I'M! n El El i » |fl I ^TX Lord Macaulay. Lev — i — EdL-L-=l=ld -i-i=i=n -L— l=Ii=, NEW YORK: Effingham Maynard & Co., SUCCESSORS TO Clark & Maynard, Publishers, 771 Broadway and 67 & 69 Ninth St. 1891 . iik= A vSSaKsatsai TazxzxzzssssxsassxsasssssSl i | I II . El KELLOGG’S EDITIONS. SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. JBacb plag in ©ne lDolume. Text Carefully Expurgated for Us9 in Mixed Classes. With Portrait, Notes, Introduction to Shakespeare's Grammar Examination Papers, and Plan of Study. (SELECTED.) By BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Poly techni * Institute, and author of a “ Text-Book on Rhetoric , a _ Text-Book on English Literature and one of the authors of Reed dt Kellogg's “ Lessons in English The notes have been especially prepared and selected, to meet th requirements of School and College Students, from editions by emi nent English scholars. We are confident that teachers who examine these editions v ill pro nounce them better adapted to the wants of the class-room than an. others published. These are the only American Edition of these Plays that have been carefully expurgate* for use in mixed classes. Printed from large type, attractively bound in cloth, and sold nearly one half the price of other School Editions of Shakespeare. The following Plays, each in one volume, are now ready: MERCHANT OF VENICE. JULIUS CAESAR. MACBETH. TEMPEST. HAMLET. KING HENRY V. KING LEAR. KlNu n 1 1 \ n Y iv ij » t 1 KING HENRY VIII. AS YOU LIKE IT. KING RICHARD I.L A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT’! DREAM. A WINTER'S TALE, 2 tailing price, SO cents per copy. Special Price to Teachers. Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on application. ENGLISH CLASSICS. Warren Hastings. AN ESSAY BY LORD MACAULAY, (ABRIDGED.) EDITED FOR SCHOOL AND HOME USE BY ALBERT F. BLAISDELL, A.M., M.D., rTHOR OF “ STUDY OF THE ENGLISH CLASSICS,” “ OUTLINES FOR THE STUDY OP THE ENGLISH CLASSICS,” ‘‘FIRST BOOK IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.” NEW YORK: Effingham Maynard & Co SUCCESSORS TO Clark & Maynard, Publishers, 771 Broadway and 67 & 69 Ninth St. A Complete Course in the Study of Englis Spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition , Literature . Reed’s Word Lessons — A Complete Speller. Reed & Kellogg’s Graded Lessons in English. Reed & Kellogg’s Higher Lessons in English. Kellogg’s Text-Book on Rhetoric. Kellogg’s Text-Book on English Literatu In the preparation of this series the authors have had one obj Ciearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language a: present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to j study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictions wh arise in using books arranged by different authors on these subjet and which require much time for explanation in the school-room, ' be avoided by the use of the above “ Complete Course.” Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. Effingham Maynard ject. The Student's Hume and Green’s Short History of the English People 1 prove of great help in explaining the historical and other references, lost of the larger “Speakers,” compiled for school use, contain selections m the great orations delivered by Sheridan and Bnrke, during the trial of stings. Such extracts are of special interest in connection with the study of succeeding text. Macaulay and his works. TOPICS OF INQUIRY. 1. Give some details of Macaulay’s early life. 2. Anecdotes illustrating h precocity. 3. Incidents showing his early love for books and reading. 4. Son details of his wonderful memory and his capacity for taking in at a glance tl contents of a printed page. (Trevelyan’s Life, Yol. I. ch. i.) 5. His career Cambridge University. 6. The study of law and his literary work for Knight quarterly Magazine . 7. Incidents which led Macaulay to write his essay < Milton for the Edinburgh Review— its success. 8. Mention the subjects Macaulay’s most important essays contributed for many years to the same pe: odical. 9. What are the chief characteristics of these celebrated essays ? 1 What political honors were conferred upon Macaulay ? 11. His appointment an office in India and his residence in that country. 12. His return to Englan and subsequent career in Parliament. 13. What fine martial ballads were pu; lished in 1842 ? 14. When was his History first published ?— its success ? ] Give some details of the scope of this work. 16. What can you tell of Macai lay’s career as a public speaker ? 17. The death of the great historian in 185: 18. Macaulay’s style— its prominent characteristics ? 19. What adverse cri! cisms have been made on his writings ? 20. How will you account for tl remarkable popularity of all that Macaulay has written ? 21. Personal life Macaulay— its chief characteristics? 22. Incidents and anecdotes to illustra the same. 23. Macaulay’s opinion of famous men and books. (Cf. Trevelyai 24. What led Macaulay to write the essays on Lord Clive and Warren Hasting 25. Give in outline a few points in the lives of these two celebrated men. £j Quote what Macaulay himself said about them. 27. Draw on the blackboai or elsewhere, a map of India, locating the places of interest as noted this essay. 28. Give in outline a few important events in the history India before the time of Hastings. 29. Work up in some detail the follow! topics, giving in substance passages omitted in the succeeding pages: Nuncomr Sir Philip Francis, Hyder Ali, and Impey, the infamous judge. 30. Topics I collateral reading : Lord Clive, “ Black Hole,” East India Company, Mog Empire, Sheridan’s Oration, Burke’s Oration, Lord North, William Pitt, “T: Junius Letters,” British India, Critical State of the British Empire During tj time of Hastings, Result of England’s foreign policy on the American colon i^ 31. What criticisim has been made, and what can you make, on Macaula; description of the trial of Hastings ? 32. What do you think of Warr! Hastings ?— as a governor-general ?— as a man ? Give your reasons for such \ opinion. 8 WARREN HASTINGS. “ Macaulay’s splendid biographies of Clive and Hastings, by much the inest productions of the kind in the English language.” — Alison. “ Macaulay’s faithful but brilliant studies (Lord Clive and Warren Hastings) of our Eastern empire are to this day incomparably the most popular of his works.” — Trevelyan. PREFATORY NOTE. It was in India, on the spot, that Macaulay collected the facts which le worked up in so interesting and picturesque a manner in his essays m Lord Clive and Warren Hastings. The great essayist took special nterest and pride in his India articles, and in his private correspond- ence says : “ The paper on Lord Clive took greatly. That on Warren Hastings, though in my own opinion by no means equal to that on Jlive, has been even more successful.” Both of these able essays have been uniformly popular with the public. When published in separate forms, Clive and Hastings have sold nearly twice as well as the articles on the Earl of Chatham, nearly three times as well as the essay on Ad- lison, and nearly five times as well as the article on Byron. In a letter written to the editor of the Edinburgh Review , Macaulay outlined his proposed paper on Warren Hastings. It is interesting and instructive n connection with the study of the succeeding text. He says : “I am not quite sure that so vast a subject may not bear two articles. The scene of the first would lie principally in India. The Rohilla War, the lisputes of Hastings and his Council, the character of Francis, the ieath of Nuncomar, the rise of the empire of Hyder Ali, the seizure of Benares, and many other interesting matters, would furnish out such a naper. In the second, the scene would be changed to Westminster. There we should have the Coalition ; the India Bill ; the impeach- nent ; the characters of the noted men of that time, from Burke, who nanaged the prosecution of Hastings, down to the wretched Ton} Pasquin, who first defended and then libeled him. I hardly know u 1 * 9 10 WARREN HASTINGS. story so interesting, and of such various interests. And the central figure is in the highest degree striking and interesting. I think War- ren Hastings, though far from faultless, one of the greatest men that England ever produced. He had pre-eminent talents for government and great literary attainments too ; fine tastes, a princely spirit, and heroic equanimity in the midst of adversity and danger. “ Mens aequa in arduis ” (a mind serene amid difficulties) is the inscription under his picture in the Government Hall at Calcutta, and never was a more ap- propriate motto. The story has never been told as it deserves. The success of my paper on Clive has emboldened me.” As a result of this literary correspondence, the essay on Warren Hastings was published in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1841. It has been universally ad- mired for its style, of the greatest force and picturesqueness— full of allusion, illustration, grace, clearness and point. His Early Life. — 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 Alfred. But the undoubted splen- dor 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 sprung the re- io nowned Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the White Hose, whose fate has furnished so striking a theme both to poets and , Note.— The length of the entire essay on Warren Hastings is such that the Editor has been compelled to abridge the same. Several paragraphs Cf no special interest, certain sections of historical details and sundry passages criti- cising Mr. Gleig, the biographer of Hastings, have been omitted. The essay in its abridged form is complete in itself, and no part of Macaulay’s language has in any respect been changed. 3. Danish Sea-King: Hasting or Hastings, a daring and successful Danish sea-king, defeated after many fierce conflicts by King Alfred, and driven out of England "in 896. 6. Alfred (848 or 849-901) : surnamed the Great, King of the West Saxons, , afterwar' * * 3 * * 6 sovereign of all England. Consult. Hughes’s Alfred the GreatM Freeman’s Norman Conquest , vol. 1, ch. ii, and Hume’s England, vol. 1, ch. ii. I 10. White Rose: The war of the Roses, between the Lancastrians (who chose the red rose as their emblem), and the Yorkists (who chose the white! rose), began 1455 and ended 1485. See reference in Shakespeare, in I. Henry VI., act ii., sc. 4. The contest between King Charles I. and Parliament resulted® in a Civil War, which began when the king set up his standard at Nottingham! (1642). It resulted in the execution of the king in 1649, and the establishment of the Commonwealth under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (1653) . WARBEN HASTINGS. 11 to historians. His family received from the Tudors the earl- dom of Huntingdon, which, after a long dispossession, was re- gained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in romance. The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, 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 20 hundred years ago, it was overwhelmed by the great ruin of the civil war. The old seat at Daylesford still remained in the family; but it could no longer be kept up; and in the follow- ing generation it was sold to a merchant of London. 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 the sale of the estate, was deplorable. He was constantly engaged in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and 30 was at length utterly ruined. His second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his Wife in two years, and died in the West Indies, leaving to the care of his unfortunate father a little orphan, destined to strange and memorable vicissitudes of fortune. Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the 6tli of Decem- ber, 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. But no cloud 4° could overcast the dawn of so much genius and so much am- bition. The daily sight of the lands which 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, 12. Tudors : The House of Tudor ruled England from the accession of Henry VII. to the death of Elizabeth in 1(303, 12 WARREN HASTINGS. of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valor. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old do- main of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten 50 years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, j through all the turns of his eventful career, was never aban- doned. He would recover the estate which had belonged to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This pur- pose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his in- tellect expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan S with that calm but indomitable force of will which was the j most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed 60 to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly j checkered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die. When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard determined to take charge of him, and to give him a liberal education. The boy went up to London, and was sent to a school at Newington, where he was well taught, but ill fed. He always attributed the smallness of his stature to the hard and scanty fare of this seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster 70 school. Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an excel- 1 lent 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 w T as looking forward to a studentship at Christ Church, when an event happened which changed the whole course of his life. Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his 70. Westminster School: A large school in London founded by Queen Elizabeth. 77. Christ, Church : Largest of all the Oxford colleges, founded by Car- dinal Wolsey in 1525. WARREK HASTINGS. 13 lephew to the care of a friend and distant relation, named Chiswick. This gentleman, though lie did not -absolutely 80 •efuse the charge, was desirous to rid himself of it as soon as lossible. He had it in his power to obtain for the lad a writer- ;hip in the service of the East India Company. Whether the rnung adventurer, when once shipped off, made a fortune, or lied of a liver complaint, he equally ceased to be a burden to tnybody. Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster chool, and placed for a few months at a commercial academjq o study arithmetic and book-keeping. In January, 1750, a few lays after he had completed his seventeenth year, he sailed for lengal, and arrived at his destination in the October follow- 90 ng. He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary’s •ffice at Calcutta, and labored there during two years. After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, Tastings was sent up the country to Cossimbazar, a town ?hich lies on the Hoogly, about a mile from Moorshedabad. 82 . Writersliip: The establishment of each principal and independent seat r trade, in India, consisted of merchants , senior and junior, who conducted le trade ; factors , who ordered goods, inspected and dispatched them • and inters, who were clerks and book-keepers. A writer after five years became a ictor, after three years more a merchant. From the senior merchants the lembers of council were chosen, am! one of these last was selected as vresi- °M of the factory. The place where the factor carried on business was called factory. 83. East India Company: The original charter of this company was canted to a number of London merchants by Queen Elizabeth in 1600 The rnits were enormous, giving the exclusive right to trade in the whole of the ldian and Pacific oceans. The charter was renewed from time to time with inous modifications About 1612, the company obtained permission from ;veral native princes to establish factories or agencies on the coast of Hin^o«- n. The first beginning of Madras dates in 1640, of Calcutta in 1645 and of ombay in 1665, as chief establishments of the company. In 1662, Charles IL ive permission to the company “ to make war and peace on the native princes ” a privilege of which it was not slow to avail itself for nearly two centuries. A institution was established in 1702 which was maintained with little alteration . long as the company existed. The company obtained a renewal of its char- times, but its powers was irraduali}'' lessened, until, by the act of o», the whole of the company’s powers were transferred to the crown. . Bengal: At this time only the country between the B >glipoor and the IMMlOrol T .... T> 1 .V. il. _ 1 i ir a ^l a C1 f - a • of British Ind'aand of Bengal, the largest emporium trade m Asia, is situated on the Hoogly, eighty miles from the sea. 96. Hoogly or HoogUly : A branch of the Ganges at its delta. Two hun- 14 WARREST HASTINGS, This was the abode of the prince who, by an authority ostensi- bly derived from the Mogul, but really independent, ruled the three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. Here, 10© during several years, Hastings was employed in making bargains for stuffs with native brokers. While he was thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the government, and declared war against the English. The defenseless settlement of Cos- simbazar, lying close to the tyrant’s capital, was instantly seized. Hastings was sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, in consequence of the humane intervention of the servants of the Dutch Company, was treated with indulgence. Meanwhile the nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor and the com- mandant fled ; the town and citadel were taken, and most of no the English prisoners perished in the Black Hole. In these events originated the greatness of Warren Hastings. He soon established a high character for ability and resolution. He be- came a member of Council in 1761, returned to England in 1764, and remained at home four years. Of his life at this time very little is known. Hastings soon began to look again toward India. He had little to attach him to England, and his pecuniary embarrassments were great. The Directors appointed him a member of Council at Madras. In the spring of 1769, he embarked for India on board of the Duke of Grafton. Read the full text for the romantic affair with a lady, “ his elegant Marian,” who, afterward as Hastings's wife, wielded great influence over her celebrated husband. dred miles long ; its mouth is ten miles across. It is the only branch of the Ganges navigated by large vessels, and is the only one in the delta held sacred by the Hindoos. 98. Mogul : A corruption of Mongol , or Mongolian . The name commonly applied to the empire founded in Hindostan in the 15th century by Baber, a descendant of Timor or Tamerlane. Although not a Mongolian himself, Babers empire became generally known in Europe as the Mogul tCmpire. and the reigning sovereign was popularly called “ The Great Mogul.” After the death of the great ruler, Aurungzebe, in 1707, the empire began to decline. The last sovereign died, a pensioner of England, in 1800. 99. Bahar : a province of Western Bengal. Orissa, a province to the south of Bengal, during Clive’s rule. 1'10. Black Hole: This horrible catastrophe, by which the nabob caused the whole of the prisoners taken, 146 in number, to be confined in an apartment twenty feet square— the “ Black Hole of Calcutta,” took place on the night of the 18th of June, 1756. The room had only two small windows, and these were obstructed by a veranda. The crush of the unhappy sufferers was dreadful ; and after a night of agony from pressure, heat, thirst, and want of air. there were in the morning only twenty-three survivors, the ghastliest forms ever seen on earth. Read Macaulay’s famous pen picture of this atrocious deed in his “ Lord Clive,” beginning “ Then was committed that great crime,” etc. WARREN HASTINGS. 15 State of Affairs in India.— Hastings found the affairs of the Company in a very disorganized state on his arrival. In a very ew months he effected an important reform. The Directors lotified to him their high approbation, and were so much deased with his conduct that they determined to place him at he head of the Government of Bengal. Early in 1772 he plitted Fort St. George for his new post. When Hastings took his seat at the head of the Council - >oard, Bengal was still governed according to the system which llive had devised. There were two governments, the real 120 md the ostensible. The supreme power belonged to the Com- )any, and was in truth the most despotic power that can be ionceived. There was still a nabob of Bengal who lived at Moorsheda- >ad, surrounded by princely magnificence. He was approached vitli outward marks of reverence, and his name was used in >ublic instruments. But in the government of the country he iad less real share than the youngest writer or cadet in the Company’s service. The internal government of Bengal the English rulers dele- i 3 o rated to a great native minister, who was stationed at Moor- shedabad. All military affairs, and, with the exception of what certains to mere ceremonial, all foreign affairs, were withdrawn Tom his control ; but the other departments of the adminis- ;ration were entirely confided to him. His own stipend amounted 120. Lord Clive (1725-1774).— Founder of the British Empire in India, a skill- ul general and sagacious statesman. Clive entered the service of the East ndia Company as ensign in 1747. By his courage and sagacity he rose rapidly o distinction. Returned to England in 1753 and sent back as governor of Port iaint David in 1755. The next year, Surajah Dow lah. Nabob of Bengal, cap- nred the English garrison of Fort William and smothered them in the “Black lole” of Calcutta. Clive was sent to avenge this outrage. The fate of India vas decided at the battle of Plassey (1757), where Clive, with 3.000 men, defeated ibout 60,000 of the enemy. Surajah was deposed and put to death. After this victory, by which the British rule was firmly established in India, Clive was ippointed governor of Bengal. In 1760, he returned to England, immensely ich and was raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey. He vas elected to Parliament and acquired great influence. Clive was sent to ndia in 1764, with supreme command, but returned in 1767. He was arraigned )y the House for abusing his power in the acquisition of riches, but the charge vas not sustained. He died by suicide in 1774. The reader is referred to VTacanlay’s masterly essay on “ Lord Clive,” as collateral reading in connection with the study of Warren Hastings. 16 WARREN HASTINGS. to near a hundred thousand pounds sterling a year. The per- sonal allowance of the nabob, 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- ; i 4 otion 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 lie was responsible to none but the British masters of the country. A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid, was natu- rally an object of ambition to the ablest and most powerful natives. Clive had found it difficult to decide between con- flicting pretensions. Two candidates stood out prominently from the crowd, each of them the representative of a race and of a religion. 