ferior to that of the most civilized countries of the earth after the decline of the Greeks and Romans. The difference is solely to be ascribed to this-that America was, from the first, freely open to the gradual introduction of all the skill, enterprize, capital, intelligence, and freedom of the mother country;-while India has been, from the first, rendered inaccessible to all these blessings by the curse of a trading monopoly, whose ignorant and selfish policy has always made the exclusion of their countrymen the chief feature of their own administration, and the invariable condition of all their treaties with every power in Asia with whom they have ever come in contact.* An "interloper," as every man not in the Company's service, or not licensed by them to reside in India, was originally called, was viewed by them as an enemy to whom they owed no quarter, and every unhappy individual so found, was seized, imprisoned, and in some cases sent in irons on board the first ship that happened to be ready, to remove him from any share in their ill-gotten spoils. And even to the present hour an "unlicensed Englishman found in India is considered to be in the hourly commission of a misdemeanor at law; and may be transported without further inquiry or hearing, though no offence of any other description can be imputed to him by any living being! In inquiring which of these systems is the best, one need only look to the different effects they have produced. The best answer is to be found in the fact, that in the country cursed by the East India Company's monopoly, the condition of the people has become worse, the system of government has remained stationary, and ignorance, superstition, and crime, are the only things that have advanced; while in the country freely opened to all against which India is so carefully shut, the wealth, intelligence, power, and happiness of the people have increased in a ratio never before witnessed in any age or country under the sun! Let the ministers of England reflect on this: and feel how awful a responsibility lies on their heads as long as they countenance and protect a system producing all the evils that afflict the country and retarding all the good which, but for this system, would be sure to bless the millions of human beings intrusted to their care. Let the people of England also reflect that inasmuch as they encourage, by their silence and indifference, the continuance of this policy towards a land which they call their own, they are participators in the guilt of their rulers, *We have before us at this present moment a copy of one the late Treaties of the East India Company with the Rajah of Bhurtpoor, dated April 17, 1805, in which is the following article: "Art. VIII. The Maharajah shall not, in future, entertain in his service nor give admission to any English or French subjects: or any other person from among the inhabitants of Europe, without the sanction of the Honourable Company's Government: and the Honourable Company also engages not to give admission to any of the Maharajah's relations or servants without his consent." and deserve their full share of all the odium which it so justly entails on the very name of England. But what, it will be said, is it the duty and the interest of the people of India to do, in order to relieve the country they inhabit from this incubus, that hangs, like the deadly night-mare, on all its dreams of prosperity? It is this: Ist. To unite all their means and efforts to obtain from the legislature of this country, by petition, argument, remonstrance, and even purchase, if that can be made practicable, the admission that India is an integral part of the British empire; and entitled, as such, to a full enjoyment of all the privileges to which such an admission would lead. 2dly. To urge, through the Press and Parliament of this country, their unhappy case upon the attention of the great body of the English people, among whom there is still a sufficient number of humane, high-principled, and influential men, to espouse a good cause, if brought home to their bosoms and feelings; and sufficient talent to impress the leaders of the cabinet with the importance, and even necessity, of some amelioration in the condition of the vast country committed to their care. This, however, is not to be done by merely muttering dissatisfaction over a glass of claret or a hookah, and whispering aspirations after relief in the ears of confidential friends. Neither is it to be accomplished by the puerile and abortive attempts which are from time to time made to excite a fellow feeling of sympathy or mutual condolence in the newspapers of India, whose murmurings drop, stillborn, as it were, from the press; make no impression on the minds of the rulers there, as far as inspiring a disposition to alter the existing state of things is the object; and are either unknown or divested of all interest or power by the time they reach this country, where they are seldom or never seen, or, if seen, not in the slightest degree heeded by those in whose hands the power of applying remedies to admitted evils is reposed. Is there then no hope, it will be asked, for degraded and deserted India? Yes! there is a hope, but the means of realizing it are such as the people of India do not appear to have the penetration to perceive, or, if they have, they want the virtue or the courage to carry it into effect. If the sums that have been voted for statues, pictures, balls, and entertainments to tyrants and their satellites, had been appropriated to the purchase of their emancipation from the slavery in which they exist, it would long since. have been accomplished. The houseless Highlanders, the starving Irish, the struggling Greeks, and the wounded at Waterloo, have justly and deservedly excited their sympathy, and shared a portion of their wealth. Against this there can be no complaint. Even their subscription of 10,000l. to encourage the navigation from England to India by steam, was an object not unworthy their patronage, although, if ever likely to be profitable, private enterprize would have attempted it without such rewards. But, one would think, that civil and political liberty was a blessing equally entitled to their regard; that an improved system of government for themselves, a free colonization, an unfettered press, an unrestrained exercise of industry, and a full enjoyment by every man of the produce of his skill or labour, free from the despotic intrusion of a power that may blight all his prospects at a breath, were as fit to be purchased by a sacrifice of wealth, as independence for the Greeks, who would have been better off had they relied more on their own resources; as food for the Irish, which is only sparing the great Irish absentees, whose lands should have furnished the supply; as quick voyages for the servants of the East India Company, the expense of which should be borne by their masters, who benefit by this increased speed; and, above all, still more fit to be bought by general contributions from every individual's