house on the side of the highway, where "The kitchen was the only room for entertainment in the house, paved with red bricks, remarkably clean, furnished with three or four Windsor chairs, adorned with shining plates of pewter and copper saucepans, nicely scoured, that even dazzled the eyes of the beholder." Johnson maintained that "a tavern-chair was the throne of human felicity." The tavern life of Dr. Johnson is as familiar to us as his rusty wig. There were infinite diversities in the Public Refreshment life of London at that period. There was the dinner for threepence halfpenny with "hackney-coachmen, chairmen, draymen, and a few footmen out of place, or on board wages.' There was the "Ordinary," such as Goldsmith frequented, which had more success in the suburbs than in London, where the chop-houses were more popular. The coffee-houses, although frequented by peculiar classes, were open to all men. The fashionable coffee-houses were gradually transformed into exclusive clubs.

"

Fielding says, though Ranelagh and Vauxhall, by reason of their price, are not entirely appropriated to the people of fashion, yet they are seldom frequented by any below the middle rank." Ranelagh was opened in 1742: "The prince, princess, duke, and much nobility, and much mob besides, were there," according to Walpole. In two years Ranelagh had "totally beat Vauxhall." The dazzling illumination of the building; the music; the cheap refreshments (half-a-crown entrance included tea, coffee, or punch); the opportunity of looking upon lords with stars and ladies with hoops,-these attractions drew a motley group to Ranelagh, who were either genteel or affected gentility. In 1772, the Pantheon was opened "a new winter Ranelagh in Oxford Road."

The Stage, at this period, looking to what it had been, may be regarded as, comparatively, a school of purity. Blemishes, of course, there were. But there was no systematic endeavour to make licentiousness the foundation and corner-stone of wit. The Theatre, under the management of Garrick, directed, however imperfectly, the course of public taste. He did, what Betterton had done before him, he gave Shakspere an extended popularity by his wonderful power as an actor. He did also what Tate had done before him. He mangled Shakspere. And he patched the mammock'd plays with tawdry rags, in the "design to adapt them to the present taste of the public." But Garrick unquestionably made the people understand the true and the natural in dramatic art, as opposed to the pomposity and the exaggeration of the actors whom he supplanted.

"Roderick Random."

A.D. 1773-1784.

POLICY OF WARREN HASTINGS.

661

CHAPTER LI.

PREVIOUS to the appointment of Hastings, in 1773, as the first GovernorGeneral of India, he had, in his capacity of Governor of Bengal, struck out a line of policy, in which we alternately admire his sagacity, and blush, as his countrymen, for his unscrupulousness. He freed the country from bands of robbers, by appointing local officers to maintain authority. He secured the administration of justice, by instituting local courts of law. Not being able to meet, by just means, the unceasing demands of the Directors of the East India Company for lacs of rupees, he did not wait for direct orders to commit injustice, but secured his own tenure of power by violating the pecuniary engagements which Clive had made. When Clive put an end to the war amongst the native princes, giving the greater part of Oude to the Vizier Sujah Dowlah, he reserved the districts of Corah and Allahabad for the Mogul, Shah Alum, and agreed to pay the fallen potentate twenty-six lacs of rupees annually. In 1773, the Mogul had become dependent upon the Mahrattas, and had been compelled to sign an edict to transfer to them Corah and Allahabad. Hastings promptly occupied those districts with English troops; and resolved to pay no more tribute to the shadow of the sovereignty of Hindustan. The districts which were taken from Shah Alum were sold to Sujah Dowlah, the Vizier of Oude, for half a million sterling. Hastings concluded another bargain with the Vizier, which brought more gold into the treasury of Leadenhall Street. It was agreed that an English army should be hired by Sujah Dowlah to effect the subjugation of the Rohillas-a race of Afghans, who were amongst the bravest and the most civilised of the various populations of Hindustan. The Rohilla country was invaded, and the English gained a victory. The forces of Oude looked on; and then applied themselves to devastate the fertile plains of Rohilcund, and to extirpate, as far as possible, the peaceful and industrious inhabitants.

