"From the moment that the proclamation at the Mauritius was authenticated, it was allowed on all fides that an army must be immediately aflembled to cover the Carnatic. To cover a frontier of many hundred miles, in which there are no less than feventy or eighty paffes, practicable and easy to light armed troops, from the destructive predatory irruptions of Indian horse, both reason and experience shew to be impoffible, on any other system than that of obliging the enemy to concentre his force for the protection of Seringapatam. Serioufly toralarm Tippoo for the fafety of his capital, and prevent his detaching his regular and irregular cavalry, to plunder and lay waste our provinces below the Gauts of Coromandel and Malabar, it was necessary the army should be fully equipped, and that he should know it to be ready to move forward at a moment's warning. The fame expence of troops, carriage, and provifions, muft therefore be contracted as was contracted whether the amy remained encamped under the walls of Vellore, or at the gates of Seringapatam.

"Befide, on the principle of a defenfive war, we should have had an army of obfervation, at an immenfe and never-ending expence on the borders of Myfore; and if this had kept Tippoo at bay, how long could our finances have fupported it? What fecurity had we, that the French, whose alliance he had fought and obtain ed, would never land on his coast from France, from Egypt, of the Mauritius?

We know, from what has lately pafled in Egypt and Ireland, that no fleets, however fuperior, can absolutely remove the danger of defperate descent, even on coafts which fleets are feldom obliged to quit, much less that of Malabar, which, for a whole monioon, must be left open and exposed; where, though the protection must be withdrawn, from the general danger of remaining on the coaft during the South-west Monfoon, there are many intervals of moderate weather, in which ships might disembark their troops without darger or difficulty. -How should we then attack a country guarded by French tagics, and abounding in natural fortreffes, which, if defended with European skill, are abfolutely impregnable? What other armies we furnish to watch the French action at Hyderabad, or the licentious Hoops of Scindiah, at Poonah; to fay

..

could

nothing of the fupport of the army we had been already obliged to affemble against Zeman Shah, in Oude?-it is plain that the very means of defence would have been infallible ruin.

"We should have had months and years of detenfive apprehenfion, at nearly the expence of actual hoftility, instead of a few weeks of offensive war. We should have had enemies, instead of allies-danger instead of safety-contempt, decline of power, and bankruptcy, inftead of increasing refources-strength and glory."

Such were the reafons, no doubt, which influenced Lord Mornington, to order the army directly to Seringapatam; but as there was still a hope lett, that before the attack on this capital would be made, Tippoo might enter into fome negotiation, his Lordship, with a magnanimous confidence, equally honourable to himself and terviceable to the state, intrufted a large portion of his own authority to the temporary difcretion of the Commander in Chief; and thus were the advantages, which had been formerly derived from an union of the civil and military power in the perfon of Lord Cornwallis, again fecured to the state.

How well this confidence was placed, and with what prudence and magnanimity the Commander in Chief (after every endeavour to prevent the effusion of human blood) obtained the conquest of Seringapatam, is too recently and univerfally authenticated to need a repetition here. France fees this conquest as the finishing blow to all her future expectations in India, and comes in as a bitter fuccedaneum to her merited difasters in Egyptwhilft Great Britain has the happiness of seeing a kingdom, equal in extent to two thirds of the ancient monarchy of France, and yielding an annual revenue of more than one million Aerling, transferred in full fovereignty to the Company and their allies -and all this obtained in the short space of two months, and without any injury to its fubjects, or devastation of the country, beyond what the Sultan himself had directed for the purpose of haraffing the march, and preventing the supplies of the allied army.

The General who achieved this important conquest is but about forty five years of age, a time of life which promises to give him the enjoyment of his well deserved fortune and honours, in the bosom of his family and friends.

CHARAC

:

MARMONTEL, who was a mem

ber, and the perpetual secretary of the French Academy, till the philosophers of the Revolution exterminated the academies, finished his career at the age of seventy, in Normandy, in the month of December last.

The public opinion of the numerous works of this writer of the first class being fettled, it would be fuperfluous here to examine his literary merit. Few authors produce more, because few are fo laborious. Although Marmontel did not fucceed in all the modes of writing he attempted, he is in the number of writers whose titles will be reviewed and acknowledged by posterity. He has been equally fuccessful in works of imagina tion and didactic ones. The best course of literature we have in French, is that which he has inferted in the Encyclopédie Méthodique. He has the great merit of clearness, justness of expression, wit, and taste; in short, a precision ecision the the reverse of that frothy verboseness so frequent in the famous Dictionary, and of the uselefs profuseness of most modern rhetoricians.

The Revolution robbed Marmontel of his place, falaries, fortune, and refources. The old government had been just and liberal towards him, and he was not ungrateful: from sentiment as well as reflection he was no partaker either in the enthusiasm or errors into which the events

of 1789 led fo many men of letters. Grateful for the magnanimous conceffions which the king had made to his subjects in the month of December 1788, he was not deceived by the strange innovations, the eftablishment of which was prepared by confpirators and the difciples of anarchy. However, he had it in his power to take a part in that stormy scene, and to go through it with more fuccess than his companion Bailly, whose approaching popular fortune he little suspected, and to whom he was far fuperior in political knowledge, firmness of character, and justness of thought. They were both appointed electors by the Tiers Etat of the commune of Paris. Marmontel appeared at the Electoral assembly with diftinguished marks of favour: he was generally pointed out as one of the depu ties who would be elected: this popularity lasted fix days.

