say, that in consideration of the circumstances stated in my letter of the 13th July, I might remain in Calcutta, till the 25th of October, provided I immediately gave satisfactory security, that I should proceed to Europe, on any ship, which might sail after that period, and on which you might require me to embark. And the town adjutant, in a note with which he prefaced the delivery of your letter, says he is well assured that I have it in my power to give this security on the shortest notice. As I never put my friends to the test, I do not know whether I had or had not this power. But this I know, that if I had, I should not have used it. Not having violated the law, I required no bail, or security for my appearance, and I spurned, as I ought, the idea of asking any friend of mine to guarantee my obedience to the WILL of a Governor-General. But what does all this mean? It is neither more nor less than, 'If you comply with my will and pleasure in part, I will suffer you to remain for three months longer in India; if you comply with it wholly, I will suffer you to remain as long as you please, whether you have a licence or not; but if you do not in any respect comply with it, I will send you immediately to Europe, because you have not got a licence to reside in India.' Now I defy any man in Turkey to produce me a more perfect union of complete nonsense and absolute despotism than this.

The insulting tone of moderation, which you now assumed, my Lord, I placed to the proper account: namely, a conviction on your part, that you were treading upon very slippery ground, together with apprehensions, perhaps, that your object might be openly frustrated by legal means. I say insulting, because there was no room for compromise. It was impossible for me, consistently with any just ideas of what is due to the laws or constitution of the country, to have conceded the principle in dispute; and all the explanations which had taken place, together with the temper of the man, were sufficient to convince me that nothing would be conceded by your Lordship. Seeing that to continue the contest longer upon Asiatic ground would be therefore useless, I voluntarily surrendered myself to the town-adjutant of Calcutta at a time and place appointed; was carried in triumph into Fort William; and from thence hurried, under an escort of soldiers, on board an East-Indiaman at Saugor Roads.

It happened to be on Saturday that I surrendered. You, my Lord, having, as I presume, surmised that I might avail myself of the aid

object whatsoever? It is a false and ridiculous notion that they are conducive to any good, and however they may dazzle for a moment, instead of increasing they diminish respect; for the people, in their sentiments, are seldom mistaken. Was not Marquis Cornwallis, with only a few attendants, more respected than the Marquis Wellesley, with a suite large enough to form an army?

of the civil law to frustrate your designs, the moment you learnt that I had capitulated, sent a peremptory order that I should be immediately sent on board a ship. The order did not arrive till late at night. I had gone to bed, and absolutely refused to comply with it, observing that if the commandant of the soldiers thought himself obliged to enforce the order, he must use violence. He returned to the Fort-major, to whose custody I was now assigned, for fresh instructions. The Fort-major was in perplexity and doubt. His order was peremptory, yet he saw the impropriety and indecency of enforcing it. But you were at your country residence; and it would be a high crime and misdemeanor to disturb you about trifles. Of what consequence is the convenience, or even the life, of a common individual, if a great man must be incommoded? It was on the same seat of government that so many Englishmen were smothered to death in the Black-hole of Calcutta, that the slumbers of your predecessor, Surajah Dowlah, might not be disturbed!

Imagining what the motives of this peremptory order might be, I observed to the military agents of the Fort Major, that, the gates being shut for the night, no civil officers could get admission, and that the following day being Sunday, no writs could be executed; that, besides, my servants were gone home for the night, and that my baggage, which was in the town, would be left behind. Notwithstanding these arguments, I do not believe, but for the influence of female humanity, I should have got even a single night's reprieve. This is not the only occasion on which I have experienced that women possess a more lively sense of, and a greater regard for, justice, as well as finer feelings of humanity, than men ; and I rejoice in this opportunity of acknowledging my gratitude to Mrs. Calcraft, a lady I never saw, to whose intercession I owe it, that I was not hurried on board a ship, without even a change of linen, for a ten months' voyage. After an interchange of messages, I was allowed to continue my repose, it being understood that I should be ready to embark as soon as my baggage could be got from Calcutta the next morning.

These circumstances, which are in themselves trivial, I mention in order to show that it was your own opinion, my Lord, although it did not enter into my contemplation, that your arbitrary measures might have been defeated by the medium of the courts of law. That, I believe, could in fact have been done by an arrest for debt, or on a writ of habeas corpus, from which I cannot learn that India is exempted, more than other parts of the British dominions.

But if it had been the intention of the Legislature to confer on the Governor-General of India an authority that must virtually supersede the fundamental principles of our constitution, and deprive the subject of his only means of protection, would they not have expressely declared so, instead of leaving a power, which they thought it necessary to confer, subject to be constantly defeated?

I do believe that, in this case, your intentions, my Lord, notwithstanding the indecent manner in which you ordered me to be hurried on board a ship, might have been frustrated, had I applied to the Judges of the Supreme Court, and had these Judges done their duty. If I understand the law, the Supreme Court of Judicature was bound, upon application, to grant me a writ of habeas corpus, as a matter of right. If a probable ground be shown, that the party is imprisoned without just cause, and therefore hath a right to be delivered, the writ of habeas corpus is then a writ of right, which may not be denied, but ought to be granted to every man that is committed, or detained in prison, or otherwise restrained, though it be by the command of the King, the Privy Council, or any other.' Com. Journ. April 1, 1628. If I had claimed the benefit of this doctrine, almost two hundred years old, it would remain to be seen how far your Lordship would have opposed your will to a constitutional mandate thus distinctly expressed. But of the two evils I preferred immediate expulsion, to the uncertainty of remaining subject to the capricious sallies of your Lordship's volition.

