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 ilirairic ^ricnlalc ct curopcenne 
 SS. Peres grecs ct latins, Conciles 
 iluigie. Li. res sur lAmcrique 
 
 et Ic.-- Boaux-Arts, 
 I.ivre.s a figures, etc., etc. 
 
 I Litres Anciens 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 
 
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 ANGLO-INDIA. 
 
 VOL. I,
 
 ANGLO-INDIA, 
 
 SOCIAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL; 
 
 COLLECTION OF PAPERS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 Journal, 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WM. H. A L L E N, AND C O. 
 
 LEADENHALL STREET. 
 1838.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by J. L. Cox and Sous, 75, Great Queen Street, 
 Lincoln's-Irm Fields.
 
 to 
 
 - ' V 
 ac 
 
 B 
 
 B 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 THOUGH the resources of the mind are almost inex- 
 haustible, it is not easy to supply the general reader's 
 constant appetite for novelty from materials of home 
 production. Mines, however, of intellectual treasures 
 <* nearly 'untouched exist in the East. The people of 
 in Hindostan, in their social, political, and romantic 
 
 aspects, the hybrid form of society produced by the 
 o 
 O commixture of European and Asiatic manners in the 
 
 English residents there, furnish matter for works 
 equally new and agreeable to Western readers, whose 
 repugnance to Indian topics is disproved by experi- 
 ment, where they are treated in a popular manner. 
 These considerations have led the Proprietors of the 
 ASIATIC JOURNAL, a miscellany which is not exclu- 
 sively devoted, as some suppose, to crabbed Orientalism, 
 to think that general readers would be gratified by 
 a selection of its lighter papers, chiefly illustrative of 
 the Moral and Social Condition of ANGLO-!NDIA, 
 
 357095
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST. 
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 English Society in India, 1.3. 11.27. III. 50. IV. 73. 
 V. 111. VI. 137. The Bench and Bar of India, T. 151. 
 II. 182. III. 212. Selection, 237. Dialogues between 
 a Brahmin and an European, I. 247. 11.260. III. 276. 
 IV. 286. Paupiah Brahminy, the Dubash of Madras, 
 304. Reflections of a Returned Exile, 331. Confessions 
 of an Eurasian, 362. 
 
 VOLUME THE SECOND. 
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 The Culina Brahmins, 3> Selections, 24. 
 
 TALES AND FICTIONS. 
 
 The Scribbleton Papers, I. 105. II. 131. The Indigo 
 Planters, 154. The Kazee of Emessa, 177. The Uni- 
 versal Testator, 189 The Sword of Antar, 216 
 
 Reminiscences of an Old Indian Officer, I. 240. 11.260. 
 III. 285. IV. 313. V.363.
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME THE THIRD. 
 
 TALES AND FICTIONS. 
 
 The Family of Perrault, 3 Tom Legge, 25. A Tale of 
 the Mayor's Court at Madras, 38. The Mermaid, an 
 Eastern Tale, 57. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Honourable John Adam, 73. Dowlut Rao Sindhia, 
 132. Kiernander, the Missionary, 159. Hugh Boyd, 
 of Madras, the Reputed Junius, 185. Lord Teignmouth, 
 1,97. Ram MohunRoy, 218. M. Von Klaproth, 267. 
 The Arabian Poets I. Akhtal,287. II. Farazdak, 313. 
 .III. Jareer, 346. Selections, 372.
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 
 I. 
 
 MAN is a mysterious compound of active and 
 passive will. The former, unless in a few rare 
 and enviable cases, it is seldom given him to 
 exercise. By the latter, he is every hour, in this 
 " working-day world, 11 influenced, modified, I 
 might say, created. I hate all your metaphysical 
 jargon, which seems only invented for the con- 
 cealment of ignorance, and am, therefore, truly 
 solicitous to avoid it. But shall I be misunder- 
 stood if I call active will the principle which, 
 when in some solitary insulated instances it comes 
 into operation, animates, exalts, and o^r-informs 
 us with something akin to divine inspiration 
 that divinam particulam aurce, which bursts by
 
 4 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 its own inextinguishable energies beyond the fetters 
 and impediments of the external circumstances 
 which train and educate by far the greater part of 
 mankind, and mould and fashion all the every-day 
 specimens of humanity that walk or strut upon 
 the habitable globe ? It is, then, the passive 
 will, that almost voluntary submission to extrinsic 
 influences and over-ruling motives, which in the 
 pride of our hearts we deem ourselves capable of 
 withstanding, but which is even then the most 
 irresistible at the moment we are most striving 
 to resist it ; it is this which, in every philo- 
 sophical survey of our genus, and in every precise 
 investigation of our moral history, ought primarily 
 to be regarded. For it is this that makes the 
 individual, or, in other words, constitutes his 
 idiosyncracy ; and not of the individual only, but 
 of the larger combinations as well as lesser platoons 
 of human society. 
 
