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cient superstitions, and of heathen society. We had acquired a military occupation and a political dominion, but there our authority stopped; and the traditional principles of our policy forbade us to urge our conquest beyond these limits. Accordingly, whilst every succeeding epoch in the history of British India has witnessed the extension of our empire, the very statesmen by whom this work of aggrandisement has been carried on, deprecated the results of which they were themselves the unconscious and unwilling instruments; because it appeared to them that this extension of the empire increased the magnitude of the task we had undertaken, without increasing to the same degree our means of performing it. My resolution was, and my hopes will always be,' said Clive, in a letter to the Court of Directors, of the 30th September, 1765, to confine 'our assistance, our conquest, and our possessions to Bengal, 'Bahar, and Orissa. To go further is in my opinion so extravagantly ambitious and absurd that no Governor and Council can 'ever adopt it, unless the whole scheme of the Company's interest be first entirely new modelled; and in pursuance of this policy the conquered territories of Oude were actually restored to the Newab Vizir. Half a century later the Duke of Wellington, who had what Lord Ellenborough terms an intuitive knowledge of everything relating to India, recorded a similar judgment. In my opinion the extension of our terri'tory and influence has been greater than our means. By the 'extension of territory our means of supporting our Govern ́ ment, and of defending ourselves, are proportionally decreased.' We shall presently consider with more precision what the effect of this extension has really been, but ere we proceed we would show that authorities have not been wanting to warn us of the result. Thus the late Sir Henry Russell, an Indian servant of great judgment and experience, said,—

'The danger we have most to dread in India lies entirely at home. A well conducted rebellion of our native subjects, or an extensive disaffection of our native troops, is the event by which our power is most likely to be shaken; and the sphere of this danger is necessarily enlarged by every enlargement of our territory. The increase of our subjects, and still more of our native troops, is an increase not of strength but of weakness; between them and us there never can be community of feeling. We must always continue foreigners, and the object of that jealousy and dislike which a foreign rule never ceases to excite.'

And above all, we would add to these far-sighted remarks the language used by Lord Metcalfe, and repeated by him at every stage of his life, for the insecurity of the Indian Empire appears

to have haunted him perpetually. The more he knew of its constitution and resources, the less could he rely on its duration. Thus, in his paper on the machinery of Indian Government, he

says:

'Our hold is so precarious that a very little mismanagement might accomplish our expulsion; and the course of events may be of itself sufficient, without any mismanagement. We are to appearance more powerful in India now than we ever were. Nevertheless, our downfal may be short work. When it commences it will probably be rapid, and the world will wonder more at the suddenness with which our immense Indian Empire may vanish, than it has done at the surprising conquest we have achieved. Empires grow old, decay, and perish. Ours in India can hardly be called old, but seems destined to be short-lived. We appear to have passed the brilliancy and vigour of our youth, and it may be that we have reached a premature old age. We have ceased to be the wonder that we were to the natives; the charm which once encompassed us has been dissolved, and our subjects have had time to inquire why they have been subdued. The consequences of the inquiry may appear hereafter.

'If these speculations are not devoid of foundation, they are useful in directing our minds to the contemplation of the real nature of our power, and in preventing a delusive belief of its impregnability. Our greatest danger is not from a Russian invasion, but from the fading of our invincibility from the minds of the native inhabitants of India. The disaffection which would root us out exists abundantly; the concurrence of circumstances sufficient to call it into general action may at any time happen.' (Metcalfe Papers, p. 162.)

These observations were not applied to any particular error or abuse which may have existed in our system of government; on the contrary, they proceeded from men who had the ability to discern, and the power to correct, such errors or abuses where they appeared to exist. Nor do we quote them at the present time, to attach increased significance to the military revolt of the Bengal army, though this is one of the most fatal contingencies that could occur. Our object is wider, and our meaning deeper. The dangers foreseen by these great men are inherent in the nature of such an empire as Great Britain has acquired over the people of India. Every step that can be taken by such a power is a choice of difficulties. Every act of authority involves considerations of extreme delicacy. No doubt, honest and enlightened intentions, guided by political experience and sagacity, and backed by a powerful European army, may for a long time surmount these perils. It is not improbable that the disastrous failure of the mutiny of the Bengal army; the horrible calamities it has inflicted on the natives in the north-west provinces; the punishment of the disaffected; the overthrow of the House of Delhi;

the liberal recompense due to those who supported us in the hour of danger; the gallantry with which our scattered columns held their ground against hosts of savage enemies; the unshaken firmness and dignity with which every Englishman in India stood to his position in presence of incalculable dangers; and the prompt arrival of such an European army as India never before beheld; may serve, on the present occasion, to raise rather than to lower the prestige of our power, and to consolidate the dominion which this event had, for a time, so rudely shaken. But these incidents, however glorious they may be to our arms -however instructive to the natives of India-are comparatively transient; and the difficulties inherent in the government of India remain.

We propose, therefore, on the present occasion, to direct our attention to this general view of the subject. To investigate the nature of the permanent obstacles we have to surmount; and to consider some of the remedies which our past and recent experience may suggest.

