amples,
it was resolved to raise a screen between the ministry and popular
hatred by the cruel and disgraceful destruction of Lally. On his arrival
in France he was thrown into the Bastille, and this place being deemed
too honourable for him, he was subsequently thrown into a common
prison. An accusation, consisting of vague or frivolous imputations, was
preferred against him; and nothing whatever was proved, except that his
conduct did not come up to the very perfection of prudence and wisdom,
and that he had displayed the greatest ardour in the service, the
greatest disinterestedness, fidelity, and perseverance, with no common
share of military talent and of mental resources. The grand tribunal of
the nation, the parliament of Paris, found no difficulty in seconding
the wishes of the ministry, and the artificial cry of the day, by
condemning him to an ignominious death. Lally, confident in his
innocence, had never once anticipated the possibility of any other
sentence than that of an honourable acquittal; and when it was read
to him in his dungeon, he was thrown into an agony of surprise and
indignation, and taking up a pair of compasses with which he had been
sketching a chart of the Coromandel coast, he struck at his proud,
indignant heart; but his arm was held by one of the functionaries in
attendance. With indecent precipitation he was executed on that very
day. He was dragged through the streets of Paris in a dung-cart, and,
lest he should address the people, a gag was stuffed into his mouth,
so large as to project beyond his lips. Voltaire, who had already
signalized his pen by some memorable interpositions in favour of justice
and the oppressed, exerted himself to expose, in a clear light, the real
circumstances of this fearful transaction, which Mr. Orme scruples not
to call 'a murder committed by the sword of justice.'"

In the meantime Colonel Clive, who had deposed the Surajah Dowla, Nabob
of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and had raised Meer Jaffier Ali Khan to
that dignity, as recorded in a previous page in Smollet's division
of this history, and who had rendered other important services to the
British cause in India, had arrived in England, where he was received
with all honour. He was raised to the Irish peerage by the title of
Baron Clive of Plaissey--the name of the place where he had defeated the
nabob--and was flattered by the prospect of a speedy elevation to the
English peerage, which would give him a