 Of the few who, by the exercise of an active 
 will, rise superior to all outward circumstances, 
 standing like rocks amidst the waves and storms 
 of motives that assail us, and wholly unmoved 
 and immoveable by the impulses which are so 
 omnipotent in the formation both of single and 
 collective man, the history is written in prodigies 
 of super-human virtue ; in action or words doomed
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 5 
 
 never to die ; in whole lives of stern and inflexible 
 self-denial; in the thoughts and imaginations which 
 will never taste death, but endure in their living 
 form and indestructible essence through the endless 
 track of ages. Of these, standing alone and at long 
 and awful intervals, as if they were marks to shew 
 the height which the flood of glory, or of genius, or 
 of virtue, has now and then reached of these, in 
 treating of society and of manners, it is evident that 
 I can have little to say ; but it is with the second 
 class of beings that I concern myself a class 
 falling within the scope of our experience, and 
 furnishing a much more agreeable exercise for 
 our speculations than those who, by appearing 
 in such irregular cycles amongst us, seem in some 
 sort to have abdicated the common wholesale 
 properties of our nature. Compared with the oioi 
 vuv av^f EJ EiV, they are of another and higher order, 
 scarcely united with us by the tie of human weakness 
 or human folly, the strongest ties by which man 
 is confederated with man, claiming appreciation 
 by a different standard, and not liable to the 
 wear and tear of the common motives which impel 
 us ; they are, therefore, of too colossal a stature, 
 and of a mould too gigantic, to be useful or pleasing 
 objects of contemplation. 
 
 It is then the surest process for philosophical
 
 6 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 thinkers, who undertake the delineation of the 
 characteristic manners of any definite class of 
 mankind (and without some tincture of philoso- 
 phical thinking no picture can be faithful or 
 vivid), to watch narrowly the external discipline 
 of circumstances, which affect the disposition, the 
 temper, and the character, rather than simply 
 enumerate, as travellers are too apt to do, the mere 
 naked phenomena themselves, without taking any 
 note of each extrinsic cause that has its share in 
 their formation. It is because they have not given 
 themselves the trouble to become familiar with this 
 important part of the human mechanism, or, in 
 other language, with the whole tribe of impulses 
 by which the passive will is hurried along in spite 
 of its feeble resistance, that the numerous writers 
 upon India, who have appeared lately amongst us 
 in swarms that almost "darken the air," have 
 scarcely attempted, except in a few instances of 
 manifest failure, a sketch of English society and 
 English manners in India. Do not for a moment 
 let it be thought, that I am vain enough to imagine 
 that I am about to supply the deficiency, either to 
 my own satisfaction, or that of my readers ; but 
 may I not succeed in giving a few hints at least to 
 future limners even by my own unfinished daubings, 
 and suggest the propriety of shunning, on the one
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 7 
 
 hand, the unseemly and revolting caricatures pre- 
 sented to us by the few writers who, for their own 
 amusement or Mr. Colburn's profit, have made the 
 experiment ; and on the other, the tame and spiritless 
 sketchings, in which all that is distinguishing and 
 prominent is wholly lost and obliterated ? 
 
