assembling and condoling with their bankrupt debtors, assuring them of undiminished confidence and esteem, even after the house was irretrievably crushed-actually voting, out of the little divisible property and scanty funds, gratuities and allowances to the unfortunate partners, and finally declaring, on a review of assets and debts, that the firm was fully solvent, and possessed a large surplus of 140,000l. if the Nizam's Government were not forcibly prevented from paying its just and admitted debts.This too, under the very nose of "their superior," the jealous Resident, the party mainly concerned in the tragedy, and possessed of the irresponsible power to deprive of employment, and "send about his business" every refractory resolutioner and protester, who should not sit down contented with the loss of his property. It will be seen that the above view of this Hyderabad story differs not a little from that given to the world by the majority of the Directors, and now bitterly re-echoed in their Asiatic Journal. This view, nevertheless, is the true one-fully supported by the Papers; and whatever may be said now by House-list majorities of voters at Leadenhall-street, when the question is tried, this is the view that will be taken of their odious and disgraceful violences, by those who come after us, and who are likely to judge more impartially, perhaps. In these Hyderabad Papers, one looks in vain to discover the secret motive for so much cruelty and persevering oppression. Was it fatuitywas it madness-was it wickedness on the part of Governor ADAM and his followers in and out of Council? They are all of them India Company's civil servants: they seem to have taken every thing in trust from their partial and prejudiced fellow-servant the Resident; to have examined into no facts; scrutinized no accounts. Judging by dates, they seem even to have hurried on one of their most frightful decisions,* and most indecently partial Reports to the Directors, after the arrival of Lord AMHERST, but before he assumed the government, as if to preclude the new Governor-General from going into the merits of the question at issue, or from interposing to prevent the oppressive deportation of the European partners, a matter of prerogative, resting not with the majority of Council, but with the Governor-General for the time being. They might have saved appearances, and spared their breathless haste, if they had better known their man. His Lordship appears to have been speedily bitten by his rabid associates; to have joined full cry in the hunt; and to have come gallantly in at the death.* IF ALL THIS BE PROVED, will the citizens of London-will bankers and merchants, or any who appreciate the importance of holding property sacred in a free commercial state like England-will they endure that such governor, councillors, and public officers, &c. &c. shall remain 1 See Justitia's Letter, p. 552. 2 Ibid. 3 See the unanswerable and pithy protests of Messrs. Pattison, Elphinstone, Daniell, and Mills, p. 395, Hyderabad Papers. On the accounts of W. Palmer & Co. See Hyd. Pap. 589-701. 5 In justice, however, to even an incapable Ruler, it must be noticed that the main acts of atrocity towards W. Palmer & Co., and, in particular, the transporting of the partners, are not Lord Amherst's doing, but the undivided honour belongs to Governor ADAM, a gentleman who has acquired sufficient notoriety in this line of business. My Lord, however, soon showed himself an apt pupil, emulous of his Teacher and Predecessor's glory, in the case of poor Mr. Arnot. in possession of power, to play these fantastic tricks with the PROPERTY, to say nothing of the PERSONS of their fellow-subjects, in the remote East? Will they be satisfied with procuring the removal of the individual despots, without also destroying the despotism? Will they tolerate that powers, useless for any honest purpose to a just administration, but shown to be susceptible of such mischievous abuse in the hands of infuriated or infatuated party spirits-shall be any longer intrusted to men virtually irresponsible, from remoteness, and from the costliness of judicial redress? It is indeed high time to establish some check of public opinion by the press, whether by institutions and corporations, or by infusion of other elements than Company's servants into the Indian councils; such deeds of darkness as are here disclosed could scarcely have occurred where there was any fear of the local community's opinion. Yet be it well remembered, when the hour of reckoning arrives, that only four out of twenty-four Directors appear, from these Papers, to have testified disgust or abhorrence of the abominable proceedings of their serrants abroad. Frenzy and party violence iu the councils of the Directors seem to have well kept pace with the precipitation of Governor ADAM— a name now become associated, during a very brief possession of supreme power, with two or three memorable things in the annals of Indian proConsular tyranny. But no press-no institutions-no courts-can avail; nor can property and industry ever be truly secure, so long as the awful power of arbitrary and summary banishment is allowed to remain with the executive abroad, while no available mode of easy and cheap redress against its abuses exists at home. This flagrant case of the dispersion of innocent partners, and the compulsory bankruptcy of a vast establishment, as exhibited in the Hyderabad Papers, shows to what disgraceful purposes arbitrary power HAS BEEN perverted by wickedness once, and may be again, by incapacity or weakness. Whether we are to profit by the experience, remains to be seen. I conclude with a few words to the slanderer whose letter has given rise to this defence of those against whom he has gallantly endeavoured to sharpen public prejudice, by aggravating and exaggerating, as far as the language of " gentlemanly tirade" can do so, the ridiculous, insulting, but self-disgracing abuse of the majority among the Directors. The words shall be taken from his own letter: Let the galled jade wince, and not complain if he now winces under the chastisement given him in an anonymous mode, the principle of which he has himself vindicated, whatsoever slander upon individuals it involved, or however unfounded the calumny.