former masters; and the enjoyment of that bounty once assured to him, he would gladly avoid "the weight of a foreign obligation." Careless he might be about spending money, but greedy of money for the sake of spending it on himself he never was. In each step of Lord Wellesley's Indian career, Hastings saw the vindication and enlarged reflection of his own. The fall of Seringapatam, the treaty of Bassein, the victories of Lake and Wellesley sealed the triumph of that policy for which he had been so bitterly assailed, the policy which aimed at making the British power supreme throughout India. Nor does the resemblance between the lives of the two great Governors stop here. Each had carried out his own policy in defiance of orders and rebukes from Leadenhall Street. After his return home, in 1805, Lord Wellesley also became the mark of hostile proceedings in the House of Commons, especially with regard to his treatment of the Nawab of Oudh. But this time the Ministry stood between the accused and his assailants; and Fox himself, whom experience had made wiser, opposed the motion for his impeachment. The attacks in Parliament were signal HIS QUARREL WITH THE INDIA HOUSE. 351 failures; but the Court of Proprietors, which had always befriended Hastings, combined with the Directors to pass on Lord Wellesley a vote of censure which was only rescinded after thirty years. NOTE.-It may have been about the time of his fruitless interview with the Prince of Wales, that Warren Hastings wrote the following lines concerning Francis Pacheco, whose services in Portuguese India were requited by a long imprisonment under false charges afterwards set aside, and whose sad fate was sung by Camoens in Book 10 of his Lusiad : : "Yet think not, gallant Lusian, nor repine CHAPTER IV. 1810-1814. It was in the year 1813, at the age of eighty, that Hastings once more emerged from his long retirement into the blaze of public notice. For many years past he had been leading the life of a quiet country gentleman, happy in the possession of health and worldly competence, in the love of his accomplished and gentle wife, in the fellowship of many friends, in the following of his favourite pursuits and the discharge of his daily duties, in the happiness which he conferred on all who came within reach of his unfailing bounty or his friendly services. These years, in short, as Mr. Gleig remarks, were "devoted to the wellbeing of his fellow-men in all ranks, ages, and conditions," from the wedded couples in whose quarrels he was asked to interpose, to the children and youths for whom distant friends claimed his kindly offices, and the widows or orphans THE COMPANY'S TRADE-RIGHTS. 353 whose wants he charitably relieved. To his nearest relatives, the Woodmans, he had always proved a helpful brother, and his wife's children had been brought up and cherished as his own. In the spring of 1813 he was called up to London, to give evidence before both houses of Parliament on the affairs of a country which he had not seen for twenty-eight years past. The renewal of the Company's Charter was the question of the hour with all who had any voice in the management of our Indian Empire, or any interest in the growth of our Indian trade. Hitherto the great Company, if largely shorn of their political powers, had retained intact their chartered privileges in the matter of trade. But the charter of 1793 was now expiring, and the Ministry of Lord Liverpool had no mind to renew a monopoly which had already outgrown its apparent purpose. To that monopoly we may have owed our eastern empire and all the advantages that flowed therefrom. But the time was come for getting rid of a mischievous anachronism, which shut out the people of England from the free development of their commercial greatness. Napoleon's grand scheme for excluding English wares from the whole Continent of Europe had turned the eyes of our merchants to other and remoter fields of enterprise; the cotton spinners of Lancashire clamoured fiercely for the right of free trade with an English dependency; and the men of Bristol and Liverpool inveighed against the exclusive privileges enjoyed by London as the port of entry for Indian goods. The doom of the Company had in fact been sounded throughout England for several years before the Session of 1813. The Ministers had agreed with some reluctance, that Parliament should hear the witnesses brought forward by the India House magnates in their defence. Scores of old and present servants of the Company were eager to display their loyalty to the masters in whose service they had made their fortunes or their name. Conspicuous in the one list stood the name of Warren Hastings, in the other, those of Malcolm and Munro. On the 30th March, the white-haired master of Daylesford appeared at the bar of that House of Commons, where, twenty-seven years before, he had read his answer to the charges laid against him by Burke. But the passions of a bygone day were buried in the applause which now greeted him from every side; applause such as |