ever may have been the spirit and intent of the Act, may be enforced under its letter, for other offences than those through the Press, or indeed without the proscribed individual having committed any offence at all, as well as to explain the references made to this subject in the last letter of this compilation, it has been thought advisable to print also the Correspondence that passed between Mr. Buckingham and the Bombay Government, before his connexion with the Indian Press, and before his entertaining the most distant idea of being connected with it. They will show, in the strongest light, that Arbitrary Transportation, at the mere will of the Government, (or "Transmission," as a distinguished Advocate for the exercise of this extraordinary power has gently termed it,) may be legally enforced on an individual, without his having done any thing that should justly subject an Englishman to such hardship and ignominy; though its inflicting the very same loss and punishment on Innocent and unoffending persons, which the laws of England would adjudge to the guilty only, cannot be doubted. After the Correspondence with the Government of Bombay on the question of Transportution without Trial, will be introduced the following Documents, illustrative of the state of public opinion at Madras, namely: 1. Extracts from the Speeches of Sir Samuel Toller, the Company's Advocate General, the Honourable Colonel Stanhope, and Mr. Stavely, at the Meeting at Madras, convened in May 1819, for the purpose of voting an Address to Lord Hastings; the Extracts being confined to those portions that speak of his Lordship's emancipation of the Indian Press. 2. Extract from the Address of the Inhabitants of Madras, read by Major Blacker, at the Government House in Calcutta, on the 24th of July 1819. 3. Extract from the reply of Lord Hastings to the Address from the inhabitants of Madras. The As Preliminary Documents, these have been thought sufficient to show the general sentiments of the British community at Madras, on the value and importance of a Free Press, and the explicit views of the Marquess of Hastings as cordially agreeing with their own. sentiments of the British community of Bombay, and the views of its present distinguished Governor (the Hon. Mount Stuart Elphinstone,) on that subject, may be gathered from the fact of his making the removal of the Censorship at that Presidency almost the first act of his Government. The sentiments of the great majority of the British community under this Presidency have always corresponded to those of their countrymen at Bombay and Madras, and remain, it is believed, unchanged; so The Proceedings, Speeches, Resolutions, &c. of the inhabitants of Calcutta, on all Public Occasions when they have met in large bodies, sufficiently evince the tone of general feeling, that the general voice of India in praise of a Free Press, is in unison with that of the distinguished Nobleman who pronounced its high eulogium to his fellow-subjects here, and with the praise of whose magnanimity for this aet, the whole of Europe has resounded wherever a Free Press was known, while our Transatlantic brethren have echoed back from their shores the praises with which England was filled, on the present Freedom of the Press in India, as compared with its Slavery in former days. To reprint all that has been written on this subject would be to republish nearly every Number of the Calcutta Journal for the last three years; but it may serve as an indication of how strongly and steadily the current of general feeling has run in the same channel with that of the Editor and the Supporters of that Paper, to state, that standing alone as it has done-the only zealous and determined Advocate of Free Discussion, the only channel for the full, fair, and free exercise of Public Opinion, and the only instance of reducing to practice the maxims avowed by the Governor General as those by which a Free Press should be directed, several of its most violent Opponents have, one after the other, disappeared from the field. The few that remain with any respectable circulation, have been compelled to abandon their opposition; and the two that now continue it are as low in the public estimation as they can well descend, while the circulation and the popularity of the Calcutta Journal has increased from its first establishment, is still increasing, and rises over every obstacle, only because of its firm adherence to these points. As it set out with the advocacy of Freedom of Opinion, so it has continued uniformly to maintain what it first professed; and neither the hope of reward, nor the fear of punishment -the prospect of gain, nor the dread of ruinthe smiles of the few, nor the neglect of the many-nothing, in short, but an honest conviction and a conscientious belief, could ever prevail on its Editor to profess any other sentiments than those which have uniformly been expressed by him, and will be uniformly maintained as long as the Liberty of the Press shall be left to us in India, and he may be spared to exercise it. The Documents before alluded to will be given in the order in which they are enumerated, and be followed by the Article that drew forth the displeasure of the Governor General in Council for a supposed unjust insinuation on the Government of Madras, with the Correspondence arising out of this; and closed with the Article that occasioned