-p. 533. A FRIEND TO THE ABSENT. NOTE. It was intended to have given a detailed reply to the tirade of JUSTITIA, in our present number: as well as to present the readers of this work with an analytical review of Captain Seely's late volume, entitled A Voice from India ;'-the writers of both these productions deserving to be associated, for the equality of their talents, and the similarity of their views. The unexpected and protracted illness of the Editor, which has prevented the accomplishment of many other intended labours, compels him to defer this also to a future opportunity. The delay is, perhaps, of less importance in this, than in any other case; from the little probability of such writings, as those adverted to, making any unfavourable impression; or exciting any other sensations than those of pity for the feelings, and contempt for the understandings, of their authors. TO THE WANING MOON. UPON the dusky wave Thy crescent plays, What time the silent Night Flies through heaven's lofty ways, Like a mute Turkish slave, Before the Morning bright. "Tis sweet to see thy horn When crowding stars appear, The golden ears adorn The quick retreating year. We see thy changeful face Whence none can backward climb. Yet, yet we love thy light, And landscapes tinged by thee; Of Summer, put to flight Perchance, old fables may Of what we feel at night; And thou to Dian's brow Owe half the silver ray That makes thy look so bright. If so, I love thee more, Whose thousand altars smoked BION. ON THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND. To the Editor of the Oriental Herald. SIR, I have read in the public prints of this day, with no small satisfaction, the spirited, yet orderly proceedings of the Catholic Association, at Dublin, on the 9th instant. He must be, indeed, unworthy the name of Protestant, (if that name imply a regard to what is just and reasonable,) or rather would exemplify the spirit of Popery in its worst times, who should withhold from the Catholics of Britain and Ireland, his best wishes for the successful assertion of their too long disregarded claims to the rights and immunities of free citizens. The purpose, however, for which I now refer to the proceedings of the Association, is to notice a passage in the eloquent and argumentative speech of Mr. Devereux. That gentleman remarks, that "in every reign, from Cromwell downward, the British ambassador has had specific instructions to protect the Protestants." I was immediately reminded of the highly-eminent protection, not only of English Protestants in France, but also of French Protestants themselves, which, though so honourable to the reign of Cromwell, has been, so far as I have observed, unnoticed by republican or royalist historians. I refer to the secret articles of the "Treaty of Peace between the Kingdom of France and the Republic of England, Scotland and Ireland; done at Westminster, the 3d of November, 1655." The contracting parties were "Louis XIV. the most Christian King of France and Navarre, and the most serene and potent Lord Protector of the Republic," &c. I have the treaty, translated, no doubt, from the Latin of Milton, in 'A General Collection of Treaties,' 1732, vol. iii. p. 149.-The seven secret articles, in French, appear to have escaped the researches, even of Dr. Harris, the biographer of Cromwell and the Stuarts. I find them in an 'Appendix to Political Essays,' 1701, by Charles Davenant. The two concluding articles were as follows: "Art. VI.-Qu'en toutes les villes et bourgs de ce royaume, où il y aura des havres et des ports, la nation Angloise y aura commerce, et y pourra faire bastir des temples pour l'exercise de la religion, et sera permis aux Francois de la religion, qui y seront aux environs, d'y faire prescher en Francois." That in all the cities and towns of the kingdom, where there are harbours and ports, the English nation shall carry on commerce, and may erect temples for the exercise of their religion, and that the French of the religion, residing in the neighbourhood, may have preaching there, in French. "Art. VII.-Que les Edits de Janvier et de Nantes seront executez selon leurs formes et teneurs, et toute la nation Angloise demeurera caution pour l'execution des dits Edits." That the Edicts of January and of Nantes shall be executed according to their full import, and that the whole English nation shall be a perpetual guarantee for the execution of those Edicts. The Edict of Nantes, which was finally verified in 1599, is well known, especially from the injury to France and the advantage to England, occasioned by its impolitic revocation. What was the Edict of January, I cannot ascertain. Sully (b. 1.) mentions as "the famous Edict of July," under Hen. III., one of a very different tendency, wherein all the Hugue→ nots were ordered, either to go to mass, or to leave the country in six months." The Edict of January, named no doubt, from the month of its registration, might be "the Edict of sixty-three Articles" in 1576; by which, according to Sully, "chambers of justice, composed equally of Protestants and Catholics, were granted in the principal parliaments;" an equitable provision, which may furnish a seasonable hint to Protestant legislators for Catholic Ireland. Yet it is to be feared that Protestant legislators will be the last among Protestants to discern the signs of the times. The reign, however, of the Peels and the Eldons cannot be endless. A CATHOLIC PROTESTANT. Dec. 14, 1824. ORDERS OF THE DIRECTORS, TO APPEAL AGAINST ALL JUDICIAL DECISIONS AGAINST THEIR GOVERNORS IN INDIA. To the Editor of the Oriental Herald. SIR, A discussion arose a few days ago in a company of East Indians, out of the case of the Bombay merchant, Cursetjee Monackjee; and, although you have already given much attention to this case, yet as what I am about to submit to you, extends to subjects not confined to that matter, you will, perhaps, kindly endeavour to find room for my present communication. A civilian of the company was at a loss to discover the good grounds on which the Judge, who last tried the cause, complimented the present Government of Bombay, at the expense of the Government under whom the transaction took place. It was contended that the then Government acted on the legal opinion of their established law officers, on the legal construction of a legal instrument, and that such Government had scarcely an option as to the line of conduct adopted towards Cursetjee Monackjee. And it was farther contended, that if the present Government should persevere in their apprehended intention of appealing the cause to the King in Council-after three trials at bar, all given against the East India Company-the eulogy of the Judge who last tried it (then ignorant, as it may be supposed, of such intended appeal) will be proved to be undeserved. Be this as it may, another of the company made the following assertion (and this is the immediate cause of my troubling you), viz. that the Indian Governments have no choice in cases of this kind given against them in the Supreme Courts; that the positive orders of the Court of Directors are, to appeal all such cases to the King in Council, without considering their merits or any other point connected with them. Several of the company believed this to be true. I am disposed to doubt it. I will admit that formerly, in Bombay, when there was no higher a civil tribunal than the Mayor's Court, (and in earlier days possibly at the other Presidencies of India also,) such orders were binding on the Bombay Government;-but I cannot believe that, with the extended jurisdiction and superior respectability of the present Courts, such orders can continue to exist. |