Chapter 11

His diwan has been published at Bombay (1864), Tunis (1864) and Lahore (1878). See H. Hirschfeld’s “Prolegomena to an edition of the Diwan of Hassan” inTransactions of Oriental Congress(London, 1892).

(G. W. T.)

HASSE, JOHANN ADOLPH(1699-1783), German musical composer, was born at Bergedorf near Hamburg, on the 25th of March 1699, and received his first musical education from his father. Being possessed of a fine tenor voice, he chose the theatrical career, and joined the operatic troupe conducted by Reinhard Keiser, in whose orchestra Handel had played the second violin some years before. Hasse’s success led to an engagement at the court theatre of Brunswick, and it was there that, in 1723, he made his début as a composer with the operaAntigonus. The success of this first work induced the duke to send Hasse to Italy for the completion of his studies, and in 1724 he went to Naples and placed himself under Porpora, with whom, however, he seems to have disagreed both as a man and as an artist. On the other hand he gained the friendship of Alessandro Scarlatti, to whom he owed his first commission for a serenade for two voices, sung at a family celebration of a wealthy merchant by two of the greatest singers of Italy, Farinelli and Signora Tesi. This event established Hasse’s fame; he soon became very popular, and his operaSesostrato, written for the Royal Opera at Naples in 1726, made his name known all over Italy. At Venice, where he went in 1727, he became acquainted with the celebrated singer Faustina Bordogni (born at Venice in 1700), who became the composer’s wife in 1730. The two artists soon afterwards went to Dresden, in compliance with a brilliant offer made to them by the splendour-loving elector of Saxony, Augustus II. There Hasse remained for two years, after which he again journeyed to Italy, and also in 1733 to London, in which latter city he was tempted by the aristocratic clique inimical to Handel to become the rival and antagonist of that great master. But this he modestly and wisely declined, remaining in London only long enough to superintend the rehearsals for his operaArtaserse(first produced at Venice, 1730). All this while Faustina had remained at Dresden, the declared favourite of the public and unfortunately also of the elector, nor was her husband, who remained attached to her, allowed to see her except at long intervals. In 1739, after the death of Augustus II., Hasse settled permanently at Dresden till 1763, when he and his wife retired from court service with considerable pensions. But Hasse was still too young to rest on his laurels. He went with his family to Vienna, and added several operas to the great number of his works already in existence. His last work for the stage was the operaRuggiero(1771), written for the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand at Milan. On the same occasion a work by Mozart, then fourteen years old, was performed, and Hasse observed “this youngster will surpass us all.” By desire of his wife Hasse settled at her birthplace Venice, and there he died on the 23rd of December 1783. His compositions include as many as 120 operas, besides oratorios, cantatas, masses, and almost every variety of instrumental music. During the siege of Dresden by the Prussians in 1760, most of his manuscripts, collected for a complete edition to be brought out at the expense of the elector, were burnt. Some of his works, amongst them an operaAlcide al Bivio(1760), have been published, and the libraries of Vienna and Dresden possess the autographs of others. Hasse’s instrumentation is certainly not above the low level attained by the average musicians of his time, and hisensemblesdo not present any features of interest. In dramatic fire also he was wanting, but he had a fund of gentle and genuine melody, and by this fact his enormous popularity during his life must be accounted for. The two airs which Farinelli had to repeat every day for ten years to the melancholy king of Spain, Philip V., were both from Hasse’s works. Of Faustina Hasse it will be sufficient to add that she was, according to the unanimous verdict of the critics (including Dr Burney), one of the greatest singers of a time rich in vocal artists. The year of her death is not exactly known. Most probably it shortly preceded that of her husband.

HASSELQUIST, FREDERIK(1722-1752), Swedish traveller and naturalist, was born at Törnevalla, East Gothland, on the 3rd of January 1722. On account of the frequently expressed regrets of Linnaeus, under whom he studied at Upsala, at the lack of information regarding the natural history of Palestine,Hasselquist resolved to undertake a journey to that country, and a sufficient subscription having been obtained to defray expenses, he reached Smyrna towards the end of 1749. He visited parts of Asia Minor, Egypt, Cyprus and Palestine, making large natural history collections, but his constitution, naturally weak, gave way under the fatigues of travel, and he died near Smyrna on the 9th of February 1752 on his way home. His collections reached home in safety, and five years after his death his notes were published by Linnaeus under the titleResa till Heliga Landet förättad från år 1749 till 1752, which was translated into French and German in 1762 and into English in 1766.

HASSELT, ANDRÉ HENRI CONSTANT VAN(1806-1874), Belgian poet, was born at Maastricht, in Limburg, on the 5th of January 1806. He was educated in his native town, and at the university of Liége. In 1833 he left Maastricht, then blockaded by the Belgian forces, and made his way to Brussels, where he became a naturalized Belgian, and was attached to the Bibliothèque de Bourgogne. In 1843 be entered the education department, and eventually became an inspector of normal schools. His native language was Dutch, and as a French poet André van Hasselt had to overcome the difficulties of writing in a foreign language. He had published aChant helléniquein honour of Canaris in the columns ofLa Sentinelle des Pays-Basas early as 1826, and other poems followed. His first volume of verse,Primevères(1834), shows markedly the influence of Victor Hugo, which had been strengthened by a visit to Paris in 1830. His relations with Hugo became intimate in 1851-1852, when the poet was an exile in Brussels. In 1839 he became editor of theRenaissance, a paper founded to encourage the fine arts. His chief work, the epic of theQuatre Incarnations du Christ, was published in 1867. In the same volume were printed hisÉtudes rythmiques, a series of metrical experiments designed to show that the French language could be adapted to every kind of musical rhythm. With the same end in view he executed translations of many German songs, and wrote new French libretti for the best-known operas of Mozart, Weber and others. Hasselt died at Saint Josse ten Noode, a suburb of Brussels, on the 1st of December 1874.

A selection from his works (10 vols., Brussels, 1876-1877) was edited by MM. Charles Hen and Louis Alvin. He wrote many books for children, chiefly under the pseudonym of Alfred Avelines; and studies on historical and literary subjects. The books written in collaboration with Charles Hen are signed Charles André. A bibliography of his writings is appended to the notice by Louis Alvin in theBiographie nat. de Belgique, vol. vii. Van Hasselt’s fame has continued to increase since his death. A series of tributes to his memory are printed in thePoésies choisies(1901), edited by M. Georges Barral for theCollection des poètes français de l’étranger. This book contains a biographical and critical study by Jules Guillaume, and some valuable notes on the poet’s theories of rhythm.

