From the unrestrained and wanton repetition of so dangerous an expedient, it is to be wished most fervently, that the governor may refrain, or it is plain to foresee, that, in the sequel, it may create, almost of necessity, universal abhorrence and resentment.

From measures effecting the immediate interests of the state over which he was appointed to preside, Sir George Barlow was now req ired to interpose in an affair of great delicacy and extent, remote, if not foreign, from his general duty,

It will be recollected, that on the cession of the Carnatic by the late treaty, concluded by his highness the nabob and the East India company, a parliamentary provision was made for the payment of the debts of the two preceding sovereigns of the Carnatic. A commission was, at the same time, appointed for ascertaining the amounts actually due to individuals, from those great personages, and a certain and fixed sum, which was not to be exceeded, was set apart for the ratable payment of the debts, eventually to be established. By a further provision, individual creditors were at liberty to question and litigate the claims of each other; and commissioners were appointed in England and in India, for finally arbitrating or awarding on the pretensions of each. In this arrangement it is to be seen that the claimants had an adverse interest to each other, and that the whole, except as to their own claims, must have been directly disposed to diminish the amount of the alleged debt of the nabobs; as in that event, the fund would become more adequate to the discharge of the debt, ultimately established.

There could not be the slightest hope that the debt would ever be reduced under the sum allotted by the company for its discharge; so that in the conduct of the enquiry by the commissioners, either at home or in India, the representatives of the company would have but little, if any, concern. The act, indeed, prescribed the entire course of proceeding, and left it to the commissioners themselves to pursue it, compensa

ting them for the trouble and expenses incurred by the trust, out of the fund immediately noticed. To obviate local or personal influence, the Indian commissioners were selected from the Bengal civil service, and sent, for the purpose of prosecuting the requisite investigation, to Fort St. George. They had not long proceeded in their employment, when, as might be expected, from the conflicting interests involved in the enquiry, much irritation had shewn itself among different classes of creditors; the effect of which it was the duty of the commissioners to have repressed; and, at all events, to keep themselves clear from any participation in the operation of such passions. Their peculiar province it was to decide and determine on the merits, of the claims preferred, without reference to the feelings of the claimants.

Among the number of the apparent principal creditors, there was, it seems, a Bramin of the name of Reddy Row, who had formerly filled a reputable situation at the durbar of the late nabob, which gave him, in the discharge of his offificial duty, a particular knowledge of the state of the nabob's pecuniary engage ments. This man had been desired to attend the commissioners, and had afforded them very material aid in the progress of their enquiry. He had enabled them to detect several false, but specious claims. He was retained, if not as an assessor, as a material agent in the commissioners' apartments; and had a constant admission to the books of the durbar, and seemed an almost indispensable appendage to the commissioners.

It is to be regretted, that he was, in any way, a possible party in the points to be discussed and adjudged; since the othee must have proved invidious, and rendered the person discharging it peculiarly obnoxious to those whose claims he might defeat.

Being himself a creditor, it is not to be expected that his own securities will pass without being scrupulously and jealously examined by parties in an hostile relation; who might be reasonably inclined to doubt his claims for the self-same cause that the commis

sioners had required his services, from his intimate knowledge of the nabob's affairs; a circumstance that might give him a facility, open to no one besides, to prefer a counterfeit demand. The very countenance shewn by the commissioners to the Bramin, might unhappily subject their decision, if it should be in his favor, to the suspicion of partiality.

The very first bond tendered by Reddy Row, was impeached on the part of the creditors. It was sustained on investigation by the commissioners, and it is but common justice to these gentlemen to suppose, as it appeared to them, on probable and satisfactory testimony. The opposite party not content with this decision, determined on a more solemn trial; and accordingly laid an information before Mr. Maitland, a justice of the peace, against Reddy Row, and another Bramin, his confederate, for forgery in the fabrication of the bond in question. A bill was found in due course of time by the grand jury, and the parties were afterwards put on their trial before a petty jury for the offence imputed. The verdict of the jury was against the accused. In the course of the defence, an European of the name of Batley, the secretary of the nabob, was examined on the behalf of the prisoners, in order to establish a fact that had become material to the issue. The evidence which he gave was not credited by the jury; and the prosecutors, considering that it was false in toto, afterwards preferred an indictment against him to the grand jury, which was returned a true bill. This indictment was tried by a special jury, who pronounced the defendant guilty of perjury.

A third indictment was subsequently tendered at a different session, and found by the grand jury against Reddy Row, and his confederate, and Batley, for conspiracy, which was also tried by a special jury, and a verdict was again given against the prisoners.

The prosecutors on these indictments were a committee of the local creditors of the nabob, Messrs. Roebuck, Abbott, and Parry; on the information of

a Bramin, of the name of Paupiah. An attempt was made to change the course of the criminal proceeding, by the previous trial of Paupiah, for a like offence with that imputed to Reddy Row, but the meditated prosecution was not persisted in.

