Original Copy. among all the troops composing the army of the Deccan in the years 1817 and 1818, including the detachment of the Bombay army under Lieut. Col. Prother.

We beg leave to observe, in support of this proposition, that the troops most engaged in these operations, and who suffered most, were those at Nagpoor, Mahidpoor, and Poonah; and that if it were possible to make a division of the booty on any other principle than that above recommended, those troops, particularly those at Nagpoor and Mahidpoor, would receive no part of it.

We beg to receive their Lordships' decision upon this letter, before we submit a scheme of distribution.

Substituted Copy.

were in deposit in the Company's trea

sury.

Both these sums have been claimed by the Crown, and admitted by the Company, as booty, upon the same principle, as having come into the possession of the Company in consequence of the operations of the troops. But these operations were not the exclusive operations of any particular body of troops, they were those of the whole army.

We beg to receive their lordships' decision upon this letter, before we submit a scheme of distribution.

We have the honour to be, &c.

WELLINGTON, C. ARBUTHNOT.

Copy of the LETTER from the TRUSTEES of the DECCAN PRIZE, to the Secretary of the Treasury, dated 14th Sept. 1825, referring to certain alterations in their opinion, as to the distribution of the booty; and transmitting an amended copy of their Letter of 22d June 1825.

SIR:

Woodford, Sept. 14th, 1825.

In consequence of the desire expressed by the Lords of the Treasury to the Duke of Wellington, that the trustees for the Deccan prize should read the documents, proceedings, and arguments of counsel before their lordships in the year 1822-23, on the petitions of the various claimants to participate in the booty at the disposition of the Crown, in consequence of the operations of the war in India in 1817-1818; we have perused the printed copies of the documents, proceedings, and arguments transmitted to us by their lordships' desire, and the result is, a conviction in our minds, that we ought not to have given the opinion contained in the following paragraphs of our letter of the 22d of June last.

"It appears to us, then, that the only fair and satisfactory mode of dividing the money now at the disposition of his Majesty is, that it should be divided equally among all the troops composing the army of the Deccan in the years 1817-18, including the detachment of the Bombay army under Lieut. Col. Prother."

"We beg leave to observe, in support of this proposition, that the troops most engaged in these operations, and those who suffered most, were those at Nagpoor, Mahidpoor, and Poonah; and that if it were possible to make a division on any other principle than that above recommended, those troops, and particularly those at Nagpoor and Mahidpoor, would receive no part of it."

We have therefore enclosed a copy of that letter, omitting these paragraphs, and certain corresponding words to the same purport in other parts of the letter.

The Lords of the Treasury having by their minute of the 5th February 1823, decided what officers should participate in the booty supposed to have been at the disposition of his Majesty, we did not consider it any part of our duty to peruse the proceedings, documents, &c. above referred to; and in point of fact, the Duke of Wellington did not know that printed copies of these proceedings, &c. existed, till desired by their lordships to peruse them.

But having perused them, it is quite impossible that we should continue to entertain the opinion contained in the paragraphs of our letter (No. 2) of the 22d June, above referred to. We have the honour to be, &c.

WELLINGTON, C. ARBUTHNOT.

[The Treasury Minute, dated 28th September 1825, recording the aforegoing letters of the trustees and the amended letter of 22d June 1825, is printed in the Asiat. Journ. Vol. xxi. p. 312.]

ROMANCES FROM REAL LIFE.

No. I.-MAY GORDON.

WHAT can be more deplorable than a day in Calcutta during the rains! At their first commencement, indeed, the parched earth rejoices in the deluge; and the change in the temperature, from burning airs to cool breezes, is hailed as a blessing; but when coolness degenerates into chilliness, when the rains have been abundant, and the descending cataract sweeps every thing before it, when the plains are transformed into swamps, the atmosphere becomes misty and steamy, coarse smells exude from the rank vegetation, which springs up in spite of every effort to check it, while creeping things innumerable emerge from their secret haunts; the best mansions of the "City of Palaces" have then a dismantled and dishevelled air, and the poor wretches of natives cower along under their straw umbrellas, with their thin white cotton garments clinging around them in lamentable guise.