HASSELT,the capital of the Belgian province of Limburg. Pop. (1904), 16,179. It derives its name fromHazel-bosch(hazel wood). It stands at the junction of several important roads and railways from Maaseyck, Maastricht and Liége. It has many breweries and distilleries, and the spirit known by its name, which is a coarse gin, has a certain reputation throughout Belgium. On the 6th of August 1831 the Dutch troops obtained here their chief success over the Belgian nationalists during the War of Independence. Hasselt is best known for its great septennial fête held on the day of Assumption, August 15th. The curious part of this fête, which is held in honour of the Virgin under the name of Virga Jesse, is the conversion of the town for the day into the semblance of a forest. Fir trees and branches from the neighbouring forest are collected and planted in front of the houses, so that for a few hours Hasselt has the appearance of being restored to its primitive condition as a wood. The figure of the giant who is supposed to have once held the Hazel-bosch under his terror is paraded on this occasion as the “lounge man.” Originally this celebration was held annually, but in the 18th century it was restricted to once in seven years. There was a celebration in 1905.

HASSENPFLUG, HANS DANIEL LUDWIG FRIEDRICH(1794-1862), German statesman, was born at Hanau in Hesse on the 26th of February 1794. He studied law at Göttingen, graduated in 1816, and took his seat asAssessorin the judicial chamber of the board of government (Regierungskollegium) at Cassel, of which his father Johann Hassenpflug was also a member. In 1821 he was nominated by the new elector, William II.,Justizrat(councillor of justice); in 1832 he becameMinisterialratand reporter (Referent) to the ministry of Hesse-Cassel, and in May of the same year was appointed successively minister of justice and of the interior. It was from this moment that he became conspicuous in the constitutional struggles of Germany.

The reactionary system introduced by the elector William I. had broken down before the revolutionary movements of 1830, and in 1831 Hesse had received a constitution. This development was welcome neither to the elector nor to the other German governments, and Hassenpflug deliberately set to work to reverse it. In doing so he gave the lie to his own early promise; for he had been a conspicuous member of the revolutionaryBurschenschaftat Göttingen, and had taken part as a volunteer in the War of Liberation. Into the causes of the change it is unnecessary to inquire; Hassenpflug by training and tradition was a strait-laced official; he was also a first-rate lawyer; and his naturally arbitrary temper had from the first displayed itself in an attitude of overbearing independence towards his colleagues and even towards the elector. To such a man constitutional restrictions were intolerable, and from the moment he came into power he set to work to override them, by means of press censorship, legal quibbles, unjustifiable use of the electoral prerogatives, or frank supersession of the legislative rights of the Estates by electoral ordinances. The story of the constitutional deadlock that resulted belongs to the history of Hesse-Cassel and Germany; so far as Hassenpflug himself was concerned, it made him, more even than Metternich, the Mephistopheles of the Reaction to the German people. In Hesse itself he was known as “Hessen’s Hass und Fluch” (Hesse’s hate and curse). In the end, however, his masterful temper became unendurable to the regent (Frederick William); in the summer of 1837 he was suddenly removed from his post as minister of the interior and he thereupon left the elector’s service.

In 1838 he was appointed head of the administration of the little principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, an office which he exchanged in the following year for that of civil governor of the grand-duchy of Luxemburg. Here, too, his independent character suffered him to remain only a year: he resented having to transact all business with the grand-duke (king of the Netherlands) through a Dutch official at the Hague; he protested against the absorption of the Luxemburg surplus in the Dutch treasury; and, failing to obtain redress, he resigned (1840). From 1841 to 1850 he was in Prussian service, first as a member of the supreme court of justice (Obertribunal) and then (1846) as president of the high court of appeal (Oberappellationsgericht) at Greifswald. In 1850 he was tried for peculation and convicted; and, though this judgment was reversed on appeal, he left the service of Prussia.

With somewhat indecent haste (the appeal had not been heard) he was now summoned by the elector of Hesse once more to the head of the government, and he immediately threw himself again with zeal into the struggle against the constitution. He soon found, however, that the opinion of all classes, including the army, was solidly against him, and he decided to risk all on an alliance with the reviving fortunes of Austria, which was steadily working for the restoration of thestatus quooverthrown by the revolution of 1848. On his advice the elector seceded from the Northern Union established by Prussia and, on the 13th of September, committed the folly of flying secretly from Hesse with his minister. They went to Frankfort, where the federal diet had been re-established, and on the 21st persuaded the diet to decree an armed intervention in Hesse. This decree, carried out by Austrian troops, all but led to war with Prussia, but the unreadiness of the Berlin government led to the triumph of Austria and of Hassenpflug, who at the end of the year was once more installed in power at Cassel as minister of finance. His position was, however, not enviable; he was loathed anddespised by all, and disliked even by his master. The climax came in November 1853, when he was publicly horse-whipped by the count of Isenburg-Wächtersbach, the elector’s son-in-law. The count was pronounced insane; but Hassenpflug was conscious of the method in his madness, and tendered his resignation. This was, however, not accepted; and it was not till the 16th of October 1855 that he was finally relieved of his offices. He retired to Marburg, where he died on the 15th of October 1862. He lived just long enough to hear of the restoration of the Hesse constitution of 1831 (June 21, 1862), which it had been his life’s mission to destroy. Of his publications the most important isActenstücke, die landständischen Anklagen wider den Kurfürstlichen hessischen Staatsminister Hassenpflug. Ein Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte und zum neueren deutschen Staatsrechte, anonym. (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1836). He was twice married, his first wife being the sister of the brothers Grimm. His son Karl Hassenpflug (1824-1890) was a distinguished sculptor.

See the biography by Wippermann inAllgemeine deutsche Biographie, with authorities.

HASTINAPUR,an ancient city of British India, in the Meerut district of the United Provinces, lying on the bank of a former bed of the Ganges, 22 m. N.E. of Meerut. It formed the capital of the great Pandava kingdom, celebrated in theMahābhārata, and probably one of the earliest Aryan settlements outside the Punjab. Tradition points to a group of shapeless mounds as the residence of the Lunar princes of the house of Bharata whose deeds are commemorated in the great national epic. After the conclusion of the famous war which forms the central episode of that poem, Hastinapur remained for some time the metropolis of the descendants of Parikshit, but the town was finally swept away by a flood of the Ganges, and the capital was transferred to Kausambi.

