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CHAPTER I.

JULY TO SEPTEMBER, 1780.

LETTER I.

ON July 8th, as we learn from the Bengal Gazette,' Mr and Mrs Hastings left Calcutta for a trip to Suksagar, paying a visit to Chinsura on their way. Hastings was in Calcutta again for the meeting of Council on the 13th, but his wife remained behind. When this letter was written, he was planning to meet her off Chinsura on her way down from Suksagar. She would have seen her friends at the Dutch factory again, but in the critical state of public affairs he did not care to expose himself to their questions.

A FFELCHEHRA (fil-chehra, elephant faced), was a state pleasure-boat, or more accurately, a small house-boat. Dr Busteed says it received its name from being dec orated with an elephant head at the prow. It seems to have been smaller and faster than the budgerow, and less fitted for heavy weather.

MRS MOTTE was before her marriage Miss Mary Touchet, and was sister of the Peter Touchet who united with Hastings and other old Westminsters in presenting a silver cup to Westminster School in 1777. In 1779 she was married to Mr Motte, a merchant who is first mentioned in Hancock's letters as trading in diamonds at Benares in 1770. They lived at Hugli, 1 State Papers. * Yule and Burnell, “Hobson Jobson, “*

where Mr and Mrs Hastings often visited them. Mrs Fay mentions Mrs Motte as "a most charming woman." We shall hear of her frequently in the letters that follow.

The Hon. JOHANNES MATTHIAS Ross was the head of the Dutch factory at Chinsura. He and his wife were warm friends of Mr and Mrs Hastings, who paid them frequent visits, as Chinsura was considered much healthier than Calcutta. Their constant intercourse caused Mr Ross to be suspected by his countrymen of an undue attachment to the English, but this was unjust. On the outbreak of war with Holland in July, 1781, orders were given to seize the Dutch ships and factories in the East Indies. To spare Mr Ross's feelings, it was specially arranged that an overwhelming force should march upon Chinsura, and demand his surrender, but owing to a mistake, only a lieutenant and fourteen men were sent. Deeply affronted, Mr Ross retired into the factory, drew up his bridges, and refused to yield to anything less than a regiment of Sepoys, which was accordingly despatched from Chandernagor, then in the hands of the English.1 An advertisement in the 'Bengal Gazette' announces that Mr Ross's effects are to be sold at Chinsura on December 3rd, and the 'India Gazette' a little later mentions that he has disposed of them by private sale, without holding an outcry, or auction. This was evidently in preparation for a return to Europe. In 1795, a former employé at the factory, writing to Hastings, says that Mrs Ross died about a year after reaching home, and that Mr Ross married again, but died shortly afterwards at Brussels.

MRS VERNETT (Vernet), was the widow of a former Governor of Chinsura. George Louis Vernet, who belonged to a noble French family, and began life as page to Louis XV., went to Bengal in the Dutch service in 1750. At the time of the destruction of Calcutta by Siraj-u-Daula, he was second in command at the Cal

1 'India Gazette.'

capore factory, and showed great kindness to the English fugitives from Kasimbazar, of whom Hastings was one. This seems to have been the beginning of their friendship. Vernet became Governor of Chinsura in 1764, and lived there "with great hospitality and in very elegant style" till 1770, when he went to Batavia, and died there in 1775. His widow returned to live at Chinsura, and Mrs Hastings brought about a marriage between her daughter and Lady Day's brother, Henry Ramus, rather to the displeasure, so Francis says, of Sir John Day. Vernet's elegant hospitality had evidently left his widow in reduced circumstances, for when Hastings quitted India she figures on his private. 'pension-list" as the recipient of two hundred rupees a month. There are one or two letters from her, full of affection for him and "the dear Mrs Hastings." Chapman, whose duty it was to pay her the pension, writes of her as "Poor good Mama Vernet." This is in 1793, when he sends the news of her death, which had already been announced to Hastings by her sister, Mme. Fromaget.

(27.)

CALCUTTA, Sunday Morning. (July 16th.)

MY DEAREST MARIAN,-I write this purposely to tell you that I have resolved to meet you to-morrow unless you arrive before the Time which I have fixed for my Embarkation. My Plan is to set off in my Feelchehra at two o'clock in the Afternoon, which will be about the Beginning of the Flood Tide, and of course the Time that you will be at Anchor.-I shall carry my Dinner with me, and feel great Pleasure in the Project.

1 Ecclesiastical and Historical Sketches, by Asiaticus' (supposed to be Major Scott Waring), Calcutta, 1803.

* Parkes and Merivale, Memoirs of Sir P. Francis.'

I hope you will not disappoint me; for I shall not chuse to land at Chinchura for many Reasons.

I will not quarrel with Mrs Motte, but I will certainly turn her out of her Place. Adieu, my beloved.

Yours ever,

W. H.

Compliments to Mr Ross, Mrs Motte, and Mrs Vernett.

I will write to Mr Ross.

Remember me particularly to Mrs Vernett.

LETTER II.

The date of this letter is fixed by the announcement in the 'Bengal Gazette' of July 1st of the arrival of the Duke of Kingston, Captain Justinian Nutt. The three boxes for Mrs Hastings were sent her by Mrs Woodman, and contained "things from the Milliners and Mercers," according to Mr Woodman. Important packages of this nature did not always reach her safely, for towards the end of this year Mr Woodman deplores the capture by the Spanish fleet of the Royal George Indiaman, which carried, among other things, "a very elegant dress" for her.

The "most elegant chariot" had evidently attracted Mrs Hastings' attention in the following quaint advertisement, which appeared in the 'Bengal Gazette' of July 16th:

"JUST IMPORTED.

"A very Elegant Crane Neck Coach made entirely in the present taste, with a genteel Rutland Rooff. The pannels painted a pleasing Laylock (lilac) colour, with a handsome Gold Sprig Mosaic. Lined with a supperfine Cloth, and trimmed with the best Cufoy Lace. Ten best polish'd Plate Glass's Ornamented with four elegant Oval Medallions, enriched with mother of

Pearl. Six Setts of Harness and Bridels mounted with Tootinague, Bitts and Curbs plated.

"Also a very elegant Charriot of the newest Fashion, painted Devonshire Brown with a rich Gold Spangled Border, and Ornamented with Flowers very highly finished Venetian Blinds all round and lined with Supperfine light colour'd Cloth, the Carriage Crane Necked and the Harness all plated with Silver.

"For further particulars enquire of Mr Oliphant, Coach Maker."

Hastings' comment shows that the ways of advertisers were much the same in those days as in ours.

DR ROWLAND JACKSON was the leading Calcutta physician. From an obituary notice of him in the 'India Gazette' of March 29th, 1784, we learn that he had studied medicine and natural science at most of the European universities-at Paris he was the friend of Marmontel and other eminent persons-and practised for a time in the West Indies. Succeeding to an Irish estate, he made himself much beloved by treating the poor gratuitously, but was ousted by a law-suit in favour of a nearer heir. When he applied to the Company for leave to go to India, the doctor who examined him as to his qualifications said that their respective positions ought to have been reversed. Laurence Sulivan recommends him to Hastings in a letter dated November 15th, 1777, as one who has fallen from a state of affluence through no fault of his own, and though universally esteemed, is reduced late in life to the disagreeable necessity of a residence in Bengal. The obituary dwells on his lofty spirit and impatience of patronage, his mild and dignified manners, and his appreciation of art. He must have offered a pleasing contrast to the young assistant-surgeons to whose tender mercies Calcutta was largely delivered over, "numbers of whom are well known, in this service," writes Colonel Ironside,

1 A white metal of the nature of zinc. (Yule and Burnell.)

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