tom which prevails amongst the Jarejabs, of killing their daughters. After much more in defence of the practice, he concludes with a declaration, which, if somewhat ambiguously mysterious in its outset, is clear enough as to its meaning before it ends :-" God is the giver, and God is the taker away; if any one's affairs go to ruin, he must attribute his fortune to God. No one has until this day wantonly quarrelled with this Durbar, who has not in the end suffered loss." "This Durbar wishes no one ill, nor has ever wantonly quarrelled with any one." "Do not address me again on this subject." Such, Sir, was the reception of colonel Walker's first application to the chieftains of the Jarejahs. And even one of the mothers returned him an answer of the same hopeless tenor. colonel Walker's must be, how delightful Why, Sir, with but one such incident as Now, Sir, let me fairly put it to the House, whether such an answer as this, to any application which had been made for putting an end to any instance of native superstition, would not have been deemed such a decisive proof that it was dangerous to proceed in the attempt, that any one who had advised that the endeavour should be still persevered in, would have drawn upon himself the epithets of fanatic and enthusiast: and it would perhaps have been thought, even by candid and humane men, that an excess of zeal only could prompt any one to a continuance of efforts which appeared not only hopeless, but even highly dangerous. Colonel Walker might even have obtained the praise of having engaged and done his best, in this work of humanity, though he had not been able to achieve it. But colonel Walker, Sir, was not so easily to be disheartened: colonel Walker's humanity was not satisfied with enjoying this barren and unprofitable triumph: he persevered, but by the only prudent, the only just and legiti-solutely, pressing on towards the great mate, means: he took frequent occasions of discussing the subject in the court of justice, and of exposing the enormity of so unnatural a practice: and, that I may hasten to so welcome a conclusion, within twelvemonths of the day on which the letters which I lately quoted had been written, the very writers of those letters, together with the Jarejab tribes in general, formally abjured for the future the prac-ready mentioned, continued in India, it is tice of infanticide, and declared themselves highly satisfied with the engagement which they made to that effect. To a man of principles and feelings, such as object of our endeavours. In fact, Sir, here, as in other cases, when you are engaged in the prosecution of a worthy end, by just and wise means, difficulties, and obstacles disappear as we proceed; and the phantoms, not to call them bugbears, of ignorance and error, melt away before the light of truth. Had the noble lord, whom I have al highly probable that he would have achieved other conquests over the cruel practices of the natives of India, It is highly probable that he would have been the distance of half the globe from it! of inhabitants differing from us as widely as human differences can go! differences exterior and interior-differences physical, moral, social and domestic-in points of religion, morals, institutions, language, manners, customs, climate, colour, in short in almost every possible particular that human experience can suggest, or human imagination devise! Such, Sir, is the partnership which we have formed; such rather the body with which we are incorporated, nay, almost assimilated and identified. Our oriental empire indeed is now a vast edifice; but the lofty and spacious fabric rests on the surface of the earth, without foundations. The trunk of the tree is of prodigious dimensions, and there is an exterior of gigantic strength. It has spread its branches widely around it, and there is an increasing abundance of foliage and of fruit; but the mighty mass rests on the ground merely by its superincumbent weight, instead of having shot its roots into the soil, and incorporated itself with the parent earth beneath it. Who does not know that the first great storm probably would lay such a giant prostrate? able to put an end to the barbarous custom of widows destroying themselves; a custom which has been the disgrace of India for above two thousand years. But had the doctrines of our opponents continued to govern the practice of all the East India Company's servants in India, those two barbarous practices, the termination of which has been already effected, would still have carried on their destructive ravages. For let me ask our opponents, were these practices in any degree less firmly established, or of a later date, than various others which still continue? And with these instances before our eyes, in which the success of the efforts of humanity has been more rapid and more complete than probably our most sanguine expectations could anticipate, shall we suffer all the other detestable practices of India to prevail without the slightest attempt to put a stop to them? And shall we at once admit the assertions of those who thus, in defiance alike of reason and experience, inculcate on us that it is infinitely dangerous, though ever so pru dently and cautiously, to endeavour to substitute the reign of light and truth and happiness, for that of darkness, delusion, and misery? But, Sir, it is time to speak out, and to avow that I go much further than I have yet stated, and maintain, not only that it is safe to attempt, by reasonable and prudent methods, to