The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-30 00:00:00

LON DON,

had been adduieil beiore that Committee, they came to the'
conclusion that there was not sufficient evidence before
them to enable them to come to a decision on the case,
and there the matter rested. How, then, was it possible
for the House of Commons to decide upon the case, when,
after all the evidence adduced on the sehject,
there did not seem to be any sufficient to in-
duee the Committee to decide one way or the oth r.
Further evidence was required by the Committee, and also
by the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, and other
Members of that House. The Committee did not feel them-
selves in a condition to decide this question, and how could
Hon. Gentlemen opposite, Who had not had similar oppor-
tunities of coming o a 'decision on this question vote upon
it with any decree of confidence? The Council of the Go-
vernor did not, even so late as October, disapprove of the
proclamation of martial law, and, on the contrary, they had
approved of all his measures. The Legislative Council in
1849 addressed the Governor, ant ascribed the suppression
of the outbreak to the energetic measures of the Executive
Government. They had the general command, the Execu-
tive Council, and the Legislative Council, all approving
of the proceedings of the Governor. Even Mr. Selby, in
1848, concurred with the Executive and Legislative
Council in approving of the Measures of the Government.
The martial law was only continued fer about ten weeks.
The Governor, by declaring martial law so early as he did,
suppressed the rebellion, and was enabled to apprehend
the pretender. In the former rebellion, in 1819, martial
law was continued for an entire year, and it was followed
by scenes which did not occur in the latter rebe'lion,
in consequence of the energetic m -asures of the Execu-
tive. Now let them turn to the resolution before the House.
That resolution was utterly at variance with the evidence
before the House. The reiolution asserted that eighteen
persons were executed, and 110 transported and otherwise
punished. Now, what would the House say when he told them
that from the fficial lists before him it appeared that the
whole number executed, transported, and otherwise pu-
nished on account of this rebellion was only sixty-four?—
(Hear, hear.) They said that 178 persons had been tried
and convicted in consequence of this rebellion. That was
not the fact. The number was as he had stated, and the
rest were made up of persons who had been imprisoned, con-
victed, and corporally punished for offences not connected
with the rebellion.—,Hear.) The Hon. Gentleman having
the list—the official list—before him, did it not become a
public prosecution so to frame his resolution as to be con-
sistent with truth?—(Hear)-but the error of the statement
of the Hon. Member for Inverness-shire was mild in com-
parison with that of the Hon. Member for Montrose. He
had actually stated that 3SO persons were tried and punished
in consequence of these disturbances. lie owned that he
could not comprehend his figures.—s Hear, hear, and
a laugh.) There was no more pretence for saying
that den persons Were tried and punished in consequence
of that rebellion than there was for s.ying that
380,000 persons were tried and punished.— (Hear, hear.)
There had been various insurrections. The affections of the
natives were not concentrated, upon their British rulers. The
chiefs were dissatisfied, and in 1818 they broke out into re-
bellion, which they with difficulty suppressed. After refer-
ring to the revolt in 1834, he reminded the House that there
was another revolt in 1842, in which they had difficulty. All
classes of the population were dissatisfied, because Government
had been bringing under cultivation the jungles and forests,
and thereby limiting the range of the cattle. The priests
were also dissatisfied, because the Government, as a Christian
Government, could not give countenance to their idolatrous
worship. But, above all, the people disliked the yoke of the
stranger, they were opposed to foreign domination, and
hence the dissatisfaction and the successive attempts at
revolt which were repeatedly made. rt was idle to say
that taxation was at the bottom of the late revolt.—(Hear,
hear.) Lord Torrington had reduced, during his admi-
nistration, the expenditure of the colony by 95.0001. per
annum, and the three principal taxes which affected the
Kandian population amounted only to six shillings a year.