15° One of these was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of Persian extraction, able, active, religious after the fashion of his people, and highly esteemed by them. 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. Clive decided in favor of the first. When Hastings became governor, Mahommed Reza Khan had held power seven years. Through the intrigues of Nuncomar, the Direct- ors were influenced to order Hastings to arrest Reza Khan and make a strict inquiry into the whole administration of the province. This gave Hastings' an opportunity to carry into effect what he had long planned to do — to dissolve the double government. The office of minister was abol- ished. The internal administration was transferred to the servants of the Company. The 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. Some important office was given to Nuncomar’s son ; but the wily Hindoo soon found that Hastings had made a tool of him. 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. Extortion of Money, — In the meantime, Hastings was com- pelled to turn his attention to foreign affairs. The object of his diplomacy was at this time simply to get money. The WARREN HASTINGS. 17 finances of his government were in an embarrassed state ; and 160 this embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some means, fair or foul. One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to him by his employers at home was such as only the highest virtue could have withstood, such as left him no choice except to commit great wrongs, or to resign his high post, and with that post all his hopes of for- tune 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 just and humane sentiments, many excellent precepts — in short, an ad- 17° mirable code of political ethics. Hastings saw that it was absolutely necessary for him to dis- regard either the moral discourses or the pecuniary requisitions of his employers. 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 conscien- tious scruples, speedily discovered several modes of relieving the financial embarrassments of the Government. The allow- 180 ance 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 three hun- dred 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 Alla- habad. On the plea that the Mogul was not really independent, but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings determined to retract these concessions. He accordingly declared that the English would pay no more tribute, and sent troops to occupy I9Q Allahabad and Corah. The situation of these places was such that there would be little advantage and great expense in re- 17?. Rupees.— The rupee is an Indian silver coin, worth at this time about two shillings. 186. Corah and Allahalbad. — Districts and cities in the north-west provin ces of Inc'ia, about 500 miles N. W. from Calcutta. 18 WARREN HASTINGS. taining them. Hastings, who wanted money and not territory, determined to sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. The rich province of Oude had, in the general dissolution of the Mogul Empire, fallen to the share of the great Mussulman house by which it is still governed. The Prince of Oude, though he held the power, did not venture to use the style of sovereignty. To the appellation of nabob * * or viceroy he added 200 that of vizier of the monarchy of Hindostan. Sujah Dowlah, then nabob vizier, was on excellent terms with the English. He had a large treasure. Allahabad and Corah were so situ- ated that they might be of use to him, and could be of none to the Company. The buyer and seller soon came to an under- standing ; and the provinces which had been torn from the Mogul were made over to the Government of Oude for about half a million sterling. Subjugation of the Brave Rohillas. — But there was another matter still more important to be settled by the vizier and the 210 governor. The fate of a brave 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 to the subjects of the decaying monarchy of Home. ) The dark, slender, and timid Hindoo shrunk from a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair race which dwelt beyond the passes. The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from the other 220 side of the great mountain ridge ; and it had always been their practice to recruit their army from the hardy and valiant race from which their own illustrious house sprung. Among the military adventurers who were allured to the Mogul standards 195 . Oude.— A rich and prosperous province of India, N. W. of Bengal and south of the Himalaya mountains. J * The word nabob is from the Hindoo, nawab , a deputy, or a governor, under the Mogul empire. Oriirinally, “ anative prince,” but the word came to be ap- plied to any European who had amassed wealth in the East. Cl. an amusing passage toward the end of Macaulay’s essay on Lord Clive. WARREN HASTINGS. 19 from the neighborhood of Cabul and Candahar, were conspic- uous several gallant bands, known by the name of the Rohil- ]as. Their services had been rewarded with large tracts of land in that fertile plain through which the Ramgunga flows from the snowy heights of Kumaon to join the Ganges. The Rohillas were distinguished from the other inhabitants of India by a peculiarly fair complexion. They were more honorably 23c distinguished by courage in war, and by skill in the arts of peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape Comorin, their little territory enjoyed the blessings of repose under the guardianship of valor. Agriculture and commerce flourished among them, nor were they negligent of rhetoric and poetry* 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. ' The Rohillas held their country by exactly the same title by which he held his, and had governed their country far better than his had ever been governed. Nor were they a 24a people whom it was perfectly safe to attack. As soldiers, they had not the steadiness which is seldom found except in com- pany 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 them fight, and wisely shrunk 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 abun- dantly proved that neither tenfold odds, nor the martial ardor 25a of the boldest Asiatic nations, could avail aught against English science and resolution. Was it possible to induce the Governor of Bengal to let out to hire the irresistible energies of the ini- 224. Cabul.— Written also Caboul, Cabool, and Kabul. Capital of Afghanis- tan. Candahar, capital of Central Afghanistan, 200 miles S. W. of Cabul. These cities came into note during the recent war of England with the Afghans. 226. Rohillas. — Inhabitants of Rohilcund, a division of Northern India, having the Ganges on the west and south, Oude on the east, and the Himalayas on the north and north-east. 232. Lahore. — The capital city of the Punjab, and of the Lahore division and district. 20 WARREN HASTINGS. perial people, the skill against which the ablest chiefs of Hin- dostan were helpless as infants ? This was what the nabob vizier asked, and what Hastings granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each of the negotiators had what the other wanted. Hastings was in need of funds to carry on the government of Bengal, and to send remittances 265 to London, and Sujah Dowlah had an ample revenue. 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. The Rohillas expostulated, entreated, offered a large ransom, but in vain. They then resolved to defend themselves to the last. A bloody battle was fought. The dastardly sovereign of Oude fled from the field. The English were left unsup- ported, but their fire and their charge were irresistible. It 270 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 horrors of Indian war were let loose on the fair valleys and cities of Roliilcund. The whole country was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their 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 and 280 daughters. 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 of Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part even of his miserable dominions. Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings, it can- not be denied that the financial results of his policy did honor to his talents. In less than two years after he assumed WARREN HASTINGS. 21 the government, he had, without imposing any additional 290 burdens on the 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 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 for3°° administration. In the mean time Parliament had been engaged in long and grave discussions on Asiatic affairs. The ministry of Lord North, in the ses- sion of 1773, introduced a measure which made a considerable change in the constitution of the Indian Government. This law, known by the name of the Regulating Act, provided that the Presidency of Ben- gal should exercise a control over the other possessions of the Com- pany ; that the chief of that presidency should be styled governor- general ; that he should be assisted by four councillors ; and that a supreme court of judicature, consisting of a chief-justice and three in- ferior 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. The Governor-general and councillors were named in the act, and were to hold their situations for five years. Hastings was to be the first governor-general. The ablest of the new councillors was, beyond all doubt, Philip Fran- cis, who, it is claimed by the best authorities, wrote the famous “ Ju- nius” letters. Macaulay at this place in the essay interpolates a long but interesting discussion of the authorship of these letters. With the three new councillors came out the judges of the Supreme Court. The chief-justice was Sir Elijah Impey. He was an old ac- quaintance of Hastings ; and it is probable that the governor-general, if he had searched through all the inns of court, could not have found an equally serviceable tool. It is not necessary to allude to the bitter quarrels which took place * between Hastings and his supporters on the one side, and Francis and his friends on the other. Hastings was in the minority. The natives soon found it out. Charges against the governor-general began to pour in. Nuncomar saw his opportunity to be avenged upon his old enemy. He made serious charges against Hastings, who was now in a most painful situation, and forced to place his resignation in the hands of a trusty agent in London. It was not safe to drive to despair a man of such resource and of such determination as Hastings. It will be re- membered that the Supreme Court was, within the sphere of its own duties, altogether independent of the government. Hastings, with his WARREN HASTINGS. usual sagacity, had seen how much advantage he might derive frora 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 ma- chinery into action. Execution of Nuncomar*— On a sudden, Calcutta was as- tounded by the news that Nuncomar had been taken up on a charge of felony, committed, and thrown into a common jail. The crime imputed to him was that six years before he had forged a bond. The ostensible 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. 