 Impressed with the utility of this mode of pro- 
 ceeding, in order to arrive at a just criterion of 
 society and manners, whether amongst the English 
 residents at Paris, or the English at Rome, or in 
 whatever country curiosity or restlessness may have 
 dispersed them (for wherever our countrymen are, 
 with whatever community they may come into 
 contact, there they remain, like oil and water, un- 
 mixed and immiscible), I am sincerely convinced 
 that it is the best mode of estimating the English 
 societies of India; and I lament that the ground 
 has been quite untrodden, or nearly so, by those 
 who have lately published their reminiscences of 
 that interesting region; for I conceive that the 
 being, so strangely compounded, whom we call 
 here " an old Indian," that odd bundle of whims 
 and humours, whether considered by himself, as the 
 being, formed and fashioned by the circumstances 
 that were constantly acting upon him whilst in 
 India, or the whole Anglo-Indian society of that 
 country altogether, who are undergoing the actual
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 discipline of those circumstances, do assuredly 
 deserve the compliment of a more specific delinea- 
 tion than has been hitherto assigned them. To 
 these, perhaps, the rule I have laid down will be 
 found more emphatically applicable than to our 
 , countrymen in any other part of the world. An 
 Englishman in France or Italy still remains the 
 Englishman, carrying thither only his follies, his 
 arrogance, and his prejudices, and stands out in 
 prominent relief from the countries he visits, by the 
 peculiarity of his cherished follies and beloved 
 vices ; whereas in India, by the concurrence of 
 various causes of sure and uniform operation, some 
 of which I shall point out, the English character 
 v undergoes a transformation so rapid and entire, as 
 to render it the fittest study that can be imagined 
 for the moral painter. 
 
 I must repeat, then, the subject of English so- 
 ciety in India has been uniformly neglected by all 
 who have visited Hindustan, with the exception, 
 perhaps, of Maria Graham (not now, indeed, Maria 
 Graham, for that fascinating combination of sounds, 
 associated with the enlivening remembrances of 
 youth and personal charms, is now merged in a 
 second marriage and another name not half so pleas- 
 ing and -familiar to my ears) that delightful writer 
 of travels, who saw manners and noted them with the
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 9 
 
 exquisite nicety of female discernment, on which 
 every shade, and tint, and colour of character, 
 primitive or mixed, never fails to be reflected. But 
 more of her hereafter. With this exception, how- 
 ever, I have searched in vain the publications of 
 residents and travellers in India, without stumbling 
 upon one correct portrait of Anglo-Indian society ; 
 any thing that may be instructive as a lesson to 
 young men, or may hold up to our young country- 
 women, who are about to quit the shores of our 
 " fair, domestic stream, " for those which the 
 Ganges washes with his mighty waters, a mirror 
 of what they are hereafter to become, through the 
 influence of climate, marriage, musquitoes, and the 
 varied assemblage of causes likely to operate upon 
 them, when they arrive in a country which is con- 
 sidered, I fear but too justly, as the grave of 
 European beauty. 
 
 What a useful supplementary chapter to Dr. 
 Fordyce, or Mrs. Chapone, would this furnish ! 
 Something of this kind is surely necessary, if on 
 no other ground, on that of good taste, to give a 
 little pleasing variety to the writings upon India, 
 which the press Js every day bringing into the 
 world, and which weigh as heavily upon the for- 
 bearance of the general reader as upon the counters 
 of the booksellers. For without something of the 
 B 3
 
 10 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 kind, " Ten Years' Residence in India," and 
 " Reminiscences" of I know not how many years 
 of service, begin to be rather sickening ; and no 
 wonder, as they are for the most part refaccimentos 
 of by-gone campaigns; the dregs and rinsings of old 
 officers' memories; the scrapings of barrack-room 
 conversations, where, over a cheerless bottle or two 
 (the slowness of whose revolutions speaks whole 
 volumes against the diminution of batta), some poor 
 complaisant Sub is obliged with polite quiescence 
 to listen to the endless narrative which " fights the 
 battle o'er again" the same prosy detail which is 
 so soon to arrive in the propitious region of New 
 Burlington Street, and after it has received its due 
 share of pruning and polish at the maturing hands 
 of Mr. Shuckburgh, to take its place in what is 
 called by courtesy " the literature of the day." 
 
 But the taste for this is going by. Who is there 
 that can be interested at this time of day with an 
 Indian battle fought twenty years ago? What 
 reader is endued with such an overflowing sensi- 
 bility as to spare one drop of it for the fate of a 
 thousand polygars (if they had been so many Polly 
 Carrs, the narrative might have some interest), 
 whose only virtue seems to have been their heredi- 
 tary hate to the Pan) alum- choorchy race ; or to 
 weep the premature loss of Captain Trotter of the
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA 
 
