The Calcutta Review/Series 1/Number 1/Article 2

by John William Kaye

Art. II.—Memoir of the Life and Correspondence of John Lord Teignmouth; by his Son, Lord Teignmouth, 2 vols. London, 1843.

This is not a very amusing book—neither has it any claim to be regarded as a literary performance of distinguished merit. But it is the biography of a truly good man, and is thickly interspersed with letters from the pen of a gentleman, a scholar, and a christian. The author, indeed, in the volumes before us, does not play a conspicuous part. The duty which has devolved upon him, he has performed with much modesty and good taste; neither seeking to shine in his own person, nor to exaggerate the virtues of his father. In this very forbearance lie the principal imperfections of the work. The biographer has left his father’s letters to tell the history of his father’s life, and relying too much on the sufficiency of these self-expository documents, he has suffered the narrative, at certain points, to be more indistinct than is convenient to the general reader. The student of Indian History may be satisfied with what he finds; for from his own stores of knowledge he can supply all deficiencies; but we cannot flatter ourselves that the important events which occurred in this country during the last thirty years of the by-gone century, are sufficiently familiar to the ordinary reader, to render nugatory the work of filling up the picture, when the portrait of an Indian worthy has been sketched. It is not safe to rely upon the general knowledge of Indian affairs. Even on the spot, but too many are ignorant of events, which came to pass antecedent to their own times; and in England, whilst it is held inexcusable in an educated man not to be familiar with the histories of Greece, of Rome, of Modern Europe, of British and Spanish America, and of remote Islands with which England has had little concern, there are few, who do not consider themselves privileged to possess their minds in gross and entire ignorance of the history of the British conquests in the East.^[1] The proceedings of the French in Saint Domingo are more familiar to the majority, than the proceedings of the English in the Dooab or the Carnatic. Had the present Lord Teignmouth entertained no higher opinion than ourselves of the wealth of his countrymen, in this item of Indian history, his work would have been a more complete history of the political life of his justly revered father. As a personal memoir, it is all that the reader can desire.

John Shore was born in London, on the 8th of October, 1751. His father, who belonged to a family of some consideration in Derbyshire, which had distinguished itself by its steady loyalty in the times of the Charleses, was a Super-cargo in the Company’s service, who killed himself by eating turtle cooked in a copper vessel, off the Island of Ascension. Mr. Shore appears to have been a worthy and amiable man; much beloved by his wife, who never wholly recovered the serenity of her mind after this melancholy loss. He left two sons; John, the subject of the present article, who was seven years old at the time of his father’s death; and Thomas, afterwards a worthy minister of the Gospel, who was some years younger than his brother.

Mrs. Shore having been left in easy circumstances, her sons received the benefit of as good an education, conventionally speaking, as was to be obtained. John, who before the death of his father had been placed at a preparatory seminary at Tottenham, was removed to another school at Hertford, under the management of a Mr. Harland, a Clergyman, who, the present Lord Teignmouth informs us, was “ of a literary turn; author of a Tragedy and other published pieces.”^[2] Whilst under the charge of this reverend preceptor, the youthful student having had free access to his master’s library, soon became a helluo librorum; and without neglecting his Latin and Greek, learned much that was of more value than either. When in his fifteenth year he was removed to Harrow, of which Dr. Sumner, an elegant scholar and an accomplished man, was then the Head-master. It is remarkable that Shore’s standing in the school was between Nathaniel Halhed,^[3] whose name in this country is familiar even to other than English ears, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whose more brilliant reputation is less to be envied than that of either of his class-fellows. In the school-boy classification, which is evidently not of Harrovian origin, “Harrow fools” occupy the lowest place; but as Harrow, within the last three quarters of a century, has, in proportion to the numbers educated there, been the nursery of more distinguished men, than any of the public schools of England, it can well afford to smile at this egregious specimen of lion-painting.

In his seventeenth year, just as he was on the point of attaining the Captaincy of the school, Shore was removed from Harrow. By one of those convenient arrangements, which the Directors of the present day contrive as skilfully as their predecessors, a writership had been set aside for young Shore, shortly after the death of his father. He was now old enough to avail himself of the appointment; but as it was necessary, before entering on his duties, that he should acquire a smattering of book-keeping and accounts, he was placed at a commercial school at Hoxton—“an obscure seminary,” which, however, contained, at that time, among its students, another embryo Governor-General of India—the Marquis of Hastings, then Lord Rawdon. We think that the name of the master of the obscure seminary, which had the luck, if not the merit, of sending forth two such men as Lord Teignmouth and Lord Hastings, might have been recorded in the biography of the former.

After passing nine months at the Hoxton academy, and acquiring, in addition to a practical knowledge of Arithmetic, some acquaintance with the French and Portuguese languages, young Shore embarked for India. The Captain of his ship was a strange, uncouth, superstitious animal (not wanting altogether in a certain rough goodness) who was in the habit of rapping out oaths and prayers by turns, observing “Let us rub off as we go.” His companions, a wild crew of writers and cadets, were more disorderly and quarrelsome than was agreeable to a studious, contemplative youth, who was forced to make one of their number. The young writer of the present day, with his light and airy awning cabin, fitted up in the best style of Maynard or Silver, turns sick at the very thought of the “great cabin,” which the “cadets and writers used promiscuously,” in the old times, swinging their hammocks together as gregariously as a regiment of soldiers. Shore was fain to seek every now and then a little quiet in the cabin of the second mate—a privilege which he greatly enjoyed; and, at other times, to avail himself of a similar license, allowed to him by a Mr. Hancock, a fellow passenger, who, with a penetration as creditable to his judgment, as his kindness to his heart, espied the sterling worth of the young writer, took him by the hand, and proved to him a real and serviceable friend.

The vessel on which Shore embarked, reached Madras in May 1769. From this place he wrote to his mother, that he had been “very healthy and very happy” throughout the passage; and that the weather, though very hot, did not disagree with him; but it would seem that, in this latter respect, he was greatly mistaken, for he arrived at Bengal, in such a critical state, that his immediate dissolution was confidently anticipated. He recovered; but from that time to the period, nearly thirty years afterwards, when he finally quitted India, he appears to have suffered almost uninterruptedly under the depressing effects of a severe bilious disorder, which, affecting both body and mind, induced a languor and a lowness of spirits, often perceptible in his letters and journals. He appears to have been, in respect of bodily health, one of that very numerous class of men whom we scarcely know whether to envy or pity—with a constitution, which would seem to compound for the absence of all dangerous ailments by the constant sufferance of those lesser ills, which embitter life but do not destroy it. It is a fact, often alleged by medical writers, and one which the experience of most men will confirm, that none are more notoriously long-lived, than those bilio-dyspeptic invalids, who are constantly ailing in a small way, and eternally patching up the little holes in their constitution, which they fancy their disorders must have left. Lord Teignmouth was all his life in the enjoyment of a bad state of health; and died at the age of eighty-two.

The condition of a young writer, on first arriving in the country, was very different from what it is in the present day; and there was nothing to inspire Shore with a very encouraging idea of the prospects which opened out before him. He found himself in a very disagreeable place, with indifferent health and a paltry salary. “I began life,” he said, “without connections and friends; and had scarcely a letter of recommendation or introduction. There was no church in Calcutta, although divine service was performed in a room in the old Fort on Sunday mornings only; and there was only one Clergyman in Bengal.” Lord Clive had cut down the trading system, but had failed to induce the Court of Directors to afford reasonable remuneration to their servants. The Civilians were, at that time, in a sort of transition state. They had not altogether ceased to be traders; nor altogether ceased to be corrupt. But, unquestionably, a great improvement had been wrought; the practices of the Company’s servants were less openly and flagrantly nefarious, though, poverty and opportunity uniting to hold out the strongest temptations, it was not wonderful that much corruption still remained. In spite, however, of the contaminating influences by which he was surrounded, Shore preserved his integrity inviolate. He gave way to the ordinary allurements which beset the paths of youth; but dishonesty was not one of his failings. Opportunities were never wanting; but he resisted them all; and, however strange it may seem in the present day, to bestow extraordinary praise on the negative virtue of not being corrupt, the reader has only to consider the state of society in India, during the earlier years of the administration of Warren Hastings, to appreciate this freedom from the besetting vice of the age.

The first appointment of any importance conferred on Mr. Shore, was that of assistant to the Revenue Board of Moorshedabad. The senior member being too idle to do much work, and the second member being absent on a deputation, no small share of the onerous and responsible duties of the Board, devolved upon the young writer. He did his best, by unceasing application, to make up for want of experience; and whilst yet in his teens, decided as many cases, with as few appeals, as would have done credit to a veteran judge. His life at Moorshedabad was cheerless and solitary; and, in spite of the claims of business, he did not “lack time to mourn.” The letters written to his mother at this time are more sombre than the common epistles of youth. From one of these, we extract a passage regarding the state and prospects of the Civil Service, premising only that Shore had then been scarcely four years in India:—

“Are you not rather disappointed in receiving no accounts of the progress I have made in the acquisition of a fortune? I wish, for your sake more than for my own, I could with truth boast of having done so; but the road to opulence grows daily narrower, and is more crowded with competitors, all eagerly pressing towards the goal, though few arrive there. I am not at present anyways avaricious, and should be contented with a moderate sum: perhaps when that modicum is acquired, I shall be thirsting after a little more. The Court of Directors are actuated with such a spirit of reformation and retrenchment, and so well seconded by Mr. Hastings, that it seems the rescission of all our remaining emoluments will alone suffice it. The Company’s Service is in fact rendered an employ not very desirable. Patience, perseverance, and hope, are all I have left. I am now embarked for life; and must endeavour to steer my vessel through all the hardships and perils of the voyage, carefully catching every favourable gale which will wing me to the desired port. Rest assured, my dear Mother, nothing shall allure me to part with my honesty, or disgrace the precepts I have received from you, and which your own example has so well exemplified. Poor I am, and may remain so; but conscious rectitude shall never suffer me to blush at being so.

“It is inconceivable to what invidiousness an exalted rank in the Company’s employ in Bengal is exposed. The very best characters do not escape calumny. I mention this, to caution you against paying too implicit a belief to the censures published in England by the interested and disappointed. Many recent instances might be pointed out, of worthy men having been traduced and rendered infamous by reports propagated by ill nature, or to serve some private ends. Unluckily, these illiberal accusations gain too much credit in Leadenhall Street, from the difficulty attending a disproval of them; and to this cause may in great measure be assigned the severe orders issued by the Court of Directors.”

In 1773 Shore was appointed first assistant to the Resident at Rajeshahe, in which capacity his duties seem to have been limited to the adjudicature of civil suits; but soon afterwards the Provincial Boards having been abolished, we find him acting as fifth member in the Revenue Board at Calcutta. He now began to take a part not only in the business, but in the party-politics^[4] of the Metropolis. The “Regulating Act” had passed; the new members of Council (Francis, Clavering and Monson) had arrived; and the memorable struggles between Hastings and the majority of his Council had arisen in all their fierceness. Shore had received his appointment from the Governor-General’s opponents; and he supported, honestly we are convinced, the party which acknowledged Francis as its chief. On one occasion, he even co-operated with that bitter, bad man, to prepare a savage Revenue Minute, to be flung in the face of the Governor-General; and though he was for tempering, in some measure, the ferocity of his fellow laborer, there is no doubt that he lent himself and all his practical knowledge to the work of abusing the head of the Government. It may be remarked here, that Mr. Shore, with singular intellectual obliquity, always entertained a belief, that Francis was not the author of the letters of Junius.

Early in 1775, Shore having again fallen sick, visited Madras and Pondicherry, for the benefit of change of air and relaxation; and returned to his duties in the cold weather. In 1777, he made another excursion in the same direction; and returned to find, that all his colleagues in the Revenue Board had been dismissed for neglect of duty. Averse, as he may have been by nature, from mingling in political strife, it does not appear that he very scrupulously abstained from taking a part in the engrossing controversies of the time. The alarming exercise of the power vested in the Supreme Court, which threw the whole of Bengal into a state of convulsion, was viewed by Shore with the utmost concern; and it is said, that the petition, which was forwarded to Parliament by the British inhabitants of Calcutta, emanated from his pen.

We have said, that Mr. Shore, in spite of the protestations of his son, was a partisan, though a moderate one, of Francis. We find him writing to his friend Mr. Hutchinson, “Mr. Francis is my friend; and will, I believe, give me proofs of it, whenever time shall put it into his power.” And again, “My situation, though creditable, is not profitable; and as Mr. Francis is determined to proceed to Europe, in this month, it is not probable it will be mended.” He was, however, greatly mistaken. Francis sailed. It was left to Hastings unopposed to form a new Suddur Board of Revenue. Mr. Anderson, a civilian of long standing and high character, was appointed senior member of the Board; and consulted on the naming of his colleagues. Anderson named Shore. Hastings expressed some surprise at the nomination, alleging that he had always regarded Shore as one of his most uncompromising opponents. “Appoint him,” replied Anderson, “and in six weeks you and he will have formed a friendship.” Hastings, greatly to his honor, consented; and Mr. Shore received the appointment. The Governor-General was subsequently charged with having formed a Board of his own creatures; with what injustice the above anecdote has shown.

The office to which Shore was now appointed he held throughout several years. As Mr. Anderson was constantly occupied on special missions, the second member was, in fact, president of the Board. He acquitted himself with ability, temper, and integrity; but with a corrupt executive little could be done in the great cause of justice and humanity. He worked, with conscientious and indefatigable zeal; and was not without his reward. “My labours daily increase,” he writes in one of those letters to his mother, which shed so amiable a lustre upon his character; “but as they are honest and as they are rewarded, I do not grudge them. I consider them the means once more of bringing us together: whenever that happens, I shall think myself amply repaid for all I undergo.” We must not omit to state, that his first care, on attaining this increase of salary, was to offer assistance, to the utmost extent of his means, to that beloved parent; but her circumstances placed her out of the reach of the generosity of her son, and soon afterwards death removed her altogether beyond the influence of his unfailing kindness. This was a heavy blow to Shore, who had been looking forward, with all the eagerness of devoted affection, to a reunion with his earliest and best of friends. His letter to his brother, on this melancholy occasion, is too honorable to him to be omitted:—

“Time has now moderated the edge of affliction for the loss of the best of parents, though years must elapse before regret will be worn away. As long as memory continues, sorrow will be felt; and how is it possible to erase from the mind the recollection of a parent, whose tenderness and affection had no bounds, and whose indulgence was hardly restrained by her good sense and prudence! I went, in March last, to Chittagong; and upon my return, in July, I was preparing a letter for her, whom I shall never see more. What was it that suggested to my mind, that my employment was useless, and made me lay down my pen in the midst of an unfinished sheet? What was it that made me forebode I was writing to one who was gone for ever from me? Yet such was the case; and the gloomy wax confirmed what my mind too anxiously presaged. I opened your letters with an agitation never felt before; and the perusal of them told me no more than what I had foreboded.

