}

likeable, neither esteemed nor estimable. But others there are, who, without any deficiency, yea with a superabundance, of the characteristic qualities of youth, require only to have responsibility laid upon them, in order to call forth the faculties and powers which in others are only developed by time and experience; and these men often retain the freshness and the vigor of youth until a good old age. These are the men, who are fittest for the work of this world in whatsoever of its departments. Those who know how to appreciate men make much of such when they find them. Blessed is the governor who has his quiver full of such.

And such an one was Malcolm, and such ones were many of those whom Lord Mornington gathered around him in Calcutta. He knew how to appreciate them. He made much of them, in a judicious and manly way-and these fine young hearts beat joyously at the sound of his voice; and very gladly would they have poured out their life-blood for their noble chief.

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Doubtless Malcolm at this time was very happy. Nor less so, when the governor-general announced to him that he was to accompany himself to the Madras presidency, and take such part as might be assigned to him in the events that were looming in the distance." In the governor-general's suite he arrived at Madras, and thence he was despatched to join the Nizam's force, and accompany it to Seringapatam. It consisted of two portions, the British troops in the pay of the Nizam, commanded by Colonels Roberts and Hyndman; and the Nizam's own troops under Meer Allum. They were all sepoys alike, but the one body was directly under the command of the Company's officers, while the other owned no master but the Nizam. It was with the latter portion of the force that Malcolm had mainly to do. He found these troops then in a state of mutiny; Meer Allum acknowledged himself unable to control them, and Malcolm felt himself justified in offering to take the command. His offer was accepted; and by a manly and determined bearing, he subdued those rude spirits, and reduced them into a state of obedience and efficiency. With this force of the Nizam, H. M.'s 33rd regiment was associated; and it was this that brought Malcolm into contact with the Honorable Arthur Wellesley; and thus a friendship was begun, which ripened into cordial intimacy, and which never slackened on either side till the last day of Malcolm's life. Indeed we may say in passing that we do not know that the Duke of Wellington was ever on more intimate terms with any man than with Sir John Malcolm.

The capture of Seringapatam, the death of Tippoo, and the subversion of his dynasty, belong to the history of India, rather than to the life of Malcolm. But there are two anecdotes,

related by Mr. Kaye, that we must transfer to our pages. On the morning of the final assault on the city, "Boy Malcolm " "Lord went into General Harris's tent, and addressed him as Harris." The old hero thought the joke mistimed, and answered him gravely. Yet we may be sure that he did not particularly dislike to be reminded by one whom he knew to be as sagacious as he was buoyant, of coming events casting their shadows before. The other story is equally characteristic. When the loot of Seringapatam was put up for sale, it was not unnatural that General Harris should wish to become possessor of the Spolia opima. But Tippoo's sword was knocked down to another bidder, to Captain Malcolm. Was he going to keep it for himself? No, he was not selfish enough for that. Was he going to send it Burnfoot? This would not have been inconsistent with his intense regard for his father and mother. But this too would have been selfishness; for what right had they peculiarly to a trophy which he had not peculiarly taken? No! he bought the sword, and presented it to Sir Alured Clarke. Harris liked him all the better for this tribute of respect for a hero, of gratitude to his first patron.

Lord

In General Harris's despatch, Malcolm has a whole paragraph devoted to his praise; and indeed his services were of no ordinary kind. But for his exertions, and the confidence that the Nizam's officers and soldiers reposed in him, this large branch of the army would have been almost certainly lost to the cause. Mornington was as willing to listen to the recommendation, as General Harris was to recommend "Captain Malcolm to the particular notice of his Lordship in Council;" and when a Commission was appointed for the settlement of the Mysore territory, consisting of General Harris, Arthur and Henry Wellesley, Colonels Kirkpatrick and Close,-John Malcolm and his friend, "Tom Munro," were appointed secretaries. When a governor-general nominates such a commission and such secretaries, it is not to be doubted that he means it to be a working commission; and such was this. In a month, the work was done, and done well. Much has been written on a point to which Mr. Kaye does not allude, or alludes only so slightly that the allusion will not be understood except by those conversant with the history of the period. We refer to the slight supposed to have been cast upon Sir David Baird, by his exclusion from this commission, and by the appointment of Col. Wellesley to the command of the city, to which Baird was thought to have a superior claim. We have no wish to revive this controversy; but we do think it is scarcely fair to admit, as seems to be sometimes admitted as an element in the discussion, the subsequent career of Colonel Wellesley. It is forgotten SEPT., 1857.

I

that the controversy took place in the eighteenth, not in the nineteenth century; that the parties were not Sir David Baird and the Duke of Wellington, but Sir David Baird and Colonel the Honorable Arthur Wellesley. That Colonel Wellesley's appointment was a good one is doubtless true; and it may be true also, that Baird's temper and habits fitted him better for the head of an army than for the settlement of a province; but we have not been quite convinced, either that Wellesley had showed so pre-eminent qualifications, or Baird so striking disqualifications as to justify the Governor-General in passing over the fine old hero, and appointing his own brother.

we

The business of the Mysore Commissioner was scarcely wound up when Captain Malcolm was informed by Lord Mornington that he intended to send him as ambassador to the court of Persia. With what joy he received this announcement need not tell. Since the days of Elizabeth, when Sir Anthony Jenkinson was sent to the court of the Shah of those days, no British envoy had proceeded to the Persian court. Malcolm himself thus states the objects of his Mission;-"To relieve India from the annual alarm of Zemaun Shah's invasion,* * * to

counteract the possible attempts of those villainous, but active 'democrats, the French; and to restore to some part of its former prosperity, a trade which has been in a great degree 'lost."