introduce into India the blessings of Christian truth and moral improvement, but that true, aye, and imperious and urgent, policy, prescribe to us the same course. And let me not be misunderstood on this subject: I do not mean that I think our Indian empire rests on such firm foundations as to be shaken by no convulsions, and that therefore we may incur the risk of popular ferments with impunity no, Sir; Ifrankly acknowledge, that I have long thought that we hold our East Indian possessions by a very precarious tenure. This is a topic on which it would be painful to expatiate, and perhaps imprudent to be particular; but the most cursory survey of the circumstances of our East Indian empire must be sufficient, in the minds of all who are ever so little read in the page of history, to justify the suspicion which I now intimate. On the most superficial view, what a sight does that empire exhibit to us! A little island obtaining and keeping possession of immense regions, and of a population of sixty millions that inhabit them, at This, Sir, I fear, is but too just a representation of the state of our East Indian empire. Various passages in the papers on the table clearly illustrate and strongly confirm this position; sometimes they distinctly express it. In truth, Sir, are we at this time of day still to be taught that most important lesson, that no government can be really secure which does not rest on the affections of the governed; or at least on their persuasion that its maintenance and preservation are in some degree connected with their own well-being? And did we want the papers on the table to inform us, as, however, in more than one place, they do inform us, that, notwithstanding the vast improvements we have introduced among the people of India, and the equity and humanity with which our government is administered, the native population is not attached to us? It might easily be shewn also, that many of the peculiar institutions of India, more especially that of its castes, greatly favours the transference of dominion from one conqueror to another. Then, the situation and neighbourhood of India! Regions which have been again and again the prey of those vast Tartar hordes which at different times have descended like some mountain torrent, and have swept all be fore them with resistless fury! Sir, would | Bras de Albuquerque contain the followwe render ourselves really secure against ing curious passage. "When Alf. de all such attacks, as well as against any, Albuquerque took the kingdom of Goa, less perhaps to be dreaded, which our he would not permit that any woman from great European enemy may make upon thenceforward should burn herself; and us in that quarter, let us endeavour to although to change their customs is equal strike our roots into the soil, by the gra- to death, nevertheless they rejoiced in dual introduction and establishment of life, and said great good of him, because our own principles and opinions; of our he commanded that they should not burn own laws, institutions, and manners; above themselves." It is added, in proof of the all, as the source of every other improve- veneration in which this great man was ment, of our religion, and consequently held by the natives," that long after his of our morals...Why, Sir, if it were only death, when a Moor or Hindoo had rethat we should thereby render the subjects ceived wrong, and could obtain no redress of our Asiatic empire a distinct and pe- from the governor, the aggrieved person culiar people; that we should create a would go to Goa, to Albuquerque's tomb, sort of moral and political basis in the vast and make an offering of oil at the lamp expanse of the Asiatic regions, and amidst which burned before it, and call upon him the unnumbered myriads of its population, for justice." by this change we should render our East Indian dominions more secure, merely from the natural desire which men feel to preserve their own institutions, solely because they are their own, from invaders who would destroy them. But far more than this;-are we so little aware of the vast superiority even of European laws and institutions, and far more of British laws and institutions, over those of Asia, as not to be prepared to predict with confidence, that the Indian community which should have exchanged its dark and bloody superstitions for the genial influence of Christian light and truth, would have experienced such an increase of civil order and security; of social pleasures and domestic comforts, as to be desirous of preserving the blessings it should have acquired; and can we doubt that it would be bound even by the ties of gratitude to those who had been the honoured instruments of communicating them? Here again, Sir, we can answer this question from experience. We have a case precisely in point; by which, on a small scale, we are enabled to judge what would be the effects of the same experiment tried upon a larger. All around me have heard of the great Albuquerque, one of those extraordinary men who, nearly 300 years ago, raised to the highest pitch the glory of the Portuguese name in India*. The commentaries of his son For the above curious fact I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Southey, who has also been so obliging as to furnish me with the following curious and important fact, which from forgetfulness I ●mitted to mention in the House of Com And now, Sir, if I have proved to you as I trust I have irrefragably proved, that the state of our East Indian empire is such as to render