dominion that it should be encountered by so powerful a Mohammedan soldier as Hyder Ali. The territory of the Mahratta chieftain, Morari Row, was subjected by the virtual ruler of Mysore, together with several other large and important provinces. In 1764, however, Hyder received a severe check from the Peishwa, Madhoo Row, who compelled him to relinquish all the dominions he had wrested from Morari Row. But the martial spirit of Hyder Ali could be checked only for a time, and in 1766 the country of the Nairs—the military class of Malabar submitted to the arms of this enterprising warrior. His fortunes were once more in the ascendant, when he learned that the East India Company had entered into an alliance with his enemies, and that two British armies were advancing against his dominions. Undaunted by these combinations, Hyder Ali, in 1767, sent a force against Madras, which almost fell into his power; but in 1768 the English obtained so indisputable an ascendency that they even meditated the conquest of Mysore. Nevertheless, the energies of Hyder quickly reasserted themselves, and before the close of 1768 he had recovered all the districts which the allies had torn from his possession. The Carnatic was ravaged in 1769, and the English forces could do nothing to check the progress of the Mysorean commander. Again he penetrated to the neighbourhood of Madras, and imposed a treaty on the rulers of that Presidency. The price of East India Stock fell 60 per cent. in consequence of these disasters, and of the general condition of affairs in Bengal. Further contentions ensued with the Mahrattas, in which the advantage lay with the Hindoo Power. Hyder's frontier was pushed back towards the south, and, in retreating to his capital, Seringapatam, after being attacked by the Mahrattas near the hills of Chercoolee, the troops of the Mohammedan chieftain were seized with panic, and so completely routed that the Mahrattas might have captured Seringapatam itself, had they followed up their advantage.

The war continued for several years with varying success; but, on the whole, Hyder Ali maintained his authority, and recovered much that he had lost. In these contentions between the Mysorean and the Mahratta chieftains, the Supreme Council at Calcutta behaved with singular weakness and inconsistency. Its members were at issue with the Bombay Presidency on some important matters of policy, and the English power in India was threatened by the quarrels of antagonistic administrators. The Mahrattas, after being sup ported for a while, were ultimately abandoned,

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and in 1778 their forces inflicted a severe defeat upon a British In the following year, army. Hyder Ali entered into a vast confederation with several native Powers to expel the English from the whole of India. The united armies of the two Mahratta chieftains, Holkar and Scindia, set out towards Surat, where the forces of General Goddard were stationed; but the English commander proceeded by rapid marches against the enemy, surprised Scindia in his camp on the 3rd of April, 1780, and utterly discomfited his numerous array. Scindia and Holkar accordingly withdrew into their own dominions, and the territories of the Bombay Presidency were extended along the coast to a considerable distance. In another direction, some brilliant successes were obtained by Captain Popham, who expelled the Mahrattas from Gohud, and, forcing his way into their own territory, took the fortresses of Lahore and Gwalior by assault. These achievements restored the credit of the British arms; but the political anarchy in the several Presidencies grew worse than ever. Nabob of the Carnatic, Mohammed Ali-a man noted for his faithless and infamous character-was invested with special powers, as if his friendship were necessary to the British rule. But the Nabob was the ally rather of the Government at home, who sent out a Special Commissioner to Madras, than of the East India Company, whose influence it was sought to restrain and humiliate. The evils. of divided sway were not long in making themselves felt.

The

Hyder Ali would gladly have concluded an alliance with the English, but the latter procrastinated until the Mohammedan leader threw himself into the arms of the French. His indignation against the East India Company was now roused to the utmost; for not only had they neglected his advances, but, according to his contention, they had persistently evaded the treaty of 1769. He therefore entered into a correspondence with M. Bellecombe, the Governor of Pondicherry; and a formidable war soon broke out, in which Hyder had the benefit of French support. The Supreme Council of Calcutta, acting with unusual promptitude, took possession of all the French settlements, which yielded with little resistance, but were afterwards restored. In 1780, Hyder Ali marched a third time into the neighbourhood of Madras, and an army of 100,000 troops menaced the very existence of the English power in the Carnatic. The Madras Government acted with the weakness it had frequently exhibited since the days of Clive, and, after renewed English defeats, matters became so serious that the Governor-General of India, Warren

did not exceed seven thousand men, of whom less than two thousand were Europeans. The force, moreover, was badly provisioned and equipped, and Hyder adroitly managed to avoid a battle, in which even his large numbers might have been worsted by superior discipline and resolution. In the meanwhile, he overran and plundered a large extent of country, but at length, after gaining a slight advantage over General Coote, was defeated by that officer near Porto Novo, on the 1st of July, 1781. Still, the power of Hyder Ali was far from

was attended by great success. But in 1782 Hyder Ali received important assistance from the French commander, Lally, and the English sustained several reverses. Madras was devastated by a famine, and the enterprise of Hastings was checked by want of funds. In the previous year, under pretence of granting protection against the Nabob of Oude, the Governor-General had plundered the sacred city of Benares-a place remarkable for its accumulated wealth; and in 1782 the adjoining territory was appropriated by the