3 io The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. They protested against the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and sent several urgent messages to the judges demanding that Nuncomar should be admitted to bail. The judges returned haughty and resolute answers. In the mean time the assizes commenced: a true bill was found, and Nuncomar was brought before Sir Elijali 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 320 was returned, and the chief-justice pronounced sentence of death on the prisoner. The excitement among all classes was great. Francis, and Francis’s few English adherents, described the governor-gen- eral and the chief-justice as the worst of murderers. Claver- ing, it was said, swore that, even at the foot of the gallows, Nuncomar should be rescued. The bulk of the European so- ciety, though strongly attached to the Governor-general, could 303. Nuncomar. — Macaulay devotes considerable space to a detailed description of this wily Hindoo chief. The text is here omitted. 322. Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818).— An eminent English statesman, ap- pointed a member of the Supreme Council of Bengal in 1773, when Hastings was President. He was the leader of the party which opposed Hastings, and took a prominent part in the great trial. He is generally believed to be the author of the famous “ Junins Letters,” although he always denied the charge* Brougham and Macaulay believed that Francis was “Junius,” WARREN HASTINGS. 23 not but feel compassion for a man who, witli 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 33° to exist. The feeling 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 the Brahmins. He had inherited the purest and highest caste. He had practised with the greatest punctuality all those ceremonies to which the super- stitious Bengalees ascribe far more importance than to the cor- rect discharge of the social duties. According to their old 340 national laws, a Brahmin could not be put to death for any crime whatever. The day drew near; and Nuncomar prepared himself to die with that quiet fortitude with which the Bengalee, so effem- inately 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 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 35 ° unaltered composure. Not a muscle of his face moved; not a sigh broke from him. The sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated by what had passed, and 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 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 360 336. Bralimin (Sanskrit, Brahman , Bramin, and first deity of the Hindoo triad, the creator of the world, Brahma). A person of the upper and sacerdotal caste among the Hindoos. 24 WARREN HASTINGS. sat up in his palanquin, and looked around him with unaltered serenity. He had just parted from those who were most nearly 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. Pie again desired to be remembered to his friends in the Council, mounted the scaffold with firmness, and gave the signal to the 370 executioner. The moment that the drop fell a howl of sorrow and despair rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds turned away their faces from the polluting sight, fled with loud w r ailings toward the Hoogly, 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. The whole province was greatly excited ; and the population of Dacca, in particular, gave strong signs of grief and dismay. • While we have not the least doubt that this memorable ex- ecution is to be attributed to Hastings, we doubt whether it can 380 with justice be reckoned among his crimes. That 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 power. Under these circumstances, the persecuted statesman resolved to teach the wdiole crew of 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 390 not to be forgotten. The head of the combination which had 377. Dacca. — A division, district, and city of Bengal on the Lower Ganges. The city of Dacca is 155 miles N. E. of Calcutta. Note.— 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 commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadlv grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write about the “Tour to the Hebrides,” Jones’s “Persian Grammar,” and the history, tradi- tions, arts, and natural productions of India.— Macaulay. WARREN HASTINGS. 25 been formed against him, the richest, the most powerful, the most artful of the Hindoos, distinguished by the favor of those who then held the government, fenced round by the supersti- tious reverence of millions, was hanged in broad day before many thousands of people. From that moment the conviction of every native was that it was safer to take the part of Hast- ings in a minority 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, whatever difficulties Hastings might have to encounter, he was never molested by accusations from natives of India. In the meantime, the Directors took part with the majority, and censured Hastings. An unsuccessful attempt was made to displace him. Hastings’s agent produced the letter of resignation, and Mr. Wheeler was sent out to succeed the Governor-general. By the death of an opponent in the Council and an appeal to the Supreme Court, Hastings meanwhile had regained the casting vote and full supremacy. England now became involved in foreign wars, and her public interests were exposed to such fearful dangers in every quarter that all designs against Hastings were dropped, and he was quietly reappointed for another term of five years. The remarkable executive ability and energy of the Governor-general were of incalculable service to his country in this crisis of affairs in India. The dangers of the Empire induced both Hastings and Francis to forget for the time their private enmities, and to co-operate heartily for the general good. S Reign of Terror. — Harmony, indeed, was never more neces- sary ; for at this moment internal calamities, more formidable than war itself, menaced Bengal. The authors of the Regu- lating Act of 1773 had established two independent powers — the one judicial, the 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 4 10 indistinctness, and attempted to draw to themselves supreme authority, not only within Calcutta, but through the whole of the great territory subject to the Presidency of Fort William. The strongest feelings of our nature — honor, religion, female modesty — rose up against the innovation. Arrest on mesne proc- 2 26 WARREN HASTINGS. ess was the first step in most civil proceedings: and to a native of rank arrest was not merely a restraint, but a foul personal in- dignity. That the apartments of a woman of quality should be entered by strange men, or that her face should be seen by .420 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 distin- guished families of Bengal, Baliar, and Orissa were now ex- posed. 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 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 430 familiar with the usages of the millions over whom they claimed boundless authority. Its records were kept in un- known characters; 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 wit- nesses, and common barrators, and agents of chicane. Many natives, highly considered among their countrymen, were seized, hurried up to 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 440 come to trial. There were instances in which men of the most venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause by extortioners, died of rage and shame in the gripe of the vile alguazils of Impey. 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 jus- tices, and to answer for their public acts. This was too much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused to obey the call, set at liberty the persons wrongfully detained by the court, and took 442. Alguazil (Sp. alquacil ).— An inferior officer of justice. WARREN HASTINGS. 27 measures for resisting the outrageous proceedings of the sheriffs’ 45 ° officers, if necessary, by the sword. But lie had in view another device which might prevent the necessity of an appeal to arms. He was seldom at a 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 Ben- gal, and entitled to a salary of eight thousand a year. Hast- ings proposed to make him also a judge in the Company’s service, removable at the pleasure of the Government of Ben- gal; and to give him, in that capacity, about eight thousand 460 a year more. It was understood that, in consideration of this new salary, Impey would desist from urging the high preten- sions of his court. If he did urge these pretensions, the Govern- ment 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 averted ; and the chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. A crisis now arrived with which Hastings alone was competent to deal. The English authorities in Southern India had provoked the great Hyder Ali to hostility without being prepared to repel it. An army of 90,000 well disciplined by French officers, came pouring down from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of Carnatic. Hyder was everywhere triumphant. Then it was that the fertile genius and serene courage of Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. Adopting a most vigorous policy, the Governor-general by his masterly movements in a few months retrieved the honor of the English arms. The financial embarrassment was extreme. A few years before this time Hastings had obtained relief by plundering the Mogul and en- slaving the Rohillas, nor were the resources of his fruitful mind by any means exhausted. His first design was on Benares, a city which, in wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost of Asia. Plundering the Treasures of the Hindoo Prince, Cheyte Sing.— The English Government now chose to wring money out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly been convenient to treat 470 him as a sovereign prince ; it was now convenient to treat him as a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hastings could easily find, in the general chaos of laws and customs, argu- ments for either course. Hastings wanted a great supply. It 28 WARREN HASTINGS. was known that Cheyte Sing had a large revenue, and it was suspected that he 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 perhaps from evil passions than from policy, 480 seldom left an 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, 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. The rajah, after the fashion of his countrymen, shuffled, so- 49 °licited, 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 em- barrassments of the Company. Hastings was determined to plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to fasten a quarrel on him. Accordingly, the rajah was now required to keep a body of cavalry for the service of the British Government. He 500 objected and evaded. This was exactly what the Governor-general wanted. He had now a pretext for treating the wealthiest of his vassals as a criminal. The plan was simply this, to demand larger aud larger contributions till the rajah should be driven to remon- strate, 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 hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the British Govern- ment. But Hastings replied that nothing less than half a mill- 510 ion would be accepted. Nay he began to think of selling WARREX HASTINGS. 29 Benares to Oude, as he had formerly sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter was one which could not be well man- aged at a distance ; and 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. Having arrived at Benares, Hastings sent to the rajah a paper containing the demands of the Government of Bengal. The rajah, in reply, attempted to clear himself 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. In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely showed his usual judgment. 