“The situation of my health, from January to June, was such as made me anxious to return to England; and I, too, fondly pleased myself with the hopes of comforting a mother, whose affection to me had ever been invariable, I had figured to myself ten thousand little occurrences, where delight was to predominate over past anxiety, and which would excite the smile of joy in the face of a beloved parent. How are all these ideas vanished, ahd no traces of them left! My illness before was more owing to the loss of my friend Cleveland, than to any other cause. I had scarce recovered from that shock, when a severer came upon me. Human happiness depends upon too many contingencies; and time, in a moment, saps the weak foundation on which delight is built.^[5]

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“All the sorrow I felt for Cleveland, who was the friend of my heart, was revived with double violence; and this misfortune has now left me without hope or expectation. But who is it I weep for? Not for my mother; for she is blest: her pure spirit, borne beyond the wants and cares of humanity, looks down, I trust, from the midst of bliss, upon her son, struggling with toils, that she is released from. It is for myself that my tears stream. I lament a friend, an adviser, a parent. I lament the loss of those joys I shall never have more: I weep over my own misfortunes. Alas, my dear Tom! we have lost what we shall never more recover; and I shall be unhappy, until I can pour forth, at the tomb of the best of parents, the tears of sorrow and affection—the tribute of filial gratitude and love.

“But let us ever suppose she is still living: let our conduct be regulated by that idea; and let the mutual affection subsisting between us, which would have rejoiced her heart when living, still subsist, as if she could now participate in the joys of it. If I had been in England when this event happened, I should have sunk under it; nor would the mournful pleasure of soothing the last hour of a beloved parent have alleviated the severity of the shock. But I have done;—and when I again take up my pen, I shall, if possible, avoid what is too powerful for my feelings. ........

“I thank you for the melancholy, but dear, pledge of affection you sent me—I mean the ring. I have constantly worn it, and ever shall. The hair was a little soiled, and the ring too large; but I have had both altered. A tear forces its way, whilst I look upon the characters. Memory retraces the path of anguish.”

Early in the following year, Mr. Shore embarked for England. His health had suffered greatly from the recurrence of his severe bilious disorders, accompanied by a sleeplessness so extreme, that it is said his eyes were never closed for two consecutive hours. He had amassed little money; but his wants were moderate, and moderate wants are the best wealth. It appears to have been his intention to have retired altogether from the service; and with this view he embarked for England early in 1783. Warren Hastings was his fellow-passenger.

After an unusually short passage, Mr. Shore arrived in England. It was with little joy, little exultation, that he trod once more his native land. His only relative was a brother—a clergyman of the Church of England, and an excellent man; and his friends were limited to so small a number, that his social prospects were little cheering. But he soon found a friend, of more value to him than “troops;” the one friend, who takes the place of scores of intimates, and renders the love of kindred almost a worthless thing.—He took unto himself a wife.

This lady was a member of an old Devonshire family, named Cornish. Shore was on a visit to his brother, at Dury-yard, near Exeter; and here he first met the amiable woman, who was destined to be his wife. “In a single interview,” says his son “his affections became so much engaged, that he sought fresh opportunities of cultivating her acquaintance, and in the February following she became his wife.” The sequel is somewhat extraordinary. The honey-moon was scarcely over, before Mr. Shore, who had intended to quit India for ever, received from the Court of Directors the offer of a seat in Council. The offer was accepted; and it was determined, that the husband should proceed to India, and the “wife of a month” remain at home. The filial explanation of this unintelligible arrangement is anything but satisfactory. “His own apprehensions of a voyage, then seldom attempted by ladies, and of the pernicious influence of an Indian climate, seconded by the too successful entreaties of a fond and over-anxious mother, induced Mrs. Shore to forego reluctantly the thought of accompanying him.” There is nothing admissible in this. There were ladies enough at Calcutta to render Mrs. Shore’s position, had she accompanied her husband, anything but an isolated one.^[6] Of the climate he himself wrote not long afterwards; “Bengal is really not an unhealthy climate, although it disagrees with my constitution;” and as to the entreaties of a fond and over-anxious mother, what ought they to avail with a wife? But, as the biographer says, “the die was cast.” Mr. Shore accompanied Lord Cornwallis to India, and was in so wretched a state of mind, that he, literally speaking, would “rather have been hanged.” He saw the body of a malefactor hanging in chains, on the banks of the Thames, and envied the corpse of the miserable culprit. The voyage was sufficiently dreary; but the cordial reception which he met with, on his arrival, from natives and Europeans, did something to rouse him temporarily from his depression.

He took his seat in Council, in January 1787. He was on the best possible terms with the Governor-General, whom he greatly admired and esteemed. But he does not seem to have viewed the prospect before him with much complacency; and never ceased to deplore his resolution to return to India. To Mrs. Shore he wrote in a desponding tone; all his letters indeed, were tinged with equal melancholy, when he touched on personal affairs. Of politics he wrote cheerfully. There was nothing to alarm or embarrass; no storm over-head, no clouds on the horizon; until towards the close of the year, when there appeared a probability of Tippoo breaking through his engagements, by attacking our ally, the Rajah of Travancore. When the intelligence of this anticipated rupture reached Calcutta, Cornwallis was on a tour of military inspection. Shore recorded his opinions in a letter, of which the following paragraphs form the commencement:

“I give up this morning, to afford you my reflections on the intelligence communicated by Sir A. Campbell. I am clearly of opinion, if Tippoo is serious in his intention of attacking the Rajah of Travancore, that he means to carry his hostilities beyond the territories of that Prince; and on these grounds, it will be necessary to prepare for a war throughout the Carnatic.

“But I think we ought to go a step further than merely acting upon the defensive; and if Tippoo should enter into the war with us, that we ought not to make peace, until we have put it out of his power to hurt us more, at least for a long series of years.

“On the present system, whilst we are under the necessity of employing all our resources merely to guard against a prince who is daily aggrandizing his power, our means must decrease, and his gain strength. It is true, that I would not on this account think of attacking him, merely to prevent his attacking us in future; but, if he should begin, I conceive it will be the wisest policy to adopt this consideration as the principle of conduct. The question is, if we have the means to do it?—and, notwithstanding the embarrassed state of the Company’s finances, I do not hesitate to declare my opinion that it is practicable.”

This was sound advice; but at this time, foreign politics were not destined to engross the attention of the Government. The crisis was not immediately at hand. “The ambition and animosity of Tippoo,” wrote Shore, somewhat too sanguinely in 1789, “have been checked and concealed; the Mahrattas find in our moderation the prospect of an useful alliance—the Nizam has surrendered what he claimed—Sindiah continues our friend—and the Beear Rajah is well disposed towards us: nothing has been sacrificed to accomplish these objects; and the British Government holds the balance of power in India.” With our foreign relations in this favorable state, Government had abundance of time to devote to domestic improvements. The “permanent settlement” was the result.

Of the part taken by Shore in the carrying out of this great measure, somewhat inconsistent accounts have been given by different writers. It has been variously asserted, on the one hand, that he was the real author of the scheme; and on the other, that he opposed it. The truth is, that Lord Cornwallis had the good sense to avail himself largely of Shore’s extensive acquaintance with Revenue matters, and that much of the new plan was the growth of the civilian’s enlarged experience. His local knowledge was far greater than that possessed by the Governor-General. He was unquestionably the best Revenue Officer in the country; and there were few Europeans, at that time, with a deeper insight into the native character. With a wise modesty, however, he acknowledged the insufficiency of his information; and whilst Cornwallis, with greater boldness and less sagacity, maintained that their acquaintance with the character and institutions of the people was both ample and accurate enough to warrant the substitution of the new Revenue system, as a permanent arrangement, for that which had so long obtained in the country, Shore, whilst he approved of the new settlement, protested against the Governor-General’s proposal to render it, at once, a permanent one. He contended, that it would be advisable, in the first instance, to ascertain how the new scheme would work; that if during the ten years of probation, which he desired, in limine, to assign to it, the experiment realised the expectations that had been formed of it, it might then, without any misgivings, be merged into a permanent settlement. Cornwallis did not deny, that what Shore advanced was reasonable, and worthy of consideration. But he could not be brought to give his consent to a measure, which might, and probably would, lead to the entire subversion of a scheme, which it had cost him so much to mature. He urged, that though he sufficiently relied on the favorable result of the experiment,^[7] and was willing, therefore to put it to the test, he had no security against the opposition which party or prejudice might throw in his way, before the expiry of the decennial period of probation; that new men during that period might succeed, with new principles and new prejudices, to the helm of Government, and that the scheme, therefore, stood but little chance of a fair ten years’ trial, on its own merits. There was nothing unreasonable in these expectations: but a question may be raised as to whether Cornwallis were justified in presuming upon these expectations to the extent of imposing upon millions of his fellow-creatures a new and untried fiscal law, based upon information, which many men of judgment and experience pronounced to be insufficient. Instead of avoiding the greater danger, it appears to us, that he avoided the lesser. The risk incurred, by establishing a permanent system, for the evils of which there was no remedy, in the event of its working badly, was immeasurably greater than that incurred by the possibility, if, on the other hand, it should work advantageously, of the plan being set aside by the prejudice or caprice of a new ruler. But it is no part of our business in the present article to discuss either the merits of the Permanent Settlement, or the conduct of Lord Cornwallis. Upon the part taken by Mr. Shore in these important transactions we must bestow the praise which is so justly due. The Governor-General, though differing from his able colleague on the one point which has been considered above, neglected no opportunity of recording his high sense of the judgment and ability of Mr. Shore: “The great ability,” wrote his Lordship, at the close of the discussion, “displayed in Mr. Shore’s minute, which introduced the propositions for the Settlement—the uncommon knowledge which he has manifested of every part of the Revenue system of this country—the liberality and fairness of his arguments and clearness of his style, give me an opportunity (which my personal esteem and regard for him, and the obligation I owe him as a public man for his powerful assistance in every branch of the business of this Government, must ever render peculiarly gratifying to me) of recording my highest respect for his talents, my warmest sense of his public-spirited principles, which in an impaired state of health, could alone have supported him in executing a work of such extraordinary labor; and lastly, my general approbation of the greatest part of his plan.” It is refreshing, in these times, to contemplate the cordiality of feeling and the reciprocal admiration with which these two able and virtuous men regarded each other. The utter absence of all the littleness of envy observable in their conduct—the unfailing generosity, which led them to neglect no opportunity public or private of giving their testimony each in favor of the merits of the other, are not so common, in public life, that we can afford to pass them by without a word of hearty commendation. Neither of these two good men ever appears to greater advantage than in the panegyrics of the other. The praises of both are of equal value. The lustre which one derives from the laudations of his associate he is equally competent to shed in return.

The Permanent Settlement having been completed, Mr. Shore embarked again for England at the close of 1789. On his arrival he was received, by all parties, with honor; and a Baronetcy was offered to him and declined. His income was small, and he alleged “the incompatibility of poverty and titles.” The salary of a Member of Council was then, as now, equal to £10,000 per annum; but Shore during his three years’ tenure of office, contrived to save no more than enough to add a hundred pounds to his yearly income, which now amounted to £900. On this he purposed to live quietly and contentedly, for the remainder of his days, in England. He took up his residence at Egham, and soon began to feel the delights of a progressive restoration to health and cheerfulness. With public affairs he had little todo. The trial of Warren Hastings was then dragging its slow length along, and Shore was summoned to give evidence against his old master. Fifteen years had wrought an extraordinary revolution in his opinions of men and things. He, who formerly sided with Francis, in his fierce antagonism of the Governor-General, and spoke of the honor and integrity of the Councillor, on whose name “calumny had not been able to fix a blot,” is now to be seen sympathising with Hastings, and denouncing his persecutors. “Messrs. Burke and Francis,” he writes, “will go on without a probable chance of proving the charges. The former is mad; the latter malicious and revengeful. Madness and malice are beyond the operations of reason.” He had learnt, it would seem, to take the measure of Francis with a little more accuracy than of old.

Little more than a year had elapsed since the date of Shore’s arrival in England, when he was startled from his pleasant dreams of ease and domesticity by the unexpected offer of the Governor-Generalship of India. He declined it; but his scruples were soon overcome; he was created a Baronet; and a second time he consented to abandon the pleasures of home and the delights of domestic life, to proceed to the fruition of the solitary splendor of high office beneath an Eastern sun. The appointment was worm-wood to Burke. He wrote a strong letter of remonstrance to Mr. Baring, urging that the newly-nominated Governor-General was a party to several of the misdemeanours charged upon Mr. Hastings, and on evidence before the House of Lords. The answer sent was dignified and decisive. Burke assailed Mr. Dundas in still stronger terms of remonstrance; but with no greater success. Sir John Shore sailed for India, and after a tedious voyage reached Calcutta, in March, 1793.

Lord Cornwallis still held the reins of Government, and did not lay them down till the following October. His successor entered upon the duties of his office, with devout prayers for divine assistance; and bore himself, in his exalted position, with characteristic humility and moderation.^[8] We are told in the volumes before us, that he abjured all pomp and display; that his style of living was very unostentatious; that he contented himself with one-fourth of the number of aides-de-camp, who had surrounded Mr. Hastings; that he never called out the Body Guard (it was then only 50 strong, and he never thought of augmenting it) to attend him; and that his equipage, when he went abroad, was of the plainest and most unassuming fashion. He was a simple-minded man; and he bore his honors with all meekness.

We might dismiss Sir John Shore’s administration in a few paragraphs—but it is by no means our intention to do so. His administration was not what is vulgarly deemed a brilliant administration. He has been blamed, not so much for what he did, as for what he did not; and because he was unwarlike, it has been inferred that he was weak. His Government, it is said, was not a vigorous Government. We seldom hear these words uttered without bringing to mind a certain passage, in the letters of Peter Plymley, which, for more than one reason, is worthy of quotation in such times as these:—“How easy it is to shed human blood; how easy it is to persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so—and that the decision has cost us a severe struggle—how much, in all ages, have wounds, and shrieks, and tears been the cheap and vulgar resources of the rulers of mankind—how difficult and how noble it is to govern in kindness, and to found an empire upon the everlasting basis of justice and affection! But what do men call vigour? To let loose hussars and to bring up artillery; to govern with lighted matches, and to cut, and push, and prime. I call this, not vigour, but the sloth of cruelty and ignorance.” Bowing reverentially to this truth, how cheerfully do we admit that the administration of Sir John Shore was not a vigorous administration!

