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democratic than a Whig. Yet this was the language which Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories and High Churchmen, held under the administration of Walpole and Pelham.

improvement had taken place. We are no admirers of the political doctrines laid down in Blackstone's Commentaries. But if we consider that those Commentaries were read with Thus doctrines favourable to public liberty great applause in the very schools where, were inculcated alike by those who were in within the memory of some persons then living, power, and by those who were in opposition. books had been publicly burned by order of the It was by means of these doctrines alone University of Oxford, for containing the "damnthat the former could prove that they had a able doctrine," that the English monarchy is king de jure. The servile theories of the latter limited and mixed, we cannot deny that a saludid not prevent them from offering every mo- tary change had taken place. "The Jesuits," lestation to one whom they considered as says Pascal, in the last of his incomparable merely a king de facto. The attachment of the letters, "have obtained a Papal decree conone party to the house of Hanover, of the other demning Galileo's doctrine about the motion to that of Stuart, induced both to talk a lan- of the earth. It is all in vain. If the world is guage much more favourable to popular rights really turning round, all mankind together will than to monarchical power. What took place not be able to keep it from turning, or to keep at the first representation of " Cato" is no bad themselves from turning with it." The decrees illustration of the way in which the two great of Oxford were as ineffectual to stay the great sections of the community almost invariably moral and political revolution, as those of the acted. A play, the whole merit of which con- Vatican to stay the motion of our globe. That sists in its stately rhetoric,-a rhetoric some- learned University found itself not only unable times not unworthy of Lucan,-about hating to keep the mass from moving, but unable to tyrants and dying for freedom, is brought on keep itself from moving along with the mass. the stage in a time of great political excite-Nor was the effect of the discussions and speBoth parties crowd to the theatre. culations of that period confined to our own Each affects to consider every line as a com- country. While the Jacobite party was in the pliment to itself, and an attack on its oppo- last dotage and weakness of its paralytic old nents. The curtain falls amidst an unanimous age, the political philosophy of England began roar of applause. The Whigs of the "Kit Cat" to produce a mighty effect on France, and, embrace the author, and assure him that he through France, on Europe. has rendered an inestimable service to liberty. The Tory Secretary of State presents a purse to the chief actor for defending the cause of liberty so well. The history of that night was, in miniature, the history of two generations.

inent.

We well know how much sophistry there was in the reasonings, and how much exaggeration in the declamations of both parties. But when we compare the state in which political science was at the close of the reign of George the Second, with the state in which it had been wher James the Second came to the throne, it is impossible not to admit that a prodigious

Here another vast field opens itself before us. But we must resolutely turn away from it. We will conclude by earnestly advising all our readers to study Sir James Mackintosh's invaluable Fragment; and by expressing the satisfaction we have received from learning, since this article was written, that the intelligent publishers of the volume before us have resolved to reprint the Fragment in a separate form, without those accompaniments which have hitherto impeded its circulation. The resolution is as creditable to them as the publication is sure te be acceptable to the lovers of English history.

SIR JOHN MALCOLM'S LIFE OF LORD CLIVE.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR JANUARY, 1840.]

guage, has never been very popular, and is now scarcely ever read.

We are

We have always thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish empire in America is so familiarly known to all the na- We fear that Sir John Malcolm's volumes tions of Europe, the great actions of our own will not much attract those readers whom countrymen in the East should, even among Orme and Mill have repelk The materials ourselves, excite little interest. Every school- placed at his disposal by the late Lord Powis boy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and were indeed of great value. But we cannot who strangled Atabalipa. But we doubt whe- say that they have been very skilfully worked ther one in ten, even among English gentlemen | up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won with severity a work which, if the author had the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the mas- lived to complete and revise it, would proba sacre of Patna, whether Surajah Dowlah ruled bly have been improved by condensation and in Oude or in Travancore, or whether Holkar by a better arrangement. We are more diswas a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet the vic- posed to perform the pleasing duty of expresstories of Cortes were gained over savages who ing our gratitude to the noble family to which had no letters, who were ignorant of the use the public owes so much useful and curious of metals, who had not broken in a single ani- information. mal to labour, who wielded no better weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, flints, and fish-bones, who regarded a horsesoldier as a monster, half man and half beast, who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer able to scatter the thunder and lightning of the skies. The people of India when we subdued them were ten times as numerous as the vanquished Americans, and were at the same time quite as highly civilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz; viceroys whose splendour far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic; myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which would have astonished the Great Captain. It might have been expected that every Englishman who takes any interest in any part of history would be curious to know how a handful of his countrymen, separated from their home by an immense ocean, subjugated, in the course of a few years, one of the greatest empires in the world. Yet, unless we greatly err, this subject is to most readers not only insipid, but positively distasteful.

