and the nabob of the Carnatic. Our influence in Bengal has produced its complete effect. Though the family of the nabob ftill exists, and though the heir poffeffes a nominal royalty, yet the government of Calcutta, under the name of his duan or treasurer, have engroffed the political power, and reduced the nabob to a mere cypher. It is natural for a prince to be a lover of power; and we can fearcely cenfure in any man an unwil. lingness, to waste the term of his life in inglorious impotence and ease. These were the fentiments that had been felt by the nabob of Arcot; and he accordingly exerted himself to avoid the fame kind of depofition and degradation, which had overtaken the nabob of Bengal. To effect this, he believed, that he could not adopt a more advantageous method, than that of creating an English party in his favour, which might balance, and occafionally control the direct influence of the prefidency. Accordingly he entered into a friendly intercourse with many individuals of the English nation; he fought to heap upon them his favours, to attach them to his perfon, and to engage them permanently in his intereft. In order to have the prefidency more immediately under his infpection, he removed from his capital of Arcot to the hamlet of Chepauk, in the fuburbs of Madras. Such is fuppofed to have been the rife of the debts of the nabob. That he might gain his ends, he gave to fome bonds of pecuniary obligation for fictitious loans. In other instances he actuaily borrowed fums of money, which it was contrary to the regulations of the Eat-India company for any of their fervants to lend, in order to confer immediate bounty upon fuch as might not be able to wait for the flower operations of ufury; or to fupport thofe neceffi ties, which were the natural fruits of fo corrupt a fyftem. The debts once contracted, it would have been difficult, perhaps in many inftances impoffible for the company, to diftinguifh the fictitious loans from the true; and it would have feemed to have been a hard measure, where large fums of money had really been advanced, though contrary to the regulations of the company, to have exprefly forbidden the repayment of thofe fums. Nor would fuch a prohibition have been lefs ineffectual, than fevere. The creditors of the nabob had long had in their poffeffion the collection of his revenues. Impoverifhed himself, he was unable to pay the interest of his loans in fpecie, and he had gone on from time to time affigning over to his creditors different diftricts of his dominions, in order that by their own management they might extract from thofe diftricts the annuities they claimed. It was natural, that this fhould have been a profit. able trade to the creditors. Collecting themfelves the intereft of their money, they could charge without fear of contravention what fums they pleafed for the expence of the collection, and could bring to account, as the amount of the real revenue, as little as they thought proper. This trade had found a fudden and premature termination in the general alignment, that was made of his revenue by the nabob of Arcot to the prefidency of Madras. That this was not oppofed by the creditors, was partly owing, as has already been faid, to the hopeless fituation of the nabob's affairs. Perhaps for a time they flattered them 2 themselves, that they fhould be able to obtain the fame kind of influ ence over lord Macartney, that they had exercifed over the nabob of Arcot. They had established a formidable, power in the country, and, if not by inclination, at least by terror, he might be deterred from entering into open hoftility with them. They had fhown in their conteft fix years before with lord Pigot, that they were not without their partifans, either in the province of Bengal, or in the kingdom of Great Britain. But they fpeedily found their mistake in the prefent inftance. The renters of the districts were almost all of them changed. In the granting of the new leases no attention was paid to the folicitations of friendship, or the acquifition of intereft. It has never been imputed to lord Macartney, either by his friends or his enemies, that he displayed too much of forbearance and complaifance to the perfons, who had moft credit with the nabob of Arcot. The controverfy that followed was curious in its circumstances, and protracted in its duration. An account of the meature was fent over by the English government to the Eaft-India company at home, and it received the fanction of the court of directors in the month of September 1782. Nearly at the fame inftant, the ministers of the nabob in India applied to the fupreme council at Bengal to fupercede the affigument of the revenues, upon condition that the nabob fhould pay out of them a fpecific fum monthly for the fupport of the war. Their petition was granted. Orders were dispatched to lord Macartney to give up the inftrument of affignment; and it was understood, that fir Eyre Coote, who carried these orders in his last voy age to Madras, in March 178, was authorised to proceed to extre. mities with lord Macartney, in cafe he refufed compliance, and even to fufpend him from his government. The death of that celebrat ed officer two days after his arrival, for the prefent diverted the ftorm. Major-general Stuart, a gentleman, who had been particularly active in the arreft and imprifonment of lord Pigot, was