But the Nabob of Oude held out new temptations of gain to Hastings. The Rohillas, a tribe of Afghans, had, earlier in the century, descended from their mountains and conquered the territory lying between the Ganges and the mountains to the west of Oude. They had given it the name of Rohilcund. These brave warriors would gladly have been allies of the British, and applied to Sujah Dowlah to bring about such an alliance. Dowlah made fair promises, but he had other views. He hoped, by the assistance of the British, to conquer Rohilcund and add it to Oude. He had no hope that his rabble of the plains could stand against this brave mountain race, and he now artfully stated to Hastings that the Mahrattas were at war with the Rohillas. If they conquered them, they would next attack Oude, and, succeeding there, would descend the Ganges and spread over all Bahar and Bengal. He therefore proposed that the British should assist him to conquer Rohilcund for himself, and add it to Oude. For this service he would pay all the expenses of the campaign, the British army would obtain a rich booty, and at the end he would pay the British Government besides the sum of forty lacs of rupees. Hastings had no cause of quarrel with the Rohillas, but for the proffered reward he at once acceded to the proposal. In April, 1774, an English brigade, under Colonel Champion, invaded Rohilcund, and in a hard-fought field defeated the Rohillas. In the whole of this campaign nothing could be more disgraceful in every way than the conduct of the troops of Oude. They took care to keep behind during the fighting, but to rush forward to the plunder. The Nabob and his troops committed such horrors in plundering and massacreing not only the Rohillas, but the native and peaceful Hindoos, that the British officers and soldiers denounced the proceedings with horror. It was now, however, in vain that Hastings called on the Nabob to restrain his soldiers, for, if he did not plunder, how was he to pay the stipulated forty lacs of rupees? and if he ruined and burnt out the natives, how were they, Hastings asked, to pay any taxes to him as his new subjects? All this was disgraceful enough, but this was not all. Shah Allum now appeared upon the scene, and produced a contract between himself and the Nabob, which had been made unknown to Hastings, by which the Nabob of Oude stipulated that, on condition of the Mogul advancing against the Rohillas from the south of Delhi, he should receive a large share of the conquered territory and the plunder. The Nabob now refused to fulfil the agreement, on the plea that the Mogul ought to have come and fought, and Hastings sanctioned that view of the case, and returned to Calcutta with his ill-gotten booty.

But Hastings had scarcely terminated these proceedings, when the new members of Council, appointed under the Regulating Act, arrived. On the 19th of October, 1774, landed the three Councillors, Clavering, Monson, and Francis; Barwell had been some time in India. The presence of the three just arrived was eminently unwelcome to Hastings. He knew that they came with no friendly disposition towards him, and that Philip Francis, in particular, was most hostile. The letter of the Court of Directors recommended unanimity of counsels, but nothing was further from the views of the new members from Europe. As they were three, and Hastings and Barwell only two, they constituted a majority, and from the first moment commenced to undo almost everything that he had done, and carried their object. They denounced, and certainly with justice, the Rohilla war; they demanded that the whole correspondence of Middleton, the agent sent to the court of Oude by Hastings, should be laid before them. Hastings refused to produce much of it, as entirely of a private and personal nature; and they asserted that this was because these letters would not bear the light, and that the whole of Hastings' connection with Sujah Dowlah was the result of mercenary motives. In this they did the Governor-General injustice, for, though he drew money sternly and by every means from the India chiefs and people, it was rather for the Company than for himself. They ordered the recall of Middleton from Oude, deaf to the protests of Hastings that this was stamping his conduct with public odium, and weakening the hands of government in the eyes of the natives. Still, Middleton was recalled, and Mr. Bristow sent in his place. Hastings wrote home in the utmost alarm both to the Directors and to Lord North, prognosticating the greatest confusion and calamity from this state of anarchy; and Sujah Dowlah, regarding the proceedings of the new members of Council as directed against himself, and seeing in astonishment the authority of Hastings apparently at an end, was so greatly terrified that he sickened and died.

The Council now recalled the English troops from Rohilcund; and Bristow demanded, in the name of the Council, from Asaph-ul-Dowlah, the young Nabob, a full payment of all arrears; and announced that, Sujah Dowlah being dead, the treaty with him was at an end. Under pressure of these demands, Bristow, by instructions from the new regnant members of the Council, compelled the young Nabob to enter into a fresh treaty with them; and in this treaty they introduced a clause to the full as infamous as anything which Hastings had done. In return for renewing the possession of the provinces of Corah and Allahabad, they compelled him to cede to them the territory of Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares, though this did not at all belong to the Nabob of Oude, and was, moreover, guaranteed to Cheyte Sing by Hastings, in solemn treaty. The revenue of Cheyte Sing, thus lawlessly taken possession of, amounted to twenty-two millions of rupees; and the Nabob of Oude was also, on his own account, bound to discharge all his father's debts and engagements to the Company, and to raise greatly the pay to the Company's brigade. Hastings utterly refused to sanction these proceedings; but the Directors at home, who cared not how or whence money came, warmly approved of the transactions.

