INDIA.] SCINDIAH AND HOLKAR. 277 the Nizam and Hyder Ali; but on the mind of the Governor-General it had no effect. As ever, that was firm and fearless. He refused to alter his plans: he refused to recall his troops. On the contrary, he at once directed Goddard to advance. General Goddard (for to that higher rank was he speedily promoted) justified the confidence of Hastings by his energy and skill. In his campaign of that year, and of the following, he, in great measure, retrieved and worthily maintained the honour of the British arms. At one time we see him reduce by storm the fort of Ahmedabad; at another time, by a siege, the city of Bassein. On another occasion he appears gaining a victory over the entire force, 40,000 strong, of Scindiah and Holkar combined. Meanwhile Ragoba had found early means to escape from the hands of Scindiah, and took shelter in Surat. Thus the advantages to the Mahrattas from the day of Wargaum proved fleeting and short-lived. In a hilly district lying to the south of Agra, and bearing, at that time, the name of Gohud, Hastings waged war upon a smaller scale. With the Hindoo prince, or Rana, of that district he had concluded an alliance. The Rana being, in consequence, attacked by the Mahrattas, applied to his confederates in Bengal; and a small body of troops, under Captain Popham, was sent to his support. Not merely did Captain Popham, with little assistance from the Rana, clear Gohud from its invaders, but he carried the war into some of the Mahratta country; he besieged and reduced the city of Lahar; and he gained renown throughout the East when he took, by escalade, a rock-fortress which was deemed impregnable the "castled crag" of Gwalior.* In these and his other military measures Hastings was not left to rely upon his own unassisted judgment. At the first outbreak of the war with France the Cabinet 66 * The strength of this rock-fortress appears at all times to have filled the Gwalior troops with overweening confidence. So lately as 1843, we find the Resident at Gwalior report them as "vauntingly declaring that they are come out to resist the further advance of "the Governor-General, and to make the British force recross the "Chumbul!" (Letter of Colonel Sleeman, Dec. 25. 1843. Gwalior Papers, p. 151.) Only four days afterwards, the great battle of Maharaj-poor corrected this slight misapprehension. of London had determined to send back to the Indian service the most illustrious of its veterans; the same who had led the charge at Wandewash, and received the keys of Pondicherry. Sir Eyre Coote, invested with a two-fold rank as commander of the forces and as member of the Council, arrived at Calcutta in March 1779. He had no disposition to ally himself with Francis, or intrigue against Hastings; yet he gave nearly as much trouble to the latter as ever had Francis himself. The lapse of almost twenty years since his last successes had not been without effect, either on his body or his mind. He had become less active in his movements, and more fretful in his temper. A love of gain had grown up side by side with his love of glory; and strongly impressed with his own great merits, he was ever prone to deem himself slighted or neglected. It required constant care in Hastings to avoid or to explain away any causes of offence between them, while at the same time the Governor-General was striving to obtain for him a large increase to his allowances from the Nabob of Oude, or other less obvious quarters. These additional allowances to Sir Eyre Coote were urged, at a later period, as additional charges against Hastings himself, although he had never sought to derive from them the smallest selfish advantage, and was only zealous-too zealous it might be to carry out his public objects by the helpmates or by the instruments, which he had not chosen, but which a higher authority assigned him.* Neither from Sir Eyre, nor yet from Wheler, at this juncture, did Francis obtain more than occasional support far distant from the constant concurrence of Clavering and Monson. He found, also, that by his unavailing course of opposition, all his humbler partisans were shut out from every share of patronage and power. At this juncture, therefore, he showed some readiness to relax in his hostility. On the other part, Hastings likewise had several strong motives to desire reconcilement. He wished to rid himself of a daily-recurring obstruction. Before the *See Burke's Articles of Charge, xvi. sect. 36., &c. close of 1779, we find Hastings thus write of Sir Eyre:-" My letters "have been all friendly to him; his to me all petulant and suspicious; "I know not why or for what. I bear with him, and will bear, for I 66 am lost if he abandons me." (Memoirs by Gleig, vol. ii. p. 242.) INDIA.] DUEL FOUGHT BY HASTINGS. 279 He wished to release his friend Barwell, who had amassed a large fortune, and who was eager to return with it to England, but who had promised to remain in India, so long as his help was needed. Under these circumstances, early in the year 1780, an engagement was concluded, according to which Francis proposed to desist from systematic opposition, and to acquiesce in all the measures for the prosecution of the Mahratta war, while Hastings undertook to appoint Mr. Fowke, and some other adherents of Francis, to certain lucrative posts. On the faith of this agreement, and with the full consent of Hastings, Barwell embarked for Europe. But, only a few weeks afterwards, the old dissension at the Council-Board burst forth anew. The immediate cause was the expedition in Gohud. Hastings alleged that this was only a branch of his Mahratta war; Francis, on the contrary, maintained that this was a separate object, to which he was not pledged, and which