manner posssible. This prince argued consistently enough against the wavering policy of the Company, and exhibited many reasons why it would be for the advantage of the English that he should retain possession of Tanjore; but, as the injunctions of the Directors were peremptory, he might have spared his reasoning: the Madras Government would not depart in the least from the directions of their superiors. Before they fully disclosed the nature of their instructions, however, they dexterously availed themselves of his offer to admit an English garrison into Tanjore; and, when this point was gained, they let him see how inevitably all the rest must follow.

Lord Pigot, accompanied by two members of Council, repaired, in April 1776, to Tanjore, to restore the Rajah to power; and on the 11th of that month his restoration was proclaimed. This being effected, the Rajah, at the instigation of the President, requested Company's troops for the protection of the whole country; and assigned for their maintenance four lacs of pagodas a year. For his conduct in this affair Lord Pigot obtained an unanimous vote of approbation from the Council on his return to Madras; but causes of hatred and dissension soon arose.

Mr. Paul Benfield, one of the Company's civil servants, and a favourite agent of the Nuwaub, pretended to have assignments to a vast amount on the revenues of Tanjore, as well as on the present crop, for money lent to individuals. As, however, his salary was trifling, it was suspected, and justly, that he was nothing more than an instrument of the Nuwaub, who thus aimed at defrauding the Company and the Rajah. The minute details of this transaction would be neither instructive nor amusing; it will be sufficient to observe, that, although the whole Council must have perceived the vile nature of the business, a majority of them took advantage of it to vent the rage they had long harboured against their President. This same majority defeated the attempt of Lord Pigot to establish a factory at Tanjore; and, when he afterwards proposed that Mr. Russel should be appointed Resident at that place, they, at first, consented, but immediately after selected Colonel Stuart as a person better suited to their views. The contest between the Council and the Governor thus begun, nothing seemed capable of long restraining either party within the bounds of moderation: the Governor contended that the Council was not competent to perform acts of Government without his concurrence, and as he was determined to withhold this, the majority appeared to be under the necessity of submitting. But they maintained their ground, and came to the resolution that the President's concurrence was not necessary. The dispute now assumed a more serious character; Lord Pigot charged two members of Council with having been guilty of an attempt to subvert the authority of Government, and to introduce anarchy. These two members being thus incapacitated

by this charge from voting in the Council, Lord Pigot possessed a majority; but his opponents, far from submitting to his authority, published a protest, and had it conveyed to all the civil and military officers of the Presidency. Upon this, Lord Pigot ordered Sir Robert Fletcher, the commanding officer, to be arrested, and tried by a court martial. The other party proceeded to equal violence. Declaring themselves the legal Council, they appointed Colonel Stuart (Sir R. Fletcher being ill) to the command of the army, and directed him to arrest the person of the President; which he did as he was proceeding with his Lordship in his own carriage to sup at his house. It is suspected that both parties were actuated on this occasion by motives which neither ever ventured to disclose; and posterity must be content to infer, from their mutual accusations, that both were base and odious.

In England, notwithstanding a strong party in the Direction which defended the conduct of the rebellious Council, these transactions excited universal indignation. Very different opinions were entertained of the actors in these scenes in the India House and in Parliament; but the result was, that, by the influence of the Ministers, Lord Pigot was directed to be restored to his office, and immediately thereafter to deliver over the Government to his successor, and return to England. The opposition members of Council were recalled, and the military officers engaged in the transactions ordered to be tried by courts' martial. The new Governor was Sir Thomas Rumbold; John Whitehill second in Council; and the commander of the forces was Sir Hector Munro. But, before these regulations reached India, Lord Pigot died, after a confinement of eight months; four of his opponents, the refractory members of Council, who had returned to England, were prosecuted at law at the instance of Admiral Pigot, and, being found guilty of a misdemeanour, were fined a thousand pounds each.

Sir Thomas Rumbold entered upon office in February 1778; and in the following month represented in Council the necessity of suspending the Committee of Circuit, which had been appointed to inquire into the state of the Northern Circars. He suggested that whatever information was needed, could be obtained from the Zemindars, who might be ordered to repair to the seat of Government, where the schedule of rent might also be settled. To this the Council agreed. It was in vain that the Zemindars represented that this course of proceeding would ruin them; that they were far too poor to undertake long and expensive journeys; and that their absence would create infinite confusion and disorder in the country. The Governor and Council were deaf to these remonstrances, and adhered to their original intention.

The new Governor, a man of more activity than principle, soon distinguished himself by his arbitrary and tyrannical conduct towards the Zemindars, and more particularly towards Vizeram

Râz, Rajah of Vizinagaram. His conduct to this prince, an effeminate but peaceful man, and apparently an honest slave of the Company, was marked by more cruelty and injustice than was altogether agreeable to his honourable masters, who sharply reprehended him in their letters. But, in addition to tyrannical practices, several members of the Madras Government were found guilty of bribery and corruption; and moreover the private secretary of the President was discovered to be deeply implicated. Nay, the Governor himself was accused of having appropriated to himself the revenue of the Company, or, at least, of having acquired immense riches by unlawful means. It was in fact proved that he had transmitted vast sums to Europe, after entering upon office, and no satisfactory account of the manner of obtaining them was ever given.