HASTINGS,a famous English family.John, Baron Hastings(c.1262-c.1313), was a son of Sir Henry de Hastings (d. 1268), who was summoned to parliament as a baron by Simon de Montfort in 1264. Having joined Montfort’s party Sir Henry led the Londoners at the battle of Lewes and was taken prisoner at Evesham. After his release he continued his opposition to Henry III.; he was among those who resisted the king at Kenilworth, and after the issue of theDictum de Kenilworthhe commanded the remnants of the baronial party when they made their last stand in the isle of Ely, submitting to Henry in July 1267. His younger son, Edmund, was specially noted for his military services in Scotland during the reign of Edward I. John Hastings married Isabella (d. 1305), daughter of William de Valence, earl of Pembroke, a half-brother of Henry III., and fought in Scotland and in Wales. Through his mother, Joanna de Cantilupe, he inherited the extensive lordship of Abergavenny, hence he is sometimes referred to as lord of Bergavenny, and in 1295 he was summoned to parliament as a baron. Before this date, however, he had come somewhat prominently to the front. His paternal grandmother, Ada, was a younger daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon, and a niece of the Scottish king, William the Lion; and in 1290 when Margaret, the maid of Norway, died, Hastings came forward as a claimant for the vacant throne. Although unsuccessful in the matter he did not swerve from his loyalty to Edward I. He fought constantly either in France or in Scotland; he led the bishop of Durham’s men at the celebrated siege of Carlaverock castle in 1300; and with his brother Edmund he signed the letter which in 1301 the English barons sent to Pope Boniface VIII. repudiating papal interference in the affairs of Scotland; on two occasions he represented the king in Aquitaine. Hastings died in 1312 or 1313. His second wife was Isabella, daughter of the elder Hugh le Despenser. Hastings, who was one of the most wealthy and powerful nobles of his time, stood high in the regard of the king and is lauded by the chroniclers.

His eldest sonJohn(d. 1325), who succeeded to the barony, was the father of Laurence Hastings, who was created earl of Pembroke in 1339, the earls of Pembroke retaining the barony of Hastings until 1389. A younger son by a second marriage, Sir Hugh Hastings (c.1307-1347), saw a good deal of military service in France; his portrait and also that of his wife may still be seen on the east window of Elsing church, which contains a beautiful brass to his memory.

On the death of John, the third and last earl of Pembroke of the Hastings family, in 1389, Sir Hugh’s sonJohnhad, according to a decision of the House of Lords in 1840, a title to the barony of Hastings, but he did not prosecute his claim and he died without sons in 1393. However his grand-nephew and heir, Hugh (d. 1396), claimed the barony, which was also claimed by Reginald, Lord Grey of Ruthyn. Like the earls of Pembroke, Grey was descended through his grandmother, Elizabeth Hastings, from John, Lord Hastings, by his first wife; Hugh, on the other hand, was descended from John’s second wife. After Hugh’s death his brother, Sir Edward Hastings (c.1382-1438), claimed the barony, and the case as to who should bear the arms of the Hastings family came before the court of chivalry. In 1410 it was decided in favour of Grey, who thereupon assumed the arms. Both disputants still claimed the barony, but the view seems to have prevailed that it had fallen into abeyance in 1389. Sir Edward was imprisoned for refusing to pay his rival’s costs, and he was probably still in prison when he died in January 1438. After his death the Hastings family, which became extinct during the 16th century, tacitly abandoned the claim to the barony. Then in 1840 the title was revived in favour of Sir Jacob Astley, Bart. (1797-1859), who derived his claim from a daughter of Sir Hugh Hastings who died in 1540. Sir Jacob’s descendant, Albert Edward (b. 1882), became 21st Baron Hastings in 1904.

A distant relative of the same family was William, Baron Hastings (c.1430-1483), a son of Sir Leonard Hastings (d. 1455). He became attached to Edward IV., whom he served before his accession to the throne, and after this event he became master of the mint, chamberlain of the royal household and one of the king’s most trusted advisers. Having been made a baron in 1461, he married Catherine, daughter of Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, and was frequently sent on diplomatic errands to Burgundy and elsewhere. He was faithful to Edward IV. during the king’s exile in the winter of 1470-1471, and after his return he fought for him at Barnet and at Tewkesbury; he has been accused of taking part in the murder of Henry VI.’s son, prince Edward, after the latter battle. Hastings succeeded his sovereign in the favour of Jane Shore. He was made captain of Calais in 1471, and was with Edward IV. when he met Louis XI. of France at Picquigny in 1475, on which occasion he received gifts from Louis and from Charles the Bold of Burgundy. After Edward IV.’s death Hastings behaved in a somewhat undecided manner. He disliked the queen, Elizabeth Woodville, but he refused to ally himself with Richard, duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard III. Suddenly Richard decided to get rid of him, and during a meeting of the council on the 13th of June 1483 he was seized and at once put to death. This dramatic incident is related by Sir Thomas More in hisHistory of Richard III., and has been worked by Shakespeare into his playRichard III.Hastings is highly praised by his friend Philippe de Commines, and also by More. He left a son, Edward (d. 1508), the father of George, Baron Hastings (c.1488-1545), who was created earl of Huntingdon (q.v.) in 1529.

When Francis, 10th earl of Huntingdon, died in October 1789, the barony of Hastings passed to his sister Elizabeth (1731-1808), wife of John Rawdon, earl of Moira, and from her it came to her son Francis Rawdon-Hastings (see below), who was created marquess of Hastings in 1817.

HASTINGS, FRANCIS RAWDON-HASTINGS,1stMarquess of(1754-1826), British soldier and governor-general of India, born on the 9th of December 1754, was the son of Sir John Rawdon of Moira in the county of Down, 4th baronet, who was created Baron Rawdon of Moira, and afterwards earl of Moira, in the Irish peerage. His mother was the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, 9th earl of Huntingdon. Lord Rawdon, as he was then called, was educated at Harrow and Oxford, and joined the army in 1771 as ensign in the 15th foot. His life henceforth was entirely spent in the service of his country, and may be divided into four periods: from 1775 to1782 he was engaged with much distinction in the American war; from 1783 to 1813 he held various high appointments at home, and took an active part in the business of the House of Lords; from 1813 to 1823 was the period of his labours in India; after retiring from which, in the last years of his life (1824-1826), he was governor of Malta.

In America Rawdon served at the battles of Bunker Hill, Brooklyn, White Plains, Monmouth and Camden, at the attacks on Forts Washington and Clinton, and at the siege of Charleston. In fact he was engaged in many important operations of the war. Perhaps his most noted achievements were the raising of a corps at Philadelphia, called the Irish Volunteers, who under him became famous for their fighting qualities, and the victory of Hobkirk’s Hill, which, in command of only a small force, he gained by superior military skill and determination against a much larger body of Americans. In 1781 he was invalided. The vessel in which he returned to England was captured and carried into Brest. He was speedily released, and on his arrival in England was much honoured by George III., who created him an English peer (Baron Rawdon) in March 1783. In 1789 his mother succeeded to the barony of Hastings, and Rawdon added the surname of Hastings to his own.

