It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar.  While the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession to write about the Tour to the Hebrides, Jones’s Persian Grammar, and the history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.

In the meantime, intelligence of the Rohilla war, and of the first disputes between Hastings and his colleagues, had reached London.  The Directors took part with the majority, and sent out a letter filled with severe reflections on the conduct of Hastings.  They condemned, in strong but just terms, the iniquity of undertaking offensive wars merely for the sake of pecuniary advantage.  But they utterly forgot that, if Hastings had by illicit means obtained pecuniary advantages, he had done so, not for his own benefit, but in order to meet their demands.  To enjoin honesty, and to insist on having what could not be honestly got, was then the constant practice of the Company.  As Lady Macbeth says of her husband, they “would not play false, and yet would wrongly win.”

The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been appointed Governor-General for five years, empowered the Crown to remove him on an address from the Company.  Lord North was desirous to procure such an address.  The three members of Council who had been sent out from England were men of his own choice.  General Clavering, in particular, was supported by a large parliamentary connection, such as no Cabinet could be inclined to disoblige.  The wish of the minister was to displace Hastings, and to put Clavering at the head of the Government.  In the Court of Directors parties were very nearly balanced.  Eleven voted against Hastings; ten for him.  The Court of Proprietors was then convened.  The great sale-room presented a singular appearance.  Letters had been sent by the Secretary of the Treasury, exhorting all the supporters of Government who held India stock to be in attendance.  Lord Sandwich marshalled the friends of the administration with his usual dexterity and alertness.  Fifty peers and privy councillors, seldom seen so far eastward, we counted in the crowd.  The debate lasted till midnight.  The opponents of Hastings had a small superiority on the division; but a ballot was demanded; and the result was that the Governor-General triumphed by a majority of above a hundred votes over the combined efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet.  The ministers were greatly exasperated by this defeat.  Even Lord North lost his temper, no ordinary occurrence with him, and threatened to convoke Parliament before Christmas, and to bring in a bill for depriving the Company of all political power, and for restricting it to its old business of trading in silks and teas.