With the experience of the past, was it not the duty of the
Government to take all these circumstances into considera-
tion, and to look to the spirit of the people and the causes
which, in reality, operated in producing the revolt. The
people who engaged in the revolt amounted to 3,000 men,
and they had the testimony of Sir Herbert Maddox, a man
of great experience in India, and who knew the population,
who stated that the revolters amounted to 6,000 men, and
they had it upon good authority that they were in possession
of sixty thousand stand of arms. These men would not
stand against our soldiers, and they soon fled, spreading
dismay throughout the disaffected districts, and in that way
the revolt soon disappeared. If Lord Torrington had not
taken the means which he successfully used to put down the
revolt, wbere, then, would have been the measure of re•
probation against the Government on the part of those
who now blamed the Noble Lord for the energy he exhibited
in the difficult position in which he was placed. The
Honourable and Learned Gentleman then referred to the
course pursued by Lord Grey, and which had been com-
mented on so freely by some Honourable Members who had
taken part in the debate.—(Hear, hear.) Lord Grey upon
being made acquainted with all the circumstances, did not
say that he absolutely approved of all the measures that
had been adopted, but that, taking into account all the
circumstances—taking into account the parties upon whose
information Lord Torrington had to depend, and the danger
to the public peace and the safety of the population, Lord
Grey did expre:s his opinion that under all these
circumstances Lord Torrington had done that which by
sense of duty and the serious difficulties he had to contend
with, seemed to render incumbent.—( Hear, hear.) He tthe
Attoiney-General) thought they ought not to adopt the
course counselled on the last night by the Honourable
Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), who, not content with
addressing himself to the matter before them, travelled into
the proceedings before the Committee, and said that let-
ters had not been produced, and that he believ d
they had been burned.—(Hear, hear.) He thought such a
charge was one which ought not to, have been made by the
Honour .ble Member for Montrose. The Noble Lord had at
once met it by a powerful and unqualified denial. He had
addressed a letter to Earl Grey, which had been placed in
his hands, and which he would now read to the House. (The,
Honourable and Learned Gentleman here read the letter of
the Noble Lord, in which, after referring to the statement
made by Mr. Hume, he proceeded to say that, in justice to •
his own character, he begged to contradict the statement of
the Honourable Member.) No correspondence, he added,
had been bunted, end none withheld, with the exeeelnion,
as we understood, of one letter.—( Hear, hear.) It had
been said that the attack was in reality on the Colou ial-
office, but could any man justify the making of that attack
through the reputation of another?—(Hear, hea-.)
Political warfare, like the warfare of civilized na-
tions, had its limits and its laws, and he could maintain
that they were bound as men to lose sight of everything ex-
cept truth, and that they ought only to pass condemnation
where it was justly merited and deserved.—(Hear, hear. )
Lord HOTHAIII, having given his constant attention to
the busibess of the Select Committee, and having been
absent only on two or three occasions from the com,ence-
ment to the close of the proceedings, had been particularly
anxious, if an opportunity had been afforded to him, of going
somewhat at length into the subiect. And especially as it
was his misfortune not to concur with any of those who had
taken a leading part on the one or the other side of this de-
bate, he being the more anxious to state the extent to which
he considered either Lord Grey or Lord Torrington to be
obnoxious to such censure as this motion proposed to throw
upon them. But as he felt that he could not ask the House
now to indulge him at that hour with sufficient time for that
purpose, he must content himself with fulfilling the very
minor object of sitting himself right with the House in a
matter in which injustice had been cast upon him by the
Hon. Member for Inverness, and he only hoped that he
should be justified in the eyes of the House for the course he
was about to take.--(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member for
Inverness, when alluding to the proceedings of the Commit-
tee, stated that he (Lord Hotham) appeared to him to have
adopted a great deal of ingenuity to exempt the Secretary of
State for the Colonial Department from all blame. The
Hon. Member' ha I alluded to a conversation, or rather a
question, regarding the draft report. His (Lord Hotham's)
impression had been that the question had been put by the
Hon. Member for Montrose, and he had given no answer.
