India Company's possessions on a sound economic basis. With a majority of his Council, Francis, Monson and Clavering, hostile to him, using its strength rabidly and bitterly, it is a wonder that he accomplished anything. One great error of judgment he certainly committed, namely the assumption of the Mogul opium monopoly, but this most singularly with the unanimous approval of his Council. This action was all the more deplorable in view of Hastings' statement in duscussing the question as to whether the opium trade should be free or taken over by the Company. He urged that it was undesirable to increase the production of any article not necessary to life, that opium was not a necessary of life, but a pernicious article of luxury which ought not to be permitted but for the purpose of foreign commerce only, and which the wisdom of Government should carefully restrain from internal consumption."" Hastings' ethical discrimination is the foundation on which rests the deplorable Indo-Chinese opium trade. It is impossible to vindicate Hastings' ethics in this matter. But the six main charges brought against him in his impeachment and by Macaulay, are effectively disposed of by Mr. G. W. Hastings in his vindication. The author writes with a confidence based on a study of the actual records, and with a touch of affection and admiration for a remote relative that does not detract from the value of his work.

The author takes up the six leading charges brought against Hastings at one time or another. One of them is not pressed as a crime by Macaulay, though strongly condemned. It will suffice to state the author's conclusions in regard to the first and second, namely, the Rohilla War, and the trial and execution of Nuncoomar.

The Rohilla War, as represented by Macaulay, was an unscrupulous device employed by Hastings to obtain money for the Company; as a bargain which he drove with Sujah-ul-Dowla, the Vizier of Oude, to lend him English troops for the conquest of Rohilcund and the extirpation of the Rohilla tribes, in consideration of the sum of four hundred thousand pounds paid by the Vizier. The real facts are that the Rohillas brought on the war by their own perfidious and dangerous conduct. Their territory was invaded by the Mahrattas. Help was given from Calcutta and Oude, and the invaders were driven off. The Rohillas covenanted in a treaty witnessed and countersigned by the English Commander to pay the Vizier the sum of forty lacs. Not a roupee was paid, and it was found that they were secretly intriguing with the Mahrattas in order to evade the covenant. This perfidy gave the Vizier a just provocation to

war, and Hastings a valid reason for assisting his ally. After a long and anxious consideration of the facts, the Council, with Hastings at its head, resolved to assist the Vizier, and ordered a brigade to advance into his possession, Oude, for that purpose. The Rohilla power, which had been usurped some sixty years before, was broken by one sharp conflict. Eyewitnesses have contradicted the atrocities so luridly described in the Essay, and Mr. Hastings declares that they may be dismissed as gross exaggerations and malicious inventions. He quotes from Mr. Forrest that "About seventeen or eighteen hundred Rohillas with their families were expelled from Rohilcund, and the Hindu inhabitants, amounting to about seven hundred thousand, remained in possession of their patrimonial acres and were seen cultivating their fields in peace.” These facts are placed against the rhetorical account given by Macaulay.

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The glowing words in which Macaulay pictures the supposed vindictiveness of Hastings in the Nuncoomar affair have perhaps sunk most deeply. What an opportunity for a master of language? The glamor of India, and moving in it, as a central figure, a high priest of the order of Brahma hanged for forgery. Macaulay drives it into his readers that the end of Nuncoomar was brought about by the machinations of Hastings. The Rajah Nuncoomar was unquestionably an able man, and his influence in the Hindoo community was weighty and wide-spread. Considering the reverence in which the higher Brahmin is held by the Hindoos in general, it needed no great effort on the part of Macaulay to wide-spread sympathy for him in England. In distorting the facts to make a literary holiday, he wrote blindly if brilliantly. Yet it should be pointed out that Macaulay knew of Nuncoomar's character. He wrote of him as "That bad man, stimulated at once by malignity, avarice and ambition," and that tried even by the low standard of Hindoo morality, he was a discredited personage. Hastings and Nuncoomar had had friction since 1859. A change in the Government of India gave Nuncoomar an opportunity to display his vindictiveness by appearing as the accuser of Warren Hastings. Shortly after the close of the Rohilla War the Regulating Act mentioned above came into force. Governor of Bengal for three years Hastings had been supreme. the Regulating Act the administration of public affairs was entrusted to a new body, a Council composed of a Governor General - Hastings — and four others. Mr. Barwell, an old and experienced official of the Company, and at this time a friend of Hastings, became a Member of the Clavering, Monson and Francis, who had never seen India,

Council.

