PRINTED FOR BLACK, KINGSBURY, PARBURY, & ALLEN, LEADENHALL STREET. THE ASIATIC JOURNAL FOR JULY 1820. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIRAs many of. your readers may not have access to the late publications on the subject of the recent acquisitions in India, I have transcribed, for their information, some parts of Mr. Prinsep's quarto work, which, to those Proprietors of India Stock' who do not attend the India House debates, may, I conceive, prove useful. Mr. Prin sep has given a most copious detail of the preparations for the late war, and of its proceedings; and the result fully shews the capacious mind of the noble Marquis, who projected the plans, and employed the means whereby so successful and unexpected an issue has been obtained. But in the political retrospect to which these considera tions lead, the Indian public never can forget, that had the Marquis of Wellesley's plans, with Lord Lake's great victories, been followed up as they should have been, many millions of money and thousands of lives would have been saved to the state. If we except a pertinacious few, I believe that a great majority of those persons who in Eng land resolutely condemned that nobleman's administration, now ac knowledge their error. But the best regulations at home cannot Asiatic Journ.-No. 55. prevent a similar case from occur. ring. The possession of £1,000 stock is in one proprietor the power of contributing to sustain a judi cious system of policy, and to conduct it on principles which give protection and stability to the fruits of success; while it entitles another to gratify his vanity, to discharge his rancour, or to betray his entire ignorance of Indian policy. I am sorry to say, that many of the debates upon the pensions granted to distinguished individuals will but act as a beacon to India servants hereafter, to take care of their private concerns, whilst they are ably discharging their public duties. Some of the late pensions have been assented to in a way that, to generous minds, must have proved so very galling, that nothing but extreme necessity could reconcile spirits, whose high services claim the meed of "dignity in retirement," to their acceptance. This conduct is unworthy such a great government as the Company's now is; and I trust, in future, more delicacy will be exercised in India Debates. >The territorial revenue of the Peishwa in 1815, exclusive of assignments on military tenure, was VOL. X. B |