east and the other on the north-west side of the island,—the Hindoo law, as observed amongst the Hindoo inhabitants on the coast of Malabar.

6. In as far it relates to the maritime causes between the natives of India,―the Mallealum and Malay maritime law.

EAST INDIA COMPANY'S PRESIDENCIES OF CALCUTTA, MADRAS, AND BOMBAY, AND THE SETTLEMENTS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES'S ISLAND. The law in force in the whole of the above-named territories of the East India Company, in as far as it relates to the European inhabitants, is the English law, as introduced into those territories, and modified by the several charters of justice by which the several King's Courts have been established in them; in as far as it relates to the immense population of the Hindoo inhabitants, the Hindoo law; and as far as it relates to the Mohammedan inhabitants, the Mohammedan law, subject, however, to the modifications which have been introduced into both of them by the East India Company's local regulations.

From the above considerations, it appears, 1st. That the King in Council, as a court of appeal from the eleven Supreme Courts which have just been mentioned, exercises an appellate jurisdiction which, directly and indirectly, in as far as it relates to persons, includes a population of upwards of 80,000,000 of people. În as far as it relates to territory, includes countries which, independent of the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of France, extend upwards of 1400 miles in length, and nearly as many in breadth, and which comprise the chief part of that vast region which is bounded by the Indus in the north-west, the great range of the Thibitean mountains in the north-east, and by the Ocean on the south-east and southwest. And in as far as it relates to the nature of the cases which may be brought before the King in Council by appeal, includes every question of contract, inheritance, land, and revenue, of a certain amount, in which, besides all the great interests of the Crown and of the nation, not only the immense revenue of the East India Company, upwards of 15,000,000l, sterling a year, and the tenure of every foot of land in their dominion, but also every religious and moral feeling, as well as every prejudice of the people of every religion in the country is most deeply concerned.

2. That the King in Council may, as a court of appeal from those courts, be called upon to decide questions of the utmost importance to the prosperity and tranquillity, not only of the Cape of Good Hope, the Isle of France, and Ceylon, but of every part of India; to consider questions, not only of English, French, and Dutch, colonial law, but some of the most intricate questions of Hindoo, Mohammedan, and Buddhuist, law; that their construction of such laws must form the rule of decision as to those laws, not only for every court, superior as well as inferior, established at the

Cape of Good Hope, Isle of France, and Ceylon, but also for every court, superior as well as inferior, established in every part of India; and, finally, that they are called upon, for the due protection of upwards of eighty millions of inhabitants, to exercise a vigilant superintendence and a prompt control over upwards of 150 judges situated between 14,000 and 16,000 miles off from the mother country.

Considering the variety of the different jurisdictions, and of the different systems of law which have been described, it seems obvious that the persons who, from their local knowledge and leisure, are the best qualified for deciding cases in appeal, from the Isle of France, Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, and the Company's possessions in the East Indies, are those King's judges, who, after having held in the King's and Company's colonies for many years some of the highest and most responsible judicial situations in the gift of the Crown, are allowed to retire upon pensions granted to them for life by the Crown, not only as a reward for their services, but as a mark of public approbation. Their having been appointed to those offices is a proof that they originally were men of known character in their profession. Their having been allowed to retire from office upon Their legal pensions is equally a proof that their conduct while in office was such as deserved the approbation of the Government, education makes them aware of the sort of local information which it is necessary for them to acquire. Their long residence in the colonies, and the influence they derive from their judicial situations, afford them the very best opportunity of acquiring the most authentic information, and the age at which most of them are appointed to those situations, enables them to avail themselves of that opportunity while in the full vigour of their understanding.

As it is therefore highly adviseable that the King in Council be enabled to avail themselves, as a Court of Appeal, of the assistance of these judges, if any objections should occur to the King's appointing them members of the Privy Council, it is proposed that his Majesty in Council be empowered by a legislative act, from time to time, to call upon such of these judges as he may think proper to act as legal assessors to the King in Council, whenever they sit as a Court to hear appeals from the colonies.

A Court of Appeal so constituted must always be efficient, and must always be popular in the colonies; it must be efficient, because it must always have in it, at least, some members who are thoroughly acquainted with the peculiar system of colonial law according to which the Court is bound to decide, and with the local circumstances of the people amongst whom that law prevails; who, from long residence in colonies, feel an interest in colonial questions; who, from having retired from office on pensions, have leisure to attend the Court whenever their presence may be necessary; and who, from not having the excuse which other members may have of official avoca

tions, want of time, and want of local knowledge, must feel themselves to be acting under a much higher degree of responsibility to the public, both as to the soundness and to the promptitude of their decisions.

It must always be popular in the colonies, because it is composed of men, who, as the inhabitants of the colonies themselves know, were originally appointed judges in the colonies by the Crown, with great salaries, and with high rank, for the express purpose of securing for the inhabitants a strict observance of the laws, and for affording to the inhabitants the most ready protection and redress against any oppression which might be offered to their persons or their property-of men to whom the inhabitants themselves have always for this reason been accustomed to look up as to the most faithful of their protectors-of men whom the inhabitants themselves believe to feel an interest in their welfare, whom they know to be thoroughly informed with respect to their laws and customs, and who, they therefore conceive, will be always ready and able to decide upon such cases as are brought before them in appeal from the colonies with the least possible delay, expense, and inconvenience to the parties who are concerned.

