follow ? 
 
 146 33 Porto Novo and Pollilore : why does Macaulay mention these 
 specific victories instead of merely saying indefinitely, " Coote's great 
 victories " ? The victory of Porto Novo is referred to again on page 
 157, line 13. 
 
 148 6 There are few Englishmen : note the abrupt introduction of a 
 general discussion which aims to explain the defects of English judicial 
 procedure. 
 
 149 5 mesne : a law term meaning " intermediate," that is, intermediate 
 between accusation and trial. The whole clause means that in cases 
 not involving criminal acts but concerned rather with infringements of 
 individuals' legal rights the first step was to arrest a defendant and take 
 him to Calcutta for trial unless he would employ English attorneys and 
 obtain bail. 
 
 149 9 Quaker about an oath : one of the practices of Quakers is to 
 refuse to take oaths. 
 
 149 25 blow of Wat Tyler: in June, 1381, Wat Tyler struck dead a 
 collector who had been sent out to collect a poll tax that had just been 
 imposed on all persons above fifteen years of age. The provocation was 
 that the collector acted with indecent rudeness to Wat Tyler's daughter. 
 
 150 15 alguazils : see catchpoles, 151 2. Both words mean ' bailiffs. ' 
 What is a bailiff ? 
 
 150 29 justice of the Supreme Court : observe the strong, massed end- 
 ing of this and the next two paragraphs. These three paragraphs are 
 admirable examples of sentences arranged in forcible groups. 
 
 152 14 Jeffreys : the British chief justice whose judicial murders of 
 three hundred and fifty rebels of Monmouth's Rebellion in the reign of 
 James II have made the name of Jeffreys a byword for cruelty. He 
 drank himself to death in 1689 in the old fortification and prison called 
 the Tower of London. 
 
254 NOTES 
 
 154 7 exposed his country : how had Hastings exposed his country to 
 danger ? 
 
 154 19 a Mohammedan soldier : Hyder Ali, called later by Macaulay the 
 most formidable enemy with whom the English conquerors of India 
 have ever had to contend. In the second act of Goldsmith's comedy, 
 "She Stoops to Conquer," which was first played in 1773, there is a 
 reference to Hyder Ali. Hardcastle says that he pays no attention to 
 politics ; he does not trouble his head about " Hyder Ally." What can you 
 learn from the essay on Clive and Hastings regarding other formidable 
 enemies over whom the English triumphed between 1750 and 1841 ? 
 
 155 33 near the gay verandas : what was probably the author's pur- 
 pose in the brilliant descriptive writing of this paragraph ? 
 
 156 23 most signal triumph : what eulogistic adjectives does Macaulay 
 anywhere in the essay apply to Hastings and his acts ? 
 
 157 32 Benares : having finished the Mysore and Hyder Ali story, 
 the essayist next takes up the Benares and Cheyte Sing story. Which 
 of the two seems to be told the more entertainingly ? Remember that 
 the object of a narrative of fact is first to tell the truth, and second to 
 tell it entertainingly. 
 
 160 3 sixty years ago : that is, sixty years before the time of publica- 
 tion of the essay. 
 
 160 19 from the Himalayas to Mysore : another way of saying from the 
 north to the south of India. Compare " from Lahore to Cape Comorin," 
 118 34. 
 
 160 20 de facto . . . de jure: these Latin phrases are explained in the 
 two w&k/i-clauses. 
 
 161 15 this legerdemain : comment on this expression as a summary 
 of the thought of the preceding paragraph. 
 
 161 30 sovereign prince : to make a striking balanced sentence, the 
 author distorts the facts here. Really Cheyte Sing had always been 
 treated as a subject. 
 
 162 28 The money was paid : note the terse, businesslike phraseology. 
 Not a word is wasted. 
 
 166 27 Disappointed in his expectations : a transition phrase passing 
 from the Cheyte Sing and Benares story to the story of the Begums 
 of Oude. 
 
 168 24 Lucknow : in which direction from Calcutta are the places 
 mentioned on page 168, — " Chunar," "Fyzabad," and "Lucknow"? 
 What poem do you know about Lucknow ? 
 
