Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first governor-general of Bengal in 1772–1785. He and Robert Clive are credited with laying the foundation of the British Empire in India. He was an energetic organizer and reformer. In 1779–1784, he led forces of the East India Company against a coalition of native states and the French. In the end, the well-organised British side held its own, while France lost influence in India. In 1787, he was accused of corruption and impeached, but he was eventually acquitted in 1795 after a long trial. He was made a privy councillor in 1814.
Early life and education
Warren Hastings was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1732 to Reverend Penyston Hastings and his wife Hester (née Warren), who died soon after he was born.Gloucestershire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1813. pp. 1-2. Within nine months of Warren's birth, his father remarried and moved to Barbados, leaving behind Warren and his elder sister Anne. Young Warren was raised by his grandfather (also called Penyston) and attended a charity school in Daylesford, Gloucestershire. Eventually, he was taken in by his uncle, Howard Hastings, and moved with him to London in 1740.
Hastings attended Westminster School, where he coincided with the future prime ministers Lord Shelburne and the Duke of Portland and with the poet William Cowper.Patrick Turnbull, Warren Hastings. New English Library, 1975, p. 17. He quickly excelled as a top scholar but was forced to leave at sixteen, when his uncle died. He joined the British East India Company in 1750 as a writer (clerk) and sailed out to India, reaching Calcutta in August 1750.Turnbull pp. 17–18. There he built up a reputation for diligence and spent his free time learning about India and mastering Urdu and Persian.Turnbull pp. 19–21. His work won him promotion in 1752 when he was sent to Kasimbazar, a major trading post in Bengal, where he worked for William Watts. While there he gained further experience in the politics of East India.
British traders still relied on the whims of local rulers, so the political turmoil in Bengal was unsettling. The elderly moderate Nawab Alivardi Khan was likely to be succeeded by his grandson Siraj ud-Daulah, but there were several other claimants. This made British trading posts throughout Bengal increasingly insecure, as Siraj ud-Daulah was known to harbour anti-European views and to be likely to launch an attack once he took power. When Alivardi Khan died in April 1756, the British traders and a small garrison at Kasimbazar were left vulnerable. On 3 June, after being surrounded by a much larger force, the British were persuaded to surrender to prevent a massacre.Turnbull p. 23. Hastings was imprisoned with others in the Bengali capital, Murshidabad, while the Nawab's forces marched on Calcutta and captured it. The garrison and civilians were then locked up under appalling conditions in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
For a while, Hastings remained in Murshidabad and was even used by the Nawab as an intermediary; but, fearing for his life, he escaped to the island of Fulta, where several refugees from Calcutta had taken shelter. While there, he met, fell in love with, and married Mary Buchanan, the widow of Captain John Buchanan (one of the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta). Shortly afterwards a British expedition from Madras under Robert Clive arrived to rescue them. Hastings served as a volunteer in Clive's forces as they retook Calcutta in January 1757. After this swift defeat, the Nawab urgently sought peace, and the war came to an end. Clive was impressed with Hastings when he met him and arranged for his return to Kasimbazar to resume his pre-war activities. Later in 1757, fighting resumed, leading to the Battle of Plassey, where Clive won a decisive victory over the Nawab. Siraj ud-Daulah was overthrown and replaced by his commander-in-chief Mir Jafar, who initiated policies favourable to the East India Company traders, before falling out with them and being overthrown.
Rising status In 1758, Hastings became the British resident in the Bengal capital of Murshidabad – a major step forward in his career – at the instigation of Clive. His role in the city was ostensibly that of an ambassador, but as Bengal came increasingly under the dominance of the East India Company, he was often given the task of issuing orders to the new Nawab on behalf of Clive and the Calcutta authorities.Turnbull pp. 27–28. Hastings personally sympathised with Mir Jafar and regarded many of the demands placed on him by the company as excessive. Hastings had already developed a philosophy that was grounded in trying to establish a more understanding relationship with India's inhabitants and their rulers, and he often tried to mediate between the two sides.
During Mir Jafar's reign, the East India Company exerted an increasingly large role in the running of the region, and effectively took over the defence of Bengal against external invaders when Bengal's troops proved insufficient for the task. As he grew older, Mir Jafar became gradually less effective in ruling the state, and in 1760, EIC troops ousted him from power and replaced him with Mir Qasim.Turnbull pp. 34–35. Hastings expressed his doubts to Calcutta over the move, believing they were honour-bound to support Mir Jafar, but his opinions were overruled. Hastings established a good relationship with the new Nawab and again had misgivings about the demands he relayed from his superiors. In 1761, he was recalled and appointed to the Calcutta council.
