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Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1




About this time arrived the news that, after a suit which had
lasted several years, the Franconian courts had decreed a divorce
between Imhoff and his wife. The Baron left Calcutta, carrying
with him the means of buying an estate in Saxony. The lady became
Mrs. Hastings. The event was celebrated by great festivities; and
all the most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, without distinction
of parties, were invited to the Government-house. Clavering, as
the Mahommedan chronicler tells the story, was sick in mind and
body, and excused himself from joining the splendid assembly. But
Hastings, whom, as it should seem, success in ambition and in
love had put into high good-humour, would take no denial. He went
himself to the General's house, and at length brought his
vanquished rival in triumph to the gay circle which surrounded
the bride. The exertion was too much for a frame broken by
mortification as well as by disease. Clavering died a few days
later.

Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor-General, and was
forced to content himself with a seat at the council-board,
generally voted with Francis. But the Governor-General, with
Barwell's help and his own casting vote, was still the master.
Some change took place at this time in the feeling both of the
Court of Directors and of the Ministers of the Crown. All designs
against Hastings were dropped; and, when his original term of
five years expired, he was quietly reappointed. The truth is,
that the fearful dangers to which the public interests in every
quarter were now exposed, made both Lord North and the Company
unwilling to part with a Governor whose talents, experience, and
resolution, enmity itself was compelled to acknowledge.

The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and victorious
empire, on the throne of which George the Third had taken his
seat eighteen years before, with brighter hopes than had attended
the accession of any of the long line of English sovereigns, had,
by the most senseless misgovernment, been brought to the verge of
ruin. In America millions of Englishmen were at war with the
country from which their blood, their language, their religion,
and their institutions were derived, and to which, but a short
time before, they had been as strongly attached as the
inhabitants of Norfolk and Leicestershire. The great powers of
Europe, humbled to the dust by the vigour and genius which had
guided the councils of George the Second, now rejoiced in the
prospect of a signal revenge. The time was approaching when our
island, while struggling to keep down the United States of
America, and pressed with a still nearer danger by the too just
discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, Spain, and
Holland, and to be threatened by the armed neutrality of the
Baltic; when even our maritime supremacy was to be in jeopardy;
when hostile fleets were to command the Straits of Calpe and the
Mexican Sea; when the British flag was to be scarcely able to
protect the British Channel. Great as were the faults of
Hastings, it was happy for our country that at that conjuncture,
the most terrible through which she has ever passed, he was the
ruler of her Indian dominions.

An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be apprehended. The
danger was that the European enemies of England might form an
alliance with some native power, might furnish that power with
troops, arms, and ammunition, and might thus assail our
possessions on the side of the land. It was chiefly from the
Mahrattas that Hastings anticipated danger. The original seat of
that singular people was the wild range of hills which runs along
the western coast of India. In the reign of Aurungzebe the
inhabitants of those regions, led by the great Sevajee, began to
descend on the possessions of their wealthier and less warlike
neighbours. The energy, ferocity, and cunning of the Mahrattas,
soon made them the most conspicuous among the new powers which
were generated by the corruption of the decaying monarchy. At
first they were only robbers. They soon rose to the dignity of
conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire were turned into
Mahratta principalities, Freebooters, sprung from low castes, and
accustomed to menial employments, became mighty Rajahs. The
Bonslas, at the head of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast
region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the
Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat. The
houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One
adventurous captain made his nest on the impregnable rock of
Gooti. Another became the lord of the thousand villages which are
scattered among the green rice-fields of Tanjore.

That was the time throughout India of double government. The form
and the power were everywhere separated. The Mussulman nabobs who
had become sovereign princes, the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam
at Hyderabad, still called themselves the viceroys of the House
of Tamerlane. In the same manner the Mahratta states, though
really independent of each other, pretended to be members of one
empire. They all acknowledged, by words and ceremonies, the
supremacy of the heir of Sevajee, a roi faineant who chewed bang
and toyed with dancing girls in a state prison at Sattara, and of
his Peshwa or mayor of the palace, a great hereditary magistrate,
who kept a court with kingly state at Poonah, and whose authority
was obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurungabad and Bejapoor.

