The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-08-08
BRITISH INDIA.

i'll India, its vast extent, its numerous population
its immense wealth. and to look back upon the his
tory of its acquisition, and the by which it is
held without be ag filed with sentiments of admra
ton for the ge Us and courage of England. The
history Of the human race exhibits spectacle of
power comparable with it in sublimity. The little
island of Great Brtain--a mere outpost of the con-
tinent of Europe-rules with supreme authority the
one hundred and fifty millions of the people of India
it rules them conquered subjects; it rules them at
the distance of ten thousand miles from the seat of
authority it rules them by force and yet it rules
them as it has conquered them by the direct instru-
mentality of but handful of Engshmen for never,
at any one moment, have there been in India sixty
thousand meii-civians and soldiers included-of
that ruling race of the islands of Great Britain and
Ireland 1t reminds one of the empire of Alexander
Yet that was the empire Of but the lifetime of
one man. 1t more nearly resembles the Roman en-
pire But in the government of that the Italian race,
either soldiers civilians dispersed through
out the empire, and commanded and fought, as they
governed in actual person. in Asia and Africa, as well
as in Europe. Not SO in the case of England.
And now, at the very moment when England had
seemed to be omnipotent in India; when, at the ex-
piration of exactly one hundred years from the com
mencemeat of her conquests, she had become the
apparent lord Of the whole of India--the last Of
the great independent sovereigntes Aoudh, having
been Just annexed, and no considerable states re-
naming nominaly independent except Sinda in
Gwalior, and the Nizam in the southern Deccan just
at this moment the power of England seems to be
crumbling in her hands, if threatened with instant
dissolution.
How all this has happened-how the British en-
pire in India won, and how it now is half lost,
and needs to be won over again-is thing so curl
GUS and so instructive as to merit explanation.
One hundred years ago the Mogul descendants of
Baber reigned in Delhi nominally sovereigns of all
India, with great subject feudatory princes exercis-
ing local auhority--some of them Mohammedan, like
the Emperor himself and others Of the native of
Hindostan. One European power after another
first Portugal, then Holland and then France and
England acquired factories and fortresses on
the seacoast for the purpose of commerce, in pro-
fessed subsection to the government of Delhi They
had obtained foothold by playing off the resentments
and passions of part of India against another,
fomcnting the quarres of the eudatory princes, and
especially exciting the hostility of the chief native
race the Hndus, against their foreign masters the
Mohammedans. At that time England had less power
in India than either Portugal, Holland, or France.
But the genius of Give and Warren Hastings, on
the one hand and the imbecility of Lons Fifteenth
the other, enabled England to supplan France. And
the battle of Plassy, by giving to her the control of
Bengal and the of the valley OF the Gauges
conferred on her advantages which, boldly and skill
fully cultivated from occasion to occasion, have not
only enabled her in the process of time to supplant
her European rivals but to substitute herself in the
place of the Moguls as the avowed and admitted
ereign of all India.
The British dominion in India is one of conquest
then, acquired and maintained by the sword. 1t is
pure military despotism the despotism of foreign
conqueror, absorbing in his own hands all the power
and wealth of the state.
To accomplish and maintain this conquest, England
has not only deposed the native princes, after
another but she has DISTINGUISHED the native races
mass We shall realize the condition Of things in
this respect in India if we the case and i'm
agine handful of Asatics to have established them
selves in Europe and to rule its intelligent and cult
waited millions mere conquered subjects For the
millions of educated men in India-IIindu and Mo-
hanmedan--there is public career suited to manly
ambition. AS civilians they aspire to no higher
station than to be clerks and interpreters to an Eng
sh collector or commissioner As soldiers, they may
serve in the ranks or they may be nominally officers
but holding only subordinate rank under some
beardless English cadet. But no Hindu or Moham-
I. !.
any elevated career. How such a state of things
exist without universal discomfort? How would il be
in Europe, in the case supposed, if every royal
family were dethroned, if all the mobiles, all edu-
Gated men, all persons who by wealth, rank or
character, We're born fitted for high pursuits
thus trampled into ndiscrimnate equality of little
ness, as the mere humble subjects of foreign gov
ernor- general That is the condition of the titled,
the rich, the educated of all India.
But the titled, the rich, and the educated are but
small part of the population. Let us look for a
moment at the condition Of the industrial classes the
cultivators, the manufacturers, and the merchants
As to the cultvators they in the last degree of
AFFECTION, which tits possible for foreign force to inn
Hastings, the entire soil of India was confscated
and all its cultivators became the mere tenants
at will of the government, which, in the place
of tax, receives from them the rent of their land