Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  SOME TRIVIAL COURT INCIDENTS.

  Friday, Feb. 1.-To-day I had a summons in the morning to Mrs. Schwellenberg, who was very ill; so ill as to fill me with compassion. She was extremely low-spirited, and spoke to me with quite unwonted kindness of manner, and desired me to accept a sedan-chair, which had been Mrs. Haggerdorn’s, and now devolved to her, saying, I might as well have it while she lived as when she was dead, which would soon happen.

  I thanked her, and wished her, I am sure very sincerely, better. Nor do I doubt her again recovering, as I have frequently seen her much worse. True, she must die at last, but who must not?

  Feb. 2.-The king always makes himself much diversion with Colonel Goldsworthy, whose dryness of humour and pretended servility of submission, extremely entertain him. He now attacked him upon the enormous height of his collar, which through some mistake of his tailor, exceeded even the extremity of fashion. And while the king, who was examining and pulling it about, had his back to us, Colonel Wellbred had the malice to whisper me, “Miss Burney, I do assure you it is nothing to what it was; he has had two inches cut off since morning!

  Fortunately, as Colonel Wellbred stood next me, this was not heard for the king would not easily have forgotten. He soon after went away, but gave no summons to his gentlemen.

  And now Colonel Wellbred gave me another proof of his extraordinary powers of seeing. You now know, my dear friends, that in the king’s presence everybody retreats back, as far as they can go, to leave him the room to himself. In all this, through the disposition of the chairs, I was placed so much behind Colonel Wellbred as to conclude myself out of his sight; but the moment the king retired, he said, as we all dropped on Our seats, “Everybody is tired — Miss Burney the most — for she has stood the stillest. Miss Planta has leant on her chair, Colonel Goldsworthy against the wall, myself occasionally on the screen, but Miss Burney has stood perfectly still — I perceived that without looking.”

  ’Tis, indeed, to us standers, an amazing addition to fatigue to keep still.

  We returned to town next day. In the morning I had had a very disagreeable, though merely foolish, embarrassment. Detained, by the calling in of a poor woman about a subscription, from dressing myself, I was forced to run to the queen, at her summons, without any cap. She smiled, but said nothing. Indeed, she is all indulgence in those points of externals, which rather augments than diminishes my desire of showing apparent as well as my feeling of internal respect but just as I had assisted her with her peignoir, Lady Effingham was admitted, and the moment she sat down, and the hair-dresser began his office, a page announced the Duke of York, who instantly followed his name.

  I would have given the world to have run away, but the common door of entrance and exit was locked, unfortunately, on account of the coldness of the day; and there was none to pass, but that by which his royal highness entered, and was standing. I was forced. therefore, to remain, and wait for dismission.

  Yet I was pleased, too, by the sight of his affectionate manner to his royal mother. He flew to take and kiss her hand, but she gave him her cheek; and then he began a conversation with her, so open and so gay, that he seemed talking to the most intimate associate.

  His subject was Lady Augusta Campbell’s elopement from. the masquerade. The Duchess of Ancaster had received masks at her house on Monday, and sent tickets to all the queen’s household. I, amongst the rest, had one; but it was impossible I could be spared at such an hour, though the queen told me that she had thought of my going, but could not manage it, as Mrs. Schwellenberg was so ill. Miss Planta went, and I had the entire equipment of her. I started the Project of dressing her at Mrs. Delany’s, in all the most antique and old-fashioned things we could borrow; and this was Put very happily in execution, for she was, I have heard, one of the best and most grotesque figures in the room.

  (239) Henry William Bunbury, the well-known caricaturist. He was connected by marriage with Colonel Gwynn, having married, in 1771, Catherine, the “Little Comedy,” sister of the “Jessamy Bride.”-ED.

  (240) i.e., of the Play which was to be read by Mrs. Siddons. See P- 55.-ED.

  (241) This excellent comedy was completed by Colley Cibber, from an unfinished play of Sir John Vanbrugh’s.-ED.

  (242) See note 210, ante, vol. 1, P. 370.-ED.

  (243) Mr. Anthony Shepherd, Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. We meet with him occasionally in the “Early Diary:” “dullness itself” Fanny once calls him (in 1774).-ED.

