Having gone thus far, and felt their own strength, the officers on the Madras establishment drew up a memorial addressed to the governor-general, in which they enumerate their grievances, and point out their wishes and expectations. The Former are, the exclusion of general Macdowal from a seat in the council;-the release of colonel Munto from a military arrest by the authority of the civil government; and the removal of colonel Capper and major Boles from the respective offices of adjutant and deputy adjutant-general. What they declare they wish for, and seem to expect, is the removal of sir George Barlow from his situation as governor of Madras.

In the memorial, the army at large is invited to deliberate on the measures which had been adopted by the government of Madras; and the consequence that would result, if the supreme government should hesitate to comply with the wishes of the memorialists, by removing sir George Barlow, are held forth, not in the most respectful manner, or in ambiguous language, in the following sentence:They (the memorialists) cannot suppress the expression of their concern at the manner in which the exclusiverights of the army have recently been violated, and of their sanguine hope and earnest entreaty, that the supreme government may, in its wisdom, be induced to appease their just alarms, and to anticipate the extreme crisis of their agitation, by releasing them from the control of a ruler whose measures, &c."

In this perilous crisis, lord Minto, the governor-general, published a dispatch, addressed to sir George Barlow, but, in reality, meant for the refractory army. This dis

tch it may perhaps be necessary

to consider at some length in our next volume, as it does not pro perly belong to the transactions of the present year: we may, how ever, just observe, that it is far too prolix-that much of the matter it contains is very irrelevant, or but slightly and remotely connected with the main subject;-that the whole tenor of it is little calculated to produce any beneficial effect;-and finally, that in the crisis to which the disputes had arisen, other measures, of a more prompt and decisive nature than a long dispatch containing little to the purpose, and that little overloaded with words, ought to have been adopted with the utmost activity and vigour.

It has long been the opinion of many enlightened politicians, that we hold our East-Indian possessionsby a frail and precarious tenure : besides those causes which, by a slow and gradual, but regular and unerring operation, tend to separate all distant colonial possessions from the parent state, there are others peculiar to our East-India territory, which most probably will accelerate the separation. Surrounded on all sides by nations who behold us with a jealous eye, and whom, by defeating them, we have taught no small portion of European discipline and skill; depending in a great measure for the protection of our unwieldy empire upon the assistance of native troops, who must pant after the moment when they shall be able to employ those tactics, which our officers have introduced among them, in the service and for the liberation of their native soil;-it would require the utmost wisdom and unity in our councils to preserve our Indian empire. But here again we may trace causes, which, in

stead

stead of checking and retarding, will hasten the separation of this part of our territory. The views and interests of the court of directors, and of the board of control, between whom are divided, in no clearly nor exactly defined manner, the management and government. of our East-India possessions, are often at variance: while the person to whom the chief command is allotted on the spot, not being a military man, cannot be supposed to possess that confidence and at. tachment of the military, which at so great a distance from the parent state are so desirable and necessary. Nor should we deavour to hide from our apprehension, when considering this important subject, that Bonaparte, ever watchful and active where Britain may be injured, will lend his powerful aid to the causes which we have just enumerated as likely, at no very distant period, to deprive us of our East-India posses

sions.

en

Our differences with America, instead of being brought to an amicable termination, have this year become wider and more confirmed. All the circumstances and causes which have tended to this unfortunate issue are not yet distinctly before the public; but, so far as they are, the following may be regarded as a brief and impartial abstract of them.

For the purpose of removing one of the most objectionable and irritable parts of our orders in council, new regulations were made by the board of trade in the beginning of April. By these regulations all neutral vessels were declared at liberty to trade with any port, except those in a state of blockade: the blockade was expressly defined to comprehend the whole line of

the coast of France, Holland, and the parts of Italy under the dominion of France. By these regulations, America was permitted to trade directly with Russia, Denmark, and the ports of the Baltic. It was declared that if any American vessels should be brought in

under the former orders in council, they would be immediately liberated without trouble or expense.

In consequence of this suspension of our orders in council, Mr. Maddison, who had been elected president of the United States in the room of Mr. Jefferson, issued a proclamation, allowing the intercourse of America with France. To this measure he was also in part led by the proposals which were made to the American secretary of state by Mr. Erskine, our ambassador there. Mr. Erskine assured the American government, that the British cabinet were willing to make honourable reparation for the unauthorized attack upon the Chesapeake, and to withdraw entirely the orders in council of January and November 1807, so far as respected the United States, under the persuasion that the president would issue a proclamation for the renewal of the intercourse with Great Britain.

On the adjustment of the differences, by Mr. Erskine, on these terms, the American merchants immediately began to prepare to renew their usual direct and uninterrupted communication with the continent of Europe. The British merchants also were congratulating themselves' on the speedy and certain prospect of having.the trade to America again fully opened to them; when they were informed by the lords of council, that the arrange-. ments entered into by Mr. Erskine with the American government, were unauthorized by his instruc

tions, and that, therefore, his majesty did not deem it proper or advisable to carry them into effect. They were, however, at the same time assured, that the British government were extremely anxious to adjust finally and speedily the existing differences; and that, for that purpose, explanations, conceived in an amicable spirit, and carried on, on the part of Great Britain, in the most candid and friendly manner, would immediately be entered into.