In 1793 Rawdon succeeded his father as earl of Moira. In 1794 he was sent with 7000 men to Ostend to reinforce the duke of York and the allies in Flanders. The march by which he effected a junction was considered extraordinary. In 1803 he was appointed commander-in-chief in Scotland, and in 1804 he married Flora Mure Campbell, countess of Loudoun in her own right. When Fox and Grenville came into power in 1806, Lord Moira, who had always voted with them, received the place of master-general of the ordnance. He was now enabled to carry a philanthropic measure, of which from his first entry into the House of Lords he had been a great promoter, namely, the Debtor and Creditor Bill for relief of poor debtors. Ireland was another subject to which he had given particular attention: in 1797 there was published aSpeech by Lord Moira on the Dreadful and Alarming State of Ireland. Lord Moira’s sound judgment on public affairs, combined with his military reputation and the uprightness of his character, won for him a high position among the statesmen of the day, and he gained an additionalprestigefrom his intimate relations with the prince of Wales. As a mark of the regent’s regard Lord Moira received the order of the Garter in 1812, and in the same year was appointed governor-general of Bengal and commander-in-chief of the forces in India. He landed at Calcutta, and assumed office in succession to Lord Minto in October 1813. One of the chief questions which awaited him was that of relations with the Gurkha state of Nepal. The Gurkhas, a brave and warlike little nation, failing to extend their conquests in the direction of China, had begun to encroach on territories held or protected by the East India Company; especially they had seized the districts of Batwal and Seoraj, in the northern part of Oudh, and when called upon to relinquish these, they deliberately elected (April 1814) to go to war rather than do so. Lord Moira, having travelled through the northern provinces and fully studied the question, declared war against Nepal (November 1814). The enemy’s frontier was 600 m. long, and Lord Moira, who directed the plan of the campaign, resolved to act offensively along the whole line. It was an anxious undertaking, because the native states of India were all watching the issue and waiting for any serious reverse to the English to join against them. At first all seemed to go badly, as the British officers despised the enemy, and the sepoys were unaccustomed to mountain warfare, and thus alternate extremes of rashness and despondency were exhibited. But this rectified itself in time, especially through the achievements of General (afterwards Sir David) Ochterlony, who before the end of 1815 had taken all the Gurkha posts to the west, and early in 1816 was advancing victoriously within 50 m. of Khatmandu, the capital. The Gurkhas now made peace; they abandoned the disputed districts, ceded some territory to the British, and agreed to receive a British resident. For his masterly conduct of these affairs Lord Moira was created marquess of Hastings in February 1817.

He had now to deal with internal dangers. A combination of Mahratta powers was constantly threatening the continuance of British rule, under the guise of plausible assurances severally given by the peshwa, Sindhia, Holkar and other princes. At the same time the existence of the Pindari state was not only dangerous to the British, as being a warlike power always ready to turn against them, but it was a scourge to India itself. In 1816, however, the Pindaris entered British territory in the Northern Circars, where they destroyed 339 villages. On this, permission was obtained to act for their suppression. Before the end of 1817 the preparations of Lord Hastings were completed, when the peshwa suddenly broke into war, and the British were opposed at once to the Mahratta and Pindari powers, estimated at 200,000 men and 500 guns. Both were utterly shattered in a brief campaign of four months (1817-18). The peshwa’s dominions were annexed, and those of Sindhia, Holkar, and the raja of Berar lay at the mercy of the governor-general, and were saved only by his moderation. Thus, after sixty years from the battle of Plassey, the supremacy of British power in India was effectively established. The Pindaris had ceased to exist, and peace and security had been substituted for misery and terror.

“It is a proud phrase to use,” said Lord Hastings, “but it is a true one, that we have bestowed blessings upon millions. Nothing can be more delightful than the reports I receive of the sensibility manifested by the inhabitants to this change in their circumstances. The smallest detachment of our troops cannot pass through that district without meeting everywhere eager and exulting gratulations, the tone of which proves them to come from glowing hearts. Multitudes of people have, even in this short interval, come from the hills and fastnesses in which they had sought refuge for years, and have reoccupied their ancient deserted villages. The ploughshare is again in every quarter turning up a soil which had for many seasons never been stirred, except by the hoofs of predatory cavalry.”

While the natives of India appreciated the results of Lord Hastings’s achievements, the court of directors grumbled at his having extended British territory. They also disliked and opposed his measures for introducing education among the natives and his encouraging the freedom of the press. In 1819 he obtained the cession by purchase of the island of Singapore. In finance his administration was very successful, as notwithstanding the expenses of his wars he showed an annual surplus of two millions sterling. Brilliant and beneficent as his career had been, Lord Hastings did not escape unjust detraction. His last years of office were embittered by the discussions on a matter notorious at the time, namely, the affairs of the banking-house of W. Palmer and Company. The whole affair was mixed up with insinuations against Lord Hastings, especially charging him with having been actuated by favouritism towards one of the partners in the firm. From imputations which were inconsistent with his whole character he has subsequently been exonerated. But while smarting under them he tendered his resignation in 1821, though he did not leave India till the first day of 1823. He was much exhausted by the arduous labours which for more than nine years he had sustained. Among his characteristics it is mentioned that “his ample fortune absolutely sank under the benevolence of his nature”; and, far from having enriched himself in the appointment of governor-general, he returned to England in circumstances which obliged him still to seek public employment. In 1824 he received the comparatively small post of governor of Malta, in which island he introduced many reforms and endeared himself to the inhabitants. He died on the 28th of November 1826, leaving a request that his right hand should be cut off and preserved till the death of the marchioness of Hastings, and then be interred in her coffin.

Hastings was succeeded by his son, Francis George Augustus (1808-1844), who in 1840 succeeded through his mother to the earldom of Loudoun. When his second son, Henry Weysford, the 4th marquess, died childless on the 10th of November 1868 the marquessate became extinct; the earldom of Loudoun devolved upon his sister, Edith Mary (d. 1874), wife of Charles Frederick Abney-Hastings, afterwards Baron Donington; thebarony of Hastings, which fell into abeyance, was also revived in 1871 in her favour.

See Ross-of-Bladensburg,The Marquess of Hastings(“Rulers of India” series) (1893); andPrivate Journal of the Marquess of Hastings, edited by his daughter, the marchioness of Bute (1858).

