which is fufficient to make another perfon faint who fits there long. He will often amufe himself, by fetting five or fix chairs before the fire, and placing himself in every one of them in their turns, as his love of variety prompts him to change his place. He is extremely good-tempered, except in cold and gloomy weather; for he is very fenfible of the change of the atmosphere. He is not eafily provoked; but when he has been made very angry by any one, he would run after them, making a strange noife, with his teeth fixed into the back of his hand. I could not find that he had ever done any violence in the houfe, except that when he first came over, he would fometimes tear his bed-clothes to pieces, which it was long before he was reconciled to. He has never (at leaft fince his prefent mafter has known him) fhown any attention to women; and I am told he never did, except when he was purpofely and jocofely forced into an amour. He has run away feveral times fince he has been at Broadway, but not fince he has been with his prefent mafter. He was taken up for a ipy in Scotland in 1745, or 1746: as he was unable to fpeak, they fuppofed him obftinate, and he was going to be confined, and was threatened with punishment for contu macy; but a lady, who had feen him in England, told them who it was, and di rected them where to fend him. Some fay he was found at Norfolk. When he ran away from his maflers, he used to live on raw herbage, berries, and young tender roots of trees. The old people at the Two Waters told me a circumstance, which, as they could not, I think, have collected from his information, may have only the authority of conje&ural tradition, that when he ran away, he always followed the courfe of the clouds. Of the people who are about him, he is particularly attached to his matter. He will often go out with him and his men into the field, and feems pleafed in being employed in any thing which can affift them. But he muft always have fome perfon to direct his actions, as you may judge from the following circumnftance. Peter was employed one day with his mafter in filling a dung-cart. His mafter had occafion to go into the houfe for fomething, and left Peter to finish the work. The work was foon done. But Peter must have fomething to employ himself; and he faw no reason why he should not be as ufefully employed in emptying the dung out as he was in putting it into the cart. When his mafter came out, he found the cart nearly emptied again; and learned a leffon by it, which he never afterwards neglected." "From this account of him," fays Lord Monboddo, "it is evident that he is not an idiot, as fome people are willing to believe him to be, but fuch a man as one thould expect a mere favage to be, that is, a man that has not the ufe of fpeech, and is entirely uninftructed in all our arts and fciences. What alone can induce any one to believe him an idiot is, that he has not learned in fo long a time to fpeak, though he was fent to fchool, and, as it is faid, much pains taken upon him. But, in the firft place, it is to be confidered that he was about fifteen, as the newspapers say, when he was catched and brought to England, and much older, if we believe the account of his age given by the farmer with whom he lives. Now, though articulation be learned by infants, whofe organs are tender, foft, and pliable, by imitation only, or at leaft without much trouble in teaching them; yet when they grow up, and their organs become hard and lefs flexible, they cannot learn by imitation merely, nor by teaching without much difficulty, if at all; as is evident from the cafe of those who have been brought up in civilized nations, and accuftomed to fpeak from their infancy, and yet cannot pronounce certain articulate founds, becaufe they have not learned to do it when they were infants. Thus, a Frenchman cannot pronounce the Greek e, or the English th, nor an Englishman the afpirated kappa of the Grecks, that is the X.-Befides, the fchooling that Peter got was not fuch as, I think, could have taught him to fpeak when he was fo far advanced in life, if he had had the beft natural parts, and a greater difpofition to learn than can be expected in any favage, who, not perceiving the immediate utility of fpeech, either for fuftenance or felf-defence, will not be difpofed to take fo much trouble as is neceffary to learn an art fo difficult to be learned, efpecially at an advanced time of life. And, therefore, I rather wonder, that, at a common country-school, fuch as Peter was put to, he has learned fo so many words, many more than I thought he had known, till I got this information from Mr Burgefs: and it appears that he has learned alfo the ufe of numbers to a certain degree; and his progrefs in mufic would appear to me very wonderful, if I did not know that mufic was much more natural to man than articulation. But, even with respect to it, I can have no doubt, but that, if he had been taught by such a mafter as Mr Braidwood, he would long before now have spoken very perfectly. But, even from Mr Braidwood, he could not have learned by imitation merely, nor even by precept; for Mr Braidwood muft not only have fhown him, by his own example, the pofition and configuration of the organs neceffary for pronouncing fuch and fuch founds, but he muft have laid hands upon him, as he does upon his deaf scholars, and put his organs in the proper pofition, at leaft as many of them as he could reach in that way *" Letter from Gov. Haftings to the Directors of the Eaft-India Company, dated from Lucknow, April 30. With a Poflcript, : I dated May 13. 