of the Council received no intimation of these measures till the prisoners were on their road to Calcutta.

The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was postponed on different pretences. He was detained in an easy confinement during many months. In the mean time the great revolution which Hastings had planned was carried into effect. The office of minister was abolished. The internal administration was transferred to the servants of the Company. A system-a very imperfect system it is true-of civil and criminal justice, under English superintendence, was established. The Nabob was no longer to have even an ostensible share in the government; but he was still to receive a considerable annual allowance, and to be surrounded with the state of sovereignty. As he was an infant, it was necessary to provide guardians for his person and property. His person was intrusted to a lady of his father's harem, known by the name of the Munny Begum. The office of treasurer of the household was bestowed on a son of Nuncomar, named Goordas. Nuncomar's services were wanted, yet he could not safely be trusted with power; and Hastings thought it a master-stroke of policy to reward the able and unprincipled parent by promoting the inoffensive child."

it was necessary to suppress such feelings. The time was coming when that long animosity was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle.

He

In the mean time, Hastings was compelled to turn his attention to foreign affairs. The object of his diplomacy was at this time simply to get money. The finances of his government were in an embarrassed state; and this embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some means, fair or foul. The principle which directed all his dealings with his neighbours is fully expressed by the old motto of one of the great predatory families of Teviotdale-"Thou shalt want ere I want." seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental proposition which could not be disputed, that when he had not as many lacs of rupees as the public service required, he was to take them from anybody who had. One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to him by his employers at home was such as only the highest virtue could have withstood-such as left him no choice except to commit great wrongs, or to resign his high post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and distinction. It is perfectly true, that the Directors never enjoined or applauded any crime. Far from it. Whoever examines their letters at that time, will find there many just and humane sentiments, many excellent precepts; in short, an admirable circle of political ethics. But every exhortation is modified or nullified by a demand for money. "Govern leniently, and send more money; practise strict justice and moderation towards neighbouring powers, and send more money;" this is in truth the sum of almost all the instructions that Hastings ever received from home. Now, these instructions, being interpreted, mean simply, "Be the father and the oppressor of the people; be just and unjust, moderate and rapacious." The Directors dealt with India, as the church, in the good old times, dealt with a heretic. They delivered the victim over to the executioners, with an earnest request that all possible tenderness might be shown. We by no means accuse or suspect those who framed these despatches of hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen thousand miles from the place where their orders were to be carried into effect, they never perceived the gross inconsistency of which they were guilty. But the inconsistency was at once manifest to their lieutenant at Calcutta, who, with an empty treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own salary often in arrear, Nuncomar had proposed to destroy the Mus- with deficient crops, with governmen. tenants sulman administration, and to rise on its ruins. daily running away, was called upon to remit Both his malevolence and his cupidity had home another half million without fail. Hastbeen disappointed. Hastings had made him a ings saw that it was absolutely necessary for tool--had used him for the purpose of accom-him to disregard either the moral discourses or plishing the transfer of the government from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, from native to European hands. The rival, the enemy, so ong envied, so implacably persecuted, had Deen dismissed unhurt. The situation so long and ardently desired had been abolished. It was natural that the Governor should be from that time an object of the most intense hatred to the vindictive Brahmin. As yet, however,

The revolution completed, the double government dissolved, the company installed in the full sovereignty of Bengal, Hastings had no motive to treat the late ministers with rigour. Their trial had been put off on various pleas till the new organization was complete. They were then brought before a committee, over which the Governor presided. Schitab Roy was speedily acquitted with honour. A formal apology was made to him for the restraint to which he had been subjected. All the Eastern marks of respect were bestowed on him. He was clothed in a robe of honour, presented with jewels and with a richly harnessed elephant, and sent back in state to Patna. But his health had suffered from confinement; his high spirit had been cruelly wounded; and soon after his liberation he died of a broken heart.

The innocence of Mohammed Reza Khan was not so clearly established. But the Governor was not disposed to deal harshly. After a long hearing, in which Nuncomar appeared as the accuser, and displayed both the art and the inveterate rancour which distinguished him, Hastings pronounced that the charges had not been made out, and ordered the fallen minister to be set at liberty.

the pecuniary requisitions of his employers. Being forced to disobey them in something, he had to consider what kind of disobedience they would most readily pardon; and he correctly judged that the safest course would be to neg lect the Sermons and to find the Rupees.

