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Rh child at Churchill. But his native honesty, or his proud self-respect, enabled him to walk cleanly through the mire which defiled so many Englishmen of his day, not only in India, but at home. 'It is certain' — as Macaulay has neatly phrased it — 'that he was never charged with having borne a share in the worst abuses which then prevailed; and it is almost equally certain that, if he had borne a share in those abuses, the able and bitter enemies who afterwards persecuted him would not have failed to discover and to proclaim his guilt.'

Before leaving Calcutta, Hastings had sent his sister, Mrs. Woodman, a thousand pounds, in return, no doubt, for her care of his little son George, whose early death was the first news that greeted him on his landing in England. On the widow of his good uncle Howard he had settled an annuity of two hundred pounds. The bulk of his savings he had left in Bengal on security which, according to Gleig, was soon to fail him. Of the four years which he spent in England very little is known for certain. He was introduced to Dr. Johnson, whose personal knowledge of him was at least enough, as the great man afterwards wrote, to make him 'wish for more.' The literary tastes which had lent their polish to his minutes and despatches in Bengal found a new outlet in the writing of much prose and verse on various topics of the time. During his first winter at home he applied in vain to the Court of Directors for fresh employment in India. In the following year, 1766,