But some writers assert, that it was weak—that the non-interference system was carried out to the very verge of imbecility; and that the measures thus characterised had not honesty and justice to recommend them. Let us look into the actual circumstances of the case.—The British Government had, in 1790, entered into a tripartite treaty with the Nizam and the Mahrattas, the object of which was, mutual protection against the hostilities of Tippoo. It was stipulated, that in the event of this powerful and ambitious Prince unjustly attacking any one of the allies, the other two should be bound to assist the party assailed to repel the aggressor. By the provisions of such a treaty it is obvious, that had Tippoo made an attack upon the territories of the Nizam, the Governor-General and the Mahrattas would have been bound to send a force to assist him; but it so happened that, early in 1794, a few months after Sir John Shore had taken the reins of Government into his hand, our two allies, who had long regarded each other with jealousy and mistrust, began to quarrel openly with one another; and the weaker, who was in reality the aggressor, besought the intervention of the British. The Nizam, whose empire was in a state of gradual, but certain, decay, was sufficiently infatuated to provoke the hostilities of his more powerful neighbours; and as it was subsequently alleged, that the Mahrattas had called in the aid of Tippoo, our interference was claimed in accordance with the provisions of the tripartite treaty. Now, the question is, whether, under these circumstances, Sir John Shore was bound to make a conditional promise of British co-operation. With the disputes between the Nizam and the Mahrattas, it was obviously no part of his duty to interfere, save as a friendly mediator; but the cause of the formation of the tripartite treaty having been a sort of general Tippoo-phobia, and the object thereof to arrest the ambition of the Sultan, which threatened destruction to every other power in Hindostan, it is urged, and not without considerable shew of truth, that the Nizam, having reason to apprehend danger from the designs of Tippoo, was justly entitled to our protection. At a first glance, this would appear to be a plain and undeniable truism; but a little consideration will, we think, in every unprejudiced mind, lead to an opposite conviction. The convention, by which it is alleged the British Government were bound, was a triple convention. So long as the three parties co-operated in good faith, it was calculated to answer the ends for which it was designed; but upon the secession of any one party, or, at all events, upon the secession of either of the two more powerful parties, it became, for all practical purposes, a mere nullity. The treaty itself was loose and insufficient; there was no provision against the contingency that had arisen; and in the absence of such a provision, it appears to us to have been the duty of the contracting parties, to consider well the spirit and intent of the covenant, into which they had entered. Now, it is undeniable, that by the secession of one of the contracting parties, the intent of the treaty was altogether vitiated; that a new and unexpected conjuncture had arisen, and entirely altered the position and the relations of the remaining two. The treaty was entered into as a tripartite treaty—formed on the supposition, that a junction of the three powers would have furnished mutual protection, under any combination of circumstances; but now only two parties remained, and the third had not only seceded from his allies, but had leagued himself with the very enemy, to resist whose encroachments the alliance had been formed. The Nizam might urge, that the defection of one could not dissolve the obligations of the remaining two; but the answer to this is sufficiently plain. The British Government reply, that they would never have dreamt of entering into such an alliance with the Nizam alone; that the Nizam was entitled to the fulfilment of the treaty as one of three, not as one of two; because it was only on the understanding, that there were to be three parties to it, that the treaty was entered into at all. If three men undertake to carry between them a certain burthen from one point to another, under the impression, that the united strength of the three is equal to the task undertaken; and one unexpectedly secedes from the engagement, it does not appear to us, that the remaining two are under any obligation to each other to go on with the work; still less do they continue under this obligation, if the third and recusant party, seats himself on the top of the burthen, and doubling its weight, insists upon being carried too. If the British, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas, supposing them to be equal powers, were jointly a match for Tippoo Sultan, it is obvious that Tippoo, when joined by the Mahrattas, was twice as strong as the British and the Nizam. But the three powers were not equal: for the Nizam was incomparably the weakest; and no treaty, based upon principles of reciprocity, could have existed between this decaying state and the British Government in its growing vigor. To have compelled the latter, after the secession of the Mahrattas, to assist the Nizam in the field, would have been to compel it to enter into and act up to a new and never-contemplated agreement; to co-operate not with the ally, nor against the enemy contemplated in the existing treaty, but with an ally doubly weak, against an enemy doubly strong. Would this have been just? We think not. Even Sir John Malcolm, the most strenuous opponent of the non-interference policy, which the Governor-General thought it right, under these circumstances, to favor, could scarcely have had the hardihood to maintain, that if the secession of the Mahrattas had been contemplated, the treaty would have been formed; that if the Mahrattas had previously shown themselves friendly to Tippoo and hostile to the Nizam, the British Government would have leagued themselves with the latter, under the certainty of being immediately called upon to send a force to co-operate with our ally against the combined armies of the Mahrattas and Sultan. In all doubtful cases, where a treaty contains no specific provision against a subsequent contingency, it is reasonable and just to interpret it in the spirit in which it was formed, and with due regard to the obvious intents and purposes of the alliance. This was the course adopted by Sir John Shore; and we are satisfied of its propriety.

Being convinced of the justice of the Governor-General’s policy, we need not much concern ourselves regarding any sub-ordinate considerations. We so firmly believe that what is just will never ultimately prove inexpedient; that having established the justice of any political measure, we feel it in our hearts to be a mere work of supererogation to combat the objections of the expediency-mongers. But as many are unwilling to acknowledge this truth, it may be advisable to meet the objections on common grounds, especially as some of them assume a higher tone than is characteristic of the class.

Our position in India was not then what it is now: the superiority of the British power in the field was not, as in these days, an admitted and unquestionable fact. When we declare war, or, as is more fashionable in these days, when we make war without declaring it, against any native state, the result is no longer doubtful. We have systematised victory—reduced the issue of the contest to a certainty, as far as certainty can attend upon human affairs; and are never deterred by considerations of the strength of our enemies, from undertaking any military operations, which, in themselves, appear to be advisable. The state of affairs was widely different during the administration of Sir John Shore. Tippoo was still powerful—still dreaded. We had curbed, and by curbing we had exasperated him. His hatred was more intense—his desire to expel us from the country more insatiable, than at the commencement of the last war; and his power was but little diminished. Alone, he was still a formidable foe; leagued with the Mahrattas he was greatly to be dreaded by men not prone to magnify danger. Sir John Shore was no alarmist; but he deemed that a war with the combined powers of the Sultan and the Mahrattas was, at such a time, of too dangerous a character to be lightly undertaken. The secret history of the Governor-General’s misgivings may be found in one of his letters to Lord Cornwallis. There was no one to whom he could have safely entrusted the conduct of such a war. Sir Robert Abercrombie was then Commander-in-chief. He was a man of the strictest honor; the most unimpeachable integrity; the most assiduous zeal; his personal character was worthy of all possible regard, and by no one were the high qualities of his nature more appreciated than by the Governor-General. But a very excellent man may be a very indifferent General. Abercrombie, whatever may have been his abilities, was not equal to such a crisis; and the Governor-General, though his forbearance was the growth of higher motives, could not but see the danger of entrusting to any but an officer of approved character in the field, the conduct of a war against two such armies as those of the Sultan and the Mahrattas.

But Sir John Malcolm asserts, with no little confidence, that if the British Government had arrayed itself by the side of the Nizam, it would have protected its ally, without incurring the hazard of a war. This is the merest conjecture. The assumption that our very name is sufficient to strike terror into the hearts of our enemies is, at all times, a vain and a dangerous one. Fifty years of conquest—of ever-extending empire in the East, has not rendered it less vain or less dangerous. As we write, the wounds inflicted by an enemy, whom it was thought our very name would over-awe, are scarcely yet cicatrized. To presume upon the forbearance of our enemies, or on the effect to be produced upon them by our very name, may be excusable in a controversial historian, whose begging of the question can but, at the worst, betray a handful of his more shallow readers into erroneous conclusions; but not in a statesman, with vast power and vast responsibility, bound to proceed upon no vain assumptions—upon no wild speculations and conjectures, The man who would play at such a game of chances, is a gamester, and not a statesman. But this argument is really too preposterous to require a more extended notice.

There is another of a more general character, which, from its particular application to the present case, seems to demand a brief consideration. It has been alleged, that the policy of Sir John Shore was distinguished by short-sightedness; that the non-interference system, pursued for a brief season, was calculated to render necessary future interferences of a more serious and extensive nature; that interposition, sooner or later, was inevitable, and that by adopting vigorous measures, at an earlier stage, he might have prevented the subsequent occurrence of a far more sanguinary conflict, than could have resulted from these measures. This is a common argument, often employed to justify acts of enormous wrong-doing. It is impossible to conceive any political doctrine more susceptible of flagitious abuse. It is in itself a moral enormity; and viewing it with the eyes of the merest worldly wisdom, utterly unsound. We are not to do evil that good may come of it; we are not to make war in order to maintain peace. The expedient we know to be wrong; we believe it to be equally futile. We believe that a little war is much more likely to induce, than to prevent, a great one—that one war more frequently leads to another, than is productive of a general peace. A vast flood of casuistry has been poured out in defence of this expedient; but the page of history contains a complete refutation of this most sophistical doctrine—a doctrine, which is ever ready to the hands of selfishness and ambition; cruelty and oppression; to be paraded in defence of measures, whose wickedness cannot bear the light.

Sir John Shore was not selfish; was not ambitious.—He regarded war, though decorated with red ribbands and silver stars, as a prodigious evil. He thought that an earldom would be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of a hundred lives; and could not even be tempted by the fascinations of an Extraordinary Gazette in perspective, to make war, except upon compulsion. He believed, too, that he was bound, in some small degree, to act up to his own avowed principles; and to regard, not only the spirit of the Charter act,^[9] but the instructions of the superior authorities at home. He was of opinion, moreover, that the Government of the country was more beneficially employed in devising means for its internal improvement, than in seeking occasions for foreign wars; and that it was more expedient to replenish the Treasury of India than to exhaust it. The general feeling of the people of England was in favor of pacific measures. The further extension of our Indian Empire, supposed to be already overgrown, was looked upon as a peril to be studiously avoided; the clamor raised against our conquests in the East had been, for some time, loud and unceasing; one of the strongest and most popular points of the new India Bill was that which proposed a remedy for this growing lust of dominion, by rendering the Governor-General personally responsible, for all such acts of hostility towards, and interference with, the Native Princes of India. Sir John Shore had been selected to fill the highest station in the country, solely on account of his pacific character and his knowledge of the details of internal administration. Many abler men might have been found, as war-ministers; more dashing, more “vigorous” characteristics might have been discerned in scores of ministerial protegés, eager to leap into a salary of £25,000 per annum, and, if necessary, to fold up their consciences with their great-coats; scores of men of political all-work, ready to turn their hands to the annexation of Provinces, the over-turning of dynasties, the making and the unmaking of nabobs. But the choice fell upon Shore, a civil servant of the Company, with no powerful interest, no family connexions, and no other reputation to commend him, than great ability and experience as a Revenue officer, and sterling integrity of character as a man. Had the person, thus selected to fill the office of Governor-General, shown himself prone to war, he would have betrayed the confidence reposed in him; he would have violated the implied contract with his employers, which men of honor deem as sacred as any registered on parchment and ratified by an oath; he would have shown himself utterly unworthy of holding the high and responsible office, which his merits as a just and peaceful statesman had attained.

Such being the opinions and such the nature of the Governor-General, it is not strange, in spite of the censures which have been passed upon his forbearance, that he limited his Mysore policy to the observance of the treaty of Seringapatam. His arrangement of the Oude succession has been also censured; but it was not of more questionable character. Justice and policy were both on his side.

When Sir John Shore assumed the reins of Government, the condition of this unhappy country was such as to excite the pity and alarm of every friend of humanity. It was suffering under the effects of a double Government. The Political and Military government was in the hands of the Company; the internal administration of the Oude territories still rested with the Nabob Vizier. Disorder of every kind ran riot over the whole length and breadth of the land. Never were the evils of misrule more horribly apparent; never were the vices of an indolent and rapacious Government productive of a greater sum of misery. The extravagance and profligacy of the court were written in hideous characters on the desolated face of the country. It was left to the Nabob’s Government to dispense justice: justice was not dispensed. It was left to the Nabob’s Government to collect the revenue; the people were ground down to the dust. It was left to the Nabob’s Government to coerce the subjects of the state; coercion was but another name for cruelty and extortion. The court was sumptuous and profligate; the people poor and wretched. The expenses of the household were enormous;—hundreds of richly-caparisoned useless elephants; a multitudinous throng of unserviceable attendants; bands of dancing girls; flocks of parasites; costly feasts and ceremonies; folly and pomp and profligacy of every conceivable description, drained the coffers of the state. A vicious and extravagant Government soon beget a poor and a suffering people; a poor and a suffering people, in turn, beget a bankrupt Government. The process of retaliation is sure. To support the lavish expenditure of the court, the mass of the people were persecuted and outraged. The revenue was collected by force. The rapacity of the Aumils was monstrous; and the better to aid this rapacity, bands of armed mercenaries were let loose upon the miserable ryots. Under such a system of cruelty and extortion, the country soon became a desert. It had been drained for the sustenance of the vicious luxury of the court; there were no more golden eggs to be gathered; for the vital principle, which generated them, had been forcibly annihilated; and the Government learnt by hard experience, that the prosperity of the people is the only true source of wealth. But the decrease of the Revenue was not accompanied by a corresponding diminution of the profligate expenditure of the court. The evil was met by another evil. Recourse was had to a destructive loan-system. An enormous and accumulating debt was incurred; and the country was on the verge of ruin. Lord Cornwallis had, with manly energy and an honesty and humanity characteristic of all his actions, remonstrated in forcible language with the Nabob, against his enormous extravagance and the oppressions which were practised to support it. He remonstrated in vain; and his successor found affairs in the worst possible state. The subsidy, it is true, had been punctually paid; but the finance affairs of the Nabob were hopelessly involved. He had paid off one debt by incurring another; and at every shift, found the burthen heavier than before. He soon began to sink under it; but pertinaciously refused, in the hour of his need, to avail himself of the only remedy that offered any permanent relief.