The electoral body, ufurping the rights and the language of an independent political body, took it into their heads that they would govern the state and the king. Upon an incendiary motion made by the declaimer Target, it was refolved, among other things, to give orders to his majefty, that, without delay, the press should be allowed unlimited liberty.

Marmontel opposed with all his power and eloquence a conduct fo feditious. He found himself alone in his opinion in which he persisted: his credit vanished; and he was struck from the lift of candidates.

Neither fear, nor feduction, nor policy could shake his mind. He loudly profefsed his principles, his contempt of those that prevailed, and his horror at the criminal means by which they were made to prevail. I have heard him confound. ing, with all the weight of a found and noble reason, dangerous men whose averfion was not to be incurred with impunity.

About the end of the year 1791, when he thought that all was irrecoverably loft, he retired with his wife and children, to a cottage which he had purchased in Normandy. In 1792, finding that anarchy made rapid itrides, he thought of leaving France and taking refuge in Switzerland: a project which I perfuaded hím to relinquish, as the smallness of his fortune and the fate of his family would not permit it.

Although totally absorbed in the education of his children and in literary labours, he was perfecuted in his retreat, and more than once imprisoned. At length, revolutionary tyranny having blunted its bloody sword, before it could whet a new-modelled one, France seemed to breathe for some days. It was in that short interval, during the spring of 1797, that Marmontel, by the voice of the worthy people of his department, was returned a deputy to the Legislature. He yielded to the preffing intreaties of his electors much more than to their illufion, in which he was not a partaker. Coolly difcriminating circumstances, plans, and obstacles, he forefaw the catastrophe which put an end to the dream of the Legillative Body. His age, and fome remaining confideration for his talents, faved

him from transportation; but his election was annulled.

Reitored to liberty and his family, he hattened back to his rural retreat where, with a tranquil confcience, he died on the 30th of December lalt, at the age of 69 years; a good father, an affectionate husband, and a Chriftian.

Here let me remove one of those flanders engendered by the prejudices of fect and party, which from the French papers has found its way to those of other countries. They acculed Marmontel of hypocrify, for detending the interests of religion in the Legislative Body, after having, they day, attacked it in his works. Nothing is more abfurd and falfe than this affertion. But fuppofing that a writer in the effervefcence of youth, and hurried away by example, or the patlions, had taken unwarrantable liberties with religious principles, would it follow, that when matured by age and reason, when taught by dreadful experience the effects of m. credulity, he should not acknowledge the danger of it, and oppose it without being guilty of hypocrify? It was the cafe of another academician, whose converfion made ftill more noile than his errors.

But as for Marmontel, he never had grounds to lament his publications. He never sheltered himself by writing anonymoufly; and in which of his acknowledged works shall we find a proof to fupport the imputation I am refuting? Will any one venture to adduce the cenfure of Bellifarius by the Doctor of the Sorbonne, who with a rage and abfurdity worthy of the tenth century, anathema tized the maxims of toleration displayed by the author of it, and which were adopted by all enlightened Chriftians awake to the spirit of the Gospel?

F

To listen to the crowd of declaimers and ignorant fellows who pretend to explain the causes of the revolution, we should believe it to be the refult of a univerfal confpiracy of men of learning and science against the Throne and the Altar. They are, no doubt, right, according to their meaning; for, in their eyes, whoever requires that the power of the laws should be fuperior to that of a Minifter, or of a Lieutenant de Police, is a rebel and a Jacobin; just as they, with equal sagacity, pronounce him an Atheist who wrote against the Jesuits, or laughed at the legend.

Fact is the aniwer to thefe enormous fooleries. In spite of the interested declamations and invectives of the Linguets, Merciers, and Chamforts, it is certain that the French Academy was compofed of men the most diftinguished by their literary talents. Mark then: of 37 members, the number of that body in 1790, only eight embraced and served the Revolution. Most of the members of the Academy of Infcriptions and Belles Lettres were clear of all participation in it. The Academy of Sciences alone merited that reproach which was so unjustly thrown upon men of letters worthy of the title: and to it everlasting shame it produced three of Robespierre's minifters, namely, Monge, Meusnier, and Fourcroy.

As for the crowd of composers of ballads and romances, college tutors, private teachers, club-philofophers, rhetoricians, and inspired jurists, who have devoted their genius to the improvement of fociety, it is carrying the indulgence of language too far to call them men of letters.

☑ IGURE 1. represents a house fituated in London Wall, curious from the antique figures on the front, of which no authentic account can be traced.

Figure 2. is an Old House the corner of Cloth-Fair and King-ftreet, West Smith field, in the occupation of Meffis. Campions, butchers, and fuppofed to be as ancient as part of the Monaftry of St. Bartholomew the Great; there are remaining four grotesque figures fupporting in part the covings on the corners of

the house, and before the front was alter. ed there were more emblematical figures.

Figure 3. is the Arch Way from Leadenhall street, the entrance to Duke's Place, and generally believed to be part of the original gate-way of the palace of the Dukes of Norfolk, from which Duke's Place takes its name.

Figure 4. is an Ancient Entrance, fituated in St. Helen's, Bifhopígatestrest.