the displeasure of the Government, as being supposed to contain insinuations of disrespect towards the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, with the which is indeed singularly strong and decided in favour of a Free Press, for a society of which at least one halfis composed of persons serving the Government in various capacities. Correspondence that arose out of this also. No comment will be appended to either, as the object of this compilation is not to make an Appeal to the Public, nor to pronounce an opinion on the merits of the case, but simply to put such of the Friends of the Editor and of the Press, as have an anxious wish to be informed on the subject, in possession of all the Documents that have a real bearing on the question of Transportation without Trial, as a Punishment to be inflicted on what may be deemed by the Government an improper use of the Liberty of the Press, and a violation of the proper bounds of Free Discussion; or indeed whatever else may be objectionable to their views and wishes; since the exercise of this power is not defined or limited to specific offences, but is wholly dependent on their discretion, and subservient to their mere will. To begin with the Bombay Case, in the order of enumeration.-The present Editor of the Calcutta Journal, Mr. Buckingham, being at Bombay in the year 1815, and in command of a new ship, to which he was appointed within a few weeks after his arrival, while fitting out for a voyage to China, the subjoined Correspondence occurred between the Honour. able Company's Solicitor, the Chief Secretary to Government, the Governor in Council, and himself: To FRANCIS WARDEN, Esq. Chief Secretary to Government. Sir,-Having been called upon by Mr. J. H. Stephenson, the Honourable Company's Solieitor, to give security for my proceeding to England in such ship and at such time as may be appointed by Government, it being understood that I am provided with no licence or authority to remain in India, I beg leave to lay before you a brief outline of the peculiar circumstances which led to my visiting this country, both with a view to account for my being unprovided with such licence, as well as to ground a hope of receiving the indulgence allowed to be exercised by the Government in granting special licences until the pleasure of the Court of Directors shall be known, as explained in the new Act of 53 Geo. 3. cap. 155. sec. 37. In the month of April, 1813, long before the new Act was passed, I sailed from Portsmouth for the Mediterranean, in company with the Stirling Castle, on board of which Lord Moira was embarked for India, and proceeded from thence to Malta with the intention of settling there; but being prevented from landing by the existence of the plague, I was compelled to proceed on to Smyrna, and soon afterwards to visit Egypt, where a mission to this country was proposed to me for the purpose of forming a commercial connexion between the most respectable British house in Alexandria and Cairo, and the mercantile establishment of Mr. John Leckie of this place. After a considerable sacrifice of time and money, I quitted Egypt on a voyage to Bombay, under the immediate patronage of Colonel Missett, the British Resident, and Mr. Peter Lee, the British Consul there, by both of whom I was furnished with letters of introduction and recommendation, it being unknown to them as well as to myself at that time what were likely to be the restrictive clauses in the new Charter, which had not then reached that country; and the general anticipation being that former obstructions as to visiting India would be removed, and greater facilities granted by it to the industry and honourable views of such of his Majesty's subjects as might be disposed to engage in the trade of the East, particularly through channels like that of the Red Sea, which, if not occupied by British subjects, would in times of peace inevitably fall into the hands of foreign merchants. On my arrival here, my first endeavours were to ascertain what were the necessary steps to be taken to avoid the slightest suspi cion of my intentions being clandestine, when I accordingly reported myself personally to Mr. Goodwin, the Superintendent of Police, and by him was taken to the Right Honourable the Governor, to whom I disclosed with frankness the train of circumstances which led to my voyage, and the object it had in view. It has unfortunately happened that from the great length of my passage down the Red Sea, my arrival here was at a moment when some general commercial changes as well as alterations in the private views of Mr. Leckie, to whom I came particularly addressed, had induced him to abandon his first intentions, so that I remained here almost without any posi. tively determined object, until under these circumstances an offer has been made to me on certain conditions, by Mohammed Ali Khan, the agent of the Imaam of Muscat, of the command of one of his vessels, destined for the China trade, a station for which I am qualified by nearly seven years' experience, as chief officer and commander of different British ships to America, the West Indies, and the Mediter ranean. As then, Sir, a long train of expenditure, losses, and disappointments, have rendered me incapable of returning to England immediately without absolute ruin to all my prospects, and without involving also the want and suffering of a