The Statesman.
London, England, 1821-04-02 00:00:00

ON PEOPLE OF SENSE.
(raox BALDWIN AND CO.S. LONDON ILADAZINIL 0/
PRESENT NONTR.)

People of sense (as they are called) give themselves
great and unwarrantable airs over the rest of the
world. if we examine the history of mankind, we
shall find that the greatest absurdities have been must
atrentsoisly maintained by these very persons, who
stive themselves out as wiser than any body else. The
fictions of law, the quibbles of school divinity, the
rhicanery of politics, the mysteries of the Cabbala,
The doctrine of Divine Right, anti the secret of the
Philosopher's stone,—all the grave impostures that
have been anted in the world, have been the contriv-
ance of those who set up fur oracles to their neigh-
bours. The learned professions alone have propagated
and lent their countenance to as many perverse con-
tradictions and idle fallacies, as have pouted the wits,
amid set the credulous, thoughtless, unpretending part
tf mankind together by the ears, ever sine(' the ills.
tinetiun between learning and ignorance subsisted. lt
is the part of deep professors to teach others what
they do not know themselves ; and to prove by infal-
lible rules the truth of any nonsense they happen to
take in their heads, or chose to give ont to amuse the
gaping multitude. What every one felt and saw fur
himself—the obvious dictates of common sense and
buntanitv—such superficial studies as these afforded a
very institlicient field for the exercise of reason and
abstruse philosophy, in the view of " the demure,
grave-looking, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-
eyed" despisers of popular opinion:—Nair object has
revalarly been, by taking post in the terra ineoguita
..f science, to discover what could not be known, and
to establish what could be of no use, if it were. Hence
one age is employed in pulling down what another
nit!' infinite pomp and pains has been striving to
build up ; and our greatest proof of wisdom is to un-
l..arn the follies and prejudices that have been instilled
into us by our predecessors. It took ages of inge-
nuity, of. sophistry, and learning. to incorporate the
Aristotelian, or seitolastie philosophy into a complete
system of absurdity, applicable to all qursti.ons, and
to all the purposes of life ; and it has taken two cen-
turies of metaphysical acuteness, and boldness of
inquiry. to take to pieces the cumbrous, dispropor-
tioned edifier, and to comert the materials to the eon-
,'ruction of the wmt; ra Powell phibmupliv. by means
of verbal logic, self-evident propositions, and usi•
eatibted aaiums—a philosophy just as remote from
truth and nature, and setting them equally at defiance.
What a number of parties and school* have we in
tee.lieine,—all noisy and dogmatical, and agreeing in
r thing but contempt anti reprohation of each other!
A,rain, how many sects iu re!igion,—all confident of
lig in the right, able to bring chapter and verse in
sopport of every doctrine and tittle of belief, all ready
to damn and excommunicate one another* yet oak

_ .
out clan these ;nett tillers to superior wisdom and
i••••4llihili.y, rail he right: the eunrinsions of all the
dr awn With Slllll labOUrell accuracy, and sup-
po—ed with sueh unflinching constancy and solemnity.
e. an.t lotto be, a bundle of heresies and errors!
1! ,w many We &Armes anal intolerant practices have
tWien their rise from no better a funtulation than a
r-votic garment, a divining-rod, or Pythagoras's gobl-
er thigh' When Baxter, the. celebrated controversial
d;%ine, and Nonconformist 31inister, in the reign of
L!:arles 11. went to preach at Kidderminster, he segn-
lar:v es. ry Sunday insisted from the pulpit that hap-
ti .m was necessary to salvation. and roundly asserted,
ti-at Ilell was paved with infants sknlls." 'I his
t'.e indignation of the poor women of Kidder-
minster so murk, that they were inclined to pelt their
preacher as he passed along the streets. 1114 zeal,
however. was as great as theirs, and his learning and
1:•s do:pie:we greater; and he poured out such torrents
ut texts Noon them, and such authorities fro... grave
coureils and pious divines, that the poor w. 'Si tier*.
&trate& an.l forced. with tears in their eyes, to star•
rerder their natural feelings and unenlightened con-
victions to the proofs from reason and Scripture, which
they did nut know how to answer. Yet these untu-
tored toi.ophisticated dictates of nature and instinc-
tive affection have, in their turn, triumphed over all
the ride of casuistry. and merciless bigotry of

CE.VSONNIIIP ur THE PRESS IN INDI.I.

