The internal embarrassments of a disputed government had disappeared as far as Hastings was concerned. He had triumphed in military attacks, but financial difficulties, aggravated by the war which was just ended, remained heavy. It is a great proof of moral worth to resist the pressing need of money when the means of acquiring it for one's self, or for those whom one wishes to serve, present themselves at our door on every hand. Formerly, Warren Hastings had satisfied the needs of the company by despoiling the Great Mogul and reducing the Rohillas to slavery. Now he pillaged the rajah of Benares, Chey-ta-Sing, not without difficulty and at the risk of his life, which he was accustomed to expose with calm temerity. {332} Ruined and conquered, the Hindoo prince fled from his country, of which the governor-general forthwith took possession; his nephew, become rajah, was nothing more than a dependent of the India Company, which assured him an ample pension. More odious proceedings extorted from the princesses of Oude the immense fortune which their nabob husbands had left them. Banished to their palace and deprived of the necessaries of life, the begums knew that their most trusted servants were abandoned at Lucknow to the vengeance and cool animosity of the English. In order to deliver these servants from the hands of their persecutors, they at last gave up their treasures. Sir E. Impey covered all these indignities with the cloak of legal justice. An inquiry which had just taken place in the House of Commons, under the direction of Dundas and Burke, disclosed some of these culpable actions. Sir E. Impey was immediately recalled. The shareholders of the India Company absolutely refused to depose Warren Hastings. It was only two years later that the governor-general himself resigned his functions. His wife, whom he had married under circumstances more romantic than honorable, and to whom he was passionately attached, had been obliged to return to England on account of her health. Warren Hastings joined her there in the month of June, 1785.