dependent family; since, too, I have neither deserted the service of his Majesty, nor of the Honourable Company, Sir, your obedient servant, Bombay, May 12, 1815. To Mr. BUCKINGHAM. Public Department. Sir,-In reply to your letter dated the 12th instant, I am directed to inform you that the Right Honourable the Governor in Council cannot, consistently with a due attention to the instructions of the Honourable the Court of Directors, accede to your application to be permitted to remain in India until their pleasure shall be known. I have the honour to be, &c. F. WARDEN, Chief Sec. to Gov. Bombay, May 17, 1815. To the Right Hon. Sir EVAN NEPEAN, Bart. President and Governor in Council, Bombay. Right Honourable Sir,-I have had the honour to receive, in a letter from the public Secretary, dated the 17th instant, information that the Right Honourable the Governor in Council could not, consistently with a due attention to the instructions of the Honourable Court of Directors, accede to my application to be permitted to remain in India until their pleasure should be known. When I addressed the Government through its public Secretary, in my letter of the 12th instant, in answer to the Honourable Company's Solicitor's demand of a security for my returning to England, and stated the grounds on which I ventured to hope for the indulgence of my being suffered to remain here until the pleasure of the Court of Directors upon my case should be known, I was induced to believe that such indulgence, from the nature of the circumstances under which it was solicited, would not have been denied to me. On a reference to the new Charter, the first time of my seeing which has been since my arrival in this country, I am more and more confirmed in my hopes that your Right Honourable Board will yet, on reconsidering my case, conceive it to be one of those which were in the contemplation of the British Legislature, when the provisionary clauses of its last Act were framed.-You will pardon me, therefore, Right Honourable Sir, if, induced by the anxiety natural to my situation, I take the liberty of bringing before you an extract from it, in the words of the Act itself. "Provided nevertheless, that any Governor General, or Governor, of the said Presidencies, for extraordinary reasons, to be entered upon the Minutes of Council, may authorize by special licence, the residence of any subject of his Majesty in any place or places under the government of such Presidency, until the pleasure of the said Court of Directors shall be known in their behalf; and that such special licence shall be deemed and taken to be of the same force and effect as a licence of and from the said Court of Directors, until notice of the pleasure of the said Court to the contrary shall have been given to such person, by delivery thereof to such person, or by leaving the same at his last place of abode, or by publication thereof in the Gazette of the Presidency by which such special licence shall have been granted: provided that a copy of such licence, and of the reasons for granting the same, accompanied with an application for a licence from the said Court of Directors, shall be transmitted to the said Court of Directors forthwith after the granting thereof." 53 Geo. 3. cap. 155. sec. 37. Had it not been in the contemplation of the British Parliament that cases might arise in which the individual being found in India without a licence might be blameless, and worthy of receiving a special one from the local governments, until the reasons for his being so unprovided and a statement of his case could be known to the Honourable Court of Directors at home, no such clause as the one just quoted could have been necessary. I have ventured to presume that my own is a case of that description, and I am not without a hope that your Honourable Board may still be induced to regard it in that light. Having quitted England long before the new Act for the regulation of Indian affairs had passed, and without having, at that time, the remotest intention of visiting India, my departure from England without such licence is perfectly accounted for. At the same time, such facilities are granted by the New Charter for all unobjectionable persons obtaining licences, that it can scarcely be doubted but that an application for that purpose would easily procure one, as will be seen by a reference to the thirtythird section of the said Charter. My original determination to visit this country was not even formed until I was already midway between Great Britain and her Eastern possessions, and was then brought about by a series of losses and disappointments which compelled me to seek for some immediate employment; and undertaken for the accomplishment of a particular object, without a view to fixed residence, and in the contemplation of a temporary stay only for that purpose. That object has, however, been defeated, by the length of my voyage, and consequent lateness of my arrival; a voyage, in the course of which, besides the sufferings and sacrifices that I have sustained on the way, the small portion of what remained from my ruinous losses, all arising from a plague which no human prudence could foresee, no human skill avert, has been altogether expended. But for the generous assistance of Colonel Missett, the British Resident in Egypt, my voyage from that country to Bombay could not have been undertaken; and I