acceding to or dissenting from the terms he proposed to offer; and in less than hour after my arrival, I was dispatched back to the fort in the General's palanquin, with a cowl from him, signifying that the Jemadar Hyat Sahib's power and influence should not be lessened, if he should quietly surrender up the fort. Before my departure, the General expressed, in the warmest terms, his approbation of my conduct; and added, that considering the importance of the fort, the extensive influence of Hyat Sahib, and the advantages that might be deriv ed from his experience and abilities, coupled with the enfeebled state of his army, the benefits of such a negociation scarcely admitted of calculation.

Notwithstanding the very flattering circumstances with which my present pursuit was attended, I could not help, as I returned to Hydernagur, finding some uneasy sensations, arising from the immediate nature of the busiress, and from my knowledge of the faithless disposition

Asiatics, and the little difficulty they find in violatig any moral principle, if it happens to clash with their interest, or if a breach of it promises any advantage. I considered that it was by no means impossible, that some resolution adverse to iny project might have been adopted in my absence, and that the Jemadar's policy might lead him to make my destruction a sort of propitiation for his former offences, and to send me and the cowl together to Tippoo, to be sacrificed to his resentment. These thoughts, I own, made a very deep impression on my mind-but were again effaced by the reflection, that a laudable measure, once begun, ought to be persevered in, and that the accomplishing a plan of such importance and incalculable public utility, might operate still further by example, and produce consequences of which it was impossible at present to form a conception. Those, and a variety of such suggestions, entirely overcame the scruples and fears of the danger; and I once more entered the fort of Hydernagur. At this time the British troops were, by detaching a part with Colonel Macleod, to get round the fort, and attack it in the rear, and, by death and sickness, reduced to less than four hundred Europeans and seven hundred Sepoys, without ordnance,

When I delivered the cowl to the Jemadar, he read it, and seemed pleased, but talked of four or five days to consider of an answer, and seemed to be wavering in his mind, and laboring under the alternate impulses of opposite motives and contradictory passions. I saw that it was a crisis of more importance than any other of my lifee-a crisis in which delay, irresolution, or yielding to the protractive expedients of Hyat, might be fatal. To prevent, therefore, the effects of either treachery or repentance, I took advantage of the general confusion and trepidation which prevailed in the fort-collected the Arcot Sepoys, who, to the number of four hundred, were prisoners at large-posted them at the gates, powdermagazines, and other critical situations; and, having taken these and other precautions, went out to the General, who, according to the plan concerted between us, had pushed on with the advanced guard; and, conducting him into the fort with hardly an attendant, brought him straight to the Jemadar's presence while he yet remained in a state of indecision and terror. General Mathews, in his first interview with the Jemadar, did every thing to re-assure him, and confirmed with the most solemn asseverations the terms of the cowl; in consequence of which the latter acceded to the propositions contained in it, and the British colors for the first time waved upon the walls of the chief fort of the country of Bidanore.

Having thus contributed to put this important garri son, with all its treasures, which certainly were immense, into the hands of the Company, without the loss of a single man, or even the striking of a single blow, my exultation was inconceivable; and, much though I wanted money, I can with truth aver, that avarice had not even for an instant the least share in my sensations. 'Tis true, the consciousness of my services assured me of a reward; but how that reward was to accrue to me, never once was the subject of my contemplation--much less did I think of availing myself of the instant occasion to obtain it. How far my delicacy on the occasion. may be censured or approved, I cannot tell; but if I got nothing by it, I have at least the consolation to reflect.

that I escaped calumny, which was with a most unjustifiable and unsparing hand lavished on others.

The General, it is true, promised that I should remain with him till he made some arrangments; and Hyat Sahib offered, on his part, to make me, through the General, a handsome present. The General, however, suddenly became dissatisfied with me; and I neither got Hyat Sahib's present, nor ever received even a rupee of the vast spoil found there.

Here I think it a duty incumbent on me to say something of General Mathews, and, while I deplore the unfortunate turn in his temper, which injured me, and tarnished in some measure his good qualities, to rescue him from that unremitted obloquy which the ignorant, the interested and the envious have thrown upon his fame. Light lie the ashes of the dead, and hallowed be the turf that pillows the head of a soldier!