Before the commencement of the preceding trials, the commissioners applied to the government for assistance, to the maintenance of their supposed authority, against the impeachment of their decision; and more especially for its protection in support of Reddy Row, a very active instrument, as it has been observed, in their hands, for the furtherance of their official enquiry. But the legislature, in prescribing a duty to the commissioners, had given them, it may be supposed, sufficient materials to execute it. If it should have failed to instruct them with the requisite means, it is evident that no other power but the legislature could supply the defect. The local government, whatsoever might be its influence, could not usurp the function of the supreme authority of the state. The Indian executive should not therefore have been addressed on such a subject, since it could not attend to it without a flagrant violation of its duty.

The solicited interference in protection of the Bramin, appears, if any thing, even more objectionable, inasmuch as it called for a decision, on the mere report of the commissioners, that Reddy Row was a proper and indispensable organ for the conduct of the enquiry by the commissioners; though he was evidently an interested party, and was, moreover, involved in a prosecution, in which his integrity and character was publickly questioned, and was then in a legal train of investigation. To request the government to express an opinion on the merits of the individual, under these circumstances, or to shew him a particular countenance, was an act, that approached very near, if it did not absolutely amount to, a crime of no favourable complexion in the eye of the British constitution. Such an interference, if practised, must have a tendency, besides, to create an influence in the de

termination of a question of property purely between individuals, thereby working an injustice to one or other of the parties, with whom the company had no matter of concern.

Sir G. Barlow, and the majority of the council, in a mistak en view of their own powers, and possibly of the circumstances stated to them, unfortunately interposed, and publicly lent their commanding sanction to the cause of the defendants. They ordered the company's advocate-general, and solicitor, to defend the parties indicted, and the costs of the defence to be paid, from a fund over which they had no lawful controul, the legislature having vested it elsewhere, the amount set apart for discharging the nabob's debts. They also thought fit to commission one of the company's civil servants to proceed to a place at some distance from the presidency to collect evidence for the defendants; thus apparently identifying themselves in their interests with the accused. The possible effect of this on the Indian community, and, indeed, on the European inhabitants, for the most part in the company's service, and of whom the juries were composed, cannot be overlooked. May not the use of such interest towards the prosecuted, so stir some passions in the bosom of the governor, which cannot be raised without prejudice to the man, and without detriment to the public? It is happy that the interest felt and she by the government, did not extend, as apprehended, to the court of Justice, so as to operate on the trials, the vents of which have already

been stated

But it is to be feared, that the other effect, immediately deprecated, was unhappi v produced by it; for it was soon afte wards made apparent that many of the persons, connected with the prosecution, had fallen under the avowed displeasure of government.

Mr. Roebuck, one of the prosecutors on the first trial, who had honourably served the company for 35 years, and who at this time looked for the reward of his services, in the undisturbed enjoyment of the respectable offices of mint master and military paymaster-ge

neral, then holden by him, was removed from his employments, without any previous enquiry, and without any assigned reason, and ordered 500 miles from the presidency, to a solitary station, and to a comparatively petty office, with the abridgment of more than half of his antecedent salary.

Mr. Maitland was dismissed, in a manner equally abrupt, from his office of justice of the peace.

An order of the Court of Directors, for the recal of Mr. Parry from India, where he acted as a general merchant for more than 20 years, was in the same instant revived, and that gentleman in consequence was required to prepare for immediate departure from that country.

Mr. J. A. Grant, and Mr. G. Strachey, servants of the civil establishment, antecedently employ d in the most important and confidential situations under the government, who had served on the grand juries by which the indictments had been found, and two more civilians, Messrs. Oliver and Keene, who had sat on the special juries; Mr. Wood of the same service, who had been understood to have expressed himself freely, in respect to the guilt of the defendants, were all, without the form of investigation, removed from their respective appointments.

The different parties, affected by these summary measures, applied to the government for a knowledge of their supposed offence, or the ground of the sentence, silently awarded against them; but it is left to them and to the public to form their own conclusion of acts, that might be characterized by the harshest terms, but which will not admit of a milder epithet than arbitrary or capricious.

Is there no one to suggest a doubt of the justice or policy of these repeated acts of power? No one to press on the recollection of the governor, the wisdom of the universal maxim, reiterated in the orders of the court of directors, "hear before you condemn ?" A sage and constant monitor is not ab. sent from the council, who, in several formal papers, equal almost in number

with the various acts of removal or suspension, records his full and reasoned dissents; and, in the instance of the Governor's interposition in the transactions in the supreme court, which entailed the consequences before particularised, the protests of Mr. Petrie have the confirmation of a grave and venerable authority, not less respectable in itself, than in its long relation to, and reception with, the company and its governments. Who can hear, without feeling the force of Mr. Justice Sullivan's pithy and pregnant remark? "I was three and twenty years," says Sir Benjamin Sullivan, "a confidential servant of the company under this government, and feel an habitua! leaning to them; I am not, there"fore, inclined to impure any thing to "them beyond imprudence; but imprudent, I am afraid, they have been, in taking any part in a cause which "seemed to call on them for a steady "and determined neutrality; and had I still been their attorney-general, "this is the conduct I should have "advised."

"

If neither the wisdom and experience of Mr. Petrie, nor the animadversions of the company's late attorney-general, could induce the governor to a retraction of any of the oppressive acts enumerated, they should have caused him to reflect ere he added to the measures, strongly and reluctantly condemned, any new aggravation; ere he committed a fresh injury to give an appearance of consistency to his assumed authority.

