Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: do wrong. They would have been very bad judges of an 1 /accusation brought against Jenkinson or against Wilkes. But the question respecting Clive was not a party question; and the House accordingly acted with the good sense and good s feeling which may always be expected from an assembly of English gentlemen, not bunded by faction. 145. The equitable and temperate proceedings of the British Parliament were set off to the greatest advantage by a foil. The wretched government of Louis the Fifteenth had murdered, 10 directly or indirectly, almost every Frenchman who had served his country with distinction in the East. Labourdonnais was flung into the Bastile,1 and, after years of suffering, left it only to die. Dupleix, stripped of his immense fortune, and brokenhearted by humiliating attendance in antechambers,2 sank into 1s an obscure grave. Lally was dragged to the common place of execution with a gag between his lips. The Commons of England, on the other hand, treated their living captain with that y discriminating justice which is seldom shown except to the dead. They laid down sound general principles; they delicately 20 pointed out where he had deviated from those principles; and they tempered the gentle censure with liberal eulogy. The contrast struck Voltaire, always partial to England, and always eager to expose the abuses of the Parliaments of France. Indeed he seems, at this time, to have meditated a history of the 25 conquest of Bengal. He mentioned his design to Dr. Moore, when that amusing writer visited him at Ferney. Wedderburn took great interest in the matter, and pressed Clive to furnish materials. Had the plan been carried into execution, we have /' no doubt that Voltaire would have produced a book containing 30 much lively a...