what might happen, acted on a discretion given him, and tendered the Viceroy's resignation. Wheler was at once appointed in his stead, and Clavering named to act as locum tenens until he should arrive. But ere the news could reach Calcutta, Colonel Monson died. By virtue of his casting vote, Hastings regained his ascendancy in the Council, and at once resumed the exercise of unlimited authority with respect both to measures and to men. Clavering vainly attempted to assert the temporary power assigned to him. He sent for the keys of office, and they were refused ; he issued orders to the troops, but they were disobeyed. The question of who should govern was referred to the Supreme Court. Hastings repudiated his resignation; declared he had kept no copy, or that, if he had, he could not find it. Not having resigned, there was no vacancy in point of law, and all the proceedings founded on the supposition were consequently null and void. The Judges ruled in his favour; and when Wheler arrived; he had to content himself with taking a subordinate seat in the Council. The ascendancy of superior intellect and audacity combined was shown in a personal incident about this time. Baron Imhoff, under Viceregal patronage, had continued to practise his art at Calcutta; but after long delay the decree of divorce arrived from Germany, and the superseded husband thereupon departed with his share of Indian riches. The Church at last bestowed its benediction on Mrs Hastings, and the exculpatory rite was solemnised with courtly splendour. Clavering excused his absence on the ground of illness, but the cup of triumph would not have been full without his presence, and the Viceroy, to ensure it, paid him a visit, and carried him to the wedding-feast.

Francis was a man made of different stuff. When he hated he hated with his whole heart; and he hated nobody

so much as Hastings. He had, by the help of Clavering and Monson, succeeded in deposing him for a time; and with the help of Fowke and Bristowe as witnesses to his corruption, he had branded him with administrative reproach. The tide of fortune had turned, and Hastings, once more in the ascendancy, was all but absolute lord of the East. There were few things probably Francis would not have done to redress the balance of power thus overset. While he brooded in bitterness and discontent, overtures of peace came from the enemy. The Governor-General had learned to respect, if not to fear, the tenacity of his rival's purpose and the inveteracy of his aversion. The day must come when, returning to England, Francis, unappeased and unforgiving, might be a serious impediment in the way of his ambition. Better win him over, and commit him if possible to concurrence in the general policy of Indian administration while there was time, than run the risk of having to defend the measures of to-day and to-morrow, as well as those of yesterday, in a Court of Proprietors, in the press, and in Parliament. Might not Francis be tempted, by one or two triumphs in hand, to relinquish the hope of half a dozen in the bush fifteen thousand miles away? The result justified the experiment of reconciliation. Francis, overreached and over-matched, chafing with disappointment, half-forgotten in England, and conscious that he was regarded by his countrymen in Calcutta as one who, with all his talents, had been baffled, might well apply to himself the terrible words of Swift, that after all his fame his fate seemed to be "To die of rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." Unexpectedly the door of his chamber opened, and an emissary charged with offers of accommodation entered. If his own pen has not depicted his amazement and delight, how should another's. It was one of those exquisite moments

that compensate ambitious men for years of embitterment and chagrin. He agreed to the general basis of arrangement, and promised not to thwart certain measures then about to be taken against the Mahrattas. He insisted for the public restoration to all their dignities and emoluments of Fowke and Bristowe, whom he felt bound in honour to see righted for the part they had taken, and for the sacrifices they had endured. This was a bitter dose, but Junius was inexorable, and with a shrug Hastings gulped it. It was an ineffaceable admission that these men were not perjurers, as they had been called; if not, their testimony remained; and Hastings, by the fact of their reappointment to the Residencies of Lucknow and Benares, confessed himself to have been corrupt, calumnious, and cruel.

For two years peace was maintained in Fort William, but at length the old antagonism broke out afresh. In dealing with the Mahrattas, incidents arose which drew forth differences of opinion. Francis was on the side of nonintervention, Hastings was for taking the high-handed line. Unable to persuade, he tried to silence his opponent by alleging that acquiescence in his views of external policy was one of the terms of the accommodation between them. This Francis stoutly denied; he said it had been proposed, but refused by him, and that in an unlimited sense it would manifestly be incompatible with his sworn duty as a member of the Executive. A minute of Hastings pronouncing him incapable of candour and unworthy of credit provoked him to send a challenge, which the Viceroy did not hesitate to accept. A duel took place next day; Francis was wounded, but not dangerously, and he soon recovered. Two years before, Lord Townshend, then Viceroy of Ireland, was challenged by Lord Bellamont for having turned his back upon him at levée. They fought with swords, and

the challenger was wounded. Such were the manners of a time not yet a century past.

The last efforts of Francis in India had been directed chiefly to limit the scope of aggressive hostilities against the Mahratta States, with whom he and his late colleagues had always advised that we should seek to live in amity. Clavering had placed on record his opinion on the subject. When the Government of Bombay had seized Salsette, invaded Broach, and rashly committed themselves in disputes as to the successor to the musnud of Poona, the General, who disapproved of these proceedings, would have had the Government at Calcutta exercise its overruling authority, and vindicate its character for good faith with its neighbours. He hoped "that the Mahrattas thus seeing our justice and moderation, and that our intentions were finally to put a stop to that spirit of conquest, encroachment, and injustice, which seemed hitherto to have prevailed too much in India, would listen to the proposals we had made to conclude a firm and everlasting peace with them."1 But these were not the intentions of Hastings; and when Monson and Clavering were dead, he was no longer restrained from aiding and abetting the schemes of aggression which had been immaturely and improvidently commenced at Bombay. Expeditions under Popham, Goddart, and Carnac were launched against Scindia, Holkar, and Berar. Fresh feats of valour added greatly to the reputation of the English for enterprise and endurance; and so far contributed to create that belief in their invincibility which rendered subsequent conquests possible. After four sanguinary campaigns, peace was made in 1780, restoring all the acquisitions which had been made on either side. At the close of the year Francis returned to England, and thus 1 Thornton's History of British India, 3d edit. p. 145.

expired the attempt, never again renewed, to temper by constitutional checks in Council viceregal despotism in the East. For the purposes of advice, and with powers of suggestion, what is termed a Supreme Council still remains. But it is a consultative body of précis writers, not a Cabinet.

Left once more to himself (for the new members of Council were not men of the sort that could have effectually curbed him), he entered upon various enterprises of expansion and expropriation. Among the chiefs of secondary rank friendly to the English, when friends were few and aid invaluable, was the Rajah of Benares. He was one of the wealthy feudatories from whom the Viziers of Oude had been satisfied with fealty and a payment of certain contributions in peace and war. Bulwunt Singh was an excellent ruler; the local administration was never interfered with; his people were happy, and the country prosperous. The description by Holwell of the condition of Burdwan applied equally to the holy city of Siva and the districts around it. Hindu pilgrims from far and near brought rich and varied gifts to the famous shrine; and the peasantry, fearless of unjust exaction or personal wrong, cultivated their fields like gardens, and throve on the fruits of their unwearied industry. Their numbers were estimated at more than half a million, and their chief had but one fault in the eyes of his neighbours that of being suspected of opulence greater than their own. By the partition treaty of 1775, the Vizier had transferred his suzerainty over Benares to the Company, who issued sunnuds confirming Cheyte Singh in all the rights he had inherited from his father. On the outbreak of war with France, they called on him to raise and equip three battalions of sepoys, at a yearly charge of five lacs of rupees. After some parleying and grumbling,