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 worthy to follow English battalions to the charge and into the breach. The rajah was popular among his subjects. His administra- 5 ac tion had been mild ; and the prosperity of the district which he governed presented a striking contrast to the depressed state 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, 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. 540 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 513. Benares. — One of the most ancient and renowned cities of the world, situated on the river Ganges, 390 miles N. W. of Calcutta. It is the religious capital of the Hindoos and the chief centre of Brahminical learning. A divis- ion and district of India has the same name, 30 WARREN HASTINGS. massacre. The English officers defended themselves with des- 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 55° the water 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 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 apologies and liberal offers. They were not even answered. 560 Some subtle and enterprising men were found who undertook to pass through the throng of enemies, and to convey the in- telligence of the late events to the English. Instructions for the negotiations were needed ; and the Governor-general framed them in that situation of extreme danger with as much com- posure as if he had been writing in his palace at Calcutta. The entire population of the district of Benares took arms. The fields were abandoned by the husbandmen, who thronged to defend their prince. The infection spread to Oude. Even Bahar was ripe for revolt. The hopes of Cheyte Sing began 570 to rise. Instead of imploring mercy in the humble style of a vassal, he began to talk the language of a conqueror. But the English troops were now assembling fast. The officers, and even the private men, regarded the Governor-general with en- thusiastic attachment, and flew to his aid with an alacrity 549. Ganges (Hindoo Gunqa , or Ganga , so called as flowing through the Gang , the earth, to heaven). The principal river of India traversing the north- west provinces and Bengal. It enters the Gulf of Bengal by numerous mouths. The delta of the Ganges begins 200 miles from the sea. The valley of the Ganges is one of the richest on the globe. This river is 1,960 miles long, and is navigable for large boats for 1,500 miles from its mouth. Cf. A passage in Macaulay’s “ Lord Clive ” for a graphic description of the valley of the Ganges. WARREN HASTINGS. 31 which, as he boasted, had never been shown on any other occa- sion. The tumultuary army of the rajah was put to rout. His fastnesses were stormed. In a few hours, above thirty thou- sand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avo- cations. The unhappy prince fled from his country forever. His fair domain was added to the British dominions. * 58* 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 Clieyte Sing had been popularly esti- mated at a million sterling. It turned out to be about a fourth part of that sum ; and, such as it was, it was seized by the army, and divided as prize-money. The Infamous Bargain with the Prince of Oude; Cruel * Treatment of the Begums, or Princesses of Oude. — Disap- pointed in his expectation from Benares, Hastings was more 59° violent than he would otherwise have been, in his dealings with Oude. Sujah Dowlah had long been dead. His son and 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. 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 his tyranny. A brigade w T as furnished, and he engaged to defray the charge of paying and maintaining it. From that time his 60c 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 bear. Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of Benares, 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- 606. Iiiick now. —For many years the capital of Oude, 580 miles N.W. of Cal-- cutta. Renowned fer its siege and defense against the Sepoys in 1857. 32 WARREN HASTINGS. general. An interview took place in the fortress which, from 610 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 extra- ordinary 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 course was adopted. It was simply this, that the Governor- 520 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 mother of the present nabob, were known as the Begums 01 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. The treasure hoarded by the late nabob, a treasure which was 630 popularly estimated at near three millions sterling, was in their hands. 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 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 guaranteed by the Government of Bengal. It was necessary to find some pretext for a confiscation incon- 6 4 osistent, not merely with plighted faith, not merely with the ordinary rules of humanity and justice, but also with the great law of filial piety. A pretext was the last thing that Hastings 610. Cliunar.— A town on the Ganges, 17 miles S.W. of Benares. WARREN HASTINGS. 33 was likely to want. The insurrection at Benares had produced disturbances in Oude. These disturbances it was convenient to impute to the princesses. The accused were furnished 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 act of confiscation, be stripped of 650 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 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 engagements into which he had entered. His mother and grandmother protested and implored. His heart, deeply corrupted by absolute power and 660 licentious pleasures, yet not naturally unfeeling, failed him in this crisis. Even the English resident at Lucknow, though hitherto devoted to Hastings, shrunk from extreme measures. But the Governor-general was inexorable. He wrote to the resident in terms of 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 recoiled with dismay. The resident, thus menaced, waited on his highness, and insisted that the treaty of Chunar should be carried into full and im- 670 mediate 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 violence. A body of the Company’s troops marched to Fyzabad, and forced the gates of the palace. The princesses were confined to their own apartments. 675. ryzabad.— Capital of Fyzabad, in Oude, 65 miles from Lucknow. 3 * 34 WARREN HASTINGS. But still they refused to submit. Some more stringent mode of coercion was to be found. A mode was found of which, even at tliis distance of time, we cannot speak without shame 680 and sorrow. Sujah Dowlah had given his entire confidence to two eunuchs ; and after his deatli they remained at the head of the household of his widow. These men were, by the orders of the British Goverment, seized, imprisoned, ironed, starved almost to death, in order to extort money from the princesses. 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 removed to Lucknow. What 690 horrors their dungeon there witnessed can only be guessed. While these barbarities were perpetrated at Lucknow, the princesses were still under duress at Fyzabad. Food was allowed 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 to the bottom of their coffers, and that no rigor could extort more. Then at length the wretched men who 700 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 which they poured forth to the common Father of Mussulmans and Christians, melted even the stout hearts of the English warriors who stood by. The state of India had for some time occupied much of the attention of the British Parliament. Two committees of the Commons sat on Eastern affairs. In the one Edmund Burke took the lead. The other was under the presidency of the able and versatile Henry Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scotland. Their reports breathed the spirit of stern and indignant justice. The severest epithets were applied to several of the measures of Hastings. It was resolved that the Com- pany ought to recall a governor-general who had brought such calam- ities upon the Indian people, and such dishonor on the British name. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was limited, and Impey was WARREN HASTINGS. 35 recalled. The Company resolutely refused to dismiss Hastings from their service. Thus supported, 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. General Review of the Administration of Hastings.— 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. In every part of the 7 r0 world, except one, she had been a loser. 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 exertions both of European and Asiatic en- emies, the power of our country in the East had been greatly augmented. 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- ferred the direction of affairs to English hands. Out of a 720 frightful anarchy, he reduced at least a rude and imperfect order. The whole organization by which justice was dispensed, revenue collected, peace maintained throughout a territory not inferior in population to the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth or of the 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. Who- ever seriously considers 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 73c high admiration. The just fame of Hastings rises still higher, when we reflect that he was not bred a statesman ; that he was sent from school to a counting-house ; and that he was employed during the 724. Louis the Sixteenth (1754, executed 1793).— King of France and hus- band of Maria Antoinette. 725. Kmperor .Joseph (1741-1790).— Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, son pf Maria Theresa, of Austria* 36 WARREN HASTINGS. prime of his manhood as a commercial agent, far from all in- tellectual 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 him- 740 self, to education. A minister in Europe finds himself, on the first day on which he commences his functions, surrounded by experienced public servants, the depositaries of official tradi- tions. Hastings had no such help. His own reflection, his own energy, were to supply the place of all Downing Street and Somerset House. It must be added that, while engaged in this most arduous task, he was constantly trammeled by orders from home, and frequently borne down by a majority in Council. The preser- vation of an empire from a formidable combination of foreign 750 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 consultation were filled with acrimonious minutes by his col- leagues. We believe that there never was a public man whose temper was so severely tried. But the temper of Hastings was equal to almost any trial. It was not sweet ; but it was calm. Quick and vigorous as his intellect was, the patience with which he endured the most cruel vexations, till a remedy could be found, resembled the 760 patience of stupidity. He seems to have been capable of re- sentment, bitter and long enduring ; yet his resentment so sel- dom 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 minds that ever existed. Accordingly, no complication 744. Downing Street.— The principal building in this street of London was given by George I. to Sir Robert Walpole, who accepted it for his office of First Lord of the Treasury. It has since been the official residence of successive prime ministers, and has given celebrity to the street in which it stands. 745. Somerset House.— A building in the Strand, London, devoted to the accommodation of government and semi-public offices. WARREK HASTINGS. 