men were impressed with so high an idea of the merits of Mr. Hastings, upon whose powerful aid and local experi ence they depended to give efficacy to their exertions in the public service, that fir John Clavering with the approbation of his co-adjutors, had actually addressed the king, previous to their departure from England, to bestow upon the governor some diftinguished mark of his royal favor, with a view to induce him to relinquish the intention which he was supposed to entertain of resigning the government.

On the arrival of the new counsellors in India, in the autumn of 1774, their astonishment was great to find the whole system and policy of Mr. Hastings diametrically contrary to their pre-conceived ideas of his character. His manners also were marked by a coldness and hauteur, wholly incompatible with the cordiality of friendship; and they had the chagrin to perceive, that they were regarded by him not as associates in the great and necessary work of reform, but in the odious light of detectors, spies, and rivals. The project so universally and justly execrated in England, of setting up the lands of the Zemindars, Polygars, &c. to public auction, appeared, from the imme diate and unqualified adoption of this odious system by the new governor, to be the favorite policy of Mr. Haftings himself. In the space of about 200 years, during which the kingdom of Bengal and its appendages had been under the Mahomedan government, the original ground rents or heriots, auffil jumma, of the Zemindars, and other great hereditary landholders who held under the government, had never been raised; and a permanent interest being thus created in the land, the Talookdars, Polygars, and Ryots, who poffefsed the fubordinate rights of property under the Zemindars, were neither themselves oppressed, nor allowed to oppress the actual occupants and cultivators of the foil. But from the fatal period that Bengal fell into the hands of the English, the security

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the security of property was no more*. After being fubject for a fucceffion of years to every depredation and invafion, Mr. Hastings, amongst the first acts of his government, instituted a COMMITTEE OF CIRCUIT, invested with the transcendent power to dispose of all the lands in the kingdom, from the highest Zemindar down to the lowest Ryot, by public auction, or farm for the term of five years. The pretext for this enormous outrage was the decay of the public revenue, of which, in confequence of this measure, Mr. Hastings had the courage to promise the court of directors an immediate and progreffive augmentation; acknowledging nevertheless, the country at the same time to be in a very languishing state, and that the population had decreased in the proportion of ONE THIRD fince the grant of the Dewannee from the Emperor. The most dreadful confufion, as might well be imagined, instantly ensued; and Mr. Hastings, in his minute of April 1773, confeffes, " that the expected improvement had not taken place, being obstructed by a circumftance which COULD NOT BE FORESEEN, viz. the farmers having engaged for a higher revenue than their diftricts could afford. It is true, says he, that the lands were almost all over-bid for; and many let to indigent and defperate adventurers; but this was UNAVOIDABLE IN SUCH A MODE." But this consequence being confeff edly unavoidable, candor would degenerate into folly, to credit the declaration that it was not foreseen. The defiçiency ciency in the revenue was in fact enormous, falling, in five years, no less than two millions and a half short of the fettlement. But the subsequent conduct of Mr. Haftings furnished the most fatisfactory clue to this business. The lands being on all hands admitted to be partially overrated, the governor and council were of course called upon to exercise a difcretionary power of remiffion. This opened an immenfe field of fraud and peculation, and could not fail to prove to individuals in certain fituations an exhaustless source of wealth. The court of directors declared themselves, in the sequel, " fully aware of the duplicity which had been practifed in the letting of the lands in Bengal; that flagrant corruption and great oppreffions had been committed;" and they ordered a profecution to be commenced against the persons who compofed the committee of circuit. But after long and studied delays, Mr Hastings ultimately proposed, and carried his propofition in council, " that orders should be given for withdrawing the faid profecution." It is worthy of remark, that the banyan or black steward of Mr. Hastings, Cantoo Baboo, rented, under the new tenure, lands to the value of 150,000l. per annum; and remiffions to a very great amount were granted to this man, as well as to all those whose reasons appeared to the governor and council equally valid. The Zemindary of Baharbund, taken from the Rannee of Radshi, was also given in perpetuity to Cantoo Baboo, at a rent of 82,000 rupees, although the value of it was rated at 350,000. The fame Cantoo Baboo was also permitted to contract largely for the provision of the company's investments; " but this," the court of directors, in their general letter of December, 1776, say, " we pofitively forbid in future." The astonishment into which fir John Clavering and his colleagues were thrown, on being apprized of this extraordinary state of things in Bengal, was much increased by the alarming information of a war, into which the governor general had recently enter

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ed, in conjunction with the Vizier Sujah ul Dowla, nabob of Oude, for the absolute conquest and EXTIRPATIon of the nation of the Rohillas, inhabiting the fertile and beautiful province of Rohilcund, fituated to the northward of the dominions of the Vizier, and bounded by the high range of mountains dividing Hindoftan from Tartary. It was not pretended by Mr. Hastings, that the company had received any injury whatever from the Rohilla nation; but that we engaged in the war folely as allies of the Nabob Vizier. The causes or pretexts of the quarrel, with refpect to the Vizier himself, were of a nature palpably unreasonable and unjust. The Rohilla nation, being involved in hoftilities with the Mahrattas, had applied to the Vizier for assistance, who agreed to furnish them with a large body of troops for an equivalent in money. But, through the dilatory, or perhaps infidious, policy of the Vizier, the auxiliary troops did not arrive till the enemy were repulfed. The Rohilla government, therefore, objected, to the payment of the promised stipend; on which the Vizier, with the previous and eager concurrence of Mr. Hastings, determined to declare war against the Rohillas*, a brave, free, and generous people, for the purpose of adding so defirable a territory to his dominions. The Rohillas, in the highest degree alarmed at this confederacy, offered to submit the whole cause of dispute to the arbitration of the English; but this was peremptorily refused by Mr. Hastings, who urged the Vizier, already wavering in his purpose, in strong terms to the execution of his design, declaring to him, " that it would be absolutely necessary to persevere in it until it should

should be accomplished; and that he could not hazard or answer for the displeasure of the company, if they should find themselves engaged in a fruitless war, or in a ruinous expence for profecuting it." This apprehenfion was founded on very reasonable grounds; for the court of directors, in their instructions to the fupreme council, had laid it down as an unalterable maxim, " that they were to avoid taking part in the political schemes of any of the country princes, particularly of the nabob of Oude, of whose ambitious disposition they were well apprized." A considerable body of troops under colonel Champion, being detached to the aid of the Vizier, entered the province of Rohilcund, and a pitched battle took place, in which Hafiz Rhamel, the principal leader of the Rohillas, and many other of their chieftains were flain. The whole country, described as " a garden not having one spot in it of uncultivated ground," was, in consequence of this victory, converted into a frightful waste, and in a great measure depopulated, either by the rigors of military execution, or by forcing the wretched inhabitants beyond the mountains, to wander and perish in the Tartarian deserts. For this service, the Vizier had agreed to pay into the treasury of Calcutta the sum of forty lacks of rupees; and Mr. Hastings, in vindication of his conduct, alleged, and in his fubfequent memorable PARLIAMENTARY DEFENCE entered upon record, the following very extraordinary reasons: " The acquisition of this fum to the company, and of so much specie added to the exhaufted currency of our provinces, that it would give wealth to the nabob of Oude, of which we should participate; that he should be always ready to profess, that he did reckon the probable acquifition of wealth among his reasons for taking up arms against his neighbours; that it would ease the company of a confiderable part of their military expence, and preserve their troops from inactivity and relaxation of discipline; that the Rohillas are not a nation, but a body of foreign adventurers, who

had