 169 3 pretext : in fact Hastings needed no pretext, or pretended rea- 
 son, for confiscating the lands and the treasures of the mother and the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 255 
 
 grandmother of Asaph-ul-Dowlah. Hastings had proof that their troops 
 were aiding Cheyte Sing in the Benares insurrection. 
 
 170 26 ironed: that is, kept captive in irons, as explained in line 32 
 of the same page, and line 23 of the next page. 
 
 172 16 peculiar rankness of the infamy : what other examples of sledge- 
 hammer condemnation do you find in Macaulay's writings ? 
 
 173 8 the Revolution : by which, after the abdication of James II, in 
 1688, William of Orange became king of England. 
 
 174 21 general review: this extends to page 182, line 9. Does any 
 part of it seem to you at all eloquent, that is, sounding like a stirring 
 speech? — long administration : mention in one-two-three order the prin- 
 cipal acts of Hastings during his administration. What else is there 
 in the essay besides the history of his administration as governor- 
 general ? 
 
 175 17 educed : if you are interested in the study of an author's words, 
 consider the source and the effectiveness of Macaulay's vocabulary. In 
 some particular page what proportion of his words is of Latin origin ? 
 Have you found one instance where you could suggest a better word 
 than Macaulay has used to express his idea ? 
 
 175 20 Louis . . . Joseph : the sentence containing these allusions 
 means that Hastings produced order out of anarchy in a territory hav- 
 ing as large a population as France under King Louis XVI or as Austria 
 under Emperor Joseph. 
 
 175 32 Robinson Crusoe : what is the value of this familiar literary 
 allusion ? 
 
 176 13 Downing Street and Somerset House : on Downing Street are 
 the residence of the prime minister and the principal political offices ; 
 in the Somerset House are various other public offices, as the Inland 
 Revenue Office and the Audit Office. The meaning of the sentence is 
 that Hastings in his administration had no help from official traditions 
 or consultations ; he had to think out for himself each phase of his 
 policy. 
 
 177 24 The English politician . . . essayist : would it be possible to 
 write a more perfect balanced sentence than this ? What is your feel- 
 ing when you come across such a sentence as this ? 
 
 178 5 His style : what points that Macaulay names in describing the 
 style of Hastings apply equally well to his own style ? 
 
 178 21 more virtuous ruler : Sir William Bentinck. Compare 91 8 and 
 note. 
 
 179 2 The Pundits : learned Brahmins. 
 
 180 33 not disposed to vindicate : see note 186 32. 
 
256 NOTES 
 
 181 26 infallibly : what other adverb might be used here ? 
 
 181 32 outshone the splendor : both the palaces mentioned were fa- 
 mous for extravagant display, — Carlton House by the Prince of Wales 
 who became George IV, and the Palais Royal by Philip of Orleans, 
 regent during the minority of Louis XV. 
 
 18133 brought home a fortune: approximately ;£ 120,000. His salary 
 was ,£25,000 a year for thirteen years. 
 
 182 18 roundhouse : ' cabin.' 
 
 182 19 sandalwood : the fragrant carved sandalwood boxes which 
 around-the-world travelers sometimes bring home from India have given 
 many persons their first ideas of India. 
 
 182 28 Sir Charles Grandison : another literary allusion, this one being 
 to Richardson's eighteenth-century novel, " Sir Charles Grandison," in 
 which the hero is Sir Charles and the heroine Miss Byron. 
 
 183 6 the low coast of Bengal : note how much the single adjective adds 
 to the picture that comes to your mind of the departing governor-general. 
 
 183 8 little is known : of what else does the essayist, on page 102, say 
 that little is known ? Macaulay says that in the voyage Hastings amused 
 himself with his pen. One of the bits of writing done during the voy- 
 age was a " Review of the State of Bengal," published as a pamphlet in 
 1786 and describing the miscellaneous transactions of the last three 
 months of Hastings's administration. 
 
 183 12 Mr. Shore : governor-general of India from 1793 to 1798. What 
 other governor-general of India is highly praised by Macaulay ? 
 
