motion, and that Ballajee Row was at Calpee with sixty thousand men collecting boats. If reduced to extremity, but not before, Smith was instructed to promise the officers compliance with their demands.

"Expecting their resignation to produce all the effects which they desired, the officers had concerted no ulterior measures. Their desperation had not led them to make any attempts to debauch the common soldiers. The Sepoys everywhere exhibited a steady obedience; and the commanding officers of all the brigades remained in perfect confidence of being able, in case of mutiny, to put every European soldier to death. Except, however, at Mongheer, where symptons of mutiny among the Europeans were quickly dispelled by the steady countenance of the Sepoys drawn out to attack them, no disturbance occurred. The officers at Mongheer submitted quietly to be sent down to Calcutta: the greater part of those belonging to the other brigades retracted. And this extraordinary combination, which with a somewhat longer sight on the part of the officers, or less of vigour and of the awe of a high reputation on the part of the Governor, would have effected a revolution in India, produced, as ineffectual resistance generally does, a subjection more complete than would have existed if the disturbance had never been raised. Some of the officers, upon profession of repentance, were allowed to resume the service; others were tried and cashiered. The case of Sir Robert Fletcher was the most remarkable. He had been active in subduing the confederacy, but was found to have encouraged its formation. He apologized for himself on two grounds; that he wished, through the guilt of the conspiracy, to be able to dismiss a number of officers, whose bad conduct rendered them an injury to the service; and that he wished, through the appearance of favouring the views of the officers in some things, to have the advantage of a complete knowledge of their proceeding. A court-martial, notwithstanding, found him guilty of mutiny, of sedition, and concealment of mutiny; and he was punished by ejection from the service."

Such was the manner in which the founder of our immense territorial sway in the East averted a mutiny that might for ever have destroyed our power in that quarter of the globe. It was worthy of him who when the fitting time came, which he had long foreseen for England to determine whether she could or should take the whole Mogul empire to herself, accomplished that conquest rapidly and completely. The historian exhibits the great points as well as the weaknesses of Clive with facility, and a happy seizure of the main facts of any particular measure or event. If, however, the reader desires to have a specimen of Mill's perversions and ingenuity, even to the extenuation of one of the most foul atrocities that ever were perpetrated, let the account of the murders of the Black-hole be examined. This is his representation:

"When evening, however, came, it was a question with the guards to whom they were intrusted, how they might be secured for the night. Some search was made for a convenient apartment, but none was found: upon which information was obtained of a place which the English themselves VOL. III. (1841.) NO. II.

S

ment.

employed as a prison. Into this, without further inquiry, they were impelled. It was unhappily a small, ill-aired, and unwholesome dungeon, called the Black Hole; and the English had their own practice to thank for suggesting it to the officers of the Subahdar as a fit place of confineOut of one hundred and forty-six unfortunate individuals thrust in, only twenty-three were taken out alive in the morning. The horror of the situation may be conceived, but it cannot be described. 'Some of our company,' says Mr. Cooke, 'expired very soon after being put in; others grew mad, and having lost their senses, died in a high delirium.' Applications were made to the guard, with the offer of great rewards; but it was out of their power to afford relief. The only chance consisted in conveying intelligence, by means of a bribe, to some officer of high authority; and to no one does it appear that this expedient occurred."

Compare this account with that given by Mr. Thornton :

"Difficulty was found or pretended in discovering a proper place of security, and, after some search, a room attached to the barracks, which had been used for the confinement of military offenders, was selected for the purpose. The dimensions of this place were eighteen feet by fourteen. On three sides there was no provision for the admission of air or light; on the fourth were two small windows secured by iron bars; but these, it is represented, from their position not being to the windward, could admit little air, an evil aggravated by the overhanging of a low verandah. Within a space thus confined and ill ventilated, on a sultry night in the sultriest season of the year, were immured one hundred and forty-six human beings, a vast majority being Europeans, to whose northern constitutions the oppressive climate of Bengal could scarcely be made supportable by the aid of every resource that art could suggest, and several of them suffering from the effects of recent wounds. Few of the persons knew anything of the place; those who did could not at first persuade themselves that their guards seriously proposed to shut up such numbers in that narrow prison, or they might perhaps, as one of the survivors afterwards declared, have preferred to encounter instant death, by rushing on the swords of the soldiers, to the lingering torture which awaited them. When at length they perceived the horrors of their situation, an offer of a thousand rupees was made to an officer of the guard if he would procure the removal of part of the prisoners to another place. He withdrew, but returned with an answer that it was imposssible. The offer was doubled, and the man again withdrew; but he returned only to disappoint the hope of relief, if any hope existed, by declaring that the desired change could not be effected without the orders of the Soubahdar; that he was asleep, and none dared to wake him. Of the horrors of the night which succeeded no words can raise an adequate conception. The heat and thirst soon became intolerable; and though resistance to the fate that impended seemed useless, to yield to it calmly was more than could be expected from human nature. The rapidly sinking strength of the sufferers was exhausted and their torments aggravated by frantic struggles with each other to gain a position near the windows, or to obtain a few drops of the water with

