hen that long
animosity was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle.

In the meantime, Hastings was compelled to turn his attention to foreign
affairs. The object of his diplomacy was at this time simply to get
money. The finances of his government were in an embarrassed state; and
this embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some means, fair or
foul. The principle which directed all his dealings with his neighbors
is fully expressed by the old motto of one of the great predatory
families of Teviotdale, "Thou shalt want ere I want." He seems to have
laid it down, as a fundamental proposition which could not be disputed,
that when he had not as many lacs of rupees as the public service
required, he was to take them from anybody who had. One thing, indeed,
is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to him by his
employers at home was such as only the highest virtue could have
withstood, such as left him no choice except to commit great wrongs, or
to resign his high post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and
distinction. The Directors, it is true, never enjoined or applauded any
crime. Far from it. Whoever examines their letters written at that time
will find there many just and humane sentiments, many excellent
precepts, in short, an admirable code of political ethics. But every
exhortation is modified or nullified by a demand for money. "Govern
leniently, and send more money; practise strict justice and moderation
towards neighboring powers, and send more money;" this is in truth the
sum of almost all the instructions that Hastings ever received from
home. Now these instructions, being interpreted, mean simply, "Be the
father and the oppressor of the people; be just and unjust, moderate and
rapacious." The Directors dealt with India as the church, in the good
old times, dealt with a heretic. They delivered the victim over to the
executioners, with an earnest request that all possible tenderness might
be shown. We by no means accuse or suspect those who framed these
despatches of hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen thousand
miles from the place where their orders were to be carried into effect,
they never perceived the gross inconsistency of which they were guilty.
But the inconsistency was at once manifest to their vicegerent at
Calcutta, who, with an empty treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own
salary often in arrear, with deficient crops, with government tenants
daily runn