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degree restored; and he was eager to measure swords against the new Sultan. For this purpose he embarked in an armed vessel which carried out supplies of money to Madras. This, towards the close of its voyage, was chased for two days and two nights by some French ships of the line. During all this time the General's anxiety kept him constantly on deck. The excessive heat by day, the unwholesome dews at night, wrought sad havoc on his already wasted frame; and thus, although the ship with its pecuniary treasure escaped from its pursuers, its most precious freight could not be permanently saved. Sir Eyre Coote expired in April, 1783, only two days after he had landed at Madras.

Tippoo during this time had returned to the coast of Malabar. There he had to wage war against General Mathews and a body of troops from Bombay set free by the peace with the Mahrattas. The English General at first had great successes, reducing both Bednore and Mangalore. But the appearance of the Sultan at the head of 50,000 men changed the scene. Mathews was besieged in Bednore and taken prisoner with all his Europeans. Being accused, though unjustly, of a breach of faith, he was put in irons, and sent in the strictest duresse with many of his comrades to Seringapatam, there to perish in the dungeons of the tyrant.

At Madras the command of the forces, in the absence of Sir Eyre, had devolved, though far less adequately, on General Stuart. That officer, in the spring of 1783, commenced operations against the French in Cuddalore, who had lately received from Europe some considerable reinforcements under M. de Bussy. The lines in front of the town, which Bussy had well fortified, and which he no less valiantly defended, were assailed by Stuart with more of intrepidity than skill. The fleets also, on both sides, hastened to the scene of action; and at the close of June some decisive engagements were expected, both by sea and land, when suddenly the tidings came that the preliminaries of peace between France and England had been signed at Versailles. By that compact Pondicherry and the other settlements of France in India, as they stood before the war, were to be restored. The French took possession accordingly, but, on the other hand, they

recalled their detachment serving under Tippoo in Malabar, and prepared to sail back with their armament to France.

Tippoo then remained alone. He had set his heart on adding lustre to his arms by reducing in person the stronghold of Mangalore, but, having achieved that object in the autumn of 1783, he was no longer disinclined to treat with the English upon the footing of a mutual restitution of all conquests made since the commencement of the war. Thus was peace restored through all the wide extent of India, and thus did the administration of Hastings, which endured until the spring of 1785, close, after all its storms, with scarce a cloud upon its sky.

Glancing back for a moment to the rise and progress of our Eastern empire, from the first victory of Clive till the final retirement of Hastings, we must feel that it was stained by several acts that we have reason to deplore. The true foundation, or at least the true security, of our just and beneficent rule in India was that system of double government which the genius of Mr. Pitt devised. With every drawback however, it may be said, and not merely of the later period, that the sway even of the worst of the foreign governors was better than the sway even of the best of the native princes. The people of Hindostan might sometimes see a neighbouring tribe, like the Rohillas, assailed by the English without any show of right; they might sometimes see one of their own chiefs foully dealt with or despoiled, as was the case with Omichund; yet still they felt that, among themselves, the poor man was protected from harm. They had no longer to fear the annual inroads of the Mahratta horsemen through the teeming rice-fields of Bengal. They had no longer to fear that even those handfuls of rice which the enemy had spared might be snatched from them by the first man in office who passed along-by any minion, however base, of their own Sultan or Soubahdar. Viewing these things, they were disposed to regard the great English chiefs with gratitude, as most mild and equitable rulers. While in England, Clive and Hastings were commonly railed against as tyrants, in India they were commonly extolled as benefactors. Already was there growing up

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in the Indian people that feeling-far more fully unfolded at the present period-that feeling on which the permanence of our Eastern empire, if permanent it be, must mainly rest that feeling which, to give one homely instance of it, led two villagers, when they did not deem a stranger nigh them, thus to commune with each other. "A good rain this for the bread,” said the one. "Yes," was the answer, "and a good government, under which a man may eat bread in safety!"*

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The future destinies of India, so far as human eye can scan them, are all surely fraught with the fairest hopes. Everywhere in that country has victory crowned our arms. The last of our rivals on the Sutlege has utterly succumbed before us. Yet our security from the perils of war has in no degree, as I conceive, made us neglectful of the arts of peace. The desire to do our duty by that high and solemn trust has never yet been so earnestly felt amongst us; it pervades, it animates, all parties in the country. Taught by gradual experience, our system of government has been improved, and is still improving. High ability is trained both at Addiscombe and Haileybury for the objects both of administration and defence. In India lines of railway are beginning to span the boundless plains. The great want of the country and the climate, Irrigation, a want too long unheeded by the English rulers, has at length attracted their anxious care. With cultivation thus quickened by our wealth and directed by our skill, we may trust that in another age, the supplies of Tea within our own dominions may be such as to rival, perhaps even to supersede, the produce of the provinces of China. We may trust that the supply of Cotton for our looms may become the largest from that region which gave to Cotton its first name in the Western world. Above all, we may indulge a well-grounded

* Conversation overheard by Archdeacon Corrie. See Bishop Heber's Journal, vol. ii. p. 33. ed. 1828.

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"Superior pars Egypti, in Arabiam vergens, gignit fruticem quem aliqui Gossipium vocant, plures Xylon, et ideo lina inde acta Xylina. Parvus est, similemque barbatæ nucis defert fructum," &c. (Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xix. c. i.) On this passage Colonel Wilks observes: "The term Xylon was certainly not derived from "the Arabs, who name the plant Kuttun (cotton), but it bears a close

confidence that advancement in knowledge and in morals may here keep pace with the progress of prosperity, and that as the fouler Hindoo superstitions already pale before the growing light of day, so that God, in his own good time, and in the measure of his own appointed Revelation, may, even to this long benighted people, make himself clearly and fully known.

"resemblance to the common Indian pronunciation of Ceylon; as "muslin from Moosul and calico from Calicut, the emporia from which "these substances became known in the west." (South of India, vol. iii. p. 20.

LIFE AND MANNERS.] HOW TO TRACE.

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CHAPTER LXX.

LIFE AND MANNERS.

WITH Some new classes of critics, or of those who claim to be so, it has grown a common reproach against the historian of almost every period, that while dwelling at full length on battles and on sieges, on cabals and stateintrigues, on nobles and on princes, he lightly glides over the true condition, - the habits and the feelings, - of the people. But they who thus complain have perhaps considered rather the importance of the subject than the scantiness of the materials. While the deeds of a fleet or army, of a Sovereign or senate, are graven on brass and marble, or chronicled in records and rolls, the customs and pursuits of private life and the course of every-day affairs, being deemed too slight for commemoration in their own age, for the most part elude the discernment of the next. During the darker ages scarce any means exist to fill the void. Even within the last two centuries the means are very far from adequate. Nor are these in any measure obvious and easy to the learner. They cannot, like the narrative of wars or treaties, be deduced from any continuous chain of documents; but must be, where they can be, gleaned from a thousand scattered hints. For their sake we must explore the gloomy secrets of the scaffold and the prison-vault; for their sake we must gather far and wide the gossip of familiar correspondence, the entries of journals and account books, or the occasional allusions in novels, plays, and songs. And even with regard to these last, though giving us what nothing else supplies, they must not be implicitly received; on the contrary, the utmost caution and reserve are needed, lest we mistake the caricature for the portrait, and the exception for the rule.