Surrounded by the territories of Oude was a small tract of country, which still remained in the hands of the Rohillas. The condition of this petty principality afforded a favorable contrast to that of the circumjacent country. The effects of a steady and beneficent system of Government were everywhere visible. The people were prosperous and happy. The name of the chief, who ruled this single district of Rampore, the only spot that still remained to the Rohillas, was Fyzoolah Khan. In 1794, the old man was gathered to his fathers. His eldest son, Mahomed Ali, succeeded in due course to the little sovereignty; but his days were already numbered. The chief had a younger brother, whose name was Gholaum Mahomed, a fierce and ambitious man, to whom fratricide was but an airy trifle, and usurpation a laudable end. This man murdered Mahomed Ali; and rudely setting aside the claims of the son of the murdered man, seized the Government of the district. Rampore was tributary to Oude; and the confirmation of the Nabob Vizier was required. Gholaum Mahomed offered a large bribe. The Vizier, too poor to be very scrupulous, was well inclined to favor the claims of the Usurper; but the British Government interfered. Sir Robert Abercrombie, the Commander-in-Chief, was then in the Upper Provinces; and before he could receive instructions from Calcutta, he marched against Gholaum Mahomed, and declared him and his followers to be rebels. The two armies came into action at Bettarah. At the first attack the fortune of war seemed to favor the Rohillas; but the tide of victory was rolled back upon the usurper’s army, and the British left master of the field. Gholaum Mahomed was admitted to terms. Sir Robert Abercrombie guaranteed the personal security of the chief, and even consented to grant him a provision. The succession was promised to the son of Mahomet Ali; but of these measures the Government disapproved.

Sir John Shore reprehended the undue moderation of the Commander-in-chief, who had condescended to treat with a murderer and a rebel; but this he acknowledged to be an error on the right side. The grant of the succession to the family of Mahomed Ali, was a more serious mistake. Unfortunately, the Governor-General had determined to wrest the Government from the Rohillas and to transfer it to the hands of the Nabob Vizier. The justification of this very doubtful measure rests on the fact, that the Rohilla chiefs had generally sided with the usurper; and had thus forfeited every claim to our protection. This is not altogether satisfactory. We do not see in it sufficient to justify the abandonment of an avowedly well-governed and prosperous district to the tender mercies of a notoriously corrupt Government, which turned whatever it touched into a scene of frightful misery and disorder. To have given up Rampore to the Nabob Vizier would have been to have entailed upon it all the evils of the worst possible misrule. This fate was not in store for the Rohillas. The treasures of Fyzoolah Khan were poured into the empty coffers of the Oude Court; but the arrangements of Abercrombie were confirmed. That officer was severely censured; but impartial History has done him justice.

But to return to the state of affairs at the Court of Lucknow—Every year saw them relapsing into worse disorder, with less disposition, as time advanced, on the part of the local Government, to remedy the evils beneath which the unhappy country had so long been groaning. Advice, protestation, remonstrance were in vain. Lord Cornwallis had advised, protested, remonstrated; Sir John Shore had advised, protested, remonstrated. At last, the Governor-General, in 1797, determined upon a journey to Lucknow.

It cannot be said that this journey was undertaken, with no other object than the improvement of the internal administration of the Oude country. There was a little business connected with the subsidy to be settled; and there was a great panic, arising out of the movements of Zemaun Shah—known in our times, as the old “blind king,” a pensioner at Loodheanah, and afterwards a reverend appendage to the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk—but then, in the full vigor of his years, a powerful and ambitious prince. This subsidy, which the Court of Directors had honestly avowed to be one of the causes^[10] of the corruption of the Oude Court and the extortions practised on the people—for the payment of fifty lakhs of rupees by a Government, determined to sacrifice the people to any extent, rather than to limit its own expenditure, must necessarily have been attended by a corresponding amount of human suffering—was said not to be sufficient for the maintenance of the requisite number of troops. It was urged, that the Nabob must have more troops, and that the Company must have more money. The latter having recently augmented their Cavalry, the Court of Directors were very anxious that the Vizier should pay part of the expense; and that, the better to enable him to do this, he should disband his own useless sowars. This matter was now to be settled by the Governor-General in person at the Court of Lucknow. The times were somewhat stirring. Zemaun Shah had entered the Punjaub, and penetrated as far as Lahore.^[11] He was expected soon to reach Delhi. The hopes and aspirations of the Mahomedans on the Northen frontier of Hindoostan rose up to fever-heat. They saw before them, in their eager imaginings, the restoration of the lost dignity of the house of Timour. An adequate resistance to the invader was not to be looked for from any of the native states. The British Government, therefore, lost no time in adopting precautionary measures; a force of 15,000 men was equipped, ready to take the field at an hour’s notice. At the same time, the necessity of adjusting affairs in Oude was rendered still more apparent by the anticipated invasion from Affghanistan. The Nabob had complained of his ministers, who, he said, had thwarted and opposed him, and fostered every kind of corruption. Truly or falsely he attributed to their incompetency many of the worst evils which had arisen under his Government; and proposed to appoint in their stead a creature of less character than either of them. To this the British Government objected. They had a better substitute to offer.

Early in February, the Governor-General set out for Lucknow, taking with him one Tuffozool Hossein Khan, who had been, for some time, living in Calcutta as the Vakeel of the court of Lucknow. He was an intelligent, respectable, trustworthy man; and had recommended himself to the Governor-General by his studious habits, his steady straight-forward conduct, and his sincere professions of attachment. A scholar and a mathematician of extensive acquirements, he had translated the Principia of Newton into the Persian language, and had composed a Treatise on Fluxions. For sometime past, he had entertained an ardent desire to visit England; and had recently formed the resolution of accompanying Sir John Shore, on his return home to the West. In these hopes, however, he was disappointed. Sir John Shore prevailed upon the Vakeel to accompany him to Oude, and there, with the consent of the Nabob, to take the administration into his undefiled hands. His habits were not merely contemplative; he was an able statesman, as well as a ripe scholar, and had approved himself, in every way, fit for the office, which he now reluctantly consented to hold.

Before the end of the month, the Governor-General was at Lucknow, and Tuffozool Khan duly installed in office. The conduct of this able and excellent native statesman fully realised Shore’s expectations. The influence of a superior mind was soon discernible at this corrupt court. The new minister spoke plainly, and the Nabob Vizier listened patiently. The latter, a weak, rather than vicious prince, sated by over indulgence,^[12] surrounded by dissolute minions, and immoderately addicted to opium, was found to be sufficiently tractable; and Sir John Shore returned to the Presidency tolerably satisfied with the result of his journey. More, perhaps, might have been done; but that Zemaun Shah, finding that matters had not gone on very well during his absence, had thought it prudent to turn his back upon Hindoostan and to reseek his own dominions. Shore had calculated upon a discreet use of the proceedings of the Douranee monarch, as a sure card in the game of politics which he was then playing—“I think,” he writes in a letter to Lady Shore, who had at last made the voyage to India, “the prospective danger alarming; the immediate danger a very good instrument in promoting my views with the Vizier.” This instrument failed him at the critical moment; still he accomplished something.—“I left the seat of my government,” he says, in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, written shortly before his departure from Lucknow, “to pay him (the Vizier) a visit—not entirely of ceremony, as you may suppose; and since my arrival here, I have been talking to him on subjects, which never entered his imagination—the prosperity of his country, the happiness of his subjects, the improvement of his administration, and the dignity of his character. Mendici, mimœ, balatrones, hoc genus omne, with fools, knaves, and sycophants, compose the court of the illustrious ruler of millions! Never did I undertake so unpleasant a task. If I have not, however, impressed him with ideas more suitable to his situation, I have, at least, established the influence of the Company with him on stronger grounds than before.” That is to say; he had settled the little matter of the subsidy, by screwing out of the unhappy Nabob five lakhs and a half of rupees annually, in addition to the large and enhanced amount of tribute, which was already paid; and he had established on a secure basis the administration of Tuffozool Khan. “All this,” wrote the Governor-General in a letter to Jonathan Duncan, “I could have accomplished on the dragooning plan in five days; upon my principles it required as many weeks.” In the course of April he returned to Calcutta.

A few months afterwards, the Vizier, Asoph-ud-dowlah, died, and his reputed son, Vizier Ali, ascended the throne of Oude. The deceased monarch had acknowledged him as his successor; the people—or rather the court, for to these matters the people are seldom otherwise than most indifferent, demurred not to the succession; and the British Government confirmed him in his title. In a little time, however, intelligence reached the Governor-General, which caused him to regret his recognition of the new Vizier, and determined him again to proceed to Lucknow. It was apparent, that Vizier Ali was not the son of Asoph-ud-dowlah; equally apparent, that he was a bad and violent man, burning with hostility against the British Government. Another claimant of the throne had presented himself in the person of Saadut Ali, brother and next of kin to the deceased Nabob; and the Governor-General deemed it both just and expedient to consider the claims of this man, who, for some time, had been living a pensioner at Benares.

On his arrival at Lucknow the Governor-General found it a strange scene of disorder and intrigue. He had been met, when some miles from the capital, by his old friend Tuffozool Khan, who poured out a flood of evidence in proof of the fact, that Vizier Ali was not the son of Asoph-ud-dowlah, legitimate or illegitimate; but a spurious bantling, the child of a menial servant, without one single drop of royal blood to ennoble him. The minister added, that the young Nabob was fierce and profligate, a compound of many of the worst vices; that a connexion between such a man and the British Government would surely be disastrous to the latter; and that it was incumbent on the Governor-General, as an act of justice to the Company as well as to Oude, to set aside the unlawful claims of the spurious Vizier Ali. These representations were made known to Shore again and again. They were consonant with his own opinions; and he acted in accordance with them. Vizier Ali ceased to reign at Lucknow.

The work which Sir John Shore had undertaken was one of difficulty and of danger. That Vizier Ali was not the son of Asoph-ud-dowlah was a fact sufficiently notorious from one end of Oude to the other. It was equally notorious, that the deceased Nabob had recognized this youth as his son; and by the Mahomedan law such a recognition afforded a sufficient title to the inheritance. But it was alleged, on the other hand, that not only was Vizier Ali generally known to be the son of a frash; but that Asoph-ud-dowlah, who had no sons, was thoroughly aware of the fact; that the Nabob had indeed purchased the child, when an infant, and brought it up as his own; perfectly conscious all the time of the real parentage of the infant. In this view of the case, the Mahomedan law did not legitimatize the succession; and the question, therefore, became a question of evidence. The principal—indeed, the only competent witness—was an eunuch, named Tehzeen Ali Khan, who asserted with much confidence and an apparent show of truth, that the deceased Nabob had no children; but that he was in the habit of purchasing infants, who were brought up in the Zenana, and called his own; or, in some cases, of buying women in a state of pregnancy, that their offspring might be born in the Palace. Sir John Shore considered the evidence against the legitimacy of Vizier Ali decisive; and we think, that there is no reasonable doubt of the justice of his conclusions. It has been said, that he placed too much reliance on the testimony of a single man, and “decided against the unfortunate Nabob, the great question of a kingdom, upon evidence upon which a Court of English law would not have decided against him “a question of a few pounds.”^[13] There would be nothing very uncommon in this, if the allegation were unquestionably true; for statesmen are not quite so particular as juries, nor is it the custom to require as strong evidence before deposing a monarch, as is needed to send a beggar to the tread-mill. In our times, the question of the succession would have been decided against Vizier Ali upon the grounds, not of his illegitimacy, but of his hostility to British rule. Of the hostility there was the strongest proof. Monarchs have been deposed in later days, upon evidence of not a twentieth part the strength of that which might have been brought in proof of the hostility of Vizier Ali—monarchs, not dependent upon the British Government and supported by our bayonets, on the confines of our own country, but independent rulers in regions far beyond our frontier. In these days, it is sufficient to suspect, or to pretend to suspect, hostility. It is enough for a Governor-General to entertain an idea—no matter how vague and chimerical—that British interests would be more surely subserved by the supremacy of one party than of another in a distant state; straightway the fiat is sent forth; the suspected ruler is deposed; and some puppet or protegé is set up to play the part of a “friendly ruler,” hedged by a divinity of British bayonets. It is a common-place remark, that the English in India have grown purer, under the influence of time; that we have lived down the moral diseases which were erst endemic amongst us. But we fear, that one important exception must be made; we must except the foreign administration of British Governments in India. We thank God most devoutly, for having purged the stye of domestic polity, which erst was reeking and rank with the filthiest corruption. But whilst our judges have grown pure and our revenue-collectors honest; whilst the subordinate servants of the Company have settled down into the conviction, that eternal infamy is the fair guerdon of the man who turns his office into a thumb-screw for the extortion of pelf; whilst the civil administration of the country is conducted throughout upon principles believed to be sound and righteous in themselves, and calculated to confer advantages upon the people such as they have never before enjoyed, our political dealings with other Asiatic states are characterised by even more injustice and cruelty than at the very outset of the British conquests in the East. We have not stood still; we have gone back. We have less than the little conscience, which influenced our doings in the last century. Is there one among our readers, who, considering the chief events which have occurred under the present Charter, can bring himself to believe, that in these days, the Oude succession would not have been decided against Vizier Ali without actual reference to the question of legitimacy or illegitimacy, however much, had the inquiry turned out as we wished, this plausible pretext might have been put forth as a make-belief?—Is there one who doubts, that the conscience of a modern Governor-General would have stood in his way, had he thought that the Government of Saadut Ali would have been more convenient than the Government of Vizier Ali? In the modern school of politics, it is quite enough, that a weaker Prince should render himself obnoxious to us by some appearance of hostility; or should excite in us an apprehension, that he may become hostile. These suspicions once excited, the security of the British possessions in the East is said to demand, that we should put down, by force, the dominion of the suspected Prince. Now, Vizier Ali was more than suspected; he was known to be hostile. We confess, that we do not think that either our last Whig, or our last Tory Governor-General would have hesitated five minutes, before toppling him off the throne.

