Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/150

H for the affair of Chait Singh, and he had replied in a tone of dignified remonstrance to the effect that sooner than consent to the rája's pardon he would give up his station. In modest, but self-reliant words, he added that his administration would perhaps hereafter be looked on as having conduced to the interests of the company and to the honour of the British name. The court of proprietors reversed the adverse vote of the directors, and Henry Dundas (afterwards Viscount Melville) declared the conduct of Hastings deserving of every kind of approval and support.

In 1783 Hastings, having sent his wife to England, proceeded to Lucknow, where (under orders from home) he restored some of the dowagers' landed possessions. Here also he met the Delhi crown prince, a fugitive from court, whom he persuaded to return to his father, with an escort and assurances of sympathy. In November 1784 he returned to Calcutta, and soon after laid down his office. Previously he held a general parade of the Bengal army, just returned from the southern war. Swords of honour were bestowed on the chief officers, and every soldier, British or native, received a medal and an increase of pay. Nor had Hastings been neglectful of the arts of peace. He caused great progress to be made in the topographical survey (see, Memoir, ed. 1793, pp. 216 et passim). In the last year of his administration he founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Sir W. Jones [q. v.] being the first president. For the extension of Muslim culture, Hastings founded, partly at his own charge, the Calcutta Madrisa, still existing and carrying out its founder's design. The last days of his residence in India were devoted to schemes of financial reform, to the receipt of farewell addresses, and the winding up of private concerns; letters of farewell had also to be sent to the native chiefs. On 3 Feb. 1785 he dined at the Powder Works, in company with a large number of his friends, and in the afternoon stepped on board his barge in order to embark on board the Barrington, which awaited him off Garden Reach. Hastings's ‘Review of the State of Bengal,’ London, 1786, written at sea in 1785, deals primarily with finance, showing that the debt of 1772 had been cleared in two years, and explains the opium system and the nature of the resources of Bengal. He gives his views on land revenue, and questions the proprietary rights of zemindárs. He points out that he had been charged with too much responsibility, and protests against the injustice of the accusations imputed. His maxim, as he declares, has been ‘to do what he knew was requisite to the public safety, though he should doom his life to legal forfeiture or his name to infamy.’

Hastings landed in England on 13 June 1785, and attended the next drawing-room with his wife. His friends, privately and publicly, were numerous and influential. In company with Mrs. Hastings he visited some of the English watering-places, and looked about for a country residence. He had saved 80,000l., no exorbitant fortune after a distinguished service of thirty-five years in India, and his first thought was to realise his old dream of investing some of his money in the purchase of the old family manor and house at Daylesford. But the then possessor was not disposed to sell. Hastings therefore settled for the time at Windsor, with a town house in Wimpole Street.

Meanwhile Francis, ever since his return, had been inflaming the vivid imagination of Burke, not at its most temperate stage just then, and always ready to take fire at the thought of wrong done to ancient social fabrics. Burke was in no mood for impartiality. His conduct excited the opposition of Lord Teignmouth, who was not by any means a wholesale supporter of Hastings. As Macaulay remarked, whatever Burke's ‘sagacity described was refracted and discoloured by his passions and his imagination’ (‘Life of Pitt,’ in Encycl. Brit.) Nor was Burke likely to forget the fate of the India Bill of 1783, which caused the fall of the coalition ministry. To crown all came the malignant promptings of Francis. It was hopeless to attempt to convince Burke that in India the social fabric had been ruined by the most complete and sanguinary anarchy. India was coming within the range of party politics. After the failure of the India Bill of Burke and Fox in 1783, Pitt in 1784 passed an act which was in force for nearly three-quarters of a century. But he was obliged to conciliate the country by the profession of an anxious desire to restrain and punish offences committed in the administration of Indian affairs. Englishmen were anxious to apply a remedy after the disorder had ceased. The really abominable time in India had been from about 1757 to 1767, the close of Clive's second administration, and the establishment of the new system had made it most unlikely ever to return. But the court of directors and its servants were unpopular, and Burke's attacks on Hastings met with sympathy among the whigs, while they encountered but faint resistance from the tories. The first attack, on the ground of the Rohilla war, was, indeed, defeated by the government. In regard to Chait Singh also, Pitt and Dundas held that