cealed mine, and endeavored to cheer the sinking spirits of that noble youth, who I perceived was the prey rather of extreme sensibility than feebleness of mind. All the horrors of shivering nakedness, though to a mind delicate like his, and a person reared in the lap of luxury, sufficiently goading, appeared as nothing when compared with one loss he had sustained in the depredations with which shipwreck is constantly followed up. In the cruel. suspense between life and death, which I have already described, previous to my getting on shore, this amiable young man had secured and treasured next his heart, as the inseparable companion of his fate, a miniature portrait of a young lady; it hung round his neck, and was by the unfeeling villains who seized him on his landing, taken away. This cruel deprivation was an incessant corrosive to his mind-the copious source of anguish to his heart-the hourly theme of the most pathetic, afflicting exclamations. "Had I," he would cry, "Oh! had I but the good fortune to have gone to the bottom while yet it hung about my neck, I should have been happy but now, separated from the heavenly original, and bereft of the precious image, what is life? what would be life were I yet sure of it? What pleasure, what common content, has the world left for me? Noneoh none, none! Never shall this heart again know comfort!" I did every thing I could to console him, and as far as I could, prevent him from dwelling on those gloomy subjects. Our conversations were interesting and pathetic; but, alas! the picture, at every pause, 'chased away the slight impressions of the preceding converse: no sufferings of the body could countervail that loss-no consolation mitigate it; and amidst the horrid reflections which unparalleled calamity imposed upon his mind, the loss of that one dear relic rese paramount to them all— and as every thought began, so it ended, with the pic ture. For some days we lay in this place, exposed to the weather, without even the slender comfort of a little straw to cover the ground beneath us-our, food boiled rice, served very sparingly twice a-day by an old woman, who just threw a handful or more of it to each upon a very dirty board, which we devoured with those spoons nature gave us. At the end of that time, we, and along with us, the Lascars, were ordered to proceed into the country, and drove on foot to a considerable distance, in order to render up an account of ourselves to persons belonging to government, authorised to take it. It was advanced in the morning when we moved, without receiving any sort of sustenance; and were marched in that wasting climate eight hours, without breaking our fast; during which time, we were exposed alternately to the scorching heat of the sun and heavy torrents of rain, which raised painful blisters on our skin: we had often to stand exposed to the weather, or to lie down, under the pressure of fatigue and weakness, on the bare ground; then wait an hour or more, at the door of some insolent, unfeeling monster, until he finished his dinner, or took his afternoon's nap: and when this was over, drove forward with wanton barbarity by the people who attended us. You, my FREDERICK! who only know the mild and merciful disposition of the people of Great Britain, where government, religion, and long habit, have reduced charity and benevolence so completely to a system that they seem to be innate principles of the mind, can have no conception of a people who will not only look upon the worst human afflictions with indifference, but take a savage delight in the miseries of their fellow-creatures, even where no possible advantage can be reaped from their inhumanity, and where the only reward they can propose to themselves for their cruelty is the pleasure of contemplating human sufferings. Such, sorry am I to say it, is the disposition of scre parts of the East-Indies that I have been in; and although those parts under the dominion of Great Britain, owe their emancipation from the most galling yokes to the English and though, under their auspices, they live in a state of greater happiness than ever they did, and greater freedom even than Britons themselves—yet such is the wicked ingratitude of many of them, such the inflexible animosity arising from a contradictory religion, that the death or sufferings of an Englishman, or any misfortune that may befal him, often serves only as matter of sport or amusement to them. It would be well if it rested there-but unfortunately they are worse again; for in general, they have the like coldness and indifference, or indeed, to speak more properly, the like aversion, to each others good; and the same diabolical principles of selfishness and treachery pervade the greater number of those vast regions, almost boundless in extent, and almost matchless in fertility. Two days after this, we were moved again, and marched up the country by a long and circuitous route, in which we underwent every hardship that cruelty could inflict, or human fortitude endure now blistered with the heat, now drenched with the rain, and now chilled with