Sir John Shore decided the question of the Oude succession, not as a man seeking a colorable pretext for the adoption of measures previously determined upon from motives of political expediency; but as a man conscientiously believing that the course he was following was one of undeniable justice. There was no predetermination to carry out this policy—no casting about for something to justify it in the eyes of the world. In modern politics the justification is an after-thought; the measure is resolved upon first, and then an excuse is invented. Sir John Shore started for Lucknow, with no determination to depose Vizier Ali. It was not until evidence was laid before him, of a clear and convincing character, that this determination was formed. It is not true, that all the evidence adduced consisted in the depositions of one man. There was a mass of collateral evidence, which, added to the direct testimony of this man, cleared away any doubt which might otherwise have existed in the mind of the Governor-General. The eunuch Tehzeen Khan was alone competent to speak to the impossibility of royal blood flowing in the veins of Vizier Ali; he deposed that the mother of the youth was delivered in his own house; that the woman had not, for three or four years previously, entered the Zenana at all; that he acquainted the Nabob with the fact of the child’s birth; and that the Nabob offered to purchase the infant for 500 rupees.^[14] The witness was subjected to a strict examination; but his accounts were straight-forward and consistent. His character was held in high estimation; and there was apparent in all his statements a degree of candour, which invested them with an irresistible credibility. The evidence was obviously not the evidence of a man endeavouring to make up a case; for the eunuch admitted much, the suppression of which would greatly have strengthened its probability.^[15] There was internally everything in favor of the veracity of the witness; and the story which he told, had the advantage of equally strong external support. It is questionable whether there was a man in the Oude dominions who believed, that Vizier Ali was the son of Asoph-ud-dowlah. Every tongue proclaimed the spurious origin of the youth. The belief, now generally expressed, had existed during the life of the late Nabob. It was not now hatched up, at a critical juncture, for a specific purpose. Every man, whom Shore consulted, not only deposed to the common report, but to his own decided convictions. Every man spoke of the fact, as one never questioned, and therefore firmly believed. The common voice of the people proclaimed, that Vizier Ali had no single drop of royal blood in his veins. This alone furnished the strongest possible presumption of the spurious origin of the youth;—coupled with the direct and positive evidence of Tehzeen Ali, it was irresistibly convincing. The inevitable conclusion was that Vizier Ali was not the son of Asoph-ud-dowlah; that the late Nabob had ever been fully conscious of the fact; that none of his reputed sons could lay claim to more genuine royalty than Vizier Ali; and that therefore, Saadut Ali, eldest surviving son of Sujah-ud-dowlah, and brother of the late Nabob, was the legitimate heir to the vacant musnud. Shore acted in accordance with these convictions; and the justice of the decision was never questioned in Oude—never questioned in any part of India. There is not a native of the country, at this day, who will not, if the name of Vizier Ali be familiar to him, tell you at once that he was the son of a frash.

When the Governor-General entered Lucknow, he found, that Vizier Ali, suspecting his designs, was making preparations for resistance. The dogged, ferocious character of the youth shewed itself in all its native deformity. No sooner did intelligence of the resolution of the British ruler again to visit the capital of Oude reach the young Nabob, than he assumed a hostile position, concentrated a large body of troops in Lucknow, served out a profusion of ammunition, and rallied his friends around him. Immediately on his accession, (perchance, before) he had bethought himself of the possibility of subverting the influence of the British Government in Oude; and as this darling hope day by day gathered strength, in the young man’s bosom, he employed himself in maturing his designs for the accomplishment of the great end of his ambition; but suffered not these worthy aims to interfere with the gratification of his viler lusts. His confidence in his own power was unbounded. He had poured out treasure with profusion into the laps of the dissolute soldiery; and bound their chiefs, by the most solemn oaths, to stand by him in the hour of need. The minister, Tuffozool Khan, the friend of the British, he had virtually degraded; and there was strong suspicion, that he had designed the assassination of this good man.^[16] Affairs were in this condition, when the approach of the Governor-General, with a strong force, induced a pause of reflexion. The first resolve of Vizier Ali had been to despatch a letter of stern defiance to greet the British ruler as he neared the confines of the Oude dominions. This letter was written, but not sent. At the solicitation of his father-in-law, who had been warned of the consequences of such an offence, another of a more temperate character was substituted and despatched. He had also resolved to meet the Governor-General with a strong force and a train of artillery; but this also was abandoned at the solicitation of the Begum. He went forth to meet the representative of the Company, with a small escort; and with an appearance of friendship—but the deadliest enmity was rankling in his heart. Preparations for war were still afoot. Still he continued to levy troops, to exact oaths of fidelity from the chiefs; and still the language of the Durbar was loud, vehement, and war-like.

The Governor-General took up his residence in the city of Lucknow; but he had not been there many days, before it was communicated to him, that Vizier Ali had laid a plot for his assassination; that large numbers of troops had been secretly introduced into the town; and that several new battalions were marching upon Lucknow. On receiving this intelligence, Shore quitted the city, and took up his residence at a garden house some miles distant from the capital. The movement alarmed the young Nabob; and, on the following day, he quitted Lucknow. Soon afterwards he was attacked with a virulent disorder; and the Governor-General was left, in comparative safety, to prosecute his inquiries, and mature his designs.

The result of the enquiries now instituted strengthened Shore in the conviction, that Vizier Ali was a spurious child; a determined enemy of the British Government; a sanguinary and profligate wretch, with scarcely a redeeming virtue. Moreover, it assured the Governor-General, that the young Nabob was almost destitute of real friends in the state; that the general feeling of the people was strong against him; and that even the two Begums (the mother and wife of Asoph-ud-dowlah) and Almas, the great renter, who was proprietor of nearly half the country—influential parties, who had once seemed to manifest a disposition to support the young Nabob, were ready to turn their backs upon him. A more revolting scene of intrigue than that which now unfolded itself, has rarely been presented to the wondering eye of the diplomatist. Almas came forward to negociate, on his own part and that of the elder Begum, for the substitution of one of the brothers of the late Nabob for the profligate youth who now occupied the musnud. He confirmed all that had been advanced relative to the birth of Vizier Ali, the ferocity of his character, and his deep enmity to the British; and added the authority of the elder Begum, on these points, to his own. The prince, whom it was proposed to substitute, was Mirza Jungly, a younger brother of Saadut Ali. The Governor-General listened patiently to all that was said; and offered no objections to the proposal. When Almas had done speaking, Shore observed, that the subject was one of the highest importance; that the proposition now made was worthy of all possible consideration; and that it would be expedient to resume the conference, on a future day, inviting the Commander-in-Chief to take part in the deliberation. Accordingly, three days afterwards, the conference was resumed in the presence of Sir Alured Clark, who had succeeded to the chief command. Almas made the same statements as on the former occasion; and stood, as the Governor-General intended, irretrievably committed to the deposition of Vizier Ali. The justice of this measure once fully admitted, there was no sort of pretext for the exclusion of Saadut Ali from the succession. The mind of the Governor-General was now resolved; he wrote to the Resident at Benares to make preparations for the journey of Saadut Khan to Cawnpore, and a few days afterwards despatched the draft of an engagement between the Prince and the British Government, to be presented to, and approved of by, the former.

In the mean time, Vizier Ali had risen from the sick-bed; but only to find that all hope of resisting the power of the British Government was utterly gone from him. He was still wrathful—still violent as before; but his paroxysms were the paroxysms of impotence. Surrounded by his creatures, the most depraved of the depraved courtiers of Lucknow, he plotted new schemes for the murder of the Governor-General, and the extermination of the British. He had still a few purchased adherents, who, armed to the teeth, were poured into the streets of Lucknow; and, desperate characters as many of them were, a general pillage and massacre seemed far from an improbable contingency. But God in his mercy averted this most terrible consummation. Vizier Ali bowed himself to the stern behests of fate; and this great revolution was a bloodless one. The Governor-General, who, contrary to the advice of all around him, had scrupulously abstained from any act of violence against the person of Vizier Ali, set out to meet the new Nabob-Vizier on his way from Cawnpore; and conducted him in state to Lucknow. To the elder Begum had been entrusted the duty of preserving the tranquillity of the city, which, on the evening before the anticipated entrance of the new Nabob-Vizier, bristled with the arms of fierce and lawless soldiers, eager for the delights of pillage, and regardless of the effusion of blood. It was a critical time—a moment of intense anxiety; but the benignant Providence, to whom the christian ruler had, in his difficulties, so often prayed for assistance, was a very present help in trouble. Saadut Ali was placed on the musnud without an appeal to arms. Fearful and trembling he entered Lucknow, almost repenting of his high fortune; but the Governor-General was calm and confident. Encouraging his royal protégé with kindly assurances of protection, Shore took the prince into his own howdah, and thus succeeded in allaying his apprehensions of coming evil. On they went through the crowded streets of Lucknow, the Nabob and the Nabob-maker—the latter scattering, every where as he advanced, rupees among the assembled multitude. As they approached the palace, the pressing crowd grew denser and denser—but the swarming populace gave no token of anger or discontent. Curiosity was the one dominant feeling. The spectacle, as on these occasions it ever does, filled the minds as the eyes of the eager crowd; the Begum, who had been invited, and who had promised to indue the prince with the royal kelat, was constant to her engagement; ready, on the arrival of the cortége, to perform the ceremony of investiture—and Saadut Ali became Nabob-Vizier of Oude.

The British Government were, of course, remunerated. It would not have been an English transaction, if nothing had been made of it but a Nabob. A small consideration for value received was granted by Saadut Ali. The treaty, which had been presented to him, when first it was determined to raise him from the dust of Benares, was a considerable improvement upon any which we had before contrived to force on the luckless Government of Oude. The matter of the subsidy was encreased to seventy-six lakhs of rupees per annum; Allahabad was ceded to the Company; and twelve lakhs of rupees were paid down to defray the expenses of the Nabob-making. Lord Teignmouth tells us, that his father might have enriched himself by half-a million of money, if he had consented to let the Company’s noose run a little more easily.

The sequel of the tale—a tragic one—must be told here, though it belongs to the administration of Sir John Shore’s successor. Vizier Ali, who, finding all hopes of organising a successful opposition utterly vain, had surrendered himself to the British Government, was immediately removed to Benares. By the treaty which we had imposed upon Saadut Ali, the Nabob had pledged himself to pay, through the hands of the British Resident, a yearly stipend for the support of the dethroned prince, amounting to a lakh and a half of rupees. This was sufficient to enable the profligate youth to continue, without restraint, his course of vicious and degrading self-indulgence. For some time after his dethronement, it appeared that his licentiousness afforded him sufficient occupation; and that he was contented with the amount of wickedness which he was able to achieve in his confined sphere. But the pleasures of domestic vice, in process of time, began to pall upon his appetite. He sighed for a more enlarged sphere of action; and weary of the blandishments of sensual vice, and the small cruelties of a zenana tyrant, panted for the more exciting joys of wholesale murder and rapine. He had not been a year at Benares, during which time the peace of the city had been more than once disturbed by his lawless retainers, before he was discovered in the act of sending a friendly invitation to Zewaun Shah, encouraging the Affghan monarch in his contemplated invasion of Hindoostan: and setting at work other active agencies for the organisation of a widespread conspiracy, which was to set the whole country in a blaze, and to end in the extermination of the British. These amiable designs having been something more than suspected, it was deemed advisable to remove Vizier Ali to Calcutta. Intimation of the intentions of Government were communicated to the Prince, through Mr. Cherry, the Resident at Benares. This gentleman, who had held his appointment under the administration of Sir John Shore, was cautioned by that statesman against the too probable effects of the violence and ferocity of Vizier Ali; but the advice seems to have fallen upon a rock. “At present,” he wrote, when at Benares, on his return from Lucknow, “in the indulgence of youthful dissipation, he finds every gratification which he can desire; but we are not to forget that he has exhibited marks not only of a depraved and vicious character, but of an ambitious and fearless disposition, capable of any desperation.” Mr. Cherry thought the Governor-General an alarmist, or acted as though he thought so; and shortly before the day arrived which was to witness the departure of Vizier Ali for Calcutta, the Resident invited the Prince to breakfast with him at Secrole. By Mr. Cherry had Vizier Ali Been treated with uniform kindness and consideration; and the Mahomedan, it was generally supposed, regarded the Resident, with such feelings of friendship as it was possible for his depraved heart to entertain. But the order for his removal to Calcutta was a death-blow to his aspiring hopes; and he hated, with an intense hatred, every one who, directly or indirectly, whether as the suggester, the maturer, or the mere instrument for the execution of the offensive measure, had been concerned in his anticipated removal. With these bitter feelings rankling in his heart, Vizier Ali presented himself, with a large retinue, at Mr. Cherry’s-residence. After the usual compliments, the Prince descanted, in an eager, impetuous tone, upon the cruelty and injustice of his removal from Benares, and taxed in no measured terms, the Resident with having brought this evil upon him. Calmly and gently, Mr. Cherry replied to the invectives of the fierce Mahomedan, urging that he was merely the executive—that the orders, issued by Government, whether approved or disapproved by him, he was bound, as a servant of Government, to carry out. But these mild remonstrances were thrown away upon Vizier Ali. Starting suddenly from his seat, he drew his sword and struck at the Resident. The signal was caught up, and in an instant the swords of all his retainers were unsheathed. Mr. Cherry sprung towards a window, and endeavoured to effect his escape; but he was struck down in the attempt, and a dagger buried in his bosom. He fell dead on the floor; and beside him, Captain Conway, and Mr. Evans, an East Indian assistant, who had been surrounded by the other retainers of Vizier Ali and instantly despatched. Having accomplished this, the sanguinary ruffians quitted the scene of death, rushed to the gateway, mounted their horses, which were standing ready for them, and galloped, at full speed, towards the house of Mr. Davis, the magistrate. Meeting, on their way, two other servants of the Company, Mr. Graham and Mr. Hill, the ruffians murdered them in the streets; and on arriving at Mr. Davis’s house, shot the native sentinel at the door. Warned by the uproar which this incident occasioned, Mr. Davis betook himself with his wife and family to the roof of his house, which, after the fashion of all Indian houses, was flat, and approached by a narrow stair-case. In his flight, he had providentially seized a hog-spear, and with this in his hand, he posted himself at the narrow aperture, and with a firmness and courage worthy of Leonidas, defended the gorge against the fierce assailants, who were pressing upwards to destroy him. The stair-case was so narrow, that only one man at a time could approach the top-most stair. The first man who gained it was speared to death—a second followed, and a third; but only to receive in his breast the deadly weapon of the courageous Englishman. Others made the venture, but fell desperately wounded beside the carcasses of their countrymen. For nearly an hour-and-a half did the stout heart and the strong arm of the British gentleman bid defiance to the ruthless gang of murderers, who were pressing on to his destruction—for nearly an hour-and-a half did he successfully defend his life, and dearer than life, his wife and children, who were looking on with terror and dismay. His courage and constancy prevailed at last. Whilst Vizier Ali and his companions were storming the roof of Mr. Davis’s house, another civilian, Mr. Treves, was riding at full speed to Beatabur to bring in a detachment of cavalry, and succeeding in less time than he expected, returned with a couple of troops to Secrole, and scared the assassins from their prey. Vizier Ali fled towards Azimghur, with three or four hundred attendants, and subsequently found refuge in the territory of the Rajah of Bhotwal, who was at that time a prisoner in Nepaul. The Rajah of Nepaul, on the representation of the British Government, determined to seize or expel the fugitive, and Vizier Ali, apprehending treachery, quitted the sanctuary, mustered his followers, who had considerably increased in numbers, and advanced towards Gorruckpore. Here a party of his adherents fell in with a detachment of British troops, who entirely routed them. Vizier Ali, now finding his cause hopeless, and being deserted by several of his chief adherents, again sought safety in flight. The Rajah of Jeyneghur, upon whose protection he threw himself, received him, but more as a prisoner, than a guest; and when the British Government sent to offer a large reward for the surrender of Vizier Ali, the cupidity of the Rajah prevailed over every other consideration—the British gold glittered with irresistible brightness, and he consented to give up the murderer. But it was not without some qualms of conscience that he agreed to betray a man, who had thrown himself up on his protection. Compounding, therefore, for what he regarded as a breach of hospitality, without loosening his hold of the gold mohurs in his grasp, he delivered up the fugitive prince, under an engagement, that the life of the ruffian should be spared; and accordingly one of the most atrocious monsters, that ever disgraced the name of humanity, was suffered to die a natural death. He was conveyed to Calcutta; and died, a wretched prisoner, in Fort William.

