nexions, and longevity, obtain a place in the Committee of Correspondence, but in the check which they exercise on the conduct of the Board of Control. He admits that, in every other department of Government, the strength of public opinion has more than kept pace with the increasing patronage of the Crown; but, so indescribable and incomprehensible is every thing relating to India, where "the very names of persons, places, and things are as foreign to the ear as confusing to the sense of the English reader," that the control of Parliamentary vigilance and public discussion, which, in all other matters, is invaluable and irresistible, would, in respect to Indian questions, from indifference or ignorance, either fail to prevent abuses, or give an injurious impulse to the measures of Administration. He admits that "the Company, by ceasing to be rulers, and by remaining monopolists, have lost the consideration which belonged to their former character; while the odium, ever attached to the latter, has been increased." Now, Sir John Malcolm does not propose that they should resume their power, or relinquish their monopoly, but only that means should be contrived for giving to men who have served with distinction in India, easier access to the upper seats in the Court of Directors, and that the Board of Control should interpose its authority less frequently. The functions of an organ so constituted, and so dearly maintained, he esteems of more value than the gratuitous exertions of Parliament and the press.

In

'But the defects of such a scheme are obvious and incurable. the first place, the Board of Control never can be persuaded to recede an inch from the commanding position which it has held for many years its tendency must rather be to make its power be felt more distinctly and diffusively from year to year. In proportion to its increased familiarity with the subject, it must become more interested in the success, and more practised in the superintendence, of its own plans: habit, ambition, duty, the strongest, the most constant, and the most honourable motives of human conduct must combine to make it identify itself more and more with the success of the Indian Government, and to stand forward, in the eye of Parliament and of the nation, as the responsible administrator. Secondly, under such circumstances, it is impossible that men conscious of talent, and touched with a generous love of fame, could consent to appear in so degraded a theatre; the obstacles presented by the fatigue, humiliation, and expense of the first canvass, which Sir John Malcolm seems to consider the most difficult to be surmounted, are as nothing compared with the total deprivation of consideration and dignity in the office itself. An office in which talent can neither find its appropriate exercise nor reward, and can never attract to itself men capable of influencing the conduct of political affairs. Thirdly, whatever may be the private respectability of individual Directors, their want of power, direct or

indirect, legal or moral, renders their attempts to impel or restrain the movements of the Board of Control nugatory. If they are independent of ministers, and, therefore, free to express their real sentiments on all occasions, ministers are as completely independent of them, and, therefore, under no obligation to pay the smallest attention to their remonstrances, provided they retain the support of the King, the Parliament, and the public. The opinions of these three bodies, right or wrong, are those only which ministers acknowledge as a check on their proceedings. Nor are the disadvantages under which they labour, in examining questions of Indian policy, by any means so great as Sir John Malcolm would fain persuade us. The names of "things" may be translated, and made as intelligible to "the English reader" as they are to the Native, or to the Englishman who has spent thirty years in India. If that were not the case, how did Lord Cornwallis and Lord Wellesley, in the first week of their administration, take into their hands the reins of Government with as much confidence, and as much skill and success, as if they had been nursed and dandled into a knowledge of the languages of India, or spent days and nights in their acquisition? How are such facts reconcilable with the importance which Sir John Malcolm attaches to "local knowledge;" an importance which constitutes the foundation of his whole system, and of the principal arguments by which he supports it? It is true that the names of " persons and places" cannot be translated, but what is there more confusing to the sense" in the name of Tippoo than in the name of Buonaparte? in the names of Plassy, Laswary, and Assye, than in the names of Blenheim, Salamanca, and Waterloo ?

'Besides the futility of the objection, founded on the foreign sound of Indian words, it is to be observed that the objection is not applicable to the British community in India. Their knowledge is not acquired through the spectacles of books, but by local observation. Their interest in the subject is not deadened by distance, nor distracted by the obtrusion of nearer objects and louder solicitations. Their ability, therefore, to assist the Parliament and people of England, in thoroughly understanding the circumstances and interests of India, is indisputable. To give to them the liberty of unlicensed printing would be to provide the most effectual and cheapest security against local mal-administration which it is possible to establish. But Sir John Malcolm goes further, in quest of a check, and fares worse. He shuts the mouth of the Indian public, and leaves open (because he dare not propose to shut) that of the English public, which, by his own showing, is disqualified for the task of usefully commenting on the affairs of India. He also leaves to Parliament its freedom of investigation with the same acknowledgment of its incompetence, and maintains, at an incalculable expense, an establishment for the express purpose of

controlling the Board of Control, by sending up probationary drafts of paragraphs, on which the latter "hold the pen of correction," running with unlimited freedom and absolute authority; and we may imagine with what spirit an unseen controversy is supported-ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum.

'While the Indian public is silenced and excluded, and that of England depreciated and distrusted, it is evidently the object of Sir John Malcolm, to give to men, who have performed approved services in India, a monopoly of claims to hold high office connected with the Government of India, both in England and in India. Since they alone have a true understanding of Indian affairs, and know how far and in what instances they ought to be exempted from the influence of principles which are commonly held to be of universal application, a certain number of them must be active Members of the Board of Control; and, since the Board must be counterpoisod by the Court, another party of them must infallibly be Directors, so that half the parterre should just reflect the other. That such persons should be considered eligible, according to their qualifications and opportunities of making them known, for high office in every department of Government is most reasonable; but that they should be esteemed the only depositaries of knowledge regarding India, and that the existence of the East India Company, with its monopoly of the tea trade and its legion of clerks, should be prolonged for the sole purpose of providing confortable places for them, wherein they are to assist in the drafting of despatches which may not be adopted, and to sign despatches of which they have not approved, is a degree of extravagance to which the well-earned reputation of Sir John Malcolm will never reconcile the Members of both Houses of Parliament, to whom, in spite of their alleged incompetence, the decision of this matter will soon be committed.

