man than Burke. Pitt had no knowledge of the affairs of India. Burke was more eminent for that knowledge than any other individual in the country. The East India Company, by a series of outrages which no government could permit its subjects any longer to carry on without control, if only for the sake of its own dignity, had rendered some step necessary in the opinion of both political parties. If public virtue were not banned among men, if the brutal right of conquest gave a body of traders a power independent of the government of their country-a usurpation in the midst of a nation boasting of its freedom-the restraint of the Company in some degree was demanded, even on the score of humanity. The Company was incompetent to govern, and it was most inconsistent that in the midst of a nation calling itself free, the savage right of conquest should have been acknowledged as conceded to a few merchants, whose principle of rule was anything but good government, and whose ends were mercenary.

In the bill proposed by Mr. Burke, the commercial and territorial affairs of the Company were proposed to be lodged in the hands of seven commissioners, appointed by parliament for five years, irremovable by the crown, unless at the instance of parliament itself. These commissioners were to be assisted by nine directors, nominated by parliament, and elected by the proprietors of the Company. It was but natural that petitions against such an abridgment of an uncontrolled despotism, such a check upon crime on the part of the Company, should have been got up, and poured into parliament. The hands of unlimited power are always strong, and its adherents influential. The country, as it regards India at the present hour, made no stir in the matter pro or con. Pitt moved the adjournment of the question, having secretly prepared for its defeat in the Lords. The bill was carried through the Commons by a very large majority, to which fact the Lords paid no more respect than they paid recently to the Oaths Bill on behalf of the Jews, exhibiting, as it did in the latter case, and on the Reform Bill, that display of power destitute of reason, upon which in past times it based its regulations for dealing with the Commons and people, which yet stand a part of its rules. Pitt had become swayed by an ambition for place, and making that gratification his first desire, he determined, as the surest means of holding power, to do his utmost to gratify the king, although neither personally, nor by family inheritance, was he a favourite of the monarch. George III. knew no more of India than he had known of America, when he declared he would sooner lay down his crown than make that peace with the Americans which Lord North had desired to make before, and which he was forced to make in the end, after wasting an ocean of blood and treasure. Ever on the side of arbitrary rule, as far as he dared go, the king interfered in the most unconstitutional manner on this occasion, though he knew no more, as before observed, of the merits of the question than his cream-coloured horses. He ordered Lord Temple to declare that he would consider all the peers who voted for the measure personal enemies of his own! The Lords ought to have treated such a message to sway and dictate to them with supreme contempt. Men of common spirit, or a just appreciation of their own duties, would have done so ; but they did no such thing. They had no will of their own; they were the breath of the royal nostrils-those hereditary legislators. No wonder that Franklin

exclaimed, "Hereditary legislators-hereditary mathematicians!"* Yet in the reign of our good King William IV. they treated that monarch cavalierly; but then the measure they opposed put an end to their own profit in boroughs. They were making an oblation to their own selfishness, and for that they would even fling the crown overboard. Three days after, the king dismissed Fox and North; the latter of whom had ruined his own character by continuing the American war to please the monarch. Pitt, by this intrigue, became the head of the government. But what could have been the monarch's motive for dismissing his late favourite Lord North, and putting Pitt into office? What made the king so hasty in his movements?

Pitt's friends, there is no doubt, had a secret hand in the intrigue, for it must have been represented to the monarch that Fox's bill, or rather Burke's, which gave parliament the authority, was too constitutional. Pitt's bill, not brought in till afterwards, vested the command of the Indian army in the king. This provision, and the fact that with a board of control all political objects were supposed to be secured, met the taste of the monarch exactly. In monarchies, limited or not, the head looks equally to the "ultima ratio" of kings for its favourite dependence. The nomination of the members of the board being in the crown, and the commander-in-chiefship of the Indian army in the king, were satisfactory. Pitt's was the right bill, and he was elevated to his desired post. There is no doubt the provisions of Pitt's bill, in contrast to that of Fox and Burke, were known at court; in other words, what that minister would do if he could get into office. Fox and North received their dismissal at the unusual hour of twelve at night. This shows the royal animus, because Pitt's future elevation did not necessitate the dismissal of the supporters of the India Bill at the midnight hour. The difference in the two bills, therefore, was, in substance, that Pitt's was a sop thrown in to promote his own elevation, by giving the power to the monarch, and Fox's bill distributed it in equal portions between parliament and the East India Company, the latter holding the commercial relations alone. This event marked the time of the change in the conduct of Pitt, and his abandonment of the political principles that characterised his outset in life. He attempted to justify himself by saying, that he had drawn his bill in consonance with the resolutions of the proprietors of East India Stock. He did not dare, he pretended, further to violate chartered rights, nor did he admit of putting power into the hands of new and unconstitutional characters. The power in the Board of Control, in his bill, can only be exercised over what the Company choose the Board shall know. In the mean time, all the vast pecuniary transactions of the Company were left in its own hands. Nearly the same greedy system as to territorial aggrandisement, in proportion to the expected increase of revenue it would produce, was still followed; the instruments being the natives of the subjugated nations. Thus, as they extended their conquests, they became more and more liable to an explosion, a consummation which could never be averted by their perseverance in a flagrant violation of the rights of others. The Company could not foresee what the most experienced among its officers had long foreseen as inevitable, with

