Geographical Collections. SSff: 



sioris of this charter into effect ; and it was at his suggestion that the proprietors 

 of slaves in the island, by way of manifesting their gratitude to the sovereign of 

 a free nation for having granted to them and their countrymen the rights of free- 

 men, unanimously resolved, that all children bom of their slaves after the 12th 

 of August, the anniversary of his Majesty's birth, in the year 1816, should be 

 considered as free, and be brought up at their expense till the age of fourteen ; 

 thus associating for ever in the minds of their posterity, the memory of his ma- 

 jesty with all the blessings which are to be derived from a state of freedom.* 



" The introduction of the trial by jury among all the classes of the natives of 

 Ceylon, without distinction, has been the means of gradually removing the reli- 

 gious jealousies which prevailed among them, and habituating the people of all 

 the different religions, and of all the different nations of Asia, resident in the is- 

 land, to attend together the proceedings of the supreme court, both as jurors and 

 spectators. 



" Owing to the continual intercourse kept up between the natives of Ceylon 

 and the people of Hindoostan, the privilege granted by his Majesty to the former 

 soon became generally known and desired throughout thfe British empire in the 

 East ; and, induced by the success which had attended the introduction of the 

 measure in that island, the parliament, by an act passed in 1826, extended the 

 same right to the natives of all the British territories in India. Hence, the trial 

 by jury is now become an object of general interest to more than one hundred and 

 twenty millions of people, inhabiting countries containing upwards of three hun- 

 dred thousand geographical square miles, and extending from the Gulf of Cam- 

 bay to the rivers Ganges and Burrampooter, and from the Himalaya mountains 

 to Cape Comorin." 



At a time when the fixture government of India is a subject of public discus- 

 sion before both houses of parliament, it must be an object of great interest and 

 curiosity to trace the origin and progress of measures which must ultimately pro- 

 duce the greatest moral and political change in the feelings and conduct of the 

 natives of India. Of a few of the benefits which have already been derived from 

 them, the following extracts from a letter written at his own request to the presi- 

 sident of the board of control, by Sir Alexander Johnston, in the year 1825, will 

 give some idea. 



" The native jurymen, from knowing the different degrees of weight which 

 may safely be given to the testimony of their countrymen, decide upon questions 

 of fact with so much more promptitude than Europeans could do, that, since the 

 introduction of trial by jury, no trial lasts above a day, and no session above a 

 week or ten days at farthest ; whereas, before the introduction of trial by jury, 

 a single trial used sometimes to last six weeks or two months, and a single ses- 

 sion not unfrequently for three months. All the natives who attend the courts as 

 jurymen obtain so much information during their attendance, relative to the 

 modes of proceeding and the rules of evidence, that since the establishment of 

 jury trial, government have been enabled to find amongst the half-castes and na- 

 tive jurymen some of the most eflficient and respectable native magistrates in the 

 country, who, under the control of the supreme court, at little or no expense to 

 government, administer justice in inferior ofibnces to the native inhabitants. The 

 introduction of the trial by native juries, at the same time that it has increased 

 the efficiency and despatch of the courts, and has relieved both prisoners and wit- 

 nesses from the hardships which they incurred from the protracted delay of the 

 criminal sessions, has, independent of the savings it enabled the Ceylon govern- 



• The number of slave proprietors (being in fact the whole of the slave pro- 

 prietors in Ceylon) who agreed to this resolution was 761 : and the number of 

 full-grown slaves, male and female, to whom the resolutions applied, was about 

 10,000. 



