was, that, however defirous major Monro might, at last, become of quitting the neighbourhood of Raneres, he could not fafely do it, left the place being open, and, it being

as much the aim of the Indians to plunder, as it was the interest of the English to protect it, thefe parties fhould fall upon it in his abfence.

IN this critical fitutation lay the English army, when, major Monro being recalled home, the command of it devolved on Sir Robert Fletcher, a major in the company's troops; who, emulous of the glory gained by his predeceffors, refolved to do fomething to fignalize himself before major Čarnac, named to the command of the army by the governor and council of Bengal, could arrive to preclude him.

With this view he ventured to break up his camp under the walls of Baneres, at midnight of the 14th of January 1765, and marched off towards the enemy, leaving a party to protect that place against any attempt that might be made against it during his abfence. But though the main body of the enemy lay at fo fmall a dittance, he did not reach it till the third day; when, on his making the proper motions to attack them, they, after drawing up to receive him, retreated twice in good order, and as often faced about again; but, on his

preparing for a third attack, they fled with precipitation; with what lofs, in men or military ftores, we are not told, and, therefore, fuppofe it must have been very inconfiderable.

Sir Robert, upon this, determined to attack again the fort, the fiege of which major Monro had lately found it fo imprudent to continue. It is, therefore, to be prefumed, that our troops imagined the nabob might have been determined by the ftrength of this place, to lay up in it his best treasures; and that, of courfe, it was worth all the risk and fatigue the mastering of it might colt them. But had this been the cafe, as Sir Robert attacked it in the fame manner major Monro had done, by firft battering the walls, he would, in all probability, have found it equally impregnable, though he foon made three practicable breaches in them. The garrifon, so far from being entrufted with their prince's treasures, had been fuffered to want pay for fix months, fo that they no longer

thought

thought it worth their while to give themfelves any trouble about fo bad a mafter, much leis expofe themfelves to the danger of perithing by famine in his caufe.

The governor, therefore, thus forced to furrender, came himfelf, and, in the fight of his troops, delivered up the keys of the place to Sir Robert, with tears in his eyes, and a fpeech, which, at the fame time that it contained the higheft compliment to his enemy, argued the greatest noblenefs of mind in himself. Inftead of making an apology for having held out fo long, as if he was convinced that the English must bate a traitor and a coward, he apologized for furrendering fo foon: inftead of fervilely imploring their mercy, be feemed rather to claim their favour as a thing, which it was inconfittent with their natures not to grant. "I have, faid he, endeavoured to act like a foldier; but, deferted by my prince, and left with a mutinous garrifon, what could I do? God and you (laying his hand on the Koran, and pointing to his foldiers) are witneffes, that to the faith of the Englith I now trust my life and fortune." After this Sir Robert made himself maler of the encmy's capital, called Eliabad, a large city on the Ganges, between fixty and feventy miles above Chanda Geer, and defended by high and thick walls and a strong fort, fo as, in all appearance, to complete the ruin of the unfortunate Sujah Doula.

These are the only affairs in Bengal, of which we have been able to make out any tolerable narrative from the authentic ac

counts received from that part of the world, or at least from thofe, which it has been thought proper to make public. And concife and obfcure in many refpects as the fe accounts may be, they are lefs fo, than what have appeared of fome tranfactions on the coaft of Coromandel, though, perhaps, of equal moment. We are told of troubles being terminated there, which we never before heard of. We are told of places being reduced by the English, without being told the occafion of their attacking them. We are told of French troops under one Mr. Marchand, undertaking to fupport one Ifouf Cawn, a rebel against the reigning nabob, and then betraying the rebel, though we never before heard a word of this rebellion, or any of the actors in it. To dwell upon fuch lame accounts, would be only abufing the patience of our readers

We may, however, gather from them, that the French are not idle in that part of the world. We are, indeed, informed of it, directly by themselves. Mr. Law, they tell us, whom the French Eat-India company fent as their agent into Afia about two years ago, has been fo happy as to renew the treaties, which heretofore fubfifted between the French crown and fome of the nabobs; and, in confequence of it, the feveral comptoirs, which the company had eftablished in divers parts of that extenfive country, and which the English had deftroyed in the laft war, have been again reftored to them.

It may not be improper to obferve here, that thefe treaties are faid

to

to have been made with the French crown, and not with the French company; and it is a circumftance, which may add greatly to the ftability of them, fince it is but natural to think, that fuch treaties will not be fo liable to infringement from want of refpect on the part of the nabobs, or from a fpirit of infolence and avarice on that of the French company's fervants. It would be very mortifying, if, merely by thefe precautions, that company fhould foon be able to underfell us, in India goods, at foreign markets, notwithftanding all their late loffes, and their being obliged to raife money by annuities at 9 per cent. upon all lives indifcriminately, at a time that ours has reduced the intereft of their bonds from 4 to 3 per cent. and the acceffion of their revenues in India is faid to amount to fo immenfe a fum*.

