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niences, or an accession of wealth, he must depend on the suc cessful culture of more precarious crops, sugar, tobacco, silk, cotton, indigo, and opium. The medium profits of the latter are not perhaps greater than from corn; but frequent instances of immense gain are calculated to allure cultivators; though the Company are said to experience much difficulty in procuring the quantity required for the China market. Tobacco is the most profitable culture to which the husbandman can devote his toils. It might be raised in Bengal in sufficient quantities to supply the consumption of Europe. But whilst the freight remains at 151. per ton, its export thither would prove detrimental to the speculator. The sugar cane has been cultivated throughout Bengal from time immemorial; and the names by which it is known in other countries, appear to be slightly corrupted from Sanscrit appellations. In an eloquent and argumentative appeal to the British nation, Mr Colebrooke descants on the justice and policy of opening the English markets to the produce of Bengal; he contrasts the cheapness of culture there, with the extravagant price at which it is raised in the West Indies; the voluntary labours of free cultivators, with the blood-stained toils of reluctant slaves; and deprecates the idea of considering Bengal in the light of a foreign and tributary country, whose industry should. be discouraged. His arguments on this subject appear indeed, to us, altogether unanswerable: were sound policy always in unison with strict justice, the line of conduct to be adopted would admit of little hesitation. Cotton is raised in Bengal in considerable quantity; besides which, an immense importation is received from the northern and western countries; the high rate of freight alone prevents its being brought to Europe, to the advantage equally of our own manufactures, and of the country whence it is exported. The districts in which the silk-worm is reared, could not perhaps supply a greater quantity of silk than they at present furnish; but we are convinced with Mr Colebrooke, that the culture of the mulberry might be extended with advantage to other districts.

، The exportation of grain from corn countries, and the returns of falt, conftitute the principal object of internal traffic. The importation of cotton from the weltern provinces, and the exchange of tobacco for the areca nut, together with fome fugar, and a few articles of lefs note, complete the supply of internal confumption. Manufactures are almoft limited to the wants of their immediate neighbourhood, excluding from this confideration the provision of the public inveftment, and the calls of foreign trade. Piece goods, filk, faltpetre, opium, fugar and indigo, pafs almoft wholly through the Company's hands, excepting only what foreign commerce, and the traffic to various ports in India, ex

FOL. X. NO. 19.

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port, of fuch among these articles as the Company do not monopolize.'

Mr Colebrooke estimates the value of corn annually transported from distant parts of the interior, to supply the consumption of cities, and the export trade, at two millions Sterling, which is principally repaid in salt. The consumption of their own manufactures by the natives in articles of dress, he estimates at six millions annually. Our author then furnishes an enumeration of the articles which he imagines might be advantageously imported from Bengal, were the rates of freight reduced to what a free competition would afford, and concludes with the following incontestable proposition,

That England ought not to discourage the commerce of her own fubjects and tributaries in favour of foreign nations.'

We have now endeavoured to do justice to the meritorious and successful researches of Mr Colebrooke, whose talents have, we understand, deservedly raised him to the highest station, which a Company's servant is likely to attain in that country. Before we proceed to the less agreeable part of our task, we can not refrain from stating a whimsical, and rather ludicrous impression, which we received from the perusal of some part of his work. If we suppose a man of an intelligent and reflecting mind, and possessed of much local knowledge, thrown into society with a person of similar character, but destitute of the latter advantage, though accustomed to speculate on an extensive. scale, to contemplate mighty innovations, and much more apt to feel deeply the evils he attributes to existing institutions, than calmly to appreciate the effects of their removal; if we could suppose that such a person were to succeed in communicating his impressions to his associate, and in enlisting his local knowledge in the service of his own speculative views, whilst at the same time he is much too intelligent not to know, and much too candid to suppress, the physical causes to which the evils he deplores may frequently be traced; we shall then be able to account for several passages in this work. In these, we find the state of the Bengal peasantry depicted in a querulous tone, as the result of their own mismanagement, and the consequences of their unenlightened industry; but we have scarcely time to breathe the philanthropic sigh over their infatuation in being blind to obvious improvements, before we stumble, altogether unexpectedly, on the physical necessity which regulates their conduct, and which all the agricultural science of Mr Arthur Young could not remove. We adduce two instances, which have a litthe amused us.

• In his progress through Bengal, the traveller will not confine him. felf to remark the natural diversity in the afpect of the country, but will compare the neat habitations of the peasants, who refide in hilly regions, with the wretched huts of those who inhabit the plain; and the contraft may fuggest a reflection, how little the richest productions, and moft thriving manufacturers, contribute to the general comfort of the people at large. '

We had scarcely time to lament the unfortunate inhabitants of plains, before we were reminded that the waters which fertilize their fields, frequently deluge their habitations; and that the in conveniences of their quarters was compensated by saving the labour of artificial irrigation, and obviating the necessity of ma nure. Again,

'If dikes, to check the inundation, fhow an attention to improve ment-refervoirs and dams, conftructed for irrigation in the champaign country, are equally a proof of fome attention to that object, while wells for watering the fields offer a pleafing fpecimen of industry in the western provinces. But if fomething occur to extort applause, the moft defultory obfervation will notice more to cenfure. The affemblage of peasants in villages, their small farms, and the want of enclosures, bar all great improvements in husbandry.'

This unaccountable propensity in the peasants to huddle together in villages, whilst they might apply their labour so much more profitably by living on their farms, would have appeared like infatuation.

