The voyage was, for those times, very speedy. Hastings was little more than four months on the sea. In June, 1785, he landed at Plymouth, posted to London, appeared at Court, paid his respects in Leadenhall Street, and then retired with his wife to Cheltenham.

widely diffused. The talk of Calcutta which his own conduct never stood in ran for some time on the luxurious need. manner in which he fitted up the round-house of an Indiaman for her accommodation, on the profusion of sandal-wood and carved ivory which adorned her cabin, and on the thousands of rupees which had been expended in order to procure for her the society of an agreeable female companion during the voyage. We may remark here that the letters of Hastings to his wife are exceedingly characteristic. They are tender, and full of indications of esteem and confidence; but, at the same time, a little more ceremonious than is usual in so intimate a relation. The solemn cour-rectors tesy with which he compliments "his elegant Marian" reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which Sir Charles Grandison bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the cedar parlour.

He was greatly pleased with his reception. The King treated him with marked distinction. The Queen, who had already incurred much censure on account of the favour which, in spite of the ordinary severity of her virtue, she had shown to the "elegant Marian," was not less gracious to Hastings. The Di

received him in a solemn sitting; and their chairman read to him a vote of thanks which they had passed without one dissentient voice. "I find myself," said Hastings, in a letter written about a quarter of a year after his arrival in England, "I find my

treated with evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess the good opinion of my country."

After some months, Hastings pre-self everywhere, and universally, pared to follow his wife to England. When it was announced that he was about to quit his office, the feeling of the society which he had so long governed manifested itself by many signs. Addresses poured in from Europeans and Asiatics, from civil functionaries, soldiers, and traders. On the day on which he delivered up the keys of office, a crowd of friends and admirers formed a lane to the quay where he embarked. Several barges escorted him far down the river; and some attached friends refused to quit him till the low coast of Bengal was fading from the view, and till the pilot was leaving the ship.

Of his voyage little is known, except that he amused himself with books and with his pen; and that, among the compositions by which he beguiled the tediousness of that long leisure, was a pleasing imitation of Horace's Otium Divos rogat. This little poem was inscribed to Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, a man of whose integrity, humanity, and honour, it is impossible to speak too highly, but who, like some other excellent members of the civil service, extended to the conduct of his friend Hastings an indulgence of VOL. II.

The confident and exulting tone of his correspondence about this time is the more remarkable, because he had already received ample notice of the attack which was in preparation. Within a week after he landed at Plymouth, Burke gave notice in the House of Commons of a motion seriously affecting a gentleman lately returned from India. The session, however, was then so far advanced, that it was impossible to enter on so extensive and important a subject.

Hastings, it is clear, was not sensible of the danger of his position. Indeed that sagacity, that judgment, that readiness in devising expedients, which had distinguished him in the East, seemed now to have forsaken him; not that his abilities were at all impaired; not that he was not still the same man who had triumphed over Francis and Nuncomar, who had made the Chief Justice and the Nabob Vizier his tools, who had deposed Cheyte Sing, and repelled Hyder Ali. But an oak, as Mr. Grattan finely said, should not be transplanted at fifty. A man who,

having left England when a boy, re-position. Nor had the agent of Hastturns to it after thirty or forty years ings the talents necessary for obtaining passed in India, will find, be his talents the ear of an assembly which, accuswhat they may, that he has much both tomed to listen to great orators, had to learn and to unlearn before he can naturally become fastidious. He was take a place among English statesmen. always on his legs; he was very tediThe working of a representative sys-ous; and he had only one topic, the tem, the war of parties, the arts of merits and wrongs of Hastings. Every debate, the influence of the press, are body who knows the House of Comstartling novelties to him. Surrounded mons will easily guess what followed. on every side by new machines and The Major was soon considered as the new tactics, he is as much bewildered greatest bore of his time. His exeras Hannibal would have been at Wa- tions were not confined to Parliament. terloo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. There was hardly a day on which the His very acuteness deludes him. His newspapers did not contain some puff very vigour causes him to stumble. upon Hastings, signed Asiaticus or The more correct his maxims, when Bengalensis, but known to be written applied to the state of society to which by the indefatigable Scott; and hardly he is accustomed, the more certain a month in which some bulky pamphthey are to lead him astray. This was let on the same subject, and from the strikingly the case with Hastings. In same pen, did not pass to the trunkIndia he had a bad hand; but he was makers and the pastrycooks. As to master of the game, and he won every this gentleman's capacity for conductstake. In England he held excellent ing a delicate question through Parliacards, if he had known how to play them; ment, our readers will want no evidence and it was chiefly by his own errors that beyond that which they will find in he was brought to the verge of ruin. letters preserved in these volumes. We will give a single specimen of his temper and judgment. He designated the greatest man then living as "that reptile Mr. Burke."

