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station is generally placed. Not but that the Ryots are often susceptible of management. They listen and too readily, to the voice of the man of influence. But the sentence pronounced against Reuben sits heavily on them. "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." If good and seasonable advice is tendered, if they are told to pay in their legal dues and to receive something of protection in return, if any arrangement is proposed by which old feuds and grievances of long standing are to find an equitable solution-too often the traces are as those written on the sand. The first breath from the mouth of the village demagogue blows them away. But should the compact be made in order to set right at defiance, to defraud the landlord and to enjoy a freedom from the ties which in the East bind subject and master together, the traces are then written deep on the face of the rock. It is curious to remark the firmness of every link in the chain of evil, and how certainly it brings its own punishment in the end. To resist the unlawful oppression of a little brief authority the Ryot is generally powerless. He will submit in patience to the exactions of a Police official, to the unbridled tyranny of a Zemindar, to the repeated extortions of a native collector of revenue. His only object is to pay and end the matter. Every now and then the overstraining breaks the bow, and oppressed poverty has recourse to the protection of the law, or next to the advocacy of some powerful rival of the enemy, or lastly to one of those frantic outbreaks of summary revenge of which even the uncomplaining Bengali is capable. Let however the object of the league be to resist authority in whatever lawful shape it comes, and the Ryot soon finds the union of atoms to be capable of producing solid matter. In the quaint but expressive language of his own Sanskrit poet,- By stems of grass having attained unto the state of a rope, even mad elephants are bound." The village population soon learn to estimate the practical truth of that discussion which engaged the attention of the Scottish King and his minister on the subject of a bundle of arrows. When separated, each fragile shaft snaps in two at the slightest pressure: united, and the bundle defies the utmost efforts of man's strength. So the arrows unite in a bundle and a long and arduous struggle is the result. The Zemindar however can reverse the maxim and find means to snap the arrows separately. Burke saw this sixty years ago and set down cause and effect to their true sources, when he said that servile concealment called forth tyrannous coercion. At last however the battle is decided, and in the way it always must be where perseverance on one side is met by equal perseverance on the other, backed by the consciousness of right

and title. The motto of væ victis is then rigidly enforced, and the Ryot pays for the short enjoyment of his rebellious freedom by a long and heavy interest due to hatred and revenge.

Either

Thus all Zemindars are not exactly prototypes of injustice, nor the Ryots of suffering innocence. The former always have some shadow of excuse in the general unwillingness of Ryots to pay their lawful dues, and the latter will use fraud to circumvent or force when fraud fails. But we do not intend to let the Zemindars off so easily. They are well aware of the primary difficulties of the question and thus solve it in two ways. they are violent and oppressive in their mode of collection, or they let the estate out in farm and cease to trouble their heads about the matter. We have rarely if ever heard of a Zemindar contentedly living on his own estate, and making a trial of personal superintendance, and temperate but firm authority in the exaction of his dues. If the Zemindari is let out in ijarah, the condition of the Ryots of course depends on the character of the ijarahdar, who may be as harsh as the original owner, partly because he too will encounter opposition and partly because he must make his own profit, or the speculation will not answer. If the Zemindar does collect himself, through Puttani, through various subdivisions of under tenure or by Khass collection, it is the most we can hope for if he be not violently oppressive. It is well if he jogs on quietly. As for the laying out his money on any lasting objects beyond an occasional tank, or a scanty mile or two of road, it is what we never heard of yet, and in all probability in this generation at least, never shall.

We might write more regarding many subjects on which from the length of this paper we have only touched. We have attempted to show something of the nature of the great plains of Bengal, their staple cultivation, the gross amount of their land revenue, their facilities for intercourse, the influence of their climate on character, and the failings of their vast population. It could not be expected that we could do more than strive to awaken interest on many of these points, and show how much yet remains to be known and said. But while we write with a sense of the degradation of the Bengali, we would believe that there is abundance of hope yet. In many things we see much to awaken sympathy, re-animate confidence and banish despair. The Bengali is poor with the riches of a bountiful soil, actually running over around him: he is degraded as a man in whose eyes as a child we discerned the fire of intellect. The Ryots of Bengal have been tried by a long and complicated series of ills any two of which would have sunk most nations to an equal if not a lower

depth. They have been tried by ages of priestcraft, and of oppression, by an enervating climate, by systematic neglect, by the dead level of despotism, by all the vices which profusion when abused is wont to generate, by that sensuality and sloth which wilful man educes from the very prodigality of nature's choicest blessings, by ignorance in high places, by crime in its worst appearance, the crime of the physically weak. "Never were a

Government," says an accomplished historian, " in a more parental situation towards their subjects than are the British Ĝovernment in India." Never has there been a more remarkable instance of the contact of a nation in its infancy with one at its full growth. The Bengali while he has many of the faults of wayward childhood, has also much of that ductility which is its undoubted privilege. He is not wantonly cruel. His kindness towards children, be they his own or another man's, is a most pleasing feature in his moral nature. Another as remarkable is his almost uniform politeness. We do not allude to that

cringing humility which a host of dependants pay to the man high in authority. In a common Ryot's hut, in the midst of a village where probably an European face was not seen once in six months, we have met with straightforward, we had almost said, manly good breeding, which reminded us of the honest English farmer, and on which Chesterfield or Beauclerk would have looked with applause.

