she too had admirers. It is true, her cavaliers were neither of the civil nor the military service. But her train was seldom deficient in a spruce English clerk or two, or now and then a young attorney. On the present occasion, she was escorted only by a third-mate of an Indiaman, who had found himself (God knows how) on the back of a Black-town charger, and was scudding before the wind alongside of Amelia. As she approached me with her convoy, she smiled with the kindest encouragement; and the smile was not lost upon me. Making a bold effort to shake off the Eurasian bashfulness, which was for ever disconcerting me in my intercourse with English ladies, and imitating, as closely as I could, the nonchalance of the young civilians I mentioned, I crossed abruptly to get near her, and in the movement gave the third-mate a jerk with my right foot, that went near to unseating him (a check-mate, by the way, he never forgave me), and thus sidled myself close to her right-hand. "Every body knows that it is the property of an Arab, though slow and sluggish in solitary excursions, to glow with a double portion of Promethean fire when he perceives a rival willing to outstrip him. I admire your grey much, Mr. Middlerace,' said Amelia. How dearly should I like to see him gallop!' With that, suiting the action to the word, she set off instantly at full speed, and my Arab, receiving the challenge with a snort of defiance, followed her with equal rapidity; the third-mate, on his Black-town hack, doing wonders, for the animal he bestrode had only the use of three legs, the fourth being suspended by the spring-halt aloft in the air. This was an insult my Arab seemed to feel, and having soon shaken off so ignoble a competitor, stretched himself out to give the go-by to a rival more worthy of his powers. Amelia, an excellent rider, pushed her palfrey to the extent of his speed; and in an instant, chariots, palanquins, curricles, tandems, bandys, drew on one side, as if we had been regularly matched for a race. "Miss Waddle, all the time, had her horse in perfect control. I had lost all power over mine; and he ran along as if entered in the Nemæan games, and anxious to be commemorated by Pindar. My seat, always a precarious one, became now endangered; but he went on just as if my consent had nothing to do with his movements. Off flew my hat: at that moment a thousand faces were grinning most hideously at my expense. Miss Waddle seemed also to enjoy the joke she had created; but though she had reined in her horse, I was still carried onwards on the wings of lightning, and had already arrived at Lord Cornwallis's cenotaph, when the animal, apparently out of respect to that great man's memory, stood suddenly still, and I glided over his neck, like an angel I have seen in some Dutch painting, descending from the clouds on a rainbow. "Stunned with the fall, which, thanks to the lightness of my person, was not fatal, I remained prostrate for some minutes. The first object on which my eyes opened was the third-mate, who, having dismounted, or rather let himself down the side of his horse, was lifting me up, his square inexpressive face rendered more repulsive by a broad grin, exclaiming'How now, tawny? carry too much sail, eh!" So saying, he began swabbing me down, as he called it, to brush off the dust from my dress; that is, giving me each time a prodigious thump with his hands. But a celestial voice vibrated in my ear, that amply compensated for the rude handling I was undergoing from this savage Trinculo; for Amelia herself rode up, and said 'I hope he is not hurt.' "Not at all, Miss Waddle,' was my reply; unless it is, I would have said, by this sea-monster, who is belabouring me, under the pretext of brushing the dust from my coat. A certain Eurasian prudence, however, which has seldom deserted me, admonished me to silence. But did I see aright? for the moment the kind-hearted creature had made the inquiry, I saw a grin upon her face, much worthier the ugly mouth of the third-mate than one formed so exquisitely as her's. She is overjoyed, I said, at my safety, and vents her feelings in laughter. "From this incident, I date my repugnance to equestrian exercises. I contented myself, therefore, with walking home on foot, like other Eurasians, who sighed neither for horses, nor curricles, nor any of the equipages that shine like meteors on the Mount-road. One evening, 1 was returning, at a slow musing pace, when Amelia overtook me. She was riding gently, with the third-mate, on his Black-town jade, by her side. Gladly would I have declined a rencontre with that maritime production, for he never met me without one of those abominable grins, that had already made him so hateful. But Amelia, in the kindest manner, and in spite of her unmannered companion, entered into the most pleasing converse with me, as I walked, or rather ambled, by her side. Her horse walked, however, faster than I could have wished; but, according to my Eurasian notions of politeness, it would have been a gross insult to have left her whilst she was running on in a communicative flow, with which I was seldom honoured, when she deigned to converse with me. What could this thirdmate mean? He was in a broader grin than ever, and looked for all the world like Vishnu, with his wide mouth and distended nostrils, on a Hindu pagoda. She still persisted in her fluent prattle, and I began to think myself decidedly a favourite. From other lips, indeed, it would have been tedious, but she never ceased, though I was puffing, panting, choked with her horse's dust, and that kicked up by the third-mate on his three-legged beast, bathed in perspiration and ready to drop. How strangely inconsiderate, seeing how fatigued I was in keeping up with her, not to epitomize her story, which, after all, was only an account of the ladies' dresses at a ball given to the presidency at the Government-Gardens! The least she could have done would have been to moderate her horse to a slower walk. into a long description