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CHAPTER IV.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER, 1784.

LETTER XXVI.

WHELER had been ill during the greater part of Hastings' absence from Calcutta. Hay writes on April 30th to say that "Mr Wheler's complaint is at the liver," that he is in less pain, but very low, and that he is going on the river for his health. In May he is absent from Council, "indisposed,"1 but June 8th finds him again in his place, and Hastings, in his letters, twice expresses his belief that "Mrs Wheler's great care and attention proved very instrumental to his recovery." He is at Council on October 8th, and must have left immediately afterwards for Suksagar, where he broke a blood-vessel and died on the 10th. He was buried the next day. McPherson, who was one of the party, writes to give Hastings the details, which he is sure will wake "that genuine Sensibility of Sorrow to which your Breast is so naturally open." "Poor Mrs Wheler," he says, "has acted in the whole of this trying scene with an affection and attention to excite admiration. She is locked up in her room near me-the Children are playing as usual in the opposite Room; and there is not a dry Eye in (the) Place, where we were but yesterday all so chearful and in hopes that Mr Wheler was recovering." Mrs Wheler and her children sailed for home in the Valentine in the first week of 1785.

1 State Papers.
Y

FURRUKHABAD was the capital of a Rohilla chieftain, Musafir Jang, who escaped the fate of his colleagues in 1773 by agreeing to hold his territory in future as a fief of Oudh. The post of Resident at his durbar appears to have been by no means a bed of roses. After an interregnum of two or three years it was given to a son of Mr Justice Willes, who writes in 1784 to thank Hastings for the favour. Very shortly, however, the younger Willes and the Nawab and his councillors are at variance. Willes charges them with mismanagement of the state, and they him with interfering in matters. which do not concern him, and obstructing the operations of government. Hastings decides that both are in the wrong, Musafir Jang for neglecting his duty, and Willes for taking too extended a view of his.

MRS POWNEY was an old Madras friend of Mr and Mrs. Hastings. In 1772 she sent him "three small Frasils of Coffee," in return for a present he had made her on leaving for Bengal, and in 1776 she recommends to his notice the Bishop of St Thomé (Meilapur or Meliapore, the old Portuguese settlement close to Madras, now called St Thomas's Mount), whose duty and service obliges him to go to Bengal. She died in 1795, leaving two sons settled in India and two at home, in whose careers Hastings interested himself. Of her two daughters, one was a Mrs Amherst, and the other married first one of the Vansittarts, by whom she had a son (Henry), and a daughter, and secondly, in 1791, George Nesbitt Thompson. They had a large family, and with the exception of pecuniary troubles, all seemed to go well with them, until, after twenty-three years of married life, a breach occurred, which Hastings tried in vain. to compose.

The MANJEE (manjhi) was the master or steersman of a vessel.

The BARRINGTON or BERRINGTON (the two spellings 2 See infra, p. 437

Malleson.

are used indifferently) had left Madras for Calcutta on June 25th. She was a notably fast ship, doing the return voyage in 1786 in three months and twenty-three days from the Thames to Madras. In 1777, when Hastings was believed to be on the point of returning home, the Correspondence shows an amusing amount of competition among captains of Indiamen and men-ofwar for the honour-and profit-of conveying him, and Captain Johnson of the Berrington now found it impossible to keep secret the Governor-General's intention of sailing with him. It is noteworthy that Hastings was obliged to pay his own passage. "I never," he writes to Thompson in 1808,1 "received from the Company, or from the nation (the nation!) any allowance of money for my own passage, or that of my fellow-passengers from Bengal to England."

The THREE who met in Council on November 11th were Hastings, McPherson, and the Secretary, Hay.2 On November 1st McPherson sat in Council alone. Stables was "absent on the river for the benefit of his health," but had returned by November 28th.

(Gleig, III. pp. 211-215.)

CALCUTTA. 14th November, 1784.

MY DEAREST MARIAN,-I despatched my last number on the 20th October from Benares to Mr Boddam to be forwarded by land with public advices of the death of Mr Wheler. This event determined me to quicken my return to Calcutta. Having accordingly crowded into two days the business which I had before allotted to ten, I took my leave of the Prince on the 21st, and began my departure the next morning at four o'clock; and thus ended the "Chapter of Benares." The Prince had before fixed on the 29th for beginning his march 2 State Papers.

1 Gleig, III. 394.

to Furrukhabad, there to treat for his return on terms of honour and safety to his father's court. I have given him the attendance of my own body-guard,' and provided for the additional retinue of five battalions of the Nabob Vizier's sepoys; besides employing what personal influence I possessed to promote his success. My feelcherra carried me that night to Buxar, where I slept, and proceeded (to the great regret of Major 2 Eaton) the next morning, the 23rd. At eight that evening I arrived at Patna, halted one day, and returned to my boat after supper. At half-past ten the following night I reached Baugulpoor, where I found Mr and Mrs Chapman, with a host of friends; your good friend, Mrs Powney, among the foremost, standing on the ghaut, and almost in the water, to receive me. I must not omit Miss Touchet. Here I waited two days for Dr Balfour, who had insisted on accompanying me to Calcutta, and had promised to join me at Patna, but missed me. On the 27th, after supper, I took my leave of my two excellent friends, and departed. (Mrs Chapman is, in your sense of the word, very happy.) At twelve we passed the dreadful rocks of Cohlgong, and as the moon was full, and shone very bright, I ordered the manjee to steer between them and the shore, expecting to find some remains of the memor able vortex of 1782; but my virtue was not worth the trial; my curiosity only was gratified by a clear display of the cause of the eddy, which was a nulla tumbling down in the month of August with a flood from the hills, and meeting the stream of the river

1 That is, the cavalry troop commanded by Frith.

Gleig reads Mr, but "Mr." is one of Hastings' contractions for Major.

rendered more rapid by the obstruction of the rocks. The nulla was now dry, and only showed a hollow, like a notch, in the bank. But I must abridge my journey. I arrived at Rangametty on the 29th, at sunrise, stayed there a day and a half with Sir John and Lady D'Oyley, and by making a small journey from Dowdpoor to near Nuddea by land, got to Sooksaugur at noon on the 31st. The Begum1 sent me more than one message expressive of her disappointment at my passing the city, as she had prepared an elegant display of your couches and chairs for my entertainment. These are since arrived, with a letter for you, recommended most earnestly to my care. There are two couches, eight chairs, and two footstools, all of the former patterns, most delicately formed, and more to my taste than the others; not designed for fat folks, nor romps; nor proper for you my elegant Marian, to use in the presence of your husband. I had originally determined to make Sooksaugur the termination of my journey, and Mr Stables's absence, whom I had left at Rangametty-not so rapid a traveller as Mr and Mrs Hastings, rendered my speedier return to Calcutta every way unnecessary. Here I received letters from Major Scott, dated the 15th May, followed by an overland packet, without a letter from him; it was not his fault; but with one from the Court of Directors, dated the 15th June, as unpleasing as any that I ever received. from that body in the time of General Clavering. Scott will tell you its purport, and my conduct regarding it.

1 Munny Begum.

2 Sir C. Lawson mentions that some of this ivory furniture is now in the possession of the Maharajah of Darbhanga.