The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LIFE OF MAJOR-GENERAL SIR THOMAS
MUNRO. 2 Vols. LoNnosr, 1830.
The subject of the volumes before us was born
at Glasgow in the year 1761. His father was
a respectable merchant in that city, who, how-
ever, having met with considerable losses in
trade, was compelled to provide for a numerous
family in the best way he could. Thomas ac-
cordingly,—the second of the children—was
despatched to India, as a cadet, where by his
industry, perseverance, good conduct, and ex-
cellent common sense, he in the course of time
won his way from a cadetship to the Government
of the populous and wealthy province of Madras.
The present Memoirs, compiled by the Rev.
Mr. Gleig, give ample details of the General's
life, habits, and modes of thought and action for
the extended period of nearly fifty years, and at
the same time illustrate, with no little minute-
ness and fidelity, the history of a considerable
portion of British India, especially that portion
mixed up with the long desolating wars of
Ryder Ally and his son Tippoo, in which Sir
Thomas Munro bore no inconsiderable share.
In this respect the volumes are particularly
valuable and instructive, and as India bids fair to
occupy no slight share of Parliament's attention
during the ensuing Session, they will, no doubt,
be proportionably attended to. Among the
more characteristic portions of the work, we may
venture to extract the account of Sir Thomas
Munro's daily habits during his occupancy of
the Governorship of Madras. It is interesting,
as every thing connected with so shrewd and ju-
dicious a statesman, so exemplary a son, so affec-
tionate a husband and father, must necessarily be.
" Sir Thomas Munro rose early, generally at dawn, or
a few minutes after, and was in the habit of spending the
first two or three hours of the day in the open air. When
at the capital, or his country-seat of Gandy, he rode on
horseback for a couple of hours four mornings in the
week ; the remaining three he gave up to the natives, by
walking constantly in the same path, and entering freely
into conversation with such as threw themselves in his
way. On these occasions be was wholly unattended,
except by a couple of peons, or a few of his old revenue
servants ; and the people, aware of this, as well as of
the extreme affability of the Governor, met him at a
particular point in crowds. To every one he listened
with patience, receiving their petitions with his own
hands, and promising to examine and reply to them ; and
in no single instance is he known to have neglected an en-
gagement thus voluntary contracted. After spending
some time thus, he returned home, dressed, and devoted a
brief space to reading and writing, when he adjourned to
breakfast, which was served up punctually at the hour of
eight.
" As the interval between sun-rise and the ringing of
the breakfast-hell was given up to receiving the persona
application of the natives, so was the period of breakfast
itself, and about an hour after its conclusion, devoted to a
similar intercourse with Europeans. The table was always
spread for thirty persons ; and such as had business to
transact, or personal applications to make to the Governor,
were expected to partake in the meal. By adhering to
this arrangement, and steadily refusing to waste so much
as a minute in useless chit-chat, Sir Thomas Munro was
enabled to withdraw to his own room usually about half-
past nine, where till four o'clock he remained employed in
public business, and inaccessible, except under very pecu-
; liar circumstances, to all intruders.
" Four was his hour of dinner, except twice a month,
when large pat ties were invited to the government-house,
at eight o'clock ; yet even these were not permitted to
interfere in any respect with the earlier arrangements of
the day. At half-past five or six, according to the season
of the year, he drove out, for a time, with Lady Munro ;
after which he again withdrew to his own room, and ap-
plied to business. At eight, tea was served, when be
joined his family ; from the conclusion of this repast till
he retired for the night, which occurred about ten or half-
past ten, he remained among them. But even this short
period of relaxation was not frittered away in unmeaning
or unprofitable idleness. As soon as the drawing-room
was cleared, one of his aides-de-camp, or gentlemen at-
