It is to be added, that the numerous addresses to the late Governor-General, which his friends in Bengal obtained from the natives and transmitted to England, made a considerable impression.  To these addresses we attach little or no importance.  That Hastings was beloved by the people whom he governed is true; but the eulogies of pundits, zemindars, Mahommedan doctors, do not prove it to be true.  For an English collector or judge would have found it easy to induce any native who could write to sign a panegyric on the most odious ruler that ever was in India.  It was said that at Benares, the very place at which the acts set forth in the first article of impeachment had been committed, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings; and this story excited a strong sensation in England.  Burke’s observations on the apotheosis were admirable.  He saw no reason for astonishment, he said, in the incident which had been represented as so striking.  He knew something of the mythology of the Brahmins.  He knew that as they worshipped some gods from love, so they worshipped others from fear.  He knew that they erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of light and plenty, but also to the fiends who preside over smallpox and murder; nor did he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings to be admitted into such a Pantheon.  This reply has always struck us as one of the finest that ever was made in Parliament.  It is a grave and forcible argument, decorated by the most brilliant wit and fancy.

Hastings was, however, safe.  But in everything except character, he would have been far better off if, when first impeached, he had at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of fifty thousand pounds.  He was a ruined man.  The legal expenses of his defence had been enormous.  The expenses which did not appear in his attorney’s bill were perhaps larger still.  Great sums had been paid to Major Scott.  Great sums had been laid out in bribing newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating tracts.  Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the press.  It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed.  Logan defended the accused Governor with great ability in prose.  For the lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued in Simpkin’s letters.  It is, we are afraid, indisputable that Hastings stooped so low as to court the aid of that malignant and filthy baboon John Williams, who called himself Anthony Pasquin.  It was necessary to subsidise such allies largely.  The private boards of Mrs. Hastings had disappeared.  It is said that the banker to whom they had been intrusted had failed.  Still if Hastings had practised strict economy, he would, after all his losses, have had a moderate competence; but in the management of his private affairs he was imprudent.  The dearest wish of his heart had always been to regain Daylesford.