time, the Governor's authority prevailed without oppo sition. Commiffioners, of whom Mr. Staunton was one, were sent to treat for peace with the sovereign of Mysore. A peace seasonably useful to the company's affairs, and not betraying its honour, was, under Lord Macartney's auspices, happily negotiated. None of its benefits were more grateful to his country or to his own heart, than that it restored to liberty a number of officers who had, in the course of the war in Bangalore, been made prisoners by the armies of Hyder Alli and Tippoo Saib, and who had been long detained in a captivity of which the circumstances were peculiarly wretched. On the 4th of June 1784, the captives whom he had delivered, prefented the following address to his Lordship:

"MY LORD,

"As the obligations you have conferred on us have inspired sentiments too warm to be extinguished or suppressed, we must request your Lordship's permission and acceptance of this general acknowledgment of them. While we endeavour to do justice to our feelings, we hope not to trespass on delicacy, or the forms usually attended to of your lordship's high character and station, though on such a subject we are free to say that the formality of common rules would ill apply to the grateful effusions of the heart.

"Ours, my Lord, is not a common acknowledgment for the favours or kindnesses of ordinary life. The miseries of long captivity, aggravated by barbarian cruelty and insolence, and the horrors of famine; these were the sufferings which your beneficent hand alleviated, which your unremitting attention enabled, and alone enabled us to support; and which your successful wisdom has finally removed. If any motive can add force to our duty, or impel us with additional zeal to the public service, it will be the most lively and most grateful recollection

of

of the attention with which we have been honoured, by which we have been saved; of the generous care of Government, whichthough immersed in the complicated and actual difficulties of the state, forgot not the suffering soldier.

"As men restored to life, as members of society restored to our friends and our country, as soldiers restored to our profession and to honour, permit us, my Lord, with the sincerest and most lively gratitude, and the most respectful consideration, to assure you, that we shall ever retain the deepest sense of the essential protection you afforded us.

"And that we are your Lordship's

(Signed)

"Most obliged and devoted humble servants, "THOMAS LEAF, and 28 others."

In carrying into effect the orders from the Court of Directors; in transmitting home intelligence the fullest and most exact that could be desired to enlighten their deliberations; in provisionally regulating, with due energy, vigilance, and wisdom, every thing in regard to which it was impossible to await instructions from England; in acting, in intercourse with the other powers of India, in a manner the best adapted equally to maintain the dignity of the company, and to preserve their power and the extension of their territories from appearing in an invidious light; in presiding with due authority in the council, and in commanding the respect and good-will of the soldiery; his lordship honourably accomplished the best hopes of those, whom he represented in the high employ

ment.

In the space of four years, he had fo fully evinced his services to be, in the highest degree, useful, to the company's affairs, that, in February 1785 he was appointed to the high and almost imperial office of governor

1802-3

G

governor general of Bengal. This appointment however he chose to decline.

And

In January 1786, he arrived in England. the accounts of his services were so satisfactory to the East India Company, and to all who had in this country, any interest in East India affairs or any controul over them, that he was again requested to return to administer the chief authority in India. He however again declined to accept of this office. Of the additions to his fortune from the emoluments and advantages of his official situation at Madras, he gave an account upon oath, by which it appeared, that even Cicero returned not from Cilicia with purer hands. He had acquired nothing but what fairly arose out of his salary and from allowances authorized by the Court of Directors. An example of such abstinence in a place of great trust and high command, was not defrauded of its due praise. It was consigned to remembrance in the records of the transactions of the Court of Directors. And, a pension of 15001. sterling a year was bestowed to reward equally the important services which this illustrious nobleman had rendered to the company, and his great pecuniary moderation*. A pension of 500l. a year

* At a Court of Directors, held on Wednesday the 12th of April, 1786,

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Court, that the Right Hon. George, Lord Macartney, whilst he was governor of Madras, upon all occasions manifested the greatest zeal in support of the interest of this company, and that he faithfully discharged his duty as such, more especially by adhering strictly to his covenants and engagements with the company, in declin