never been concerned in faction. Wheler was thoroughly tired of it. Barwell had made an ample fortune, and though he had promised that he would not leave Calcutta while Hastings wanted his help, was most desirous to return to England, and exerted himself to promote an arrangement which would set him at liberty. A compact was made, by which Francis agreed to desist from opposition, and Hastings engaged that the friends of Francis should be admitted to a fair share of the honours and emoluments of the service. During a few months after this treaty there was apparent harmony at the Council-board.

our own country would be, if it were enacted that any man, by merely swearing that a debt was due to him, should acquire a right to insult the persons of men of the most honourable and sacred callings, and of women of the most shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general officer, to put a bishop in the stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called forth the blow of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the effect of the attempt which the Supreme Court made to extend its jurisdiction over the whole of the Company's territory.

to forget private enmities, and to co-operate imported without modifications into India, neartily for the general good. Coote had could not fail to produce. The strongest feelings of our nature, honour, religion, female modesty, rose up against the innovation. Ar rest on mesne process was the first step in most civil proceedings; and to a native of rank, ar rest was not merely a restraint, but a foul personal indignity. Oaths were required in every stage of every suit; and the feeling of a quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than that of a respectable native. That the apartments of a woman of quality should be entered by strange men, or that her face should be seen by them, are, in the East, intolerable outrages-outrages which are more dreaded than death, and which can be expiated only by the shedding of blood. Harmony, indeed, was never more neces- To these outrages the most distinguished famisary; for at this moment internal calamities, lies of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, were now more formidable than war itself, menaced Ben-exposed. Imagine what the state of our own gal. The authors of the Regulating Act of country would be, if a jurisprudence were, on 1773 had established two independent powers, a sudden, introduced amongst us, which should the one judicial, the other political; and, with be to us what our jurisprudence was to our a carelessness scandalously common in Eng-Asiatic subjects. Imagine what the state of lish legislation, had omitted to define the limits of either. The judges took advantage of the indistinctness, and attempted to draw to themselves supreme authority, not only within Calcutta, but through the whole of the great territory subject to the presidency of Fort William. There are few Englishmen who will not admit that the English law, in spite of modern improvements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy as might be wished. Still, it is a system which has grown up amongst us. In some points, it has been fashioned to suit our feelings; in others, it has gradually fashioned our feelings to suit itself. Even to its worst evils we are accustomed; and therefore, though we may complain of them, they do not strike us with the horror and dismay which would be produced by a new grievance of smaller severity. In India the case is widely different. English law, transplanted to that country, has all the vices from which we suffer here; it has them all in a far higher degree; and it has other vices, compared with which the worst vices from which we suffer are trifles. Dilatory here, it is far more dilatory in a land where the help of an interpreter is needed by every judge and by every advocate. Costly here, it is far more costly in a land into which the legal practitioners must be imported from an immense distance. All English labour in India, from the labour of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, down to that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be paid for at a higher rate than at home. No man will be banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for nothing. The rule holds good with respect to the legal profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen thousand miles from all his friends, with the thermometer at ninety-six in the shade, for the same emoluments which will content him in the Chambers that overlook the Thames. Accordingly, the fees in Calcutta are about three times as great as the fees of Westminster Hall; and this, though the people of India are, beyond all comparison, poorer than the people of England. Yet the delay and the expense, grievous as they are, form the smallest part of the evil which English law,

A reign of terror began-of terror heightened by mystery; for even that which was endured was less horrible than that which was anticipated. No man knew what was next to be expected from this strange tribunal. It came from beyond the black water, as the people of India, with mysterious horror, call the sea. It consisted of judges, not one of whom spoke the language, or was familiar with the usages, of the millions over whom they claimed boundless authority. Its records were kept in unknown characters; its sentences were pronounced in unknown sounds. It had already collected round itself an army of the worst part of the native population-informers, and false witnesses, and common barrators, and agents of chicane; and, above all, a banditti of bailiffs' followers, compared with whom the retainers of the worst English spunging-houses, in the worst times, might be considered as upright and tender-hearted. Numbers of natives, highly considered among their countrymen, were seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the common jail-not for any crime ever imputed-not for any debt that had been proved, but merely as a precaution till their cause should come to trial. There were instances in which men of the most venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause by extortioners, died of rage and shame in the gripe of the vile alguazils of Impey. The ha rems of noble Mohammedans-sanctuaries respected in the East by governments which respected nothing else were burst open by gangs of bailiffs. The Mussulmans, braver and less accustomed to submission than the

