At first,
as we have seen, Hastings had formed a poor opinion of him.
as we have seen, Hastings had formed a poor opinion of him.
Cambridge History of India - v5 - British India
It is
in general one of the best cultivated countries I have seen in Hindo-
stan”. In any case, whatever the rule of the Rohillas had been, it
was better than that of the nawabs of Oudh, which, especially in
the time of Shuja-ud-daula's successor, was unspeakably bad and vile.
As regards the alleged atrocities perpetrated by the nawab and
his army, there is little doubt that Champion greatly exaggerated
them, partly out of pique that he was not allowed to control the poli-
tical relations, which were left in the hands of Middleton, partly from
envy of the booty that fell into the hands of his allies. At the same
time there was probably a modicum of truth in the strong statements
to which he committed himself, that the nawab did not "cease to
overspread the country with flames till three days after the fate of
Hafiz Rahmat Khan was decided";4 that "the whole army were wit-
nesses of scenes that cannot be described";5 and that "I have been
obliged to give a deaf ear to the lamentable cries of the widow and
fatherless, and to shut my eyes against a wanton display of violence
and oppression, of inhumanity and cruelty”. 8 Middleton too, who
was friendly to the nawab, admitted that he could not acquit him of
severe treatment of Hafiz Rahmat Khan's family or of wanton ravages
of the country. But Champion was curiously loth to give details when
Hastings demanded them, and when twelve years later he was inter-
rogated on the matter before the House of Commons, though he
repeated his allegations, he declared that his memory was too much
». 5
1 C. Hamilton, An historical relation of the origin, progress and final disso-
lution of the Government. of the Rohilla Afghans, p. 209.
2 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 30.
Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, VI, 30.
4 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 196.
5 Idem, p. 203.
8 Idem, p. 191.
3
## p. 223 (#251) ############################################
POLICY OF THE WAR
223
"1
» 2
weakened by long illness to recall any definite instances of cruelty.
In any case there can be no doubt that as soon as the reports and
complaints of the commander-in-chief reached him, Hastings took
all possible measures by strong representations to the nawab to ensure
that this conduct should cease. Hastings afterwards was inclined to
speak of the Company's honour as "pledged implicitly by General
Barker's attestation”, but this is not accurate. Barker had merely
witnessed the signatures, though it is probably true enough, as Sir
John Strachey says, that without his "active interference and per-
suasion” i no treaty would have been made. But even supposing that
it was the duty of the British to coerce the Rohillas into payment,
was so drastic a method as the conquest of the whole country neces-
sary? Surely, as Fox suggested, a lesser penalty might have sufficed.
It must be admitted that there is something rather repellent about
the finance of the whole operation. Hastings himself was frank
enough to avow that the question of money was one of his main
motives.
“The absence of the Marathas”, he wrote, "and the weak state of the
Rohillas, promised an easy conquest of them, and I own that such was my idea
of the Company's distress at home, added to my knowledge of their wants
abroad, that I should have been glad of any occasion to employ their forces,
that saves so much of their pay and expenses. ”
There is a certain truth in the acrid comment of the majority of the
council : "The expectation in sharing in the spoils of a people who
have given us no cause of quarrel whatsoever, is plainly avowed to
be a motive for invading them".
It seems unlikely that it was really within the power of the
Rohillas to produce the original sum of forty lakhs for the nawab,
and the weight of evidence goes to show that in the end Shuja-ud-
daula was demanding two crores, or five times that sum. Their
country had recently been ravaged by the Marathas. The Rohilla War
was condemned in mild terms by the court of directors, and it was
the one occasion on which Hastings lost the support of the proprietors.
The fact that even they felt bound to record a reluctant disapproval,
testifies clearly that disapproval was very widespread :
"Notwithstanding”, they said, “this court hath the highest opinion of the
service and integrity of Hastings, and cannot admit a suspicion of corrupt
motives operating on his conduct without proof; yet they are of opinion with
their Court of Directors, that the agreement made with Shuja-ud-daula for the
hire of a part of the Company's troops for the reduction of the Rohilla country,
and the subsequent steps taken for carrying on that war, were founded on
wrong policy, were contrary to the general orders of the Company, frequently
repeated, for keeping their troops within the bounds of the provinces, and for
not extending their territories.
Even Sir John Strachey admits that his policy was somewhat
» 3
i Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 55.
2 Idem, p. 113.
8 Idem, p. 273.
## p. 224 (#252) ############################################
224
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
cynical, and there was a certain substratum of truth in Francis's
comment : "we do not enquire into, nor think ourselves concerned in,
the justice of the cause in which the troops are to act”. 1 Sir Alfred
Lyall notes that the war was the last occasion upon which British
troops have joined in a campaign with Indian allies without retaining
control of the operations, and his final verdict seems not unreasonable
that “the expedition against the Rohillas was wrong in principle, for
they had not provoked us, and the Vazier could only be relied upon
to abuse his advantages". But it was at its worst an error in judgment,
which could only be proved to be such after all the consequences
had developed.
State Papers in Foreign Department of
1 Forrest, Selections from the
the Government of India, I, 127.
2 Lyall, Warren Hastings, p. 49.
## p. 225 (#253) ############################################
CHAPTER XIII
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
THE Rohilla War was the last important event in Hastings's first
period of office prior to the Regulating Act. The judges of the Supreme
Court arrived on 17 October, 1774, the councillors two days later,
The new council began badly by quarrelling with the governor-
general on some petty detail of their reception, which merely
exemplified the spirit with which they approached their work. They
embarked from the very outset, in Barwell's words, upon "a pre-
determined, pre-concerted system of opposition". 1
The six years' struggle which now ensued between Hastings and
the majority of the council can hardly be paralleled in history. There
was room, no doubt, for reasonable criticism of the administration;
there should have been no room for the personal vindictiveness which
was designed to hound the governor-general from office. "Every
page of our public records”, wrote Barwell, “teems with matter of
private and personal discussion which neither directly nor remotely
bear relation to the interests of the country. " 2 Such was the
lamentable result of the policy embodied in the Regulating Act of
sending out as councillors men without Indian experience. It should
be remembered that Hastings was the only governor-general who
was subjected to this regulation. It need not, however, be supposed
that parliament could have expected that such dire results necessarily
followed from such a policy. Had the councillors been men of reason-
able goodwill and of reasonable modesty-had, we might almost say,
Philip Francis not been one of them—they would have found a way
either of agreeing with Hastings, or at least of disagreeing with him
with sanity and moderation. They came out imbued with a self-
righteous conceit and fixed determination to overthrow the govern-
ment, which they had condemned before examination. Something
must now be said about their individual characters. Philip Francis
has been described once and for all by Lord Macaulay as
a man clearly not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity, a man whose
VIC' s were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the
highest degree arrogant and insolent; a man prone to malevolence and prone to
the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue.
The first part of this verdict may appear to some to err on the side
of generosity. Sir James Stephen, while he quotes it with approval,
adds that Francis was capable "not only of the faults of undying
1
Bengal, Past and present, xai, 74.
2 Idem, xan, 78.
15
## p. 226 (#254) ############################################
226
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
>
» 2
5
malignity and ferocious cruelty, but also of falsehood, treachery, and
calumny". 1 Francis himself, it may be added, soon after his arrival
in Bengal, acknowledged to a friend that his aims were flagrantly
personal. “I am now”, he wrote, “I think, on the road to be Governc
of Bengal, which I believe is the first situation in the world attainable
by a subject. " 2
Sir John Clavering has been described as “an honest, straight-
forward man of passionate disposition and mediocre abilities".
Hastings's first impression of him was that he was honourable, but
brought strong prejudices with him. His opinion, however, gradually
changed for the worse, and after his death he could only write : "May
God forgive him all the injuries which he has heaped upon me, and
me, as I forgive him".
Monson had served in southern India from 1758 to 1763. Impey
described him as “a proud, rash, self-willed man, though easily
misled and very greedy for patronage and power”. . Again, in this
case also, Hastings had to modify unfavourably his first impression.
At first he wrote, “Colonel Monson is a sensible man”,5 but after-
wards he came to believe that Monson was almost his worst enemy.
In March, 1775, he says of him : "Colonel Monson, with a more
guarded temper, and a more regular conduct, now appears to be
the most determined of the three". 8
Richard Barwell, the only one of the new councillors already
resident in India, was the regular type of the Indian official of those
days. His family had been connected with the East for some genera-
tions. His father had been governor of Bengal and a director of the
Company. He himself had been in India since 1758. He was a man
of many merits and considerable, though not pre-eminent, ability.
He made a great fortune in India, and, as Sir James Stephen says,
this fact of itself raises a presumption against his official purity. His
letters show that in the year 1775 alone he remitted £40,000 to
England. Barwell probably acted up to his lights, but his standard
was low. We find him, for instance, writing to his sister in 1769 :
“I would spend £5,000 to secure to myself the chiefship of Dacca,
and to supervise the collection of the revenues of that province". ?
In another letter he states that he considers himself justified in
evading the law which prohibited the Company's servants from
trading, by engaging in salt contracts under the names of native
Indians. Barwell, as we know, became Hastings's staunch supporter,
but at first they were by no means in sympathy. Hastings found him
tedious and punctilious. He wrote in 1772 :
i Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah
Impey, I, 30-31.
