Hastings regained power. Then came the most critical time in the history of British rule in India. Far more important than all other conflicts in which Englishmen in India were engaged was the struggle renewed from time to time between the Company and the Mahratta confederacy. Important as it was to the Company, it was far more important to the natives of India; as the victory of the Mahrattas would bring with it outrage and misery, whereas the victory of the Company would bring with it the establishment of peace and settled government. Nevertheless, it would have been well if the conflict could have been deferred till the Company was stronger than it then was. Unluckily the Bombay Government entered upon an unnecessary war with the Mahrattas, and, finding itself in danger, called on Hastings for help. In 1777, at the time when the French were preparing to oppose England in America, they sent an emissary to Poonah to prepare the way for an alliance between themselves and the Mahrattas. In 1778 came the news of Burgoyne's capitulation at Saratoga. "If it be really true," said Hastings, "that the British arms and influence have suffered so severe a check in the Western world, it is more incumbent on those who are charged with the interest of Great Britain in the East to exert themselves for the retrieval of the national loss." Into the struggle with the Mahrattas, now likely to pass into a struggle with France, Hastings threw himself with unbounded energy. His position was made almost desperate by the folly of the Madras Government, which unnecessarily provoked the two Mahomedan rulers of the south, the Nizam and an adventurer named Hyder Ali who had made himself master of Mysore. Hyder Ali, the ablest warrior in India, threw himself on the lands over which the British held sway in the Carnatic. "A storm of universal fire," in Burke's language, “blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple." The miserable inhabitants, flying from their burning villages, were slaughtered or swept into captivity. All English eyes turned to Hastings.

9. Cheyt Singh and the Begums of Oude. 1781-1782.-Money was the first thing needed, and of money Hastings had but little. He had to send large sums home every year to pay dividends to the Company, and his treasury was almost empty. In his straits, Hastings demanded from Cheyt Singh, the Rajah of Benares, a large payment as a contribution to the war, on the ground that he was a dependent on the Company and therefore bound to support it in times of difficulty. On Cheyt Singh's refusal to pay, Hastings imposed on him an enormous fine, equal to about 500,000l. In order

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to ensure payment Hastings went in person to Benares to arrest the Rajah ; but the population rose on his behalf, and Hastings had to fly for his life, though he skilfully made preparations to regain his authority, and before long suppressed the revolters and deposed the Rajah. He then made treaties with some of the Mahratta chiefs, and thus lessened the number of his enemies. The Madras Government, however, continued to cry for support. not," they wrote, " in what words to describe our distress for money." Hastings pressed the Nawab of Oude to furnish him with some, but the Nawab was not rich, because his mother and grandmother, the Begums of Oude as they were called, had retained possession of his father's accumulated treasure, and had enlisted armed men to defend it against him. In 1782 the Nawab laid claim to the money to which he appears to have been rightfully entitled, and in 1782 Hastings lent him the Company's troops to take it from the ladies. They were forced to yield, and Hastings, as his reward, got payment of a large debt which the Nawab owed to the Company.

10. Restoration of Peace. 1781-1782.—In 1781, Hyder Ali was joined by some French troops, but the combined force was defeated at Porto Novo by old Sir Eyre Coote, the victor of Wandewash (see p. 764). In 1782 peace was concluded with the Mahrattas, after which Hyder Ali died, and when the French, in consequence of the end of the war in Europe and America, withdrew their assistance, Hyder Ali's son and successor, Tippoo, also made peace with the English.

11. Hastings as a Statesman. 1783.-Hastings, by his pertinacity, had saved the British hold on India and had laid the foundations of a system on which the future peace and prosperity of the country depended. Yet that system would have been severely shaken if future governors-general had continued to levy fines limited only by their own discretion, as had been done in the case of Cheyt Singh, or to supply forces to Eastern potentates to enable them to recover their dues as in the cases of the Rohillas and the Begums of Oude. Much as may be said on Hastings's behalf in all these affairs, it can hardly be denied that it would have been better if he could have supported his government upon the revenues of the Company's own provinces, and could have acted beyond the Company's frontier only by agents responsible to himself. That he did not do so was mainly the fault of the weakness of his own official position. Extraordinary expenditure was in most instances forced on him by the folly of the Council

which he was compelled to obey or of the governors of Madras and Bombay who disobeyed his orders. What was urgently needed was the reform of a system which left the governor-general hampered in his authority by those who should have been his subordinates, whilst at the same time it was desirable that he should be made directly responsible, not to a trading company interested in making money, but to the British Government itself.