Hindoos, sometimes stood on their defence; and there were instances in which they shed their blood in the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the sacred apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed as if even the fainthearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute during the administration of Vansittart, would at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta invasion had ever spread through the province such dismay as this inroad of English lawyers. All the injustice of former oppressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing when compared with the justice of the Supreme Court.

pleasure of the government of Bengal! and to give him, in that capacity, about 8,000l. a year more. It was understood that, in consideration of this new salary, Impey would desist from urging the high pretensions of his court. If he did urge these pretensions, the government could, at a moment's notice, eject him from the new place which had been created for him. The bargain was struck, Bengal was saved, an appeal to force was averted; and the Chief Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It was of a piece with almost every part of his conduct that comes under the notice of history. No other such judge has disEvery class of the population, English and honoured the English ermine, since Jeffries native, with the exception of the ravenous pet- drank himself to death in the Tower. But we tifoggers who fattened on the misery and ter- cannot agree with those who have blamed ror of an immense community, cried out loudly Hastings for this transaction. The case stood against this fearful oppression. But the judges thus. The negligent manner in which the were immovable. If a bailiff was resisted, Regulating Act had been framed, put it in the they ordered the soldiers to be called out. If power of the Chief Justice to throw a great a servant of the Company, in conformity with country into the most dreadful confusion. He the orders of the government, withstood the was determined to use his power to the utmost, miserable catch-poles who, with Impey's writs unless he was paid to be still; and Hastings in their hands, exceeded the insolence and consented to pay him. The necessity was to rapacity of gang-robbers, he was flung into be deplored. It is also to be deplored that prison for a contempt. The lapse of sixty pirates should be able to exact ransom, by years-the virtue and wisdom of many emi- threatening to make their captives walk the nent magistrates, who have during that time plank. But to ransom a captive from pirates administered justice in the Supreme Court has always been held a humane and Christian have not effaced from the minds of the peo-act; and it would be absurd to charge the ple of Bengal the recollection of those evil davs.

payer of the ransom with corrupting the virtue of the corsair. This, we seriously think, is a not unfair illustration of the relative position of Impey, Hastings, and the people of India. Whether it was right in Impey to demand or to accept a price for powers which, if they really belonged to him, he could not abdicate

ought never to have usurped and which in neither case he could honestly sell-is one question. It is quite another question, whether Hastings was not right to give any sum, how ever large, to any man, however worthless, rather than either surrender millions of hu man beings to pillage, or rescue them by civil war.

The members of the government were, on this subject, united as one man. Hastings had courted the judges; he had found them useful instruments. But he was not disposed to make them his own masters, or the masters of India. His mind was large; his knowledge of the-which, if they did not belong to him, he native character most accurate. He saw that the system pursued by the Supreme Court was degrading to the government, and ruinous to the people; and resolved to oppose it manfully. The consequence was, that the friendship-if that be the proper word for such a connection-which had existed between him and Impey, was for a time completely dissolved. The government placed itself firmly between the tyrannical tribunal and the people. The Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest excesses. The Governor-General and all the members of Council were served with summonses, calling on them to appear before the king's justices, and to answer for their public acts. This was too much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused to obey the call, set at Jiberty the persons wrongfully detained by the court, and took measures for resisting the outrageous proceedings of the sheriff's officers, if necessary by the sword. But he had in view another device, which might prevent the necessity of an appeal to arms. He was seldom at a loss for an expedient; and he knew Impey well. The expedient, in this case, was a very simple one-neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey was, by act of Parliament, a judge, independent of the government of Bengal, and entitled to a salary of 8,000l. a year. Hastings proposed to make him also a judge in the Company's service, removable at the

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement It may, indeed, be suspected that personal aversion to Impey was as strong a motive with Francis as regard for the welfare of the province. To a mind burning with resentment, it might seem better to leave Bengal to the oppressors, than to redeem it by enriching them. It is not improbable, on the other hand, that Hastings may have been the more willing to resort to an expedient agreeable to the Chief Justice, because that high functionary had already been so serviceable, and might, when existing dissensions were composed, be serviceable again.