it highly desirable to introduce among them the blessings of Christian light and moral improvement; that the idea of its being impracticable to do this is contrary alike to reason and to experience; that the attempt, if conducted prudently and cautiously, may be made with perfect safety to our political interests; nay, more, that it is the very course by which those interests may be most effectually promoted and secured; does it not follow from these premises as an irresistible conclusion, that we are clearly bound, nay, imperiously and urgently compelled, by the strongest obligations of duty, to support the proposition for which mons. When Joane de Barras wrote man who, for the extent of his researches, is worthy to be ranked with Herodotus), a fourth part of the population of Malabar consisted of native Moors; and the reason which he assigns for their rapid increase is, that they had obtained privileges from the king, and put themselves upon a level with the high castes, "for which reason many of the natives embraced their faith." He says in another place, that "the natives esteemed it a great honour when the Moors took their daughters to wife." The above fact plainly shews what has been abundantly confirmed to me by private testimony, that the real cause which renders the natives of India afraid of losing caste is not any religious scruple, but merely the dread of the many and great temporal evils which proceed from the loss. tect me from it. Compulsion and Christianity! Why, the very terms are at variance with each other: the ideas are incompatible. In the language of inspiration itself, Christianity has been called "the law of liberty." Her service, in the excellent formularies of our Church, has been truly denominated "perfect freedom;" and they, let me add, will most advance her cause, who contend for it in her own spirit and character. I now call upon you for your assent. But what is that proposition? Its only fault, if any, is, that it falls so far short of what the nature of the case requires. Is it that we should immediately devise and proceed without delay to execute, the great and good and necessary work of improving the religion and morals of our East Indian fellow-subjects? No; but only that we should not substantially and in effect prevent others from engaging in it. Nay, not even that; but that we should not prevent government having it in their power, with all due discretion, to give licences to proper persons to go to India and continue there, with a view of rendering to the natives this greatest of all services. Why, Sir, the commonest principles of toleration would give us much more than this. Where am I standing? Where is it, and when, that I am arguing this question? Is it not in the very assembly in which, within these few weeks, nothing but the clearest considerations of political expediency were held sufficient to justify our withholding from the Roman Catholics the enjoyment of the fullest measure of official as well as political advantages, and when you yourself, Sir*, though you felt yourself bound to continue some few official disabilities, acknowledged that it was with reluctance and even with pain? And shall we now lay the religion which we ourselves profess under such a restraint in any part of our own dominions? No, Sir: it is impossible: you will not, you cannot, act thus. But, in addition to what I have already said, it deserves well to be considered, that if we should fail in our present endeavour, and if Christianity should be, as it then would be, the only untolerated religion in the British dominions in India, the evil would not stop here. The want of toleration would not be merely a negative mischief; the severest persecution must infallibly ensue. For, assuredly, there are, and by God's help I trust there ever will be, both European and native teachers prepared in the face even of death itself, to diffuse the blessed truths of Christianity. But let it never be forgotten, it is toleration only that we ask: we utterly disclaim all ideas of proceeding by methods of compulsion or authority. But surely I need not have vindicated myself from any such imputation. The very cause which I plead would have been sufficient to pro * The Speaker. See p. 312. I have often been reminded, Sir, during the course of these discussions, of the similarity of the present case to another great contest of justice and humanity, in which, with many confederates far abler than myself, I was perseveringly and at length, blessed be God, successfully engaged some years ago. The resemblance I see is acknowledged by my hon. friend near me (Mr. William Smith), who is still faithful to the great principles which animated us in our former struggle, during the whole of which he was among the ablest as well as the most zealous and persevering of my associates. On that occasion, let it be remembered, it was our ultimate object, by putting an end to those destructive ravages, which, for centuries, had produced universal insecurity of person and property along a vast extent of the coast of Africa, and had thereby protracted the reign of darkness and barbarism in that quarter of the globe, to open a way for the natural progress of civilization and knowledge; of christian light and moral improvement: so now, likewise, we are engaged in the blessed work of substituting light for darkness, and the reign of truth and justice and so. cial order and domestic comfort, of substituting all that can elevate the character or add to the comfort of man, in the place