in which his story was received, for his self-love was excoriated by it, and not all the wine which he afterwards drank could wash out the remembrance of the tragic comment; still, as the guests were possessed of great opulence, he had a kind of sinister reverence for them, and regarded the opportunity of cultivating their acquaintance as a sunshiny incident, and something to talk about when he returned home.

On descending to the breakfastroom he found the major part of the guests assembled, and the MacGoul talking to them as good as oracular responses. Old Mr Stukely was not present, the effects of his claret still confined him to bed; and while he remained there, it was not possible to talk with him of the Chief's expectation, or any other matter of business. The M'Goul himself did not altogether feel the propriety of the rule, but the advocate" instructed” that the modes of civilized life required an observance of the usage. After some time had elapsed, and Mr M'Allister had again made himself agreeable to Mrs Cracker, the biscuit-baker's wife, who invited him to visit them at Piecrust-Hall, he walked out with the M'Goul, partly to wear the day away, and to talk more particularly than they had hitherto done, on the business which had brought the Chief to England. In the course of this perambulation he happened to remark, that their visit would be more expensive than they apprehended; for with two servants, and the style in which they had come, they could not but give a handsome largess to Mr Stukely's household.

This intelligence was evidently not of the most pleasing kind to the M'Goul, for he gave an emphatic umph when he heard it, and changing colour, was apparently in a pensive confusion long after. "But," said the advocate, considering the sum you have to receive, this, however, must be overlooked."

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am not surprised, M'Goul, to hear you say so, for, with all the shew of riches, these are vulgar people."

"Umph," again said the Chief, who by this time began to doubt in his own mind if three thousand pounds would be the sum he would receive, and not being quite in his element, he began to talk of returning to London that evening.

"Indeed,” said the advocate, "I

"My Cot," said the Chief, "how do you know tat ?”

M'Allister then related what he had learned with so much tact and delicacy in his conversation with the footman in the morning, and the alarming astonishment of the Chief increased.

"You don't shay," cried he, "that the shentleman tat was the lady's goodman peside you is no petter than Robin M'Crust, the penny-loaf baker

at Inverstrone?"

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They are two of a trade," said the advocate.

"Tat's moving," cried the Chief; "and what commodity is the man Cracklings ?"

"He, the servant told me, was the tallow-chandler in Whitechapel, one of the warmest men in London."

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Ay," cried the M'Goul," he is very warm, for I saw the draps on his prow all the time he was eating his dinner, and was very pitiful; but Mr M'Allister, shurely, shurely yon fatty man has something more than a candle. We are poth, Mr M'Allister, in a jeopardy."

The trade of Mr Selvage, the slopseller from Wapping, puzzled even the Edinburgh lawyer to explain; and had he not been assisted in his conjectures by the Chief, they both might have remained to this hour in the dark.

"A slopseller," said Mr M'Allister, "is, I apprehend, a victualler, or some other dealer in soaked articles, for we say a slop-basin, a pail of slops, and so on; but the precise nature of the business I don't know."

should return to London as expeditiously as possible, and, to preserve his dignity, that Mr M'Allister should remain behind to receive payment of the debt which Mr Stukely owed, and return with a coach that passed in the evening. Accordingly, when they went to the house this arrangement was made known, and all affected the greatest grief at the intelligence, while their hearts leaped with joy. A carriage and four was in consequence in due time at the door, Pharick and Donald again mounted the cross-board, and Mr Stukely, notwithstanding his headach, rose to bid the Chief farewell. When this was done, the Chief was helped into the carriage, which presently drove away, Pharick playing a dolorous pibroch as they wended their way through the park. Far, however, they had not gone, when all those who had seen the Chief depart, returned into the house a little surprised, but saying nothing, on seeing that Mr M'Allister remained behind. He, however, was too good a man of business to summer and winter over his task, and according ly he soon requested apart some private conversation with Mr Stukely; and that gentleman took him into another room, where the lawyer opened the colloquy, by saying, that he understood from the M'Goul that Mr Stukely was deeply in his debt.

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Yes," said the old gentleman, "it is a debt I can never pay." "But," said Mr M'Allister, "you can advance part, and give security for the remainder."

"Sir," said the old gentleman, "what do you mean?"

"I am not instructed," replied M'Allister, "to abate much of the three thousand pounds."

Mr Stukely looked amazed, and exclaimed "Three thousand pounds !"

"Yes," said Mr M'Allister, "MGoul thinks the debt amounts to about that sum.”

"The debt!" cried Mr Stukely; "what debt?"

"That," replied Mr M'Allister, "which you owe him, and which to recover he has come all the way from the North of Scotland. I hope, sir, the Chief will not be compelled to have recourse to steps in law to recover it."