To raise the Bengali and civilize Bengal is a task imposed on Indian statesmen as hard in execution as the improvement of Ireland and her peasantry for leading men at home. Dissimilar in many points as are the Bengali and the Irish peasant, with both, idleness and ignorance are the main obstacles to advance. But we still indulge a not unreasonable expectation that by the multiplication of our schools and colleges whether originated by Government, voluntary Associations, or private individuals, and by the future establishment of good lines of roads, we shall see the wishes of a philanthropic Government crowned with success, in the fairest and richest of the provinces under our Rule.

ART. II.-1. Memoirs and Correspondence of the most noble Richard, Marquess Wellesley, &c. &c., by R. R. Pearce, Esq., London, Richard Bentley, 1846.

2. Historical Sketches of Statesmen who flourished in the time of George the third, by Henry, Lord Brougham, &c., &c., Third series, London, Charles Knight and Co. 1843.

3. The Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, 5 vols. London, W. Allen and Co. 1837.

4. Mill's History of British India, vol. VI.

5. Thornton's History of British India, vol. III.

THERE are few more glorious situations in which a man of ability can be placed than those in which his energy, zeal and talent may benefit a nation in its time of trouble. Nor would we envy the cynical indifference of those who could sneeringly smile at the pleased satisfaction with which such a man would listen to the praise won by his honest patriotism. It is a noble thing to serve one's country under any circumstances, peculiarly so when that country is in danger, and it must be a gratifying thing to find that service rewarded by honor and fame. This, however, is but the portion of a few-the favored ones of humanity, on whom nature and fortune have equally smiled, whom both have loaded with their choicest gifts. There is still another source of gratification somewhat smaller in degree, but equally honest and unblameable. It is when one's near relations-his father, or sons, or brothers or sistershave won a nation's gratitude and admiration by their services. or talents. A generous nature exults in the prosperity of the loved relation as if it were his own, and joins in the public applause with an inward overflow of the heart's satisfaction of which the crowd knows nothing. If modern history presents a single illustrious example of a man who might honestly and justly indulge in this two-fold species of gratification, that man was the Marquess Wellesley. Great himself as a statesman and politician, eminently successful as a ruler, and placed in the midst of a period in the world's history when his talents could not well be concealed, and were eminently useful to his country, it was his rare good-fortune to see his brothers also shine out from amongst the crowd, in the ranks of the greatest of his fellowcountrymen. It was his peculiar privilege after he had won honors and fame, with a distinguished niche in the world's history for himself, to see the brother, whose earlier essays in arms he had patronized and directed, gradually rise to the summit of

military fame, and finally become the conqueror of the great modern Alexander. The history of the world cannot disclose to us a nobler instance of true family greatness. Let us endeavor to picture to ourselves what were the feelings of the mother* of these distinguished men when she saw one of them take his seat in the British house of Peers, and in the highest order of peerage, the acknowledged warrior and champion of his country -another in the second order, known to the world as the saviour of the Indian empire of Britain and the most popular viceroy of a third part of the kingdom-a third and a fourth also Peers, distinguished as diplomatists and statesmen, and yet not one of these sat there by hereditary right for they had all raised themselves to that eminence by superior ability and talent!when we picture to ourselves what the feelings of the Countess of Mornington were under these circumstances, we will have some faint idea of the noblest and most honest pride that ever entered into the female breast. When the slow sure finger of time has obliterated from the minds of men the jealousies and party feelings of the day, the family of the Wellesleys will shine forth in the history of the world with a lustre beside which even that of the Gracchi will appear obscure. It shall be our endeavor in the subsequent pages to give a brief, but clear and impartial account of the events which marked the early career and Indian administration of the eldest of those illustrious brothers, the Marquess Wellesley.

The family whence the subject of our notice was descended, was one of antiquity and renown, and although the renown of their ancestors, or the antiquity of their family, can add nothing to the admiration with which we would regard such men as the Duke of Wellington or the Marquess Wellesley, yet it is a pleasing thing to reflect that men so distinguished, should have been derived from those, who, in ages long past, had proved themselves superior to the herd. The venerable oak which has for centuries stood the shocks of tempests and of desolation, frequently proves itself more able to resist the wintry blast and equinoctial gale than the more youthful offspring of fifty years of growth. The Earl of Mornington, the father of the distinguished Marquess, was a privy Councillor of Ireland and Čustos Rotulorum of the county of Meath; he was more distinguished for his musical compositions than his statesmanship, and had he not produced such sons as those of whom we have spoken

It is related of Lady Mornington, that on a crowd pressing round and obstructing her carriage when on a visit to the House late in her life, she said to Lord Cowley, who accompanied her, "so much for the honour of being mother of the Gracchi!"Brougham's Statesmen, &c., 3rd series.

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