"not allow yourself to be persuaded that polish is CHAP. "material to preservation?" * Another point in the character of Francis-well according with what we may presume of the author of the reply to Junia † — was his taste for profligate amours. It was from these, at a somewhat later period, that arose the personal and bitter estrangement between himself and Sir Elijah Impey. By means of a ladder of ropes, Francis had one night climbed into the chamber of Mrs. Grand, a lady of Scottish birth, the wife of a Calcutta Barrister. After he had remained there for three-quarters of an hour an alarm was given, and Francis descending in haste from the apartment of the lady was seized at the foot of the ladder by the servants of the husband. Hereupon an action was brought by Mr. Grand against Mr. Francis in the Supreme Court of Calcutta. It was usual for the Judges of that Court to assess the damages in civil actions without the intervention of a Jury. Sir Elijah Impey in this case fixed the sum to be awarded at fifty thousand rupees. Yet, in the opinion of his colleague, Sir Robert Chambers, and still more strongly, no doubt, in the opinion of Francis him * Letter of November 3. 1790, as printed in Burke's Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 164. Of that letter Junius immediately afterwards became ashamed; and he desired Mr. Woodfall to throw doubts on its authenticity. (Note of Sept. 10. 1769.) It is omitted from the earlier editions, but will be found in the publication of 1812. (Vol. iii. p. 218.) LXVIII. INDIA. LXVIII. INDIA. CHAP. self, a lesser sum would have sufficed; since, however suspicious the ladder of ropes and the nocturnal visit, no positive act of guilt was proved. Up to that time the Chief Justice and the Member of Council at Calcutta had been on civil, nay familiar terms, but from this transaction may be dated the commencement of the active and persevering animosity with which Francis ever afterwards continued to pursue Sir Elijah Impey. Mr. Grand succeeded in obtaining a divorce, and Mrs. Grand took refuge with Francis, by whom, however, she was soon afterwards forsaken. She returned to Europe as the companion of another gentleman, Mr. William Macintosh; and, by a far more surprising turn of Fortune, closed her adventurous career as the wife of a celebrated foreign statesman, Prince Talleyrand.* The news of the divisions in the Council at Calcutta appears to have greatly perplexed the Directors at home. For some time they endeavoured, but with little good effect, to hold a middle course. We find, in November, 1775, the King write as follows to Lord North: "The East India Directors *Memoirs of Sir Elijah Impey, by his son, p. 173., and the unpublished biography of Mr. Charles Macintosh, as quoted in the Quarterly Review, No. CLXVII. p. 70. Perhaps it may be thought that Sir Robert Chambers, in his view of this transaction, judged rather according to the Mahomedan law, which in every such case requires the testimony of four eye-witnesses. See the Moslem Annals of Abulfeda (p. 71.), and the Decline and Fall of Gibbon, who calls this " a law of domestic peace." (Vol. ix. p. 326.) 66 LXVIII. INDIA. "in their despatch manifestly wish to hurt neither CHAP. Hastings nor his adversaries, and therefore will "most probably disoblige both." Lord North himself, however, was deeply impressed with the iniquity of the Rohilla war. He regretted, that under the Regulating Act there was no power during the first five years to recall the Governor-General without an Address to that effect from the Company to the Crown. "Send us that Address "such was his advice to his friends in the Direction; and accordingly after the annual elections in the spring of 1776, a strong effort was made. In the Court of Directors the numbers were nearly even; there were eleven votes for the recall of Hastings, and ten against it. The minority appealed to a Court of Proprietors, where the struggle was renewed. On that occasion the agent of Hastings in London, Colonel Maclean, reckoned up in some dismay the hostile force which not only "the Chairs" but the Government poured in. He saw mingling with the merchants and the City-men no less than fortynine Peers, Privy Councillors, and men in office; at their head a Minister of the Crown, Lord Sandwich. The debate continued till near midnight. A motion for adjournment was made, and the opponents of Hastings prevailed in that division; but a Ballot on the main question being demanded for another day, the motion for his recall was negatived by a majority of upwards of one hundred. Lord North was greatly incensed at this defeat. He let fall some angry expressions; or, at least, LXVIII. par CHAP. some such were ascribed to him by the zeal of tisans. The two Houses should be called together INDIA. before Christmas; there should be another India Bill; the Calcutta government must be new modelled; the Company must be restricted to its trade. These vague threats wrought too far upon Colonel Maclean. He believed his patron in risk of a Parliamentary dismissal, or, perhaps, a Parliamentary censure. He was scared instead of being re-assured by the dangers which he had surmounted; and thought only how to shrink from the dangers to come. He had in his possession a private letter, written by Hastings a year and a half before, in which Hastings announced his resolution of resigning if he should not find his measures supported and approved. In another letter, two months afterwards, Hastings had most clearly revoked that resolution.* Nevertheless, Colonel Maclean in October, 1776, thought himself sufficiently empowered. to tender to the Court of Directors the resignation of the Governor General. The Directors, eager to be relieved from their embarrassment, made little difficulty. They accepted the resignation, and, with the connivance of the Crown, named one of their "I now *The two letters of Hastings, addressed to Colonel Maclean and another agent, and dated March 27. and May 18. 1775, are published at full length by Mr. Gleig in Hastings's Memoirs. The terms of the second letter are quite explicit. "retract the resolution communicated to you separately in my "letters of the 27th of March." Compare with these documents the Article of Charge (No. ix.), by Mr. Burke. 66 own body, Mr. Edward Wheler, to the vacant place CHAP. in the Council of Bengal. But meanwhile the state of that Council had wholly changed. In September, 1776, Colonel Monson had died. By his decease, and by the means of his own casting vote, the full powers of Government fell back into the hands of the Governor-General. With his usual fixedness of purpose he now resumed his former policy and reappointed his old friends. Above all, after a short delay, "Nat Middleton" (for so he fondly calls him), became once more the Resident in Oude. "The "first act of my authority," said Hastings, "might "justly be for the retrieval of the first wound "which was given to it." Since his Five Years' Settlement of the land-revenue was now drawing to a close, he gave orders for another valuation, to be conducted solely under his own control. In spite of the strenuous opposition of Clavering and Francis, he created a new office for that object. At the same time his mind was brooding over a vast scheme for the complete ascendancy in India of the English name a system of subsidiary alliance with native princes, and, above all, with the Nabob of Oude and the Nizam, - a system which it was left to his successors to unfold and to pursue. In all these contemplations of coming empire it is remarkable how deep and far-sighted were his views. Thus, at a time when scarce any other statesman bestowed a thought or care upon the martial race that dwelt along the banks of the Five Rivers, we LXVIII. INDIA. |