At Calcutta, Francis, Clavering, and Monson were deeply engaged in what appeared to them a certain plan for the ruin of Hastings. The Maharajah Nuncomar, who styled himself the head of the Brahmins, came forward and laid before them papers containing the most awful charges against Hastings. These were that Hastings had encouraged him, at the command of the Secret Committee, to produce charges against Mohammed Rheza Khan and Shitab Roy, when they were in prison, in order to extort money from them; and that Hastings had accepted a heavy bribe to allow Mohammed to escape without punishment. Hastings broke up the Council, declaring that he would not sit to be judged by his own Council. If they had charges to prefer against him, they might form themselves into a committee, and transmit such evidence as they received to the Supreme Court of Justice at Calcutta, or to the Directors at home. But the three declared themselves a majority, voted their own competence to sit and try their own chief, and preferred another huge charge introduced by Nuncomar—namely, that Hastings had appropriated to himself two-thirds of the salary of the Governor of Hooghly, a post formerly held by Nuncomar himself. They determined to introduce Nuncomar to confront Hastings at his own Council board. Hastings declared the Council not sitting; the three declared it sitting and valid, and called in Nuncomar, who proceeded to detail his charges, and ended by producing a letter from the Munny Begum, now Governor of Oude, expressing the gratitude which she felt to the Governor-General for her appointment as guardian of the Nabob, and that in token of this gratitude she had presented him with two lacs of rupees. Immediately on hearing that, Hastings declared the letter a forgery, and that he would prove it so; and he was not long in procuring an absolute denial of the letter from the Begum. Things being driven to this pass, Hastings commenced an action against Nuncomar, Mr. Fowke, one of the most active agents of the trio, and others, as guilty of a conspiracy against him. This was supported by native witnesses, and the Supreme Court of Justice, after a long and careful examination of the case, held Nuncomar and Fowke to bail, and bound the Governor-General to prosecute.

But, on the 6th of May, a blow fell on Nuncomar from an unexpected quarter. He was arrested and thrown into prison at the suit of a merchant named Mohun Persaud. The charge was, that he had forged a bond five years before. He had been brought to trial for this before the Mayor's Court at Calcutta—the Supreme Court not then being in existence. On this occasion, being in favour with Hastings, he had procured his release; but now, the merchant seeing that Hastings' favour was withdrawn, and that, therefore, he might have a better chance against him, the charge was renewed. Hastings, on the trial, declared before the Supreme Court that neither directly nor indirectly had he promoted the prosecution. The opposition members were highly incensed at this proceeding. Three days after Nuncomar's committal they realised their threat of dismissing the Munny Begum, and appointed Goordas, the son of Nuncomar, to her office. They sent encouraging messages to Nuncomar in his prison, and made violent protests to the judges against the prosecution. Their efforts were useless. The trial came on in due course. One of the judges, Sir Robert Chambers, had endeavoured to have Nuncomar tried on an earlier statute, which included no capital punishment, for forgery was no capital crime by the native laws. But Sir Elijah Impey and the other judges replied that the new Act compelled them to try him on the capital plea, and he had been, on this ground, refused bail. Nuncomar knew nothing of our estimate of forgery, and he could not comprehend how a man of his rank, and a Brahmin of high dignity, should be tried for his life on such a charge. But he was found guilty, and condemned to be hanged. Strong efforts were then made to have him respited till the judgment of the Court of Directors could be taken on the question, but Impey and the other judges declared that it could not be done unless they could assign some sufficient reasons, and they contended that there were no such reasons. Yet the new Acts expressly gave them this power, and, what made it more desirable, was that no native of any rank had been tried by the Supreme Court and the British law, and only one native had ever been capitally convicted for forgery in any of our Indian courts. Moreover, the indignity of hanging a high-caste Brahmin was so outraging to the native feeling that it was deemed most impolitic to perpetrate such an act. All was pleaded in vain; on the 5th of August, 1775, Nuncomar was brought out and publicly hanged, amid the terrified shrieks and yells of the native population, who fled at the sight, and many of them rushed into the sacred Ganges to purify them from the pollution of ever witnessing such a scene. The death of Nuncomar put an end to all hope of procuring any further native evidence against Hastings. The natives were so terrified at this new kind of execution, that nothing could convince them but that, in spite of the opposition of his colleagues, Hastings was all powerful.

When the news of this distractedly hopeless condition of the Council in Calcutta reached London, Lord North called upon the Court of Directors to send up to the Crown an address for the recall of Hastings, without which, according to the new Indian Act, he could not be removed till the end of his five years. The Directors put the matter to the vote, and the address was negatived by a single vote. The minority then appealed to the Court of Proprietors, at the general election in the spring of 1776, but there it was negatived by ballot by a majority of one hundred, notwithstanding that all the Court party and Parliamentary Ministerialists who had votes attended to overthrow him. This defeat so enraged Lord North that he resolved to pass a special Bill for the removal of the Governor-General. This alarmed Colonel Maclean, a friend of Hastings, to whom he had written, on the 27th of March. 1775, desiring him, in his disgust with the conduct of Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and the support of them by the Directors, to tender his resignation. Thinking better of it, however, he had, on the 18th of the following May, written to him, recalling the proposal of resignation. But Maclean, to save his friend from a Parliamentary dismissal, which he apprehended, now handed the letter containing the resignation to the Directors. Delighted to be thus liberated from their embarrassment, the Directors accepted the resignation at once, and elected Mr. Edward Wheler to the vacant place in the Council.

