greater, unless it were a native legislature, competent to control the acts of the executive, and expel, if it judged proper, their present rulers. An unshackled press, which thoughtless or interested clamour demands for them, would be no security, but a bane. Such was, and continues to be, the conviction of the British Legislature; and such conviction has been recently confirmed by the solemn decision of a council comprehending lawyers of the highest rank, as well as ministers of state.

With respect to taxation, no conquered country was ever so lightly pressed. We have, indeed, been told, in works written to inform the people of England on India affairs, that the Government absorbs the entire net produce of the soil; that the Company, like a vampire, sucks the blood of its subjects as fast as it is produced; together with other assertions equally veracious. When it is recollected that the fiscal resources in India bear no resemblance to those in Europe; that the people either cannot or will not pay imposts* of a kind the most ordinary and unobjectionable in England; that Indirect taxation is impracticable in a country where wants are few, and taxable articles rare; and that the weight of the imposts therefore must fall (as it always did in Hindostan) upon the soil; it cannot be surprising that the land-tax should appear (for it is merely in appearance) comparatively large. It is in this, as in other cases, the administration of the revenue-system, not the tax itself, which can be vexatious to the people; and should they feel oppression from this cause, the courts of justice will afford redress against the native zemindar or the European collector, to every individual whatever, even the most degraded pariah.

Foreign writers, misled by pamphleteers in England, who are either igno rant of the true circumstances of British India, or who have an object in misstating them, have seemed to consider that the East-India Company, and consequently the British Government, by which the Company's system is supported, are unacquainted with the simplest maxims of politics and political economy, and persevere in schemes of policy ruinous to themselves, for the mere gratification of oppressing their subjects. It is impossible for a novice to read the extravagant picture drawn by M. Sismondi of British Government in India-a government which has been administered by a Cornwallis, a Wellesley, a Shore, and a Hastings-without his instituting a parallel between that and the foulest pourtraitures of ancient tyranny.

Such writers are, doubtless, more excusable than Englishmen, whose descriptions have the same tendency. An article in a late number of the Westminster Review is of this complexion. The writer (or writers, for the diversity of style and the palpable contradictions in this article would lead us to suppose it to be a joint production) has attempted to show what is and what ought to be the system of Anglo-Indian government; he has failed in both respects. His politics are of that character which is well known by the epithet radical; his facts are not collected from the multitude of able works which have been written upon India, nor from the mass of official evidence published by Parliament and by the East-India Company at various periodsbut chiefly from the very pamphlets which have misled M. Sismondi into the grave errors he has committed. Moreover, the extravagance betrayed in the article on the subjects of the "Liberty of the Press," and "Transmission of Editors;"

* An attempt to levy a house or window-tax at Benares, we believe, was resisted by the inhabitants, who quitted their dwellings and resided in the fields.

Editors;" the flippant remarks upon the characters and opinions of the members of a late Cabinet Council; the fury of invective against the late Mr. Adam; and the parade of reference to a periodical work (as an authority) notorious for misrepresentation and party rancour, are sufficient to shew the spirit and design of the article..

As a specimen of its style, we subjoin the concluding paragraph, forming the last link of a chain of exaggerations :

In point of fact, this miserable people, in a very imperfect state of civilization, without accumulation of capital, actual or in near prospect, wretchedly housed, all but quite naked, supporting existence on [by] a handful of rice and a pinch of dirty salt, and painfully and primitively scratching the unmanured and never fallow earth for a yearly harvest; this unfortunate people, to whom we have not communicated our arts, our sciences, our capital, our liberal institutions, or scarcely any thing really worth their having, are actually saddled with the intolerable expenses of three governments abroad and at home, cumbrous and costly.

Fortunately, the very article of which this rhapsody is the conclusion, contains an antidote to its effect. The writer (if it be the same) who penned this paragraph, seems to have forgotten that in a preceding page he had written as follows:

It cannot be denied that the government of the British in India has been a prodigious, an incalculable blessing to the Indian people, chiefly in having by its influence banished foreign war and invasion with all their horrors; that many ameliorations have been constantly going forward in the statute-book and in our institutions; and that, in fact, only the ordinary securities against neglect and misrule are required to make those benefits spread and fructify a thousand-fold.

How this declaration is to be reconciled with the aforegoing statement, that we have not communicated to the natives of India scarcely any thing really worth their having," the writer would probably be puzzled to tell.

