Hastings, WARREN, was born at Churchill, in Oxfordshire, 6th December 1732. He was descended from the family of Hastings of Daylesford, but the estate had passed out of the family, and Hastings, who was early left an orphan, was educated at the expense of an uncle. He distinguished himself at Westminster School, where he was contemporary with the poets Churchill and Cowper, with the future Lord Shelburne, and with Elijah Impey (q.v.). In 1750 he went out in the Civil Service of the East India Company, and was at first employed in the secretariat in Calcutta. He was up the country at the time of the Black Hole affair, but made his escape and joined the refugees at Falta Ghat, where he married his first wife; she died after bearing two children, who lived but a few years. Left a widower, Hastings returned to England in 1764, where he spent five years and made the acquaintance of Dr Johnson. In 1769 he returned to India as second-in-council at Madras, and in 1772 proceeded to Bengal, where he was promoted to the presidency of the council. A year later the British parliament produced the Regulating Act, under which Hastings was to be governor-general with a handsome salary, and was to be assisted by a council of four members, three appointed from home. This was the beginning of trouble; the majority in council led by Francis was opposed to Hastings from the first; the finances were in great disorder, the demands of the Company for remittances were frequent and urgent. One of Hastings' first tasks was to bring to trial the chief fiscal ministers of Bengal, Rája Shatáb Rai and Nawáb Muhamad Raza, on charges of malversation and embezzlement. This, though done under positive orders from home, proved injurious to Hastings' popularity. A corrupt and treacherous official, Nuncomar (Rája Nand Kumar), was employed in conducting the case; and when it broke down all three became his enemies. In 1775 Nuncomar was tried, sentenced, and executed for forgery, a proceeding which threw obloquy on Hastings and on the chief-justice, Sir Elijah Impey, which has been much dispelled in recent times. Among measures of domestic reform, Hastings made an appraisement of the landed estates which formed the assets of a great portion of the public revenue, and on that appraisement based a revised assessment. He also improved the administration of justice in the country courts and organised the opium revenue. In his external policy he was no less energetic and original. He waged vigorous war with the Mahrattas, and made the Company's power paramount in many parts of India. He contracted advantageous alliances and restored the financial position of the Company. All this was not done without encountering opposition and censure. In 1777 an attempt was made to depose him, on the strength of a conditional resignation which he had sent home; and the attempt was only frustrated by the action of the Supreme Court, of which Impey was still chief-justice. In the same year Hastings married the divorced wife of Baron Imhoff, a German officer. In 1780 he was finally freed from embarrassment by the opposition owing to the retirement of its leader, Philip Francis, whom he wounded in a duel.
At the end of 1784 he resigned office and sailed for England, where he was well received by King George III., but soon became subject to a parliamentary inquiry, with a view to impeachment. Into the details of the charges brought against him we cannot here enter. Among the chief misdeeds alleged against him were the aid that he gave to his ally the Nawáb of Oudh in the war against the Rohilla Afghans, his punishment of the Zemindar of Benares for non-compliance with a demand for aid in the first Mahratta war, and his connivance in the forfeiture of property—real and personal—which had been conferred on the Begums or dowager-princesses of Oudh. Charges on these subjects were preferred by the Whig opposition, and Hastings, being deserted by Mr Pitt, was impeached at the bar of the House of Lords. The trial began 13th February 1788 in Westminster Hall, among the managers for the Commons being Edmund Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Elliott (afterwards Lord Minto), and Mr (afterwards Earl) Grey. The early sittings were numerously attended, and the audience was rewarded by splendid displays of rhetoric; but the public interest soon flagged. It was felt by those persons who knew or cared about the matter at all that the alleged errors of Hastings were overbalanced by great public services. He had prevailed in war; he had left Bengal at peace; he had organised the administration in all its branches; he had fostered learning; above all, he had founded an empire which no one thought of abandoning. The trial dragged itself through more than seven years and nearly 150 sittings. At last, on the 23d April 1795, Hastings was acquitted on all the charges, unanimously on all that affected his personal honour. Out of the original members who had met in Westminster Hall when Hastings first bowed his knee at the bar but twenty-nine were left to vote for the final award; the remaining peers stood round the throne as spectators. Hastings left the court a ruined man, the small fortune that he brought from India having been quite consumed in the expenses of the defence. But the Court of Directors came to his aid and made provision for his declining years. Carrying out what is said to have been an aspiration of his youth, Hastings bought the old family seat of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, where he passed the rest of his life in the occupations of a country gentleman, varied by occasional visits to London. He gave evidence before parliamentary committees, and dined at Carlton House; the prince-regent made him a privy-councillor; and he received honours from the city and the Houses of Parliament. He died at Daylesford, 22d August 1818, his wife surviving him. In his long and active career Hastings showed constant energy, courage, judgment, and application. In his private life he was gentle and unselfish. He left no children.
See Gleig's Memoirs (3 vols. 1841); Mill's History of India, corrected by Wilson's notes; Stephen's Story of Nuncomar; Trotter's Biography (1878); the article by the present writer in the Dictionary of National Biography; Lyall's Warren Hastings (1889); Strachey's Hastings and the Rohila War (1892); Forrest's Administration of Warren Hastings (1892); Col. Malleson's Life of Warren Hastings (1894); and Sir C. Lawson's Private Life of Warren Hastings (1896); Macaulay's eloquent essay is untrustworthy.