“Considering the great importance of the acquisition of Bidanore to the Company, its proportionable disadvantage to the enemy, and the magnitude of the object to be obtained by holding out every possible incitement and encouragement to the Managers of the Mysore Country, to throw off a new and unsettled dependence on the enemy’s Government, in order to obtain a more secure and beneficial tenure from the Company’s possession, the Board are the more readily inclined to afford this early return to the advances of Hyat Sahib, in the hope that it will inspire him with fresh confidence in the English Government, and rivet his attachment to it.
“It will be at your option, either to return immediately with Hyat Sahib’s answer to the Governor-General’s letter, if you shall deem it of sufficient consequence to require it, or to remain with him, if you conceive that your residence there for any time will be more conducive to the public interests; but, in either case, you are desired to report the particulars of your reception and proceedings to this Government, with any other information which you may think it useful for them to know.
“I am, Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
J. P. Auriol, Sec.
Fort William, May 29, 1783.”
It would be unpardonable in me to let this occasion pass without expressing the high sense I entertain of Mr. Hastings’s politeness, and Sir John Macpherson’s kindness and hospitality during my stay at Calcutta. As to Mr. Hastings, in his public capacity, it would be presumptuous and injudicious to say much, as he now stands for the judgment of the highest Tribunal in this Country. My own observation leads me to consider him as a man of sound, acute and brilliant talents, and of a vast and comprehensive mind——of manners sociable, amiable, meek and unaffected——and of a disposition truly benevolent. His superior knowledge of the political interests of Indostan, and particularly of the affairs of the East India Company, has never been questioned; and, if the suffrage of the People of India may be allowed to decide, his conduct as Governor-General, though, like every thing human, intermixed with error, was, on the whole, great and laudable——for I declare I scarcely ever heard a man in India, Native or European, censure him, although he was often the subject of conversation with all persons and in all companies in the East.
The social virtues of Sir John Macpherson are so well known, that it would be superfluous to notice them. The same friendship and hospitality I experienced in his house, has been shared by many, who are not backward in doing him ample justice on that head. But his conduct during his short administration can be known only by those who make the political concerns of India a subject of studious attention. To enter into a detail of his various wise regulations for the restoration of the Company’s affairs, would be destructive of the end I propose, which is, by a concise and simple summary of the whole, to render a fair picture of his administration so clear as to be understood by any person, however ignorant he may be of the politics of that Country, and so brief as not to discourage the reading of it.
Sir John Macpherson took the reins of Government into his hands on the first of February, 1785. He found the Company’s revenues diminished, and their expenditure increased, by the continual claims of Proprietors, Directors, and Ministers, to a share in the patronage of Mr. Hastings——and a public debt accumulating to an enormous amount. He therefore saw the necessity of putting in practice every expedient possible, and trying every experiment that the state of the Country suggested, as likely to promote an increase of the revenue, a diminution of the public expenditure, and a liquidation of the debt. He, therefore, on the fourteenth day of his administration, commenced a reform, which he continued with indefatigable zeal and industry to introduce through the various departments of Government——and, beginning with himself, discharged his body-guards. While he was thus employed in India, the Company and Parliament in England were unremittingly engaged in considering and molding into shape a system of reform also; and, extraordinary as it may appear, the fact is, that the sagacity of Mr. Macpherson had adopted by anticipation, and actually reduced to practice, the identical speculative reforms which the Parliament and Company were proceeding upon in England; and the general plan of reform which passed the Court of Directors on the eleventh of April, 1785, had been actually carried into execution by Sir John Macpherson in Bengal, in the months of February, March and April, 1785. He made arrangements for the diffusion of knowledge——established the settlement of Pulo Penang, or Prince of Wales’s Island——settled the Bank of Calcutta on a firm basis——regulated the markets——and, by a plan of his own conception, secured the Company from the accustomed fraudulent compositions with Zemindars, by bonding their balances, and making the bonds cancelable only by the Court of Directors. In fine, he introduced and carried into effect a system of reform which had a most sudden and salutary effect on the British affairs in India; and in an administration of only eighteen months, he had the felicity to perceive the fruits of his wisdom and industry maturing——to receive that best of earthly rewards, the esteem and applause of his Fellow-citizens——and to be honoured by the best of Sovereigns with the dignity of a Baronet.
While I was at Sir John Macpherson’s house, I happened, in conversation one day with Mr. Macauley, Sir John’s Secretary, to be talking over some part of my adventures; and found to my astonishment, that he had, in his route to India, accidentally hired the very servant whom I had lost at Trieste by sending him for letters to Venice; and Mr. Macauley assured me, that he found him possessed of all the good qualities I had expected to meet in him: but the poor fellow had died before my arrival at Calcutta, to my great mortification and disappointment.