present form of Indian administration, taking it, however, be it always remembered, at its best possible. To examine particular regulations on the subject, is beyond our knowledge and our ability. It is now incumbent on us, shortly to consider, what, if the Company should be abolished, is the most probable alternative? There seem to us to be four answers to this question, and these four, we suspect, conveniently include all the rational answers that can be made. In the event supposed― First, The trade may be laid open, and the system of government transferred to the King and Parliament; while yet the entrance of settlers into British India continues to be greatly clogged, and all political existence to be denied them. Secondly, The trade may be laid open, the entrance of settlers freely permitted, the Company altogether abolished, and the patronage transferred to the Crown. Thirdly, The same as the first; only, that the political power and the patronage of the directors remain with them. Fourthly, The trade and country may be both entirely laid open, while the Directors retain their patronage, and generally the degree of political power which they now possess. With respect to the first plan, we shall make three remarks. In the first place, this plan leaves, in unabated force, all the objections so strongly urged by Dr Smith, and so eloquently by Burke, against the mischiefs resulting to the East Indies from their being necessarily made the prey of temporary residents. What force there is in those objections, we cannot stop to inquire; and shall only hint, that, though the system of temporary residence may have its faults, yet those faults are capable of much correction by law, and, in fact have, in the present instance, received such correction; and further, that the opinion, that the hope of in future providing for their children by procuring them employments in the same line, and other conspiring causes, may greatly tend to inspire the Anglo-Indian residents with something of a patriotic feeling towards the country where they pass the best years of their lives. In the next place, this plan would lay very serious restraints on that freedom of trade, which is the main object of its establishment. It would in fact make the commerce of India, if we may affix to it such a title, a sort of regulated royal monopoly. It would raise a hope of freedom that must be disappointed; and probably, any frequent exercise, by a royal government, of a power of excluding residents, would be still more odious than the preventive monopoly of the Company, which saves men the trouble of being sent home, by hindering them from being sent out. In the last place, the objection of the probable abuse of patronage, when lodged in Ministerial hands, not only remains, but applies with augmented force. If the ports of India be made all free, while yet a good deal of jealousy is to be exercised in watching the movements of those who arrive in them from abroad, it must be most evident that the charges of inspection will be prodigious, and of course a door is opened to the creation of new offices. Nothing more, we conceive, need be said of a plan, which seems to unite in itself the evils of almost all the systems that can be adopted. It would, indeed, prevent the possibility of colonization, but perhaps at a greater expense than the advantage is worth. The second of the plans which we mentioned, is that perhaps which will most conciliate popularity. Before, however, any thing can be said upon it, a previous question ought to be agitated; Would a complete liberty of commerce in the East Indies, and an unqualified permission of ingress to European settlers, tend to colonization? The Directors seem to believe, that In- dia would, by these regulations, be converted into a prodigious colony in the course of half a century. To this sentiment we cannot entirely accede. Our view of the subject amounts to this,-that it, in some measure, depends on accident, whether or not, under the supposed circumstances, India would become a colony; but that the affirmative opinion is the most probable. Our zealous author, however, can never even enter the same room with the Company; he, therefore, flies off at all points, and declares the apprehension of colonization to be wholly chimerical.' Hardly a single Englishman, he contends, will ever think of settling in the Est Indies; an opinion hardly quite consistent with his ideas of the immense opportunities afforded by the East for the extension of commerce, and of the probability that the emancipation of the Indian trade would occasion a considerable influx of British capital into that quarter of the world. He cannot but know, that men love to follow their capitals into distant lands, and that, wherever we find foreign capital fairly domiciliated in a country, we may surely reckon upon our not having long to look for the capitalist. The great argument which he uses on this point, is founded on a comparison between America and Hindustan; a comparison which we do not think decisive. America was indeed a new country, and afforded an infinitely greater scope for the elasticity of population to operate, than can be expected in a country that has been settled for centuries. But the author seems to forget, that no old country is fully peopled; and if we may say that population A a 3 population is universally checked by what he calls the nature of things, yet it is rather by the artificial nature of things that this happens. England is not peopled nearly to its level. Now, the primary causes of this circumstance seem to be, the natural reluctance of the middling classes to descend into a lower stage of life by burdening themselves with numerous families, the unequal division of property, and the impediments to the cultivation of new land. It is therefore opinion, principally at least, that keeps down population. It is the reverence of men for ancient institutions; it is the omnipotence of custom; it is resigna tion; it is indolence. Supposing, however, an order of men, much superior to ourselves, were suddenly introduced into this country; an order greatly more athletic in limb, infinitely more enterprising,-in understanding incomparably more masculine,— looking farther before and after, '—-despising our superstitions of opinion, keenly ambitious,--and determined to support themselves on the produce of the country;-conceive them, indeed, to enter on a solemn promise to respect the ancient landmarks which cur fathers have set,' and perhaps with an intention