e one, neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey
was, by act of Parliament, a judge, independent of the government of
Bengal, and entitled to a salary of eight thousand a year. Hastings
proposed to make him also a judge in the Company's service, removable at
the pleasure of the government of Bengal; and to give him, in that
capacity, about eight thousand a year more. It was understood that, in
consideration of this new salary, Impey would desist from urging the
high pretensions of his court. If he did urge these pretensions, the
government could, at a moment's notice, eject him from the new place
which had been created for him. The bargain was struck; Bengal was
saved; an appeal to force was averted; and the Chief Justice was rich,
quiet, and infamous.

Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It was of a piece with
almost every part of his conduct that comes under the notice of history.
No other such judge has dishonored the English ermine, since Jeffreys
drank himself to death in the Tower. But we cannot agree with those who
have blamed Hastings for this transaction. The case stood thus. The
negligent manner in which the Regulating Act had been framed put it in
the power of the Chief Justice to throw a great country into the most
dreadful confusion. He was determined to use his power to the utmost,
unless he was paid to be still; and Hastings consented to pay him. The
necessity was to be deplored. It is also to be deplored that pirates
should be able to exact ransom by threatening to make their captives
walk the plank. But to ransom a captive from pirates has always been
held a humane and Christian act; and it would be absurd to charge the
payer of the ransom with corrupting the virtue of the corsair. This, we
seriously think, is a not unfair illustration of the relative position
of Impey, Hastings, and the people of India. Whether it was right in
Impey to demand or to accept a price for powers which, if they really
belonged to him, he could not abdicate, which, if they did not belong to
him, he ought never to have usurped, and which in neither case he could
honestly sell, is one question. It is quite another question, whether
Hastings was not right to give any sum, however large, to any man,
however worthless, rather than either surrender millions of human beings
to pillage, or rescue them by civil war.

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, indeed, be suspected
that personal aversion to Impey was