But it was not on this point alone that Francis was now opposed to Hastings. The peace between them proved to be only a short and hollow truce, during which their mutual aversion was constantly becoming stronger At length an explosion took place. Hastings publicly charged Francis with having deceived him, and induced Barwell to quit the service by insincere promises. Then came a dispute.

his own. He was now in extreme old age; but his intellect was as clear, and his spirit as high, as in the prime of manhood. Such was the great Hyder Ali, the founder of the Mohammedan kingdom of Mysore, and the most formidable enemy with whom the English conquerors of India have ever had to contend.

such as frequentiy arises even between ho- tecting his people against all oppression except nourable men, when they make important agreements by mere verbal communication. An impartial historian will probably be of opinion that they had misunderstood each other; but their minds were so much imbittered, that they imputed to each other nothing less than deliberate villany. "I do not," said Hastings, in a minute recorded in the Consultations of the Government-"I do not trust to Mr. Francis's promises of candour, convinced that he is incapable of it. I judge of his public conduct by his private, which I have found to be void of truth and honour." After the Council had risen, Francis put a challenge into the Governor-General's hand: it was instantly accepted. They met, and fired. Francis was shot through the body. He was carried to a neighbouring house, where it appeared that the wound, though severe, was not mortal. Hastings inquired repeatedly after his enemy's health, and proposed to call on him; but Francis coldly declined the visit. He had a proper sense, he said, of the Governor-General's politeness, but must decline any private interview. They could meet only at the Council-board.

In a very short time it was made signally manifest to how great a danger the GovernorGeneral had, on this occasion, exposed his country. A crisis arrived with which he, and he alone, was competent to deal. It is not too much to say, that, if he had been taken from the head of affairs, the years 1780 and 1781 would have been as fatal to our power in Asia as to our power in America.

The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of apprehension to Hastings. The measures which he had adopted for the purpose of breaking their power, had at first been frustrated by the errors of those whom he was compelled to employ; but his perseverance and ability seemed likely to be crowned with success, when a far more formidable danger showed itself in a distant quarter.

Had Hastings been Governor of Madras, Hyder would have been either made a friend or vigorously encountered as an enemy. Unhappily the English authorities in the south provoked their powerful neighbour's hostility, without being prepared to repel it. On a sudden, an army of ninety thousand men, far superior in discipline and efficiency to any other native force that could be found in India, came pouring through those wild passes, which, worn by mountain torrents, and dark with jungle, lead down from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of the Carnatic. This great army was accompanied by a hundred pieces of cannon; and its movements were guided by many French officers, trained in the best military schools of Europe.

Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in many British garrisons flung down their arms. Some forts were surrendered by treachery, and some by despair. In a few days the whole open country north of the Coleroon had submitted. The English inhabitants of Madras could already see by night from the top of Mount St. Thomas. the eastern sky reddened by a vast semicircle of blazing villages. The white villas, embosomed in little groves of tulip trees, to which our countrymen retire after the daily labours of government and of trade, when the cool evening breeze springs up from the bay, were now left without inhabitants; for bands of the fierce horsemen of Mysore had already been seen prowling near those gay verandas. Even the town was not thought secure, and the British merchants and public functionaries made haste to crowd themselves behind the cannon of Fort St. George.

About thirty years before this time, a Moham- There were the means indeed of forming an medan soldier had begun to distinguish him- army which might have defended the presiself in the wars of Southern India. His edu- dency, and even driven the invader back to cation had been neglected; his extraction was his mountains. Sir Hector Munro was at the mean. His father had been a petty officer of head of one considerable force; Baillie was revenue; his grandfather a wandering Dervise. advancing with another. United, they might But though thus meanly descended-though have presented a formidable front even to such ignorant even of the alphabet-the adventurer an enemy as Hyder. But the English comhad no sooner been placed at the head of a manders, neglecting those fundamental rules body of troops, than he approved himself a of the military art, of which the propriety is man born for conquest and command. Among obvious even to men who have never received the crowd of chiefs who were struggling for a a military education, deferred their junction, share of India, none could compare with him and were separately attacked. Baillie's dein the qualities of the captain and the states-tachment was destroyed. Munro was forced man. He became a general-he became a prince. Out of the fragments of old principalities, which had gone to pieces in the general wreck, he formed for himself a great, compact, and vigorous empire. That empire he rused with the ability, severity, and vigilance of Louis the Eleventh. Licentious in his pleasures, implacable in his revenge, he had yet enlargement of mind enough to perceive how much the prosperity of subjects adds o the strength of governments. He was an mpressor; but he had at least the merit of pro

to abandon his baggage, to fling his guns into the tanks, and to save himself by a retreat which might be called a flight. In three weeks from the commencement of the war, the British empire in Southern India had been brought to the verge of ruin. Only a few fortified places remained to us. The glory of our arms had departed. It was known that a great French expedition might soon be expected on the coast of Coromandel. England, beset by enemies on every side, was in no condition to protect such remote dependencies.

