had held power since the breach between Mr. Pitt and the great Whig connection in 1761. No pressing question of domestic or European policy required the attention of public men. There was a short and delusive lull between two tempests. The excitement produced by the Middlesex election was over; the discontents of America did not yet threaten civil war; the financial difficulties of the Company brought on a crisis; the Ministers were forced to take up the subject; and the whole storm, which had long been gathering, now broke at once on the head of Clive.

thing at stake, he did not even deign to stand on the defensive, but pushed boldly forward to the attack. At an early stage of the discussions on Indian affairs he rose, and in a long and elaborate speech vindicated himself from a large part of the accusations which had been brought against him. He is said to have produced a great impression on his audience. Lord Chatham, who, now the ghost of his former self, loved to haunt the scene of his glory, was that night under the gallery of the House of Com. mons, and declared that he had never heard a finer speech. It was subsequently printed under Clive's direction, and, when the fullest allowance has been made for the assistance which he may have obtained from literary friends, proves him to have possessed, not merely strong sense and a manly spirit, but talents both for disquisition and declamation which assiduous culture might have improved into the highest excellence. He confined his defence on this occasion to the measures of his last administration, and succeeded so far that his enemies thenceforth thought it expedient to direct their attacks chiefly against the earlier part of his life.

His situation was indeed singularly unfortunate. He was hated throughout the country, hated at the India House, hated, above all, by those wealthy and powerful servants of the Company, whose rapacity and tyranny he had withstood. He had to bear the double odium of his bad and of his good actions, of every Indian abuse and of every Indian reform. The state of the political world was such that he could count on the support of no powerful connection. The party to which he had belonged, that of George Grenville, had been hostile to the Government, and yet had never cordially united with the other sections The earlier part of his life unforof the Opposition, with the little band tunately presented some assailable which still followed the fortunes of Lord points to their hostility. A committee Chatham, or with the large and respect- was chosen by ballot to inquire into able body of which Lord Rockingham the affairs of India; and by this comwas the acknowledged leader. George mittee the whole history of that great Grenville was now dead: his followers revolution which threw down Surajah were scattered; and Clive, unconnected Dowlah and raised Meer Jaffier was with any of the powerful factions which sifted with malignant care. Clive was divided the Parliament, could reckon subjected to the most unsparing exonly on the votes of those members who amination and cross-examination, and were returned by himself. His enemies, afterwards bitterly complained that he, particularly those who were the ene- the Baron of Plassey, had been treated mies of his virtues, were unscrupulous, like a sheep-stealer. The boldness and ferocious, implacable. Their male- ingenuousness of his replies would volence aimed at nothing less than the alone suffice to show how alien from utter ruin of his fame and fortune. his nature were the frauds to which, in They wished to see him expelled from the course of his eastern negotiations, he Parliament, to see his spurs chopped off, had sometimes descended. He avowed to see his estate confiscated; and it may the arts which he had employed to debe doubted whether even such a result ceive Omichund, and resolutely said as this would have quenched their thirst that he was not ashamed of them, and for revenge. that, in the same circumstances, he Clive's parliamentary tactics resem-would again act in the same manner. bled his military tactics. Deserted, sur- He admitted that he had received imrounded, outnumbered, and with every mense svins from Meer Jaffier; but he

denied that, in doing so, he had vio-dulgence. Such men should be judged lated any obligation of morality or by their contemporaries as they will be honour. He laid claim, on the con- judged by posterity. Their bad actions trary, and not without some reason, to ought not indeed to be called good; the praise of eminent disinterestedness. but their good and bad actions ought He described in vivid language the to be fairly weighed; and if on the situation in which his victory had whole the good preponderate, the senplaced him great princes dependent tence ought to be one, not merely of on his pleasure: an opulent city afraid acquittal, but of approbation. Not a of being given up to plunder; wealthy single great ruler in history can be abbankers bidding against each other for solved by a judge who fixes his eye inhis smiles; vaults piled with gold and exorably on one or two unjustifiable jewels thrown open to him alone. "By acts. Bruce the deliverer of Scotland, God, Mr. Chairman," he exclaimed, Maurice the deliverer of Germany, "at this moment I stand astonished at William the deliverer of Holland, his my own moderaton." great descendant the deliverer of England, Murray the good regent, Cosmo the father of his country, Henry the Fourth of France, Peter the Great of Russia, how would the best of them pass such a scrutiny? History takes wider views; and the best tribunal for great political cases is the tribunal which anticipates the verdict of history.

