bankrupt; not from any run upon it, but merely from want of funds to meet ordinary demands.”* So the debt was paid; and the House was deadbut the "teasing discussions were not set to permanent sleep." It took many years to set them to sleep. In India they might have been lulled to rest; but they broke out with furious activity in England; and there was a war of words such as has not in the present century, or any other occasion, disturbed the accustomed quiet of the India House. Never, since the days of the great trial of Warren Hastings, had partisanship risen to such a height in the discussion of any Indian question as during the controversy which ensued after the return of Lord Hastings to England, on the affairs of Hyderabad. It was not with reference to the conduct of either of the Residents that these discussions were raised in England, but with reference to the conduct of the late Governor-General. They were forced on the Court of Proprietors by the vehement friendship of Sir John Doyle and Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, who thought that the Company had treated the noble Marquis with consummate ingratitude. To enable the Proprietors to judge whether the Directors had acted becomingly in this matter, a vast mass of papers was printed, † illustrative of the administration *Minute in Council, by C. T. Metcalfe, December 11, 1828.-[MS. Records.] † On the 3rd of March, 1834, at a Court of Proprietors, it was proposed by Mr. J. Smith, "That there be laid before this Court all such papers and documents respecting the loans made by Palmer and Co., of Hyderabad, to his Highness the Nizam, as may enable this Court to decide on the merits of any claim which the Marquis of Hastings may have on the further liberality of the Company." But another resolution of a more general kind was substituted by the Chairman, and carried by the Court-"That there be laid before this Court all THE INDIA-HOUSE DISCUSSIONS. 89 of the late Governor-General. A large folio volume of nearly a thousand pages was devoted to "Papers relating to certain pecuniary transactions of Messrs. William Palmer and Co. with the Government of his Highness the Nizam;" and it was this division of the subject which monopolised nearly all the discussion to itself. The During six long days these Hyderabad debates were continued at the India House with an energy and a perseverance which nothing but the personality which informed them could have sustained. I should have marvelled at the interest which the subject excited, if I had not seen a far more important popular assembly, roused from the languor and inertness into which it had sunk during the discussion of matters affecting the interests of 120 millions of British subjects, by a personal insinuation against the character of a single man. question debated in the months of February and March, 1824, in the Court of Proprietors, was a question affecting the personal characters of several distinguished men; and so spiced and seasoned, it overcame the general want of appetite for Indian discussions of every kind. The friends of Lord Hastings were on this great occasion ever foremost in the affray. It was their policy to assail Metcalfe's reputation, and they did it with an impetuosity which nothing could restrain.* correspondence or documents to be found on the public records of this House with regard to the administration of the Marquis of Hastings, which may enable the Court to judge of the propriety of entertaining the question Sir William Rumbold was of further remuneration to the late Governor-General." *Exempli gratiâ ;-Sir John Doyle declared his conviction that Metcalfe was better fitted to be Resident in Bedlam than Resident at Hyderabad; in England, and he had for some time been busily employed among the proprietors of India Stock, endeavoring to disseminate opinions hostile to the Hyderabad Resident and his supporters. It was said, indeed, that the party which had made such great efforts to defile Metcalfe's character was less the party of Lord Hastings than of William Palmer and Co., and that the name and credit of his Lordship had been used only to cover the ulterior views of the House. But Douglas Kinnaird and Sir John Doyle were the personal friends of Lord Hastings. Their primary object had been to obtain further pecuniary consideration from the Company for the services rendered by the late Governor-General ;* and when they found that the course which they pursued had brought obtrusively before the public matters which they had no desire to render notorious, they addressed themselves to the work of defending the reputation of their friend, and assailing all who stood in the way of their object. Sir William Rumbold's levies were of course with them; and hence the display of force which they made. But Truth and Justice prevailed. All the activity and said, "He believed that all the stories about William Palmer and Co. were merely subterfuges invented for the purpose of concealing the attack on the Marquis of Hastings. They were tubs thrown out to the whale, and only calculated to divert attention from Sir C. Metcalfe's real design."General Thornton made the astonishing declaration, that if Lord Hastings had been guilty of any favoritism, it was not towards Sir William Rumbold, but towards Sir C. Metcalfe.-Mr. Randall Jackson said "When they compared the characters given to Chundoo-Lall by Sir Charles Metcalfe, before and after the Minister had complained of him, they could not but see that the last charac ter had been dictated by the wounded spirit of an ambitious man who had been foiled in his projects, and who had consequently determined on the destruction of those who had offended his pride and crossed his purpose." *The Company had already made him a grant of 60,000l. THE INDIA-HOUSE DISCUSSIONS.’ 91 -all the strategy-were on the side of Hastings and the House. Metcalfe's cause was left to itself. But it needed no other backing than that which its own merits secured for it. There were friends of Charles Metcalfe in England who were prepared to "qualify" and to take their place in the Court of Proprietors for the express purpose of defending him, if the debates should take a turn unfavorable to his cause. But there was no need of any such demonstrations of friendship. The published papers had told their own story, and it needed not that much should be said in elucidation of them. He was not, however, without able and vigorous defenders in the HouseMr. Poynder, Mr. Carruthers, Mr. Freshfield, Mr. Weeding, Mr. Impey, and others, were all earnest in their applause of the manly conduct of the Resident; and his old friend Mr. Trant, who had been in the same house with him at Eton, who had entered the Company's service cotemporaneously with him, who had worked beside him in Lord Wellesley's office, and had been one of the unforgotten fraternity of "Howe Boys," stood up with affectionate enthusiasm to do honor to the noble character of his comrade.* The result of the six days' debate was the Some passages of Mr. Trant's speech are worthy of quotation:"His gallant friend (Sir John Doyle) had said that Sir Charles Metcalfe was fitter to be Resident in Bedlam than in Hyderabad. Now he need not remind the honorable and gallant officer of what an illustrious person had said, when he was told that General Wolfe was mad: If he is mad,' said that illustrious individual, 'I wish he would bite some other generals.' . . . He would say it, and he wished it most sincerely, if Sir C. Metcalfe was mad, that the Company had a great many more such mad servants. He congratulated the Company in having such an useful madman in their employ; and he should not be sorry if he bit a few of their civil servants. . . . . The gallant general had informed them that he was acquainted with the Marquis of Hastings during a period of forty years' du discomfiture of the Hastings-and-Rumbold party. And Metcalfe's reputation in both countries stood higher than it had ever stood before.* As I write, more than thirty years have elapsed since these painful discussions were closed; and any further than is necessary for the illustration of Metcalfe's character, I do not desire to re-open them. That which I have sought to bring prominently forward is the noble effort which the Resident made to stop what he called "the plunder of the Nizam ;' to rescue the Hyderabad state from those financial embarrassments which were engulphing it in a sea of ruin. That the pecuniary transactions between William Palmer and Co. and the Nizam, though at the outset they may have afforded some temporary relief to the latter, did eventually work grievously ration. He (Mr. Trant) must look He and Sir Charles Metcalfe went out race: 'Justum et tenacem propositi virum, Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis tyranni Kinnaird, was to the effect, that the 306. |