this, that whoever voluntarily gives to another irresistible power over human beings is bound to take order that such power shall not be barbarously abused? But we beg pardon of our readers for arguing a point so clear.

dastardly sovereign of Oude fled from | butchered, and their women violated. the field. The English were left un- Will Mr. Gleig seriously maintain this supported; but their fire and their opinion? Is any rule more plain than charge were irresistible. It was not, however, till the most distinguished chiefs had fallen, fighting bravely at the head of their troops, that the Rohilla ranks gave way. Then the Nabob Vizier and his rabble made their appearance, and hastened to plunder the camp of the valiant enemies, whom they had never dared to look in the face. The soldiers of the Company, trained in an exact discipline, kept unbroken order, while the tents were pillaged by these worthless allies. But many voices were heard to exclaim, "We have had all the fighting, and those rogues are to have all the profit."

We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful story. The war ceased. The finest population in India was subjected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce and agriculture languished. The rich province which had tempted the cupidity of Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part even of his miserable dominions. Yet is the injured nation not extinct. At long intervals gleams of its ancient spirit have flashed forth; and even at this day, valour, and self-respect, and a chivalrous feeling rare among Asiatics, and a bitter remembrance of the great crime of England, distinguish that noble Afghan race. To this day they are regarded as the best of all sepoys at the cold steel; and it was very recently remarked, by one who had enjoyed great opportunities of observation, that the only natives of India to whom the word "gentleman" can with perfect propriety be applied, are to be found among the Rohillas.

Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the fair valleys and cities of Rohilcund. The whole country was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, and fever, and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny of him, to whom an English and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance, and their blood, and the honour of their wives and daughters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong representations to Fort William; but the Go- Whatever we may think of the movernor had made no conditions as to rality of Hastings, it cannot be denied the mode in which the war was to be that the financial results of his policy carried on. He had troubled himself did honour to his talents. In less than about nothing but his forty lacs; and, two years after he assumed the governthough he might disapprove of Sujah ment, he had, without imposing any Dowlah's wanton barbarity, he did not additional burdens on the people subthink himself entitled to interfere, ex-ject to his authority, added about four cept by offering advice. This delicacy hundred and fifty thousand pounds to excites the admiration of the biogra- the annual income of the Company, pher. "Mr. Hastings," he says, "could besides procuring about a million in not himself dictate to the Nabob, nor ready money. He had also relieved permit the commander of the Com- the finances of Bengal from military pany's troops to dictate how the war expenditure, amounting to was to be carried on." No, to be sure. quarter of a million a year, and had Mr. Hastings had only to put down by thrown that charge on the Nabob of main force the brave struggles of inno- Oude. There can be no doubt that cent men fighting for their liberty. this was a result which, if it had been Their military resistance crushed, his obtained by honest means, would have duties ended; and he had then only to entitled him to the warmest gratitude fold his arms and look on, while their of his country, and which, by whatever villages were burned, their children | means obtained, proved that he pos

near а

sessed great talents for administra- | he was. The evidence is, we think,

tion.

such as would support a verdict in a In the mean time, Parliament had civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. been engaged in long and grave dis- The handwriting of Junius is the very cussions on Asiatic affairs. The mi- peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly nistry of Lord North, in the session of disguised. As to the position, pur1773, introduced a measure which made suits, and connections of Junius, the a considerable change in the constitu- following are the most important facts tion of the Indian government. This which can be considered as clearly law, known by the name of the Regu- proved: first, that he was acquainted lating Act, provided that the presidency with the technical forms of the secretary of Bengal should exercise a control of state's office; secondly, that he was over the other possessions of the Com-intimately acquainted with the business pany; that the chief of that presidency of the war-office; thirdly, that he, during should be styled Governor-General; the year 1770, attended debates in the that he should be assisted by four House of Lords, and took notes of Councillors; and that a supreme court speeches, particularly of the speeches of judicature, consisting of a chief of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he justice and three inferior judges, should bitterly resented the appointment of be established at Calcutta. This court Mr. Chamier to the place of deputy was made independent of the Governor- secretary-at-war; fifthly, that he was General and Council, and was intrusted bound by some strong tie to the first with a civil and criminal jurisdiction of Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed immense and, at the same time, of un- some years in the secretary of state's defined extent. office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war-office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of these speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the war-office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.

The Governor-General and Councillors were named in the act, and were to hold their situations for five years. Hastings was to be the first GovernorGeneral. One of the four new Councillors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced servant of the Company, was then in India. The other three, General Clavering, Mr. Monson, and Mr. Francis, were sent out from England.

