338 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[[MARCH, 



man, Captain Read, he obtained an ap- 

 pointment in the Intelligence Department, 

 under his friend and patron. Two years 

 after, however, when Tippoo invaded Tra- 

 vancore, he resumed his military duties, 

 and continued thus employed till the peace 

 of 1792, when he again had the good for- 

 tune to join Captain, then Colonel Read, in 

 the Baramahl, a newly ceded territory, as his 

 assistant, in bringing it usefully under the 

 Company's dominion surveying and leas- 

 ing. The civil department at the time, 

 was miserably defective the military, gene- 

 rally, were found to be the better qualified, 

 and Munro's indefatigable diligence was 

 conspicuous among them. In this employ- 

 ment he continued till Tippoo's last explo- 

 sion in 1709, when with Colonel Read and 

 the force collected in the Baramahl, he 

 marched to Seringapatam arriving too late 

 for the storming, but in time to be ap- 

 pointed joint-secretary with Malcolm, the 

 present discreet governor of Bombay, to the 

 commission for arranging the partition-treaty. 

 Instead of returning, after the commis- 

 sion terminated, to Baramahl, where he ex- 

 pected to succeed Colonel Read, he was di- 

 rected to proceed to Canara, a new acqui- 

 sition on the western coast, lying between 

 the Mahrattas and Travancore, an extent 

 of 180 miles, and reaching towards the inte- 

 rior, above the Ghauts. This province, 

 though not quite to Munro's taste, was, 

 however, a very important appointment, 

 and shewed the sense his superiors enter- 

 tained of his qualifications for bringing 

 order out of chaos. This task successfully 

 accomplished, he solicited a removal, and 

 especially sought a similar appointment in 

 the countries newly ceded by the Nizam, 

 as an indemnity for the pay of the troops 

 furnished by the Company. He obtained his 

 wish eventually, and held the office, almost 

 a regal one, till 1807, when, having then 

 been twenty-seven years in India, he re- 

 signed his employment, and returned to 

 England, in the hope of once more seeing 

 his parents, then far advanced in years, and 

 whose old age he had largely contributed to 

 make comfortable. Not content with inac- 

 tivity, he went as a volunteer on the Wal- 

 cheren expedition ; and was detained in 

 England longer than usual with East-In- 

 dians, partly by the business of the Com- 

 pany ; for in 1811, he attended, on their 

 part, the committee of the House of Com- 

 mons, and gave evidence on the state of 

 India. Soon after, the judicial system of 

 India seemed to call for inquiry, and Colonel 

 Munro was placed at the head of the com- 

 mission despatched for the purpose to India 

 in 1814. In this inquiry, he was actively 

 but ineffectually engaged till the Pindaree 

 warin 1817jWhenhe solicited the Governor 

 General for professional employment ; and, 

 notwithstanding Mr. G.'s account of his 

 extreme diffidence and modesty, obtained 

 it only by dint of importunity ; nor was 

 he very well pleased with his treatment 



or appointments at any period of the two 

 campaigns. What he could do, he doubt- 

 less did ; but that was comparatively 

 little, and such as certainly calls not for 

 the magniloquence employed in celebrating 

 it. At the close of 1818, he once more 

 resigned his employments, and returned to 

 England, with no intention of revisiting 

 India again ; but scarcely had he landed, 

 when a successor was wanted for Mr. Elliott, 

 and General Munro was named Governor 

 of Madras. As governor of that Presi- 

 dency, he was detained beyond his wishes 

 by the apparent necessity of staying to see 

 ouf the Burmese war, for the conduct of 

 which his advice had been frequently taken. 

 The time for his return was already fixed, 

 when he fell a sacrifice to the scourge of the 

 country, cholera morbus, in 1820. 



Mr. Gleig's labours occupy but a small 

 portion of the volumes Sir Thomas's cor- 

 respondence and papers on India questions 

 filling, perhaps, seven-eighths of the pages. 

 Among the correspondence are a number of 

 letters from the Duke of Wellington, then 

 Major-General Wellesley sufficiently re- 

 markable for their business-like language, 

 and the absence of all nonsense. A little 

 morceau caught our eyes, which may be 

 thought characteristic. 



As for the wishes of the people, particularly 

 in this country, I put them out of the ques- 

 tion. They are the only philosophers about their 

 governors that ever I met with if indifference 

 constitutes that character. 



The Adventures of an Irish Gentleman : 

 3 vols. 12mo. 1830. These adventures are 

 not at all conceived in the spirit of the day, 

 nor at all calculated to please the readers of 

 fashionable novels ; they do not contribute 

 to develope one complicated tale, nor, 

 though too full of entanglements of an ama- 

 tory kind, do they constitute a love-story, nor 

 will they read like one. They are not, more- 

 over, shaped to convey any peculiar set of 

 opinions, or point to any common object, 

 moral or political ; but are simply a succes- 

 sion of incidents befalling the same indi- 

 vidual, most of them of the extraordinary 

 cast, many of them low and coarse, but 

 still all of them occurring, or at least ac- 

 counted for, naturally enough. Though 

 taught to consider himself as the football 

 of fortune, the hero had, early, sense 

 enough to see that by far the larger portion 

 of the calamities of life were the results of 

 indiscretion. The style of narrative is 

 flowing and spirited ; the details indicate a 

 variety of information, and the proofs are 

 abundant of a large acquaintance with the 

 springs of actual life. We have seen no- 

 thing for a long time that more reminded 

 us of Smollett. The writer is plainly a ma- 

 ture and intelligent person. 



The hero is the son of an Irish gentle- 

 man, of a class depressed by their political 

 condition, the want of gentlemanly edu- 

 cation, and the absence of gentlemanly 