1783. Honourable Sirs, Have judged it incumbent upon me to make trial of every practicable chance of conveying to you the earliest intelligence of my arrival at the place from which this letter is dated, and of the firft effe&s produced by the accommodation which took place, by the refolution of the Governor-General and Council, paffed on the 31st of December laft, and already notified to you by the fuccefive difpatches of your fhips. I shall begin the thread of my report from that date. * In an edition of Swift's works, in 1751, printed in London by C. Bathurst, I find that the account of Peter is faid to be the work of Dr. Arbuthnot, which should give it an additional credit, as he had the keeping of him; and as there is not the least infinuation there that he was an idiot, I am convinced that no man, at that time, believed fo; nor do I think it poffible that any man who fees him at prefent can be of that opinion. The fact which Mr Burgess obferves, of his first filling a dung-cart and then emptying it, only shows that he knew nothing of farming; and, as that was the cafe, it was natural enough, that having feen a dung-cart emptied as well as filled, he fhould do both. I foon after found that the state of this country was fo difordered in its revenue and adminiftration, and the credit and influence of the Nabob himself fo much fhaken by the effects of the late ufurpation of his authority, and the contefts which attended it, as to require the acceffion of an extraneous aid, to restore the powers and conflitution of his government; and I was strongly and repeatedly urged to repair hither in perfon for that purpose. Thefe inftances, though declared to be conformable to the wishes of the Nabob Vizier, his family, and his ministers, having been privately conveyed to me, I reprefented them as fuch to the Board on Jan. 20. and offered my services to go to Lucknow, whenever the Nabob Vifier fhould require it, which I knew, from undoubted authority he would, with his answer to the notification formerly made to him, Dec. 31. My reafons for thus anticipating the occafion were many: the diftracted state of affairs, which every fufpenfion of a day lections requiring the application of earwould aggravate; the feafon of the colly exertions for their fecurity; and my own infirm ftate of health, which was not equal to fuftain fo long a journey, if protracted to the commencement of the hot winds. My offer was accepted by a conditional declaration on the part of Mr Wheeler; and I made inftant preparations for the journey. On Feb. 14. the Nabob's invitation arrived; I repeated my propofal; the fame authority decided its acceptance; and on the 17th I took my leave of the Board, and departed from Calcutta, with a fevere indifpofition, which had feized me fome time preceding, then hanging on me: happily, the change of air effected my fpeedy cure; and on the 27th ult. I arrived at this place in a state of health fo confirmed, as to promise an unremitted attention to the very important objects of my commiffion. On my way, I had the alarming perfpective view of a foil fo completely exhaufted of its natural moisture, by the failure of one entire seafon of the periodi. cal rains, that, except the fields of grain, which had been kept in vegetation by the uncommon labour of the hufbandman, and were ftill clothed with a luxuriant produce, or retained the stubble of the recent harveft, the plains exhibited an appearance appearance of barreness, so dreary, that even the roots of its former herbage no longer exifted, and the deep ravines and beds of rivers which I paffed, threw up clouds of duft from their channels. Thefe are not circumstances of trivial obfervation, nor are they confined to the lands of these provinces; every region of Hindoftan has felt the fame angry vifitation; and another year of equal drought, which is not to be expected in the course of natural events, would put it out of the reach of human wisdom to prevent or retrieve the dreadful calamity which muft attend it. Yet fuch is my reliance on the gratitude and unbounded confidence of the Nabob and his minifters, that I dare promise, even at this immature period, under every circumftance but the dreadful one which I have fuppofed, and which I have ftated as improbable, a fuccefsful progrefs and termination of the measure which I have begun, equal to any expectations which may have been formed of it, however fanguine, if I am not counteracted, and my operations impeded by orders which I may not refift, and am allowed to remain to the time deftined for their perfection; nor fhall it be a common obftruction which shall refrain me; for I poffefs fuch inherent advantages as I truft will prove fuperior to every fpecies of oppofition, but the last extremity of it. Indeed, if fuch fprings as give the common movements to popular opinion could influence my proceedings, I have already experienced them in two inftances, one of which I believe to have had the fpecial fervice I am engaged in for its obejét, and the other, the general ruin of my authority. Í allude, firft, to a report fabricated at Fort St George, of the arrival of a fhip of war at Bombay, with the authentic intelligence of my difmiffion with difgrace from my office, which I received at the inftant that I was fetting my foot on the fhore at Nuddeah, for the commence. ment of my journey; and fecondly, to a paper tranfmitted to me by a refpected authority from Calcutta, containing ftrictures on my former deputation, faid to be part of a report of the felect committee of the House of Commons, which unhappily apply to every purpofe of this, and which declare (with horror I repeat it) a right invefted in the commander