1830.] The Renewal of the Companies Charter. 081 



have concurred), folios of proof might be adduced, that when the com- 

 pany assumed the reins of government in India, crime and licence of 

 every description had attained a height unparalleled in the annals of 

 mankind. There were whole nations of avowed and unblushing rob- 

 bers : there were associated thousands who never pretended to subsist 

 otherwise than by plunder ; who neither tilled the earth, nor engaged 

 in any trade or manufacture, but swept the country periodically, com- 

 mitting atrocities which it curdles the very blood even to think upon 

 and of which simple torture and rape were literally the mildest forms. 

 Besides these, the northern provinces swarmed with cozaks, or mounted 

 highwaymen ; and every road was beset by kings, or phanseegars, as 

 they are called in different parts of the Peninsula, who practised murder 

 as a regular calling. To this hour, the skeletons of their victims are 

 frequently found, to the numbers of six, eight, or ten, whenever an old 

 well by the way-side is cleaned out. Affrays of the most sanguinary 

 character were of almost daily occurrence ; every man wore arms, and 

 avenged his own quarrel ; perjury and subornation were employed with 

 equal freedom, when circumstances rendered such weapons preferable 

 for the destruction of a victim ; and whilst the rapine and cruelty of in-, 

 vading armies were, of course, utterly uncontrollable, the only check 

 upon crime of a more domestic character was a system of justice so 

 irregular and capricious, as often to inflict in its very execution more 

 grievous wrong than that which it professed to redress. Physical mi- 

 sery followed hard upon the heels of that which demons in the shape 

 of men inflicted more immediately upon their fellow-creatures. When 

 the Mahratta or Pindarry horsemen were ravaging a province, the 

 wretched inhabitants fled before them, to escape from outrage more in- 

 tolerable than death; leaving their fields unsown, or their standing 

 crops to forage the horses of the invaders, and famine was the necessary 

 consequence.* Then hundreds, with that apathetic patience for which 

 the race is so remarkable, laid them down to die from starvation ; and 

 parents sold their children into slavery, to preserve both themselves and 

 their offspring from a more miserable fate. But we pause here, not, 

 assuredly, because we have exhausted the theme, but because we would 

 not dwell upon a picture of the degradation of our species so hideous 

 and revolting, longer than is absolutely necessary for the developement 

 of our argument, t 



Who will undertake to say, that it was an easy task to stem a tide so 

 violent as that which we have feebly attempted to describe ; to impose 

 an effectual curb upon the licence which long indulgence had rendered 

 habitual ; to awe the bold, to give confidence to the timid, to find 



* There is a fact, which, though far from novel, speaks volumes with regard to the ha. 

 bitual sufferings of the people of Southern India from this cause. They have a word 

 " wulsah," signifying that which, probably, no other people could render intelligible with- 

 out a long periphrasis the flight of a whole village community into the jungles before an 

 invading army. Colonel Wilks assures us, that the *' wulsah" never goes forth when a 

 British army, unaccompanied by native allies, is advancing. 



f One circumstance may be mentioned as peculiarly characteristic of the state of society 

 at the period in question, though it be far less disgusting than many other features of the 

 portrait which we have been compelled to draw. In all the large towns, but in Dthli and 

 Benares, we believe, more particularly, there was a class of men called " Bankas," 

 (" younger brothers," like Poms, and " proper men of their hands" ), who lived by bully- 

 ing and insolence, plundering the grain shops for their daily bread, when they could find no 

 Master Stephen to treat them. 



M. M. Netv Series. VOL. IX. No. 54. 4 S 



