a proportionate increase of cost, are what the soil promises to the application of increased skill. This is the very result by which the comfort and existing position of both landlord and tenant are to be maintained. Cast despondency away, therefore let new exertions be put forth, and this new end will be attained. The same cheering view, also, we would take of the late visi tation which has befallen our potato crop. We believe it will be only temporary; but whether so or not, it ought not to depress us. Afflictions of this kind lead to good, if they arouse to new exertion. The gift of new knowledge to the people will inspire them with new hope; and, in times of trial like the present, will provide them with new resources. ART. VI.—L'Inde Anglaise en 1843-44. Par le CHEVALIER EDOUARD DE WARREN, ancien Officier au Service de S. M. Britannique dans l'Inde. Deuxième Edition. Trois tomes, 8vo. Paris: 1845. It of the work of M. de Warren, a although he states in his preface that it has been noticed and even translated by the English Press, until we were informed by what all would consider very high authority, that its misrepresentations regarding the government of British India had made a great impression upon the Continent. We can easily believe it. The t. The work is written with considerab considerable ability. professes to be, and probably is, the testimony of an eyewitness, as respects matters of personal observation. And statements so startling and criminatory as many of those to which it gives publicity, are sure to attract attention; as long as nations, like individuals, feel pleasure in the exposure of the real or alleged follies and faults of their neighbours. sit of visqeorer begnol Some of these s statements are more or less true. Others are altogether erroneous, or so much distorted and coloured as to produce a false impression. And truth and falsehood are strangely intermingled. Indeed, the mind of the author-if the volumes before us have not, as we much suspect, more than a single father appears to be singularly constituted. He is candid and fair, for the most part, in the inferences which he draws from facts within his own knowledge; but he swallows with the utmost credulity the grossest calumnies derived from other sources of information. We will not We will not make such a charge without proving it. His personal experience appears to have Burdwan. On this occasion, a military force was required for his apprehension, and two men lost their lives in the affray that ensued. He was again convicted and imprisoned. What has since become of him, we do not know. There is no doubt of his being an impostor; but whether he were so or not, the British government had not the smallest interest in opposing his claim to the Zemindary of Burdwan, if he could establish it by any peaceable course. Secure of its revenue, from the immense surplus value of the estates, it is a matter of utter indifference to the government whether A or B be the Zemindar who pays it; and the statement that in this case, if the claimant had succeeded, the government would have had to make restitution of a million sterling, is pure fiction. The government had not received a farthing more than its revenue, as settled in 1793, and had nothing to refund to any one. There is another case, still grosser if possible, in respect to the facts of which M. de Warren ought to have been better informed. He states (Tome i. p. 141,) that the Nizam made certain cessions of territory to the British government- pour lesquels elle s'engageait à payer un tribut annuel, fixé d'abord 'à 50,000, puis à 70,000 livres sterling, mais dont le Nizam ne toucha jamais un centime.' The truth is, that the stipulated rent or tribute was regularly paid to the Nizam, up to 1823, when a large sum being necessary to relieve that prince from his debts, the tribute was redeemed by the payment for that purpose of L.1,166,666. These are, perhaps, the worst cases of positive misrepresentation, but there are many serious instances of suppressio veri, or suggestio falsi. Thus the Great Mogul is spoken of as fallen lower than one of his slaves, and as having insufficient alms doled out to him grudgingly (vol. iii. p. 69),—the said alms being L.150,000 per annum; and all this, as if the British government had deposed and degraded him! But the truth is, that fifteen years before a British army approached Delhi, the eyes of Shah Aulum, the reigning Emperor, had been put out by one of his own servants, who plundered the palace, and brutally stripped the females of the family of all their valuable ornaments. Immediately afterwards, Shah Aulum fell into the hands of Scindia, by whom, says Mr Mill, though the Emperor 6 was allowed to remain in the fort of Delhi, with the nominal ' authority over the city and a small district around, he was held in a state of poverty, in which not only the decencies, but almost the necessaries of life were denied to him and his family.' In a like spirit, among the state prisoners detained at Benares is named le Nawab de Ferozepour, dont le père a 6 6 récemment péri sur un échafaud;'-no mention being made that the said nawab had been convicted upon the clearest