rambled on till they came to Mariemont, Kosinski at last consented to his sible, and fetch me from hence. I am wounded, but not dangerously." During the hours which had passed since the king had been carried away, Warsaw had been a scene of extreme consternation. No one knew the nature of their sovereign's misfortune; and all the well-affected feared that he had fallen by the hands of the savage confederates who had so violently assaulted him. Dismay was seen on every countenance-the citizens. viewing each other with silent horror, as if ashamed of the guilt which their countrymen had incurred in the eyes of the world.-Such was the state of the capital when the messenger brought the intelligence that the king was alive. On the arrival of the messenger at Warsaw, the consternation of the well-affected was turned into joy.—Coccei, hastening to the mill, found Kosinski with his sabre drawn at the door, guarding his sovereign, whom he had before sworn to destroy, then sleeping on the floor, with the miller's cloak thrown over him. Being admitted, he threw himself at his sovereign's feet. And, with the party of guards which he had brought, he conducted him 1771 1771 him back to Warsaw, about five o'clock in the morning. The citizens, on his approach, illuminated the streets through which he was to pass. The multitude followed him to the palace, crying out, "The king is alive." The doors were then flung open; and persons of all ranks vied with each other in testimonies of affection to their sovereign and of gratitude to Kosinski. Such an escape, such a contrast of feelings was never, perhaps, experienced by any one, in so short a space. In the evening we have seen the king attacked, and dragged from his capital, by forty assassins, who had conspired against his life: and before the dawn he was restored to his people, under protection of one of these; who was loaded with caresses as his saviour. Stanislaus, having recounted the incidents of his escape, expressed his sense of the affection which his subjects had shewn him; and closed the awful and affecting scene with an assurance of his zeal to accomplish the end for which Providence seemed to have preserved him, by a redoubled attention to the welfare of his country.-Among those who distinguished themselves in this memorable affair, Lukawski and Strawenski were beheaded. Kosinski received a pension for life, and retired to Semigallia in the Papal territories. Pulaski, escaping from Poland, afterwards entered into the American service, and was killed at the siege of Savannah. And the family of the heyduc were amply provided for, in testimony of his majesty's sense of his services. 1771 TURKEY. ALARMED at the danger which threatened him in every quarter, Mustapha had recourse, in the preceding year, to the mediation of the emperor and king of Prussia, for the purpose of bringing about a peace. Those monarchs readily took the kind office upon them. But the transactions which ensued clearly evinced that they had their own interests solely in view; and that they were not scrupulous in sacrificing to them the public welfare or even their own honour.-Frederic refused to interest himself effectually in constraining the empress to accept of reasonable terms, because because she was to be the associate of his iniquitous design against Poland. His imperial majesty would willingly have united with that monarch in curbing the empress's power, which, he was apprehensive would become formidable to him, should she succeed in her views of conquest on the Turkish dominions on the Danube. He entered into a secret treaty with the Porte, even after his Prussian majesty's refusal to concur with him, and engaged to take up arms in the sultan's cause, on condition of being reimbursed the expences of the war. But this transaction will ever remain a disgrace to his memory: since it soon appeared, that, far from intending to perform the stipulations on his part, he was, at that time, negotiating a treaty with Catharine for the division of Poland. b Mustapha preferring hostilities under every disadvantage to a compliance with the empress's exorbitant demands, the war was continued: nor were the events of the campaign with her so fatal to the Turks as was portended by the awful aspect of affairs at the close of the late year. Yet they were such as added continually to his distresses. Ali Bey, mean-while, was rapidly advancing in his conquests; and his power appeared daily to be more firmly established by his prudent and vigorous government. Encouraged by the success which had attended his arms, and by the prosperous state of his affairs, he formed the bold design of recovering the trade through the Red Sea, and thence over the isthmus of Suez to the Mediterranean. With that view he opened a correspondence with the republic of Venice: he made such commercial regulations as might induce foreign merchants to resort to