The recal of Lord Torrington was not the measure, but only
one of the measures which he had in his mind when drawing
out the report. The Honourable Gentleman • (Mr. Baillie)
had further made a statement of a very grave description,
viz., that the report was the result of an understanding with
the Government. To an understanding there must be two
parties, and he could assure the House that he had never
spoken to any person on the subject of the report except to
the Hon. Member for Wolverhampton. He felt that he
could not vote for the resolutions of the Hon. Member (Mr.
Baillie), because by doing so he would not only be con-
demning Lord Torrington, but also individuals who had never
been belbre accused, and had not had any opportunity of jus-
tifying their acts.—(Divide.)
Lord J. RUSSELL—I cannot allow the debate to close
without explaining shortly the views which her Majesty's
Government have taken of the conduct of Lord Torrington
in Ceylon, and of the motion of the Hon. Member for Inver-
ness-shire. In so doing it will not be necessary for me to go
through those points which have been argued with great
ability, on one aide and the other with respect to particular
acts of Lord Torrington. The Hon. Member for Dorsetshire
said last night that if the Government, instead of recalling
Lord Torrington on the ground of his incapability to pre-
serve harmony among the official servants of the Crown in
the colony, had recalled him with an expression of disappro-
bation of the continuance of martial law and of the execu-
tions that had taken place under that law, he should have
been satisfied, and should not have concurred in this motion.
The Right lion, Gentleman the Member for the University
of Oxford, in speaking to-night, said that he was willing
to admit that there was an insurrection in Ceylon--that
10,000 men were in arms against the Queen's Govern-
ment and the Queen's authority, attempting to set up an-
other authority in its place; that the proclamation of mar-
tial law in the first instance was a fit method of meeting that
insurrection, and that so far he did not blame the Govern-
ment. ' He laid his whole blame upon the continuance of
martial law and upon the number of executions that had
taken place. Now, Sir, it is obvious that this question
affects in the first place Lord Torrington, in the next place
Lord Grey, and in the next place the whole of her Majesty's
Government. Now I must beg the House to consider the
circumstances of Lord Torrington's administration. He was
sent out to a colony in which Sir E. Tennent described all
the civil servants as being in such a state of dissension that
it was very difficult to obtain any aid from them. He found
that the finances were in such a state that the expenditure
exceeded theincome by 80,0001. At the same time he was
instructed to adopt an entirely new method 'of taxation.
Lord Torrington carried into effect his instructions. He
reduced the expenditure by more than the sum which it had
exceeded the revenue—he complied with his instructions
with regard to taxation (and into the wisdom of which it
is unnecessary to enter now; it is sufficient to say that such
were his instructions)—the result was, that at the end of
three years he left a surplds in the treasury, and had the
satisfaction to reflect that in the course of ten weeks he had
not only suppressed the rebellion, but had completely
eradicated the seeds of it; that he left a colony prosperous
which he had found embarrassed; that he left a people
tranquil which he had found on the verge of rebellion ; and
that he handed over the government to his successor in such
a manner as to make his successor declare that he was in-
debted to the conduct of Lord Torrington, which was in
in fact high praise of that government.—(Hear, hear.) Now
that is a plain description of the government of Lord Tor-
rington. It is a description of that which was done by
.a
person inexperienced in the previous government of any
colony, and who found no assistance, but great obstacles from
the dissensions which prevailed among those who were pro-
perly appointed to assist the Executive.—(Hear, hear.) I
am sure I may be excused for saying that an Hon. Gentleman,
in bringing before this House a motion with respect to Lord
Torrington's government of Ceylon, should take the whole of
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points and those only. But what is the blame to be imputed
to Lord Tortington with respect to tnat insurrection? Now,
be it observed that the news of that insurrection came sud-
denly upon the Governor; he immediately sent for Colonel
Fayer, who had served in the former insurrection, and to
whose discretion and experience he might well listen. He
acted according to that opinion. Lie immediately OW the gene-