Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/45

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GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA
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undertaking; on the contrary, the transaction raised his credit, for the Prince approved of his services and the ministers appreciated his character.

Shortly after these events he was installed Knight of the Garter, and on the resignation of Lord Minto was appointed Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in India. He was eminently qualified for this high position; his energy and military ability, his strength of character and liberality of mind, his high personal integrity and scrupulous sense of honour, all rendered him peculiarly fitted to wield the great powers which were to be intrusted to his charge and to grapple with the questions that awaited his solution.

He sailed from Portsmouth on the 14th of April, 1813, and landed at Calcutta on the 4th of October, when he at once assumed his new functions. He remained in India till the 1st of January, 1823, and thus his rule there lasted a little more than nine years.

It will be convenient to conclude this chapter by a short account of the remainder of the personal history of the man who forms the central figure of the transactions described in the following pages; thenceforward his individuality becomes merged in the events which he controlled, and hence it will be useful to dismiss the person in favour of the work he achieved.

Lord Moira married, in 1804, Flora, Countess of Loudoun in her own right (only child of James, fifth Earl of Loudoun in the peerage of Scotland), by whom he had six children. His mother died in 1808,