and stately flights of steps which descended from these swarming haunts to the bathing-places along the Ganges were worn every day by the footsteps of an innumerable multitude of worshippers. The schools and temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from every province where the Brahminical faith was known. Hun

Then it was that the fertile genius and serene courage of Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. A swift ship, flying before the southwest monsoon, brought the evil tidings in few days to Calcutta. In twenty-four hours the Governor-General had framed a complete plan of policy adapted to the altered state of affairs. The struggle with Hyder was a strug-dreds of devotees came thither every month to gle for life and death. All minor objects must be sacrificed to the preservation of the Carnatic. The disputes with the Mahrattas must be accommodated. A large military force and a supply of money must be instantly sent to Madras. But even these measures would be insufficient unless the war, hitherto so grossly mismanaged, were placed under the direction of a vigorous mind. It was no time for trifling. Hastings determined to resort to an extreme exercise of power; to suspend the incapable governor of Fort St. George, to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose Hyder, and to intrust that distinguished general with the whole administration of the war.

In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had now recovered from his wound and had returned to the Council, the GovernorGeneral's wise and firm policy was approved by the majority of the board. The reinforcements were sent off with great expedition, and reached Madras before the French armament arrived in the Indian seas. Coote, broken by age and disease, was no longer the Coote of Wandewash; but he was still a resolute and skilful commander. The progress of Hyder was arrested, and in a few months the great victory of Porto Novo retrieved the honour of the English arms.

die-for it was believed that a peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which allured strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce had as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the venerable stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks that adorned the balls of St. James's and of the Petit Trianon; and in the bazaars the muslins of Bengal and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. This rich capital and the surrounding tract had long been under the immediate rule of a Hindoo prince who rendered homage to the Mogul emperors. During the great anarchy of India the lords of Benares became independent of the court of Delhi, but were compelled to submit to the authority of the Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by this formidable neighbour, they invoked the protection of the English. The English protection was given, and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn treaty, ceded all his rights over Benares to the Company. From that time the Rajah was the vassal of the government of Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy, and sent an annual tribute to Fort William. These duties Cheyte Sing, the reigning prince, had fulfilled with strict punctuality.

In the mean time Francis had returned to England, and Hastings was now left perfectly unfettered. Wheler had gradually been relax- Respecting the precise nature of the legal ing in his opposition, and, after the departure relation between the Company and the Rajah of his vehement and implacable colleague, co-of Benares there has been much warm and operated heartily with the Governor-General, whose influence over his countrymen in India, always great, had, by the vigour and success of his recent measures, been considerably increased.

But though the difficulties arising from factions within the Council were at an end, another class of difficulties had become more pressing than ever. The financial embarrassment was extreme. Hastings had to find the means, not only of carrying on the government of Bengal, but of maintaining a most costly war against both Indian and European ene mies in the Carnatic, and of making remit tances to England. A few years before this time he had obtained relief by plundering the Mogul and enslaving the Rohillas, nor were the resources of his fruitful mind by any means exhausted.

His first design was on Benares, a city which, in wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost of Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines, and minarets, and balconies, and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveller could scarcely make his way through the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. The broad VOL. IV.-61

acute controversy. On the one side it has been maintained that Cheyte Sing was merely a great subject, on whom the superior power had a right to call for aid in the necessities of the empire. On the other side it has been contended that he was an independent prince, that the only claim which the Company had upon him was for a fixed tribute, and that, while the fixed tribute was regularly paid, as it assuredly was, the English had no more right to exact any further contribution from him than to demand subsidies from Holland or Denmark. Nothing is easier than to find precedents and analogies in favour of either view.

Our own impression is that neither view is correct. It was too much the habit of English politicians to take it for granted that there was in India a known and definite constitution by which questions of this kind were to be decided. The truth is, that during the interval which elapsed between the fall of the house of Tamerlane and the establishment of the British ascendency, there was no constitution. The old order of things had passed away; the new order of things was not yet formed. All was transition, confusion, obscurity. Everybody kept his head as he best might, and scrambled for whatever he could get. There have been

28

❤imilar seasons in Europe. The time of the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire is an instance. Who would think of seriously discussing the question, what extent of pecuniary aid and of obedience Hugh Capet had a constitutional right to demand from, the Duke of Brittany or the Duke of Normandy? The words "constitutional right" had, in that state of society, no meaning. If Hugh Capet laid hands on all the possessions of the Duke of Normandy, this might be unjust and immoral; but it would not be illegal in the sense in which the ordinances of Charles the Tenth were illegal. If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy made war on Hugh Capet, this might be unjust and immoral; but it would not be illegal in the sense in which the expedition of Prince Louis Bonaparte was illegal.

the rents which were reserved to him by that very grant, he is told that he is a mere pageant; that the English power rests on a very different foundation from a charter given by him; that he is welcome to play at royalty as long as he likes, but that he must expect no tribute from the real masters of India.

