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rapid; notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the agriculturists labour, by the English markets being shut against their raw and manufactured produce, and the great number of artizans thrown out of employment by the introduction of piece goods, &c. from this country, land purchased in Calcutta thirty years ago for fifteen rupees, is now worth, and would readily sell for, three hundred. Ten years ago a labourer in Calcutta received two rupees per month, now he is not satisfied with less than four or five rupees per month, * and there is even a scarcity of workmen; twelve field labourers were formerly to be had for less than one rupee a day, now half that number could not be had at that rate of wages. A cabinet-maker was glad to obtain eight rupees a month, for the exercise of his skill, now he readily obtains sixteen or twenty rupees for the same period; I need not go through the other classes of handicraftsmen or labourers, all have risen in a like proportion; and as to the price of food, it is sufficient to state one article as a criterion: rice, the staff of life in Bengal, was wont to be sold at eight annas (half a rupee) per maund (eighty-two lbs.), its price has increased four-fold, being now averaged at two rupees per maund. In fine, a new order of society has sprung into existence that was before unknown, the country being heretofore divided between the few nobles, in whose hands the wealth of the land was concentrated, and the bulk of the people, who were in a state of abject poverty; from the latter have arisen a middle rank which will form the connecting link between the government and the mass of the nation.

• Mr. Colebrooke says, in 1804 in his Husbandry of Bengal, that a cultivator entertains a labourer for every plough, and pays him wages, on an average, one rupee per mensem, and in some districts, not half a rupee per mensem;" this was at a period when not one-third of the land of a zemindarry was cultivated, whereas now there is frequently not an acre on an estate untilled.

The advantages to be derived from this change are incalculable;-whenever such an order of men have been created, freedom and prosperity have followed in their train. Do we need example? Look at England after the Norman conquest, when the people were serfs, and the feudal Barons were the very counterparts of the Indian zemindars; but watch the progress of society up to the Eighth Henry, when wealth became more equally diffused; and continue the view until the power of the middle ranks became so paramount, that the son of a butcher (as some say) dethroned and caused the decapitation of his monarch, making the military republic of England feared and admired by the world.

The country of the foaming Guadalquiver is a melancholy illustration of a nation possessing but two ranks of society, where the most beggarly Asturian, who can support a bare existence without mental or bodily labour, claims the rank of an Hildalgo, and strongly reminds one of the lazy proud "Suwars," so admirably delineated by Bishop Heber, as quoted in the earlier part of this work. Look at Hungary and other places, where the peasantry are sold with the soil; in fact, in every country where there have been only two extremes of society, mental and bodily despotism have supervened. The East-India Company's government have broken through that curse,—they have annihilated a feudalism which has ever marked an age of barbarism. It is true, that society has been levelled; that the slavish dependence of the low, upon the high caste, has been severed; and millions of human beings are now, for the first time, learning to know their own worth; to be conscious that, by industry, talent, and integrity, they may elevate themselves to the foremost rank of society, and "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled," the meanest Indian peasant may hurl defiance at any petty tyrant, who,

from the insolence of office, alleged hereditary rights, or domineering Brahminical priesthood, may still foolishly think to retain longer in subjection a submissive people, who had, alas! too long licked the dust of the earth.

CHAPTER XII.

SUMMARY OF THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

THE reader who has done me the honour of perusing the preceding chapters, will not have failed to perceive that strong and salient expressions have accompanied the eliciting of a fact, when conducive to the interests of truth; it is too late now to recall them, whatever regret the author may feel for their appearance; they are, however, but as the chaff to the grain, which although augmenting the bulk deteriorate not the substance, and may be easily given to the idle breeze; but as the sentiments of an individual, when commenting on an authenticated circumstance, from which every person is authorized to draw his own conclusions, may to some bear the semblance of partiality, the author feels it due to himself as well as to the cause of justice to state, that whatever way the Legislature may adjudicate the claims of the Honourable EastIndia Company, is to him, in his private capacity, a matter of no moment; for, being without the slightest prospect of employment in England, and abhorring a life of idleness, he is impelled to seek, on Continental Europe, a field for the exercise of that political and commercial knowledge which he acquired as a medical officer in his Majesty's navy, or as a private individual in various parts of the globe. Were he actuated by feelings of hostility to a country to which he owes nothing, but for which without arrogance he may say he has exerted himself much,* his

* The author may be permitted to state, that from the commencement to the close of the discussion on the Reform bill, he conducted a popular London Journal (The United Kingdom), in which the best and dearest interests of the British public were advocated with a zeal

which

talents, however feeble, would, on mature reflection, be devoted to the downfall of the East-India Company; but though adverse fate may some day place him in opposition to the meteor flag,' under which it was once his pride to serve, he cannot help regarding England, with all her faults, as the cradle of civilization, the resting-place of religion, and the asylum of liberty. Apologizing for these prefatory remarks, which it is anxiously hoped will prevent a misconception of motives, the following summary of facts are offered, and respectfully asserted to have been proved in the foregoing pages :

1st. The establishment of the East-India Company was coeval with the dawn of British maritime greatness.

2d. Through many revolving years of internal commotion and foreign war, the East-India Company expended an immense quantity of blood and treasure, in acquiring for England a footing in the eastern hemisphere, and ultimately a splendid dominion, which justly deserves to be termed the brightest jewel in the British diadem.

which has been appreciated by the people of the most remote depen. dencies of the empire, as attested in their journals; nor did he resign his arduous post until the freedom of England (and with her destiny that of the world) was placed, on what he trusts may prove, an imperishable basis for future prosperity. This exposition is made because the writer is a perfect stranger in Great Britain; and because his own unfortunate country (on whose troubled waters he would gladly pour the oil of peace) may demand his humble exertions. While it is madness on the part of Ministers to enforce the collection of tithe for the perpetual support of the Protestant Church in Ireland, the Irish should recollect, that in desiring to be free, they must remember to be just; this would not be accomplished by giving to a landlord a tenth which he had never purchased, or hereditarily acquired. The announcement of Government, that on the demise of existing incumbents, a portion of tithes, as they fall in, would be appropriated to national objects, such as schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions, would tranquillize the country; the attempt to perpetuate them for their present use will cause the shedding of much blood, a severing of the legislative union, and, subsequently, a series of endless disputes, if not of warfare, between both countries! Who, that wishes well to England and Ireland, can calmly contemplate the possibility of such terrible events!

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