On this day the famous duel between Governor-General Warren Hastings and Philip Francis, member of the Supreme Council of Bengal, was fought.
Francis had become a great adversary of Hastings, who wrote to the council board questioning the public conduct of Francis, saying his private life was a reflection of it, and it has neither truth nor honour. Hastings’s words were also coloured by Francis’s affairs with women, including one with Madame Grand, who would become an influential woman in Napoleon’s France.
Francis, considered the writer of The Letters of Junius, a series that was critical of British politics and governance, challenged Hastings to a duel. They met on the western fringe of Belvedere. Hastings bullet hit Francis on the right shoulder, but he recovered from it.
Philip returned to England, where his accusations led to the impeachment of Hastings and the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal Elijah Impey by Parliament. Hastings was acquitted of the charges, which later historians feel may not have been entirely unfounded.
