The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-08-16 00:00:00

THOUGHTS ON OUR COLONIES.

No. IL—INDIA.
In a former Paper' it was stated that Great Britain pus,
sensed in her Indian Empire almost inexhaustible sources
of commercial opulence, as yct comparatively untouched;
immense portions of waste territory, offering the richest
and most productive soil for the labours of her agficaltu.
nista ; incredible abundance of raw material, capable of
being worked up by her excess of manufacturing popula.
lion ; and immediate and profitable markets fur the tlit.
I posal of fabrics so manufactured from the indigenous pm.
; auctions of II indoostan. But it was especially contended,
that the colonization of those beautiful though distant
regions by British subjects, offered " the best, and par.
haps the only permanent, security for our Asistie pow"
land the most promising and honourable retreats for too;
of our fellow-countrymen as are possessed of more spirit
and enterprise than capital." And because such appear
to he the natural course of these propositions, I shall bete
reverse the order in which they have been stated; and en.
deavOur to prove,—l. The absolute essential neeessGtv of
our colonizing India. Of the conaiderations upon which
that necessity must become apparent to all reflecting mind*
, that may be directed to this subject, the most important
ones are,—the prodigious physical disproportion of power
' between 80,000,000 of native subjects, and less than
60,000 foreign rulers, and the foreign troops and ire.
; mediate servants of those rulers; the importance of coon.