  (244) Fanny’s maid.-ED.

  (245) Susan Phillips and the Lockes had stayed at Windsor from the 10th to the 17th of September.-ED.

  (246) This magnificent panegyric relates to a young amateur, William Locke, the son of Fanny’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Locke. But there was more than a little of the amateur about Mr. Bunbury himself. His works bear no comparison with those of the great masters of caricatured Rowlandson and Gulray.-ED.

  (247) Fanny’s man-servant, a Swiss.-ED.

  (248) Mr. Fisher was a canon at Windsor, and an amateur landscape-painter. He had recently married.-ED.

  (249) “Letters to and from Dr. Johnson,” published by Mrs. Piozzi in 1788.-ED.

  (250) Thrale’s only son died, a child, in March, 1776. — ED.

  (251) A farce, adapted from Bickerstaff’s opera, “Love in the City.”-ED.

  (252) Eva Maria Feigel, a Viennese dancer, whom Garrick married in 1749. Fanny writes of her in 1771: “Mrs. Garrick is the most attentively polite and perfectly well-bred woman in the world; her speech is all softness; her manners all elegance; her smiles all sweetness. There is something so peculiarly graceful in her motion, and pleasing in her address, that the most trifling words have weight and power, when spoken by her, to oblige and even delight.” (“Early Diary,” vol. i. .) She died in 1822; her husband in 1779.-ED.

  (253) The Hon. Mrs. Boscawen, widow of Admiral Boscawen.-ED.

  (254) Elizabeth Carter, the celebrated translator of Epictetus. She was now in her seventieth year, and had been for many years an esteemed friend of Dr. Johnson. She died in 1806.-ED. ,’

  (255) Mr. Langton’s wife was the Countess dowager of Rothes, widow of the eighth earl. Lady Jane Leslie, who married Sir Lucas Pepys, the physician, also enjoyed, in her own right, the title of Countess of Rothes.-ED.

  (256) Horace Walpole. -E D

  SECTION 12. (1788.)

  THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS.

  [Probably few events in the history of England are more familiar to the general reader than the trial of Warren Hastings. If nowhere else, at least in the best known and, perhaps, most brilliant of Macaulay’s essays every one has read of the career of that extraordinary man, and of the long contest in Westminster Hall, from which he came forth acquitted, after an ordeal of seven years’ duration. We shall, accordingly, confine our remarks upon this subject within the narrowest limits consistent with intelligibility: Fanny’s experiences of the trial, recorded in the following pages, rendering some review of the proceedings which caused it here indispensable.

  Warren Hastings was a lad of seventeen when, in 1750, he was first sent out to India as a writer in the East India Company’s service. His abilities attracted the notice of Clive, and, after the downfall of the Nawab Suraj-u-Dowlah, Hastings was chosen to represent the Company at the Court of Mir Jafir, the new Nawab of Bengal. In 1761 he was appointed Member of Council at Calcutta, and he returned to England in 1765, unknown as yet to fame, but with an excellent reputation both for efficiency and integrity. He left Bengal in a state of anarchy. The actual power was in the possession of a trading company, whose objects were at once to fill their coffers, and to avoid unnecessary political complications. The show of authority was invested in a Nawab who was a mere puppet in the hands of the English company. Disorder was rampant throughout the provinces, and the unhappy Hindoos, unprotected by their native princes, were left a helpless prey to the rapacity of their foreign tyrants.

  At a time when to enrich himself with the plunder of the
natives was the aim of every servant of the East India Company, it is much to the honour of Hastings that he returned home a comparatively poor man. In England he indulged his taste for literary society, busied himself with a scheme for introducing at oxford the study of the Persian language and literature, and made the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson. But generosity and imprudence together soon reduced his small means. He applied to the Directors of the Company for employment, was appointed to a seat on the Council at Madras, and made his second voyage to India in 1769. Among his fellow-passengers on board the “Duke of Grafton” was Madame Imhoff, whom he afterwards married.