HASTINGS, FRANK ABNEY(1794-1828), British naval officer and Philhellene, was the son of Lieut.-general Sir Charles Hastings, a natural son of Francis Hastings, tenth earl of Huntingdon. He entered the navy in 1805, and was in the “Neptune” (100) at the battle of Trafalgar; but in 1820 a quarrel with his flag captain led to his leaving the service. The revolutionary troubles of the time offered chances of foreign employment. Hastings spent a year on the continent to learn French, and sailed for Greece on the 12th of March 1822 from Marseilles. On the 3rd of April he reached Hydra. For two years he took part in the naval operations of the Greeks in the Gulf of Smyrna and elsewhere. He saw that the light squadrons of the Greeks must in the end be overpowered by the heavier Turkish navy, clumsy as it was; and in 1823 he drew up and presented to Lord Byron a very able memorandum which he laid before the Greek government in 1824. This paper is of peculiar interest apart from its importance in the Greek insurrection, for it contains the germs of the great revolution which has since been effected in naval gunnery and tactics. In substance the memorandum advocated the use of steamers in preference to sailing ships, and of direct fire with shells and hot shot, as a more trustworthy means of destroying the Turkish fleet than fire-ships. It will be found in Finlay’sHistory of the Greek Revolution, vol. ii. appendix i. The application of Hastings’s ideas led necessarily to the disuse of sailing ships, and the introduction of armour. The incompetence of the Greek government and the corrupt waste of its resources prevented the full application of Hastings’s bold and far-seeing plans. But largely by the use of his own money, of which he is said to have spent £7000, he was able to some extent to carry them out. In 1824 he came to England to obtain a steamer, and in 1825 he had fitted out a small steamer named the “Karteria” (Perseverance), manned by Englishmen, Swedes and Greeks, and provided with apparatus for the discharge of shell and hot shot. He did enough to show that if his advice had been vigorously followed the Turks would have been driven off the sea long before the date of the battle of Navarino. The great effect produced by his shells in an attack on the sea-line of communication of the Turkish army, then besieging Athens at Oropus and Volo in March and April 1827, was a clear proof that much more could have been done. Military mismanagement caused the defeat of the Greeks round Athens. But Hastings, in co-operation with General Sir R. Church (q.v.), shifted the scene of the attack to western Greece. Here his destruction of a small Turkish squadron at Salona Bay in the Gulf of Corinth (29th of September 1827) provoked Ibrahim Pasha into the aggressive movements which led to the destruction of his fleet by the allies at Navarino (q.v.) on the 20th of October 1827. On the 25th of May 1828 he was wounded in an attack on Anatolikon, and he died in the harbour of Zante on the 1st of June. General Gordon, who served in the war and wrote its history, says of him: “If ever there was a disinterested and really useful Philhellene it was Hastings. He received no pay, and had expended most of his slender fortune in keeping the ‘Karteria’ afloat for the last six months. His ship, too, was the only one in the Greek navy where regular discipline was maintained.”

See Thomas Gordon,History of the Greek Revolution(London, 1832); George Finlay,History of the Greek Revolution(Edinburgh, 1861).

HASTINGS, WARREN(1732-1818), the first governor-general of British India, was born on the 6th of December 1732 in the little hamlet of Churchill in Oxfordshire. He came of a family which had been settled for many generations in the adjoining village of Daylesford; but his great-grandfather had sold the ancestral manor-house, and his grandfather had been unable to maintain himself in possession of the family living. His mother died a few days after giving him birth; his father, Pynaston Hastings, drifted away to perish obscurely in the West Indies. Thus unfortunate in his birth, young Hastings received the elements of education at a charity school in his native village. At the age of eight he was taken in charge by an elder brother of his father, Howard Hastings, who held a post in the customs. After spending two years at a private school at Newington Butts, he was moved to Westminster, where among his contemporaries occur the names of Lord Thurlow and Lord Shelburne, Sir Elijah Impey, and the poets Cowper and Churchill. In 1749, when his headmaster Dr Nichols was already anticipating for him a successful career at the university, his uncle died, leaving him to the care of a distant kinsman, Mr Creswicke, who was afterwards in the direction of the East India Company; and he determined to send his ward to seek his fortune as a “writer” in Bengal.

When Hastings landed at Calcutta in October 1750 the affairs of the East India Company were at a low ebb. Throughout the entire south of the peninsula French influence was predominant. The settlement of Fort St George or Madras, captured by force of arms, had only recently been restored in accordance with a clause of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The organizing genius of Dupleix everywhere overshadowed the native imagination, and the star of Clive had scarcely yet risen above the horizon. The rivalry between the English and the French, which had already convulsed the south, did not penetrate to Bengal. That province was under the able government of Ali Vardi Khan, who peremptorily forbade the foreign settlers at Calcutta and Chandernagore to introduce feuds from Europe. The duties of a young “writer” were then such as are implied in the name. At an early date Hastings was placed in charge of anaurangor factory in the interior, where his duties would be to superintend the weaving of silk and cotton goods under a system of money advances. In 1753 he was transferred to Cossimbazar, the river-port of the native capital of Murshidabad. In 1756 the old nawab died, and was succeeded by his grandson Surajud-Dowlah, a young madman of 19, whose name is indelibly associated with the tragedy of the Black Hole. When that passionate young prince, in revenge for a fancied wrong, resolved to drive the English out of Bengal, his first step was to occupy the fortified factory at Cossimbazar, and make prisoners of Hastings and his companions. Hastings was soon released at the intercession of the Dutch resident, and made use of his position at Murshidabad to open negotiations with the English fugitives at Falta, the site of a Dutch factory near the mouth of the Hugli. In later days he used to refer with pride to his services on this occasion, when he was first initiated into the wiles of Oriental diplomacy. After a while he found it necessary to fly from the Mahommedan court and join the main body of the English at Falta. When the relieving force arrived from Madras under Colonel Clive and Admiral Watson, Hastings enrolled himself as a volunteer, and took part in the action which led to the recovery of Calcutta. Clive showed his appreciation of Hastings’s merits by appointing him in 1758 to the important post of resident at the court of Murshidabad. It was there that he first came into collision with the Bengali Brahman, Nuncomar, whose subsequent fate has supplied more material for controversy than any other episode in his career. During his three years of office as resident he was able to render not a few valuable services to the Company; but it is more important to observe that his name nowhere occurs in the official lists of those who derived pecuniary profit from the necessities and weakness of the native court. In 1761 he was promoted to be member of council, under the presidency of Mr Vansittart, who had been introduced by Clive from Madras. The period of Vansittart’s government has been truly described as “the most revolting page of our Indian history.” The entire duties of administration were suffered to remain in the hands of the nawab, while a few irresponsible English traders had drawn to themselves all real power. The members of council, the commanders of the troops, and the commercial residents plundered on a grand scale. The youngest servant of the Company claimed the right of trading on his own account, free from taxation and from local jurisdiction, not only for himself but also for every native subordinate whom he might permitto use his name. It was this exemption, threatening the very foundations of the Mussulman government, that finally led to a rupture with the nawab. Macaulay, in his celebrated essay, has said that “of the conduct of Hastings at this time little is known.” As a matter of fact, the book which Macaulay was professing to review describes at length the honourable part consistently taken by Hastings in opposition to the great majority of the council. Sometimes in conjunction only with Vansittart, sometimes absolutely alone, he protested unceasingly against the policy and practices of his colleagues. On one occasion he was stigmatized in a minute by Mr Batson with “having espoused the nawab’s cause, and as a hired solicitor defended all his actions, however dishonourable and detrimental to the Company.” An altercation ensued. Batson gave him the lie and struck him in the council chamber. When war was actually begun, Hastings officially recorded his previous resolution to have resigned, in order to repudiate responsibility for measures which he had always opposed. Waiting only for the decisive victory of Buxar over the allied forces of Bengal and Oudh, he resigned his seat and sailed for England in November 1764.

