which we could easily have done, a speedy and equally glorious end would have been put to the war, and much blood and treasure spared without further exertions. The immediate effect of that day was to separate the Army of the Mogul from that of the Vizier. The Mogul surrendered into our hands and made us magnificent presents, after which we marched to Benares and settled the Articles of Capitulation, when some very infamous conduct took place. A British officer was known to betray his trust and received a large bribe."

A hard campaign followed, under the leadership of Sir Robert Fletcher, who occupied Allahabad on the 11th of February 1765. "Major Munro," we are told, left the army within few days after the battle of Buxar, "loaded with money and jewels." Hamilton himself aocompanied Fletcher on his march to Chunargur, Allahabad, and Juanpore, and in the subsequent pursuit of Sumroo in the direction of Lucknow - a pursuit which was continued until an order of recall to Allahabad reached the force from Clive, who, landing at Madras early in the year, now assumed once more the control of the army in India.

On his return to Allahabad, Hamilton was placed in command of the Fort at that station, and was entrusted with the custody of the person of the Great Mogul. "In the course of his campaign," Hamilton remarks, "Sir Robert

Fletcher had saved the country of Nisaphkawn, in consequence of which that ruler made Sir Robert and his family a present of two lacks (sic) of rupees, the half of which was meant for me, but was never paid." He (Hamilton) remained at Allahabad for about three months, during which period Clive and his staff arrived at Benares. He mentions that on one occasion he was detached to the latter eity with 200 horse to escort Clive from Benares to Allahabad, where the final peace negotiations with the Mogul and his Vizier were completed. "Carnac," we read, "who had been sent back to Europe as a disgraced Major, was now returned with Lord Clive as a Major-General," and was once more reinstated in command, "the brave Sir Robert Fletcher" being relegated to a subordinate position under him. Hamilton seems to have found his position as commandant at Allahabad and custodian of the Mogul an extremely lucrative one, and when pressed by Carnac to resume his old position on the staff, he first declined the offer. Taunted, however, by Carnac with the suggestion that he must be "tired of fighting," Hamilton reluotantly resigned his appointment at Allahabad into the hands of a Major Dow, who "thereby made his fortune." He then rejoined the army in the field and was ordered on service, being severely wounded in the hip "in an attack on Morero, the famous Moratto

General." Thus incapacitated, he received instructions to return to his own Presidency of Bombay, and shortly afterwards he embarked at Caloutta, "only thirteen of the brave fellows" who had accompanied him with the reinforcements from Bombay being available to return with him.

The ship in which he sailed was nearly wrecked on the coast of Ceylon, put into Point de Galle, and eventually reached her destination, when Hamilton resumed his former duties. He remained at Bombay for about a year, being offered, he tells us, the command of an expedition to Persia, the departure of which was, however, countermanded. His health was failing him greatly, and after trying a visit to Fort Victoria for the benefit of the "baths," during which excursion he "made an acquaintance with the mermaids of the river Banooota," he returned to Bombay, when the Governor, Mr Cromland, who was sailing for England, induced Hamilton to accompany him on leave of

absence.

In January 1769 he sailed for home in the Speaker, Captain Dewar. Twelve years had elapsed since he had received the slightest tidings of his family at Geneva, though he had written to Mr Duval, a London friend of his cousin, the late Baron de Vassarot, asking him to remit some of his prize money for the relief of his mother's necessities. The Speaker touched at St Helena, and in July Hamilton once more set foot in old England.

On landing he proceeded direct to London, and "got into Tom's Coffee House, opposite the Exchange," with his two black servants. He immediately wrote a letter to Lord Abercorn and despatched it to the latter's house in Cavendish Square, only, however, to receive a reply that his lordship was absent in Sootland. Hamilton speaks in his memoir of the terrible feeling of depression which then came over him from his sense of loneliness in the world and from the debilitated state of his health, broken down as it was from the effects of his wounds and the dropsy from which he was now suffering. He bethought himself, however, of Mr Duval, De Vassarot's friend, whom he at once visited, being fortunate enough to find him at home at his residence in the City.

"I found," he writes, "Mr Duval employed in setting a necklace of pearls and diamonds for Lady Clive, valued at £28,000, in which I recognised the identical jewels which had been publicly offered by the Vizier of the Mogul to Lord Clive, which in public had been refused, but had found some means of getting into his possession afterwards. Lord Clive told the Vizier that he was come to prevent everything of the kind, and positively prohibited that which was presented to me by Nisaphkawn and which my blood and services had so dearly purchased!