Nevertheless, remaining in the house is out of the question, and I was quite ready to brave the weather, and accompany a friend in the evening drive, with the precaution of putting up the hood of the buggy. Chetwynd was about to embark for England, and as he had several commissions to execute, previous to his departure, I was not surprised to find that he did not take the direct road to the strand, where that portion of the beauty and fashion of Calcutta, who rejoiced in an ague-fraught atmosphere, were assembled. The grand avenues of the presidency are easily known, and one soon becomes acquainted with the topography necessary to guide our visits to Tank-square, the Esplanade, Wellesley-place, and even through the less dignified avenues of Ranee Moodeegully and Loll Diggee; while the Durrumtollah and the Cossitollah are not to be mistaken. But there are great varieties of by-ways, crossing and intersecting each other in labyrinthine mazes, of which, until this memorable evening, I was wholly ignorant. Chetwynd told me he was going to pay a charitable visit, and as we drove through bazaars and alleys, sometimes emerging into uncleared tracts of a very jungly appearance, at others skirting along narrow lanes built up on both sides, he gave me the outlines of his friend's history.

"Hartnell and myself," said he, "were schoolfellows together, and at that time he was incomparably the richer person of the two. His father had made a large fortune in India, of which he was the supposed heir, and I believe he was not, any more than myself, aware of the disadvantages of his birth, or that his complexion, though not darker than that of many Europeans, would be detrimental to his prospects should he ever feel inclined to visit his native land. It was not his intention to return to India, but unfortunately the failure of the house of agency in which his father had permitted his property to remain, obliged him to repair to the scene of action, to discover whether it would be possible to rescue anything from the wreck. He had married just before the catastrophe occurred, and here he is, with a wife and a sister-in-law to support upon the miserable pittance which he earns by writing in some office."

We were by this time arrived at Mr. Hartnell's dwelling; and it had never fallen to my lot before to gaze upon an abode so wretchedly desolate. The house had only one story, or, as we say in Calcutta, it was lower-roomed. It stood in a very small compound, or rather yard, so circumscribed in its dimensions, as to give the whole building the appearance of a cup and saucer. The plaster was in many places torn away from the brick-work; the front Asiat. Journ. N.S. VOL. 12. No.47.

U

exhibited huge weather-stains, large green and brown patches, luxuriant with fungi; the paint was all washed off the doors, and the Venetians hung loosely upon one hinge; a bald vulture or two were perched upon the walls, and in front a draggled-tailed adjutant stood sentinel, looking as melancholy as the surrounding scene. On one side, a tank, or small pond, spread its green waters, giving promise of remittent fever, and a large tree, half-overshadowing the stagnant pool, and half-impeding the circulation of fresh air over the dank pavement of the compound, seemed to be the strong-hold of malaria; and my teeth chattered and cold shivers ran through my veins, as I felt exposed to the influence of a breeze setting in directly from the fenny-looking tract behind, choked up with weeds and jungle-grass. In fact, the residence and its neighbourhood appeared to be only suited to frogs, of which, to judge by the hoarse notes ever and anon issuing from the noisome morasses around, there was no scarcity. I sat ensconced in a corner of the buggy, hoping, but scarcely expecting, that I might get away without encountering cholera, typhus, or any of the epidemics, which I felt but too certain were lurking in

every corner.