of the most foul, degrading, and bloody system of superstition that ever depraved at once, and enslaved, the nature, and destroyed the happiness of our species. In the case of the slave trade, as well as in this, we had the misfortune to find ourselves opposed by many of those whose means of local information were certainly considerable, but whose notions of facts were so obscured or warped by prejudices or prepossessions, as to be rendered strangely inaccurate and preposterous. There, likewise, owing no doubt to the strange prejudices and preposses sions I have noticed, our opponents maintained, that there was no call whatever for the exercise of our humanity: that [1074 the slave trade, whatever our English And now, Sir, if we suffer our imaginanotions of comfort might suggest to us, tions to follow into its consequences the like the superstitious practices in India, measure in which we are now engaged, added to the sum of human happiness, and to look forward to the accomplishment instead of lessening it; or at the least, we of those hopes which I trust will be one were wishing to make men happier against day realized, what a prospect opens on their will: and that so far from there our view! In the place of that degrading being any need for our interference to superstition, which now pervades those improve the condition of the slaves in the vast regions, Christianity, and the moral West Indies, already they were as happy improvement which ever follows from its as the day was long; nay happier, introduction, shall be diffused with all for they danced all night. Consist- their blessed effects on individual characently therefore with these opinions, they ter, and on social and domestic comfort. called upon us, just as we have been called Surely, we here see a prize which it is upon this evening, to find some other and worth contending for, at any cost of time better selected sphere, for the exertions of and labour. And I can assure our oppoour humanity. Really, the similarity of nents, that they are greatly deceived, if the two cases runs almost on all fours for they imagine that we are likely to give on that occasion, as well as now, we were up the contest, even if we should fail in assured that we should infallibly produce our present attempt. Happily, Sir, it insurrections; while it might be truly af- appears from the unprecedented number firmed in both cases, that the language of of petitions now on your table, that the our opponents themselves was far more importance of the question is duly apprelikely than ours to produce the appreciated by the public mind. And let it hended evil. Happily, the West Indian predictions have been so far from verified in this particular, that I scarcely recollect any other period of the same length as that which has elapsed since we commenced our abolition-proceedings in which there had not been some insurrection or other. Sir, allow me to hope that the resemblance, which I have shewn to exist between the two cases with so striking an accordance, will be completed, by our finding, that notwithstanding the different views and expectations which different gentlemen have formed of the effects of this measure, we shall all rejoice over it together ere many years shall be completed, and find all the fancied mischiefs apprehended by our opponents disproved by the event. I beg, however, that it may be observed, that the resemblance which I have been describing is not merely an illustration: it is an argument; and a very powerful one too it will appear to all who remember that we had then the misfortune to number many considerable men among our opponents; inasmuch as it shews how possible it is for men of eminent attainments to be misled, not merely into tolerating as an unavoidable evil, which it is only fair to confess was the argument of some of our opponents, but into supporting and panegyrizing, as warranted by the principles of justice and humanity, a cause, that now, after a few short years have expired, not a single man can be found to lift up bis voice in its favour. (VOL. XXVI. ) not be imagined that these petitions have been produced by a burst of momentary enthusiasm; that the zeal which has actuated the petitioners is a mere temporary flame, which will soon die away, and be exhausted. No, Sir: I am persuaded, that in proportion as the real condition of our Asiatic fellow-subjects shall be more generally known, the feeling which has already been so forcibly expressed, will prevail stil! more extensively. If, therefore, our opponents really apprehend the greatest evils from discussing the subject, in common consistency with this opinion, they should suffer our question to pass, as the only way by which that discussion can be terminated. For they may be assured, that otherwise the public voice will call upon this House still more loudly than even it has now done. And assuredly, my friends who are associated with me in this great cause are animated with the same determination as myself, never to abandon it, either till success shall have crowned our efforts or till it shall appear utterly unattainable. But after all, Sir, at the very moment when my friends and I were ready to raise the shout of victory, a proposition has been made to us by an hon. baronet, of which, though offered to us in the language, and by him, I do not deny, with the meaning of good will to our object, I must confess I am more afraid than of all the other modes of opposition we have experienced in the course of these discussions. I am (3Z) |