  At Madras Hastings managed the export business of the Company with conspicuous success, and so completely to the satisfaction of the Directors, that, two years later, he was promoted to the governorship of Bengal, and sent to exercise his administrative ability and genius for reform -%N here they were then ‘greatly needed-at Calcutta. With this appointment his historic career may be said to commence. He found himself at the outset in a situation of extreme difficulty. He was required to establish something- resembling a stable government in place of the prevailing anarchy, and, above all things, with disordered finances, to satisfy the expectations of his’ employers by constant remittances of money. Both these tasks he accomplished, but the difficulties in the way of the latter led him to the commission of those acts for which he was afterwards denounced by his enemies as a monster of injustice and barbarity. Hastings’s conduct with respect to the Great Mogul has been sketched by Macaulay in words which imply a reprehension in reality undeserved. Little remained at this time of the magnificent empire of Aurungzebe beyond a title and a palace at Delhi. In 1765 Lord Clive had ceded to the titular master of the Mogul empire the districts of Corah and Allahabad, lying to the south of Oude, and westwards of Benares. The cession had been made in pursuance of the same policy which Hastings afterwards followed; that, namely, of sheltering the British possessions behind a barrier of friendly states, which should be sufficiently strong to withstand the incursions of their hostile neighbours, and particularly of the Mahrattas, the most warlike and dreaded of the native powers. But Clive’s purpose had been completely frustrated; for the Mogul, far from shielding the English, had not been able to hold his own against the Mahrattas, to whom he had actually ceded the very territories made over to him by the Company. Under these circumstances the English authorities can hardly be blamed for causing their troops to re-occupy the districts in question, nor can it fairly be imputed as a crime to Hastings that in September, 1773, he concluded with the Vizier of Oude the treaty of Benares, by which he sold Allahabad and Corah to that friendly potentate for about half a million sterling.

  But the next act of foreign policy on the part of the Governor of Bengal — his share in the subjugation of the Rohillas — does not admit of so favourable an interpretation. The Rohillas occupied territory lying under the southern slopes of the Himalayas, to the north-west of Oude. The dominant race in Rohilcund was of

  Afghan origin, although the majority of the population was Hindoo. Of the rulers of Rohilcund Hastings himself wrote, in terms which we may accept as accurate, “They are a tribe of Afghans or Pathans, freebooters who conquered the country about sixty years ago, and have ever since lived upon the fruits of it, without contributing either to its cultivation or manufactures, or even mixing with the native inhabitants.”(257)

  In 1772, the Rohillas, hard pressed by their foes, the Mahrattas, sought the assistance of the Vizier of Oude, Shuja-u-Dowlah, to whom they agreed to pay, in return for his aid, a large sum of money. This agreement was signed in the presence of an English general, and an English brigade accompanied the vizier’s army, which co-operated with the Rohilla forces, and obliged the Mahrattas to withdraw. But when Shula-u-Dowlah demanded his promised hire, he received from the Rohillas plenty of excuses but no money. Hereupon he resolved to annex Rohilcund to his own dominions, and, to ensure success, he concerted measures with Hastings, who, willing at once to strengthen a friendly power and to put money into his own exchequer, placed an English brigade at the vizier’s disposal for a consideration Of 400,000 pounds. In the spring of 1774 the invasion took place. The desperate bravery of the Rohillas was of no avail against English discipline, and the country was so reduced to submission. Macaulay’s stirring account of the barbarities practised by the invaders has been proved to be greatly exaggerated. Disorders, however, there were: the people were plundered, and some of the villages were burnt by the vizier’s troops. Many of the Rohilla families were exiled, but the Hindoo inhabitants of Rohilcund were left to till their fields as before, and were probably not greatly affected by their change of master.

  Hastings’s conduct in this affair is, from the most favourable point of view, rather to be excused than applauded. It may have been politic under the circumstances, but it was hardly in accordance with a high standard of morality to let out on hire an English force for the subjugation of a people who, whatever grounds of complaint the Vizier of Oude might have had against them, had certainly given no provocation whatsoever to the English Government. As to the plea which has been put forward in his favour, that the Rohillas were merely the conquerors, and not the original owners of Rohilcund, it is sufficiently answered, by Macaulay’s query, “What were the English themselves?”

