trative reforms and modern rule in India were inaugurated during
the nineteenth century. This reform began with the act, known at Pitt's
Bill, by which the British Crown assumed supreme authority over the civil
and military administration of the affairs in India by the British East
India Company. Henceforward, no alliances could be formed with any native
prince without the express sanction of Parliament. This act arose directly
out of Warren Hastings' confession that he had accepted a present of a
hundred thousand pounds from Asof-Ud-Daula. Warren Hastings' record, though
he was ultimately acquitted, was lastingly besmirched by his dubious
monetary transactions, and it was for this reason that William Pitt refused
to recommend him for the peerage, or for honorable employment under the
British Crown. Yet he was the greatest statesman that ever ruled India. His
overthrow of the French in India, of the first Mahratta rising, and of the
formidable rebellion of Hyder Ali, are among the greatest achievements of
British colonial extension. The disgrace of Warren Hastings was a great
event in English history, but it made no impression on the people in India.
They only knew him as one of the greatest of conquerors and their
deliverer. Philip Francis, who brought about Hastings' downfall, so far
from supplanting him, is remembered now only as the probable author of the
anonymous "Letters of Junius."

[Sidenote: Ross' and Franklin's Expeditions]

[Sidenote: "Frankenstein"]

[Sidenote: "Endymion"]

[Sidenote: Macadam roads]

[Sidenote: Invention of Velocipede]

Besides the death of Warren Hastings, several other notable events
preoccupied the attention of Englishmen. During this year Sir John Ross
sailed north to discover a northwest passage. Another relief expedition
under Lieutenant Franklin, which had sailed after him, resulted only in
failure. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published her curious novel
"Frankenstein," and John Keats brought out his long poem "Endymion," for
which he was violently assailed by the critics, notably by Jeffries, of
"Blackwood's Magazine." Shelley, Moore, Hunt, and eventually Byron, warmly
took his part. In the meanwhile a number of industrial reforms were
introduced in England. Infant schools were first thrown open during this
year, and steam was first used for heating purposes. A company in Edinburgh
undertook to light the streets with gas. John Loudon Macadam's new system
of road building was s