on the father's business, and lived at Hammersmith till his death in 1794. The second son, James (1723-1756), king's scholar at Westminster, was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1741, graduated B.A. in 1745 and M.A. in 1748, practised medicine at Richmond, published a treatise on comparative anatomy, travelled abroad, and died at Naples 19 Dec. 1756. Elijah was sent to join his brother James at Westminster School in 1739, and was elected a king's scholar in 1747. He distinguished himself among his fellows, who included Warren Hastings [q. v.], Churchill, Colman, and Cumberland. On 28 Dec. 1751 he entered as a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge; was elected a scholar in 1752; was second in the classical tripos, second senior optime, and junior chancellor's medallist in 1756 when he graduated B.A.; became fellow of his college in 1757, and proceeded M.A. in 1759. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn 23 Nov. 1756, and went the western circuit. In April 1766 he was appointed recorder of Basingstoke. In 1776-7 he travelled on the continent with a Mr. Popham and with John Dunning, afterwards first Lord Ashburton, both of whom remained his friends through life. On 18 Jan. 1768 he married. In 1772 he was counsel for the East India Company before the House of Commons, when the court of directors were heard at the bar in support of objections to a bill affecting their interests in Bengal. In the following year the regulating act for the government of India was passed (13 Geo. III, c. 63), and a supreme court of justice was established at Calcutta. Of this court Impey was appointed the first chief justice, on the recommendation, as he believed, of Thurlow, the attorney-general. He was knighted, and leaving for India by the Anson in April 1774, landed in Calcutta on 19 Oct.
According to the ill-defined and badly drafted letters patent which Impey helped to frame, the newly established court at Calcutta was to have jurisdiction over all trespasses by persons in the company's service; to try civil causes of the value of over five hundred rupees; to act as a court of equity, probate, and admiralty; to be a court of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery; and to hear, determine, and award judgment and execution in all treasons, murders, felonies, and forgeries, committed by British subjects in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, or by any others directly or indirectly employed or in the service of the company. The court might also reprieve or suspend execution of its sentence until the king's pleasure should be known in all cases where there should appear a proper occasion for mercy.
A pro-formâ term having been opened in October 1774, the court assembled for its first actual business after the brief Christmas recess. At the time the long-pending quarrels of Warren Hastings, the governor-general, with both his council and Nand Kumar, or Nuncomar, were reaching their bitterest stages [see under Hastings, Warren]. And with Nand Kumar Impey was at once brought judicially into very close relations. As early as December 1772 one Gungabissen had, as executor for a native banker who had died in 1769, sued Nand Kumar for sums alleged to be due to the dead man's estate. Nand Kumar not only denied his indebtedness, but put forward counter claims on account of a bond which he stated had been given him by the dead man. He refused, however, to produce the bond, and declined in 1774 to follow the suggestion of the court to submit the dispute to arbitration. An application made to the old court on 25 March 1774 to compel Nand Kumar to deliver the disputed document to Gungabissen or his agent, Mohun Prasád, was refused. On 25 Jan. 1775 Thomas Farrer, a barrister, repeated this application in behalf of Mohun Prasád in Impey's court. In the following March—before judgment was delivered—Nand Kumar preferred charges of corruption against Hastings, and in April Hastings retaliated by bringing charges of conspiracy against Nand Kumar and some of his associates, upon which they were soon acquitted. Before the end of the same month (April) Impey, however, made the order prayed for by Gungabissen and his agent for the delivery to them by Nand Kumar of the disputed bond. Immediately afterwards (6 May) a charge of forging the bond was preferred against Nand Kumar, and two of the judges of the higher court sitting at Calcutta, as justices of the peace, after a protracted inquiry committed him for trial. Bail was refused, and when that question was brought before Impey in the supreme court he confirmed the decision of the lower court. Early next month the grand jury found a true bill against Nand Kumar, and the case came before Impey and the other three judges of the supreme court on 8 June 1775. Mr. Durham appeared for the crown, while the prisoner was defended by two advocates, the leader being Farrer, who had acted on the side of Gungabissen in the preliminary proceedings. The trial began with pleas to the jurisdiction, and with an argument on the indictment, which had been drawn—it was afterwards said—by Mr. Justice Lemaistre, one of the committing magistrates. Sir Robert Chambers [q.v.], the only one of the
