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fortune during its existence. It deserves special notice on this occasion, and was a certain guild of the Kalenders, so called from meeting on the kalends of each month, established at Bristol, as a brotherhood of clergy and laymen to keep the ancient records and muniments, not only of the town, but also of other societies in other remote places of the kingdom. It seems, however, that their library and records were burned in the rood-loft of All Saints Church at some time previous to 1318, and no fresh collection was ever made.

We have now passed through an immense mass of valuable materials, perhaps with a step sometimes too light for their real importance; and rather with a view of calling to them the attention of inquirers into matters of historical and archæological interest, than of giving anything like a full account of the fresh stores of information now opened to them. The subscribers to the Early English Text Society have indeed been made shareholders in a mine of new and unsuspected wealth, some of whose treasures of virgin ore we have endeavoured to exhibit as specimens, and we trust we may have provoked sufficient curiosity to procure for it an abundance of workers and visitors.

It remains briefly to notice the independent essay on the history and development of guilds contributed to the volume by Dr. Lujo Brentano, and suggested by Mr. Furnivall, to whom this and many kindred subjects already owe so much. The first organisation of guilds is with every probability referred to a date as early as the eighth century, and the place of their birth was England. While they were extending, and were legally recognised among the Anglo-Saxons, they were discouraged and forbidden on the Continent by the authorities of both Church and State. The guilds were confederations of the weak for mutual protection, and as such found no favour in the eyes of emperors or feudal and municipal superiors. Self-consciousness and self-relying confidence were not to be tolerated politically, while there may have been reasons for ecclesiastical interference arising from the excesses and pagan customs which prevailed at the guild meetings. The social or religious fraternities, however, of the close of the Middle Ages flourished amazingly on the Continent, as well as in this country. We have seen the number in the English townstwelve in Norwich and as many in Lynn; nine in Bishop's Lynn; while abroad there were eighty in Cologne, seventy at Lübeck, and more than a hundred at Hamburgh. Their origin was sometimes almost accidental. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, several merchants and shopmen of

Flensburg were drinking together, and after paying their score six shillings remained over, with which a candle was provided to burn on the altar of the Virgin Mary; and a guild was thus commenced which became, in time, of wealth and importance.

The town-guilds were also of very early date, and may be considered as the germ of the town constitutions, as well as of the more special craft and merchant guilds. We may judge of their power by what follows:

'The earliest notice of such a town-guild upon the Continent contains a noble instance of a daring fulfilment of the duties imposed upon the guild brothers. Magnus, the son of King Nicholas of Denmark, had slain the Duke Canute Lavard, the Alderman and protector of the Sleswig Guild. When King Nicholas, in 1130, came to Hetheby (that is Sleswig), his followers advised him (as an old Danish chronicle relates) not to enter the town, for the townsmen put in force the law with extreme severity within their guild, and did not suffer any one to remain unpunished who had killed or even injured one of their brethren. But the king despised the warning, saying, "What should I fear from these tanners and shoemakers?" Scarcely, however, had he entered the town, when the gates were closed, and at the sound of the guild bell the citizens mustered, seized upon the king, and killed him, with all who tried to defend him.'

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Dr. Brentano points out how the introduction of the custom of giving a preference to the sons of members for admission to the guild, would in process of time disssociate the guild from the general body of citizens in a town, and would in fact lead to the formation of such close corporations as those which existed in most English towns for a long period previous to the passing of the Municipal Reform Act. The guild thus constituted remained as the highest guild' or summum convivium,' and became exclusive and oppressive, in its hold upon and exercise of all the civic offices. Craftsmen were originally members of the town-guilds, but were omitted as the burghers grew wealthy. Afterwards the craft-guilds proper arose in more or less of subordination to the chief guild or corporation, and continued to flourish until they grew themselves to be associations of persons possessing capital, and ceased to perform their original functions. Into the elaborate history of their successors the modern Trades' Unions, and of English legisla tion in regulation and restraint of trade, as given by Dr. Brentano, we forbear to enter as being not altogether germane, although to some extent cognate with the contents of the rest of the volume, but we must fully acknowledge the interest and novelty of the matter brought forward by him.

ART. III.—1. Military Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas, who, by extraordinary talents and enterprise, rose from an obscure situation to the rank of a general in the service of the native Powers in the north-west of India. By WILLIAM FRANCKLIN, Captain of Infantry, &c. &c. Calcutta: 1803.

2. Military Memoir of Lieut.-Col. James Skinner, C.B., for many years a distinguished officer commanding a Corps of Irregular Cavalry in the service of the H. E. I. C. By J. BAILLIE FRASER, Esq., Author of Travels in Khorassan, 'Mecopotamia, and Kourdistan,' &c. &c. London: 1851.

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THE HE object of Colonel Malleson in his highly interesting and instructive History of the French in India' was to describe the fierce struggle for mastery in which the two great nations of Western Europe were engaged on the coast of Coromandel about the middle of the last century. therefore closed his narrative with the capture of Pondicherry by the British forces under Coote in January 1761. The task which he had set himself was then finished, and it did not fall within the scope of his work to notice the soldiers of fortune (not all, indeed, French), who some twenty or thirty years afterwards entered into the service of the native princes in the north-west and centre of India, and taught them, for the first time, the value of disciplined infantry, supported by well-served artillery. For up to that period the Mahrattas, as well as the Rajpoots, placed their reliance almost solely upon the large bodies of cavalry which their system of government enabled them to bring into the field. It is our object to tell the tale how these men, or those among them who were masters of their craft, and who have been wittily called the small change of 'Clive,' taught the art of war to those whom they found trusting in numbers alone, and with no other requisite for conquest than a certain amount of personal valour.