Perhaps the fault lies partly with the historians. Mr. Mill's book, though it has undoubt edly great and rare merit, is not sufficiently animated and picturesque to attract those who read for amusement. Orme, inferior to no English historian in style and power of painting, is minute even to tediousness. In one volume he allots, on an average, a closely printed quarto page to the events of every forty-eight hours. The consequence is that his narrative, though one of the most authentic and one of the most finely written in our lan

The Life of Robert Lord Clive; collected from the Family Papers, communicated by the Earl of Powis. By Major-General Sir JOHN MALCOLM, K. C. B. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1836.

The effect of the book, even when we make the largest allowance for the partiality of those who have furnished and of those who have digested the materials, is, on the whole, greatly to raise the character of Lord Clive. far indeed from sympathizing with Sir John Malcolm, whose love passes the love of biographers, and who can see nothing but wisdom and justice in the actions of his idol. But we are at least equally far from concurring in the severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who seems to us to show less discrimination in his account of Clive than in any other part of his valuable work. Clive, like most men who are born with strong passions, and tried by strong tempta tions, committed great faults. But every per son who takes a fair and enlightened view of his whole career must admit that our island, so fertile in heroes and statesmen, has scarcely ever produced a man more truly great either in arms or in council.

The Clives had been settled ever since the twelfth century on an estate of no great value near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire. In the reign of George the First this moderate but ancient inheritance was possessed by Mr. Richard Clive, who seems to have been a plain man of no great tact or capacity. He had been bred to the law, and divided his time hetween professional business and the avocations of a small proprietor. He married a lady from Manchester of the name of Gaskill and became the father of a very numerous family. His eldest son, Robert, the founder of the British empire in India, was born at the old seat of his ancestors on the 29th of September, 1725.

Some lineaments of the character of the man were early discerned in the child. There re main letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh year; and from these it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which sometimes seened

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hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. Fighting," says one of his uncles, " to which he is out of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness that he flies out on every trifling occasion." The old people of the neighbourhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror the inhabitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also relate how he formed all the good-for-nothing lads of the town into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consideration of which he guarantied the security of their windows. He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his learning, and gaining for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world. But the general opinion seems to have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. His family expected nothing good from such slender parts and such a headstrong temper. It is not strange, therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when he was in his eighteenth year, a writership in the service of the East India Company, and shipped him off to make a fortune or to die of a fever at Madras.

ed by its garden, whither the wealthy agents of the Company retired, after the labours of the desk and the warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze which springs up at sunset from the Bay of Bengal. The habits of these mercantile grandees appear to have been more profuse, luxurious, and ostentatious, than those of the high judicial and political functionaries who have succeeded them. But comfort was far less understood. Many devices which now mitigate the heat of the climate, preserve health, and prolong life, were unknown. There was far less intercourse with Europe than at present. The voyage by the Cape, which in our time has often been performed within three months, was then very seldom accomplished in six, and was sometimes protracted to more than a year. Consequently the Anglo-Indian was then much more estranged from his country, much more an oriental in his tastes and habits, and much less fitted to mix in society after his return to Europe, than the Anglo-Indian of the present day.