A mind so fertile as his, and so little restrained by conscientious scruples, speedily discovered several modes of relieving the

financial embarrassments of the government. Saint George was planted on the walls of Ghizni.

The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal was reduced at a stroke from 320,000l. a year to The Emperors of Hindostan themselves half that sum. The Company had bound itself came from the other side of the great mounto pay nearly 300,000l. a year to the Great tain ridge: and it had always been their prac Mogul, as a mark of homage for the provinces tice to recruit their army from the hardy and which he had intrusted to their care; and they valiant race from which their own illustrious had ceded to him the districts of Corah and house sprang. Among the military advenAllahabad. On the plea that the Mogul was turers who were allured to the Mogul standnot really independent, but merely a tool in the ards from the neighbourhood of Cabul and hands of others, Hastings determined to retract Candahar, were conspicuous several gallant these concessions. He accordingly declared bands, known by the name of the Rohillas. that the English would pay no more tribute, Their services had been rewarded with large and sent troops to occupy Allahabad and Co- tracts of land-fiefs of the spear, if we may rah. The situation of these' places was such, use an expression drawn from an analogous that there would be little advantage and great state of things-in that fertile plain through expense in retaining them. Hastings, who which the Ramgunga flows from the snowy wanted money and not territory, determined to heights of Kumaon to join the Ganges. In the sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. general confusion which followed the death of The rich province of Oude had, in the general Aurungzebe, the warlike colony became virdissolution of the Mogul Empire, fallen to the tually independent. The Rohillas were distinshare of the great Mussulman house by which guished from the other inhabitants of India by it is still governed. About twenty years ago, a peculiarly fair complexion. They were more this house, by the permission of the British honourably distinguished by valour in war government, assumed the royal title, but, in and by skill in the arts of peace. While the time of Warren Hastings, such an assump- anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape Comorin, tion would have been considered by the Mo-their little territory enjoyed the blessings of hammedans of India as a monstrous impiety. repose under the guardianship of courage. The Prince of Oude, though he held the power, Agriculture and commerce flourished among did not venture to use the style of sovereignty. them; nor were they negligent of rhetoric and To the appellation of Nabob or Viceroy, he poetry. Many persons now living have heard added that of Vizier of the monarchy of Hin-aged men talk with regret of the golden days dostan-just as in the last century the Electors when the Afghan princes ruled in the vale of of Saxony and Brandenburg, though independ- Rohilcund. ent of the Emperor, and often in arms against Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on acding him, were proud to style themselves his Grand this rich district to his own principality. Chamberlain and Grand Marshal. Sujah Right, or show of right, he had absolutely Dowlah, then nabob vizier, was on excellent none. His claim was in no respect better terms with the English. He had a large trea-founded than that of Catherine to Poland, or sure. Allahabad and Corah were so situated that they might be of use to him, and could be of none to the Company. The buyer and seller soon came to an understanding; and the provinces which had been torn from the Mogul were made over to the government of Oude for about half a million sterling.

that of the Bonaparte family to Spain. The Rohillas held their country by exactly the same title by which he held his; and had governed their country far better than his had ever been governed. Nor were they a people whom it was perfectly safe to attack. Their land was indeed an open plain, destitute of natural de fences; but their veins were full of the high

But there was another matter still more important to be settled by the Vizier and the Go-blood of Afghanistan. As soldiers, they had vernor. The fate of a brave people was to be decided. It was decided in a manner which has left a lasting stain on the fame of Hastings and of England.

not the steadiness which is seldom found except in company with strict discipline; but their impetuous valour had been proved on many fields of battle. It was said that their The people of central Asia had always been chiefs, when united by common peril, could to the inhabitants of India what the warriors bring eighty thousand men into the field. Suof the German forests were to the subjects of jah Dowlah had himself seen them fight, and the decaying monarchy of Rome. The dark, wisely shrank from a conflict with them. slender, and timid Hindoo shrank from a con- There was in India one army, and only one, flict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit against which even those proud Caucasian of the fair race which dwelt beyond the passes. tribes could not stand. It had been abundantly There is reason to believe that, at a period an- proved that neither tenfold odds nor the mar terior to the dawn of regular history, the peo- tial ardour of the boldest Asiatic nations, ple who spoke the rich and flexible Sanscrit could avail aught against English science and came from regions lying far beyond the Hy-resolution. Was it possible to induce the phasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed their Governor of Bengal to let out to hire the irre yoke on the children of the soil. It is certain sistible energies of the imperial people-the that, during the last ten centuries, a succession skill, against which the ablest chiefs of Hin of invaders descended from the west on Hindostan were helpless as infants-the disci. dostan; nor was the course of conquest ever pline, which had so often triumphed over the turned back towards the setting sun, till that frantic struggles of fanaticism and despairmemorable campaign in which the cross of the unconquerable British courage which in

never so sedate and stubborn as towards the close of a doubtful and murderous day?