The political changes and military invasions which constitute what is commonly termed the History of India, may easily be traced, for they extend not beyond the period of the Mohamedan invasion,-an event almost coeval with the Norman conquest of these islands. Thenceforward a Mohamedan government, supported by Mohamedan armies, ruled over the Hindoo population, until the descendants of the fierce dynasties of Central Asia made way for the mercantile adventurers of England. But these transitory dominations leave untouched the origin and the history of the people of India. Deep in unrecorded ages, beyond the reach of tradition itself, lies the source of this mysterious and unchanging race. A religion fantastical in its tenets and degrading in its practices; a language of such inimitable construction and copious resources, that it comprised the roots of all the most perfect forms of human discourse; a philosophy which opened to the intellect of man the schools which have divided the speculations of all ages; laws strictly based on religious ordinances, and therefore susceptible of no change and no progress; society, divided through all time into the four primitive classes or castes, of priests, soldiers, husbandmen, and labourers; village communities and families united by the bond of undivided property and providing, by their local administration, for the social wants of a simple race; a people whose usages are as fixed as the course of nature, whose lives are governed by invariable motives, almost incomprehensible to any other race of men, and whose inner life is altogether unaffected by the external circumstances of their

political condition-such are the characteristics of the nation which peopled the vast peninsula of India in the dawn of human history; such were the tribes whom Alexander met with when he crossed the Indus; such are the men whom it has been the fate of this country, for the last hundred years, to hold in subjection. Extending over an area of 1,400,000 square miles, inhabited by 180 millions of human beings, of whom 130 millions are called British subjects* seven times the area, and four times the population of France, this empire has been won and governed by the presence of about 750 covenanted servants of the East India Company †, supported by 25,000 of the Queen's troops, a few thousand European soldiers of the Company, and a native army officered by about 3500 English gentlemen. For a hundred years, from the battle of Plassey to the revolt at Meerut, no serious danger has shaken this extraordinary political creation. It has absorbed all internal rivalry into the circle of its influence; it has crushed with constant success everything that resisted its ascendancy. None contested its political authority or its military power. But there the might of this great dominion stops. It has not touched the native institutions of India; it has not changed one element of Indian society; it has exercised an authority clothed in the magnificent array of Oriental despotism; but, in reality, limited by barriers which neither force of intellect nor force of will have enabled us to surmount.

In the spirit of proselytism and in the use of all means, however violent, to eradicate unbelief, the Mahomedan rulers of India were arrested by no considerations of toleration or humanity. Yet even their fanaticism and their power failed

* According to a statistical return of the 27th of July last, the area of the whole of India is 1,466,576 square miles, of which 837,412 are under the British rule, 627,910 belong to native princes, and 1254 to France and Portugal. The population of British India is 131,990,901; the population of the Native States, 48,376,247; that of the French and Portuguese settlements, 517,149.

It is commonly imagined that the civil service of India affords a provision for a great number of young men, and may, in fact, be ranked with any one of the liberal professions. Yet the truth is, that during a period of fifty years, 1780–1830, the covenanted service of Bengal employed only 4534 persons, and the number of civilians sent out to all India does not average more than 30 a year. The military service of the Company is of course far more extensive, and a considerable number of its military officers are employed in the duties of civil administration.

to shake the fundamental institutions of Hindostan. For seven centuries they reigned as conquerors, lords of the soil and taskmasters of the people. Memorials of their empire are scattered over the land, and about one-eighth of the population adhere to their creed. But these are only the vestiges of an alluvial deposit above the primitive rock. India offers the singular and perplexing spectacle of a people which has for eight hundred years lost its independence, but retained every other characteristic of its nationality. For eight hundred years the sacred races, which are emanations of the Deity, have been governed by outcasts and aliens - by men as unclean as the lowest Chandala, who collects the offal of cities, whose very touch is contamination: the Hindoos have obeyed these men, have fought for them, and accepted their rule. Probably, no act of mere personal cruelty or political oppression could rouse that longsuffering people to rebellion; but if one incident should lead them to fear that an inroad is contemplated on the laws of caste and the sacred distinctions of their race, all restraint, all authority, is at an end; and they rise, not in fear of injustice, but in abhorrence of pollution. This principle and this truth lie at the basis of all inquiry into the stability of the government of India; they explain why the progress of civilisation has been so slow, what impediments the government of India has to encounter, and what are the limits to its power. The pressure of these limitations, on almost every branch of the administration, will appear in the course of the following remarks. Mr. Burke said, in one of his magnificent orations, that throughout the 'whole of the vast extent of British India, not a man eats of a spoonful of rice, but by the permission of the East India Com'pany.' The image would seem to imply, that the dominion of the Company is not only politically, but socially, absolute. No greater error could be propagated. Not all the power of the Company could induce a high-caste Hindoo to eat a spoonful of rice from the hand of a Christian. Such have hitherto been the conditions on which a foreign Empire is maintained over a people utterly different from ourselves, jealous of our rule, but submissive to our power. It is the fashion of the day to assert that we have acquiesced too readily in the habits of the country, and done too little to assert our own moral and religious ascendancy. It may be so. But the adoption of such a policy in India involves a problem which no man has yet attempted to solve. The fanciful rumour arising from the greased cartridges sufficed to spread wild alarm among the troops, and rouse an army to mutiny; if the same designs of proselytism by the

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