Lord Clive had laid his hand on bleeding wounds; he had dried up in them the source of much abuse; he had effectually hindered ambitious and evil projects. His enemies were numerous and determined, and they pursued him to England with their jealous hatred. The most honorable part of his life was calumniated. Past acts were recalled which did honor neither to his heart nor his conscience. By a very natural mistake of public opinion, Clive became to the mass of the nation the type of those functionaries enriched in India who were then called nabobs, a great number of whom had seen their malversations stopped by his firm government. A horrible famine which desolated Bengal in 1770, the origin of which was falsely attributed to his measures, cast trouble into the soul as well as confusion into the affairs of the company. Many of its agents were fiercely accused. Lord Clive was involved in their unpopularity. His adversaries presented a bill on the affairs of India to Parliament. Clive did not want to be personally attacked. He defended himself in a long and carefully prepared speech, which had a great and legitimate success. His enemies then directed their accusations against the first part of his life, which were more difficult to defend. Irritated, but not uneasy, Clive boldly maintained the necessity of the manœuvres he had employed, asserting that he would not hesitate to have recourse to the same means again, and when the gifts that he had received from Meer Jaffier were harped upon, "By God, Mr. President," exclaimed Clive, "when I think of the offers which have been made to me, of the caves full of ingots and precious stones which have been opened to me, what astonishes me at this moment is my moderation."
With wise justice the House of Commons had blamed, in regard to certain points, Clive's conduct while establishing legitimate principles of government; it had at the same time the justice to recognize the great services which the general had rendered his country. Clive was acquitted by the House and justified in the eyes of public opinion. He was rich and powerful. The American war, then commencing, was about to open a new field for his military genius, and the ministry had already made proposals to him. On the 22d of November, 1774, Clive died by his own hand in the magnificent castle which he had built at Claremont. He was about to enter on his forty-ninth year. On several occasions ere this, in all the vigor of his youth, he had been attacked by that gloomy melancholy which was at last to cost him his life. Being sick and unemployed, he had recourse to the fatal solace of opium. An energetic spirit of most powerful faculties had foundered in shipwreck. England had lost the only general capable of struggling against Washington.
When Clive died thus sadly and gloomily, wearied of fortune and of glory, his successor in the Indian Empire, as potent in administration and policy as the general had been in war, Governor Warren Hastings was sustaining against his foes and his rivals that desperate struggle which the maintenance of his method was to render celebrated in England and in Europe. Born on the 6th of September, 1732, of an ancient but impoverished family, and sent to India, while very young in the civil service, Warren Hastings had already distinguished himself by intelligent services when he was appointed agent at the court of Meer Jaffier, at the moment when Clive, during his stay in India, was establishing the empire of England over Bengal. He afterwards became a member of the council at Calcutta, at the era when disorder and corruption reigned there unchecked, before the powerful hand of Clive had introduced into administration the first elements of order and probity. In 1764 he returned to England. His fortune was modest; he made liberal use of it towards his family, and heavy losses swallowed what remained. Hastings returned to India in 1769 as member of the council of Madras.
Being capable and sagacious, he was occupied in seeking advantageous investments for the funds of the company, the affairs of which prospered in his hands. The directors had at the same time got sight of the rare political faculties of their clever agent. They resolved to nominate him as governor of Bengal. The double government which Clive had founded still existed. It left the appearance of power to the nabob, but confided the reality to the hands of the English. The native ministry Clive had elevated still guided the affairs of the Hindoo prince. He was a Mussulman, and was called Mohammed Reza Khan. For ten years a clever and unscrupulous Hindoo rival, the Brahmin Nuncomar, had pursued him with his jealous animosity. Shortly after the arrival of Hastings, and contrary to his advice, on orders come from London, the new governor was obliged to depose Mohammed Reza Khan. He knew Nuncomar, however, and was resolved not to satisfy his greedy ambition. When the Mussulman minister, a prisoner, but kindly treated, had set out for Madras under a strong guard, Hastings took from the infant nabob the remnants of his authority. The post of native minister was abolished. The administration of Bengal passed entirely into the hands of the English. The little prince, still surrounded by a court and provided with an ample revenue, was confided to the care of a woman who had formed part of his father's harem. The hatred of Nuncomar was transferred from Mohammed Reza Khan to the governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings.
Having become all-powerful, and being constantly pressed by the company to send it money, Hastings had used violent and irregular means to procure the sums demanded of him. He had reduced the pensions which the English had agreed to pay to the deposed princes; he had sold towns or territories to native sovereigns; he had, last of all, engaged the company's troops in a private war of the nabob vizier of Oude against the Rohillas, and he had for a sum of money enslaved on the prince's behalf a proud and independent population, henceforth given over to the most cruel oppression. The distant rumor of this iniquity reached as far as England. In 1773, under Lord North's ministry, a new law had seriously modified the government of India. Henceforth the presidency of Bengal was to exercise control over the other possessions of the company: a council composed of four members was charged with assisting the governor-general; a supreme court of justice, established at Calcutta, was to be independent of the governor and of the council. Among the members of this new administration was Sir Philip Francis, probably the author of the celebrated letters of Junius, who was endowed with a persistent, violent, and bitter spirit, and who was soon engaged against Hastings in a struggle which was to last as long as their lives.
Francis swayed the majority in the council. He took away the government from Hastings and put his hand on all branches of the administration. Disorder became extreme. The hate of Nuncomar led him to believe that he had found a chance of destroying his enemy forever. He formulated the gravest charges against the governor-general, and Francis undertook to transmit his deposition to the council. Hastings treated Francis and Nuncomar with haughtiness. Public opinion in India was favorable to him, and he did not at that time consider himself seriously menaced. In appealing to the higher authority at London, he addressed his resignation to Colonel Maclean, his agent in England, instructing him only to hand it in in case the council of the company should show itself hostile to his interests.
His precaution being taken so far as England was concerned, Warren Hastings, bold as he was clever and calm, resolved to attempt a great stroke. He was master of the supreme court, which was absolutely independent in its scarcely limited jurisdiction. The president, Sir E. Impey, had been his schoolfellow, and willingly became his docile tool. Nuncomar was accused of forgery in a business letter—the most common and most venial of crimes in the Hindoo practice and morality. He was arrested and cast into prison. After a trial in which all the resources and intrigues of the council failed before the firm resolve of the judges, Nuncomar was declared guilty and condemned to death.