teractine, the hostile spirit, which the pro.tracted resisianie
of the Burmese is likely to awaken in the military tribe
who skirt the whole of our Indian frontier; the iin.pesieu
expediency of making immediate provision for the Anglo-
Indians, a Creole population rapidly increasing in its
numbers, and at this moment in a most anomalous and
dangerous relation to the British power in Area;—ate
lastly, considerations that respect the revenue derivable
from our possessions in the peninsula of Ilindoastan.
As to the difference between the numerical strength of
the governors and the governed, it is evident that the pee
litical importance of a mild, though firm and popular ins•
tern of government, on the part of the former, increawa
precisely in the ratio of the numerical excess of the latter,
It were superfluous, therefore, to insist upon the duty in.
ported on us of identifying our own interests with theirs;
of establishing that community of benefits which shall
' render the continuance of our dominion among them as
essential to their happiness and welfare at to our own ally
vantage and grandeur. But this can never be the case,
while between the few who govern and the millions gc.:,
verhed there are no links of an intimate though graduated
connexion ; and no communications but these which may
suhsist between the master and the slave. The natives
can feel little community of sentiment or of interest with
those whose sojourn among them is almost avowedly for
the purpose of accumulating, in the shortest possible space
of time, the greatest attainable amount of their wealth,
with which to return and settle in Europe. But every
British Colonist who settles in India, with the views of a
Colonist, enlarges the power of the parent state; increases
the productive principle which is the source of that wealth;
multiplies these links of connexion between the natives and
their rulers ; and is a visible pledge to the former of the
sincerity and security of that British protection, which
they both participate. In his intercourse with them, and
in that alone, can they recognise the important truth, that
they are being gradually approximated from the condition
of passive tools in the hands of a thousand despots, to the
rank of freemen, the subjects only of a free and mighty
state. And this moral conviction, to which they
can in no other manner be brought, is destined,
trust, to be that rallying point, that sustaining hope, which
shall unite all the llindoos in fidelity and attachment to
the only sceptre that has yet been stretched forth to protect
them from plunder, anarchy, and violence. If this gnat
lesson be not taught them—if this important confidence be
not instilled into them—we must tremble for the cons&
quences of that example which the Burmese and other
nations will have set them. To a people fondly beliefs
fog themselves the descendants of a God, and implicitly
crediting the wildest fables of their magnificent Mytheloey
and their romantic history—to a people easily wrought upon
by the predictions of jugglers and pretended prophets—
the struggles of a neighbouring empire against their own
European Lords must impart a degree of satisfaction,
the more intense us it is secret ; and of emulation, the
more vivid as it may be excited by legendary promisesof
reviving dynasties of llindoo conquerors. Such a people
will want only leaders, whose knowledge, or talents, or es-
perience, may fit them to direct the energies of so many
millions against the small, but intelligent baud, of their
existing masters. And where will they fled these
leaders? I answer—among those, whose actual con-
dition, as contrasted with their claims upon our consider*.
tion, supplies one of the most amazing instances of neglect
that was ever witnessed in the policy of a great and gene-
rous country—l mean the Anglo-Indians. This mixed
race is descended of British and Iliaidoo blood. Diei
tingished ft om the natives by their colour, in a land where
honour and rank, humiliation and poverty, attach to
differences of complexion, our own Government in India
have theiught proper to confound them with the re-
tives in that sort of exclusion from all responsil le
and lucrative offices, which shuts the door eve
all native preferment. Incapable of promotion among the
high-caste Ilindoos, by reason of the religious prjedice
of the latter; and rejected from the;pale of British patron•
age by the state scruples of the Indian Government; the
Anglo-Indians are in this painful situati, n : he mural
defect of their descent is precisely that which is calculated
to give them most political consequence in the eyes of her
Asiatic countrymen, and yet constitutes the very ground et
that political nullity to which their British relatives reduce
them ! Can any condition in society be imagined more
cruel, more anomalous ? Can any species of political tIIP
qualification be predicated, more obviously calculated to
till the hearts of those who are its victims with shame, and
indignation, and resentment, or te make them a perpetually-
increasing nucleus for ail the discontents and resentments
of the multiplied tribes and states of India? It may be
true that you could not, at present, admit them as eligible
candidates for superior offices and trusts in the country of
their birth, with perfect safety to our establishments there;
and if so, however inexcusable our past supineness in tee
Ted of these people, the plea may be a good one now, so
far as it goes. But permit India to be colonized by Bri-
tish subjects, and all danger vanishes. The best effects
might then be anticipated from the devoted aervicaneof the
Anglo-Indians, who, being thus relieved from the balm of
disqualification, would have attained every object they most
thirst after, and would contially co-operate in the great work.
of permanently consolidating the power of " beneficent
Britain (as they would then indeed consider her) in Asa.
The very presence of British colonists would check all the
efferts of disaffection, strengthen theliands of Government,
and secure the natural and lasting attachment of theAnstkr
Indians. The considerations that respect revenue arc of two
kinds: those which apply to the present meat extraordinary*,
impolitic, and dangerous system, on which the hand revenue
is raised upon the Ilyotwarry, or agricultural Petanaltry of
India, and to the positive necessity of relieving the bitter
without delay; and those which regard thepracticabilint
of a better. more equitable, and generalizA system of tee-
ation, which, while it shall bear far more lightly than :le
present one on individuals, shall realize a TCYCIIIIC to the
Government, equal or superior to the existing revenue;
and calculated to extinguish all those unequal and was-,
sive exactions on the cultivators, which constitute at this
moment the most serious and extensive, and alarrrimg
causes of the dissatisfaction and that pervade ?roe
of the richest of our provinces. In discussing these poinit;
it is by no means my desire to examine what degree 01
blame may or may not attach to the East India Comps.nnY
on account of them ; but it is certainly as far from my i-.
tendon not to endeavour to show that' the system I sPeti.k
of is monstrous in principle, and odious, cruel, stud ie'
structive in its operation ; a position, for which k could el:
rectly quote the recorded authorities of such eminent mutt
as Moist.. Say, Sismondi, Tucker, Thackeray, and
Storck, Pennant, and Verelst, Sir John Strachey, `uMalcolm, Lieut.-Col. Stewart, Mr. Mill, &c.+
nosy not be improper to inform the general reader,
that the revenues of the " Hon. Company's Government in

" See the British Pin; of the 4th inst.