After fourteen years’ residence in Bengal Hastings did not return home a rich man, estimated by the opportunities of his position. According to the custom of the time he had augmented his slender salary by private trade. At a later date he was charged by Burke with having taken up profitable contracts for supplying bullocks for the use of the Company’s troops. It is admitted that he conducted by means of agents a large business in timber in the Gangetic Sundarbans. When at Falta he had married Mrs Buchanan, the widow of an officer. She bore him two children, of whom one died in infancy at Murshidabad, and was shortly followed to the grave by her mother. Their common gravestone is in existence at the present day, bearing date July 11, 1759. The other child, a son, was sent to England, and also died shortly before his father’s return. While at home Hastings is said to have attached himself to literary society; and it may be inferred from his own letters that he now made the personal acquaintance of Samuel Johnson and Lord Mansfield. In 1766 he was called upon to give evidence before a committee of the House of Commons upon the affairs of Bengal. The good sense and clearness of the views which he expressed caused attention to be paid to his desire to be again employed in India. His pecuniary affairs were embarrassed, partly from the liberality with which he had endowed his few surviving relatives. The great influence of Lord Clive was also exercised on his behalf. At last, in the winter of 1768, he received the appointment of second in council at Madras. Among his companions on his voyage round the Cape were the Baron Imhoff, a speculative portrait-painter, and his wife, a lady of some personal attractions and great social charm, who was destined henceforth to be Hastings’s lifelong companion. Of his two years’ work at Madras it is needless to speak in detail. He won the good-will of his employers by devoting himself to the improvement of their manufacturing business, and he kept his hands clean from the prevalent taint of pecuniary transactions with the nawab of the Carnatic. One fact of some interest is not generally known. He drew up a scheme for the construction of a pier at Madras, to avoid the dangers of landing through the surf, and instructed his brother-in-law in England to obtain estimates from the engineers Brindley and Smeaton.

In the beginning of 1772 his ambition was stimulated by the nomination to the second place in council in Bengal with a promise of the reversion of the governorship when Mr Cartier should retire. Since his departure from Bengal in 1764 the situation of affairs in that settlement had scarcely improved. The second governorship of Clive was marked by the transfer of the dīwānī or financial administration from the Mogul emperor to the Company, and by the enforcement of stringent regulations against the besetting sin of peculation. But Clive was followed by two inefficient successors; and in 1770 occurred the most terrible Indian famine on record, which is credibly estimated to have swept away one-third of the population. In April 1772 Warren Hastings took his seat as president of the council at Fort William. His first care was to carry out the instructions received from home, and effect a radical reform in the system of government. Clive’s plan of governing through the agency of the native court had proved a failure. The directors were determined “to stand forth asdīwān, and take upon themselves by their own servants the entire management of the revenues.” All the officers of administration were transferred from Murshidabad to Calcutta, which Hastings boasted at this early date that he would make the first city in Asia. This reform involved the ruin of many native reputations, and for a second time brought Hastings into collision with the wily Brahman, Nuncomar. At the same time a settlement of the land revenue on leases for five years was begun, and the police and military systems of the country were placed upon a new footing. Hastings was a man of immense industry, with an insatiable appetite for detail. The whole of this large series of reforms was conducted under his own personal supervision, and upon no part of his multifarious labours did he dwell in his letters home with greater pride. As an independent measure of economy, the stipend paid to the titular nawab of Bengal, who was then a minor, was reduced by one-half—to sixteenlakhsa year (say £160,000). Macaulay imputes this reduction to Hastings as a characteristic act of financial immorality; but in truth it had been expressly enjoined by the court of directors, in a despatch dated six months before he took up office. His pecuniary bargains with Shuja-ud-Dowlah, the nawab wazīr of Oudh, stand on a different basis. Hastings himself always regarded them as incidents in his general scheme of foreign policy. The Mahrattas at this time had got possession of the person of the Mogul emperor, Shah Alam, from whom Clive obtained the grant of Bengal in 1765, and to whom he assigned in return the districts of Allahabad and Kora and a tribute of £300,000. With the emperor in their camp, the Mahrattas were threatening the province of Oudh, and causing a large British force to be cantoned along the frontier for its defence. Warren Hastings, as a deliberate measure of policy, withheld the tribute due to the emperor, and resold Allahabad and Kora to the wazīr of Oudh. The Mahrattas retreated, and all danger for the time was dissipated by the death of their principal leader. The wazīr now bethought him that he had a good opportunity for satisfying an old quarrel against the adjoining tribe of Rohillas, who had played fast and loose with him while the Mahratta army was at hand. The Rohillas were a race of Afghan origin, who had established themselves for some generations in a fertile tract west of Oudh, between the Himalayas and the Ganges, which still bears the name of Rohilkhand. They were not so much the occupiers of the soil as a dominant caste of warriors and freebooters. But in those troubled days their title was as good as any to be found in India. After not a little hesitation, Hastings consented to allow the Company’s troops to be used to further the ambitious designs of his Oudh ally, in consideration of a sum of money which relieved the ever-pressing wants of the Bengal treasury. The Rohillas were defeated in fair fight. Some of them fled the country, and so far as possible Hastings obtained terms for those who remained. The fighting, no doubt, on the part of the wazīr was conducted with all the savagery of Oriental warfare; but there is no evidence that it was a war of extermination.

