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And desolation covered all the land?
Who can remember this, and not, like me,
Here vow to sheathe a dagger in his heart,

Whose cursed ambition would renew those horrours,
And set once more that scene of blood before us.

Glos. How now! so hot!

Lord H. So brave, and so resolved.

Glos. Is then our friendship of so little moment, That you could arm your hand against my life?

Lord. H. I hope your highness does not think I mean it; No, heaven forefend that e'er your princely person Should come within the scope of my resentment.

Glos. O, noble Hastings! nay, I must embrace you; By holy Paul, you 're a right honest man! The time is full of danger and distrust, And warns us to be wary. Hold me not Too apt for jealousy and light surmise, If, when I meant to lodge you next my heart, I put your truth to trial. Keep your loyalty, And live your king and country's best support: For me, I ask no more than honour gives To think me yours, and rank me with your

friends.

DEVASTATION OF THE CARNATIC.

Extract from a Speech of Mr Burke on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts, delivered Feb. 28, 1785.

WHEN at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country, possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals, a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those, against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution.

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Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic.-Then ensued a scene of wo, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrours of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered: others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities. But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine.

For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region.

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF MR CURRAN IN THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, ON MOVING FOR AN ADDRESS AGAINST AN INCREASE OF OFFICERS AND SALARIES IN THE BOARD OF STAMPS AND ACCOUNTS.

SIR, I bring forward an act of the meanest administration that ever disgraced this country. I bring it forward as one of the threads by which, united with others of similar texture, the vermin of the meanest kind have been able to tie down a body of strength and importance. Let me not be supposed to rest here: when the murderer left the mark of his bloody hand upon the wall, it was not the trace of one finger, but the whole impression which convicted him.

I bring forward this motion, not as a question of finance, not as a question of regulation, but as a penal inquiry; and the people will now see whether they are to hope for help within these walls, or, turning their eyes towards heaven, they are to depend on God and their own virtue. I rise in an assembly of three hundred persons, one hundred of whom have places or pensions; I rise in an assembly, one third of whom have their ears sealed against the complaints of the people, and their eyes intently turned to their own interest; I rise before the whisperers of the treasury, the bargainers and runners of the Castle; I address an audience, before whom was held forth the doctrine, that the Crown ought to use its influence on this House.

This confession was not made from constraint; it came from a country gentleman, deservedly high in the confi dence of administration, for he gave up other confidence to obtain theirs.

I know I am speaking too plain; but which is the more honest physician, he who lulls his patient into a fatal security, or he who points out the danger and the remedy of the disease?-I should not be surprised if bad men of great talents should endeavour to enslave a people; but, when I see folly uniting with vice, corruption with imbecility, men without talents attempting to overthrow our liberty-my indignation rises at the presumption and audacity of the attempt. That such men should creep into power, is a fatal symptom to the constitution: the political, like the material body, when near its dissolution, often bursts out in swarms of vermin.

In this administration a place may be found for every

bad man, whether it be to distribute the wealth of the treasury, to vote in the House, to whisper and to bargain, to stand at the door and note the exits and entrances of your members, to mark whether they earn their wages-whether it be for the hireling who comes for his hire, or for the drunken aid-de-camp who swaggers in a tavern.

In this country, Sir, our King is not a resident; the beam of royalty is often reflected through a medium, which sheds but a kind of disastrous twilight, serving only to assist robbers and plunderers. We have no security in the talents or responsibility of an Irish ministry injuries which the English constitution would easily repel, may here be fatal. I therefore call upon you to exert yourselves, to heave off the vile incumbrances that have been laid upon you. I call you not as to a measure of finance or regulation, but to a criminal accusation, which you may follow with punishment.

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF MR GRATTAN ON THE
CATHOLIC QUESTION.

WHERE, I ask, where are those Protestant petitions against the Catholic claims, which we were told would have by this time borne down your table? We were told in the confident tone of prophecy, that England would have poured in her petitions from all counties, towns, and corporations, against the claims of Ireland. I ask, where are those petitions? Has London, her mighty capital, has the university of Dublin, mocked the calamities of your country, by petitioning in favour of those prejudices that would render us less able to redress them? Have the people of England raised a voice against their Catholic fellow-subjects? No; they have the wisdom to see the folly of robbing the empire, at such a time, of one fourth of its strength, on account of speculative doctrines of faith. They will not risk a kingdom on account of old men's dreams about the prevalence of the Pope. They will not sacrifice an

lies. Look at the list of merchants-of divines. Look, in a word, at Protestant Ireland, calling to you in a warning voice-telling you that if you are resolved to go on, till ruin breaks with a fearful surprise upon your progress, they will go on with you-they must partake your danger, though they will not share your guilt.

Ireland, with her Imperial Crown, now stands before you. You have taken from her her Parliament, and she appears in her own person at your bar. Will you dismiss a kingdom without a hearing? Is this your answer to her zeal, to her faith, to the blood that has so profusely graced your march to victory-to the treasures that have decked your strength in peace. Is her name nothing-her fate indifferent-her contributions insignificant-her six millions revenue--her ten millions trade-her two millions absentee-her four millions loan? Is such a country not worth a hearing? Will you, can you dismiss her abruptly from your bar? You cannot do it-the instinct of England is against it. We may be outnumbered now and again-but in calculating the amount of the real sentiments of the people-the ciphers that swell the evanescent majorities of an evanescent Minister, go for nothing.

Can Ireland forget the memorable era of 1788? Can others forget the munificent hospitality with which she then freely gave to her chosen hope all that she had to give? Can Ireland forget the spontaneous and glowing cordiality with which her favours were then received! Never! never! Irishmen grew justly proud in the consciousness of being subjects of a gracious predilection--a predilection that required no apology, and called for no renunciation -a predilection that did equal honour to him who felt it, and to those who were the objects of it. It laid the grounds of a great and fervent hope-all a nation's wishes crowding to a point, and looking forward to one event, as the GREAT COMING, at which every wound was to be healed, every tear to be wiped away-the hope of that hour beamed with a cheering warmth and a seductive brilliancy. Ireland followed it with all her heart-a leading light through the wilderness, and brighter in its gloom. She followed it over a wide and barren waste: it has charmed her through the desert, and now, that it has led her to the confines of light and darkness, now, that she is on the borders of the promised land, is the prospect to be suddenly obscured, and the

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