his incapacity which was before known only to a few of his intimate friends.

Whatever his Lordship's intention may have been, his conduct is the most provoking, and mischievous instance of weakness, we have ever witnessed in a public man;-his only notion appears to have been, that of making himself a protector of royalty. Whether he protected the Prince from doing what he ought to do, or suffering what he ought not to suffer, seems to be a difference which unfortunately did not strike the noble Earl. If he had been recalled to favour at the moment when the Prince was paying his bills, what would have been his conduct?-He would first have ascertained that the money was all ready-the Prince willing-and the creditors importunate. This would have been quite irresistible. The generous peer would have cast himself at his master's feet, and exclaimed with a bursting heart, Then your Royal Highness shall not pay a single • bill!'

One man ought to pray for opportunities, and another against them. They have ruined Lord Moira,--and exalted Lord Wellesley. It is impossible to speak too highly of the spirit, honour and wisdom, displayed by this nobleman during the whole of the negociation. Nor is the supreme contempt with which he has treated his late colleagues among the least meritorious and useful parts of his conduct. To placard the imbecility of such men, is the best atonement to the public for the injury which he has done, and to himself, for the disgust he has experienced in ever serving with them. It is the fashion to display a great deal of prudery about the publication of those documents. As a practice, it is very good; and as an omen, very bad. It suspends over all such transactions the early and wholesome corrective of public opinion; and, in such transactions, the precedents for gross dishonesty are so abundant, and the temptations to it so strong, that the opinion of the public would be overlooked, and the appeal never made, if we were not goaded just now, by present distress, to look a little more closely than usual into political affairs, and to take a greater interest than common in the choice of our leaders. The only pleasing trait exhibited of these ministers, in the papers now before us, is their positive refusal to serve in any administration of which Lord Wellesley formed a part; a principle of personal exclusion, generally very reprehensible in politicians, but venial in this instance, (if credible),-because, among the infinity of human motives, it points out one which the present ministers consider as sufficient to induce them to give up the advantages of office.

So much for the past;-for the future, we are rather apprehensive of something worse than the ordinary mischiefs resulting

from the ordinary folly of the court. By whose counsels, what is done is done, we do not pretend to conjecture; but the symp toms are, conceit, mediocrity of talent, ignorance of the most dangerous state of the country, and an habit of viewing all political changes merely as they affect the case and comfort of the reigning monarch:-No solicitude to preserve for him good and wise men, but agreeable men, of comfortable flexibility, whose superiority of understanding will not overcome their Prince, but leave him the puerile pleasure of supposing that he is a wiser man than his ministers. A very alarming symptom is the total loss, in the creatures of the court, of all those honourable feelings on the subject of office, which have prevailed, even in that lofty region, till within these few years. The clear line to be pursued by men of principle, upon such a question as that of the Catholic claims, is to decide at once, whether they will oppose or grant them, and to remain in office not an instant longer than they can carry their decision (be it what it may) into effect. That any set of men, trusted with the government of the country, should leave such a question to its fate (if this be not a mere pretext), is the most base sacrifice of duty to interest which this country has yet witnessed. It is somewhat alarming, that a country, already showing strong signs of impatience, should be governed by these men; while the support afforded them by Parliament strengthens the cause of the reformers, and inclines even grave and thoughtful persons to suspect, that they must, after all, resort to the perilous remedy of Parliamentary reform.

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ART. III. Sketch of the Political History of India, from the Introduction of Mr Pitt's Bill in 1784. By John Malcolm, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Honourable East India Company's Madras Army, Resident at Mysor, and late Envoy to the Court of Persia. Svo. pp. 480. London 1811.

AN N immense empire, acquired by the agents of a company of merchants-sixty millions of brave and civilized men subjected to the dominion of twenty thousand-and at the same time made braver and more civilized-and happier and more secure in their happiness, in consequence of their subjugation. These are some of the wonders that strike us at first sight, when we turn our eyes to our possessions in the East,-and speak loudly in praise both of the talents and the virtues of those by whom these wonders have been created. On the other hand, the imninent hazard of the abuse of so vast a power, exercised at

such a distance from any means of control-the danger and absurdity of investing a handful of subjects with the rights of so splendid a sovereignty-the opposite danger, perhaps not less formidable, of throwing this vast source of influence into the hands of the Crown-the injustice and invidiousness of a monopoly and exclusive privilege-and the very precariousness of that possession upon which so great a proportion of the national capital and credit have been made to depend,-are among the circumstances which abate the exultation with which this stupen-; dous fabric is at first surveyed, and render every discussion up-. on our Indian policy equally perplexing and anxious.