2 Dictionary of National Biography. 9 Gleig, op. cit. II, 179.
4 Parkes, and H. Merivale, Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis, 1, 376.
5 Gleig, op. cit. I, 477.
6 Idem, p 517.
? Bengal, Past and Present, x, 233.
## p. 227 (#255) ############################################
BARWELL
227
There is a gentleman of our Council who seems to think that every subject
that comes before the Board, or that he can obtrude upon, ought to go through
a long discussion. 1
And again :
Mr. Barwell has made it necessary to declare that although I have the
justest deference for his abilities, I have not yet had an opportunity of experien-
cing their effects but in points of controversy or opposition, nor derived any
benefit from his assistance. ”
The distrust was reciprocated. Barwell wrote in 1773 :
I think there is a probability of our continuing friends, or more properly
speaking upon good terms, for it ce ainly is prostituting a name for the most
sacred tie to say. Mr. Hastings is my friend, which he never was, and I verily
believe, never will be. A duplicity of character once detected and known, as
his is by me, proves an insuperable bar to any cordial intimacy ever taking
place. 3
Gradually, however, the two men drew together and Barwell was
entirely won over by the tact, and impressed by the capacity, of his
chief. We find Hastings writing in 1777 : “Francis . . .
. . . must be grossly
misinformed indeed if he entertains any hope of change in Barwell's
conduct, after the proofs which he has given of his steadiness and
fidelity”. 4 Again he writes in 1778 : "I owe much to Barwell, and
to his steady friendship”,5 and a little later he pays him a generous
tribute saying : “He possesses much experience, a solid judgment,
much greater fertility of official resources than I have, and his
manners are easy and pleasant”. !
Before dealing in detail with the disputes between Hastings and
the council after 1774, it may be useful to sketch in outline his rela-
tions with his councils generally till the end of his period. of office.
For two years, 1774-6, he was steadily outvoted and overruled, and
for all practicable purposes he had ceased to be governor-general.
His position is best described in his own vivid words:
My situation is truly painful and mortifying, deprived of the powers with
which I have been invested by a solemn Act of the Legislature, . . . denied the
respect which is due to my station and character, denied even the rights of per-
sonal civility by men with whom I am compelled to associate in the daily
course of official business, and condemned to bear my share in the responsi-
bility of measures which I do not approve, I should long since have yielded up
my place in this disgraceful scene, did not my ideas of my duty to you and
a confidence in your justice animate me to persevere; and if your records must
be dishonoured and your interests suspended by the continuance of such con-
tests as have hitherto composed the business of your present Council, it shall
be my care to bear as small a part in them as possible. ?
1 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 201.
2 Forrest, Selections. from State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, I, 39.
3 Bengal, Past and Present, xi, 51.
• Gleig, op. cit. II, 185. 3 Idem, p. 224.
6 Idem, p. 243.
7 Forrest, Selections from State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India. u, 279.
## p. 228 (#256) ############################################
228
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
Yet he held on his way with marvellous fortitude and tenacity, and
at last came relief. In September, 1776, Monson died, and Hastings
now held the mastery though only by his casting vote, he and Barwell
opposing Clavering and Francis. In 1777 came the curious and con-
fused incident of Hastings's conditional resignation. The facts were
as follows: Hastings had first given, on 27 March, 1775, and then on
18 May withdrawn, discretionary powers to his agent in England,
Colonel McLeane, to signify to the directors his intention to resign.
McLeane came to the conclusion that Hastings could not long hope
to withstand the opposition growing up against him at home, and,
having obtained the promise of certain conditions from Lord North,
signified to the court of directors the intention of his chief to resign.
The court accepted the resignation. By the terms of the Regulating
Act, Clavering, as senior councillor, would normally succeed till the
five years of the original appointment were over. Wheler was appoin-
ted to fill the place in council that would be vacated by Clavering's
succession, but before he sailed the news came of Monson's
death and he was now appointed to fill that vacancy. Soon after
these events, McLeane, owing to the granting of a knighthood of the
Bath to Clavering without any corresponding honour to the governor-
general, came to the conclusion that Lord North did not really intend
to fulfil the conditions of the agreement, and he therefore wrote to
Hastings advising him not to resign. The position apparently was
that Hastings, through the action of his agent, and though he himself
had recalled his original instructions two months after they were sent,
had signified his intention to resign, but had fixed no date. When
the news came to Bengal in June, 1777, Francis and Clavering at
once assumed that Hastings had resigned; Clavering claimed the
governor-generalship, took his seat in council at the head of the table,
demanded the keys of the fortress and the treasuries, and in general
acted with the greatest precipitation and violence. Hastings was stung
into a flat resistance, and declined to vacate the seat of authority,
though he declared that, but for Clavering's presumptuous and absurd
haste, he would have held himself bound by his agent's action. The
deadlock was so hopeless that both sides agreed to refer the question
to the Supreme Court, who, decided "that Mr. Hastings had not
resigned". Not content with this decision, which saved him from
ruin, Hastings next contended that Clavering by his action had for-
feited even his seat in council, but here the Supreme Court decided
against him. Thus ended what Hastings himself called the "convulsion
of four days, which might have shaken the very foundation of the
national power and interests in India”. ?
Clavering died on 30 August, 1777, and Hastings's control over the
council was greatly strengthened, though Wheler at first was inclined
to act with Francis, the usual division being Hastings, Barwell and
1 Gleig, op. cit. O, 159.
## p. 229 (#257) ############################################
COMPACT WITH FRANCIS
229
the casting vote against Francis and Wheler. Clavering was succeeded
in 1779 as commander-in-chief by Sir Eyre Coote, who, though often
intractable and difficult, acted quite independently of Francis.
Hastings, therefore, was still able by the exercise of his casting vote
to make his views prevail, and it is at this period that he writes of his
rival : "Francis is miserable, and is weak enough to declare it in a
manner much resembling the impatience of a passionate woman,
whose hands are held to prevent her from doing mischief”. In 1779
Barwell retired. Hastings had prevailed upon him to stay till he had
made, as he supposed, an accommodation with Francis that the latter
would not oppose measures for the prosecution of the Maratha War
or for the general support of the present political system of govern-
ment. In July, 1780, ne accused Francis of violating this compact,
and in a minute laid before the council, said: “I judge of his public
conduct by my experience of his private, which I have found to be
void of truth and honour”;a he accepted the inevitable challenge
from Francis to a duel, and wounded him rather severely. Though
Hastings spoke of this incident with a certain compunction, writing :
“I hope Mr. Francis does not think of assuming any merit from this
silly affair. I have been ashamed that I have been made an actor
in it”,9 yet he had forced on the meeting with great deliberation
and most clearly intended to disable his adversary. As regards
the accommodation a few words must be said. Francis, as we have
seen, was not over-scrupulous, but he always hotly declared that he
had ? ver been party to any such engagement as Hastings pretended.
The agreement I meant to enter into, with respect to the Maratha War,
was to prosecute the operations actually existing on the Malabar coast, which,
since the campaign was begun, and General Goddard had already taken the
field, I thought should be pushed as vigorously as possible. 4
He flatly denied that he had ever promised any general support. It
is probable that Francis's account of the matter is mainly correct.
Hastings seems to have been far too easily content with a vague
acceptance of his proposal, and it was surely the height of folly, if he
really wished for a compact, after his experience of Francis's charac-
ter, not to get a definitely signed agreement from him. It almost
appears as though Hastings, despairing of any other method of freeing
himself from his opponent, was purposely content with a mere verbal
promise, intending afterwards to force a quarrel upon Francis for not
fulfilling it. Whether this were true or not, he had at last attained his
object. Francis left India in November, 1780, and Hastings wrote in
exultation :
i Idem, p. 263.
2 Forrest, Selections from . . . State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, a, 712.
3 Gleig, op. cit. II, 310. .
4 Forrest, Selections from State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, n, 715.
## p. 230 (#258) ############################################
230
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
In a word, I have power, and I will employ it, during the interval in which
the credit of it shall last, to retrieve past misfortunes, to remove present dan.
gers, and to re-establish the power of the Company, and the safety of its
possessions.
Hastings's position was now indeed much easier and his chief tribu-
lations were over; for some time the council was reduced to three,
and as Sir Eyre Coote was generally absent from Calcutta on military
expeditions, Wheler was practically the governor-general's only
colleague, and he found him very amenable to guidance.
