the Peshwa, had become the hereditary chief of the state. The
Peshwa, in his turn, was fast sinking into the same degraded situation
to which he had reduced the Rajah. It was, we believe, impossible to
find, from the Himalayas to Mysore, a single government which was at
once a government _de facto_ and a government _de jure_, which possessed
the physical means of making itself feared by its neighbors and
subjects, and which had at the same time the authority derived from law
and long prescription.

Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden from most of his
contemporaries, that such a state of things gave immense advantages to a
ruler of great talents and few scruples. In every international question
that could arise, he had his option between the _de facto_ ground and
the _de jure_ ground; and the probability was that one of those grounds
would sustain any claim that it might be convenient for him to make, and
enable him to resist any claim made by others. In every controversy,
accordingly, he resorted to the plea which suited his immediate
purpose, without troubling himself in the least about consistency; and
thus he scarcely ever failed to find what, to persons of short memories
and scanty information, seemed to be a justification for what he wanted
to do. Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, sometimes a monarch.
Sometimes the Vizier is a mere deputy, sometimes an independent
potentate. If it is expedient for the Company to show some legal title
to the revenues of Bengal, the grant under the seal of the Mogul is
brought forward as an instrument of the highest authority. When the
Mogul asks for the rents which were reserved to him by that very grant,
he is told that he is a mere pageant, that the English power rests on a
very different foundation from a charter given by him, that he is
welcome to play at royalty as long as he likes, but that he must expect
no tribute from the real masters of India.

It is true that it was in the power of others, as well as of Hastings,
to practise this legerdemain; but in the controversies of governments,
sophistry is of little use unless it be backed by power. There is a
principle which Hastings was fond of asserting in the strongest terms,
and on which he acted with undeviating steadiness. It is a principle
which, we must own, though it may be grossly abused, can hardly be
disputed in the present state of public law. It is this, that where an
ambiguous question arises betwee