's morality undergoes a change, and becomes for the time
and the hour an Oriental morality.

[Sidenote: 1785-87--The defender of Hastings]

Against such an adversary, Hastings, ignorant of the conditions of
English political life, could bring forward no better champion than
Major Scott. Hastings opposed to the greatest orator and most widely
informed man of his age, a man of meagre parts, who only succeeded in
wearying profoundly the House of Commons and every other audience to
which he appealed. Such a proconsul as Warren Hastings standing his
trial upon such momentous charges needed all the ability, all the art
that an advocate can possess to be employed in his behalf. Had
Hastings {275} been so lucky as to find a defender endowed, not indeed
with the genius or the knowledge of Burke, for there was no such man to
be found, but with something of the genius, something of the knowledge
of Burke, his case might have appeared very different then and in the
eyes of posterity. If Scott could have pleaded for Hastings
eloquently, brilliantly, with something of the rich coloring, something
of the fervid enthusiasm that was characteristic of the utterances of
his great antagonist, he might have done much to stem, if not to turn
the stream of public thought. But Warren Hastings was not graced so
far. His sins had indeed found him out when he was cursed with such an
enemy and cursed with such a friend.

It is clear that Hastings himself on his return had little idea of the
serious danger with which he was menaced. He seems to have become
convinced that his services to the State must inevitably outweigh any
accidents or errors in the execution of those services. He honestly
believed himself to have been a valuable and estimable servant of his
country and his Crown. We may very well take his repeated declarations
of his own integrity and uprightness, not, indeed, as proof of his
possession of those qualities, but as proof of his profound belief that
he did possess them. When he landed in England he appears to have
expected only honors, only acclamation, admiration, and applause. He
returned to accept a triumph; he did not dream that he should have to
face a trial.

The long years in India had served to confuse his perception of the
conduct of affairs at home. He did not in the least appreciate the men
with whom he had to deal. If he gauged pretty closely the malignity of
Francis, he may have fancied that the malign