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Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal.
Compiled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G.R. Gleig M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London:
1841.
We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the wishes of our readers, if,
instead of minutely examining this book, we attempt to give, in a way
necessarily hasty and imperfect, our own view of the life and character of Mr.
Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not exactly that of the House of Commons
which impeached him in 1787; neither is it that of the House of Commons which
uncovered and stood up to receive him in 1813. He had great qualities, and he
rendered great services to the State. But to represent him as a man of stainless
virtue is to make him ridiculous; and from regard for his memory, if from no
other feeling, his friends would have done well to lend no countenance to such
adulation. We believe that, if he were now living, he would have sufficient
judgment and sufficient greatness of mind to wish to be shown as he was. He must
have known that there were dark spots on his fame. He might also have felt with
pride that the splendor of his fame would bear many spots. He would have wished
posterity to have a likeness of him, though an unfavorable likeness, rather than
a daub at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither him nor anybody else.
"Paint me as I am," said Oliver Cromwell, while sitting to young Lely. "If you
leave out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling." Even in such a
trifle, the great Protector showed both his good sense and his magnanimity. He
did not wish all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost, in the
vain attempt to give him the regular features and smooth blooming cheeks of the
curl-pated minions of James the First. He was content that his face should go
forth marked with all the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war, by
sleepless nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse; but with valor, policy,
authority, and public care written in all its princely lines. If men truly great
knew their own interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds to be
portrayed.
Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illustrious race. It has been
affirmed that his pedigree can be traced back to the great Danish sea-king,
whose sails were long the terror of both coasts of the British Channel, and who,
after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last to the valor and
genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendor of the line of Hastings needs no
illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, in the fourteenth
century, the coronet of Pembroke. From another branch sprang the renowned
Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the White Rose, whose fate has furnished
so striking a theme both to poets and to historians. His family received from
the Tudors the earldom of Huntingdon, which, after long dispossession, was
regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in romance.
The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be
considered as the heads of this distinguished family. The main stock, indeed,
prospered less than some of the younger shoots. But the Daylesford family,
though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly considered, till, about two hundred
years ago, it was overwhelmed by the great ruin of the civil wax. The Hastings
of that time was a zealous cavalier. He raised money on his lands, sent his
plate to the mint at Oxford, joined the royal army, and, after spending half his
property in the cause of King Charles, was glad to ransom himself by making over
most of the remaining half to Speaker Lenthal. The old seat at Daylesford still
remained in the family; but it could no longer be kept up: and in the following
generation it was sold to a merchant of London.
Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of Daylesford had presented
his second son to the rectory of the parish in which the ancient residence of
the family stood. The living was of little value; and the situation of the poor
clergyman, after the sale of the estate, was deplorable. He was constantly
engaged in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and was at
length utterly ruined. His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted young man,
obtained a place in the Customs. The second son, Pynaston, an idle worthless
boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, and died in the
West Indies, leaving to the care of his unfortunate father a little orphan,
destined to strange and memorable vicissitudes of fortune.
Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth of December, 1731. His mother
died a few days later, and he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather.
The child was early sent to the village school, where he learned his letters on
the same bench with the sons of the peasantry; nor did anything in his garb or
face indicate that his life was to take a widely different course from that of
the young rustics with whom he studied and played. But no cloud could overcast
the dawn of so much genius and so much ambition. The very ploughmen observed,
and long remembered, how kindly little Warren took to his book. The daily sight
of the lands which his ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into the
hands of strangers, filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He
loved to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of their
splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valor. On one bright summer day,
the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows
through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and
ten years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through all
the turns of his eventful career, was never abandoned. He would recover the
estate which had belonged to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford.
This purpose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect
expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but
indomitable force of will which was the most striking peculiarity of his
character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his
hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed to
Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly checkered with good and
evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed for ever, it was to
Daylesford that he retired to die.
