Part 24

The Mahratta war was not yet terminated, but a far more formidable danger now threatened the English in India. The imprudent conduct of the Madras authorities had irritated beyond endurance the two greatest Mussulman powers in the peninsula, the nizam of the Deccan and Hyder Ali, the usurper of Mysore, who began to negotiate an alliance with the Mahrattas. A second time the genius of Hastings saved the British empire in the east. On the arrival of the news that Hyder had descended from the highlands of Mysore, cut to pieces the only British army in the field, and swept the Carnatic up to the gates of Madras, he at once adopted a policy of extraordinary boldness. He signed a blank treaty of peace with the Mahrattas, who were still in arms, reversed the action of the Madras government towards the nizam, and concentrated all the resources of Bengal against Hyder Ali. Sir Eyre Coote, a general of renown in former Carnatic wars, was sent by sea to Madras with all the troops and treasure that could be got together; and a strong body of reinforcements subsequently marched southwards under Colonel Pearse along the coast line of Orissa. The landing of Coote preserved Madras from destruction, though the war lasted through many campaigns and only terminated with the death of Hyder. Pearse's detachment was decimated by an epidemic of cholera (perhaps the first mention of this disease by name in Indian history); but the survivors penetrated to Madras, and not only held in check Bhonsla and the nizam, but also corroborated the lesson taught by Goddard--that the Company's sepoys could march anywhere, when boldly led. Hastings's personal task was to provide the ways and means for this exhausting war. A considerable economy was effected by a reform in the establishment for collecting the land tax. The government monopolies of opium and salt were then for the first time placed upon a remunerative basis. But these reforms were of necessity slow in their beneficial operation. The pressing demands of the military chest had to be satisfied by loans, and in at least one case from the private purse of the governor-general. Ready cash could alone fill up the void; and it was to the hoards of native princes that Hastings's fertile mind at once turned. Chait Sing, raja of Benares, the greatest of the vassal chiefs who had grown rich under the protection of the British rule, lay under the suspicion of disloyalty. The wazir of Oudh had fallen into arrears in the payment due for the maintenance of the Company's garrison posted in his dominions, and his administration was in great disorder. In his case the ancestral hoards were under the control of his mother, the begum of Oudh, into whose hands they had been allowed to pass at the time when Hastings was powerless in council. Hastings resolved to make a progress up country in order to arrange the affairs of both provinces, and bring back all the treasure that could be squeezed out of its holders by his personal intervention. When he reached Benares and presented his demands, the raja rose in insurrection, and the governor-general barely escaped with his life. But the faithful Popham rapidly rallied a force for his defence. The insurgents were defeated again and again; Chait Sing took to flight, and an augmented permanent tribute was imposed upon his successor. The Oudh business was managed with less risk. The wazir consented to everything demanded of him. The begum was charged with having abetted Chait Sing in his rebellion; and after the severest pressure applied to herself and her attendant eunuchs, a fine of more than a million sterling was exacted from her. Hastings appears to have been not altogether satisfied with the incidents of this expedition, and to have anticipated the censure which it received in England. As a measure of precaution, he procured documentary evidence of the rebellious intentions of the raja and the begum, to the validity of which Impey obligingly lent his extra-judicial sanction.

The remainder of Hastings's term of office in India was passed in comparative tranquillity, both from internal opposition and foreign war. The centre of interest now shifts to the India House and to the British parliament. The long struggle between the Company and the ministers of the crown for the supreme control of Indian affairs and the attendant patronage had reached its climax. The decisive success of Hastings's administration alone postponed the inevitable solution. His original term of five years would have expired in 1778; but it was annually prolonged by special act of parliament until his voluntary resignation. Though Hastings was thus irremovable, his policy did not escape censure. Ministers were naturally anxious to obtain the reversion to his vacant post, and Indian affairs formed at this time the hinge on which party politics turned. On one occasion Dundas carried a motion in the House of Commons, censuring Hastings and demanding his recall. The directors of the Company were disposed to act upon this resolution; but in the court of proprietors, with whom the decision ultimately lay, Hastings always possessed a sufficient majority. Fox's India Bill led to the downfall of the Coalition ministry in 1783. The act which Pitt successfully carried in the following year introduced a new constitution, in which Hastings felt that he had no place. In February 1785 he finally sailed from Calcutta, after a dignified ceremony of resignation, and amid enthusiastic farewells from all classes.