It is true, that it was in the power of others, as well as of Hastings, to practise this legerdemain; but in the controversies of governments, sophistry is of little use unless it be backed by power. There is a principle which Hastings was fond of asserting in the strongest terms, and on which he acted with undeviating steadiness. It is a principle which, we must own, can hardly be disputed in the present state of public law. It is this-that where an ambiguous question arises between two governments, there is, if they cannot agree, no appeal except to force, and that the opinion of the strongest must prevail. Almost every question was ambiguous in India. The English government was the strongest in India. The consequences are obvious. The English government might do exactly what it chose.

Very similar to this was the state of India sixty years ago. Of the existing governments not a single one could lay claim to legitimacy, or plead any other title than recent occupation, There was scarcely a province in which the real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty were not disjoined. Titles and forms were still retained, which implied that the heir of Ta- The English government now chose to wring merlane was an absolute ruler, and that the money out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly "Nabobs of the provinces were his lieutenants. been convenient to treat him as a sovereign In reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs were prince; it was now convenient to treat him as in some places independent princes. In other a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hastplaces, as in Bengal and the Carnatic, they ings could easily find, in that general chaos of had, like their master, become mere phantoms, laws and customs, arguments for either course. and the Company was supreme. Among the Hastings wanted a great supply. It was known Mahrattas again, the heir of Sevajee still kept that Cheyte Sing had a large revenue, and it the title of Rajah; but he was a prisoner, and was suspected that he had accumulated a his prime minister, the Peshwa, had become treasure. Nor was he a favourite at Calcutta. the hereditary chief of the state. The Peshwa, He had, when the Governor-General was in in his turn, was fast sinking into the same de- great difficulties, courted the favour of Francis graded situation to which he had reduced the and Clavering. Hastings, who, less we believe Rajah. It was, we believe, impossible to find, from evil passions than from policy, seldom from the Himalayas to Mysore, a single go- left an injury unpunished, was not sorry that vernment which was at once de facto and de jure the fate of Cheyte Sing should teach neighwhich possessed the physical means of mak-bouring princes the same lessons which the ing itself feared by its neighbours and subjects, and which had at the same time the authority derived from law and long prescription.

fate of Nuncomar had already impressed on the inhabitants of Bengal.

In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden with France, Cheyte Sing was called upon to from most of his contemporaries, that such a pay, in addition to his fixed tribute, an extrastate of things gave immense advantages to a ordinary contribution of 50,000l. In 1779, an 'ruler of great talents and few scruples. In equal sum was exacted. In 1780, the demand every international question that could arise, was renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the hope of obhe had his option between the de facto ground taining some indulgence, secretly offered the and the de jure ground; and the probability was Governor-General a bribe of 20,000l. Hastings that one of those grounds would sustain any took the money; and his enemies have mainclaim that it might be convenient for him to tained that he took it intending to keep it. He make, and enable him to resist any claim made certainly concealed the transaction, for a time, by others. In every controversy, accordingly, both from the Council in Bengal and from the he resorted to the plea which suited his imme- Directors at home; nor did he ever give any diate purpose, without troubling himself in the satisfactory reason for the concealment. Public least about consistency; and thus he scarcely spirit or the fear of detection, however, deterever failed to find what, to persons of short mined him to withstand the temptation. He memories and scanty information, seemed to paid over the bribe to the Company's treasury, be a justification for what he wanted to do. and insisted that the Rajah should instantly Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, comply with the demands of the English gosometimes a monarch; sometimes the Vizier vernment. The Rajah, after the fashion of his is a mere deputy, sometimes an independent countrymen, shuffled, solicited, and pleaded potentate. If it is expedient for the Company poverty. The grasp of Hastings was not to be to show some legal title to the revenues of so eluded. He added another 10,000l. as a Bengal, the grant under the seal of the Mogul | fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the is brought forward as an instrument of the money.

nighest authority. When the Mogul asks for The money was paid. But this was not