terises as correcting some errors of detail in the system of the former.

In concluding our notice of Mr Whewell's volumes, we must regret our inability to speak more favourably of a work composed with so much haste, and breathing so sectarian a spirit. To the character of an independent history of the inductive sciences, or of a comprehensive survey of the existing state of human know'ledge,' it has no claim; nor, looking to its ulterior aim, can we permit ourselves to believe that on such a pedestal the stately column of a higher philosophy can be reared. To us, indeed, such an attempt appears utterly hopeless; and if we cannot conceive how a Newton or a Laplace could give laws to inventive and original minds, still less can we imagine that heaven-born genius can be either checked or directed in its flight by those who have never imbibed its spirit nor wielded its power.

Although Mr Whewell has almost shunned the subject of scientific patronage and of national endowments for science, yet his peculiar opinions are betrayed even by his silence. He recounts the labours of Tycho without any sympathy for his exile. He sheds no tear over the hunger and griefs of Kepler. The persecution of Galileo calls forth no generous indignation. The promotion even of Newton is recorded with no expression of joy. The 'disgusts and discouragements' which threatened to paralyse the genius of Fresnel excite no angry feeling; and the noble conduct of the French Government in subsequently exempting him from all professional toil does not receive its meed of praise. In the course of his three volumes, indeed, our author expresses no interest, and, we presume, does not feel any, in the condition and fortunes of those great men who have consecrated their genius to the intellectual advancement of their species. Satisfied with deriving wealth and importance from their 'priority and place,' there are men, few we trust in number, who affirm that scientific glory should be its own reward, and, that that love of knowledge is not genuine which is 'stimulated by patronage,' nor those speculations free and true which are thus forced into being.'* With such men we have no community of feeling. They exist chiefly in the cloisters of antiquated institutions, whose prejudices even a pure religion has

* Vol. II. p. 280. Ought not the statesman, the divine, the physician, the defender of his country, and the teacher of youth, also to make their love of knowledge genuine, and their speculations free and true, by gratuitous labour?

not been ahle to abate, and through whose iron bars the light of knowledge and of liberty has not been able to penetrate.

If we would give dignity to science and promote its interests, we must better the condition of scientific men. If we would extend the useful arts, we must encourage inventors. If we would call forth the powers of genius, we must free it from its cares, and enable it to apply its undivided energies to the lofty purposes for which it is given. If we would excite its noblest ambition, and conjure up its mightiest spirit, we must place honours and dignities within its reach,

But it is not enough that intellectual pre-eminence be fostered in its individual efforts. It is from the union of insulated labours, and from the stimulus of combined exertions, that great achievements are to spring. The chivalry of science must be incorporated by the State, and patronised by the Sovereign; and when England shall have performed this great duty, and a Minister of Public Instruction shall preside over her Literature, her Science, her Arts, and her Schools, she will then arrest the tide which has been carrying art and science from her shores; she will then reach that position which other nations have preoccupied; and her free institutions, sustained by a pure altar and an instructed people, will acquire that permanency and strength which can only be derived from moral and intellectual greatness.

ART. VII.-The Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess of Wellesley, K.G.,during his Administration in India. Edited by MONTGOMERY MARTIN. 8vo. Vols.II., III., IV., and V. London: 1837.

HESE Volumes complete the series of Documents, official and T demi-official, to which we called the attention of our readers last year upon the appearance of the first, and which we then described as a work of extraordinary interest. Their continuation maintains that interest to the end; and the world is now put in possession of the whole facts connected with an administration which, for the truly statesmanlike capacity displayed in every portion of it,-the genius for affairs, the civil as well as the military wisdom and energy presiding over the whole,--has certainly no superior, if it have a rival, in modern history. As this work, combining, from the variety of warlike scenes, as well as political transactions, which form its subject, the greatest enter

·

tainment with solid instruction, is likely to be in every library, we shall not enter upon any particular account of its contents. But, after the remarks which we made upon Lord Wellesley's policy, in our former paper, it is peculiarly gratifying to observe the testimony borne to his merits by the East India Company; and the high value which that body sets upon this record of his proceedings, as a lesson for future governors and their subordinate agents. The Court of Directors, in their Circular to their Governments in India, of 2d June 1837, intimate that they have ordered a hundred copies of these' Despatches and Minutes' to be sent to the different Presidencies, in addition to those which they had before transmitted; as 'containing,' they observe, a fund ' of information of incalculable value to those actively engaged in the diplomatic, legislative, and military business of India.' In announcing this proceeding to Lord Wellesley, they add (in a letter, also printed by Mr Martin in his fifth volume) :-'To 'the eventful and brilliant period of your Lordship's government, the Court look back with feelings common to their countrymen; and anxious that the minds of their servants 'should be enlarged by the instruction to be derived from the 'accumulated experience of eminent statesmen, they felt it a 'duty to diffuse widely the means of consulting a work unfolding 'the principles upon which the supremacy of Britain in India was successfully maintained and enlarged, under a combination of circumstances in the highest degree critical and dif'ficult.'

