and his large share of the charity that thinketh no evil. In the letters to Mrs. Hancock and the Woodmans, he speaks no longer like a fine gentleman in full dress; but talks in pretty homely sentences that come straight from the heart.
On the and February, 1772, Hastings sailed from Madras, and landed at Calcutta about the 20th. During that time he wrote those letters to Colebrooke and Sulivan, of which mention was briefly made in a former page. In the long letter to Laurence Sulivan he gives his opinions freely, in terms of studied deference, on the various topics which call for especial remark. While he is all for supplying the Accountant's Office with men from England, he questions the policy of sending out as secretaries to the local governments men who have had no local experience, and will probably take no interest in the Company's welfare; to say nothing of the slight thus offered to the just claims and aspirations of the Company's own servants. And he dwells with quiet force on the imperative need of 'making the rewards of the service generally more adequate to the duties of it,' in accordance with the principle already applied to his own department at Madras. His letter to Sir George Colebrooke strikes the key-note of his plans and purposes for the better government of Bengal. He will give his mind to 'the improvement of the Company's finances, so far as it can be effected without encroaching on their future income.' In view especially of the sufferings entailed by the recent famine, 'the
