patam. The court-martial declared him guilty of the first charge; of the first part of the second charge; and of the third charge; and therefore sentenced him to be cashiered: at the same time they recommended him for mercy to the commander-in-chief. Here, too, the courtmartial and the commander-inchief differed in opinion: the latter declared that the sentence was not such as the law pointed out, and therefore he could not comply with the recommendation to mercy presented to him by the court. The court upon this reconsidered the whole evidence, but still adhered to their former opinion.

We have thus concluded the account of the disturbances at Madras, so far as they fall within the transactions of that period to which our volume for 1810 is necessarily confined, and so far as their results respect India immediately. The light in which they were viewed by the directors of the East India company at home, the measures they took in consequence of them in regard to the culpable officers, and the declarations they published in praise and support of the line of conduct which had been pursued by lord Minto and sir George Barlow, fall within the limits of our next volume. We now proceed briefly to notice some very extraordinary transactions of a civil nature and character which occurred in India; which, equally with the military transactions, point out the strange policy on which sir George Barlow conducts his govefnment, and the natural consequences of dislike and disaffection which such a line of policy produces. When the East India company gained possession of the territories of the late nabobs of the Carnatic, they entered into an engagement to

liquidate al demands that might fairly be made upon them. In order that the justice and extent of these demands might be properly. investigated, commissioners were appointed in India, as well as at home, to scrutinize them, and to make such absolute rejections or deductions as they might judge right. In the course of this scrutiny in India, it was discovered that the demands on the late nabobs of the Carnatic, more than doubled the sums which the company at the time they undertook to liquidate them conceived them to amount to. This produced strict inquiry; when it was ascertained that a large portion of the bonds were forged; and the principal business and difficulty of the commissioners consisted in detecting the forgeries. Two persons particu larly were suspected of having forged bonds to a large amount. As the proof of the forgery was naturally an object of very great importance to those who held real bonds, a few gentlemen of great respectability, who were thus situated, applied to the commissioners for the papers and assistance necessary to bring to trial and conviction the two individuals particularly suspected of having forged the bonds. The commissioners would not, until compelled by law, give up these papers, and afterwards, assisted by government, afforded all the protection in their power to the accused and suspected persons; while they commenced an action against those individuals on whose testimony the guilt of the former principally rested, on the score of perjury. This action terminated by the jury finding them not guilty. The possessors of the real bonds then immediately proceeded to the trial of those accused

that factious outcry received from the minutes of Mr. Petrie, dated 30th December, 1808, and 10th and 15th February, 1809, in which he insists that the interference of the commissioners and of the government was improper."

It is scarcely necessary to make any remarks on this extraordinary paper: the commissioners, who were appointed expressly for the purpose of detecting forged bonds, are employed in defending those accused of forging them, and accused by men undoubtedly possessed of real bonds, who therefore, in that character, ought to have received the countenance and assistance of the commissioners:-in this proceeding, the commissioners are supported by government, who order their law officers to defend the accused. The verdicts of the juries are sus pended, because they showed the misguided state of the public mind: and this interference is called a pretended violation of the rights of juries! We can only repeat, that all this sounds very strange to Englishmen in this part of the world, and that in the whole transaction we in vain look for those principles and proofs of moderation, good sense, and wise policy, which we could wish always to distinguish them, wherever they are in possession of power.

In the passage which we have quoted from sir George Barlow's defence of his conduct, it will be observed, he very coolly charges Mr. Petrie, the senior member of the council, with affording his support and countenance to a factious outcry, because he performed his duty in entering on the minutes his reasons for disapproving of the proceedings of sir George Barlow. According to this doctrine, the

other members in council are either to agree with the governor, or they are to be charged with fac-' tion. Sir George Barlow admits of no alternative: he cannot suppose it possible that any man, not actuated by factious motives, can trace in his public conduct any want of moderation or wisdom.

