Designer
TWO:Halifax, possessed of this authority, returned to the House of Lords, and announced that, by the king's permission, he proposed the re-commitment of the bill, with the names only of the queen and the sons of the late king now living. Thus, the Princess Dowager was publicly stigmatised, on the authority of her own son, as incapable of reigning. The amendment, as the royal pleasure, was agreed to. The country was struck with astonishment. The Duke of Bedford is represented by Horace Walpole as almost dancing about for joy; the consternation of Bute and his party was indescribable. To cover the disgrace, they represented it as the wish of the Princess Dowager herself. But when the king was left to his own reflections, it began to dawn upon him that he had, by his weak compliance, openly insulted his own parent in the grossest manner. He bitterly upbraided Halifax with having thus stolen his consent by a surprise. But Grenville, with his usual obstinacy, declined to replace the princess's name unless it were strongly pressed upon him in the House. He trusted, however, that the Opposition, who hated the princess, would relieve him of this necessity by voting against the reinsertion of the name. But he was mistaken. Mr Morton, the chief justice of Chester, one of the Bute party, moved for the insertion of the princess's name in the bill, and the Opposition made no objection; they only too much enjoyed Grenville's embarrassment. He was therefore compelled to insert the name, whichthus falsifying Halifax's assertion to the king, that, if left in, it would be struck out by Parliamentwas carried by an overwhelming majority.Hastings then mustered fresh regiments of sepoys; demanded and received three battalions from Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares; armed cruisers; laid up stores of ammunition and provisions for three months in Fort William; enrolled a thousand European militia at Calcutta, and stood ready for any French invasion from sea. He then despatched Colonel Leslie with a strong force into the very heart of the Mahratta country. Leslie appeared to have lost his energy, made four months' delay in the plains of Bundelcund, and the next news was that he was dead. Colonel Goddard was sent to take his command, and advanced into Berar; but there hearing that successive revolutions were taking place at Poonah, he waited the result of them. Meanwhile, the presidency of Bombay, desirous of anticipating the expeditions from Calcutta, now undertook to reinstate Ragunath Rao, a deposed peishwa, whom they had lately left to his fate, and taking him along with him, the British commander, Colonel Egerton, marched into the Mahratta country with four thousand men. The army, when it had reached within sixteen miles of Poonah, was surrounded by hosts of Mahratta cavalry, and was compelled to surrender. The Mahrattas, as conditionswhich the British were in no position to declineinsisted on the restoration of all the territory won from them by the British since 1756, and the surrender to them of Ragunath Rao. But Hastings refused to recognise this treaty. He ordered Colonel Goddard to advance. The title of general was conferred on him, and he well justified the promotion. In that and the succeeding campaign he won victory on victory; stormed Ahmedabad; took the city of Bassein; gained a splendid victory over forty thousand of the combined forces of Holkar and Scindia, and, in a great measure, retrieved all the losses, and restored the fame of the British arms. In another quarter the success against the Mahrattas was equally decisive. Captain Popham with a small body of troops stormed and took the city of Lahore, and the huge fortress of[330] Gwalior, which the Mahrattas deemed impregnable.