Of all his errors the most serious was perhaps the choice of a champion. Clive, in similar circumstances, had made a singularly happy selection. He put himself into the hands of Wedder- In spite, however, of this unfortuburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, nate choice, the general aspect of affairs one of the few great advocates who was favourable to Hastings. The King have also been great in the House of was on his side. The Company and Commons. To the defence of Clive, its servants were zealous in his cause. therefore, nothing was wanting, neither Among public men he had many ardent learning nor knowledge of the world, friends. Such were Lord Mansfield, neither forensic acuteness nor that who had outlived the vigour of his eloquence which charms political assem- body, but not that of his mind; and blies. Hastings intrusted his interests Lord Lansdowne, who, though unconto a very different person, a Major in nected with any party, retained the imthe Bengal army, named Scott. This portance which belongs to great talents gentleman had been sent over from and knowledge. The ministers were India some time before as the agent of generally believed to be favourable to the Governor-General. It was ru- the late Governor-General. They moured that his services were rewarded owed their power to the clamour which with Oriental munificence; and we had been raised against Mr. Fox's East believe that he received much more India Bill. The authors of that bill, than Hastings could conveniently spare. when accused of invading vested rights, The Major obtained a seat in Parlia- and of setting up powers unknown to ment, and was there regarded as the the constitution, had defended themorgan of his employer. It was evi-selves by pointing to the crimes of Hastdently impossible that a gentleman so ings, and by arguing that abuses so situated could speak with the autho- extraordinary justified extraordinary ity which belongs to an independent measures. Those who, by opposing

that bill, had raised themselves to the members, and from the admirable head of affairs, would naturally be talents and eloquence of others, was inclined to extenuate the evils which outnumbered in parliament, and odious had been made the plea for administer- throughout the country. Nor, as far ing so violent a remedy; and such, in as we can judge, was the Opposition fact, was their general disposition. The generally desirous to engage in so seriLord Chancellor Thurlow, in particu- ous an undertaking as the impeachlar, whose great place and force of ment of an Indian Governor. Such intellect gave him a weight in the go- an impeachment must last for years. vernment inferior only to that of Mr. It must impose on the chiefs of the Pitt, espoused the cause of Hastings party an inmense load of labour. Yet with indecorous violence. Mr. Pitt, it could scarcely, in any manner, affect though he had censured many parts of the event of the great political game. the Indian system, had studiously ab- The followers of the coalition were stained from saying a word against the therefore more inclined to revile Hastlate chief of the Indian government.ings than to prosecute him. They lost To Major Scott, indeed, the young no opportunity of coupling his name minister had in private extolled Hast- with the names of the most hateful ings as a great, a wonderful man, who had the highest claims on the government. There was only one objection to granting all that so eminent a servant of the public could ask. The resolution of censure still remained on the journals of the House of Commons. That resolution was, indeed, unjust; but, till it was rescinded, could the minister advise the King to bestow any mark of approbation on the person censured? If Major Scott is to be trusted, Mr. Pitt declared that this was the only reason which prevented the advisers of the Crown from conferring a peerage on the late Governor-General. Mr. Dundas was the only important member of the administration who was deeply committed to a different view of the subject. He had moved the resolution which created the difficulty; but even from him little was to be apprehended. Since he had presided over the committee on Eastern affairs, great changes had taken place. He was surrounded by new allies; he had fixed his hopes on new objects; and whatever may have been his good qualities, and he had many,-flattery itself never reckoned rigid consistency

in the number.