"I owe him much," replied the old man, "a debt of gratitude I can never sufficiently pay."

"A debt of gratitude!" cried the lawyer; and beginning to suspect the truth, added, "that's a bad debt."

A mutual explanation then ensued, and the lawyer returned by the coach to London, highly exasperated to think he had been employed on such a gowk's errand.

THE British Empire in India forms, beyond all question, the most extraordinary spectacle which the political world ever exhibited. During the plenitude of its power, the Roman Empire never contained above an hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants, and they were congregated round the shores of the Mediterranean, with a great internal sea, to form their internal line of communication, and an army of 400,000 men to secure the submission of its multifarious inhabitants. Magnificent causeways, emanating from Rome, the centre of authority, reached the farthest extremity of its dominions; and the Proconsuls, whether they journeyed from the Forum to the Wall of Antoninus and the extremities of Caledonia, or the shores of the Euphrates and the frontiers of Parthia, the Cataracts of the Nile, the Mountains of Atlas, or the banks of the Danube, rolled along the great roads with which these indomitable pioneers of civilisation had penetrated the wilds of nature. Their immense dominions were the result of three centuries of conquest, and the genius of Scipio, of Caesar, and Severus, not less than the civic virtues of Regulus, Cato, and Cicero, were required to extend and cement the mighty fabric.

But in the Eastern World, an Empire hardly less extensive or popu lous, embracing as great a variety of people, and rich in as many millions and provinces, has been conquered by the British arms in less than eighty years, at the distance of 8000 miles from the parent state. That vast region, the fabled scene of opulence and grandeur since the dawn of civilisation, from which the arms of Alexander rolled back, which the ferocity of Timour but imperfectly vanquished, and the

banners of Nadir Shah traversed only to destroy, has been permanently subdued and moulded into a regular Province by a Company of British Merchants, originally settled as obscure traffickers on the shores of Hindostan, who have been dragged to their present perilous height of power by incessant attempts at their destruction by the native Princes; whose rise was contemporaneous with numerous and desperate struggles of the British nation with its European rivals, and who never had a fourth part of the national strength at their command. For such a body, in such times, and with such forces, to have acquired so immense a dominion, is one of those prodigies of civilisation of which the history of the last half century is so full; with which we are too familiar to be able to apprehend the wonder, and which must be viewed by mankind, simplified by distance, and gilded by the colours of history, before its due proportions can be understood.

The British Empire in India, extending now, with few interruptions, and those only of tributary or allied States, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya Mountains, comprehends by far the richest and most important part of Asia, is double in extent of the area of Europe,* contains about a hundred millions of inhabitants, and yields a revenue of twenty-two millions yearly. The land-forces consist of 250,000 native troops, and 35,000 British, all in the very highest state of discipline and equipment; and this immense force raised by voluntary enrolment, without conscription or compulsory service being ever heard of. So popular is the Company's service, and boundless the public confidence in the fidelity with which it discharges its engagements, that the only difficulty the

By an Eyewitness 8vo. Blackwood,

authorities have, is to select the most worthy from among the numerous competitors who are desirous to be enrolled under its banners; and if public danger is threatened, or the Russian eagles approached the Indus, this force might be instantly raised, by the same means, to a million of armed men.* When the British power was threatened with a double attack, and the Rajah of Bhurtpore raised the standard of revolt, at the time when the bulk of the British forces were entangled in the jungles of the Irrawady, or dying under the fevers of Arracan, the firm and resolute Government of Calcutta shewed no symptoms of vacillation; with the right hand, they humbled what the Orientals styled the giant strength of Ava, while, with the left, they crushed the rising power of the Northern Rajahs; and while a larger force than combated in Portugal was pursuing the career of conquest in the Burmese Empire, and advancing the British standard almost to the towers of Ummerapoora, a greater host than the native British who conquered at Waterloo, assembled, as if by enchantment, round the walls of Bhurtpore, and, at the distance of 2000 miles from Calcutta, and 10,000 from the British Isles, carried the last and hitherto impregnable stronghold of Hindoo independence.†

a large proportion is due to native or Asiatic capitalists; and such is the unbounded confidence in the good faith and probity of that dreaded body, that bales, stamped with their signet, circulate, unopened, like coined money, through the vast Empire of China. So complete has been the protection, so ample the security, of the inhabitants of the British Provinces, compared with what obtains under the native Rajahs, that the people from every part of India flock to the three Presidencies; and, as Bishop Heber has observed, the extension of the frontiers of the Company's Empire is immediately followed by a vast concourse of population, and increase of industry, by the settlers from the adjoining native dominions.

