Coote to Wheler, "what, in the Name of God, could you or I have done with the Government?" That he was well supported is true, yet it needed two sharp lessons to teach his army not to undervalue the enemy, and without the determination of Mrs Hastings the civilians of Patna might have earned undying ignominy by abandoning him to destruction.

Mrs Hastings joined her husband at Benares in October. On the 8th of that month Captain Sands writes that she is well and in high spirits. He has had the honour of attending her out an airing before breakfast, when she looked better than he had seen her for many months. They were to set out the next day for Patna, where they expected to receive Hastings' leave to go on to Benares. The voyage was likely to be tedious, as the river was low and the winds generally from the west, but no danger was to be anticipated, as they would obtain an increased escort at Patna from Colonel Ahmuty. The move was delayed for some reason, for when he writes again on the 16th, they are only two coss above Bar, which was between Bhagalpur and Patna. Poor Sands, with many apologies, confesses that his wife wants him at Calcutta, as she is expecting her first confinement, and he has promised to be with her. Mrs Hastings urges him to start at once, but he will not go until Hastings can send another gentleman to take his place. That done, he will travel across country with the dak-bearers from Buxar. The permission was duly given, and Hastings stood godfather to the baby when it was born. Mrs Sands and her little boy went home in a Danish ship immediately after Mrs Hastings had sailed, but her husband waited to accompany his patron. The family settled in Scotland, where David Anderson mentions them frequently as living near him. In 1802 he says that Mrs Sands looks as young as when she was in India. Sands must have died before 1800, as 1 See infra, p. 183.

at the beginning of that year Hastings and Toone are trying to obtain a pension for Mrs Sands either from Lord Clive's Fund or direct from the Company. The latter was almost hopeless, owing to "the extraordinary exertion of interest" required. Mrs Sands and her son were frequent visitors at Daylesford. In 1807 Warren Hastings Sands writes from Edinburgh to say that his mother is dead, "blessing Mr and Mrs Hastings almost with her last breath."

Mrs Hastings reached Benares safely under her new guardianship, accompanied her husband on a peaceful visit to Chanar, and turned back to Calcutta with him early in 1782.

SERIES III.

INTRODUCTION.

INDIA IN 1784.

THE two years between the settlement of Benares at the close of 1781 and Mrs Hastings' departure for England in January, 1784, were a period of apparently Sisyphean labour on the part of the Governor-General. Each success gained seemed to be neutralised by a corresponding check. "Our arms in the Carnatic have been repeatedly successful," he writes. "No decisive advantages have been gained, and we lose men by every victory."1 Haidar had been defeated by Coote in four pitched battles, but it was impossible to profit by these successes. His army too small to allow him to hold a line of any extent, operating in a country which had already been desolated by Haidar, able only to carry two days' provisions owing to lack of transport, assailed by floods, hardship, and disease to say nothing of the vigilant and ubiquitous enemy - Coote's Carnatic campaign is one of the most astonishing in military history. The hapless inhabitants of Madras saw in him their only hope, and in answer to their earnest petition, he retained his command after a second paralytic stroke, and contrived once more to inspire his troops to fresh

1 Hastings to Scott, Gleig, II. 450.

efforts. Hastings supported him ungrudgingly, pouring provisions, troops, and treasure into the country in spite of his own difficulties in Bengal, and overlooking Coote's unjust and violent letters, and his shameful treatment of Colonel Pearse and other officers who owed their appointments to the Governor-General. The old hero's temper, never sweet, had not improved with age and ill-success, and he failed to obtain from the Madras Government the consideration extended to him by Hastings.

Lord Macartney, who was sent out from home as Governor, made common cause with a Council that resented bitterly his appointment as that of an outsider, in opposing Coote as the representative of Bengal. That he had come to the help of the Presidency in its darkest hour was nothing. He represented what they called "an external government," the authority of which they preferred to deny. When they sent their frantic letters for help against Haidar, it was money and reinforcements. they desired, not a general who would take command of their forces. The General in the field was hampered at every turn by the dead weight of Madras. If the Committee could not assert the authority over him which they strenuously claimed, they could at least refrain from any active exertions in his support, and they did so. How unfit they were for the power they desired was shown at the end of 1782, when Coote had been forced to take a short furlough to Calcutta for the sake of his health. Haidar died while his intended successor, Tipu, was absent in Malabar, and the news, though concealed from the Mysorean army, reached the English. It was the moment when an attack might have been pushed home with the happiest results, but General Stewart, the Madras Commander-in-Chief, refused to believe the tale, or to advance, and amid the mutual recriminations that followed, Tipu returned to the army and made his posi tion safe. Coote, returning from Bengal with a fresh supply of treasure, was chased by a French squadron,

and though the pursuit was relinquished, his agony of mind brought on a third paralytic stroke, and he reached Madras only to die, Lord Macartney and the Committee attacking him even on his death-bed with insulting letters.

It is instructive to note that had he lived to return to England, Coote would have been included in the proceedings taken against Hastings. "What would poor Coote have suffered," writes the survivor, "had he lived to have been placed where I have been? The first three days would have killed him."1 The extra allowances which had been granted him were withdrawn by the order of the Directors, and he found himself obliged to maintain three establishments and keep the field in the Carnatic upon less than half the sum enjoyed by his subordinate, General Stibbert, as Commander-in-Chief in Bengal.2 Almost desperate, he hit upon the plan of asking the Nawab-Vizier, who had provided the additional allowances he had hitherto enjoyed, to continue them, and this was done. It was one of the charges against Hastings that he had allowed it,3 and had Coote lived, he must in consistency have been included in the accusation. Since, however, he was dead, felix opportunitate mortis, the Directors proceeded to build his sepulchre in the approved style by voting him a monument in Westminster Abbey and a statue at the India House.

Having got rid of their incubus, the Madras Government were free to devote themselves to the acquisition of peace at any price, and by the end of 1783 commissioners had been appointed, who followed Tipu from place to place, exposed to all the alarms and hardships his caprice could suggest, until by concessions, entreaties, and the practical surrender of such slight advantages as had been 1 From an interesting letter to Thompson, dated July 17th, 1788, in the possession of Lord St Oswald, edited by the late Librarian of the House of Lords, in Harper's Magazine' for December, 1904.

2 Debates. The respective sums were £6000 and £13,000.

3 See Appendix IV.