The affairs of the Dutch in the Eaft Indies appear to be much more ably, though not fo fplendidly, conducted. The beginning of this year they declared a dividend of 17 -half per cent. which was fo extraordinary as to make their flock rife 50, though we did not hear of any fuccefs their arms had lately had in that part of the world. In about feven months after this rife, they, indeed, received the news of their governor in Ceylon having driven the king from his fortrefs and palace of Candy; but this advan tage, had it even coincided in point of time with the above rife, is too infignificant to account for

it. Beides, the Dutch, when they conquer there, conquer for thenifelves, and not for the nabobs of the country, fo as to preclude all thofe inconveniencies, which must attend an empire in an empire, or rather an empire againt itself. And, indeed, cooped up as, the Dutch are in Europe, and confined in Africa and America, it is requifite, that they fhould look out in Afia for fuch an extenfion of territory, as may alone fupply them with the immediate means of fubfiftence, and the materials of trade, in a degree fomewhat proportionable to that of their population; and not leave them expofed to the difagreeable alternative of wanting bread, or forcing other nations to give it to them as carriers and agents in their commercial intercourie; motives by no means common to the English, who, in proportion to their numbers, are richer in land, that inexhauflible fource of materials, than any other people, the Spaniards only excepted.

Some gentlemen, who have refided for a long time in the EaftIndies, have, however, propofed, that we thould take a pattern after the Dutch there, and conquer for ourselves; as the vast revenues of a country fo fruitful and extenfive, and fo full of ingenious, induftrious, and frugal people, could not fail greatly to forward the payment of our national debts; alledging withal, that the court of Delli, to an abfolute independence upon which it might not be fate to pretend, has often offered us the na◄

If so, what ought it to be at prefent?

bobfhip

hobship of the country. To this fcheme many objections have been raifed; fome as to the pollibility, and others as to the juftice of it. But, confidering that it might not fuit with the dignity of the crown of Great Britain to accept of any fubordinate power; and that confequently, fuch nabobship muft fall to the fhare of our Eaft India company; the only difficulty feems to be that of fo regulating the exercile of it by their fervants, as to render it both ufeful to the natives, and honourable to our felves. In that cafe, no doubt, not only we might be able to maintain our ground there, but fhould obtain a just claim to domi

nion, and the vast revenues annezed to it; for, furely, good government is a bleding of as much value, if not more than any other: and as to any great advantage which the Indians may be thought to have, by the princes of the country fpending their revenues on the fpot; it is to be confidered, that this could be more than compenfated to them by fuch an extraordinary degree of fecurity, as might render unneceffary the fo common precaution among them of burying their treafures, often never to rife again, to the almoft total abforption of thofe daily, pouring into Europe from the mines of America.

Onfidering the little firength

any question that related merely to themselves during the courfe of that feftion of parliament, whofe principal tranfactions, as they were then thought to be, we furveyed in our laft volume, it was almoft universally apprehended, that the blow, which they ftruck immediately after its rifing, againft fuch of their opponents as lay mot within their reach, mut peedily render that little ftrength of theirs ftill lefs, and fooner or later end in their total diffolution. But in this, people happened to be greatly mistaken. Infiead of fickening, they rather feem to thrive

upon it. Their difgrace, it now

ther quarter, though produced in a great meafure by feeds of their own fowing.

However fenfible that part of the body politic, against which they had thus thought proper to fignalize their refentment, might be in itfelf, the fympathy between it and the other parts was not strong enough to excite thofe emotions and clamours, which though not legiflative in the fmalleft degree, have been often found to carry with them fuch natural powers of the executive kind, as to more than influence thofe great bodies conftitutionally invested with both.

A

A doctrine long propagated by the enemies of minitters, now ferved to uphold the caufe of a miniftry. Through the writings of thofe in oppofition to courtmeatures, the bulk of the people had been fo long accustomed to confider a ftanding army, as, in some measure, unconftitutional, or, at leaft, dangerous to their free dom from domestic tyranny, that they forgot all the fo late and fo ftrenuous exertions of that body in their defence from foreign violence. And, as much as the establishment of a national militia might tend to blunt that fling, it equally tended to make it appear a dead excref. cence upon, and, of course, a burthen to, the nation. The people, therefore, were no way forry to fee it thus rudely treated, not confidering, that the quarter, from whence fuch treatment came, might render that body as dangerous in a legislative, as it was apprehended to be in a military capacit

ever

But thefe truths were not fufficiently enforced. The writer beft qualified for that taik, by a lucky knack of feafoning his compofitions to the palate of the unthinking vulgar, both great and fmall, was fled. Befides, the people, fufficiently fecure, as they imagined, in the enjoyment of their liberty by the late fevere animadverfions of both judges and juries against the executioners of general warrants on innocent perfons, and not metaphyfical enough to enter into the arguments concerning the illegality of these war

rants merely as general, began to confider, that, whilft this nice point, fo much above their com prehenfion, was in debate, no effectual measures had been thought of by their pretended friends to fecure them from the want of bread, though the law, they knew, forbid them from going to feek it in foreign parts. They even called to mind an event of the preceding year t, in which numbers of their order had been fuffered to be illegally, as they thought, confined, and feveral of thofe fo confined to be killed, without any of the lately fo zealous writers and actors against minifters of state and their general warrants, ftirring either pen or tongue to procure them liberty, while living; or enquiring into their blood, when they had loft their lives in endeavouring to recover it.

Perfonal fatire might have been of great fervice on this occafion to divert the multitude, fuch is the pleafing nature of fcandal, from two clofe an attention even to their own feelings: but the late parliamentary refolutions against feditious libels; the judicial animadverfions upon them nearly on the fame fpot, on which the execution of thefe parliamentary refolutions had been oppofed; and the doubts concerning what might be thought feditious, and what not, kept all the party-writers quiet, upon that fubject, except one, whofe too openly efpoufing the caufe of Mr. W-, now difgraced, by facrificing to libertinifm on the altar, which he would have had

VOL. VIII.

[C]

the