The Sun.
London, England, 1817-07-30 00:00:00

INDIA.

EXTRACT OP A LETTER FROM A VERT RESPECTABLE
GENTLEMAN AT CALCUTTA, WRITTEN IN SEP-

TEMBER LAST.
(From a Morning Paper.)

. .
" We are going on prosperously. As to a
continued state bf tranquillity, it is not to be in-
sured in the present state of India. You recom-
mend peace as the most suitable state, and the
most agreeable at home ; but you forget there are
two parties to all such bargains ; nothing can be
more delusive th,n the dream of quiet, or of es-
sential military reductions, while an enemy exists,
and near, professedly at war with you. The prin-
ciple of the Pindarric association is existence by
plunder. It is, therefore, in declared and avowed
hostility to every other Power. It is especially so
against the British, because the Pindartees can-
not plunder Scindiah or Holkar, who give them
a refuge and shelter in their dominions, and there
are no other territories that they can reach to ra-
vage but the British possPssions, or those of the
APies, which ihe 13,itish Power is bound to pro-
tect by policy, as by treaty they at e,pledge,l to
their defense.

" Desirable as the condition and advantage of
peace ate for us, we are here entitled to ask (for
few or none of us have the conception) low this
State is to be preserved with a body and power
united for the avowed purpose of ravaging our
territories, or laying was!e those of our Allies?
with a force and violence which marks its inroads
with tl►e most horrid barbarities, and which never
received from British 'voids or influence the slight-
e►t provocation to such atrocities. All this has been
some rime foreseen by our Governors, who know
what it must come to. Nothing could appear more
certain than ►hat such an associatiou as cleat of
the Pindarrees, in India, where there is happily
no longer regelar employment for the numbers de-
s►roes of adificiing, themselves to the military pro.
fession, n►ust increase rapt 'fly -in strength, and the
power of mischievous disturbance, if not crushed
in the outset of their attempts. %%re were not at
liber y to atti-aupe their extiection ; and the event
ii is justified the presage then made at head-quarters
here. In their last inroad, their several columns
were rated by Sit Thomas Hislop, idbis official
(lisp:Vet), at 23,000 horse. All their retreats
.vere at the same time left guarded by infantry
and artillery. They then carried off' gold,
silver, and jewels, to the value of more than a
million sterling, to whet their• appetite for new
enterprises. Admirably served by spies, they
learn all the stations of our troops • th,y pass
wide of them ; communications are cut off; the•
%yolk of ravine is done, and the perpetrators have
fallen back before our detachments have any cer-
tain notice of them. The army of Attlee!. Khan,
though inure numerous and diffeiently organised,
is nut less a body that must subsist iitpn plunder.
Other circumstances peculiar to it make its
existence 00 our frontiers a point requiring our
constant and serious attention. 1 wish some
of your able London Pall-mall paeificators would
come so far as Asia, to represent in good set
terms of Christian morality and British policy to
these heathen gentry, how iniu►oral and unkind it
is in them not to leave us completely at oor ease.
Such expostulation, I dare say, would have won•
tlerful effect ? In the meat' time it seems to me
to be incumbent on our Presidency of Govern-
uncut here, not to suffer our provinces to be de-
'spoiled, if it can prevent it ; and if they most not
do they wish, to at least feel their politic obli-
gation of doing with careful and provident energy
all that is left to their discretion, by a timely and
rigorous employment of their means of defence
and prevention."