which their guards, more in mockery than in mercy, scantily supplied them through the grating. In these dreadful contests, some were beaten down and trampled to death-while, in the more remote parts of the room, the work of the destroyer was in fearful progress through the overpowering heat and the vitiated condition of the air-and happy might they be esteemed whose sufferings were thus shortened. Of the remainder, some were in a state of delirium; others rapidly advancing to that state, but, still retaining a consciousness of the scene and circumstances around them, strove by insult and abuse to provoke the guards to fire on them. At length the morning came, and with it an order for bringing out the prisoners. The execution of the mandate was impeded by the piles of dead which blocked up the doorway; an obstacle which it required some time to remove. Those in whom the spark of life was not extinct then came forth, once again to inhale the pure air of heaven. Their number was twentythree; of these several were soon after carried off by putrid diseases, the consequence of the cruelty to which they had been subjected.

"The precise share of the Soubahdar in this atrocious transaction is not ascertainable. One of the sufferers believed that the orders were only general, and amounted to no more than that the prisoners should be secured. He attributes the barbarity with which they were enforced to the soldiers entrusted with their execution, and it is certain that the horrors of the Black Hole afforded them entertainment. They took care,' says Holwell, to keep us supplied with water, that they might have the satisfaction of seeing us fight for it, as they phrased it, and held up lights to the bars that they might lose no part of their inhuman diversion.' Another of the prisoners seems to have thought that the orders were specific as to the place of confinement, but that they were issued in ignorance of its small dimensions. But these apologetic suggestions, however creditable to the generosity of the sufferers, can do little to relieve the character of the man under whose authority this wholesale murder of prisoners took place. The character of the officers of a government is in a great measure determined by that of those whom they serve; and if the servants of Sooraj-oo-Dowlah exercised any discretion in the choice of a prison, it may safely be concluded that their choice was made under a full impression that it would not be disagreeable to their master. The subsequent conduct of the Soubahdar shows that such a belief would have been well warranted. When Mr. Holwell was admitted to his presence on the morning after the murder, exhibiting on his person painful evidence of the sufferings of the night, the Soubahdar expressed neither regret for the horrors that had occurred, nor displeasure at the conduct of those who had been the direct instruments of producing them; but harshly interrupted Mr. Holwell's attempt to describe them by a demand for the treasure supposed to be concealed. But the probability is, that the Soubahdar had himself made or sanctioned the selection of the Black Hole as the place of confinement, for when the miserable prisoners besought that they might be relieved by the removal of part of their number to some other place, their prayer was unavailing, because it could not be granted without the express orders of the Soubahdar, whose sleep no one dared to disturb for so trivial a purpose as the preservation from death of nearly one hundred and fifty human

beings. That he was ignorant of the inadequacy of the place to receive so many prisoners is no excuse, seeing that his ignorance was voluntary, and might have been removed without delay, inconvenience, or danger. It was his duty to assure himself that, in committing his prisoners to safe custody, he was not consigning them to death; and his want of knowledge of their situation, if it existed, was the result of his want of interest. He knew not because he cared not."

