The National Register.
London, England, 1817-11-03 00:00:00

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POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

ON THE CHARACTER OF THE MAHRATTAS.

IT has for a long time been so much the fashion to
charge all manner of crimes upon this Country, in its
relations with India, that it has become a sort of hetero-
doxy to entertain a different opinion. Unjustifiable
acts of oppression against the native powers, ruthless
butcheries, and uncompunctious spoliation make up the
fearful catalogue of crime for Ivhich we are told, we
shall one day have to auswer. The splendid talents of
Burke, Sheridan, and their coadjutors, first ;rave this
pernicious turn to public opinion ; in the gratification
of party feeling., they lost sight of individual integrity,
and were content to sacrifice their character fin. truth,
to the empty vanity of making fine speeches ; and by
harassing un upright and honest man with charges of the
blackest hue, maintained in long protracted proceedings,
to stab, through him, the reputation of their Country•
Their attempts to vilify the national character, al-
though the result was such as to overwhelm them with
shame, yet had the effect of laying the foundation of
prejudices in the breasts of the ignorant, which the
" ministry of angels" would scarcely serve to eradi-
cate.

The broad and first principle neon which the impugn-
ers of our system in India, rest their arguments, is
that we have no right there, that our first landing in
the peninsiCa of India, was an invasion of an unoffend-
ing territory, and that every accession to our unkritly
acquired dominion, is an aggravation of our first of-
fence.

But these reasoner; should remember, that it was
against European, ana net Oriental enemies in Hin-
dustan, that the sword of England was first drawn—
that her first settlement was by consent of the Sove-
reigns then on the throne of the Mogul, anti that her
immediate accession of power, was the consequence of
her triumph over the narrow minded and perfidious
Dutch, and the still more despicable and sanguinary
Portuguese. At a subsequent period, when the mili-
tary, rather than the commercial genius of the French
nation, had overcome every obstacle, and established
them in great force and splendour at Pondicherry, the
English came in ininiciitite contact with the new
settlers, not from any selfish motive of jealousy at their
rising power, bat in defeace of their own just rights
against acts of the basest perfidy sal unjustifiable
aggresion, as well against us -as against the native pow-
ers with whom we were in alliance. The siiiiguinary
warfare which the native princes waged with each
other, also contribatel in no slight degree to ativanee
the interests and power of England in the vast conti-
nent of India. France had hardly established herself
in a fortress upon the coast era she began to mingle in
the quarrels of the natives, and.to suppoit one party
against another, a proceeding which could not fail to
bring us iipeelily into the contest, and that success
which has ever been the reward of our patient perse-
veranee and valour, from time to time extended the cir-
cle of our. influence.

The effects of our energies exerted against the sa-
vage intrepidity of Hyder, and the less skilful, though
no less daring enterprises of his son, have been such as
to place India wholly within our gra3p. Nor ought
this to be attributed to a spirit of conquest on our part
A certain degree of power is absolutely necessary
to protect commerce in arbitrary eastern countrk,,"
and if the defence of that power lead to the destruction
of the assailant, who shall dispute the right of the
conqueror ?

The war in which we are now engaged, has been by
many attributed to a desire of farther conquest. To
those who never think, and yet will write upon the
subject, a war in India is unly another mine fur a ge.