502 British India, and the Renewal of [MAY, 



and give their attention to argumentative statements and matters of 

 detail. 



Accordingly, the writers to whom we refer, to omit further mention 

 of those " who lecture as they go," like some of the heroes of the Anti- 

 Jacobin, and whose eirea TtTepoEVTO. we cannot undertake to catch and fix 

 sufficiently for handling in our pages, have not failed to press the most 

 vague generalities, and every possible form of vituperation into their 

 service. The Company would seem, from their allegations, to be a very 

 incarnation of the principle of evil, the undisputed monarchs of misrule. 

 Their government, it is said, affords no protection to person or property ; 

 the police is utterly ineffective ; " the administration of justice is in such 

 a state that an appeal to it is nearly hopeless* ;" their servants, even the 

 judges, are hostile to te all the private enterprises of British subjects f ;" 

 all the sources from which they derive their revenue are polluted J ; and 

 in addition to all this, lo ! it is written, that they are oppressors and ex- 

 tortioners, the grinders of the faces of the poor, the plunderers of the 

 purses of the rich ; very Machiavels in every thing but talent ; with 

 hearts of stone, and hands of steel to extract all and spare none. To all 

 these charges, reiterated in a vast variety of forms, and in tropes and 

 figures of vilification, which we despair even of imitating at the most 

 humble distance, the public are called upon to give their unqualified 

 assent, and to follow up the verdict thus dictated to them by a sentence 

 of deprivation. The dominions which they have so long misgoverned, 

 as well as the commerce which they have equally mismanaged, are to be 

 taken from them, and other merchants are to trade, and other sovereigns 

 to rule in their stead. But with regard to any consistent and intelligible 

 plan even for pulling down a fabric so old, and so well consolidated by 

 its own magnitude and its collateral buttresses, except by a bare vote of 

 the legislature for the abatement of the Company, none of the political 

 philosophers, who are so nervous in assertion, and fluent in hard names, 

 nave offered even an outline. Doubtless, however, they have some un- 

 deniable scheme in reserve, though it be hidden, for the present, from 

 the eyes of the profane; and, under these circumstances, it would be 

 most unreasonable indeed, to expect that our illuminati should allow us 

 to catch even the most hasty glimpse of the stately and symmetrical 

 edifice which they propose to erect in the place of that which they are 

 so eager to destroy, " from turret to foundation-stone." 



Nevertheless, those who are in any degree practical, all, in short, who 

 are not the merest spinners of theories and weavers of systems, have a 

 prejudice in favour of looking, at least, so far before them, as to see solid 

 footing for their first three or four steps in an untried ford. The water 

 may be very shallow, Mr. Rickards, as you say ; the bottom may be 

 very hard, Mr. Crawfurd, as you are pleased to affirm ; and the editor 

 of the Oriental Herald may echo your asseverations, like the French 

 charlatan exclaiming, " What the gentlemen say is very true ;" but we, 

 who are plain men, beg to be permitted to examine the ground a little 

 for ourselves. Moreover, we shall make bold to inquire whether the 

 old bridge, which has stood so long, is built upon such erroneous 

 principles of architecture, and is altogether so rotten and unsafe, as you 



* " View of the Present State and Future Prospects of the Free Trade and Colonization 

 of India," p. 32. 



f Ibid. p. 23. 31. Mr. Rickard's Pamphlets, passim. 



