SECTION I

LORD HASTINGS'S ADMINISTRATION—THE NEPAUL WAR

The Earl of Moira, subsequently created Marquis of Hastings, took the oaths and his seat in Council on the 4th October. He was of the mature age of fifty-nine, a nobleman of Norman lineage, with a tall and commanding figure, and distinguished by his patrician bearing. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and served seven years in the war of independence in America. His life had been subsequently passed in connection with important public affairs, and he brought to his high office a large fund of experience, a clear and sound judgment, and great decision of character, together with the equivocal honour of being the personal friend of the Prince Regent. In his place in Parliament he had denounced Lord Wellesley's wars and his ambitious policy of establishing British supremacy throughout India; but this opinion was reversed as soon as he had taken a survey of the position and prospects of the Indian empire; and before he had been many months in India he recorded his impression that “our object in India ought to be to “render the British Government paramount in effect, if not declaredly so … and to oblige the other states to perform the two great feudatory duties of supporting our rule with all their forces, and submitting their mutual differences to our arbitration.”