The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-03-15 00:00:00

INDIA

• We gave in our last very ample details of the intelligence
from India, received by the overland mail. We stated then
that some doubt existed as to the rumour, to which credence
was given in several of the metropolitan journals, about the
destruction of our troops at Cabal. It would appear that
there are good grounds'for this doubt, as thie subjoined letter,
addressed .by Captain Tuckett to the. editor.ol. the Time 4,
;will testify. That oil= was for many ye-Ars in India, -anil
the statements which be makes, in contradiction to the sini4-
,ter reports of the natives, are strong acrd very. consolatory.
We hope most fervently that the gallantl ciptain's surmises
will turn out to be correct.

: .
Sir,—lt is with extreme regret I perceive, in a leading ar-
ticle, in the Times of this day, that credence is given to a:let-
ter containing an account of the destruction of our troops in
Cabul. The letter in question is supposed to be dated Jella-
labad, the 15th of January, and as the steamer left Bombay
on the Ist of February, there is only 13 days allowed for the
transmission of the news from Jellalabad to Bombay.
I have no hesitation in denying the possibility of news be-
ingrcu conVeyed from Jellalabad to Bombay in that time. From.
Jellalabad. to Loodianah, under the most favourable
throughci m-
stances,. would occupy eight days, and from our frontier post
at Loodianah to Bombay 16 days by the mail, being
our own territories; thus making 21 days fur news which is
said to have arrived in 13 days._ By any Other route the pe-
riod would be longer.
_.. - . ..... ___

As Dr. BrydoriPs statement. quoted by The Times, is dia-
Metrically opposed to that nal:de by me at the Seamen's Hos-
pital Charity, I have to request the actual date of the letter,
on which such reliance is placed, may be given; the name of
the place from which it is written ; the post-mark of whence
despatched, and the date of the post-mark. These are points,
by which persons conversant,with Upper India will 'be ena-
bled to judge of ' the authenticity of the intelligence given in
to-day's Times. Where so many persons are deeply inte-
rested in the safety of their friends, it is only just the fullest
examination should be accorded. I can see no reason to
withdraw My assertion, that the troops at Cabul are perfectly
safe.
Reports were prevalent in India, previous to the date fixed
in Dr. Brydon's letter for the troops having left Cabul, that
Colonel Shelton and some officers of his brigade were made
prisoners. In Dr. Brydon's letter Walsh is mentioned as
one of the hostages left with the chiefs at Cabul, whilst letters•
were received from Walsh a month since mentioning that he
had left Cabul, and was safe with General Sale's briabade.
Also the death of Captain Trevor, who was assassinated with
Sir W. Macnaghten, was announced in the English papers,
giving the Indian news, last February. This shows how
completely dates have been disregarded ; and I feel confident,
when this intelligence is sifted to the bottom, no good
grounds will be found for the statement attributed to Dr.
Brydon, and that it is merely a tissue of bazaar reports inju-
diciously forwarded to England. I would further call your
attention at all times to a comparison of dates with the geo-
graphical position from which reports are received; the usual
rate at which intelligence is conveyed being four miles an
hour, and less on cross roads.
Had the troops been forced to leave Cahn!, which I still
maintain they had not, they never would have retired' on
Jellalabad. They were aware of the difficulties General Sale
had experienced in the mountain passes from the sudden'
hostility of the people. Therefore. Colonel Shelton would
not have attempted those passes, incommoded with 1,100
cavalry and horse artillery, when he could, by returning
through the open plains to Ghuznee• and Candahar, derive
the greatest advantage and protection from those arms of his
force, beside being strengthened by the troops at Ghuznee
and Candahar, the latter amounting to 3,000 men.

The report quoted in The TimeB to day is stated as re-
ceived at Jellalabad on the 18th January, 1842.
The Agra Tilbar, 700 miles distant from Jellalabad,
nuoting news received from Cabul up to the 28th December,
1341, in the paper of the 22d Jan. mentions, " as a report
ult to be believed," that the ladies of the camp had fallen
into the hands of the enemy, and that Colonel Shelton and
some officers of his brigade had_bacoine prisoners. The de-
struction of the English was an easy addition to a bazaar re-
port, and completes the whole of what is now published as
authentic and occurring after the sth of January, and first
made known at Jellalabad on the 18th of January.

I trust the party in possesion of Dr. Bryslon s letter will
give the date, place, and post-mark, and thus enable a pro-
per estimate to be made of the value of the intelligence.

I.have the honour to be, Sir, - -
Your obedient servant,
HARVEY TUCKETT.

29, Poultry, March 11

The following observation's on Captain Tuckett's letter
appear in the Times of yesterday, and as so mneh interest
is attached to every particular connected with the fall of our
troops, we are anxious to give our readers all the information
in our power :

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Stn,—l have read with pain •the letter from Mr. Harvey
Tuckett in your valued paper of this day, as is calculated
to give rise to ill-founded hope to all who have relatives in
the unfortunate Cabul division of our army.
• I may inform you that at this club; ever since Mr. Tuckett
made the statement he did at the public dipner a few days
a' every one asks; " Why does he not give his authority ?
Why did he not bring in his pocket the ltter or letters in
which his information as to the safety of the army was
conveyed ?" _ .