 cavalry, who, by too quick a trot was carried into 
 the hottest fire of the enemy ; or the wound of 
 Captain Hazard, who felt so cruelly the chances 
 of war in his right arm ; or the hair-breadth escape 
 of Lieutenant Beard, whose chin was grazed by a 
 ball, and who came off providentially, with the 
 loss only of a third of his whisker (these are not 
 puns, dear reader, but veracious facts*); or feast 
 with delight upon pages filled with lists of the 
 killed and wounded ? For heaven's sake, let us 
 have something more than this. " Call a new 
 cause f Lord Mansfield used to say, with infinite 
 complacency, when he was worn out with the one 
 he had been trying. What we want is man, male 
 or female, imported from England into India, with 
 his English notions, English tastes, English antipa- 
 thies, acted upon by the thousand influences that 
 gradually modify him into a different animal, till 5 
 without knowing it,- for, whilst he is there, goitre- 
 like, a host of similar examples prevent him from 
 suspecting his own transformation, he comes 
 back again to his native land the finished " old 
 Indian," the consummate but interesting non- 
 descript, which in common parlance has acquired 
 that appellative. 
 
 * See "Military Reminiscences of Forty Years' Service in 
 India," by Lieut.-Col. Welsh ; 1830.
 
 12 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 But first, of woman. I hold most religiously, 
 that the study of woman any where, but particu- 
 larly in India, is the study of philosophy; nor 
 would it be an exaggeration to say, that tran- 
 scendental beauty furnishes more instruction than 
 transcendental philosophy; for beauty is philosophy 
 without the mysticism of Kant or Richter; philoso- 
 phy written in plain and living characters, burnished 
 by the hand of nature herself on bright complexions, 
 inscribed in brilliant faces, and taught by eloquent 
 eyes. In Anglo-Indian society, as in every other, 
 woman is the most important and powerful of the 
 social elements. Married women give the tone not 
 to manners only, but to modes of thinking, in the 
 English circles of India. Single ones have no per- 
 ceptible influence, for they soon get married, and 
 melt into the character of wives and mothers. 
 No such thing as a regular set of unmarried women 
 exists there ; as for a knot of old maids, the 
 forlorn bench of our coteries and ball-rooms, it 
 was never so much as heard of. Judge then of the 
 influence of this very circumstance upon those who 
 move in those circles, and in particular on the 
 female portion of them. A batch of new arrivals 
 are like the hams and cheeses imported by the 
 same vessels; they will not keep till another 
 season. If they do not meet with a suitable match
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 13 
 
 soon after they have lighted on the Indian soil, 
 they must lower their hopes from the delightful 
 dreams of a rapid fortune, shining liveries in Port- 
 land Place, and a mansion and park in Hampshire 
 hopes which a union with a civilian of rank can 
 only realize, to some lieutenant-colonel with a liver 
 perforated like a sieve, or a colon almost brought 
 to a full stop, and a pocket not much replenished 
 by a twenty -five years' 1 service. " If ' twere done, 
 when 'tis done, then ' twere well it were done 
 quickly," says Macbeth. 
 
 But, gracious heaven ! what mistakes people run 
 into, when they talk opprobriously of women 
 going out to the Indian market to be married, and 
 what absurd theories do they construct upon that 
 foolish assumption and ridiculous prejudice ! I 
 maintain that, for conjugal love, conjugal happi- 
 ness, lasting, unbroken, undecaying attachments, 
 for that perfect identity of wishes, of fears, of griefs, 
 of gladnesses, that mutual amalgamation of tastes 
 and sensibilities, which constitutes the highest bliss 
 than can reign in that paradise of the affections 
 that which Horace in two words describes so 
 beautifully to be the beatitude of the sexual union, 
 the irrupta copula, the chain, at once bright as 
 gold and strong as adamant, which clasps two 
 hearts and souls together there is nothing that
 
 14 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 equals an Anglo-Indian marriage. True, the 
 affair is quickly decided, and so much the better ; 
 for both parties are spared all the odious haggling 
 and the intolerable humming and ha-ing which 
 precede the matrimonial engagement in England. 
 An Anglo-Indian marriage is quite a veni, vidi, vici 
 sort of thing. A few glances rapidly interchanged 
 commence and complete the conquest. Before the 
 band has completed five bars of the quadrille, the 
 proposal is made, accepted, and ratified. And 
 what a world of trouble and vexation is saved ! 
 How delightfully is the lover spared (he has enough 
 to employ him at his desk without the superfluous 
 business of a tedious courtship) all those deadening, 
 cold-blooded references to fathers, mothers, brothers, 
 uncles, aunts, through the whole gauntlet of which 
 he has to run in this country for a little bit of 
 matrimony ! Your marriages in India are like 
 the primaeval marriages of Eden. The female, 
 indeed, like her first parent, would not " unsought 
 be won, 11 and it is very seldom, or never, that she 
 makes the first proposal ; but she requires no very 
 fatiguing chase to catch her ; and he who belongs 
 to the corps of eligibles, and is in good circumstances 
 to marry, marries almost sans phrase, and takes 
 possession of a prize gracefully surrendered to his 
 grasp, without the fears and perturbations of the
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 15 
 