 183 22 Cheltenham : a fashionable English watering place sometimes 
 called " Asia Minor," because so many retired Anglo-Indian civil servants 
 live there in enjoyment of its waters (see Baedeker's " Great Britain "). 
 
 184 3 the attack: pages 194-199 tell of the charges; pages 199-212, 
 of the impeachment. 
 
 184 13 the same man who had triumphed : the rest of the sentence is a 
 succinct statement of Hastings's triumphs as governor. 
 
 185 31 the trunk makers and the pastry cooks : the point is that Major 
 Scott's pamphlets were not read but were used to line trunks or to set 
 cakes upon. 
 
 185 34 these volumes : Gleig's " Memoirs of the Life of Warren 
 Hastings." 
 
 186 2 the greatest man then living : compare " the finest gentleman 
 of the age," 204 27. What objections have you to Macaulay's manner of 
 writing in superlatives? 
 
 186 13 Mr. Fox's East India Bill : the rejection of this bill, which 
 was introduced by Fox in 1783 and which proposed to deprive the East 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 257 
 
 India directors and the governor of their power, led to the fall of the 
 Shelburne ministry and made the succeeding ministry look with favor 
 upon Hastings. 
 
 186 22 Lord Chancellor Thurlow: Edward Thurlow (1731-1806) was 
 appointed lord high chancellor in 1778 and was raised to the peerage. 
 He served till 1783 as lord chancellor, when he lost his office, but he 
 was appointed again in December, 1783, by Mr. Pitt. Soon becoming an 
 enemy of Pitt, he opposed Pitt's policies, especially in the matter of 
 Hastings's trial, but he retained his office, through the personal favor 
 of the king, till 1792. 
 
 186 24 Mr. Pitt: the younger William Pitt, born in 1759, entered 
 Parliament at the age of twenty-two. He was appointed chancellor of 
 the exchequer in 1782 and first lord of the treasury and prime minister 
 in December, 1783. (First lord of the treasury is the position which the 
 prime minister, according to English custom, fills in the ministry. Pitt 
 happened also to hold the office of chancellor of the exchequer.) On 
 the dissolution of Parliament in March, 1784, Pitt appealed to the peo- 
 ple so successfully that a House of Commons favorable to his policies 
 was elected. At the age of twenty-five years he thus became firmly 
 established as prime minister. The first important act of his adminis- 
 tration was the framing, in 1784, of a new constitution for the East India 
 Company. 
 
 186 32 The resolution of censure : moved by Henry Dundas. It is -ex- 
 plained in some detail on page 173 and referred to also on page 194. 
 G. W. Hastings, in " A Vindication of Warren Hastings," published by 
 Henry Frowde, London, 1909, holds that Hastings was wholly innocent of 
 crimes with which he has been charged. The summarizing chapter, pages 
 165-187, contains brief surveys of the evidence disposing of the charges 
 that Hastings lacked integrity in certain pecuniary dealings, that he 
 acted criminally with regard to the Rohilla war, the trial and execution 
 of Nuncomar, the treatment of the Nabob of Bengal and the emperor 
 of Delhi, the wars with the Mahrattas and Hyder Ali, the affair with 
 Cheyte Sing, and the affair with the Begums. " It is only to be regretted 
 that Macaulay did not consult more and study carefully the records of 
 which he speaks," says this vindicator of Hastings. This temperate 
 refutation of Macaulay's charges is of particular value to teachers and 
 advanced students who desire to find in small compass the answers to 
 Macaulay's flings. Based on the State Papers, published by the Indian 
 Government, the volume is a strong book, going farther than Strachey's 
 and Stephen's books in vindicating Hastings. See also the sketch of 
 Hastings in the Introduction. 
 
258 NOTES 
 
 187 29 wits of Brooks's : a club in St. James's Street, London, where 
 the brilliant Whig politicians and literary men used to gather to enjoy 
 lively conversation. Among the members of Brooks's were Burke, 
 Sheridan, and Fox. The clubs and coffeehouses were an important 
 element in the political and literary and even commercial life of the 
 eighteenth century, supplying to some degree the place now filled by 
 the great newspapers. Some one has called the century the century 
 of coffee. 
 