This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and what Hastings granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each of the negotiators had what the other wanted. Hastings was in need of funds to carry on the government of Bengal, and to send remittances to London; and Sujah Dowlah had an ample revenue. Sujah Dowlah was bent on subjugating the Rohillas; and Hastings had at his disposal the only force by which the Rohillas could be subjugated. It was agreed that an English army should be lent to the Nabob Vizier, and that, for the loan, he should pay 400,000l. sterling, besides defraying all the charge of the troops while employed in his service.

worthless allies. But many voices were heard to exclaim, “We have had all the fighting, and these rogues are to have all the profit."

tigers, to the tyranny of him, to whom an English and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance and their blood, and the honour of their wives and daughters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong representa tions to Fort William; but the Governor had

large ransom, but in vain. They then resolved to defend themselves to the last. A bloody battle was fought. "The enemy," says Colonel Champion, "gave proof of a good share of military knowledge; and it is impossible to describe a more obstinate firmness of resolution than they displayed." The dastardly sovereign of Oude fled from the field. The English were left unsupported; but their fire and their charge were irresistible. It was not, however, till the most distinguished chiefs had fallen, fighting bravely at the head of their troops, that the Rohilla ranks gave way. Then the Nabob Vizier and his rabble made their appearance, and hastened to plunder the camp of the valiant enemies, whom they had never dared to look in the face. The soldiers of the Company, "I really cannot see," says the Rev. Mr. trained in an exact discipline, kept unbroken Gleig, "upon what grounds, either of politi-order, while the tents were pillaged by these cal or moral justice, this proposition deserves to be stigmatized as infamous." If we understand the meaning of words, it is infamous to commit a wicked action for hire, and it is Then the horrors of Indian war were let wicked to engage in war without provocation. loose on the fair valleys and cities of RohilIn this particular war, scarcely one aggravat- cund. The whole country was in a blaze. ing circumstance was wanting. The object More than a hundred thousand people fled of the Rohilla war was this-to deprive a large from their homes to pestilential jungles, prepopulation, who had never done us the least ferring famine and fever, and the haunts of harm, of a good government, and to place them, against their will, under an execrably bad one. Nay, even this is not all. England now descended far below the level even of those petty German princes, who, about the same time, sold us troops to fight the Americans. The hussar-mongers of Hesse and Anspach had at least the assurance that the ex-made no conditions as to the mode in which the peditions on which their soldiers were to be employed, would be conducted in conformity with the humane rules of civilized warfare. Was the Rohilla war likely to be so conducted? Did the Governor stipulate that it should be so conducted! He well knew what Indian warfare was. He well knew that the power which he covenanted to put into Sujah Dowlah's" could not himself dictate to the Nabob, nor hands would, in all probability, be atrociously permit the commander of the Company's troops abused; and he required no guarantee, no to dictate how the war was to be carried on." promise that it should not be so abused. He No, to be sure. Mr. Hastings had only to put did not even reserve to himself the right of down by main force the brave struggies of inwithdrawing his aid in case of abuse, however nocent men fighting for their liberty. Their gross. Mr. Gleig repeats Major Scott's absurd military resistance crushed, his duties ended; plea that Hastings was justified in letting out and he had then only to fold his arms and look English troops to slaughter the Rohillas, be-on, while their villages were burned, their cause the Rohillas were not of Indian race, but a colony from a distant country. What were the English themselves? Was it for them to proclaim a crusade for the expulsion of all intruders from the countries watered by the Ganges? Did it lie in their mouths to contend that a foreign settler, who establishes an empire in India, is a caput lupinum? What would they have said if any other power had, on such a ground, attacked Madras or Calcutta, without the slightest provocation? Such a defence was wanting to make the infamy of the transaction complete. The atrocity of the crime and the hypocrisy of the apology are worthy of each other.