 pursuit. I repeat, once more, that this ready- 
 made love spares him a million of those inquietudes, 
 doubts, alarms, jealousies, which torment our lovers 
 at home, " more pangs and fears than wars or 
 women have," where they have to undergo the 
 tedious process of a previous manufacture. 
 
 Thrice and more than thrice happy Anglo-Indian, 
 on whose head the auspicious heavens thus shower 
 rupees and beauty, the smiles of fortune and of 
 woman commingling in due proportions to bless 
 thee ; the smiles of the celestial goddess lending 
 redoubled fascination to those of the earthly one, 
 whom thy arms encircle, their union the truest 
 omen and firmest guarantee of conjugal love and 
 conjugal enjoyment ! It is true, that beauty 
 ceases to blaze from the first moment that it arrives 
 in India ; but it does not on that account " shake 
 its light wings " and fly altogether. It does not 
 shine, indeed, with the heat of a Persian sun, that 
 strikes dead its worshippers. So much the better. 
 Instead of the common-place blushing tint of the 
 European countenance, you take its mild and 
 subdued lustre (no bad exchange), subdued perhaps 
 into almost a vestal paleness; but it is a paleness 
 which, in a woman essentially pretty or beautiful, 
 disfigures no lineament, distorts no feature, oblite- 
 rates no dimple, but brings them all forth into
 
 16 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 stronger relief, and, like the moon of Paradise, 
 " shadowy sets off the face of things; 11 whilst the 
 eyes, the windows from which the soul peeps, 
 rain the same, if not more than the same influence; * 
 discourse the same, if not more touching eloquence ; 
 and are doubly radiant from the extinction of the 
 lesser lights that, in your healthy, English faces, 
 play in rivalry around them. 
 
 Away, then, with this stupid gossip about the 
 mercenary marriages of India the markets, as they 
 are called, where English beauty is bought and sold. 
 I affirm, without hazard of contradiction, that 
 there are more interested and venal marriages 
 celebrated in the space of one day in London, 
 than have taken place in Calcutta, Madras, or 
 Bombay, since those places have been presidencies. 
 If those places are markets, Almack's and the 
 Italian Opera are shambles. How many young 
 ladies, who have reached the marriageable period, 
 Could I name, who, at the very time that they 
 were curling up their noses at Miss S. or Miss W., 
 who had just sailed on their outward-bound 
 voyage to the East, with the undissembled spe- 
 culation of getting husbands, were themselves from 
 morn to night occupied in the hope of entangling 
 
 * ' Bright eyes 
 
 Rain influence and adjudge the prize. Milton.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 17 
 
 some middle-aged baronet, or banker, or wealthy 
 esquire, into a matrimonial promise, and setting 
 in motion their whole train of artillery to carry 
 their point .' And what is the destination of a 
 young girl of fashion in London, from the first 
 flutter of her heart at the sight of a beau ? What 
 is taught her by the counsels of mamma, or the 
 examples of elder sisters ? What are the aims that 
 engross her whole being, all her waking, all her 
 sleeping thoughts ? What is the goal which her 
 young imagination pants to arrive at ? Is it the 
 simple union of the affections the unadulterated 
 choice of the mind, with no dowry, no worldly 
 wealth, but that of love the gratuitous dedication 
 of her whole soul, the unbought devotion of her 
 heart, to one beloved and beloving object ? No ; 
 she has been too well tutored not to discard all 
 this nonsense with contempt, as the idle dream of 
 thoughtlessness and folly. 
 