he might freely oppose. The Governor-General, on this occasion, lost, or laid aside, his customary calmness, and in reply to a Minute of his rival, placed on record, in Council, the following words: "I do not trust to Mr. Francis's promises of "candour, convinced that he is incapable of it. I judge "of his public conduct by his private, which I have "found to be void of truth and honour." After such expressions Hastings may be justly charged with the entire blame of the scandal which ensued. When the Council broke up, Francis drew the Governor-General into another chamber, and read to him a challenge; it was accepted by Hastings, and they met on the day but one after-on the morning of the 17th of August. It was between five and six o'clock, and the sun had not yet fully risen on the sacred river and the boundless plain; but there was already the stir of life among the dusky races of Bengal. "I am ashamed," thus afterwards wrote Hastings, "to have been made an actor in this 'silly affair; and I declare to you, upon my honour, that "such was my sense of it at the time that I was much "disturbed by an old woman whose curiosity prompted "her to stand by as a spectatress." He adds: "A scene so little comprehended by the natives of this part of "the world, attracted others of the same stamp from the 66 66 "adjacent villages to partake in the entertainment."* With surprise indeed they must have gazed. None of their own most barbaric rites-neither the zealot who rushes forward to be crushed by the car of Juggernaut, nor the widow compelled to share the funeral pile of her dead lord, nor the worshipper of Siva, deeming that he gains the favour of the idol if he sheds the blood of an innocent wayfarer-none of these, when first beheld, could have more greatly amazed the island-strangers than were the Hindoos to see two members of that Council, sent over for their governance, engage in single combat, according to certain fancied rules: each seeking, as he would explain it, not to destroy the other, but only to clear himself; each taking a careful aim at his antagonist, yet each ready, should he see that antagonist fall, to express a generous sympathy, and to staunch, to the utmost of his power, the wound which he had made. Hastings and Francis fired at nearly the same instant; Hastings was unharmed, but Francis was shot through the side. He was conveyed to an adjacent house, where the surgeons found, that although his wound was severe, his life was not in danger. In the course of the same day Hastings sent his secretary with a message to the sick man, expressing his concern, and offering to call upon him when his health should be sufficiently restored. Francis coldly acknowledged the civility, but said, that after what had passed, the Governor-General and himself could meet only at the Council-Board. There accordingly they did meet for some weeks more; but early in the next December Francis gave up his office and returned to England. In taking that step, he did no more than fulfil an intention which, finding his influence wholly declined, he had formed even in the preceding year. At that time his position and his purpose were delineated, as follows, by his chief: "Francis is mi"scrable; and is weak enough to declare it, in a manner "much resembling a passionate woman whose hands are "held to prevent her from doing mischief. He vows he "will go home in November, but I do not believe that "his resolution is so fixed as he pretends."† *To L. Sulivan, Esq., August 30. 1780 Ibid., April 18. 1779. INDIA.] 66 66 66 66 THE COSSIJURAH CASE. 281 Dissension with Francis, however fierce, was no novelty to Hastings. But during the same period he had to wage a painful warfare with a former friend-Sir Elijah Impey. In the Regulating Act of 1773 the limits between the judicial and political powers which it instituted had not been duly defined. Thus it happened, that on several points in practice the Supreme Court came to clash with the Supreme Council. Moreover, the new Judges had gone out with overstrained ideas of their rights and privileges. They would scarcely acknowledge any co-ordinate authority for which they could find no precedent in Westminster Hall. "Who"thus on one occasion spoke Mr. Justice Le Maistre. "who are the Provincial Chief and Council of Dacca? They are no Corporation in the eye of the law. A man might as well say that he was commanded by the King of the Fairies as by the Council of Dacca; because the law knows no such body.": On these principles it happened that the most cherished customs and feelings, both of the Hindoos and of the Mussulmans, were often set at nought. It was impossible for the Governor-General to view their resentment with indifference or without an effort at redress. The consequent dissension between the Supreme Court and the Supreme Council for a long time only smouldered. At last, in the beginning of 1780, it burst into open flame. The immediate cause was the progress of a suit which had been brought against a wealthy landholder, the Rajah of Cossijurah, by Cossinaut Baboo his agent at Calcutta, when the Judge issued a writ to sequester his lands and goods. For this object an armed band, consisting of sixty men and commanded by a Serjeant of the Court, was despatched to Cossijurah. The Rajah, with a just apprehension of the terrors of the law, had already fled from his house. Nevertheless it was forcibly entered by the gang of bailiffs; nor did they even shrink from breaking open the ZENANA, or the women's chambers, ever held sacred in the East amidst the worst barbarities of war. The servants of the Rajah stood at the threshold * Appendix No. 9. to the Report of the Committee of 1781; and note to Mill's History of India, vol. iv. p. 317. |