Reasonable and moderate men of all parties felt this in Clive's case. They could not pronounce him blameless; but they were not disposed to abandon him to that low-minded and rancorous

The inquiry was so extensive that the Houses rose before it had been completed. It was continued in the following session. When at length the committee had concluded its labours, enlightened and impartial men had little difficulty in making up their minds as to the result. It was clear that Clive had been guilty of some acts which it is impossible to vindicate without attacking the authority of all the most sacred laws which regulate the intercourse of individuals and of states. But it was equally clear that he had dis-pack who had run him down and were played great talents, and even great vir- eager to worry him to death. Lord tues; that he had rendered eminent North, though not very friendly to him, services both to his country and to the was not disposed to go to extremities people of India; and that it was in against him. While the inquiry was truth not for his dealings with Meer still in progress, Clive, who had some Jaffier, nor for the fraud which he had years before been created a Knight of practised on Omichund, but for his the Bath, was installed with great determined resistance to avarice and pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. tyranny, that he was now called in question.

Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of set-off. The greatest desert cannot be pleaded in answer to a charge of the slightest transgression. If a man has sold beer on a Sunday morning, it is no defence that he has saved the life of a fellow-creature at the risk of his own. If he has harnessed a Newfoundland dog to his little child's carriage, it is no defence that he was wounded at Waterloo. But it is not in this way that we ought to deal with men who, raised far above ordinary restraints, and tried by far more than ordinary temptations, are entitled to a more than ordinary measure of in

He was soon after appointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire. When he kissed hands, George the Third, who had always been partial to him, admitted him to a private audience, talked to him half an hour on Indian politics, and was visibly affected when the persecuted general spoke of his services and of the way in which they had been requited.

At length the charges came in a definite form before the House of Commons. Burgoyne, chairman of the committee, a man of wit, fashion, and honour, an agreeable dramatic writer, an officer whose courage was never questioned, and whose skill was at that time highly esteemed, appeared

as the accuser. The members of the appears to us, on the whole, honourable administration took different sides; for to the justice, moderation, and discernin that age all questions were open ment of the Commons. They had inquestions, except such as were brought deed no great temptation to do wrong. forward by the Government, or such as They would have been very bad judges implied censure on the Government. of an accusation brought against JenThurlow, the Attorney General, was kinson or against Wilkes. But the among the assailants. Wedderburne, question respecting Clive was not a the Solicitor General, strongly attached party question; and the House accordto Clive, defended his friend with ex-ingly acted with the good sense and traordinary force of argument and good feeling which may always be exlanguage. It is a curious circumstance pected from an assembly of English that, some years later, Thurlow was gentlemen, not blinded by faction. the most conspicuous champion of Warren Hastings, while Wedderburne was among the most unrelenting persecutors of that great though not faultless statesman. Clive spoke in his own defence at less length and with less art than in the preceding year, but with much energy and pathos. He recounted his great actions and his wrongs; and, after bidding his hearers remember, that they were about to decide not only on his honour but on their own, he retired from the House.

The equitable and temperate proceedings of the British Parliament were set off to the greatest advantage by a foil. The wretched government of Lewis the Fifteenth had murdered, directly or indirectly, almost every Frenchman who had served his country with distinction in the East. Labourdonnais was flung into the Bastile, and, after years of suffering, left it only to die. Dupleix, stripped of his immense fortune, and broken-hearted by humiliating attendance in antechambers, sank into an obscure grave. Lally was dragged to the common place of execution with a gag between his lips. The Commons of England, on the other hand, treated their living captain with that discriminating justice which is seldom shown except to the dead. They laid down sound general principles; they delicately pointed out where he had deviated from those principles; and they tempered the gentle censure with liberal eulogy. The contrast struck Voltaire, always partial to England, and always eager to expose the abuses of the Parliaments of France. Indeed he seems, at this time, to have meditated a history of the conquest of Bengal. He

The Commons resolved that acquisitions made by the arms of the State belong to the State alone, and that it is illegal in the servants of the State to appropriate such acquisitions to themselves. They resolved that this wholesome rule appeared to have been systematically violated by the English functionaries in Bengal. On a subsequent day they went a step farther, and resolved that Clive had, by means of the power which he possessed as commander of the British forces in India, obtained large sums from Meer Jaffier. Here the Commons stopped. They had voted the major and minor of Burgoyne's syllogism; but they shrank from drawing the logical conclusion. When it was moved that mentioned his design to Dr. Moore, Lord Clive had abused his powers, and set an evil example to the servants of the public, the previous question was put and carried. At length, long after the sun had risen on an animated debate, Wedderburne moved that Lord Clive had at the same time rendered great and meritorious services to his country; and this motion passed without a division.