in chief of the army, to oppofe the power delegated by the government itself to its first executive member, and to affert that right by an appeal to the army for its ultimate decifion upon it. The words of the report (if it be fuch) to which I allude, are thefe: "By these inftructions" (that is, the inftructions fent by the court of directors to Bengal in the years 1774 and 1778)" it appears, that the governorgeneral was pofitively restrained from the exercife of any military power whatfoever beyond the garrifon and fortrefs of Fort William; fo that the delegation and exercife of all military power beyond the limits fo defcribed, was a direct and pofitive difobedience of the orders of the court of directors. "Difobedience of orders on a point fo delicate and important as that of wrefting the military command from the official military officer, who was invested with that authority by the orders of the directors, might have been productive of confequences extremely prejudicial to the fervice: if the commander in chief had afferted the right vefted in himself, a contention for executive power might poffibly have been the confequence; and the army, which in India is fo peculiarly conftituted, as to require not only exact difcipline, but the moft perfect fubordination, in order to infure obedience, muft have ultimately decided where that obedience was due." I dare not examine a doctrine affirmed to be of fo facred an authority; yet I may humbly fuggeft, that it never was, nor could have been intended to be applied to the actual commander in chier, whofe command was originally conftituted by the governor-general and council themselves, and therefore could not be rendered fuperior to and independent of the powers vefted in the governor-general and council, by an act of parliament paffed before its existence; nor included in any inftructions of the court of directors, alfo framed at a more ancient period, if even at a later: And a fenfe of national duty, fuperior to every confideration of perfonal fafety, or the reverence which is due to high office, impels me to denounce, and to date the fall of the British empire in India from the instant that it thall be decidedly declared, or understood, that any commander in chief of the army, be his title or rank what it will, is, or may be, by any conftructive power, independent of the government under which the wif dom Jan. 1785. Letter from Gov. Haftings to the Eaft-India Directors. 15 dom of parliament hath hitherto placed God forbid, that any future Pizarros and Almagros fhould difgrace the annals of your dominion, or mark the traces of its decline with the blood of your fervants and foldiers; but the conteft will probably be of fhort duration; and happy will it be for the interefts of humanity, if fuch fhall be the iffue, though dreadful to our own, whatever period of time may close it. Let me add, nor let my words be uttered in vain, that whenever the fatal hlow fhall be ftruck, or from whatever hand it fhall proceed, its effect will be, not a gradual decay, but inftantaneous min: for your exiftence hangs on the thread of opinion, which the touch of chance may break; and even that fource, which ought to flow with the principles of its duration, will, if productive of the fane deleterious ftreams which have been iately feen to iffue from it, prove the caufe of its diffolution. I am not myself apprehenfive of any evil confequence from the partial and limited command which I poffefs over your army, in its tending to provoke a competition; for, in the first place, I will never put it to the iffue of a trial; and, in the fecond, were the board to permit the commander in chief to come iato this quarter, which is not likely, I confidently hope, that before he could arrive, this province will have been fo regulated as not to require any foreign aid for its internal protection, nor, of course, any exercife of the powers which I poffels, and which he might deem himself warranted to refift. I proceed to repeat the effects which have been produced to this time, from the late accommodation, and the objects to which I look for the final iffue of it. Before my departure from Calcutta, I applied through a private channel to the acting minifter, to advance an immediate fupply of money to your paymaster general at Lucknow, for the fubfiftence of the troops ftationed in these provinces, who were then many months in arrears, and fuffered much additional diftrels from the fcarcity and dearness of grain. He inftantly raised the fum of ten lacks of rupees, which proved a criucal and effectual relief. Since my arrival, he has made other payments to a confiderable amount. These are particularized in the inclosed account No 1. in which I have included, for your early information, all the payments made in liquidation of the Hon. fent fuffelee year, to which all accounts Company's debt, in the course of the preof the revenue are, by old custom, adjufted, and which commences on the 11th of September, to the present time *. To this I have joined another account, Company upon the Nabob Vifier, from No 2. ftating the probable claims of the of the next fuffelee year, or to the end the beginning of the prefent to the end of September 1785. few neceffary remarks. Firft on N° 1. On both thefe accounts I fhall offer a The first fum, of fixteen lacks of rupees, receipts, is taken from his own account ftated as the amount of Mr Briftow's in the poffeffion of Mr Wombwell, the accountant for this ftation, but differs materially from that which has been drawn by the Nabob's officers; and I have referred it to the board for adjustplain the difference. ment with