Our conclusion we may express in the very terms of the writer: we think that "the government of the British in India has been a prodigious, an incalculable blessing to the Indian people;" we know that "many ameliorations have been constantly going forward," and are still going forward, "in the statute-book and in our institutions." If by "the ordinary securities against neglect and misrule" the writer means-the introduction of a free press into India, we are satisfied that such a measure, instead of making the benefits referred to "spread and fructify a thousand-fold," would, in the present circumstances of Hindostan, abrogate and extinguish them altogether. We refer for the grounds of our conviction to the speeches of Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet and Mr. Serjeant Spankie, recorded in the " Proceedings of the Privy Council in relation to the Appeal against the Regulations for the Bengal Press," and to the following sentiments of Sir John Malcolm :*

That it is our duty to diffuse knowledge and truth (in India) none will deny; but it is also our most imperative duty to exercise our best judgment as to the mode in which these blessings shall be diffused, so as to render them beneficial; nor must we be diverted for one moment from our object by the clamour of those who, from only half-understanding this great subject, seek to interest popular opinion and national pride and prejudices on the side of systems of speculative reform and rash innovations, as crude as they are dangerous. By premature efforts to accelerate the progress of the blessings it is our hope to impart, we shall not only hasten our own downfall, but replunge the natives of India into a state of greater anarchy and misery than that from which we relieved them.

* Memoir on Central India, vol. ii, p. 304.

CHINESE

CHINESE PHILOLOGY-HAINAN-SINGAPORE.

To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal.

SIR: In your Number for January, at page 15, is an article extracted from the Singapore Chronicle, in the closing paragraph of which, the writer speaks not a little contemptuously of all that Jesuits and others before his time have written, concerning Chinese law, morals, and philology. All that has been written on the last-named subject, he considers of very little use; and so it manifestly has been to him, for he opens his paper by this accurate piece of information :

"The island of Hai-nan (correctly Hai-lam, or the western country), lies, &c. &c."

Now, Sir, this sentence is just as absurd as if he had said, in English, "Sea-South (correctly Say-Sooth, which means the western country).”—

That Hai-nan is correct, and means, verbally, Sea-South, or an island situated in the Southern Sea, every child in China knows; and the writer,' I conceive, should have informed himself a little more concerning Chinese philology, rather than thus proclaim its uselessness, both by word and deed.

He wants to treat of "facts and things, instead of words," by which "facts and things," he says, he means, "natural history, agriculture, commerce, population, and geography." About law, and morals, and history, he wishes to hear no more: nor philology" either, I suppose, after the "correct" and

ing of Hai-nan.

edifying" information he has given us concerning the mean

From what we have heard of Singapore and its present Government, I think it would be well, if the "law" had a little more morality;" for the licenses granted to vice, are productive—of revenue, indeed,—and also of personal and domestic ruin-of robberies and of murders, which scandalize the more virtuous pagans who visit the settlement. Woe to thee, O Land! when men, who think physical science every thing, and moral science nothing, are thy rulers! Licentious Chinese despise the Christian Government, which takes money to allow vices that their own paternal Government, in China, prohibits entirely; and a Chinese farmer of gambling houses (Oh! delectable contrivance of Christian Europe!) when brought before the magistrate at Singapore, for affrays, &c., will beard the Christian judge, with the plea that he had paid the Government for his profession, and he must be allowed to carry it on, as the nature of the craft requires, to get back his money again.

The wars of the Saxon Heptarchy were not dignified enough for Milton and Hume! says the writer; they were equal to the quarrels of the kites and the cranes of the same period! A fine specimen of the hard-heartedness of metaphysical historians! And the Chinese wars were like them, says the Singapore Chronicle. True: like all the ancient wars of small states—cruel, and bloody, and incessant. The Chinese, however, of the nineteenth century, outdid Hume and the chronicler, by comparing the wars of Europe to the quarrels" of petty horned insects.

Your's, &c.

ALIQUIS.

THE CHINESE DRAMA.

THE ORPHAN OF THE HOUSE OF TCHAO.

[Concluded from page 47.]

ACT III.

SCENE I. The palace of Tou-ngan-cou.

Enter ToU-NGAN-COU, attended.

Tou. Will the little Tchao escape me?—I have promulgated an order, that if, in the course of three days, it does not appear, all children under six months old shall be put to death.-Let some one go to the palace gate and look about; and if any accuser is discovered approaching, let me know it immediately.

Enter TCHING-ING.

Tching. [Aside.] I have carried my own child to Kong-lun, and now I come to impeach him before Tou-ngan-cou.-[To a soldier.] Say that I bring intelligence respecting the orphan of Tchao.

.

Sold. Wait a little, if you please; I will announce your arrival.-[To Toungan-cou.] My lord, here is a man who says that the little Tchao is found. Tou. Where is the man? let him enter.-Who art thou? Tching. I am a poor physician; my name is Tching-ing.

