exist, to say nothing of all the intermediate productions of writers. on various subjects, we can never deny to the Natives of India an intellectual capacity for the very highest attainments, however. much the wild superstitions of their country may have turned that capacity into useless and unprofitable channels. Whoever has lived much among the people of India must have perceived indeed that, from the age of seven to fourteen, the talent of the young Mohammedan or Hindoo is much more fully developed than in the European under similar circumstances and at the same age; and also, that in the humbler walks of life, between the mere daily labourer and the opulent merchant, there is much more sagacity and more general knowledge in the Native of Hindoostan than in the peasant or small farmer of England, and far greater than in the mass of English soldiers and seamen with whom they may be compared in their own country. There are very few domestic servants in India who cannot read and write: and some even maintain an extensive correspondence with friends and acquaintances at the distance of hundreds of miles. There is not a sepoy in a Native regiment of cavalry or infantry who may not be considered as quite equal, and frequently superior in attainments as well as character, to the English of the same class with himself; and among the very smallest shopkeepers in the country, whose whole trading capital does not amount to 101. sterling, it is not uncommon to see written accounts, kept by the vender himself with a degree of neatness and minute accuracy of detail which would be considered highly creditable to a large European establishment. Of the capacity of the Natives for acquiring all that we can teach them, the schools of Calcutta furnish abundant proofs in the proficiency of Native pupils in all that is taught at them; and if they are inferior to the natives of Europe in actual attainments, it is because no pains have been bestowed in exercising that capacity on the same class of subjects.

But we turn from this to the consideration of what is stated in the second portion of the extract from the letter of the Civil Servant.' The writer conceives "security of life and property" to be "the first necessity of human society;" and, so conceiving, mentions it as one of the great defects of the ancient Native governments that this necessity was unsatisfied. In this we differ from him and we will state our reasons. If the security of life and property had been the first necessity, then it is clear, that under any circumstances which could be imagined, such security would be preferred above all other things. But the fact is notoriously the reverse. It would have been more correct to say, that happiness is the first necessity of human society. This it is which, under different modifications, is sought by every body, and this it is which is preferred to all other things. To every man who enters the navy or army, the security of life is placed on a very frail

foundation; by every man who voluntarily risks his capital in speculative projects of any kind, from ordinary commerce up to gambling and the turf, the security of property is as imperfectly enjoyed. All, however, that the parties ask, is, a corresponding hope of reward for the insecurity in which they voluntarily place themselves. The sailor or soldier is satisfied that, though he may lose his life in the chances of war, or be made a cripple, and linger in a hospital for the remainder of his days, he may also acquire fame and fortune in his career, and wear his laurels and enjoy his wealth at least for a season. The merchant and the gambler feel after the same manner. If their insecurity of property is great, their gains may be also considerable; and although they may end in being bankrupts, yet they may also be numbered among the wealthy and the honourable of the land. By far the larger majority of mankind are of this disposition: security of life is not their first necessity, for they would risk it for a thousand purposes, and abandon it altogether without scruple if they could not enjoy it in a free, an honourable, and a happy manner; neither is security of property of so much importance to them as its abundance, since they continually place the former in jeopardy to augment the latter. It is for this reason, we feel persuaded, that the Natives of India would much rather live under a government where neither their lives nor their properties were quite so secure as at present, provided they enjoyed more wealth, more consideration, and consequently more happiness, as long as they did live; instead. of lingering out a weary existence, as they now do, shut out from all hope of attaining distinctions in the state, and so restricted in their property by the pressure of continual exactions, that the security of the little pittance left them is more a matter of benefit and congratulation to the Government than to the individual; because all that it amounts to, beyond mere animal existence, is just sufficient to form a germ or seed from which future property may be produced, to find its way, as almost all other property does in such countries, into the insatiable jaws of the public coffers.

On this subject we can speak with some experience; and as the illustrations may be worth recording, we will introduce them here. We have had occasion to converse with free negroes in the West Indies, who, having purchased their freedom, were for some time out of employment, and destitute of resources for immediate subsistence. On contrasting the precarious nature of their condition at such a moment with the certainty which they enjoyed, of food, clothing, medicine, and all that was necessary to the security of life and property, under their former masters' care, we have asked them whether they did not prefer the secure and thoughtless to the insecure and care-engendering state. The answer was uniformly the same. With freedom there is hope of improvement; in slavery there is none. We prefer the power of acquiring abundance,

We

though checked by occasional want, to the mere pittance necessary to sustain existence, however secure. This was not the language, but the sentiment, rudely expressed, was always the same. have conversed with sailors of all nations, and invariably found that participation in the profits of a voyage, whether of whale-fishery, smuggling, privateering, or mere commerce, was always preferred to a low and regular pay; and this feeling is not peculiar to persons of this class alone, but common to all ranks of the community. We had an opportunity in Egypt, however, of ascertaining the operation of this principle in a still more marked degree, and in a manner which renders it extremely appropriate to the present occasion. The people of Egypt were formerly governed by twenty-four Mameluke Beys, so accurately described by Volney, whose fidelity has never been surpassed. Under these rulers, security of life and property was scarcely enjoyed by any man in the country; and, almost every month, some rich Christian, Jew, or Turk, was made to disgorge his wealth into the coffer of the Beys, when his head was frequently taken off as a security against his future murmurings. Egypt is at present governed by a single Viceroy, Mohammed Ali Pasha, who imitates all the European arts, adopts the greater part of its maxims, and governs by what is generally called a liberal and enlightened policy. His policy is, no doubt, very different from that of his predecessors the Mamelukes; for he never suffers any persons to get rich enough to require being relieved of their superfluities. His system is one of grinding taxation, after the most approved methods of European skill. If any man in his dominions is more prosperous than another, it is not because he has a larger portion of the profits of his labour left to his enjoyment than his fellow. Nine-tenths of the produce of his fields are taken from him, and the other tenth is only left because that is necessary to provide seed and subsistence, without which the nine-tenths of the ensuing harvest would not be produced. He has, besides, his corn monopoly and salt-petre monopoly, his India Trading Company, and his European Commercial Association. He melts down the pure dollars of Spain to adulterate the silver into a base coin of artificial value; and resorts to every artifice that can be devised for the sake of draining his already impoverished people, and increasing the receipts of his treasury. But no where is security of life and property better established (excepting only, perhaps, among the military, where death is inflicted to maintain discipline) than in the dominions of Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt. It is the security, however, enjoyed by the negro slaves, whose lives are too valuable to their masters to be wantonly taken away; they let them live, and secure them their daily food, that they may reap the profit of their labour. But if any Egyptian of the present day be asked how he likes this system of perfect security of life and property, he will execrate the name of Mohammed Ali and his grinding system of exaction, and sigh for the insecurity of the Mameluke Beys;