 188 15 But there were two men : the sentence beginning thus is de- 
 veloped in pages 188-192. The author, as is his habit, pauses in his 
 narrative long enough to introduce explanatory matter that aims to make 
 the narrative clearer when resumed. In this case Macaulay pauses to 
 explain the character of Francis and Burke and their reasons for 
 opposing Hastings. 
 
 189 26 Las Casas : a Spanish missionary of the sixteenth century who 
 worked to ameliorate the condition of the natives in South America and 
 Mexico, oppressed by the Spanish conquerors. — Clarkson : Thomas 
 Clarkson (1760-1846) was an English philanthropist who devoted him- 
 self to the abolition of the slave trade in the West Indies. 
 
 190 9 bales of Indian information : compare "bales of censure," 176 23. 
 Mention other words that might have been used instead of " bales." Is 
 " bales " the best word for each of these passages ? 
 
 190 19 The burning sun : observe the range of appeal to the senses 
 in the two extraordinarily vivid descriptive sentences of this paragraph. 
 Is the sense of taste neglected ? 
 
 190 23 imaum : ' Mohammedan priest.' What effect is gained by the 
 use of such words as this and the following : " mosque," " idols," 
 "devotee," "turbans," "maces," " palanquin," " bazaar," "jungle," and 
 " hyenas " ? 
 
 190 27 yellow streaks of sect : daubs of yellow put upon their fore- 
 heads by believers in a particular creed. 
 
 190 29 palanquin of the prince : alliteration. See also " litter of the 
 noble lady." What other figures of speech have you noticed ? 
 
 190 33 Beaconsfield and St. James's Street: that is, the objects to be 
 seen in remote India became to Burke, by study of books and docu- 
 ments, as familiar as the things he would see in going from his country 
 home, Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, to his club, Brooks's, in St. 
 James's Street, London. 
 
 192 10 a great and good man : in his Encyclopedia Britannica article 
 on Samuel Johnson (1856), Macaulay used the same characterization for 
 Johnson. See also 197 23. 
 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 259 
 
 194 31 calling Hastings to the House of Lords : that is, making him a 
 peer. What Thurlow meant was that if the chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer, i.e. Pitt, feared to propose making Hastings a peer, the lord 
 high chancellor of England (who is keeper of the " great seal"), i.e. 
 Thurlow, might take steps towards thus honoring Hastings. At the 
 present time it is the prime minister alone in whose hands lies the power 
 of proposing to the sovereign what persons shall be named as peers. 
 
 196 9 during sixty years : previous to the impeachment of Hastings, 
 Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was the last person impeached (171 5). 
 He was acquitted in 17 17. 
 
 196 19 With great diffidence : does this sound like Macaulay ? 
 
 198 29 prorogation : study a large dictionary to learn the difference 
 between prorogation and dissolution of Parliament. The exercise of the 
 right which belongs to the British crown, through the ministers, of ter- 
 minating a session of Parliament is called prorogation. Parliament was 
 prorogued in 1784. Compare 210 16 for a reference to the dissolution of 
 Parliament. When Parliament is prorogued the same members meet 
 again after the recess ; when Parliament is dissolved an election is held 
 and the newly chosen members make the new Parliament. 
 
 199 4 Lords below the bar : outside the barrier of the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 199 20 great oration of Sheridan : unquestionably the claim of Richard 
 Brinsley Sheridan to lasting fame rests not on his orations, considered 
 great by his contemporaries, but on his plays, which are still widely read 
 and often acted ; for example, " The School for Scandal," the first classic 
 play acted at the New Theater in New York (1909), and the even more 
 widely known " The Rivals." In Sichel's biography of Sheridan, re- 
 ferred to in the Introduction, there is an interesting summary of 
 Sheridan's oration against Hastings. 
 
 199 23 coughed and scraped down : prevented from speaking by the 
 coughs and the scraping of feet of opponents. 
 
 199 31 an impeachment : the trial of an official for misconduct in 
 office. The process of impeachment in England is that the House of 
 Commons prefers charges and the' House of Lords hears and decides 
 the case. What Macaulay thinks of the procedure in general is told on 
 page 208, line 28 to page 209, line 1 5. 
 