Nor are the civil triumphs of this extraordinary Government less surprising than its vast display of military strength, and unconquerable political courage. While under the native Princes, the state of capital was so insecure, that twelve per cent was the common, and 36 per cent not an unusual rate of interest, under the British rule, the interest on the public debt has, for the first time in Eastern history, been lowered to 5 per cent; and at this very reduced rate, the capitalists of Arabia and Armenia have transmitted their surplus funds to the Company's Stock, as to the most secure investment in the East. Of the Company's debt of L.49,210,000 sterling,

To complete the almost fabulous wonders of this Oriental dominion, it has been achieved by a mercantile Company, in an island of the Atlantic, possessing no territorial force at home; who merely took into their temporary pay, while in India, such parts of the English troops as could be spared from the contests of European ambition; who never at any period had 30,000 English in their service; while their civil and military servants do not exceed 4000, the number of persons who proceed yearly to India, in every capacity, is only 600, including women and children; and the total number of whites who exist among the hundred millions of the sable inhabitants is hardly 40,000. So enormous, indeed, is the disproportion between the British rulers and the native subjects, that it is literally true what the Hindoos say, that if every one of the followers of Brama were to throw a handful of earth on the Europeans, they would be buried alive in the midst of their conquests.

Religious difference, and the exclusive possession of power by persons of one political persuasion, has been found to be an insuperable bar to the pacification of European states; and close to the centre of her power,

Ireland has from these causes, for above a century, been a continual source of weakness to England. But in her Eastern Empire, political exclusion far more rigid, religious distinctions far more irreconcilable, have, under the able and judicious management of the Company, proved no obstacle to the consolidation of a vast and peaceable dominion. Mr Sinclair, in his able pamphlet, tells us that,

"In India, notwithstanding the long period that some districts have been in British possession, and the universal peace which reigns from the Himalaya mountains to Comorin, the natives are still ineligible to offices of trust."

The separation arising from religious difference, is still more marked and insuperable. The same intelligent author and acute observer remarks,

"Not only do we find in the army Hindoos of every province, of every tribe, and of every dialect, Hindostanee, Dukhnee, Telinga, Tamil, and Mahratta, both the worshippers of Shiva, and the worshippers of Vishnoo, but we find also a multitude of Mahomedans, both of the Soonee and Shiah sects, together with Protestant and Romanist half-castes, and even Jews and Ghebirs. Although all classes live together on terms of mutual forbearance, and although this amazing diversity of religious sentiment in no way interrupts the chain of military subordination, as soon as the regimental parade is dismissed, they break into sectional coteries; the gradation of caste is restored; the Sudra serjeant makes his salaam to the Brahmin or Rajpoot private; the Mussulman avoids the Christian; the Shiah the Soonee; the Hindoo all; and thus an almost impassable barrier of mutual mistrust and jealousy obstructs all amalgamation of opinion, or unity of action, even on those national subjects which, separately and independently, interest the whole body."

It is a government of no ordinary kind, which, with such materials, has constructed so wonderful an

thousand British officers and judges,† has contrived to discipline the forces, and secure the affections, and mould into an efficient form the strength of a hundred millions of Hindoos; which has amalgamated the prejudices, and healed the divisions of so discordant a population; and penetrated the vast extent of the Eastern world, not only with the terror of its power, but the justice of its sway. The complete and practical solution of this problem, by the Indian Government, must appear still more extraordinary, if it is recollected what extreme difficulties the rulers of the Parent State have experienced during the same time, in moderating the transports, and restraining the passions of Ireland; and the mild and pacific character of our Eastern rule, is contrasted with the fierce indignation and discordant interests which are about to tear from the British Empire the right arm of its strength in the West India Islands.

Empire; which, with a European force seldom amounting to 20,000 troops,* * has conquered an Empire of greater wealth and magnitude than that of Russia; which, with a few

The history of the English power in India, taken as a whole, is yet to be written; and few more splendid or instructive subjects await the pen of genius, during the decline of the British Empire. Like most other subjects which have been treated for the last thirty years in English literature, it has hitherto been the subject only of party invective. Mr Mill's History, amongst much valuable information, and many just remarks, is disfigured by a constant attempt to underrate the services, and conceal the great (achievements of the East India Company. He represents its territorial possessions as a colossal empire, based on violence and cemented by fraud. Without disputing that in the course of its struggles many unjustifiable acts were occasionally committed, it may safely be anticipated, that the sober voice of impartial history will declare, that few political fabrics of such magnitude have been reared with so little application of external injustice; that its progressive growth was occasioned by the coalitions formed for its overthrow; that its unparalleled successes arose out