Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/152

H quarters; and he was surrounded by old friends and their children while he farmed, and gardened, and rode at Daylesford. He was among the first to appreciate Walter Scott's poetry. He hailed Malthus on population as ‘one of the most enlightened of modern publications.’ In 1802 he declined with due acknowledgments an offer from the nawáb of Oudh to settle 2,000l. a year upon him for life. But he had no scruple in taking aid from the general revenues of India. In writing to the court of directors about his affairs in 1804, he honestly confessed that he could not practise strict economy, adding with a proud humility that ‘this was not to be expected from a man who had passed his life in the hourly discharge of public duties.’ The directors made a liberal response, and would have done more had they not been restrained by Dundas, president of the board of control. From the middle of 1804, therefore, Hastings was free from the worry of insolvency. In his deep interest in the defence of England against French menace he would have drilled and armed his labourers, but the government stopped his hand. Invited to dine at the Brighton Pavilion he met Sheridan, with whom the Prince of Wales was desirous that he should be reconciled. Sheridan offered his hand, but Hastings responded only by a cold bow. On 14 March 1806, Pitt being now dead, Hastings waited on the prince at Carlton House by appointment, and expressed a wish to obtain some public redress for the calumnies and sufferings of the trial, also mentioning that as a part of such amends he should gladly accept a title that his wife could share. Afterwards the prince was ready to bestow on Hastings a peerage, but apparently shrank from a conflict with parliament by asking for a reversal of the impeachment. On these terms Hastings felt bound to decline honours; a title so bestowed, he said, would ‘sink him in his own estimation.’ Lord Moira, the prince's friend, and afterwards governor-general and Marquis of Hastings [see ], befriended him through all these troubles. Lord Wellesley too, who had once volunteered to be one of the managers but had received subsequently the light of local experience, wrote him a flattering letter in 1802, enclosing one from the ruler of Oudh.

The parliamentary redress that Hastings longed for was never formally accorded. But in 1813 he received it in an indirect form. Being summoned to give evidence before a committee of the whole house charged with the inquiry previous to the renewal of the East India Company's charter, he reappeared at that bar where he had once pleaded as a culprit. Applause greeted him now from both sides of the house; he was offered a seat and courteously questioned; when he withdrew at the close of the examination, the members rose to their feet, as by a common impulse, and stood silent and bareheaded until he had passed the door. Next day he received a similar mark of respect from the House of Lords, whither he was conveyed by a prince of the blood. During the same year the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L., on which occasion he was enthusiastically cheered by the undergraduates.

In May 1814 he was sworn of the privy council, and in June presented to the allied sovereigns on their visit to London by the regent himself. On 11 July he joined in a dinner to the Duke of Wellington, and made a speech, which was well received according to the newspaper report. At a second dinner to the same hero a few days later the health of Hastings was the first toast. On the 21st he attended a fête at Carlton House. That he went through such a series of festivities at the age of eighty-two without immediate injury speaks well for his strength. He showed deep sympathy with the fall of Napoleon. He kept up a correspondence with Lord Hastings in India, whom he described as ‘a man of superior talents, steady of purpose and determination.’

In July 1816 Hastings began to restore Daylesford Church, which had fallen into decay, and the work was completed before the middle of November. About the same time his letters began to betray a sense of failing mental power, but he still continued to employ his mind with unflagging activity. In March 1817 he paid his last visit to London, returning to Daylesford on 8 May. In April 1818 he could still write to a friend a well-reasoned letter on the writing of history. On 13 July he came home from a carriage drive in a condition which appeared to the country doctor to require a bleeding. He seems never to have recovered. On the 20th his diary closes. Sir H. Halford was now called in, and Hastings's nearest friends came round him. He was no longer able to swallow, and starvation slowly ensued. On 3 Aug. he dictated and signed a letter recommending his wife to the protection of the court of directors, and on the 22nd he passed away, his last act being to lay a handkerchief over his face lest the last change should distress the women who were watching his bedside. He was buried near the church, and the building substituted for it in 1860 was extended so as to include the tomb. Mrs. Hastings was buried in the same place in 1837, and her son, General Sir Charles Imhoff,