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is too much truth in his Lordship's remark, that although the 

 Hindoos have adopted from us various improvements in their ma- 

 nufactures of saltpetre, opium, and indigo, and have made rapid 

 advances in the knowledge of ship-building, practical mathema- 

 tics, and navigation, yet none of these acquirements have inter- 

 fered with their religious prejudices. The instant these are touched, 

 they fly off from all approximation to their masters, and an end 

 is put to further advancement. Nothing is therefore more to be 

 avoided than alarming their jealousy on this head, and exciting the 

 suspicion that government means, in any manner, to interfere in 

 the business of proselyting. The brahmins are a very powerful 

 body ; they are both an hereditary nobility and a reigning hierar- 

 chy; looked up to with the highest veneration by the inferior 

 castes, and possessed of the most distinguishing privileges, they 

 will consequently oppose with their whole influence any attempt 

 to subvert that system upon which all their superiority depends. 

 They have already taken alarm at the proceedings of the mission- 

 aries in Bengal, and other parts; and, if driven to extremities, will 

 doubtless excite a formidable disaffection to our government among 

 the natives. On the contrary, the former wise policy of treating 

 them with respect, and giving a full toleration to their supersti- 

 tions, was often attended with the happy effect of making them 

 the instrument of enforcing useful regulations in the country ; for 

 they have never scrupled, when required, giving a sanction to the 

 orders of government to suppress hurtful practices, as in the case 

 of the sacrifice of children at Sorgur, and in many other instances. 

 We should also be aware that, although the comparison between 

 the Mussulman intolerance and our contrary spirit, was so much 