On his arrival in England, after a second absence of sixteen years, he was not displeased with the reception he met with at court and in the country. A peerage was openly talked of as his due, while his own ambition pointed to some responsible office at home. Pitt had never taken a side against him, while Lord Chancellor Thurlow was his pronounced friend. But he was now destined to learn that his enemy Francis, whom he had discomfited in the council chamber at Calcutta, was more than his match in the parliamentary arena. Edmund Burke had taken the subject races of India under the protection of his eloquence. Francis, who had been the early friend of Burke, supplied him with the personal animus against Hastings, and with the knowledge of detail, which he might otherwise have lacked. The Whig party on this occasion unanimously followed Burke's lead. Dundas, Pitt's favourite subordinate, had already committed himself by his earlier resolution of censure; and Pitt was induced by motives which are still obscure to incline the ministerial majority to the same side. To meet the oratory of Burke and Sheridan and Fox, Hastings wrote an elaborate minute with which he wearied the ears of the House for two successive nights, and he subsidized a swarm of pamphleteers. The impeachment was decided upon in 1786, but the actual trial did not commence until 1788. For seven long years Hastings was upon his defence on the charge of "high crimes and misdemeanours." During this anxious period he appears to have borne himself with characteristic dignity, such as is consistent with no other hypothesis than the consciousness of innocence. At last, in 1795, the House of Lords gave a verdict of not guilty on all charges laid against him; and he left the bar at which he had so frequently appeared, with his reputation clear, but ruined in fortune. However large the wealth he brought back from India, all was swallowed up in defraying the expenses of his trial. Continuing the line of conduct which in most other men would be called hypocrisy, he forwarded a petition to Pitt praying that he might be reimbursed his costs from the public funds. This petition, of course, was rejected. At last, when he was reduced to actual destitution, it was arranged that the East India Company should grant him an annuity of L4000 for a term of years, with L90,000 paid down in advance. This annuity expired before his death; and he was compelled to make more than one fresh appeal to the bounty of the Company, which was never withheld. Shortly before his acquittal he had been able to satisfy the dream of his childhood, by buying back the ancestral manor of Daylesford, where the remainder of his life was passed in honourable retirement. In 1813 he was called on to give evidence upon Indian affairs before the two houses of parliament, which received him with exceptional marks of respect. The university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L.; and in the following year he was sworn of the privy council, and took a prominent part in the reception given to the duke of Wellington and the allied sovereigns. He died on the 22nd of August 1818, in his 86th year, and lies buried behind the chancel of the parish church, which he had recently restored at his own charges.

In physical appearance, Hastings "looked like a great man, and not like a bad man." The body was wholly subjugated to the mind. A frame naturally slight had been further attenuated by rigorous habits of temperance, and thus rendered proof against the diseases of the tropics. Against his private character not even calumny has breathed a reproach. As brother, as husband and as friend, his affections were as steadfast as they were warm. By the public he was always regarded as reserved, but within his own inner circle he gave and received perfect confidence. In his dealings with money, he was characterized rather by liberality of expenditure than by carefulness of acquisition. A classical education and the instincts of family pride saved him from both the greed and the vulgar display which marked the typical "nabob," the self-made man of those days. He could support the position of a governor-general and of a country gentleman with equal credit. Concerning his second marriage, it suffices to say that the Baroness Imhoff was nearly forty years of age, with a family of grown-up children, when the complaisant law of her native land allowed her to become Mrs Hastings. She survived her husband, who cherished towards her to the last the sentiments of a lover. Her children he adopted as his own; and it was chiefly for her sake that he desired the peerage which was twice held out to him.

Hastings's public career will probably never cease to be a subject of controversy. It was his misfortune to be the scapegoat upon whose head parliament laid the accumulated sins, real and imaginary, of the East India Company. If the acquisition of the Indian empire can be supported on ethical grounds, Hastings needs no defence. No one who reads his private correspondence will admit that even his least defensible acts were dictated by dishonourable motives. It is more pleasing to point out certain of his public measures upon which no difference of opinion can arise. He was the first to attempt to open a trade route with Tibet, and to organize a survey of Bengal and of the eastern seas. It was he who persuaded the _pundits_ of Bengal to disclose the treasures of Sanskrit to European scholars. He founded the Madrasa or college for Mahommedan education at Calcutta, primarily out of his own funds; and he projected the foundation of an Indian institute in England. The Bengal Asiatic Society was established under his auspices, though he yielded the post of president to Sir W. Jones. No Englishman ever understood the native character so well as Hastings; none ever devoted himself more heartily to the promotion of every scheme, great and small, that could advance the prosperity of India. Natives and Anglo-Indians alike venerate his name, the former as their first beneficent administrator, the latter as the most able and the most enlightened of their own class. If Clive's sword conquered the Indian empire, it was the brain of Hastings that planned the system of civil administration, and his genius that saved the empire in its darkest hour.

