682 British India, $c. [JUNE, 



means for protecting every man from his neighbour, without co-opera- 

 tion or assistance from any ? For it was not merely that the elements 

 of evil were widely disseminated, that the restless and turbulent formed 

 a large body, nor that a large majority were positively bad subjects, 

 both with regard to the ruling power, and their reciprocal relations as 

 fellow citizens ; but that there existed no leaven of an opposite character 

 to correct and sweeten the mass. In this want the main difficulty con- 

 sisted. Soldiers might be had in superabundance, and the obligation of 

 the military engagement seemed to possess a strange hold upon the 

 minds of the classes which followed arms as a profession, than any other 

 feeling of responsibility ; but fitting instruments of civil government, 

 according to European notions, there were absolutely none. There 

 was not a man from the Indus to the Burrampooter, from Cape Como- 

 rin to Hurdwar, whose word or oath could be relied upon, if the veriest 

 trifle were to be gained by perjury or deceit ; there was not a person 

 within the same limits capable of forming even an abstract idea of in- 

 corruptibility. There was no fulcrum for the moral lever ; their 

 perceptions of religious duty did not extend beyond the observance 

 of rites and penances, which tended only to inflame the pride of the in- 

 dividual devotee, and to shut his heart against his mind ; and whilst the 

 feebler races throughout the Peninsula were bowed down to the very 

 earth in unresisting abjectness, Bishop Heber, in speaking of the 

 Rajpoot tribes, who have never been subjected to our dominion, has 

 justly characterised the fiercer races as men with all " the vices of 

 slaves, added to those of robbers." 



These are strong colours, but we throw down the gauntlet with con- 

 fidence, and will freely and gladly enter the lists with any writer who 

 will undertake to prove that we have overcharged the picture. The 

 only difficulty which we should find in supporting our statement, would 

 be to clothe the overflowing details of vice and crime which are at our 

 command, in such a dress as to render them barely endurable by Eng- 

 lish readers. How far the torrent has been checked we do not intend 

 to inquire at this moment, reserving it for future investigation ; but be 

 the success more or less, this we say, that those who have given to the 

 world their estimate of its degree, without reference to the counteracting 

 principles which were so deeply rooted in an abominable idolatry, and 

 the alternate slavery and anarchy of centuries, have been guilty of a 

 sophism, the absurdity of which is only to be rivalled by the unfairness 

 of a " suppressio veri ' so enormous. If they have wilfully kept out of 

 view the difficulties against which the government of British India have 

 had to contend, their conduct has been dishonest ; if they have over- 

 looked their existence, their purblindness utterly disqualifies them for 

 the office which they have exercised with such an arrogant assumption 

 of superiority in political knowledge. 



