egular opposition to his measures. Peace was restored to
India. The Mahratta war had ceased. Hyder was no more. A treaty had been
concluded with his son Tippoo; and the Carnatic had been evacuated by
the armies of Mysore. Since the termination of the American war, England
had no European enemy or rival in the Eastern seas.

On a general review of the long administration of Hastings, it is
impossible to deny that, against the great crimes by which it is
blemished, we have to set off great public services. England had passed
through a perilous crisis. She still, indeed, maintained her place in
the foremost rank of European powers; and the manner in which she had
defended herself against fearful odds had inspired surrounding nations
with a high opinion both of her spirit and of her strength.
Nevertheless, in every part of the world, except one, she had been a
loser. Not only had she been compelled to acknowledge the independence
of thirteen colonies peopled by her children, and to conciliate the
Irish by giving up the right of legislating for them; but, in the
Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the
continent of America, she had been compelled to cede the fruits of her
victories in former wars. Spain regained Minorca and Florida; France
regained Senegal, Goree, and several West Indian Islands. The only
quarter of the world in which Britain had lost nothing was the quarter
in which her interests had been committed to the care of Hastings. In
spite of the utmost exertions both of European and Asiatic enemies, the
power of our country in the East had been greatly augmented. Benares was
subjected; the Nabob Vizier reduced to vassalage. That our influence had
been thus extended, nay, that Fort William and Fort St. George had not
been occupied by hostile armies, was owing, if we may trust the general
voice of the English in India, to the skill and resolution of Hastings.

His internal administration, with all its blemishes, gives him a title
to be considered as one of the most remarkable men in our history. He
dissolved the double government. He transferred the direction of affairs
to English hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, he educed at least a rude
and imperfect order. The whole organization by which justice was
dispensed, revenue collected, peace maintained throughout a territory
not inferior in population to the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth or of
the Emperor Joseph, was formed and superinte