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guineas about so profusely in the character of Punch, that his return for the borough of Hungerford was declared void, and the General himself subjected to fine and imprisonment. To set off against this, we are told he went to Oxford after his return from India, and became a good scholar; and in grateful remembrance of occasional half-crowns bestowed upon him as a youngster, threw down a cheque for 150,000l. on the counter of Drummond's Bank, during a banking crisis in 1772.*

Most of the vices of the Nabob were on the surface, and at once attracted the jealousy and the disgust of the polite society of his day. He was fond of fine clothes, rich liveries, stylish equipages. Whilst his school-fellows were still plodding on as clerks or tradesmen, he was driving four horses, and bribing parliamentary agents and electors. Everything in his neighbourhood, from fresh eggs to rotten boroughs, doubled its price. He drank, diced, and swore harder than others; neglected church, spoke lightly of all authorities, and made himself generally obnoxious. As a matter of course, the men of fashion despised, and the men of money hated, this Indian upstart. He became the wicked uncle' in the story-book, the Sir Matthew Mite' comedians, and the laughing-stock of all.

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of the

It was a bright day for Calcutta-for Bengal-for India in general, so far as good manners and external decorum went, when Lord Cornwallis landed. Dignified by conduct and character, as well as by rank, the new Governor-General set the example of regular living. It became the fashion to go to bed early and sober, and to avoid swearing, gambling, and profanity. Gradually also, a higher motive began to work. Men of faith and

*This General Smith was the hero in Foote's Comedy of The Nabob. + In Foote's Play, The Nabob.

prayer, like Grant and Wilberforce, strove hard to give a more elevated tone to our Indian legislation at home. The new church (now called the Old Cathedral) in Calcutta was finished. Empty pews prevailed at first; but when clergymen of the earnest though somewhat prejudiced school of Charles Simeon treated religion as a real matter of human concern, the attendance increased. David Brown, Claudius Buchanan, and other men of like mind, full of zeal, earnest and uncompromising, struggled manfully to awaken the laity to some sense of Christian duties and responsibilities. Infidelity being at the root of the prevailing licentiousness of life, the chaplain's work was to act as a missionary to the English unbelievers, and to teach Christianity to persons who supposed themselves already familiar with divine truth. A work of faith, of labour, but still to vigorous minds a work of love.

The successor of Lord Cornwallis, Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, a devout and highly respectable civil servant, in his own gentle manner carried on the good work of reform which Cornwallis had begun. And when towards the end of the century he retired to a villa at Clapham, to take counsel with Charles Grant, Wilberforce, the Thorntons, Zachary Macaulay, and other strong-headed and good-hearted Christian reformers, he left behind him, in Bengal, a society who began to forsake the race-course on Sunday, and to attend the new church.

These men of the Clapham sect were called 'saints' and 'fanatics; but they have left their mark on the millions. of India. It is to them that we Englishmen owe the discovery, that the Almighty dispenser of events had given us India in trust and not in possession. It is to them-and specially to Wilberforce and Grant-that

we trace the first attempt to influence legislation with respect to the souls as well as bodies of the Indian nations. It may be regretted that these worthies did not find, and perhaps did not seek, in the Church of England, or rather in the existing institutions connected with that Church, full scope for their energies. But it should never be forgotten that these were the men who first taught us how sacred are the obligations by which India is bound to England.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BEGINNING OF NINETEENTH CENTURY.-MASSACRE

AT VELLORE.

A YOUNG magistrate in India is glad to lay hands on any manuscript history or story which may serve to make him familiar with the written character and idiom of the language of his own province. Amongst the provincial tales which I digested in this manner, was the following:

An elephant-dealer, by name Buxoo, was travelling from Sylhet to Northern India with a string of elephants for sale. When he arrived at Hurdwar, where the Ganges flows down from the mountains into the plains of Hindostan, it was the time of the great méla, or annual fair, when the Hindoos come in myriads to bathe in their sacred stream. This is the time when elephant-merchants from the South, horse-dealers from Cabool, Cutch, and Katywar, the sellers of camels from Central India, and bullock-drivers from Hissar and Delhi, bring their animals for sale.

Buxoo soon found customers for five out of six of his animals. The sixth, for some reasons best known to Buxoo and to others skilled in elephants, remained unsold. The last and greatest day of the fair came, and our merchant was in a state of the utmost anxiety lest he should have this one elephant left upon his hands. At the moment when the fair became busy,

up walked a villager, who began a close investigation of the elephant. Buxoo became more than ever uneasy.

'Soono Bhai,' said he; that is, 'Listen, my brother.' 'I can see you are a judge of elephants. Now, say nothing to hinder the sale of mine; I mean to ask only 500 rupees, and you shall have fifty for yourself.'

The villager assented. Presently a purchaser was found, and the fifty rupees honestly paid over to this 'judge of elephants.' As he was quietly putting the fifty rupees into the folds of his cummerbund (or waist-cloth), Buxoo put the following question:

'Tell me, friend, by what art you found out that there was anything amiss with my elephant? I thought I had got him up well for sale.'

'Sir,' said the judge of elephants, putting a finishing hitch to the knot which held his rupees, to tell you the truth, this was the first elephant I ever saw, and I was trying to find out which was his head, and which was his tail!'

Now, in coming to the nineteenth century, after describing the Wellesley brothers, I find myself amongst such a crowd of great names, that I am almost as much puzzled as this judge of elephants was at the Hurdwar fair. I can hardly make out what career I should choose to carry on my story of The Englishman in India.'

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At the head of affairs for a few short months was the veteran Cornwallis, who came out pledged to undo all that the Marquis of Wellesley had been doing. Lord Cornwallis was chosen for this work, because it was believed that his former experience as Governor-General, and the deservedly high character which he had obtained in the East, specially qualified him to take the lead in India. He arrived in Calcutta early in 1805.

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