Tou. Where dost thou say thou hast seen the orphan Tchao?

Tching. In the village of Liu-liu-tai-ping; old Kong-lun has concealed him in his house.

Tou. How hast thou learned that?

Tching. Kong-lun is an acquaintance of mine; I was at his house, and accidentally saw in his bed-chamber a child placed upon a rich carpet. I said to myself, Kong-lun is more than seventy years old; he has neither son nor daughter; whence came this child then? I expressed my thoughts to him: said I, is not this child the orphan so much sought after? I took notice that the old man changed colour, but he said nothing in reply; whence I conclude, my lord, that the child which you are so much concerned about is with old Kong-lun.

Tou. Away, villain! dost thou think to make me credit this? Hitherto thou hast had no animosity against the good Kong-lun; wherefore dost thou then accuse him of so great a crime? Is it out of regard for me? If thou tellest the truth, fear nothing; if otherwise, thou art a dead man.

Tching. Restrain your anger, my lord, for one moment, and condescend to hear my answer. It is true I have no animosity against Kong-lun; but when I learned that you had ordered all the children in the kingdom to be brought hither that they might be put to death; in the hope of saving the lives of so many innocents; moreover, being at the age of forty-five, and having had a son born to me a month ago, I should be obliged to surrender it to you, my lord, and should be then without an heir; but the orphan of Tchao once discovered, the infants in the kingdom would not be destroyed, and my little heir would have nothing to fear :-these are the motives which have determined me to accuse Kong-lun,

Tau. [Laughing.] Thou art in the right !-old Kong was the intimate friend of Tchao-tun; so it is not surprising that he wishes to save the orphan.Asiatic Journ. VOL. XXI. No. 122. X

[To

4

[To his attendants.] Let some soldiers be assembled immediately.—I will go with Tching-ing to the village of Tai-ping, surround it, and seize old Kong-lun. SCENE II.-The village of Tai-ping.

Enter KONG-lun.

Kong. Yesterday I consulted with Tching-ing how to save little Tchao. Tching-ing went to accuse me before the cruel Tou-ngan-cou. I shall soon behold the wretch approach.-What cloud of dust is that? A troop of soldiers is coming! It is doubtless the plunderer, and I must prepare to die.

Enter ToU-NGAN-COU, TCHING-ING, and Soldiers.

Tou. We are now at the village of Tai-ping; enclose me completely.Tching-ing, which is the house of Kong-lun?

Tching. This is it.

Tou. Drag out the old villain :-Kong-lun, know'st thou thy crime?
Kong. I have no crime that I am sensible of.

Tou. Wretch! I know thou wert connected by friendship with Tchao-tun; but why so bold as to conceal the relics of his family?

Kong. Had I the heart of a tiger I would not undertake it.

Tou. If he does not feel blows he will confess nothing:-take a good bamboo and beat him well.

Kong. [Whilst undergoing the punishment.] Where is the evidence of the crime I am accused of ?

Tou. Tching-ing was the first to accuse thee.

Kong. Tching-ing is very wicked.-[To Tou-ngan-cou.] Art thou not satisfied with the death of three hundred persons, that thou wouldst destroy a poor infant, who alone remains.

Tou. Old villain! where hast thou concealed the orphan? tell me quickly, to save thyself from further torture.

Kong. Where have I concealed the orphan ?—who saw me conceal it?

Tou. Still thou wilt not declare all: beat him again. [They beat him.] The old wretch must be insensible; he feels not, he confesses not.-Tching-ing, it is thou who hast accused him; take a stick, and give him a hundred blows. Tching. My lord, I am a poor physician; I have never learned to use the bamboo.

Tou. What! thou hast never learned how to use the bamboo! thou art afraid he will impeach thee as his accomplice.

Tching. My lord, I will beat him directly. [Takes a bamboo.]

Tou. Tching-ing, thou hast chosen so small a stick, that thou seem'st to be afraid of hurting him. Thou art certainly apprehensive he will speak.

Tching. I will take a larger.

Tou. Hold at first thou took'st merely a switch, and now. thou hast got a club; in two blows thou wilt kill him, and he will die without confessing any thing. Tching. You tell me to take a stick; one you say is too small, another is too big; what am I to do?

Tou. Take a moderately sized one, and lay it upon this rascal so that he feels-wretched old man, dost thou know that it is Tching-ing who strikes

thee?

Tching. Confess all !

Kong. O, I am beaten to pieces; the last blows were the heaviest of all; -who inflicted them?

Tou, It was Tching-ing,