sometimes judged erroneously and acted wrongly, is only to admit, with Horace Wilson, that he was like other men. He was not, however, as Wilson has well said, 'judged like other men; hut every mistake or misconception, every hasty impression, every fluctuating purpose, every injudicious resolution, was hunted out, made public, and arrayed in evidence against him[1].' Few statesmen indeed have paid so heavily for the sins of other men, or have suffered such cruel and prolonged injustice from the passions and prejudices, both personal and political, of their own age. In view of the evils wrought even now by party rancour and political prejudice, it is easy to understand how Hastings' pre-eminent services to his country came to be rewarded, in his own words, 'with confiscation, disgrace, and a life of impeachment.' And much of the evil wrought by the malignity of Francis and the eloquence of Burke and Sheridan still lives in the 'splendid romance' woven by Macaulay out of documents which a calmer and more careful workman would have conned with very different eyes.
- ↑ Wilson's Notes on Mill.
