soon as the charters of the ships now in their employ shall have expired, and allow the tea to be brought home in ships of not less than 400 tons burden, the owners of which may be able to give the Board of Control, or the Court of Directors, sufficient security that smuggling shall not be allowed on board. If ships of this burden were to be taken up for the single voyage from China only, the vessels which are sent out annually to New South Wales and other parts of India, and often return with little or no cargo, would be tendered to the Company at a third or a fourth of the freight which is now paid for the tea. In this way, every old woman in Old England would find her advantage in the change of system, for her tea would cost her much less than at present; nor would the revenue suffer, for though the duty (being an ad valorem one) would be less on every pound of tea than at present, the increase in the consumption (a natural consequence to a regular and steady diminution in the cost) would more than make up the difference to the revenue.

You will infer from what I have just said, I propose the Company shall not be allowed to tax the tea at the public sales in London, at higher rates than may be sufficient to cover the prime cost in China, the freight of it home, and a per centage, by way of profit, to enable the Directors to provide for the usual dividends on the Company's stock, as heretofore.

I confess, on the other hand, that, even on the ground of the general public advantage, I think the tea trade should be continued in the Company; for their permanent establishment in China, their ample funds, and means of resistance to oppression, when threatened by the Chinese, are advantages which can never be possessed, in the same degree, by individual merchants, however respectable; but, on the other hand, his Majesty's Ministers ought not to listen to the Company's advocates, who say, that the gentlemen who navigate their ships are superior, by birth and education, to sailors in general, that they have often beat the French in time of war,-and that the revenue derived from tea would not

If I may

be safe in other hands. judge from the length of the half-pay navy list, England is not likely, for a long time to come, to be in want of officers for her ships of war, should she require more than she does at present; and even the article of tobacco (which pays 300 per cent duty, in place of 100 per cent, as tea does,) has never been cumbered with an extra freight to secure the duty on it.

It will be necessary, however, should the China trade be thrown open, that a chief be appointed at Canton by his Majesty's Ministers. This chief ought to have full power to control all parties that may offend against the regulations that must be established for the welfare of the Free Trade, and to settle any disputes that may arise between the Company and the new comers.

As to colonization, I suspect it will not be carried to any great extent in India. The country is not new-it has been long under the plough-and is moderately peopled; hence agriculturists will find much less encouragement than they expect.

Indigo is already cultivated to an extent to supply the wants of nearly the whole world. Coffee, cotton, and sugar, have all been often tried. I understand that Mr B.'s coffee plantation, in your neighbourhood, has not done much good. A plantation which was carried on for ten years, at Dacca, has lately been abandoned, the produce being invariably of inferior quality, like that of Ceylon and Sumatra, probably owing to the excessive drought which prevails in Bengal from November to June, and to the heavy rains which follow, and continue while the berry is on the bush, and prevent it from filling properly. Another large plantation which had been commenced near Calcutta, is, I understand, not likely to meet a better fate than the Dacca

one.

During the years 1814 to 1819, when large shipments were made to England of India cotton, a great many experiments were made to improve the quality of it, but without success: the seed brought from America had generally lost its vegetating quality before it reached its place of destination; or, if it did produce plants,

the quality of the cotton obtained from them, after the first year, was nothing superior to that produced from country plants. I do not mean to say, that it is impossible to improve the quality of the cotton now grown in India, but that every attempt that has yet been made, (and they have been many,) has virtually failed to do

So.

There is, indeed, a small annual plant grown near Dacca, from the cotton of which the India mul-mul muslin is made; this cotton, though of short staple, is silky and beautiful, but then it costs generally about 7d. per lb. at Dacca, and hence more of it has never been sent to England than a few bales, by way of trial; and even in times when cotton generally was 100 per cent higher in Europe than it is at present, the Dacca article was not found to answer. Bishop Heber says, that seeing this cottonplant growing near Dacca, he asked the people what they did with the produce of it, and was told, "it was all sent to England, where it could be manufactured into cloth much cheaper than in India."* So much for random information! The cotton, as just stated, is all manufactured in the neighbourhood of Dacca. In short, there is still more cotton manufactured in Hindostan than in all England; a reference to the Honourable Company's records, and to other sources of information, equally satisfactory, puts this beyond all doubt.

In the present distressed state of the West India Colonies, it will not be in the power of Ministers to equalize the duties on East and West India sugars, and while the duties on that from the East Indies continue as at present, I do not expect that much of it will be imported into Eng

land; the application of British skill and machinery, however, may by and by produce the article in India at a cheaper cost, and of a better quality, than heretofore, and in that case, it will come into more extensive competition with the produce of the West Indies, in the markets of the continent of Europe, than it has yet done.

The Company are spending large sums of money every year in endeavours to instruct the natives of India; but it appears to me they are going the wrong way to work. They hold out no inducement for the natives to study English, Persian being the only language really necessary in the situations of emolument to which natives can aspire, and it is as much a foreign language to the judges and judged in India, as French is to the people of this country. Let the Company's code of laws be translated into, and the business of the Courts of Justice be carried on in English, and you'll soon see thousands of natives, not only conversant with the English language, but with English books and English customs.

