or passion, to check by an authoritative expression of sentiment all violence, wantonness and cruelty, to make this sentiment powerful in action, it seems as if there were little needed beyond the combination of right-minded slave-owners, wherever they are to be found, in support of each other and of their common principles. The duties of a Christian master are not limited to his plantation.

Associations such as those proposed in this pamphlet would be attended with indirect benefits hardly less marked than their direct effects. They would save the South from the sweeping condemnation in which she is involved by the deeds of a wretched minority of her population; they would afford her, what she has long wanted, an internal defence against the pressure of opinion from without; and their increasing strength would insure the weakness of all foreign interference.

NOTE TO ARTICLE I., ON THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI.

It is a curious fact, which should have been noticed in our brief sketch of the attempts to create institutions of knighthood in America, that the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, (commonly known as the Knights Hospitallers, or the Knights of Malta,) once endeavored to establish themselves in this western world. In 1651, this renowned Order purchased of the first French West India Company the four islands of St. Christopher, St. Martin, St. Bartholomew, and St. Croix, being nearly the whole of the Lesser Antilles, for the sum of 120,000 livres tournois, or about $24,000, and held them until 1€65. They sent out some of their knights thither, and the islands were governed by a brother of the Order, with the title of Bailly, appointed by the Grand Master at Valetta. There seems to have been a sort of feudal dependency on the King of France, to whom a crown of gold, of the value of $1200, was to be rendered on his accession. From all we can learn, however, there was not much of the spirit of chivalry in the motives that actuated the Order in making this novel acquisition. The spirit of commercial adventure and emolument, which was so universal at that period in Europe in regard to the Eastern and Western Indies, appears to have infected their minds, and they probably went into the matter as a sort of speculation. Finding that the large profits hoped for did not come in, they sold out, in 1665, to the new West India Company, for 500,000 livres tournois, or about $100,000; and that is the last we hear of the Order of St. John in America.

NOTE TO ARTICLE VI. ON CANALS IN INDIA.

SINCE the article upon "Canals of Irrigation in India" was written, we have met with a book recently published, of which the title is as follows: "The White Slaves of England. Compiled from Official Documents, with twelve spirited illustrations. By John C. Cobden. Auburn Derby & Miller. 1853." One chapter, occupying about fifty pages of this thick duodecimo volume, is devoted to what the author calls "Slavery in India." From this chapter we have thought it well to make a few extracts, that they may be put in immediate apposition with the statements contained in our article. Our readers will find them curious.

Mr. Cobden begins with the assertion that

"The extensive, populous, and wealthy peninsula of Hindostan has suffered greatly from the crushing effect of the British slave system."

After a few sentences he goes on:

"There the fat of the land has been garnered up for the luxury of the conquerors, while famine has destroyed the people by thousands. There, indeed, has the British aristocracy displayed its most malignant propensitiesrioting in robbery and bloodshed-setting all religion at defiance, while upholding the Christian standard—and earning to the full the continued execration of mankind." p. 441.

Our readers are quite competent to judge of the manner in which this terrible display has been made, and to bestow the due share of execration upon the members of that "British aristocracy" who have been engaged in it.

A few pages further on, the author states that

"The destruction of local organizations, and the centralization of authority, which is always attended with the increase of slavery, have been the aims of English efforts. The principle that the government is the sole proprietor of the land, and therefore entitled to a large share of the produce, has been established, and slavery, to escape famine and misery, has become necessary to the Hindoos." p. 449.

A striking illustration of the mode in which, according to Mr. John C. Cobden, the English have thus endeavored to destroy the local organizations, is to be found in the Revenue Settlement of the NorthWestern Provinces, to which we have referred in our article, by which the limits of about 80,000 villages have been determined, the village administrations preserved, and the rights of each separate community, as of each individual proprietor, carefully established. The statement 46

VOL. LXXVII. NO. 161.

that the government is "the sole proprietor of the land" is not true without essential modification; and it is to be remarked, that, whatever be the rights of the government in the land, so far are the English from having, as Mr. Cobden implies, introduced any new principle in relation to them, that they have, on the contrary, adopted that of their Hindoo and Mahommedan predecessors, which seems to have had its origin in the remotest antiquity.

But let us go on.

"The kind of slavery,” says this veracious writer, "which the British have imposed on the great mass of their East Indian subjects, is infinitely more oppressive and inhuman than chattel slavery.”....... ..." The object is to take the fruits of the laborer's toil without providing for him at all." p. 459.

These are strong words, but the author is obviously incapable of understanding their force.