The measure of associating the colonial judges, who retire upon pensions from their office, as legal assessors, with the members of the Privy Council, will be gradually attended with the most beneficial effect, as well as to the colonies themselves, as to his Majesty's Government.

To the colonies, because it will afford to these, from time to time, as the judges respectively return to England, and retire upon their pensions, an opportunity of having the state of their laws, and that of their administration of justice amongst them, brought before his Majesty in Council, in the most authentic shape, by persons in whose knowledge, integrity, and judgment, they have the fullest confidence.

To his Majesty's Government; first, because it will enable the King in Council to make a perfect collection of all the different colonial systems of laws which prevail in the British colonies, and to ascertain from the most authentic sources what effect each of those systems has in its respective colonies, what alteration is required in those systems, and how such alterations may be introduced with advantage to the people.

Secondly, because it will enable his Majesty in Council to derive their information from men, whose legal education in England, and whose local experience in the colonies, qualify them to give their opinion on the subject, both as English lawyers conversant with the principles of the British constitution, and as colonial lawyers conversant with the real state of the British Colonies, and therefore qual'fy them to apply the general principles of law, and the general

principles of the British constitution, to the local peculiarities, and to the state of society in the British colonies.

Thirdly, because it will accustom the colonies to consider the King in Council as a tribunal, in which their respective interests are understood, in which every question relative to them will not only excite a proper degree of interest, but will receive the earliest consideration; and, in which they may therefore be certain of receiving immediate redress on any occasion on which they may feel themselves aggrieved.

As many cases, in which both appellants and appellees are natives of India, have been for many years in appeal before the King in Council, from the Courts of Sudder Adawluts of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, and as they have not been prosecuted before the King in Council, owing to the parties concerned not having appointed any agents to act on their behalf in England; it is proposed, in order to get rid of all the cases of this description which are now in appeal, and in order to prevent for the future the very great inconvenience which has occurred from the natives of India not having appointed agents in England, and from their ignorance of the steps which they ought to take in England when they appeal to the King in Council, that the East India Company should appoint in England one of the civil servants, who is thoroughly acquainted with the proceedings of the Zillah, provincial, and Sudder Adawlut Courts, under the three presidencies, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, whose duty it shall be, acting under instructions, to take care that all cases of appeal from the three above Courts to the King in Council, in which natives of India are appellants and appellees, shall, provided the parties themselves shall not have appointed agents to act for them in England, be immediately brought forward before the King in Council, and be dealt with by them as the circumstances of the case may require.

Although what has been said applies more immediately to the colonies at the Cape of Good Hope, on the Isle of France, in Ceylon, and the East India Company's possessions in India, the plan which has been proposed is just as applicable to the British Colonies in North America, the West Indies, Trinidad, St. Lucie, Demerara, and Berbice. The cases which are appealed from the West Indies being mostly cases of equity, those from North America and St. Lucie cases either of the ancient or of the more modern French law, those from Trinidad of the Spanish law, and those from Demerara and Berbice of the Dutch, and therefore as much within the consideration of those judges who have been alluded to, as the cases which come from the colonies with which they have been more im→ mediately connected.

ON THE NOBILITY OF THE SKIN.

CHAP. V.

The Colonists themselves are interested in the destruction of the Prejudice against Colour.

THE proclamation of the independence of the United States formed a new æra for America. The principles of freedom being once ascertained, it only remained to deduce from them their due consequences, and to apply them. But mark the injustice of men! Treaties were formed with the savage tribes upon a footing of equality, and scrupulously observed, while, at the same time, the Southern States of the new republic continued the slave-trade, and retained in bondage millions of slaves, whose colour they regarded as an opprobrium. This apparent contradiction may readily be accounted for on the plea of expediency; but no consideration can palliate its iniquity.

The society of Quakers is entitled to everlasting honour. When, in the year 1754, they gave freedom to their slaves, and excluded from the society of friends those who did not follow their example; they set a pattern which all Christian societies ought to have imitated, and which it is to be lamented that Catholics were not the first to give the world.

From that time, the notions of liberty, which, traversing the Atlantic, came to circulate in Europe, the formation of societies of friends to the negroes, both in England and in France, the debates of the Constituent Assembly, animated by so many generous sentiments and high conceptions, and the publication of a number of valuable works, awakening the public attention, have shown that a reform in the colonial system is urgently called for, and must be made, or those who cling to it in its present state will find it crumble to decay, and be crushed beneath its ruins.

A sudden and general emancipation of the slaves would be a wild and perilous measure. Such has never been the aim of any philanthropist, and those colonists who persist in asserting the reverse, lie wilfully with the truth before their eyes. Have we not incessantly entreated the planters to give up the infamous traffic of slave dealing, to treat their negroes with less severity, and to adopt regulations which, tending gradually to ameliorate their position, would obviate that tendency to revolt which a sense of injustice must ever stimulate and excite?

What has been the conduct of colonists? Like all other despots, who never allow those they oppress to be ripe for liberty, instead of rendering the yoke of slavery more light, they have laid addi