The ablest of the new Councillors was, beyond all doubt, Philip Francis. His acknowledged compositions prove that he possessed considerable eloquence and information. Several years passed in the public offices had formed him to habits of business. His enemies have never denied that he had a fearless and manly spirit; and his friends, we are afraid, must acknowledge that his estimate of himself was extravagantly high, that his temper was irritable, that his deportment was often rude and petulant, and that his hatred was of intense bitterness and long duration.

The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decidedly It is scarcely possible to mention this inferior to the anonymous letters. The eminent man without adverting for a argument from inferiority, at all events, moment to the question which his is one which may be urged with at name at once suggests to every mind. | least equal force against every claimant Was he the author of the Letters of that has ever been mentioned, with the Junius? Our own firm belief is that single exception of Burke; and it

of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old institutions with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervour, and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis.

would be a waste of time to prove that | site of a democratic politician. While Burke was not Junius. And what attacking individuals with a ferocity conclusion, after all, can be drawn from which perpetually violated all the laws mere inferiority? Every writer must produce his best work; and the interval between his best work and his second best work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or four of Corneille's tragedies to the rest, than three or four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest, than the Pilgrim's Progress to the other works of Bunyan, than Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that Junius, whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which bear the signature of Junius; the letter to the king, and the letters to Horne Tooke, have little in common, except the asperity; and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of Francis.

It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have been willing at that time to leave the country which had been so powerfully stirred by his eloquence. Every thing had gone against him. That party which he clearly preferred to every other, the party of George Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief; and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to the ministerial benches. ferment produced by the Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must have been alike an object of aversion to Junius. His opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the ministry; his opinions on colonial affairs from the opposition. Under such circumstances, he had thrown down his pen in misanthropical des

The

Indeed one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance between the two men. It is not difficult, from the letters which, under various signatures, are known to have been written by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably correct notion of his character. He was clearly a man not destitute pair. His farewell letter to Woodfall of real patriotism and magnanimity, a man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. "Doest thou well to be angry?" was the question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. And he answered, "I dowell." This was evidently the temper of Junius; and to this cause we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his letters. No man is so merciless as he who, With the three new Councillors came under a strong self-delusion, confounds out the judges of the Supreme Court. his antipathies with his duties. It The chief justice was Sir Elijah Impey. may be added that Junius, though He was an old acquaintance of Hastallied with the democratic party by ings; and it is probable that the Gocommon enmities, was the very oppo-vernor-General, if he had searched

bears date the nineteenth of January 1773. In that letter, he declared that he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men who would act steadily together on any question. "But it is all alike," he added, "vile and contemptible. You have never flinched that I know of; and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity." These were the last words of Junius. In a year from that time, Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengal.

through all the inns of court, could not | tent to amend. The effect of their have found an equally serviceable tool. reforms was that all protection to life But the members of Council were by and property was withdrawn, and that no means in an obsequious mood. gangs of robbers plundered and slaughHastings greatly disliked the new form tered with impunity in the very suburbs of government, and had no very high of Calcutta. Hastings continued to opinion of his coadjutors. They had live in the Government-house, and to heard of this, and were disposed to be draw the salary of Governor-General. suspicious and punctilious. When men He continued even to take the lead at are in such a frame of mind, any trifle the council-board in the transaction of is sufficient to give occasion for dis-ordinary business; for his opponents pute. The members of Council ex- could not but feel that he knew much pected a salute of twenty-one guns of which they were ignorant, and that from the batteries of Fort William. he decided, both surely and speedily, Hastings allowed them only seventeen. many questions which to them would They landed in ill-humour. The first have been hopelessly puzzling. civilities were exchanged with cold re- the higher powers of government and serve. On the morrow commenced the most valuable patronage had been that long quarrel which, after distract- taken from him. ing British India, was renewed in England, and in which all the most eminent statesmen and orators of the age took active part on one or the other side.

