turn home, where his measures regarding Vizier Ali met with the entire approval of the British Government and the Court of Directors. The Marquis Wellesley (then Lord Mornington) arrived in India in May, 1798, and his attention was immediately occupied by the threatening aspect of affairs on the side of Mysore. Three weeks after reaching Calcutta, he received the intelligence that Tippoo had solicited the aid of the French in a contemplated scheme to overthrow the British power in the East.

It was in such times that Vizier Ali, who, during his short reign as sovereign of Oude, had betrayed a disposition sufficiently restless, found himself reduced to a comparatively private condition at Benares, and under the surveillance, if not the coercion, of the British authorities. The house or palace allotted for his residence was situated in an extensive inclosure, which went by the name of Mahdoo Doss's Garden, on the outskirts of the city of Benares. He never issued out thence without being attended by a numerous armed train of adherents from Lucnow, and entertained as many more on the footing of guards as he thought proper. In addition to this, the ket

tle-drum or nackára, a mark of high rank, was always carried before him when he went from home.

The two chief civil authorities at Benares were Mr. Cherry, the political agent of the governor-general, and Mr. Davis, judge and magistrate of the district and city court. The natural disposition of Vizier Ali, joined to his peculiar position, rendered him little inclined to cultivate an acquaintance with the British inhabitants of Benares; but the peculiar functions of Mr. Cherry, as the agent of the supreme government in relation to that individual, rendered some personal intercourse and an interchange of visits indispensable. With this exception, the deposed nawaub held no communication with a single European.

Unhappily for Mr. Cherry, he was little disposed to entertain any suspicions of sinister designs on the part of his charge, or to apprehend that Vizier Ali was at all likely to abuse that indulgence which permitted him to be surrounded with the retinue and the forms of an independent prince. Recent disasters in the East (since so well retrieved by the disciplined valour of our troops) have exemplified the fatal

results of a similar confidence on the part of a great public functionary, who unhappily paid but too dearly for miscalculating the depths of Asiatic treachery.

6

Opportunities had occurred to Mr. Davis, as head of the civil government of Benares, to become cognizant of the suspicious conduct and disposition of Vizier Ali. He had warned Mr. Cherry, as well as the supreme government at Calcutta, of the consequences that might be anticipated. One measure of precaution,' he observed, 'might be to remove from the city and district all the Mahomedans whose high rank and ample incomes may be supposed to inspire them with ambitious views, and who might possibly be induced to throw their weight into the scale of insurrection.' It was hardly necessary (he added) to observe that he alluded in particular to Mahomedan pensioners, for whom the city of Benares, situated on the frontier, and dedicated to Hindoo religion, seemed, of all places in the Company's provinces, the least fitted as a residence.

In fact, should a struggle with the government take place, there were many persons in different parts of the district whose attachment

to the British interests was not such as would prevent their joining the side that possessed any chance of being successful, especially were money to be readily distributed. I should be sorry,' observed the judge of Benares, in his letters to Calcutta, to find that any observations of mine had tended to lessen the accommodations and indulgences afforded by government to the parties in question; though, at the same time, I cannot refrain from avowing my hearty wish that those accommodations and indulgences were afforded to them in some other place than Benares; or at least that their armed followers were reduced, and their cannon and other warlike implements deposited among the military apparatus of government.'

It could never have appeared to the native inhabitants that Vizier Ali resided at Benares in a private capacity. The external marks of high rank which he always exhibited, the maintenance of guards, horse and foot, in his own pay, without control or limitation, joined to the demeanour of defiance displayed by himself and attendants to the civil power on every possible occasion, were circumstances which served not only to cherish views of indepen

dence in himself, but to impress others with the probability of his acquiring it. They were, moreover, calculated to induce certain persons of rank residing within the British provinces, but disaffected to the government, more readily to enter into his views of re-establishment in the dominion of Oude; an object which subsequent occurrences proved he never had relinquished. He had sent a vackeel (or envoy) to Zemaun Shah, he possessed an active agent at Calcutta, and was, besides, in correspondence with persons devoted to his interest in different parts of Bengal.

It also appeared that he had looked forward to the much talked of invasion of India by the Afghans, under Zemaun Shah, as a favourable opportunity for manifesting his designs, and had engaged some of the principal people of Benares to afford him assistance whenever he should attempt open insurrection. Though these intrigues were carried on with considerable diligence and success by Vizier Ali and the two companions of his youthful follies and vices, by name Izzut Ali and Waris Ali, there can be no doubt that the ultimate execution of their project was to depend on the expected