AMONG the changes in the course of Modern History that have most powerfully affected the progress of mankind, one of great moment is the rapid growth of the English race, with the broadest institutions of self-government, on the continent of North America. The latter half of the eighteenth century, down to the era of the French Revolution, beheld events which not only altered the political condition of that vast region, but kindled by example a democratic spirit in several nations of Europe. This movement, though its outbreak was immediately occasioned by particular disputes with the Government of George III., had long been preparing itself in the minds of the English colonists. It came naturally to the descendants of the Puritan settlers of the seventeenth century. The emigrants from the Eastern Counties of England a population having some mental, as well as ethnological, affinity with the Dutch-were more inclined to utilitarian views, and cherished less of romantic attachment to the historical traditions of the past, than those communities where the Celtic and Norman elements combine with other constituents of the national character. They were, moreover, by the origin of their religious doctrines and institutions,

brought much under Dutch influence; while the analytic and rationalising tendency of their theology, and the ecclesiastical Republicanism of the Independent Churches, favoured political ideas of an analogous type. The principles of pure Independency do not admit of any official authority, except that of ministers and deacons elected by the suffrages of qualified members of the congregation. In that age, the Puritan era--of which the effects continued longer in New England than in the old country, in the absence of any hereditary aristocracy among the colonists, while the monarchy was but faintly represented by Governors from a distant kingdom-the accustomed religious organisation gave its tone and form to the institutions of civil society. Thus it happened that the self-reliant English colonists of North America, including those of Virginia, Maryland, and New York, as well as the Puritans and Quakers, insensibly lost all active enthusiasm for the British Crown, together with that sentiment of devoted loyalty as its subjects which prevailed in Great Britain under the House of Hanover, as under the House of Stuart.

They had taken, however, from motives of self

A.D. 1763.]

interest, or from the instincts of a vigorous and progressive community, a share in the arduous conflict with the French for the possession of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys leading to the Mississippi, though in earlier years they had certainly been remiss in providing for the defence of the borders. Colonial militia volunteers, one of whose leaders was George Washington, had fought with valour, in 1754 and 1755, in the attacks on Fort Duquesne, while the inhabitants of Massachusetts had willingly borne no slight taxation for the costs of that war. At the peace of 1762, the British dominions in America were vastly extended. The whole of Canada, all the shores and islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with Acadie or Nova Scotia, the valley of the Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and several islands of the French West Indies, were added to the King's realm; but these acquisitions could not at the time bring any direct profit to the old colonies on the Atlantic coast. Meanwhile, Great Britain had incurred an additional debt of a hundred millions sterling; and her financial necessities were so pressing that the Government of George III., when George Grenville became Minister in 1763, conceived the unhappy project of taxing the American colonists by a British Act of Parliament.

This was not an entirely new conception. It had been proposed years before in the councils of the British Government, and had been rejected by Sir Robert Walpole, and indignantly denounced by the elder Pitt. The constitutional principles asserted by Hampden and Pym in the House of Commons, in the reign of Charles I., upon the ground of ancient English maxims and precedents, were generally admitted by Whigs and Tories alike; the common right of English citizens not to be taxed without an express vote of their own representative Legislature could not be denied. Each colonial province in America had its own House of Assembly, the powers of which, bestowed by a Royal Charter, were held to be indefeasible. It was considered by eminent lawyers and statesmen that the imposition of an internal taxation belonged of right exclusively to those provincial Legislatures; but that the Crown, under the authority of an Act of Parliament, made in England, might levy customs' duties on merchandise imported into the colonies. had, indeed, been practised through the agency of the Board of Trade and Plantations, in connec. tion with the Secretary of State who managed colonial affairs. No plausible argument could have been raised against moderate external taxation of this kind; but some of the party then in power, and others who at different times held office in

This

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those departments, were determined, as much as possible, to over-ride the authority of the Colonial Legislatures. They were piqued and vexed by the frequency of disputes, upon various petty occasions, between the Governors of their nomination, or the minor official agents of the Crown in America, and the representative Assemblies of the people. They desired, therefore, to wrest from the hands of the colonists, at least in part, the control over the sources of revenue for the maintenance of government in each province. It would not suffice to levy customs' duties, and apply them to the payment of the Governor's salary, and to the expense of a garrison of the King's troops. The internal and direct taxation must also be levied and appropriated by order of the Royal Government, so that the colonial opposition party should have no public funds at its disposal, and that all civil servants should look to the Crown for payment. Such was the Government policy; but Grenville made a fatal mistake in 1764, when he passed an Act for imposing stamp-duties, along with tariff-duties on foreign sugar, coffee, wine, silk, and other commodities. The effect of the latter, with the prohibitory restrictions by which they were accompanied, was to deprive Boston and other seaports of their trade with the Spanish and French West Indies; while the vexatious manner in which these regulations were enforced by the Admiralty Courts excited much discontent among the English colonists. They were easily led, therefore, to protest in general against all taxation enacted for them by the Parliament of Great Britain. Without here discussing the arguments upon this question, it cannot be denied that the ground taken by the Ministerial party in England was untenable. Its motives were insidious, and the domineering attitude of Grenville and his supporters could not but arouse feelings of resentment and alarm. The colonies had recently been treated, in many personal and local instances, with much harshness by the Governors and other agents of the Crown.

An organised resistance, sustained by resolutions of all the provincial Houses of Assembly, was set on foot in the year 1765. Its most prominent leaders were, in Massachusetts, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and James Otis, who entertained strong Republican sentiments; in Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin, a self-taught man of science, printer, tradesman, politician, and philosopher; in New York, a judge of good repute, Robert Livingstone; and, in Virginia, the eloquent Patrick Henry. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and many other champions of American liberties, soon afterwards came to the front. The Stamp