From the Ministry, therefore, Hastings had every reason to expect support; and the Ministry was very powerful. The Opposition was loud and vehement against him. But the Opposition, though formidable from the wealth and influence of some of its

tyrants of whom history makes mention. The wits of Brooks's aimed their keenest sarcasms both at his public and at his domestic life. Some fine diamonds which he had presented, as it was rumoured, to the royal family, and a certain richly carved ivory bed which the Queen had done him the honour to accept from him, were favourite subjects of ridicule. One lively poet proposed, that the great acts of the fair Marian's present husband should be immortalized by the pencil of his predecessor; and that Imhoff should be employed to embellish the House of Commons with paintings of the bleeding Rohillas, of Nuncomar swinging, of Cheyte Sing letting himself down to the Ganges. Another, in an exquisitely humorous parody of Virgil's third eclogue, propounded the question, what that mineral could be of which the rays had power to make the most austere of princesses the friend of a wanton. A third described, with gay malevolence, the gorgeous appearance of Mrs. Hastings at St. James's, the galaxy of jewels, torn from Indian Begums, which adorned her head dress, her necklace gleaming with future votes, and the depending questions that shone upon her ears.

Satirical attacks of this description, and perhaps a motion for a vote of censure, would have satisfied the great body of the Opposition. But there were two men whose indignation was not to be so appeased, Philip Franci and Edmund Burke.

Francis had recently entered the an enmity which began in 1781, and House of Commons, and had already which retained undiminished force long established a character there for in- after persons far more deeply implidustry and ability. He laboured indeed cated than Hastings in the events of under one most unfortunate defect, 1784 had been cordially forgiven. And want of fluency. But he occasionally why should we look for any other exexpressed himself with a dignity and planation of Burke's conduct than that energy worthy of the greatest orators. which we find on the surface? The Before he had been many days in par- plain truth is that Hastings had comliament, he incurred the bitter dislike mitted some great crimes, and that the of Pitt, who constantly treated him thought of those crimes made the blood with as much asperity as the laws of of Burke boil in his veins. For Burke debate would allow. Neither lapse of was a man in whom compassion for years nor change of scene had miti- suffering, and hatred of injustice and gated the enmities which Francis had tyranny, were as strong as in Las brought back from the East. After his Casas or Clarkson. And although in usual fashion, he mistook his malevo- him, as in Las Casas and in Clarkson, lence for virtue, nursed it, as preachers these noble feelings were alloyed with tell us that we ought to nurse our the infirmity which belongs to human good dispositions, and paraded it, nature, he is, like them, entitled to this on all occasions, with Pharisaical os- great praise, that he devoted years of tentation. intense labour to the service of a people with whom he had neither blood nor language, neither religion nor manners in common, and from whom no

The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far purer. Men unable to understand the elevation of his mind have tried to find out some discredit-requital, no thanks, no applause could able motive for the vehemence and be expected. pertinacity which he showed on this His knowledge of India was such as occasion. But they have altogether few, even of those Europeans who have failed. The idle story that he had passed many years in that country, some private slight to revenge has long have attained, and such as certainly was been given up, even by the advocates never attained by any public man who of Hastings. Mr. Gleig supposes that had not quitted Europe. He had Burke was actuated by party spirit, studied the history, the laws, and the that he retained a bitter remembrance usages of the East with an industry, of the fall of the coalition, that he such as is seldom found united to so attributed that fall to the exertions much genius and so much sensibility. of the East India interest, and that he Others have perhaps been equally laboconsidered Hastings as the head and rious, and have collected an equal the representative of that interest. mass of materials. But the manner This explanation seems to be suffici- in which Burke brought his higher ently refuted by a reference to dates. powers of intellect to work on stateThe hostility of Burke to Hastings com- ments of facts, and on tables of figures, menced long before the coalition; and was peculiar to himself. In every part lasted long after Burke had become a of those huge bales of Indian informastrenuous supporter of those by whom tion which repelled almost all other the coalition had been defeated. It readers, his mind, at once philosophibegan when Burke and Fox, closely cal and poetical, found something to allied together, were attacking the in- instruct or to delight. His reason fluence of the crown, and calling for analysed and digested those vast and peace with the American republic. It shapeless masses; his imagination anicontinued till Burke, alienated from mated and coloured them. Out of Fox, and loaded with the favours of darkness, and dulness, and confusion, the crown, died, preaching a crusade he formed a multitude of ingenious against the French republic. We surely theories and vivid pictures. He had, cannot attribute to the events of 1784 in the highest degree, that noble faculty

