conduct of the generals, the brilliant career of our arms has surpassed all former example; and with exultation we have beheld our gallant forces surmounting, by an invincible spirit, all the obstacles opposed to them, by severity of climate, by difficult and remote countries, by fortresses deemed impregnable, by the desperate resistance of numerous and disciplined armies; advancing with unrivalled rapidity from success to succes, from victory to victory, until our humbled enemies found their sole refuge in your excellency's magnanimity.

Fortunate it has been in this arduous crisis, that your excellency could avail yourself of powerful means, the fruit of your excellency's previous exertions. The period is yet recent, when an army under the controul of French officers menaced the authority of our ally, the nizam, and the resources of Mysore were united in the hands of a dangerous, aspiring, and implacable foe; but during the late contest, we have seen those states affording cordial and efficacious aid to the British cause.

Led by this striking contrast to extend our view to the whole series of your excellency's measures, we have recognized the genuine character of a policy which commands fortune, and which, in securing present advantages and repelling present dangers, repares the foundations of strength, and the sources of future glory.

At length a propitious and honorable peace has rewarded your excellency's cares. The seeds of incalculable evils have perished in the annihilation of French influence. The general pacification of Hindostan has been effected on wise and equitable principles; and

the prosperity of the British empire in India reposes upon the stable basis of improved territorial strength, of new and beneficial alliances, of encreased glory, of confirmed reputation for humanity, moderation, and good faith; nor can we esteem it the least important triumph of your excellency's liberal and enlightened policy, that the unfortunate and oppressed monarch, (the object of affectionate veteration to the musselman inhabitants of Hindostan,) now ranks in the number of princes, who acknowledged the most signal obligations to British valour and British generosity.

Reflecting on these great achievements, we feel impelled, by every sentiment of personal attachment, and of public duty, to express to your excellecy our lively sense of the transcendant talents and illustrious virtues by which your excellency has supported (in these distant provinces) the for-. tunes of our country; and by which your excellency has entitled yourself to a most conspicuous place among the statesmen and heroes, who have raised the fame and power of Great Britain, and nobly united her cause with the dearest interests of humanity and justice. (Signed)

G. Deare, Thomas Brooke. G.

Arbuthnot, F. Hawkins, Ynyr
Burges, T. Deane, Jas. Barton,
S. Bradshaw, lieut. col. John
Sandford, W. J. Sands, T. Yeld,
T. Leigh, D. Morrieson, T.
Moguire, Jos. Williamson, W.
G. Maxwell, br. m. Charles
Brietzeke, maj. B. Roope, lieut.
Alex. M. Rowland, lieut. C. F.
Furgusson, Charles Chisholme,
J. Rider, Fred. Hamilton, C. R.
Cromelin, James Wilkinson, R.
Abbott, Geo. Wilson, H. Ballie,

G. Carrington, W. Scott, T. Ludlow, capt. G. Hunter, ens. 17th, No. 1, Thos. Scott, Chas. Stewart, A. Dunbar, E. N. Long, F. Lawrence, C. Wake, W. Mathews, Thomas Charters, John Saw. Thos. Dennis, lieut. R. Gun, lieut. R. Macpherson, B. Marley, lieut. Col. S. Fraser, lieut. W. Hanley, lieut. A. Adams, capt. W. Reynold, licut. H. Faithful, lieut. T. H. Warner, lieut. Charles Martin, lieut. W. Sinnock, lieut. G. Pennington, T. W. Grant, James Tod, R. Triepland, D. Triepland, R. Chapman, R. Jeffreys, chaplain, Lewis Grant, lieut. col. James Denny, W. S. Pryor, capt. C. Mouat, capt. engrs. W. Burke, J. G. Henderson, H. Pennington, lieut. George Hyde, lieut. W. Graham, ens. Lionel Berkeley, R. P. Williams, Jervas Robinson, W. Sherburn, Geo. Carpenter, capt. 17th regt. D. Sloane, ditto, A. Hennessey, A. Campbell, W. Ward, P. Genti y, Charles Lloyd, G. Proctor, George Parole, lieut. col. A. Stewart, licut. Horatio Thos.

I receive this grateful and distinguished mark of your confidence and esteem, with the most sincere and cordial satisfaction. The sense which you have manifested of the advantages obtained by our country under the recent treaties of peace, reflects great credit upon your public spirit; and the personał regard which you have been pleased to express for my character and services, demands my warmest acknowledgments.

I request you to be assured, that I entertain the highest respect for your favourable opinion, and that it will be a principal object of the study and happiness of my life to merit the honour which you have conferred upon me by this address.

(Signed) WELLESLEY.

The old civil servants in Bengal, "A very singular contest has been lately maintained among the civil servants of this presidency, relating to the establishment of a fund for the benefit of the widows and children of those civil servants who may die in indigent circumstances. All concurred in the general propriety of such a fund; but disagreed as to its particular objects. The old civil servants wished the benefit of the fund to extend to illegitimate children. This proposition was 'strenuously resisted by the younger civil servants now in college, or who had been in college, and also by a few of the most respectable seniors. The arguments of the old civil servants were founded on principles, which they conceived to be charitable, liberal, or just. The juniors contended that the establishing a certain provision for the illegitimate children to be begotten, would be some encouragement to beget them.

"This contest was maintained with great spirit, in a printed correspondence, which was circulated throughout the service; and it is supposed that the best abilities of the old civil servants have been engaged in it. What has rendered it so much a subject of notice there is, that the young men appeared to be on the side, where it might be expected, the old men

and the College of Fort William.

would be. The young men professed to be on the side of religion and virtue. This was a good joke to the old men; and an ode was addressed to the "virtuous youths," desiring them to "descend from the stilts," and to do like other people. An extract from the printed addresses of each party, will serve to shew the nature of the discussion."