* At Hamburg, we believe, there is an hereditary professor of divinity!

out a fundamental change, that the system must, before long, crumble into ruin-in fact, cannot much longer be permanently maintained. We believe this, even if the energy of the present administration succeeds for a time in suppressing the present commotion. Things cannot be kept on their old footing. The Company cannot exist as a ruling power, and India remain with us. Even now, the interest felt is more regarding the melancholy fate of individuals in the outbreak than that of the empire. Such is the natural effect of depriving parliament of the just power Mr. Fox proposed to give to it, withheld for the sake of an intrigue to hold office, and for the gratification of a monarch seldom, we believe, compos mentis. But all this is of the past; let us be wise, and profit by what we have seen. No one is better able, from long experience, than the present premier, though we agree the task is gigantic, to carry out a system for ruling that vast empire, and healing its wounds. Let us urge it forward as soon as possible. We dread delay. We may, by-and-by, see it attempted by inefficient hands, bungled out, or burdened with the idlest encumbrances, under ministers who can only manage public affairs by the rule of Lilliput, when they have a Brobdignag before them. As to the Company-delenda est Carthago !

The history of India is an anomaly in that of nations. It is a history of conquest without the stimulant of high-minded ambition, or the provocation of foes worthy of attack. It exhibits, among splendid acts of individual daring and courage, the most unjustifiable outrages upon the rights of others. We see in history the devastation of conquerors insatiate after power-we mark there, too, the acts of petty tyrants who have trampled upon humanity-we read of the Mohammedan bandits that ravaged India before us, but we have never before, in the history of mankind, seen a trading company unite in their acts and deeds all those mischiefs upon millions of people, from venal motives, to fill coffers continually emptied-emptied in the hope of making up one pecuniary loss by an outlay in the shape of fresh conquests and new aggrandisements, dethroning a sovereign to-day, and appropriating his revenues to themselves-setting up a new tributary to-morrow-pushing aside from their thrones, without honest excuse, the royal heirs of trusting allies, and placing their own creatures in their place-then dethroning these, and taking possession of their dominions. There is no blacker book of self-condemnation than the papers laid before parliament and the history of the Company's transactions in India-we will not own the transactions. England must shuffle out of the blame of the flagitious acts committed there from time to time, if she submit to the censure of a little illogical evasion of her power of observation. We know how slightly the public have heretofore regarded this subject. We know it is in vain to entreat it to go back and study its own interests. We can, therefore, only conjure it to judge, during and after the present fearful outbreak, by the unerring rule of right and wrong, all that they may in future hear regarding it-to judge impartially by the rule, "Do as you would be done unto❞—to credit no palliating excuses on any point-but to lay bare all before a clear conscience, and there can then be no mistake as to the nature of the conclusion.

The intelligence of the insurrection did not much surprise us. Again and again we had heard from intelligent officers who had served long in the Indian army the state of jeopardy in which the empire was placed;

in one case seven years ago. That the revolt should accumulate like a snowball was a natural consequence from the alleged cause. The cruelties exercised by the Sepoys and raff of the town inhabitants seem to indicate that wounded religion, the bitterest of all stimulants to atrocity in Christian as well as Eastern climes, was at the bottom of the mischief. It is evident that many of the Sepoys were reluctant revolters. A political revolt would have been more forgiving as regarded women and children. When the Bishop of Albi was asked by the soldiers how they should know the Protestants from the Catholics when they stormed the city, in which were an equal number of each religious profession, the prelate replied: "Kill them all, God will know his own!"