When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard determined to take charge of him,
and to give him a liberal education. The boy went up to London, and was sent to
a school at Newington, where he was well taught but ill fed. He always
attributed the smallness of his stature to the hard and scanty fare of this
seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster school, then flourishing under
the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils affectionately called him,
was one of the masters. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were among
the students. With Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which neither the lapse
of time, nor a wide dissimilarity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly
dissolve. It does not appear that they ever met after they had grown to manhood.
But forty years later, when the voices of many great orators were crying for
vengeance on the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded poet could image to
himself Hastings the Governor-General only as the Hastings with whom he had
rowed on the Thames and played in the cloister, and refused to believe that so
good-tempered a fellow could have done anything very wrong. His own life had
been spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among the water lilies of the Ouse.
He had preserved in no common measure the innocence of childhood. His spirit had
indeed been severely tried, but not by temptations which impelled him to any
gross violation of the rules of social morality. He had never been attacked by
combinations of powerful and deadly enemies. He had never been compelled to make
a choice between innocence and greatness, between crime and ruin. Firmly as he
held in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his habits were such that he was
unable to conceive how far from the path of right even kind and noble natures
may be hurried by the rage of conflict and the lust of dominion.
Hastings had another associate at Westminster of whom we shall have occasion to
make frequent mention, Elijah Impey. We know little about their school days.
But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to
play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball
to act as fag in the worst part of the prank.
Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an excellent swimmer, boatman,
and scholar. At fourteen he was first in the examination for the foundation. His
name in gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory still attests his victory
over many older competitors. He stayed two years longer at the school, and was
looking forward to a studentship at Christ Church, when an event happened which
changed the whole course of his life. Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his
nephew to the care of a friend and distant relation, named Chiswick. This
gentleman, though he did not absolutely refuse the charge, was desirous to rid
himself of it as soon as possible. Dr. Nichols made strong remonstrances against
the cruelty of interrupting the studies of a youth who seemed likely to be one
of the first scholars of the age. He even offered to bear the expense of sending
his favorite pupil to Oxford. But Mr. Chiswick was inflexible. He thought the
years which had already been wasted on hexameters and pentameters quite
sufficient. He had it in his power to obtain for the lad a writership in the
service of the East India Company. Whether the young adventurer, when once
shipped off, made a fortune, or died of a liver complaint, he equally ceased to
be a burden to anybody. Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster school,
and placed for a few months at a commercial academy, to study arithmetic and
book-keeping. In January 1750, a few days after he had completed his seventeenth
year, he sailed for Bengal, and arrived at his destination in the October
following.
He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's office at Calcutta, and
labored there during two years. Fort William was then purely a commercial
settlement. In the south of India the encroaching policy of Dupleix had
transformed the servants of the English Company, against their will, into
diplomatists and Generals. The war of the succession was raging in the Carnatic;
and the tide had been suddenly turned against the French by the genius of young
Robert Clive. But in Bengal the European settlers, at peace with the natives and
with each other, were wholly occupied with ledgers and bills of lading.
After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, Hastings was sent up the
country to Cossimbazar, a town which lies on the Hoogley, about a mile from
Moorshedabad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad a relation, if we may compare
small things with great, such as the city of London bears to Westminster.
Moorshedabad was the abode of the prince who, by an authority ostensibly derived
from the Mogul, but really independent, ruled the three great provinces of
Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. At Moorshedabad were the court, the harem, and the
public offices. Cossimbazar was a port and a place of trade, renowned for the
quantity and excellence of the silks which were sold in its marts, and
constantly receiving and sending forth fleets of richly laden barges. At this
important point, the Company had established a small factory subordinate to that
of Fort William. Here, during several years, Hastings was employed in making
bargains for stuffs with native brokers. While he was thus engaged, Surajah
Dowlah succeeded to the government, and declared war against the English. The
defenseless settlement of Cossimbazar, lying close to the tyrant's capital, was
instantly seized. Hastings was sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, in
consequence of the humane intervention of the servants of the Dutch Company, was
treated with indulgence. Meanwhile the Nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor
and the commandant fled; the town and citadel were taken, and most of the
English prisoners perished in the Black Hole.