whereby man is able to live in the past | acquired too much of the character of and in the future, in the distant and in personal aversion. He could see no the unreal. India and its inhabitants mitigating circumstance, no redeeming were not to him, as to most English merit. His temper, which, though gemen, mere names and abstractions, but nerous and affectionate, had always a real country and a real people. The been irritable, had now been made burning sun, the strange vegetation of almost savage by bodily infirmities and the palm and the cocoa tree, the rice- mental vexations. Conscious of great field, the tank, the huge trees, older powers and great virtues, he found than the Mogul empire, under which the himself, in age and poverty, a mark for village crowds assemble, the thatched the hatred of a perfidious court and a roof of the peasant's hut, the rich deluded people. In Parliament his tracery of the mosque where the imaun | eloquence was out of date. A young prays with his face to Mecca, the drums, generation, which knew him not, had and banners, and gaudy idols, the filled the House. Whenever he rose devotee swinging in the air, the grace- to speak, his voice was drowned by the ful maiden, with the pitcher on her unseemly interruption of lads who head, descending the steps to the river- were in their cradles when his orations side, the black faces, the long beards, on the Stamp Act called forth the apthe yellow streaks of sect, the turbans plause of the great Earl of Chatham. and the flowing robes, the spears and These things had produced on his the silver maces, the elephants with proud and sensitive spirit an effect at their canopies of state, the gorgeous which we cannot wonder. He could palanquin of the prince, and the close no longer discuss any question with litter of the noble lady, all these things calmness, or make allowance for honest were to him as the objects amidst differences of opinion. Those who which his own life had been passed, as think that he was more violent and the objects which lay on the road be- acrimonious in debates about India tween Beaconsfield and St. James's than on other occasions, are ill inStreet. All India was present to the formed respecting the last years of his eye of his mind, from the halls where life. In the discussions on the Comsuitors laid gold and perfumes at the mercial Treaty with the Court of Verfeet of sovereigns to the wild moor sailles, on the Regency, on the French where the gipsy camp was pitched, Revolution, he showed even more vifrom the bazar, humming like a bee-rulence than in conducting the imhive with the crowd of buyers and peachment. Indeed it may be remarked sellers, to the jungle where the lonely that the very persons who called him a courier shakes his bunch of iron rings mischievous maniac, for condemning to scare away the hyenas. He had in burning words the Rohilla war and just as lively an idea of the insurrec- the spoliation of the Begums, exalted tion at Benares as of Lord George him into a prophet as soon as he began Gordon's riots, and of the execution of to declaim, with greater vehemence, Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. and not with greater reason, against Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to the taking of the Bastile and the inhim the same thing as oppression in sults offered to Marie Antoinette. To the streets of London. us he appears to have been neither a He saw that Hastings had been guilty maniac in the former case, nor a proof some most unjustifiable acts. All phet in the latter, but in both cases a that followed was natural and necessary great and good man, led into extravain a mind like Burke's. His imagina-gance by a sensibility which domition and his passions, once excited, neered over all his faculties. hurried him beyond the bounds of jus- It may be doubted whether the pertice and good sense. His reason, power-sonal antipathy of Francis, or the ful as it was, became the slave of feel-nobler indignation of Burke, would ings which it should have controlled. have led their party to adopt extreme His indignation, virtuous in its origin, measures against Hastings, if his own