See G. B. Malleson, _Life of Warren Hastings_ (1894); G. W. Forrest, _The Administration of Warren Hastings_ (Calcutta, 1892); Sir Charles Lawson, _The Private Life of Warren Hastings_ (1895); L. J. Trotter, _Warren Hastings_ ("Rulers of India" series) (1890); Sir Alfred Lyall, _Warren Hastings_ ("English Men of Action" series) (1889); F. M. Holmes, _Four Heroes of India_ (1892); G. W. Hastings, _A Vindication of Warren Hastings_ (1909). Macaulay's famous essay, though a classic, is very partial and inaccurate; and Burke's speech, on the impeachment of Warren Hastings, is magnificent rhetoric. The true historical view has been restored by Sir James Stephen's _Story of Nuncomar_ (1885) and by Sir John Strachey's _Hastings and the Rohilla War_ (1892), and it is enforced in some detail in Sydney C. Grier's _Letters of Warren Hastings to his Wife_ (1905), material for which existed in a mass of documents relating to Hastings, acquired by the British Museum. (J. S. Co.)

HASTINGS, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough and watering-place of Sussex, England, one of the Cinque Ports, 62 m. S.E. by S. from London, on the South Eastern & Chatham and the London, Brighton & South Coast railways. Pop. (1901), 65,528. It is picturesquely situated at the mouth of two narrow valleys, and, being sheltered by considerable hills on the north and east, has an especially mild climate. Eastward along the coast towards Fairlight, and inland, the country is beautiful. A parade fronts the English Channel, and connects the town on the west with St Leonard's, which is included within the borough. This is mainly a residential quarter, and has four railway stations on the lines serving Hastings. Both Hastings and St Leonard's have fine piers; there is a covered parade known as the Marina, and the Alexandra Park of 75 acres was opened in 1891. There are also numerous public gardens. The sandy beach is extensive, and affords excellent bathing. On the brink of the West Cliff stand a square and a circular tower and other fragments of the castle, probably erected soon after the time of William the Conqueror; together with the ruins, opened up by excavation in 1824, of the castle chapel, a transitional Norman structure 110 ft. long, with a nave, chancel and aisles. Besides the chapel there was formerly a college, both being under the control of a dean and secular canons. The deanery was held by Thomas Becket, and one of the canonries by William of Wykeham. The principal public buildings are the old parish churches of All Saints and St Clements, the first containing in its register for 1619 the baptism of Titus Oates, whose father was rector of the parish; numerous modern churches, the town hall (1880); theatre, music hall and assembly rooms. The Brassey Institute contains a public library, museum and art school. The Albert Memorial clock-tower was erected in 1864. Educational institutions include the grammar school (1883), school of science and art (1878) and technical schools. At the west end of the town are several hospitals and convalescent homes. The prosperity of the town depends almost wholly on its reputation as a watering-place, but there is a small fishing and boat-building industry. In 1890 an act of parliament authorized the construction of a harbour, but the work, begun in 1896, was not completed. The fish-market beneath the castle cliff is picturesque. The parliamentary borough, returning one member, falls within the Rye division of the county. The county borough was created in 1888. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area, 4857 acres.

Rock shelters on Castle Hill and numerous flint instruments which have been discovered at Hastings point to an extensive neolithic population, and there are ancient earthworks and a promontory camp of unknown date. There is no evidence that Hastings was a Roman settlement, but it was a place of some note in the Anglo-Saxon period. In 795 land at Hastings (Haestingaceaster, Haestingas, Haestingaport) is included in a grant, which may possibly be a forgery, of a South Saxon chieftain to the abbey of St Denis in France; and a royal mint was established at the town by Aethelstan. The battle of Hastings in 1066 described below was the first and decisive act of the Norman Conquest. It was fought near the present Battle Abbey, about 6 m. inland. After the Conquest William I. erected the earthworks of the existing castle. By 1086 Hastings was a borough and had given its name to the rape of Sussex in which it lay. The town at that time had a harbour and a market. Whether Hastings was one of the towns afterwards known as the Cinque Ports at the time when they received their first charter from Edward the Confessor is uncertain, but in the reign of William I. it was undoubtedly among them. These combined towns, of which Hastings was the head, had special liberties and a separate jurisdiction under a warden. The only charter peculiar to Hastings was granted in 1589 by Elizabeth, and incorporated the borough under the name of "mayor, jurats and commonalty," instead of the former title of "bailiff, jurats and commonalty." Hastings returned two members to parliament probably from 1322, and certainly from 1366, until 1885, when the number was reduced to one.

_Battle of Hastings._--On the 28th of September 1066, William of Normandy, bent on asserting by arms his right to the English crown, landed at Pevensey. King Harold, who had destroyed the invaders of northern England at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, on hearing the news hurried southward, gathering what forces he could on the way. He took up his position, athwart the road from Hastings to London, on a hill[1] some 6 m. inland from Hastings, with his back to the great forest of Anderida (the Weald) and in front of him a long glacis-like slope, at the bottom of which began the opposing slope of Telham Hill. The English army was composed almost entirely of infantry. The shire levies, for the most part destitute of body armour and with miscellaneous and even improvised weapons, were arranged on either flank of Harold's guards (_huscarles_), picked men armed principally with the Danish axe and shield.