Meanwhile, the affairs of the East India Company had come under the consideration of parliament. The Regulating Act, passed by Lord North’s ministry in 1773, effected considerable changes in the constitution of the Bengal government. The council was reduced to four members with a governor-general, who were to exercise certain indefinite powers of control over the presidencies of Madras and Bombay. Hastings was named in the act as governor-general for a term of five years. The council consisted of General Clavering and the Hon. Colonel Monson, two third-rate politicians of considerable parliamentary influence; Philip Francis (q.v.), then only known as an able permanent official; and Barwell, of the Bengal Civil Service. At the same time a supreme court of judicature was appointed, composed of a chief and three puisne judges, to exercise an indeterminate jurisdiction at Calcutta. The chief-justice was Sir Elijah Impey,already mentioned as a schoolfellow of Hastings at Westminster. The whole tendency of the Regulating Act was to establish for the first time the influence of the crown, or rather of parliament, in Indian affairs. The new members of council disembarked at Calcutta on the 19th of October 1774; and on the following day commenced the long feud which scarcely terminated twenty-one years later with the acquittal of Warren Hastings by the House of Lords. Macaulay states that the members of council were put in ill-humour because their salute of guns was not proportionate to their dignity. In a contemporary letter Francis thus expresses the same petty feeling: “Surely Mr H. might have put on a ruffled shirt.” Taking advantage of an ambiguous clause in their commission, the majority of the council (for Barwell uniformly sided with Hastings) forthwith proceeded to pass in review the recent measures of the governor-general. All that he had done they condemned; all that they could they reversed. Hastings was reduced to the position of a cipher at their meetings. After a time they lent a ready ear to detailed allegations of corruption brought against him by his old enemy Nuncomar. To charges from such a source, and brought in such a manner, Hastings disdained to reply, and referred his accuser to the supreme court. The majority of the council, in their executive capacity, resolved that the governor-general had been guilty of peculation, and ordered him to refund. A few days later Nuncomar was thrown into prison on a charge of forgery preferred by a private prosecutor, tried before the supreme court sitting in bar, found guilty by a jury of Englishmen and sentenced to be hanged. Hastings always maintained that he did not cause the charge to be instituted, and the legality of Nuncomar’s trial is thoroughly proved by Sir James Stephen. The majority of the council abandoned their supporter, who was executed in due course. He had forwarded a petition for reprieve to the council, which Clavering took care should not be presented in time, and which was subsequently burnt by the common hangman on the motion of Francis. While the strife was at its hottest, Hastings had sent an agent to England with a general authority to place his resignation in the hands of the Company under certain conditions. The agent thought fit to exercise that authority. The resignation was promptly accepted, and one of the directors was appointed to the vacancy. But in the meantime Colonel Monson had died, and Hastings was thus restored, by virtue of his casting vote, to the supreme management of affairs. He refused to ratify his resignation; and when Clavering attempted to seize on the governor-generalship, he judiciously obtained an opinion from the judges of the supreme court in his favour. From that time forth, though he could not always command an absolute majority in council, Hastings was never again subjected to gross insult, and his general policy was able to prevail.

A crisis was now approaching in foreign affairs which demanded all the experience and all the genius of Hastings for its solution. Bengal was prosperous, and free from external enemies on every quarter. But the government of Bombay had hurried on a rupture with the Mahratta confederacy at a time when France was on the point of declaring war against England, and when the mother-country found herself unable to subdue her rebellious colonists in America. Hastings did not hesitate to take upon his own shoulders the whole responsibility of military affairs. All the French settlements in India were promptly occupied. On the part of Bombay, the Mahratta war was conducted with procrastination and disgrace. But Hastings amply avenged the capitulation of Wargaon by the complete success of his own plan of operations. Colonel Goddard with a Bengal army marched across the breadth of the peninsula from the valley of the Ganges to the western sea, and achieved almost without a blow the conquest of Gujarat. Captain Popham, with a small detachment, stormed the rock fortress of Gwalior, then deemed impregnable and the key of central India; and by this feat held in check Sindhia, the most formidable of the Mahratta chiefs. The Bhonsla Mahratta raja of Nagpur, whose dominions bordered on Bengal, was won over by the diplomacy of an emissary of Hastings. But while these events were taking place, a new source of embarrassment had arisen at Calcutta. The supreme court, whether rightly or wrongly, assumed a jurisdiction of first instance over the entire province of Bengal. The English common law, with all the absurdities and rigours of that day, was arbitrarily extended to an alien system of society.Zamíndárs, or government renters, were arrested on mesne process; the sanctity of thezenána, or women’s chamber, as dear to Hindus as to Mahommedans, was violated by the sheriff’s officer; the deepest feelings of the people and the entire fabric of revenue administration were alike disregarded. On this point the entire council acted in harmony. Hastings and Francis went joint-bail for imprisoned natives of distinction. At last, after the dispute between the judges and the executive threatened to become a trial of armed force, Hastings set it at rest by a characteristic stroke of policy. A new judicial office was created in the name of the Company, to which Sir Elijah Impey was appointed, though he never consented to draw the additional salary offered to him. The understanding between Hastings and Francis, originating in this state of affairs, was for a short period extended to general policy. An agreement was come to by which Francis received patronage for his circle of friends, while Hastings was to be unimpeded in the control of foreign affairs. But a difference of interpretation arose. Hastings recorded in an official minute that he had found Francis’s private and public conduct to be “void of truth and honour.” They met as duellists. Francis fell wounded, and soon afterwards returned to England.

The Mahratta war was not yet terminated, but a far more formidable danger now threatened the English in India. The imprudent conduct of the Madras authorities had irritated beyond endurance the two greatest Mussulman powers in the peninsula, the nizam of the Deccan and Hyder Ali, the usurper of Mysore, who began to negotiate an alliance with the Mahrattas. A second time the genius of Hastings saved the British empire in the east. On the arrival of the news that Hyder had descended from the highlands of Mysore, cut to pieces the only British army in the field, and swept the Carnatic up to the gates of Madras, he at once adopted a policy of extraordinary boldness. He signed a blank treaty of peace with the Mahrattas, who were still in arms, reversed the action of the Madras government towards the nizam, and concentrated all the resources of Bengal against Hyder Ali. Sir Eyre Coote, a general of renown in former Carnatic wars, was sent by sea to Madras with all the troops and treasure that could be got together; and a strong body of reinforcements subsequently marched southwards under Colonel Pearse along the coast line of Orissa. The landing of Coote preserved Madras from destruction, though the war lasted through many campaigns and only terminated with the death of Hyder. Pearse’s detachment was decimated by an epidemic of cholera (perhaps the first mention of this disease by name in Indian history); but the survivors penetrated to Madras, and not only held in check Bhonsla and the nizam, but also corroborated the lesson taught by Goddard—that the Company’s sepoys could march anywhere, when boldly led. Hastings’s personal task was to provide the ways and means for this exhausting war. A considerable economy was effected by a reform in the establishment for collecting the land tax. The government monopolies of opium and salt were then for the first time placed upon a remunerative basis. But these reforms were of necessity slow in their beneficial operation. The pressing demands of the military chest had to be satisfied by loans, and in at least one case from the private purse of the governor-general. Ready cash could alone fill up the void; and it was to the hoards of native princes that Hastings’s fertile mind at once turned. Chait Sing, raja of Benares, the greatest of the vassal chiefs who had grown rich under the protection of the British rule, lay under the suspicion of disloyalty. The wazir of Oudh had fallen into arrears in the payment due for the maintenance of the Company’s garrison posted in his dominions, and his administration was in great disorder. In his case the ancestral hoards were under the control of his mother, the begum of Oudh, into whose hands they had been allowed to pass at the time when Hastingswas powerless in council. Hastings resolved to make a progress up country in order to arrange the affairs of both provinces, and bring back all the treasure that could be squeezed out of its holders by his personal intervention. When he reached Benares and presented his demands, the raja rose in insurrection, and the governor-general barely escaped with his life. But the faithful Popham rapidly rallied a force for his defence. The insurgents were defeated again and again; Chait Sing took to flight, and an augmented permanent tribute was imposed upon his successor. The Oudh business was managed with less risk. The wazir consented to everything demanded of him. The begum was charged with having abetted Chait Sing in his rebellion; and after the severest pressure applied to herself and her attendant eunuchs, a fine of more than a million sterling was exacted from her. Hastings appears to have been not altogether satisfied with the incidents of this expedition, and to have anticipated the censure which it received in England. As a measure of precaution, he procured documentary evidence of the rebellious intentions of the raja and the begum, to the validity of which Impey obligingly lent his extra-judicial sanction.