In these events originated the greatness of Warren Hastings. The fugitive
governor and his companions had taken refuge on the dreary islet of Fulda, near
the mouth of the Hoogley. They were naturally desirous to obtain full
information respecting the proceedings of the Nabob; and no person seemed so
likely to furnish it as Hastings, who was a prisoner at large in the immediate
neighborhood of the court. He thus became a diplomatic agent, and soon
established a high character for ability and resolution. The treason which at a
later period was fatal to Surajah Dowlah was already in progress; and Hastings
was admitted to the deliberations of the conspirators. But the time for striking
had not arrived. It was necessary to postpone the execution of the design; and
Hastings, who was now in extreme peril, fled to Fulda.
Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedition from Madras, commanded by Clive,
appeared in the Hoogley. Warren, young, intrepid, and excited probably by the
example of the Commander of the Forces, who, having like himself been a
mercantile agent of the Company, had been turned by public calamities into a
soldier, determined to serve in the ranks. During the early operations of the
war he carried a musket. But the quick eye of Clive soon perceived that the head
of the young volunteer would be more useful than his arm. When, after the battle
of Plassey, Meer Jaffier was proclaimed Nabob of Bengal, Hastings was appointed
to reside at the court of the new prince as agent for the Company.
He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 1761, when he became a Member of
Council, and was consequently forced to reside at Calcutta. This was during the
interval between Clive's first and second administration, an interval which has
left on the fame of the East India Company a stain not wholly effaced by many
years of just and humane government. Mr. Vansittart, the Governor, was at the
head of a new and anomalous empire. On one side was a band of English
functionaries, daring, intelligent, eager to be rich. On the other side was a
great native population, helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch under oppression.
To keep the stronger race from preying on the weaker, was an undertaking which
tasked to the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. Vansittart, with fair
intentions, was a feeble and inefficient ruler. The master caste, as was
natural, broke loose from all restraint; and then was seen what we believe to be
the most frightful of all spectacles, the strength of civilization without its
mercy. To all other despotism there is a check, imperfect indeed, and liable to
gross abuse, but still sufficient to preserve society from the last extreme of
misery. A time comes when the evils of submission are obviously greater than
those of resistance, when fear itself begets a sort of courage, when a
convulsive burst of popular rage and despair warns tyrants not to presume too
far on the patience of mankind. But against misgovernment such as then afflicted
Bengal it was impossible to struggle. The superior intelligence and energy of
the dominant class made their power irresistible. A war of Bengalees against
Englishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of men against daemons. The
only protection which the conquered could find was in the moderation, the
clemency, the enlarged policy of the conquerors. That protection, at a later
period, they found. But at first English power came among them unaccompanied by
English morality. There was an interval between the time at which they became
our subjects, and the time at which we began to reflect that we were bound to
discharge towards them the duties of rulers. During that interval the business
of a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of the natives a hundred or
two hundred thousand pounds as speedily as possible, that he might return home
before his constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry a peer's daughter,
to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give balls in St. James's Square. Of
the conduct of Hastings at this time little is known; but the little that is
known, and the circumstance that little is known, must be considered as
honorable to him. He could not protect the natives: all that he could do was to
abstain from plundering and oppressing them; and this he appears to have done.
It is certain that at this time he continued poor; and it is equally certain
that by cruelty and dishonesty he might easily have become rich. It is certain
that he was never charged with having borne a share in the worst abuses which
then prevailed; and it is almost equally certain that, if he had borne a share
in those abuses, the able and bitter enemies who afterwards persecuted him would
not have failed to discover and to proclaim his guilt. The keen, severe, and
even malevolent scrutiny to which his whole public life was subjected, a
scrutiny unparalleled, as we believe, in the history of mankind, is in one
respect advantageous to his reputation. It brought many lamentable blemishes to
light; but it entitles him to be considered pure from every blemish which has
not been brought to light.
