"With a Hindoo all is centered in him- | that the moral standard of the natives has self; his own interest is his guide." With other particulars of a similar complexion. Sir John Macpherson, who was governor-general between twenty and thirty years ago, commenting on the foregoing description, thus confirms the accuracy of the delineation: "I am afraid that the picture which he (Mr. Shore) draws, and the low ebb at which he states the popular virtues of the Bengalese, are not fictitious representations."

been even deteriorated of late years. The first witness whom I shall call in proof of the present depraved state of the natives of India, is a gentleman well known in this House for his talents and his eloquence, and whom there is reason, I trust, to believe, that we shall shortly have the honour of including in our number: I scarcely need explain, that I am speaking of sir James Mackintosh. He, it is well known, lately presided on the bench of justice in Bombay; and in a charge to the grand jury at Bombay, delivered in the year 1803, he thus expressed himself: "I observe, that the accomplished and justly celebrated person, sir William Jones, who carried with him to this country a prejudice in favour of the natives, which he naturally imbibed in the course of his studies, and which in him, though not perfectly rational, was neither unamiable nor ungraceful, I observe, that even he, after long judicial experience, reluctantly confessed their general depravity. The pre"The native of Hin-valence of perjury which he strongly states, and which I have myself already observed, is perhaps a more certain sign of the general dissolution of moral principle than other more daring and ferocious crimes, much more horrible to the imagination, and of which the immediate consequences are more destructive to society."

Lord Cornwallis proved by his conduct that he considered the natives as unworthy of all confidence; for, contrary to the general usage of men occupying such stations as he filled, he never reposed any trust in any one of them, nor placed a single individual, either Hindoo or Mahomedan, about his person, above the rank of a menial servant.

It is not, perhaps, unworthy of notice, that a character equally unfavourable of the natives of Hindostan, was given four hundred years ago by their great conqueror Tamerlane.

dostan," he says, " has no pretensions to humanity but the figure; whilst imposture, fraud, and deception, are by him considered as meritorious accomplishments."-The foregoing compilation of authorities is closed by my hon. friend, with the following compendious delineation of the native Indian character.

"Upon the whole, we cannot help recognizing in the people of Hindostan a race of men lamentably degenerate and base; retaining but a feeble sense of moral obligation; obstinate in the disregard of what they know to be right; governed by malevolent and licentious passions; strongly exemplifying the effects produced on society by great and general corruption of manners; sunk in misery by their vices, in a country peculiarly calculated by its natural advantages to promote the happiness of its inhabitants."

Again, at a subsequent period, he remarks; "An offence, of the frequency of which I formerly spoke from information, but can now speak from large and deplorable experience, I mean perjury.-"

A melancholy proof of the low standard of morals in the East was afforded on one of the occasions which drew from sir James Mackintosh the above remarks. A woman who was one of the witnesses, having prevaricated shockingly, was asked by the Recorder, "Whether there was any harm in false swearing?" she answered, But we are far from having laboured" that she understood the English had a through the long and melancholy succession of witnesses, who attest the moral degradation of the natives of India. Several of the passages I have already recited are accounts of earlier times; and it might perhaps be hoped, that the moral character of the natives has been improved, in consequence of their having lived so long under our government. Alas, Sir! grieved I am to be under the necessity of stating, that this is by no means the fact. I might, I fear, go still farther, and affirm,

great horror of it, but there was no such horror in her country." See the Bombay Law Reports, given in the Asiatic Register for 1804.

But, perhaps, the most decisive proofs of all are contained in the answers to certain interrogatories concerning the moral state of the natives, which were sent round by lord Wellesley, when governor-general. Lord Wellesley, wishing to obtain the most authentic and complete information, would of course consult such persons

ignorant. There is a sort of inaptitude, if I may so term it, in what regards the subject of religion, which we discover in the generality of the Anglo Indians, which causes their judgments, however valuable on other occasions, to fail them egregiously in this. We have a curious illustration of this remark in the Fifth Report, which I quote the rather, because I un

that our opponents themselves will frankly | most able and the best informed on all acknowledge, that in the two important other topics are strangely and lamentably particulars which I have just now noticed, they are oppositely circumstanced to the individuals whose testimony I have been laying before you. First, the favourable opinions of the people of India which they deliver, are such as occur to them in this country; which must render them peculiarly subject to the influence of that common cause of erroneous judgment of nations, the drawing of general inferencesderstand the character of the writer to be from individual instances; and secondly, they will not deny, that from the infirmities of our common nature, they cannot but be liable to have their opinions in some degree, though imperceptibly, biassed by the particular occasion on which they are led to form them.

excellent, and his authority beyond exception in all other matters. I speak of Mr. Dowdeswell. After that shocking account of the state of the police which I lately read to the House, suitably im. pressed with a sense of the evils of which he had been speaking, and very justly reAnd now, Sir, after the decisive weight marking also, that these dreadful pracof testimony which I have laid before you, tices must be severely punished, "but in proof of the general depravity of the that a great deal more must be done in people of Hindostan, what must we think order to eradicate the seeds of those of the soundness of the judgment pro- crimes, the real sources of the evil lying nounced by our opponents, that their in the corrupt morals of the people," he morals are in general equal, nay, even su- adds, (and let me beg, that gentlemen will perior, to those of the people of this coun- observe that Mr. Dowdeswell very justly try. We have been long accustomed, ascribes the perpetration of such crimes Sir, to read different characters of the to general and moral causes, not merely same people from different travellers, of to individual and accidental depravity ;) the intentions of all of whom, to speak "if" says he, "we would apply a lasting the truth, we have entertained not the remedy to the evil, we must adopt means slightest suspicion; but a difference like of instruction for the different classes of this, I never before witnessed. In fact, the community; by which they may be however, Sir, we are relieved from our dif-restrained, not only from the commission ficulty, by the very extent to which the assertion of our opponents is pushed. Had it been merely attempted to soften the colours in which we had painted the native character, you might have been more at a loss which was the correct representation. But when, instead of the dark hues which we have assigned to it, our opponents give it almost the fairest and loveliest tints of moral colouring, we are led infallibly to conclude that our opponents are either ill-informed, or that they are under the influence of prejudice; and happily, we are furnished, in the course of our discussion, with such flagrant instances of prejudice on this particular topic of religion, as to furnish a pretty clear explanation of those opinions of our opponents which would otherwise appear the most inexplicable as well as extravagant.

