are not of common use the precise meaning that belongs to them." There is a great charm in these piecemeal letters, which are nearly always begun by Hastings, his wife, if she has no more to say, taking the pen just at the close to inform her son of her affection for him and his "sweet Charlotte," and of the health of "my excellent husband . . . our valuable friend . . . our inestimable Mr Hastings."

It remains only to speak of the letters from Hastings to his wife which form the raison d'être of this book. Bound together in a thin quarto volume, they fall into three series, dated respectively 1780, 1781, and 1784-5, and these have been treated separately in the following pages. The paper is thick and gilt-edged, and the ink retains its colour well-in marked contrast to many of the papers in the Miscellaneous Correspondence. The writing varies very much, as is only natural, since some of the letters are hasty notes, and others were written bit by bit, extending over days or even weeks, but it always indicates hurry and pressure of work, in contradistinction to the beautiful, leisurely, regular hand of Hastings' old age. Scarcely a word is illegible, however, and the mistakes and corrections are very few. One peculiarity, which has led a former transcriber into error, is the small e shaped like o, which is of constant occurrence, and appears also in the writing of other old Westminsters, thus suggesting that it was due to a writing - master employed at the School. The spelling has been left as it appears in the originals, but the frequent contractions are disregarded, save in one short letter,1 which has been printed as it stands in the MS., merely as an example.

These letters, together with the immense mass of other papers in the collection, were purchased by the Museum in 1872 from the representatives of the late Rev. Thomas Winter, Rector of Daylesford, who had married a niece 1 Letter VIII. of Series III.

of Mrs Hastings,' and to whom they were bequeathed by Sir Charles Imhoff on his death in 1853. It is difficult to imagine that the Letters can have been intentionally included in the sale, as Miss Winter, who has kindly given all the information in her power, says that "the more private letters, &c., were reserved." It is clear that they were not among the papers entrusted to Gleig for the purposes of the Biography, for (1) they are not included in the list, filling six or seven foolscap pages, which is to be found in one of the volumes of miscellaneous memoranda, and (2) he makes no quotation from them whatever. In his third volume he does, indeed, give one or two of Hastings' letters to his wife after her departure, but these are not to be found in the Museum collection, though they fill up some of the gaps in Series III., and he complains of their fragmentary and inconsecutive nature. They are introduced here in their proper place, distinguished by special marks, and are given with all reserve, since there has been no opportunity of comparing them with the originals. Miss Winter is unable to throw any light upon the separation of these letters from the rest, or upon the sale of the larger number to the Museum. She understands that the papers sent to Gleig in perfect order (as is attested by the very complete and carefully numbered list), were kept by him for a preposterous length of time, and after repeated requests on the part of the family, were returned in a chaotic condition in a barrel! It would appear, therefore, either that the Letters were intentionally reserved by Mrs Hastings when she placed the bulk of her husband's papers at Gleig's disposal, or that they had even then been mislaid. In either case, when found after her death, their nature not being perceived, they would be placed with the rest of the papers, the immense mass of which must have baffled all ordinary research, and would only come to light when these were being 1 See Appendix III.

arranged and catalogued for the Museum. Attention was first called to them by Mr Beveridge in the 'Calcutta Review' in 1877, and Dr Busteed has printed portions of them in his Echoes from Old Calcutta,' but they have never hitherto been published in extenso. In conclusion, an apology must be offered to the distinguished editor of the 'Letters of Dorothy Osborne' for what is, after all, only very sincere flattery. The present writer has endeavoured to follow his method throughout, confining the editorial comment to the beginning of each letter, and breaking the course of the text as little as possible by footnotes. To carry the method further, the text and the comment are printed in differing types, so that the letters can be read continuously if this is preferred.

SERIES I.

INTRODUCTION.

INDIA IN 1780.

In order to realise the state of public affairs at the time this series of letters was written, it is well to study it with the aid of a map-a large map. In Bengal alone did the Company possess a homogeneous dominion, as distinct from a fringe of coast-towns, each controlling more or less thoroughly the district round it. Bengal and Behar, secured by the grant of the Emperor Shah Alam to Clive, and no longer even nominally ruled by the shadowy Nawab at Murshidabad, served as the base of a British wedge driven into the heart of Northern India. The Karamnasa, which flows into the Ganges above Buxar, was the limit of the Company's territory, but by virtue of the agreement with the Nawab-Vizier of Oudh, their troops occupied posts at Chanar, Mirzapur, Cawnpore, Fatihgarh, and even as far as Hardwar. Along the whole length of this extended frontier the enemy to be feared was the Marathas, in whose hands Shah Alam was a puppet at Delhi, and whose power extended from Poonah to the Jamna, and from Gujarat to Cuttack. The nominal head of their confederacy was the Paishwa-at this time the guardians 1 Orissa was still dominated by the Eerar Marathas.

of the infant Paishwa-at Poonah, but the great chieftains, Sindhia, Holkar, and the representative of the Bhonsla family of Berar, had practically achieved independence. The Berar territories, extending to Cuttack, separated Bengal from Madras, and between Bengal and Bombay lay not only the Marathas, but the dominions of Nizam Ali, "Soubah of the Deccan," reputed the most subtle politician in India since the death of Maharaja Nundocomar.1 Madras, in like manner, was separated from Bombay by a part of the Maratha dominions and the state of Mysore, over which ruled Haidar Ali, called in derision the Naik. Once it is recognised that the English were isolated in three enclaves on different parts of the coast, with no communication except by sea, the respective policies of Hastings and of the native powers with their French advisers become clear. His aim was to split up the forces opposed to him by means of alliances-with the smaller Central Indian states against the Marathas, with one section of the Marathas against another, or with Haidar against all of them 2-and to promote intercourse by land between the various British possessions, while theirs, as obviously, was to keep these isolated, and then combine to crush them in detail. It was in the fertile brain of Nizam Ali that the plan originated of a great Quadruple Alliance, under which he himself was to invade the Northern Circars, Haidar the Carnatic, and Mudaji Bhonsla of Berar Bengal, while the Marathas continued the war which was already raging on the Bombay side.

In his diplomacy Hastings met with no assistance from his subordinates in the other Presidencies. The Bombay Committee, alternately appealing for help and direction. from Bengal, and launching out wildly on its own responsibility, could only be depended upon to do at every crisis exactly the thing that should not have been done, and the

1 'Memoirs of the War in Asia.' By an Officer.

2 G. F. Grand's 'Reminiscences.'