of his style, but which is by no means too strong for the occasion. "Thus," says he, "the two parties, actuated by mutual rage, but cooped up within the narrow limits of the law, levelled with poisoned daggers the most deadly blows against each other's breast, and buried in their factious divisions all regard to truth, honour, and humanity."

10. From this terrible evil the Revolution set us free. The law which secured to the judges their seats during life or good behaviour did something. The law 'subsequently passed for regulating trials in cases of treason did much more. The provisions of that law show, indeed, very little legislative skill. It is not framed on the principle of securing the innocent, but on the principle of giving a great chance of escape to the accused, whether innocent or guilty. This, however, is decidedly a fault on the right side. The evil produced by the occasional escape of a bad citizen is not to be compared with the evils of that Reign of Terror, for such it was, which preceded the Revolution. Since the passing of this law, scarcely one single person has suffered death in England as a traitor, who had not been convicted on overwhelming evidence, to the satisfaction of all parties, of the highest crime against the State.

11. Attempts have been made, in times of great excitement, to bring in persons guilty of high treason for acts which, though sometimes highly blamable, did not necessarily imply a design falling within the legal definition of treason. All those attempts have failed. During a hundred and forty years no statesman, while engaged in constitutional opposition to a government, has had the axe before his eyes. The smallest minorities struggling against the most powerful majorities in the most agitated times have felt themselves perfectly secure. Pulteney and Fox 10 were the two most distinguished leaders of Opposition since the Revolution. Both were personally obnoxious to the But the utmost harm that the utmost anger of the

court.

court could do to them was to strike off the " Right Honourable" from before their names.

LORD MACAULAY: History of England.

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10. THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA,

1756 A.D.

[The terrible disaster described in the following passage led to the conquest of Bengal by England. For trading purposes, the English had established a settle

ment at Fort William, near Calcutta, in 1698. Surajah Dowlah (properly Sujahud-Dowlah) the Nabob of Bengal, attacked and captured Fort William with an army of 70,000 men in June 1756. It was then that he thrust his prisoners into the Black Hole. To avenge this cruelty and insult, Robert Clive sailed from Madras with a small but determined army. He landed at one of the mouths of the Ganges in December, and on January 2nd he gained over Surajah Dowlah the great victory of Plassey, which shattered the power of the Nabob and laid the foundation of the English Empire in India.]

1. From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a very 'exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would not 'compensate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some other quarter.

2. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found. The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to fortify their settlement without special permission from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.

3. The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix1 to become statesmen and sol

diers. Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified and 'bewildered by the approaching danger. The

governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah's cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship. The military commandant thought that he could not do better than follow so good an example.

4. The fort was taken after a feeble 'resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him. His Highness talked about the 'insolence of the English, and grumbled at the smallness of the treasure which he had found; but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest.

5. Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous 'retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left at the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European 'malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans.

6. The number of the prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They 'expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives

were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.

7. Nothing in history or in fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the jailers. But the answer was, that nothing could be done without the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him.

8. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The jailers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings.

9. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers. would not have known, staggered one by one out of the 'charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it 'promiscuously, and covered up.

10. But these things, which, after the lapse of more than eighty years, cannot be told or read without horror, awakened neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of the