There could be no doubt that Mr. Erskine had acted in a manner by no means warranted by the instructions which he had received from his court. By these instructions he was ordered to declare to the American government, that it was not the disposition or intention of the British cabinet to revoke their orders in council, as far as they respected the United States, unless they agreed to the following conditions:

1st. That on the mutual annulment of the non-intercourse act with this country, and the orders in council as they regarded America, the government of the United States should still keep in force the non-intercourse act against France. 2d. That the American government should permit and authorize the navy of Great Britain to aid in enforcing the non-intercourse act against France:-and

3d. That the United States should renounce, during the war, the right of carrying on any trade with any colony belonging to the enemy of Great Britain, from which they were excluded during the peace,

Mr. Jackson was sent out as ambassador to America, in the stead of Mr. Erskine, who was recalled; but on his landing he experienced, first the insult of the

mob, and afterwards the inamicable disposition and ill-will of the government. The president, in his speech at the opening of the ses sion of congress, complained, in no very mild or conciliating terms, of our cabinet, for not having sanctioned an agreement entered into by its own ambassador, upon the faith of which the Americans had immediately begun to act. The correspondence that was carried on between Mr. Jackson and Mr. Smith, the American secretary of state, displayed still more rancour and bitterness. As the latter charged, in a very peremptory manner, the British government with want of faith, Mr. Jackson conceived himself bound to repel the charge. This he did in a most effectual manner, by proving that Mr. Erskine had acted contrary to his in'structions, and that Mr. Pinckney, the American ambassador in Lon don, knew he had acted so, as Mr. Canning had read the entire instructions to him. Mr. Jackson went further, and asserted that the American government itself was acquainted with the nature and tenor, if not with the very words, of Mr. Erskine's instructions, at the very time they concluded an arrangement with him, which they knew those instructions did not only not warrant, but absolutely forbade him to enter into it.

This charge, which fixed on the American government that duplicity and want of faith they were so eager to brand our cabinet with, was received with more than usual bitterness by Mr. Smith: he utter terly denied it; but it was admitted by the president, and proved by Mr. Jackson, that the substance of Mr. Erskine's instructions had been laid before the American government; that Mr. Smith himself

had

success on the continent, have been as opposite in their principle and nature, as they have unfortunately been in their consequences and effects. His plan is marked by simplicity and unity in one strong, undivided and irresistible mass, he directs his powerful and well disciplined armies against the most vulnerable and essential part of his enemy's dominions: towards this, he steadily and unweariedly bends his purpose and his efforts: he permits nothing to draw aside his intention or interrupt his aim having inflicted a mortal wound, by planting his dagger in the very heart of his opponent, he turns at his leisure to subordinate and inferior objects, convinced that he has now only to stretch out his hand to obtain and secure them.

The success which has invariably attended this line,-and which indeed must have been foreseen the moment it was known that he had adopted it, and possessed sufficient clear-sightedness and perseverance, aided by sufficient power, to follow it to its natural and unavoid able consequence, it might have been supposed, would have induced his enemies to have acted on the same principle. That this was not the case, the history of the wars by which Russia, Prussia and Austria have fallen before the genius and the power of Bonaparte most fully and fatally demonstrates. Yet it might have been hoped, that the British cabinet, less attached and devoted to precedent and established usage than the continental cabinets, and having before its eyes not only the good effects resulting from Bonaparte's plan of military warfare, but also the evils attendant upon the plan of operations pursued by continental allies, would have

endeavoured and been anxious to adopt, as far and fully as circumstances would admit, the new and improved mode of carrying on the war. In some very important respects, Britain possessed peculiar and very important advantages: by the superiority of her navy, and the immense number of transports she possesses, she always has it in her power to send at no risk, and in a short space of time, a large force to any point, and for any purpose, that may be deemed most advantageous to the cause of her allies.

Little doubt can be entertained, that if Britain had sent a numerous and well-generalled army into the north of Spain, at the time when sir Arthur Wellesley was sent into Portugal, the remnant of the French troops, after the defeat and surrender of Dupont, might have been driven across the Pyrenees, and those barriers against invasion so completely possessed, and so strongly defended by the united English and Spanish forces, that it would have baffled the utmost power of Bonaparte again to have obtained a footing in the peninsula. This opportunity, however, was lost; it may be, as much through the inactivity and unwillingness of the Spanish government, as through any fault in the plan of operations and the point of attack determined upon by the British cabinet.

When the war broke out between France and Austria (of which we shall give the details in a subsequent chapter), it was the avowed intention of ministry to lend a powerful aid to their ally. The former administration had been so often held up by them, while they formed the opposition, to the ridicule and contempt of the nation, 'on account

.of