mohurs; a table-clock set with precious stones; the horn of an unicorn, we presume, a rhinoceros; a large lump of ambergris; a gilded escrutoire; an immense map of the world; with a very respectful letter from the honourable governor to the emperor.' How have the times changed in the imperial horoscope! Half a century had barely elapsed, before the genius of Lord Clive had obtained the Dewanny of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa for the East India Company; by which their sovereignty was extended over 116,850 square miles of territory, including the rich cities of Patna and Benares, and the Deltas of the Brahmapootra and the Ganges. The Pergunnahs and Burdwan, with Midnapore and Chittagong, were already theirs; whilst the Nizam had to surrender Masulipatam and the Northern Circars. The nabob of Arcot conceded in the same year the Jaghire of Madras; and from the terrible Mahrattas was won the island of Salsette, for our settlements at Bombay. The vizier of Oude and the rajah of Tanjore contributed to our establishment; and the protracted administration of Warren Hastings prepared the way for an act of our domestic legislature, which was to subjugate the Company, with all its possessions, to the controul of parliament and the crown. Then followed the governorgeneralships of the marquisses Cornwallis and Wellesley-the dreadful conflict between British and French influence, the Mysorean wars, the fall of Seringapatam, and the overthrow of Tippoo Sahib-the early achievements of the Duke of Wellington, the siege of Bhurtpore, and the final extension of our influence from the Himmalaya mountains to Cape Comorin. It has been justly remarked by one, who knows India well, that prejudice caused by party feeling or personal interest, must have ceased to bias the mind in passing judgment upon the Indian measures of Lord Wellesley. They formed the most brilliant instance of British rule in that quarter of the globe. Asia, in one word, confessed her weakness; and that the sceptre, which is to sway orientalism, must come from a western island.

The period when he entered upon his charge was most portentous. 'His comprehensive intellect seized with discriminating promptitude, and pursued with unabated vigour, those measures, which annihilated the influence of our powerful European rival, subjugated the most implacable, but not unnatural enemy amongst the native chiefs to the British power, and brought under our authority the princes on the coast,whose treachery had been so clearly established, as to render forfeiture of their territories necessary. The impotent head of the Mahratta state, by his vacillating policy, defeated the measures which were calculated to maintain his supremacy, and promoted the further aggrandizement of his powerful feudatories.

These chiefs had subsisted by means of their predatory and undisciplined bands. Having incorporated French officers and troops amongst their forces, they manifested designs so hostile and so ambitious, as to leave but the choice between abject submission to their yoke, or a decided opposition to its continuance. The governor-general was too well aware of the strength which unopposed ambition gathers, to expect that peace would be secured by any temporizing concession to an insatiate thirst for rule.' Although harassed by a series of occurrences acquiring force from the circumstances under which they arose, he pursued those political views which his foresight had prescribed. He repudiated,' says Mr. Auber, that unhealthy course of pusillanimity founded upon an erroneous application of parliamentary declarations against Indian conquests: declarations made under circumstances the exact opposite to what then existed; and which put forth a truism practically inapplicable to and inconsistent with the safety of our Indian empire. By his measures, that empire has been placed upon a basis, which short-sighted policy, or positive imbecility can alone weaken or remove. All this is no doubt perfectly true and sound, so long as we keep on the right side of strict justice, and avoid doing evil, that good may come. The territorial acquisitions of Lord Wellesley were magnificent. Down to the conclusion of the grand peace with the Mahrattas in 1805, Mill has carried his history. At this point, therefore, our author takes it up, with the conquest of the Doab under Lord Lake, and our appropriation of Agra, Mathura, and Delhi-the first celebrated for its reliques of Mogul magnificence, the second for the superstitious reverence entertained for it by the Hindoos; and the third notorious in every age, as the metropolis of the heathen or Mohammedan monarchs, who have triumphed over Hindustan. The following page is an interesting one, we think :

'Along with this imperial city, the British became possessed of the person and family of the representative of the fallen dynasty of Timour, the venerable Shah Alem, alike distinguished by his descent and his misfortunes. Indebted to the English, in the dawn of life, for safety and support, he had passed through manhood to old age, amidst an unvarying succession of danger, tumult, treachery, and disaster, and was happy to end his days in peace and security, under the shelter of his early friends. However trifling the accession to the real power of the victors, which might be thought to accrue from their holding in their hands the titular sovereign of Hindustan, and although the charge was not unattended by circumstances of anxiety and embarrassment, yet that the keeping of the person of Shah Alem was not devoid of political value might be inferred from the eagerness with which the prize had been disputed by military

adventurers; and by the weight, which chieftains the most lawless, and princes the most powerful, still attached to an order, or a grant that bore the seal of the emperor, even though the document conferred but a nominal title to the honours or possessions which it purported to bestow. Shah Alem himself was an object of general sympathy, from the injuries or indignities, which he had undergone from his own rebellious servants, or his Mahratta allies; and the respectful and benevolent treatment which he experienced from his new guardians contrasted favourably with the conduct pursued towards him by their predecessors. There can be no doubt that the change was most acceptable to the Mohammedans of Hindustan, and contributed essentially to conciliate their good will, and gain their allegiance.'-p. 10.

Instead of analysing the work before us, of which only one volume has as yet appeared, we propose giving a brief sketch of the extent of our Indian Empire, and more particularly as affected by the last charter: which we shall follow up by a glance at the perils and responsibilities connected with it.

