to deceive him, 'all ranks of people were pleased, not because I did good but because I did no ill[1].'
The news of Wheler's death quickened his return to Calcutta. At Benares, where he parted from the Shahzáda, the bare brown fields were now green with the promise of a rich harvest, and his measures for reforming abuses were already bearing some fruit. On the 4th November he reached Calcutta, where a scolding letter from the India House awaited him. This was soon followed by tidings of Pitt's India Bill, which placed the Company as a political power under the direct control of a Ministerial Board. Hastings felt that some passages of Pitt's speech in support of this measure were virtually levelled at himself. He was 'literally sick of suspense,' and a further study of the Bill convinced him that his resignation was 'expected and desired.' As soon as Macpherson should pledge himself to respect the new arrangements made with the ruler of Oudh, he would prepare for his homeward voyage. 'I will wait for no advices' — he wrote to Mrs. Hastings — 'They have given me my freedom and opened the road to my happiness.'
One of his last acts as Governor-General was to review the troops which had fought so bravely under Colonel Pearse against Haidar Alí and his son. As he rode bareheaded, in a plain blue coat, along the diminished ranks of Sepoys dressed in motley and patched uniforms, the cheers that greeted him showed the strength of his hold on the affections of the
- ↑ Gleig.