In October, 1774, three new members of the Council, and the judges of the Supreme Court, appointed under the Regulating Act of 1773, arrived at Calcutta. The three new members of the Council, general Clavering, colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, appear to have entered upon their duties with a concerted determination to oppose the measures of Hastings, and of the other old servant of the Company, Mr. Barwell. Without a day's delay they testified their abhorrence of the Rohilla war, by recalling the English troops. Sujah Dowlah having died, and his son having succeeded him as Vizier, they maintained that the treaties with Oude were at an end upon the father's death. The natives saw, or believed they saw, that the power of Hastings was gone. Charges of corruption were made against him by his enemies, whether natives or Englishmen. An old enemy of Hastings was a Hindoo Brahmin, the Maharajah Nuncomar. The crafty Hindoo put into the hands of Francis a series of charges against Hastings, in which he was accused of setting offices to sale, and of receiving bribes to permit the escape of offenders. Francis brought the papers

before the Council. Hastings instituted proceedings against the old Hindoo, and against others, upon a charge of conspiracy. But the fate of Nuncomar was decided upon a very different accusation. He was imprisoned at the suit of a native merchant, charged with having forged a bond five years before this period; for which alleged offence he had been brought to trial in the mayor's court at Calcutta, and had been dismissed on the interposition of Hastings. The Supreme Court had to take cognizance of such cases of lapsed justice. The new Chief Justice of that court, sir Elijah Impey, was a personal friend of the Governor-General. Nuncomar was tried by a jury of Englishmen, and was found guilty. He was sentenced to be hanged, although in Hindustan the crime of forgery, regarded as very venial, had never been dealt with capitally. The power of reprieve which the Supreme Court possessed was not exercised. The Council had no power to interfere, although the majority remonstrated in the strongest terms against the entire proceedings. The old Brahmin was carried in his palanquin to the common gallows, and he died with the most perfect composure. The punishment of Nuncomar put an end to all troubles and accusations against Hastings by native informers.

The public quarrels and the private immoralities of Hastings and Francis occupy, for several years, the general narratives of Indian affairs. The Council of Calcutta, and its Supreme Court of Justice, were as discordant an administrative body as ever precipitated an empire into ruin. The same course of unworthy and dangerous rivalries prevailed in the subordinate Council of Madras. Lord North, strongly disapproving the Rohilla war, was bent upon the recall of Hastings. But the GovernorGeneral could not be removed during the first five years of his administration, except by an address to the Crown by the Court of East India Proprietors. When the five years expired, just at the commencement of the French war, lord North, not thinking that a fit time to make an alteration in the constitution of our government in India, re-appointed Hastings.

In 1777, a French agent had been negotiating with the Peshwa of the Mahrattas, and an alliance dangerous to the British interests was likely to be formed. When, in the spring of 1778, war between England and France was inevitable, Hastings, in spite of the opposition of two of the Council, sent an army to the Peshwa's country, with injunctions to forward the claims of Ragoba, a pretender to the dignity of Peshwa. In a few weeks arrived the intelligence of hostilities with France. The French settlement of Chandernagore was immediately captured; Pondicherry was invested, and was surrendered after some resistance; and the Mahratta expedition was persevered in. Its results were very unfortunate, necessitating a convention, by which it was agreed that the Mahrattas should recover what the British had gained from them since 1756. Hastings persevered; and other expeditions were more successful. The government at home, on the first outbreak of the war with France, had sent sir Eyre Coote to be the commander of the forces in India, with a seat in the Council. There had been a partial reconciliation in that body between the discordant parties of Hastings and Francis. But the animosities were

A.D. 1773-1784.

WARS WITH MYSORE AND BENARES.

663

only smothered. A duel was fought between the two rivals, in which Francis was shot; and upon his recovery he resigned his office, and returned to England. Hastings and Impey were now bitter opponents.

The Council of Madras had given especial offence to Hyder Ali, the sovereign of the great kingdom of the Mysore. His rival in the Carnatic, the nabob of Arcot, was surrounded by English, who were his creditors, and who are accused of having carried on a continued plot in the divan for the destruction of Hyder Ali. The two principal Hindoo powers-the Peshwa, and the rajah of Berar-and the two principal Mohammedan powers-Hyder Ali and the nizam of the Deccan-renouncing all former enmities against each other, now united in a common confederacy against the English. In 1780 Hyder Ali assembled an army computed to consist of ninety thousand men. These forces had been partly disciplined by French officers. "Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents on the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havock." * The terrified inhabitants of Madras could trace the progress of the ruthless invader as columns of smoke rose from the burning villages. A force of three thousand men, under colonel Baillie, had been cut to pieces by Hyder. Sir Hector Munro, with five thousand men, retreated towards Mount St. Thomas. Hastings at once abandoned the Mahratta war, and proposed that a treaty of peace and alliance should be concluded. Sir Eyre Coote proceeded with every man that could be shipped from Bengal, to take the command at Madras. On the 1st of July, the English commander, having only a force of nine thousand men to oppose to Hyder's enormous army, brought him to action at Porto Nono, and obtained a signal victory. Another battle, on the 27th of August, was not so decisive. Peace was not concluded with the Mahrattas till early in 1782; and the continued war with Mysore and with Poonah involved so great a cost, that Hastings had to look to extraordinary resources to enable him to carry on the struggle.