 The females, sent out to India to try their - 
 chance for an establishment, are for the most part 
 nurtured to the hopes of a competent rather than 
 a splendid union. To this end they are educated, 
 modestly indeed, but sufficiently to qualify them 
 for the duties of wives and mothers. They are 
 taught the art of pleasing by means of those ac- 
 complishments, which are no more than a neces-
 
 18 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 sary part of female education, instead of the fas- 
 cinations which glare and dazzle rather than de- 
 light, and are more fitted for the stare and gaze 
 of public admiration, than for the chaste and sober 
 ornaments of domestic life. Having probably 
 some friendly connexions in India, they arrive 
 there generally under the protection of kind and 
 matronlike residents, with whom they become 
 domiciled, and who, from their experience of the 
 characters and morals of the male society at their 
 respective presidencies, are enabled to give them 
 the most salutary advice as to the important choice 
 on which depends the woe or the weal of their after- 
 lives. What is there mercenary or venal in this ? 
 It is an egregious blunder to imagine that there can 
 be no real affection in these marriages. I never 
 heard that the little god of love could make no use 
 of his wings for being encumbered with rupees, or 
 that his arrows were less efficacious because they 
 were tipped with gold. 
 
 But let those who sneer at English marriages in 
 India, look to the unbroken constancy of the union : 
 I mean in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. Can 
 there be a more conclusive proof that the affections 
 of the young spinsters, so invidiously ridiculed as 
 forming part of the ship's cargo, find there a secure 
 and honourable asylum ? A crim. con., which in
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 19 
 
 London is served up every morning at breakfast to 
 your wives and daughters, is of such rare occur~ 
 rence in India, that all the affairs of that nature, 
 which have broken out in English families from the 
 first moment of our having so much as a factory there' 
 to the present day, when what were once factories 
 have become populous capitals, put together, would 
 not amount to thirty-three, which, to speak with 
 statistical precision, is not so much as half a 
 one per annum. This has the appearance of a 
 problem, inasmuch as the female heart there, as 
 well as at home, is beset with frailties and exposed 
 to temptation. But the solution of it will be found 
 in those exterior circumstances to which I have 
 before adverted, as disciplining and fashioning 
 dispositions and characters. It may, perhaps, 
 diminish the value of the compliment, but it is 
 almost an obvious truth, that in India our wives 
 are better guarded by one little circumstance in 
 their domestic economy, than if they were secluded 
 with Turkish jealousy from every eye, or secured / 
 from contact by ramparts of brass. Conjugal 
 infidelity is next to impracticable ; and what do 
 you think it is which renders it impracticable ? 
 
 In the first place (do not smile, reader), in every 
 house, through every apartment, the doors of which, 
 from the necessity of the climate, are always open,
 
 20 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 there are constantly gliding along, with noise- 
 less and inaudible rtead, a variety of domestics, 
 with various names, and acting in various offices. 
 They are eternally at the elbow of their mistress. 
 If she shakes off Ramasawmy, Vencatah is sure to 
 succeed him. The moment the kansumar leaves 
 the saloon, the kitmugar steals into it. So unheard 
 and unperceived is their foot-fall, that they are like 
 flies with respect to their exits and entrances. He 
 who does not perceive the influence that so per- 
 petual an exposure to observation will have upon 
 the female conduct, must needs have the dullest 
 apprehension in the world. The force of such a 
 restraint is almost incalculable. It acts upon the 
 wife as a supernumerary conscience, and it has all 
 the efficacy of the severest penalties which law could 
 inflict. In truth, your black servants, whose eyes 
 are those of lynxes, and who are endued with a 
 kind of invisible ubiquity, may be relied upon by 
 the most jealous husband as so many walking 
 statutes against adultery. Nor are there in your 
 houses in India any of those snug receptacles of 
 intrigue, those petits boudoirs, which in England 
 are considered by every lady to be inviolable her 
 castellum, her sanctuary, into which none but a 
 few foolishly indulgent wives will permit even their 
 husbands to intrude. The eye may command at
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 21 
 
 once -every apartment of the mansion, which is 
 seldom of more than one story, as distinctly as 
 Don Cleofas inspected the interior of the houses of 
 Madrid which his friend the lame devil had unroofed 
 to his curiosity. Consider, again, I beseech you, 
 the necessary effect of this one circumstance, in the 
 formation as well as the preservation of chaste and 
 guarded habits, and the bridling irregular and 
 licentious passions, by the almost entire impossibi- 
 lity of indulging them, and you will set a proper 
 value on a moral restraint at once so gentle and so 
 effectual. 
 