Mr. Petric, in his reply to sir George Barlow's minutes, offers the following judicious observations on the subject of the trials for forgery:

The honourable the president is perfectly correct in imputing to the trials, verdicts, and proceedings in the supreme court, relative to the forged bonds of the late nabob, the very general agitation and interest which appeared to affect the com- · munity, and to produce, not the clamour of a faction, as it is termed by the president, but a sentiment nearly unanimous throughout the settlement,-not, in its origin or object, manifesting either opposi tion or disrespect to the government, which certainly ought not to be considered as a party in these trials, as we act merely for the company, and should have no other interest in the investigation of the claims, than to prevent the mis-. application of the fund they had gratuitously granted to the creditors of the late nabobs: and it should have been the same to us, whether frauds and forgeries were detected by the talents of Mr. Marsh, or by the ability and labours of the com pany's counsel and commissioners.

"The subject of the trials was a struggle and a contest, not only for the division of property; but, in the course of the proceedings, questicns of great moment and importance, upon mere general rights and principles, were brought into discussion,

discussion, in which, in my opinion, government ought to have remained perfectly neuter.

"That three successive verdicts of as respectable juries as were ever impamélied at Madras should prove the misguided state of the public feelings, appears to me a most extraordinary mode of estáblishing the fact, which is assumed but not proved. To an English mind, I apprehend, the premises would lead to the opposite conclusionat any rate, whatever might be our private feelings and opinions on this singular case, a variety of reasons existed at that time, which should, in my judgement, have prevented the open interference of government in those trials. It was from that interference, and in some instances not a common interference, that the settlement expressed an alarm at the executive supreme authority having thrown its influence and power into the scale of one of the parties."

Mr. Petrie, adverting to his having differed from sir George Barlow with respect to the military transactions, observes on the subject of these trials:

"The next subject of difference arose on the references made to government by the commissioners for investigating the debts of the late nabobs, on the correspondence which ensued, and on our interference in the criminal trials which took place at that time. In our support of the commissioners, I thought we touched on the rights

of private property, and in the mea. sures we pursued for supporting the two persons tried for a capital offence; and above all, for apparently ma king the government a party in the trials, by measures which were universally believed to have a direct tendency to influence the juries, and by the severe punishment inflicted on those who concurred in the verdicts given against the two men supported by government, by the commissioners, and defended by the company's law officers :-by these, and other measures of a si milar nature, I thought we acted unconstitutionally-involving the company and ourselves in an unnecessary and weighty responsibility, and extending our support to the commissioners far beyond what was in the contemplation of the court of directors, when they transmitted us their orders on the subject."

We have deemed it right to enter thus fully and circumstantially into the history of the disputes, military and civil, which have lately occurred in our East India posses sions:-not only because they were in themselves very important, but principally because they must give serious alarm to all who view them as indicating the state of the public mind there, on the one hand; and on the other, as affording additional proofs, (if additional proofs were wanting,) that those intrusted with the command are not by any means calculated to govern a distant possession, in such a state of restless ness and disaffection.

СНАР

BEFO

EFORE we commence our account of the state of affairs and the operations in the peninsula of Spain and Portugal, it may not be uninteresting or uninstructive to recall the predictions and conjectures in which various classes and parties of men in this country indulged, when the revolution first broke out there, with respect to its probable duration and issue; and to compare them with what, hitherto, has actually occurred.

From such a mode of proceeding we may derive many advantages. It will put us in possession of that test by which we may apply our present experience to future circumstances of a similar nature: and by collating the real causes which have hitherto prevented the subjugation of the Peninsula, or retarded its complete and permanent liberation from the presence and tyranny of French power, with those causes and circumstances which, by one class of men, were deemed decidedly adverse to any protracted or successful resistance-and, by another party, as sufficiently powerful and efficacious to render the inhabitants of the Peninsula speedily

victorious and triumphant,-we shall detect the fallacies which lurked in the reasonings and predictions of both parties, and thus guard against them in future.Upon no subject was conjecture more busy; and upon no subject did it enter so much into the nature and detail of the circumstances on which it was grounded. So far, therefore, there will be no difficulty in recalling almost the exact and definite predictions of each party, as well as the reasonings which they employed to support or elucidate their predictions. On the other hand, the observation of nearly three years has enabled us to fix upon, with certainty, and to trace through all their operations, the causes which have actually thwarted the schemes and baffled the power of Bonaparte in the Penin sula.-The one, therefore, can be set against the other :-the predictions, not bare, but in connexion with their reasonings, can be set against the facts which have taken place; which, in their turn, can be accompanied with the circumstances that have given birth to them.

Thus