charged by lord Macart ney with taking up the bufiness, which fir Eyre Coote was to have finished, and carrying on a fecret and improper correfpondence with the council at Bengal. It was in confequence of this charge, that general Stuart was arrested by the order of lord Macartney in Sep tember 1783, and fent to England in the following month. In the mean time this nobleman, refting his confidence in the fanction of the court of directors, refufed to comply with the mandate of the fupreme council. That mandate had been repeated in the month of Auguft, but without effect. There are paffages in the corres pondence of the different parties in this bufinefs, that appear to deferve to be extracted in this hif tory. The reafonings of lord Macartney, in defence of his conduct, and to induce the fupreme council to give up their oppofition, turn chiefly upon the injuftice that would be done to the new renters, to whom leafes had been granted for the terms of three and five years, in conformity with the conditions of the affignment, and who refted for their fupport upon the faith of the company, "Their leafes," fays his lordship, "can. not be legally torn from them. Nothing, but their previous breach of a part, could justify our breach of the whole; fuch ftretch and abufe abufe of power would indeed not only favour of the affumption of fovereignty; but of arbitrary and oppreffive defpotifm. In the prefent conteft, whether the nabob be guilty, or we be guilty, the renters are not guilty. Whichever of the contending parties has broken the condition of the affignment, the renters have not broken the condition of their leafes. These men, in conducting the bufinefs of the affignment, have acted in oppofition to the defigns of the nabob, in defpite of the menaces denounced against all who fhould dare to oppofe the mandates of the durbar juftice. Gratitude and humanity require, that provision fhould be made by you, before you fet the nabob's minifters loose upon the country, for the protection of the victims devoted to their vengeance." The charges that are brought by the court of the nabob against lord Macartney, are not a little extraordinary, and are in the fame ftyle with thofe which were heaped in laborious abundance upon lord Pigot. Befide the circumstances of inattention and neglect on the part of the prefident, of the decorum that was due to the nabob's dignity, in iffuing grants and leafes in his own name, and in not officially acquainting the nabob with the peace, till a month after it was made; charges, which are founded in fome degree of probability, they advance accufations, which, if they could be proved, would be inevitably fatal to his character. But they confist of circumstances the moft incredible, and not seldom contradict and defiroy their own affertions. One of the nabob's letters begins in the following style. I am willing to attribute this continued ufurpation 3 66 2 to the fear of detection in lord Macartney: he dreads the awful day, when the fcene of his enor mities will be laid open at my ref toration to my country, and when the tongues of my oppreffed fubjects will be unloofed, and proclaim aloud the cruel tyrannies they have fuftained." In another letter, lord Macartney's conduct is treated as unjustifiable, in appointing committee of revenue with enormous falaries, though his lordship w⚫ knows that most of them are by your orders difqualified by being my principal creditors." It is however to be obferved, that, in the conclufion of the fame letter, the nabob forgets this charge, and pathetically pleads in favour of his creditors. "It is not without great concern that I have heard in finuations, tending to question the legality of their right to the payment of thofe juft debts; their claims are the claims of justice, and their demands, I am bound by honour and every moral obligation to difcharge. But I hope the tongue of calumny will never drown the voice of truth and justice; and, while that is heard, the wisdom of the English nation cannot fail to accede to an effectul remedy for their diftreffes." Lord Macartney is farther charged in this correl pondence, with "the greatest acts of cruelty, even to the fhedding the blood, and cutting off the nofes and ears of my fubjects." He is charged with fecretly conniving at Mr. Buffy's recommendation to Tippoo to invade the Carnatic a fecond time, as the means of procuring the most advantageous terms, and furnishing lord Macartney with the plea of neceffity for concluding a peace after his own manner." Lastly, he is charged with the most direct and fhamclefs bribery in granting granting a leafe of one of the diftricts for half its value; and a letter, real or pretended, is produced, from his lordship's dubafh or fecretary, in his own hand-writing, in relation to this bribe. The dubafh reprefents himself as obliged to write this letter, to fatisfy the renter that his bribe had been faithfully paid; but requests, that "after perufal you will fend it back to me immediately;" adding, "until I receive it, I do not like to eat my victuals, or take any fleep." It is well known, that one of the first measures of the board of control, instituted under Mr. Pitt's East India bill, was a refolution of the fifteenth of October 1784, to furrender the affignment of the revenues to the nabob of Arcot. They conceived, that the power 1efulting from this