Before this position Duke William appeared on the morning of the 14th of October. His host, composed not only of his Norman vassals but of barons, knights and adventurers from all quarters, was arranged in a centre and two wings, each corps having its archers and arblasters in the front line, the rest of the infantry in the second and the heavy armoured cavalry in the third. Neither the arrows nor the charge of the second line of foot-men, who, unlike the English, wore defensive mail, made any impression on the English standing in a serried mass behind their interlocked shields.[2]

Then the heavy cavalry came on, led by the duke and his brother Odo, and encouraged by the example of the minstrel Taillefer, who rode forward, tossing and catching his sword, into the midst of the English line before he was pulled down and killed. All along the front the cavalry came to close quarters with the defenders, but the long powerful Danish axes were as formidable as the halbert and the bill proved to be in battles of later centuries, and they lopped off the arms of the assailants and cut down their horses. The fire of the attack died out and the left wing (Bretons) fled in rout. But as the _fyrd_ levies broke out of the line and pursued the Bretons down the hill in a wild, formless mob, William's cavalry swung round and destroyed them, and this suggested to the duke to repeat deliberately what the Bretons had done from fear. Another advance, followed by a feigned retreat, drew down a second large body of the English from the crest, and these in turn, once in the open, were ridden over and slaughtered by the men-at-arms. Lastly, these two disasters having weakened the defenders both materially and morally, William subjected the _huscarles_, who had stood fast when the _fyrd_ broke its ranks, to a constant rain of arrows, varied from time to time by cavalry charges. These magnificent soldiers endured the trial for many hours, from noon till close on nightfall; but at last, when the Norman archers raised their bows so as to pitch the arrows at a steep angle of descent in the midst of the _huscarles_, the strain became too great. While some rushed forward alone or in twos and threes to die in the midst of the enemy, the remainder stood fast, too closely crowded almost for the wounded to drop. At last Harold received a mortal wound, the English began to waver, and the knights forced their way in. Only a remnant of the defenders made its way back to the forest; and William, after resting for a night on the hardly-won ground, began the work of the Norman Conquest.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Freeman called this hill Senlac and introduced the fashion of describing the battle as "the battle of Senlac." Mr J. H. Round, however, proved conclusively that this name, being French (Senlecque), could not have been in use at the time of the Conquest, that the battlefield had in fact no name, pointing out that in William of Malmesbury and in Domesday Book the battle is called "of Hastings" (_Bellum Hastingense_), while only one writer, Ordericus Vitalis, describes it two hundred years after the event as _Bellum Senlacium_. See Round, _Feudal England_ (London, 1895), p. 333 et seq.

[2] There is still a difference of opinion as to whether the English were, or were not, defended by any other rampart than that of the customary "shield-wall." Freeman, apparently as a result of a misunderstanding of a passage in Henry of Huntingdon and the slightly ambiguous verse of Wace in the _Roman du Rou_ (ll. 6991-6994 and ll. 7815-7826), affirms that Harold turned "the battle as far as possible into the likeness of a siege," by building round his troops a "palisade" of solid timber (_Norman Conquest_, iii. 444). This was proved to be a fable by J. H. Round, in the course of a general attack on Freeman's historical method, which provoked the professor's defenders to take up the cudgels on his behalf in a very long and lively controversy. The result of this was that Freeman's account was wholly discredited, though Round's view--that there was no wall of any kind save the shield-wall--is not generally accepted. Professor Oman (_Academy_, June 9, 1894), for instance, holds that there was "an _abattis_ of some sort" set to hamper the advance of cavalry (see also ENGLISH HISTORY, vol. ix., p. 474). Mr Round sums up the controversy, from his point of view, in his _Feudal England_, p. 340 et seq., where references to other monographs on the subject will be found.

HASTINGS, a city and the county-seat of Adams county, Nebraska, U.S.A., about 95 m. W. by S. of Lincoln. Pop. (1890) 13,584; (1900) 7188 (1253 foreign-born); (1910) 9338. Hastings is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North-western, the Missouri Pacific and the St Joseph & Grand Island railways. It is the seat of Hastings College (Presbyterian, coeducational), opened in 1882, and having 286 students in 1908, and of the state asylum for the chronic insane. The city carries on a considerable jobbing business for the farming region of which it is the centre and produce market. There are a large foundry and several large brickyards here. Hastings was settled in 1872, was incorporated in 1874 and was chartered as a city in the same year.