"I afterwards saw Lord Clive in England, the most wretched of men, and witnessed

afterwards the death of many so well known during these conflicts in India, who all afforded a tremendous proof of the vanity of such pursuits as theirs had been."

Mr Duval was able to give Hamilton the comforting assurance that his mother was alive and well, and the sad news that his only brother had died in London "in afflicting circumstances."

At the latter end of August 1769, after several enjoyable weeks spent in the agreeable society of Mr Duval, Hamilton set out for Savoy upon a visit to his mother. The splendid view from Mount Jura, as he approached his old home at Thonex, recalled to him his happy boyhood and the days when he used to swim as a lad in the Lake of Geneva, and he recounts that the sight of the glistening snow on the mountain-tops drew from his two native servants the exelamation, "Oh! what a quantity of sugar!"

Geneva at the time of his visit was invested by French troops, but as peace had been declared in 1762 between France and Great Britain, he found that the "regimentals" in which he travelled were a sufficient passport through their lines, the French officer who stopped him at Nion merely remarking when he recognised the British uniform, "En voilà assez!"

"M. de Voltaire," he tells us,

"was olose by at Pregny and had opened his little theatre to entertain all the French officers. He immediately came out with my cousin, M. Hubert, paid my country and myself the handsomest compliments, and having been informed that the Mogul had been my prisoner, that subject occasioned much enquiry. He would not permit me to go on without giving every proof of the greatest kindness, after dinner conducting me to his theatre where was representing that evening a little piece composed by himself."

Passing on to his beautifully situated home at Thonex, overlooking the Lake of Geneva and facing Mont Blanc, Hamilton now once again found

himself reunited to his mother and to a nephew and niece, the charming children of his sister, Madame de Salle, who had died during his absence in India. Though he found many debts to liquidate out of the apparently ample means which he had accumulated in the East, he seems to have spent four months of unalloyed happiness in the place of his birth, being fêted, as he says, after all his exploits and experienoes abroad, "comme la bête eurieuse pour tout le pays."

From Savoy he returned to Paris, where he was received with the utmost affection by several of his old schoolfellows of his early Geneva days: Messieurs Necker,1 Thel

his friend, the learned Dooter Tronchin, predicted an early termination to his life should he endeavour to return to a hot climate.

In London, however, his leave of absence was extended for a further period of twelve months, and he tells us that, after an interview with the Duke of Richmond, he found himself summoned to the Bar of the House of Commons to give an account of the state of the army in India, the mutiny at Patna, and other matters. Of this experience he remarks: "I had imagined that the House of Commons had something about it very awful and dignified, but I had not been ten minutes at the Bar until I felt perfectly at ease. During two hours and three-quarters I underwent a strict examination, and, as some matters began to press rather hard upon some of the friends of Lord Clive, likewise some home questions being put from the opposite side, which would have led to replies no less decided against Lord Clive's members, of which there were seven in the House, the Speaker interposed and begged to put an end to the discussion, observing that I was quite exhausted; so I was permitted to withdraw."

Hamilton's health now took a turn for the worse, and, advised by Lord and Lady Abercorn, he consulted Doctor Fothergill,1 a London physician

of the highest repute, who said he would not be answerable for his life if he stayed a week longer in London, and ordered him to Bristol Hot wells, where he joined a congenial circle of friends and fellow-patients, which included the Bishop of Chichester (Dr Ashburnham), Sir Cornwallis and Lady Maude (afterwards Lord and Lady Hawarden), and Mr and Lady Bridget Lane. From Clifton he moved to Tunbridge Wells, where he stayed with Lady Abercorn, and had the pleasure of meeting the Duke of Leeds, his "very old acquaintance" the Duchess of of Hamilton, the Countess of Pembroke, Lord and Lady Spencer, and many others.

About this time he received the mortifying intelligence that his rooms in London, containing his papers, documents, naval logs, military notes, books, and many valuable Indian shawls, palankeens, &c., had been destroyed by fire. Some few of these latter articles were, however, recovered, for it transpired that his landlady had insured her premises, removed his possessions to a pawnbroker's, and then set a light to the house. The woman was transported, and Hamilton subsequently learned that she had taken in Charles Fox, the statesman, to the tune of £1500.

After spending a winter