Morning herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1837-1840, 1840-05-03


supplied, and as the officers of that company have
neve been remarkable for morality consoles tious
scruples when their interests CHANGED to weigh in
the opposite balance, the extended cultivation and
sale of opium within their dominiens, intended for
| the Chinese market, was determined upon. The
regulations by which this has been accomplished,
and the tyranical means through which they have
been enforced. are characteristic of the colonial
policy which Great Britain has ever pursued, and
which is productive of more horrors 10 the mise
ra6le men over which il is exercised than has ever
| fallen to the lot of those whom modern slavery
openly and avowedly chains.
The extent of territory occupied by the poppy in
India, and the amount Of capital, and number of in
habItants engaged in the preparation of opium, are
much greater than in any other part Of the world.
The provinces of Mawa, Benares, and Patna, fur
nlsh the principal quantity, and almost every chest
OF the drug exported from India bears one Of their
names.
| Although the chiefs Of the former province are
subject to British control yet its soil is no. under
the management of the company, but they derive no
inconsderab!e sum from the transit duties evid upon
the opium raised within it, il passes through their
territory, on its way to Bombay Calcutta where
is sold, principally to British merchants But in
| the latter provinces, the company have for many
years exercised over the inhabitants authority
quite despotic that by which the serfs of Po
| land or Russia were ever held. The owners Of the
soil, who are called Ryots, compelled annually
TO cultivate va TOR the company certain portion Of
suffered TO cultivate for his benefits and shod
he undertake. il without first entering into agree.
ment with the company at their fixed and arbitrary
rate, his property is Immediately seized by their
officers, and he is comPs He'd either to destroy his
peoples, or to give ample security for the faithful
delivery Of the proauct.
Advances OF money are made to him through their
subordinate officers and servants and If the Ryot
refuses to accept this advance it is thrown into his
house; and should he attempt to abscond for the
pose OF avoiding this imposition, he is forcIbly
seized the advance is tied up in his clothes, and he
is thrust into his house and their confined, until per-
ceiving resistance useless, he submssively wears
the chains which oppression in its worst form has
thus thrown around him.
Immense tracts OF laud, the richest and most val
liable of any in British India, which were formerly
used for the cultivation of more useful and less dele
terious paits, have, for several years past, been
covered with peoples, produced by the system OF
tyranny we have described Every successive year
has marked their increased spread and has brought
with it and heaped upon the weak and unefending
natives additional wrongs and multiplied crueties;
and even the miserable pittance which the company
advance compensate them for their labor and the
use of their SOIL more than three fourths absorbed
in passing through the hands of corrupt and oppres
sive officers before reaching its legitimate owners
But the poor natives must not reais their fate is
rendered still more wretched, and the few rights
they are PERM ted to enjoy entirely wrested from
them. The officers of the company, their legalized
plundcrers, suffered exercise unlicensed arbi
trary powers, As the cultivation of the drug is
forced upon them, they are suspected of concealing
it for private sale and personal advantage; and the
surveillance exercised over them, for the purpose
of detection and punishment. is attended with hard
ships and the viest oppression
In order to extort brides, all which they hold most
dear is violated, and the privacy of their miserable
abodes and the sanctity Of their females, must be
pure ed from the police and custom house search
ers, st whatever sums their grasping avarice may
induce them TO demand And all these manifold out
RACES upon the Liberties OF men-these barbarous inn
positions and cruelties-these palpable, repeated,
and continued violations of morality, religion and
common Justice, are perpetrated and sanctioned by
the laws of enlightened England-that christian,
a. L.ttn matt u~hn nf stnan
look upon the institution Of slavery in this couatry
with md gnation and holy horror, aud who denounce
its authors the enemies of liberty, christianity,
and freedom. Let them turn from us, and look upon
the dark face of their vast Indian empire and the
mark the gloomy bondage OF millions and of mil
lions, chained to the cultivation Of drug, the
qences Of which are misery, disease, and DEATH let
them there examine the cruel mockery Of system
Of laws which, although nomnally comforting Free
dom and the rights Of acquiring and enjoying pro-
perty, in reality fastens upon the victim and
lasting boadage-making him mise rablc slave upon
the soil which he is told to call his own and then let
them il they dare, publish to the whole enlightened
world the true features Of American and British
slavery side by side and let heaven Judge between
the horrors of each, and hurl retrbuton upon that
nation which is most guilty, and for own we
should have no Tear.
Great Britain cannot change the responsibility Of
the enoImi les have men iOned upon her colsnial
government; nor has she ever been gnorant Of their
extent and cruelty. The whole subject of Indian re-
venue and commerce, before the imperial parlIa-
ment Ia 1857, and the CULTIVATION OF opium con-
stituted its most prominent feature. Of evil
dence spreaJ before a committee Of nve CATION
appointed by the house OF commons, in the Of
which the iniquitous and wicked measures by which
the company compelled the cultivation OF opium,
were fully and forcibly delineatcd; and the manner
in which its traffic with the Chinese was carried IN,
de veoped aud explained. But the revenue of India
derived from a., and the immense amount oil capital
which was invested in il by British merchants en-.
gagged in the Chinese trade, trumpbed the con-
sderatnns Of morality justice, and national honor;
and in the report of the committee, received and
sanctioned by both houses Of parliament, il was de
cared xpedient and improper 10 reduce the reve
nue. Of British India by annihlatbg the opium inte-
rest; and upon these grounds did England openly
coun nance, and in effect legalize, traffic, which,
wa annually destroying millions, and which was
car red on IN open violation Of Chinese laws and in
international right; and in doing this she made her
self responsible for all the direful that
small part of them, has been the cation by the
Chinese author ties of thousands Of their miserable
people for smuggling the interdicted drug from the
British ships; the destruction Of property. health
and life which II has caused throughout the Chinese
Empire; the vast injury has created to the trade
of all nations whose vessels visit Canton; aud fnal-
w. the recent insane and bloody career II Captain
Elliot in the waters of that port.
Since this openly expressed determination by the
parliament nf Great Britain to continue its cultiya.
tom the quantity Of opium produced in India has
rapidly increased, as wall be seen bv the following
tiierent Of the amount sold by the r. Indis Com
pany at Calcutta, fsom 1900 TO l-cE.
In the season ending
1900 they seld i05i foe 3l32 SeI
al ~