] Somewhere in these fascinating threads is the remark that JA seems not to have liked Warren Hastings much.

I thought this because I think Warren Hastings looks a lot like Sir Walter Elliot. But this might be a part of his "intricacy" - not a bad man or a good man, just shown in the light of Persuasion to be vain.

] But I gotta agree, the coincidences are intriguing!

I am a great believer that Jane used family histories and names for her story lines and characters. Yes, the Eliza thing is very interesting. In the Feiling biography of Hastings is a reference to the "letters to Auriol, in the posession of Sir Henry Dashwood" (Linden, you've got a copy. Can you elaborate? I just jotted this down in the National Library last month)

George Hastings, the boy that Mr. and Mrs. Austen cared for, Warren Hastings son had two elder half-sisters born to their mother Mary/Anne Elliot. I have always assumed they might be called Mary and Anne, George's full sister being called Elizabeth (like the three sisters in Persuasion). When their mother remarried they were bundled off to England and apparently the woman who cared for them wrote begging letters constantly asking Warren for money for years.

As the half-sisters of George Hastings I am quite sure that Jane Austen knew of these girls. I would give my eye-teeth to know their names and what happened to them. I live four hours flight away from a library with more than one biography of Hastings in it. (Has anyone read "Dawning of the Raj" yet? Might be something there.)

Can anyone out there help? The girls were probably called Buchanan (might possibly be Campbell) and were born in 1754 and 1756.

Incidentally, Marianne is a fairly rare name for the time and Warren Hasting's second wife was called Marian/ne.