of the lady governess's pink sarsnet, and the festoon of laurel which skirted it. But the aphorism came across me, that 'every female was to be won by attentions,' and I attempted to walk on till she dismissed the pink sarsnet, and then politely to take my leave. But that accursed sarsnet would have filled a volume; and I was obliged at last, in a complete state of exhaustion, to lean against a tree to recover my breath. Eh, eh, eh!' cried the third-mate, shaking his fat sides, and pointing to the great Triplicane tank near which I halted, 'run in, young tawny, run in, and cool yourself.' * * * She had now got * Here follow several similar misadventures that befel the Eurasian, down to the marriage of Miss Amelia Waddle with the third-mate, occupying several pages of his diary and three years of his life. His father having died, leaving him a handsome property, he was anxious, like other sojourners in India, to return home, and take his share in the great political transactions of England. Before his embarkation, however, he took a distinguished lead in the measures that were about that time under deliberation, for the entire restoration of his Eurasian brethren to their just weight in the social and moral scale, and to those rights, from which they had been so long and so iniquitously excluded. PROPERTY IN THE SOIL IN INDIA. EXTRACT from the evidence of James Mill, Esq., before the Commons Committee on East-India Affairs, 4th August 1831: "Q. Are the Committee to infer, from the answer you have given, that it is your opinion, that there did not originally exist in India any absolute exclusive property in the soil, in the same way that it exists in Europe ?—A. I am glad that question is put, because it relates to a matter which appears to me to be at the foundation of almost every difficulty in the inquiry into this great subject, and that by not attending to it, much confusion has been incurred. I conceive that generally, at one time, the lands in India were occupied by ryots, who had a right of perpetual occupancy; they were the heredi tary tenants and cultivators of the land; I conceive that from them the revenue was collected by the officers of government, and that to the demand of government there was no limit. By long practice, there was something established that was considered to be a kind of standard, beyond which the government would not readily go, but it was always understood that the government had a right to go as far as it pleased. I fancy that government never went to less than the full rent of the soil, and in those cases, there were but two parties really connected with the land; there was the mass of immediate cultivators, holding by right of perpetual occupancy, who could not be turned out as long as they paid the rent demanded of them; and there was the govern ment, which, I conceive, always obtained a complete rent. It frequently happened, from the disposition to collect the rent in a summary manner, that middle-men were interposed, in the shape of mere renters: a certain district was rented, and the man held it only for such a length of time as he was entitled by his lease. In Bengal, and in various other places, the summary process was carried to a considerable extent, and men of eminence and men of family acted as revenue-managers of considerable districts: from the tendency in India of almost all things to become hereditary, those zemindaries often continued from father to son, and in that situation we found the zemindars under the previous governments. There were also many cases, in which the government gave away the rent of the land; they created jaghires, which were estates for life, in which a portion of land, sometimes a large portion, was given to the jaghirdar for life. There were other cases, in which those grants were perpetual (istumraree), hereditary in the families to which they were given. Besides these cases,—the very summary and the very detailed,—there were other cases of an intermediate sort, where the collection was by villages, and where the head of the village became a sort of hereditary collector. But it appears to me, from these circumstances, that, properly speaking, there were but two parties really interested in the soil; the usufruct was shared by the hereditary cultivators and the government. Where exceptions occur, they are cases that the government has made by its own act. LETTERS ON THE TRADE WITH INDIA. LETTER I. "Many of the witnesses are strongly impressed with the belief that a large increase in the consumption of British manufactures would be the consequence of opening the trade [to China]. These witnesses refer not only to the fact of the Americans having of late made exports of British manufacture to China, but they also refer to the result of opening the trade with India, followed, as that measure unquestionably was, by an immense increase in the exports from this country."—FIRST REPORT Select Committee of the House of Commons, Session 1830. To the Right Honourable CHARLES GRANT, President of H.M. Commissioners for the Affairs of India, &c &c. &c. SIR-The latter part of the passage, which is quoted at the head of this letter, expresses an opinion to which I doubt not a considerable majority of the mercantile interest will unhesitatingly assent. The committee appear to have considered it a fact so universally admitted, that they scrupled not to give it a place in a report intended to express only the opinions of those that came before them, avoiding any judgment on points which they supposed to be in dispute. Nevertheless, Sir, it must be unnecessary to remind so distinguished a friend and follower of the late Mr. Huskisson as yourself, that such universal or general convictions, unsupported by reference to official documents, are as insufficient to prove the result of any system as theories, based on popular prejudice instead of demonstrative argument, are to establish a sound system itself. It was the practice of that right honourable gentleman to assail" notorious