Page:Warren Hastings (Trotter).djvu/183

Rh other hand, who has carefully studied Hastings' character can doubt that petty personal motives were never allowed to warp his public policy. When Hastings was first appointed Governor of Bengal, Clive wrote him a friendly letter, in which, with his wonted insight, he hinted a fear that overmuch good-nature and his easy amiable temper might sometimes lead him astray. Gleig's life of Hastings teems with instances of his kindly, placable, trustful, perhaps too trustful nature. Painted portraits speak as clearly to this purport as the printed records themselves. As a matter of pure policy, Hastings resolved to make an example of his contumacious vassal, whose conduct added a new danger to the many which at that moment surrounded the Company's rule in India. A heavy fine of forty or fifty lakhs would teach the Rájá to obey his master's orders, and would help betimes to furnish an empty treasury with the sinews of war.

Chait Singh had already tried upon the Governor-General those arts which Eastern rulers have never scrupled to employ. He had sent Hastings a peace-offering of two lakhs, which Hastings at once reserved for the Company's use. Presently, Hastings received an offer of twenty lakhs for the public service. But he refused to accept aught less than fifty lakhs, or half a million pounds, in quittance of all demands. In July, 1781, he set out from Calcutta, impressed, he declares, 'with the belief that extraordinary means were