Some months before wax was declared in Europe the Government of
Bengal was alarmed by the news that a French adventurer, who
passed for a man of quality, had arrived at Poonah. It was said
that he had been received there with great distinction, that he
had delivered to the Peshwa letters and presents from Louis the
Sixteenth, and that a treaty, hostile to England, had been
concluded between France and the Mahrattas.

Hastings immediately resolved to strike the first blow. The title
of the Peshwa was not undisputed. A portion of the Mahratta
nation was favourable to a pretender. The Governor General
determined to espouse this pretender's interest, to move an army
across the peninsula of India, and to form a close alliance with
the chief of the house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, and who, in
power and dignity, was inferior to none of the Mahratta princes.

The army had marched, and the negotiations with Berar were in
progress, when a letter from the English consul at Cairo brought
the news that war had been proclaimed both in London and Paris.
All the measures which the crisis required were adopted by
Hastings without a moment's delay. The French factories in Bengal
were seized. Orders were sent to Madras that Pondicherry should
instantly be occupied. Near Calcutta works were thrown up which
were thought to render the approach of a hostile force
impossible. A maritime establishment was formed for the defence
of the river. Nine new battalions of sepoys were raised, and a
corps of native artillery was formed out of the hardy Lascars of
the Bay of Bengal. Having made these arrangements, the Governor-
General, with calm confidence, pronounced his presidency secure
from all attack, unless the Mahrattas should march against it in
conjunction with the French.

The expedition which Hastings had sent westward was not so
speedily or completely successful as most of his undertakings.
The commanding officer procrastinated. The authorities at Bombay
blundered. But the Governor-General persevered. A new commander
repaired the errors of his predecessor. Several brilliant actions
spread the military renown of the English through regions where
no European flag had ever been seen. It is probable that, if a
new and more formidable danger had not compelled Hastings to
change his whole policy, his plans respecting the Mahratta empire
would have been carried into complete effect.

The authorities in England had wisely sent out to Bengal, as
commander of the forces and member of the Council, one of the
most distinguished soldiers of that time. Sir Eyre Coote had,
many years before, been conspicuous among the founders of the
British empire in the East. At the council of war which preceded
the battle of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in opposition to
the majority, that daring course which, after some hesitation,
was adopted, and which was crowned with such splendid success. He
subsequently commanded in the south of India against the brave
and unfortunate Lally, gained the decisive battle of Wandewash
over the French and their native allies, took Pondicherry, and
made the English power supreme in the Carnatic. Since those great
exploits near twenty years had elapsed. Coote had no longer the
bodily activity which he had shown in earlier days; nor was the
vigour of his mind altogether unimpaired. He was capricious and
fretful, and required much coaxing to keep him in good humour. It
must, we fear, be added that the love of money had grown upon
him, and that he thought more about his allowances, and less
about his duties, than might have been expected from so eminent a
member of so noble a profession. Still he was perhaps the ablest
officer that was then to be found in the British army. Among the
native soldiers his name was great and his influence unrivalled.
Nor is he yet forgotten by them. Now and then a white-bearded old
sepoy may still be found who loves to talk of Porto Novo and
Pollilore. It is but a short time since one of those aged men
came to present a memorial to an English officer, who holds one
of the highest employments in India. A print of Coote hung in the
room. The veteran recognised at once that face and figure which
he had not seen for more than half a century, and, forgetting his
salaam to the living, halted, drew himself up lifted his hand,
and with solemn reverence paid his military obeisance to the
dead.

Coote, though he did not, like Barwell, vote constantly with the
Governor-General, was by no means inclined to join in systematic
opposition, and on most questions concurred with Hastings, who
did his best, by assiduous courtship, and by readily granting the
most exorbitant allowances, to gratify the strongest passions of
the old soldier.