 2015 a spectacle: does this mean the same as "pageant," 210 31? 
 Macaulay is at his best in descriptions of scenes such as that in West- 
 minster Hall when the House of Lords began to try the case against 
 Hastings. The wonderfully vivid descriptions in Macaulay's historical 
 essays relieve them from bareness. 
 
260 NOTES 
 
 201 22 hall of William Rufus : that is, Westminster Hall, begun in 
 1097 by William Rufus, son of the Conqueror. However, the hall which 
 he started to build, and which was completed by Henry III and Edward I, 
 was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1 291, so that the Westminster 
 Hall where Hastings was tried contained little of the original material. 
 In remodeling and enlarging the hall, Richard II supplied it with a 
 noble roof having beams of Irish oak. Compare 129 24 and 206 7. 
 
 201 33 Garter King-at-arms : * chief of the heralds.' 
 
 202 27 the greatest painter and the greatest scholar : Joshua Reynolds 
 and Samuel Parr, as explained in Macaulay's next two sentences. 
 
 203 3 in secret : the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, privately 
 married Maria Fitzherbert in 1785. 
 
 203 4 the Saint Cecilia : Reynolds painted Mrs. Richard Brinsley 
 Sheridan in the character of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music 
 and musicians. 
 
 203 8 Mrs. Montague : widow of Edward Montague. See note on 
 "bluestockings," 217 29. 
 
 203 11 Duchess of Devonshire : another of the beautiful ladies of fash- 
 ion painted by Reynolds. With a group of her friends among the ladies 
 who were for the time interested in politics, she helped Fox in 1784 in 
 his contest for a seat in Parliament. It is said that the fair duchess 
 obtained votes by allowing the voters the privilege of kissing her 
 (Lippincott's "Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary"). 
 
 203 26 Mens aequo in arduis : ' a mind unmoved amidst difficulties.' 
 This Latin inscription was underneath Hastings's picture in the Gov- 
 ernment House at Calcutta. 
 
 204 8 full dress : apparel appropriate for a public ceremony, a dinner, 
 or an evening entertainment or party. For men it used to consist of 
 a black velvet coat, knee breeches, sword, and a wig, the back hair of 
 which was inclosed in a silk bag. 
 
 204 29 Windham: William Windham, born in 1750, was elected to 
 Parliament in 1783. He began his public life as a friend and follower 
 of Burke. Serving in the cabinet of several prime ministers, he came 
 in time to be regarded as the model of an English gentleman. 
 
 205 9 morning sun : meetings of Parliament begin at four o'clock in the 
 afternoon and sometimes last till the early morning hours. Compare 
 193 31. 
 
 205 11 Charles Earl Grey: Charles Grey, born in 1764, became Earl 
 Grey in 1807, when his father, the first Earl Grey, died. Charles Grey 
 entered Parliament at the age of twenty-two and soon took high rank 
 among the Whig members of the House. Macaulay's praise is no doubt 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 261 
 
 prompted by the fact that Grey was prime minister in 1832 when the 
 Reform Bill, which Macaulay worked for, was passed. The next year, 
 too, this administration passed bills abolishing colonial slavery and the 
 monopoly of the East India Company. 
 
 206 3 Handkerchiefs ... fit : note the climactic effect of the clauses 
 of this sentence. 
 
 20611 whose trust he has betrayed: on page 124, line 1, it was ex- 
 plained that Hastings was appointed governor-general by being named 
 as such in the Regulating Act passed by the House of Commons. 
 He was thus in a sense a servant of the " Commons' House of Par- 
 liament." 
 
 207 27 words unintelligible to English ears : lacs, 100,000 rupees, for- 
 merly equivalent to $50,000 ; crores, $5,000,000 ; zemindars, landholders ; 
 aumils, managers of districts ; sunnuds, certificates granting a title to 
 something or other ; perwannahs, orders of a magistrate ; jaghires, es- 
 tates in land ; nuzzurs, presents to superiors, now termed " graft " (Stand- 
 ard Dictionary). Besides these strange words, what others have you 
 noted in the essay ? 
 
