himself, or in the Englishman who saved those lives by a fraud? We can afford to compassionate the unhappy man in the end of his career, but not to sympathise with guilt under a black any more than a white skin. Let this native character be made a reason for endeavouring, by Christian and general knowledge, to elevate the moral standard, but not for calling evil good, or representing the evil as slight on the one hand, and comparative good a major evil on the other. We are sure Dr. Allen did not intend this; but as his words have that tendency, we have felt obliged to speak plainly.

A quotation from each work may briefly illustrate the windings up of some of the sternest wars in which England was ever engaged in the East:

"The Peshwa, after being a fugitive from his capital, and fleeing before an English force for several months, made a treaty, in which he renounced all his possessions, rights, &c. to the English, and promised, on condition of receiving a stipulated allowance for life, to fix his residence in Bengal, outside the Mahratta territories. Sindia, Holkar, the Raja of Nagpore, and the Guickowar of Guzerat, entered into new treaties, which, by reducing their power, and admitting subsidiary forces into their dominions, or increasing the forces previously stationed there, contained new guarantees against engaging in any further wars, or again disturbing the general peace. The Pindaris, wherever they could be found, were attacked and dispersed, and as associated bodies they were annihilated." (P. 258.)

After the capture of Seringapatam, Mr. Morris states :

"Colonel Wellesley was appointed to bring the restored realm into order, and well and nobly did he do his task. The people were happy; roads, bridges, and tanks, were made; and many from other parts of India came to live in Mysore, the best testimony of its good government.”

Strangers to India may not understand why the Pindari war, as it is called, so soon followed the conquest of the Mahratta powers, and when there appeared no State with sufficient power to renew the conflict. "Pindari" means brigand, or robber. When the armies were broken and disbanded, they had no inclination to return to the pursuits of honest industry. In India, strolling Hindu and Mohamedan monks, under various names, can live and fatten on the industry of others, and if not loved, be feared and worshipped. This is altogether a distinct system from that of Brahmanical begging, though the

latter may have been the origin of the former. Of these monkscalled fakirs, gosavis, bávas, atiths, sáddhus, Sitapadris, and many other names,—the nearest synonym is that of the begging monks and friars of Europe. We have known a petty chief, who, when denuded of some villages, joined one of these fraternities; and men in various spheres of life, when thrown ont of wonted employments, have betaken themselves to similar resources. We have said the disbanded sipahis of Sindia and Holkar, and the Peshwa, frequently became Pindaris, living by extensive and systematic plunder. The necessity of putting down this system gave rise to the Pindari war. The suppression of the Pindaris must have driven them to various straits. One of their leaders, Karim Khan, "became a quiet and industrious landholder." Another, Cheeta (the Leopard) was killed by a tiger. A third, Appa Sahib, wandered for a time as a fakir, and at last was permitted to settle in the Jodpur territory. These days and scenes have passed away, and with them have gone to the dust the greater number of the actors in this varied and bloody drama. But the system of begging under religious guise, rather than working, though ancient, must have received an impetus whose momentum is still felt. Many readers will here think of the more recent suppression of the thugai system, the execution of some ringleaders, and the system of discipline by which many have been made to form an industrial institution at Jubbulpore. Hence arose another accession to the begging races; and the question may arise, could similar public measures to those which converted thugs into tent-makers, and instead of life-destroyers made them productive labourers, not be adopted to work a similar salutary reform on the bávas,-often the most corpulent, and the most pestilent men in the country? Dr. Allen says: "Some of the more enlightened Hindus would be glad to see these classes of people compelled to labour, and would approve of the Government using some measures of this kind."

Readers resident in the country need no description of these repulsive types of humanity. Their bodies covered, not with clothing but with ashes,-in a state sometimes more indecent than that of simple nudity, their hair forming a matted and squalid coil of many feet in length. They are seen carrying jars, suspended by a bamboo over their shoulders, and understood to contain holy Ganges water, which, under the superstitious dread of their curses, the people purchase. Sometimes they are found by night basking before huge fires of wood, extorted from the villagers,and this, too, wood intended for carpentry; for the ordinary fuel

of the people is dried cowdung, with which even English travellers are sometimes obliged to serve themselves for cooking, and they very rarely resort to fires for warmth. You rarely enter a chorá (house for travellers) without finding it infested with them, and redolent of rank food and loathsome persons. Again, they may be discovered preserving their nails uncut, holding one arm erect, standing on one foot, swinging by a hook, and performing many other painful penances, regarding these as the acme of righteousness. They may be seen bedecked in tawdry tinsel, seated on a high rickety throne, proclaiming themselves to the approaching missionary as the god of the blinded people who are prostrate around. Of their drinking and immoralities, of which we speak not, we have heard much. We have known one expelled from a camp, on a charge of exciting mutinous feelings; and perhaps it is impossible to tell what effects they may have produced in the stormy times of England's struggles for ascendancy. Now to suppose that any economic measures could convert these men's vicious and vagrant habits into a public benefit, instead of a pest and a curse, may seen visionary. But surely such an object were philanthropic; and antecedently it would not seem more unattainable than the results already attained in the case of the thugs.