am unwilling to suppose that such a man, so long holding a public situation connected with the Company's service, and who has acquitted himself of its duties with so much credit to himself, and satisfaction to his Honourable Employers, would have patronized me in an undertaking which he believed to be at all improper, or likely to interfere in the remotest way with the Hon. Company's interests. Finding myself disappointed in the particular object for which I visited this country, and on which I rested all my future hopes of independence, I naturally looked around me for such means of procuring an honourable subsistence as might offer themselves to the industry and qualifications of any honest man. Experienced in my own profession, I sought no other favour than the power of exercising it for the maintenance of myself and my family, for whom I have been two years labouring in vain. The testimonies which I was enabled to produce of my capacity, and the number of my recommendatory letters, procured for me, and fortunately too as I then thought, the offer of the command of a new ship in the China trade, belonging to the Imaum of Muscat, a service for which a partial knowledge of the Arabic language, acquired during my stay in Egypt and Arabia, had still more particularly qualified me. The rejection, on the part of Government, of my application for permission to hold the command of this ship, belonging to the independent prince of a country (Arabia) to which British subjects can go without any licence whatsoever (being out of the Company's limits), will, if persisted in, oblige me to abandon the only hope that remains of recovering the serious losses which I bave incurred by unforeseen and inevitable calamities, of placing me in a situation to meet the claims existing against me as a husband and a father, and of enabling me again to fill my station as a useful and honourable member of society. It is not for me, Right Honourable Sir, to offer an opinion on the nature of the private instructions of the Honourable Company, on which the refusal to accede to my request is grounded; but surely it cannot be denied that it is a case of peculiar, I would almost say, incredible hardship, after having travelled through countries universally deemed barbarous and savage, and meeting in them kindness, hospitality, and liberal treatment, to find on my treading on what I looked forward to as an almost native shore, and mixing again with my countrymen, all my hopes of protection and encouragement on that account entirely destroyed. Through all my travels hitherto, the circumstance of my being an Englishman has obtain. ed for me facilities, honours, and distinctions; until, on my arrival here, where it would have been expected that such a privilege would have operated still more powerfully in my favour, I regret to find that the very circumstance of my being an Englishman, is the heaviest charge which can be laid to my account. Had I been a Frenchman, an American, or even a Turk, seeking refuge among foreigners and strangers, I should have been unmolested in my labours and pursuits, and permitted to remain in any part of British India; but, simply because I am a British subject, a title which on all other occasions is the best and proudest claim to indulgence and favour, I am rendered liable to penalties, to hardships, and even ruin, for daring to be found in British territories, and that too, without my being considered guilty of any crime, without even the imputation of a fault. It is well known that Arab ships throughout the Eastern seas, have been commanded both by Frenchmen and Americans, who have, in such situations, acquired a knowledge of the local navigation, which has fitted them for the boldest enterprises in privateers, and enabled them to do extensive injury to our commerce thereby. Indeed, from the ignorance of the native captains, no Arab ship is sent upon a voyage of any difficulty without an European commander; and it must be evident, on national and politically commercial grounds, how important it is to secure these commands in the hands of British rather than of foreign mariners, for the double purpose of increasing the respectability and influence of the British character with all the Native Powers of the East, and of preventing the subjects of nations always likely, sooner or later, to become our enemies, from holding stations which will often enable them to counteract us, and give them opportunities of acquiring such information as may be of the highest importance to the prosecution of their designs. I have reached this country through toils and dangers, fatigue and expenditure, no small portion of which has been incurred and suffered in the prosecution of researches, honourable, I hope, to the undertaker of them; beneficial, I would fain believe, to mankind; and likely to be of service perhaps to my country; circumstances which, of themselves, are in every other nation admitted as claims to some indulgent considerations on the individual's behalf. I have found a station suited to my capacity and my wishes, one which I hope I am qualified to fill with credit to myself, satisfaction to my employers, and advantage to British interests; and in that station I am desirous of honestly employing my industry and my skill. It cannot be, surely, that because I am unfortunate, when I am selected as worthy of an employment in which