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but these they cannot bear without the greatest impatience, for they are only. "reduced to the state of subjects, not of "slaves."

That Britons of the 19th century are equally free, and equally impatient of arbitrary and illegal impositions, as were their ancestors of the 2nd or 3rd century, is a fact that will not be doubted by any except those, may have allowed the study of foreign

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constitutions to eradicate from their minds the knowledge of that of their own country. The sentiments of the Governor General respecting the state of affairs at Madras, were, in the month of March, communicated to the several stations under the Madras Government, to each of which an extract of a letter from the supreme Government, dated 20th February, 1809, was sent for general information. In this letter the conduct of General Macdowall is severely reprehended, and it is stated that the impropriety of his conduct has been aggravated by his placing Colonel Munro under arrest, after the Judge Advocate General's official declaration of the illegality of the charges, and by his refusal to take off the arrest, after the

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officers who had so irregularly and discreditably preferred the charges against Colonel Munro had, in consequence of the Judge Advocate General's declared sentiments, regarding their illegality, requested the Commander in Chief to suspend the prosecution of them." Some further animadversions on the conduct of General Macdowall, and an unequivocal approbation of the steps which the Madras Government adopted towards that officer, compose the whole of the extract. Not a word is mentioned respecting the dismissal from office, and the suspension of Colonel Capper and Major Boles. this it appeared evident, that, although Lord Minto could not approve of the measures which had been adopted towards those officers, detailed as they were only by the opposite party, and represented no doubt in colours the most favourable to the cause of that party, still he had received, with full force, the impressions which it was the interest of the local Government to convey, respecting the motives and the conduct of General Macdowall; and, acting under those impressions, had assumed a prejudice on the subject, which must render it every day more difficult for him to view the question with impar

tiality. This prejudice, or this impression, (or whatever it may be called) appears to have prevented the Governor General from hazarding any remark respecting the cases of Colonel Capper and Major Boles, being desirous not to disapprove, even when he could not applaud. The officers of the Madras Army therefore perceived, that the cause of those much-injured men, which was in effect the cause of every man holding a commission in the Company's Service, was utterly disregarded; they learned, with the deepest concern and uneasiness, that there were no hopes of redress from that quarter, to which alone they could have looked with any prospect of success. For it were vain to expect consideration from their more immediate superiors, at this instant, deceived as they were by a set of men, whose powers, and whose enormous emoluments, had been derived from, and were supported by, the same causes, that injured and alienated the minds of the most respectable part of the community.

It is not easy to account for the hardihood with which the enemies of General Macdowall endeavoured to crush him, by u ing misrepresentation, the falsehood of

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which it must be impossible for them to conceal, however they may prevaricate and disguise it. From the letter of the supreme Government it appears, that General Macdowall was represented as having urged the arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, in ́ defiance of the Judge Advocate General's official declaration of the illegality of the charges, and of a request to the contrary from the officers who had preferred the charges. This assertion, as has been already stated, was altogether false and groundless. The arguments of the Judge Advocate General, however specious, were not considered to be conclusive; from the causes that have been before noticed; and, in fact, the arrest of Colonel Munro was immediately caused by an appeal which was made against the Judge Advocate General's opinion to the authority of the Commander in Chief, and to the articles of war. It is probable, that General Macdowall's enemies did not suppose that the detection of this misrepresentation would take place so soon, and imagined, as he was gone from India, that the power which they possessed would enable them to stifle any efforts that might be made to vindicate his cause. At all events, it was pretty certain

that the advantage which they could use of representing the subject in the manner most advantageous to themselves, would establish a prejudice in their favour, which would produce the conclusion they desired, before any discussion could take place regarding the original merits of the question. Moreover, it is not impossible that Sir George Barlow was himself deceived, by those whose interest it was to vilify General Macdowall, and whose chief object it was to retain, even for the present, the ascendant which they had acquired. Wherever the deceit may have originated, it was manifest that it had the full effect with the Governor General; and, therefore, that he was strongly prejudiced against any representation which could at this period. be made to him, relative to the new predicament in which the Company's officers were placed; of being liable to lose their commissions at the beck of any time-serving sycophant about the Government. Such must literally be considered the situation of every officer in the Company's service, if Colonel Leith's ex-post-facto opinion be admitted, to justify the dismissal of Colonel Capper and Major Boles. It is scarcely possible to suppose an act less likely to produce the for