Grey, carried the Reform Bill.* His Lordship's speech, however, to which we have referred, was calculated to exalt him in the estimation of both the King and his Lordship's colleagues; and accordingly we find that soon afterwards, 21st June 1793, he was sworn a member of the English Privy Council; and was appointed a Commissioner for the affairs of India,—an office which was peculiarly adapted to prepare him for the efficient discharge of the high duties which afterwards devolved upon him as Governor General of India.

Mr. Pitt's Bill of 1784 appointed six Privy Councillors to be Commissioners for the affairs of India; of whom, one of the Secretaries of State for the time being was President. These Commissioners, who were appointed by his Majesty, and removable at his pleasure, were vested with a control and superintendence over all civil, military, and revenue officers of the East India Company; and the Directors of that corporation were obliged to lay before them all papers relative to the management of their possessions; and to obey all orders which they received from them, on points connected with their civil or military government, or the revenues of their territories. The Commissioners were obliged to return the copies of papers which they received from the Directors in fourteen days, with their approbation, or to state at large their reasons for disapproving of them; and their dispatches, so approved or amended, were to be sent to India, unless the Commissioners should attend to any represen

*The Marquess Wellesley was Lord Steward in Earl Grey's Ministry, 22nd Nov. 1830.

tations of the Court of Directors, respecting further alterations in them.

Lord Mornington applied himself with his characteristic diligence to a thorough study of the various interests of our Indian empire; and obtained a masterly and comprehensive knowledge of the relations of the several states to the British Government, as well as the power, resources, and position of the several parties in the Peninsula. He acquainted himself, as far as possible, with the details of every fact bearing upon the commerce, the government, and the laws of the country; and with the instinctive sagacity of great genius, pondered upon the future destiny and the possible exigencies of Hindostan. It has been already mentioned, that the first subject on which Lord Mornington spoke in the British House of Commons was that of India. He appears to have directed his attention to it from the beginning of his career in the English Parliament; and very probably regarded the post of Commissioner for the affairs of India as a stepping-stone to the splendid appointment of Governor-General. The nomination of Lord Mornington to the Board of Control at this period when the public mind was so much excited by the discussions in Parliament on the India Bills, shows the confidence which Mr. Pitt and the Government reposed in the judgment and discretion of that nobleman, then in the thirty-fourth year of his

age.

CHAPTER IV.

The War with France.- Difficulty of deciding whether War might honourably have been avoided, or not.-The right of the French to depose the Power that violated their fundamental Laws and the Principles of Natural Justice.-The French originally justified in their Proceedings.-Events become complicated, and the question in relation to Great Britain altered.-Palliating circumstances of the French Revolution considered. - Publications of Burke, Macintosh, and Erskine Death of Louis XVI.-The French Ambassador required to quit the Kingdom.—Message from the King to Parliament to augment the Forces.-In ten days afterwards the fact of War communicated to both Houses.-Opening of Parliament, January 1794.—Address to the Crown on the War.-Lord Mornington's great Speech, reviewing the Revolution, exhibiting its progress, and tracing the Revolutionary Government step by step, holding up to reprobation all the atrocities, blasphemies, violence, perfidy, and cruelty that were enacted in France; pointing out the spirit of aggression and wanton violation of the Laws of Nations that animated the French, and urging upon the Parliament, by every consideration that could be supposed to influence Englishmen, to support the Crown in carrying on with becoming energy this just and necessary War.-Effect of the Speech on the House.-Mr. Sheridan's brilliant reply to Lord Mornington. Mr. Wyndham and Mr. Dundas defend Lord Mornington.— Mr. Fox criticises his Lordship's Speech.-Mr. Pitt warmly eulogises it. The effects of the French Revolution on the mind of Europe considered.

THAT the war with France in 1793 might have been delayed, or in some way avoided, few will now be disposed to question; but whether, under all the circumstances, it could have been evaded without compromising the monarchical principle in Europe, without

danger to the permanent, political, and commercial interests of Great Britain, and without the injury to the constitution of this kingdom, which would probably have followed from a fraternizing with French atheism and democracy, it is more difficult to decide. That the French had a right to reform or remodel their constitution, no Englishman could deny, without reproaching his ancestors, who had declared that King Richard the Second had broken the original contract between the Sovereign and people, violated the fundamental laws of this realm, and by misgovernment forfeited the Crown; and who then, by the authority of Parliament, conferred that Crown, with multiplied legal solemnities, on Bolingbroke, afterwards King Henry the Fourth. That the French were fully justified in holding an inquisition on the Government that had flagrantly abused the power which it possessed, by gross and grievous oppressions, and had subverted the fundamental laws of France, it is impossible to doubt with the great precedent of 1688, sanctioning ⚫ and confirming the principle laid down by the English Parliament in 1399, before us, declaring the throne . vacant, and summoning thereunto William Prince of Orange and his wife Mary. If the French were justified, according to the principles of natural justice and the law of nations, in proceeding to re-adjust their Government, it is quite obvious that the coalition of the Kings of Europe in 1792, for the purpose of invading the frontiers of France, and constraining her inhabitants to alter the form of government they had chosen, was utterly indefensible. That coalition was both a crime and a blunder-an act of imbecility and

folly, and a daring infringement of the jus gentium. To it may be traced much of the savage phrenzy, the terrible atrocities, and the unspeakable villany that were developed in the later stages of the French revolution. Much was said of French propagandism: but what evoked that fell spirit? Those who based the justification of the war with France upon the aggressions which the French committed, might have recollected that the Anti-Gallican coalition had provoked those aggressions, and that in the month of July 1792, the following important proposition was submitted to Great Britain by the Government of France:

"The steps taken by the cabinet of Vienna amongst the different Powers, and principally amongst the Allies of his Britannic Majesty, in order to engage them in a quarrel which is foreign to them, are known to all Europe. If public report even were to be credited, its successes at the Court of Berlin prepare the way for others in the United Provinces ; the threats held out to the different members of the Germanic party to make them deviate from that wise neutrality which their political situation and their dearest interests prescribe to them; the arrangements taken with the different sovereigns of Italy to determine them to act hostilely against France; and, lastly, the intrigues by which Russia has been induced to arm against the constitution of Poland; everything points out fresh marks of a vast conspiracy against free states, which seems to threaten to precipitate Europe in universal war. The consequences of such a confederacy, formed by the concurrence of powers who have been so long rivals, will be easily felt by his Britannic