 Another most invaluable restraint, which keeps 
 down in India this worst of domestic scourges in 
 English society, that pernicious crime which, in 
 our world of fashion, is so often snapping asunder 
 the golden cord of wedded affection is a re- 
 straint of a physical rather than moral kind ; but 
 it operates with equal force on the seducer and 
 the victim. What I mean is, the almost absolute^ 
 impracticability of eloping. There are no post- 
 horses to carry off the erring couple, as it were, on 
 the wings of love, or at least with the degree of 
 velocity which their escape from shame and retri- 
 bution requires. Palanquins are out of the question. 
 As for running away on horseback, it is quite impos- 
 sible. No lady in that torrid climate could endure
 
 %3 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the fatigues incident to a mode of travelling so 
 disconcerting to the female nerves. Every succes- 
 sive bump would be a lecture upon her imprudence ; 
 her misplaced desires would be completely jolted to 
 pieces ; and I question whether the gallant himself, 
 whilst spurring his flagging Arab under a burning 
 sun, would not be inclined to think that he had at 
 least gone far enough, and begin to vote the whole 
 affair to be a bore. Then there are not, as in 
 England, delightful inns, stored with exquisite 
 viands and admirable wines, with smiling landlords 
 and obsequious waiters, where the fugitive pair 
 may halt, to recruit their spirits, and drown in 
 champagne or claret the squeamish and uncomfort- 
 able risings of remorse, that may obtrude upon 
 their felicity. But for these there are, at occasional 
 distances, certain buildings called choultries, 
 facetiously said to have been erected for the comfort 
 of travellers ; desolate, cheerless, uninhabited, 
 echoing to no sounds but the howl of jackals and 
 the hum of musquitoes. In these inhospitable 
 edifices there is nothing to cheer or support you, 
 and a much better chance of your being yourself 
 eaten up, than of finding any thing to eat. Now 
 absolute famine, or even bad fare, is a decisive 
 antidote to love of any kind, lawful or unlawful. 
 Travellers who refresh themselves at these places
 
 ENGLISH SOCIEtY IN INDIA. 23 
 
 are obliged to send on all their culinary preparations 
 before them. In the case of an elopement, these 
 preparations would betray the secrecy and impede , 
 the progress of the expedition. 
 
 Such then are the salutary checks which, in the 
 English society of India, interpose between woman 
 and the thoughtless folly that undermines her fame 
 and her happiness in other countries. The black 
 servants, I repeat, are as vigilant guards over your 
 earthly paradise as if they were " cherubims with 
 flaming swords'" stationed at its gates. The im- 
 pediments to rapid flight soon reconcile the wedded 
 dame to the ills she has, instead of encountering 
 those " she knows not of ;" and it is a most in- 
 valuable law of our nature, that we are not long in 
 learning to endure that from which we cannot fly. 
 Fastidious moralists may cry out that these are 
 equivocal signs of virtue, and degrading motives 
 to abstain from evil. Senseless prate ! If virtue 
 consists in abstinence from vice, no matter how 
 the end is accomplished, it is still virtue. The 
 result of all this is, that handsome wives gradually 
 subside into respectable matrons, that euthanasia 
 of beauty, in which all irregular and unholy affec- 
 tions are buried in the quiet grave of conjugal 
 stillness, and they return to England to spend the 
 autumnal season of their charms with placid and
 
 24 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 subdued desires, that never wander beyond their 
 husbands or their nurseries, except to a little harm- 
 less gossip on the less guarded conduct of their 
 friends, and the pardonable maternal vanity of wit- 
 nessing the triumphs of their daughters in the ball- 
 room or at the piano. 
 
 But there is another circumstance which operates 
 most powerfully as a cement of the matrimonial 
 union in India, which it would be unphilosophical 
 to pass by. Every lady has a direct participation 
 in her husband's advancement, and consequently a 
 tenderer sympathy in his fortunes ; and this has 
 an obvious tendency to strengthen her constancy and 
 invigorate her attachment. For, as he rises step by 
 step in the service, I refer more particularly to the 
 civil branch, he imparts to her that enviable dis- 
 tinction, which in limited spheres of society is the 
 object of the warmest aspirations cherished in the 
 female bosom. How many fair complexions have 
 I seen ruined by unavailing and feverish competi- 
 tions for the splendid plaything the glittering toy, 
 called rank ! How many an interesting dimple 
 has been fretted into a downright wrinkle by the 
 slow corroding pangs of envy, that Mrs. W*** 
 should have a right to walk first, because Mr. 
 W*** has just received an appointment at the 
 Board of Trade ! Hence it is, that having once
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 25 
 
 embarked in, she adheres to, the vessel which not 
 only carries the fortunes of Caesar, but the rank of 
 Caesar's wife, a circumstance of no slight weight in 
 strengthening the links of the matrimonial chain, 
 and identifying by a bland and harmonious assimi- 
 lation the mutual ambition of the parties. It is 
 astonishing what the love of rank will effect in the 
 coteries of Anglo-India. I verily believe, there 
 are some ladies that would rather crawl on their 
 hands and feet, than not be allowed to go first into 
 a room at all. 
 