the night damps-destitute of any place but the bare earth to rest or lay our heads on, with only a scanty pittance of boiled rice for our support often without water to quench our thirst, and constantly goaded by the guards, who pricked us with their bayonets every now and then, at once to evince their power, entertain the spectators, and mortify us. We arrived at Hydernagur, the metropolis of the province of Biddanore-a fort of considerable strength, mounting upwards of seventy guns, containing a large garrison of men, and possessed of immense wealth. : It was about two o'clock in the morning when we arrived at Biddanore the day was extremely hot, and we were kept out under the full heat of that broiling sun till six o'clock in the evening, before we were admitted to an audience of the Jemadar, or governor of the place, without having a mouthful of victuals offered to us after the fatiguing march of the morning. While we stood in this forlorn state, a vast concourse of people collected about, and viewed us with curiosity. Looking round through those who stood nearest, I observed some men gazing at me with strong marks of emotion, and a mixture of wonder and concern pourtrayed in their countenances. Surprised to see such symptoms of humanity in a Mysorian Indian, I looked at them with more scrutinizing attention, and thought that their faces were familiar to me. Catching my eye, they looked at me significantly, as though they would express their regard and respect for me, if they dared ; and I then began to recollect that they were formerly privates in my regiment of cavalry, and were then prisoners at large with Hyder. I was not less surprised that those poor fellows should recognise me in my present miserable fallen state, than affected at the sympathetic feeling they disclosed. I returned their look with a private nod of recognition; but, seeing that they were afraid to speak to me, and fearing I might injure them by disclosing our acquaintance, I forebore any thing more. The guilty souls of despotic governments are perpetually alive to suspicion every look alarms them; and alarm or suspicion never fails to be followed up with proscription or death. : Men, when in the fullness of power and pride of office, very seldom give themselves time to reflect upon the instability of human greatness, and the uncertainty of earthly contingencies. When, invested with all the trappings of authority, I commanded the regiment to which these poor fellows belonged, I would have thought that he spoke wildly indeed who would have alledged that it was possible I could ever become an object of their pity that I should stand naked and degraded before them, and they be afraid to acknowledge me; but, tho I should have thought so then, it was yet some comfort to me, when that unfortunate event did come to pass, to reflect, that, when in power, I made such use of it as to excite emotions in their bosoms of affection and respect. Did the tyrant and overbearing insolent chiefs consider this, and govern themselves by its instructions, they would go into the field with the consoling reflection that no gun would be levelled at their head except that of the common enemy-a thing that does not alwayshapред. Y 2 LETTER XLIX. HAD we been made prisoners of war in battle against an enemy, there is no law of nature or nations, no rule of reason or principle of equity, that could palliate such treatment as that which we now received: but, cast by misfortune and shipwreck on their shore, we were entitled to solace and protection. The worst wretches who hang out false beacons on the western coasts of England, to allure ships to their destruction, would not be cruel without temptation; and, if they did not expect to gain some profit by it, would rather decline knocking their fellow-creatures in the head: but those barbarians, without any profit but what a malignant heart derives from the miseries of others, or any pleasure but what proceeds from their pain, exercised upon us the most wanton cruelty. Compared with such treatment, instant death would have been an act of mercy to us; and we should have had reason to bless the hand that inflicted it. Mortifications of one sort or other the incessant torturing of the mind on the rack of suspense-the injuries to the animal system, occasioned by constant exposure to the weather, and the want of food-all conspired to reduce me to the dimensions and feebleness of a skeleton. I had grown daily weaker and weaker, and was now nearly exhausted, and quite faint; while, on the other hand, my amiable companion in affliction was reduced by a dysentery, which attacked him soon after our shipwreck, and which the torments of his mind, the want of medicine and comfortable food, and, above all, the alternate violent changes from profuse perspiration in walking to chilling cold at night, had increased to such an alarming degree, that he was obliged to be carried the two last days journey In this state, we appeared to each other as two spectres hanging over the brink of the grave: and in truth, perceiving the rapid progress he was making : |