HASTINGS' STR UGGLE WITH HIS CO UNCIL. 45 7

Hastings’ true fame as an Indian ruler rests on his admini- Hastings’strative work. He reorganized the Indian service, reformedevery branch of the revenue collections, created courts of Nativejustice and some semblance of a police. History remembers Fowers -his name, however, not for his improvements in the internaladministration, but for his bold foreign policy, and for theseverities which it involved. From 1772 to 1774 he wasGovernor of Bengal; from the latter date to 1785 he was the Warren first Governor-General, presiding over a Council nominated, Hastingslike himself, under a statute of Parliament known as the Governor-Regulating Act (1773). In his domestic policy he was greatly General,hampered by the opposition of his colleague in Council, Sir iyy4Philip Francis . But in his external relations with Oudh, withthe Marathas, and with Haidar Ah', he was generally able tocompel assent to his views.

The Act of 1773 practically condemned Hastings to govern HisIndia in spite of a majority against him in his Council. Hehad only a single vote like each other member, except in the Council,case of an equal division, when he had also the casting vote.

The members sent out from England under the Act of 1773formed a hostile majority against Hastings from the outset; andthey cruelly used their strength. The best known episodes ofthe struggle which followed are the trial and execution of theBrahman Nuncomar (Nanda-kumar) for forgery ; and the finalduel between Hastings and Sir Philip Francis , the leader ofthe adverse majority in the Council. The trial of Nuncomarwas unscrupulously misrepresented by Sir Philip Francis andhis partisans. Their contemporary slanders were equally un-scrupulously accepted by Mr. James Mill in his History, andunfortunately passed as facts into Lord Macaulay ’s world-famous essay on Warren Hastings . The whole question has,however, been carefully re-examined by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen , 1 and Hastings now stands acquitted of any improperconnection with the judicial proceedings which terminated insentence of death against Nuncomar.

His relations with the Native Powers, like his domestic His two-policy, formed a well-considered scheme. Hastings had to fold alms -find money for the Court of Directors in England, whosethirst for the wealth of India was not less keen, although moredecorous, than that of their servants in Bengal. He hadalso to protect the Company’s territory from the Native

1 In his Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey .

See also for many interesting local details, Dr. H. E. Busteed’s admirablesecond edition of his Echoes from. Old Calcutta. (Thacker, Spink, 1888.)