SUBJECTION OF NATIVE PRINCES.

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he was required to resign the whole administration into the hands of his foreign protectors, and to retain the mere pomp and name of royalty, stripped of his fortune and liberty. It is true, the first step was often cheerfully acceded to, and even solicited, by the prince when his power appeared in danger either from foreign or domestic enemies. But not a long time elapsed before the yoke was painfully felt, both by ruler and people; and the native sovereign yielded up his lands only from a feeling of invincible necessity. Disturbances often arose under the grinding oppression of this foreign interference, and which could be suppressed only by an increased military force, which served still farther to augment the burdens of the people.

At last, after many hard but unavailing struggles against the diplomacy, intrigue, cunning, and martial power and skill of the British empire, the prince, with his people, surrendered himself to the oppressive rule of his Christian tyrants. This system has been practised so generally, and for such a length of time, that at last the greater part of the broad and rich lands of India have passed from the hands of their lawful proprietors into the hands of selfish and perfidious speculators, who, from the beginning, have gone to India for no other pur

pose than to amass fortunes by unjust requisitions from the Asiatic people.

Consequences the most disastrous have resulted from this policy.

MILLIONS of the people of India have in consequence of it been starved to death. Said Dr. Bowering, than whom no man better understands the state of the whole Asiatic world, in a speech delivered at the great meeting held a short time since in London, to relieve the wrongs of India: "We are called together to consider the interests of 150,000,000 of our fellow-subjects, and no man will feel that a mighty responsibility does not rest upon our shoulders. England has long held the sceptre over the millions of India; but what has she ever done for these but rob them of their rights? We boast that we are a civilized, a religious, an instructed nation; what of all these blessings have we conferred upon India? The inhabitants of that fine, that noble country, are not to be compared even to the Swiss upon his bleak and barren mountains. We are a large commercial country; but we have never extended the humanizing and civilizing blessings of commerce to India. This is an agricultural nation. What a picture does India present possessing boundless tracts of land, with every shade of climate, fit for the best

EVIDENCE OF DR. BOWERING.

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productions of the earth, YET MEN PERISHING BY

THOUSANDS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS FROM

FAMINE, WHILE THE STOREHOUSES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY ARE FILLED WITH BREAD WRUNG FROM THEIR SOIL BY A STANDING ARMY!

"We have boasted of our religion-I do not mean the form and words which too many consider to be the essence of Christianity—have we imparted any of it to the natives of India? No, alas! we hear much more of the complainings of those poor natives than of their gratitude. We profess to be a well-governed nation, and well acquainted with the principles of liberty, which we highly prize: but we have not given that liberty to India. We have not even made justice accessible to them. I see the evidence of all this before me in the persons of these men (alluding to five plenipotentiary commissioners from India, who sat on the platform, dressed in the costume of their nation), who have come thousands of miles as suppliants, I believe up to the present time unsuccessful suppliants, for JUSTICE. So far from imparting commerce to India, we have ruined that which she commenced before. It is not many years since India supplied almost every European nation with cotton cloths: now, by the improvements in machinery, we supply her with our fabrics."

VOL. II.-F

It is said that in 1837 a famine in India swept off half a million of people, and that it was brought on chiefly by robbing the population of the produce of their soil, to fill the coffers of the East India Company. It is well known, indeed, that multitudes starve to death every year in India, because of the terribly op pressive land-tax.

Another mighty evil has been inflicted upon India; and it has grown almost entirely out of this system of land robbery. During these famines uncounted multitudes SELL THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN INTO SLAVERY for bread, to prevent their dying by starvation. Says Mr. Colebrooke, in one of his celebrated minutes on the subject of East India slavery (Parliamentary Papers, 138, 1839, p. 312)," The government permit parents and relatives in times of scarcity to sell children." "The number of slaves continually diminishing, a demand constantly exists for the purchase of them, which is supplied chiefly by parents selling their own children in seasons of scarcity and famine, or in circumstances of individual and peculiar distress."

He also says that during one of those seasons, in the Solapoor and adjacent districts, parents, being unable to support them, either sold or deserted their children, and that some

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of them were seized, carried off, and disposed of to the best advantage. What a picture is here presented!

Said one of the most distinguished statesmen in England to me the other day, "I have no doubt that upon inquiry we should find these appalling evils and calamities of which we hear so much, are to be traced far more frequently to the injustice of the East India Company than to the Providence of God. India is the slave of England, sir." And it should not be forgotten that millions suffer continually there in all parts of the country from hunger, which is relieved by just food enough to keep them from actual starvation.

It makes but little towards the justification of England in this matter, that immense fortunes are continually amassed in India by Englishmen who go there only for money. They grow rich not by the fair and honourable pursuits of commerce; but their fortunes are the price of children's blood and mothers' tears. Every day I meet with gentlemen who, after spending a part of their lives in India, have returned rich. They have rendered about as much real service to India as the titled ecclesiastic pluralists do to Ireland; and are quite as well paid for it.

I suppose, however, this matter is hardly