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The personal fortune of Warren Hastings:Hastings in retirement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P. J. Marshall
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Extract

Warren Hastings resigned the Governor-Generalship of Bengal in February 1785 and arrived in England in the following June. He faced his retirement with a fortune of approximately £75, 000, a total amounting to little more than a third of all the money which he had sent out of India during the 13 years of his administration. Those who knew Hastings well and who were aware that he had found it almost impossible to save anything out of his official salary of more than £30, 000 were pessimistic about his chances of living within the income of £3, 500, which he could anticipate from his capital of £75, 000. Such pessimism was fully justified.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , October 1965 , pp. 541 - 552
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1965

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References

1 See my article ‘ The personal fortune of Warren Hastings ’, Economic History Review, Second Ser., XVII, 2, 1964, 284–300.Google Scholar

2 British Museum, Add. MS 29231, fol. 513.

3 Feiling, K., Warren Hastings, London, 1954, 3. VOL. XXVIII. PART 3.Google Scholar

4 Hastings's diary, 14 September 1785, Add. MS 39879, fol. 91.

5 ibid., 26 August 1788, Add. MS 39881, fol. 35. Further details about the estate can be found in the act for altering Jacob Knight's settlement of Daylesford (Private Acts, 33Geo. 3, c. 55), papers on the act in the House of Lords Record Office, and a copyof tereport on the petition for the act (Add. MS 29232, fols. 154–68).

6 Hastings's diary, 26 and 29 August 1788, Add. MS 39881, fols. 33–4, also Add. MS 29230, fol. 119. I have been unable to discover how or when the mortgage was paidoff.

7 W. Walford to Hastings, 10 January 1790, Add. MS 29172, fol. 18.

8 Bodleian, Dep. c. 185.

9 There is an excellent description of Daylesford in Felling, Warren Hastings, 372–5; see also P. F. Norton, ‘ Daylesford: S. P. Cockerell's residence for Warren Hastings’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XXII, 3, 1963, 127––9.Google Scholar

11 Walford to Hastings, 2 October 1795, Add. MS 29174, fol. 189.

12 Add. MS 29231, fols. 552–5, and Hastings's diary, 1 June 1796, Add. MS 39883, fol. 87.

13 Davenport to Hastings, 22 July 1790, Add. MS 29172, fol. 98.

14 Add. MS 29230, fol. 11.

15 The debates at the East India House, on Wednesday, the 14th of October, 1795, London, 1795, appendix, p. 3.

16 2 October 1795, Add. MS 29174, fols. 189–90.

17 The solicitors' charges are listed in full in Add. MS 29224.

18 Scott's spending on the press etc. is analysed in the appendix to pt. I, eh. IVof my The impeachment of Warren Hastings (unpublished, Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1962).

19 Scott's memorandum, 3 August 1795, Add. MS 29231, fols. 11 ff.

20 14 July [1794], Add. MS 29173, fol. 226.

21 Add. MS 39890C, fol. 49; for the transaction with Hastings's, stock, see myarticle' The personal fortune of Marian Hastings, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXXVII, 96, 1964, 245–53.Google Scholar

22 Hastings to W. Palmer, 4 February 1785, Add. MS 29116, fols. 136–7.

23 Translation, n.d., Add. MS 29193, fol. 172.

24 The Parliamentary history of England, from the earliest period to the year 1803, London, 1806–20, XXVI, 859's letter is missing, but see his diary, 14 April 1788, Add. MS 39881, fol. 19, and Col. T. D. Pearse to Hastings, 24 January 1789, Add. MS 29171, fol. 257.Google Scholar

26 S. Turner to Hastings, Add. MS 29171, fol. 370.

27 C. Chapman to Hastings, 1 October and 12 November, and Turner to Hastings, 31 October 1793, Add. MS 29173, fols. 90, III, and 107.

28 Chapman to Hastings, 22 March 1799, Add. MS 29176, fol. 326.

29 Chapman t o Hastings, 10 August 1791, Add. MS 29172, fol. 293.

30 Chapman to Hastings, I February 1793, Add. MS 29173, fol. 3.

31 Hastings's diary, I October 1800, Add. MS 39884, fol. 52.

32 ibid., 6 February 1792, Add. MS 39882, fol. 85, and Chapman to Hastings, 15 May 1793, Add. MS 29173, fol. 39.

33 Chapman to Hastings, 7 September 1792, Add. MS 29172, fol. 455.

34 The debates at the East India House, appendix, p. 8.

35 I can find nothing to support the suggestion, made ‘in an old Calcutta newspaper’ andapparently accepted by Sir Keith Feiling (Warren Hastings, 369–70), ‘that a subscription was actually made in India… and, in fact, seventeen gentlemen subscribed and paid £1, 000 each’ (Busteed, H. E., Echoesfrom old Calcutta, fourth ed., London, 1908, 364).Google Scholar

36 Hastings's diary, 12 May 1795, Add. MS 39883, fol. 41.

37 India Office Records, Court Minutes, civ, 216–20, 229, 241–2.

38 6 March 1796, Sheffield City Library, Fitzwilliam MSS (by kind permission of Lord Fitzwilliam and the trustees of the Wentworth-Woodhouse Estate).