of being just and merciful;-with all this, allow them to be but men and we firmly believe that every one of them would, by some means or other, find here that subsistence which he wanted; and that, by obvious consequence, this race of heroes would multiply, while our pigmy-generation would gradually dwindle away. But we have here put the case weakly. If, in the situation just feigned, we suppose this country to be previously peopled to the very powers of its last waste acre, the very same event would undoubtedly occur. We do not say that it would be a set of wolves carving out breathing-room for themselves in a fold crowded with sheep; but it would certainly be men making way among children. We need not apply this imagined event; the parallel is obvious. Our author, when denying the possibility of the introduction of an European population into Flindustan, overlooks the superior energy of the European character, and that surest magic, the ascendancy of strong minds over weak ones.' We may almost quote on this subject, without any gross misapplication of its meaning, the noble exclamation of the poct; Mind, mind alone, bear witness, earth and heaven! The great obstacle, certainly, to the event supposed, would be, a strict and impartial discharge of justice in our courts in the East. This would certainly prevent any violent and grievous op pression of the natives by the European adventurers; but there are a thousand ways in which we might gradually press upon them, We are to observe fur them, without a direct violation of law. ther, that one third of the lands of India is waste, and that the rest, productive as it is, is very meanly cultivated. The first sound of a free Indian trade would attract a hundred different vessels from our coasts. Speculation would be prodigal and improvident; for, after all, even commerce can be romantic. All this would lead in many ways to a settlement; but this at least flows inevitably from the preceding remarks, that supposing, by some accident, (against which, who shall ensure us?) an Laropean plantation once to begin in our Indian provinces, it must proceed. The weak must gradually yield to the strong; the lazy to the laborious; the timorous to the daring. The European population would, indeed, gradually degenerate; and there would be a pretty numerous mixed race; but the genuine natives must, after all, decline. The probability of these events forms a very formidable objection to those measures from which they must originate. We will not consider, how much or how little of danger, might accrue to this country, from the colonization of British India. We are quite content with the evils which, if we have rightly conceived what would be its process, it must necessarily inflict on the native population of Hindustan. How the American Indians, a far hardier race of men, have been perpetually compelled to recede before the destroying march of European colonization, it is unnecessary for us to mention; or to deduce from this, and many other similar facts, inferences and illustrations of the subject that has just been considered. Thus much may certainly be objected to the second of our plans; to say nothing of the observation we have repeatedly made, that in its first effect it would probably tend to increase, in an exorbitant degree, the indirect power of the Crown. But if we suppose either of these plans to be modified, by placing the government of India in some corporate body similar to that in which it now resides, the objections to both plans would in part be weakened. We have not, however, room particularly to trace the effects of either of these arrangements; neither is it necessary; as, if the reader thinks the task worth performing, nothing can be easier than, with due qualifications, to apply to them the remarks which we have already taken the liberty of hazarding. In effect, without violating our promise of withholding a determinate opinion on the matters agitated in this article, we may venture to say, that it is our inclination to prefer the third plan to the first, and the fourth to the second. But the reader, we doubt not, will not much trouble himself about our conclusions on the subject, and will be better pleased if he shall have toiled through the prolix article with which we have presented him, to be left to the undisturbed exercise of his own judgment. ART. VIII. Jugement sur Buonaparté, addressé par le General Dumourier à la nation Française, et à l'Europe. Analysis of the Character and Conduct of Bonaparte, addressed to the French Soldiery, and the People of Europe, by Genera! Dumourier. Translated from the French by Mr. Elder; to which is subjoined the original text. 8vo. pp. 122. London, Hat chard. 1807. MR. R Elder states in the dedication of his translation, that he requested a friend, who lives in habits of intimacy with Ge neral Dumourier, to inquire whether or not he was the real author of this piece. The General answered that he was, and that he gave full liberty to publish his declaration to this purpose; adding, at the same time, a good deal of invective, in the style of the pamphlet itself. Satisfied with this evidence, Mr Elder was anxious to make the work known in our language, conceiving that it is calculated to produce an excellent effect in the present crisis, by giving a most intelligent and faithful exposition of the conduct and character of a usurper, whose flagitious darings have spread ruin and desolation throughout a great portion of the European world, and even menaced Great Britain with invasion-and by proving most satisfactorily, that notwithstanding his successes have been unusually rapid, he is not entitled to the character of a general on whose judgment an army can safely rely in any pressing emergencv.' Such are Mr Elder's views of his subject; and as for his author, he is universally considered the most skilful, experienced and gallant officer of the present age, and hath likewise been distinguished in France, and on the Continent, as the most profound statesman that has ever adorned the annals of his country.' Bonaparte and Dumourier be ing thus satisfactorily disposed of, we may just mention, before proceeding to the original work, that Mr Elder's proper task of translation, is very ill executed. He nowhere does justice to the spirit of his author,-frequently mistakes his meaning,--and in almost every paragraph, takes liberties with the composition, which are as much beyond is province, as to pass judgments on the military character of these two celebrated men. The |