ing, the East India Company had but a short time
received its charter, and its directors were not the proud rulers which
they have since become. It never was calculated that a company,
originally consisting of a few enterprising merchants, could ever have
established themselves (even by the most successful of mischievous arts)
the controllers of an immense empire, independent of, and anomalous to,
the constitution of England; or that privileges, granted to stimulate
the enterprise of individuals, would have been the ground of a monopoly,
which, like an enormous incubus, should oppress the nation from the
throne to the cottage. They gladly accepted the offers of all
adventurers; and at that period there was as much eagerness on their
part to secure the services of individuals, as there is now on the part
of applicants to be enrolled on the books of the Company.

William, without acquainting his father, entered into an engagement with
the Company, signed it, and was shipped off, with many others, who, less
fortunate, had been nefariously kidnapped for the same destination. He
arrived in India, rose to the rank of captain, and fell in one of the
actions that were fought at this time. The letter which William left on
the table, directed to his father, informing him of the step he had been
induced to take, was torn to atoms, and stamped upon with rage; and the
bitter malediction of the parent was launched with dreadful vehemence
upon the truant son, in the presence of the one who remained.

And yet there was one man, before whom this haughty and vindictive
spirit quailed, and who had the power to soften, although not wholly to
curb, his impetuosity, one who dared to tell him the truth, expose to
him the folly and wickedness of his conduct, and meet the angry flash of
his eye with composure,--one whose character and office secured him from
insult, and who was neither to be frightened nor diverted from his
purpose of doing good. It was the vicar of the parish, who, much as he
disliked the admiral (for Captain De Courcy had latterly obtained the
rank by seniority on the list), continued his visits to the hall, that
he might appeal for the unfortunate. The admiral would willingly have
shaken him off, but his attempts were in vain. The vicar was firm at
his post, and often successfully pleaded the cause of his parishioners,
who were most of them tenants of the admiral. He was unassisted in his
parochial duties by the cura