The remainder of Hastings’s term of office in India was passed in comparative tranquillity, both from internal opposition and foreign war. The centre of interest now shifts to the India House and to the British parliament. The long struggle between the Company and the ministers of the crown for the supreme control of Indian affairs and the attendant patronage had reached its climax. The decisive success of Hastings’s administration alone postponed the inevitable solution. His original term of five years would have expired in 1778; but it was annually prolonged by special act of parliament until his voluntary resignation. Though Hastings was thus irremovable, his policy did not escape censure. Ministers were naturally anxious to obtain the reversion to his vacant post, and Indian affairs formed at this time the hinge on which party politics turned. On one occasion Dundas carried a motion in the House of Commons, censuring Hastings and demanding his recall. The directors of the Company were disposed to act upon this resolution; but in the court of proprietors, with whom the decision ultimately lay, Hastings always possessed a sufficient majority. Fox’s India Bill led to the downfall of the Coalition ministry in 1783. The act which Pitt successfully carried in the following year introduced a new constitution, in which Hastings felt that he had no place. In February 1785 he finally sailed from Calcutta, after a dignified ceremony of resignation, and amid enthusiastic farewells from all classes.

On his arrival in England, after a second absence of sixteen years, he was not displeased with the reception he met with at court and in the country. A peerage was openly talked of as his due, while his own ambition pointed to some responsible office at home. Pitt had never taken a side against him, while Lord Chancellor Thurlow was his pronounced friend. But he was now destined to learn that his enemy Francis, whom he had discomfited in the council chamber at Calcutta, was more than his match in the parliamentary arena. Edmund Burke had taken the subject races of India under the protection of his eloquence. Francis, who had been the early friend of Burke, supplied him with the personal animus against Hastings, and with the knowledge of detail, which he might otherwise have lacked. The Whig party on this occasion unanimously followed Burke’s lead. Dundas, Pitt’s favourite subordinate, had already committed himself by his earlier resolution of censure; and Pitt was induced by motives which are still obscure to incline the ministerial majority to the same side. To meet the oratory of Burke and Sheridan and Fox, Hastings wrote an elaborate minute with which he wearied the ears of the House for two successive nights, and he subsidized a swarm of pamphleteers. The impeachment was decided upon in 1786, but the actual trial did not commence until 1788. For seven long years Hastings was upon his defence on the charge of “high crimes and misdemeanours.” During this anxious period he appears to have borne himself with characteristic dignity, such as is consistent with no other hypothesis than the consciousness of innocence. At last, in 1795, the House of Lords gave a verdict of not guilty on all charges laid against him; and he left the bar at which he had so frequently appeared, with his reputation clear, but ruined in fortune. However large the wealth he brought back from India, all was swallowed up in defraying the expenses of his trial. Continuing the line of conduct which in most other men would be called hypocrisy, he forwarded a petition to Pitt praying that he might be reimbursed his costs from the public funds. This petition, of course, was rejected. At last, when he was reduced to actual destitution, it was arranged that the East India Company should grant him an annuity of £4000 for a term of years, with £90,000 paid down in advance. This annuity expired before his death; and he was compelled to make more than one fresh appeal to the bounty of the Company, which was never withheld. Shortly before his acquittal he had been able to satisfy the dream of his childhood, by buying back the ancestral manor of Daylesford, where the remainder of his life was passed in honourable retirement. In 1813 he was called on to give evidence upon Indian affairs before the two houses of parliament, which received him with exceptional marks of respect. The university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L.; and in the following year he was sworn of the privy council, and took a prominent part in the reception given to the duke of Wellington and the allied sovereigns. He died on the 22nd of August 1818, in his 86th year, and lies buried behind the chancel of the parish church, which he had recently restored at his own charges.

In physical appearance, Hastings “looked like a great man, and not like a bad man.” The body was wholly subjugated to the mind. A frame naturally slight had been further attenuated by rigorous habits of temperance, and thus rendered proof against the diseases of the tropics. Against his private character not even calumny has breathed a reproach. As brother, as husband and as friend, his affections were as steadfast as they were warm. By the public he was always regarded as reserved, but within his own inner circle he gave and received perfect confidence. In his dealings with money, he was characterized rather by liberality of expenditure than by carefulness of acquisition. A classical education and the instincts of family pride saved him from both the greed and the vulgar display which marked the typical “nabob,” the self-made man of those days. He could support the position of a governor-general and of a country gentleman with equal credit. Concerning his second marriage, it suffices to say that the Baroness Imhoff was nearly forty years of age, with a family of grown-up children, when the complaisant law of her native land allowed her to become Mrs Hastings. She survived her husband, who cherished towards her to the last the sentiments of a lover. Her children he adopted as his own; and it was chiefly for her sake that he desired the peerage which was twice held out to him.

Hastings’s public career will probably never cease to be a subject of controversy. It was his misfortune to be the scapegoat upon whose head parliament laid the accumulated sins, real and imaginary, of the East India Company. If the acquisition of the Indian empire can be supported on ethical grounds, Hastings needs no defence. No one who reads his private correspondence will admit that even his least defensible acts were dictated by dishonourable motives. It is more pleasing to point out certain of his public measures upon which no difference of opinion can arise. He was the first to attempt to open a trade route with Tibet, and to organize a survey of Bengal and of the eastern seas. It was he who persuaded thepunditsof Bengal to disclose the treasures of Sanskrit to European scholars. He founded the Madrasa or college for Mahommedan education at Calcutta, primarily out of his own funds; and he projected the foundation of an Indian institute in England. The Bengal Asiatic Society was established under his auspices, though he yielded the post of president to Sir W. Jones. No Englishman ever understood the native character so well as Hastings; none ever devoted himself more heartily to the promotion of every scheme, great and small, that could advance the prosperity of India. Natives and Anglo-Indians alike venerate his name, the former as their first beneficent administrator, the latter as themost able and the most enlightened of their own class. If Clive’s sword conquered the Indian empire, it was the brain of Hastings that planned the system of civil administration, and his genius that saved the empire in its darkest hour.

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