purse, than honours to tyrants, who deserved only execration; than statues, never sculptured; than pictures never painted; or than a thousand other senseless and mischievous purposes for which subscriptions have been raised in India, and no where more profusely or munificently filled. If, for instance, the amount of a crore of rupees (which is less we believe than the sum intended to be invested in Mr. Trotter's Joint Stock Agency Company in India) were to be raised in shares among the people of that country, and placed at common interest, either in India or here, the principal need never be touched, but held sacred and inviolate till the great object for which it was raised should be accomplished, when it should revert undiminished in amount to the original subscribers; while the mere annual interest of such a sum would purchase the services of fifty advocates of firstrate talent, for whom seats might be obtained in Parliament, at an annual rate of payment to patrons of boroughs, which is as prac ticable a mode of purchasing seats as by the payment of the full sum at once; and the united efforts of such a phalanx would accomplish what no single, divided, and unsupported efforts of individuals, however zealous or intelligent, will ever be able to achieve. But if the means for fifty such advocates were not available, ten, or even five, would be worth retaining; for these, exclusively devoted to co-operation in one great labour, would produce an effect not hitherto witnessed in the senate or on the country. When it is considered that a hundred petty villages and fishing towns in England each send their two members into Parliamentthat the West India islands, on any question affecting their interests, can produce a body of more than a hundred advocates, deeply interested, by property in the country, in the result of any measure proposed while for India, and its hundred millions of people, not one exclusive representative is to be found, it is no wonder that the very name of the country should drive the members from their benches, for who would remain to hear details which it is no one's particular duty thoroughly to understand, or no one's interest to lay before the house and the country in such a manner as to win their attention and excite their sympathy. It was not so when the talents of Burke, Fox, and Sheridan were directed to the exposure of Indian misrule. It would not now be so, if the talents of Brougham, Mackintosh, Burdett, Tierney, and others, were exercised on the same great subject. And why are they not? it will be inquired. Was the philanthropy of Burke and his colleagues more active than that of the patriots of the same school in our own days? Certainly not. But there was then a hope of defeating and displacing men in power, and a consequent admission to vacated offices, which animated the bosoms and inspired the tongues of the impeachers of Warren Hastings; without which, notwithstanding the truth of the charges against him, their denunciations would probably never have been heard. There is no such hope to be indulged from any agitation of Indian questions now; and therefore they are not agitated, except by an occasional and unsupported effort of some disinterested and benevolent individual, who, belonging to no party, is left helpless and alone in his career. But though that stimulus of hope cannot be applied, the equally powerful one proposed is fortunately still practicable: as at any moment a score of highly-gifted individuals might be found, who would readily accept a seat in Parliament on condition that, while so holding it, they should be free to exercise their own discretion on topics of general interest brought forward for discussion, provided the emancipation of India from the fetters that now bind her in civil and political slavery should form the prominent object of their united labours to achieve. Such seats are as purchaseable as any other commodity in the market: and the means of having any great public cause advocated in Parliament are, therefore, as accessible to all classes who possess wealth and have the disposition to unite their contributions for the common good, as are the means of prosecuting any suit in a court of law. In the latter, indeed, the payment of the established fees will procure the ablest men at the bar to advocate any side of a question proposed to them by their client, whom, whether right or wrong, they conceive themselves bound by their fee to defend. In the former, however, such exact stipulations, and such entire abandonment of judgment on the part of the advocate, would not be necessary. It would be enough to choose the avowed friends of the freedom and improvement of the human race, to purchase their admission to the House, without giving them any fees, on condition that, among their other duties, they should make the interests of India their peculiar study and care; and the rest might be fairly left to their discretion. We have no hesitation in saying, that if only a portion of the money spent in useless and pernicious objects in the East, to say nothing of the vast sums sacrificed every year to prosecute appeals against unjust judgments and abuses in that distant country, were applied by some unanimous effort to the end here proposed, the people of India would receive, in three years, more solid advantages from such an expenditure than they have ever yet done from every attempt hitherto made to improve their condition. With such a measure as this, we should see all the duties of that great country fulfilled, and its interests carefully guarded and promoted. We should see its agricultural and commercial resources developed; its institutions purified; its rights and privileges defined and protected; its wealth, intelligence, and power, continually increased; and its people respected, free, and happy. These are the greatest of all duties which man in any state of existence can perform-the greatest of all the interests which his efforts can promote. The means are chiefly in the hands of the people of the colonies or dependencies themselves; and if the mother country has not wisdom enough to perceive, or virtue enough to carry into execution measures necessary for advancing the welfare of her settlements (in which must be included the greatness of her own parent state) it then becomes the imperative duty of the dependent country to think and act for itself, and endeavour to enforce from its unwilling parent the fulfilment of its sacred obligations, by gentle and persuasive measures as long as these may avail, but when these are met with indifference and scorn, by such more commanding resources as God and Nature have placed at the disposal of men and nations for their own protection and defence. THE BETRAYER. THE rose had lent its brightest hue And Heaven had given its chastest dew To cool impure desire. But man betray'd, while virtue slept And the warm tear that beauty wept Oh! weep no more, sweet injured maid, To Heaven has told thy faith betray'd, Thy sorrowing eyes' imploring ray And angels, when they write the line |