At first,
as we have seen, Hastings had formed a poor opinion of him. He
wrote in 1777 : “He is now, and must be, a mere cipher and the echo
of Francis, a vox et praeterea nihil, a mere vote". ? But his opinion of
him gradually improved : "I treat him", he writes to a friend, "with
an unreserved confidence, and he in turn yields me as steady a
support as I could wish”,3 and again : “I cannot desire an easier
associate, or a man whose temper is better suited to my own”. 4 It
is clear that Wheler was gradually won over by the dominant per-
sonality of the governor-general; and it is during this time that
Hastings, uncontrolled by opposition, enters upon those proceedings
in regard to Chait Singh and the begams of Oudh which have done
so much to blemish, fairly or unfairly, his reputation. The truth seems
to be that Wheler was an honest and conscientious man, who tried
to view each question on its merits. As Sir Alfred Lyall says: “Wheler
feebly tried to do his duty, and was rewarded by a sentence in one
of Burke's philippics against Hastings, where he stands as his supple,
worn-down, cowed, and, I am afraid, bribed colleague, Mr. Whelerº. " 5
Two new councillors appeared in due course, John Macpherson
in September, 1781, and Stables in November, 1782. Macpherson first
came to India nominally as purser of an East-Indiaman and entered
the service of the nawab of the Carnatic. He returned to England
on a secret mission and was sent out to India again, this time in the
East India Company's service, in 1770. · Seven years later he was
dismissed the service, and returned to England. He sat in parliament
from 1779 to 1782 for Cricklade, and he was supposed to be in receipt
of a salary from the nawab of the Carnatic. In January, 1781, the
Company reinstated him in its service-an appointment which was
severely criticised. Macpherson was a shrewd and worldly man,
endowed by nature with extreme good looks and with pleasant
nianners, At first Hastings found in him "every aid and support
that I expected, and an ease with a benevolence of disposition . . . far
exceeding my expectations”. ! With Stables he was far less pleased,
and he complains of "his coarse and surly style". ? For a time
Hastings found his relations with his later council easy and pleasant,
"6
1 Gleig, op. cit. 17, 330-1.
4 Idem, p. 387.
* Gleig, op. cit. II, 450.
Idem, p. 186.
3 Idem, p. 384.
5 Lyall, Warren Hastings, p. 168.
7 Idem, 0, 151.
## p. 231 (#259) ############################################
OPPOSITION
231
but we cannot but see that his approval or disapproval of his collea-
gues varied accordingly as they were prepared, or refused, to sink
their individuality in his. Towards the end of his administration
he found them inclined to oppose him on certain questions, as for
instance-and it must be added most properly-when he proposed
in 1784 to intervene in the troubled affairs of the Moghul Empire.
"You will wonder", he writes, "that all my Council should oppose
me. So do I. But the fact is this : Macpherson and Stables have
intimidated Wheler, whom they hate, and he them most cordially. " I
Hastings acknowledged at this time that "I have not that collected
firmness of mind which I once possessed, and which gave me such
a superiority in my contests with Clavering and his associates. "? As
time went on he railed against them more and more bitterly : “I in
my heart forgive General Clavering for all the injuries he did me.
He was my avowed enemy. These are my dear friends, whom
Mr. Sulivan pronounced incapable of being moved from me by any
consideration on earth”. 3 Again he complains that the councillors
have received a hint from their friends not to attach themselves to
a fallen interest. Even Wheler for a time fell into disfavour.
These unfortunate dissensions led Francis in a speech in the
House of Commons to claim with a certain amount of superficial
justification that "the opposition to Mr. Hastings has not been con-
fined to General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and myself. His present
colleagues . . . have exactly the same opinion that we had of him and
of his measures”. 4 But this of course is untrue. The opposition now
was at times vexatious, but it was occasionally justified, and it was
very different from the persistent, unremitting and bitter hostility
of the old régime. The truth is that, as Sir Alfred Lyall said : "It
would have puzzled any set of Councillors to hit off the precise degree
and kind of opposition that Hastings was disposed to tolerate”. " Like
all men of pre-eminent ability and dominating personality, he could
not bear to have his purposes thwarted; and there is probably a
substratum of truth in the verdict of Barwell-friend of Hastings
though he was-written in 1774 :
The occasions of difference between us that did exist were not sought for
by me, but proceeded wholly from the jealousy of his own temper, which can-
not yield to another the least share of reputation that might be derived in the
conduct of his Government. Unreasonable as it may be, he expects the abili-
ties cf all shall be, subservient to his views and (that all shall] implicitly rely
upon him for the degree of merit. if any, he may be pleased to allow them in
the administration of Government. 8
It must be remembered of course that none of the councillors ap-
pointed under the Regulating Act were in any sense men of first-rate
ability except Philip Francis. Barwell probably stood next to him in
1 Idem, p. 121.
2 Idem, p. 122.
4 Parliamentary History, XXIV, 1175.
• Bengal, Past and Present, xn, 71.
3 Idem, p. 12y.
5 Lyall, Warren Hastings, p. 184.
## p. 232 (#260) ############################################
232
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
capacity;. Clavering, Monson, Wheler, Macpherson and Stables were
all thoroughly mediocre men. But the fact remains that, while
Hastings was capable of inspiring the most intense affection and fide-
lity from some with whom he came into close personal contact, it is
also true that he had a certain propensity to fall foul of men and
they were sometimes men of ability and repute with whom he was
called upon to work in public life. Sir Robert Barker, Sir Eyre Coote,
Charles Grant, Lord Macartney, and even Sir Elijah Impey all were
at times seriously at variance with him. Hastings himself never
doubted that he was in the right and his contemporaries in the wrong,
and through every disappointment and defeat he still clung with
characteristic tenacity to a defiant approval-generally, it must be
added, entirely justified-of his own actions.
I have now held the first nominal place in this Government almost twelve
years. In all this long period I have almost unremittedly wanted the support,
which all my predecessors have enjoyed from their constituents. From mine
I have received nothing but reproach, hard epithets and indignities, instead of
rewards and encouragement. Yet under all the difficulties which I have
described, such have been the exertions of this Government, since I was first
placed at the head of it, that in no part of the Company's annals has it known
an equal state, either of wealth, strength, or prosperity, nor, let it not be
imputed to me as a crime if I add, of splendid reputation. 1
The points upon which the new council at once came to grips
with the governor-general were the Rohilla War and the measures to
be taken for terminating it, the conclusion on the Treaty of Faizabad,
and the charges brought against Hastings by Nandakumar.
"Upon our arrival", they. wrote, “the first material intelligence that came
before us, concerning the state of the. Company's affairs, was, that one third
of their military force was actually employed, under the command of Sujah
Dowlah, not in defending his territories against invasion, but in assisting him
to subdue an independent state. ”
Without waiting for any reasonable investigation, they condemned
the war as
carrying, upon the face of it, a manifest violation of all those principles of
policy which we know have been established by the highest authority, and till
now universally admitted as the basis of the Company's counsels in the
administration of their affairs in India. ?
They inflicted upon Hastings, in his own words, “a personal and
direct indignity" 3 by recalling Middleton from Lucknow, and de-
manding that the whole of his correspondence, some of which was
confidential, should be laid before the council. They ordered Champion
to demand at once the forty lakhs, which the nawab had promised,
and to withdraw from Rohilkhand. "They denounced", it has been
well said, "the Rohilla War as an abomination; and yet their great
anxiety now was to pocket the wages of it. " 4 Hastings in vain
1 Forrest, Selections from State Papers of the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, nii, 902-3.
· Ideni, 1, 120-1.
3 Gleig, op. cit. 1, 474.
+ Beveridge, A Comprehensive History of India, 1, 365.
## p. 233 (#261) ############################################
THE ATTACK ON HASTINGS
233
endeavoured to set up some kind of barrier against this wild flood of
censure and criticism. He claimed with good reason that, whatever
the rights or wrongs of the matter, since the Rohilla War was begun
and all but concluded by the past administration, the new councillors
should have been satisfied with recording their formal disapproval of
it, and should not have attempted to prerent its conclusion. He
declined to produce the correspondence between himself and Middle-
ton, though he offered to submit all passages dealing with public
policy to the council, and to send the whole of it for inspection to
Lord North, the Prime Minister.
If the conduct of the majority seemed unreasonable on the ques-
tion of the Rohilla War, it appeared still more perverse on the occasion
of the death of the nawab of Oudh, which took place on 26 January,
1775. Their one aim seemed to be to press hard upon the Company's
ally. They decided that the existing treaty was personal to the late
ruler, and they took the opportunity to conclude a new treaty-the
Treaty of Faizabad-by which all his successor's liabilities were in-
creased. He had to pay a heavier subsidy for the use of British troops;
the tribute paid by the zamindar of Ghazipur passed to the Company;
and the sovereignty of Benares was also ceded to it. Hastings opposed
the treaty, but was outvoted. In view of what was to follow it is
interesting to note that on his suggestion it was made a condition
of the treaty that the raja of Benares should exercise a free and inde-
pendent authority in his own dominions subject only to the payment
of his tribute. On 11 March, 1775, Nandakumar brought against
Hastings his charge of having received from the begam a bribe of
354,105 rupees for appointing her guardian of the young prince. There
followed the famous scene, in which the majority of the council wel-
comed the accusation, and Hastings withdrew in fierce anger, refusing
to be arraigned at his own council board “in the presence of a wretch,
whom you all know to be one of the basest of mankind”,1
What are the facts of the allegations against Hastings? It is best
perhaps to begin with everything that can possibly be said in his
disfavour. Hastings at once drew up a long minute, which according
to Burke and Gilbert Elliot bore every sign of conscious guilt. Even
Sir James Stephen admits that it suggests that there was something
to explain. Hastings never at any time actually denied in so many
words the truth of Nandakumar's statement. In his written defence,
read to the House of Commons, he "entered upon a kind of wrangle
equally ill-conceived and injudicious”? In a letter to Lord North
he uses the curious expression : "These accusations, true or false,
have no relation to the measures which are the ground and subject of
our original differences”. 3 We must assent to Sir James Stephen's
? Idem, p. 72.
