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Why fhould you die fecundum Martem?
Go, fafely kill fecundum arteni??.
Pluto, his interefts to maintain,

That moment mounts the Doctor's brain;
On pineal gland he takes his ftation,
And utters his auguft oration:

r

If you my wrath or favour heed,
Peace, brethren, peace, be well agreed;
Throw, throw thofe murd'rous arms away;
Spare but yourselves, your thousands flay;
Your arms medicinal extend,
Yourfelves enrich, my power befriend.
Ev'n Charon withes you to fpare
Yourfelves, and not abridge his fare."
He fpake, and fought the realms of night;
The Doctor took the matter right,
Propos'd to let the quarrel die;

The harmless bullet mounts the sky. W. B.

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dart;

Say, kind reclufe from pleasure's garish throng, [prolong Did e'er thy curious fep its lingering pace More charm'd than here-where tafte's fair train impart

Their happy skill, and where the wander

ingere, Delighted, wonders?-but chief loves to dwell On the chafte colouring and rich imagery Form'd by LLOYD'S magic hand. Go, firanger, rell,

Thy various learch no fane could e'er efpy
Where female piety and art did fo excell,

In Obitum Prænobilis Viri,
HENEAGII FINCH,
Comitis de WIN CHELSEA,
Epicedium et Apotheofis,
Prid. Cal, 08. 1726.

POLYHYMNIA.

UIS te, cara foror, folicitam tenet

Q Cafus? Quid lachrymis ora fluentibus

Hument? Quid tremulastam tremulo gemens
Chordas pectine percutis?

MELPOMENE.
Quis cafus, rogitas, O Polyhymnia? T
Quo non afperior, durior, atrior,
Aut voci liquidæ, aut flebilibus modis,
Aptari citharæ potelt.

Exceffit verè nobilium decus,
Gentis deliciæ, gloria patriæ,
Quales ut fineres illachrymabiles
Ipfum fas vetat et pudor.
Vir princeps, atavis' regibus editus,
Et non degeneri nobilis indole,

*The Eaft window of the cathedral is beautifully ornamented with paintings, by the Dean's lady.

Doctrina à teneris cui fuperaddita

Vifu promoverat infitam.

Linguarum pariter gnarus et artium,
Ut mores, veterum reliquias colens,
Quorum divitias dum fibi conderet,
Aurum fprevit inutile.
Nufquam juftitiæ tramite devius
Et veri, rigidè propofiti tenax,
Fidus principibus femper in arduis
Rebus, non fecus ac bonis;
Turpi fraude carens, et procul à dolo,
Urbanus, facilis, pectore candido ;
Cui fincera fides, nadaque veritas,

Quando ullum invenient parem?
Cultor perpetuus numinis, integer
Vita, confpicuus militiæ et domi;
Quo civis melior, quo neque fortior,
In cenfu Britonum ftetit.

POLYBYMNIA
Vifa es non hominem ponere, fed Deum,
Quales ex hominum clara propagine
Virtus ad fuperos extulit; edere
Nomen neu pigeat, foror. ©

MELPOMENE.

Huic FRINGILLA dedit dulcia noming,
Felix nuper avis, quam neque vicerit
Et debet pariter dulce decus fuum,

At nunc marta feder, voce que lugubri
Ipfe ales Jovis armiger.
Effundit vacuas, heu querimonias -
Herois memores, lufciniæ comes

Hærens æmula flebili.

POLYHYMNIA.

Ohe jam fatis eft, define plurium:
Si deflere homines fas tibi mortuos,
Heröas fuperos evehere ad Deos

Partes, O bona, funt meæ.
Per me fpiritus et vita redit bonis;
Nil mortale loquar, nil humili modo,
Sed quæ audita facro digna filentio

Mirantes fuperi hauriant.
Agnovi haud dubiis indiciis Deum,'
Nam vidi trepidi verticibus rogi
Nifus aligeros impete fervido
Scindentes liquidum æthera,
Qui totus nituit; fed via candida
Exarfit fpatiis candidioribus,
Colluftrata frequens cœlicolis, novum
Expectantibus hofpitem.

Audivi et placidis ordinibus Deûm
Adfcripto meritis plaudier undique,
Tam grato fuperis omnibus advenæ,
Patri præcipuè Jovi:

bCajus nunc epulis affiduè intereft,
Unà Tyndarida, Liber, et Hercules,
Dum facti pariter, purpureis labris

Ducunt pocula nectaris.

Vos ergo, Britones, indigitem Deum
Placetis, veniam folicitâ prece
Orantes, fceleris fi bene pœnitet,
W. Dueti feditionibus;:

Ut pax, alma fides, mutuus ac amor,
Qui vos deferuit jam nimiùm diu,
Optatus redeat, cunctaque profpera
Cedant aufpiciis novis l

ALET.