The work before us embraces but a part of those discussions ; and is confined indeed to the examination of the question, whether the restraints imposed upon the East India Company by the act 1784, both with respect to their pursuing schemes of conquest, and contracting prospective engagements with the native powers, have been salutary or pernicious; and whether the instances in which they bught to have been disregarded, have not, in point of fact, been more numerous and important. than those in which they have been productive of any advan tage. The Court of Directors, it is well known, have all along approved heartily of the principle in which those restraints originated, and have always been disposed to regulate their conduct conformably to that spirit. In point of fact, however, a different course of conduct has been generally pursued; and General Malcolm may be regarded as the advocate of the prac sice adopted by the most enterprising of the Governors-General, in opposition to the express will of the Legislature, and the avowed-sentiments of the Directors of the Company. In taking this side of the question, the gallant General has certainly evinced his entire superiority to any thing like an esprit du corps; and shown, not only that he can judge, with the most perfect freedom, of the conduct of that body by whose favour he has been promoted to so many honourable and lucrative situations, but also that the Company, in selecting its servants for high and advantageous situations, is guided entirely by a sense of their merits and qualifications, and does not require either the sacrifice or the suppression of opinions which it may regard as hostile to its peculiar interests.

The acknowledged ability of this writer, and the various important stations he filled in India, by enabling him to procure the most authentic information, have induced us to pay great attention to the argumentative part of his work; and our desire to do justice to his arguments is augmented, by their militating against the known inclinations of the Company. One naturally expects, that an officer who has risen to such eminence in their

service, must have detected enormous abuses, or experienced the fatal effects of their impolicy, before he could adopt sucn views. It shall be our endeavour to submit to the public, with the most rigid impartiality, all that General Malcolm objects to that body. Our high esteem for the writer renders it impossible that we should be guilty of intentional misrepresentation; and although we shall have occasion to show that his inferences are not always legitimate, nor his deductions admissible, it is impossible to deny that his work contains many acute remarks, and many valuable suggestions.

The Introduction comprises a brief sketch of the history of the Company up to the year 1784. It is mostly taken from the writers who have been hostile to that body; and charges them chiefly with having sometimes procured their charter by corruption, and having sometimes asserted their exclusive privileges with unjustifiable severity. We believe all this to have happened: But we really do not believe, what General Malcolm appears to insinuate, that the charter could not have been obtained by fair means, or that such severities were the natural or necessary fruits of its existence. The arguments for a joint stock and exclusive privilege in those days of early enterprise, were, 1st, That the expensive equipments for an India voyage, with a cargo consisting chiefly of bullion, and the slowness of its returns, rendered it altogether impracticable to the capital of private adventurers. 2d, That the necessity of the vessels returning at the proper season, obliged them to erect factories, where the goods which were not sold might be deposited, and where the goods purchased for the returning voyage might be stored until the arrival of the ships. 3d, That all those factories required a civil establishment for the management of their concerns, and guards for their protection, at a great additional expense. 4th, That they were situated on the territories of many independent princes, from whom a license to trade was to be purchased, and their favour conciliated by valuable presents. 5th, That all their efforts for this purpose would have been rendered unavailing, by the misconduct of other traders, who, having no interest in the permanence of a commerce in which they might never again be engaged, would be perpetually liable to offend these princes or their subjects, from licentiousness or rapacity; whilst the civil agents were made responsible for the acts of persons over whom they had no control, although belonging to the same nation; and whatever privileges they had acquired, would again be resumed. Such, we believe, were the arguments adduced in favour of a joint stock, and exclusive privileges; and we really think them sufficiently strong and plausible, not to have required the aid of a bribe to procure them a hearing.

The whole of this discussion, however, is perfectly irrelevant to any question of a practical nature that can arise at the present day; and to judge of the present Directors, by those who governed the Company's affairs a century ago, would be just as extravagant as to judge of the principles of Mr Perceval's administration by those which actuated Lord Clarendon or Cardinal Wolsey. The actual acquisition of a vast independent territory, undoubtedly supersedes one whole class of these arguments; but it is not to be forgotten, that it was by the Company, acting upon those views of policy, that the acquisition was made; and the truth is, that it is nothing but the brilliant success of the Company which has induced us to think that we may now dispense with its existence.

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With regard to the other head, of their unjustifiable severities, the conclusion which General Malcolm has drawn from it, appears to be a little partial and precipitate. What has been said,' says our author, of the history of the Company, shows, in a very strong light, not only the origin, but the character of their early power; and proves the urgent necessity which existed, from the earliest period of their association, for the strict and constant interference of the Legislature of the country, to check excesses by which the national character of England was so exposed to injury.' Now, without meaning to palliate the particular instances of misconduct to which General Malcolm refers, we may be permitted to doubt, whether the proceedings of the Company, even at that period when they are all taken into view, were not upon the whole more honourable than injurious to the national character of England; -and to ask, whether it was quite fair to keep entirely out of sight those particulars in which they were entitled to praise? Who is there but must admire the undaunted perseverance with which the Company long struggled against every difficulty; -the neglect of government-the dissolution of all governmentthe powerful tyranny of the Dutch in the Indian seas-and the constant infraction of those privileges which were then, at least, indispensable to their existence;-preserving, under circumstances of extreme discouragement, their small settlement at Madras-the germ of future empire-the theatre for the future display of the military talents of a Lawrence and a Clive?What but this undaunted perseverance, prevented the whole of the Indian trade from centering in the Dutch ?-Docs General Malcolm really imagine, that, without a joint stock and exclusive privileges, England would at this day have possessed one foot of land in Hindostan ? Private adventurers would never have thought of more than a precarious trade of speculation,