of the clearest conviction. The institutions favourable to freedom, and the privileges which should be enjoyed by the subjects of all well-governed states, the mention of which fills the minds of ordinary men with terror and alarm, appear to them, as they will appear to our posterity, as clearly as the sun in the firmament, and cause them to marvel at our ignorance, as we do now at the wisdom of our ancestors. In temporal as well as spiritual matters, the multitude behold things " as through a glass darkly," and, like men of defective vision, they doubt and even dispute the nature and existence of what they cannot perceive or comprehend, merely because their intellectual organs are less powerful than those of the "shining lights," whom they can decry, though they cannot pierce the veil by which their superior knowledge is shrouded from their weak and erring sight.

To the great mass of the British community, it will, for these reasons, no doubt still appear,-that India is a well-governed country that it would be dangerous to introduce knowledge or permit discussion on political questions among its people-that its rulers ought not to be responsible to public opinion there-but that, though England is many thousand miles distant, and the utmost indifference prevails throughout all classes of its inhabitants, as to the good or evil that is happening in their remote possessions, yet that a responsibility to public opinion in this country is quite sufficient to operate as a check on the misconduct of rulers in that. It will appear of no importance in their estimation, that owing to the absence of all public discussion there, we cannot even get at a knowledge of the facts of such misdeeds, except through the information of the parties exercising the power, and consequently interested in practising deception; nor will it weigh a feather with them to know that even could we get the facts, public opinion will not be pronounced upon them here, where no class is suffici ently interested in the matter to command the sympathies of the rest. It is enough that the system is considered, by the few who profit by its defects, to "work well,"-though it entails misery and suffering without end on the many. It is enough that it has been; and this is the strongest argument that such minds can comprehend as a reason why it should still continue to be. It is of no consequence that ignorance, and suffering, and crime, have desolated the fairest portions of the Eastern world, and keep even the still inhabited portions in the lowest stage of civilizationthings have prospered (as they contend) under all these circumstances, and therefore they are still to remain unaltered. If the justice of this decision be admitted, then human sacrifices, murder, incest, rapine, violence, perjury, cruelty and oppression, might still be suffered to continue ad infinitum, under the "countenance and protection" of British power, and British influence, rather than disturb the self-love, and humble the vain pretensions, of some

half-dozen Secretaries, a Governor General, and (oh! more monstrous than all) a British Judge upon the bench, who might take it upon themselves to violate the laws, by regulations framed to keep millions in ignorance, merely to secure to themselves the privilege of acting as they please with impunity, and shielding themselves from that public scrutiny, to which all innocent and honourable men ought to be, and indeed always are, proud

to submit.

We have portrayed the evil. Let us look around us for the source from which we may at least hope for good. India is now in a more deplorable state, as it regards the enjoyment of intellectual freedom, than she has ever been since the British flag waved in dominion over her distant hills and plains. We have absolutely retrograded, as far as the existence of securities for good government is a criterion of advance or retreat. We found the country in the possession of a people among whom the utmost freedom of speech and writing on the conduct of their rulers prevailed.* We permitted a Free Press among the earliest English settlers, and in the most dangerous times. As our dominion extended, and our power became more consolidated and secured, the despotism of Lord Wellesley imposed a censorship on the Press. A few years afterwards, when our conquests were spread over a still wider range of territory, and no power disputed our supremacy, this censorship (under which some freedom was occasionally enjoyed) gave place, under Lord Hastings, to other restrictions, forbidding any strictures on the public acts of public men connected with the Government at home or abroad, and threatening banishment for any breach of them. An acting Governor General, and an acting Chief Justice, Mr. Adam and Sir Francis Macnaghten, next completed the degradation of the Press, by passing, during their brief and temporary authority, a licensing law more odious than the strictest censorship that ever existed, and fitter for the Inquisition, or the Sublime Porte of the Turks, than for a British settlement; and Lord Amherst has given the final death-blow to even the faint expectation of improvement that was left, by actually suppressing and putting down entirely the only Journal that dared to contend for the rights of Englishmen at the hazard of every thing its projector and conductor had at stake in the world.

Where then is our hope? We have none in the laws of this country for these require impossibilities as to evidence of motive, and the fortunes of plundered provinces to boot, before any pro

"I scruple not to affirm, that the regions over which we rule, down to the arrival of the Europeans in the East, enjoyed a freedom as extensive as any part of Europe, before the invention of the press; for on the only means of circulating knowledge without type, on written books, there was no restriction." See the eloquent speech of Mr. Stavely on the press of India-Oriental Herald, vol. 1. App. p. xii.

gress can be made towards obtaining redress. We have but little in the King and his Council: because they may put off appeals till the resources and the life of the injured appellant are both exhausted, in the protracted anxiety and suspense of that "Hope deferred," which "maketh the heart sick." We have still less in the Senate of the land: for those who have shown themselves the most decided enemies of the Press in India, being either Noblemen, or Whigs by political connexion, are likely to be screened by the Aristocracy as a part of themselves, and by some of the Opposition as branches of their body; while the Ministerial party will no doubt take especial care to defend them and their measures as part of themselves. We have still less hope of sympathy or relief from the Proprietors of India Stock; for to them the good government of India is a matter of greater indifference than to any other class of the community: they know not, neither do they care about, the past state, the present condition, or the future prospects of the people from whose labours they derive their wealth: they buy stock for its dividend, and if this be paid, the Government under which it is secure is the best of all possible Governments in their estimation. Last and least of all do we expect a ray of hope from the Directors, who though many of them, individually, amiable and honourable men, are, collectively, interested in opposing every thing that can, in their estimation, disturb the existing order of things, or bring delinquencies, of any description, to public notice, or to public execration.*