1 Stephen, Nuncomar and Impey, I, 53.
3 Gleig, op. cit. 1, 518.
## p. 234 (#262) ############################################
234
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
comment that "Hastings's character would no doubt have stood better,
if he had boldly taxed Nandakumar with falsehood”. The began
acknowledged that she had given 150,000 rupees, and Hastings
admitted that he had received the sum as entertainment money, but
it is not clear why so much mystery was made about the transaction.
On the other hand, for Hastings, it must be said that he had every
right to object to the whole procedure of the majority : "I could not
yield [to their claim to investigate the charge at the council board]
without submitting to a degradation to which no power or considera-
tion on earth could have impelled me" i He saw with bitter scorn
that his enemies were hot upon the despicable trail, and he had no
doubt as to the master hand.
At the impeachment, the Lord Chancellor, who was not favourable
to Hastings, commenting upon the whole of the evidence, admitted
that the managers had failed to prove that Hastings had ever received
any part of the 354,105 rupees except the 150,000. There is no question
that he had accepted that sum, but there is no ground for holding
that it was a bribe for the appointment of the begam. He contended
that, when he received the money, the act prohibiting presents was
not yet passed; the allowance was customary, and he could show
that it had been received by Clive and Verelst when they visited
Murshidabad. This was in reality the weak part of Hastings's case.
The Company had forbidden presents long before the Regulating
Act. It was really a monstrous abuse that, when the governor of
Bengal, whose salary and allowances amounted to between £20,000
and £30,000, visited Murshidabad, he should receive from the nawab
an allowance amounting to £225 a day. That it had been taken by
Clive and Verelst was very little justification, and in any case it must
be noted that at least in their day the nawab received a revenue of
fifty-three lakhs, while it had now been reduced to sixteen. There
can be little doubt that we have here the reason for Hastings's failure
to deny the charge; he could not deny that he had received part, and
therefore preferred to deny nothing. Even Sir James Stephen admits
that the transaction, “if not positively illegal was at least question-
able”," and we cannot wonder that in the impeachment the Lord
Chancellor, while acquitting Hastings of corruption, said: "He hoped
that this practice, which however custom might have justified in some
degree, no longer obtained in India". 3 The whole incident illustrates
the exactions made upon Indian powers at this time by the Company's
servants, whenever opportunity offered.
When Hastings had withdrawn from the council, the majority
resolved that "there is no species of peculation from which the
Governor-General has thought it reasonable to abstain". They de-
"
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 515-16. 2 Stephen, Nuncomar and Impey, I, 72.
3 Debates of the Lords on the Evidence
. . . , p. 147.
## p. 235 (#263) ############################################
NANDAKUMAR'S TRIAL
235
clared that he had received the sums specified, and ordered him to
refund the money into the Congpany's treasury. Owing to the dramatic
series of events that followed, and the fall of Nandakumar, the charges
were never proceeded with. Ultimately the information and papers
of Nandakumar were submitted to the Company's legal adviser in
Calcutta. He did not advise a prosecution in India, but gave it as his
opinion that the evidence should be sent home. There the Company's
law officers declared that the statements could not possibly be true.
We must now return to the events that brought about the ruin of
Nandakumar and the stay of all proceedings against Hastings. On
23 April, Hastings, Barwell and Vansittart prosecuted Fowke,
Nandakumar and another Indian on a charge of conspiracy. The
charge was that they had endeavoured to coerce a certain Indian,
named Kamal-ud-din, to accuse Hastings and Barwell of having
received other bribes. At the assizes in July all the defendants were
acquitted of conspiracy against Hastings; Fowke and Nandakumar
were convicted as against Barwell, Fowke was fined; no sentence was
passed on Nandakumar since he was by that time lying under sentence
of death for forgery. Meantime, on 6 May, before Justices Lemaistre
and Hyde, sitting as magistrates, Nandakumar was committed for
trial on a charge of forgery brought against him by the executor of
an Indian banker. His trial took place 8 to 16 June; he was found
guilty, sentenced to death, and executed 5 August, 1775. The sequence
of events was curious, and it was long believed that the unhappy man
was put to death, nominally for forgery, but really for having dared
to accuse the governor-general. Burke epigrammatically summed up
the popular view when he said in his speech on Fox's India Bill :
The Raja Nandakumar was, by an insult on everything which India holds
respectable and sacred, hanged in the face of all his nation, by the judges you
sent to protect that people, hanged for a pretended crime, upon an ex post facto
Act of Parliament, in the midst of his evidence against Mr. Hastings. 1
In considering the question, it is important to remember that there
were two distinct charges against Nandakumar; the charge of con-
iracy in which Hastings and Barwell were the avowed prosecutors;
the charge of forgery, in which the prosecutor was an Indian, Mohan
Prasad, though it was alleged that the real initiative came from
Hastings.
The whole question has been examined by Sir James Stephen in
his Nuncomar and Impey, and he claims to have shown that Nanda-
kumar had a perfectly fair trial, and that in his summing up Sir Elijah
Impey gave full weight to any point that could possibly tell in favour
of the accused. This is certainly corroborated by the statements of
Farrer, Nandakumar's counsel in the famous trial, who was called to
give evidence at Impey's impeachment. He was examined at great
length, and, though during the trial he had sometimes come into
>
1 Parliamentary History, XXIII, 1369.
## p. 236 (#264) ############################################
236
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
.
collision with the Chief Justice, he declared that all the favour in the
power of the court had been extended towards his client, and parti-
cularly from Sir Elijah Impey. Stephen points out that all four
judges were upon the bench, and therefore, if there was a conspiracy
between the Supreme Court and the governor-general, we have to
assume, either that the whole bench was privy to it, or that they
were entirely dominated by Impey's personality. The jury consisted
of twelve European or Eurasian inhabitants of Calcutta, and the pri-
soner had, and exercised, the right to challenge. Stephen maintains
that the charge of forgery developed in a natural way out of long-
standing litigation which had begun in December, 1772. A civil suit
against Nandakumar having failed, his adversary had determined to
prosecute him criminally, and the first steps in this process had been
taken six weeks before Nandakumar produced his charges against
Hastings at the council board. As it has been said, “that charge would,
in the natural course of law, have been made at the very time when
it was made, though Nandakumar had never becoine a willing tool
on the hands of Messrs Clavering, Monson and Francis". 1 Against this
it must be mentioned that Mr. H. Beveridge, in his Trial of Maharaja
Nanda Kumar, denies that there was any real attempt at a criminal
prosecution till May, 1775, and he gives some shrewd reasons for his
conclusion. Stephen rightly contends that hastings's subsequent
reference to Impey as one "to whose support I was at one time
indebted for the safety of my fortune, honour and reputation",? which
Macaulay supposed to refer to the trial of Nandakumar, almost
certainly refers to the incident of the resignation of 1777. Quite apart
from every other reason, it is of course inconceivable that, if Macau.
lay's supposition had been true, Hasting's would have been indiscreet
enough to use the words quoted.
There seems, on a careful review, to have been only two incidents
in the trial to which exception may be taken. First, the judges cross-
examined-and cross-examined rather severely—the prisoner's wit-
nesses. Their reason was that this was done to prevent the ends of
justice from being defeated, counsel for the prosecution being incom-
petent. The reason seems strangely inadequate; it can never be
proper foi judges to act the part of advocate. When Farrer protested,
Justice Chambers was obviously uneasy on the point, but the protest
did not stop the practice. Secondly, Impey, from lack of Indian
experience, told the jury that if Nandakumar's defence was over-
thrown, the fact condemned him; but, as Stephen points out, this rule
cannot be applied in the East, where a perfectly good case, should
proof be otherwise lacking, is often bolstered up by flagrant perjury.
It is certain that there was no conspiracy between Hastings and
Impey to murder Nandakumar. It is possible, as Sir Alfred Lyall
1 Beveridge, A Comprehensive History of India, II, 378.
Gleig, op. cit. , 255.
## p. 237 (#265) ############################################
NANDAKUMAR'S TRIAL
227
hints; that Hastings, knowing that Nandakumar was liable to a serious
charge and was probably guilty, conveyed to Mohun Prasad the
intimation that it was a favourable opportunity to bring forward the
case, and “the fact that Impey tried the man with great patience, for-
bearance, and exact formality, might prove nothing against an inten-
tion to hang him, but only that he was too wise to strain the law
superfluously”. ? There is, however, absolutely no evidence for such a
supposition. If it is entertained, it must depend for its justification
upon certain evidences of implacable enmity, which it may appear
to some that the conduct of Hastings displayed after the trial.
The question of Nandakumar's guilt is a different one from the
fairness of the trial, and it is probably impossible at this distance
of time to come to any definite conclusion. Sir James Stephen is
extremely cautious here. He says that, if he had to depend upon the
evidence called for the prosecution, he would not have convicted the
prisoner-a notable admission on his part. It was the mass of perjury
on the other side and the statements of Nandakumar's own witnesses
that tipped the scale against him.
in general one of the best cultivated countries I have seen in Hindo-
stan”. In any case, whatever the rule of the Rohillas had been, it
was better than that of the nawabs of Oudh, which, especially in
the time of Shuja-ud-daula's successor, was unspeakably bad and vile.
