74 British India, fyc. JuLY, 



stroke to the political existence of the East India Company. Hear, and 

 perpend ! 



f * In India, British subjects were oppressed beyond belief. They are, 

 by a proclamation, prohibited from going ten miles beyond Calcutta 

 without permission. One of the Company's servants, by interest, could 

 an order, and transport an unfortunate man without further process. 

 To slave trade was equal in hardship to the sufferings of this oppressed 

 people. Children, born British subjects, of native mothers, were out- 

 casts. They could not acquire property in travel (?) or trade" !* 



The orator who was delivered of this surprising nonsense was the 

 great Daniel O'Connell. 



" Antoni gladios potuit contemnere, si sic, 

 Orania dixisset" 



Which may be interpreted that Daniel would have been quite safe from 

 the knotted lash of Mr. Doherty if he had always confined himself to 

 balderdash so excessively absurd, and statements which Ferdinand 

 Mendez Pinto himself would blush to father. 



VOICE OF THE COUNTRY ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 



IN the circulars addressed to the colonial governors in 1828 by Secre- 

 tary Sir George Murray, and in various despatches issued by his prede- 

 cessors in office, it seems to have been considered necessary, or to have 

 become customary, to urge the adoption of measures recommended 

 for ameliorating the condition of the labouring population in the West 

 Indies by constant allusions to the voice of the people of this country. 



In whatever degree the colony addressed was or was not assumed to 

 have incurred official censure, the "impatience of the people of this coun- 

 try" was mentioned to each of them in the same threatening manner by 

 the new colonial secretary ; and the instant adoption of measures, evi- 

 dently emanating from persons inimical to the welfare of the Colonists, 

 or conceived in ignorance of the actual state of the labouring population 

 in those possessions, was stated to have become absolutely necessary in 

 consequence of the state of " public opinion in the mother country/' 



We certainly think there is something ludicrous in this manner of 

 treating the colonists ; and that to approach them with injurious mea- 

 sures in one hand, and an apologetical threat regarding the necessity of 

 enforcing them in the other, is not the manner in which a question of 

 this important nature would have been put forth by a wise and decisive 

 government ! We further presume to think that a very little previous 

 examination and reflection would have shown to the colonial secretary 

 that what was then successfully foisted upon him as u public opinion" 

 was not the voice of the community at large, nor of the intelligent part 

 of that community, but the mere clamour of a party principally composed 

 of ignorant and fanatical sectarians, sustained by the most unworthy arti- 

 fices of their vain-glorious or self-interested leaders, who by the most 

 artful misrepresentations did then, and do still, continue to keep in their 

 train not only many persons who are too idolent to examine both sides 

 of an intricate question, but also others who from the strength of an igno- 



* We have copied the newspaper report verbatim. 