37 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 contri- vances, it is certain that they seldom failed to serve the pur- 77 a pose for which they w T ere designed. Together with this extraordinary talent for devising expedi- ents, Hastings possessed, in a very high degree, another ta'icnt scarcely less necessary to a man in his situation ; we mean the talent for conducting political controversy. Of the numerous servants of the Company who have distinguished themselves as framers of minutes and dispatches, Hastings stands at the head. He was indeed the person who gave to the official writing of the Indian governments the character which it still retains. He was matched against no common antagonist. But 780 even Francis was forced to acknowledge, with sullen and re- sentful candor, that there was no contending against the pen of Hastings. And, in truth, the Governor-general’s power of making out a case, of perplexing what it was inconvenient that people should understand, and of setting in the clearest point of view whatever would bear the light, was incomparable. 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 re- searches. His patronage was extended, with prudent gener- 790 osity, to voyages, travels, experiments, publications. In Persian and Arabic literature he was deeply skilled. It was under his protection that the Asiatic Society commenced its honorable career. He was the first foreign ruler who succeeded in gaining the confidence of the hereditary priests of India, and who induced them to lay open to English scholars the secrets of the old Brahminical theology and jurisprudence. It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great art of in- spiring large masses of human beings with confidence and at- 800 tachment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. What is peculiar to him is that, being the chief of a small band of strangers 38 WARREtf HASTINGS. who exercised boundless power over a great indigenous popu- lation, he made himself beloved both by the subject many and by the dominant few. The affection felt for him by the civil service was singularly ardent and constant. Through all his disasters and perils, his brethren stood by him with steadfast loyalty. The army, at the same time, loved him as armies have seldom loved any but the greatest chiefs who have led 810 them to victory. Even in his disputes with distinguished mil- itary men, lie could always count on the support of the military profession. While such was his empire over the hearts of his countrymen, he enjoyed among the natives a popularity such as other governors have perhaps better merited, but such as no other governor has been able to attain. He spoke their ver- nacular dialects with facility and precision. He was intimately acquainted with their feelings and usages. On one or two oc- casions, for great ends, he deliberately acted in defiance of their opinion ; but on such occasions he gained more in their 820 respect than he lost in their love. In general, he carefully avoided all that could shock their national or religious preju- dices. The first English conquerors had been more rapacious and merciless even than the Mahrattas ; but that generation had passed away. 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 rob- ber itself. These things inspired good-will. At the same time, the constant success of Hastings, and the manner in which he extricated himself from every difficulty, made him an object 830 of superstitious admiration ; and the more than regal splendor which he sometimes displayed dazzled a people who have much in common with children. 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 823. Malirattas — Inhabitants of the principal states of Central India. The Mahratta Confederation extended at one time in the 18th century from the prov- ince of Agra to Cape Comorin, but its power was soon afterward broken by the British. WARREN HASTINGS. 39 a jingling ballad about the fleet horses and richly caparisoned elephants of Sahib Warren Hostein. Hastings arrived home in June, 1785. He was treated by the king with marked distinction. It is clear, however, that he was not sensible* of the danger of his position. Macaulay gives in detail the errors made by this wily and sagacious statesman, and by which he was brought to the verge of ruin. In spite of many and serious mistakes, the general aspect of affairs was favorable to Hastings. The king was on his side. The Company and its servants were zealous in his cause. Among public men he had many ardent friends. From the ministry Hastings had every reason to expect support ; and the ministry was very powerful. The opposition was loud and vehement against him. But the opposition, though formidable from the wealth and influence of some of its members, and from the admirable talents and eloquence of others, was outnumbered in Parliament, and odious throughout the country. But there were two men whose indignation was not to be so appeased, Philip Francis and Edmund Burke. Francis had recently entered the House of Commons, and had already established a charac- ter there for industry and ability. Neither lapse of years nor change of scene had mitigated the enmities which Francis had brought back from the East. The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far purer. The succeeding description of Burke is one of the most graphic passages to be found in Macaulay’s writings. Edmund Burke. — His knowledge of India was such as few, even of those Europeans who have passed many years in that country, have attained, and such as certainly was never at- tained by any public man who had not quitted Europe. He 84 c 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 have perhaps been equally laborious, and have collected an equal mass of mate- rials ; but the manner in which Burke brought his higher powers of intellect to work on statements of facts and on tables of figures w T as peculiar to himself. In every part of those huge bales of Indian information which repelled almost all other readers, his mind, at once philosophical and poetical, found something to instruct or to delight. His reason analyzed 850 and digested those vast and shapeless masses ; his imagination 845. Edmund Burk e (1730-1797). — Orator and statesman, distinguished over all the great men of his time for eloquence and political foresight. The trial of Hastings closed with another great and splendid oration by Burke, lasting over nine days. 40 WARREN HASTINGS. animated and colored them. Out of darkness, and dullness, and confusion, he formed a multitude of ingenious theories and vivid pictures. He had, in the highest degree, that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the fu- fure, in the distant and in the unreal. India and its inhabitants were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and ab- stractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning sun ; the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree ; 860 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 devotee swinging in the air ; the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head* de- scending the steps to the river side ; 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 palan- 870 quin of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady — all these 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 perfumes at the feet of sovereigns to the wild moor where the gypsy camp was pitched, from the bazaar, humming like a beehive 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 88 o insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. 863. Mecca. — A renowned city of Arabia, the chief seat of the Mohammedan religion. 873. Beaconsfield.— A towm 23 miles from London. St. James’s Street. — A fashionable thoroughfare of London. 880. Lord George Gordon (1750-1793L— The leader of a great .mob which plundered and pillaged about London in 1780. Gordon Avas tried for high treason, but. acquitted. He died in prison in 1793. A graphic description of these riots is worked into the plot of Dickens’s Barnaby Badge. WARREN HASTINGS. 41 Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of London.* * Hastings, so politic and successful in the East, committed nothing but blunders in Europe. Macaulay says that extreme measures against him would not Imve been adopted, if his own conduct had been judi- cious. Both Hastings and his agent were impatient for the rewards which, as they conceived, were deferred only till Burke’s attack should be over. The opposition was forced to pledge itself to a prosecution. On the 13th of June, 1786, Mr. Fox brought forward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. To the astonishment of every one, Mr. Pitt supported Mr. Fox’s mo- tion, from jealous}', it is said, of the great power wielded by Hastings. Mr. Fox’s motion was carried by a large majority. The opposition, flushed with victory and strongly supported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, and having now no hope 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 misdemeanors. Hastings was at the same time arrested by the ser- geant-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 trial till the next year. Hastings was admitted to bail; and further proceedings were postponed till the Houses should reassemble. The Famous Trial of Warren Hastings. In tlie mean time, the preparations for the trial had proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings 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 ex- hibited at Westminster ; but, perhaps, there never was a spec- tacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflect- ing, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest 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. 882. William Dodd, D.D. (1729-1777).— A fashionable and eloquent preacher of London, chaplain to the king, and an author of some note. Dodd’s Beauties of Shakespeare is still known. "He was convicted of forgery and hung in 1777. * “ This passage, unsurpassed as it is in force of language and splendid fidelity of detail by anything that Macaulay ever wrote or uttered, was inspired by sin- cere and entire sympathy with that great statesman of whose humanity and breadth of view it is the merited, and not inadequate, panegyric.”— Trevelyan. 42 WARREN HASTINGS. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are devel- oped by liberty and civilization were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both from co-operation 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 ; 900 or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping 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 Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the ladies 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 accla- mations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which 910 had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just abso- lution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Stratford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted 904. The Plantagenets, whose name was derived from the nlanta genista , the Spanish broom-plant, a sprig of which was commonly worn by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II., reigned over England for more than three centuries, and to this family all the English monarchs belonged from Henry II. to Richard III. (1154-1485). In the long and prosperous reign of Edward III. (1327-1377), the three essential principles of the English government, as Hallam calls them, were established upon a firm footing. The third was the right of the Commons to inquire into public abuses, and to impeach public counsellors. 908. William Rufus.