improvements made in navigation, and the knowledge of climates, and the care of health, enable Great Britain to carry on her trade, if she would adopt a liberal plan for it, on a footing to employ a fleet in going and returning (including China and the coasts of the Great Peninsula) of about seventy ships, now equal in size to 50-gun ships: why not to 64 and 74? Commerce would then create a navy for Britannia; at least, such as would command the Indian seas! And, as in King William's days, the first great operations of our state began by converting our debts into funds, or property, by regular payments of the interest; so we may here employ the present interests of our debts to be a medium for remitting the whole to Britain in an additional investment of goods; the duties and customs of which will equal the land-tax at four shillings in the pound.

Upon this system, which necessity forced us to begin here in 1782, (by providing what is called a subscription investment, and drawing bills upon the proceeds of the goods,) India was saved from the jaws of war, and the chains of a little monopolist policy, which forced all extra-remittances to Britain, through the channels of foreign trade, and which paid their tributes of customs to Lisbon and Copenhagen, at a rate that has turned the exchange from Copenhagen against England to about £18 per cent. But my system does more; it pours in upon Britain those streams of friendship, and of aid, which every officer, civil and military, in these provinces, wishes to send, partially, to his rela-' tions; and which, in the general reciprocal remittance and receipt, give the British heart, on this and your side of the ocean, its most delightful exercises; and which gladden every village and place, from the cottages of the Isle of Skye to the palaces of London!

"I think, still a greater scene opens by this commercial intercourse, if our rivals in Europe wished but for a proper share of it. It would embrace much of the repose of the universe in the happy communications of all the inhabitants of the globe, from the sources of the Mississippi to those of the Ganges; and from West to East, till the East and the West are united.

"I have at this moment, at Calcutta, ambassadors from Tidona, in the Eastern seas; from Thibet; from all the states of India; and from Timiu Shaw, who is crossing the Indus: and, as Manilla is opening her trade, I hope to hear direct from Lima, before I leave India, and to make the Incas of Peru acquainted with the Brahmin rajahs on the banks of the Ganges. Curious are, besides, the treasures in literature, and the oblivious history of nations, that are dawning upon us from the researches of Sir William Jones and others, in Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian; even Anacreon's and Euclid's best and happiest labours may have been long asleep in the translations of this country. And what seems to complete our prospect of elegant and useful information is, that the present governor of Chinsura, who was for seven years in Japan, has brought us the wonders of that country: their encyclopædia is in his hands; and, in some of the arts of life, and of government, those islanders of Asia, those Anglo-Asiatics, have left all other nations far behind.

"While devoting all my moments, that are my own, to such general considerations, I have perused, and am perusing again, your story of the Roman state, and their rule of India. Thanks, thanks, my dear

friend. But one ambition remains; it is, to converse with you at your farm on these affairs. Has life in reserve for us this happiness? or, is our expectation of it enough? May I be able to meet you there, worthy, in every respect, of your esteem, as of your affection. And, is it possible to go through the remaining acts of my life here, with progressive dignity and success? Hitherto, all is as you could wish; but all may not be at the farm as you wish. I know the feu-duty embarrasses you; and the dignitas, without the otium, may be there. Receive, then, the inclosed bill upon my masters, the India company: let the amount of it be sunk to discharge the annual feu-duty of the farm during your life and Mrs Ferguson's, and the lives of all your children and their descendants;-it will be a future business to buy off the feuduty altogether.

"At present, I can send you no more; and should fate have deprived me of the future happiness of knowing that you can be conscious of this little attention, those nearest and dearest to you I must consider as what remains to me of you: to them I address this letter also."

Sir John's government was terminated by the removal of Earl Cornwallis. He soon after returned to England, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died in January, 1821.

test.

Robert, Marquess of Londonderry.

BORN A. D. 1789.--DIED A. D. 1822.

THE Right Honourable Robert Stewart, Marquess of Londonderry, Viscount Castlereagh, was born on the 18th of June, 1789. His father, Robert Stewart, first marquess of Londonderry, was advanced to that dignity in 1816. The subject of this memoir received his early educa tion at Armagh under Archdeacon Hurrock. In 1786 he was entered of St John's college, Cambridge. His youth was little distinguished by his attachment to letters, but he early gave many proofs of that firmness or rather obstinacy of character which afterwards distinguished him. On coming of age he stood for the representation of the county of Down, and carried his election after a severe and very expensive conOn the hustings he pledged himself to support the cause of parliamentary reform,—a pledge which he afterwards found it convenient to maintain was fully redeemed by his exertions to procure the right of voting to Catholics. The first debate in which he took a part was on the question of the independent right of Ireland to trade with India, irrespective of the British East India company's monopoly. He adopted the affirmative side of the question, and in this his debut obtained the decided approbation of the opposition in the Irish house of commons. For a time he promised to become a valuable auxiliary to the liberal party. He presided at public dinners where they drank Our Sovereign Lord the People;' he supported Grattan in his motion for reform; and characterized the system pursued by government as "a vicious system which was fast driving the public mind into a state of agitation.” At last, on the recall of Earl Fitzwilliam, he suddenly turned round and

identified himself with the administration, by supporting its coercive

measures.

In 1798 the Honourable Mr Stewart-now become Lord Castlereagh in consequence of his father having been created Viscount Castlereagh in October, 1795, and Earl of Londonderry in 1796-joined the administration of Earl Camden, the Irish viceroy, in the quality of secretary, and of course identified himself with the infamous practices which were avowedly resorted to for the discovery and suppression of the rebellion.

After the Union he was appointed a privy-councillor and president of the Board of Control. On the resignation of Pitt he managed to retain his offices, and on the return of his patron to power he was appointed secretary-at-war. He had now, however, become eminently unpopular in Ireland, and was defeated in his attempt to be re-elected for Down, so that he was obliged to come into the house as member for Boroughbridge. On the death of Pitt he resigned office; but on the resignation of Grey and Grenville he was brought into office with Perceval, Eldon, and other ultras, under the duke of Portland. In 1809 a hostile meeting took place betwixt Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning, who also held a place in the cabinet. The following is a copy of the correspondence which passed between Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning, previous to the duel:

It

"ST JAMES'S SQUARE, September 19th, 1809. "SIR,-It is unnecessary for me to enter into any detailed statement of the circumstances which preceded the recent resignations. is enough for me, with a view to the immediate object of this letter, to state, that it appears a proposition had been agitated, without any communication with me, for my removal from the war department; and that you, towards the close of the last session, having urged a decision upon this question, with the alternative of your seceding from the government, procured a positive promise from the duke of Portland (the execution of which you afterwards considered yourself entitled to enforce), that such removal should be carried into effect. Notwithstanding this promise, by which I consider you pronounced it unfit that I should remain charged with the conduct of the war, and by which my situation as a minister of the crown was made dependent upon your will and pleasure, you continued to sit in the same cabinet with me, and to leave me not only in the persuasion that I possessed your confidence and support as a colleague, but you allowed me, in breach of every principle of good faith both public and private, though thus virtually superseded, to originate and proceed in the execution of a new enterprise of the most arduous and important nature, with your apparent concurrence, and ostensible approbation. You were fully aware that if my situation in the government had been disclosed to me, I could not have submitted to remain one moment in office, without the entire abandonment of my private honour and public duty. You knew I was deceived, and you continued to deceive me. I am aware, it may be sa id, which I am ready to acknowledge, that when you pressed for a decision for my removal, you also pressed for its disclosure, and that It was resisted by the duke of Portland and some members of the government supposed to be my friends. But I never can admit that you