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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;
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ;'

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."

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Bombay had already in those days, it appears, acquired a notoriety for ship-burning :

"Last night, or rather this morning, about 2 o'clock, the I 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

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better. I feel, as in the days of my youth, that hunger and thirst after righteousness,' which long habits of infirmity, and the low concerns of the world, have contributed to extinguish." calls to our mind the beautiful lines of the great

This passage

Goethe:

"Was sucht ihr mächtig und gelind,

Ihr Himmelstöne, mich im Staube?

Klingt dort umher, wo weiche Menschen sind.

Die Botschaft hör ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube;

Zu jenen Sphären wag ich nicht zu streben,

Woher die holde Nachricht tönt ;

Und doch, an diesen Klang von Jugend auf gewöhnt,

Ruft er auch jezt zurück mich in das Leben.

Sonst stürzte sich des Himmels Liebe-kuss

Auf mich herab, in ernster Sabathstille;

Da klang so ahnungsvoll der Glockentöne Fülle,
Und ein Gebet war brünstiger Genuss;

Ein unbegreiflich holdes Sehnen

Trieb mich durch Wald and Wiesen hinzugehn,
Und under tausend heissen Thränen,

Fühlt' ich mir eine Welt entstehn.

Dies Lied verkündete der Jugend muntre Spiele,
Der Frühlingsfeier Glück;

Erinnrung hält mich nun, mit kindlichem Gefühle,
Vom letzten, ernsten Schritt zurück.

O tönet fort, ihr süssjen Himmelslieder!

Die Thräne quillt; die Erde hat mich wieder!"

On the 6th November 1811, Sir James Mackintosh quitted India. He had for some time past suffered from severe ill health. Here is the last entry in his journal:-" Day of departure.Last sun-rise view of the Ghauts, with their hill forts, &c. Last is a melancholy word!"

Yes; even in India !*

We owe a word of thanks to the editor of these volumes for the highly creditable manner in which he has acquitted himself. He writes comparatively little himself; though what he does write is both clever and very useful in connecting the parts of the story. He shows, with much real affection towards his father, an amount of discretion which is as sensible, as it is considerate and rare We trust that our brief notice will direct the attention of many of our readers to this excellent work.

There seems to be

The Indian career of Sir James Mackintosh will add nothing to his high and well won fame. The "lions" of the literary world find no resting place here. The Mackintoshes and Macaulays look down upon us, as well they may and we admire them very much, but are quite willing that they should stay at home. something unwholesomely exciting in the atmosphere of the higher intellectual circles of London, which unfits the mind for ordinary society, and for earnest practical work. We want men here, who think it nobler and more truly great to labour for the welfare of a hundred millious of Hindus, than to shine in the clubs, or even to write works of real genius, like the Vindicia Gallica, the History of England, or the Lays of Ancient Rome.-ED.

ART. VIII-1. History of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal
Army, by Captain Arthur Broome.
Thacker and Co. 1850.

Vol. I. Calcutta. W.

2. History of British India, by James Mill.

3. A Voyage to the East Indies, by Mr. Grose.

4. A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan, by Robert Orme, Esq., F. A. S.

5. The Life of Robert Lord Clive, Baron of Plassy, by Mr. Caraccioli.

6. Life of Lord Clive, by Major General Sir John Malcolm. 7. Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays.

8. Reports of the Select Committee of the House of Commons. 9. The Seir Mutakherin.

10. Ives's Voyage and Historical Narrative.

THERE is perhaps no task so difficult as that of having to blend together, and form into a connected narrative, a series of petty military actions, which, although highly important as a train of events all bearing upon one object, yet are in themselves apparently trivial and unimportant. The early history of our military exploits in India, as detailed in the pages of Orme, is a striking instance of the difficulty we allude to: and the History of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal Army, by Captain Broome, is only relieved from it by the skill with which the author has contrived to bring prominently forward such details, as are interesting even at the present day. The first volume of this history extends from the earliest period of our connection with India to the close of Lord Clive's second administration. It does little more than trace the progress of this now mighty kingdom from its infancy to the time when it first exhibited signs of its future power. It shows how our success in war has been generally owing to the triumph of discipline, skill, and energy, over the untrained and misdirected efforts of a brave, but inexperienced and unskilful, foe. It gives us many highly interesting details, which cannot be found in any other volume, but have been collected and condensed with a skill, patience, and perseverance, that are entitled to lasting praise. The military student of our early wars will here find the best and most connected narrative, that we have yet seen, of those transactions; and he will also find the authority for each fact or statement given with scrupulous fidelity.

