How constantly Mackintosh's thoughts were turned towards home, the many allusions in his journal to the delights he experienced on the receipt of letters and newspapers may testify. Unlike the most of those, who come out to this country, he never abated in his private correspondence, or looked with an eye of indifference on a ship entering the harbour. "His heart was in the Hielands" always. It is not infrequent in his diary to find some elaborate criticism on history or literature come to an abrupt halt-for the Bussora Packet had just been signalled. Away with all previous speculations! His whole attention was given to the welcome announcement. The news of an Indian victory gave him not half the excitement, that the intelligence of a reverse to our arms in Europe caused. In writing to his friend Sharp, he says:-" I shall therefore hope that no overland dispatch will reach Bombay, during my residence here, without a little billet, and no English ship will enter the harbour without a voluminous epistle from you. If you can prevail on all our friends to take compassion on me, and to write to me with the same, or with nearly the same regularity, you will deprive exile of half its bitterness.-As to my answers, you do not need charity; and what I have to give would not be relief, if you did. Indian topics are very uninteresting in England-not to mention that I am in the most obscure corner of India; but nothing English is trifling, or little, or dull in our eyes at present. I should be very glad to have written to me the refuse of Debrett's (the publisher) shop, or even Dr.'s account of Ptolemy Philopater. Forget me not-forget me not!' On another occasion he remarks:-" One great break in the importunity of our life arises from the packets from Bussorah, with the overland dispatches, which usually arrive every month or six weeks. I need not say how great an event, the arrival of the Europe ships (as we call the Indiamen) is to us." The picture is true even to the present day. The excitement is, perhaps, even greater, in consequence of the expectation being more regular. All classes know when the "ág-boat" may be looked for: though the (generally speaking) tortoisepaced and wretchedly equipped Steamers of the Indian Navy keep up, by their irregularity, a fever of disappointment. The following extracts furnish amusing examples of his impatience." At five, news are brought that the "Exeter," is coming in. I went to the new Bunder (the Pelawa, or Apollo, probably), and I saw her just round the Light House. No letters or papers came till a little after ten. I could not sleep. I got up at half-past one, walked about the verandah, and read some packets sent at mid-night by the Governor. 4th April. In daily, and almost hourly, expectation of the "Cumbrian :" but as Madam de Staël says, "La carosse de Caen n'en arriva pas plutôt. 12th.-Seven months from the date of the last London news. A pause of unexampled length. 1st May. Mr. Cumbrian! you may go, and be hanged. Your month is out. My rounds and sirloins are, I fear, ruined. I now transfer my solicitude to the China ships, whch may arrive in this month, and must arrive in six or seven weeks. 10th. -Finished my Report on Police, which is only seventy folio. pages. No " Cumbrian." 2nd June.-A Yankee arrived at Calcutta; saw "La Nymphe," a French Frigate, on January 7th, in 50 N. and 19° W. This Nymph has, therefore, I fear, seized our Cumbrian"-the time and place agree too well." Sir James made several excursions into the interior of India, as well as two voyages down the coast. Of the latter, the first was a visit to Goa. He was much struck with the scenery around that ancient colony. The picturesque dwellings of the Portuguese fidalgos reminded him of the continent, could but the molten sky of India have been hidden from view. He says: Colonel Adams agreed with me, that, if we were to exclude the mountainous background, we might have fancied ourselves rowing along the Scheldt, from the appearance of the houses, and the richness of the plain immediately adjoining to us on the right." The Lilliputian character of the Government of Goa amused our hero not a little, and the fact of there being two palaces, a viceroy, an archbishop, and a chancellor, while at Bombay, where we have an army of 25,000 men, we content ourselves with a governor, a recorder, and a senior chaplain." But the elegance of the churches made ample amends for all. The Franciscan Monastery and the church of Cajetan transported the historian back into the days of St. Francis Xavier, Vasco de Gama, and the band of adventurous spirits, who first doubled the Cape. Sir James visited the convent, and the library in the Augustine Monastery. From Goa, he proceeded to Tellichery, and thence on to Madras, where he made an interesting visit. In a few words, he thus graphically sketches this portion of his tour: "I accordingly left Lady M. and went in my palankeen through the awfully grand forests and mountains of Malabar and Coorg (which, if they were within reach of picturesque travellers, would be classed with Switzerland), to Mysore, near Seringapatam. Emboldened by my success, I ventured, after some days' repose, to run down to Madras. I passed six days there, and seven, going and returning, in Mysore, and was back again at the ship, exactly a month after I had left the coast of Malabar, having travelled over about a thousand miles. The exterior of Madras is very striking. I doubt whether there be any town in Europe, north of the Alps, which can boast such a diffusion of architectural elegance. There are probably no three kingdoms, which differ more in every respect, than the three provinces of Malabar, Mysore, and the Carnatic, over which I ran. Malabar is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, inhabited by fierce and high spirited mountaineers. Mysore is a high and naked region, peopled by a martial, but industrious, race of husbandmen. The Carnatic is a boundless plain of sand, covered with the monuments of ancient cultiva tion and civilization, and still successfully cultivated by polished and ingenious slaves. All this variety of objects, natural and moral, amused me much; and I cannot say whether, even at Paris, I crowded more life into a month, than I did during this excursion." It was not only in the establishment of a library at Bombay, that Sir James led the public of that Presidency. He was foremost in all good works; he was ever the first to head a subscription list, or wield his eloquent pen in the sake of misfortune. None of our readers, who have visited Bombay, can fail to have been struck with a marble monument to the memory of Captain Hardinge of the Royal Navy, erected in the Cathedral of that town. The following letter to the Editor of the Bombay Courier will explain its origin, as well as illustrate our remarks. 