Weekly Trinity journal., 1869-01-09
A Romantic Passage In . Notable Life.


In the early spring of 1859, the Duke of Graf
ton sailed for the South Seas, and in it the, as
yet, great unknown Warren Hastings. This cell
ebrated parsonage, one of the earliest and most
distinguished governors of British India, and to
whom, perhaps, more than any other, Great
Britain is indebted for subjecting that portion of
the world to her dominion, was born in England
A. D. 1882, and, at least on one side, of noble
blood but through certain reverses of fortune,
he did not succeed to the patrimOny and estates
of his fathers. His earliest and lifelong ambi-
tion, through all his checkered and eventful ca
reer in the East was the recovery of, and his
own rehabitation in, this ancestral home. While
yet lad of only dozen summers, he was wont
to recline ON the green banks of one of those
pure streams that fertilized its gardens and
parks, in full view of the old baronial palace.
and mature plans for realizing this great object.
He would procure a writership in the East India
company, proceed at once to Madras, and press
everything into his service that even remotely
promised success to his cherished enterprise.
Accordingly, in January, 1850, he embarked for
India. Here he gave himself to the study of the
native languages, and was one of the first to
make himself acquainted with the history and
literature of the people among whom he lived.
He soon attracted the attention of Lord Give,
and by him was employed in various commercial
and diplomatic measures. He remained in India
fourteen years, distinguished in no remarkable
manner, but acquiring knowledge, and highly
esteemed. In l764, he arrived in England on
brief furlough. He has now, at length once
again taken passage FOR the land of his adoption.
An uninterrupted voyage of fifteen thousand
miles may be easily conceived as presenting
phase of life sufficiently monotonous. Cut off
entirely from the great world, shut up to the
limited community of perhaps dozen individ-
uals, one is utterly denied thousands of those
qualifications that give variety and spice to life,
and render an enforced idleness tolerable.
These circumstances, moreover, as will readily
be seen, were eminently favorable either for
contracting the most interesting connections, or,
on the other hand, the most inveterate and last
ing dislike.
Among the passengers in the Duke of Grafton
on this voyage, it appears, was one Imboff,
German portrait painter, and his wife,. The lat
ter is described as being person of rare perso-
nal loveliness, Intellectual brilliancy and engag
ing manners.
With the German painters wife, Hastings
very naturally soon came in contest. His ac-
quaintance with her, under the circumstances,
ere long, ripened into something like intimacy
and, strange to say, pretty much the first thing
of which he became fully satisfied concerning
this exceedingly interesting lady, was that she
thoroughly disliked and despised her husband !;
and, but little later, what most particularly con-
cerned himself, becoming an object of special ia
vor and regard in his own eyes-startling disclo-
sure indeed What was he to do2 Here he
was completely hemmed in. Compelled by the
necessities of his situation to associate daily
with one who-whether he would or no-was
surely stealing away the only kingdom he had
in the world-hs heart gradually, but irresist-
IDLY becoming the slave of the only person on
board whose society could in the least relieve
the tedium and mortal irksomeness of that long
voyage; enthralled by one whom he could not
innocently love, and yet unable to flee from the
object of his guilty passion-what, indeed, could
the man do? Might there not be some spot
C some island far away whittier he might fly
from his lovely temptress, or, provided the haz-
ardous expedient of an elopement was decided
upon, some secret ocean cave that could afford
the asylum of q Gretna Green to the enamored
pair?
At this juncture, events transpired calculated
to precipitate matters-in fact, to bring them to
crisis. Hastings fell seriously ill. Now, of all
places to be sick the worst, we are told, is on
shipboard, where every lurch of the reeling,
staggering vessel wrings new pang from the
sufferer, and where the constant motion affords
never a moment of perfect and natural repose.
Thus circumstanced, and constantly racked with
pain, who, in all a mothers essiduity and gen.
tleness, watched over and administered to all
this lonely sick mans wants? Who, while
others slept through the long and wearisome
watches of the night, patiently, tirelessly, thus
acted the part Of his good ange--with her own
fair hands giving him all of his medicines, pre-
pairing all his food, soothing his aching head,
s' teaching his lone pillow to bloom?" Yes,
whose were those lustrous eyes that in the in
tervals of his delirium, Hastings recognized as
beaming so tenderly upon him?
All, the magical power of kindness, particu-
larly when the object is a poor, homeless, if not
friendless wanderer, sick at sea, and the bene-
factor woman whose looks are SO full of tender
ness, and whose tones so full of love John
Howard, it will be recoIlected, while sick at
Stoke Newington, was not proof against the un-
remitting kindness and devotion of his landlady,
Mrs. Loidore but, as soon as he recovered, re-
paid her patient watchfulness over him by the
offer of his hand. Accordingly if Warren Hast