these misfortunes may be ameliorated, and when I am desirous of avoiding all offence either to private interests or to public laws, by industriously earning a subsistence, that I should be thought to deserve to suffer all the loss of time, and painful mortification of a charter-party voyage, after which I should be placed on shore in England to return to my family after two years toils and absence, with disappointed hopes, with broken spirits, and with empty hands? I still trust, that the justice, if not the liberality of the Government will deliver me from such a calamity. In a situation of such inexpressible anxiety, and threatening such ruin to all my prospects, I shall be excused by the very nature of the dilemma to which I now find myself reduced, if I claim some merit from my share in the prosecution of those plans for extending our knowledge of foreign lands, which have been considered as forming one of the peculiar,glories of the present reign. When I had what I deemed the good fortune to extend my journey above the cataracts of the Nile, in a tract hitherto but little visited and imperfectly described, I did imagine, when affording my contribution towards African discovery, (an object which had been encouraged with such eagerness and at such expense by the most eminent of our statesmen, and particularly by the distinguished nobleman who now presides over the British empire in India,) that I had perhaps established some slight claims to the countenance of my countrymen in Asia. Had there been the slightest existing cause for the exertion of the power of transporting me to England, from the discovery of any thing dishonourable or improper in my conduct or my views, or could I believe that my removal from hence would be of the remotest benefit to mankind or to my country, I should have submitted without a murmur to the laws that banished me; but, conscious as I am that my views are as laudable as my conduct is irreproachable, and that my removal would plunge innocent and deserving beings into almost irretrievable misery, without benefiting a single individual, I am still willing to believe, from the known liberality of the Government here, that it will yet see reason to refrain from carrying so harsh, and, to me, so ruinous a measure into execution. Permit me then again, Right Honourable Sir, to throw myself on your notice, entreating you yet to consider whether my case be not one of those for which the British Parliament has made provision by the thirty-seventh section of its Act, in enabling the local governments to exercise their discretion thereon; and whether my present removal to England can be of the slightest private or public benefit; since, as my character is unobjectionable, and my purposes lawful, my claim may be expected there to be heard and granted at last, according to the provisions made for that purpose in the thirty-third section of the Act already referred to. In the mean time, permit me to state, that I am not only willing, but extremely desirous that the circumstances of my case on which 1 ground my hopes of indulgence, should be laid before the Honourable Court of Directors for their opinion and pleasure thereon; and that I shall be prepared to accompany a representation of it, with such references to the most respectable merchants in London, as shall prove to them the truth of my statement, and establish the purity of my character and reputation; under all which considerations, I cannot but continue to indulge a hope that one of the great objects of the New Charter to encourage the labours of upright and honourable British subjects in India, will not be defeated, by refusing me the power to exercise my own industry for the maintenance of myself and my family, and that your Honourable Board will yet see reason to permit my continuance in a command, from which both private and public benefits might accrue, without the probability of its being productive of a single evil. In the event of my being permitted to remain in India until an application can be made on my behalf at home for a licence from the Honourable Court, I shall of course be prepared to give the requisite securities for a compliance with their decision, in quitting the limits of their territories immediately on my receiving their orders so to do. I have the honour to be, &c. Bombay, May 26, 1815. To Mr. BUCKINGHAM. Judicial Department. Sir, I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated the 26th instant, and to inform you that the Right Honourable the Governor in Council can see no better grounds for permitting you to remain in India until an application can be made for a licence from the Honourable Court of Directors, than in favour of any other individual who may think fit to come to this Presidency without the permission of the Honourable Court, and that the Governor in Council cannot, therefore, rescind the orders which have been issued for ensuring your return to England. I have the honour to be, &c. F. WARDEN, Chief Sec. to Gov. Bombay Castle, June 1, 1815. TO FRANCIS WARDEN, Esq. Chief Secretary to Government, Bombay. Sir, I have had the honour to receive your letter, dated the 1st instant, containing the rejection of my application for a special licence from the Right Honourable the Governor in Council, and continuing the former orders of the Government for my removal. Submitting, therefore, to such decision on |