Conquest of Bengal
Hastings was personally angered when investigating trading abuses in Bengal. He alleged that some European and British-allied Indian merchants were taking advantage of the situation to enrich themselves personally. Persons travelling under the unauthorised protection of the British flag engaged in widespread fraud and illegal trading, knowing that local customs officials would be cowed into not interfering with them. Hastings felt this was bringing shame on Britain's reputation and urged the authorities in Calcutta to put an end to it. The Council considered his report but ultimately rejected Hastings' proposals. He was fiercely criticised by other members, many of whom had themselves profited from the trade.Turnbull pp. 36–40.
Ultimately, little was done to stem the abuses, and Hastings began to consider quitting his post and returning to Britain. His resignation was only delayed by the outbreak of fresh fighting in Bengal. Once on the throne, Qasim proved increasingly independent in his actions, and he rebuilt Bengal's army by hiring European instructors and mercenaries who greatly improved the standard of his forces.Turnbull p. 36. He gradually felt more confident, and in 1764, when a dispute broke out in the settlement of Patna, he captured its British garrison and threatened to execute them if the East India Company responded militarily. When Calcutta dispatched troops anyway, Mir Qasim executed the hostages. British forces then went on the attack and won a series of battles culminating in the decisive Battle of Buxar in October 1764. After this, Mir Qasim fled into exile in Delhi, where he died in 1777. The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) gave the East India Company the right to collect taxes in Bengal on behalf of the Mughal emperor of that time Shah Alam.
Hastings resigned in December 1764 and sailed for Britain the following month. He left deeply saddened by the failure of the more moderate strategy that he had supported, but which had been rejected by the hawkish members of the Calcutta Council. Once he arrived in London, Hastings began spending far beyond his means. He stayed at fashionable addresses and had his picture painted by Joshua Reynolds even though, unlike many of his contemporaries, he had not amassed a fortune while in India. Eventually, having run up enormous debts, Hastings realised he needed to return to India to restore his finances, and applied to the East India Company for employment. His application was initially rejected as he had made many political enemies, including the powerful director Laurence Sulivan. Eventually, an appeal to Sulivan's rival Robert Clive secured Hastings the position of deputy ruler at the city of Madras. He sailed from Dover in March 1769. On the voyage on board, the Duke of Grafton became ill, and he was cared for by the German Baroness Marian von Imhoff (1749–1837) and her husband. He fell in love with the Baroness, and they began an affair, seemingly with her husband's consent. Hastings' first wife, Mary, had died in 1759, and he planned to marry the Baroness once she had obtained a divorce from her husband. The process took a long time and it was not until 1777 that news of the divorce came from Germany, and Hastings was finally able to marry her.
Madras and Calcutta Hastings arrived in Madras shortly after the First Anglo-Mysore War of 1767–1769, when the forces of Hyder Ali had threatened the capture of the city. The Treaty of Madras (4 April 1769) ended the war but failed to settle the dispute, and three further Anglo-Mysore Wars followed (1780–1799). During his time at Madras, Hastings initiated reforms of trading practices which cut out the use of middlemen and benefited both the Company and the Indian labourers, but otherwise the period was relatively uneventful for him.Turnbull p. 52.
By this stage, Hastings shared Clive's view that the three major British presidencies (settlements) – Madras, Bombay and Calcutta – should be brought under single rule rather than being governed separately as they currently were. In 1772, he was appointed to be the governor of Calcutta, the most important of the presidencies. In Britain, moves were underway to reform the divided system of government and establish single rule across all of British-controlled regions in India, with its capital in Kolkata (Calcutta). Hastings became the first governor general in 1773.
While governor, Hastings launched a major crackdown on bandits operating in Bengal, which proved largely successful. He also faced the severe Bengal famine, which resulted in between two and ten million deaths.
Governor-General
The Regulating Act 1773 brought the presidencies of Madras and Bombay under Bengal's control. It raised Hastings from Governor to the new post of Governor-General, but limited his power by making the governor-general one member of a five-man Supreme Council. This was so confusingly structured that it was difficult to tell what constitutional position Hastings actually held.The Earl of Birkenhead, Famous Trials of History, Garden City: Garden City Publishing Company, 1926, p. 165.
According to the Scottish historian William Dalrymple:
In 1774, Hastings assumed control of the East India Company's opium monopoly. The same year, he sent Company troops to support the wazir of Oudh, Shuja-ud-Daula, in a campaign against the Rohillas, a people of Afghan origin. The Company troops were paid by the wazir for their assistance. This short campaign, while enlarging the company's main ally in northern India, was the first of several wars that harmed Hastings's reputation.
War in India In 1777, during the American War of Independence (1775–1783), the Americans had captured a British field army at the Battle of Saratoga during the Saratoga campaign. This emboldened the French to sign a military alliance with the new United States of America and declare war on Great Britain. The French concentrated in the Caribbean islands and in India.