Charter-Hastings appears as a witness for the Com- pany-His flattering reception by both Houses- Nature of his evidence-His partial change of opinion -The Charter Act of 1813-Hastings made a D.C.L. of Oxford-Applause of the undergraduates-Renewal of his pension for life becomes a Privy Councillor- Accompanies the Prince Regent to Oxford in 1814- The Guildhall Banquet-The Princes flattering pro- mises-The banquets to the Duke of Wellington- Hastings' health drunk by the Court of Directors- CHAPTER V. Signs of failing health-Hastings' reflec- WARREN HASTINGS: A BIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. แ THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN." ONE of the greatest names, if not the very greatest, in the annals of British India is that of Warren Hastings, who for thirteen years ruled over the provinces which British valour had lately won for the East India Company. The story of his troubled yet glorious career has been told at full length by Mr. Gleig, and summarised in glowing language by Lord Macaulay; to say nothing of the place he fills in every history of British India, from that of James Mill to the more succinct and impartial narrative of Mr. Marshman. But Mr. Gleig's biography, however rich in sterling value, has few attractions for the mass of readers in these days, while Macaulay's famous In essay has charmed the world with a picture in which the lights and shadows are distributed with more regard for scenic effect than for historic justice. The wrong done to Hastings during his lifetime by Burke and other tools of his worst foe, Sir Philip Francis, has been heightened by the wrong which the most popular of English essayists, following in the steps of Mill, has inflicted upon his memory. For one reader of Mr. Gleig's volumes, Macaulay's essay counts scores. aiming to correct the prevailing estimate of a statesman whose rule, according to Mill himself, was "popular both with his countrymen and the natives in Bengal," the present writer may seem to be attempting an Herculean task. In the interests of truth, however, and of fair play to one whose faults were few compared with his many virtues and his great public services, he is determined to dare the venture, let the result be what it may. Warren Hastings was born at Churchill, a village in Oxfordshire, on the 6th of December, 1732. His mother, who died but a few days after his birth, was daughter of a Mr. Warren, who owned a small estate near Twining in BIRTH AND ANTECEDENTS. 3 Gloucestershire. Her husband, Pynaston Hastings, was a boy of fifteen when he married Hester Warren; and a hard struggle for life the young couple seem to have had during the two years which elapsed before the birth of Warren, their second child. Pynaston himself was the younger of two sons born to their father, the Rector of Daylesford in Worcestershire, a poor clergyman who made himself still poorer by carrying on a ruinous lawsuit about tithes with the neighbouring squire. Beyond the fact of his fatherhood to so great a son, Pynaston did nothing worthy of remembrance. Leaving his motherless babes to the care of their impoverished grandfather, who had now been driven to accept a curacy at Churchill, Pynaston went off to seek his fortune elsewhere. Lost to sight for a while, like a river flowing underground, he re-appears at Gloucester, married to a butcher's daughter. A little later he entered the Church and went out to one of the West Indian islands, where he died. Such is the meagre record which his own children cared to perpetuate of a parent to whom they owed so little. Amidst circumstances so unpromising did poor little Warren Hastings begin the world. Poverty and neglect seemed to mark for their own the descendant of an old English family whose origin may perhaps be traced to the Danish sea-king whom Alfred after long struggle overthrew. Be that as it may, it is certain that one of Warren's forefathers held in the days of Henry II. that manor of Daylesford in Worcestershire, which Pynaston's grandfather, Samuel Hastings, sold in 1715 to a London merchant. To one branch of the same family belonged Lord Hastings, the brave and faithful chamberlain of the fourth Edward, and the luckless victim of Richard III., who requited his loyalty to Edward's children by cutting off his head. From another branch sprang the Earls of Pembroke of the fourteenth century, whose title was derived from the marriage of John Hastings with the heiress of Aymer de Valence, one of the great nobles who helped to put down Edward the Second's overweening favourite, Piers Gavaston. It was Earl John's son who fought in Spain under the Black Prince, and was taken prisoner with all his army by Henry of Castile, in the wars between Henry and his brother, Peter the Cruel. The family of the ill-starred Chamberlain received |