  In 1773 Lord North’s “Regulating Act” introduced considerable changes in the constitution of the Indian government, and marked the first step in the direction of a transfer of the control over Indian affairs from the Company to the Crown. By this act “the governorship of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa was vested in the Governor-General, with four Councillors, having authority over

  Madras and Bombay; and all correspondence relating to civil government or military affairs was to be laid by the Directors of the Company in London before his -Majesty’s Ministers, who Could disapprove or cancel any rules or orders. A Supreme Court of judicature, appointed by the Crown, was established in Calcutta.”(258) The Governor-General was appointed for a term of five years, and the first Governor-General was Hastings. Of the four councillors with whom he was associated, three were sent out from England to take their places at the board, and landed at Calcutta, together with the judges of the Supreme Court, in October, 1771. Indisputably the ablest, and, as it proved, historically the most noteworthy of these three, was Philip Francis, the supposed author of “Junius’s Letters.”

  Even before the council commenced its duties dissensions arose. The newcomers, Francis, Clavering, and Monson, were in constant opposition to the Governor-General. Indeed, the hostility between Hastings and Francis rose by degrees to such a height that, some years later, they met in a duel, in which Francis was severely wounded. For the present, however, the opponents of Hastings formed a majority on the council, and his authority was in eclipse. His ill-wishers in the country began to bestir themselves, and a scandalous and, there is no doubt, utterly untrue charge of accepting bribes was brought against him by an old enemy, the Maharajah Nuncomar. Hastings replied by prosecuting Nuncomar and his allies for conspiracy. The accused were admitted to bail, but a little later Nuncomar was arrested on a charge of having forged a bond some years previously, tried before an English jury, condemned to death, and hanged, August 5, 1775, his application for leave to appeal having been rejected by the Chief justice, Sir Elijah Impey. Hastings solemnly declared his innocence of any share in this transaction, nor is there any evidence directly implicating him. On the other hand, it must he remembered that Nuncomar had preferred a most serious charge against Hastings; that the majority on the council were only too ready to listen to any charge, well or ill founded, against the Governor-General; and that Nuncomar’s triumph would, in all probability, have meant Hastings’s ruin. Even Mr. Forrest admits that “it is extremely probable, as Francis stated, that if Nuncomar had never stood forth in politics, his other offences would not have hurt him.”(259) Macaulay comments upon the scandal of this stringent enforcement Of the English law against forgery under cir
cumstances so peculiar, and in a country where the English law was totally unknown.(260) That Nuncomar was fairly tried and convicted in the ordinary course of law is now beyond doubt, but we still hold that it was Impey’s clear duty to respite his prisoner. That he did not do so is a fact which, beyond all others, gave colour to the assertion of Hastings’s enemies, that the execution of Nuncomar was the result of a secret understanding between the Governor-General of Bengal and the Chief justice of the Supreme Court. But, however brought about, the death of Nuncomar was to the opponents of Hastings a blow from which they never recovered. The death of Monson, in September, 1776, and that of Clavering, a year later, placed him in a majority on the council; his authority was more undisputed than ever; and at the expiration of his term he was re-appointed Governor-General.

  During the years 1780 and 1781 British rule in India passed through the most dangerous crisis that had befallen it since the days of Clive. A formidable confederacy had been formed between the Nizam, the Mahrattas, and the famous Hyder Ali, Sultan of Mysore, with the object of crushing their common enemy, the English. The hostility of these powerful states had been provoked by the blundering and bad faith of the governments of Bombay and Madras, which had made, and broken, treaties with each of them in turn. “As to the Mahrattas,” to quote the words of Burke, “they had so many cross treaties with the states general of that nation, and with each of the chiefs, that it was notorious that no one of these agreements could be kept without grossly violating the rest.”(261) The war in which the Bombay Government had engaged with the Mahrattas had been as unsuccessful in its prosecution as it was impolitic in its commencement, until, early in 1780, a force under General Goddard was dispatched from Bengal to co-operate with the Bombay troops. Goddard’s arrival turned the tide of events. The province of Gujerat was reduced, the Mahratta chiefs, Sindia and Holkar, were defeated, and everything portended a favourable termination of the war, when the whole face of affairs was changed by news from the south.