military defence, or the scale of dominion effential to preserve the fources of revenue and commerce, by which the naval interefts of Great Britain are maintained against European competition, tending to annihilate both its fovereignty and commerce in India, I fhould not be an advocate for extended dominion; but if natural barriers of mountains, rivers, branches of the fea, and deferts, give fecurity with diminution of expence, it must be from the inhabitants within fuch natural boundaries, being either fubjects or allies, penfioned by, or penfioning, the protecting power, or they will be most formidable enemies in war, by their free accefs to the heart of the country, or in peace, by rendering a war establishment neceffary. If we have had no fixed rule of conduct with our subjects in Bengal and in the Carnatic, it will not appear extraordinary that no fixed policy has guided our influence over the fovereigns whom we have created, protected, or conquered, to become the allies of Great Britain; or that the exercife of our influence has often been as ruinous to the country as the ravages of a state of war

fare. It is not neceffary to illustrate the remark by the inftances of bafe iniquity imputed to Governors, of which the moment of investigation, reftitution, or punishment is irretrievably paft, and therefore, for the credit of Great Britain, ought for ever to be kept under a cloud, but for the future fafety to the honour of Great Britain ought never to be out of the memory of the executive and legiflative Go

vernment.

It does not require extraordinary penetration to diftinguith the circumstances in which the interests of British India and of its neighbours in India concur or differ; a permanent system can only arise from ftrengthening a common intereft. I fhall illuftrate the neceffity of general principles founded on accurate information, by the transactions in the Carnatic during the administration of Lord Macartney, an honourable man, who, on the statement of his conduct, during a period of difficulty, has received recompence and approbation from the Company and the Ministers; and the legal opinions which affifted him are

of late adduced as conclufive to questions of great political importance.

In the early period of the Nabob's elevation, by the protection of the Company, the Nabob of Arcot had the entire command of Arcot and its dependancies, with his own cavalry and feapoys, and an establishment of ten battalions, paid by the Company, for which he allowed about four lacks of rupees per annum. The Company fold to the Nabob cloathing, arms, &c.; his payments were stipulated to be monthly, and the revenues of Arcot were always mortgaged by anticipation for that purpofe. The early wars of 1756 to 1763 against Hyder, began the Nabob's debt; the expedition against Tanjore and against Pondicherry in 1778 increased it in a degree, that his ill-paid army became rather an object of terror than of protection; mutinies were frequent, and the garrifons were dismantled. The Company and the King's Minifters took into confideration 'the rapid growth of the despair or ambi

Short Hiftory, 2d edit. p. 72.

tion of the Nabob whom Great Britain had created, and of anarchy and devastation to which the neceffities of our ally, and the demands of the Company's fervants, tended: at last, bounds being prescribed to his ambition, an agreement was concluded, in April, 1781, between the Nabob and the Governor General and Council, by which the whole country was fecured to the Company, under certain ftipulations, during the war. The Directors ordered the agreement to be annulled. Lord Macartney took charge of the government in June, 1781; he did not approve part of the treaty of April, 1781; he stated, 2d July, and 15th Auguft, 1781, that the Nabob's managers defeated the attainment of aid from his country. On the 2d of June, 1782, the Governor General and Council repeated forcible injunctions to realife every poffible refource of the Carnatic. His Lordship obtained from the Nabob a new affigument of the revenues of the Carnatic, ftated in the general letter, Fort St. George, 26th of January, 1782; the Sunnud made an absolute affignment of the revenues, reftoring to the

Nabob one fixth of the net collections for his personal support.

In the Madras correfpondence, 23d of May, 1783, that Government acknowledged to the Nabob, and to the Governor General and Council, that the late arrangements were founded on the Bengal treaty of 1781, and virtually conftituted a part of it. The Bengal Government confidered it as a modification of the 8th article of that treaty. The treaty of 1781 having been annulled by the Directors, the Nabob refifted the rigorous exaction of the second affignment, and the Governor General and Council refcinded it alfo, as being part of the first treaty.

The Nabob forms a third agreement; to give one third more in money, cattle, and provifions, than Lord Macartney had collected in an equal period in his country, and to procure Bankers' fecurity for the payment; or, in failure of his in failure of his engagements, he ftipulated to leave the ultimate and abfolute difpofal of the country, and its management, to the Directors or Go