The truth is that the temptations to which so many English functionaries yielded
in the time of Mr. Vansittart were not temptations addressed to the ruling
passions of Warren Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecuniary transactions; but
he was neither sordid nor rapacious. He was far too enlightened a man to look on
a great empire merely as a buccaneer would look on a galleon. Had his heart been
much worse than it was, his understanding would have preserved him from that
extremity of baseness. He was an unscrupulous, perhaps an unprincipled
statesman; but still he was a statesman, and not a freebooter.
In 1764 Hastings returned to England. He had realized only a very moderate
fortune; and that moderate fortune was soon reduced to nothing, partly by his
praiseworthy liberality, and partly by his mismanagement. Towards his relations
he appears to have acted very generously. The greater part of his savings he
left in Bengal, hoping probably to obtain the high usury of India. But high
usury and bad security generally go together; and Hastings lost both interest
and principal.
He remained four years in England. Of his life at this time very little is
known. But it has been asserted, and is highly probable, that liberal studies
and the society of men of letters occupied a great part of his time. It is to be
remembered to his honor that, in days when the languages of the East were
regarded by other servants of the Company merely as the means of communicating
with weavers and moneychangers, his enlarged and accomplished mind sought in
Asiatic learning for new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of
government and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid much attention
to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was inclined
to overrate the value of his favorite studies. He conceived that the cultivation
of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal
education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is
said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since
the revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the
institution which he contemplated. An endowment was expected from the
munificence of the Company: and professors thoroughly competent to interpret
Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. Hastings called on Johnson,
with the hope, as it should seem, of interesting in this project a man who
enjoyed the highest literary reputation, and who was particularly connected with
Oxford. The interview appears to have left on Johnson's mind a most favorable
impression of the talents and attainments of his visitor. Long after, when
Hastings was ruling the immense population of British India, the old philosopher
wrote to him, and referred in the most courtly terms, though with great dignity,
to their short but agreeable intercourse.
Hastings soon began to look again towards India. He had little to attach him to
England; and his pecuniary embarrassments were great. He solicited his old
masters the Directors for employment, They acceded to his request, with high
compliments both to his abilities and to his integrity, and appointed him a
Member of Council at Madras. It would be unjust not to mention that, though
forced to borrow money for his outfit, he did not withdraw any portion of the
sum which he had appropriated to the relief of his distressed relations. In the
spring of 1769 he embarked on board of the Duke of Grafton, and commenced a
voyage distinguished by incidents which might furnish matter for a novel.
Among the passengers in the Duke of Grafton was a German of the name of Imhoff.
He called himself a Baron; but he was in distressed circumstances, and was going
out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the hope of picking up some of the
pagodas which were then lightly got and as lightly spent by the English in
India. The Baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have somewhere read,
of Archangel. This young woman, who, born under the Arctic circle, was destined
to play the part of a Queen under the tropic of Cancer, had an agreeable person,
a cultivated mind, and manners in the highest degree engaging. She despised her
husband heartily, and, as the story which we have to tell sufficiently proves,
not without reason. She was interested by the conversation and flattered by the
attentions of Hastings. The situation was indeed perilous. No place is so
propitious to the formation either of close friendships or of deadly enmities as
an Indiaman. There are very few people who do not find a voyage which lasts
several months insupportably dull. Anything is welcome which may break that long
monotony, a sail, a shark, an albatross, a man overboard. Most passengers find
some resource in eating twice as many meals as on land. But the great devices
for killing the time are quarrelling and flirting. The facilities for both these
exciting pursuits are great. The inmates of the ship are thrown together far
more than in any country-seat or boarding-house. None can escape from the rest
except by imprisoning himself in a cell in which he can hardly turn. All food,
all exercise, is taken in company. Ceremony is to a great extent banished. It is
every day in the power of a mischievous person to inflict innumerable
annoyances. It is every day in the power of an amiable person to confer little
services. It not seldom happens that serious distress and danger call forth, in
genuine beauty and deformity, heroic virtues and abject vices which, in the
ordinary intercourse of good society, might remain during many years unknown
even to intimate associates. Under such circumstances met Warren Hastings and
the Baroness Imhoff, two persons whose accomplishments would have attracted
notice in any court of Europe. The gentleman had no domestic ties. The lady was
tied to a husband for whom she had no regard, and who had no regard for his own
honor. An attachment sprang up, which was soon strengthened by events such as
could hardly have occurred on land. Hastings fell ill. The Baroness nursed him
with womanly tenderness, gave him his medicines with her own hand, and even sat
up in his cabin while he slept. Long before the Duke of Grafton reached Madras,
Hastings was in love. But his love was of a most characteristic description.