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been pleated to enter into a large difcuffion of my proceedings at Benaris, and to apprife the Board of certain refolutions, comprehending your judgment upon them. Thefe refolucions, as,the immediate caute and fubject of my prefent addrefs, I fhall, to avoid the perplexity of frequent and remote reference, hereto fubjoin:

"That it appears to this Court, that, on the death of Sujah Dowlah, 1775, a treaty was made with his fucceffor, by which the Zemindary of Benaris, with its dependencies, was ceded in perpetuity to the E. 1. C.

"That it appears to this Court, that Rajah Cheyt Sing was confirmed by the GovernorGeneral and the Council of Bengal in the management of the faid Zemindary (fubject to the fovereignty of the Company) on his paying a certain tribute, which was fettled at Sicca rupees 2,266,180; and that the Bengal Go. vernment pledged itself, that the free and uncontrouled poffeffion of the Zemindary of Benaris, and its dependencies, fhould be confirmed and guaranteed to the Rajah and his heirs for ever, fubject to fuch tribute; and that no other demand fhould be made upon him, nor any kind of authority or jurifdiction exercife within the dominions affigned him, fo long as he adhered to the terms of his engagements.

"That it appears to this Court, that the Governor-General and Council did, on the 5th of July, 1775, recommend to Rajah Cheyt Sing to keep up a body of 2000 horfe; but at the fame time declared there fhould be no obligation on him to do it.

"That it appears to this Court, that Rajah Cheyt Sing performed his engagements with the Company, in the regular payment of his tribute of Sicca ropees 2,266,180.

"That it appears to this Court, that the conduct of the Governor-General towards the Rajah, whilst he was at Benaris, was improper, and that the imprisonment of his perton, thereby difgracing him in the eyes of his fubjects and others, was unwarrantable and highly impolitic, and may tend to weaken the confidence which the native Princes of India ought to have in the justice and moderation of the Company's government."

I understand that thefe refolutions were either published or intended for publication. As they have proceeded from an authority fo refpectable, every reader of them will naturally and without hesitation believe, that the facts, GENT. MAG. 08ober, 1783.

on which they'necessarily and indispensably depend, have been fully established. And who are the readers? not the proprietors alone, whofe intereft is immediately concerned in by every motive of pride and gratitude, to foli them, and whofe approbation I am impelled, cit; but the whole body of the people of England, whofe paflions have been excited on the general subject of the conduct of their fervants in India; ard before them I am arraigned and prejudged of a violation of the national faith in acts of fuch complicated aggravation, that, if they were true, no punishment, short of death could atone for the injury which the intereft and credit of the public had fuflained in them.

I hope, therefore, I fhall not be thought to give unneceflary trouble, in calling your attention to a fubject not wholly perfonal, nor to fail in the refpect in which I have never yet failed, to your Honourable Court, in the mode, of my vindication, which will not admit of the common delicacies of expreffion; for I cannot admit facts, however affirmed, which I know to have no existence, and by which my character has been blafted; nor will a fimple denial or refutation of them be fufficient against fuch a charge, if I can at the fame time appeal to your own knowledge, proved by the evidence of your own arguments, and to what your Honourable Court poffelles of candour, for my firft juftification and acquittal.

The facts affirmed, or exprefled in terms equal to affirmation, in your refolutions, are as follows:

1. That the Bengal Government pledged itfelf, that the free and uncontroaled poffeffion of the Zemindary of Benaris, and its depen dencies, thould be confirmed and guaranteed to the Rajah and his heirs for ever.

II. That it pledged itfelf that no other demand fhould be made upon him, nor any kind of authority or jurisdiction exercised within the dominions affigned him, fo long as he adhered to the terms of his engagements,

III. That the Governor-General required him to keep up a body of 2000 horfe, contrary to the declaration made to him by the Govej nor-General and Council on the 5th of July, 1775, that there should be no obligation on him to do it.

IV. That Rajah Cheyt Sing was bound by no other engagements to the Company than for the payment of his tribute of Sicca rupees 2,266,180.

V. That Rajah Cheyt Sing was a native Prince of India.

The judgment paffed on my conduct, as deducible from thefe facts, is, that it was "improper, unwarrantable, and highly impolitic, and may tend to weaken the confidence which the native Princes of India ought to have in the justice and moderation of the Company's government." Here I must crave leave to fay, that the terms "improper, unwarrantable, and highly impolitic," are much too gentle as de

ductions

duct ons from fuch premifes; and, as every reader of the letter will obviously feel as he reads the deductions which inevitably belong to them. I will add, that the strict performance of folemn engagements on one part, followed by acts directly fubverfive of them, and by total difpoffeffi n on the other, ftamps on the perpetrators of the latter the guilt of the greatest poffible violation of faith and juftice.