As the

Under

and who seem to have been not well acquainted with it by any other means, were sent out from England to complete the Council. Immediately on their arrival, these three joined forces in opposition to Hastings. The Rohilla War, just ended, was denounced as impolitic and unjust. Hastings' private correspondence with the English resident at Oude was demanded. It was refused. The three assailants instituted an inquiry into the manner in which the war had been conducted, with the object of bringing the Governor General into disrepute. Their ultimate object seems to have been to supplant the Governor General, and by driving him from India obtain a reversion of the office for one of themselves. Hastings' public policy had been sustained by the Court of Directors. It was necessary to attack his personal integrity, if the conspirators were to succeed. They found Nuncoomar at hand, a willing and ready weapon for their purpose. On the 11th of March, 1775, Francis precipitated the affair in the Council by stating that he had that morning received a visit from Nuncoomar who had delivered to him a letter addressed to the Governor General in Council, and demanded that it should be laid before the Board. It was apparently known to Francis and Monson that the letter contained serious charges against the personal integrity of Hastings, the principal being that Hastings had in 1772 received the sum of three lacs and fifty-four thousand rupees from Nuncoomar, and the Munny Begum. Of this letter Lord Thurlow truly said that "A more extraordinary or more insolent production never appeared, nor one which carried falsehood on the face of it more strongly." On the 13th of March, a second letter from Nuncoomar to the Board was received and read. In it he reiterated his previous statements, and declared that he had "the strongest written vouchers to produce in support," and asked leave to appear before the Council to establish his accusations against Hastings "by an additional incontestable evidence." Monson immediately moved "That Rajah Nuncoomar be called before the Board." Thus the three partisans would have had their Chief sitting in Council openly accused as a criminal. This was too much for Hastings' sense of justice and propriety. With that vigor which characterized him in a crisis, he at once wrote a minute declaring that he would not suffer Nuncoomar to appear before the Board as his accuser. He knew what belonged to the dignity and character of his administration. He would not sit at the Board in the character of a criminal, nor acknowledge the Members of the Board as his judges. He declared that he looked upon Clavering, Monson and Francis as his accusers, though

he could not press this assertion in the direct letter of the law. But he had his reasons for his attitude. He ended by stating his inflexible determination not to suffer the indignity of allowing Nuncoomer to appear as his accuser before the Council. "The Chief of this Administration, your superior gentleman, appointed by the Legislature itself, shall I sit at this Board to be arraigned in the presence of a wretch whom you all know to be one of the basest of mankind? Shall I sit to hear men collected from the dregs of the people give evidence at his dictation. against my character and conduct? I will not. You may, if you please, form yourselves into a committee for the investigation of these matters in any manner which you may think proper, but I repeat that I will not meet Nuncoomar at this Board, nor suffer Nuncoomar to be examined at the Board, nor have you a right to it, nor can it serve any other purpose than that of vilifying and insulting me." A dramatic moment. It would have been interesting to have observed it. In spite of Hastings' protest, the majority carried the resolution that Nuncoomar be called before the Board. Hastings declared the Council dissolved, and protested that anything done in his absence would be unwarranted and illegal. Barwell accompanied him as he left the room. The partisans now had what they desired. Clavering was sent to the Chair by his colleagues, and Nuncoomar was called to state his grievances.

In 1772 a suit had been insti

But one must hark back a few years. tuted against Nuncoomar for more than a lac of rupees, said to have been due to the estate of a banker. Brought before the court, it was recommended that the case be arbitrated. Nuncoomar at first refused to accede to this proposition. However, he finally consented; but a dispute arose as to the arbitration. The case hung fire for some six years, when the whole legal and judicial state of affairs was changed by the arrival at Calcutta of the Supreme Court of Judicature created by statute. Owing to some technical difficulties it was found impossible to get the original papers, without which the forgery could not be established. But finally a Mr. Farrar, who had been admitted as an advocate of the Supreme Court, moved the Court for the papers in the forgery case. motion was made six weeks before Nuncoomar's accusation of Hastings, produced before the Council by Francis. The main allegation of the accusers of Hastings was to the effect that Hastings having now been accused by Nuncoomar before the Council of taking bribes and other peculation, suborned the prosecution of his accuser on a charge of forgery, the transaction out of which the charge arose having taken place six

This

years before; that Nuncoomar was under this accusation brought to trial before Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice, who was described as in collusion with the Governor General, arraigned before an English jury, found guilty, sentenced to death and hanged — all this being brought about by Warren Hastings to silence a dangerous enemy. Sir James Stephen, a Judge of the English High Court of Justice, looked into the history of this case many years ago, and he has proved conclusively in his Story of Nuncoomar that Hastings was innocent of the conduct attributed to him. It was proved beyond a doubt that the proceedings which led to the arrest and trial of Nuncoomar were, as stated above, commenced six weeks before he had made any charge against Hastings, who could have had, therefore, no interest in the matter. There can be no doubt that Hastings' solemn declaration on oath before the Supreme Court that he had neither advised nor encouraged the prosecution of Nuncoomar, and that it would have been unbecoming the First Magistrate in the Settlement to have employed his influence either to promote or dissuade it, is the simple truth. Macaulay has said that none but "idiots and biographers" could accept his view of the affair. But it looks now as though the "idiots and biographers" were right, and that the brilliant essayist who would not stoop to verify, was wrong. Macaulay overlooked another important fact. He declares that the trial of Nuncoomar was before Impey and a jury composed of Englishmen. This statement is in itself sufficient proof that he had never read the report of the trial. As a matter of fact Nuncoomar was tried before a Bench of four judges, and the jury was composed of European inhabitants of Calcutta not all English, some of whom had been resident therein, and some born there. A verdict of guilty was finally returned against Nuncoomar, and he was sentenced to death. The author of the vindication frankly recognizes that the sentence of death was too severe. The assertion is that when Nuncoomar mounted the scaffold he well deserved his fate, considering the meanness and criminality of the last forty years of his life. But English justice does not recognize the idea that a man should be hanged because his character and history may show that he deserves it. He can be hanged for nothing but for the crime for which. he has been convicted. Though Nuncoomar's trial was fair, the verdict just upon the facts proved, and the sentence legal under the statute, it cannot be denied that the enforcement of a capital sentence under a statute passed to apply to England in accordance with English views, on a native of Bengal, was excessive. After sentence there should have