Let Dr. Allen's account of the origin of the Burmese war form one of many examples of the fact that the British power in India could not remain stationary at any point in its history. A stern necessity impended, of urging its way on to supremacy, or of retrograding to certain and speedy annihilation. The Company rose, not by the thirst of conquest which its heroes felt, and not by the desire of territory; for though they did in a few instances instruct their agents to realise revenue, yet they frequently, and with evident sincerity, enjoined peace without aiming at enlargement, and

"Back recoiled they knew not why,

Even at the sound themselves had made."

They feared the extent of their power and possessions, and instructed Governors General to make and maintain peace on almost any terms. When they conquered, they saw that conquest had been forced on them. We do not commit ourselves to the position, that they and their representatives were always in the right. This were too much for humanity, especially when urged by motives among the weightiest this world can present. Be it that some cases of political or real sins may have brought aggres

sion on them. But to judge impartially, we must apply the measure to both sides. Here a remarkable fact merits notice. It is with men's public as with their personal acts,-the really objectionable is often not that to which Natives object. They bring much more frequent charges against Europeans for killing a sheep than for breaking a treaty. This may be traced to native avarice, or injustice, or perverted sense of right and wrong. If refugees from Burman oppression fled into British territory, was that a cause for invasion? Were the Burmese serfs inseparable from the soil? And if they had been, was Britain bound to sanction and uphold the serfdom? In India, people are every year, from discontent, leaving one territory to reside in another. Yet this originated a war, which, like other wars, added to Britain's oriental empire. Dr. Allen says:—

"In 1794 a class of people called Meegs, and who had for some reason become obnoxious to the Burmese Government, fled in great numbers into the English territory near Chittagong.. A Burmese prince, with a force of 5,000 men, without any intimation, invaded the district belonging to the English, where he took up a position and began to fortify it, while an army of 20,000 encamped near the border. General Erskine proceeded with considerable force from Calcutta to Chittagong, where the difficulty was finally adjusted without any fighting, and the Burmese returned into their own territory.... But in a few years great numbers of the same class of people again fled for protection into the English territories, and caused fresh troubles on the frontiers. In 1818, when in the midst of the Mahratta war, the Governor General received a letter from the King of Burma, in which he claimed Chittagong, Dacca, Morshedabad, and Cossim Bazar, as provinces which at some former period had belonged to the kingdom of Arracan, and he demanded that they should be surrended to him. In 1820, 21, 22, and 23, they committed many outrages on persons in the employment or under the protection, of the British Government...... The English, in repelling these attacks, killed a considerable number of the Burmese. Thus a state of actual war existed, though there had been no declaration of war on either side." (P. 260.)

The author goes on to detail the actual war and its results, which are too well known to need repetition.

The transition from the days of James Silk Buckingham to those of the freedom of the press, by which sacred name the licentiousness of the lowest portion of the press is often palmed on the world, is thus noticed by Dr. Allen:-" His (Lord Wil

liam Bentinck's) administration was chiefly remarkable for removing some restrictions which had hitherto existed on the press in India. This change caused much discussion in India and in England...... But the press, though used as freely by different classes of the native population, in the discussion of political, religious, and all other matters, in their respective languages, has continued to be free, and some of the evil consesequences which were anticipated have resulted from it. Thus, making the press free showed much liberality on the part of the Government." It is an important fact: the press has been made free; and free let it for ever remain. Far be it from us to wish our press in the state of the press of Russia or of France. But what is the freedom of the press? Many rave rabidly about it, whose only idea seems to be, the freedom of garbling from all new books, of bespattering all persons, and of distorting all questions,―none of which things require any intellectual abilities, while they indicate a sadly depraved moral state. Is the freedom of the press absolute or limited? If the former, it is a portentious anomaly in this world. No man's personal freedom is unlimited. It must be limited by the equal freedom of others. No man's freedom of speech is absolute;-if he slander character, injure good fame, or cause commercial injury, he is hable, and justly, to punishment. It may be said a man is also liable to libel and damages for what he writes. True; and this is applicable just in so far as the two cases are parallel. But the wide diffusion of slander through the press renders the cases widely different. Some prints indeed, of the lower order, even in the hands of their few subscribers, are literally ephemeral, and pass by the intelligent and the good as "the idle wind." If we assert the right of the press to publish truth, without the invasion of the more private precincts which general feeling holds sacred, it should at least be bound by the laws of gentlemen, which it assuredly is not, if we judge from the manner in which gentlemen of the press frequently hurl their bruta fulmina at one another. Why might not the press be as free as the learned professions, and yet be elevated by some wise measure of legislation to the status of a learned profession? The only reply which we can conceive, is the plea so often used for staving off indefinitely the emancipation of slaves;—the time for it is not yet come.

The state of the Punjab, consequent on the first campaign, and the public feeling that soon brought on the second, and issued in the annexation of the country, are thus described by Dr. Allen:

VOL. V. NO. 1.

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