TO I.IEVT.-COL. THE HON. 1.. STAN HOPE.

Lothian. Much SI. ISII.

S:n—llaiing a partiality for British India, it has
r,:t.t.r. utr 10...3•tire to learn that you have given no-
tit r of a I,,,st:flor to the Court of Proprietors of bast
India St/wk. Ia n the sobject of the Liberty of the
PreS% in !bat distant portion of our dominions, from
Welt it at a% tiiird itniteeessarily, as well as most arbi-
trarily. :mil unconstitutionally taken away by the
h.artittis Welleley. upwards of twenty-two years ago.
y•as at that time in liengal, and had an opportunity
ut knouiti:, the ciresim<taures, which were the imme-
diate orea.iim of. or atforlieil the pretext for this
measure; and wish+, a 4 the inforinati..ft way be useful
toward w.truling your laudable %let% n, 1 shall here
shortly 'Wail. _ _

Stir. Allan Maclean and Mr. were
joint pr prietors AA insligo•worker, at Gatizeepore,
in the district of Renares. In pursuance of a plan fur
rjeetire Yr. 31aeleats, scho resisfed on the plat, task's!,
Air. D'Aquillar. ms the l'lth or of Marc's.
I9s. cattle to the stmts.,. and provoked him to an
as•anlt. On the information of D'Asptillar. 31:Idea's
was committed to pri-ost, without A hearing., by Mr.
Rider, the Magi.trate of riastreepore„ who, the offence
charged being a simple assault, refract( to admit him
to (mi.'. [lasing performed this achievement, Instead
of consulting the Airamottt Aslawlut, as was Isis shvy,
Mr. Rider applied to the Benares appeal Judges, who
had no jurisdiction in the case, fur instructions re-
specting Isis farther proceedings. Mr. Treves and
dlr. Cherry. two of these judges, thcpsrost r a pa, t-
wit!! IrAittllbtr la the indiro works, directed the
lissureepore Magistrate to send Maclean in confine-
ment to Calcutta, informing him that he haul Ins alter-
native or option in the business. Mr. gave, another
of the appeal Judges, was absent, and highly disap.
proved of the conduct of his colleagues.
Mr. Rider. thus authorises', sent 3lacleats off fur
Calcutta, under a guard of a Ilacildar, Naick, and
twelve *spays. in a common patella, or baggage
boat, without a ebupper. or covering, sufficient to
watt off the sun and rain. The Havildar had orders

