72 Affairs of British India. [JULY, 



continental India, and the condition of its inhabitants, subjects with which 

 it is impossible that he should be acquainted, dire necessity compels him 

 to pick up and make use of the sophistical weapons of his allies. The 

 armoury of the brotherhood contains no better, but a man of real talent 

 should scorn to use such rotten staves ; for though they appear the very 

 spears of Goliah to Messrs. Buckingham and Rickards, Mr. Crawfurd is 

 far too clear sighted not to be aware of their utter insufficiency. We 

 thought at one time that it would not be an inappropriate punishment, 

 if he were condemned to swallow all Mr. Rickards' paradoxes ; but, on 

 second thoughts, we were alarmed at the severity of a discipline, which 

 nothing short of a moral ostrich could undergo with impunity. So we 

 leave him to the conscious pride which he cannot but feel from the situ- 

 ation which the Edinburgh Review assigns him, as first member of the 

 glorious confraternity, the brilliant triad, of which Messrs. Rickards and 

 Buckingham form the other limbs.* Assuredly, there is a magic in great 

 names ; .an honour in being associated with them ! 



Besides the engines of offence which we have described, the philan- 

 thropise reformers of the administration of British India have not con- 

 temned the employment of humbler and more direct means of misre- 

 presentation and slander. We say " humbler," because whilst it requires 

 some portion of ingenuity to invent a paradox, or to bolster up a sophism 

 into plausibility, the mere hardy assertion of " that which is not," de- 

 mands nothing more than a moderate stock of assurance. In this respect 

 no deficiency is observable. Our library, unhappily, is not graced with 

 any numbers of the Oriental Herald, bound in half Russia, and gilt and 

 lettered, as would well beseem their worth ; nor does our memory retain 

 the statements of that periodical, now, alas ! but semianimate, very 

 deeply engraven on its tablets. We can recall, however, two of its vera- 

 cious charges, the first of which possesses the peculiar merit of involving 

 an impossibility. The public will be shocked to hear, from authority so 

 unquestionable, that the Government of British India arrogates to itself 

 nine-tenths of the gross produce of the soil. The second lamentable fact 

 is, that the judges and magistrates appointed by the Company do not 

 understand the languages in which they administer the laws. We are 

 happy in being able to dry the tears of sensibility, by informing our rea- 

 ders, that Lord Cornwallis' Settlement professed, in theory, to secure to 

 the State nine-tenths of the Zemindar's, or middle-man s, collections from the 

 cultivators ; but that, in practice, those persons, throughout the provinces 

 to which that measure extended, enjoy net incomes fully equal, on the 

 average, to the sums which they pay, from the gross assets of their several 

 estates, into the coffers of Government. With regard to the other alle- 

 gation, we can only say that we should be sorry to lower ourselves by 

 giving it its real name. 



We have only room to take very brief notice of Mr. Rickards' exploits 

 in this line, but we shall enjoy ample opportunities of recurring to them, 

 from time to time, for his refreshment. The following are some of the 

 broader and more condensed misstatements. (c A monopoly of a prime 

 necessary of life to the poor, (salt,) is established in a pestilential climate, 

 carried on by forced labour."! "The ryots are, down to the present 

 hour, as much harassed, oppressed and drained as ever."! The police 

 officers " appear to have been vested with powers equal to those of a jus- 



* No. CI. Note to page 285. f Vo1 - I- P- 64 7- v ^l. II. p. 214. 