39 Letter of 14 May, ibid.

40 Hastings's diary, 7 March 1796, Add. MS 39883, fol. 77.

41 ibid., I June 1796, fol. 87. Hastings's debt to his wife seems to havearisen from the £6, 000 of her money which Scott had advanced to him in 1794 (see above, p.544), and from £2, 000 borrowed from her in 1790 (Hastings's diary, 13 December 1790, Add. MS 39882, fol. 44).

42 Hastings to Thompson, G.N., 2 April 1808, Gleig, G.R., Memoirs of the life of the Right Hon Warren Hastings, London, 1841, III, 393; also Add. MS 39890N, fol. 7.Google Scholar

43 Hastings to T. B. Woodman, 6 December 1816, Add. MS 29191, fol. 45.

44 Hastings to D. Anderson, 6 June 1800, Add. MS 45418, fol. 98.

45 To the same, 8 June 1800, ibid., fol. 100.

46 There is much scattered information about Hastings's farming in a series of notebooks(Add. MS 39890).

47 Listed in W. Larkins to Chapman, 29 August 1789, Add. MS 29171, fols. 390–2.

48 Add. MS 39890C, fol. 81.

49 Add. MS 29232, fol. 240, and Hastings's diary, 4 March 1813, Add. MS 39887, fol. 115.

50 See my article, Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXVII, 96, 1964, 245–53.Google Scholar

51 Add. MS 39902, fols. 17–20 and Thompson, to Hastings, 15 August 1805, Bengal Past and Present, XXI, 1920, 20.Google Scholar

52 Hastings's diary, 29 September 1800, Add. MS 39884, fol. 51.

53 To Thompson, , 18 March 1799, Bengal Past and Present, XX, 1920, 21.Google Scholar

54 The debates at the East India House, appendix, p. 7.

55 To [R. Johnson], 13 February 1798, Add. MS 29175, fol. 370.

56 To Sir J. D'Oyley, 12 July 1799, Add. MS 29177, fol. 40.

57 To the Directors, 30 May 1804, Gleig, Memoirs of Hastings, III, 414.

58 Add. MS 39886, fol. 120.

69 Hastings's diary, 6 June 1800 and 9 July 1805, Add. MSS 39884, fol. 40, and 39886, fol. 40.

60 To Anderson, 11 December 1805, Add. MS 45418, fol. 140.

61 Add. MS 398901, fol. 26.

62 To [Johnson], 13 February 1798, Add. MS 29175, fol. 370, and Add. MS 39886, fol. 120.

63 W. Ramsay to Hastings, 23 November 1799, Add. MS 29177, fol. 135.

64 Hastings's diary, 6 October 1802, Add. MS 39885, fol. 39.

65 G. Templer t o Hastings, 12 July 1808, Add. MS 29183, fol. 306.

66 ‘Substance of a conversation… ’, Add. MS 39885, fol. 78.

67 Palmer to Hastings, 28 September 1803, Add. MS 29179, fol. 185.

68 Letter of 7 March 1803, ibid., fol. 23.

69 Letter of 25 September 1803, Add. MS 29179, fol. 181.

70 Letter of 30 May 1804, Gleig, Memoirs of Hastings, III, 414.

71 Hastings's diary, 30 June 1804, Add. MS 39886, fol. 19.

72 ibid., 18 July 1804, fol. 20.

73 To C. Imhoff, 4 February 1808, Add. MS 29183, fol. 164. Hastings owed Scott £12, 000since 1796; his debt to his wife, which stood at £8, 000 in 1796, had increased to £11, 165 (Thompsont, to Hastings, 4 June 1810, Bengal Past and Present, XXI, 1920, 65–6; he had borrowed £6, on Daylesford; and he owed his bankers £4, 000.Google Scholar

74 Add. MS 29185, fols. 111–12.

75 Thompson, to Hastings, 4 June 1810, Bengal Past and Present, XXI, 1920, 65–6, and correspondence in Bodleian, Dep. c. 185.Google Scholar

76 25 August 1813, Add. MS 29188, fols. 225–6.

77 To S. Toone, 18 August 1813, ibid., fol. 216.

78 To Toone, 3 August 1818, Add. MS 29191, fols, 226–8.

79 ‘Memorandum of the facts’, July 1853, Add. MS 41606, fol. 99.

80 To Anderson, 14 January 1822, Add. MS 45418, fols. 366–7.

81 Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXVII, 96, 1964, 245–53.Google Scholar

82 Add. MS 41606, fol. 89.

83 Somerset House, P.C.C., ‘Norwich’, fols. 371–2.

84 Gentleman's Magazine, Second Ser., XL, 2, 1853, 390.Google Scholar

85 Scott to Hastings, 11 July 1782, Add. MS 29155, fol. 63.

86 These comparisons are taken from Mingay, G. E., English landed societyin the eighteenthcentury, London, 1963, 19–26.Google Scholar

87 Clive is reputed to have spent £15, 882 on the decorating and £15, 584 on the building of Claremont (Hussey, C., English country houses. Mid-Georgian, 1760–1800, London, 1956, 136).Hastings spent 25, 098 on Daylesford House.Google Scholar

88 Bodleian, Dep. c. 185.