Within the fort and its precincts, the English governors exercised, by permission of the native rulers, an extensive authority. But they had never dreamed of claiming independent power. The surrounding country was governed by the Nabob of the Carnatic, a deputy of the Viceroy of the Deccan, commonly called the Nizam, who was himself only a deputy of the mighty prince designated by our ancestors as the Great Mogul. Those names, once so august and formidable, still remain. There is still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a pension allowed to him by the Company, out of the revenues of the province which his ancestors ruled. There is still a Nizam, whose capital is overawed by a British cantonment, and to whom a British resident gives, under the name of advice, commands which are not to be disputed. There is still a Mogul, who is permitted to play at holding courts and receiv ing petitions, but who has less power to help or hurt than the youngest civil servant of the Company.

Far different were the prospects of Clive from those of the youths whom the East India College now annually sends to the Presidencies of our Asiatic empire. The Company was then purely a trading corporation. Its territory consisted of a few square miles, for which rent was paid to the native governments. Its troops were scarcely numerous enough to man the batteries of three or four ill-constructed forts, which had been erected for the protection of the warehouses. The natives, who composed a considerable part of these little garrisons had not yet been trained in the discipline of Europe, and were armed, some with Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even swords and shields, some with bows and ar- for that age. The ship remained some months rows. The business of the servants of the at the Brazils, where the young adventurer Company was not, as now, to conduct the ju-picked up some knowledge of Portuguese, and dicial, financial, and diplomatic business of a spent all his pocket-money. He did not arrive great country, but to take stock, to make ad-in India till more than a year after he had left vances to weavers, to ship cargoes, and to keep a sharp look-out for private traders who dared to infringe the monopoly. The younger clerks were so miserably paid that they could scarcely subsist without incurring debt; the elder enriched themselves by trading on their own account; and those who lived to rise to the top of the service, often accumulated considerable fortunes.

England. His situation at Madras was most painful. His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. He had contracted debts. He was wretchedly lodged—no small calamity in a climate which can be rendered tolerable to a European only by spacious, and well-placed apartments. He had been furnished with let. ters of recommendation to a gentleman who might have assisted him; but when he landed Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, at Fort St. George he found that this gentleman was, at this time, perhaps, the first in import- had sailed for England. His shy and haughty ance of the Company's settlements. In the disposition withheld him from introducing himpreceding century, Fort St. George had arisen self. He was several months in India before on a barren spot, beaten by a raging surf; and he became acquainted with a single family. in the neighbourhood of a town, inhabited by The climate affected his health and spirits. many thousands of natives, had sprung up, as His duties were of a kind ill suited to his artowns spring up in the East, with the rapidity dent and daring character. He pined for his of the prophet's gourd. There were already in home, and in his letters to his relations ex the suburbs many white villas, each surround-pressed his feelings in language softer and

more ensive than we should have expected, from the waywardness of his boyhood, or from the inflexible sternness of his later years. "I have not enjoyed," says he, "one happy day since I left my native country." And again, "I must confess, at intervals, when I think of my dear native England, it affects me in a very particular manner. . . . . If I should be so far blest as to revisit again my own country, but more especially Manchester, the centre of all my wishes, all that I could hope or desire for would be presented before me in one view."

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Madras to the English was by no means compatible. He declared that Labourdonnais had gone beyond his powers; that conquests made by the French arms on the continent of India were at the disposal of the Governor of Pondi cherry alone; and that Madras should be rased to the ground. Labourdonnais was forced to yield. The anger which the breach of the capitulation excited among the English was increased by the ungenerous manner in which Dupleix treated the principal servants of the company. The Governor and several of the first gentlemen of Fort St. George were carried under a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted through the town in a triumphal procession, under the eyes of fifty thousand spectators. It was with reason thought that this gross viola tion of public faith absolved the inhabitants of Madras from the engagements into which they had entered with Labourdonnais. Clive fled from the town by night, in the disguise of a Mussulman, and took refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English settlements subordi. nate to Madras.

