were buying their way at all costs into the House of Commons, and eclipsing the ancient splendour of the highest and wealthiest county lords[1].
In view of the perils which encompassed them, the Court of Directors had turned their thoughts to Warren Hastings, as the one strong man whose high abilities, unblemished character, and undoubted zeal in his masters' service, might extricate their affairs in Bengal from the tangle of debt, mismanagement, anarchy, and wrong-doing in which they had become involved. Before the close of 1771, Hastings found himself appointed Second in Council at Fort William, with the right of succeeding Cartier in the government of that Presidency. In spite of some natural regrets at parting from his friends at Madras, and from colleagues with whom he had worked harmoniously for more than two years, he accepted this new mark of his employers' confidence with a pleasure heightened by his 'partial attachment to Bengal.' His fortune, as he wrote home to his friend Mrs. Hancock, was 'not worse' than it had been two years before; but he was 'not certain that it is better.' What other man of his standing in the Company's service could have said the same?
All his letters of this period bear telling witness to the writer's warm heart, his gentle, sensitive, kindly nature, his frank yet winning manners, his gratitude for kindness shown him, his loyalty to his colleagues,
- ↑ Gleig, Auber, Mill, Hacaulay.