Benoit de Boigne, a native of Savoy, was the first who possessed at once the discernment to see the advantages of this important change in the military system of the Mahrattas, and the influence necessary to bring it into practical operation. He had commenced his career as an officer in the Irish brigade in the service of France, from which he passed, after some years, into that of Russia, and was taken prisoner by the Turks at the siege of Tenedos. Hearing after his release from some Englishmen whom he met at Smyrna that there was a great opening for military adventure in India, he proceeded thither, arriving at Madras early in 1778; where he became an officer

in a regiment of the East India Company's native infantry. But conceiving himself to have been ill-used by Lord Macartney, then the Governor, in the matter of promotion, he threw up his commission and proceeded to Calcutta, being furnished with letters of introduction from the Governor (who would seem to have condoned his conduct in retiring from the service), to Warren Hastings, then the Governor-General of India.

After some vicissitudes of fortune, not very serious, in the north-western provinces, De Boigne determined upon entering the service of one of the native Powers in that quarter, then, as always, engaged in hostilities, and finally attached himself to Madhajee Sindhia, for whom he undertook to raise and discipline two battalions of infantry numbering 850 men in each. This object he accomplished within five months, and for three years after he joined the Mahratta army he did excellent service, and satisfied himself by experience of the soundness of his views in organising regiments of infantry upon the model of the Sepoys whom he had seen at Madras and Calcutta. But he shortly perceived that the body under his immediate command, although it seems to have always borne the brunt of the affairs in which it was engaged, was too small to prove of essential service in deciding the issue of pitched battles, where many thousands were arrayed on either side; and he consequently urged Sindhia to allow him to organise a much larger force on the same system. But that prince, though highly intelligent, was naturally strongly prejudiced in favour of the national arm, and declined at the time De Boigne's offer. He therefore retired to Lucknow, and entered into business as a merchant, in some sort of connexion with a man afterwards known as General Martine, in the service of the Newab Vizier, who built at Lucknow the palace of Constantia and founded by his will a noble charitable establishment for purposes of education in Calcutta, called the Martiniere. But Sindhia shortly thought better of his objections to De Boigne's project, recalled him to his service, and gave him authority, and for the first time ample pecuniary means, to raise a corps of 10,000 men, including his two original battalions, which important measure was promptly carried into execution.

From this time forth, till the day when he unwisely provoked the hostility of the British Government, the triumphs of Sindhia and his successor in the field, and the consequent acquisitions of dominion and power, were rapid and uninterrupted. De Boigne won for his master the bloody battles of Patun and Mairtha; after the former of which, fought on the 20th of June 1790, against the army of the Emperor, supported

by the Rajpoot princes of Jypore and Joudpore, one hundred guns, fifty elephants, two hundred standards, and all the baggage of the defeated army, fell into the hands of the conquerors. These great victories, which were the unquestionable results of the steady valour and discipline of De Boigne's regiments, so thoroughly satisfied Sindhia of the immeasurable superiority of regular troops, that he directed De Boigne to raise two more brigades upon the same model as the first, assigning for their maintenance territory yielding 220,000l. per annum. He also appointed De Boigne commander-in-chief in Hindostan. Subsequently, that general led his army against Holkar, who had taken advantage of Sindhia's absence at Poona to invade and ravage his territory. Holkar had on this occasion four regular 'battalions of foot, under the command of the Chevalier Duder'naig, a gallant French officer, and having succeeded in exploding thirteen of De Boigne's tumbrils at the commence'ment of the action, he was able to offer the most obstinate ' resistance that De Boigne ever experienced. Eventually, however, Dudernaig's four battalions were all but annihilated; 'their guns, thirty-eight in number, all taken, and almost all their European officers were killed.' This battle, which was fought near the village of Lukhairee in September 1792, appears to have been the last serious affair in which De Boigne was engaged.

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In 1794 Madhajee Sindhia died, and was succeeded by his grand nephew, Dowlut Rao, greatly to whose dissatisfaction De Boigne, finding his health beginning to fail him, in consequence of his unceasing labours and anxieties, determined to retire in 1796. He was, beyond all comparison, the best soldier and the best man who rose to supreme command in the service of any of the Mahratta princes. His character was unstained by any act of treachery or cruelty. He appears to have been a man of undaunted resolution, and of that prompt decision in circumstances of imminent danger which is more rare and more valuable than merely animal courage. And he served the masters, who appear to have implicitly trusted him, zealously and loyally. But his character has been well and fully delineated by an officer who served under him for a long period.

'De Boigne is formed by nature to guide and to command. His school acquirements are not much above mediocrity; but he is a tolerable Latin scholar, and reads and writes and speaks French, Italian, Persian, Hindostanee, and English fluently. He is an attentive observer of the manners and dispositions of men, affable and goodhumoured, but resolute and firm; he has entire command over his passions. On the grand stage where he has acted a brilliant

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