But, it is true, that in a country infefted by tygers, folitary dwel lings and unattended cattle would be infecure; but no apology can be offered for the peasants indifferently quitting the plough to use the loom, and the loom to refume the plough. Induftry cannot be worse directed. '

But since the danger from beasts of prey renders the assemblage of houses necessary, was it judicious to insert this amongst the objects of censure? We are unable to judge how far enclosures would prove beneficial in Bengal; they are rare there, as over the whole Continent of Europe; but were they ever so abundant, they would not at all obviate the necessity of guarding the cattle from the attacks of ferocious animals, nor admit of their being left out at night. Bold as it may seem, we even venture to apologize for the alternate labours of the loom and the ploughshare.

The fpring and the dry feafon occupy four months,' fays Mr Colebrooke, during which the heat progreffively increafes, until it becomes almoft intolerable, even to the natives themfelves. '

At this period, uninterrupted field labour is impossible; and though the greatest sultriness prevails then, yet the heat is intense during three fourths of the year, for some hours after

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noon. When his rural occupations are unavoidably interrupted, through fatigue or excessive heat, application to a sedentary employment appears to us rather laudable, than an object of censure. It is true, the husbandmen have the alternative of being idle during that period; and many of them have had the penetration to prefer it.

The neceffaries of life are cheap, the mode of living simple; and though the price of labour be low, a fubfiftence may be earned without the uninterrupted application of industry. Often idle, the manufacturer and peafant may nevertheless fubfift.'

It is possible, that, in temperate climes, the minute subdivision of labour may furnish a tolerably accurate criterion of the commercial prosperity of the country in which it subsists. It is possible that the numerary value of its productions may be in some degree commensurate with the moral degradation of the mass of its inhabitants; and that when their ideas shall each be limited to the performance of one simple manipulation, the country shall have attained the acmé of its splendour. These axioms we are by no means disposed to combat; but think that, during the unavoidable interruption of his rural labours, occasioned by the climate, the Bengal peasant may be allowed to employ himself in plying his loom within doors.

An observation which Mr Colebrooke has applied to one branch of cultivation, might, in our opinion, be judiciously applied to all..

• A course of experiments would be requifite to afcertain whether the methods actually employed, be better fuited to the foil and climate, than others which might be, or which have been, fuggefted, after comparing the practice of other countries with the various methods pursued in Bengal.?

It will frequently be found, that customs which appear to strangers the result of negligence and want of refinement, have their origin in local peculiarities, and may, on further information, be traced to a series of profound and continued practical observations. We are disposed to think, that our author's strictures on the plough, and on the rotation of crops used in Bengal, may be found in this predicament. The former is not calculated to make a profound impression on the soil, and only scratches the surface. Is it desirable it should do more? We can affirm, that, in most parts of Bengal, at some distance from the surface, the soil is strongly impregnated with alkaline salts, extremely hostile to vegetation; insomuch, that delicate plants have frequently a layer of bricks placed below them, to prevent their roots from descending to the noxious stratum. To enable his readers to judge how far the Hindus are scientific and intelligent cultivators of the soil, we lament that Mr Colebrooke has

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not given the names adopted by them for the different species of lands, discriminated by their respective level above the line of inundation, and the peculiar mode of culture appropriated to each. The Dowra, annually fertilized by inundation, and yielding one crop. The Caduri, above the level of inundation, but receiving an annual deposite of rich soil washed from higher lands, and yielding two crops. The Danga, more elevated than either, and manured (not indeed with dung, which Mr Colebrooke seems to regard somewhat too exclusively as the only fertilizing substance, but) with soil brought from the tract of inundation, and left by the waters on their retreat; this is devoted to the more delicate and costly productions. These are only a few of the distinctions admitted in Hindu husbandry. The two first, to which nature applies the manure it requires, bear crops ad infinitum, without the necessity of lying fallow to recruit their vegetative powers. What we have said will suffice to prove that the Bengal peasantry do not proceed without fixed principles for their guidance, and those probably derived from a remote antiquity, and possibly the best adapted to their soil and climate. We can also assert, that, in the part of the country with which we are most con-, versant, the rotation of the crops was in a certain degree regulated by their supposed effects on the soil, excepting where the annual deposite of alluvial earth rendered this attention superflu

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It were idle to criticize the data on which Mr Colebrooke has founded his calculations of the population of Bengal. They were the best, we have no doubt, to which he had access; and unsatisfactory as they are, we are persuaded they have conducted him to a nearer approximation to the truth than his predecessors, and that the population of the tracts in question may perhaps fairly be estimated at thirty millions,

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We appeal,' fays Mr Colebrooke, to the recollection of every person who has traverfed the populous parts of Bengal, whether every village do not fwarm with inhabitants? whether every plain be not crowded with villages? and whether every ftreet be not thronged with paffengers?'

This apparent affluence of inhabitants, in a country where one fourth of the population are rarely seen abroad, convinces us that the inhabitants bear a relatively great proportion to the superficies of occupied land. Our author has excluded a fourth. of the area for tracts of land nearly or wholly waste;' but this is in addition to one sixth, previously allowed in his calculation for lands deemed irreclaimable and barren,' and wastes liable to pay revenue. This classification is not very intelligible. Does our author comprehend in the former, the extensive tracts of forests, such as the Sundrivana; and indicate, under the lat

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