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MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



COLONIAL POLITICS. 



1. Auber's Rise and Progress of the British Power in India. 

 2 vols. thick 8vo. Vol. I. W. H. Allen. 



2. Modern India. By H. H. SPRY, M. D. 2 vols. post 8vo. 

 Whittaker. 



3. First Impressions arid Studies from Nature in Hindostan. By 

 lieutenant BACON. B.R.H.A. 2 vols. 8vo. plates. W.H.Allen. 



THE formation of the Anglo- Indian Empire in the East has furnished one of 

 the most curious and interesting chapters in the history of the world. That 

 a company of merchants should in the course of two centuries have formed a 

 mighty empire of 1,180,000 square miles in extent, inhabited by a population 

 of 120 millions of natives and only 40,000 Europeans, naturally excites 

 astonishment and raises a suspicion that simple trading and the necessary 

 provision for the protection of the factors and their goods could never have 

 erected so extensive a power in the Indian peninsula. It is not for us, here, 

 to dwell at any length either on the lighter or the darker passages in the 

 history of British India ; for most of our readers are conversant with Mill's 

 excellent work, and the facts carry with them their own comment. Without 

 further allusion to the past, we may fairly allow to the company, as a legis- 

 lative body, that praise which justice denies it as a commercial engine, 

 namely, that as governors, they have generally exercised a wise discretion by 

 enforcing economy in the administration, and by appointing the fittest men 

 to posts of influence and emolument in that country. It is very doubtful 

 whether the national government would have managed their patronage with 

 half the honesty of the present rulers, notwithstanding the occasional outcries 

 that have been raised against their corruption. As a direct source of revenue 

 to the country, India cannot be said to be very profitable to us ; for we never 

 derive a net revenue from it of more than 50,000. Its distance is one great 

 obstacle to economical government ; and it cannot be doubted that the mono- 

 poly of trade possessed by the Company until 1834 prevented the extension of 

 commerce, and made this vast district of less service to us than Germany or 

 the United States. In half-a-dozen years we shall be able to estimate the 

 amount of good consequent on the opening of the trade. 



Having premised these few general remarks, we proceed to say a very few 

 words on Mr. Auber's book, the first volume of which carrying the history 

 down to the return of Warren Hastings in 1785 is all that has yet been 

 published. That it has been written by a partizan of the Company no reader 

 of a dozen pages of it can doubt ; but he has nevertheless not so far as a 

 short examination enables us to judge misstated nor warped facts : and 

 every one is therefore at liberty to draw his own conclusions. The author 

 differs in sentiment from the late Mr. Mill, and is more of a partizan ; but, 

 owing to the great quantity of new material that he has brought to bear on 

 his subject, his work is indispensable to all those who wish to become ac- 

 quainted with the history of his Majesty's Indian territories. The work, as 