affignment was fuch, that the affumption of it could in no way be justified, but by the emergency of the war. The ambition and incroachments of the East-India company, or its fervants, had become an object of difguft to the princes of India, and by thus voluntarily furrendering a power which had been fully put into their hands, they believed that they fhould furnish the ftrongeft argument of their difpofition to listen to the voice of moderation and equity. Lord Macartney however did not enter into the fpirit of these reasonings, and was extremely mortified to find a point, which he had fo long laboured, ultimately decided against him by the highest authority. The orders having arrived at Madras in May 1785, lord Macartney immediately failed in the veffel which had brought them, on the fourth of June, for Bengal. He was willing rather to try the effect of his expoftulations and rewith the fupreme monflrances council, who had acted most vehemently against him in the business of the affignment, than to give up without any provifion the ren ters, for whose safety and indemni fication he conceived himself to have pledged his own faith, and that of the company. Upon his arrival he found Mr. Hastings failed for England, and a fhort time after, on the thirty-first of July, he received the appointment of the court of directors, of the twentyfeventh of the preceding February, conftituting him governor-general. Upon this appointment lord Macartney deliberated for a few days, and at length, having determined to decline it, took his paffage for England on the ninth of August 1785. A fhort time after the departure of the prefident, came on at Madras, the trial of major-general fir John Burgoyne, whofe fufpenfion and imprisonment by the order of lord Macartney, was noticed by us in the New Annual Register for 1784. The trial was held in the months of June and July, and the prefident of the court martial was lieutenant general fir John Dalling, commander in chief of the forces in India. The charges exhibited against general Burgoyne, were those of disobedience of orders and neglect of duty, in withdrawing himfelf from the army, at the time that general Lang was appointed by the council at Madras, to command in the field; and of caufing and exciting mutiny and fedition, in having propofed and made preparations for holding courts martial under his authority, when that province properly belonged to general Lang. Of all and every part of of thefe charges, fir John Burvived his acquital only a few goyne was honourably acquitted months. by the court martial; but he fur- . CHA P. II. Proceedings of the States of Holland. Infiitution of a College of Tribunes at Utrecht. States withdraw to Amersfort. Capture of Elburg and Hattem. Stadthølder is deprived of the Office of Captain General. IN our laft volume, we traced the rife of thofe diffentions in the republic of Holland, which have fince produced the most memorable effects. We endeavoured to investigate the fpirit and principles of conduct of the two old parties in the common-wealth, the party of the ftates, and the party of the houfe of Orange; and we called the attention of the reader to a new set of men, proceeding upon different views, and purfuing an object, which had hitherto been entirely neglected in the progrefs of the Dutch affairs. This party has been commonly and justly ftyled. the democratical party. We found, as may naturally be expected, a certain degree of fhock and confufion refulting from the birth of this new party, which was not regarded with a favourable eye, either by the prince or the oligarchy. They had indeed originally owed their existence to the party of the fates, who fuggefted the idea of the infti tution of the Dutch volunteers in 1783, as a balance to the regular army of the republic, which they fufpected of being partial to the prince of Orange. But they had long feen the progrefs of the volunteers with an unapproving eye, and, in the effects which the inftitution produced, they were perhaps ready to repent of their concern in giving birth to it. Where the fituation of a state is fuch, as to make it defirable to any confiderable part of it, that things fhould remain in their prefent fitu ation, it may not be an unfavourable circumftance, for three inde pendent parties. or bodies to exist, of which one may ferve as a kind of mediator or umpire, to prevent the mutual encroachments of the other two. But this was not the cafe with the republic of Holland, There was not a party, there was not an individual in the country, that wifhed to fee things remain in. the fituation of the year 1785The ftates had encroached in vari ous inftances upon the preroga tives, and refifted the difpofitions of the ftadtholder, and the party, of the prince earnestly defired to fee thofe prerogatives reinflated and confirmed. On the other hand, thofe who had advanced thus far. were not contented with what they had done, but defired to advance farther. They wished to reduce the prince as nearly as poffible to a cypher in the ftate, and to provide that no individual should hence. forth be able to refift the measures and fyftem of policy they should think proper to adopt.. Still lefs fatisfied than either the ftates or the prince of Orange, was the party of the democracy. As they felt, perhaps more strongly than either of the others, the fuppofed rectiB .tude |