his ports: he cleared his dominions of the banditti which had marauded on the traders in their passage through them. His general, Aboudaab, in the mean-time, was pursuing his conquests with uninterrupted success: and in the course of this campaign he added Gaza, Rama, Neapolis, Sidon, and Damascus, to the cities and countries which had submitted to the dominion of Ali Bey." 1771 1771 EAST INDIES. THE presidency's dissatisfaction still subsisted with unabated force; and they devised means to obviate the ill effects apprehended from the government's interference. With the advice of Mr. Hastings, who was second in the council of Madras at this time, and had acquired considerable weight in it by the talents he had displayed in the several capacities in which he had served the company, they determined to make a firm stand in defence of their privileges. In their letters to the directors, they represented in very strong colours the fatal consequences that must ensue from this measure of government, in destroying that opinion respecting the full powers delegated to the company which had hitherto been entertained by the Indian princes, and "on which its interests were vitally founded." From this, they declared, their past prosperity had been derived; and, if deprived of it, "their weakness and disgrace would become conspicuous, and they would "be held in derision by their enemies." a Affairs were in this embroiled state at Madras, when the presidency thought it advisable to enter upon the execution of a measure in which the two parties felt themselves interested, and which was eventually attended with the most important consequences.-The rajah of Tanjore, the professed friend of the company and the nabob of Arcot, whose tributary he was, had acted a double and treacherous part during the late war. He had, at that critical period, secretly assisted Hyder Ali in carrying it on: and he now refused to pay the tribute due to Mohamed Ali, and insolently demanded to be reimbursed the expences he had incurred by the contingent of troops which he had sent to the nabob's army, though they had been withdrawn before they could be of any service to him. He was, at this time, kindling a war in the Carnatic by an attack on the Marawar, a dependent of the nabob, without consulting him, and even contrary to his wishes: he was known to be privately connected with Hyder Ali and the Marattas, and was suspected of having invited them to make an invasion of the Carnatic. It was, therefore, fore, deemed just and expedient to restrain and chastise a prince who had been guilty of such disobedience and ingratitude, of such a flagrant breach of the treaty signed in 1762, and had conceived designs hostile to the interests both of the nabob and the company. Upon these principles an expedition against the rajah was resolved on; and general Smith, penetrating his territories with the confederate army under his command, invested the capital of Tanjore in the autumn of this year. They had been thirty-six days before the city; a breach was made in its walls; and the troops were preparing to storm the fortress, when overtures for peace were made by the rajah to the nabob's son, who attended the army; and a treaty was hastily concluded, by which the rajah agreed to pay his arrear of tribute; to defray the expences of war; to cede some districts to the nabob; to adhere to the interests of that prince and the company; and to permit the latter to trade freely in his country. When intelligence of this transaction arrived at Madras, universal astonishment and indignation were expressed at a treaty, which, from the rajah's known character of perfidy, was deemed so insecure in itself, so inadequate to the punishment of his delinquency or the claims of the nabob. Those who felt for the honour of the British arms were grieved when they saw the troops thus robbed of the laurels which appeared to be provided for them: and Mohamed himself expostulated with his son in severe terms; telling him, "That he ascribed his conduct to nothing but a want of abilities, his "facility of disposition, or his having been corrupted by the rajah."ь* In this distracted state were affairs at the presidency of Madras when sir John Lindsay was superseded in his appointments by sir Robert Harland; who, coming under the same unpropitious circumstances, was received by the council with the same appearance of dissatisfaction as his predecessor; which he increased by his zeal to promote the nabob's interests, now unfortunately considered as different from, if not opposed to, those of the company. Some events took place here, in this and the ensuing year, which led e 1771 + Sept. 23. ‡ Oct. 27. to The English general, who was incensed to see the honour of himself and his troops thus sacrificed, charged the nabob with dissimulation and a conspiracy with his son in this transaction.— Transactions in India. 176. |