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fleeting, that we have not only discharged those duties which pre- 

 serve the order of civil society; but that by a firm, though mode- 

 rate execution of just laws, we may have contributed in some 

 slight degree, within the narrow sphere of our influence, to revive 

 those moral sentiments which every where naturally spring up in 

 the human heart, but which seem so long to have languished in the 

 breasts of the inhabitants of India." 



Dr. Francis Buchanan, who was selected by Marquis Wei- 

 lesley, governor-general of India, to ascertain the state of arts, 

 agriculture, religion, &c. in different parts of Hindostan, at the 

 commencement of the nineteenth century, says, " The Smartal 

 brahmins allow of no pardon for eating in company with persons 

 of another caste, or of food dressed by their impure hands. In 

 a religious quarrel, the victorious party caused the other brahmins, 

 on account of their obstinacy, to be ground to death in oil-mills. 

 To those who refuse to acknowledge the doctrines peculiar to their 

 own sect, no men can be more intolerant nor violent than the 

 brahmins." This benevolent writer confirms all that has been said 

 of the humiliating and cruel treatment oftheSudra caste by the 

 brahmins; and I fear this assertion of Dr. Claudius Buchanan is 

 but too justly founded: " The Hindoos are destitute of those prin- 

 ciples of honesty, truth, and justice, which respond to the spirit of 

 British administration, and have not a disposition which is accord- 

 ant with the tenor of Christian principles." 



I shall close this unpleasant part of the subject with an extract 

 from the Hindoo Pantheon, by Major Moor, a most valuable 

 acquisition to oriental literature. " However difficult it may be 

 for an English reader to believe the hitherto unrecorded story of 



