Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/205

Rh and erroneous conclusion that the investigation was imperfectly conducted and based upon prejudice. As soon however as he suspected the truth, he hastened to condemn what he had formerly approved, and expressed his strong sense of the impropriety which had been committed. But his reluctance to acknowledge an error had been misunderstood, and when he avowed a remote interest in the prosperity of the firm (by imprudently declaring that one of the partners, husband of his ward to whom he was much attached, was a friend he would be glad to serve), a forced and unjust construction was put on the avowal which was wholly unauthorised by the facts.

Nor is it improbable that many of the members of the Court of Directors were not indisposed to seize the opportunity to attack a Governor-General whose policy they deeply resented, but whose success they were forced to applaud. And thus it came about that an unjustifiable conclusion was hastily formed, to the effect that he had been influenced by personal motives in countenancing the financial operations of Palmer and Co. No accusation to this effect was made, but the very indirectness of the charge made it the more difficult to refute, and weighed heavily upon a man who, whatever his faults might have been, had nothing sordid in his character, and who was ever conspicuous for uprightness, and for the scrupulous honesty of all his acts. It is easy to conceive how such a suspicion must have wounded deeply the sensitive and proud nature of a person of Lord