— William II. (1087-1100), surnamed Rufus, or the Red, from the color of his hair, erected Westminster Hall, which still remains a noble specimen of the architecture of the time. S10. The celebrated Hol'd Bacon was impeached for taking bribes and other corrupt practices. He was sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, to be imprisoned in the Tower, and to be forever incapable of any office, place or employment. In consideration of his great merit, the king soon released him from the Tower, remitted his fine and other parts of his sentence. 911. Lord Somers, Lord Chancellor in the reign of William III., was im- peached for alleged illegal practices, but through an irreconcilable difference be- tween the Commons and the Lords as to the mode of proceeding, was acquitted. 911. The Karl of Strafford was impeached and tried on a charge of treason in Westminster Hall. He gained many friends by the eloquence of his defense. Strafford was afterward tried by a “bill of attainder,” condemned to death, and beheaded in 1641. 913. Cliarles I. was impeached as “a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy to the Commonwealth,” and brought to trial before the high Court of Justice assembled in Westminster Hall, in 1649. With great temper WARREN HASTINGS. 43 the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and er- mine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at- arms. The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy 920 lords, three-fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of as- sembling to the tribunal. The junior baron present led the way, Lord Heath field, 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 Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long 9: 0 galleries were crowded by an audience such as has rarely ex- cited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives 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 ambas- sadors of great kings and commonwealths gazed with ad- miration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic 94c and dignity he declined to submit himself to the jurisdiction of the Court, on the ground that he was their hereditary king. 924. Gibraltar endured a memorable siege of more than three years at this time. It was bravely defended by Gen. Elliot, with a garrison of 5,000 men. The siege was continued until the peace in 1783. Gen. Elliot, on his return to England in 1787, was raised to the peerage as Lord Heat In lie Id, of Gibraltar. 929. Prince of* Wales. — Afterwards George I Y. (1820-1830). At this time the Prince was 26 years of age, of dissolute habits and a spendthrift. 937. The Q,ueen. — The wife of George III., and Queen of England, was Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The House of Brunswick, or Han- over, includes the rulers of England from George I. to Victoria. 940. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831). — The famous tragic actress. Her great character was Lady Macbeth. Mrs. Siddons was at this time 33 years old, and was at the height of her fame. 44 WARREN HASTINGS, beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imi- tations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman Em- pire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Yerres, and when, before a 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 pre- served to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and 950 statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend his labors in that dark and pro- found mine from which he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition. There were the members of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised, 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 treas- ury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. 942 Historian of* the Roman Empire. — Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the great historian of The Beeline and Fall of the Roman Enjhre, finished his mas- terly work only the year before, in 1787. 943. Cicero (106 b.c.--43 b.c.). — The illustrious Roman orator. The infamous Verres, praetor of Sicily, was impeached (70 b.c.) by the Sicilians, for atrociouc acts of cruelty and rapine. Cicero conducted the prosecution of Yerres, who employed Hortensius to defend him. On account of the overwhelming evidence against the accused, Cicero delivered only two of his seven orations before Verres himself went into voluntary exile ; but the others were published and remain a noble monument of the great orator’s versatile genius. 945. Tacitus.— A celebrated Roman historian who flourished in the first cent- ury. His History of Agricola and Annals rank high as Latin classics. 947. The Greatest Painter.— Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the cele- brated painter, the friend of Dr. Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and other great men of his time. 947. The Greatest Scholar.— Samuel Parr (1747-1825), enjoyed in his time an extraordinary reputation for scholarship. His voluminous works have long since been forgotten. See De Q.uincey’s essay on Dr. Samuel Parr. 955. Elizabeth Montague (1720-1800).— A celebrated English lady who lived in London after the death of her husband in 1775. She numbered among her visitors the most eminent people of the day ; Burke, Goldsmith, Dr. John- son, Reynolds and Hannah More. Mrs. Montague also made valuable contribu- tions to literature. Consult. Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson . 956. Charles Janies Fox (1?'49-1$C6)!— The great statesman and orator. Burke called him “ the greatest debater the wor.d ever saw.” Cf. Sir Walter Scott’s well-known couplet — “Shed upon Fox’s grave the tear, ’Twill trickle to his rival’s bier.” 958. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806). — An English lady, famed for her beauty and accomplishments. She was a personal friend of WARREN HASTINGS. 45 The sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not un- 9^ worthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth 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 deriving 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 pen- 97 a sive, 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 the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mem cequa in arduis ; such was the aspect with which the great pro- consul 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 in their profession. But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red dra- 9§t pery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appear- ance, 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, copi- ous, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord Fox, for whom, it is said, she bought votes by granting electors the privilege of kissing her. 986. William Pitt (1759-1806).— Son of the great Earl of Chatham. His genius and ambition displayed themselves with almost unexampled precocity. At the age of 25, Pitt ruled absolutely over the English Cabinet, and was the most powerful subject that England had seen for many generations. For seventeen eventful years, he held his great position without a break. As a statesman and orator, Pitt was of the highest rank. Cf. Macaulay’s biography of William Pitt. 46 WARREN HASTINGS, 99° North for the duties of a 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 dis- tinguished 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 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 adapt- ing his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of ioco his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness 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 ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded by such men, did the youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those who distin- guish themselves in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuous xoio place in Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection was wanting that could set off to the height his splendid tal- 990. Lord North. — The prime minister of England during the Revolution. “ A more amiable man never lived,” says Earl Russell ; “ a worse minister never since the Revolution governed this country.” Lord North was 56 years old at this time. 996. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816).— The brilliant orator and author of the popular plays, The Rivals and School for Scandal , which have kept their popularity for over a hundred years. His great speech urging the impeach- ment of Hastings is still traditionally remembered as perhaps the very grandest triumph of oratory in a time prolific of such triumphs. 997. Demosthenes (About 382 b.c.--322 b c.).— The great Greek orator, generally regarded as the greatest orator that ever lived. 997. Hyperides. — A famous Athenian orator put to death in 322 b.c. Cicero ranks him next to Demosthenes. His orations have all been lost. 1005. William Windham (1750-1810) —Secretary of War unde* Mr. Pitt, an excellent speaker and a most effective debater. Fox. Pitt, Canning, Dr. John- son, and other great men of that time, gave Windham the highest praise. In his lifetime, he gained the nickname of “ the weathercock.” Notwithstanding his great talents and rare gifts, Windham appears in history as a mere shadow of a man. 1006. The Young-est Manager. — Charles Earl Grey (1764-1845). Head of the government which carried the Reform Bill in 1832, and a distinguished English statesman. During the Grey ministry many great and important measures were passed. It was said that a more honorable man never lived. WARREN HASTINGS. 4? ents and his unblemished honor. the an- swers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would other- wise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cow- per, the clerk of the courtj a near relation of the amiable poet. On the third clay Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general intro- duction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendor of diction which more than satisfied the highly 102a raised expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circum- stances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company and of the Eng- lish presidencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arrraign the admin- istration of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration from the 1030 Item 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 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 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, 1040 11 hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Corn- 1015. Cowper, the Cleric of the Court.— This gentleman gave William Cowper, the poet, the lucrative office of Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords, which was accepted ; but being obliged to appear personally at the bar of the House for examination, the sensitive poet was' seized with nervousness and dared not appear. 48 WARREtf HASTINGS. moils’ 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 peo- i pie of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the 1050 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, 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 Hast- ings and of his counsel was that the managers should open all the charges, and produce all the evidence for the prosecution, before the defense began. The Lords retired to their own 1060 House to consider the question. The division showed which way the 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 article was that relating to the Princesses of Oude. The con- duct of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His 1070 sparkling and highly finished declamation lasted two days ; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. June was now far advanced. The session could not last much longer; and the progress which had been made in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the case for the pros- ecution been heard ; and it was now a year since Hastings had been admitted to bail. The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when WARREN HASTINGS. 