Most of the works, to which Captain Broome has referred, are not procurable in Mofussil Stations in India; and even the best formed libraries are deficient in many of them. We have now before us an array of not less than fifty volumes, which we have collected for the purpose of reference; yet we have been unable to procure many works, to which we wished to refer in our examination of this work. Much of Captain Broome's information has been derived from the India House; and much labour and expence have been incurred by him in causing references to be made to the manuscripts existing there indeed, we are convinced, that no pains have been spared to render the book substantially correct. We could have wished that a more copious detail at the head of each chapter had been added, to aid in our notice of the book; and a simple reprint of the running title at the head of each page, if prefaced to each chapter, would have added much to the value of the work.

The first chapter closes with the oft-told tale of the fatal night of the Black Hole; and the second as appropriately concludes with the narrative of the early death of the sanguinary tyrant, who caused that massacre. It is only in Eastern climes, where vice and profligacy are as rapid in their growth and as gigantic in their evil consequences, as the rank vegetation in the jungles around, that a monster, like this, could have been so precociously matured in evil, as to perish with such universal execration at the early age of twenty years, after a reign of only fifteen months.

We pass over the few unimportant military records of the first chapter, observing merely that the charges on that head for the five years preceding the capture of Calcutta by Suraj-ud-dowlah scarcely averaged £20,000 a year! It was by sea, and not by land, that the Company, trading to the East Indies, first prominently signalized themselves, by fitting out (what was for those days) large and expensive fleets: and had they been as successful in securing good naval, as they afterwards were in securing military, commanders, their power might have been more early and successfully developed."

:

An ensign and thirty men were sanctioned in 1652 in Bengal, to do honour to the principal agents there and this small party was the nucleus of the present army at this Presidency. In 1653, this force had only increased to 250 men; although at that time a ship of war, mounting seventy-two guns, was employed in the Bay of Bengal to act against interlopers, who appeared to be the enemies then most dreaded by the Company. Aurungzebe, in 1685, was in the zenith of his

power and yet, so conscious were the Company of their strength, even at that early period, that they did not hesitate to commence hostilities against him, and to appeal to arms, when the Nawab of Dacca tried to impose, in Bengal, a duty of three anda half per cent., which was customarily levied at Surat, but had hitherto not been imposed in Bengal. On this occasion, a fleet of no less than ten ships, of from seventy to twelve guns each, was fitted out in England, and the command given to Captain Nicholson, with the rank of Admiral. The orders were, that the Company's ships then in the Bay of Bengal should join this fleet, which would increase its numbers by nine vessels and Chittagong was fixed upon as the place of debarkation and attack. Two hundred pieces of cannon were sent out to be placed on the works, which were ordered to be erected there:

As soon as Chittagong should be captured, and put in a state of proper defence, the troops and the smaller vessels were to proceed against Dacca, which, it was contemplated, would offer but little resistance; and, when masters of his capital, terms were to be offered to the Nawab on the following conditions: "That he should cede the city and territory of Chittagong to the Company, and pay the debts due by him; that he should allow rupees coined at Chittagong to pass current in the Province, and restore all privileges according to the ancient Phirmaunds—each party to bear their respective losses and expenses in the war. On these conditions alone, the Company would agree to re-settle the factories in Bengal.”—P. 13.

Unforeseen and disastrous circumstances frustrated these plans of conquest. Contrary winds and bad weather detained or destroyed portions of the fleet; and, instead of going to Chittagong, the remnant of the fleet, when it arrived at the mouth of the Hugly, in October 1686, was ordered up to the English factory, which had been built at Hugly. Four hundred European troops had been that year brought round from Madras to that place; and the Nawab Shaistah Khan, alarmed by all these demonstrations, assembled a considerable force, both of horse and foot, in the immediate neighbourhood. A bazar row, which took place between some of his men and some of the English soldiers, ended in a regular fight, in which the English killed sixty of the enemy, wounded many more, spiked eleven guns, and, with the assistance of Admiral Nicholson's fleet, burnt or destroyed upwards of 500 houses in the town of Hugly. No pillage was allowed by Mr. Charnock, for which lenient conduct he was reprimanded by the Court, who remarked that such a measure "would have convinced the natives of our power!" The claims of the Company upon the Nawab then amounted to sixty-six laks. One item was "for protecting Haggerston from justice, 45,000 rupees "---which

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