 208 10 debates on the Regency : a Regency Bill, proposed in conse- 
 quence of the mental illness of George III, was debated in the House of 
 Commons in December, 1788. The bill was abandoned on the king's 
 recovery, February 26, 1789. On the return of the malady, the Prince of 
 Wales was sworn in before the privy council as regent of the kingdom, 
 February 5, 181 1 (see Haydn's "Dictionary of Dates"). 
 
 208 13 thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery : George III, who reigned 
 from 1760 to 1820, was more or less insane for the last thirty years of 
 his life, so that, though he returned thanks in 1789 in St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral, he had not permanently recovered from his madness. — the States- 
 General : summoned by Louis XVI, May, 1789, and ushering in a new 
 era of constitutional freedom in France. 
 
 209 7 law Lords : judges who have been made peers and who have 
 thus become members of the House of Lords. 
 
 209 14 would be unreasonable indeed : observe the ironical tone of the 
 essayist throughout this paragraph. 
 
 211 6 woolsack : the seat of the lord chancellor. It is a cushioned 
 ottoman standing in front of the throne and almost in the center of the 
 House of Peers. 
 
 211 11 The great seal : kept by the lord chancellor. Compare 194 
 29-34 and 186 22. — Lord Loughborough : Alexander Wedderburn (1733- 
 1805) was a distinguished lawyer and politician of England. In 1780 he 
 was appointed chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, with the title 
 
262 NOTES 
 
 of Lord Loughborough. In the beginning of Pitt's administration he was 
 leader of the opposition in the House of Lords. When the king became 
 deranged in 1789, Lord Loughborough advised the Prince of Wales to 
 proclaim himself regent. Four years later, having seceded from the Whig 
 party, Loughborough was appointed lord chancellor. 
 
 211 19 managers' box : mention the managers of the impeachment 
 as named by Macaulay, and tell what he says about each. 
 
 212 31 cuddy : in the eighteenth century the word meant ' the small 
 cabin of a boat.' " A New English Dictionary," however, cites this pas- 
 sage as an example of the use of " cuddyfull " as a noun. 
 
 213 11 doctors : eminently learned men, especially in theology and law. 
 213 19 apotheosis : the act of ranking among the gods ; transformation 
 
 into a god. 
 
 213 27 a Pantheon : a group of all the deities, or a building erected 
 for the worship not of one particular god but of all the gods. 
 
 214 14 Pasquin : a sixteenth-century Roman tailor who enjoyed local 
 celebrity for his jests, and whose name gave rise to the word " pasquin- 
 ade," meaning lampoon or satire of specific persons. The man whom 
 Macaulay brusquely calls " that malignant and filthy baboon " simply 
 adopted the name Anthony Pasquin as a pen name. 
 
 214 23 alienated : compare " in the following generation it was sold 
 to a merchant of London," 95 33. 
 
 215 4 Mr. Dundas : for his part in the troubles of Hastings see page 
 194, lines 2-19. 
 
 215 24 a red riband : light on this allusion will be found on page 194, 
 line 27, " decorated with the star of the Bath." The members of this 
 order of knighthood wore a red sash as well as a star. 
 
 2161 Mr. Addington: Henry Addington (1756-1844) succeeded Pitt 
 as chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury, that is, as 
 prime minister, in March, 1801 ; but remained at the head of the minis- 
 try only until May, 1804, when Pitt again became prime minister. Pitt 
 had resigned ostensibly because the king objected to the measures which 
 the administration proposed for the relief of the Roman Catholics. 
 
 216 27 Covent Garden : London fruit and flower market. 
 
 217 1 his conservatories and his menagerie : note that these have been 
 described in the preceding paragraph. As is so often the case, Macaulay 's 
 transition sentence makes the paragraph connection obvious. 
 
 217 6 Trissotin : an allusion to a character in one of Moliere's come- 
 dies. Trissotin combined the man of fashion with the man of letters, as 
 Hastings's biographer, Mr. Gleig, assures us Hastings did. Macaulay 
 politely ridicules this phase of Hastings's character, ending by a 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 263 
 
 Comparison of Hastings the author with the insignificant poets William 
 Hayley and Thomas Seward (line 31). 
 