But matters had greatly changed at Calcutta before this. Maclean did not present the letter of resignation till October, 1776; but, in September of that year, Colonel Monson had died, and, the members in the Council being now equal, the Governor-General's casting vote restored to him his lost majority. Hastings was not the man to defer for a moment the exercise of his authority. He began instantly to overturn, in spite of their most violent efforts, the measures of Francis and friends. He dismissed Goordas from the chief authority in Oude, and reinstated his "dear friend, Nat Middleton," as he familiarly termed him. He revived his land revenue system, and was planning new and powerful alliances with native princes, especially with the Nabob of Oude, and the Nizam of the Deccan, not omitting to cast a glance at the power of the Sikhs, whose dangerous ascendency he already foresaw. In the midst of these and other grand plans for the augmentation of British power in India—plans afterwards carried out by others—he was suddenly astounded by the arrival of a packet in June, 1777, containing the news of his resignation, and of its acceptance by the Directors. He at once protested that it was invalid, as he had countermanded the resignation before its presentation; but General Clavering, as next in succession, at once claimed the office of Governor-General, and Francis, in Council, administered the oath to him. Clavering immediately demanded the keys of the fort and the treasury from Hastings; but that gentleman refused to admit his own resignation, much less Clavering's election to his post. Here, then, were two would-be Governor-Generals, as Europe had formerly seen two conflicting Popes. To end the difficulty, Hastings proposed that the decision of the question should be referred to the Supreme Court. It is wonderful that Clavering and Francis should have consented to this, seeing that Impey, Hastings' friend, and the judge of Nuncomar, was at the head of that Court; but it was done, and the Court decided in Hastings' favour. No sooner was Hastings thus secured, than he charged Clavering with having forfeited both his place in the Council, and his post as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, by attempting to seize on the Governor-Generalship. Clavering and Francis were compelled to appeal once more to the Supreme Court, and this time, to his honour, Impey decided in favour of Clavering. Clavering, who had been deeply mortified by his defeat, died a few days after this occurred, in August, 1777. By this event the authority of Hastings in the government was sufficiently restored, notwithstanding that Wheler generally sided with Francis, for him to carry his own aims.

It was at this crisis, when Hastings was just recovering his authority in the Council, that the news arrived in India, and spread amongst the native chiefs, that in Yenghi Dunia, or the New World, the Company Sahib—for the East Indians could never separate the ideas of the East India Company and England itself—there had been a great revolution, and the English driven out. This, as might be expected, wonderfully elated the native chiefs, and especially those in the south. There the French of Pondicherry and Chandernagore boasted of the destruction of the British power, and that it was by their own hands. Hastings, who was as able and far-seeing as he was unprincipled in carrying out his plans for the maintenance of the British dominion in India, immediately set himself to counteract the mischievous effects of these diligently-disseminated rumours, and of the cabals which the French excited. These were most to be feared amongst the vast and martial family of the Mahrattas. The Mahrattas had risen on the ruins of the great Mogul empire. They now extended their tribes over a vast space of India from Mysore to the Ganges. The Peishwa, as head of these nations, held his residence at Poonah. Besides his, there were the great houses of Holkar and Scindia; the Guicowar, who ruled in Guzerat; the Bonslah, or Rajah of Berar, a descendant of Sivaji. The Mahrattas were, for the most part, a rude, warlike race, rapacious and ambitious, and living in the most primitive style. To destroy the confidence of these fierce warriors in the French, Hastings gave immediate orders, on receiving the news of the proclamation of war in Europe, for the seizure of the French settlements. This was on the 7th of July, 1778; on the 10th he had taken Chandernagore, and ordered Sir Hector Munro to invest Pondicherry. That was soon accomplished, and the only remaining possession of France, the small one of Mahé, on the coast of Malabar, was seized the next spring.

Hastings then mustered fresh regiments of sepoys; demanded and received three battalions from Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares; armed cruisers; laid up stores of ammunition and provisions for three months in Fort William; enrolled a thousand European militia at Calcutta, and stood ready for any French invasion from sea. He then despatched Colonel Leslie with a strong force into the very heart of the Mahratta country. Leslie appeared to have lost his energy, made four months' delay in the plains of Bundelcund, and the next news was that he was dead. Colonel Goddard was sent to take his command, and advanced into Berar; but there hearing that successive revolutions were taking place at Poonah, he waited the result of them. Meanwhile, the presidency of Bombay, desirous of anticipating the expeditions from Calcutta, now undertook to reinstate Ragunath Rao, a deposed peishwa, whom they had lately left to his fate, and taking him along with him, the British commander, Colonel Egerton, marched into the Mahratta country with four thousand men. The army, when it had reached within sixteen miles of Poonah, was surrounded by hosts of Mahratta cavalry, and was compelled to surrender. The Mahrattas, as conditions—which the British were in no position to decline—insisted on the restoration of all the territory won from them by the British since 1756, and the surrender to them of Ragunath Rao. But Hastings refused to recognise this treaty. He ordered Colonel Goddard to advance. The title of general was conferred on him, and he well justified the promotion. In that and the succeeding campaign he won victory on victory; stormed Ahmedabad; took the city of Bassein; gained a splendid victory over forty thousand of the combined forces of Holkar and Scindia, and, in a great measure, retrieved all the losses, and restored the fame of the British arms. In another quarter the success against the Mahrattas was equally decisive. Captain Popham with a small body of troops stormed and took the city of Lahore, and the huge fortress of Gwalior, which the Mahrattas deemed impregnable.