But to return to Sir John Shore—The Governor-General, before he quitted Lucknow, had received advices from England, announcing the appointment of Lord Mornington as his successor, and his own elevation to an Irish Peerage.^[17] Had the offer been made to him, he would have declined it; but his ministerial friends apprehending the obstacle which was likely to be raised by the modesty and humility of the Governor-General, promoted him without instituting an inquiry into his wishes; he became a Lord malgré lui; and returned to Calcutta as Lord Teignmouth. The prospect of almost immediately revisiting England, although, some time before, his wife had made the voyage “then rarely attempted by ladies,” afforded him more satisfaction than his elevation to the peerage; and he prepared immediately for his departure. He reached Calcutta on the 2d, and embarked on the 7th of March. The inhabitants of Calcutta presented him with an address, which contains the highest possible tribute both to his public and private character. It is too honorable to him to be omitted. “Justice, moderation, and an inflexible integrity” are not always the characteristics of the public conduct of a Governor-General:—

Honoured Sir,

“We, the British Inhabitants of Calcutta, notwithstanding that you are shortly about to relinquish the important station which you have long held, so much to your own honour and to the advantage of the Nation, cannot suffer you to depart without expressing our high respect for your character, and our sincere concern for the loss of a Governor, who, aided by the lights of a superior understanding, and a long experience of the affairs of this country, has made justice, moderation, and an inflexible integrity the invariable guides of his conduct. We request, Hon. Sir, that you will accept our earnest wishes for your complete restoration to health, and for the long enjoyment of domestic happiness; which you are no less calculated to promote by your private virtues, than you are the interests of your country by your talents and qualifications for public life.

“We have the honour to be, with the highest respect and esteem,

“Honoured Sir,
“Your most obedient and faithful Servants.”

The last public act of Lord Teignmough was the preparation, on the morning of his departure, of a long letter to his successor, explanatory of the position of affairs in the East. A portion of this letter is published in the volumes before us. It sufficiently proves, that the writer had formed a correct estimate of the state and prospects of the British power in the East. Lord Mornington reached the seat of his Government in May, and his “more vigorous” and “brilliant” administration soon obscured that of his moderate predecessor. But the name of Sir John Shore will long be revered in India by all who love justice and peace.

The remainder of his career it is impossible not to contemplate with feelings of unmixed satisfaction. He arrived in England after a long and boisterous voyage, during which the poetry of his nature more than once found suitable aliment in the contemplation of the sublime terrors of the deep; and was every where welcomed with the utmost cordiality and respect. From Pitt and Dundas he received marked attention; and with Wilberforce—a kindred spirit—he cemented a friendship which endured to the last moments of the life of that great and good man. By the Court of Directors, who had previously recorded the high sense they entertained of his “long, able, and faithful services in India,” he was entertained, with distinguished honor, and invited, in the name of the Prince of Wales, to become a member of the Club at Grafton House, an honor which he did not seem to appreciate. After residing for a short period in London, he proceeded with his family to Exmouth, and in that quiet, picturesque town, commenced his Memoir of the life of Sir W. Jones. Early in the following year he was tempted to renew his connection with public affairs; but he wisely withstood the temptation. Pitt offered him, through Wilberforce, the presidency of the Board of Controul; but with characteristic modesty, he declined the offer, alleging that his abilities were but moderate; that he might be “competent to fill, without discredit, the second situation in the office” referred to, but was “quite unequal to discharge the duties of its head;” that his habits were contemplative; that he was no speaker; and that nothing could ever induce him to become “a member of parliament.” To this resolution he adhered on his return shortly afterwards to London. Providence had designed that he should move henceforward in another sphere.

He took up his residence in Clapham—a place, which for more than half-a-century has been distinguished as the abode of more truly pious Christians than are ordinarily to be found in places of equal extent, and which, in the present day, has lost nothing of its old character; and there, in the society of Grant, Wilberforce, the Thorntons, and other men of distinguished piety and benevolence, commenced a career of well-doing, that has endeared his memory to thousands, and earned for him a reputation more to be coveted than the highest fame that the most brilliant statesmanship can confer. During the long years of his residence in India, he had slowly but certainly been receiving the impress of those religious feelings, the cultivation of which in after times became with him a rooted habit. The seed which in sickness and in solitude, amidst toil and privation, on the shores of a strange land, had been sown in his heart, was now, in the season of abundant happiness and prosperity, surrounded by all the cheering influences of life, to become a goodly tree, to put forth its spreading branches, and to fructify for all the world. The arena of political strife he had quitted for ever; the quiet of domestic life afforded purer enjoyment, in the society of his wife, his children, and his friends.

To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.

He dwelt at Clapham, for six years, performing with conscientious zeal the duties of a justice of the peace, to which, according to his son, he had “looked from the summit of his Indian elevation as the highest object of his ambition;” pursuing his literary studies; receiving his friends with cordial hospitality; interesting himself deeply in the expansion of his children’s minds; blundering over his cockney farm-yard and hot-houses; supplying articles to the Christian Observer, then conducted by Zachary Macaulay; and profiting largely by the ministry of that excellent Christian, Mr. John Venn. His life was tranquil and happy. For a brief period, the alarm created throughout the country by the well credited report of Napoleon’s intended invasion of Great Britian, compelled him, as a duty to his country, to take a slight part in public affairs. He acted as Lord Lieutenant of the county, in the place of the Earl of Onslow, who had been incapacitated by a paralytic seizure, and, in this capacity, received the thanks of the Deputy Lieutenants for his meritorious exertions—but this office was but temporary. He was soon called upon to fill a more important and more permanent one. He became the President of the Bible Society.

Into the business of this important office—one which he was eminently qualified by station, piety, and ability to fill, he entered with becoming zeal. But early in the year 1807, he was again invited to take a part in secular affairs, and under circumstances which precluded him from sending in a refusal. The Portland Administration solicited his acceptance of office as one of the Commissioners for the affairs of India, with a seat in the Privy Council. He accepted it, stipulating that he should on no account be expected to deviate from those principles, which had directed his administration in India. There was little need, however, of this stipulation; the office which he held for some twenty years was little more than a name. In 1829 we find him writing to one of his sons: “I am no longer a member of the Board of Controul, in which I might have continued, if I had desired it. In point of fact it was a mere nominal appointment, and all the emoluments I derived from it were, two copies, annually, of the Indian Register, handsomely bound in red morocco. For the last three or four years, I have not known the names of my colleagues in the Board, and, of course know nothing of the business”—a striking proof of his utter abandonment of secular affairs. But into the business of the Bible Society, he entered with his whole heart. There was much to occupy his time and his most serious thoughts. He had brooded long and deeply over the spiritual darkness of the millions of his fellow creatures in Hindostan, and cherished schemes for their enlightenment. He looked upon the evangelization of the people of India as the best security for our tenure of the country. Others, however, entertained widely different opinions; and the operations of the Bible Society were viewed with alarm and mistrust. Five and thirty years of continued and continuing political success in India have not altogether laid this enormous bugbear in the dust. It is well known, that at the time to which we now refer, the Baptist Missionaries, whose zealous exertions in the great cause have not been exceeded, if they have been equalled, by those of any other denomination of Christians, were compelled by the measures of the British Government to betake themselves to the Danish settlement of Serampore—a place still associated in the minds of Christians with the honored names of Carey and Marshman. The connexion of Lord Teignmouth, a member of the Board of Controul, with the Bible Society, was seized upon by the opponents of proselytism in India, whose keen visions saw many things undreamt of in the philosophy of the natives themselves,—men to whom they were fain to give credit for more discernment than was really possessed—and cited as an event of a most alarming character. Lord Teignmouth’s letters, written at this time, show how deeply he took the matter to heart. They evince a remarkable degree of sound sense, deprecating all imprudence in the propagation of the Scriptures, but expressing a firm belief in the innocuous tendency of such attempts when prudently conducted. The controversy was carried on with much zeal by both parties; Mr. Twining, and Major Scott Waring being the principal writers on one side; Mr. Owen, Bishop Porteous, and Lord Teignmouth on the other. With a work entitled “Considerations on communicating the knowledge of Christianity to the Natives of India,” the President of the Bible Society took the field, last in order of time, but first in respect of importance. He was, indeed, more frequently driven into religious controversy, than was congenial to his quiet spirit. Soon after leaving Clapham and taking up his residence in Portman Square, we find him plunged deep in controversy with Dr. Wordsworth, who had brought forward certain charges against the Bible Society. He was examined, too, before the House of Commons on subjects not only connected with Indian Missions, and the Church Establishment in India; but the admission, without limit, of Europeans into India. In a spirit of prejudice and exclusiveness but too common in those days, “he expressed his persuasion that the removal of obstacles to the admission of Europeans was calculated to lower the native estimate of European character, and, consequently, dangerous in a country, where the stability of the Government depended on opinion. He anticipated little advantage from the opening of the trade, as the natives would make little use of British manufactured goods.”—We may add incidentally, that another authority, Sir John Malcolm, expressed at the same time, a precisely similar opinion. In one of Sir James Mackintosh’s letters, the substance of Malcolm’s evidence is thus briefly given: “Malcolm is the next witness to be examined, and his examination will probably take place on Monday. He is to give a strong testimony in favor of the Company’s favorite argument, that free trade will lead to an influx of Europeans, which will produce insult and oppression to the natives, and at last drive them into rebellion, which will end in our expulsion.” We are not much nearer our expulsion now than before the grant of the Charter of 1813; and we may say, without many misgivings, that if such an event be now in the womb of time, the influx of Europeans into India can claim no paternity in the bantling.

From this date to the hour of his death, more than twenty years afterwards, Lord Teignmouth devoted himself to public affairs, in no other character than that of President of the Bible Society. When the allied sovereigns were in England, he headed a Society deputation, and read an address to the Emperor of Russia—a similar address having been presented to the King of Prussia, “the first monarch, who patronised the Bible Society.” In the autumn of this year we find him writing the following letter to Bishop Burgess:—

“to bishop burgess.

“If I were prudent, I should, from regard to my eyes, which are inflamed, avoid the use of them; but I cannot delay thanking you for the few pages accompanying your Letter of the 10th, and resolving your questions respecting Sir William Jones. I have no hesitation to pronounce him a believer in the Trinity—not from any declaration, totidem verbis, to that effect, but from the general tenor of his writings, and the absence of any passage implying disbelief or doubt;—and he was not a man to conceal his sentiments. In a prayer, he says, ‘Admit me, not weighing my unworthiness, but through Thy mercy declared in Christ, into Thy heavenly mansions!’ He calls Christ, in another passage, ‘the Divine Author of the Christian Religion’: and still more expressly, he says, ‘I, who cannot help believing the Divinity of the Messiah,’ &c. And on the Trinity I found the two following passages, to the same purport:—Very respectable Natives have assured me that one or two Missionaries have been absurd enough, in their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to urge that the Hindoos were even now almost Christians, because their Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other than the Christian Trinity;—a sentence in which we can only doubt whether folly, ignorance, or impiety predominates.’ Nothing can be more evident ‘That the Indian Triad, and that of Plato—which he calls the Supreme Good, the Reason and the Soul—are infinitely removed from the holiness and sublimity of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity; and that the tenet of our Church cannot, without profaneness, be compared with that of the Hindoos, which has an apparent resemblance to it, but with a different meaning.’

“If this be not the confession of a sound Believer in the Trinity, it would be difficult to find more expressive terms short of ‘I believe,’ to denote assent. I hope your Lordship will favour me with the continuation of your Pamphlet. Not long ago I read Bishop Horsley versus Priestley, for the first time in my life; and found the work what I expected it to be—the masterly production of a vigorous mind, deeply imbued with learning, and strengthened by logic and mathematics. The Bishop is a giant to a dwarf, with respect to his antagonist. The impudence of Socinians—excuse a harsh term—is most astonishing, and only to be equalled by their want of candour and honesty. Your Lordship, in exposing these men of liberality, will do essential good. If Bishop Horsely were now alive, Mr. Belsham would have been silent.

“I am, My dear Lord Bishop,
Your obliged and sincere humble Servant.”