Here is a correcter narrative by Mill than that concerning the Black-hole. The subject is that of a wholesale massacre ordered by Nadir Shah while in possession of Delhi :

"For two days had the Persians been in Delhi, and as yet observed the strictest discipline and order. But on the night of the second, an unfortunate rumour was spread that Nadir Shah was killed; upon which the wretched inhabitants rose in tumult, ran to massacre the Persians, and filled the city throughout the night with confusion and bloodshed. With the first light of the morning Nadir issued forth, and dispersing bands of soldiers in every direction, ordered them to slaughter the inhabitants without regard to age or sex in every street or avenue where the body of a murdered Persian should be found. From sunrise to mid-day the sabre raged; and by that time not less than eight thousand Hindoos, Moguls, or Afghans, were numbered with the dead. During the massacre and pillage, the city was set on fire in several places. The destroyer at last allowed himself to be persuaded to stay the ruin: the signal was given ; and in an instant, such was the authority of Nadir, every sword was sheathed.

"A few days after the massacre, a nobleman was despatched by Nadir, to bring from Oude the two crores of rupees, promised by its Governor, Sadut Khan; who, in the short interval, had died of a cancer in his back. On the same day he commenced his seizure of the imperial treasure and effects; three crores and fifty lacks in specie; a crore and fifty lacks in plate; fifteen crores in jewels; the celebrated peacock throne, valued at a crore; other valuables to the amount of eleven crores; besides elephants, horses, and the camp-equipage of the Emperor. The bankers and rich. individuals were ordered to give up their wealth, and tortured to make discovery of what they were suspected to have concealed. A heavy contribution was demanded of the city, and exacted with cruel severity; many laid violent hands upon themselves to escape the horrid treatment to which they beheld others exposed. Famine pervaded the city, and pestilential diseases ensued. Seldom has a more dreadful calamity fallen upon any portion of the human race, than that in which the visit of Nadir Shah involved the capital of Hindostan. Yet a native and contemporary historian informs us, such is the facility with which men accommodate themselves to their lot, that the inhabitants of Delhi, at least the debauched, who were by far the most numerous part, regretted the departure of the Persians; and to this day, (says he,) the excesses of their soldiery are topics of humour in the looser conversation of all ranks, and form the comic parts of the drolls or players. The people of Hindostan at this time regarded

only personal safety and personal gratification. Misery was disregarded by those who escaped it; and man, centred wholly in himself, felt not for his kind. This selfishness, destructive of public and private virtue, was universal in Hindostan at the invasion of Nadir Shah; nor have the people become more virtuous since, consequently not more happy, nor more independent.'

"Nadir having ordered, as the terms of peace, that all the provinces on the West side of the Indus, Kabul, Tatta, and part of Multan should be detached from the dominions of the Mogul, and added to his own, restored Mohammed to the exercise of his degraded sovereignty; and, bestowing upon him and his courtiers some good advice, began, on the 14th of April, 1739, his march from Delhi, of which he had been in possession for thirtyseven days."

We must now have a word or two about the present edition of the history of British India, which the Boden Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford has so much enriched by notes and comments, and which he is to bring down to the present time. Mr. Wilson's Oriental erudition, his residence and close observation in India, and the impartial unprepossessed character of his mind, have enabled him to detect and expose the errors and to modify the pictures which detract from the value of his predecessor's volumes. Mill was not learned in the languages of the East; nor had he access to many of the documents which his editor has probably consulted. Besides, much that is necessary to a full and accurate history of India has been supplied by late writers and travellers. Even the amount and variety of the natural productions or capabilities of the soil of India have been but recently made the subject of extensive and minute investigation. Thus illustrated, corrected, and continued by the Professor, Mill and Wilson's volumes will now be the standard history of British India, and must figure in every well appointed library or even small if select collection of authoritative books. But as the Continuation has not yet come before us, we cannot enter upon its merits, and shall dismiss the volumes immediately under consideration after quoting a sample of the Professor's annotations, and where he speaks of the nature and condition of the civilization of the Hindoos.

"This question of the civilization of the Hindoos, although discussed with disproportionate prolixity, irrelevancy of illustration, and tediousness of repetition, both in these concluding remarks and in a variety of previous notes and observations, can scarcely be considered as satisfactorily determined. It may be admitted that the Hindoos were not a civilized people, according to Mr. Mill's standard; but what that standard is he has not fully defined. Civilization is used by him, however, as a relative term; and in this sense, we may readily grant that the Hindoos never attained the advance made by modern Europe. It is not just to institute such a comparison; for, to say nothing of the advantages we possess in a pure