To assist the Governor-General, the British Government had sent out Sir Eyre Coote in 1780 to the scene of his former fame, not only as Commander of the Forces in place of Clavering, but also as member of Council. Coote usually supported Hastings in the Council, but he greatly embarrassed him by the insatiable spirit of avarice which had grown upon him with years; and in making arrangements with the Nabob of Oude and others to supply the means of accommodation to the old commander, Hastings largely augmented the grounds of his future persecutions. The war with the Mahrattas and the announcement of the speedy arrival of a French armament on the coast of Coromandel induced the Company's old enemy, Hyder Ali, to think it a good opportunity to recover some of his territory from the Company. He saw that the present opportunity was most favourable for taking a signal revenge on the English. For years he had concerted with the French a grand plan for the destruction of the British power; and even whilst he remained quiet, he was preparing with all his energies for its accomplishment. He had squeezed his treasurers and collectors to the utmost for the accumulation of money, and mustered an army of nearly ninety thousand men, including twenty-eight thousand cavalry and two thousand artillery and rocketmen, besides four hundred engineers, chiefly French. Hyder suddenly poured down from his hills with this host into the plains of Madras. To the last moment the authorities there appear to have been wholly unconscious of their danger. Besides this, the army in the presidency did not exceed six thousand men, and these were principally sepoys. This force, too, was spread over a vast region, part at Pondicherry, part at Arcot, part in Madras, but everywhere scattered into cantonments widely distant from each other, and in forts capable of very little defence. As for the forces of their ally, the Nabob of Arcot, they ran at the first issue of Hyder's army through the ghauts. On came the army of Hyder like a wild hurricane. Porto Novo on the coast, and Conjeveram near Trichinopoli, were taken; and Hyder advanced laying all waste with fire and sword, till he could be seen—a dreadful apparition—with his host from Mount St. Thomas, his progress marked by the flames and smoke of burning villages.

The inhabitants, men, women, and children, fled in terror from their splendid villas, around the city, into the fort of St. George. A fast-sailing vessel was dispatched to Calcutta, to implore the Governor-General to send them speedy aid of men and money. The forces were called together from different quarters, and Sir Hector Munro at the head of one body, and Colonel Baillie at the head of another, were ordered to combine, and intercept Hyder. First one place of rendezvous and then another was named, but, before the junction could take place, Baillie had managed to allow himself to be surrounded by the whole host of Hyder, and after a brave defence was compelled to surrender, one half of his troops being cut to pieces. The insults and cruelties of the troops of Hyder to their captives were something demoniac. Munro had sent to demand troops from the Nabob of Arcot, for whom the British were always fighting, and received a message of compliments, but no soldiers. On the defeat of Baillie he made a hasty retreat to Mount St. Thomas. Meanwhile, the call for aid had reached Calcutta, and Hastings instantly responded to it with all his indomitable energy. He called together the Council, and demanded that peace should be made at once with the Mahrattas; that every soldier should be shipped off at once to Madras; that fifteen lacs of rupees should be sent without a moment's delay to the Council there; that the incompetent governor, Whitehill, should be removed; and Sir Eyre Coote sent to perform this necessary office, and take the command of the troops. Francis, who was just departing for England, raised as usual his voice in opposition. But Hastings' proposals were all carried. The troops, under Sir Eyre Coote, were hurried off, and messengers dispatched in flying haste to raise money at Moorshedabad, Patna, Benares, Lucknow—in short, wherever the authority of Hastings could extort it. At the same time, other officers were sent to negotiate with the Mahrattas for peace.

Coote landed at Madras at the beginning of November. A council was immediately called, Whitehill was removed from the government of the Presidency, and the member of Council next in seniority appointed. Coote had brought with him only five hundred British troops and six hundred Lascars. The whole force with which he could encounter Hyder amounted only to one thousand seven hundred Europeans and five thousand native troops. Coote, whose name as the conqueror of the French at Wandewash and Pondicherry struck terror into Hyder, soon resumed his triumphs on his old ground, driving the enemy from Wandewash. Hearing then of the arrival of the French armament off Pondicherry, he marched thither, and posted himself on the Red Hills. The French fleet, consisting of seven ships of the line and four frigates, was anchored off the place. But the French squadron having sailed away for the Isle of France, from apprehension of the approach of a British fleet, Hyder retreated, and, entering the territory of Tanjore, laid it waste, while his son, Tippoo, laid siege again to Wandewash. Hyder was again encouraged to advance, and on the 6th of July, 1781, Coote managed to bring him to action near Porto Novo, and completely routed him and his huge host, though he had himself only about eight thousand men. Hyder retired quite crestfallen to Arcot, and ordered Tippoo to raise the siege of Wandewash.

