drawn by two half-starved, bare-ribbed bullocks. Upon his back he would place the more robust Seeputneedar, and upon his shoulders the Durputneedar; he, again, should sustain the well-fed Putneedar; and, seated upon his shoulders should be represented, to crown the scene, the big zemindar, that compound of milk, sugar, and clarified butter. . . .The poor ryot pays for all! He is drained by these middle-men; he is cheated by his banker out of twenty-four per cent. at least; and his condition is beyond description or imagination.”

Dr. Spry attests the present continuance of those scenes of destitution and abject wretchedness which I have but a few pages back alluded to. He has seen the miserable creatures picking up the grains of corn from the soil of the roads. "I have seen," says he, "hundreds of famishing poor, traversing the jungles of Bundlecund, searching for wild berries to satisfy the cravings of hunger. Many, worn down by exhaustion or disease, die by the road-side, while mothers, to preserve their offspring from starvation, sell or give them to any rich man they can meet!" He himself, in 1834, was offered by such a mother her daughter of six years old for fourteen shillings!vol. i. 297.

These are the scenes and transactions in our great Indian empire-that splendid empire which has poured out such floods of wealth into this country; in which such princely presents of diamonds and gold have been heaped on our adventurers; from the gleanings of which so many happy families in England* "live at

* Even so recently as 1827 we find some tolerably regal instances of regal gifts to our Indian representatives. Lord and Lady Amherst on a tour in the provinces arrived at Agra. Lady

home at ease," and in the enjoyment of every earthly luxury and refinement. For every palace built by returned Indian nabobs in England; for every investment by fortunate adventurers in India stock; for every cup of wine and delicious viand tasted by the families of Indian growth amongst us, how many of these Indians themselves are now picking berries in the wild jungles, sweltering at the thankless plough only to suffer fresh extortions, or snatching with the bony fingers of famine, the bloated grains from the manure of the high-ways of their native country!

I wonder whether the happy and fortunate-made happy and fortunate by the wealth of India, ever think of these things?—whether the idea ever comes across them in the luxurious carriage, or at the table crowded with the luxuries of all climates? - whether they

Amherst received a visit from the wife of Hindoo Row and her ladies. They proceeded to invest Lady Amherst with the presents sent for her by the Byza Bhye. They put on her a turban richly adorned with the most costly diamonds, a superb diamond necklace, ear-rings, anklets, bracelets, and amulets of the same, valued at 30,000l. sterling. A complete set of gold ornaments, and another of silver, was then presented. Miss Amherst was next presented with a pearl necklace, valued at 5,0007., and other ornaments of equal beauty and costliness. Other ladies had splendid presents the whole value of the gifts amounting to 50,000l. sterling!

In the evening came Lord Amherst's turn. On visiting the Row, his hat was carried out and brought back on a tray covered. The Row uncovered it, and placed it on his lordship's head, overlaid with the most splendid diamonds. His lordship was then invested with other jewels to the reputed amount of 20,000l. sterling. Presents followed to the members of his suite. Lady Amherst took this opportunity of retiring to the tents of the Hindu ladies, where presents were again given; and a bag of 1000 rupees to her ladyship's female servants, and 500 rupees to her interpretess.

Oriental Herald, vol. xiv. p. 444.

glance in a sudden imagination from the silken splendour of their own abodes, to the hot highways and the pestilential jungles of India, and see those naked, squalid, famishing, and neglected creatures, thronging from vast distances to the rich man's dole, or feeding on the more loathsome dole of the roads? It is impossible that a more strange antithesis can be pointed out in human affairs. We turn from it with even a convulsive joy, to grasp at the prospects of education in that singular country. Let the people be educated, and they will soon cease to permit oppression. Let the English engage themselves in educating them, and they will soon feel all the sympathies of nature awaken in their hearts towards these unhappy natives. In the meantime these are all the features of a country suffering under the evils of a long and grievous thraldom. They are the growth of ages, and are not to be removed but by a zealous and unwearying course of atoning justice. Spite of all flattering representations to the contrary, the British public should keep its eye fixed steadily on India, assuring itself that a debt of vast retribution is there due from us; and that we have only to meet the desire now anxiously manifested by the natives for education, to enable us to expiate towards the children all the wrongs and degradations heaped for centuries on the fathers; and to fix our name, our laws, our language and religion, as widely and beneficently there as in the New World!

CHAPTER XX..

THE FRENCH IN THEIR COLONIES.

WE may dismiss the French in a few pages, merely because they are only so much like their neighbours. It would have been a glorious circumstance to have been able to present them as an exception; but while they have shown as little regard to the rights or feelings of the people whose lands they have invaded for the purpose of colonization, they seem to have been on the whole more commonplace in their cruelties. In Guiana they drove back the Indians as the Dutch and the Portuguese did in their adjoining settlements. In the West Indies, they exterminated or enslaved the natives very much as other Europeans did. They were as assiduous as any people in massacring the Charaibs, and they suffered perhaps more than any other nation from the Charaibs in return. Their historian, Du Tertre, describes them as returning from a slaughtering expedition in St. Christopher's "bien joyeux;" so that it would appear as though they executed the customary murders of the time, with their accustomed gaiety. In the Mauritius they found. nobody to kill. In Madagascar, they alternately massacred and

were massacred themselves, and finally driven out of of the country by the exasperated natives for their cruelties. If they made themselves masters of countries of equal importance with the Spaniards, Portuguese, English, or even the Dutch, they had not the art to make them so, for if we include Louisiana, Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Madagascar, Mauritius, Guiana, various West Indian islands and settlements on the Indian and African coasts, the amount of territory is vast. The value of it to them, however, at no time, was ever proportionate in the least degree to the extent; and no European nation has been so unfortunate in the loss of colonies. Their . attempt to possess themselves of Florida was abortive, but it was attended by a circumstance which deserves recording.

The Spaniards hearing that some Frenchmen had made a settlement in Florida about 1566, a fleet sailed thither, and discovered them at Fort Carolina. They attacked them, massacred the majority, and hanged the rest upon a tree, with this inscription,-" Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." They were Huguenots. Dominic de Gourgues, a Gascon of the same faith, a skilful and intrepid seaman, an enemy to the Spaniards, from whom he had received personal injuries, passionately fond of his country, of hazardous expeditions, and of glory, sold his estate, built some ships, and with a select band of his own stamp, embarked for Florida. He found, attacked, and defeated the Spaniards. All that he could catch he hung upon trees, with this inscription,-" Not as Spaniards, but as assassins ;" -a sentence which, had it been executed with equal justice on all who deserved it in that day, would

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