In his letter in to-day's Times he denies the correctness of
your statement, and, singularly enough, asks for those very
proofs which he himself ought to have given to the public,
when he gave a statement at variance with all the bazaar re-
ports, private letters, and information received by her Ma-
jesty's ministers, as given by Sic Robert Peel in the House
of Commons last night. Let MY. Tuckett give up letters,
postmark, and date of the postmark, or the public will not
be satisfied. .

I am one of those ' persons conversant with Upper India,'
and am grieved to state that I have no doubt the melancholy
statements •you have given are correct, although' tbey may
not be quite so in the details. There is probably an error
in the date of the letter from Jellalabad, but, if the army left
Cabul on the sth of Januiry, there was plenty of time for
the disastrous intelligence to reach Bombay via Pcshawer by
Ist of February. Mr. Tucketkappears to forget that the in-
telligence was forwarded by estafette, whilst he talks of the
travelling rate by the usual dak of the Post-office. Mr.
Tuckett is reported to have stated at the public ainner before
alluded to that he knew of the murder of Sir William Mac-
naghten a month before the last o-erland mail arrived. Now,
Sir W. Macnaghten was murdered an the 25th of December.
and the previous mail left Bombay on the Ist of January.
How does he account for his information reaching Bombay
in six days, when he does not give ,credence to the reports
which reached Bombay from Jellalabad (a shorter distance)
in 14 days ? There is no doubt that a report did reach this
country of the death of Sir. William Macneghten before the
arrival of the mail of the Ist of February, but it only reached
LondOn as a bazaar report by the India steamer which left
Calcutta on thelOth of January, and arrived about a week
before the Bombay overland mail on the Bth insint.
I remain, Sir,
Oriental Club, March 11. INDICUS.

THE PROPERTY TAX

Sir Robert Peel having determined upon proposing a pro-
perty and income tax of sevenpence in the pound, in order to
Make good the deficiency in the revenue, a brief sketch of the
former property tax may not be out of place, nor uninterest-
ing to our readers. The first property-taX was introduced in
1803 by Lord Sidmouth, at a rate first of fife per cent: This
was increased by Mr. Pitt to 7-1- per cent. ; and, by the Mar-
quis of Lansdowne, when chancellor of the exchequer, in
1806, to 10 per cent. In 1809 its exaction began to be rigo-
rous and oppressive ; the arrears from this year became heavy,
and payments through the consecutive years were restricted,
or otherwise avoided by larga.masses-of.the people. In 1815'
the opposition to the tax became so universal throughout the
country, that it was at length found impossible to withstand
its ultimate repeal.
' In 1815, the property-tax having reached its utmost amount,
raised upwards of 141 millions, of which nearly 51 were paid
by landlords, above 24 by occupiers ; whence, says a writer
of the period, we may infer that the income of the former
was about 55 millions, and of the latter 28 ; but adding eight
and four respectively for the incomes below £6O, we have the
whole income arising from land, 95 millions. When the
machinery of the tax had attained perfection, hardly any pro-
perty escaped.
• The property-tax ceased on the sth of April, 18151 but was
revived.for one year more (1815, ending sth April 1816), in
consequence of the renewal of the war. It was always looked
upon as a war-tax, and therefore the nation became clamo-
rous for its repeal immediately after the termination of the
War in 18L-.

Paley's opinion, with regard to the property tax, as to the
scale of equitable proportion, proposing 'to affix certain rates
of taxation upon certain amounts of property, proportioned
to the general conveniency of subsistence of those by whom
such payments are to be made, is worded thus :

" We are accustomed to an opinion, that a tax, to be just,
omuogrhet
ctoor
rho%
talcye
pu
er
raitlealpys proportionedthe
amount
tootthe pr
op ertproperty
f circumstances,the or
per.
sons who pay it. But upon what, it may be asked, is this
opinion foUrided, unless it could be shown that sach a pro-
portion interferes the least with the 'general conveniency of
subsistence? Whereas I should rather believe that a tax con-
structed with a view to that conveniency, ought to rise upon
the different classes of the community in a much higher ratio
than the simple proportion of their incomes. The point to
he regarded is, not what men have, but what they can spare;
and it is evident that a man who possesses a thousand pounds
a year cad' more easily give up a hundred than a man with a
hundred pounds a-year can part with ten ; that is those
habits of life which are reasonable and innocent, and upon
the ability to continue which the formation of families de.
pends, will be much less affected by the one deduction than
by the other. It is 'still more evident that a man of a bun.
dred pounds ayear would not be so much distressed in his
subsistence by a demand from him of ten pounds, as a man'
of ten pounds a-year would be by the loss of one ;to which
we must add, that the population of the country being re-
plenished by the marriages of the lowest rank of society,
their accommodation and relief become of more importance
to the state than the couvenieucy of any higher but less nu-
merous order of its Citizens." •