The Sun.
London, England, 1820-08-04 00:00:00

INDIAN ISLAND:.

We have been desired to insert the remainder
of the article taken from The Morning Chronicle
of yesterday, relative to the Indian Islands, as
containing more unadulterated information and
liberal reasoning than usually appear in that
paper, which we therefore subjoin :
" If we yet retrieve our errors, and become
more just to ourselves, and to the people of these
regions, we may still make them our customers,
and confer benefits upon ourselves and them.
They have not, and no people have, a prejudice
against a safe and peaceful foreign intercourse—
no inveterate antipathy against being made rich
and comfortable, as the enemies of peace would
irrationally make us think they have. Their
elevated rank in the scale of social order, skews
at once that they practise the arts of peace and
of industry. They do not, indeed, like to be
conquered, or plundered, or insulted, and so
much the safer for us as well as for them. When
we have guessed pretty nearly at the density of
population in any particular country, and ascer-
tained that the existence of harbours and rivers,
makes it accessible to our navigation, we have
ascertained enough. Free and fair commerce
will do all the rest, for it will not only conquer
every peculiar prejudice of a people, but will in
time accomplish the more difficult task of oblite-
rating the recollection of the insults and violence
committed under an opposite system.
" With the millions of people now alluded to,
we have hardly any more intercourse than if they
were the inhabitants of another planet ; for what
is our petty traffic of twenty thousand tons to
China, compared with the vast population and
wealth of that empire, and with our spirit and
our capital? The rest are a dead blank. What
a strange and unaccountable perversion of all
true wisdom has there not prevailed in the policy
which the European nations have pursued in re-
gard to their Indian trade ? When COLUMBUS
and DIGAMA discovered nearly about the same
time the Eastern and Western hemispheres, who
would have anticipated the opposite results of the
connection with Europeans. The Indies we found
inhabited by great and civilized nations, ready
to receive our commerce with open arms. They
have been estranged from us by our misconduct,
and after three centuries of dirty piddling work,
we leave off worse than we began. During the
same time we de-populated America, and re-
peopled the new Continent with our own race,
raising from ourselves whole nations of con-
sumers. Such is the obstinacy of our prejudices
respecting the Indian trade, that it is from this
new people we are to be instructed in true prin-
ciples. The Americans were the first who ever
conducted an honest and useful trade with India,
and the results are conspicuous enough. Their
commerce with India is at present greater than
that of all Europe put together, and with China
in proportion to ours as 10 is to 7, and to that of
the rest of Europe something like what a million
is to Zero. We may say upon this with Lord
BYRON, that Man's a strange animal, and makes
a strange use of his own reason.'
'C But to return to our negociation. Acknow-
ledged errors have been committed in the uncon-
ditional surrender of the Indian Islands to the
Dutch, and this is the time to rectify them. A
vague rumour has got abroad, that the Dutch
were no sooner put in possession of the vast ter-
ritories which we had bestowed upon them, or-
ganized and improved, than they began to pur-
sue a line of policy, the object of which was to
exclude their benefactors, and to establish, by
indirect means, a virtual supremacy over the
whole of those vast regions. Such visionary pre-
tensions would remind us of the modest claims of
the early Spanish or Portuguese discoverers, if
they had only the sanction of a Pope's Bull !
Both hi a military and commercial point of view,
stations within the Archipelago are indispens-
able to us, and have them we must. Whether
We view tile restless ambition of the European
character, or the jealous timidity and strange man-
ners of the barbarians or semi-barbarians of these
regions, such stations afford the only means of
carrying on a safe, agreeable, and extensive com-
merce. In a military view, they are necessary,
to secure to us a safe passage through this grand
hi;11-way of nations, to protect us against the
Pi racy of native States, and the petty depredation
of European ones. To the nation that has so
victorious a navy, and a military population of
70 millions of subjects, with great financial re-
sources, supplying an organized force of 300,000
men, real danger is indeed quite out of the ques-
tion. In six short weeks the whole Dutch Em-
pire lit the Archipelago would fall beneath such
a force without a struggle. The contest would
be with a few exhausted Europeans foi• neutra-
lity, and surely this is all that could be expect-
ed from the natives. These countries indeed
would, from their nature, be unconquerable
against so patriotic a Government, founded in the
affections of the people ; but what probability is
there of seeing such a Government in that quar-
ter of the Globe ?"

DEAT, OF THE DEAN OF HEREFORD.—On
Sunday evening last, died at thy; Deanery House
in this City, in the 67th year of his age, the
Re GEORGE GRETTON, D. D. Vicar of Upton
Bishop,l-
near Ross, a Canon Residentiary, and
Dean of Hereford. Dr. GRETTON was educated
at
tCa
in thembridg m Cambridge,
aiwhere,
fie in the year 1776, he gra-
duated mathematical class of Wranglers,
and was elected a Fellow of Trinity College.
His classical knowledge was displayed in a con-
test with the learned Mr. GILBER'F WAKEFIELD
for the University prize in that department of
science, when the first honours were awarded to
Mr. GRETTON. He was advanced to the Deanery
of Hereford on the interest of the Earl of Loss-
DALE,
and has uniformly been distinguished in
private life by amenity of manners and kindness
of heart, by affection towards his family, and
a strict irreproachable conduct.---(HerefordJour-
nal; August 2.)