in all this time had never violated the privileges granted to the Portuguese: this fidelity, in my opinion, invalidates the teftimony of the English author, who has published the history of this expedition: this hiftorian, in other refpects, judicious, inftructive, and a good citizen, never mentions the Chinese but as a contemptible people, without fidelity and without induftry. As to their industry it is indeed of a different nature from ours; and as to their manners, I imagine we should form our judgment of a powerful nation, rather from its governors than from the populace at the extremities of a province. It appears to me that the faith of treaties, obferved by the government for a century and half, does more honour to the Chinese than they derive fhame from the avarice and treachery of a low race of people, inhabiting one of the sea-coafts of this vaft empire. Must the most ancient and the best governed nation in the world be infulted, because fome poor wretches wanted to defraud the English, by little thefts, and illicit profits of the twenty thousandth part of what the English had taken by force from the Spaniards in the Chinese fea? It is not long fince that travellers experienced much greater oppreflions in more than one country of Europe. What would a Chinese have faid, if having been shipwrecked on the coafts of England, he had feen the inhabitants running in crouds, greedily to feize, before his face, on all his fhipwrecked effects?' Mr. Voltaire, before he enters upon the Indian war, gives a concile account of India; probably to remove from the minds of Europeans that ignorant partiality, which they entertain for their own little district of the globe. 'An English gentleman (Mr. Holwell) who refided thirty years in Bengal, and who understands the antient and modern languages of the Bramins, has deftroyed the vain collection of errors which have hitherto filled our hiftories of India; at the fame time he has confirmed the opinions which a small number of the learned had long entertained*. This country without difpute was the most early civilized in the world; even the learned Chinese give up the fuperiority. The most antient monuments that the emperor Camhi had collected in his cabinet were all Indian: the learned and indefatigable Englishman, who in the year 1754, copied their most antient written law, named the Shafta, prior to their Wedam, afferts, that at that time it was four thousand fix hundred and "I have ftudied, fays he, all that has been written concerning the Indians, from Arrian down to the Abbé Guion, and have found nothing but errors and falfhoods." ༢ fixty-fix years old; and if we can believe him, this book of laws, the moft antient in the world, was a long time before that period religioufly preferved by tradition, as well as by antient hieroglyphics.. It is a common practice in all the hiftories of India, copied without examining one another, to divide all the Indian nations into Mahometan idolaters; yet it is affirmed that the. Bramins and Banians, far from being idolaters, have always acknowledged one God, creator, whom their books every where ftile the ETERNAL, and they ftill reverence him amidft all the fuperftitions which disfigure their antient religion. We have hitherto believed, on seeing the monftrous figures exposed in their temples for public worship, they adore devils, although they never heard of the devil; these fymbolical representations being only emblems of the virtues. They generally describe virtue as a handsome woman, with ten arms to refift temptations; fhe carries a crown, is mounted on a dragon, and holds in one of her hands a pike, refembling in the point a flower-de-luce. Though this is not a proper place to enter into a detail of all their antient ceremonies, which they have preferved even to our times, nor to explain the Shatabad, and the Wedam, nor to fhew how far the modern Bramins have degenerated from their ancestors; yet notwithftanding their fubjection to the Tartars, and the great avarice and debauchery of the Europeans fettled on their coafts, have in general made them wicked and deceitful; the author, who lived long amongst them, obferves, that the Bramins, who are not corrupted by converfing with the European merchants, nor by intriguing at the courts of the nabobs, "Afford the pureft model of true piety, which is to be found on the face of the earth." The climate of India is very favorable to human nature, nor is it there uncommon to fee people fix score years old. The wretched narratives of our India company, inform us, that in a battle between two tyrants of that country, one of them named Anaverdikan, whom we caufed to be affaffinated by a treacherous attendant, was one hundred and feven years old, which did not prevent him however from rallying his troops three times. The emperor Aurengzebe lived above one hundred years; and Nifan Elmoluk, grand chancellor of the empire under Mahomet-Schah, who was dethroned and reftored by Shah Nadir, died upwards of one hundred years old; To that whoever lives foberly in that country, enjoys a long and healthful life. If the Indians had remained unknown to the Tartars and to us, they would have been the happieft people in the world." VOL. XXX. August, 1770. Though Though the antient immemorial custom of their philofophers ending their days upon a pile, in hopes of again beginning a new life; and that of the women being burned on the bodies of their husbands, in order to be born with them again under a different shape, prove them to be very fuperftitious, yet it fhews a courage to which we do not approach. Formerly, they dreaded killing their fellow-creatures, but had no fear of destroying themselves; indeed the women of the tribe of Bramins continue to burn themselves, but not fo frequently as before our penitents afflict their bodies, but those destroy them; and both act against the intention of nature, with the notion that this body will thereby be rendered more happy. It is true, that the averfion to fpill the blood of beafts in that antient nation, increafed that of deftroying mankind; but fuch mildness of manners made them always very bad foldiers and it is to that mildness that their misfortunes and flavery owe their origin. The Tartar government, which is precifely the fame with that of our ancient grand fiefs, prevails in most of thofe nations by subjecting them to leffer robbers who are named by the viceroys, while the latter are appointed by the emperor. Such is the administration which was eftablished in Europe, Afia, and Africa, by