One solace he found of the most respectable kind. The Governor possessed a good library, and permitted Clive to have access to it. The young man devoted much of his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time almost all the knowledge of books that he ever possessed. As a boy he had been too idle, as a man he soon became too busy, for literary pursuits. But neither climate, nor poverty, nor study, nor the sorrows of a homesick exile, could | tame the desperate audacity of his spirit. He behaved to his official superiors as he had behaved to his schoolmasters, and was several The circumstances in which he was now times in danger of losing his situation. Twice, placed naturally led him to adopt a profession while residing in the Writers' Buildings, he at- better suited to his restless and intrepid spirit tempted to destroy himself; and twice the pis- than the business of examining packages and tol which he snapped at his own head failed to casting accounts. He solicited and obtained go off. This circumstance, it is said, affected an ensign's commission in the service of the him as a similar escape affected Wallenstein. Company, and at twenty-one entered on his After satisfying himself that the pistol was military career. His personal courage, of really well loaded, he burst forth into an excla- | which he had, while still a writer, given signal mation, that surely he was reserved for some-proof by a desperate duel with a military bully thing great.

who was the terror of Fort St. David, speedily made him conspicuous even among hundreds of brave men. He soon began to show in his new calling other qualities which had not be fore been discerned in him-judgment, sagacity, deference to legitimate authority. He distin guished himself highly in several operations against the French, and was particularly no. ticed by Major Lawrence, who was then con sidered as the ablest British officer in India.

About this time an event, which at first seemed likely to destroy all his hopes in life, suddenly opened before him a new path to eminence. Europe had been, during some years, distracted by the war of the Austrian succession. George II. was the steady ally of Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon took the opposite side. Though England was even then the first of maritime powers, she was not, as she has since become, more than a match He had been only a few months in the army on the sea for all the nations of the world to when intelligence arrived that peace had been gether; and she found it difficult to maintain a concluded between Great Britain and France contest against the united navies of France Dupleix was in consequence compelled to re and Spain. in the eastern seas France ob- store Madras to the English Company; and the tained the ascendency. Labourdonnais, Go- young ensign was at liberty to resume his for vernor of Mauritius, a man of eminent talents mer business. He did indeed return for a shor and virtues, conducted an expedition to the time to his desk. He again quitted it in orde. continent of India, in spite of the opposition to assist Major Lawrence in some petty hosti of the British fleet-landed; assembled an ar-lities with the native.., and then again returned my, appeared before Madras, and compelled to it. While he was thus wavering between a the town and fort to capitulate. The keys military and a commercial life, events took were delivered up; the French colours were displayed on Fort St. George; and the contents of the Company's warehouses were seized as prize of war by the conquerors. It was stipulated by the capitulation that the English inhabitants should be prisoners of war on parole, and that the town should remain in the hands of the French till it should be ransomed. La-inheritance of the house of Tamerlane. bourdonnais pledged his honour that only a moderate ransom should be required.

place which decided his choice. The politics of India assumed a new aspect. There was peace between the English and French crowns; but there arose between the English and French companies trading to the East, a war inost eventful and important-a war in which the prize was nothing less than the magnificent

The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the sixteenth century was long one But the success of Labourdonnais had of the most extensive and splendid in the world. awakened the jealousy of his countryman, In no European kingdom was so large a popu Dupleix, Governor of Pondicherry. Dupleix, lation subject to a single prince, or so large moreover, had already begun to revolve gigan- revenue poured into the treasury. The beauty ic schemes, with which the restoration of and magnificence of the buildings erected by

the sovereigns of Hindostan, amazed even tra- of the Pannonian forests. The Saracen ruled vellers who had seen St. Peter's. The innu- in Sicily, desolated the fertile plains of Cammerable retinues and gorgeous decorations pania, and spread terror even to the walls of which surrounded the throne of Delhi, dazzled | Rome. In the midst of these sufferings, a great even eyes which were accustomed to the pomp internal change passed upon the empire. The of Versailles. Some of the great viceroys, corruption of death began to ferment into new who held their posts by virtue of commissions forms of life. While the great body, as a whole, from the Mogul, ruled as many subjects and was torpid and passive, every separate member enjoyed as large an income as the King of began to feel with a sense, and to move with France or the Emperor of Germany. Even the an energy all its own. Just here, in the most deputies of these deputies might well rank, as barren and dreary tract of European history, to extent of territory and amount of revenue, all feudal privileges, all modern nobility, take with the Grand-duke of Tuscany and the their source. To this point we trace the power Elector of Saxony. of those princes who, nominally vassals, but really independent, long governed, with the titles of dukes, marquesses, and counts, almost every part of the dominions which had obeyed Charlemagne.

