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deems the executive government to be the representative of the 

 public will. This spirit pervades the whole body of its laws; these 

 laws necessarily reflect back, and reproduce the principles from 

 which they spring: and it is matter for grave reflection, that if 

 this species of reaction should ever be produced in India, from 

 that moment it is lost to this country for ever. The efficient pro- 

 tection of our native subjects in all the rights which they them- 

 selves consider to be essential to their happiness, is certainly the 

 most sacred and imperious of all our duties; and it is on this ex- 

 press ground that our present regulations, considered as a system 

 of jurisprudence for the south of India, appear to me to require 

 a radical reform. 



" The English civil code professes to govern the Hindoos by 

 their own laws: the distinction of castes, which is absolutely the 

 key-stone of Hindoo law, has unfortunately either not been recog- 

 nized at all in our laws and regulations, or indirectly treated with 

 contempt; thus insulting the higher, without gratifying the lower 

 classes; and, added to the novelty of our forms, exciting in both 

 the apprehension of further change. It would be absurd and un- 

 just to impute to the authors of this system the intention of pro- 

 selytism; and it can only be lamented that it has contributed, 

 among other causes, to produce the belief of such an intention. 

 But if, as some publications give reason to believe, such views 

 have really been entertained by other persons, it will be incum- 

 bent on sober thinkers seriously to consider that, exclusively of the 

 excess of visionary folly, it is a most unmanly, ungenerous, and 

 unchristian deception, to veil this object under the pretext of re- 

 specting the civil and religious customs and prejudices of the 