The passage relative to the Christian and Hindoo Trinities quoted from Sir William Jones, apparently with commendation, is worthy of a few words of remark. The “folly, ignorance, and impiety” of the observations attributed to certain missionaries in the last century, are not quite so apparent to us, as they were to that eminent orientalist. When the “very respectable natives” told him, that “one or two missionaries” had urged, that the Hindoos were “almost Christians, because their Brahma, Vishna and Mahesa were no other than the Christian Trinity,” they, in all probability, unintentionally mis-represented the arguments of the reverend gentlemen. We believe, that without the smallest exhibition of folly, ignorance, or impiety, a Minister of the Gospel might endeavor to impress a Hindoo with the conviction, that his Trinity and the Trinity of the Christian were of one common origin, even as the water of a pure, pebbly stream, and of a filthy, fetid ditch, may proceed from one.common source. It would be folly to fill a cup with the water of the clear, limpid stream, and another with the thick, dark, ditch water; and to maintain, that they are precisely the same; but if the inhabitants of the valley through which the two water courses ran, were in the habit of filling their pitchers from the rank, loamy gutter, to the neglect of the crystal current, upon the ground, that the former was a sacred, whilst the latter was a polluted stream, it would be something betokening neither folly, ignorance, nor impiety to attempt to withdraw these deluded people from the impure to the pure stream, by demonstrating, that both currents flowed from the same fountain above. Now, we believe that the missionaries, upon whose conduct Sir William Jones reflected with so much severity, were guilty of no greater folly—no greater impiety than this. Knowing the amount of prejudice and superstition against which they had to contend, they endeavored to weed out error, and prepare the soil for the reception of truth, not by shocking, but by humoring these superstitious prejudices; by doing as little violence as possible, at the outset, to the pseudo-religious feelings of the contemplated proselyte; by leading him gently across the severing gulf—by encouraging and helping him to pass, instead of calling upon him at once to make the terrific leap from the one border to the other. And this, too, without a compromise—without the least reservation of the truth. We are persuaded, that the cause of Christianity is injured by the violence of the attacks which are often made upon the religion of the Hindoo, who is startled, shocked, and repulsed, when called upon to step, at one stride, out of the religion of his fore-fathers, into one, which is sedulously represented to be as different from the old faith as light from darkness. Far be it from us to assert, or even to imply, that such representations are not wholly correct; but the question is, whether the Missionary is bound to lay before the heathen more than his mind can, or will, take in; whether it is, in any way, his duty to the Master who sent him, to make war in this open and undisguised manner upon the deeply-rooted, cherished prejudices of the dark-souled gentile; and by so, doing, to scare him away altogether from the bright region into which it is our desire to lead him. Is it not against such indiscretion as this that Jesus Christ levelled the parable of the new wine and the old bottles? Was it not in allusion to such cases as these, that he said, “No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, the old is better?” The Hindoo who, for so many years, has taken the truth of his hereditary religion for granted, clings to it with a tenacity, all the stronger for the absence of conviction which distinguishes it; and any direct assault upon his long-cherished prejudices and superstitions is sure to be unsuccessful. It is not by sudden and violent attacks upon the religious errors of the gentiles—it is not by the drawing of abrupt and startling contrasts, that our efforts at proselytism are likely to be brought to a successful issue. More good is to be done, by showing, in the first instance, the points at which Christianity and Hindooism, however remotely, assimilate—by indicating those doctrines, which appear to have a common origin; and then demonstrating how, in the one case, they have been received in all their purity, whilst, in the other, they have come down, disfigured and defiled. Why should we not avail ourselves of these features of Hindooism to render our approaches less alarming?—why should we not shew, that in their doctrine of the Trinity—in their Avatars—there is something analogous to two of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith? If there be no deception—no concealment of the entire truth—no unbecoming compromise—what folly, what impiety is there in the adoption of such a course? If we look for success through human agency—if the conversion of the heathen is to be accomplished without direct miraculous aid—we must shape our measures with due regard to the idiosyncracies of those upon whom we operate. We look with no complacency upon the half-conversions, which our Roman Catholic brethren in this country have achieved to an extent, which, if numbers alone are to be regarded as the test of successful progress, puts our Protestant efforts to the blush. We look upon these, as nothing better than changes from one description of idolatry to another. It is an improvement no doubt in idol-worship; but idol-worship it remains. Let it not be thought that we are intolerant. Admitting all that the members of the Romish Church affirm of their image system;—admitting that the image itself is, in no wise, worshipped by them; that the distinction which they draw between the worship of an image and the worship of the Deity through the suggestive agency of an image, is worthy of all acceptation—conceding, we say, all this, argumenti causâ, still the Romanist will scarcely himself maintain that the Hindoo proselyte when bowing or crossing himself before the image of Jesus Christ or of the Virgin Mary, draws, or is capable of drawing, such nice distinctions as these. No; whatever may be the bowing down to the graven image of the proselytising member of the Romish Church, the bowing down of the Hindoo convert is, in reality, nothing but idolatry in all its grossness. And it is to this very image-worship, even more than to the untiring zeal and assiduity of the Romish missionaries, whose energy, it must be acknowledged, is remarkable, that we must, without prejudice, arribute their extensive numerical success.^[18] We adduce this important fact in illustration of what we have above asserted relative to the selection of means. The Romish Church is successful, far beyond the success of Protestantism; because there is that in its form and ceremonies, which is more closely allied to the external part of Hindooism, than any thing in the more simple ceremonials of the Reformed Church. It is because the transition is so much easier, that it is so much more frequent. We may learn an useful lesson from this. If we can lawfully avail ourselves of any remote similarity between our religion and that of the people whom we desire to convert, why should we turn away from so legitimate a means of success? We do not touch the unclean thing by simply showing, that uncleanly and deformed though it be, it was in its origin of the same shape and fashion, and of equal purity with the parallel doctrines of the blessed religion, which we are endeavouring to bestow upon the Heathen. We do not compromise Christianity; we merely bear in mind the saying, which we have above quoted; “No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, the old is better.” Is this folly?—is this impiety?

But to return to Lord Teignmouth.—Life flowed tranquilly on; but not without the common trials, which all men are ordained to bear. As he declined into the vale of years he saw his friends—the common penalty of old age—dropping around him; and his children were removed from his hearth. One year deprived him of two cherished companions, whose loss he long and severely felt—Henry Thornton and John Bowdler. His second son, Frederick Shore, was destined for India, there to follow the profession which he himself had adorned; and his youngest son soon afterwards followed his brother to the same country, as an officer of dragoons. The elaborate letters of advice, which Lord Teignmouth addressed to the former, cannot be too diligently perused by young civilians on entering life. The affectionate and judicious counsel they contained was treasured up by the estimable recipient; and the writer of these admirable epistles lived to see the good fruit come forth in due season, and all his labors more than repaid. Year after year brought him the glad tidings of the professional advance of his son; the honorable path he was treading in public and private life; and the high estimation, in which he was held by all who had the happiness to know him. Mr. Frederick Shore first distinguished himself by his gallantry, in an affair with a gang of free-booters in the neighbourhood of Saharunpore, against whom he proceeded with a few mounted sowars and a small military force. The enemy had taken up their position in a small fort; and in forcing the gate of this stronghold, Mr. Shore was severely wounded; but not before he had slain, with his own hand, no less then seven of the enemy. The details of this gallant and successful achievement were communicated to Lord Teignmouth in a letter from the Governor-General, Lord Amherst; but the affair does not appear to have been fit subject for congratulation. The wounds which Frederick Shore received in the engagement not having been carefully or skilfully treated, induced a severe fever; and, according to his brother, broke down a naturally robust constitution, which never again recovered its strength. He lived, however, twelve years after the occurrence of this incident; and during the time distinguished himself greatly, in a more peaceful, but not less honorable, path. He was one of the most zealous and conscientious servants of the Government, and the truest friend of the people of India. He died in 1837; having overtasked his energies, and disregarded the warnings of a constitution enfeebled by the climate of the country.

With the details of the Apocryphal controversy, which necessarily occupied much of the time of the President of the Bible Society in the years 1825 and 1826, we need not occupy our space. The history of the discussion, we believe, is sufficiently well known to all who desire to be fully informed on the subject. The Apocryphal party were worsted in the engagement; and it was hoped, that peace would be restored to the Society. But the animosity which these heated controversies had created among some parties did not easily subside, and Lord Teignmouth, harrassed by the frequent attacks upon himself and the Committee, would have resigned his office but for the intervention of Lord Bexley, the amiable nobleman who now fills the President’s chair. But other sorrows, of a more personal and afflicting character, were in store for him. His youngest son, Capt. Henry Shore, who, having contracted a severe pulmonary disorder, had left England in the vain hope of deriving benefit from the milder climate of Southern Europe, expired at a small village between Aix and Avignon. The account, given in the volumes before us, of the funeral of this young man, developes so many traits honorable to humanity, that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting it:—

“The circumstances of Captain Shore’s funeral afford striking evidence of the respect which, in a land of strangers, Lord Teignmouth’s connection with the Bible Society secured to his name and to his family; and of the happy influence of that Institution, in binding together, by the ties of kindly and sympathetic feeling, people long opposed to each other by national differences.

“The little inn of Pont Royal, where he died, was kept by a Protestant family; and in its neighbourhood, on the left bank of the river Durance, was a colony of the same faith, descendents of the Albigenses. Application having been made to the Pastor of Lourmarin, one of their towns, for permission to inter the remains of the deceased in its cemetery, the Municipal Authorities, and the Members of the Bible Society of the place, expressed their wish to avail themselves of the opportunity of testifying publicly their respect to the memory of one nearly related (as they understood from the Pastor, who had resided for some time in England) to the President of the British and Foreign Bible Society;—whilst the military, hearing that he had borne a commission in the British Service, were anxious to bestow appropriate honours on their brother in arms.

“As the funeral approached Lourmarin, it was met by a considerable body of townsmen, including the Mayor, the Pastor, and the Members of the Bible Society. At eleven o’clock on the first Wednesday of May, the day allotted to the Anniversary Meeting of the Society—at the very instant, as it proved, at which Lord Teignmouth appeared in his accustomed place, amidst the acclamations of the Members, and the important Resolutions, already noticed, were propounded—by a coincidence wholly unforeseen, the coffin containing his son’s remains was received by the appointed bearers at the gate of Lourmarin. Military honours, though declined, were not withheld. The pall was borne by Officers of the French army: and, as the procession passed through the streets, which were densely crowded—as a holiday had been granted to the people of the neighbourhood, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics—its progress was indicated by volleys from the carbines of the gensd’armerie, and the same martial tribute was bestowed at the grave. The Pastor, who had performed the Funeral Service, preached an impressive sermon; in which he not only dwelt on the mournful events which had assembled the concourse he beheld, but took a rapid survey of the operations of the Society, with which the name and family of the deceased were, in the minds of many whom he was addressing, inseparably associated.

“It may be inferred, from the Letters preceding this narrative, that Lord Teignmouth and his family, in their present affliction, “sorrowed not without hope.” During some weeks previous to his death, and indeed from the period of his receiving the Sacrament in compliance with his father’s recommendation, preceded as it had been by earnest and anxious meditation and prayer, Captain Shore’s mind had been wholly freed from the sceptical suggestions which had harrassed it during the earlier part of his illness; and exhibited, in entire dependence on his Saviour’s merits, uninterrupted serenity, and joyful anticipation of his approaching change.”

Another loss, which fell upon Lord Teignmouth in his old age, afflicted him with almost equal severity. This was the death of his son-in-law, Sir Noel Hill, who at that time was commanding the cavalry at Maidstone. This was a heavy blow; but it was the last. The life of this venerable man was now drawing to a close. His years had out-numbered four-score; and he was ready to put on immortality. His infirmities assumed no distressing form; and his intellectual activity was little impaired; but death was stealing upon him with silent, though sure, foot-steps. The summer of 1833 saw him a tenant of the sick chamber; and from the malady which had then seized him he never altogether recovered. A temporary renovation of health and strength was succeeded by a relapse. In the month of September, he returned to London, after a brief sojourn at Hampstead, in better health and spirits; but on Christmas day his malady returned upon him with renewed force. During the interval between his last attacks, the activity of his mind was remarkable. His reading was varied and extensive. His conversation was full of vivacity; and his recollections more than usually clear. He discoursed, as he read, upon all subjects—but the goodness of God was his favorite theme. He was ready and equipped for his last journey. His much-loved friend Wilberforce had “gone before;” and he was prepared to follow. The new year found him on the bed of death—thankful, hopeful, resigned; and on the 14th of February, the anniversary of his marriage, this good man fell asleep in Jesus.

It is impossible too highly to estimate the character of such a man as Lord Teignmouth. Characters of this stamp are so rare in their growth, that they should be appreciated for their very rarity. But the world is scantily endowed with this faculty of rightful appreciation. The outer show of meretricious, delusive ornament attracts and dazzles the vulgar eye. Tinsel is not difficult to comprehend; it is intelligible to the scrubbiest boy in the shilling gallery. The stunning noise of drums and of cymbals demands no greater effort of the understanding—no greater nicety of perception. The more common qualities of our nature, the vain, the showy, the superficial, are those which are necessarily best appreciated by a vain, a showy, a superficial world. A battle, a proclamation, a noisy speech—these are things, which, in the vulgar mind, make men great and admirable. Conventional greatness, like stage kings, must wear a glittering crown and be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. Simple, inornate beauty the multitude has not an eye to see, nor faculties to comprehend. The Æthiopians of old chose their kings from the men of the grandest stature; he who loomed the largest, Herodotus tells us, was made Basileus without more trouble. The hero-worship of the multitude is regulated by an equally intelligible standard. Let there be only noise enough and parade enough; let something be done to startle and surprise—be it right or be it wrong, no matter—let some great change be effected for better or for worse, with a loud explosion—and the world have a hero to applaud. For the man, who exerts himself quietly and unostentatiously, to preserve peace and to promote a people’s prosperity by acts of noiseless benevolence, whilst in his own person he sets an example of well-doing, more glorious than the planting of the ensign in the deadly breach, there is no hope—not the skeleton of a hope; he must content himself with being thought a man; he will never be promoted to a hero. Lord Teignmouth, in the eyes of the world, was no hero. Even grave historians, making a sort of dim show of philosophy, have set him down in the chronicle as a very poor creature—a mere thing of mediocrity, common-place to very mawkishness. But how stands the case in the plain, simple, garb of truth? The qualities which Sir John Shore exhibited as a Statesman, were the very antipodes of common-place. As Governor-General he possessed vast power, which he never once abused. He never, on one solitary occasion, turned his thoughts towards self-aggrandisement; nor suffered any vain or selfish motive to influence his public acts. He was as little ambitious as he was corrupt; but his moderation is no more to be attributed to any want of ability to pursue more vigorous “measures,” than his integrity to any freedom from the influence of besetting temptations. Few men lack the ability to do mischief. Sir John Shore certainly did not. It would have been easy to have followed the course—an essentially common-place course as it was—the course that had been followed to such an exorbitant extent, that it was necessary to limit it by an Act of Parliament;—nothing easier than to meddle and interfere, to pick quarrels, and to order great battles to be fought. There is a natural propensity in human nature—in statesman-nature more especially—to meddle with other people’s affairs, and to quarrel for the mere love of strife. The veriest dolt can order a battle to be fought;—merit is there none in ordering it. Our Governors have shown, in later days, how very little capacity it requires to bring about a vast effusion of blood. This blood-shedding is, of all attributes, the most common-place. It may be vanity, or it may be intemperance, or it may be ignorance, or it may be indolence; but to one or other of these by no means uncommon qualities, or, perchance, to a hideous combination of all, is to be assigned the paternity of well nigh every war, with its human sacrifices steaming up to Heaven. We should shout with very joy at the discovery—a discovery reserved for some remote Millennian age, when meekness shall be the characteristic of the tiger and abstinence of the wolf,—that moderation in Statesmen is a common-place virtue. Sir John Shore was not a common-place Statesman, because he was a moderate one.

