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country people, with their wives smiling contentment, and their daughters laughing dimples and happiness, are fearful indications of poverty. The next extract will shew that their content is not that of the hog, which seeks nothing but the gratification of its appetite; the "wretched metayers" seem as independent in soul as in pocket. Discoursing on the lower orders, Mr. Cobbett remarks : "Servants and their employers are much more on a level than in England; when citizens go out to their country houses, as during the vintage, the family of a gentleman will sit down and play at cards along with their own domestics; there is no swinish multitude '-no 'basest populace;' the lowest class of society here have too much intelligence, and are too decent in their demeanour to deserve any such names," (p. 266).

Now as I know this will be thought an exaggeration by Mr. Cobbett, who plebeian-like, might love to speak well of the 'swinish multitude,' I will quote the remark of a patrician, whose work has opportunely presented itself; it is that of the "Diary of an Invalid," who subsequently died in the judicial seat at Ceylon, and who might be considered the antipode of Mr. Cobbett. "In Tuscany the very cottages are neat and ornamental, and there is in the dress and appearance of the peasantry something which bespeaks a sense of self-respect, and a taste for comforts, which will never be found where the peasantry is in a state of hopeless vassalage. The farms seem to be very small, seldom exceeding thirty acres :"-Diary of an Invalid, p. 252.

One short extract from Mr. Cobbett's pleasing work, and I have done with the volume, which I recommend Mr. Rickards to peruse, in order that he may learn the effects of the metayer system. "Lombardy," says Mr. Cobbett, " is almost one continued vineyard; here are all the beau

ties of agriculture; those of Italy with those of England, as far as possible, combined. The road over the level plains of Lombardy, is the very best I have ever seen in any part of the world; the public roads are excellent; they are good in all parts of this country that I have ever seen; there are no turnpike gates in Italy," (p. 356).

Professor Martyn, in his tour through Italy, thus writes: "The industry of the inhabitants has in many places made amends for the want of fertility in the mountains, which are in general covered with olives, vines, pomegranates, orange and lemon trees, or shaded with carob trees, and evergreen oaks, and adorned with buildings and gardens," (p. 67).

Again, this author says: "Provisions are plentiful and cheap; poultry, game, and fish are abundant; fruits and garden-stuff are to be had all winter; the wants of nature are so easily satisfied that the lower class of people work but little, their great pleasure is to bask in the sun and do nothing," (p. 264).

Speaking of the Lucca territory, he says: "An air of cheerfulness and plenty appears among the people, and their scanty soil is improved to the utmost; the mountains are covered with vines, olives, chestnuts, and mulberries; no beggars or idle people are to be seen; the country is ornamented with abundance of charming houses," (p. 347).

Of Vicensa: "The country flat and well cultivated ; the crops, corn, maize, and grass; the wine of the Vicentine is good," (p. 379).

From Bologna to Venice," the country well cultivated," (p. 354).

From Naples to Mola, "the country abounds in corn, vines, pomegranates, lemons, &c." (p. 298).

In fact, all the writers I have met with agree, that in Tuscany, the Milanese, and the Florentine states, &c. the

land is divided into small parcels under the metayer system, presenting a richly cultivated aspect; yielding in four years three crops for the support of man, two crops for cattle, one fallow, and a crop of hemp, to which must be added wine, silk, fruit, vegetables, the produce of the farmyard, and the profits of rearing and fattening stock; a farm of very moderate dimensions supporting a large family and twenty-two head of cattle; the silk made is worth about twenty-five louis d'or; the wine prepared is greater than the consumption requires; the crops of maize and beans nourish the labourers, and nearly the whole quantity of corn and the inferior articles may be carried to market.

Among the immense population* of Lombardy, where the economy of small farms is adopted, the soil is so perfectly cultivated, that neither space nor time are lost. The crops, as in other parts of Italy, are inclosed by lines of fruit trees of various kinds, interspersed with mulberry trees, poplars, and oaks, which support festoons of vines covered with a profusion of grapes, tinging all beneath them with their purple juice; rich corn-fields, beautiful verdure, lowing herds, neat commodious farm-houses, and a contented and joyous peasantry meet the eye at every step, from the foot of the Alps, to that of the Appenines.†

Italy in 1812 possessed a population of 1,237 individuals to the square league, notwithstanding there are whole regions depopulated by reason of their unhealthiness, the considerable space which the mountains and rivers occupy, and the want of manufactures or native commerce. With reference to the unhealthiness or depopulation of many parts of Italy which were formerly healthy and richly peopled, as adverted to in the beginning of the second chapter, I may remark that the marenna of Sienna, which was so fruitful that it furnished Rome with a large quantity of corn during the second Punic war (Pliny, Lib. IV. c. 52), on account of the present state of the air and water, is now waste and unpeopled.

May not the prosperous condition of the lowest class of people in Italy account for the difficulty which every attempt to rouse them for the overthrow of the Austrian has met with? The difference between Italy and India consists, in the former having no tribute of four or

five

In Italy, as in India, the great subdivision of the land has vested on the surface an immense floating capital of industry; four-fifths of the population are cultivators; there are but few day-labourers except in the large towns, the mass of the people being farmers on a small scale, the productive land absorbing any apparent surplus population as fast as it rises. In both countries we see splendid cities, the relics of a barbarous despotism fast sinking into decay, while humble but happy villages are rapidly encroaching on their nearly tenantless battlements; Rome and Delhi, Venice and Dacca, Pisa and Agra, are becoming heaps of mouldering ruins, from which, phoenix-like, arise the rustic cottages of an industrious and peaceful, but no longer servile population.

five millions sterling to pay to a distant country, while its manufactures are not destroyed by the inundation of foreign goods; and the lessened cultivation or fertility of the soil in neighbouring countries affords a profitable market for the disposal of the surplus produce of the Italian farmer, a resource which the Indian is denied.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SALT MONOPOLY;-VINDICATION OF THE EAST-INDIA COMPANY BY A HINDOO;—REFUTATION OF MR. CRAWFURD AND MR. RICKARDS RESPECTING THE MOLUNGHEES, &c.; UNGENEROUS POLICY OF ENGLAND TOWARDS THE HINDOOS;—EXAMINATION OF THE PRUDENCE OR JUSTICE OF SUPPLYING INDIA WITH BRITISH SALT.

In the last chapter I endeavoured to shew the effects of the landed revenue in India: I proceed now to examine the system of salt revenue in Bengal, where, on account of the Government having put a limit to the principal source of taxation (land), they are necessitated to raise an income from salt, because that article is consumed by the great mass of the people, reaching those whom the land-tax scarcely touches. This mode of providing for the exigencies of the state has not escaped the attacks of men who, in their eager partizanship or selfishness, have scrupled at nothing which might gain their object, but have endeavoured by every possible means, and by skilfully blending falsehood with truth, to deceive the public. I could, from personal knowledge, refute the assertions of Mr. Crawfurd and Mr. Rickards; but it will be thought, perhaps, more desirable if I submit to my readers extracts of letters written to me by a salt darogah (native officer) in Calcutta, which were published by the author of this work in a weekly journal which he established in Bengal in four languages (English, Bengallee, Persian, and Hindoo

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