Another reason has been given for the outbreak. There must have been some peculiar cause to act so rapidly and extensively at once, as already said. A religious motive seems calculated alone to produce such an effect, but we will mention what we recently heard of a different character. Should the statement be correct, it will look like retributive justice on the Company for its past conduct half a century ago towards Oude, a free territory, while it will exhibit the value of the policy pursued. Two-thirds of the Bengal army are natives of Oude. Living upon a part of their pay, the men, forty or fifty thousand in number, had, with their savings, purchased small spots of land and erected their cane huts upon them, paying no taxes. By the annexation of that free territory the land became suddenly subject to a heavy taxation to the Company, and the little properties thus acquired by many native soldiers became of small value in consequence. This, it is said, was suicidal in the Company. They here afforded their defenders another cause of disaffection, and one which could be easily obviated, but of which they had taken no account. The Sepoy, thus deprived of his property, was made an enemy of at once. If this be true, the alliance of Oude, so unjustifiably and ungratefully treated in the case of Omdut ul Omrah, seems to have worked out a retribution. One crime breeds many, and when we see such fearful doings it is right to examine and report all statements as to the cause. At a future time we may, perhaps, give a summary of the startling proceedings which laid the foundation of the Company's influence in Oude. We do not advert to the horrible results of the Indian revolt, nor to the excesses committed by the troops and the scum of the towns. Many persons may have escaped whom it is feared have perished, and until some certainty is established it is best to be silent. Besides, our object is to look at the affair as concerns the empire at large, to discover if the Company has not commended the poisoned chalice to its own lips by its past acts, and to make the country see the necessity of leaving to commercial men their trade, and the rule to higher men in motive, who look a little into the welfare of those they govern, in place of making pecuniary profit the only end of government.

A

It was wise not to attempt to storm Delhi with inefficient means. repulse would have been fatal to us. Every day's delay gains us an accession of force, weakens the morale of the mutineers, and encourages their concentration on the spot where they can be annihilated together. It prevents their occupying strong insulated stations. To attempt to storm a large city, with many strong buildings, and enemies sufficient to occupy them all, and venture upon street-fighting, where the value of disciplined troops would be brought down nearly to a par with the

revolters, would be very ill judged. The courage of the revolters every day grows cooler as the British forces augment. If it were practicable to reduce the city by famine, it would be the best mode of all. What could induce the Company to fortify a large city containing treasure and an arsenal, and to garrison it wholly with natives, it would be difficult to comprehend, were not all the Company's acts of a piece. A chain of strong, small places, garrisoned one half by Europeans in parts of the country judiciously chosen, should have been the system pursued, leaving the open town to the Sepoys, whose indifference of late years to the Company's service offered a strong contrast to their former fidelity. For this some powerful reason must have existed. We cannot but repeat our belief that had the revolt been a political conspiracy of any standing, spread far and wide as it was, there would have been revelations of it, or symptoms visible not to be mistaken, before it broke out, in place of which it ran along the surface of the country like the conflagration of dry herbage in a sultry summer. The delay at Delhi in waiting for heavy artillery, we believe, was fortunate. The revolters possessed heavy guns, which would have told against the best troops in the world, in the avenues and streets of the city. Some of the buildings are of massy stone, each capable of defence, and the Sepoys are not an untrained mob. It was wise, therefore, to delay any attempt to enter. We have often paid dear enough for disregarding the dictates of science and sound judgment-we too well remember Bergen-op-Zoom. Delhi had not fallen at the close of June, but the insurgents were getting disheartened in proportion to their previous rage. They sometimes ventured beyond the defences of the city, and were driven in with great slaughter. This had at last prevented revolters elsewhere from joining them. At Nyzabad the Sepoys seem to have acted with reluctance against their officers; the 10th Regiment only yielded to the force of example, doing its duty faithfully to the last. The accounts of individuals murdered appear conflicting in the uncertainty of the intelligence received, and confirmation in this respect must be awaited. General Cortlandt had routed a body of the revolters near Sirsa; the Rajah of Bikani had joined him with his forces; the Punjab, Madras, and Bombay were all quiet. Holkar was with us, though two of his regiments had mutinied. The force before Delhi was now augmented to about eight thousand Europeans and five thousand natives. There were three thousand five hundred cavalry. The revolters were shut in com pletely, on the spot where they will all soon perish. Here are included the first mutineers, namely, those of Meerut, Delhi, and Nusseerabad. On June 18, the revolters pushed out a force to a position called "Eed Ghah," opposite one of the city gates. It was at once attacked and carried, the Sepoys driven in, and their ammunition and artillery taken. A hundred were killed, with the loss of only two or three men of the assailants. Two or three thousand more troops were expected about the end of the first week in July, when it was thought an attempt would be made to play out the existing tragedy. No less than five thousand men intended for China are already on the Ganges, and nearly thirty thousand have been embarked here. There is, therefore, no fear for our Indian empire. The future government is the thing-and here we again repeat, as respects the Company-we repeat once more to Lord PalmerstonDelenda est Carthago!