66 Sir,-Yielding to the first impulse of those feelings, with which the heroic death of Captain Hardinge has filled my mind, I take the liberty of proposing to the British inhabitants of this residency a subscription for erecting a monument to his memory in the Church of Bombay. A grateful nation will doubtless place this monument by the side of that of Nelson. But the memorials of heroic virtue cannot be too much multiplied. Captain Hardinge fell for Britain; but he may more especially be said to have fallen for British India. 66 I should be ashamed of presuming to suggest any reason for such a measure. They will abundantly occur to the lovers. of their country. Nor can I at present bring my mind to consider any details of execution. If the measure in general be approved, such details can easily be arranged. "I am your's, &c. "JAMES MACKINTOSH." Sir James' goodness of heart may be further seen in his care for a young stranger, whom he judged of only from his poems. In a letter to Mr. Sharp he thus writes: I see a volume of poems, published by Henry Kirke White of Nottingham, which are called by one of the Reviews extraordinary productions of genius. They are published, it seems, to enable the author, a lad of seventeen, to pursue and complete his studies. I particularly request that you will read the volume, and that, if you find it deserves but some part of the praise bestowed upon it, you will enquire into the circumstances of the author, and give him for me such assistance, as you think he may need, and as I ought to give. If you think the young poet deserve it, you can procure the contribution of others. You can scarcely, indeed, have a poorer contributor than I am, as you know very well; but nobody will give his mite more cheerfully." We have not before spoken of Mackintosh on the bench: "12th May, 1810.-Day of my adjourned sessions. Charged the grand jury with more than usual solemnity, and informed them, that after near six years, in which I had the happiness of never once inflicting capital punishment, the present state of the calendar seemed to announce, that I must now show my regard to human life in another manner. The calendar contained four charges of murder. The fourth was a most difficult case. It was that of an Irish artillery-man, who, having wrested an officer's sword from his horse-keeper, ran two or three miles on the road with it, and at last killed a poor old, unarmed and unoffending sepoy of police. It had not a single circumstance, which could be considered as a mitigation: but the man was mortally drunk. To admit this as a defence, or even to allow it publicly as a mitigation, seems extremely dangerous. But as the example of punishment does not influence a man who is drunk, any more than one who is mad, it is plain, that to hang a man for what he does in such circumstances is to make drunkenness, when followed by an accidental consequence, a capital offence. The execution will not deter drunkards from murder; it only deters men, who are sober, from drunkenness.. ...After much consideration, I determined to pronounce sentence of death on the 'murderer,' or 'killer;' and, after letting the terror of it hang for some time over his head, either to respite him till the King's pleasure be known, or to commute the punishment into transportation. sentence of death will be found in the newspapers. It was the first time that I had worn my condemnation cap, and I was considerably affected. I, however, contained my feelings; and, in the midst of humanity, did not, I hope, lose the proper firmness and dignity." The On the occasion of Sir James' last session, a complimentary address was presented to him by the grand jury, in which they requested he should sit for his picture, to be placed in the hall where he had so long presided with such distinguished ability." The following refers to the death of the amiable and benevolent Governor, Jonathan Duncan. "11th August, 1811.-After a wakeful and uneasy night, I saw from the verandah, about half-past seven the flag half-mast high, and about a quarter to eight, I received a note from Dr. Inverarity, with the information, that Jonathan Duncan. breathed his last about seven, having remained insensible since Daw saw him yesterday forenoon. 'On some fond breast the parting soul relies; But no such solace or tribute attended his forlorn death. I wish that I were once more with my family. I shudder at the thought of my dying eyes' closed by foreign hands'...... Went to the Government House a little after three, to attend the funeral. On going up stairs, I found the coffin in the middle of the upper hall. The remains of poor Jonathan Duncan were deposited in a grave within the pale of the altar, on the right hand going up to it, immediately under the monument of General Carnac.' Bombay had already in those days, it appears, acquired a notoriety for ship-burning : 66 Last night, or rather this morning, about 2 o'clock, the 'Camden' took fire in the harbour, and is totally consumed. She was one of the Bombay and China ships, had just completed her lading, and was about to sail on Sunday or Monday..... We dined last night at the Rickards's. They had both been up all night, observing the unusual and awful phenomena of the Camden' drifting from her moorings to the Mahratta shore, moving ten miles across the harbour, like a mass of flame. At 10 o'clock last night (twenty hours after the ship took fire), the flame was still visible on the opposite coast." We conclude with an extract, which lets us into a higher mood of his mind :-" I have just glanced over Jeremy Taylor on the Beatitudes. The selection is made in the most sublime spirit of virtue. To their transcendant excellence I can find no words to express my admiration and reverence. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' 'Put on my beloved, as the elect of God, bowels of mercy.' At last the divine speaker rises to the summit of moral sublimity! Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness's sake. For a moment, O blessed teacher, I taste the unspeakable delight of feeling myself to be |