tached to his household, read aloud either the debates in
Parliament, in which he took at all times a deep interest,
an article in one of the Reviews, one of Sir Walter Scott's
novels, or some other late publication. Thus was every
moment of his waking existence spent hi endeavours to
promote the welfare and happiness of others ; and his own
happiness, as a necessary consequence, received, though on
his part almost unconsciously, a daily, I might have said,
with perfect truth, an hourly increase.
" Such was the manner in which Sir Thomas Munro
spent day after day, as often as he remained stationary in
one place : his mode of acting whilst prosecuting the
journeys, of which notice has been taken, was not dis-
similar. The morning's march was always so regulated,
as that the party might reach their ground in sufficient
time to permit breakfast to be served at eight o'clock,
when the routine of conversing with such European func-
tionaries as chanced to be near the spot was continued.
Four was still the hour of dinner ; but the period set aside
at Fort St. George for carriage exercise was now given
up to hearing the complaints of the natives. Whilst the
family set at table, multitudes of Hindoos and Mussultnans
were seen to collect round the door of the tent, anxiously
expecting the moment when the Governor would come
forth ; and when it arrived, the eagerness to address him
was such as to occasion at times considerable inconvenience.
It very seldom happened that the charmana, or audience
tent, proved sufficiently capacious to contain the ivLole of
the applicants. Sir Thomas Munro was accordingly in
the habit of walking abroad to some open space, where he
stood listening to all who desired to address him, till
Nature itself appeared sometimes in danger of giving way.
He never retired from these audiences otherwise than jaded
and fatigued, as well from the excessive heat of the atmos-
phere, as from the continued exertion which he found it
necessary to make."
The following very touching and graceful
letter was written by Sir Thomas to his wife,
when she had lelt him to return to England, in
consequence of the sudden and alarming indis-
position of a favourite child, to whom the letter
in question refers.
" We came here last night, for the first time since you
went away; Colonel Carfim and I drove out together.
We alighted at the old place, near the well. It was
nearly dark, and we passed through the garden without
finding you. We had nobody in the evening but Captain
Watson, which I was glad of. He has got the floors co-
vered with new mats, which smell like hay; but they
are of no use when those for whom they were intended are
gone. The cause which occasioned the desertion of this
house gives every thing about it a melancholy appearance.
I dislike to enter into Kamen's room. I never pass it
without thinking of that sad night when I saw him lying
in Rosa's lap, with leeches on his head, the tears stream-
ing down his face, crying with fear and pain, and his life
uncertain. His image, in that situation, is always pre-
sent to me whenever 1 think of this house. -I walked out
this morning at daylight. I followed Captain Watson's
new road, which is now made hard with gravel, as far as
the place where it divides; but on reaching this point, in-
stead of turning to the left, as we used to do, I continued
along the main branch to the little tank, and there halted
a few minutes to admire the view of the distant hills. I
then turned towards the garden, where I always found
you, and Kamen trotting before you, except when he
stayed behind to examine some ant-hole. How delightful
it was to see him walking, or running, or stopping, to
endeavour to explain something with his hands to help
his language. How easy, and artless, and beautiful, are
all the motions of a child. Every thing that he does is
graceful. All his little ways are endearing, and they are
the arms which nature has given him for his protection,
because they make every body feel an attachment for him.
I have lost his society just at the time when it was most
interesting. It was Lis tottering walk, his helplessness,
and unconsciousness, that 1 liked. By the time I see him
again he will have lost all those qualities,—he will know
how to behave 'anise:4-11e will have acquired some know-
ledge of the world, and will not be half so engaging as
he now is. I almost wish that he would never change."