As regards the alleged atrocities perpetrated by the nawab and
his army, there is little doubt that Champion greatly exaggerated
them, partly out of pique that he was not allowed to control the poli-
tical relations, which were left in the hands of Middleton, partly from
envy of the booty that fell into the hands of his allies. At the same
time there was probably a modicum of truth in the strong statements
to which he committed himself, that the nawab did not "cease to
overspread the country with flames till three days after the fate of
Hafiz Rahmat Khan was decided";4 that "the whole army were wit-
nesses of scenes that cannot be described";5 and that "I have been
obliged to give a deaf ear to the lamentable cries of the widow and
fatherless, and to shut my eyes against a wanton display of violence
and oppression, of inhumanity and cruelty”. 8 Middleton too, who
was friendly to the nawab, admitted that he could not acquit him of
severe treatment of Hafiz Rahmat Khan's family or of wanton ravages
of the country. But Champion was curiously loth to give details when
Hastings demanded them, and when twelve years later he was inter-
rogated on the matter before the House of Commons, though he
repeated his allegations, he declared that his memory was too much
». 5
1 C. Hamilton, An historical relation of the origin, progress and final disso-
lution of the Government. of the Rohilla Afghans, p. 209.
2 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 30.
Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, VI, 30.
4 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 196.
5 Idem, p. 203.
8 Idem, p. 191.
3
## p. 223 (#251) ############################################
POLICY OF THE WAR
223
"1
» 2
weakened by long illness to recall any definite instances of cruelty.
In any case there can be no doubt that as soon as the reports and
complaints of the commander-in-chief reached him, Hastings took
all possible measures by strong representations to the nawab to ensure
that this conduct should cease. Hastings afterwards was inclined to
speak of the Company's honour as "pledged implicitly by General
Barker's attestation”, but this is not accurate. Barker had merely
witnessed the signatures, though it is probably true enough, as Sir
John Strachey says, that without his "active interference and per-
suasion” i no treaty would have been made. But even supposing that
it was the duty of the British to coerce the Rohillas into payment,
was so drastic a method as the conquest of the whole country neces-
sary? Surely, as Fox suggested, a lesser penalty might have sufficed.
It must be admitted that there is something rather repellent about
the finance of the whole operation. Hastings himself was frank
enough to avow that the question of money was one of his main
motives.
“The absence of the Marathas”, he wrote, "and the weak state of the
Rohillas, promised an easy conquest of them, and I own that such was my idea
of the Company's distress at home, added to my knowledge of their wants
abroad, that I should have been glad of any occasion to employ their forces,
that saves so much of their pay and expenses. ”
There is a certain truth in the acrid comment of the majority of the
council : "The expectation in sharing in the spoils of a people who
have given us no cause of quarrel whatsoever, is plainly avowed to
be a motive for invading them".
It seems unlikely that it was really within the power of the
Rohillas to produce the original sum of forty lakhs for the nawab,
and the weight of evidence goes to show that in the end Shuja-ud-
daula was demanding two crores, or five times that sum. Their
country had recently been ravaged by the Marathas. The Rohilla War
was condemned in mild terms by the court of directors, and it was
the one occasion on which Hastings lost the support of the proprietors.
The fact that even they felt bound to record a reluctant disapproval,
testifies clearly that disapproval was very widespread :
"Notwithstanding”, they said, “this court hath the highest opinion of the
service and integrity of Hastings, and cannot admit a suspicion of corrupt
motives operating on his conduct without proof; yet they are of opinion with
their Court of Directors, that the agreement made with Shuja-ud-daula for the
hire of a part of the Company's troops for the reduction of the Rohilla country,
and the subsequent steps taken for carrying on that war, were founded on
wrong policy, were contrary to the general orders of the Company, frequently
repeated, for keeping their troops within the bounds of the provinces, and for
not extending their territories.
Even Sir John Strachey admits that his policy was somewhat
» 3
i Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 55.
2 Idem, p. 113.
8 Idem, p. 273.
## p. 224 (#252) ############################################
224
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
cynical, and there was a certain substratum of truth in Francis's
comment : "we do not enquire into, nor think ourselves concerned in,
the justice of the cause in which the troops are to act”. 1 Sir Alfred
Lyall notes that the war was the last occasion upon which British
troops have joined in a campaign with Indian allies without retaining
control of the operations, and his final verdict seems not unreasonable
that “the expedition against the Rohillas was wrong in principle, for
they had not provoked us, and the Vazier could only be relied upon
to abuse his advantages". But it was at its worst an error in judgment,
which could only be proved to be such after all the consequences
had developed.
State Papers in Foreign Department of
1 Forrest, Selections from the
the Government of India, I, 127.
2 Lyall, Warren Hastings, p. 49.
## p. 225 (#253) ############################################
CHAPTER XIII
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
THE Rohilla War was the last important event in Hastings's first
period of office prior to the Regulating Act. The judges of the Supreme
Court arrived on 17 October, 1774, the councillors two days later,
The new council began badly by quarrelling with the governor-
general on some petty detail of their reception, which merely
exemplified the spirit with which they approached their work. They
embarked from the very outset, in Barwell's words, upon "a pre-
determined, pre-concerted system of opposition". 1
The six years' struggle which now ensued between Hastings and
the majority of the council can hardly be paralleled in history. There
was room, no doubt, for reasonable criticism of the administration;
there should have been no room for the personal vindictiveness which
was designed to hound the governor-general from office. "Every
page of our public records”, wrote Barwell, “teems with matter of
private and personal discussion which neither directly nor remotely
bear relation to the interests of the country. " 2 Such was the
lamentable result of the policy embodied in the Regulating Act of
sending out as councillors men without Indian experience. It should
be remembered that Hastings was the only governor-general who
was subjected to this regulation. It need not, however, be supposed
that parliament could have expected that such dire results necessarily
followed from such a policy. Had the councillors been men of reason-
able goodwill and of reasonable modesty-had, we might almost say,
Philip Francis not been one of them—they would have found a way
either of agreeing with Hastings, or at least of disagreeing with him
with sanity and moderation. They came out imbued with a self-
righteous conceit and fixed determination to overthrow the govern-
ment, which they had condemned before examination. Something
must now be said about their individual characters. Philip Francis
has been described once and for all by Lord Macaulay as
a man clearly not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity, a man whose
VIC' s were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the
highest degree arrogant and insolent; a man prone to malevolence and prone to
the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue.
The first part of this verdict may appear to some to err on the side
of generosity. Sir James Stephen, while he quotes it with approval,
adds that Francis was capable "not only of the faults of undying
1
Bengal, Past and present, xai, 74.
2 Idem, xan, 78.
15
## p. 226 (#254) ############################################
226
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
>
» 2
5
malignity and ferocious cruelty, but also of falsehood, treachery, and
calumny". 1 Francis himself, it may be added, soon after his arrival
in Bengal, acknowledged to a friend that his aims were flagrantly
personal. “I am now”, he wrote, “I think, on the road to be Governc
of Bengal, which I believe is the first situation in the world attainable
by a subject. " 2
Sir John Clavering has been described as “an honest, straight-
forward man of passionate disposition and mediocre abilities".
Hastings's first impression of him was that he was honourable, but
brought strong prejudices with him. His opinion, however, gradually
changed for the worse, and after his death he could only write : "May
God forgive him all the injuries which he has heaped upon me, and
me, as I forgive him".
Monson had served in southern India from 1758 to 1763. Impey
described him as “a proud, rash, self-willed man, though easily
misled and very greedy for patronage and power”. . Again, in this
case also, Hastings had to modify unfavourably his first impression.
At first he wrote, “Colonel Monson is a sensible man”,5 but after-
wards he came to believe that Monson was almost his worst enemy.
In March, 1775, he says of him : "Colonel Monson, with a more
guarded temper, and a more regular conduct, now appears to be
the most determined of the three". 8
Richard Barwell, the only one of the new councillors already
resident in India, was the regular type of the Indian official of those
days. His family had been connected with the East for some genera-
tions. His father had been governor of Bengal and a director of the
Company. He himself had been in India since 1758. He was a man
of many merits and considerable, though not pre-eminent, ability.
He made a great fortune in India, and, as Sir James Stephen says,
this fact of itself raises a presumption against his official purity. His
letters show that in the year 1775 alone he remitted £40,000 to
England. Barwell probably acted up to his lights, but his standard
was low. We find him, for instance, writing to his sister in 1769 :
“I would spend £5,000 to secure to myself the chiefship of Dacca,
and to supervise the collection of the revenues of that province". ?
In another letter he states that he considers himself justified in
evading the law which prohibited the Company's servants from
trading, by engaging in salt contracts under the names of native
Indians. Barwell, as we know, became Hastings's staunch supporter,
but at first they were by no means in sympathy. Hastings found him
tedious and punctilious. He wrote in 1772 :
i Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah
Impey, I, 30-31.
