The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-04 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY. OCTOBER 4, 1847.

Peaceful as is the intelligence latterly received from
our Oriental possessions, we are not inspired with a
more secure confidence in the permanence of the pre-
sent tranquillity than the dwellers upon the green
slopes of a burning mountain. The latter are as
much accustomed to the eruptions of the volcano az
they ere to the blooms and verdure by which the
calcined soil is periodically covered, and the lulls of
one interval are only enjoyed with the breathless in-
terest of men who are satisfied by experience that it
must be succeeded by the most perilous convulsions.
Precisely of this intermittent character have been the
periods of quietude and disturbance by vs hich the
historic narrative of our Eastern Empire has been di-
versified since the days when WARREN HASTINGS lent
our troopers for a consideration, and the warlike
CLIVE added fresh glory to the standard of Great
Britain by his prowess and his victories. Whenever
there has been an unusual struggle of arms or diplo-
macy either in or around the peninsula of Hindostan,
it has been invariably succeeded in good time by a
temporary pacification. Treaty after treaty has been
considered by the more sanguine as conclusive, and
as inaugurative of the introduction of a new and
'bier policy into the Asiatic territories—a policy
whereby their resources may be fully developed,
and ',their institutions ultimately remodelled.
Treaty after treaty has proved to be only
equivalent to a momentaryarm!stice. The energies
which, if properly divested,
conduced to the happiness by
have long since
prosperity of the Oriental multitude,
have
em
h.
ployed only in concocting additional conspiracies
and enkindling yet more virulentaenui
rrmosities. It is
from a vivid recollection of these o,
as from a conviction that duplicity is the predominanteecharacteristic of the population of the southern
well
hn
countries of the Asiatic continent, that we regard the
accounts of the tranquillity prevalent in those domi-
nions with distrust and suspicion.
Never, perhaps, has the quietude of the East been
more universal than it is at this moment. JANUS
seems to have erected his temple at Lahore, and his

duplex visage has doubled its original duality
and looks blanily towards the four quarters.
From east, from west, from north, from south, the
tidings of continued amity are received. Even the
most ruthless of the native warriors appear to have
transformed themselves into Iconoclasts by breaking
the images of the demons of battle, and beating their
swords into ploughshares, and their daggers into
reaping hooks. The spirit of conciliation has become
übiquitous, and the supreme government is so far
deceived by the apparent solidity of the present
Pacification, that it is contriving a wholesale re-
duction in the standing army—a reduction of
such magnitude as to reduce the military
expenditure of the Company by above a million.
Much as we are satisfied with the present position of
affairs along the frontiers of our Orientals empire, we
cannot but regard a disbandment of such an extra-
ordinary description as rash and precipitous.
That too much reliance should not be placed upon '