posed to a scotching sun in the day, and to torrents
of rain in the night, and in constaut expectation of
the boat bring dashed to pieres, hr the severe north-
westers, prevalent at that season of the year. Upon,
his arrival at Patna, Major Marrae, Captaius Macleod
and Cameron, and the Reverend Dr. Mackinnon, ofli
the 76th regiment, puhlie:y applied to the Judge or
that district, for his release. erring security for hie
appearance iu Calcutta. Hat he declined interfering •
with the orders of the Magistrate .of Hauzeepore;
and it was not until lie reached !'longlsyr, that Mr.
Maclean was released, hy order of Ws-emote:it, from
this cruel, illegal, and ignominioas confinement no
equivocal acknowledgment. sin their own part, of the
misconduct of the Nlagistrate.
As these circumstauces led to the transaction, which
occasioned Dr. Maclean.* expulsion from India, which
expulsion appeared to be an in,lispentsible preliminary
to the imposition of the Censorship on the Press, slate
that gentleman's determination to maintain his right
to an entire freedom of discussion, in the Journal and
Magazine of st hide lie was the proprietor, at Calcutta,
were well known, anal consequently that the Censor-
ship could nut be established but by his removal, or
close imprisonment there. If the Censorship itself
teas a prof,er and legal measnre, it would undoubtedly
follow that the removal of Dr. Maclean, or of any
other obstacle to its establishment, was justifiable.--.
But, Hit was neither legal, nor useful, but the re•
verse, it becouses a tit subject of enquiry (in which. Dr.
Maclean has now no farther interest than any other
person in the natiou) whether the part which he took
in the case of Mitelean and IFAquillar, justifies' the
conduct of the Marquis Wellesley. in exercising an
arbitrary power of transportatissu, against an indivi-
dual, to the destruction of a business, afforsling. ass
increasing income of between six and seven hundred
pounds a year, of a C't.ital of several thousand pounds
invested in it, and of all his then prospects in life
The public will have to ess si sister whether the chance of
preventing future safene••s Sillatr to that committed be
Dr. M., was ground for the destructisso
of the liberty of the press its spa large a portion of the
British dominions, or o•liether this was only a pretext,
the real object Lein?, to establish a precedent, in a dis-
tant part of the empire, whore it mintlil not create so
It alarm, for the itesfosition, on a fawn• occasion,
of a censorship at home; having also the collateral ob-
ject of enabling the Ma•sfois Wellesley to carry sin
his projects against the 'satire Princes of India, with-
out dread of investigation. or of censure. But, be these
things as they may, it is most certain that Dr. Mach•an's
arbitrary expulsion from India was intimately connect-
ed with, and immediately followed by the imposition
of a censorship on the press throughout the British
possessions in the East. And, it does seem most sur-
prising, and very little creditable to the public spirit
of the mother country, that a., .aa,rotion of this dr-
eruption should, fur novae& of twenty-tuU years,
have passed almost wholly uoooti. ed,
I am credibly
informed, indeed, that such was the apathy prevailioa.
in England, or the stupid dread of that eternal hoe
bear, the French Ilevolution, Iltat,rven as late as Itstni,
Dr. Maclean found it necessary, such was the pusil-
lani 1111 l us ap:,reisension oat libek. to take out a license
as printer, in order to he enabled to conmannicate his
rorresponslence vi ills the Bs al 6ov et meta to the
British Public. ropy .•I that eorrespondence is now
before Me: and. ;as CO' work is now out of print, it
may possibly serve to promote the 'audible object you
have in view, if I Isere transcribe such parts of it as
relate more immediately to the subject of Your pro-
posed 'notion. The institution of an inquiry, respect-
ing the censorship on the press in India,after the lapse
of so many years, verities the proverb, that •` Murder
will out and entitles pot to the thanks of evere
friend of freedom. I may here observe, that, as the
inhabitants of British India, are by far the happiest
portion of time subjects of this, or perhaps of any other
state; as they have the voullest cause of complaint,
and are time least disposed to turbulence, of ;my people
upon the face of the earth, it is the last country, its
which any restraint upon the liberty of the press,
could either be necessary or justifiable.
Bat, to MUM to my narrative : Its consequence of
the circumstances of the quarrel between Maclean and
D'Aquillar, a paragraph was loses hal in aotlae of the
Calcutta en-apart-ca. apparently intended :IN squib
against the latter, announcing the death of the former,
l'Ottliegbroil r 0.1 a firet. :at lienares. It uas the Eons
tradivtien of this report, in the &alumina terms. by
Dr. Maclean. %%bids Ott: ASlolled his forcible expulsion
'runt

!idled
bomb!
(Sii
Au* t,
" Tha immetrati ...and satisfactory apeleirk" Te
squired, Dr. Maclean, as o►ay readily be conceived, de-
clined to make ; and, fur a►► " insinuation" of improper
conduct on the part of a Magistrate, he suffered ex-
pulsion from India, an imprisonment of twelve months
ou board a ships the Ines of his income, property, and
prospects; and, as far as Ile influence of his op-
ponents could operate, of reputation. Nay, there is
ground to believe, that the same influence has been
employed to war his subsequent views in life, and to
misrepresent and vilify his conduct generally; for,
those who have deeply injured, do net readily forgive.
I lint, I feel assured tl►at I do but justice to the senti-
ments entertained by that gentleman, when I say that,
if the wounds inflicted upon public principle, by the
imposition of a censorship on the press of India, were
healed by its formal repeal and condemnation, he
would, without hesitation, consign his own personal
injuries to oblivion. If it should appear, that, to-
wards this repeal and condemnation, to transcribe
farther portions of the correspondence in question, or
to animadvert upon it, should be dee►ued useful to
your undertaking, I will be ready to dedicate some
portion of my time to tile:employment, whilst I confess
it would be much more azreeable to me to see a due
disposition, on bath sides, to conciliation, and to
avoid ripping up (Oa griev.u►ces. Wishing you success,
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
A\(11.0 ASIATICUS.

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to the