Although these volumes embrace the whole administration of Lord Wellesley, and detail the several important measures by which our Eastern Empire was extended and consolidated during those seven years, the larger portion is devoted to the Mahratta war, and the events connected with it. The Mysore war, to which alone our former statements and remarks were confined, receives some very important and curious illustrations in one portion of the Appendix. Upon each of these topics we have a few words to say; chiefly with the view of directing the reader's attention to the most convenient manner of studying the subject.

It will be recollected that Lord Wellesley's having discovered ample proof of Tippoo Sultan's correspondence and co-operation with France, on the taking of Seringapatam, was mentioned in our last article. Sufficient evidence of this fact had been, as we then showed, produced before the war was undertaken;-quite enough certainly to justify that war-indeed to make it no longer a matter of choice-but enough also to satisfy Lord Wel

lesley that much more remained yet undiscovered. Upon the fall of the tyrant's capital, accordingly, the rest of his correspondence was found; and some very singular portions of it are given in the fifth volume. Those who have examined the details in the first, will do well to read this before they proceed to the rest of the work. The inextinguishable hatred of the English nation and power which breathes through the whole can well be imagined; nor have we any right to complain of it, or to blame it, any more than we have to quarrel with the warmth of his attachment for France; but though this is expressed in sufficiently lively terms when he is writing to the CITIZEN REPRESENTATIVES, and even leads this Oriental revolutionist to acknowledge the sublimity of the new French Constitution,' and to propose ' alliance and fraternity,' it does not prevent him, in his letters to the Grand Seignior, from testifying his boundless satisfaction' on learning that the Turk is about to free his regions from the 'contamination of those shameless tribes' (the French) or from strenuously exhorting him, by word and deed, to repel those 'abandoned infidels.'

In examining the subject of the Mahratta war, the reader will do well to begin with a very able paper of Lord Castlereagh, then at the head of the India Board, and containing his objections to the policy of the treaty of Bassein, which led ultimately to that war. It is a singular circumstance, and strikingly illustrates the evils of governing vast dominions on the other side of the globe, that Lord Castlereagh states all his doubts and objections, in March 1804, to the policy which had been pursued from the latter end of 1802, but had been resolved upon both in this country and in India, long before; that his Lordship gives, as the reason for not having earlier stated, or indeed been aware of those objections, his having been prevented from reading the long series of the negotiations with the Court of Poonah by a variety of other important subjects pressing upon his attention,' during the eighteen months he had been in office, until the letters just received announced the probability 'of a rupture with the Mahrattas;' and, that long before his statement, with the suggestions which he gronnds upon it as fit to guide the Indian negotiations, could reach Calcutta-nay, before the statement was committed to paper in Downing Street -the Mahratta war had broken out; had been prosecuted, by a series of the most signal victories, to a successful conclusion; and had been closed by a treaty of peace, signed 30th December, 1803,-Lord Castlereagh's paper being despatched, 4th March, 1804. That paper, however, deserves great attention. It can

6

6

didly admits that Lord Wellesley was authorized, by his instructions from home, to form some such alliance as he did with the Peishwah; it further admits, that the principle of a subsidiary arrangement had been subsequently approved at home; but it argues that no part should have been taken with any of the Mahratta states; that a British army on their frontier, and ready to side with any one as might best secure the great object of preventing any one from overpowering the rest, and of protecting the Nizam, would have been a preferable course; and that if we were to make common cause with any of the Mahratta powers, we should have preferred almost any of the greater feudatory chiefs (the Berar Raja, Scindia, he seems even to think Holkar, who was an adventurer, and had only a temporary influence) to the Peishwah, the nominal head of the empire, and whose force was inconsiderable. These views, manifestly, as we take the liberty of thinking, erroneous, are urged with great force. But they are fully discussed, and most satisfactorily refuted in an elaborate answer by Sir Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) in a paper which is also given in the fifth volume; and no person can more conveniently study the whole subject than by first reading these two important documents before proceeding to the third and fourth volumes. It is fair to add, that notwithstanding Lord Castlereagh's objections to the past, and his doubts touching the future Indian policy, he seems to have candidly yielded to the cogent reasoning advanced by those on the spot, and to have given them his unflinching support. The conduct of Lord Sidmouth in this respect appears to have been marked throughout by great sagacity, and by that firm and courageous spirit which remarkably distinguished him; and for which, widely as those with whom we generally agree have always differed from him on many most important questions, they have never hesitated to give him all credit. That the war with Scindia, and afterwards with Holkar, was not merely justifiable, but a matter of inevitable necessity, no one can doubt. Scindia, indeed, who had distinctly admitted that the treaty of Bassein was to him unobjectionable, and in no way affected his interest, when it was originally communicated to him, not only united himself with the Berar Raja against its provisions, and for the purpose of removing the Peiswah, and again placing on the Musnud a creature of their own; not only made advances to Holkar, who had driven the Peishwah from his dominions until the British arms restored him, but declared, in plain terms, when required to give a categorical answer as to his designs, that he must wait until the Raja met him with his army, before he