One of the three brigades of which the Bengal army consisted was sent under Colonel Champion to join Sujah Dowlah's forces. The Rohillas expostulated, entreated, offered a

war was to be carried on. He had troubled himself about nothing but his forty lacs; and, though he might disapprove of Sujah Dowlah's wanton barbarity, he did not think himself entitled to interfere, except by offering advice. This delicacy excites the admiration of the reverend biographer. "Mr. Hastings," he says,

children butchered, and their women violated Will Mr. Gleig seriously maintain this opi nion? Is any rule more plain than this, that whoever voluntarily gives to another irresisti ble power over human beings, is bound to take order that such power shall not be barbarously abused? But we beg pardon of our readers for arguing a point so clear.

We hasten to the end of this sad and dis graceful story. The war has ceased. The finest population in India was subjected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Comrierce and agriculture languished. The rich province which had tempted the cupidity of Eujah Dow lah became the most miserable part even of his miserable dominions. Yet is the injured nation not yet extinct. At long intervals gleams of its ancient spirit have flashed forth : and even at this day, valour, and self-respec

and a chivalrous feeling, rare among Asiatics, and the bitter remembrance of the great crime of England, distinguish that noble Afghan race. To this day they are regarded as the best of all sepoys at the cold steel; and it was recently remarked by one who had enjoyed great opportunities of observation, that the only natives of India to whom the word "gentlemen" can with perfect propriety be applied, are to be found among the Rohillas.

to every mind. Was he the author of the Letters of Junius? Our own firm belief is, that he was. The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: Whatever we may think of the morality of first, that he was acquainted with the technical Hastings, it cannot be denied that the financial forms of the Secretary of State's office; secondresults of his policy did honour to his talents. ly, that he was intimately acquainted with the In less than two years after he assumed the business of the war-office; thirdly, that he, government, he had, without imposing any ad- during the year 1770, attended debates in the ditional burdens on the people subject to his House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, authority, added about 450,000l. to the annual | particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatha、n ; income of the Company, besides procuring fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointabout a million in ready money. He had also ment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy relieved the finances of Bengal from military Secretary at War; fifthly, that he was bound expenditure, amounting to near 250,000l. a by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. year, and had thrown that charge on the Na- Now, Francis passed some years in the Secrebob of Oude. There can be no doubt that this tary of State's office. He was subsequently was a result which, if it had been obtained by chief clerk of the war-office. He repeatedly honest means, would have entitled him to the mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard warmest gratitude of his country; and which, speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of those by whatever means obtained, proved that he speeches were actually printed from his notes. possessed great talents for administration. He resigned his clerkship at the war-office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstan tial evidence.

In the mean time, Parliament had been engaged in long and grave discussions on Indian affairs. The ministry of Lord North, in the session of 1773, introduced a measure which made a considerable change in the constitution of the Indian government. This law, known by the name of the Regulating Act, provided that the presidency of Bengal should exercise a control over the other possessions of the Company; that the chief of that presidency should be styled Governor-General; that he should be assisted by four councillors; and that a supreme court of judicature, consisting of a chief justice and three inferior judges, should be established at Calcutta. This court was made independent of the Governor-General and Council, and was intrusted with a civil and criminal jurisdiction of immense and, at the same time, of undefined extent.

The internal evidence seems to us to print the same way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged composi tions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at all events, is one which may be urged with at least equal force against every The Governor-General and councillors were claimant that has ever been mentioned, with named in the act, and were to hold their situa- the single exception of Burke, who certainly tions for five years. Hastings was to be the was not Junius. And what conclusion, after first Governor-General. One of the four new all, can be drawn from mere inferiority? councillors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced ser- Every writer must produce his best work; vant of the Company, was then in India. The and the interval between his best work and other three, General Clavering, Mr. Monson, his second best work may be very wide indeed. and Mr. Francis, were sent out from England. Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius The ablest of the new councillors was, be- are more decidedly superior to the acknowyond all doubt, Philip Francis. His acknowledged works of Francis, than three or four of ledged compositions prove that he possessed Corneille's tragedies to the rest; than three or considerable eloquence and information. Se- four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest; veral years passed in the public offices had formed him to habits of business. His enemies have never denied that he had a fearless and manly spirit; and his friends, we are afraid, must acknowledge that his estimate of himself was extravagantly high, that his temper was irritable, that his deportment was often rude and petulant, and that his hatred was of intense bitterness and long duration.