'This is not the only instance in which additional experience and more maturity of judgment have betrayed Sir John Malcolm into a desertion of the right path, and bewildered him in a maze of error and empiricism. On the subject of colonisation, and the revenue and judicial systems, the few opinions which he formerly expressed, were founded on sound and recognised principles of policy and economy. Now he shuts his eyes to that central light, and painfully gropes his way amidst barbarous practices, and uncouth usages, not for the purpose of bringing order out of confusion, but of arresting improvement, excluding reform, and perpetuating ignorance and poverty.

'Like every other advocate for the Company, Sir John Malcolm has availed himself of the eagerness with which objections to placing the patronage of India at the disposal of Ministers are listened to, well knowing and avowing that "the aların taken by the public at the transfer of the patronage now enjoyed by the

Directors to the Ministers of the Crown, has hitherto contributed more than all other considerations to the preservation of the Company." He admits that "it would not be difficult to arrange, without much increase of the influence of the Crown, for the disposal of the appointments of writers and cadets; nor is it of much consequence by whom or how these are selected, provided means are taken to insure their possessing the requisite qualifications;" so that the question is reduced to the quantity of patronage which ministers would acquire by the preferment of public servants in India, and to the practicability of increasing it by the infringement of regulations and Acts of Parliament. These he exaggerates beyond what is warranted by any record of the profligacy of ministers, or the endurance of the public, in the worst of times, insisting that, "though the departments abroad were defended by regulations and Acts of Parliament, numerous inroads, nevertheless, might and WOULD be made upon them." Upon this I would observe, first, supposing arrangements made for placing in other hands than those of ministers the greater part of the patronage of appointment, and that the attainment of the requisite qualifications was made a condition precedent to the grant of the appointment, civil and military officers would continue to be, as they are now, wholly unconnected with the political parties which prevail in England, and preferment would continue to be directed, as it is at present, by the mixed considerations of sincerity, merit, and interest. The balancing of these claims, and the adjudication on each case, would rest with the Governor-General, whose interest as well as duty it would be, first, to insure the success and popularity of his administration; next, to attend to the solicitations of friends and connexions, as far as might be compatible with a due regard to those higher objects. In holding this course the Governor General would be seasonably encouraged or checked by the voice and demeanour of the community, on whose welfare, satisfaction, and applause, he would acutely feel that, after the testimony of a good conscience, his present comfort and future fame chiefly depended. The distance of the scene, too, instead of being favourable to the enterprises of ministerial rapacity, would further protect him against pressing interference from England, and afford him various grounds of resistance to improper applications. Secondly, all the means of defence against mal-administration, possessed by our West Indian colonies, in a free press, representative assemblies, and absentee proprietors, having seats in the House of Commons, may be enjoyed in India, the first immediately, the rest when the fruits of colonisation shall be sufficiently mature. The local press would be abundantly able to cope with such abuses as the multiplication of useless places, sinecures, and pensions; and, as to thrusting strangers over the heads of those who belonged to the service, against the plain provisions of an Act of Parliament, and against the obvious interest of the whole Service, though Sir John Malcolm has gone so far as to

insinuate that such unjust and illegal acts would be committed and tolerated, I am far from thinking so injuriously either of Ministers, or of those whose duty it would be to resist such proceedings. Thirdly, in every department of Government, civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical, the purity of administration has long been, and still is, progressively increasing. The candidates for office, high and low, possess superior qualifications; the claims of merit and approved service are more respected; the restraints on the abuse of patronage better defined and more effectual. These improvements may be traced to the working of our free institutions, and to that publicity which is the animating principle of all responsibility; and one immediate source of them has been the reports of commissioners, who have been from time to time appointed, at home and abroad, to inquire into the modes of transacting business, and to suggest remedies for whatever evils were found to exist. It is amidst accumulating evidence of the most earnest, active, and effectual exertions to promote virtue and discountenance vice, to abate monopolies, and facilitate competition, that Sir John Malcolm advocates the prolonged existence of an institution which is itself the most enormous abuse which has been suffered to remain. has more faith in the wisdom, public spirit, and efficiency of an institution which he confesses it would be insanity to propose to establish, and which taxes the people of England at discretion, while it excludes them from the vast field of Indian agriculture, than in the majesty and vigilance of Parliament, the integrity of courts of justice, and the ceaseless energy of public opinion.

'On the Permanence of our Dominion in India.

He

There is no material difference of opinion as to the nature and the magnitude of the dangers which threaten the subversion of our power in India. All agree that it has no root in the affection of the people, that it subsists by their distrust of each other, and dread of our superiority in the field, while the progress of our system, in producing universality of depression is continually supplying motives of union against the common enemy; but there is a wide difference between the modes of treatment recommended under these alarming and critical circumstances,—the advocates of colonisation contending that the observance of that policy would gradually afford all the elements of national greatness, industry, knowledge, assimilation, and a combination of efforts towards the promotion of the public welfare; the opponents of that policy avowing, more or less directly, that they consider it preferable to forego its benefits, and to incur the daily risk of rebellion, rather than to enter on a course of measures which might ultimately lead to a discontinuance of the political connexion between India and England.

'A handful of foreigners sweep into the Exchequer, and divide among themselves, nearly the entire net produce of the land and