2 Dictionary of National Biography. 9 Gleig, op. cit. II, 179.
4 Parkes, and H. Merivale, Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis, 1, 376.
5 Gleig, op. cit. I, 477.
6 Idem, p 517.
? Bengal, Past and Present, x, 233.
## p. 227 (#255) ############################################
BARWELL
227
There is a gentleman of our Council who seems to think that every subject
that comes before the Board, or that he can obtrude upon, ought to go through
a long discussion. 1
And again :
Mr. Barwell has made it necessary to declare that although I have the
justest deference for his abilities, I have not yet had an opportunity of experien-
cing their effects but in points of controversy or opposition, nor derived any
benefit from his assistance. ”
The distrust was reciprocated. Barwell wrote in 1773 :
I think there is a probability of our continuing friends, or more properly
speaking upon good terms, for it ce ainly is prostituting a name for the most
sacred tie to say. Mr. Hastings is my friend, which he never was, and I verily
believe, never will be. A duplicity of character once detected and known, as
his is by me, proves an insuperable bar to any cordial intimacy ever taking
place. 3
Gradually, however, the two men drew together and Barwell was
entirely won over by the tact, and impressed by the capacity, of his
chief. We find Hastings writing in 1777 : “Francis . . .
. . . must be grossly
misinformed indeed if he entertains any hope of change in Barwell's
conduct, after the proofs which he has given of his steadiness and
fidelity”. 4 Again he writes in 1778 : "I owe much to Barwell, and
to his steady friendship”,5 and a little later he pays him a generous
tribute saying : “He possesses much experience, a solid judgment,
much greater fertility of official resources than I have, and his
manners are easy and pleasant”. !
Before dealing in detail with the disputes between Hastings and
the council after 1774, it may be useful to sketch in outline his rela-
tions with his councils generally till the end of his period. of office.
For two years, 1774-6, he was steadily outvoted and overruled, and
for all practicable purposes he had ceased to be governor-general.
His position is best described in his own vivid words:
My situation is truly painful and mortifying, deprived of the powers with
which I have been invested by a solemn Act of the Legislature, . . . denied the
respect which is due to my station and character, denied even the rights of per-
sonal civility by men with whom I am compelled to associate in the daily
course of official business, and condemned to bear my share in the responsi-
bility of measures which I do not approve, I should long since have yielded up
my place in this disgraceful scene, did not my ideas of my duty to you and
a confidence in your justice animate me to persevere; and if your records must
be dishonoured and your interests suspended by the continuance of such con-
tests as have hitherto composed the business of your present Council, it shall
be my care to bear as small a part in them as possible. ?
1 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 201.
2 Forrest, Selections. from State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, I, 39.
3 Bengal, Past and Present, xi, 51.
• Gleig, op. cit. II, 185. 3 Idem, p. 224.
6 Idem, p. 243.
7 Forrest, Selections from State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India. u, 279.
## p. 228 (#256) ############################################
228
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
Yet he held on his way with marvellous fortitude and tenacity, and
at last came relief. In September, 1776, Monson died, and Hastings
now held the mastery though only by his casting vote, he and Barwell
opposing Clavering and Francis. In 1777 came the curious and con-
fused incident of Hastings's conditional resignation. The facts were
as follows: Hastings had first given, on 27 March, 1775, and then on
18 May withdrawn, discretionary powers to his agent in England,
Colonel McLeane, to signify to the directors his intention to resign.
McLeane came to the conclusion that Hastings could not long hope
to withstand the opposition growing up against him at home, and,
having obtained the promise of certain conditions from Lord North,
signified to the court of directors the intention of his chief to resign.
The court accepted the resignation. By the terms of the Regulating
Act, Clavering, as senior councillor, would normally succeed till the
five years of the original appointment were over. Wheler was appoin-
ted to fill the place in council that would be vacated by Clavering's
succession, but before he sailed the news came of Monson's
death and he was now appointed to fill that vacancy. Soon after
these events, McLeane, owing to the granting of a knighthood of the
Bath to Clavering without any corresponding honour to the governor-
general, came to the conclusion that Lord North did not really intend
to fulfil the conditions of the agreement, and he therefore wrote to
Hastings advising him not to resign. The position apparently was
that Hastings, through the action of his agent, and though he himself
had recalled his original instructions two months after they were sent,
had signified his intention to resign, but had fixed no date. When
the news came to Bengal in June, 1777, Francis and Clavering at
once assumed that Hastings had resigned; Clavering claimed the
governor-generalship, took his seat in council at the head of the table,
demanded the keys of the fortress and the treasuries, and in general
acted with the greatest precipitation and violence. Hastings was stung
into a flat resistance, and declined to vacate the seat of authority,
though he declared that, but for Clavering's presumptuous and absurd
haste, he would have held himself bound by his agent's action. The
deadlock was so hopeless that both sides agreed to refer the question
to the Supreme Court, who, decided "that Mr. Hastings had not
resigned". Not content with this decision, which saved him from
ruin, Hastings next contended that Clavering by his action had for-
feited even his seat in council, but here the Supreme Court decided
against him. Thus ended what Hastings himself called the "convulsion
of four days, which might have shaken the very foundation of the
national power and interests in India”. ?
Clavering died on 30 August, 1777, and Hastings's control over the
council was greatly strengthened, though Wheler at first was inclined
to act with Francis, the usual division being Hastings, Barwell and
1 Gleig, op. cit. O, 159.
## p. 229 (#257) ############################################
COMPACT WITH FRANCIS
229
the casting vote against Francis and Wheler. Clavering was succeeded
in 1779 as commander-in-chief by Sir Eyre Coote, who, though often
intractable and difficult, acted quite independently of Francis.
Hastings, therefore, was still able by the exercise of his casting vote
to make his views prevail, and it is at this period that he writes of his
rival : "Francis is miserable, and is weak enough to declare it in a
manner much resembling the impatience of a passionate woman,
whose hands are held to prevent her from doing mischief”. In 1779
Barwell retired. Hastings had prevailed upon him to stay till he had
made, as he supposed, an accommodation with Francis that the latter
would not oppose measures for the prosecution of the Maratha War
or for the general support of the present political system of govern-
ment. In July, 1780, ne accused Francis of violating this compact,
and in a minute laid before the council, said: “I judge of his public
conduct by my experience of his private, which I have found to be
void of truth and honour”;a he accepted the inevitable challenge
from Francis to a duel, and wounded him rather severely. Though
Hastings spoke of this incident with a certain compunction, writing :
“I hope Mr. Francis does not think of assuming any merit from this
silly affair. I have been ashamed that I have been made an actor
in it”,9 yet he had forced on the meeting with great deliberation
and most clearly intended to disable his adversary. As regards
the accommodation a few words must be said. Francis, as we have
seen, was not over-scrupulous, but he always hotly declared that he
had ? ver been party to any such engagement as Hastings pretended.
The agreement I meant to enter into, with respect to the Maratha War,
was to prosecute the operations actually existing on the Malabar coast, which,
since the campaign was begun, and General Goddard had already taken the
field, I thought should be pushed as vigorously as possible. 4
He flatly denied that he had ever promised any general support. It
is probable that Francis's account of the matter is mainly correct.
Hastings seems to have been far too easily content with a vague
acceptance of his proposal, and it was surely the height of folly, if he
really wished for a compact, after his experience of Francis's charac-
ter, not to get a definitely signed agreement from him. It almost
appears as though Hastings, despairing of any other method of freeing
himself from his opponent, was purposely content with a mere verbal
promise, intending afterwards to force a quarrel upon Francis for not
fulfilling it. Whether this were true or not, he had at last attained his
object. Francis left India in November, 1780, and Hastings wrote in
exultation :
i Idem, p. 263.
2 Forrest, Selections from . . . State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, a, 712.
3 Gleig, op. cit. II, 310. .
4 Forrest, Selections from State Papers in the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, n, 715.
## p. 230 (#258) ############################################
230
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
In a word, I have power, and I will employ it, during the interval in which
the credit of it shall last, to retrieve past misfortunes, to remove present dan.
gers, and to re-establish the power of the Company, and the safety of its
possessions.
Hastings's position was now indeed much easier and his chief tribu-
lations were over; for some time the council was reduced to three,
and as Sir Eyre Coote was generally absent from Calcutta on military
expeditions, Wheler was practically the governor-general's only
colleague, and he found him very amenable to guidance.