Our direct possessions in the peninsula of Hindustan include about two-thirds of its superficial territory; these being so geographically arranged, as to secure us, through military and political power, an effective control over the other third. For many years subsequent to our custody of the Great Mogul, a sort of deception was maintained, by governing in the name of the emperor, and even issuing his coin as the circulating medium of the country. But, in 1818, Lord Hastings terminated this illusion, by openly proclaiming the supremacy of the British government. The number of our eastern fellow subjects may be stated, in general terms, at about one hundred and twenty millions; from thirty to forty of whom are under the nominal rule of titular potentates,-effeminate shadows maintained in mock pageantry,-whose extinction can be at no great distance, -whose presence however is harmful, while it lasts, and who are neither more nor less than parallels to such kings as Fumenes, Attalus, Herod, or Agrippa in Roman history. From the Sutlej to the Southern Cape is nearly nineteen hundred miles in actual distance; nor can it be much less from the mouths of the Indus to Arracan. Our revenues are 22,000,000l. sterling per annum; with commercial and social prospects opening before us, which will sooner or later include something like paramount lordship, or at least influence, over Burmah, Siam, China, Thibet, and Japan; to say nothing of the vast oriental archipelago, extending like a chain of jewels down to the insular continent of Australia! The exports and imports, already enormous, are but on the point, or in the very preliminary process of development. Spain, Portugal, Holland, and France,

have all and each done their best successively to undermine or ruin us, and have signally failed. A few feeble factories, just discernible upon the map, remain as vestiges of their efforts; nor need we except Goa or Java from the description. Austria and Prussia have never held any genuine power in the oriental world of enchantment. Russia, indeed, has not wanted the will, but has happily never yet been able to find the way. Hitherto the bear has done little else than gnash its teeth, or growl from the semi-civilized courts of Persia and Beelochistan, at the triumphant sway of the British lion. Scindia, as is well known, constitutes our most recent acquisition: and, probably, the entire Punjaub will be the next spoil. Our home authorities seem to have satisfied themselves, as to the irrepressible tendency of our Indian empire to enlarge its boundaries, and augment its preponderance, in spite of the most peremptory injunctions of forbearance, and a scrupulous desire of obedience to them abroad. In 1813, the charter was renewed under the wretched auspices of Lord Castlereagh: and again in 1833, under the nobler ones of Earl Grey. To this last measure attention should be given for a few moments. Principles of liberalism in commerce and politics had not germinated altogether in vain.

Lord Glenelg, as president of the Board of Control, clearly felt that the same parties should be no longer both sovereigns and merchants. Having carefully observed, as he said, 'the practical effects of the blended system of trade and government, the Company ought, as soon as possible, to be released from commercial dealings.' He considered that the national interests demanded a cessation of all monopoly respecting the China traffic. With the profits of that monopoly, the directors had been in the habit of supplementing their revenue: but it was plain to his lordship, that under proper management the Indian exchequer was perfectly competent to meet every just demand. Its annual amount had already reached the income we have mentioned; and which promises still further to increase. How should it be otherwise? The soil for the most part is rich and fertile, and suited to every kind of produce. There are immense resources still remaining unexplored. The people, generally speaking, are frugal, patient, laborious, improving, and desirous of further advancement. Twenty-nine propositions were in consequence submitted to the East India Company; of which the first eight required a surrender to the Crown of all assets, both commercial and territorial, estimated at a capital of twentyone millions sterling, with all their rights and possessions, in consideration of an annuity of 630,000l. per annum; and a guarantee fund, which was first mentioned as 1,200,000l., but

was afterwards augmented to 2,000,000l. The eleven ensuing proposals related to patronage, and the continuance of the college at Addiscombe: the remainder referred to the free admission of all British subjects to Hindoostan, and the enlarged powers and privileges of the Board of Control. The directors were to administer the government of the country, subject to those powers, for twenty years longer: but their entire correspondence was to be under the cognizance of the minister at home, so that, as was justly observed, the directors are now reduced, in genuine importance, to little else than a 'clumsy cumbrous machinery.' They may recall, however, a governorgeneral, as we have recently seen; whilst a second exertion of such audacious activity would, without question, involve a forfeiture of the perilous prerogative. Queen Victoria, in one word, now governs India as much as she does England; and this is a great fact, by no means adequately impressed on the public mind. Steam navigation, perhaps, will be the most efficacious means for bringing it home to our bosoms and consciences. Bombay is now distant about as many weeks as it was months in times gone by. The voyage and journey thither seem about to become a holiday trip to the enterprizing tourists who are resolved to make the most of a long vacation. They rush to Marseilles, embark for Malta, glance at Alexandria and the needle of Cleopatra, visit Cairo and mount the pyramids, cross the desert, call at Aden, steam through the far-famed Straits of Babel Mandel, splash along for a delicious fortnight over the Indian Ocean, and inscribe their names in an album at the caves of Elephanta, literally within less than fifty days! Such expeditions, growing into general fashion, may serve to remind us of our perils and responsibilities with respect to the glorious Orient. Surely we are bound never to lose sight of them.

As to the former, we must remember, that our empire rests upon opinion! Its basis is no natural rock of adamant. It has shifted these ten times, so to speak, since Mahmoud the Gaznavide erected his throne in that very city, whose gates, within the last few years being blown open by petards, elevated a most fortunate English general to his scarcely merited peerage. The eastern mind is peculiarly susceptible of impressions either way. There has always been a surprising sympathy about it with the magic of names, the charms of success, the glare of parade, the mere halo of human glory. Its characteristics are generally childish ones, fantastical, full of the love of phantoms, sensual rather than sentimental, with a predominance of fear, confident only by fits and starts, with very little permanent self-reliance. It will spill blood like water, on the spur of an occasion: but its