Like his hatred, like his ambition, like all his passions, it was strong, but
not impetuous. It was calm, deep, earnest, patient of delay, unconquerable by
time. Imhoff was called into council by his wife and his wife's lover. It was
arranged that the Baroness should institute a suit for a divorce in the courts
of Franconia, that the Baron should afford every facility to the proceeding, and
that, during the years which might elapse before the sentence should be
pronounced, they should continue to live together. It was also agreed that
Hastings should bestow some very substantial marks of gratitude on the
complaisant husband, and should, when the marriage was dissolved, make the lady
his wife, and adopt the children whom she had already borne to Imhoff.
At Madras, Hastings found the trade of the Company in a very disorganized state.
His own tastes would have led him rather to political than to commercial
pursuits: but he knew that the favor of his employers depended chiefly on their
dividends, and that their dividends depended chiefly on the investment. He,
therefore, with great judgment, determined to apply his vigorous mind for a time
to this department of business, which had been much neglected, since the
servants of the Company had ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors and
negotiators.
In a very few months he effected an important reform. The Directors notified to
him their high approbation, and were so much pleased with his conduct that they
determined to place him at the head of the government at Bengal. Early in 1772
he quitted Fort St. George for his new post. The Imhoffs, who were still man and
wife, accompanied him, and lived at Calcutta on the same plan which they had
already followed during more than two years.
When Hastings took his seat at the head of the council-board, Bengal was still
governed according to the system which Clive had devised, a system which was,
perhaps, skillfully contrived for the purpose of facilitating and concealing a
great revolution, but which, when that revolution was complete and irrevocable,
could produce nothing but inconvenience. There were two governments, the real
and the ostensible. The supreme power belonged to the Company, and was in truth
the most despotic power that can be conceived. The only restraint on the English
masters of the country was that which their own justice and humanity imposed on
them. There was no constitutional check on their will, and resistance to them
was utterly hopeless.
But though thus absolute in reality the English had not yet assumed the style of
sovereignty. They held their territories as vassals of the throne of Delhi; they
raised their revenues as collectors appointed by the imperial commission; their
public seal was inscribed with the imperial titles; and their mint struck only
the imperial coin.
There was still a nabob of Bengal, who stood to the English rulers of his
country in the same relation in which Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the last
Merovingians to Charles Martel and Pepin. He lived at Moorshedabad, surrounded
by princely magnificence. He was approached with outward marks of reverence, and
his name was used in public instruments. But in the government of the country he
had less real share than the youngest writer or cadet in the Company's service.
The English council which represented the Company at Calcutta was constituted on
a very different plan from that which has since been adopted. At present the
Governor is, as to all executive measures, absolute. He can declare war,
conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove them, in opposition to
the unanimous sense of those who sit with him in council. They are, indeed,
entitled to know all that is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, to
remonstrate, to send protests to England. But it is with the Governor that the
supreme power resides, and on him that the whole responsibility rests. This
system, which was introduced by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas in spite of the
strenuous opposition of Mr. Burke, we conceive to be on the whole the best that
was ever devised for the government of a country where no materials can be found
for a representative constitution. In the time of Hastings the Governor had only
one vote in council, and, in case of an equal division, a casting vote. It
therefore happened not unfrequently that he was overruled on the gravest
questions and it was possible that he might be wholly excluded, for years
together, from the real direction of public affairs.
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