But this, and every other conclufion from the facts adduced in proof of them, will fall, if the facts themselves have no exiftence. I do therefore moft pofitively and folemnly deny their existence.

I deny that the Bengal Government pledged itfelf that the free and uncontrouled poffeffion of the Zemindary of Benaris, and its dependencies, fhould be confirmed and guaranteed to the Rajah and his heirs for ever.

I deny that the Bengal Government pledged Stfelf that no other demand should be made upon him, nor any kind of authority or jurifdiction exercifed within the dominions affigned him, fo long as he adhered to the terms of his engagements.

I deny that I ever required him to keep up a body of 2000 horfe, contrary to the declara tion made to him by the Governor-General and Council on the 5th of July, 1775, that there thould be no obligation on him to do it.

My demand, that is, the demand of the Board, was not that he should maintain any specific number of horse; but that the number which he did maintain fhould be employed for the defence of the general State.

I deny that Rajah Cheyt Sing was bound by no other engagements to the Company than for the payment of his tribute of Sicca rupees 2,266,180.

He was bound by the engagements of fealty, and of abfolute obedience to every order of the Government which he ferved. The various and repeated profeffions of his letters are proofs and acknowledgments of this conftruction of his vaffalage; and his own cabulceat, or the instrument by which he engaged to perform the duties of his Zemindary, expreffes it in the acknowledgement of the Company's fovereignty.

I deny that Rajah Cheyt Sing was a native Prince of India.

Cheyt Sing is the fon of a collector of the revenue of that province, which his arts, and the misfortunes of his matter, enabled him to convert to a permanent and hereditary poffeffion. This man, whom you have thus ranked amongst the Princes of India, will be aftonished, when he hears it, at an elevation fo unlooked-for, nor less at the independent rights which your commands have affigned him; rights which are fo foreign from his conceptions, that I doubt whether he will know in what language to affert them, unless the example which you have thought it confiftent with just ce, however oppofie to policy, to thew, of becoming his advocates against your dwn interefts, fhould infpire any of your own fervants to be his advisers and inftructors.

I forbear to detail the proofs of these deni❤ als. In legal propriety I might perhaps cla m a difpenfation from it, and require the charges to be proved, not myself disprove them. Bot I have already difproved them in my narrative of my proceedings at Benaris, which has been long fince in your hands, and is, I hope, in the hands of the public. To that I think it fufficient to refer, and to point out the ninth and following pages of the copy, which was printed in Calcutta, for a complete explana tion; and I prefume as complete a demonftration of the mutual relation of Rajah Cheyt Sing, the vaffal and fubject of the Company, and of the Company his fovereign.

The fubject to which I now proceed, and on which I rest my fulleft acquittal, is too delicate to admit of my entering upon it without requesting your indulgence and pardon for whatever may appear offenfive in it, and declaring, that I fhould have fubmitted in filence to the fevereft expreffions of cenfure which you could pass upon me, had they been no more than expreffions, and applied to real facts; but, where the cenfures are not applied to real facts, and are fuch as fubftantially affect my moral character, I fhould be myself an accomplice in the injury, if I fuffered the flightest imputation to remain, which it was in my power wholly to efface.

A breach of faith neceffarily implies antecedent and exifting engagements, and can only be conftrued fuch by the exprefs terms of those engagements. I have been guilty of this crime, in my treatment of Cheyt Sing, or of none; and I may be allowed to regret, that, while you stated fuch facts as implied it, you did not in terms declare it. There is an ap pearance of tenderness in this deviation from plain conftruction, of which, however meant, 1 have a right to complain, because it impofes on me the neceffity of framing the terms of the accufation against myself, which you have not only made, but have ftated the leading argument to it fo strongly, that no one who reads these can avoid making it, or not know to have been intended.

But, permit me to afk, may I not prefume that this deviation arose from fomething more than a tenderness for my character or feelings that it was dictated by a consciousness, that no fuch engagement exifted? For, if any fuch did exift, why were they not produced in fupport of the charges?

Even the facts which are affirmed in the refolutions are fuch as muft depend upon fome evidence, for they cannot exift independently. If the Bengal Government "pledged itfelf," its pledge must be contained in the written inftruments which were expressly formed, and declared to define the reciprocal relation and obligation of the Rajah and the Company.