It seemed likely at this time that a general reconciliation would
put an end to the quarrels which had, during some years, weakened
and disgraced the Government of Bengal. The dangers of the empire
might well induce men of patriotic feeling--and of patriotic
feeling neither Hastings nor Francis was destitute--to forget
private enmities, and to co-operate heartily for the general
good. Coote had never been concerned in faction. Wheler was
thoroughly tired of it. Barwell had made an ample fortune, and,
though he had promised that he would not leave Calcutta while his
help was needed in Council, was most desirous to return to
England, and exerted himself to promote an arrangement which
would set him at liberty.

A compact was made, by which Francis agreed to desist from
opposition, and Hastings engaged that the friends of Francis
should be admitted to a fair share of the honours and emoluments
of the service. During a few months after this treaty there was
apparent harmony at the council-board.

Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary: for at this moment
internal calamities, more formidable than war itself menaced
Bengal. The authors of the Regulating Act Of 1773 had established
two independent powers, the one judicial, and the other
political; and, with a carelessness scandalously common in
English legislation, had omitted to define the limits of either.
The judges took advantage of the indistinctness, and attempted to
draw to themselves supreme authority, not only within Calcutta.
but through the whole of the great territory subject to the
Presidency of Fort William. There are few Englishmen who will not
admit that the English law, in spite of modern improvements, is
neither so cheap nor so speedy as might be wished. Still, it is a
system which has grown up among us. In some points it has been
fashioned to suit our feelings; in others, it has gradually
fashioned our feelings to suit itself. Even to its worst evils we
are accustomed; and therefore, though we may complain of them,
they do not strike us with the horror and dismay which would be
produced by a new grievance of smaller severity. In India the
case is widely different. English law, transplanted to that
country, has all the vices from which we suffer here; it has them
all in a far higher degree; and it has other vices, compared
with which the worst vices from which we suffer are trifles.
Dilatory here, it is far more dilatory in a land where the help
of an interpreter is needed by every judge and by every advocate.
Costly here, it is far more costly in a land into which the legal
practitioners must be imported from an immense distance. All
English labour in India, from the labour of the Governor-General
and the Commander-in-Chief, down to that of a groom or a
watchmaker, must be paid for at a higher rate than at home. No
man will be banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for
nothing. The rule holds good with respect to the legal
profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen thousand
miles from all his friends, with the thermometer at ninety-six in
the shade, for the emoluments which will content him in chambers
that overlook the Thames. Accordingly, the fees at Calcutta are
about three times as great as the fees of Westminster Hall; and
this, though the people of India are, beyond all comparison,
poorer than the people of England. Yet the delay and the expense,
grievous as they are, form the smallest part of the evil which
English law, imported without modifications into India, could not
fail to produce. The strongest feelings of our nature, honour,
religion, female modesty, rose up against the innovation. Arrest
on mesne process was the first step in most civil proceedings;
and to a native of rank arrest was not merely a restraint, but a
foul personal indignity. Oaths were required in every stage of
every suit; and the feeling of a quaker about an oath is hardly
stronger than that of a respectable native. That the apartments
of a woman of quality should be entered by strange men, or that
her face should be seen by them, are, in the East, intolerable
outrages, outrages which are more dreaded than death, and which
can be expiated only by the shedding of blood. To these outrages
the most distinguished families of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa were
now exposed. Imagine what the state of our own country would be,
if a jurisprudence were on a sudden introduced among us, which
should be to us what our jurisprudence was to our Asiatic
subjects. Imagine what the state of our country would be, if it
were enacted that any man, by merely swearing that a debt was due
to him, should acquire a right to insult the persons of men of
the most honourable and sacred callings and of women of the most
shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general officer, to put a
bishop in the stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called
forth the blow of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the effect
of the attempt which the Supreme Court made to extend its
jurisdiction over the whole of the Company's territory.