49 the court began to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan 1080 spoke on the charge relating to the Begums. From tliat time the excitement went down fast. The spectacle bad lost the attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when the trial commenced, no important question, either of domestic or foreign policy, occupied the public mind. The proceedings in Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally attracted most of the attention of Parliament and of the country. It was the one great event of that season. But in I °9° the following year the king’s illness, the debates on the Regen- cy, the expectation of a change of ministry, completely diverted public attention from Indian affairs; and within a fortnight after George the Third had returned thanks in St. Paul’s for his recovery, the States-general of France met at Versailles. In the midst of the agitation produced 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 noo thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In 1789, the Regency Bill occupied the Upper House till the session was far advanced. During the whole year only seventeen days were given to the case of Hastings. It was clear that the mat- ter would be protracted to a length unprecedented in the annals of criminal law. A well-constituted tribunal, sitting regularly six 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. mo At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pro- 1102. Regency Bill. — In 1788, Kin" George III. was seized with a violent ill- ness, which terminated in symptoms of lunacy. Fox insisted on the exclusive right of the Prince of Wales to be appointed Regent, a position which Pitt tri- umphantly refuted. While the bill was in progress the king’s convalescence was announced, February, 1789. 3 50 WARREN HASTINGS. nounced, near eight years after Hastings had been brought by the Sergeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. On the last day of this great procedure the public curiosity, long suspended, seemed to be revived. Anxiety about the judgment there could be none ; for it had been fully ascertained that there was a great majority for the defendant. Neverthe- less, many wished to see the pageant, and the Hall was as much crowded as on the first day. But those who, having been 1120 present 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 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. Of about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked in the proces- 1130 sion on the first day, sixty had been laid in their family vaults. The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full vigor of their genius. But their friendship was at an end. 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 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. 1140 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. The 1124. Woolsack.— An act of Parliament was passed in the reign of Elizabeth to prevent the exportation of wool. In order to keep well in mind this source of national wealth, woolsacks were placed in the House of Lords as seats for the judges. The seat of the Lord Chancellor is to this day called the ‘‘ woolsack,’ WARREN HASTINGS. 51 iength of his trial made him an object of compassion. It was thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill-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 de- fendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against his 1150 crimes, a great political cause should be tried on different principles, and that a man 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 prosecutors, was used by Hastings and his friends with great effect. 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 n6o any man living. The effect of this testimony unanimously given by all persons who knew the East was naturally very great. Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything except character he would have been far better off if, when first im- peached, he had at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of fifty thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. The legal ex- penses of his defense had been enormous. The expenses which did not appear in his attorney’s bill were perhaps larger still. Great sums had been laid out in bribing newspapers, rewarding 1170 pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790 , declared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. 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 was imprudent. 1158. Madras.— A large and prosperous maritime city of India, on the Coro- mandel coast, founded by the English in 1640. 52 WARREN HASTINGS. The dearest wish of his heart had always been to regain u8o 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 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. The general feeling both of the Directors and of the propri 1190 etors 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. An annuity for life of four thousand pounds was settled on Hastings. The company was also permitted to lend him fifty thousand pounds, to be repaid by installments without interest. He had security and affluence, but not the power and dig- nity which, when he landed from India, he had reason to ex- pect. 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 1200 mark of royal favor while Mr. Pitt remained in power ; and, when Mr. Pitt retired, Hastings was approaching his seventi- eth year. The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly passed at 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. Literature divided his attention with his conservatories and his menag- erie. He had always loved books, and they were now neces- sary to him. Though not a poet, in any high sense of the 1210 word, he wrote neat and polished lines with great facility, and was fond of exercising this talent. 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 1813 the WARREX HASTINGS. 53 charter of the East India Company was renewed, and much discussion about Indian affairs took place in Parliament. It was determined to examine witnesses at the bar of the Com- mons, and Hastings was ordered to attend. He had appeared at that bar once before. It was when he read his answer to the charges which Burke had laid on the table. Since that 1220 time twenty-seven years had elapsed ; public feeling had un- dergone a complete change ; the nation had now forgotten his faults, and remembered only his services. The reappearance, too, of a man who had been among the most distinguished of a generation that had passed away, who now belonged to his- tory, and who seemed to have risen from the dead, could not but produce a solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons re- ceived him with acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, when he retired, rose and uncovered. The Lords re- ceived the old man with similar tokens of respect. *230 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 Rus- sia 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 war- riors, was everywhere received with marks of respect and ad- miration. Hastings now confidently expected a peerage ; but, from some unexplained cause, he was again disappointed. 1240 He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of good spirits, of faculties not impaired to any painful or degrading extent, and of health such as is rarely enjoyed by those who attain such an age. At length, on the 22d of August, 1818 , in the 86th 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. 1236. Guildhall.— An important public building in London. The original building was erected in 1411. It has been famous for centuries for the magnifi- cence of its civic feasts. 54 WARREN HASTINGS. With all his faults — and they were neither few nor small — only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that 1250 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 with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Be- hind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever 1260 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 plowmen. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which 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. He had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government 1270 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 sought the destruction of a single victim ; and over that combination, 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. Those who look on his character without favor or malevo- lence will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all so- 1270. Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642). — The eminent and ambitious French statesman and prime minister. 1271. Cosmo or Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464), surnamedthe Elder, a famous statesman of the Florentine republic, and liberal patron of learning and the arts. WABBEK HASTINGS. 55 cial virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy 1280 for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were somew T hat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his daunt- less courage, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the in- terests of the State, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either. Selections to Commit to Memory. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.— Essay on Lord Byron. This is the highest miracle of genius — that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the per- sonal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought. — Essay on the Pilgrim'' s Progress. To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late, And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods ? —Lays of Ancient Rome. The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.— Essay on Southey' 1 s Colloquies on Society. Surely it is no exaggeration to say, that no external advantage is to be com- pared with that purification of the intellectual eye, which gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world ; all the hoarded treasures of the prime- val dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have for more than twenty cen- turies been annihilated ; her people have degenerated into feeble slaves ; her language into a barbarous jargon ; her temples have been given up to the suc- cessive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen ; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And when those who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate ; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents ; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England ; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief ; shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple ; and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of ten thousand masts,— her influence and her glory will still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control.— Essay on the Athenian Orators. 56 ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, FOR lasses in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SOHOLARS. . 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