evidence that he had anything to do with the prosecution or
sentence.[175]

[Sidenote: _FOX'S INDIA BILLS._]

During the Maratha war, a tributary chief, Chait Singh, raja of Benares,
neglected to perform the demands made upon him, and showed a dangerously
independent spirit. In 1781 Hastings imposed an enormous fine upon him;
he revolted and was defeated, and his estates were confiscated and given
to a kinsman. Though the raja's conduct was contumacious, Hastings seems
to have acted with undue severity. He was pressed for money, and left
the raja no choice between paying a very large sum and losing his
estates. Difficulties increased, and he called on Asaf-ud-Daula, then
nawab wazir of Oudh, to pay his heavy arrears of debt to the company.
The begams, the mother and widow of the late nawab, had a vast treasure
which should have belonged to the state. Hastings was informed that
these powerful ladies were helping Chait Singh; it was necessary to get
money from the wazir, and he bade him force the ladies to give up their
treasure. The resident at Lucknow brought up some troops; the begams'
palace at Faizabad was blockaded, and their eunuch-ministers imprisoned
and maltreated until the resident obtained enough to liquidate the
wazir's debt. The wazir threw the odium of this transaction on the
English. Hastings defended his conduct as just and politic. He was not
directly responsible for the severe measures adopted by the wazir, but
it was certainly not a matter in which the British governor-general and
his officers should have taken any part. His conduct in this matter as
well as towards the Benares raja was misrepresented and used against him
in England.

The refusal of the proprietors to recall Hastings was highly displeasing
to the commons, and a petition from the company for relief from some
obligations imposed in 1781 gave occasion to parliament again to
interfere in its affairs. In April, 1783, Dundas, who was then in
opposition to the coalition ministry, proposed a bill for the government
of India. His plan was to render the governor-general more independent
of his council, to subordinate more completely the inferior governments
to the government of Bengal, to change the uncertain tenure of the
zamindars into hereditary possession, to recall Hastings, and to appoint
some noble, like Cornwallis, as his successor. As the government
promised to bring in an India bill the next session, he allowed his bill
to drop. Whe