348 ([return])
[ Note 2 U, p. 348. Several European nations had settlements at Surat, which was one of the most frequented cities of the East, from the great concourse of Mahometan pilgrims, who make it their road from India, in their visits to the tomb of their prophet at Mecca. In order to keep the seas clear of pirates between Surat and the gulf of Arabia and Persia, the mogul had been at the annual expense of a large ship, fitted out on purpose to carry the pilgrims to Judda, which is within a small distance of Mecca. For the security of this ship, as well as to protect the trade of Surat, he granted to his admiral, the fiddee, chief of a colony of caffrees, or blacks, a revenue called the tanka, to the value of three lacks of rupees, amounting to above thirty-seven thousand pounds, arising partly from the adjacent lands, and partly from the revenues of Surat, which were paid him yearly by the governor of the castle, who is appointed by the mogul to keep the city under proper subjection, without, however, interfering with the government of it.]
357 ([return])
[ Note 2 X, p. 357. The ministry having resolved to send a body of forces to America, to act in conjunction with the provincial troops raised on that continent, it became necessary that the mutiny act should be rendered more clear and extensive. When this bill, therefore, fell under consideration, it was improved with a new clause, providing, “That all officers and soldiers of any troops being mustered and in pay, which are or shall be raised in any of the British provinces in America, by authority of the respective governors or governments thereof, shall at all times, and in all places, when they happen to join or act in conjunction with his majesty’s British forces, be liable to martial law and discipline, in like manner, to all intents and purposes, as the British forces are; and shall be subject to the same trial, penalties, and punishment.”]
364 ([return])
[ Note 2 Y, p. 364. The king, on his side, promised to pay to the landgrave, for these succours, eighty crowns banco, by way of levy-money, for every trooper or dragoon duly armed and mounted, and thirty crowns banco for every foot soldier; the crown to be reckoned at fifty-three sols of Holland, or at four shillings and ninepence three farthings English money; and also to pay to his serene highness, for the eight thousand men, an annual subsidy of an hundred and fifty thousand crowns banco, during the four years, to commence from the day of signing the treaty; which subsidy was to be increased to three hundred thousand crowns yearly, from the time of requiring the troops, to the time of their entering into British pay; and in case of their being dismissed, the said subsidy of three hundred thousand crowns was then to revive and be continued during the residue of the term: but, if twelve thousand men were demanded and furnished, the subsidy was then to be increased in proportion; and in case the king of Great Britain should at any time think fit to send back these troops before the expiration of the treaty, notice thereof was to be given to his serene highness three months beforehand: one month’s pay was to be allowed them for their return, and they were to be furnished gratis with the necessary transport vessels.]
372 ([return])
[ Note 2 Z, p. 372. It is with pleasure we seize this opportunity of recording an instance of gallantry and patriotism in a British officer, which would have done honour to the character of a Roman tribune. Captain Cunningham, an accomplished young gentleman, who acted as engineer in second at Minorca, being preferred to a majority at home, and recalled to his regiment by an express order, had repaired with his family to Nice in Italy, where he waited for the opportunity of a ship bound for England, when he received certain intelligence that the French armament was destined for the place he had quitted. His lady, whom he tenderly loved, was just delivered, and two of his children were dangerously ill of the small-pox. He recollected that the chief engineer at Minorca was infirm, and indeed disabled by the gout, and that many things were wanting for the defence of the fortress. His zeal for the honour and service of his country immediately triumphed over the calls of tenderness and of nature. He expended a considerable sum of money in purchasing timber for the platforms, and other necessaries for the garrison; hired a ship for transporting them thither; and tearing himself from his wife and children, thus left among strangers in a foreign country, embarked again for Minorca, where he knew he should be in a peculiar manner exposed to all the dangers of a furious siege. In the course of this desperate service he acquitted himself with that vigilance, skill, and active courage, which he had on divers former occasions displayed, until the assault was given to the queen’s bastion; when, mixing with the enemy, sword in hand, he was disabled in his right arm by the shot of a musket and the thrust of a bayonet. His behaviour was so acceptable to his sovereign, that when he returned to England he was preferred to the rank of colonel in the Guards. He afterwards acted as chief engineer in the attempts and descents which were made on the French coast. Though grievously maimed, he accepted the same office in the expedition to Guadaloupe, where he died universally regretted.]
378 ([return])
[ Note 3 A, p. 378. When the French ambassador returned to London, he proposed that orders should be immediately despatched to the English governors in America, with express orders to desist from any new undertaking, and all acts of hostility; but with regard to the lands on the Ohio, to put, without delay, matters on the same footing in which they stood before the late war, that the respective claims of both nations might be amicably referred to the commissaries at Paris. The British court agreed to the cessation of hostilities, and the discussion of the disputes by the ministers of the two crowns, on condition that all the possessions in America should be previously put in the situation prescribed by the treaty of Utrecht, confirmed by that of Aix-la-Chapelle. The French ministry, instead of complying with this condition, produced an evasive draft of a preliminary convention, and this was answered by a counter-proposal. At length the ambassador of France demanded, as preliminary conditions, that Great Britain would renounce all claim to the south coast of the river St. Laurence, and the lakes that discharge themselves into that river; cede to the French twenty leagues of country lying along the river of Fundy, which discovers Acadia, or Nova Scotia; and all the land between the rivers Ohio and Ouabache. A memorial was afterwards presented on the same subject, including the affairs of the neutral islands in the West Indies; but this was amply refuted in another piece, in which the British ministry observed, that even at this very opening of the commission established in Paris, for terminating amicably the disputes in North America, the French invaded Nova Scotia, erected three forts in the heart of that province, and would have destroyed the English settlement at Halifax, had they not been prevented: that the like hostilities were committed upon his Britannic majesty’s subjects on the Ohio and Indian lakes, where the governors appointed by the French king, without any shadow of right, prohibited the English from trading; seized their traders by force, and sent them prisoners to France; invaded the territories of Virginia, attacked a fort that covered its frontier, and, to secure their usurpations, erected, with an armed force, a chain of forts on the lands which they had invaded; that his Britannic majesty had complained of these hostilities to the court of Versailles, but without effect; so that he found himself obliged to provide for the security of his subjects; and as the encroachments made by France were hostile, it could never be unlawful, or irreconcile-able with the assurance of his majesty’s peaceable disposition, to repel an aggressor; and that the same motive of self-defence had forced him to seize the French ships and sailors, in order to deprive that court of the means of making an invasion, with which their ministers in all the courts of Europe had menaced England.]