A reign of terror began, of terror heightened by mystery for even
that which was endured was less horrible than that which was
anticipated. No man knew what was next to be expected from this
strange tribunal. It came from beyond the black water, as the
people of India, with mysterious horror, call the sea. It
consisted of judges not one of whom was familiar with the usages
of the millions over whom they claimed boundless authority. Its
records were kept in unknown characters; its sentences were
pronounced in unknown sounds. It had already collected round
itself an army of the worst part the native population,
informers, and false witnesses, and common barrators, and agents
of chicane, and above all, a banditti of bailiffs followers,
compared with whom the retainers of the worst English sponging-
houses, in the worst times, might be considered as upright and
tender-hearted. Many natives, highly considered among their
countrymen, were seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the
common gaol, not for any crime even imputed, not for any debt
that had been proved, but merely as a precaution till their cause
should come to trial There were instances in which men of the
most venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause by
extortioners, died of rage and shame in the gripe of the vile
alguazils of Impey. The harems of noble Mahommedans, sanctuaries
respected in the East by governments which respected nothing else,
were burst open by gangs of bailiffs. The Mussulmans, braver and
less accustomed to submission than the Hindoos, sometimes stood
on their defence; and there were instances in which they shed their
blood in the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the sacred
apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed as if even the
faint-hearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the feet of Surajah
Dowlah, who had been mute during the administration of Vansittart,
would at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta invasion had
ever spread through the province such dismay as this inroad of
English lawyers. All the injustice of former oppressors, Asiatic
and European, appeared as a blessing when compared with the justice
of the Supreme Court.

Every class of the population, English and native, with the
exception of the ravenous pettifoggers who fattened on the misery
and terror of an immense community, cried out loudly against this
fearful oppression. But the judges were immovable. If a bailiff
was resisted, they ordered the soldiers to be called out. If a
servant of the Company, in conformity with the orders of the
Government, withstood the miserable catchpoles who, with Impey's
writs in their hands, exceeded the insolence and rapacity of
gang-robbers, he was flung into prison for a contempt. The lapse
of sixty years, the virtue and wisdom of many eminent magistrates
who have during that time administered justice in the Supreme
Court, have not effaced from the minds of the people of Bengal
the recollection of those evil days.

The members of the Government were, on this subject, united as
one man. Hastings had courted the judges; he had found them
useful instruments; but he was not disposed to make them his own
masters, or the masters of India. His mind was large; his
knowledge of the native character most accurate. He saw that the
system pursued by the Supreme Court was degrading to the
Government and ruinous to the people; and he resolved to oppose
it manfully. The consequence was, that the friendship, if that be
the proper word for such a connection, which had existed between
him and Impey, was for a time completely dissolved. The
Government placed itself firmly between the tyrannical tribunal
and the people. The Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest
excesses. The Governor-General and all the members of Council
were served with writs, calling on them to appear before the
King's justices, and to answer for their public acts. This was
too much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused to obey the call,
set at liberty the persons wrongfully detained by the court, and
took measures for resisting the outrageous proceedings of the
sheriff's officers, if necessary, by the sword. But he had in
view another device, which might prevent the necessity of an
appeal to arms. He was seldom at a loss for an expedient; and he
knew Impey well. The expedient, in this case, was a very simple
one, neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey was, by Act of
Parliament, a judge, independent of the Government of Bengal, and
entitled to a salary of eight thousand a year. Hastings proposed
to make him also a judge in the Company's service, removable at
the pleasure of the Government of Bengal; and to give him, in
that capacity, about eight thousand a year more. It was
understood that, in consideration of this new salary, Impey would
desist from urging the high pretensions of his court. If he did
urge these pretensions, the Government could, at a moment's
notice, eject him from the new place which had been created for
him. The bargain was struck; Bengal was saved; an appeal to force
was averted; and the Chief Justice was rich, quiet and infamous.

Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It was of a piece
with almost every part of his conduct that comes under the notice
of history. No other such judge has dishonoured the English
ermine, since Jeffreys drank himself to death in the Tower. But
we cannot agree with those who have blamed Hastings for this
transaction. The case stood thus. The negligent manner in which
the Regulating Act had been framed put it in the power of the
Chief Justice to throw a great country into the most dreadful
confusion. He was determined to use his power to the utmost,
unless he was paid to be still; and Hastings consented to pay
him. The necessity was to be deplored. It is also to be deplored
that pirates should be able to exact ransom, by threatening to
make their captives walk the plank. But to ransom a captive from
pirates has always been held a humane and Christian act; and it
would be absurd to charge the payer of the ransom with corrupting
the virtue of the corsair. This, we seriously think, is a not
unfair illustration of the relative position of Impey, Hastings,
and the people of India. Whether it was right in Impey to demand
or to accept a price for powers which, if they really belonged to
him, he could not abdicate, which, if they did not belong to him,
he ought never to have usurped, and which in neither case he
could honestly sell, is one question. It is quite another
question whether Hastings was not right to give any sum, however
large, to any man, however worthless, rather than either
surrender millions of human being to pillage, or rescue them by
civil war.