where, though some dozen men in a year, perhaps, had their lives and treasures forfeited to the state, the great mass of the people lived in comparative affluence, and every man, except the few who made a pompous parade of their riches, enjoyed in tranquillity the fruits of his labours.

This is exactly the state of India at the present moment; and the comparison made by its people with what they historically and traditionally know to have been its former condition, under their ancient rulers, is precisely the same as that of the Egyptians. Like them, they are now literally ground to the dust. What with the exactions of the revenue collector on the one hand, the difficulty of obtaining credit for any of their agricultural operations on the other, and the continued craving of the English government after surplus revenue, to be drawn from every available source, by opium monopolies, salt monopolies, land assessments, seizures for arrears of rent, &c. &c., the unhappy Hindoo has just sufficient left him, barely perhaps a tenth, to linger out a miserable existence for another year, and so to creep on to the grave, living and breathing, not for his own enjoyment, or with the hope of making a comfortable provision for his family, but as a mere instrument of production, for the purpose of adding every year more wealth to that vast fund which is first dispersed in salaries to the civil and military servants of the country, and ultimately drained off from India altogether, the greater portion to be spent in maintaining corruption in this country, and the rest to be bestowed on descendants here, whose fortunes are thus wrung from the labours of the Native Indian, from the sweat of his furrowed brow, and the toils of his swarthy limbs. He too, like his brother in bondage, the Egyptian, would prefer, a hundred times over, the insecurity of life and property under former tyrants, to the system of secure, but hopeless, poverty in which he now remains. His ancient rulers did, no doubt, consult their own pleasure rather than his, in all they did; they were tyrants in principle and practice, but they permitted the great mass of the people to accumulate comforts around them. Their rulers wanted no surplus revenue to remit as tribute to another country; they were not themselves turned houseless on the world, when their lands failed to yield their stated crops, because they could not pay their full measure of taxes. In short, they were permitted to live in some sort of affluence; their agricultural labours were productive; their manufactures were in general consumption, and well paid for; and they had property, though it might not always have been so secure as they could wish. But under the present system they have nothing; and, therefore, security is an empty sound. The Government takes care that they shall not be interrupted in the accumulative process, because nine-tenths of the fruit of that accumulation is preparing to be poured into its own treasury, and the other tenth they also protect, because, as it has

been before remarked, this is the golden egg, which, if destroyed, would defeat all future production for their own benefit. The people of India know and feel this deeply; and have penetration enough to discover that, to live under one set of tyrants, where property may be accumulated and enjoyed, though the security is not perfect, is much more desirable than to live under another set of tyrants, where the pressure of unrelenting exaction is such as to render the accumulation of property almost hopeless, and where the only enjoyment of which they are secure, is the privilege of living to sow their seed and reap their harvest for the benefit of their benevolent rulers!

It is not, therefore, to be an "intemperate reviler of the British administration in India," to deny, which we do, most conscientiously that," as compared with the governments to which it succeeded, great benefits have been conferred (by it) on the population."-If life and property are more secure, the one is less happy and the other less abundant, so as to render the security no equivalent for the loss of the other requisites. We have placed heavy and almost prohibitory restrictions on some of their agricultural products; we have first weighed down with duties, and next extinguished by our machinery their beautiful fabrics; we have taken from them their power, their wealth, and their consideration. And what have we given them in exchange? An improved system of land-tax, customs, excise, and monopolies; a disciplined army, to be turned against their own fathers, brothers, and children, if need be, or to be shot themselves if they refuse; an intelligent civil service, to pass a certain period in collecting the produce of their labours for their governors, and ultimately themselves withdrawing to live upon their portion of this produce in England; a wretched system of judicature, which is neither enlightened nor expeditious, nor equal, and from the courts of which all except rich suitors fly as far as they are able, and deem it the heaviest of calamities to fall within their power; a few flying rope bridges over their rapid torrents, for the speed of conveying despatches; a military road or two for facilitating the march of troops; a few good, but many more useless, institutions for education, confined chiefly to the Presidencies; a bench of judges, whose jurisdiction extends only two or three miles from the seat of government, as far as Natives are concerned; with a bishop, a large church establishment, and Christian missionaries, to do that for which any man would be imprisoned in England, namely, to overturn the established religion of the country, without, however, making any visible progress in conversion among the intellectual part of the population. The Natives know all this, as well as we do ourselves, and the subject forms a frequent topic of conversation among them; but, as they cannot venture to give vent to their opinions or feelings through any public channel, we may be quite sure that, in the words of the Civil Servant,' "the intellect