facts" with as little hesitation as those which their propounders termed "self-evident propositions." The latter he questioned by inquiry and investigation; the former no less by inquiry and reference to actual authentic proof; and he successfully contended, that in neither case should such public prepossessions be permitted to stand in the place of the proper ordeal. In conformity then, Sir, with the practice of that statesman, to whose place, as the head of a party, you are generally thought to have succeeded, I presume to demand that this " unquestionable" fact, that any great exten sion of the exports from this country to India has arisen from the opening of the trade in 1814,-should be established by positive proof from official documents, before it be admitted as a basis of legislation. I am the more emboldened to address myself to you, because from the effect of the inquiry which I have myself had occasion to make, I have strong reasons to believe that your attention cannot have been directed to this subject in the peculiar manner which your office and the present position of the East-India Company's charter require, without at least grave doubts having arisen in your mind as to the truth of the allegation so unsuspectingly adopted by the committee. Most respectfully then, Sir, do I invite your attention to the conclusion to which a laborious examination of the requisite proofs has brought my judg ment. The immediate object of this letter is the comparison of the free trade to India with the exclusive, but it may be desirable that we should first review the most striking peculiarities in the history of Indian commerce, in connection with some of the best admitted principles of trade; thus obtaining some grounds to judge à priori of the effect to be expected by our own attempts in the same pursuit. In the commercial history of India, the most remarkable fact that presents itself is the continually recurring complaint, made by all countries, of the disadvantages sustained by them, in the impossibility of establishing a free inter change of commodities. "From the age of Pliny," observes Dr. Robertson,* "it (India) has always been considered and execrated as a gulf which swallows up the wealth of every country, that flows incessantly towards it, and from which it never returns." The complaint of the Tyrians, Greeks, and Romans has been re-echoed by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English. Nothing can be more clear than that, by no one nation of Europe, which in ancient or modern times has traded with India, has a profitable trade been maintained. "In all ages, gold and silver, particularly the latter, have been the commodities exported with the greatest profit to India."+ This continued drain of the precious metals, though matter of loud complaint in earlier times, the extension of modern knowledge easily accounts for. In all commercial intercourse, the country which possesses the superiority in manufactures will naturally derive superior advantages. But the riches of a country constitute its superiority in manufactures, and its riches depend on the division of labour and the comparative number of productive and non-productive inhabitants.‡ Perhaps the earliest known attempt at division of labour is to be found in the Indian institution of caste; and when to this are added the many subordinate distinctions which are (perhaps rudely) secured by the hereditary principle, however mischievous in other senses we may consider the mode-little question can be entertained of the efficiency of this division. The system of peasant rents, which prevails throughout India, is without doubt unfavourable to the production of the non-agricultural classes, and forms, therefore, a drawback on her manufacturing superiority; but the fertility of the soil and the abstemious habits of the people go far to counteract this effect. The same causes serve to depress, much below the European standard, both the money-price and the real price of labour. The great facility of inland navigation, by saving labour and consequently cost, combines with low wages to produce cheap manufactures; and as we have it on high authority that the "manufacturing art and industry of India, though inferior, seem not to be much inferior, to any part of Europe,"§ it follows, as the inevitable conclusion of that great author, that the "money-price of the greater part of the manufactures will naturally be much lower in those great empires than it is any where in Europe." But it is to be observed that India possesses in herself scarcely any supply of gold, and none of silver. Upon all these accounts," continues Dr. Smith, precious metals are a commodity which it always has been and still continues to be extremely advantageous to carry from Europe to India." "the It is, however, with the greatest reluctance that the force of any argument tending to confine or limit his own exertions is admitted by the English merchant. The superiority, which we have been accustomed to claim over all the world, in industry and manufacturing skill, and the prodigious extent to which our commerce has been pushed by that superiority, aided by other natural advantages, give us a confidence in our own resources, which the soundest theories cannot at all times regulate. Although the English trade to India, in its infancy, was exclusively limited to the Company whose adventurous spirit had given it birth, yet no sooner had it attained to any degree of maturity than it became an object of general desire. A new system was vehemently demanded, and the demand prevailed. In 1652, the trade was thrown open to general competition. "Nothing," observes a distinguished writer, " can be more opposite than the accounts given by different authors of the results of this short suspension of the Company's monopoly. One, who wrote in 1681, * Disquisition on Ancient Indía, Appendix, p. 262. Smith's Wealth of Nations, book i. ch. 2. Asiat.Journ. N.S. VOL. 9. No. 35. Robertson, p. 164. § Ibid. book i. ch. 11. |