Had circumstances not led to the display of British power at the time when great prizes were sure to follow even from minor exertions, England never could have become mistress of India. Had the English remained traders forty years longer,--or even for half that time, perhaps,--they would have encountered very different foes from those which they overthrew so easily when forced to fight for property and life. India was breaking up in 1757, and the process of reformation was about to begin. Had not the English been brought into the vast arena, either a number of powerful monarchies would have been formed, or the whole country would have passed under some new dynasty, which would have revived the power of the state with that rapidity which is so often exhibited in the East, when new and able men assume the reins of government. Hyder Ali might have made himself the master of all India, had it been his lot to contend only with native rulers and native races. Had this been the course of events, and had circumstances brought him into collision with the East India Company when he had made himself the Moghul's successor, can it be believed that he would have experienced any more difficulty in dealing with them than was found by Aurungzebe? We know that the English found in Hyder a very able foe, with but limited means at his disposal, and when they were masters of half the country, and had been almost uniformly victorious. Can it be supposed that they could have effected anything against all India, ruled by so consummate a statesman as Hyder Ali? There seems to have been something providential in the events that caused them to pass from traders to conquerors, at the only time when such a transition could be made either with safety or success. That their career of conquest has been occasionally marked by injustice and crime proves nothing against the position that they may have been appointed by a higher Power to work out a revolution in the East. "The dark mystery of the moral world," in this as in a thousand other instances, remains impenetrable. Heaven selects its own agents, and all that it becomes us to say concerning such relations is, that they do not appear in all cases to be made from among men specially entitled to the honors of canonisation.