The result of this memorable inquiry

when that amusing writer visited him at Ferney. Wedderburne took great interest in the matter, and pressed Clive to furnish materials. Had the plan been carried into execution, we have no doubt that Voltaire would have produced a book containing much lively and picturesque narrative, many just and humane sentiments poignantly expressed, many grotesque blunders, many sneers at the Mosaic chronology,

much scandal about the Catholic mis- | The disputes with America had now sionaries, and much sublime theo-phi- become so serious that an appeal to lanthropy, stolen from the New Testament, and put into the mouths of virtuous and philosophical Brahmins.

the Twelfth, won great battles at a still earlier age; but those princes were surrounded by veteran generals of distinguished skill, to whose suggestions must be attributed the victories of the Granicus, of Rocroi, and of Narva. Clive, an inexperienced youth, had yet more experience than any of those who served under him. He had to form himself, to form his officers, and to form his army. The only man, as far as we recollect, who at an equally early age ever gave equal proof of talents for war, was Napoleon Bonaparte.

that Alexander, Condé, and Charles where the heaviest of all yokes, has been found lighter than that of any native dynasty, if to that gang of public robbers, which formerly spread terror through the whole plain of Bengal, has succeeded a body of functionaries not more highly distinguished by ability and diligence than by integrity, disinterestedness, and public spirit, if we now see such men as Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe, after leading victorious armies, after making and deposing kings, return, proud of their honourable poverty, from a land which once held out to every greedy factor the From Clive's second visit to India hope of boundless wealth, the praise is dates the political ascendancy of the in no small measure due to Clive. His English in that country. His dexterity name stands high on the roll of conand resolution realised, in the course of querors. But it is found in a better a few months, more than all the gor- list, in the list of those who have done geous visions which had floated before and suffered much for the happiness of the imagination of Dupleix. Such an mankind. To the warrior, history will extent of cultivated territory, such an assign a place in the same rank with amount of revenue, such a multitude of Lucullus and Trajan. Nor will she subjects, was never added to the domi- deny to the reformer a share of that nion of Rome by the most successful veneration with which France cherishes proconsul. Nor were such wealthy the memory of Turgot, and with which spoils ever borne under arches of the latest generations of Hindoos will triumph, down the Sacred Way, and contemplate the statue of Lord Wilthrough the crowded Forum, to the liam Bentinck. threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The fame of those who subdued' Antiochus and

Tigranes grows dim when compared with the splendour of the exploits which the young English adventurer achieved at the head of an army not equal in numbers to one half of a Roman legion.

VON RANKE. (OCTOBER, 1840.) The Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes of Rome, during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. By LEOPOLD RANKE, Professor in the University of Berlin: Translated from the German, by SARAH AUSTIN. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1840.

From Clive's third visit to India dates the purity of the administration of our Ir is hardly necessary for us to say that Eastern empire. When he landed in this is an excellent book excellently Calcutta in 1765, Bengal was regarded translated. The original work of Proas a place to which Englishmen were [fessor Ranke is known and esteemed sent only to get rich, by any means, in [wherever German literature is studied, the shortest possible time. He first and has been found interesting even in made dauntless and unsparing war on a most inaccurate and dishonest French that gigantic system of oppression, ex-version. It is, indeed, the work of a tortion, and corruption. In that war mind fitted both for minute researches he manfully put to hazard his ease, his and for large speculations. It is fame, and his splendid fortune. The written also in an admirable spirit, same sense of justice which forbids us equally remote from levity and bigotry, to conceal or extenuate the faults of his serious and earnest, yet tolerant and earlier days compels us to admit that impartial. It is, therefore, with the those faults were nobly repaired. If greatest pleasure that we now see this the reproach of the Company and of book take its place among the English its servants has been taken away, if in classics. Of the translation we need India the yoke of foreign masters, else-only say that it is such as might be