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every talent and acquirement. They will re- | joy that he had done nothing unworthy of the member, too, that he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They will remember that, in the last lines which he traced, he expressed his

friend of Fox and Grey; and they will have reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back on many troubled years, they cannot accuse themselves of having done any thing unworthy of men who were distinguished by the friendship of Lord Holland.

WARREN HASTINGS.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, OCTOBER, 1841.]

THIS book seems to have been manufactured fect, our own view of the life and character of in pursuance of a contract, by which the representatives of Warren Hastings, on the one part, bound themselves to furnish papers, and Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to furnish praise. It is but just to say that the covenants on both sides have been most faithfully kept; and the result is before us in the form of three big bad volumes, full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric.

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 puerile adulation. We believe that, if he were now living, he would have sufficient judgment and suffi cient 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 splendour of his fame would bear many spots. He would have preferred, we are confident, even the severity of Mr. Mill to the puffing of Mr. Gleig. He would have wished posterity to have a likeness of him, though an unfavourable likeness, rather than a daub at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither him nor anybody else.

If it were worth while to examine this performance in detail, we could easily make a long article by merely pointing out inaccurate statements, inelegant expressions, and immoral doctrines. But it would be idle to waste criticism on a bookmaker; and, whatever credit Mr. Gleig may have justly earned by former works, it is as a bookmaker, and nothing more, that he now comes before us. More eminent men than Mr. Gleig have written nearly as ill as he, when they have stooped to similar drudgery. It would be unjust to estimate Goldsmith by the History of Greece, or Scott by the Life of Napoleon. Mr. Gleig is neither a Goldsmith nor a Scott; but it would be un-"Paint me as I am," said Oliver Cromwell, just to deny that he is capable of something better than these memoirs. It would also, we hope and believe, be unjust to charge any Christian minister with the guilt of deliberately maintaining some propositions which we find in this book. It is not too much to say, that Mr. Gleig has written several passages, which bear the same relation to the "Prince" of Machiavelli that the "Prince of Machiavelli bears to the "Whole Duty of Man," and which would excite amazement in a den of robbers, or on board of a schooner of pirates. But we are willing to attribute these offences to haste, to thoughtlessness, and to that disease of the understanding which may be called the Furor Biographicus, and which is to writers of lives what the goitre is to an Alpine shepherd, or lirt-eating to a Negro slave.

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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 fea tures and the 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 va lour, 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 strug gles, yielded at last to the valour and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendour of the line of Hastings needs no illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, in the

fourteenth century, the coronet of Pembroke. | and ten years later he told the tale, rose in his From another branch sprang the renowned mind a scheme which, through all the turns Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the of his eventful career, was never abandoned. 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 ro

mance.

He would recover the estate which had belonged to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in in fancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intel lect 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 forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die.

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 in the great ruin of the Civil War. The Hastings of that time was When he was eight years old, his uncle, a zealous Cavalier. He raised money on his Howard, determined to take charge of him, own lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, and to give him a liberal education. The boy joined the royal army, and, after spending went up to London, and was sent to a school half of his property in the cause of King at Newington, where he was well taught but Charles, was glad to ransom himself by mak- ill fed. He always attributed the smallness of ing over most of the remaining half to Speaker his stature to the hard and scanty fare of his Lenthal. The old seat at Daylesford still re- seminary. At ten he was removed to Westmained in the family; but it could no longer minster school, then flourishing under the care be kept up; and in the following generation of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils it was sold to a merchant of London. affectionately called him, was one of the mas Before the transfer took place, the last Hast-ters. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, ings of Daylesford had presented his second Cowper, were among the students. With son to the rectory of the parish in which the Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which ancient residence of the family stood. The neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimiliving was of little value; and the situation of larity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, dissolve. It does not appear that they ever was deplorable. He was constantly engaged met after they had grown to manhood. But in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord many years later, when the voices of a crowd of the manor, and was at length utterly ruined. of great orators were crying for vengeance on His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded young man, obtained a place in the Customs. poet could imagine to himself Hastings the The second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless Governor-General, only as the Hastings with boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his whom he had rowed on the Thames and played wife in two years, and went to the West Indies, in the cloister; and refused to believe that so where he died, leaving to the care of his un-good-tempered a fellow could have done any fortunate father a little orphan, destined to strange and memorable vicissitudes of fortune. Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the 6th of December, 1732. His mother died a few days later, and he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather. The child was early sent to the village school, where he learned his letters on the same bench with the sons of the peasantry. Nor did any thing in his garb or fare 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 valour. 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!

thing very wrong. His own life had been spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among the waterlilies 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 com

thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the government, and declared war against the English. The defenceless settlement of Cos simbazar, lying close to the tyrant's capital, was instantly seized. Hastings was sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad; but, in consequence of the humane intervention of the ser vants 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 Blackhole.

rades as an excellent swimmer, boatman, and for stuffs with native brokers. While he was 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 Christchurch, 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 favourite 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.

