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66 business, and the Governor's politic desire to place the new rule on firm foundations, amply justified a delay which gave the prisoner more time to prepare his defence. From the first, Hastings felt convinced of the Rájá's innocence, and wondered why he had been brought to such account. Some months later, a full and honourable acquittal was followed by the Rájá's restoration to his former dignities under a new name. In August he set out for Patná as Deputy-governor of Behar. But his health was so broken that he survived the journey but a few weeks. Mill and Macaulay kill him of a broken heart; but this, as Horace Wilson rightly remarks, is quite a gratuitous supposition. It is just as likely that the climate of Calcutta disagreed with him. In acknowledgment of his former services and recent sufferings, his son was straightway installed by Hastings in the offices destined for the father.

The trial of Muhammad Raza Khán lingered on for a whole year. The charges against him were investigated day by day with unflagging patience; Hastings himself filling the twofold part of examiner and interpreter. The result of examining scores of witnesses and hundreds of documents deepened his old distrust of Nanda-Kumár and convinced him that, even if the accused were any way guilty, the time for proving him so had gone by. Nanda-Kumár's evidence broke down egregiously. The evil old Bráhman could only produce accounts that proved nothing, and reiterate charges which he always failed to make