above the surface; such, indeed, is their wretchedness, that they envy the lot of the convicts working in chains upon the roads, and have been known to incur the danger of a criminal prosecution, in order to secure themselves from starving by the allowance made to those who are condemned to hard labour.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE GENERAL CHARACTER AND TEMPER OF THE NATIVES OF BRITISH INDIA.

"Dum alii quoquo modo audita pro compertis habent, alii vera in contrarium vertunt, et gliscit utrumque posteritate."

IT is a favourite maxim with a large class of politicians, and particularly with those connected with India, that what the sword has conquered, the sword must maintain. If this maxim be intended to keep up the vigilance of the conqueror, until the conquered become reconciled to their change of condition, it is hardly necessary to inculcate it with the oracular solemnity which some writers have done; since a conquest can only be said to be complete when opposition has entirely ceased, and the minds of the vanquished have been restored to their wonted tranquillity. if, as seems to be the aim of some late writers on the affairs of India, it be meant that a nation which has been conquered by the sword, must ever be retained in its allegiance by the same means, the maxim is equally false and pernicious.

But

It assumes the people to be constantly in a state of revolt; it rejects all sympathy with them; and tacitly admitting that one foreign government, however long established, can be entitled to no preference over any other that may endeavour to supplant it, leaves the nation in dispute to be fought for, like the prey of wild beasts, with the sole privilege of being devoured by the victor.

The first object of a conqueror ought to be to conciliate the conquered, and to discover materials for his and their joint security against foreign aggression. He should reflect, that the same prowess which put him in possession, may suffice to expel him, if superior means of repelling an attack be not brought into motion. The very facility with which he made the acquisition becomes a principal cause of his insecurity; for, whilst the value of the conquest continues to offer the same temptation, the means by which he achieved it are known to the world, and are capable of being accurately estimated in the event of attack SO that he is liable at any time to be assailed by superior forces when the spirit of the community over which he rules is not taken into the account; and that spirit is a reserve of strength, or a source of danger, according as he succeeds in exciting their confidence, and uniting their interest with

his own.

The greater part of our Indian territory has now been under British sway for nearly a century, and our conquest may still, in the language of Burke, be said to be as crude as it was the first day we govern without society and without sympathy of the natives; we have no more social habits with the people than if we still resided in England; nor, indeed, any species of intercourse with them, but that which is necessary to making a sudden fortune with a view to a remote settlement; yet at the present day, when so little has been done by us for India, orators in Leadenhall Street still speak of our being too prone to innovation, and of our being misled by our habits of judging the people by the scale of civilization to which we ourselves have advanced. We are too apt, it is said, to overlook the state of comparative non-civilization to which the now enlightened English nation was itself reduced, during that eventful period of its history, when bigotry, superstition, and prejudice were its sad and sole characteristics, and to forget that our emancipation from the bonds of darkness was effected, not by any sudden or coercive reformation, but by the gradual hand of time, the unshackled reflections of reason, and the salutary influence of the great principles of truth, which have at length placed us in a permanent and intellectual superiority. But if there

any

be any truth in this eulogium on our moral feeling and intellectual superiority, we have at least had ample time to impart a portion of the benefit of them to the natives of our Indian empire. There is no reason why those who travel upon the road to civilization and knowledge should be compelled to follow, step by step, in the track of those who first explored the way. To the latter, the route was necessarily long and wearisome, from their ignorance of the true direction, and the want of guide to conduct their steps; but no sooner were they arrived at the summit of the ascent, than the commanding view which they obtained enabled them to detect the needless wanderings into which they had been seduced, and to point out a plainer way to all succeeding travellers, free from the difficulties and dangers by which the first adventurers had been embarrassed. This, however, it appears, is by no means the process to be followed in India; but the natives are to be left almost entirely to their unassisted energies, with little or no assistance from the superior knowledge and experience possessed by those who assume the office of their protectors.

There are men who seem to imagine that such of their fellow-creatures as have the misfortune to differ from them in complexion are, like horses and dogs, incapable of imparting to others any