The reputation of Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India from 1772 to 1785, has passed through tremendous vicissitudes. Thousands of educated persons both in England and India are filled with indignation when they read of his atrocious acts, the judicial murder of Nand Kumar, the extermination of the Rohillas and the plunder of the Begums. Sir John Strachey, who passed several years of his Indian Civil Service in the Province of Rohilkhand had the chance of making personal investigations against the worst of Hastings crimes, i.e. the extermination of the Rohillas. He writes in this book, that to his utter surprise he found that the terrible accusations levelled against him by the writers and historians like Burke, Mill and Macaulay were misrepresentations and garbling of documents, suppressing the truth. Hastings had a high degree of the faculty of making himself beloved by the people he governed. He gave to the people of Bengal within their memory, security for their lives and property. And for the first time, he gave them means of obtaining justice against their oppressors. Hastings was acquitted upon every charge in the end.
