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Previous to this Epistle he had written to his friend Sir Joseph Banks the following passage. "The last twenty years of my life I shall spend, I trust, in a studious retreat; and if you know of a pleasant country house to be disposed of in your part of Middlesex, with pasture ground for my cattle, and garden ground enough for my amusement, have the goodness to inform me of it." Little he thought that long before that period science would lose "her favourite son." This letter is written to Warren Hastings in England during his trial, for the best account of which, vide Macaulay's in the Edinburgh Review.

Chrishna-nagur, October 20, 1791.

MY DEAR SIR.-Before you can receive this, you will, I doubt not have obtained a complete triumph over your persecutors; and your character will have risen, not brighter indeed, but more conspicuously bright, from the furnace of their persecution. Happy should I be if I could congratulate you in person on your victory; but though I have a fortune in England, which might satisfy a man of letters, yet I have not enough to establish that absolute independence which has been

the chief end and aim of my life; and I must stay in this country a few years longer. Lady Jones has however promised me to take her passage for Europe in January 1793, and I will follow her when I can. She is pretty well, and presents her kindest remembrance to you and Mrs. Hastings, whom I thank most heartily for a very obliging and elegant letter. My own health has by God's blessing been very firm, but my eyes are weak, and I have constantly employed them eight or nine hours a day. My principal amusement botany, and the conversation of the Pundits with whom I talk fluently in the language of the gods; and my business, besides the discharge of my public duties, is the translation of Menu, and of the digest which has been compiled at my instance. Our society still subsists, and the third volume of their transactions is so far advanced, that it will certainly be published next season. Samuel Davis has translated the Surya Siddhantha, and is making discoveries in Indian Astronomy; while Wilfred is pursuing his geographic enquiries at Benares, and has found, or thinks he has found, an account of Africa and Europe, and even of Britain by name, in the Scanda Puran; he has sent us a chart of the Nile from Sanscrit authorities, and I expect soon to receive his proofs and illustrations. Of

public affairs in India, I say little, because I can say nothing with certainty: the seasons and elements have been adverse to us in Mysore. Farewell, my dear Sir, and believe me to be with unfeigned regard,

Your faithful and obedient,

Saturday, March 30, 1844.

WILLIAM JONES.

POLYPHILUS.

No. 39.

On the Genius of Clive.

The last paper of Polyphilus.

(FOR THE PRESENT,)

"We shall not look upon his like again."

Shakspeare.

"Meanwhile he drew wise morals from his play,
And in these solemn periods stalked away."

Coleman.

There cannot be a better conclusion to the Oriental Rambler for the present, than to consider shortly the genius of one to whom England is in a great measure indebted for the possession of this wealthy and extensive empire. During the great war in the Carnatic, while Dupleix the celebrated Governor of Pondicherry was forming plans for the supremacy of French power in Asia, among Britain's sons (in the words of Burke) "arose another luminary, and for his hour became lord of the ascendant." This was the young Ensign Clive who before the walls of Pondicherry in 1748 distinguished himself above all his Junior contemporaries 'twas then he must have been fired with the torch of ambition, to become the chief cause of the celebrity

of British power in the East in future ages; in the humble rank of Ensign, like a young acorn planted in the ground, which is destined to become a beautiful oak-tree, whose majestic demeanour shall look down upon the juvenile trees below, so was Clive in that humble rank destined to be the chief conqueror in the East, and to look down with disdain upon the rising enemies of England; to use the words of Lord Broughan, "In the East while frightful disasters were brought upon our settlements by barbarian powers, the only military capacity that appeared in their defence, was the accidental display of genius and valour, by a Merchant's clerk, who thus raised himself to celebrity." Whoever has read Indian History with attention, must acknowledge that Lord Clive was one of the most wonderful men that ever existed; from the commencement of his career, until he became Master of Bengal, the success he met with, notwithstanding the troubles he endured, and in a country at that time little known, is not surpassed in History; throughout all his campaigns there is everywhere apparent, the strongest fortitude, combined with the greatest military skill, and the soundest judgment, three things the most requisite in the character of the leader of an army.

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