evidence, and after the most patient judicial investigation, during the administration of Lord Metcalfe, of having suborned the assassin who murdered the Commissioner of Delhi, Mr William Fraser, the intimate friend of the nawab's deceased father; on the sole provocation, we believe, that Mr Fraser had reported to the government that a younger brother of the nawab was entitled to a certain appanage for his support. It is not the least of the great debts which British India owes to Lord Metcalfe, that he had the courage to order the execution at Delhi, the principal seat of the Mahomedan population, of this Mussulman malefactor, a chief of the highest rank. This was written whilst Lord Metcalfe was enduring the agonies of the fearful disease which drove him from the post of public duty, and lately terminated his invaluable life. În him England has lost, whilst his intellect was still in its fullest vigour, the services of a statesman of the most enlarged and liberal views, sagacious in council, and indefatigable in labour; and combining, in a high degree, the will to decide, and the courage to execute, with a love for his fellow-creatures as warm and generous as it was comprehensive. It was, indeed, a marvel even to those who knew him best, how the same man could exhibit a tenderness almost feminine, a boldness in the path of duty which no danger could dismay, and that patient endurance of the most severe sufferings which so brightly adorned the closing scenes of his existence. -- We have already stated that M. de Warren's work contains some truth. We are especially bound to admit this, because he has paid us the compliment of literally translating many pages of his statements-respecting the constitution of the Company, and of its Civil Service, the finances of the Indian government, the Supreme Courts of the three Presidencies, and other subjects, from Articles in this Journal. And he has borrowed, not merely our facts, but our opinions, without the slightest acknowledgment; though he says in his preface, that, while profiting by the researches of others- J'aurai soin de rendre à César ce qui appartient à César, et de payer l'obole qui leur est due aux 'pionniers de la pensée. Je serai plagiaire, mais avec loyauté; 'si je puise dans bien des sources, je les nommerai toutes.' But we are too glad to find that additional circulation has thus been given to the truth, not to rejoice at the republication, whatever we may think of M. de Warren's piracies. 6 This adoption of our sentiments by an author who admires nothing beyond the power of the British Empire in the East, and the skill of what he terms its Machiavelian policy, is at least a proof that we have not failed to expose the defects. of our Indian administration. We believe, indeed-and upon that point we shall shortly join issue with M. de Warrenthat our government is a glory to England, and a blessing to the people whom Providence has subjected to our sway. But this conviction is widely different from optimism. We know that our institutions and our executive administration are capable of great improvements; we feel that the superiority of our government to that of our ignorant and vicious predecessors, is very poor ground for self-complacency; and we feel, too, that the time is fast passing away, if it have not already passed, when res dura, et regni novitas, could fairly be pleaded as an excuse for doing nothing, or even for doing less than the exigencies of the case demand at our hands. Holding these opinions, we are very far from desiring that either the excesses or the shortcomings of our delegated sovereignty should be kept out of sight. On the contrary, we have, on frequent occasions, frankly exposed them, in order to their correction and remedy. In the same spirit, we hail with satisfaction the proof afforded us by the present volumes, and by what we have heard of their effect, that the attention of the public mind on the Continent has been directed to our Indian administration. It is well that we should be made aware that we are watched by our neighbours, and that we should know what they think of our doings. Misrepresentations like those which we have given samples of, are easily exposed and refuted. They will not, indeed, obtain credence from any one who has the least knowledge as to what our general conduct in the East has been. But all thanks to friends or foes on the Continent, if they will aid us in exposing political crimes, the errors of our administration, and the defective discharge of our obligations towards our Indian fellow subjects. They cannot denounce, for example, the seizure of Seinde more indignantly than we do; they cannot urge more strongly than we have done the shortcomings of our adminis tration of civil and criminal justice; the evils of over-assessment of the land revenue; the former injustice of our commercial tariff; and the very insufficient returns which we have made in the shape of either material or intellectual boons to the people, from whose native resources and patient industry we have derived such vast benefits. We return, therefore, to the examination of M. de Warren's work, in no temper to take offence at his statements, however |