affinity; and I was (I must confess it,) wrong in supposing, for a moment, that my advice, or any arguments I could adduce, could, under any circumstances, permanently divert the Governor of Fort St. George into a course that mixed feeling, and consideration for human failings, with the established maxims of his ordinary rule. I should have known better; and in fact I did, as my letters[68] before I went to Madras prove: but, when on the spot, my heart conquered my head, and I tried an impossibility: but I never shall regret the attempt, nor blush for having recommended principles of action that are congenial to the best feelings of human nature, that are calculated to make Government an object of rational attachment, and to give the mind a generous pride in submission and obedience; and which, so far from being of dangerous example, and subversive of order, are familiar in the practice to every free state, and have never been rejected in the most despotic, when such have been governed by great and wise rules. FOOTNOTES: [40] These were the persons who fabricated those reports that were circulated and believed by numbers, respecting promises of aid and support from the officers of Bengal and Bombay. [41] _This fear of being thought afraid_, is, perhaps, of all motives of human action one of the weakest, though it wears a mask of boldness, and under that is often productive of infinite mischief. [42] I thought so at that period, though I have been since convinced I was mistaken. [43] Sir George Barlow not only thought so, but must, from the Governor General's letter to the secret committee of the 12th of October 1809, have conveyed the same impression to Lord Minto. The merit of foresight will not assuredly be claimed as one among the talents that were displayed by the Governor of Fort St. George upon this memorable occasion. [44] See Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm's letter to General Gowdie, in the Appendix. [45] Lieutenant Maitland, the dismissed quarter-master, was ordered to command the marines; and Lieutenant Forbes, who had been banished to Condapilly, was directed to proceed to relieve an officer of the regiment on duty at Prince of Wales's Island. This second punishment was a torturing revival of those wrongs, of which not only the parties, but all the officers of the corps, had before, with some justice, complained. [46] Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay afterwards returned me the original note.