The Earl of RossLyN and Mr, Secretary
PEEL had interviews yesterday with the Duke of VV*l:-
NGTON.

ADDRESS TO THE REIVIIOUS OF
EVERY D.ENQMINATIt N;

BRETHREN,..—I am intimately acquainte I with your
feelings and thoughts, and with their origin ; and I
therefore know that many of you most conscientiously en-
tertain the opinions and feelings which you have been
made to possess ; and that under your present convictions
there are many who would prefer death rather than be
compelled, by any other human power than the force of a
stronger conviction, to deny what they now deem the
fundamental truths of their respective religions. This
conscientious character has been formed equally all over
the world,—for the Jew, the Christian, the Mahoinedan,
the Hindoo, and the Pagan. And by it you have been
made to view each other as irrational beings, and to act
most irrationally, both as individuals and as members of
the particular sect, by whatever name that sect may be
called, to which you have respectively been trained to be-
long.
You have desired to be superlatively wise and good;
and many of you imagine you have become so by the
choice of the religion which you think that by your own
decision you have adopted, and therefore expect unspeak-
able rewards in some future state of existence.

I regret the necessity, even when it may be for their
-ultimate benefit, to give to arty of my fellow-beings even
momentary'pain ; but the highest duty that can be per-
formed for man is to remove error from his mind, and to
enable him to see those great truths, upon which his own
permanent well-being and the happiness of his race depend.
My friends, it now becomes, therefore, my duty to in-
form you that one and all have been in error ; that you
have been deceived by your education, and that you have
been made ready to sacrifice your lives in support of a
fallacious supposition, which is the real origin of evil, and
to oppose a principle which would produce the greatest per-
manent good to themselves and to all mankind.
The character of man as it is exhibited in the particular
character belonging to each individual, is an effect of the
circumstances in which he has been placed, modified by
the original organization or constitution which he may
have received at birth. We have all, therefore, been made
to be as we are ; and we have been compelled, from our
infancy, to believe that we possess the power to feel and
to think as we please ; on which basis alone has been
formed the whole fabric of human society. This supposi-
tion is the sole foundation of all the religions which have
ever been invented—of all Governments, of all codes of
'laws, and of all institutions, which have ever existed in
any country. Yet, strange as it may appear to you, there
never has existed one single fact to prove the truth of
this supposition : on the contrary, all facts connected
with the subject show it to be one of those popular errors
received, without investigation, into the human mind,
which it has required the experience of all past ages to
detect, unveil, and remove.
Contrary, though I well know it be, to your present
strongest conviction, it is nevertheless true that the greatest
of all evils to man would be for him to discover that he is
capable of feeling anti thinking as he pleases, did he make
no better use of his power than he ins hitherto done.
Fortunately, however, for all, it is now ascertained by
facts equally free to the examination of every one, that man
has not been created with the power to feel and to think
as he pleases, and consequently the direct road to the at-
tainment of the highest virtues, and of a very superior
state of earthly existence, is opened, and may be securely
travelled by all of the human race, without their ex-
periencing any of the innumerable evils which the con-
trary supposition entails, and particularly that arising from
a diversity of religious opinions.
You desire to introduce into practice universal charity
and kindness, and to hasten the period when peace and
good will shall pervade the population of the world and
when truth, being freed from error, shall be made to ex-
tend its dominion over every part of the habitable globe.
These results can only be secured when all shall be taught,
from infancy, to understand the laws of their nature ; and,
especially, to trace the causes which demonstrate that man
has been formed to feel in obedience to the impressions
which are made upon him ; and to think in obedience to
the strongest conviction which is made upon his mind.
If you desire that a state of society should be brought
about, such as you have been taught to expect the Mille-
nium to be, then you should endeavoure to examine these
subjects without prejudice; because, if you succeed in
doing so, you will discover that the supposition that man
has been organized with the power to feel and to think as
he pleases is directly opposed to the attainment of such an
object, while the contrary supposition would tend in every
way to promote it.

And as to the future state ofexistence, about which yon
now trouble yourselves so much in vain, it is sure to arrive
to all material things; but no one with our present know-.
ledge can ascertain what this change will be. We may
feel certain, however, that the best preparation for it here
is a life replete with good feelings and kind actions, which
the knowledge that man is not formed to think and to feel
as he pleases will infallibly create in every human being.
You, therefore, brethren, of all men, are the most deeply
interested in having the truth or error of this important
position ascertained, that the proposed change of circum-
stances throughout society may be speedily introduced, and
thus all be relieved from the demoralizing effects of poverty,
ignorance, and hypocrisy.
Your minds, through the influence of the belief that
you are capable of feeling and thinking as you please, have
hitherto been kept in a state of irritation or anger towards
etch other, and towards those whom you deem irreligious.
But a correct knowledge upon this subject will exhibit to
you the error by which these irrational feelings are en-
gendered; it will calm your minds, destroy within you the
seeds of anger, and fill you with that pure and genuine
charity which will create in you good and kind feelings
only for every child of man.
That you may be thus blessed is the sincere desire of
your friend and servant, ROBERT OWEN.
49, Bedford-square, Jan. 19.