The rajah of Benares, Cheyte Sing, had become a tributary to the English, the nabob of Oude having surrendered his rights to them in 1774. Cheyte Sing had regularly transmitted to Calcutta his tribute of a settled sum. Hastings demanded extraordinary aid from the Hindoo prince; and at the beginning of the Mahratta war, evidently determined by excessive demands to drive the unhappy rajah into resistance, which would have ended in the confiscation of his possessions. To accomplish his purpose, the Governor-General proceeded to Benares; required a contribution of half a million sterling; and, although the rajah expressed the most abject devotion, placed him under arrest. The rajah was popular, and the religious and national feelings of the Hindoo population were roused by this outrage upon their native prince. The sepoys who had been appointed to arrest and guard Cheyte Sing were butchered; and the

* Burke-"Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts."

prince escaped from his palace-prison. Hastings had to barricade the house in which he had taken up his residence; and, finally, to leave the city by night, with a small band, amidst the hootings of the populace. 'The rajah at first made offers of submission, to which Hastings did not vouchsafe a reply; but Cheyte Sing, having been followed by a formidable body of insurgents, was able to make a stand with forty thousand undisciplined men. Popham, the victor of Gwalior, was ready to attack the rajah, who was utterly routed, driven from his states, and finally deposed. Hastings had another booty in view. Asaph ul Dowlah, the nabob and vizier of Oude, had obtained from the British government a brigade to defend him against the aggressions of his neighbours. Hastings required heavy payment for his military aid. The nabob wanted money himself. The grandmother and mother of Asaph ul Dowlah, called the begums of Oude, were reputed to be possessed of enormous treasure, which they kept in their palace of Fyzabad. The nabob and the Governor-General met in the fortress of Chunar; and there it was consented to by Asaph ul Dowlah that the begums should be stripped of the domains which they retained by his father's bequest and his own grants, and that their treasure should go to the English in liquidation of the arrears which Hastings demanded. The weak prince afterwards relented, but Hastings sent the most peremptory orders to the English resident at Lucknow to carry out the treaty, even if force were necessary. The gates of the palace of Fyzabad were forced by the Company's troops. The begums would not part with their treasure, though imprisoned, and dreading personal violence. The two eunuchs who presided over the household of Sujah ul Dowlah's widow were put in irons; they were half-starved; they were ordered to be debarred from all food till they yielded. The old men agreed to produce the sum that was then required. But the whole demand was not satisfied. They were removed to Lucknow, and were imprisoned till, after months of terror, the begums had surrendered twelve hundred thousand pounds; and Hastings was content. With the treasures which he extorted from rajahs and begums, he carried on the war in the Carnatic till the death of Hyder Ali in 1782; and finally concluded an honourable peace with Hyder's son and successor, Tippoo, in 1783. His administration ceased in the spring of 1785; and from 1788 to 1795, his trial attracted eager crowds to Westminster Hall, to listen to the greatest masters of oratory of that age-inferior probably to none of any age.

The Coalition of the party headed by lord North, and of the party headed by Mr. Fox, was odious to all men not bound by the trammels of party; and it was not without difficulty that the coalesced chiefs could induce the king to admit them to power. After a considerable delay, the duke of Portland became First Lord of the Treasury, and Fox and North were appointed Secretaries of State. The ministry were strong in their majorities. Pitt vainly opposed the conditions of the loan which they had raised upon very disadvantageous terms. On the 7th of May he, a second time, brought forward the question of Parliamentary Reform. Fox earnestly defended the proposition; North opposed it. Pitt's resolutions were rejected by a majority of 144. The young reformer was more successful in carrying through the House of Commons a Bill for preventing abuses in