was thrown aside to make way for new laws and regulations, which, with the most benevolent intention, nevertheless overthrew the ancient institutions of the country... It is consolatory, however, to reflect, that the only irretrievable step of great moment that has yet been taken, is the permanent limitation of the land revenue of the Bengal Provinces and districts on the coast permanently settled. In other matters (and elsewhere, with respect to the revenue also), the door of improvement is not yet fully shut. The recent accession of territory to the British dominions renders the more important what information is contained in the following pages. To those who are entrusted with the administration of India, it is hoped that it may prove useful. They will legislate, for the future at least, with the benefit of knowing the effects of the past; and should this little volume assist them, it will fulfil the intentions of its author. A portion of what follows was written many years ago, and will be recognized, no doubt, by some who saw it at the time I allude to the remainder has been subsequently added, during the hours of relaxation from public duty: but, with the exception of a very trifling portion, and corrections to keep pace with the growing state of the revenue, more than three years have elapsed since the whole work was finished. It is but just that I should notice this, the more especially as within the above period some publications have appeared, which, had they been previously in existence (one especially), I should probably have noticed in the work. It is unnecessary to say more on the subject of my own book. The publication to which I allude is an "Inquiry into the Expediency of applying the Principles of Colonial Policy to the Government of India." It is evidently the production of a political partizan; and not replete with information, either important in itself, or in point of fact correct. The author is clearly a "reading animal;" but, like many of that class, he has over-read himself, and has stored, till it will hold no more, his head with the ideas of others, with the opinions of men, some of them indeed men of celebrity, but whose judgment was neces sarily formed on facts, now known to be erroneous; and therefore such opinions ought no longer to be taken as sound doctrine by those who are desirous of nothing more than the attainment of truth, which however does not appear to be the sole aim of this writer. A strain of dogmatical radicalism runs through the work, which leads us to expect war upon all constituted authorities; nor are we disappointed. But its principal batteries are planted against the Honourable Company: a body, which at one time the author characterizes as totally insignificant, and at another as inimical, both in constitution and in practice, to the interests of India; which, he tells us, that body is wholly incompetent to govern. He describes the Company, indeed, as "having their "paramount interest diametrically opposed to the welfare of "India." But when The absurdity of all this is sufficiently obvious. we have reason to suspect that the person who wrote it is actually in the service of the body which he treats with so unbecoming irreverence of language, we cannot hut feel disgusted. If the author had any new discovery to make on the system which the British legislature has thought proper to establish for the government of India and for the regulation of its commerce, it is scarcely possible to suppose but that a temperate, however strong, exposition of his plans would have met with due attention. This, however, we must presume would not have suited the temperament of the author; for, judging from his book, one is led to the irresistible conclusion, that whilst he recommends his political nostrum "colonization" as a remedy for all the maladies of India, to secure the annihilation of the Company he would gladly sacrifice even COLONIZATION itself. It has been the fashion, and a fashion of very long standing, among a certain description of writers, to represent the EastIndia Company as a corporate body of monopolizing merchants, totally and entirely bent on following their own interests, like the firm of Messrs. A. B. C. and Co., or any other associated individuals: and this author, with an ample share of confidence in exhibiting the long-exploded error, attacks them in the most extravagant manner as such; citing and vanquishing, as he doubtless thinks, a variety of apologetic arguments, which he has selected as having been adduced, within the last and present century, on the Company's behalf; concluding, no doubt, because he has shewn the unskilfulness of their advocates, that he has demonstrated the weakness of their cause. Now I must, at once, protest-first, against this view of the constitution of the East India Company; and, secondly, against holding that Company responsible for the arguments which have been been used on their behalf, even though their own body may at some period have adopted them. In whatever light the East-India Company, and the affairs of India, may have been viewed by the politicians and the nation at large in former times, when our possessions in the East were small, and their tenure but precarious, it is obvious that our Asiatic dominions do now form a portion of the British Empire; and that the system adopted for the government of India makes, in our time, at least a component part of the British constitution. The interests of India are now so intimately interwoven with those of England, that whatever may be urged theoreti cally, in practice they have become identified. The political regulations by which this great member of the general system is governed are not to be separated from those of that system itself; and the main power which moves the one, does in fact give, and must give, motion to the other. The Court of Directors is a part of this splendid machinery, and a very important part. To represent that court, therefore, as a body having its paramount interest, or an interest at all, opposed to, or distinct from, the interest of the British nation, is no less absurd than it is unfounded. It is scarcely possible to treat such a misrepresentation with greater contempt than by saying that it is a vulgar error. So nearly allied to this is another erroneous notion of this author, equally vulgar, when he assures us, assumes and argues under the belief, that the existence of the Company depends on the permanence of their character as a mercantile body. That the Company will continue to carry on their commercial concerns concerns I see no reason to doubt. But that the existence of that body is altogether independent of commerce, can only be questioned by those of the present day, who, like this author, have shut their own eyes to the change which has taken place in the nature of the Indian government, and speak of present affairs through the organs or opinions of writers of the last century. Since, therefore, as I maintain, the body known to us as the Court of Directors of the East India Company is in fact a branch of the English executive government, the stability of that body no more depends on its following the pursuits of commerce than the stability of the English government itself does. That the Court of Directors, as well as any other branch of the government of England, may fall before the axe of mistaken policy, is possible; but the one no more necessarily follows the surrender of commercial pursuits than the other. So far, indeed, it is essential to the nation that commerce with India shall be continued. The Company are bound to the country to see that such commerce is carried on; and if individuals are incompetent to do this, the duty will then fall upon the Company. But the question of necessary dependence on commerce is that which is discussed; and I think that idea must now be generally considered as completely antiquated. To become the champion of the system of government, which the combined wisdom of the British nation, after the most earnest investigation, canvassed and purified by the ordeal of the conflicting talents of such men as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke, Mr. |