Such were the first fruits of Najaf's alliance with the Viceroy of Audh; the price was to be paid in the bestowal of the Imperial sanction upon the final destruction of the Rohilla Pathans. It has been already seen how this province, which ran up between the personal domains of the crown and the fief of the Viceroy of Audh, had been seized, first by Ali Mohammad, and latterly by his son's guardian, the Protector Rahmat Khan. But ever since Ali Mohammad's wars with the late Vazir, Safdar Jang, the rulers of Audh had probably coveted the province, and the retreat of the Mahrattas and their occupation in domestic pursuits in the Deccan afforded just the occasion for which Shujaa-ud-daula was waiting. Much eloquent indignation has been vented by Macaulay and Mill on the subject of the accession to this campaign of the British Governor, Mr. Hastings. As I am not writing a history of British administration, I shall only observe that the Emperor, whose servants the British professed themselves, had conferred the authority usurped by Rahmat Khan upon the Vazir, with whom they had been for some years in alliance. As allies of both parties they were clearly at liberty to throw in their help against the common enemies of both, especially when these chanced to be their own enemies also. The Mahrattas were the foes of all rulers on that side of India; and the Rohillas were either in collusion with the Mahrattas or unable to oppose them. It was essential, if not to the safety of the possessions of the Vazir-Viceroy, at least to British interests in Bengal, that a band of faithless usurpers should not be allowed to hold a country which they could not, or would not, prevent from affording a high road for the Mahrattas at all seasons of the year. That view, perhaps, commended itself to the House of Lords when they finally acquitted Mr. Hastings, after a protracted trial, in which some of the ablest of the Whig orators had been engaged against the accused. It is easy for historians, writing long after the passions, the temptations, the necessities of the moment have ceased to press, to criticize the acts of the past by the "dry light" of pure reason and abstract morality. But the claims of necessity should not be ignored in delivering what is intended to form a sort of judicial award.