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Hastings sixteen years later. Daylesford is now the property of Mr. R. N. Byass.

The charges of personal corruption brought against Hastings are abundantly refuted, not only by the want of proof (after a most searching inquiry), but by the small amount of his savings after a singularly prolonged Indian life. To say that Hastings was a scrupulous politician according to modern ideas would be to say too much. No doubt he did irregular things; possibly he helped the ruin of Nand Kumar, certainly he transgressed the letter of the law in removing the unmanageable governor of Madras. In instigating, or conniving at, the spoliation of the Oudh dowagers he allowed a violation of the faith of treaties and of the delicacies of private life. But he saved and established the empire, which he would not have done had he listened to all possible objections or held his hand before a hostile confederacy. The insincerity of the outcry against Hastings was pointed out by Erskine in eloquent terms (see, Shorthand Report, pp. 47–90). Mill has some pointed remarks showing how he was impressed in spite of a strong prejudice: ‘Hastings,’ he says, ‘was placed in difficulties and acted on by temptations such as few public men have been called on to overcome. … No man, probably, who ever had a great share in the government of the world, had his public conduct so completely explored and laid open to view. … If we had the same advantage with respect to other men, … few of them would be found whose character would present a higher claim to indulgence than his’ (Hist. iv. 367–8).

Hastings's passions were always well controlled. His wife adored him. He was admired by such men as Thurlow and Johnson, by Halhed, and ultimately by Teignmouth. He is not known ever to have lost a friend. ‘His generosity was unbounded in desire, and did not always calculate his means of indulging it. His own private interest was lost in his regard for the public welfare’ (Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. 2). Testimony abounds to his gentleness under suffering, and absence of vindictive language about his enemies.

Like other distinguished men, Hastings owed much to the combination of apparently incompatible qualities. A bold dreamer he possessed almost unequalled executive ability and practical good sense. Though not always fastidious as to the means by which he benefited his employers, he never showed any vulgar greed on his own account, and his lavish expenditure of money was accompanied by a total indifference to personal advantage or display. Gentle in temper and constant in affection, he could be combative, and even truculent on occasion; determined and resolute, he yet knew how to give up his own purpose when it was not to be had without paying too dear. Brought up in a bad school, exposed to most dangerous influences, he was guilty of nothing personally dishonouring, even when he compromised his reputation. But in the contemporary criticism of public men allowance is rarely made for shades of character and peculiarities of circumstance. At the end of the eighteenth century Englishmen were awakening to a sense of the duties of humanity, and felt that the position and the doings of English traders and officials in the East were not always to be defended. The outcry of 1785 and the unanimous condemnation of Hastings by both sides of the House of Commons were the first outcome of this feeling. Although partly due to political motives, and further tainted by insincere rhetoric and extravagant hyperbole, the impeachment was something more than mere hypocrisy or hysterics.

There are two portraits of Hastings in the National Portrait Gallery, one by Tilly Kettle, which was engraved by W. Angus for the ‘European Magazine’ in 1782, and the other by Sir Thomas Lawrence, painted in 1811. There is also a bronze bust by T. Banks, R.A. 