Having shown that you avowedly considered yourself as entitled to enforce or dispense with existing laws, according to your own interpretation of them, at pleasure, I shall now make it appear that you assumed the privilege of making new laws, establishing in effect an absolute despotism.-Instead of leaving disputes to be settled in the ordinary course of law, you determined that none should exist; as you imposed previous restrictions on publications, so you would impose previous restrictions on the actions of men. 'Penalty bonds,' says Mr. Maclean, are sent up to be executed by all indigo planters in this district (Benares); for the first complaint in court, five hundred rupees; and for the second, to be ordered to Calcutta.' Now, my Lord, you had just as clear a right to order penalty bonds to be signed for a hundred thousand rupees, as for five hundred, and to order the offender to Botany Bay as to Calcutta. Did you not, by this strange measure, if any measure of yours could appear strange, assert an unlimited power over the purses, as well as the persons, of his Majesty's subjects? Could you not ruin a man in a moment, by bringing him from Benares to Calcutta, for having had some trifling quarrel, or at the mere instigation of an enemy or informer? Might you not, with as much propriety, and justice, and law, have ordered any of the inhabitants of Calcutta, who should act improperly in your opinion, to be sent for the first offence to perform quarantine at Benares, and for the second to China?

I will not here say any thing of the sweeping edict, by which all Europeans were ordered to quit Lucknow, that they might not be witnesses of your conduct towards the Nabob, as I believe it is actually the subject of inquiry in another place. But it shall not be lost to the public. This doctrine of arbitrarily transporting the

subject from one part of a country to another, is even more cruel and degrading than that which transfers them in whole lots from one master to another, as has lately been the abominable practice on the continent of Europe. Nor does it appear that, in the assumption of those extraordinary powers, you laid the smallest stress upon licences, by which, when it suited your purpose, you claimed the privilege of transportation. On the contrary, you expressly usurped the right of violating even that, your favourite law.

A

י,

On! go not to the field of war,

Or let me share its toils with thee';
And tell me not the land is far,

And holds no bower for minstrelsy."
There is no bower of song for me,

No native land but where thou art;

There, though earth's dreariest waste it be, thick "Twould bloom an Eden to my heart!

And who so well could die for thee,

As one who longs to be at rest,

And asks no other memory,

But to be graven on thy breast? mond
And who, among the spirits blest,

Could watch thee with a fonder care
Oh, who, when griefs thy heart oppress'd,
Would sweeter, heavenlier solace bear?

Or, if there be who loved before,

And gain'd that happiest destiny,
Already on the heavenly shore,

One bliss at least remains for me:
To see pure angels' cares for thee

To mark how thou art loved above
Beheld with feelings anguish-free,

TRAVELS IN ITALY.-BY AN EAST INDIAN, AT HOME ON Leave.

No. II.

Milan-Piazza del Duomo-The Scala-Marionettes-Political Condition-Commerce, &c.

MILAN can scarcely be called a beautiful town, for the streets are in general narrow, yet some of them, such as the Corso Orientale and the Contrada di Breva may vie with the most noble streets of London or Paris. The architecture is more remarkable for its solidity and heavy grandeur, than for elegance or ornamental beauty. Some of the gates and edifices, erected under the French regime, are perfect models of chaste and classical beauty, but it not unfrequently happens that the most elegant buildings are defaced and disfigured by a vile and incongruous shed of red tiles or some such abomination. The palazzi are rich and splendid en gros, but often mean and pitiful en détail; you find a shattered and lockless door leading out of a gaudy saloon, and shabby joined mirrors figuring amongst rich hangings and embroidered furniture. Milan is but half Italian, so far as regards antiquities and the fine arts, and such objects as the generality of travellers come to gaze and wonder at, and to record in letters to their kinsfolk. They, however, who come in search of amusement, and who are not too proud to give in to the ways of the people, will find few places, even in Italy, more agreeable than this city. The society is divided into two classes, that of the nobles, and that of the merchants, and each is easily accessible to foreigners, who are inclined to cultivate the Milanese. Though these two classes are distinct, and seldom mix, there is here much less of that exclusive spirit which characterises the jealous separation of the nobles from the commoners in most of the Italian towns. This is to be attributed to the influence of the French republican policy in humbling the aristocracy. Indeed, though France has ceased to exercise any direct influence over the Milanese, they still appear to consider Paris rather than Vienna as the quarter from which their illumination is to proceed; and whether in politics or fashions, the complexion of opinions or the depth of a flounce, the 'Constitutionnel,' the Etoile,' and the 'Petit Courrier des Dames,' are of much greater authority than the Austrian Observer. In their dress, equipages, manners, and entertainments, the most approved models of the Fauxbourg St. Honoré are studiously copied. The beaux of Milan exhibit a better style of dress than is usually observed in Italians, a circumstance which I have heard accounted for by the close connexion which many of the Austrian officers maintain with their countryman, the great Mr. Stultz, of London, whose patriotic exertions enable these Cisalpine exquisites