While speculating on the probable termination of this excursion, I was aroused from my reverie by the voice of Chetwynd, who begged me to alight; his friend had not yet returned from his office, and as it would be a last interview, he felt anxious to await his arrival. I dismounted, somewhat against my will, and walked into an apartment, in which it was evident, from the condition of the mats, that saltpetre oozed in considerable quantities from the floor. In other respects, the interior was much less forlorn than would have been anticipated from appearances without. The sitting-room was neatly furnished, and female taste and superintendance had diffused over it a cheerful air; books, drawings, flowers, and a guitar, shewed that its inmates possessed elegant and cultivated minds. One of them advanced to meet me,—a pale, delicate, heart-broken-looking woman,-whom Chetwynd introduced as the mistress of the mansion, and in another minute I was entranced by, the apparition of the most perfect beauty I had ever beheld. It is not often that the fair cheeks of European ladies retain their roses under an Indian clime; carefully secluded from the sun, and kept away even from the light, their bloom fades very quickly, and they grow up, like plants in the shade, fair, delicate, and sickly. But May Gordon, the sister of Mrs. Hartnell, was the reverse of this description; her cheeks glowed with health, her eyes sparkled with vivacity, the ruby of her lips had suffered no change, and her beautifully moulded form was full and round. I gazed upon her with astonishment; where I had expected to see gaunt disease, I had found the fullest exuberance of youthful charms. There was a delightful air of unconsciousness about this splendid beauty; her sister seemed perfectly unaware of the impression she was likely to make, and even Chetwynd looked upon her with a strange unloverlike eye, which was to me exeedingly surprising, for I was struck, fascinated, enchanted, and sate almost like a statue, afraid to speak lest I should burst out into some untimely declaration of the sentiments with which she had inspired me.

Mrs. Hartnell lamented Chetwynd's approaching departure. "We shall feel very forlorn when you go," said she, "for, cut off as we are from all congenial society, your kindness, in cheering our solitude, is most warmly appreciated, and its loss will be very difficult to sustain."-" I leave you a substitute," replied my friend; and then I found my tongue to assure them that a permission to renew my visit would make me very happy. We talked of new publications, and I found that I could confer a great obligation by lending

books; the latest supplies were at my command, and a bond of union was immediately established between us. If I had experienced pleasure in gratifying the wishes of some haughty, overflattered, disdainful dame of Chowringee, how much more delightedly did I minister to the pleasures of an unsophisticated beauty, placed by niggard fortune in obscurity!

Mr. Hartnell now joined the circle; he was evidently a man of gentlemanly, but contracted mind, unequal to struggle with adversity, or to raise himself from the situation to which the depressed state of his finances had reduced him. As a rich man, he would have made a respectable figure in society; but as a poor one, he was only fitted to endure his misfortunes patiently. He complained of the reception he had met with in Calcutta, and of the degradation to which he was compelled to submit; both assuredly were hardships, but they who composed the great world at the presidency were ignorant of his claims to notice, and if they had been acquainted with them, could not easily have made an exception in his favour. His case was a pitiable one, and that of his wife and sister still more so. Having no provision to make for her at home, he brought out Miss Gordon, in the expectation that her beauty and accomplishments would be a passport into the best circles of Calcutta; but as upon his landing he was obliged to pursue plans of the strictest economy, his mode of living absolutely precluded him from mingling in society, and the necessity of accepting almost menial employment threw him still farther into the shade. He possessed no family connexions to uphold him, and he had the mortification to see two females, who would have done honour to any station, consigned to the most melancholy state of seclusion, and suffering the severest privations, in a climate and country where hardships of any kind are difficult to bear. Mrs. Hartnell pined under the misery of her lot, but May Gordon's buoyant spirits remained undiminished, supporting her through the disappointments she experienced in finding herself reduced to poverty and all its attendant evils, in a land where she had expected to reign almost like a queen.

After a visit of two hours, we took leave; I reluctantly tearing myself away, while Chetwynd, who was more of a philosopher, bore the final parting like a stoic. He pitied the trio from his heart, but it had not occurred to him that, by falling in love with and marrying Miss Gordon, one at least would be snatched from surrounding wretchedness, and the situation of the other two greatly ameliorated. Such a scheme had immediately suggested itself to me; but I was a subaltern, in debt, and moreover not exactly my own master, for there was a crabbed old uncle, as rich as Aga Meer, at Barrackpore, who, having been juwabed by all the new arrivals in the first thirty years after his entrance into the country, had forsworn matrimony, and charged me to remain single until I could choose a wife in England, entertaining a natural antipathy to all the spinsters who came out to India.

