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The trade of those islands; their general police; the business of procuring adequate supplies of revenue from the insular legislatures; the command of the troops always requisite both for their defence and for the due support of the authority of the government ;. the care of the exterior relations of the islands; the proper correspondence with the supreme administration at home; and the necessity there is that the king should be represented especially in the more distant parts of the empire by vicegerents whose personal appearance, manners, and conduct should not disgrace the Government in the eyes of its subjects; render the office of governor of such places, at all times, one in which accomplished abilities may find adequate scope for their best exercise. At the time when Sir G. Macartney was appointed to this employment, the rising contest with the American colonists, the jealousies and ambitious views of France and Spain, the situation of those islands so immediately on the very scene where so many great transactions were about to take place, presented difficulties more numerous and more arduous than almost any former governor could have had to encounter. Yet, for more than three years, he administered this government in a manner equally useful to the interests of his sovereign, and acceptable to the people of the islands. In 1779 Grenada was invaded by a French armament much more powerful than any force that the governor had ready for its defence. But he formed a skilful plan of operation against the invaders; he was well seconded by the troops, and by the inhabitants; he

made

made a resistance of which the judgment and gallantry astonished the brave officers against whom he had to contend: nor was Grenada surrendered to the French till the defenders were reduced to a situation in which nothing could have justified the waste of lives in a further continuance of hostilities. The inhabitants, at a time when, having passed under the power of the conquerors they could be in no necessity to disguise any sentiments of dislike, if such they had entertained against their late governor, honoured him with an address in which they acknowledged, in the language of the warmest gratitude, the wisdom and justice with which he had presided over them, the vigilance and ability with which he had constantly endeavoured to provide for their security and welfare, the skill with which he had regulated the defence of the isle, and the coolness and intrepidity with which he met, in person, the dangers of the several attacks.

He returned to Europe, a prisoner; but was soon released. He had been raised, in 1776, to the dignity of Lord Macartney of the kingdom of Ireland, Baron of Lissanoure in the county of Antrim. As the loss of Grenada, however unfortunate to his country, had not arisen from misconduct in him, but was rather signalized by the most illustrious display of all his great qualities; he met with no ungracious reception from his sovereign and his country. In the month of September 1780, he was chosen to represent the borough of Beeralstone in the British Parliament. In the December immediately following, he was appointed

pointed governor and resident of Fort St. George at Madras, in the East Indies, and he went without delay to discharge the functions of his appointment.

In Grenada, he had found Mr. Staunton, like him. self, a native of the North of Ireland, and who, after practising medicine for some years, had become proprietor of an estate in that island. Mr. Staunton, upon the governor's invitation, willingly became his secretary. A friendship grew up between them, while they acted officially in these mutual relations, which was not to end with the cessation of their engagements in Grenada. Lord Macartney invited his friend to accompany him to the East in the same capacity in which he had found his services in the West Indies, at once so agreeable and so useful.

Lord Macartney arrived in India at a period when there was peculiar difficulty in the administration of the government of that district of country, over which he was sent to preside. The company's inferior servants had learned to usurp a power of slighting the commands of their masters and Tippoo Saib, then in the vigour of his strength as sovereign of Mysore, was harassing the subjects and allics of the company with a dangerous war. While General Stuart was preparing to send the governor from the scat of his authority to confinement in a dungeon; Lord Macartney, anticipating his purpose, ordered his friend and secretary, Mr. Staunton, to put the General under arrest. With a small party sepoys, and with fingular intrepidity and discretion, Mr. Staunton executed that bold order. From this

of

time, the Governor's authority prevailed without oppo. sition. Commiffioners, of whom Mr. Staunton was one, were sent to treat for peace with the sovereign of Mysore. A peace scasonably useful to the company's affairs, and not betraying its honour, was, under Lord Macartney's auspices, happily negotiated. None of its benefits were more grateful to his country or to his own heart, than that it restored to liberty a number of officers who had, in the course of the war in Bangalore, been made prisoners by the armies of Hyder Alli and Tippoo Saib, and who had been long detained in a captivity of which the circumstances were peculiarly wretched. On the 4th of June 1784, the captives whom he had delivered, prefented the following address to his Lordship:

"MY LORD,

"As the obligations you have conferred on us have inspired sentiments too warm to be extinguished or suppressed, we must request your Lordship's permission and acceptance of this general acknowledgment of them. While we endeavour to do justice to our feelings, we hope not to trespass on delicacy, or the forms usually attended to of your lordship's high character and station, though on such a subject we are free to say that the formality of common rules would ill apply to the grateful effusions of the heart.

"Ours, my Lord, is not a common acknowledgment for the favours or kindnesses of ordinary life. The miseries of long captivity, aggravated by barbarian cruelty and insolence, and the horrors of famine; these were the sufferings which your beneficent hand alleviated, which your unremitting attention enabled, and alone enabled us to support; and which your successful wisdom has finally removed. If any motive can add force to our duty, or impel us with additional zeal to the public service, it will be the most lively and most grateful recollection

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