two powers who had plotted with unwearied assiduity and perseverance the downfall of the English, were vanquished and overthrown, while the native princes in alliance with the Company found themselves protected, and their subjects relieved from the insults and violence of disorderly and undisciplined armies, costly in peace, but utterly useless in war.

Nor had the exertions of Lord Wellesley embraced only the foreign relations of the Company. His attention was early directed to the wants, due classification, and proper training of the members of the civil service. For their benefit he contemplated the erection of a College at Fort William, to be devoted to the double object of encouraging Eastern literature, and preparing for their arduous and important duties the civil servants of the Company. Those servants still retained the ancient commercial nomenclature, being divided into senior merchants, junior merchants, writers, and factors. But their present functions differed widely from the occupations of their predecessors; instead of writing out invoices, shipping bales of cotton, and crouching obsequiously to the lowest official of the Nabob Vizier, the merchant princes of Hindoostan, in the year 1805, were presiding over courts, administering provinces, and governing districts. Each of these functionaries was almost as little controlled, within his own sphere, as the contemporary Dey of Algiers, or the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli. The inhabitants of tracts of country larger than Yorkshire, the populations of cities more vast than Liverpool, obeyed with slavish awe, or grateful respect, the mandates of two or three men, distinguished by no high-sounding titles, manifesting little of the pomp of authority, and sprung generally, not from the aristocracy, but from the trading classes of their own country.

The spectacle was both flattering and instructive. It testified to the energy and perseverance of the Anglo

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Saxon race, while it exhibited the triumph of a civilization derived from Christianity over the stagnant barbarism of a debased and idolatrous system. It is true indeed, and impartiality demands the avowal, that the proceedings of the conquerors in India were often lamentably at variance with the holy faith into which they had been baptized. Some, it is to be feared, according to an old proverbial saying, current during this period, "left on their outward voyage the little religion or morality which they possessed at the Cape of Good Hope." Yet it cannot be denied that public opinion at home exercised a gradual, imperceptible, but still an irresistible, influence over the conduct of the English authorities abroad. The tyrannical civilian, the worst nabob who derived the funds for his vulgar ostentation from a plundered province, or an oppressed native ruler, soon found, by two or three signal examples, that even in distant India he must keep his avarice and rapacity within bounds. In proportion, too, as the popular mind in the mother country awoke to the importance of the Indian settlements, a better class of men than the co-officials of Clive, or even of Hastings, entered the Company's service, and occupied the principal posts of authority. Thus, at the worst of times, the oppressed were never deprived of the consolations of hope. The ryot who groaned under the rigour of Sujah Dowlah, or Tippoo Sahib, could only look forward to a succession of tyrants, each worse than his predecessor; the native who suffered from the temporary injustice of a harsh and severe collector, or from the arrogance and evil counsels of an imperious and ignorant resident, might obtain redress from betterminded superiors, or anticipate the period when his oppressor would be replaced by a more upright and conscientious magistrate.

During Lord Wellesley's administration, the eye of a master surveyed intently and minutely the whole

machine of government. Commerce was encouraged, men of worth and ability were drawn from obscurity and placed in positions where they could exercise and develop their peculiar talents. The agents of the great marquis had been taught by him the importance of selfdependence; since he invariably intrusted them with all the power which they might reasonably require for the performance of the various services expected at their hands. No official forms, no intrusion of subordinate authorities, were suffered to counteract or impede their plans; for the governor-general never selected any man for an important duty in whom he could not fully confide; while he rarely placed confidence in those whose merits he had not previously scrutinised with a jealous and watchful eye.

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THE PEACE POLICY.

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CHAPTER XVI.

PACIFIC POLICY OF SIR GEORGE BARLOW-LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK APPOINTED TO MADRAS-FRAUDS AT TANJORE-MASSACRE OF VELLORE ANIMOSITY TOWARDS MISSIONS-COMPLAINTS OF THE ALLIESTROUBLES AT HYDERABAD-AMEER KHAN-MISSIONS TO AFGHANISTAN, PERSIA, AND THE SIKHS.

1805-1809.

THE intelligence of the death of Lord Cornwallis reached the Court of Directors in the month of February, 1806. On the 14th of the same month, Lord Minto, President of the Board of Control, addressed to the Directors a suggestion, that Sir George Barlow should be empowered to act as governor-general for a limited period only. The Directors, however, appointed Sir George to fill this post for the usual term; and hence arose a discussion between the Company and the Crown, which was terminated on the 9th of July, by the nomination of Lord Minto himself to the office in question.

During the interim, the acting governor-general exhibited a marked determination to follow out the peace policy so warmly advocated by his immediate predecessor. In pursuance with this resolution, he endeavoured as much as possible to avoid new alliances, and to neglect those which had already been formed. The Cutch Rajah, being dispossessed of his authority by rebels, sought the assistance of the Company: it was amicably refused. The Rajpoot chieftains began a civil war among themselves, both parties looked to the English for aid, but the Supreme Government declined to interfere. In the meantime an insurrection broke out in

Cabool, and the province of Berar was plundered twice by Scindiah and his Pindarries. Lord Wellesley's object had been, not only to compel the native states to refrain from disturbing the English, but to constrain them to keep the peace among themselves; Sir George Barlow's aim appeared to be the depression of all neighbouring powers, by allowing them to wage, unchecked, both intestine and foreign wars.

The inauguration of the peace policy at Calcutta, soon provoked grievous complaints from the native allies, who were ungenerously abandoned to the vengeance of Holkar and Scindiah. The Rajah of Berar represented that the treaty, which had been made between himself and General Wellesley, justified him in expecting assistance from the Company, at a period when his province was being desolated on account of his fidelity to their cause. Lord Lake urged the claims of the Rajah of Boondee, and Zalim Sing, the Chief of Kotah, who had rendered signal and important services to a detachment of the army during the disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson. Sir George Barlow heard these remonstrances, heaved a political sigh of regret, and mildly lamented that nothing could be done. Yet the abstinence of the Company from war, or rather their professed determination to preserve peace at all costs, was at this time occasioning the destruction of more lives than had been wasted in the sanguinary battles and sieges of the late campaign.

During the autumn of 1803, Lord William Bentinck landed in India as Governor of Madras. He soon began to distinguish himself as an able and zealous reformer of existing abuses in the civil department of the presidency over which he had been appointed to rule. The first case of the kind that came under the new governor's notice, were certain mal-practices in the province of Tanjore. This district, one of the most fertile in the south of India, submitted to the Company's