In the evening, there was a ball at Government-house, which I attended, contrasting in my own mind the gay nymphs and belles, who, decorated in the last importations of European fashion, fluttered through the wide saloons, with the beautiful creature who consumed her life amid the stagnant waters and reedy marshes of those back-settlements, with whose existence I had only that day been made acquainted. I looked out from one of the balconies, but was puzzled to know in what direction to seek the spot I had just returned from visiting. My eyes fell upon the tall porticoes and turreted corners of the neighbouring mansions, with the white-winged palaces of Chowringee spreading themselves in the distance; nothing that met my view could in the slight

est degree remind me of the pestiferous swamp on whose reedy edge the domicile of the beautiful May Gordon was situated. I did not dance; for the first time in my life I did not care about dancing. I saw a flirtation commence between Louisa Dalrymple, the prima donna absoluta of the ball-room, and Captain Lovell, of the cavalry, who had just succeeded to a staff-appointment, without a pang. I envied him nothing but his quarter-master-generalship, which would have enabled me to pay interest and insurance to my agents, and allowed a surplus for the support of a wife. Miss Dalrymple looked astonished at the fortitude with which I bore her reception of Captain Lovell; for I had been unwise enough to display my admiration, and she was sufficiently a coquette to lead me on: but for the interposition of my guardian-angel, in the shape of a fairer and more interesting damsel, I might have committed myself as my poor uncle had done before me.

Chetwynd embarked in a bhauliah, the tide serving, at gun-fire, to join his ship; and the next morning, or rather after a few hours' repose, having taken the precaution to engage the services of his syce, I proceeded alone to Mr. Hartnell's dwelling, which I never should have found but for the pilotage of that trusty domestic. Its aspect was even more horrible in the glare of the sun-light, than it had been beneath the clouds of a rainy evening; the deplorable state of its disrepair was more broadly displayed; the wailing of a kid, tied up at a distance from its mother in the dingy compound, sounded mournfully on the ear, while the vilest smells arose from the neighbouring pond, and the swarms of insects which congregated above it.

My reception was extremely gratifying; I had brought books, which, to persons deprived of every sort of recreation, were perfect treasures. Beyond this damp, wretched dwelling, Mrs. Hartnell and her sister could not stir. They had no palanquin, no conveyance of any kind; and though few beside poor natives and the lowest classes of half-castes would have crossed their path in pedestrian excursions, even when the setting of the sun would permit them to walk, they were debarred by a feeling of shame from making so unusual an exhibition. They had no garden, and the house-top was their only resource. Perhaps I ought not to have felt highly flattered at being made welcome under such circumstances; but I enjoyed the pleasure of the greeting without very deeply investigating the causes which made my visit so acceptable. Hartnell, of course, was at his office, and I made myself useful by copying music for one of the ladies, and patterns for the other, not forgetting, of course, to detail the on dits of the day, in which they were more interested than might have been expected from the isolated situation which they occupied. Miss Dalrymple had been a fellow-passenger; the two young ladies had contracted an extraordinary friendship on board ship, which had ended in consequence of one of the parties being domesticated in one of the finest houses in Chowringee, and the other taking up her abode in a nameless suburb, girt round with unapproachable bazaars. May Gordon, with a soft sigh, expressed her conviction that Louisa had been compelled by her proud family to give up an acquaintance commenced under happier auspices, and she rejoiced in the prospect of a marriage which would enable her to follow the dictates of an affectionate heart. I abstained from the comments which my better knowledge of the disposition of the young lady suggested, and left my fair friend to the pleasing illusions of youth and inexperience: it would be time enough for her to awake from them, when Mrs. Lovell should shew that she had imbibed the opinions and prejudices of the society of which she formed so distinguished a member.