There were other advisers in the government, more powerful in their number, more interested in the progressive events, and more flattering in the tenour of their counsel, who had possessed themselves of the ear of the governor, and rendered it impervious to advice of a less soothing and concilia

C tory tone.

In very one of the instances, numerous as they have been shewa to be, in which Sir G. Barlow had exercised the indeliberate authority conceived to be resident in his office, in the arbitrary Suspension and removal of the public

VOL. 11.

servants of the company, he was supported by the majority of his council. It will not, therefore, be a matter of great surprize, though our regret may not be lessened by that circumstance, that, thus confirmed in his measures, the governor shall persist in a practice that had become, from the acquiescence or non-resistance of the greater part of his colleagues, habitual and systematic.

The application of this extraordinary power has been hitherto limited to the civil department of the service, and has not penetrated the military barrier.

If Sir G. Barlow shall forbear to carry the exercise of this dangerous authority beyond the limits within which it has already been used, the triumph resulting from the controul of a passion, too generally increasing by indulgence, will be his own, undivided and unshared by the compliant majority of his council; but such a triumph is of rare, very rare, occurrence, and it is not our grateful duty to record it in the present page; but it is rather our melancholy task to trace the extension of the assumed power in a sphere, to which it could not be applied without the strongest apprehension. of its exciting feelings which it is hazardous to move, and always difficult to tranquilize.

The civil servants, and the community at the presidency, were not permitted to brood over their sole wrongs; they were soon to have a fellowship in their grievances, from the same operative cause, in their military brethren.

In the progress of the discussions in the civil court, and of the circumstances growing out of them; a private misunderstanding had arisen between the quarter-master-general of the army, and the officers in command of corps, in consequence of a discovery recently made of a report under the signature of the former officer, which seemed to impute to the latter a wilful neglect of their duty, from selfish and sordid considerations. It has been shewn that the abolition of the tent contract had been principally occasioned by the intormation conveyed to the commander in chief and the government, by the

*D

staff officer immediately mentioned; and it has been explained, that the army, though deprecating the abolition, submitted most cheerfully to that harsh and unpopular measure. It remains only to be remarked, that the new regulation respecting tents, and the public stores, had been now acted upon for several months, and had experienced not the slightest opposition; and nothing threatened to revive the subject, or any matter connected with it, until the discovery of the official paper described. This document, which was put into the hands of Col. Capper, by Sir George Barlow, unfolded the information on which the abolition proceeded, suggesting, in substance, but under a confused phraseology, that six years experience of the practical effect of the tent contract had shewn, that by granting the same allowances in peace and war, when the expenses bore very lightly in the first, comparatively with the latter period, it placed the interests and duties of the commanding officers, parties to the contract, in variance with each other; making it their advantage, contrary to the interest of the state, that their corps ́should be in an inefficient state for field service, and therefore inducing them to neglect their duty. Practical experience, it is to be observed, is the very essence of the report, for if that betaken away, it is reduced to simple reasoning. But what will become of the foundation whereon to build the reform The inconveniences are stated explicitly to have been developed by the practical effect of the contract ;-which effect could not be produced without considering the evils enumerated, real, and not chimerical. And if real it may be asked, what must have produced them? the acts of the commanding officers of corps; and these acts being culpable, they necessarily implied the condition of the agents. The passage in the quarter-master-general's report, which has been just stated, might possibly have been allowed in another season, and under the influence of another temper, to pass as a general insinua tion; and, being inapplicable to individuals, to go harmlessly by. But

this was not a time to expect a favourable interpretation of the report by the persons to whom it related. It was sufficient if they could extract from it a reasonable complaint against its author; who was known to have been instrumental to the annihilation of a beneficial arrangement to them, and, according to their impressions, on groundless and false assertions.

It is a circumstance of regret, that the report, in any interpretation of it, could warrant the construction put upon it by the commanding officers of corps. Such a construction might have been attached to it in the natural jealousy of professional honour, peculiarly characteristic of soldiers, abstracted from all interested considerations. In vain would it have been insisted, if any defence had been attempted, that it was a mere declaration of a general principle, a reasoning on an universal maxim, applicable to the common concerns of mankind; since the report stated, that the objection to the contract was founded on its practical effect after six years experience of its operation. It could not be supposed that the government had determined on the abolition of the tent contract on general principles, and on mere abstract reasoning; but on the personal knowledge, truly stated to the governinent, of the officer under whose peculiar cognizance the contract was conducted. It was besides the official duty of the quarter-master-general to muster the public cattle, and to inspect the tents, subject to the contract, once a month, and to report on their sufficiency: so that if the establishment was not complete for any emergency, of war as well as peace, it would have been the business of that officer to have marked such incident in his reports. In these periodical returns no notice is said to have been taken of any remarkable inefficiency;-a circumstance of a further aggravated appearance to the report immediately under our view, since it gave it the colour of a private and secret insinuation, instead of a public and honest detail. It seemed, unfortunately, to impute facts, prejudicial to