received the approbation of the great body of the army, or have been stayed in its progress by the expression of dissent on the part of numbers, to whom it might have been afterwards offered for signature, cannot now be ascertained. It was interrupted in its inchoate state, and no place of repentance was allowed between the time of the intent, and the proposed point for `the execution of it.

This paper was put into the possession of the local Government in an imperfect form, and without a single subscription appearing at the foot of it; and was forwarded in that condition to the supreme Government of India.

These acts, or half-perfected acts, occasioned, as has been intimated, the suspension of several officers from the service, and of many more from their staff and army appointments. As these removals, like the former, took place without any formal or known investigation, they served, of course, to swell the breath of discontent. The orders, directing these suspensions, were published on the 1st of May;* and state the causes, though not very distinctly, why the respective parties, the

* Appendix M.

objects of the orders, had been severally marked as examples to the army. But the facts, it will be kept in mind, out of which these causes were asserted to arise, were partially assumed by the Government, and which the persons whom they concerned were not permitted to question or deny.

These orders also, in a kind of gratuitous invective, arraign the conduct of General Macdowall, the late Commander in Chief, who had been deprived of that situation, before any acts to which these orders have reference, had been contemplated by the authors of them. Neither this nor other circumstances that occurred about this period, and which have been described, most particularly, in the preceding letters, abated the agitation which seemed to be felt throughout every part of the coast army. While the whole body was thus convulsed, it was not to be expected that any wise and temperate suggestion should proceed from any of its members; and, unfortunately, the condition of civil society, giving credit to the accounts in the correspondence, was in a state scarcely less irritated. So that, instead of the one being a corrective, from social contact, of the inflamed disposition of the other, through the instrumentality of

advice and example, they administered only countenance to each other, in the description and comparison of their supposed

wrongs.

1)

Certain of the suspended officers, and more especially Major Boles and Colonel Martin, were refused, it may not be too much (at this day) to say, on idle pretences, to proceed to Europe, though they had respectfully requested leave to embark. They were afterwards allowed permission; nay, one of them was actually ordered to go circuitously to Europe, at a time, and in a way, not convenient to him, without any alteration in his condition, since the date of his request. It is to be remarked, that in the interval, Mr. Buchan, the Secretary to Government, had been dispatched to England, for the purpose, as it was generally believed in India, of affording an ex-parte statement of the differences that had arisen between the Government and the Army.

In this unfortunate posture of affairs, men freely expressed to each other their common injuries, and communed together, whenever they met, on the most advisable means of redressing them. It will create but little surprize, that these accidental

meetings led subsequently to regularly appointed assemblies, and, as a natural consequence, from the inconvenience of discussing matters in extensive bodies to the formation of committees, entrusted with the direction of the affairs and interests of the body at large. This, however, is not a simple operation, and was not here the work of a single day. The danger of such a confederacy, in such a state of things, must have been foreseen by a Government, that did not entirely shut its eyes to surrounding events, or its heart to the effects, which were likely to result from them. The most striking incidents described in the narrative, happened between the months of January, 1809, and of July in the same year. Between these intermediate dates, it will be fit to inquire what the local Government had attempted, with a view to conciliate the minds of the discontented, or to convince them of their error. It need not be observed, that it is the duty of every wellconstituted Government, to prevent the evil consequences of error, rather than to display its power in punishing it, when it has grown into actual offence. Now what was the preventive caution of the Madras Govern

ment? What the means which it employed in this most delicate situation?

We are concerned to state, that it does not appear, from any thing that has come to our knowledge, that any shew even of conciliation was affected, or any measures of wisdom adopted, either to eradicate any erroneous opinions entertained, or to guard against the probable effects of them. All the reliance of the Government seemed to be rested on its power. Every act of grace was discarded from its policy. All its business was the fabrication of orders, expressive of its own strength, in the principle of its constitution, or of devising stratagems, indicative of its weakness in reducing the principle into action. Hence proceeded a variety of orders to the army, 66 full of sound and fury," and of acts, nothing."

66

signifying

The brutum fulmen against General Macdowall, after it was known that he was without the hearing of it,-though the orders of the Government were announced under the artillery of the Fort,-was not formed to claim the character of vigor, to which it unfortunately pretended, though it was accompanied by a command, at the