About this period the attention of the Presidency was drawn accidentally upon the Guntoor Circar. This district had formerly been granted in jaghire to Bazalut Jung, the brother of the Nizam, who was to hold it merely during the Nizam's pleasure. In 1774, the Governor received information that Bazalut Jung entertained in his service a body of French troops, under the command of General Lally. This appeared to the Presidency a matter of the utmost importance; and they immediately put all the engines of their policy to work to effect the removal of the French. Their machinations were attended on this occasion with complete success, and ended in inducing Bazalut Jung to throw himself under the protection of the English; and, at the same time, a Resident was appointed at the Court of the Nizam, to watch over his movements, and pry into his policy. It seems, however, not to have occurred to the Madras Government that, by dislodging the French from the Guntoor Circar, they might possibly produce a result which they would regard as still more dangerous; but this happened; for no sooner were M. Lally and his followers dismissed by Bazalut Jung, than they were received into the service of the Nizam. This Prince saw with uneasiness an English army under the authority of his brother, whose ambitious temper he dreaded; and would not allow that apprehension of Hyder Ali, the cause assigned for desiring it, was by any means a sufficient reason. But if he was offended at this transaction, what must have been his resentment when Mr. Holland, the British Resident at his Court, proposed the remission of the peshcush, (tax or tribute,) which the Company had agreed by treaty to pay into his Treasury for the Northern Circars! He informed the Resident, that as the English seemed determined to infringe the treaty, he must refer the settlement of their differences to the sword.

By order of his government, Mr. Holland transmitted an account of the actual state of affairs to the Supreme Council of Calcutta; which, after mature deliberation, condemned the conduct of the Madras Government and having written a pacificatory letter to the Nizam,

communicated their sentiments to the President and Council. These, conscious, as it would seem, of the impropriety of their proceedings, replied with angry recrimination, pointing out in the policy of the Bengal Presidency deviations from rectitude as glaring as those which they themselves had been guilty of. Both were guilty-and each acted justly in condemning the other. But the wickedness of the Bengal Government was no justification of the injustice of that of Madras. The latter had been guilty, in the present instance, of various acts of a reprensible nature; and, among other things, had taken the Guntoor Circar on lease from Bazalut Jung, and transferred it, on a lease of ten years, to the Nuwaub of Arcot, whose mode of government was highly displeasing to the Directors at home. But the Madras Government were soon cut short in their career: in 1781, the Court of Directors, after expressing the severest censure on the principal acts of their administration, dismissed from the Company's service, Sir Thomas Rumbold, president, and two members of council; two other members were deprived of their seat; and Sir Hector Munro, the commander of the forces, was likewise most vehemently censured.

SUNRISE IN WINTER.

SHALL we mount yon shivering hill,
Where the thin mists linger still,
And mark the hag, Night, creep away
Through the valleys cold and grey;
While her shadowy form beside,
Darkness veil'd, and Silence, glide;
And, in cloudy dimness dress'd,
Fears that make the soul their nest;
Dangers, horrors, panics dread,
Things that o'er her empire spread,
While their mystic influence
Fiery-mantled stars dispense !
But now, o'er yonder eastern height
Comes struggling up the feeble light;
Showing, through each slender rent
In the cloud-piled firmament,
Like the pale lamp's broken ray
That doth from Gothic abbey stray.
And now along the curtain'd sky
Th' eternal sun is borne on high;
But, like a dreaming God, he throws
A doubtful splendour from his brows,
And nods upon his car; while Day
Along the dim world wends her way,
Seeing less beauty on her path,
Than Night, in golden summer, hath!

EXAMINATION OF THE DEFENCE PUT FORTH BY THE

MISSIONARIES OF SERAMPORE.

A VERY angry letter has lately been addressed to the Editor of this work by one of the Serampore Missionaries, in reply to some remarks contained in an article that appeared in our Number for June 1825, "On the Inefficacy of the Means now in use for the Propagation of Christianity in India." This affords us an opportunity of clearing up a part of the subject which was before only slightly noticed. The letter presents itself in the form of a pamphlet printed in this country, and entitled a "Second Edition," implying, we presume, that this is a reprint from an original published in India, and is dated the 30th of January last. It is also prefaced with a long introduction, entitled "Reply of the Serampore Missionaries, to the Attack made on them in No. III. of the Oriental Magazine,'" which is dated November 26, 1824, or about a year earlier. But it may be well to premise that the original publication, which formed the main ground-work of what has since been written, both here and in India, as to the merits and success of the Serampore establishment, was a Letter of the Reverend William Adam, of Calcutta,' dated the 24th of December 1823. As this was published under the eyes of the Missionaries, (as well as subsequently both in England and America,) without its accuracy, in any material point, being ever called in question, its authority was necessarily considered of the highest kind. To detract somewhat from its weight, the Missionaries now reproach Mr. Adam with having embraced the doctrines of Unitarianism; but as his work has been reviewed by a clergyman of a different denomination, namely, the head of the Presbyterian church at Calcutta, who has strongly confirmed Mr. Adam's views, they cannot be supposed to arise from any improper bias on the doctrine of the Trinity. The opinions expressed in this work were founded on a careful perusal of both these publications; nothing being advanced which was not fully borne out by the statements of these two Reverend Gentlemen circulated on the spot where the facts were best known. As the Missionaries, though at hand to refute and contradict them, if they erred, had remained for many months in silent acquiescence, we certainly felt ourselves justified in placing considerable reliance on the general accuracy of statements so strongly authenticated. Nor are we yet aware that this confidence was at all misplaced. But if it shall appear that we were thus led into an error, the blame must fall upon the Missionaries themselves, who neglected so long to vindicate their character as men and Christians; not upon us, whose duty it was, as public writers, to give whatever additional publicity might be in our power to facts which, in India, were, apparently, Oriental Herald, Vol. 10,

K