that advice which

caused to the British

mer

cantile community those losses which, I have already stated, were to be counted by millions. When, ten years later, convinced against his will, Lord Minto, following in the lines of the great Marquess, carried out his views, the capture of the islands was found to be an operation comparatively easy, effected with but little bloodshed, and with a force which, large in comparison with the number of the defenders, was yet considerably smaller than the authorities both in England and in India had deemed necessary. The second Book, which professes to tell the story of the most famous of the privateers, fitly concludes then with the account of the successful expedition against the islands which were their home. From a national point of view the results are not dissimilar to those arrived at in the first Book. We see evidences of the same gallantry on the part of individual Frenchmen, and yet a conclusion favourable to England.

In the third Book I have endeavoured to give some detail of the careers of those foreign adventurers who disciplined and trained the armies which contested India with England at Aligarh, at Dehli, at Laswárí,

at Assaye, and at Argaum. There can be no question that in the last quarter of the last century there was in India scarcely any limit to the ambitious aspirations of an European adventurer who might possess even ordinary ability. When we see how men like Thomas and Perron, both originally common sailors, both devoid of abilities of the first-class, rose to the front rank; how one became the independent ruler of a principality, and the other governed, for Sindia, a portion of India comprehending roughly the country now known as the North-west Provinces; we gather an idea of the relative practical character of the European and the Asiatic at that epoch. But the sketches of the lives of these adventurers are not less interesting from another point of view. They give a remarkable insight into the mode of administration peculiar to the natives. of Hindostan. Reading them, we can form some idea of the condition to which the whole of India would have been reduced, had Lake been beaten at Laswárí and Wellesley at Assaye. We can see how intrigue ruled supreme; how moral character went for nothing; how audacity, recklessness, corruption, always triumphed; how combined in one man, they were irresistible. The sense entertained by the

natives themselves of the condition of life and property at that period is clearly shown in the proverb which has survived in some parts to the present day; "The buffalo is to the man who "wields the bludgeon." In my humble opinion, formed after a service in India of thirty-five years, during which I have mixed freely and on the most intimate terms with the natives, the seventy odd years which have intervened between the battle of Laswárí and the present day have wrought no considerable change in the general character of the people. Not that amongst them there have not been, and are not, men of the highest moral character; whose friendship is an honour, who know what is right and who act up to their knowledge. But these men form an inconsiderable minority. In a time of confusion they would be swept away. The love of intrigue still survives, and I write my own personal experience when I state that in the present decade, as much as in any that preceded it, intrigue uses falsehood and slander to move from high places men who strive earnestly and with all their power to eradicate those blots in the native character which were the curse of past generations.

In the last pages of this third Book I have endeavoured to show how in consequence of these vices it was inevitable that India should fall under the domination of a foreign master, and how the course of events caused that foreign master to be, British. No one can deny that, however dimly the ultimate consequences may at the time have been foreseen by our countrymen, we fought for the position which we now occupy. It was with design that we crushed the hopes of the French; with design that we conquered Bengal; with design that we subdued Tippú; with with design that in 1802-3 we contested Hindostan with Sindia and Holkar. Then, apparently for the first time, alarmed at the empire at our feet, we attempted to hold our hand. We withdrew from the princes of Rájpútáná the protection which Marquess Wellesley had promised them. What was the consequence? Thirteen years of oppression, of tyranny, of misgovernment in its worst form in central and in western India; the licensed atrocities of Amir Khan, the robberies of the Pindáris, dire spoliation by Maráthá chieftains and their followers. In spite of ourselves we had again to step in. With the defeat and deposition

of the Péshwa, the overthrow of the Maráthás and Pindáris, the Marquis of Hastings closed a campaign, which restoring British protection to Rájpútáná, placed us formally on the pinnacle we now occupy. Thenceforward we were forced to go onwards. We annexed the Panjab, annexed Sind, and sucked in Sattárá, the dominions of the Bhonslá, and Oudh. Suddenly the overgrown army of mercenaries we had created, feeling its power, rose in revolt. Again did England designedly assert her supremacy. The mutiny crushed, we found ourselves face to face with a new order of things. Thenceforward there were to be no But the crushing of the mutiny

more annexations.

had been but a continuation of the policy of Clive, of Hastings, of Wellesley, of Hardinge, of Dalhousie— a continuation forced upon us, but still a continuation. We thus possess India by our own act; we took the responsibility upon ourselves, and we are morally bound by it. On whom else could we cast it, if we would? We would not make it over to any European power; we could not, without assuming the fearful responsibility of a terrible and inevitable future, resign it to a native prince! No-we have

gained it and we must keep it.

For my part