12. The India Bill of the Coalition. 1783.-In 1783 the Coalition Ministry brought in a bill for the better government of India, which was intended to meet only the latter of these two requirements. Though the Bill was introduced by Fox into the House of Commons, it was the work of Burke. Burke felt deeply and passionately the wrongs done to the natives of India, and he proposed to take the government entirely away from the East India Company, giving it to a board of seven commissioners, appointed in the bill itself, that is to say, practically by the ministers who drew up the bill. No member of this board could be dismissed by the King for four years, except at the request of both Houses of Parliament, though at the end of four years the king was to name the commissioners. As the whole patronage of India was placed in the hands of the board, and as the possessor of patronage could always sell it for votes in the British Parliament, the bill made for the increase of the power of the Crown in the long run, though it weakened it for four years. The opponents of the Coalition, however, shutting their eyes to the former fact and fixing them on the latter, bitterly attacked the bill as directed against the power of the Crown. It was an attempt, said Thurlow, who had been Lord Chancellor in Lord Shelburne's ministry, to take the diadem from the king's head and to put it on that of Mr. Fox.

13. The Fall of the Coalition. 1783.-Though the bill was strongly opposed by Pitt and others, it passed the Commons by a large majority. When it reached the Lords, the king sent a private message through Pitt's cousin, Lord Temple, to each peer, to the effect that whoever voted for the India Bill was not only not the king's friend, but would be considered as his enemy. As many of the lords were conscientiously opposed to the Coalition, and others needed the king's patronage, the bill was thrown out, on which the king contemptuously dismissed the ministry. Constitutional writers have blamed his interference, on the ground that a king ought not to intrigue against ministers supported by the House of Commons. On the other hand, it may be said that on this occasion the ministers had gained their posts by an intrigue,

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and that it was difficult to respect the House of Commons at a time when large numbers of its members were swayed backwards and forwards by hopes of patronage from one side or the other. The only hope of a better state of things lay in the intervention of the nation itself.

14. Pitt's Struggle with the Coalition. 1783-1784.-George III., burning to free himself from the Coalition, made Pitt prime minister at the early age of twenty-five. Pitt accepted the position from the king, and so far adopted what was now the estab lished Tory doctrine, that ministers were to be named by the king, and not by the House of Commons; but he also reintroduced what had long been forgotten, the principle that the constituencies must be appealed to before any final decision could be taken. For weeks he struggled in the House of Commons, refusing to resign or to dissolve Parliament until he could place his opponents at a disadvantage. Fox, with his usual want of tact, gave him the advantage which he

required, by oppos

Costumes of gentlefolk, about 1784.

ing a dissolution and the consequent appeal to the constituencies, and by insisting that it was Pitt's duty to resign at once, because he was outvoted in the existing House of Commons. Under these circumstances, Pitt was beaten again and again by large majorities. The nation at large had for some time disliked the Coalition as unprincipled, and it now rallied to Pitt in admiration of his undaunted

Sta

resolution. Members of the House, who had supported the Coalition merely for the sake of the loaves and fishes, began to suspect that it might be Pitt after all who would have the loaves and fishes to dispense. These men began to change sides, and Pitt's minority grew larger from day to day. At last, on March 8, 1784, the opposition had only a majority of one. On this Parliament was dissolved. The constituencies rallied to Pitt, and 160 of Fox's supporters lost their seats. They were popularly known as Fox's martyrs.

15. Pitt's Budget and India Bill. 1784.-George III., delighted as he was with Pitt's victory, found it impossible to make a tool of him, as he had made a tool of Lord North. Pitt owed his success even more to the nation than to the king, and, with the nation and the House of Commons at his back, he was resolved to have his own way. He soon showed himself to be a first-rate financier, and in his first budget introduced the principle, afterwards largely followed, of reducing customs-duties in order to make smuggling unprofitable. He then passed an India Bill of his own. The Company was to retain all the patronage except the appointment of the governor-general and of one or two high functionaries, so that neither the king nor any other political body would have the disposal of places in India, to serve as an instrument of corruption. As far as the government of India was concerned, it was nominally left in the hands of the directors of the East India Company; but the despatches in which were conveyed the orders to its servants in India were now liable to be amended by a board of control composed of the king's ministers, power being given to this new board to give orders, in cases requiring secrecy, even without the consent of the directors. This dual government, as it was called, lasted till 1858. Whilst Pitt avoided Fox's mistake in the matter of patronage, he deprived the Company of its government without the appearance of doing so. He also strengthened the authority of the governor-general over the governors of Madras and Bombay. Without Burke's animosity against Hastings, he saw that Hastings's system was not one of which he could approve, whilst he had little real knowledge of the difficulties by which Hastings had been embarrassed, and therefore failed to make allowances for them. Hastings discovered that he would not be supported by the new minister, and in February, 1785, he resigned his office and sailed for England.

16. Pitt's Reform Bill. 1785.-For the third time (see pp. 799, 801) Pitt attempted to carry Parliamentary reform. He now prcposed to lay by a sum of 1,000,000l. to be employed in buying up