tend to confirm the conviction of the prescience and wisdom of Marquess Wellesley, to show very clearly the unsoundness of the timid policy by which he was so often overruled. The great Marquess not only urged an exepdition in 1800; he fitted one out in 1801. This was diverted to Egypt. Shortly afterwards the Court of Directors, dreading the genius which would, if unfettered, have advanced the civilisation of India by twenty years, replaced him by a Governor-General who began by undoing the large work of unification which his predecessor had initiated. When Lord Cornwallis died, the Court of Directors, after vainly endeavouring to confer the Governor-Generalship on a narrow-minded reactionist—who, in the short term of his acting incumbency, confirmed and extended a system which left the states of Rájpútáná a prey to Maráthá freebooters,-imposed a policy upon Lord Minto which restricted his power for that kind of aggressive warfare which is so often the best and surest defence. high testimony to Lord Minto's intellect that in the end he burst those trammels, and forced one portion, at least, of the policy of Marquess Wellesley on a peaceloving Court of Directors and a distrusting ministry.

It is a

It was Lord Minto then who, taking up the dropped thread of the policy of Marquess Wellesley, wrested the Isle of France from her parent country. For France indeed, even her name, the name she had borne for about a hundred years, perished on the 3rd December 1810. Called by her discoverers, the Portuguese, Cerné;

re-named in 1598 by the Dutch after their Maurice of Nassau, Mauritius; falling, after her abandonment by the Dutch between 1703 and 1710, into the possession of the French, the island had been subsequently known to the world by the name she bore when the English captured her. But the name did not suit the new conqueror. It was erased, and that bestowed in honour of the great Stadtholder was substituted. The Isle of France vanished from history with the last month of the year 1810!

With her conquest, too, ended the careers of the privateers on the Indian seas. They, too, vanished with the island which had nurtured them. Thenceforward the huge Indiamen of the Company could sail in comparative safety. In the course of a few years not only did the dread of the French cruisers vanish, but their exploits came to be listened to with a smile. Not the less, however, are the deeds which they did accomplish worthy of being recorded. They show that if, in a future war, privateering should again be legitimatized, it may be possible for a nation whose navy shall have been annihilated and whose ports shall be blockaded, to inflict, by means of it, on a nation which may even bear the title of the mistress of the seas, losses the full extent of which it would be almost impossible to estimate.

BOOK I I I.

FOREIGN ADVENTURERS IN INDIA.

AFTER the failures of the direct attempts made by Dupleix, by Lally, and by Suffren to establish French domination in Southern India, there remained to the Latin race but one mode of counteracting the progress of the English. That mode may be described in a few words. To enable the princes of India to meet the English successfully in the field it was necessary above all things to impart to their troops a thorough knowledge of European discipline and a complete acquaintance with the system of European strategy. To this somewhat venturesome task the sons of France bent themselves with untiring energy. They gave to it often their lives, almost always their every faculty. They had much to aid them. The native princes who employed them knew at least that their

hatred of England was not feigned; that they had nothing so much at heart as the humiliation of the rival of their own country. They therefore gave them, almost always, a confidence without stint. Their behests were but rarely refused. They worked under the avowed sanction and with the authority of the prince whom they served. And if they did not succeed, their want of success is to be attributed rather to the jealousies which prevented combination amongst the native princes, than to any shortcomings on the part of the ablest and most influential amongst them.

Of all these adventurers de Boigne was, with one exception, the ablest and the most successful. Born at Chambéry, the 8th March, 1751, the son of a furrier, Benoit de Boigne was at an early age sent to study law at the College of his native town. But he had scarcely attained the age of seventeen when his adventurous nature impelled him to renounce his studies, and to seek excitement in a career of arms. In 1768, then, he entered the regiment of Clare, a regiment in the Irish Brigade in the service of France, and then commanded, in the absence of Lord Clare, by Colonel Leigh. De Boigne joined the regiment with the rank of ensign at Landrecies, and applied all the ardour of his youth to master the science of his profession. In this task he received great encouragement and assistance from Colonel Leigh, and, under his tuition, de Boigne attained a complete knowledge of the art of war as it was understood in those days.

After serving in garrison for three years and a half at Landrecies, the regiment of Clare was ordered to Dunkerque to embark for the Isle of France. The regiment, having taken its tour of duty in the island for eighteen months, returned to France, and, disembarking at L'Orient, was ordered to Béthune.

This happened in 1773. France was then at peace with all the world, and no prospect of war seemed to loom in the future. The promotion of de Boigne had been slow, and, beginning to feel disgusted with a life so monotonous and so devoid of enterprise, he asked himself if it would not be advisable to seek another scene for the occupation of the abilities he felt that he possessed. It chanced that Russia was then at war with Turkey. The Russian Government was in the habit in those days of welcoming eagerly instructed officers into the ranks of its army. De Boigne resolved, then, to resign his commission in the French service and to offer himself to her northern ally.

His resignation was accepted, and de Boigne went to Turin. Obtaining there letters of introduction to Count Orloff, who commanded the Russian land and sea forces in the Grecian Archipelago, he returned to Marseilles and embarked on board the first ship sailing thence for Greece. Almost immediately on his arrival there he was appointed captain in a Greek regiment in the service of the Empress Catherine. This regiment formed a part of the army employed in besieging the island of Tenedos. A detachment of it, to which