The refolutions of your Hon. Court, as they stand unconnected in their original fate, must be accepted as the conclufions from certain and established evidence; and this evidence, I must prefume, you meant to produce

in the long process of detailed argument which precedes them in your general letter. This confifts of pieced extracts from opinions delivered by me in the debates in Council, which not only preceded the fettlement made with the Rajah Cheyt Sing, when his Zemindary became the property of the Company; but, ftrange as it will appear. which paffed on an occafion wholly forein fr m it, and at a time when the Company had not obtained the ceffion of the Zemindary. At the point of the fettlement your detail flops. Had it proceeded, it must have exhibited the conditions of the fettlement, which would have contradicted every fact which you have afferted; and every man of candour will believe that this was the only reafon why it did not proceed. For why are my ipeculative opinions on the claim made upon the Nabob Affof ul Dowlah at the ceffion of the Zemindary of Benaris, which I thought an infringement of a treaty already Tubfilling with him; and upon the mode by which we should allow Rajah Cheyt Sing to exercife the management of his Zemindary, when it had become the property of the Company, quoted in evidence against me; while the actual deeds which conveyed to Cheyt Sing his poffeffion of the Zemindary, and all the conditions on which he held it, were the only criteria by which my conduct towards him could be tried? The debates from which my opinions are extracted are fo voluminous, and my share in them bears fo large a proportion, that it would take up much time and argument to prove, what I could prove, that in their collective and relative sense they are perfectly confiftent, so far as they can apply at all to my subsequent conduct; but, were it otherwife, they were not to be made the rules of my conduct; and God forbid that every expreffion dictated by the impulfe of prefent emergency, and unpremeditatedly uttered in the heat of party contention, should impofe upon me the obligation of a fixed principle, and be applied to every variable occafion!

The wisdom of the Legiflature has declared, that the whole collective body of the Governar-General and Council fhall be bound by the opinions of the majority; but the doctrine implied in your quotation of my opinions is the reverse of that obligation, if my opinions were not conformable to thofe of a majority of the Board; and, if they were, the acts of the Board, formed on fuch concurrent opinions, ought to be quoted as the rules of my conduct, not the opinions which only led to them.

46

Having folemnly pronounced that Rajah Cheyt Sing had performed his engagements with the Company, and that my conduct towards him was improper and unwarrantatle," you proceed to fay, that "fuch farther refolutions, as you may think proper to come to on this very important fubject, will be communicated to us by a future conveyance." This I cannot otherwife understand than as an indication of your intention to order the restoration of Rajah Cheyt Sing to the Zemin

dary of Benatis. It will be expected, after the judgment which you have paffed, as an act of indifpenfable juftice; and, whenever this promiffory declaration is made public, as it muft be, if not already known, what may have been expected will be reg rded as a certainty. If any hing were wanting but the exprefs notification of your intention to confirm it, the recall of Mr. Markham, who was known to be the public agent of my own nomination at Benaris, and he re-appointment of Mr. Francis Fowke by your order contained in the fame letter, would place it beyond a doubt. This order has been obeyed; and, whenever you fhall be pleased to or der the restoration of Cheyr Sing, I will venture to promife the fame ready and exact fubmiffion in the other members of your Coun cil.

Of the confequences of fuch a policy I forbear to fpeak. Moft happily the wretch, whofe h pes may be excited by the appearances in his favour, is ill qualified to avail himself of them; and the force which is ftationed in the province of Benaris is fufficient to fupprefs any fymptoms of internal fedition; but it cannot fail to create diffruft and sufpenfe in the minis both of the rulers and of the people, and fuch a ftate is always productive of diforder.

But it is not in this partial confideration that I dread the effects of your commands. It is in your proclaimed indisposition against the firft executive member of your first Govern ment in India. It is as well known to the Indian world as to the Court of English proprietors, that the firft declaratory nftruments of the diffolution of my influence, in the year 1774, were Mr. John Briftow and Mr. Francis Fowke. By your ancient and known conftitution the Governor has been ever held forth and understood to pollefs the oftenfible powers of Government. All the correspon dence with foreign Princes is conducted in his name; and every perfon, refident with them for the management of your political concerns, is understood to be more especially his reprefentative, and of his choice: and which ought to be the rule; for how otherwife can they truft an agent nominated against the will of his principal? or how, knowing him to aft under the variable inftructions of temporary influence, or the cafual dictates of a majority, can they rely on the meatures which he may propofe, and w ich a fudden change of i fluence, always expected in a devation from conftitutional forms, my unde, and fubject them, in every nitance of their connection, to a continual fluctation of afe fairs?

When the fate of this adminiftration was fuch as feemed to admit of the appointment of Mr. Briftow to the refidency of Lucknow, without much diminution of my own influ ence, I gladly feized the occafion to fhew my readiness to fubmit to your commands.. propofed his nomination: he was nominate

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