Where then, the reader will ask again, is our source of hope? We answer, it is in the growing intelligence of the people of England; the rapid spread of sound principles in political economy; and the dawn of a brighter era in the knowledge of those of legislation. With these, silently but gradually preparing the minds of men for the reception of truth, and disposing them to apply those principles not only to their estimate of public affairs at home, but to the conduct of Governments abroad, much may be expected to be accomplished; and if to these be added a patient but unwearied perseverance on our own part, to bring continually before their eyes the subjects which especially deserve their attention, as connected with the government of our distant possessions in the Eastern and Western world, we may succeed in effecting such a revolution in the prevailing opinions in England, on the best

"To connivance at delinquency in India, the Directors may be supposed to be led by three sorts of motives-1. Inasmuch as they may have been delinquents themselves. 2. Inasmuch as they may send out sons and other relatives, who may profit by delinquency. 3. Inasmuch as delinquents may be proprietors of India stock, and hence exert an influence on the minds of Directors. East India delinquents may also operate on the minds of ministers through parliamentary influence; and the latter, it is believed, will certainly appear to be, out of all comparison, the stronger and more dangerous operation of the two."-Mill's Hist. of British India, vol. iv. p. 496, 497. 8vo.

policy to be pursued towards our Colonies, as can alone make these dependencies what they ought to be-advantageous to us, while they remain dependencies, and still more so when the time shall come (as come it must,) for their separation from the parent state, and ultimate admission among the ranks of independent nations.

This consummation can neither be prevented, nor even delayed, but by opposing the progress of that improvement which we all profess a desire to forward and promote and if it be our duty, as men, to assist in making others as wise and as happy as ourselves, fulfilling, in short, the first maxim of our religion, by doing to others as we would they should do unto us, we ought to enlighten the ignorant; the necessary result of which must be, that they will emancipate themselves. It is in vain to hope that schools can be established in the East, and idolatry, ignorance, and patient submission to arbitrary rule still maintain their ground there. It is in vain to try the experiment of preaching the gospel in the West, and still hope to keep the multitude there as contented with slavery as before. The two things are incompatible. The clause in the East India Company's charter, which establishes it as the duty of this country to introduce among the inhabitants of her Indian empire useful knowledge and improvement,* must be expunged from the statute-book, if the British Government desire to see India always remain in its present state. The various acts and professions of ministers, by which they encourage the moral and religious instruction of the negroes of our plantations, must be all forfeited and given up, if they hope to retain our islands for ever in the state of degraded servitude, to which their black population has for so many ages been cruelly subjected. If knowledge be suffered to grow up among them, they will inevitably discover that "knowledge is power;" and they will use the discovery to effect their own deliverance. If all attempts at improvement of their condition be repressed, they will, sooner or later, from mere impatience of suffering, relieve themselves by the resistance of numbers and force. So that, on either hand, their ultimate separation from the mother country may be predicted with as much certainty as any event that marks the progress of man from infancy to old age.

Under these circumstances, it behoves us to consider, what are the best means of rendering India and the Colonies productive of the greatest advantages to us, while they remain subject to our rule; and by what means we can most effectually ensure the con

"It is the duty of this country to promote the interests and happiness of the native inhabitants of the British dominions in India: and such measures ought to be adopted as may tend to the introduction among them of useful knowledge, and of religious and of moral improvement; and in furtherance of the above objects, sufficient facilities ought to be afforded by law to persons desirous of going to and remaining in India for the purpose of accomplishing those benevolent designs."-53 Geo. III. c. 155, s. 33.

tinuance, and perhaps the increase, of these advantages, when they shall become independent of our control. These will, probably, form topics for future consideration. For the present we content ourselves with having endeavoured to show

1st. That indifference to Indian and Colonial interests is to be accounted for by the distance of the countries, and the general ignorance respecting them which prevails.

2ndly. That therefore the greatest necessity exists for the establishment of some control on the acts of men in power there, by the exercise of public opinion on the spot in which the transactions of the government originate, and on which they are productive of their good or evil effects.

The remedies we propose to introduce, or to recommend, as far as our exertions can promote the ends they are calculated to accomplish, are the following:

1st. To bring the passing events of these distant countries nearer and nearer to the observation of those whose interest and whose sympathies we desire to enlist in the cause of their improvement; so that some faithful pictures of East and West Indian life may be made to pass continually before them, till their information is more accurate and extensive, and their feelings more alive to the happiness or misery of countries and people that have now no place in their affections or their thoughts.

2ndly. As the press is entirely silenced in the one hemisphere, except to praise whatever may emanate from men in power; and even in the other is not free to comment fearlessly on the existing system of misrule by which the people are held in bondage; and as the expression of public opinion cannot, therefore, effectually be commanded in either :-to give the inhabitants of each an opportunity of stating, from time to time, the facts of misgovernment that dare not be told elsewhere, and of pronouncing their honest opinions on the characters and measures of their rulers.

By a perseverance in this course, we may hope to make the people of England better acquainted with the condition of their fellow-countrymen and fellow-subjects abroad; and convey to these, the sentiments of men at home on the system of arbitrary rule under which they are doomed to live. We may give the rulers themselves also an opportunity of knowing what is really thought of their measures among those by whom they are surrounded; and show them how hollow and empty is the homage which they receive from men who dare not venture even to hint disapprobation. By this, some good may be effected; and though it will fall infinitely short of the benefits that would result from the existence of a free press and a controlling power of public opinion on the spot, yet it is perhaps the best and only succedaneum that could be found.