that the Governor-General did conspire with Impey to murder his ancient foe[1].
It is true that Hastings had been driven into a corner, and it is certain that some men in his position would not have scrupled to save themselves from utter ruin by foul means. But if past character counts for anything, Warren Hastings was not the man to screen himself from any show of complicity in one crime by the deliberate commission of another. Full weight at least is due to his solemn declaration, made on oath before the judges, that he had never, directly or indirectly, countenanced or forwarded the prosecution for forgery against Nanda-Kumár. Nobody in Calcutta, not even in Hastings' Council, seems to have directly impugned the justice of the verdict, or to have plainly hinted that the Governor-General took any part in the prosecution; for Francis' letter of August 7, to Admiral Hughes[2], deals only in cunning innuendoes which the reader may interpret as he will.
Biographers may sometimes be foolish; but so are critics who jump to rash conclusions from premises however specious. Because Nanda-Kumár's death may have removed a viper out of Hastings' path, post hoc need not therefore be translated propter hoc. There is no valid evidence to support this view. Sir James Stephen, who is neither an idiot nor a biographer, but a high judicial authority on the law of evidence and the criminal law, has gone more deeply,
