Life and Times of Warren Hastings (Maker of British India)

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I NEED OFFER no apology for presenting a biography of Warren Hastings. Much new material has been unearthed since the last Life appeared in 1894; various phases of his career have been subjected anew to detailed special study, which has thrown important fresh light on obscure points; mistakes of earlier biographers have received correction; and for that reason it is possible to hope that a new detailed study of the man and his achievements will not be unwelcome. I lay no claim to overturning hitherto accepted views, though here and there I have tried to modify some commonly held that seemed to me in need of correction. Nor do I make any pretence of having produced a work of original research, with important discoveries of fact. The essential facts about Warren Hastings have long been known but-and herein lies the origin of this book-a certain deficiency has always seemed to me to mark the manner in which those facts have been marshalled and presented. For the space of fifteen years the subject has held me under a spell of extraordinary fascination, producing in me a kind of inner compulsion to embark upon a new biography that would attempt, despite all that had been written about Hastings, to do him more complete justice than had yet been done. An excessive amount of attention has always, for instance, been paid to certain of his actions those which caused his impeachment and this has resulted in a distorted view of his career as a whole by throwing it out of focus. One of the things I have attempted to do is to place him in a better perspective and to present a well-rounded view of his life in its entirety. There is an epic grandeur about his life that demands a certain spacious-ness of treatment, and for that reason I have purposely not confined myself within any narrow limits. One has to remain with Warren Hastings for some time in order to appreciate

properly the rare genius and spirit of the man. How gigantic is the task I have set myself the reader will speedily discover for himself. Suffice it to say, that for twenty-five years Warren Hastings was the central figure in a stupendous drama, when the destinies of the great sub-continent of India whose present population now numbers some three hundred and fifty million souls) were being decided-a drama that had no unity of time, place or action, that spanned two continents and the intervening sea, that involved rwo rival European nations and innumerable Indian races and rulers, that embraced a labyrinth of plots and sub-plots, and employed a multitude of actors. Doubtless any author who undertakes to tell such a story is rash, but if I have had the temerity to do so, I can only express the hope that I have succeeded in moving the story a little nearer to the place that it ought to occupy in the historical memory of the English-speaking peoples and of our Indian friends. In conclusion, I think I do well to warn my readers that present-day controversies have in no way been my concern. I have sought only for the Truth and not to provide material for the disputants on either side of the Indian constitutional question.

I am indebted to a number of kind friends. For the inspiration of this book I owe all to the late Sir George W. Forrest, who, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, first aroused my interest in this subject on which he was himself so great an authority. It was a very great privilege for me to have had him as a friend, mentor and tutor; his kindness was inexhaustible and I take this opportunity to pay an affectionate and grateful tribute to his memory. I wish to thank two good friends, Mr. Alan Dudley and Mr. R. J. Cruikshank, for reading the book in manuscript, Mr. Alan Green for his painstaking criticisms and helpful suggestions, and Sir Arthur Knapp for having given nine invaluable assistance with the illustrations, as well as for his special contribution printed in the Appendices. I am also under grateful obligation to Mr. C. A. Storey, formerly Librarian at the India Office, where the original lies, for the translation of the testimonial to Warren Hastings appended to Chapter XXVIII, as well as to Mr. W. T. Ortewill, Superintendent of Records at the India Office, to Mr. J. L. Douthwaite, Librarian at the Guildhall, and to the Librarians of the British Museum and the British Library in New York for much valuable help. Finally, I welcome this opportunity oppo to acknowledge the debt I owe my father-a debt that has now mounted so high as to render any kind of a statement of it impossible.

MR. MERVYN DAVIES is to be congratulated on producing a valuable book at an opportune moment. It is a book ""to be read wholly and with diligence and attention."" For years at a time the relationships between Great Britain and India pursue a peaceful course and then the waters become troubled and there follows a period of bitter and persistent controversy. The reason is not far to seek. In most of our Dominions our fellow-subjects are our own kith and kin whose fathers or forefathers lived with us and amongst us. In India, Great Britain is called upon to rule a country where there is a civilization far older than her own, with two competing religions, neither of which is Christian, and with traditions of government widely differing from accepted Western standards.

Mr. Mervyn Davies in his Preface rightly warns his readers that present-day controversies have in no way been his concern. He has strictly observed the Injunction that he has laid upon himself, but it makes his present work more valuable. It is independent.

The experiences of the past are a guide for the statesman who has to solve the problems of the present. It is well to be reminded today and to learn the lessons of a period which was even more controversial than the present one; a period during which feeling ran even higher than it does now. Mr. J. S. Cotton has truly said: ""Indians and Anglo-Indians alike venerate Hastings's name. The former as their first beneficent administrator; the latter the most able and the most enlightened of their own class. If Clive's sword acquired the Indian Empire, it was the brain of Hastings that planned the system of civil administration and his genius that saved the Empire in its darkest hour"" (Ency. Brit., title, Warren Hastings).

The life of Hastings has always been a fascinating study, both for the historian and the politician, and the bibliography which has grown up round his name has assumed large proportions. And yet it is over a generation ago that the last Life appeared and much new material has since been unearthed, which has thrown important fresh light on obscure points. Mr. Mervyn Davies is a patient and accurate scholar and has made a fresh survey of all the old and of the new material. The extent of his labours may be judged from his list of authorities to which he makes nearly 500 references in the course of his 33 chapters. Writing in an easy and pleasant style, he has given us a book which will not only be interesting to the general reader, but useful to everyone who, at this present moment, has to devote time and thought to the Indian problem. If one endeavoured to state in a sentence the value of Mr. Mervyn Davies new Life, one would feel inclined to say that it is the work of a Judge and not the work of an advocate. From time to time, after an accurate narrative, he sums up the situation in a calm and judicial manner.

Hastings has always been and will always remain the subject of controversy. He has suffered from friend and foe alike; from opponents who have used unmeasured and undeserved invective, from admirers who can see nothing but wisdom and ability in his career. The knowledge which most Englishmen have of Clive and Hastings has filtered through the rhetoric of Macaulay. But even admirers of Macaulay's famous essays, with their purple patches like those which describe the night Clive spent before Plassey and the great trial of Hastings in Westminster Hall, must admit that Macaulay took a partial partial and even a prejudiced view of some of the events, and those whose sympathies are with Hastings must often wish that an historian with the pen and powers of Macaulay could have written in defence of Hastings.

To some extent Clive's work was done once for all. Hastings's work is still being tested, for he laid some of the foundations of our rule and traditions in India. It was the work of a statesman and a scholar and his labours for research into the past history of Indian literature and religion were beyond praise.

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