I have already had occasion to shew, Sir, in one notable instance, that on this subject alone of religion and morals, as connected with the East Indies, men the

of public crimes, but also from acts of immorality, by a dread of the punishments denounced both in this world and in a future state by their respective religious opinions. The task would not, perhaps, be so difficult as it may at first sight appear to be. Some remains of the old system of Hindoo discipline still exist. The institutions of Mahomedanism of that description, are still better known. Both might be revived, and gradually moulded into a regular system of instruction for both those great classes of the community."

We are led irresistibly, by this passage, to a conclusion, which, I confess, has been suggested to me by various other circumstances, that in the minds of too many of our opponents, Christianity and India are inconsistent, totally incompatible, ideas. We cannot but be reminded of the ex

* Fifth Report on East-India Affairs, p. 617. Mr. Dowdeswell's Report on the Police of Bengal, Sept. 22, 1809.

pression of a former ornament of this House, (a name of high authority in this country), that "the Europeans were commonly unbaptized in their passage to India." I will not presume to adopt so strong a position; but Mr. Burke himself could not have desired a stronger confirmation of his assertion, than some with which we have been supplied in the course of these discussions, more especially with this, wherein we find that a gentleman of intelligence and respectability, long resident in India, bewailing such a dissolution of the moral principle as rendered it difficult for the frame of society to hold together, and looking round solicitously for some remedy for the evil, never so much as thinks of resorting to Christianity, but proposes to resort to the revival of Hinduism and Mahomedanism, as the only expedient to which it is possible to have

recourse.

sense of the malignity of their disease, that you may concur with me in the application of a remedy for, I again and again declare to you, a remedy there doubtless is. God forbid that we should have only to sit down in hopeless dejection, under the conviction, that though these evils exist they are not to be removed. Sir, such a supposition would be absolute blasphemy; to believe that the Almighty Being, to whom both we and our East Indian fellow-subjects owe our existence, has doomed them to continue for ever, incurably, in that wretched state of moral depravity and degradation, in which they have hitherto remained! No, Sir, Providence has provided sufficient means for rescuing them from the depths in which they are now sunk, and I now call on you to open the way for their application; for to us, Sir, I confidently hope, is committed the honourable office of removing the Agreeing with him in my sense of the barrier which now excludes the access virulence of the disease, I differ entirely of Christian light, with its long train with respect to the remedy; for, blessed of attendant blessings, into that bebe God, we have a remedy fully adequate, nighted land, and thus, of ultimately and specially appropriate to the purpose. cheering their desolate hearts with the That remedy, Sir, is Christianity, which beams of heavenly truth, and love, and I justly call the appropriate remedy; for consolation. And therefore, Sir, I indigChristianity then assumes her true cha- nantly repel the charge which has been racter, no less than she performs her na- unjustly brought against me, that I am tural and proper office, when she takes bringing an indictment against the whole under her protection those poor degraded native population of India; and "what beings, on whom philosophy looks down have they done to provoke my enmity?" with disdain, or perhaps with contemptu- Sir, I have lived long enough to learn the ous condescension. On the very first pro- important lesson, that flatterers are not mulgation of Christianity, it was declared friends: nay, Sir, they are the deadliest by its great Author, as glad tidings to enemies. Let not our opponents, therethe poor;" and, ever faithful to her cha- fore, lay to their souls this flattering uncracter, Christianity still delights to in- tion, that they are acting a friendly part struct the ignorant, to succour the needy, towards the Hindoos. No, Sir: they, not to comfort the sorrowful, to visit the for- I, are the real enemies of the natives of saken. I confess to you, Sir, that but for India, who, with the language of hollow my being conscious that we possessed the adulation and mouth honour' on their means of palliating, at least, the moral tongues, are in reality recommending the diseases which I have been describing, if course which is to keep those miserable not of effecting a perfect cure of them, I beings bowed down under the heavy yoke should not have had the heart to perse- which now oppresses them. The most vere in dragging you through the long able of our opponents has told us, that and painful succession of humiliating some classes of the natives are as much statements to which you have been lately below others as the inferior animals are listening. For, believe me, Sir, though I below the human species. Yes, Sir, Iwell trust that to many in this House, I scarcely know it; and it is because I wish to do need to vindicate myself against such a away this unjust inequality, to raise these charge, that it is not to insult over the me- poor brutes out of their present degraded lancholy degradation of these unhappy state to the just level of their nature, that people, or to indulge in the proud triumph I am now bringing before you their real of our own superiority, that I have dwelt character, and explaining to you their true so long on this painful subject: but it is condition. And am not I, therefore, actbecause I wish to impress you with a justing the part of the real friend? For true