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 Hoogly. 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 neighbourhood of the court. He thus became a diplomatic agent, and soon established a high character of abili ty 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 expedi tion from Madras, commanded by Clive, apHe was immediately placed at a desk in the peared in the Hoogley. Warren, young, intreSecretary's office at Calcutta, and laboured pid, and excited probably by the example of there during two years. Fort William was the commander of the forces, who, having like then a purely commercial settlement. In the himself been a mercantile agent of the Comsouth of India the encroaching policy of Du-pany, had been turned by public calamities pleix 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 Hoogly, 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, Órissa, 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

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 Jaffer 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 member of Council, and was consequently forced to reside at Calcutta This was during the interval between Clive's first and second administration-an interva 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 the 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

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.

of civilization without its mercy. To all other | lous, perhaps an unprincipled statesman; but despotism there is a check; imperfect, indeed, still he was a statesman, and not a freebooter. and liable to gross abuse, but still sufficient In 1764, Hastings returned to England. He to preserve society from the last extreme of had realized only a very moderate fortune, and misery. A time comes when the evils of sub- that moderate fortune was soon reduced to no mission are obviously greater than those of re-thing, partly by his praiseworthy liberality and sistance; 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 Ben. He remained four years in England. Of his galees against Englishmen was like a war of life at this time very little is known. But it sheep against wolves, of men against demons. has been asserted, and is highly probable, that The only protection which the conquered could liberal studies and the society of men of letfind was in the moderation, the clemency, theters occupied a great part of his time. It is enlarged policy of the conquerors. That pro- to be remembered to his honour, that in days tection, at a later period, they found. But at when the languages of the East were regarded first English power came among them unac-by other servants of the Company merely as companied by English morality. There was the means of communicating with weavers an interval between the time at which they be- and money-changers, his enlarged and accomcame our subjects and the time at which we plished mind sought in Asiatic learning for began to reflect that we were bound to dis-new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for charge towards them the duty of rulers. Dur-new views of government and society. Per ing that interval the business of a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of the ratives à 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 honourable 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 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.

haps, 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 favourite studies. He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentle. man; 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 profes sors thoroughly competent to interpret Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. Hastings called on Johnson with the hope, as it would seem, of interesting in his project a man who enjoyed the highest literary reputa tion, and who was particularly connected with Oxford. The interview appears to have left on Johnson's mind a most favourable impres sion of the talents and attainments of his visiter. 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 dig nity, 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, The truth is, that the temptations to which with high compliments both to his abilities and so many English functionaries yielded in the to his integrity, and appointed him a member time of Mr. Vansittart, were not temptations of Council at Madras. It would be unjust not addressed to the ruling passions of Warren to mention, that though forced to borrow money Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecu- for his outfit, he did not withdraw any portion niary transactions; but he was neither sordid of the sum which he had appropriated to the nor rapacious. He was far too enlightened a relief of his distressed relations. In the spring man to look on a great empire purely as a of 1769 he embarked on board of the " Duke of bucanier would look on a galleon. Had his Grafton," and commenced a voyage distin heart been much worse than it was, his under-guished by incidents which might furnish malstanding would have preserved him from that ter for a novel.

extremity of baseness. He was an unscrupu Among the passengers in the "Duke of Graf

|

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 complai sant husband; and should, when the marriage was dissolved, make the lady his wife, and adopt the children whom she had already borne to Imhoff.

We are not inclined to judge either Hastings or the baroness severely. There was undoubt edly much to extenuate their fault. But we can by no means concur with the Rev. Mr. Gleig, who carries his partiality to so injudicious an extreme, as to describe the conduct of Imhoff-conduct the baseness of which is the best excuse for the lovers-as "wise and judicious."

tical than to commercial pursuits; but he knew that the favour of his employers depended chiefly on their dividends, and their dividends depended chiefly on the investment. He therefore, with great judgment, determined to apply his vigorous mind for a time to this depart ment of business; which had been much neg lected, since the servants of the Company had ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors and negotiators.

ton," was a German by 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. At Madras Hastings found the trade of the No place is so propitious to the formation Company in a very disorganized state. His either of close friendships or of deadly enmi-own tastes would have led him rather to polities as an Indiaman. There are very few people who do not find a voyage which lasts several months insupportably dull. Any thing 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 honour, 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 But though thus absolute in reality, the his love was of a most characteristic descrip- English had not yet assumed the style of sotion. Like his hatred, like his ambition, like vereignty. They held their territories as vasall his passions, it was strong, but not impetu-sals of the throne of Delhi; they raised their 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 ihat, during the years which might elapse

ous.

In a very few months he effected an import ant 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 of 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 wise and judicious plan" (we quote the words of Mr. Gleig) 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 de vised-a system which was, perhaps, skilfully 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 des potic 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.

revenues as collectors appointed by the imperial commission; their public seal was inscribed with the imperial titles; and their min: 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

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