General Mathews was indeed a soldier-was calumniated too; and although he did not use me as I had reason to hope he would, I will, as far as I can, rescue his fame from gross misrepresentation.

An extravagant love of fame was the ruling passion of General Mathews; it was the great end of all his pursuits; and while, in his military profession, he walked with a firm pace towards it, he lost his time, distorted his progress, and palsied his own efforts, by a jealous vigilance and envious opposition of those whom he found taking the same road, whether they walked beside him, or panted in feeble effort behind. This was his fault; it was doubtless a great alloy to his good qualities: but it has been punished with rigor disproportionate to the offence. Those who persónally felt his jealousy, took advantage of his melancholy end to traduce him, and magnify every mole-hill of error into a mountain of crime. It is unmanly in any one-indeed it is-to traduce the soldier who has fallen in the service of his country; but it is heresy in a soldier to do so. No sooner did the buzz of calumny get abroad, than thousands of hornets, who had neither interest nor concern in the affair, joined in it. The malignant, who wished to sting merely to get rid of so much of their venom-and the

vain, who wished to acquire a reputation for knowledge of Asiatic affairs at the expence of truth-united together, and raised a hum which reached Europe, where the hornets (I mean authors) under the less unjustifiable impulse of necessity, took it up, and buzzed through the medium of quartos and octavos so loud, that public opinion was poisoned; and the gallant soldier who, for the advantage of England, stood the hardest tugs of war, and at last drank the poisoned cup from the tyrant hands of her enemy, was generally understood to be a peculator, and to have clandestinely and dishonestly obtained three hundred thousand pounds.

On this assertion I put my direct negative.

It may

be said, however, that this is only assertion against assertion-True! Sorry should I be to rest it there my assertions are grounded on such proofs as are not to be shaken-proofs on record in the office of the Presidency of Bombay.

As soon as Hydernagur was taken possession of, Hyat Sahib immediately issued orders to the forts of Mangalore, Deokull, Ananpore, and some others in that country, to surrender to the British arms. Some obeyed the mandate; but those three resisted, and were reduced by General Mathews. Rendered incautious by success, our army became less vigilant, and Tippoo retook Hydernagur; and, in direct breach of the capitulation, made the garrison prisoners, treated them with a degree of inhumanity which chills the blood even to think of and forced General Mathews to take poison in prison !

Mean time Hyat Sahib, with whom the General had got into disputes, arrived at Bombay, and laid a charge against him, which he, being in the hands of Tippoo, could not controvert, or even know. And what was the charge! The whole extent of it was his (Mathews's) having got two lacks of rupees, and a pearl necklace, as a present—a sum, considering the country and circumstances, not at all extraordinary, but which is completely vindicated by the General's letter to the Court of Directors, dated at Mangalore, the 15th of March, 1783; in which he states the present, and requests permission to accept it. This, as I said before, is on re

cord, and was translated by Mr. Sybbald, who was then Persian interpreter at Bombay. The letter I allude to, you will see in the Appendix. In short, General Mathews had his faults, but an unjust avarice was not amongst them.

LETTER LIX.

to

HAVING, in my last letter, said as much as I thought justice demanded in defence of General Mathews, against the charge of peculation, I am now speak of him as his conduct touched me. He was, as I have already mentioned, an old friend of my father's, and an intimate of my own: I had reason, therefore, to expect from him, according to the usual dispositions and manners of men, if not partiality, at least friendship; and in such a case as I have related, where my service's gave me a claim to notice, it was not unreasonable to suppose that he would have been forward to promote my interest, by stating my services in such a manner as to call attention to them. He had, however, some disagreeable discussions with his officers; and seeing I was on a footing with Colonel Humbertson, and still more with Major Campbell (he who so ably and gallantly defended Mangalore against Tippoo's whole army and six hundred French) and finding me extremely zealous and importunate to have his arrangement with Hyat Sahib adhered to, he became displeased, and, though he himself had determined that I should remain with him, changed his mind, and ordered me away at an hour's notice many days sooner than he had originally intended. to send off any dispatches. He moreover occasioned my losing a sum of money, and on the whole paid less attention to my interest than the circumstances of the case demanded.

In the evening of the day on which he determined on my departure, I set off with his dispatches to the governments of Madras and Bengal, and reached the most distant