channels of commerce operate too tardily for measures which require dispatch, and embrace only the object of the day. If treasure can be procured, no secondary aids are called in; no succedaneum is searched for. These drains, unsupplied by any native source, must soon exhaust the vigour of a country, where, in addition to the grievance, commerce is loaded with monopoly, and influenced by the hand of power. The demand for bills on Bengal, which has been pressing and continued, gave them often a value of seventeen and a half per cent. on the Lucknow amount; a profit which enabled the bankers to export the value in silver*.-The resumption of the Jaguir, or alienated lands, has not been productive of the promised benefits. The officers who enjoyed those benefactions, were many of them men of expensive manners; they promoted the consumption of valuable manufactures, and, possessing rank and distinction, they maintained a numerous body of dependents. Whether from a succession of oppressive managers, or that the inhabitants do not experience the fruits of former liberality, it is evidently seen, that the resumed districts are ill cultivated and thinly inhabited.

* A flow of commerce which now more diffusely conveys the manufactures of this country to Bengal, has reduced this premiu to four per cent.

sury

LITTLE remains to be said of the Vizier's miHitary establishment; it being only useful in assisting the collection of the revenue, enforcing the obedience of the lesser vassals, or furnishing a guard for his person. The defence of the country wholly rests on the forces of the English, which are supplied according to emergency. The troops at this time, amount to about eight thousand sepoys, and five hundred Europeans, with the requisite train of artillery. The treaof Assoff-ud-Dowlah is now low, but it is said, that he has nearly paid off the residue of a large debt, which had been accumulating since the period of his father's death. It is to be sincerely wished, that the measures pursued in future, may redress the grievances of this country; which though of such extensive compass, and possessing so valuable a resource, bears the aspect of rapid decay and though its position, and native weakness, might render the alliance profitable to the English, no solid benefits have hitherto arisen from our connection with Oude

I am, Dear Sir,

Yours, &c. &c.

LETTER VII.

MY DEAR SIR,

Furruckabad, January 26th, 1783.

I NOW beg to present you

with a sketch of my route to Furruckabad, where I purpose resting two or three days with my countrymen, whom I shall not probably see again until my arrival in Europe.

ON the 18th at noon, I left my hostess's quarters at Lucknow, and after a warm and dusty ride of seven cosses, halted at the village of Nowill Gunge. The next day I arrived at Meahgunge, a stage also of seven cosses; and was much rejoiced to find that my little steed continued to possess high health and vigour. He is endowed, I fear, with a too great predominance of the latter quality, and that in its worst sense; for if I am to judge from his carnal hankerings, and strong neighings of love to every mare he sees, it would too plainly appear that his life has not been of the chastest kind. But as it is said, and in Holy Writ I believe," that there is no wisdom under the gir

dle," meaning, evidently, the girdles of the lords and ladies of the creation, we may surely excuse the wanderings and frailties of a poor horse, whose passions receive no check from constitutional modesty, or virtuous example.

MEAHGUNGE, if I am informed right, was founded by Almas, and seems to be a thriving and populous village. From the various intelligence which I have procured, it is evident that the renter here is active, industrious, and regu lar. The inhabitants say, that his rigour in collecting the revenue is, in a certain degree, qualified by a steady observance of his contracts. I passed this evening in the company of a Patan, who was returning to his home from Lucknow, where he had expended the greatest part of his estate in the society of the ladies, and in the pleasures of arrack; but in the last he very copiously indulged. In the course of two hours and a half, I beheld him with amazement empty two bottles of a spirit so harsh and fiery, that the like dose must have turned the head of an elephant. The Patan made an apology for this excessive potation, by observing, that it removed from his mind every sensation of sorrow and melancholy, passions, which, he said, greatly annoyed him in his cooler moments. This jovial Mahometan was attended by an old musician, marvel

lously ill apparelled, and deficient in the larger portion of his teeth, who, during the interludes of his master's amusement, strummed on a miserable guitar, which he accompanied with some of Hafez's odes; but uttered in a voice that would have struck dismay into the fiercest beast that ranges the forest. At this gunge, a servant whom I hired at Lucknow, and my only attendant, carried off, in the night, my matchlock and a curious dagger.

On the 20th, at Banghur Mow,-10 cosses,

à large village in the district of Almas. Here the Patan having drunk out all the substance of his purse, sold a piece of family tin-plate; the produce of which raised the sum of three rupees. He took that evening an extraordinary draught of his favourite spirit; and, that his pleasures might have no alloy, he called in a good-natured girl, who for one half-rupee displayed to the Patan a more ample fund of dalliance and allurement, than could be purchased by us for twenty at Lucknow. He expressed a sovereign contempt for Almas*, who he said being precluded from the pleasures of the sex, disliked and discouraged them. Many of Almas's wounded sepoys were brought into the gerauce from a fort in the woods, which had

* He is a eunuch.