the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Turks, who all came originally from Tartary, a government entirely contrary to that of the antient Romans, and ftill more fo to that of the Chinese; the best in the world next to that of some small civilized colonies who have preferved their liberty. The Marrattas are almoft the only free people in that extenfive country; they inhabit the mountains behind the Malabar coaft, between Goa and Bombay, for the fpace of feven hundred miles and upwards; they are the Swifs of India; like the Swifs they are warriors, lefs polished, but more numerous, and therefore more formidable. The viceroys, who are often at war with one another, purchase their afliftance, and even while they pay them, dread their power.' Mr. Voltaire, with a moft palpable violation of truth, af ferts that the last war between the English and French was occafioned by the previous hoftilities of the English against the French in America. They, (the English) fays he, began in 1755 by attacking the French on the borders of Canada; and without any declaration of war took above three hundred merchant ships, as if they had been only fmuggling cutters; they likewise went so far as to take veffels belonging to other nations which were carrying goods to the French.' Was Was it not evident in the year 1753, that the French, by the great progréfs they had then made in extending a chain of forts between the Miffifippi and their poffeffions in Canada, intended to exclude the English from all còmmunication and traffic with the Indian nations, even those that lay contiguous to the British fettlements, and to confine them within a line of their drawing, beyond which they fhould neither extend their trade, nor plantations !—No fooner was the town of Halifax in Nova Scotia built, than the French spirited up the Indians of the neighbourhood to commit hoftilities against the inhabitants, fome of whom they murdered. In 1754, they furprized Logs-town, which the Virginians had built upon the Ohio, pillaged it, and destroyed all the British traders there, except two, who found means to escape. These, and many other previous outrages, prove, that the English were not the aggreffors before the declaration of the last war; and that, by taking three hundred merchantmen from the French in 1755, they did not begin hoftilities, but only made reprisals. His account of the fiege of St. Philip's in Minorca, and of the fkirmish in the Mediterranean, between Mr. Byng and. the marquis de Galiffonniere, are written in the true gasconad ing spirit of a Frenchman. The English, as is well known, had taken Minorca from the Spaniards; the poffeffion of that place, which had been confirmed to them by all the treaties, was of more importance than Gibraltar, which has no harbour; and gave them the empire of the Mediterranean. About the end of April 1756, the king of France sent the marshal duke de Richlieu into that ifland, with near twenty battalions, escorted by a dozen of fhips of the line and fome frigates, which the English did not fufpect to be in fo much readiness: all was so at a fixed time, and nothing was ready on the fide of the English, who attempted, however, though too late, to attack the French fleet, commanded by the marquis de la Galiffonniere in the month of June following. That battle could not have preserved the ifland of Minorca, but it might have faved their reputation; the expedition was unfuccefsful; the marquis Galiffonniere put their fleet in confufion, and repulfed it. For fome time after, the English ministry saw with regret, that they had compelled the French to establish a formidable navy. • The English still had hope of defending the citadel of PortMahon, which, next to Gibraltar, they regarded as the strongest place in Europe, by its fituation, by the nature of the ground, and by thirty years care which they had taken to fortify it; it was every where an entire rock; there were ditches twenty feet deep, and in fome places thirty, cut into the rock; there were fourfcore mines under fome works before which it was impoffible to open the trenches: it was every where impenetrable to cannon, and the citadel was every where furrounded with thofe exterior fortifications cut into the folid rock. The marshal de Richelieu formed a bolder enterprise than that of Bergen-op-zoom, which was to make an affault, at one time, on all the works which defended the body of the place; and in this daring attempt, he was feconded by the marquis de Maillebois, who always difplayed great talents in this war. The people of London were fo exasperated at their not being able to conquer the French at fea, that admiral Byng, who had fought the marquis Galiffonniere, was condemned by a court-marshal to be fhot, by virtue of an old law paffed in the reign of Charles II. Marshal Richelieu, who from the height of a plain country had seen all the engagement, and who could form a judgment of it, in vain fent a declaration to the author of this hiftory in juftification of admiral Byng, which foon reached the king of England: it was alfo in vain that the judges themselves recommended him, in the strongest terms, to the mercy of the king, who might have faved him; for after all, that admiral was executed. He was fon to that admiral who gained the battle of Meflina in 1718. He died with great refolution, and before his execution fent his vindication to the author, and his acknowledgments to marshal Richelieu. The French defcended into the ditches in spite of the Englifh artillery; they placed fcaling ladders thirteen feet high; and the officers and foldiers, when arrived at, the last round, fprung upon the rock, climbing upon one another's fhoulders: it was by a boldness not easily to be comprehended that they made themselves mafters of the out works. The troops behaved with so much more courage, as they had to do with near three thoufand English, affifted by all that art or nature could do for their defence. The next day the place furrendered; the English could not conceive how the French had paffed the ditches, into which a man in cool blood would hardly venture to defcend. This action gave great glory to the general, and to the nation, but it was the laft of the French fucceffes against England.' Minorca is not of fo much confequence to the English as Gibraltar; Gibraltar is a stronger fortification than St. Philip's; and its fituation more important. Voltaire fays, that the Englih never thought of Minorca,' and that they did not fufpect the French fleet to be in fuch readiness. The English m-y |