Notwithstanding that Hyder had established his camp soon after in a strong position near the village of Pollilore, he was attacked on the 27th of August by Eyre Coote. On this occasion Sir Hector Munro warned Coote of the disadvantages of ground under which he was going to engage, and the inevitable sacrifice of life. Coote replied angrily, "You talk to me, sir, when you should be doing your duty!" His warning, however, was just. Coote did not succeed in driving Hyder from his post without severe loss. But again, on the 27th of September, another battle was fought between them in the pass of Sholinghur, near Bellore, in which Coote defeated Hyder with terrible loss. This battle relieved the English garrison in Bellore, and the rainy season put an end to operations, but the Carnatic was saved.

On the 22nd of June, 1781, Lord Macartney arrived at Madras to take the place of Whitehill as Governor. He brought the news of the war having broken out between the British and the Dutch, and he determined to take advantage of it to seize the Dutch settlements on the coast of Coromandel and in Ceylon. But Sir Eyre Coote had lately had a stroke of palsy; his faculties were failing, and his temper had grown morose. Finding he could obtain no assistance from the Commander-in-chief, Macartney called out the militia of Madras, and at their head reduced the Dutch settlements of Sadras and Pulicat. Finding Sir Hector Munro waiting at Madras for a passage to England, in consequence of the insulting conduct of Sir Eyre Coote, he induced him to take the command of an expedition against Negapatam. Admiral Hughes landed the troops near Negapatam on the 21st of October; they then united with a force under Colonel Braithwaite, and on the 12th of November Negapatam was taken, with large quantities of arms and military stores. Leaving Braithwaite to make an expedition in Tanjore, where, in February of the coming year, he was surrounded by Tippoo and Lally, the French general, and taken prisoner, Admiral Hughes sailed across to Ceylon, a most desirable conquest, because of its secure harbour of Trincomalee, as well as the richness and beauty of the island, and also on account of its position, for it lay only two days' sail from Madras. On the 11th of January, 1782, Trincomalee was won.

But in February the long-expected armament from France arrived on the Coromandel coast. Suffren, the admiral, was one of the ablest sea-commanders of France. On his way he had secured the Cape of Good Hope against the English, and he now landed at Porto Novo two thousand French soldiers to join the army of Hyder Ali. Tippoo, flushed with the recent capture of Colonel Braithwaite, invited the French to join him in an attack on Cuddalore, an important town between Porto Novo and Pondicherry. This was done, and Cuddalore was wrested from the English in April. Whilst these events were taking place on land, repeated engagements occurred with the British fleets on the coasts. That of Admiral Hughes was reinforced by fresh ships from England, and between February, 1782, and June, 1783, the British and French fleets fought five pitched battles with varied success. In none of these was any man-of-war captured by either side, nor any great number of men lost; but, eventually, Suffren succeeded in retaking Trincomalee, in Ceylon, from the British.

From Cuddalore, Tippoo and Bussy, the French general, turned their forces against Wandewash; but they were met by Coote, though he was now sinking and failing fast. They retreated, and he attempted to make himself master of the strong fort of Arnee, where much of the booty of Hyder was deposited; but Hyder made show of fighting him whilst Tippoo carried off all the property. Tippoo was obliged to march thence towards Calicut, where the Hindoo chiefs, his tributaries, were joining the British under Colonel Mackenzie. Hyder at this moment was confounded by the news of the peace made by Hastings with the Mahrattas, and expected that those marauders would speedily fall on Mysore. His health was fast declining, and yet he dared not introduce his allies, the French, into his own territory, lest he should not so readily get them out again. Besides his suspicions of the French, he had constant fears of assassination. Hyder died in December, 1782.

At the time that Tippoo heard of the death of his father, he was, assisted by the French, eagerly pressing on the most inferior force of Colonel Mackenzie, not very far from Seringapatam. Mackenzie being obliged to retire, was suddenly set upon, before daylight, near Paniany, about thirty-five miles from Calicut, by the whole force; but he repulsed them with great slaughter. Tippoo then fell back and made the best of his way to his capital to secure his throne and the treasures of Hyder Ali. He found himself at the age of thirty master of the throne, of an army of nearly one hundred thousand men, and of immense wealth. With these advantages, and the alliance of the French, Tippoo did not doubt of being able to drive the British out of all the south of India. Yet, with his vast army, accompanied by nine hundred French, two thousand Sepoys, and nearly three hundred Kafirs, Tippoo retreated, or appeared to be retreating, before General Stuart, with a force of only fourteen thousand men, of whom three thousand alone were British. He was, in fact, however, hastening to defend the north-west districts of Mysore from another British force on the coast of Canara. This force was that of Colonel Mackenzie, joined by another from Bombay, under General Matthews, who took the chief command in that quarter.

