properly encouraged, might, I verily believe, in fifty years' time, make our language what the Oordoo, or court and camp language of the country (the Hindoostanee) is at present. And though instances of actual conversion to Christianity are, as yet, very uncommon, yet the number of children, both male and female, who are now receiving a sort of Christian education, reading the New Testament, repeating the Lord's Prayer and Commandments, and all with the consent, or at least without the censure, of their parents or spiritual guides, have increased, during the last two years, to an amount which astonishes the old European residents, who were used to tremble at the name of a Missionary, and shrink from the common duties of Christianity, lest they should give offence to their heathen neighbours. So far from that being a consequence of the zeal which has been lately shewn, many of the Brahmins themselves express admiration of the morality of the Gospel, and profess to entertain a better opinion of the English since they have found that they too have a religion and a Shaster. All that seems necessary for the best effects to follow is, to let things take their course, to make the Missionaries discreet, to keep the Government as it now is, strictly neuter, and to place our confidence in a general diffusion of knowledge, and in making ourselves really useful to the temporal as well as spiritual interests of the people among whom we live. In all these points there is, indeed, great room for improvement. I do not by any means assent to the pictures of depravity and gene

ral worthlessness which some have drawn of the Hindoos. They are decidedly, by nature, a mild, pleasing, and intelligent race; sober, parsimonious; and, where an object is held out to them, most industrious and persevering. But the magistrates and lawyers all agree that in no country are lying and perjury so common, and so little regarded. Notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their manners, the criminal calendar is generally as full as in Ireland, with gang-robberies, setting fire to buildings, stacks, &c. &c.; and the number of children who are decoyed aside, and murdered, for the sake of their ornaments, Lord Amherst assures me, is dreadful. Yet in all these points a gradual amelioration is said to be perceptible; and I am assured, that there is no ground whatevever for the assertion, that the people are become less innocent or prosperous under British administration. In Bengal, at least in this neighbourhood, I am assured by the Missionaries, who, as speaking the language, and associating with the lower classes, are by far the best judges, that the English Government is popular. They are, in fact, lightly taxed, (though that taxation is clumsily arranged, and liable to considerable abuse, from the extortions of the native Aûmeens and Chokeydars;) they have no military conscription, or forced services; they live in great security from the march of armies, &c. and, above all, they some of them recollect in their own country, and all of them may hear or witness in the case of their neighbours in Oude and the Birman empire, how very differently all these things are

managed under the Hindoo and Mahommedan sovereignties.

One very wise and liberal measure of Government has been, the appropriation of all the internal transit duties to the construction of roads and bridges, and the improvement of the towns where they are levied. A more popular, however, and I believe better policy, would have been to remit those duties altogether. They are precisely the things in which the Chokeydars, and other underlings, are most fraudulent and oppressive. Twice as much is extorted by these fellows from the poor country people as they are authorized to receive, and of what is authorized, only a moderate part finds its way into the Company's coffers. Under such circumstances it might, perhaps, be better to remove all restraints from internal intercourse and traffic, to make the people industrious and prosperous, and to be assured that improvements would follow by degrees, in proportion as they became necessary or desireable. Lord Cornwallis's famous settlement of the Zemindary rents in Bengal, is often severely censured here, as not sufficintly protecting the Ryuts, and depriving the Government of all advantage from the improvements of the territory. They who reason thus, have, apparently, forgotten that, without some such settlement, those improvements would never have taken place at all; that almost every Zemindary which is brought to the hammer (and they are pretty numerous) is divided and subdivided, each successive sale, among smaller proprietors, and that the progress is mani

festly going on to a minute division of the soil among the actual cultivators, and subject to no other burdens than a fixed and very moderate quit rent, a state of things by no means undesireable in a nation, and which only needs to be corrected in its possible excess by a law of primogeniture, and by encouraging, instead of forbidding, the purchase of lands by the English. On the desireableness of this last measure, as the most probable means of improving the country, and attaching the peasantry to our Government,-I find, in Calcutta, little difference of opinion. All the restriction which seems necessary is, that the collectors of the Company's taxes shall not be allowed to purchase lands within the limits of their districts: and if the same law were extended to their Hindoo and Mussulman deputies, a considerable source of oppression, which now exists, would be dried up or greatly mitigated.

TO JOHN THORNTON, ESQ.

MY DEAR THORNTON,

Tittyghur, January 9, 1824.

I do not think, indeed, that the direct duties of this diocese, bating the visitations, are more than a man may do with a moderate share of diligence.

They are such, however, as I must do all for

myself, since though I keep a native scribe at work from nine till four daily, he can only be trusted to copy what I write, while it is necessary for me to obtain and keep copies of all the official correspondence in which I am a party; besides which, an intercourse with Chaplains, Missionaries, and religious societies is, in India, all carried on by letter, and what in England would be settled in a few minutes by personal communication, is here the subject of long arguments, explanations, and rejoinders in writing. I at first, therefore, had occasion to work pretty hard, and am now so fortunate as to be completely rid of all arrears of business, and to find myself equal to the daily calls of my correspondents, without so completely sacrificing all other studies, as I was for some time compelled to do. Still I am without books, and what has been still more inconvenient, without sermons, so that I have been latterly obliged to compose often two, and sometimes three a week, amid greater distractions, and with fewer opportunities of study or reference than I ever before had to complain of. I continue well, however, thank God! and have abundant reason at present to be hopeful and contented in my situation, where I meet with much attention and kindness, and where the apparent field of usefulness is so great that, while I deeply feel my own insufficiency, I am more and more impressed with the undeserved goodness of God in calling me to such a situation.