At first,
as we have seen, Hastings had formed a poor opinion of him. He
wrote in 1777 : “He is now, and must be, a mere cipher and the echo
of Francis, a vox et praeterea nihil, a mere vote". ? But his opinion of
him gradually improved : "I treat him", he writes to a friend, "with
an unreserved confidence, and he in turn yields me as steady a
support as I could wish”,3 and again : “I cannot desire an easier
associate, or a man whose temper is better suited to my own”. 4 It
is clear that Wheler was gradually won over by the dominant per-
sonality of the governor-general; and it is during this time that
Hastings, uncontrolled by opposition, enters upon those proceedings
in regard to Chait Singh and the begams of Oudh which have done
so much to blemish, fairly or unfairly, his reputation. The truth seems
to be that Wheler was an honest and conscientious man, who tried
to view each question on its merits. As Sir Alfred Lyall says: “Wheler
feebly tried to do his duty, and was rewarded by a sentence in one
of Burke's philippics against Hastings, where he stands as his supple,
worn-down, cowed, and, I am afraid, bribed colleague, Mr. Whelerº. " 5
Two new councillors appeared in due course, John Macpherson
in September, 1781, and Stables in November, 1782. Macpherson first
came to India nominally as purser of an East-Indiaman and entered
the service of the nawab of the Carnatic. He returned to England
on a secret mission and was sent out to India again, this time in the
East India Company's service, in 1770. · Seven years later he was
dismissed the service, and returned to England. He sat in parliament
from 1779 to 1782 for Cricklade, and he was supposed to be in receipt
of a salary from the nawab of the Carnatic. In January, 1781, the
Company reinstated him in its service-an appointment which was
severely criticised. Macpherson was a shrewd and worldly man,
endowed by nature with extreme good looks and with pleasant
nianners, At first Hastings found in him "every aid and support
that I expected, and an ease with a benevolence of disposition . . . far
exceeding my expectations”. ! With Stables he was far less pleased,
and he complains of "his coarse and surly style". ? For a time
Hastings found his relations with his later council easy and pleasant,
"6
1 Gleig, op. cit. 17, 330-1.
4 Idem, p. 387.
* Gleig, op. cit. II, 450.
Idem, p. 186.
3 Idem, p. 384.
5 Lyall, Warren Hastings, p. 168.
7 Idem, 0, 151.
## p. 231 (#259) ############################################
OPPOSITION
231
but we cannot but see that his approval or disapproval of his collea-
gues varied accordingly as they were prepared, or refused, to sink
their individuality in his. Towards the end of his administration
he found them inclined to oppose him on certain questions, as for
instance-and it must be added most properly-when he proposed
in 1784 to intervene in the troubled affairs of the Moghul Empire.
"You will wonder", he writes, "that all my Council should oppose
me. So do I. But the fact is this : Macpherson and Stables have
intimidated Wheler, whom they hate, and he them most cordially. " I
Hastings acknowledged at this time that "I have not that collected
firmness of mind which I once possessed, and which gave me such
a superiority in my contests with Clavering and his associates. "? As
time went on he railed against them more and more bitterly : “I in
my heart forgive General Clavering for all the injuries he did me.
He was my avowed enemy. These are my dear friends, whom
Mr. Sulivan pronounced incapable of being moved from me by any
consideration on earth”. 3 Again he complains that the councillors
have received a hint from their friends not to attach themselves to
a fallen interest. Even Wheler for a time fell into disfavour.
These unfortunate dissensions led Francis in a speech in the
House of Commons to claim with a certain amount of superficial
justification that "the opposition to Mr. Hastings has not been con-
fined to General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and myself. His present
colleagues . . . have exactly the same opinion that we had of him and
of his measures”. 4 But this of course is untrue. The opposition now
was at times vexatious, but it was occasionally justified, and it was
very different from the persistent, unremitting and bitter hostility
of the old régime. The truth is that, as Sir Alfred Lyall said : "It
would have puzzled any set of Councillors to hit off the precise degree
and kind of opposition that Hastings was disposed to tolerate”. " Like
all men of pre-eminent ability and dominating personality, he could
not bear to have his purposes thwarted; and there is probably a
substratum of truth in the verdict of Barwell-friend of Hastings
though he was-written in 1774 :
The occasions of difference between us that did exist were not sought for
by me, but proceeded wholly from the jealousy of his own temper, which can-
not yield to another the least share of reputation that might be derived in the
conduct of his Government. Unreasonable as it may be, he expects the abili-
ties cf all shall be, subservient to his views and (that all shall] implicitly rely
upon him for the degree of merit. if any, he may be pleased to allow them in
the administration of Government. 8
It must be remembered of course that none of the councillors ap-
pointed under the Regulating Act were in any sense men of first-rate
ability except Philip Francis. Barwell probably stood next to him in
1 Idem, p. 121.
2 Idem, p. 122.
4 Parliamentary History, XXIV, 1175.
• Bengal, Past and Present, xn, 71.
3 Idem, p. 12y.
5 Lyall, Warren Hastings, p. 184.
## p. 232 (#260) ############################################
232
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
capacity;. Clavering, Monson, Wheler, Macpherson and Stables were
all thoroughly mediocre men. But the fact remains that, while
Hastings was capable of inspiring the most intense affection and fide-
lity from some with whom he came into close personal contact, it is
also true that he had a certain propensity to fall foul of men and
they were sometimes men of ability and repute with whom he was
called upon to work in public life. Sir Robert Barker, Sir Eyre Coote,
Charles Grant, Lord Macartney, and even Sir Elijah Impey all were
at times seriously at variance with him. Hastings himself never
doubted that he was in the right and his contemporaries in the wrong,
and through every disappointment and defeat he still clung with
characteristic tenacity to a defiant approval-generally, it must be
added, entirely justified-of his own actions.
I have now held the first nominal place in this Government almost twelve
years. In all this long period I have almost unremittedly wanted the support,
which all my predecessors have enjoyed from their constituents. From mine
I have received nothing but reproach, hard epithets and indignities, instead of
rewards and encouragement. Yet under all the difficulties which I have
described, such have been the exertions of this Government, since I was first
placed at the head of it, that in no part of the Company's annals has it known
an equal state, either of wealth, strength, or prosperity, nor, let it not be
imputed to me as a crime if I add, of splendid reputation. 1
The points upon which the new council at once came to grips
with the governor-general were the Rohilla War and the measures to
be taken for terminating it, the conclusion on the Treaty of Faizabad,
and the charges brought against Hastings by Nandakumar.
"Upon our arrival", they. wrote, “the first material intelligence that came
before us, concerning the state of the. Company's affairs, was, that one third
of their military force was actually employed, under the command of Sujah
Dowlah, not in defending his territories against invasion, but in assisting him
to subdue an independent state. ”
Without waiting for any reasonable investigation, they condemned
the war as
carrying, upon the face of it, a manifest violation of all those principles of
policy which we know have been established by the highest authority, and till
now universally admitted as the basis of the Company's counsels in the
administration of their affairs in India. ?
They inflicted upon Hastings, in his own words, “a personal and
direct indignity" 3 by recalling Middleton from Lucknow, and de-
manding that the whole of his correspondence, some of which was
confidential, should be laid before the council. They ordered Champion
to demand at once the forty lakhs, which the nawab had promised,
and to withdraw from Rohilkhand. "They denounced", it has been
well said, "the Rohilla War as an abomination; and yet their great
anxiety now was to pocket the wages of it. " 4 Hastings in vain
1 Forrest, Selections from State Papers of the Foreign Department of
the Government of India, nii, 902-3.
· Ideni, 1, 120-1.
3 Gleig, op. cit. 1, 474.
+ Beveridge, A Comprehensive History of India, 1, 365.
## p. 233 (#261) ############################################
THE ATTACK ON HASTINGS
233
endeavoured to set up some kind of barrier against this wild flood of
censure and criticism. He claimed with good reason that, whatever
the rights or wrongs of the matter, since the Rohilla War was begun
and all but concluded by the past administration, the new councillors
should have been satisfied with recording their formal disapproval of
it, and should not have attempted to prerent its conclusion. He
declined to produce the correspondence between himself and Middle-
ton, though he offered to submit all passages dealing with public
policy to the council, and to send the whole of it for inspection to
Lord North, the Prime Minister.
If the conduct of the majority seemed unreasonable on the ques-
tion of the Rohilla War, it appeared still more perverse on the occasion
of the death of the nawab of Oudh, which took place on 26 January,
1775. Their one aim seemed to be to press hard upon the Company's
ally. They decided that the existing treaty was personal to the late
ruler, and they took the opportunity to conclude a new treaty-the
Treaty of Faizabad-by which all his successor's liabilities were in-
creased. He had to pay a heavier subsidy for the use of British troops;
the tribute paid by the zamindar of Ghazipur passed to the Company;
and the sovereignty of Benares was also ceded to it. Hastings opposed
the treaty, but was outvoted. In view of what was to follow it is
interesting to note that on his suggestion it was made a condition
of the treaty that the raja of Benares should exercise a free and inde-
pendent authority in his own dominions subject only to the payment
of his tribute. On 11 March, 1775, Nandakumar brought against
Hastings his charge of having received from the begam a bribe of
354,105 rupees for appointing her guardian of the young prince. There
followed the famous scene, in which the majority of the council wel-
comed the accusation, and Hastings withdrew in fierce anger, refusing
to be arraigned at his own council board “in the presence of a wretch,
whom you all know to be one of the basest of mankind”,1
What are the facts of the allegations against Hastings? It is best
perhaps to begin with everything that can possibly be said in his
disfavour. Hastings at once drew up a long minute, which according
to Burke and Gilbert Elliot bore every sign of conscious guilt. Even
Sir James Stephen admits that it suggests that there was something
to explain. Hastings never at any time actually denied in so many
words the truth of Nandakumar's statement. In his written defence,
read to the House of Commons, he "entered upon a kind of wrangle
equally ill-conceived and injudicious”? In a letter to Lord North
he uses the curious expression : "These accusations, true or false,
have no relation to the measures which are the ground and subject of
our original differences”. 3 We must assent to Sir James Stephen's
? Idem, p. 72.
