CALCUTTA. 
are a very powerful body ; they are both an hereditary nobihty, and 
a reigning hierarchy, looked up to with the highest veneration by 
the inferior casts, and possessed of the most distinguishing privi- 
leges : 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 Missionaries 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 superstitions, was often attended with the happy effect of 
making them the instrument of enforcing useful regulations in tho^ 
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 com- 
parison between the Mussulmaun intolerance, and our contrary 
spirit, was so much in our favour, as to have had a pow^erful 
efficacy in attaching them to the British Government, knowing 
that they had only a choice of masters ; yet w^ere this difference of 
policy taken away, their habits and manners, which are more con- 
genial to those of the Mussulmauns, would probably induce them to 
prefer their government to ours. 
That the success of the Missionaries in China, Japan, and other 
places, should have been brought forward by people unacquainted 
with India, as an argument of the probable conversion of the 
Hindoos, is not surprising ; but that it should have been urged by 
a late resident in Bengal," does indeed astonish me ; for what 
