India was pacified. Tippoo-Saib had made a treaty with England, and his troops had evacuated the Carnatic. Alone among English possessions, the vast Oriental territories had not suffered any diminution during the war engendered by the American rebellion. The Hindoo princes had seen their power vanishing; they had become magnificent subjects while still enjoying the sovereign title. { 333} The supreme authority of the English was everywhere established; a regular administration, however imperfect and rude as yet, had on all hands succeeded anarchy. Incessantly fettered by unintelligent or contradictory orders coming to him from Europe, the governor-general had found in the resources of his fertile genius the means of government and control which his rivals and chiefs disputed with him. He had known how to attach the army to him, and the natives themselves, accustomed to the capricious exactions of their princes, blessed the prosperity and order which marked his government. He had unrestrictedly used his power with an ill-ordered zeal for the public weal. "The rules of justice, the sentiments of humanity, the sworn faith of treaties, were nothing in his eyes when they were opposed to the actual interests of the state." He had enriched himself, and his wife even more, but he had above all, enriched and served the company and England without scruple and without remorse.
It was this delicate scruple and this honest remorse that the most ardent of Warren Hastings' adversaries, virtuous, passionate, and embittered by vexatious and severe disappointments, felt. Among the accusers of Warren Hastings many were animated by hatred or personal views. Edmund Burke solely stood up for the cause of the justice and right offended by the governor-general. His name has remained connected with the trial of Hastings as that of an avenger of public virtue, disinterested and sincere even in the violence of his patriotic transport.
The greeting that awaited Warren Hastings in London did not prepare him for the fate which threatened him. Treated by the king with a marked distinction, he was solemnly thanked by the India Company. "I see myself treated on all sides," wrote he three months after his arrival in England, "in a way that proves to me that I possess the good opinion of my country."