Page:Warren Hastings (Trotter).djvu/19

Rh its enemies and its seeming friends, the Mughal Empire was fast crumbling to pieces after two centuries of supremely vigorous life.

In 1750 the Company's settlements in Bengal, Bombay, and Madras, were governed each by a President and a Council of senior merchants. The President's salary was then but £300 a year, while those of his Councillors ranged from £40 to £100. The senior merchants received £40, junior merchants £30, factors £15 and writers only £5 a year. The surgeons drew no more than £36. On such pittances no Englishman could have lived with decency in such a climate, even though the Company allowed him free 'commons' and a yearly supply of Madeira from their own stores. But the Company's servants were permitted to eke out their pay with the profits of private trade; a permission which certain of them caught at so eagerly, that complaints often reached the India House touching the extravagance of young fellows who sat down to dinner with a band of music, and rode out in a carriage and four. It appears, on the other hand, that some young writers, less fortunate or more prudent, went to bed soon after sunset, rather than bear the cost of candles and supper.

Hastings was neither weak, greedy, nor dissolute; nor does he appear to have finished his daily course with the sun. As a clerk in the Secretary's office he helped to keep the ledgers, and to look after the warehousing of the goods collected by a staff of gumáshtas and their native underlings of various