irectors could devise
no other scheme than that which the foundering of the _Aurora_ had
previously baffled: they would send out other Supervisors. But Lord
North had taken the matter in hand. He brought in a bill providing
for the constitution in Calcutta of a Supreme Court, to consist of a
Chief Justice and three Puisne judges, appointed by the Crown; giving
to the Governor of Bengal authority over the two other Presidencies,
with the title of {201}Governor-General, to be assisted and
controlled by a Council of five members. The great blot of this bill
was the clause which gave a controlling power to the Council. The
Governor-General had in it but one vote, and in case of equality, a
casting-vote. Mr. Warren Hastings who, twelve months before, had
succeeded Mr. John Cartier[3] as Governor, was appointed first
Governor-General of India.

[Footnote 3: Mr. Cartier had succeeded Mr. Verelst in 1769.]

The war with Haidar Ali and the famine in Bengal had brought India
and Indian matters very prominently into the parliamentary
discussions of 1771, 1772 and 1773, and during these the name of Lord
Clive had not been spared. The attacks against him were led
principally by General Burgoyne, a natural son of Lord Bingley, best
known in history as the commander who surrendered a British army,
5,791 strong, to the American colonists.[4] In April, 1772, this
officer had become Chairman of a Select Committee composed of
thirty-one members, to inquire and report on Indian affairs. Another
Committee, called Secret, and composed of thirteen members nominated
by ballot, was appointed, on the motion of Lord North, in November of
the same year, to take into consideration the whole state of the
Company's affairs. Into the other proceedings of these committees
this volume has no cause to enter; but they had scarcely been
constituted when they began to let fly their arrows at Lord Clive.
The chief cause of these attacks {202}is so well stated by the
sober-minded historian,[5] that I cannot refrain from quoting his
remarks. 'Besides the public wrongs of which he (Lord Clive) stood
accused, there was also, it may be feared, a feeling of personal envy
at work against him. His vast wealth became a more striking mark for
calumny when contrasted with the financial embarrassments of the
Directors in whose service he had gained it. And his profusion, as
ever happens, offended far more persons than it pleased. He had
bought the noble seat of Clare