1 Stephen, Nuncomar and Impey, I, 53.
3 Gleig, op. cit. 1, 518.
## p. 234 (#262) ############################################
234
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
comment that "Hastings's character would no doubt have stood better,
if he had boldly taxed Nandakumar with falsehood”. The began
acknowledged that she had given 150,000 rupees, and Hastings
admitted that he had received the sum as entertainment money, but
it is not clear why so much mystery was made about the transaction.
On the other hand, for Hastings, it must be said that he had every
right to object to the whole procedure of the majority : "I could not
yield [to their claim to investigate the charge at the council board]
without submitting to a degradation to which no power or considera-
tion on earth could have impelled me" i He saw with bitter scorn
that his enemies were hot upon the despicable trail, and he had no
doubt as to the master hand.
At the impeachment, the Lord Chancellor, who was not favourable
to Hastings, commenting upon the whole of the evidence, admitted
that the managers had failed to prove that Hastings had ever received
any part of the 354,105 rupees except the 150,000. There is no question
that he had accepted that sum, but there is no ground for holding
that it was a bribe for the appointment of the begam. He contended
that, when he received the money, the act prohibiting presents was
not yet passed; the allowance was customary, and he could show
that it had been received by Clive and Verelst when they visited
Murshidabad. This was in reality the weak part of Hastings's case.
The Company had forbidden presents long before the Regulating
Act. It was really a monstrous abuse that, when the governor of
Bengal, whose salary and allowances amounted to between £20,000
and £30,000, visited Murshidabad, he should receive from the nawab
an allowance amounting to £225 a day. That it had been taken by
Clive and Verelst was very little justification, and in any case it must
be noted that at least in their day the nawab received a revenue of
fifty-three lakhs, while it had now been reduced to sixteen. There
can be little doubt that we have here the reason for Hastings's failure
to deny the charge; he could not deny that he had received part, and
therefore preferred to deny nothing. Even Sir James Stephen admits
that the transaction, “if not positively illegal was at least question-
able”," and we cannot wonder that in the impeachment the Lord
Chancellor, while acquitting Hastings of corruption, said: "He hoped
that this practice, which however custom might have justified in some
degree, no longer obtained in India". 3 The whole incident illustrates
the exactions made upon Indian powers at this time by the Company's
servants, whenever opportunity offered.
When Hastings had withdrawn from the council, the majority
resolved that "there is no species of peculation from which the
Governor-General has thought it reasonable to abstain". They de-
"
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 515-16. 2 Stephen, Nuncomar and Impey, I, 72.
3 Debates of the Lords on the Evidence
. . . , p. 147.
## p. 235 (#263) ############################################
NANDAKUMAR'S TRIAL
235
clared that he had received the sums specified, and ordered him to
refund the money into the Congpany's treasury. Owing to the dramatic
series of events that followed, and the fall of Nandakumar, the charges
were never proceeded with. Ultimately the information and papers
of Nandakumar were submitted to the Company's legal adviser in
Calcutta. He did not advise a prosecution in India, but gave it as his
opinion that the evidence should be sent home. There the Company's
law officers declared that the statements could not possibly be true.
We must now return to the events that brought about the ruin of
Nandakumar and the stay of all proceedings against Hastings. On
23 April, Hastings, Barwell and Vansittart prosecuted Fowke,
Nandakumar and another Indian on a charge of conspiracy. The
charge was that they had endeavoured to coerce a certain Indian,
named Kamal-ud-din, to accuse Hastings and Barwell of having
received other bribes. At the assizes in July all the defendants were
acquitted of conspiracy against Hastings; Fowke and Nandakumar
were convicted as against Barwell, Fowke was fined; no sentence was
passed on Nandakumar since he was by that time lying under sentence
of death for forgery. Meantime, on 6 May, before Justices Lemaistre
and Hyde, sitting as magistrates, Nandakumar was committed for
trial on a charge of forgery brought against him by the executor of
an Indian banker. His trial took place 8 to 16 June; he was found
guilty, sentenced to death, and executed 5 August, 1775. The sequence
of events was curious, and it was long believed that the unhappy man
was put to death, nominally for forgery, but really for having dared
to accuse the governor-general. Burke epigrammatically summed up
the popular view when he said in his speech on Fox's India Bill :
The Raja Nandakumar was, by an insult on everything which India holds
respectable and sacred, hanged in the face of all his nation, by the judges you
sent to protect that people, hanged for a pretended crime, upon an ex post facto
Act of Parliament, in the midst of his evidence against Mr. Hastings. 1
In considering the question, it is important to remember that there
were two distinct charges against Nandakumar; the charge of con-
iracy in which Hastings and Barwell were the avowed prosecutors;
the charge of forgery, in which the prosecutor was an Indian, Mohan
Prasad, though it was alleged that the real initiative came from
Hastings.
The whole question has been examined by Sir James Stephen in
his Nuncomar and Impey, and he claims to have shown that Nanda-
kumar had a perfectly fair trial, and that in his summing up Sir Elijah
Impey gave full weight to any point that could possibly tell in favour
of the accused. This is certainly corroborated by the statements of
Farrer, Nandakumar's counsel in the famous trial, who was called to
give evidence at Impey's impeachment. He was examined at great
length, and, though during the trial he had sometimes come into
>
1 Parliamentary History, XXIII, 1369.
## p. 236 (#264) ############################################
236
WARREN HASTINGS AND HIS COLLEAGUES
.
collision with the Chief Justice, he declared that all the favour in the
power of the court had been extended towards his client, and parti-
cularly from Sir Elijah Impey. Stephen points out that all four
judges were upon the bench, and therefore, if there was a conspiracy
between the Supreme Court and the governor-general, we have to
assume, either that the whole bench was privy to it, or that they
were entirely dominated by Impey's personality. The jury consisted
of twelve European or Eurasian inhabitants of Calcutta, and the pri-
soner had, and exercised, the right to challenge. Stephen maintains
that the charge of forgery developed in a natural way out of long-
standing litigation which had begun in December, 1772. A civil suit
against Nandakumar having failed, his adversary had determined to
prosecute him criminally, and the first steps in this process had been
taken six weeks before Nandakumar produced his charges against
Hastings at the council board. As it has been said, “that charge would,
in the natural course of law, have been made at the very time when
it was made, though Nandakumar had never becoine a willing tool
on the hands of Messrs Clavering, Monson and Francis". 1 Against this
it must be mentioned that Mr. H. Beveridge, in his Trial of Maharaja
Nanda Kumar, denies that there was any real attempt at a criminal
prosecution till May, 1775, and he gives some shrewd reasons for his
conclusion. Stephen rightly contends that hastings's subsequent
reference to Impey as one "to whose support I was at one time
indebted for the safety of my fortune, honour and reputation",? which
Macaulay supposed to refer to the trial of Nandakumar, almost
certainly refers to the incident of the resignation of 1777. Quite apart
from every other reason, it is of course inconceivable that, if Macau.
lay's supposition had been true, Hasting's would have been indiscreet
enough to use the words quoted.
There seems, on a careful review, to have been only two incidents
in the trial to which exception may be taken. First, the judges cross-
examined-and cross-examined rather severely—the prisoner's wit-
nesses. Their reason was that this was done to prevent the ends of
justice from being defeated, counsel for the prosecution being incom-
petent. The reason seems strangely inadequate; it can never be
proper foi judges to act the part of advocate. When Farrer protested,
Justice Chambers was obviously uneasy on the point, but the protest
did not stop the practice. Secondly, Impey, from lack of Indian
experience, told the jury that if Nandakumar's defence was over-
thrown, the fact condemned him; but, as Stephen points out, this rule
cannot be applied in the East, where a perfectly good case, should
proof be otherwise lacking, is often bolstered up by flagrant perjury.
It is certain that there was no conspiracy between Hastings and
Impey to murder Nandakumar. It is possible, as Sir Alfred Lyall
1 Beveridge, A Comprehensive History of India, II, 378.
Gleig, op. cit. , 255.
## p. 237 (#265) ############################################
NANDAKUMAR'S TRIAL
227
hints; that Hastings, knowing that Nandakumar was liable to a serious
charge and was probably guilty, conveyed to Mohun Prasad the
intimation that it was a favourable opportunity to bring forward the
case, and “the fact that Impey tried the man with great patience, for-
bearance, and exact formality, might prove nothing against an inten-
tion to hang him, but only that he was too wise to strain the law
superfluously”. ? There is, however, absolutely no evidence for such a
supposition. If it is entertained, it must depend for its justification
upon certain evidences of implacable enmity, which it may appear
to some that the conduct of Hastings displayed after the trial.
The question of Nandakumar's guilt is a different one from the
fairness of the trial, and it is probably impossible at this distance
of time to come to any definite conclusion. Sir James Stephen is
extremely cautious here. He says that, if he had to depend upon the
evidence called for the prosecution, he would not have convicted the
prisoner-a notable admission on his part. It was the mass of perjury
on the other side and the statements of Nandakumar's own witnesses
that tipped the scale against him.