 217 29 bluestockings: compare 203 8. Bluestockings were ladies who 
 showed a taste for learning. This sense of the word, according to 
 " A New English Dictionary," originated in connection with the re- 
 unions held about 1750 at the houses of Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Vesey, 
 and Mrs. Ord, who exerted themselves to substitute for the card playing, 
 which then formed the chief recreation at evening parties, more in- 
 tellectual modes of spending the time, including conversation on liter- 
 ary subjects, in which eminent men of letters, such as Burke, Johnson, 
 and Goldsmith, often took part. Many of those who attended would not 
 wear " full dress." One of these habitually wore gray or blue worsted 
 instead of black silk stockings. Hence somebody derisively referred to 
 the coterie as the "Blue Stocking Society." Then the ladies came to 
 be called Blue Stockingers, Blue Stocking Ladies, and finally " Blue 
 Stockings." 
 
 218 15 rose and uncovered : note the similar expression at the begin- 
 ning of the essay, 94 12, " uncovered and stood up to receive him." 
 
 218 29 the Sheldonian Theater : honorary degrees are still conferred 
 on distinguished men in this Oxford building. Baedeker's " Great 
 Britain " explains that the undergraduates occupy the upper gallery 
 and express their opinions frankly as to the different recipients of 
 degrees. 
 
 219 20 only one cemetery : what feature of Macaulay's style appears 
 in the first few sentences of the next to the last paragraph of the essay ? 
 
 220 25 his noble equanimity : in what crises of his life did Hastings 
 show remarkable poise ? In what respects does the conclusion of the 
 essay seem to you like an oration ? What opinion have you formed 
 regarding Macaulay's powers in writing summaries ? 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ORAL AND WRITTEN 
 COMPOSITIONS 
 
 GENERAL 
 
 1. In looking through the Notes what do you observe regarding 
 the nature of Macaulay's allusions ? Do you find any comparisons 
 drawn from the outdoor world or from scientific discovery ? 
 
 2. Should Englishmen take pride in the careers of both Clive 
 and Hastings? 
 
 3. Compare Clive and Hastings with regard to their personal 
 appearance and talents. 
 
 4. Which parts of the two essays do you most enjoy reading 
 aloud ? Give your reasons. 
 
 5. What are your reasons for disliking to read aloud some parts 
 of the essays ? 
 
 6. Tell what you know about the following topics and persons : 
 The Black Hole, East India Company, Lord Clive, Warren Hast- 
 ings, Nuncomar, Impey, Hyder Ali, Sujah Dowlah, Francis, the 
 Pitts, Moguls, the Junius Letters, the British in India. 
 
 7. Which essay holds your interest more absorbingly, Clive or 
 Hastings? Why? 
 
 8. Compare Macaulay's vocabulary, -sentences, and paragraphs 
 with your own in the longest piece of writing that you have ever 
 done. 
 
 9. Digressions in the essays. 
 
 10. Contemporary essayists, novelists, and poets in England and 
 America at the height of their powers about 1850. 
 
 1 1. What was happening in. America during the time of Clive and 
 Hastings ? 
 
 12. With page and line references for each heading and subhead- 
 ing, write a topical outline for each essay. In selecting the main 
 headings consider the suggestions in this regard made here and 
 there in the Notes. 
 
 13. Do you admire Macaulay's manner of writing? What seem 
 to you its merits and defects ? 
 
 265 
 
266 SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITIONS 
 
 14. Gather together all the rhetorical references of the Notes, ar- 
 range them according to some systematic scheme, and then prepare 
 to talk for five minutes on the vocabulary, sentence formation, para- 
 graph construction, structural form, figures of speech, clearness, 
 coherence, force, elegance, rhythm, or other qualities of Macaulay"s 
 style. Give examples freely. 
 
 15. Describe a native of India whom you have seen. 
 
 1 6. From your childhood reading or elementary-school study what 
 do you remember about India, — its climate, products, people, reli- 
 gions, cities, mountains, rivers, or government ? 
 
 1 7. What further information on any of these subjects have you 
 gained from Macaulay? 
 