It is scarcely possible to mention this eminent man without adverting for a moment to the question which his name at once suggests

than the Pilgrim's Progress to the other works of Bunyan; than Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which bear the signa ture of Junius;-the letter to the king and the letters to Horne Tooke have little in common, except the asperity; and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the wings or in the speeches of Francis.

Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for be

sieving that Francis was Junius, is the moral | found an equally serviceable tool. But the resemblance between the two men. It is not members of Council were by no means in an difficult, from the letters which, under various obsequious mood. Hastings greatly disliked signatures, are known to have been written by the new form of government, and had no very Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard and others, to form a tolerably correct notion of this, and were disposed to be suspicious of his character. He was clearly a man not and punctilious. When men are in such a destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity-frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient to give a man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. occasion for dispute. The members of Coun But he must also have been a man in the cil expected a salute of twenty-one guns from highest degree arrogant and insolent, a man the batteries of Fort William. Hastings al prone to malevolence, and prone to the error lowed them only seventeen. They landed in of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. ill-humour. The first civilities were exchanged "Doest thou well to be angry?" was the ques- with cold reserve. On the morrow commenced tion asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. that long quarrel which, after distracting BriAnd he answered, "I do well." This was evi- tish India, was renewed in England, and in dently the temper of Junius; and to this cause which all the most eminent statesmen and orawe attribute the savage cruelty which dis-tors of the age took active part on one or the graces several of his letters. No man is so other side. merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be added, that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old institutions with a respect amounting to pedantry;-pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervour, and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds, that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis.

Hastings was supported by Barwell. They had not always been friends. But the arrival of the new members of Council from England naturally had the effect of uniting the old servants of the Company. Clavering, Monson, and Francis formed the majority. They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings; condemned, certainly not without justice, his late dealings with the Nabob Vizier; recalled the English agent from Oude, and sent thither a creature of their own ordered the brigade which had conquered the unhappy Rohillas to return to the Company's territories, and instituted a severe inquiry into the conduct of the war. Next, in spite of the Governor-General's remonstrances, they proceeded to exercise, in the most indiscreet manner, their new authority over the subordinate presidencies; threw all the affairs of Bombay

dible union of rashness and feebleness, in the intestine disputes of the Mahratta government. At the same time they fell on the internal administration of Bengal, and attacked the whole fiscal and judicial system-a system which was undoubtedly defective, but which it was very improbable that gentlemen fresh from England would be competent to amend. The effect of their reforms was, that all protection to life and property was withdrawn, and that gangs of robbers plundered and slaughtered with im. punity in the very suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings continued to live in the Governmenthouse, and to draw the salary of GovernorGeneral. He continued even to take the lead at the council-board in the transaction of ordinary business; for his opponents could not but feel that he knew much of which they were ig norant, and that he decided, both surely and speedily, many questions which to them would have been hopelessly puzzling. But the higher powers of government and the most valuable patronage had been taken from him.

It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have been willing at that time to leave the country which had been so power-into confusion; and interfered, with an increfully stirred by his eloquence. Every thing had gone against him. That party which he clearly preferred to every other, the party of George Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief, and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by the Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must have been alike an object of aversion to Junius. His opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the Ministry, his opinions on colonial affairs from the Opposition. Under such circumstances he had thrown down his pen in misanthropic despair. His farewell letter to Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1783. In that letter he declared that he must be an idiot to write again; that he had | meant well by the cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men who would act steadily together on any question. "But it is all alike," he added, "vile and contemptible. You have never flinched tha: I know of, and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity." These were the last words of Junius. In a year from that time Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengal.

With the three new councillors came out the judges of the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice was Sir Elijah Impey. He was an old acquaintance of Hastings, and it is probable that the Governor-General, if he had searched through all the Inns of Court, could not have

The natives soon found this out. They considered him as a fallen man, and they acted after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen in India a cloud of crows pecking sick vulture to death-no bad type of what happens in that country as ofter as fortune deserts one who has beer. great and dreaded. In an instant all the sycophants who had lately been ready to lie for him, to forge for him t