Zemaun Shah was at this time king of Affghanistan, who had been for years blustering about an invasion of the British territories, and a junction with the Mohammedan princes of India. It was considered a good stroke of policy to enlist Persia on our side, so that if he should attack us, Persia might attack him. The French were no doubt at this time ready for mischief of any sort; and it was probably necessary to checkmate them by all possible means. The trade with Persia had never been great; but it was considered desirable that it should not be allowed to fall wholly into disuse. Such were the objects. of Malcolm's mission to Persia. As it was desirable that no time should be lost, and as his own temperament was never such as to lead him to lose time, he set off at once for Hyderabad, and spent a busy fortnight in closing his accounts there. He left Hyderabad on the 1st of November, 1799, reached Poonah on the 19th, and after a very short stay at Bombay, sailed thence on the 29th of December, two days before the end of the century. His first destination was Muscat, where he entered into a treaty between the Imaum and the English. He then started for Bushire, which he reached on the 1st of February, 1800.

Malcolm was strongly impressed with the conviction that his success in Persia would be greatly dependent on the liberality of his presents, and on the pertinacity of his standing up for his rights and dignities. Now the former was as much in accordance with his tastes as the latter was contrary to them. The giving of a present has the effect of putting people into good humour, the standing up for ceremony has that of putting them into bad humour. Still the one was as necessary as the other. Thus says his biographer :

"The stickling for forms was more repellent to a man of Malcolm's temperament than the present-giving. He knew enough of oriental courts to recognise its necessity; but it was not less distasteful for the recognition. Eager as he was to advance with the work before him, it was vexatious in the extreme to be delayed by disputes about ceremonial observances the style of a letter or the arrangement of an interview. He was personally a man of simple habits and unostentatious demeanour. Left to his own impulses, he would as readily have negotiated a treaty in his shirt-sleeves, and signed it with a billiard-cue under his arm, as arrayed in purple and gold, under a salute of artillery, and with a guard of honor at his back. But as the representative of a great nation, he was bound to uphold its dignity to the utmost. He was now among a people out of measure addicted to pomp and ceremony, with whom statesmanship was mainly a matter of fine writing; who stickled about forms of address, as though the destinies of empires were dependent upon the color of a compliment or the height of a chair; and who measured the grandeur of other nations with their own Chamberlain's wand. Any concession upon his part-any failure to insist upon the strict observance of what was due to him in his ambassadorial character, would have been construed, not only to his own disadvantage, but to that of the nation which he represented. So Malcolm resolved to do in Fars as is done in Fars, and to stickle as manfully for forms as any Hadjie in the country.'

In fact it was merely a carrying out of the promise that he had made to the old woman at Burnfoot. She had urged him to be more careful about his "adonization" in London than it was necessary to be in Eskdale, and he had promised that when amongst strangers he should do "just weel aneugh." And now he was among strangers, and he strove to accommodate himself to their ideas. Only the old woman had held out the threat that, if he did not adopt London manners in London, he should be sent home again; and by adopting Persian manners in Persia, he narrowly escaped that penalty ;-a penalty which, as our readers may remember, more than once followed a like course of procedure on the part of our ambassadors to China. Having remained at Bushire for more than three months, await

ing the settlement of his claims as to ceremonial etiquette, he set forward for the Persian Capital on the 22nd of May:

"His suite consisted of six European gentlemen*, two European servants, two surveying boys, forty-two troopers of the Madras native cavalry, forty-nine Bombay grenadiers, sixty-eight Indian servants and followers, a hundred and three Persian attendants, and two-hundred and thirty-six servants and followers belonging to the gentlemen of the Mission."

His first stage was at Shiraz, where the Prince-Regent held his Court. Here the ceremonial controversy was renewed. Malcolm insisted upon what he regarded as his rights, and they were conceded, though with a bad grace. For whatever was amiss, he insisted upon, and obtained, apologies. "Malcolm made a magnificent present to the prince, a present of watches and pistols, 'mirrors and telescopes, shawls and table lustres, knives and tooth-picks, filagree-boxes and umbrellas, cloths and muslins, ⚫ with an unlimited supply of sugar, sugar-candy and chintz." The quantity of sugar alone was portentous-339 maunds,―upwards of 27,000 lbs., besides two tubs of sugar-candy! and yet the Prince-Regent was but imperfectly sweetened after all.

He was detained at Shiraz longer than he expected, the cause of the delay being highly characteristic of the country in which it occurred. At last quitting it, he reached Ispahan on the 23rd of September, the autumnal equinox. Here Malcolm was received with great magnificence, and here also he dispensed presents on a princely scale. With all this it was not till the middle of November that he reached the Capital of Persia. As since the days of good Queen Bess and of Anthony Jenkinson, till the days of good King George and John Malcolm, no British envoy had stood before a Persian King, we may be allowed to extract our Author's account of Malcolm's first presentation:

"On the 16th of November, the English ambassador was presented to the Persian monarch. After the ceremonies had been arranged, Malcolm, with all his suite, proceeded towards the palace, the drums. and trumpets of his escort heralding his approach. One of his chief Hindostani servants carried the letter of the Governor-General. On reaching the inner gate, having dismounted, the ambassador was conducted to an apartment in which the Dewan-Beg was sitting,

* From another part of the narrative, we learn that these were :— Capt. William Campbell.....

Lieut. Charles Pasley

Mr. Richard Strachey

Lieut. John Colebrooke

Mr. Gilbert Briggs

Mr. William Hollingberry

First Assistant.
Assistants.

Commanding Escort.
Surgeon.
Writer.