 18. What have you learned recently from returned missionaries 
 or travelers or from newspaper dispatches regarding the present 
 condition of India? 
 
 19. Which do you find better reading, Macaulay's Indian essays 
 or Kipling's Indian stories? Give your reasons. 
 
 20. What novels have you read dealing with life in India, and how 
 did you like them ? 
 
 21. In contents and method of expression compare the essays by 
 Macaulay with any other sixteenth-, seventeenth-, eighteenth-, or 
 nineteenth-century essays that you have read. 
 
 22. Reference books available for the life of Macaulay, Clive, and 
 Hastings, for the history of the British in India, and for biographical 
 and geographical allusions in the essays. [Consult librarian and card 
 catalogue in the nearest public library.] 
 
 CLIVE 
 
 1. Clive's three periods of residence in India. 
 
 2. Indian history with which Clive was directly and indirectly 
 concerned. 
 
 3. Describe the appearance of Clive. 
 
 4. It has been said that at the age of thirty-two Clive established 
 British power in India. If this is true, how did he do it? If untrue, 
 what would be an accurate statement of Clive's work? 
 
 5. Give a detailed account of the military career of Clive. How much 
 space, proportionally, does Macaulay give to this part of Clive's life ? 
 
 6. Was Clive both a great and a good man ? 
 
SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITIONS 267 
 
 7. In two paragraphs give an account of Clive's life, one paragraph 
 being devoted to what he did in England and the other to what he 
 did in India. 
 
 8. Clive as a statesman. 
 
 9. Life in India as you have always imagined it. 
 
 10. With a setting in Calcutta at the summer solstice of 1756, 
 write an imaginary narrative of the acts of some native of India. 
 
 r 1 . Put into one or more four-line ballad stanzas what you imag- 
 ine may have been exciting events of the battle of Plassey. 
 
 1 2. Using your imagination, write a translation of an " urgent let- 
 ter " such as might have been sent from Chinsurah, " exhorting the 
 government of Batavia to fit out an expedition which might balance 
 the power of the English in Bengal " (see page 56). 
 
 13. Prove if you can that Clive was unfairly treated by the English 
 people. 
 
 14. Did Clive send to England any messages by cable? 
 
 15. The route from London to Calcutta in the eighteenth century. 
 
 16. Has the reading of this essay given you a taste for other 
 essays by Macaulay, or a distaste for all his writings? 
 
 HASTINGS 
 
 r. What points in this essay are explained by reference to the 
 essay on Clive? 
 
 2. How is the most striking characteristic of Hastings shown in 
 the various periods of his life ? 
 
 3. Contrast the lives of Hastings and Cowper, and Hastings and 
 Macaulay. 
 
 4. This essay compared in interest with any novel that you con- 
 sider particularly entertaining. 
 
 5. Hastings's relations with Nuncomar and Cheyte Sing. 
 
 6. Write a topical outline for a story of Hastings's administration 
 as governor-general. 
 
 7. W T as Hastings either a great or a good man ? 
 
 8. Compare Nuncomar and Omichund. 
 
 9. What have you learned regarding the political administrations, 
 in England from about 1770 to 1804? 
 
 10. The national character of the Bengalese as described by 
 Macaulay. 
 
268 SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITIONS 
 
 in 
 
 1 1 . The things you like best and will probably remember longest 
 this essay. 
 
 12. Hastings in England. 
 
 13. What do the words " civil service " mean to you? 
 
 14. Life in India as described in the Hastings essay. 
 
 15. Where does Macaulay's introduction to his essay end? W r here 
 does his conclusion begin ? 
 
 16. Write an imaginary dialogue between Hastings and Nuncomar, 
 Hastings and Francis, or Francis and Burke. [Consider at what 
 place and time you will have the men meet for their talk.] 
 
 17. Give arguments to show that Hastings's acquittal was just. 
 
 18. What misinformation does the author give in the essay on 
 Hastings ? 
 
 iga. Which of the editor's notes are historical, which are rhetori- 
 cal, and which are linguistic ? 
 
 igd. Which of the notes cannot be classed under any of these 
 headings ? 
 
 20. W T hy is this essay literature ? 
 
NOV 23 19IO 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div.