58 



EASTERN HINDOOSTAN. 



into the river ; his Tons lifted up and daflied before his face on 

 the hard floors, and himfclf flung recumbent, and his eye-balls 

 torn from their fockets by the daggers of mercilefs favages, by 

 order of a Rohilla ruffian *. A ftill more wondrous fcene would 

 have paired before his eyes : the defcendants of thofe mer- 

 chants, thofe humble fuppliants to whom he had granted a little 

 tra6l of o-round, riling into a great people ; he would have feen 

 them affume the ftate and power of natural monarchs ; depofe 

 or create kings and princes, as fuited their interefts ; wage fierce 

 wars with other European nations on the Indian fliores, Euro- 

 peans who firft came among them in the fame humble guife. 

 He would have feen them traverfe the great empire with their 

 armies from eail to weft, from north to fouth : flied deluges of 

 blood to maintain their wrongful clames : mutual maflacres 

 arife before his eyes ! Struck with horrors fucceeding horrors, 

 he would have dafhed to pieces the terrific glafs, and left to fu- 

 ture times to unfold the eventful afts that at prefent we are 

 forbidden to know, forbidden to reveal ! Some hiflorian may 

 arife, and, like Horatio^ in Hamlet •, high on the ftage, deliver 

 the eventful hiftory, and 



Speak to the yet unknowing world. 

 How thefe things came about : So fliall you hear 

 Of cruel, bloody, and unnatural adls : 

 Of accidental judgments, cafual flaughters : 

 Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd caufe : 

 And in this upfliot, purpofes miftook 

 Fall'n on the inventors heads. 

 * Hill. Tranfactions bv Jonathan Scotf, Eiq. vol. ii, part v. p. 293. 



The 