Mr Briftow, who alone can ex The fecond article is the regular proly careful to guard the minifter against duce of the current revenue. I was earthe ufe of violent measures to anticipate the periods of collection, for the purpose of giving an oftenfible credit to the prefent fyftem, by fwelling the amount of it, although the exigencies of your ftate the payments made in confequence of what he could for their relief, without induced me to prefs him to contribute adding to the diftreffes of his own; for the country will not bear it. The third article was obtained by my who complied chearfully, and without own fuggeftion from Almafs Ally Cawn, hefitation, confidering it as an evidence feafonably offered for the general refutation of the charges of perfidy and difloyalagainst him, and carried at one time to an ty which have been too laboriously urged excefs which had nearly driven him to abandon the country for the prefervation of his life and honour, and thus to give a colour to the charges themselves. From Sept. 11. 1783, to Jan. 31. From Jan. 31. to April, 30. 1784, 185,787 450,000 £635,787 It would fcarce merit your attention to be informed, that I have invefted a part of this supply in bills of exchange, payble to the governor-general and council in Calcutta, to the amount of five lacks of Calcutta ficcas; but as it is connected with an arrangement which may prove a future advantage to your interefts, in the reduction of the hoondyan or exchange, from fixteen per cent. to five and a half, at which it is my determination to fix it. I have recommended to the board to appropriate the whole of this article as a fund for the payment of the interests on your bonds, which had fuffered fomething in their credit and current value, from the fufpenfion of the payment of intereft, fome months before I left Calcutta. The last article is the balance of the fum due from Fyzoola Cawn, by the treaty made between him and the Nabob Vifier through the agency of Maj. Palmer, on Feb. 16. 1783. Two lacks of this amount are now in regular courfe of payment; the remaining three are not due by ftipulation till the next feafon called Khereef, which is a period included between the middle of September and the middle of February. Some days after my arrival, I intimated to his vackeel, my with to have both payments immediately concluded, and his mafter gave immediate or ders for it. To this inftance of respect for your government he has added another, in the deputation of his fon to Lucknow, to confirm the affurance of his attachment to the Company and British nation. What farther fums may be cleared in the courfe of this year, of which the moft productive part is already paft, I cannot fay; but it is my hope, that a confiderable part of the Nabob's debt will be liquidated, and the discharge of the remainder enfured by the engagements of creditable bankers, fo that it may be wholly cleared within the courfe of the enfuing year. The account, N° 2. is an estimate formed on the actual expence; but will be confiderably reduced, if my future profpects and objects fhall be anfwerable to my prefent expectations. To thefe I proceed, Firft. My first wifh is to realize the amount of your demands on the Nabob of Owde to the end of the next fuffelee year, and to obtain ample fecurities for it before I depart from him. Second. My next care will be to in duce the Nabob's ministers to appoint bodies of regular troops, for the fupport of his collections, and the internal defence of his country. This will preclude the neceflity of calling for the aid of our troops; and I hope may prove the means of releafing him from the extraordinary and undefined fubfidy which he now pays for the great detachment employed under the command of Sir John Cumming in Rohilcund, and the regiments which have been occafionally demanded, and remain scattered over other parts of his dominions; and of confining our defence, and the Nabob Vizier's payments, to the brigade ftationed at Cawnpore, and to the fubfidy paid by treaty for its expence. Third. My laft and ultimate hope is, that when these objects are attained, your wifdom will put a final period to the ruinous and difreputable fyftem of interference, whether avowed or fecret, in the affairs of the Nabob of Owde, and withdraw for ever the influence by which it was maintained. This country has no inlets of trade by which it can fupply the iffues which are made from it; for, excepting the factory at Tonda, which fubfifts by a contract, making part of your investment, and the produce of opium and faltpetre, which is not confiderable, I do not know any other articles of commerce from which it could derive any returns. Therefore, every rupee which is drawn from its circulation into your treasury, must accelerate the period at which its ability muft cease to pay even the ftipulated fubfidy. By the continuance of this fund, you maintain an acceffion of more than one halfto the military establishment required for the defence of your own dominions, without any charge on your own income; and you oppofe a wide and powerful frontier to your eventual enemies. That force will continue to be an effectual fafeguard to the country, which will fuffer nothing by its maintenance, becaufe the fpecie thus applied will, of courfe, flow back into its circulation: and it is a tribute which it ought gladly to pay; for its whole wealth would not, in any other way, yield an adequate mode of protection. Few are the advocates of the national interefts, and their voice will be faintly heard amid the numerous and loud exclamations of private rapacity; but I humbly affume to rank myself with the former, |