News now arrived of peace concluded between Britain and France. The French, to whom their possessions were restored, at once ceased hostilities and went to occupy their reacquired settlements. But Tippoo continued the war, bent on taking Mangalore. Nothing could now have prevented the English from completely conquering but the stupidity of the Council of Madras. They sent commissioners to treat with Tippoo, who, once getting them into his camp, made them really prisoners, kept all information from them, and induced them to issue orders to the English officers to cease hostilities. By these orders a junction between Stuart and Colonel Fullarton, and the immediate investment and seizure of Seringapatam, Tippoo's capital, were prevented. Fullarton had overrun a great portion of the southern districts of Mysore, and had entered into close alliance with the Zamorin of Calicut, the Rajah of Travancore, and other rajahs, tributary to Tippoo, all the way from Cochin to Goa. With ample supplies of provisions and other aids from these chiefs, Fullarton was in full march to join Stuart, and laid siege to Seringapatam, when he received peremptory orders to give up the enterprise, as the British were about concluding terms with Tippoo. Exceedingly disconcerted by these commands, which thus frustrated the results of this wonderful campaign, Fullarton, however, had no alternative but to obey, and Tippoo thus held on till he had starved out Campbell, and gained the fort of Mangalore. Then he concluded peace on condition of mutual restitution of all conquests since the war. This peace was signed on the 11th of March, 1784.

Warren Hastings had saved Madras and the Carnatic, but only at the cost of extortion. To obtain the necessary money, he began a system of robbery and coercion on the different princes of Bengal and Oude. The first experiment was made on Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares, who had been allowed to remain as a tributary prince when that province was made over to the British by the Nabob of Oude. The tribute had been paid with a regularity unexampled in the history of India; but when the war broke out with France, Hastings suddenly demanded an extraordinary addition of fifty thousand pounds a year, and as it was not immediately paid, the Rajah was heavily fined into the bargain. This was rendered still more stringent in 1780, when the difficulties in Madras began. Cheyte Sing sent a confidential agent to Calcutta, to assure Hastings that it was not in his power to pay so heavy a sum, and he sent him two lacs of rupees (twenty thousand pounds), as a private present to conciliate him. Hastings accepted the money, but no doubt feeling the absolute need of large sums for the public purse, he, after awhile, paid this into the treasury, and then said to Cheyte Sing that he must pay the contribution all the same. He compelled the Rajah to pay the annual sum of fifty thousand pounds, and ten thousand pounds more as a fine, and then demanded two thousand cavalry. After some bargaining and protesting, Cheyte Sing sent five hundred horsemen and five hundred foot. Hastings made no acknowledgment of these, but began to muster troops, threatening to take vengeance on the Rajah. In terror, Cheyte Sing then sent, in one round sum, twenty lacs of rupees (two hundred thousand pounds) for the service of the State; but the only answer he obtained for the munificent offering was, that he must send thirty lacs more, that is, altogether, half a million.

Following his words by acts, he set off himself, attended only by a few score sepoys, for Benares. Cheyte Sing came out as far as Buxar to meet the offended Governor, and paid him the utmost homage. He continued his journey with the Rajah in his train, and entered the Rajah's capital, the great Mecca of India, the famed city of Benares, on the 14th of August, 1781. He then made more enormous demands than before; and the compliance of the Rajah not being immediate, he ordered Mr. Markham, his own-appointed resident at Benares, to arrest the Rajah in his palace. Cheyte Sing was a timid man, yet the act of arresting him in the midst of his own subjects, and in a place so sacred, and crowded with pilgrims from every part of the East, was a most daring deed. The effect was instantaneous. The people rose in fury, and pouring headlong to the palace with arms in their hands, they cut to pieces Markham and his sepoys. Had Cheyte Sing had the spirit of his people in him, Hastings and his little party would have been butchered in half an hour. But Cheyte Sing only thought of his own safety. He got across the Ganges, and whole troops of his subjects flocked after him. Thence he sent protestations of his innocence of the émeute, and of his readiness to make any conditions. Hastings, though surrounded and besieged in his quarters by a furious mob, deigned no answer to the suppliant Rajah, but busied himself in collecting all the sepoys in the place. But the situation of Hastings was at every turn becoming more critical. The sepoys, sent to seize Cheyte Sing in the palace of Ramnuggur, were repulsed, and many of them, with their commander, killed. The multitude were now more excited than ever, and that night would probably have seen the last of Warren Hastings, had he not contrived to escape from Benares, and to reach the strong fortress of Chunar, situated on a rock several hundred feet above the Ganges, and about seventeen miles below Benares. Cheyte Sing, for a moment, encouraged by the flight of Hastings, put himself at the head of the enraged people, and, appealing to the neighbouring princes as to his treatment, declared he would drive the English out of the country. But troops and money were speedily sent to Hastings from Lucknow, others marched to Chunar from their cantonments, and he found himself safe amid a sufficient force commanded by the brave Major Popham, the conqueror of Gwalior, to defy the thirty thousand undisciplined followers of Cheyte Sing. From the 29th of August to the 20th of September there were different engagements between the British and the forces of Cheyte Sing; but on every occasion, though the Indians fought bravely they were worsted, and on the last-named day, utterly routed at Pateeta. Cheyte Sing did not wait for the arrival of the British troops; he fled into Bundelcund, and never returned again to Benares. Hastings restored order, and set up another puppet Rajah, a nephew of Cheyte Sing, but raised the annual tribute to forty lacs of rupees, or four hundred thousand pounds a year, and placed the mint and the entire jurisdiction of the province in the hands of his own officers.

