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166 condition of the negro, and the debates of the House of Commons bear witness to the energy with which he advocated his cause.

He still continued to remind the House of the impolicy as well as injustice of those frequent wars in India, to which ambition and misgovernment are continually giving rise; and, in May 1804, he opposed the motion of thanks to the Marquess Wellesley, and to the officers and soldiers concerned in achieving our late successes in India, &c. on the ground, that it was so worded as to convey an approval of the causes of the war. To his profound knowledge of Indian affairs, Mr. Fox, on the 25th February, 1806, bore the following testimony:—"I cannot avoid," said he, "paying that tribute of praise to the industry, perseverance, and clear-sighted policy of my honourable friend, on questions relative to India, which they so much deserve. In my opinion, there is no one subject of his majesty, or in all his dominions, whose merit, with regard to the affairs of India, can be put in competition with that of my honourable friend." It was, therefore, reasonably expected, that on the accession of Mr. Fox to the ministry, and the death of Lord Corn wallis, Mr. Francis would have been sent thither as governor-general; but for reasons not yet satisfactorily explained, he was passed over, and Lord Lauderdale appointed to that post. On the 29th October, 1806, at the instance of Lord Grenville, he was invested with the Order of the Bath, the only reward which he ever received for his long, active, and meritorious exertions.

The last action of his political life with which we are acquainted, was moving (at a meeting of the freeholders of Middlesex, at the Mermaid, at Hackney, on June 23rd, 1817) a petition against the suspension of the habeas corpus act, drawn up in a style by no means inferior to that of his more early productions. Firm to his principles, scarcely a year passed after his return from India in which he did not send forth some production in support of them; and he was considered in the best informed