48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the human intellect within their narrow prescription; and, as the 

 result of all this, the fact that they present in their political degra- 

 dation under the British yoke, the most remarkable phenomenon 

 in the modern history of the world. Remarkable it may be, but 

 not unaccountable. Conquered from conquerors, the government 

 being virtually landlord, the utmost, the sole attention of the ten 

 thousand white oflQ.cials, seems concentrated upon methods of 

 taxing the one hundred and sixty millions of this inoflfensive and 

 servile race — of shifting and balancing the burdens under which 

 the peasantry " totter through their weary lives." Were it 

 ascribable to any other than to the causes we have indicated, how 

 would it be possible to account for the fact that the more intelli- 

 gent inhabitants of a little island in the distant north Atlantic, 

 separated from them by a sea route of more than 12,000 miles, 

 have, to this hour, with a mere handful of soldiery been able, 

 spite of a few convulsive struggles, to hold them in unresisting 

 and miserable subjection. A low and mournful plaint rises to 

 heaven with every fresh record on the pages of the history of 

 India. The day 'of Retribution will come; nor will its vengeance 

 be less sore because the overruling agency of the moral Governor 

 of the universe has permitted her spoilers to carry with them a 

 civilization, a literature and education that will be felt in its recoil. 

 The day of retribution will come. The haughty Spaniard has 

 desolated long ago the fair fields of the southern hemisphere. 

 He has felt it, and now, like a crippled, toothless old beldame, 

 Spain sits helpless, proud and poor among the nations, grasping 

 with fear the few remaining links that yet are left her of the chains 

 of slavery and of conquest. Does not the past teach as with a 

 tongue of thunder what are the elements which secure the real 

 greatness of a people, and form the surest safeguard against the 

 rapacity of less truly intelligent powers ? But for other agen- 

 cies which may prolong her existence, the fate of Carthage may 

 be the fate of Britain; and not only of Britain but of every nation 

 that seeks to grow rich chiefly by foreign conquest. For then it 

 is that wealth becomes the chief qualification of power, and the 

 calm, honest love of country becomes superseded by the reeling 

 intoxication of an unsound prosperity secured by robbery — a 