But

The natives soon found this out. They considered him as a fallen man; and they acted after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen, in Hastings was supported by Barwell. India, a cloud of crows pecking a sick They had not always been friends. vulture to death, no bad type of what But the arrival of the new members happens in that country, as often as of Council from England naturally had fortune deserts one who has been great the effect of uniting the old servants and dreaded. In an instant, all the sycoof the Company. Clavering, Monson, phants who had lately been ready to lie and Francis formed the majority. They for him, to forge for him, to pander for instantly wrested the government out him, to poison for him, hasten to purchase of the hands of Hastings, condemned, the favour of his victorious enemies by certainly not without justice, his late accusing him. An Indian governdealings with the Nabob Vizier, re- ment has only to let it be understood called the English agent from Oude, that it wishes a particular man to be and sent thither a creature of their own, ruined; and, in twenty-four hours, it ordered the brigade which had con- will be furnished with grave charges, quered the unhappy Rohillas to return supported by depositions so full and to the Company's territories, and insti- circumstantial that any person unactuted a severe inquiry into the conduct customed to Asiatic mendacity would of the war. Next, in spite of the Go- regard them as decisive. It is well if vernor-General's remonstrances, they the signature of the destined victim is proceeded to exercise, in the most not counterfeited at the foot of some indiscreet manner, their new authority illegal compact, and if some treasonover the subordinate presidencies; threw able paper is not slipped into a hidingall the affairs of Bombay into confu-place in his house. Hastings was now sion; and interfered, with an incredible regarded as helpless. The power to union of rashness and feebleness, in make or mar the fortune of every man the intestine disputes of the Mahratta in Bengal had passed, as it seemed, government. At the same time, they into the hands of the new Councilfell on the internal administration of lors. Immediately charges against the Bengal, and attacked the whole fiscal Governor-General began to pour in. and judicial system, a system which They were eagerly welcomed by the was undoubtedly defective, but which majority, who, to do them justice, were it was very improbable that gentlemen men of too much honour knowingly to fresh from England would be compe- countenance false accusations, but who

were not sufficiently acquainted with the East to be aware that, in that part of the world, a very little encouragement from power will call forth, in a week, more Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dangerfields, than Westminster Hall sees in a century.

however, resolved to go into the charges. Hastings rose, declared the sitting at an end, and left the room, followed by Barwell. The other members kept their seats, voted themselves a council, put Clavering in the chair, and ordered Nuncomar to be called in. Nuncomar not only adhered to the original charges, but, after the fashion of the East, produced a large supplement. He stated that Hastings had received a great sum for appointing Rajah Goordas treasurer of the Nabob's household, and for committing the care of his Highness's person to the Munny Begum. He put in a letter purporting to bear the seal of the Munny Begum, for the purpose of es

It would have been strange indeed if, at such a juncture, Nuncomar had remained quiet. That bad man was stimulated at once by malignity, by avarice, and by ambition. Now was the time to be avenged on his old enemy, to wreak a grudge of seventeen years, to establish himself in the favour of the majority of the Council, to become the greatest native in Bengal. From the time of the arrival of the new Coun-tablishing the truth of his story. The cillors, he had paid the most marked court to them, and had in consequence been excluded, with all indignity, from the Government-house. He now put into the hands of Francis, with great ceremony, a paper, containing several charges of the most serious description. By this document Hastings was accused of putting offices up to sale, and of receiving bribes for suffering offenders to escape. In particular, it was alleged that Mahommed Reza Khan had been dismissed with impunity, in consideration of a great sum paid to the Governor-General.

seal, whether forged, as Hastings affirmed, or genuine, as we are rather inclined to believe, proved nothing. Nuncomar, as every body knows who knows India, had only to tell the Munny Begum that such a letter would give pleasure to the majority of the Council, in order to procure her attestation. The majority, however, voted that the charge was made out; that Hastings had corruptly received between thirty and forty thousand pounds; and that he ought to be compelled to refund.

The general feeling among the English in Bengal was strongly in favour Francis read the paper in Council. of the Governor-General. In talents for A violent altercation followed. Hast-business, in knowledge of the country, ings complained in bitter terms of the in general courtesy of demeanour, he way in which he was treated, spoke was decidedly superior to his persecuwith contempt of Nuncomar and of tors. The servants of the Company Nuncomar's accusation, and denied the were naturally disposed to side with right of the Council to sit in judgment the most distinguished member of their on the Governor. At the next meeting own body against a clerk from the warof the Board, another communication office, who, profoundly ignorant of the from Nuncomar was produced. He re-native languages and of the native chaquested that he might be permitted to attend the Council, and that he might be heard in support of his assertions. Another tempestuous debate took place. The Governor-General maintained that the council-room was not a proper place for such an investigation; that from persons who were heated by daily conflict with him he could not expect the fairness of judges; and that he could not, without betraying the dignity of his post, submit to be confronted with such a man as Nuncomar. The majority,

racter, took on himself to regulate every department of the administration. Hastings, however, in spite of the general sympathy of his countrymen, was in a most painful situation. There was still an appeal to higher authority in England. If that authority took part with his enemies, nothing was left to him but to throw up his office. He accordingly placed his resignation in the hands of his agent in London, Colonel Macleane. But Macleane was instructed not to produce the resignation, unless