The sessions of 1788, 1789, and 1790 were consumed in going through the case for the prosecution. lu 1791 tho Commons expressed their willingness to abandon some part of the charges, with the view of bringing this extraordinary trial sooner to an end; and on the 2nd of June, the seventy-third day, Mr. Hastings .began his defence. This was protracted till April 17, 1795, on which (the 148th) day he was acquitted by a large majority on every separate article charged against hlm.
There seems no doubt but that public opinion changed greatly during the trial ; and that Mr. Hastings came to be regarded as an oppressed, instead of an offending man. This feeling was probably caused in a great measure by the suspicious appearance of so great a delay of justice, and the skilful manner in which Mr. Hastings and his counsel threw all the blame on the managers of the prosecution, when in truth the smallest share of it seems to have belonged to them. The extreme violence of their invective was perhaps calculated to hurt their cause, and the upper ranks, more especially the powerful interests conuected with India, were disposed to look jealously at so close a scrutiny into the conduct and gains of an official man.
Mr. Hastings attempted to refute the charges of extortion by pub licly asaertiog in the moat solemn manner, that never at any time of his life was he worth 100,000/. The law-charges of his defence amounted to 76,080/. In March 1796 the Company granted him an annuity of 4000/. for twenty eight years and a half, and lent him 50,0001. for eighteen years, free of interest. He, retired completely fruin public life, to an estate which he purchased at Daylesford, in Worcestershire, formerly in the possession of his family. He died in August 220d, 1818, having been raised to the dignity of privy-coun cillor not long before.
On his real character as a man and a statesman it is somewhat hard to decide. That his talents and his services were alike eminent, is admitted ; that the means which he used were often most culpable, appears to bo equally certain. His apology is to be found iu the necessities of his situation, in the general neglect of justice in our dealings with the Asiatic princes, and the notorious laxity of Anglo Indian morality, where making a fortune was concerned, in those days.
Dlr. Mill, after exhibiting without reserve or favour the errors and vices of Mr. Hastings' administration, thinks it necessary to recom mend him to the favourable construction of the reader, on the ground that he " was placed in difficulties and acted on by temptations, such as few public meu have been called on to overcome :" and he adds, " It is my firm conviction that if we had the advantage of viewing the conduct of other men, who have been as much engaged in the conduct of public affairs, as completely naked and stripped of all its disguises as his, few of them would be found whose character would present a higher claim to indulgence ; in some respects, I think, even to ap plause. In point of ability he is beyond all question the most eminent of the chief rulers whom the Company have ever employed ; nor is there any of them who would not have succumbed under the diffi culties which, if lie did not overcome, he at any rate sustained. He had no genius, any more than Clive, for schemes of policy, including large views of the past, and large anticipations of the future; but he was hardly ever excelled in the skill of applying temporary expedients to temporary difficulties; in putting off the evil day, and in giving a fair complexion W the prepeut one. He had not the forward and imposiug audacity of Clive; but he had a calm firmness, which usually by its constancy wore out all resistance. Ile was the first, or among the first, of the isereaute of the Company u ho attempted to acquire any laeguage of the native., and who set on foot those liberal inquiries into the literature and institutions of the llindoos, which have led to the satisfactory knowledge of the present day. Ile had that great art of a ruler, which consists iu attaching to the governor those who are governed; awl most assuredly his administration was popular, both with his countrymen and the natives in Bengal." (Book v., ch. 8.) The estimate of his character by Macaulay iu his fatuous Essay is more favourable, but, ou the whole, perhaps, not more so than was merited.