XIX. BOOK And thus were the loud calls of the nation, for an acconomical reform in the public expenditure, set at contemptuous defiance by the unprincipled effrontery of the ministers. 1781. ry motion Pacificato- Towards the end of the session, Mr. Fox moved Tymon the house, to resolve itself into a committee, to consider of the American war, for the purpose of devising some means of accommodation. This motion was supported in an animated speech by Mr. Pitt, who expressed his utter abhorrence of a war, "which was conceived," he said, "in injustice, nurtured in folly, and whose footsteps were marked with slaughter and devastation. It exhibited the height of moral depravity and human turpitude. The nation was drained of its best blood and its vital resources, for which nothing was received in return but a series of inefficient victories or disgraceful defeats,-victories obtained over men struggling in the holy cause of liberty, or defeats which filled the land with mourning for the loss of dear and valuable relatives slain in a detested and impious quarrel." The motion was rejected by a majority of 172 to 99 voices. On the 18th of July 1781 the session was closed by a speech, in which his majesty observed that the great efforts made by the nation to surmount the difficulties of the present arduous and complicated war, must convince the world that the antient spirit of the British nation was not abated or diminished, and he was resolved to accept of no terms or conditions of XIX. peace than such as might consist with the honor and BOOK dignity of his crown, and the permanent interests and security of his people. A very considerable proportion of the present session was occupied in the consideration of the af fairs of India, of which the interval between the civil and military transactions of the present year affords a proper opportunity to take a general review, from the period in which the memorable bill of regulation framed by the minister lord North, A. D. 1773, passed into a law. 1781. the admini Mr. Hast dia. In the month of April 1772, took place, in con- Review of sequence of the removal of governor Cartier, the stration of memorable appointment of Warren Hastings, esq.ings in Inas governor-general of India; a man whose conduct throughout all the inferior gradations of office stood confessedly unimpeached. The members of the Supreme Council appointed under the new act were, sir John Clavering, colonel Monson, and Philip * When lord Clive embarked for Europe, February 1760, he left the government in the hands of Mr. Holwell pro tempore; Mr. Vansittart being then actually appointed, and arMr. Vansittart re riving at Calcutta in the month of July. BOOK Francis, esq. than whom persons of more inflexible XIX. probity and enlightened beneficence could not have 1781. been selected by the wisdom of parliament, for the purpose of stemming that tide of corruption and rapacity which inundated the government of India throughout all its departments and ramifications; and which, when opportunities are frequent and temptations forcible, shall cease to overleap the mounds of right when the Ganges shall cease to flow. It is remarkable, that these three gentlemen were impressed with so high an idea of the merits of Mr. Hastings, upon whose powerful aid and local experience they depended to give efficacy to their exertions in the public service, that sir John Clavering, with the approbation of his co-adjutors, had actually addressed the king, previous to their departure from England, to bestow upon the governor some distinguished mark of his royal favor, with a view to induce him to relinquish the intention which he was supposed to entertain of resigning the government. established by lord Clive. At length the Sullivan party prevailing in the direction, Mr. Hastings was, in opposition to the influence of his lordship, appointed governor of Bengal: and the more secret transactions, with the concomitant intrigues and cabals, which distinguished his administration, cau be perfectly understood only by those who have wasted their time in developing the complex and clashing interests, and neverceasing contentions and animosities, of the Clive and Sullivan factions. XIX. 1781. On the arrival of the new counsellors in India, in BOOK the autumn of 1774, their astonishment was great to find the whole system and policy of Mr. Hastings diametrically contrary to their pre-conceived ideas of his character. His manners also were marked by a coldness and hauteur wholly incompatible with the cordiality of friendship; and they had the chagrin to perceive, that they were regarded by him not as associates in the great and necessary work of reform, but in the odious light of detectors, spies, and rivals. The project so universally and justly execrated in England, of setting up the lands of the zemindars, polygars, &c. to public auction, appeared, from the immediate and unqualified adoption of this odious system by the new governor, to be the favorite policy of Mr. Hastings himself. In the space of about 200 years, during which the kingdom of Bengal and its appendages had been under the Mahomedan government, the original ground-rents or heriots, aussil jumma, of the zemindars and other great hereditary landholders who held under the government, had never been raised and a permanent interest being thus created in the land, the talookdars and ryots, who possessed the subordinate rights of property under the zemindars, were neither themselves oppressed, nor allowed to oppress the actual occupants and cultivators of the soil. But from the fatal period that Bengal fell into the hands of the English, the security of property was no more. In XIX. 1781. BOOK the reign of the emperor Akber, famed for the the lands in the kingdom, from those in |