THE OLD MEN.

"It is objected, by the young men,--that in every age and nation,in which any thing like a state of civil society has existed, the law has distinctly declared that illegitimate children are not entitled to the same benefits with the offspring of a lawful marriage; and the wisdom of this law cannot be disputed." But the distinction established by the laws of England between the issue of a lawful marriage, and the offspring of illegal intercourse, is restricted to the right of inheritance; which, in most cases, may be provided against, by the testament of the father in favour of his illegitimate child; and the eminent commentator of those laws has pronounced, that " any other distinction but that of not inheriting, which civil policy renders necessary, would, with regard to the innocent offspring of his pa

rent s

rent's crimes, be odius, unjust, and cruel to the last degree."

The same laws protect the illegitimate children in the enjoyment of all acquired rights, compel the parent to maintain his child though illegally begotten; or, if thrown upon the parish, have provided for the maintenance of the child, by a public contribution levied under the sanction of the laws, for this and for other purposes of charity. There are, moreover, in England, as in many other countries, various public institutions for the support and education of illegitimate children, in common with children born in wedlock.

"Can it then be justly alledged, that a provision in the rules of the Bengal civil fund for the suitable maintenance and education of the illegitimate children of subscribers who may die without the means of providing for them, will occasion, or have the remotest tendency towards "the total violation of one of the great ordinances of divine law, and the direct overthrow of all the principles and distinctions which have been established and maintained by the authority of the World?" What ordinance, divine or human, will be violated by such provision? The laws of religion and of civil policy inculcate and enforce the father's duty to provide for the maintenance and good education of his child; and the first principle of this institution is, to take upon itself the parent's obligations towards his family, when the latter are unhappily deprived of him by death, and left without other means of support.

"It is not proposed to assign the same fixed allowances from the civil fund, for children born in, or out of wedlock; much less to conequality of rank in so

stitute

any

ciety between them; and any comparison of the Europeans and Indian mothers, of the two classes of children, is as indelicate and unnecessary, as it is foreign to the subject under consideration.

It is enough, therefore, to observe upon all the reasoning and rhetoric which have been displayed (by the young men) on these topics, that they are altogether irrelevant to the question, of providing a sufficient maintenance and education for illegitimate children, left by the death of their fathers in a state of distress; that no established distinctions will be levelled by such a provision; and that no proclamation will be made by it, either That a prostitute is as respectable as a wife;" or "that the offspring of vice shall rank with the children of virtue."

THE YOUNG MEN.

:

"Without noticing the divine or ancient civil law which lays the heaviest restriction upon illegitimate children, it is admitted (by the old men) that the law of England excludes illegitimate children from the right of inheritance; but the civil fund, with the extension proposed, would admit them to it :the provision from the fund will not be a charity, but a right; not a gift, but an inheritance; which the illegitimate children will be entitled to from the regulations of the institution, in opposition to the established principles of the law of England.

"It is wished by our opponents to avoid the comparison of the European and Indian mothers; of the wife and prostitute; which is stated to be irrelevant to the question. This we cannot admit. It is in the mothers that the distinction originally exists, and we humbly

concel.e,

that it there were no

distinction in the mothers, there would be none in the children, and that we should be all agreed to admit them to the full and equal benefits of the institution.

"It is admitted further, with apparent reluctance, that the increase of the race of half-casts, is a national evil. If, therefore, it can be proved, that the extension of the fund to a provision for that race, will tend to their increase, it must be admited that the institution, with that extension, will be vicious. The very circumstance, that no restrictions or impediments have hitherto prevented their growth, appears in itself to prove that they must increase amazingly under a system of support and encourage

ment.

"It has never been alleged by us, that the extension of charity to illegitimate children, is a violation of divine law; and the labour of our opponents in combating with serious argument, such a position, manifests a disposition to elude the real object of this discussion. But we assert, the species of connection which produces illegitimate children, is a violation of divine law; and any public measure of any body of men, tending to sanction such a practice among themselves, or to encourage such a practice, by detracting from the odium attending it, and boldly discussing it in public, without atfecting any concealment, is very unfavourable to general morals, and is hurtful to society.

"The grand argument urged in favour of a public institution for the support of the illegitimate children of the civil servants is, the assumption that similar institutions exist in England. We are not afraid of contradiction when

we assert, that no similar institution exists in England.

a

"The body of Bengal civil servants, the chartered servants of the honourable Company, meet, as in corporate capacity, and say, "let us establish a fund for the support of our illegitimate children." Was ever any thing like this done in England? If any body of men in England were to come forward in their corporate capacity, (for example, the members of the House of Commons, or the Court of Directors of the East India Company) and establish a public institution for their own illegitimate children, then, indeed, would there be an institution in England analagous to that proposed here. The Bengal civil servants are a body of men comparatively few in number, (little more than half the House of Commons) and placed in high situations, who administer the government of the country; and any argument from humanity, justice and duty, urged in favour of the proposed extension of the institution, would apply accurately, and without the variation of a single phrase, to an institution for the benefit of the illegitimate children of the members of any corporate body in England.

"We are informed, (by the old men) that in England there is the Foundling Hospital, and the Asylum, and the Philanthropic Society, for children of criminal parents. It is true that these, and many other laudable institutions, have been established by a good nation, to counteract the vice of its few bad members. But must there then be an establishment for the illegitimate children of the Bengal civil servants? Why may not their illegitimate children be supported