other worshippers of the rising sun. Some of these struck at Hastings through his own countrymen: Grant, an accountant, and the two Fowkes, father and son. One obscure native accused him of embezzling the greater part of the salary payable to the Faujdár of Húglí. No evidence of real weight was adduced in any instance; and yet the triumvirate recorded their firm conviction that there was 'no species of peculation from which the Honourable Governor-General has thought it reasonable to abstain.' They deliberately charged him with having by such means alone amassed a fortune of forty lakhs of rupees in two years and a half.
Thrice in that month of March did Hastings break up a Council-meeting, rather than bear the indignity of presiding at his own trial. 'The trumpet has been sounded,' he writes on the 25th, 'and the whole host of informers will soon crowd into Calcutta with their complaints and ready depositions. Nanda-Kumár holds his darbfir in complete state — sends for Zámíndars and their vakils — coaxing and threatening them for complaints, which no doubt he will get in abundance, besides what he forges for himself.' Clavering and his colleagues spent their days in rummaging official papers, interviewing accusers, examining witnesses, and jotting down the evidence thus elicited. The business of taking notes and formulating charges devolved upon Francis, whose skilful pen was busy weaving a rare web of lies, assumptions, and innuendoes, for the ruin of a Governor whose place he already