Another of the assertions made by this Mr. Cobden bears directly on the subject of our article. He declares that, “famines (always frightfully destructive in India) have become more numerous than ever, under the blighting rule of the British aristocrats."

And again, three pages afterward, he says, "We have only to add, that, whatever may be found in the climate or character of the country that expose (sic) the people to the frequency of want, the conquerors have done their best to aggravate natural evils." p. 466.

Are the canals to be regarded only as gigantic instruments for wasting the waters of the land and producing a universal malaria? After going on to enumerate a long list of the crimes of the British in India, the chapter is closed by Mr. Cobden in the following words.

"The Hindoos are the victims of conquerors, slower, indeed, in their movements, than Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, but more destructive and more criminal than either of those great barbarian invaders." p. 488.

Is Mr. Cobden sure that he is right? - Conquerors more destructive than Tamerlane, who left pyramids of skulls to mark the course of his army through Asia? - Than Genghis Khan, the victims of whose massacres were numbered by millions?

Such

Our readers have had a sufficient specimen of this chapter. a display of ignorance, pretension, and folly would be as ludicrous as it is contemptible, were it not for one serious reflection. The book is intended for popular reading. It is made attractive to the vulgar taste by ordinary, but, as the title-page says, "spirited" woodcuts, representing some of the horrors detailed in the text. It is addressed to a low popular prejudice. It is written with the design of exciting ill-feeling against England, and of serving at the same time as a sidelong defence

of slavery in this country. The principles of the author are of the same quality as his statements.

We have no disposition to enter upon the defence of the English in India. The history of their rule exhibits, like every other history, a mingling of good and bad. One page bears the record of frequent mistakes and crimes in the acquisition and government of the country; the other, of as frequent, sincere, and often successful efforts to raise the character and improve the condition of its people. Nor would such a book as that before us deserve even the notice we have given to it, were it not that it is one of a class which has become too prevalent of late, and against which a strong protest should be made. It belongs to that base class of books which form what may be called the literature of recrimination, a literature which is opposed to good sense, right-feeling, and patriotism; and which is at once the disgrace of its authors, and of that public with whom it finds favor.

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NOTE TO THE ARTICLE ON M. LIBRI'S CASE, IN NO. CLIX.

Ir is seldom very agreeable to any one to have to acknowledge the commission of an error; but in the present instance, we can sincerely say that we take a genuine pleasure in correcting a most disagreeable blunder into which we fell in the article upon M. Libri's Case, in the April number of our last volume.

It is unnecessary for us here to state the causes of our mistake. They were certainly, however, sufficient to justify us in making the statement which we did, viz.; that M. Libri was no more. As the least expiation in our power for this act of involuntary manslaughter, we beg to declare, as notoriously as we can, that M. Libri is publicly and actively living, and to express the hope that so he may long continue to remain.

One word more as to the merits of the prosecution of which he has been the victim. Since the publication of the article in question, our attention has been more than once called to the facts of the case, and we have no hesitation in re-asserting, with a full conviction of their fidelity to truth, every statement we therein made in favor of M. Libri. If we committed an error, it consisted in not sufficiently insisting upon his perfect and entire innocence of all the charges brought against him. The truth seems to be, that the French authorities, in their natural attempt to strike a blow at M. Guizot, in the person of one of his protegés, so entirely overshot the mark as to render a dignified retreat

impossible. Either a public repentance and restitution must have taken place, or an unblushing persistence in the course of persecution that had been adopted. The latter alternative was, unfortunately for all parties, fixed upon. In vain has M. Libri, in vain have his respectable and distinguished friends in England, solicited that he should be allowed to return to Paris upon bail, and to have time there to prepare his defence before he should be brought up for trial. Every one knows, who knows any thing about the case, that his defence would in that event be most triumphant, let the result of the trial be what it might. Deprived of his papers, his property, his books themselves, his statement, prepared in exile, has carried conviction to the minds of every one; — and how much stronger would be that feeling, if he were suffered to avail himself of the ordinary material and tools employed on similar occasions? Therefore we can perfectly comprehend how a government like that of France, as at present constituted, should refuse to put such a weapon in the hands of those who would be but too ready to use it. But nothing can stifle the voice of sympathy and indignation throughout the literary world, at the whole history of this matter; and so far as it can be any consolation to M. Libri to know that his innocence is much more manifest to those who, like ourselves, know him only by name, than if it were at last declared from the mouths of such an ignorant and vindictive body as that which has already pronounced his guilt; we have great pleasure in tendering to him every assurance of our confidence in his integrity and veracity.