410 A Description of Kinnaon. [Sess. 



and had some prayers said and holy water sprinkled over him, 

 in order that he might not carry defilement to his wife and 

 family. It is sad to think how little we are appreciated in 

 India. All other conquering races have treated the vanquished 

 as slaves : Athens, Carthage, Eome, and Holland are examples. 

 England has treated India, not as a master treats a slave, but 

 as a mother treats a child. When the English first landed in 

 India, the country was in a state of terrible misery, owing to 

 the total breaking down of the corrupt Mohammedan rule. 

 Life and property were everywhere unsafe. We have made 

 India peaceful and prosperous, and yet among all the millions 

 of India there is not a man who loves our rule or wishes it 

 to continue. Not only is the Government unpopular, but 

 individuals also are too often disliked. The missionaries are 

 beloved, and they well deserve it ; and possibly some, or 

 even many, of the civil administrators are liked ; but the mili- 

 tary and trading classes are hated. It is inevitable that the 

 black man should dislike the white, and the conquered the 

 conqueror. Perhaps the Hindus are right, and the time has 

 come, or nearly come, for us to quit India. We have done 

 our appointed work, and it may be time for us to loose the 

 leading-strings and leave India to walk alone. That India 

 should be free ought to be the desire of every lover of liberty 

 — unfortunately I cannot say of every Liberal, for that name 

 is now claimed by the friends of mob tyranny and priestly 

 superstition. Many will say, India is unfit for freedom, and 

 if we abandon her she would either be conquered by some 

 other European Power or would fall a prey to intestine an- 

 archy. This is what our fathers were told would happen to 

 Italy, and what our grandfathers were told would happen to 

 Greece. In both instances the prediction has proved false. 

 I venture to hope that our sons, or at least our grandsons, will 

 know that the prediction has proved equally false with regard 

 to India. If we have to withdraw from the great peninsula 

 and allow it to govern itself, it may partly console us that 

 there are few brighter pages in history than the story of the 

 century of British rule in India, from 1760 to 1860; few 

 names in all history more worthy of reverence than those of 

 Cornwallis, Bentinck, Malcolm, Sleeman, and Outram. 