Hastings next determined to experiment on the Nabob of Oude. This Nabob, Asaph-ul-Dowlah, was an infamously dissipated prince, spending his own money in licentious pleasures, and extorting what he could from the Begums, his mother and grandmother. The old ladies lived at the palace of Fyzabad, or the "Beautiful Residence," situated in a charming district, amid hills and streams, about eighty miles from Lucknow. The Nabob's father had left them large sums of money and extensive estates, so that they kept a handsome court, and yet had the reputation of having accumulated about three million pounds sterling. The Nabob had compelled them, by coercive means, to let him have, at different times, about six hundred thousand pounds, and he thirsted exceedingly for more. Hastings determined to anticipate him. He sent for the Nabob of Oude while he was still in the fortress of Chunar, and there reminding him of his debts to the British Government, which were considerable, coolly proposed to him the robbery of his mother and grandmother. The proposal was so barefaced that, when Hastings came to make it to the Nabob, he felt that he really required some pretended reason for thus arbitrarily laying hands on the property of these innocent women, and therefore unblushingly asserted that they had been concerned in stirring up the insurrection at Benares—a matter, besides that it was so notoriously the result of Hastings' own daring arrest of Cheyte Sing, the Begums had neither motive for meddling in nor time for doing it. Till now they had regarded the British as their only protectors. They were living quietly at Fyzabad, one hundred and fifteen miles from Benares, when the insurrection broke out from very obvious causes. This infamous bargain being concluded at Chunar, Hastings relying on his agent at Lucknow, Mr. Middleton, compelling the Nabob to carry it out, retreated to Benares, and thence to Calcutta. The Nabob returned to Lucknow to enforce the diabolical scheme; but he found his mother and grandmother determined to resist the iniquitous order, and so shameful was it that even the needy and debauched Nabob felt compunctions in proceeding with it. He left it to Middleton to execute it, but Middleton, in his turn, recoiled from the odious business. Not so Hastings; cold and resolute, he wrote to Middleton, that if he could not rely upon his firmness he would free him from his charge, and himself proceed to Lucknow and enforce his own orders. To induce Middleton to abandon his scruples of conscience and honour, the ever-ready friend of Hastings, the Chief Justice of Bengal, Sir Elijah Impey, it appears, wrote to Middleton, and inculcated the necessity of obedience. Middleton and the Nabob, therefore, seized on the estates of the Begums, and suddenly surrounded Fyzabad and the palace with troops, and made themselves masters of both. But the old ladies had not been so inattentive to the approaches of the storm as to neglect the hiding of their treasures; they could not be found. Thus cruelly disappointed of the expected hoard, and the Begums remaining firm in their refusal to produce any part of it, Middleton seized on their two chief ministers, the eunuchs, Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan. They were now thrown into prison, put in irons, and orders were given to starve and torture them till they revealed the secret of the concealment of the treasure of their mistresses. At the same time, the two ladies were placed in rigorous confinement themselves. This system was continued till they had extorted upwards of a million sterling from the Begums, and found that they might kill both them and their aged ministers, but could get no more. When the Begums and the two old men were liberated, they were told by the Resident—not now Middleton, but Bristow—that they owed this favour to the Governor-General, who had determined to have them "restored to their dignity and honour." There was another name connected with these events, and with almost equal disadvantage, that of Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice. Impey, who had no jurisdiction in Oude, was found up there in the midst of these transactions, volunteering his assistance in getting up charges against the Begums. These charges were supported by a host of venal witnesses, and affidavits of their evidence were made out, and sent down to Calcutta, to justify the dark doings of Hastings.

But the violent proceedings of Hastings and his Council, partly against each other, and still more against the natives, did not escape the authorities at home. Two committees were appointed in the House of Commons in 1781, to inquire into these matters. One of them was headed by General Richard Smith, and the other by Dundas, the Lord Advocate of Scotland. In both of these the conduct of Hastings, especially in the war against the Rohillas, was severely condemned, and the appointment of Impey to the new judicial office was greatly disapproved. In May, 1782, General Smith moved an address praying his Majesty to recall Sir Elijah Impey, which was carried unanimously, and he was recalled accordingly. Dundas also moved and carried a resolution declaring it to be the duty of the Court of Directors to recall Warren Hastings, on the charge of his "having, in sundry instances, acted in a manner repugnant to the honour and policy of the nation." The Court of Directors complied with this suggestion; but Lord Rockingham dying, his Ministry being dissolved, and Burke, the great opponent of Indian oppressions, being out of office, in October the Court of Directors, through the active exertions of the friends of Hastings, rescinded his recall. The succeeding changes of administration, and their weakness, first that of the Shelburne, and then that of the Coalition Ministry, enabled Hastings to keep his post in India, and finish the war in Madras. It was the India Bill of Pitt in 1784, which, by creating the Board of Control, and enabling the Government to take immediate cognisance of the proceedings of the Governors-General, and other chief officers in India, broke the power of Hastings, and led him to resign, without, however, enabling him to escape the just scrutiny which his administration needed.

Hastings embarked on the 8th of February, 1785, and arrived in England in June, 1786. He had sent home before him his wife, whose health had begun to suffer from the climate of India, and she had been most graciously received by King George and Queen Charlotte. He had been accompanied to his ship, on leaving Calcutta, by all the authorities, and by all people of distinction; he had received the most enthusiastic addresses of regret and of admiration as the saviour of India. In London, not only at Court, but in Leadenhall Street, he met with the same gratifying honour. He spent the autumn at Cheltenham with his wife, where he was courted and fêted in a manner to warrant his writing to a friend, "I find myself everywhere and universally treated with evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess the good opinion of my country." He was busy trying to purchase Daylesford, the, old family estate, and anticipating a peerage.