It has been said, that though an excellent man, he was out of his place at the head of the Government of India. If it be necessary for an Indian Statesman, in order to show that he is in his place, to emulate the heartless rapacity of other Governors-General—if it be necessary, in order to show that he is in his place, to juggle and defraud—to outrage and to tyrannise—to trample beneath his feet every consideration of virtue and of honor;—if it be necessary, in order to show that he is in his place, to exhibit, on every occasion, a reckless courage, that dares do more than becomes a man—a disregard of human suffering—a contempt of human laws—a fearlessness of responsibility to God and man;—if it be necessary to do these things, in order to show that he is in his place, then must we admit, that Sir John Shore was not in his place as Governor-General. Still, whilst we acknowledge that he was weak enough to be virtuous, a virtuous Governor-General now and then is not wholly without his uses. The life of Lord Teignmouth may be read with profit, not to be gleaned from histories of Clive and Hastings, by men who speak scorn of him, and say, that he was a poor creature. It will there be seen by these scorners how a man, with nothing to recommend him but his undeviating virtue, attained an eminence in the political world, which was vainly aspired after by many of the most brilliant men of a peculiarly brilliant age. The lesson, perhaps, is rendered all the more instructive by the denial of Shore’s abilities as a Statesman. If he possessed no abilities as a Statesman, the triumph of virtue is the more conspicuous. Shore had no family connexions; no political interest; he paid no court to men in authority; he sought neither place nor power. When the Governor-Generalship was offered to him by a Ministry certainly not wanting in ability, nor wont to do foolish things, it was most reluctantly accepted. The greatness was thrust upon him, and why?—Because, in the opinions of Pitt and Dundas, he was the fittest man in the kingdom to exercise the vast powers of the Governor-Generalship of India.

Of his administration, it ought to be sufficient to assert, that it was approved by the Company, the ministry and the People. A Governor-General is not sent out to India to follow the guidance of his own lusts; to play the autocrat without regard to the principles of those from whom he derives his mission. Sir John Shore was appointed Governor-General under a new Charter, which was framed in accordance with the spirit of the times and the wishes of the people. He came to India, believing that the Act of the Legislature was intended to be observed and not to be disregarded by him; that as representative of the British interests in the East, it was his duty not to violate the Acts of the British Parliament, or to set at nought the desires of the British people. If the system of non-interference with independent states, pursued during Sir John Shore’s administration, had a tendency to weaken our hold of India, by giving strength to our enemies, by enabling them to increase their resources and to concentrate their energies to an extent injurious to our security, the fault must be laid at the door of the Parliament, and, therefore, of the people of Great Britain, from whom that system emanated. A Governor-General is no more chargeable with the errors of the Legislature, than a Judge with the defects of the laws which he administers. By virtue of the Act of the Legislature, he holds his authority; and to the provisions of that Act he is bound to adhere. It is no part of our business to enquire how far the Act was a wise or an unwise one; our opinions on the subject may, perhaps, be derived from the general tenour of this article; but so long as that Act existed, the Governor-General was bound to take it as his rule of conduct—bound not to suffer any motives of personal ambition, or any feeling of arrogance and impatience, to mislead him from the plain path of duty, as marked out by the Legislature of Great Britain. If there were nothing else to be alleged in favour of Sir John Shore’s moderation, it would be sufficient to declare, that this moderation was prescribed by the Parliament of the country; that the Charter-Act, from which he derived his authority, expressly inculcated a close adherence to the system of non-interference, which he made the rule of his political conduct.

Of his character as a man, but one opinion can be entertained. At a time, when to be corrupt was only to be like one’s neighbours, he preserved, in poverty and privation, the most inflexible integrity. Ere religion had touched his heart, he was an upright and a virtuous man; but it was beneath the warm sunlight of Christianity that his character expanded into the fulness of life and beauty. His patience, his humility, his dependence upon God, are beyond such praise as we are capable of bestowing. His talents, which were of a high order, he rendered subservient to his Christian principles; he had no ambition to shine; his sole desire was to be useful; and he turned aside from every temptation to distinguish himself at the cost of one conscientious scruple. There are men who make themselves up to dazzle, as there are women who make themselves up to charm—men who would rather tell a lie, than spoil a sentence; rather violate a principle, than miss a point; rather destroy the happiness of thousands, than lose an opportunity of doing a brilliant thing. Lord Teignmouth was not one of these. At the summons of his country, he conceived that he was bound to do his duty in the state of life into which God had called him, at the sacrifice of his own personal happiness. But though he could bring himself to sacrifice his ease and comfort, to abandon the joys of home and the pleasure of domestic life, he could, on no account, sacrifice once tittle of those high principles, which glowed in his breast, and rendered him a Christian ruler not merely in name. When his work was done, though scarcely advanced in his pilgrimage more than mid-way between the threshold and the bourne, he retired into private life, as a man who deemed it a higher privilege to walk humbly with his God, than to sway the political destiny of millions. From the day that he set his foot, for the last time, on the shores of England, he began, as it were, a new life—a life of almost total abandonment of secular affairs; and for more than thirty years, though tempted with the offer of place and power, he continued to tread this lowly path of Christian well-doing, a happy and a cheerful man; of a kind and charitable nature; in his own family-circle loving and beloved; beyond it universally respected. Thus he lived, to the age of four-score, and “died, as he had lived, like a saint, full of alms deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a godly life.”

All must to their cold graves.
But the religious actions of the just,
Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust.

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1. There is a remark somewhat similar to this, though of a less general character, in one of Mr. Macaulay’s Essays; and, most probably, in other works. It is neither new nor striking, but it cannot be too often repeated.
2. We have searched the Biographica Dramatica in vain for some account of this gentleman’s performances. The last edition of this carefully compiled work does not contain the name of Harland.
3. Mr. Halhed was a learned and excellent man; but in the autumn of his life he laboured under a delusion, of a painful and unaccountable nature. He became a disciple of the fanatic, self-constituted prophet Richard Brothers, and exposed himself in Parliament (he was one of the members for Lymington) by confessing his faith in the inspired character of the madman; and moving that Brother’s prophecies be printed for the use of the members of the House!
4. Lord Teignmouth says, that his father scrupulously abstained from mixing himself up with these party squabbles. This does not seem to be quite correct. Shore was a moderate partisan; but he was a partisan—and on the wrong side.
5. Quotation from the Jâg Bashust.
6. We have referred to some of the newspapers of that period, and ascertained that almost every fleet brought a considerable number of ladies to India. In some vessels, we find the names of five or six—not all of them married ladies either.
7. Cornwallis’s favorite argument in defence of the perennial settlement was, that it would render the Zemindars more anxious to improve the soil. It was on this ground, that he always opposed a regular decennial settlement. Events, however, proved, that the argument was wholly fallacious.
8. He assumed the Government of the country under the pressure of severe domestic affliction, which had bowed him down to the ground. But a few weeks before the chief authority devolved upon him, he had received from England the painful intelligence of the death of his two younger children. This incident has been rendered familiar to the public by an extraordinary circumstance connected with it. The melancholy event, which occurred at home, was in part, at least, shadowed forth to Shore in a dream. In a letter to Mr. Charles Grant, the afflicted father writes: “The coincidence of dreams with facts is sometimes striking, and my loss unfortunately furnishes me with an instance. In a letter to Lady Shore of the 11th of May last, I mentioned a dream respecting my daughter Caroline, which had shocked me to agony, but I did not communicate to her the particulars. It happened on or about the first of that month—my letter particularly mentions the 1st. I thought I was walking out with the dear girl, when stopping to speak to somebody, I missed her. A ladder was erected against a house which was repairing, and I concluded she had ascended by it. I entered the house, and on enquiring for the child, was told a coroner’s inquest was sitting on the body of a dead infant; I hastened to the room and was struck with the appearance of the dissevered limbs of a child, which I knew to be my own. I took up an arm; and the hand grasped my finger. I need not add, that I awoke with a scream and in an agony of tears. It was perhaps at that time my beloved girl ceased to exist.. . . . . I have now done, and shall be silent about her.”. . . . A reference to the correspondence subsequently proved, that the dream occurred on the very night of the child’s death.
9. The wording of it, too, was sufficiently precise—The 42d clause ran as follows:—“And forasmuch as to pursue Schemes of Conquest and Extension of Dominion in India are Measures repugnant to the Wish, the Honor, and Policy of this Nation. Be it further enacted, That it shall not be lawful for the Governor-General in Council of Fort William aforesaid, without the express Command and Authority of the said Court of Directors, or of the said Secret Committee by the Authority of the said Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, in any Case (except where Hostilities, have actually been commenced, or Preparations actually made for the commencement of Hostilities, against the British Nation in India, or against some of the Princes or States dependant thereon, or whose Territories the said United Company shall be at such Time engaged by any subsisting Treaty to defend or guarantee) either to declare War or commence Hostilities, or enter into any Treaty for making War against any of the Country Princes or States in India, or any Treaty for guaranteeing the Possessions of any Country Princes or States; and that in any such Case it shall not be lawful for the said Governor-General and Council to declare War or to commence Hostilities, or to enter into any Treaty for making War against any other Prince or State, than such as shall be actually committing Hostilities, or making Preparations as aforesaid, or to make such Treaty for guaranteeing the Possessions of any Prince or State, but upon the Consideration of such Prince or State actually engaging to assist the Company against such Hostilities commenced, or Preparations made as aforesaid; and in all Cases where Hostilities shall be commenced, or Treaty made, the said Governor-General and Council shall, by the most expeditious Means they can devise, communicate the same unto the said Court of Directors, or to the said Secret Committee, together with a full State of the Information and Intelligence upon which they shall have commenced such Hostilities, or made such Treaties, and their Motives and Reasons for the same at large.”
10. “Under a system,” they said, “defective in almost every part of it, and the abuses, which arose out of that system, the present unfortunate state of the country may, in our opinion, be attributed to a combination of causes. Among these is a claim, which is now very wisely relinquished, of right of pre-emptions, and of exemptions from duties, in the province of Oude; made and exercised by contractors employed in providing the Investment, and which, in the opinion of Lord Cornwallis, has effectually contributed to its ruin. The immense drain of specie from that country of late years, amounting from February 1794 to September 1783, to the enormous sum of two crores and thirty-nine lacs of rupees, exclusive of what may have been sent down to Calcutta, to answer the bills drawn for the payment of the troops, and on private account, stands foremost in our opinion, among the causes that have operated so much to its prejudice.”—Mill. There is an error in this passage, which we have correctly quoted from the edition of 1820. The dates appear to have been misplaced.
11. The author of the volumes under review seems to entertain very vague notions of the history of Zemaun Shah, and the country over which he had dominion. We quote the annexed passage, as a remarkable proof of the prevailing ignorance of Indian History. If the son of a Governor-General has no better information than this, what wonder that others are equally ignorant? “On the Northern portion of India, Zemaun Shah, the ambitious and enterprising Sultan of Lahore, sought with increasing cupidity, an opportunity of wresting the fertile plains of Oude, from the feeble grasp of its unwarlike Nabobs. He had derived from his predecessor, Ahmed Shah Durannee, not only the state, which that renowned conqueror had founded in 1740, but a numerous and well-disciplined army, and the fame which it had acquired under his command, in his several invasions of Hindostan, and particularly in his celebrated victory over the Mahrattas at Paniput. During twenty years Zemaun Shah indulged without realising his dreams of extended enipire and bequeathed his inherited possessions to a successor, whose name is associated with recent historical recollections—the well-known Runjeet Singh!”
12. Shore mentions in one of his letters from Lucknow, that the Nabob informed him his highness had discovered “a new pleasure,” originally suggested to him by an European, which afforded him most exquisite enjoyment. He had, he said, spent lakhs of rupees on amusement, and found nothing half so satisfactory as this new delight. It was nothing more than the sight of—old women racing in sacks.
13. Mill, Vol. VI.—The passage runs thus—“It is impossible to read the account of this transaction, drawn up by the Governor-General, and not to be impressed with a conviction of his sincerity and his desire to do justice. But it is easy also to perceive how much his understanding was bewildered; and impossible not to confess that he decided against the unfortunate Nabob the great question of a kingdom upon evidence upon which a court of law would not have decided against him a question of a few pounds.”
14. The Nabob had previously purchased the woman’s eldest child, who had died shortly after the transfer. This is quite sufficient to account for the communicativeness of Tehzeen Khan.
15. He acknowledged that two children—sons—who died in their infancy had been born to Asoph-ud-dowlah. He did not even attempt to substantiate the alleged impotence of the deceased Nabob.
16. Of the latter fact there was no doubt. The assassination story was the growth of suspicion only—though subsequent events proved that Vizier Ali would not have hesitated at such a step, had it served his turn.
17. The title appears to have been selected by Sir John Shore’s friends, Sir Francis Baring, Mr. Bensley and Mr. Hugh Inglis. His connexion with Teignmouth was principally through the family of his wife.
18. During the passage of this article through the press, we have alighted on some extraordinary examples of the proselytising efficacy of the ceremonials of Romanism, in Mr. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico—a very able and most interesting work. The Historian, who pauses to comment on this phenomenon, delivers himself very much in the same strain as that of our text.—“The Roman Catholic communion has, it must be admitted, some decided advantages over the Protestant, for the purposes of proselytism. The dazzling pomp of its service, and its touching appeal to the sensibilities, affect the imagination of the rude child of nature much more powerfully than the cold abstractions of Protestantism, which, addressed to the reason, demand a degree of refinement and mental culture in the audience to comprehend them. The respect, moreover, shewn by the Catholic for the material representations of divinity, greatly facilitates the same object. It is true such representations are used by him only as incentives, not as the objects, of worship. But this distinction is lost upon the savage, who finds such forms of adoration too analogous to his own to impose any great violence on his feelings. It is only required of him to transfer his homage from the image of Quetzalcoalt, the benevolent deity who walked among men, to that of the Virgin or the Redeemer; from the cross which he has worshipped as the emblem of the God of rain, to the same cross, the symbol of salvation.”
    
    We have seen, with our own eyes, something of this. We were once residing, now some years ago, in the South of India, and our residence was in the near neighbourhood of a Roman Catholic Chapel. The number of Native Romanists who attended the ceremonies in the Church was great; the number who attended the processions out of the Church was still greater. We could observe but very little difference between these processions; and the idolatrous processions of Hindooism. There was the same noise; the same exaltation of the idols, on similar platforms or cars; the same display of fire-works in the night season; and, on some occasions, a similar adaptation to periods, as held sacred by the natives. We once asked a native Christian, a highly intelligent man, in the wake of one of these Romanist processions, what was the meaning of it; and he told us, that it was got up at a certain phase of the moon to propitiate the deity for a good harvest!