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, indeed be
suspected that personal aversion to Impey was as strong motive
with Francis as regard for the welfare of the province. To a mind
burning with resentment, it might seem better to leave Bengal to
the oppressors than to redeem it by enriching them. It is not
improbable, on the other hand, that Hastings may have been the
more willing to resort to an expedient agreeable to the Chief
Justice, because that high functionary had already been so
serviceable, and might, when existing dissensions were composed,
be serviceable again.

But it was not on this point alone that Francis was now opposed
to Hastings. The peace between them proved to be only a short and
hollow truce, during which their mutual aversion was constantly
becoming stronger. At length an explosion took place. Hastings
publicly charged Francis with having deceived him, and with
having induced Barwell to quit the service by insincere promises.
Then came a dispute, such as frequently arises even between
honourable men, when they may make important agreements by mere
verbal communication. An impartial historian will probably be of
opinion that they had misunderstood each other: but their minds
were so much embittered that they imputed to each other nothing
less than deliberate villainy. "I do not," said Hastings, in a
minute recorded on the Consultations of the Government, "I do not
trust to Mr. Francis's promises of candour, convinced that he is
incapable of it. I judge of his public conduct by his private,
which I have found to be void of truth and honour." After the
Council had risen, Francis put a challenge into the Governor-
General's hand. It was instantly accepted. They met, and fired.
Francis was shot through the body. He was carried to a
neighbouring house, where it appeared that the wound, though
severe, was not mortal. Hastings inquired repeatedly after his
enemy's health, and proposed to call on him; but Francis coldly
declined the visit. He had a proper sense, he said, of the
Governor-General's politeness, but could not consent to any
private interview. They could meet only at the council-board.

In a very short time it was made signally manifest to how great a
danger the Governor-General had, on this occasion, exposed his
country. A crisis arrived with which he, and he alone, was
competent to deal. It is not too much to say that if he had been
taken from the head of affairs, the years 1780 and 1781 would have
been as fatal to our power in Asia as to our power in America.

The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of apprehension to
Hastings. The measures which he had adopted for the purpose of
breaking their power, had at first been frustrated by the errors
of those whom he was compelled to employ; but his perseverance and
ability seemed likely to be crowned with success, when a far more
formidable danger showed itself in a distant quarter.

About thirty years before this time, a Mahommedan soldier had
begun to distinguish himself in the wars of Southern India. His
education had been neglected; his extraction was humble. His
father had been a petty officer of revenue; his grandfather a
wandering dervise. But though thus meanly descended, though
ignorant even of the alphabet, the adventurer had no sooner been
placed at the head of a body of troops than he approved himself a
man born for conquest and command. Among the crowd of chiefs who
were struggling for a share of India, none could compare with him
in the qualities of the captain and the statesman. He became a
general; he became a sovereign. Out of the fragments of old
principalities, which had gone to pieces in the general wreck he
formed for himself a great, compact, and vigorous empire. That
empire he ruled with the ability, severity, and vigilance of
Lewis the Eleventh. Licentious in his pleasures, implacable in
his revenge, he had yet enlargement of mind enough to perceive
how much the prosperity of subjects adds to the strength of
governments. He was an oppressor; but he had at least the merit
of protecting his people against all oppression except his own.
He was now in extreme old age; but his intellect was as clear, and
his spirit as high, as in the prime of manhood. Such was the
great Hyder Ali, the founder of the Mahommedan kingdom of Mysore,
and the most formidable enemy with whom the English conquerors of
India have ever had to contend.

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