But this was only the lull before the storm. Burke and Francis were living, and the thunder-bolts were already forged which were to shatter his pleasing dream of approval. His agreeable delusion was, indeed, soon ended. On the 24th of January, 1787, Parliament met, and Major Scott, an officious friend of Hastings, unfortunately for the ex-Governor-General, relying on the manifestation of approbation of Hastings by the Court and fashionable circles, got up and asked where now was that menace of impeachment which Mr. Burke had so long and often held out? Burke, thus challenged, on the 17th of February rose and made a call for papers and correspondence deposited in the India House, relative to the proceedings of Hastings in India. He also reminded Pitt and Dundas of the motion of the latter on the 29th of May, 1782, in censure of the conduct of Hastings on the occasions in question. This was nailing the ministers to their opinions; but Dundas, now at the head of the Board of Control, repeated that he still condemned the conduct of Hastings, but taken with the services which he had rendered to the country in India, he did not conceive that this conduct demanded more than censure, certainly not impeachment. Fox supported Burke, and Pitt defended Hastings, and attacked Fox without mercy. There was a feeling abroad that the king was determined to support Hastings, and the proceedings of Pitt confirmed this. Burke's demand for papers was refused, but this did not deter Burke. On the 4th of April he rose again and presented nine articles of impeachment against Hastings, and in the course of the week twelve more articles. To these a twenty-second article was afterwards added.

The affair was now becoming serious, and Hastings demanded to be heard at the bar, where he appeared on the 1st of May, and read a long and wearisome defence, which did not go to a denial of the charges, but a justification of them, from the need of money to save India, and from the approbation awarded to these actions both in India and at the India House. On the 1st of June Burke brought forward his first charge—the Rohilla war. The debate was not finished till seven o'clock on the morning of the 3rd. The motion was rejected by one hundred and nineteen against sixty-seven, and it was fondly hoped that the proceedings against Hastings were altogether crushed. Lord Thurlow advised the king to carry out his intention to make Hastings Baron Daylesford, and the talk in the clubs and West End assemblies was the triumph of Hastings. But the rejoicing was premature. On the 13th of June Fox took up the second charge—the treatment of Cheyte Sing and Francis, with all the bitterness of his character, and of his hatred of Hastings, supported it. So black were the facts now produced that Pitt was compelled to give way. He defended the Governor-General for calling on Cheyte Sing to contribute men and money for the war against Mysore; he lauded the firmness, decision and ability of Hastings, but he was forced to admit that he had been excessive in his demands, and must support the charge.

This was a thunderstroke to Hastings and his friends. Fifty of Pitt's followers immediately wheeled round with him; Dundas voted with Pitt, and the motion was carried by an exact inversion of the numbers which had negatived the former article on the Rohilla war, one hundred and nineteen against sixty-seven. The Session closed on the 11th of July with the rest of the charges hanging over the ex-Governor's head in ominous gloom.

In the interval, the character and conduct of the Prince of Wales came prominently before the public. The two great friends of the prince were Fox and Sheridan. If the intellectual qualities of these two remarkable men had been equalled by their moral ones, no fitter companions for a young prince could have been found. But, unfortunately, they were as distinguished for their drinking and dissipation, and Fox for his reckless gambling, as for their talents. Pitt and they were in violent opposition, and as Pitt, with his cold, unimpulsive nature, stood firmly by the king, Fox and Sheridan were, as matters of party, warmly the advocates of the prince. Hence the king and his son, sufficiently at strife on the ground of the prince's extravagance and debauchery, were rendered doubly so by the faction fire of their respective adherents. Pitt, who might have softened greatly the hostile feeling between the royal father and son, by recommending less parsimony on the part of the king, and kindly endeavouring to induce the prince to exhibit more respect for his father, never displayed the slightest disposition to act so generous and truly politic a part. Sheridan and some others of the Whig party mentioned the prince's debts, and urged the propriety of something being done to save the honour of the Heir Apparent; but Pitt turned a deaf ear, and the king informed the prince that he could not sanction the payment of his debts by Parliament, nor was he disposed to increase his allowance from the Civil List. On this the prince determined to break up his household, which had been appointed by the king, and cost the prince twenty thousand pounds, to sell his horses and carriages, and to live in a few rooms like a private gentleman. This he did; his fine horses were paraded through the streets on their way to Tattersall's to be sold, and he stopped the building of Carlton House. All this would have been admirable had it proceeded from a real desire to economise on the part of the prince, in order to satisfy his clamorous creditors, and to commence a real reform of his habits; but the whole was only a mode of mortifying the king and Court party by thus exhibiting the Heir Apparent as compelled, by the refusal of a proper allowance, to abandon the style befitting his rank, and sink himself into that of a mere lodger of scanty means. If this grand manœuvre did not accomplish its object at Court, it, however, told on his own party, who resolved in the next Session to make a grand effort for the liquidation of his debts.