It might be objected to what I have just proposed, that all the servants in the judicial branch of the Company's service should be conversant with Persian and Arabic. I reply, that even now few of the judges have more than a slight acquaintance with Persian, and still slighter with Arabic; and that the law language of Hindostan, would be as unintelligible to a Persian of Ispahan, as Canton-English would be to the Bishop of London. It is readily admitted, that the judges, in order to be able to do their duty effectually, should be acquainted with the dialects of the people, over whom they preside;

but Persian and Arabic (though they would certainly still be a great acquisition in every judge) have little more connexion with these dialects, than English has with Chinese.

Moreover, it ought to be part of the Company's plan to make the natives of India Christians, and they cannot be Christians, except in name, till they know something of the history of Europe, and of the west of Asia; and this they can only do, with out much difficulty, by the means of the English language and literature. Do not suppose from what I have just said, I have the least wish to see British laws introduced generally into India. They have been tried at the Presidencies, and certainly have not been found to answer. Hundreds of families at Calcutta and Madras, which were, forty or fifty years ago, comfortable and contented, have since then been set by the ears, brother against brother, in the King's courts, and, after years of litigation, have found they have spent twenty times the amount of the sum originally in dispute in law charges. The greatest misfortune that has happened to India in the last twenty years, is the large importation of attorneys which has taken place during that period. In Calcutta, in 1811, there were eleven or twelve attorneys on the list; now there are, I hear, upwards of sixty!! During all that time, the population and wealth of the place has been stationary, if it has not retrograded; while in the mofussil* generally, I think, there has been some improvement. Such are the effects of British Justice, or rather of what lawyers call "the glorious uncertainty of the law."

I confess I do not see how this evil is now to be remedied: the natives, I hope, will get wiser ere long, and come to think, that a suit in one of the Supreme Courts neither adds to their respectability nor comfort.

It appears to me indispensable to the good government of India, that a majority of the Direction should have been in Hindoostan, where only they could become well acquainted with the character, and institutions, and customs of the natives; and this circumstance is a great bar to the Direc

tion being made over to his Majesty's Ministers, whose attention, while in office, must be chiefly turned to other matters, and their continuing there very uncertain. This is the more necessary, from the fact, that in the House of Commons, men who have returned from India without much knowledge of the natives, and others, who, from the way in which they speak of India, scarcely know as much of its inhabitants as I know of the people in Lapland, are ready to legislate for the millions of Hindoostan, as if their concerns were not of more importance than those of half-a-dozen sansculottes in a village in the county of Clare. In confirmation of this remark, I refer to the reports of the discussions on the "Elephant Letter," the ground-work of which is correct, in my opinion, though the style of it certainly is not in its favour.

I have met a great many men here well acquainted with every thing concerning India; but people generally care, I think, less about our interests after they return from Hindoostan, than you would expect. It must be well known, for instance, to all who have been in India, that there is often great delay in obtaining justice in the Zillah Courts; yet, when the Company's affairs come under review, no one will probably attempt to effect an amendment in the practice of these Courts, though there will be many ready to advocate the interests of the merchants of England and those of the Company; the Directors' patronage, too, will not be lost sight of, nor will there be wanting many who would give the natives of India" the blessing of great price -British laws;" but reverting to the practice of the Zillah Courts, I may mention, as you have not had much to do with them, that, shortly before leaving India, I obtained probate of the will of a deceased friend, part of whose property consisted of debts due from sundry persons residing in the Zillah of my correspondent in that Zillah, he informed me that the deceased had already commenced his actions for the recovery of these debts, but that if I did not make interest with the judge to have the matters in dispute

On writing to

brought to an immediate hearing, they would not, in the regular course of business, be tried in less than two years!

A Free Press in India, is a subject requiring too much consideration to be brought in at the tail of a long letter. All the people here are advocates for it, yet nothing is more impracticable, as the Anglo-Indian government must for long continue to be constituted. Suppose, for instance, that A, a stanch radical, is allowed to go out to Bombay; that he sets a newspaper agoing there; that he abuses the Governor of Bombay, the Governor-General, and all the other functionaries-his papers find their way immediately to Lucknow, Hyderabad, and the seats of all the other native governments, and are there translated into Persian or Hindoostanee. The native princes in these cities are despotic, and examine the motives and conduct of the English governors by the rules they adopt for their own. They see that A, a parvenu, tells the Governor-General that he is what the French call an innocent, that under his management every thing is going to ruin, and that still the Governor-General does not take steps to get quit of this nuisance: they infer, the Governor-General must be an old wife, as represented,

and that the English government must be going to pieces; it is time for us, therefore, say they, to look out for new alliances, for " sauve qui peut" must be the order of the day; but as for this A, if he were in our hands his fate should be soon decided-it would be,

"Off with his head

So much for Buckingham!" The Company's silk factories should now be abandoned: Thechiefs of these establishments, though nominally only commercial agents, are always regarded by the natives as being under the special protection of the judges, and their Dewans do not always exercise their authority in a way to redound to the Company's credit.

In conclusion, I shall be glad to hear that some effectual measures are to be taken to prevent perjury in India, where it does more mischief than Europeans can imagine. A little severity would go a great way to check it; and the loss of a few lives in accomplishing so desirable an object could be more easily defended than the massacre at Barrackpore.

This is a long letter, but as the subject is interesting to us both, I make no apology.

Yours always faithfully,
A. McP.

3 F

VOL. XXVII. NO.CLYVI.