Page:Chandrashekhar (1905).djvu/162

152 History has given Warren Hastings the character of a tyrant. Men of action are sometimes forced into facts of oppression in obedience to a call of duty. He who is charged with the administration of a government, though himself a just and generous man, is often compelled to these acts of oppression for the good of the empire. When he ﬁnds that the entire kingdom is likely to be beneﬁted by the oppression of a few, then he considers that oppression to be a part of his duty. At all events it does not stand to reason that those who like Warren Hastings are capable of building empires are not generous and just. He who has no justice and generosity in his composition, is incapable of attaining such high achievements as the creation of an empire or the like, as from his very nature he is not exalted but ignoble, and such achievements are not for the ignoble.

Warren Hastings was both generous and just. He was not the Governor yet. After dismissing Kulsam he bent his mind on hunting out Foster; when he found him Foster was ill. The ﬁrst thing he did was to place him in the hands of a doctor. With the care and treatment of a good physician Foster soon recovered.

Then he began to investigate into his conduct. Through fright Foster confessed his guilt. Warren Hastings laid his case before the council and got him dismissed. He had a mind to bring him up before a court of law, but no trace of the witnesses could be found; moreover, Foster had amply paid for his misdeeds, hence he desisted.

But Foster could not appreciate this nobility; he was too narrow-minded. He imagined that he had been severely punished for a trivial offence. Like all petty-minded guilty servants he began to nourish a mortal grudge against his quondam masters, and was firmly determined to wreak his vengeance.