There can be little doubt that this great empire, powerful and prosperous as it appears on a superficial view, was yet, even in its best days, far worse governed than the worst governed parts of Europe now are. The admi- Such or nearly such was the change which nistration was tainted with all the vices of passed on the Mogul empire during the forty Oriental despotism, and with all the vices in-years which followed the death of Aurungzebe. separable from the domination of race over race. The conflicting pretensions of the princes of the royal house produced a long series of crimes and public disasters. Ambitious lieutenants of the sovereign sometimes aspired to independence. Fierce tribes of Hindoos, impatient of a foreign yoke, frequently withheld tribute, repelled the armies of the government from their mountain fastnesses, and poured down in arms on the cultivated plains. În spite, however, of much constant misadministration, in spite of occasional convulsions which shook the whole frame of society, this great monarchy, on the whole, retained, during some generations, an outward appearance of unity, majesty, and energy. But, throughout the long reign of Aurungzebe, the state, notwithstanding all that the vigour and policy of the prince could effect, was hastening to dissolution. After his death, which took place in the year 1707, the ruin was fearfully rapid. Violent shocks from without co-operated with an incurable decay which was fast proceeding within; and in a few years the empire had ungone utter decomposition.

A series of nominal sovereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away life in secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling concubines, and listening to buffoons. A series of ferocious invaders had descended through the western passes, to prey on the defenceless wealth of Hindostan. A Persian conqueror crossed the Indus, marched through the gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those treasures of which the magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier;-the Peacock Throne on which the richest jewels of Golconda had been disposed by the most skilful hands of Europe, and the inestimable Mountain of Light, which, after many strange vicissitudes, lately shone in the bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now destined to adorn the hideous idol of Orissa. The Afghan soon followed to complete the work of devastation which the Persian had begun. The warlike tribes of Rajpoots threw off the Mussulman yoke. A band of mercenary soldiers occupied Rohilcund. The Seiks ruled on the Indus. The Jauts spread terror along the Jumnah. The high lands which border on the western seacoast of India poured forth a yet The history of the successors of Theodosius more formidable race;-a race which was bears no small analogy to that of the succes-long the terror of every native power, and sors of Aurungzebe. But perhaps the fall of which yielded only, after many desperate and the Carlovingians furnishes the nearest paral-doubtful struggles, to the fortune and genius of lel to the fall of the Moguls. Charlemagne was scarcely interred when the imbecility and the disputes of his descendants began to bring contempt on themselves and destruction on their subjects. The wide dominion of the Franks was severed into a thousand pieces. Nothing more than a nominal dignity was left to the abject heirs of an illustrious name, Charles the Bald, and Charles the Fat, and Charles the Simple. Fierce invaders, differing from each other in race, language, and religion, flocked as if by concert from the furthest corners of the earth, to plunder provinces which the government could no longer defend. The pirates of the Baltic extended their ravages from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, and at length fixed their seat in the rich valley of the Seine. The Hungarian, in whom the trembling monks fancied that they recognised the Gog and Magog of prophecy, carried back the plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depth

England. It was under the reign of Aurung. zebe that this wild clan of plunderers first descended from the mountains; and soon after his death, every corner of his wide empire learned to tremble at the mighty name of the Mahrattas. Many fertile viceroyalties were entirely subdued by them. Their dominicas stretched across the Peninsula from sea to sea. Their captains reigned at Poonah, at Gaulior, in Guzerat, in Berar, and in Tanjore. Nor did they, though they had become great sovereigns, therefore cease to be freebooters. They still retained the predatory habits of their forefathers. Every region which was not sub ject to their rule was wasted by their incur sions. Wherever their kettledrums were heard, the peasant threw his bag of rice on his shoulder hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with his wife and children to the mountains or the jungles-to the milder neighbourhood of the hyæna and the tiger. Many provinces redeeme.

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