 Sometimes the love of rank takes a retrograde 
 turn. When a cause was tried in the Supreme 
 Court, respecting the widening of the Marmalong 
 bridge a long series of arches whose needless and 
 wearisome length bestrides the bed of a small river 
 near Madras, but which was so narrow that two 
 carriages accidentally meeting could not pass, I 
 remember a curious Irish attorney, in the broadest 
 of brogues and with a face which had been thrice 
 dipped in Shannon's brazen flood, in order to point 
 out more emphatically the inconvenience of the 
 bridge, was heard to exclaim, " Why, my Lord, it 
 was only yesterday morning, that Mrs. O**** in her 
 carriage met Mrs. D*** in her's, in the very middle 
 of it, and there they stuck for a whole hour, quar- 
 relling for precedence which should go backward. 11 
 VOL. i. c
 
 26 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 But English life in India is a subject that 
 unfolds itself as I advance. I pledge myself in 
 future essays to treat the subject according to 
 the most correct principles of our common nature ; 
 to shew that all that is eccentric or problematic 
 in the character of Anglo-Indian society is to be 
 traced to certain fixed and definite laws ; and 
 endeavour at least to supply a desideratum in the 
 pictures of that society which have lately been 
 given to the world, that has been long felt and 
 long lamented.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 II. 
 
 IN a former article upon this subject, we at- 
 tempted a faint and rapid sketch of two or three 
 interesting lineaments in the female society of the 
 English residents in India ; and amongst these, the 
 constancy of wedded attachments held a conspi- 
 cuous place. Our task would have been but im- 
 perfectly executed, had we neglected to give due 
 emphasis to one of the most honourable among the 
 moral causes which have stamped a bright and dis- 
 tinguishing colour upon the domestic life of our 
 countrywomen in those distant regions. We traced 
 also that splendid peculiarity in the social inter- 
 course of the East to the very singular circumstances 
 by which it was impressed. We have not, how- 
 ever, done with the theme (its fertility is inexhausti- 
 ble) ; for the most potent influences that shape and 
 fashion all the societies of the earth are female in- 
 fluences, and they are incessantly at work to pro- 
 c2
 
 28 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 duce the most striking modifications of character 
 which can interest the student of our common 
 nature in his researches. 
 
 It was observed also, or rather hinted, that in our 
 Anglo-Indian communities, there was no coterie of 
 virginity which had passed the matrimonial Rubi- 
 con. The absence of this moral cause, which at 
 home is in active and hourly operation, is itself a 
 most important peculiarity, and must have a pretty 
 perceptible effect upon the temper, and manners, 
 and feelings of the Anglo-Indians. What a world 
 of acerbities, of bickerings, of satirical reflections, 
 of petty strifes and emulations, is superseded by this 
 single circumstance ! Yet, although no reasoning 
 can be accurate or philosophical without general 
 propositions, all general propositions are limited by 
 sundry exceptions, perhaps not occurring sofre- 
 quently as to destroy the value of the proposition. 
 For, in our English societies in India, are occa- 
 sionally to be seen about half a dozen spinsters, 
 pale as the ghosts on the shores of that fabled 
 stream, whose surly ferry-man has refused to carry 
 them over, and wearing in their complexions the 
 livery of " the hope deferred, that maketh the heart 
 sick: 11 not, indeed, to be called "old maids" without 
 the grossest perversion of language; faded rather 
 than withered ; for those eyes, with their languid
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 29 
 
 and bedimmed brightness, tell us most intelligibly, 
 that they were not long since the lamps of joy, and 
 were intended to be the lamps of love, had not the 
 wayward perverseness of fortune thwarted the kind 
 destinations of nature. It is not that time has yet 
 begun to revel amidst the wrecks of their beauty. 
 No such thing. Not one of them has yet seen her 
 ten lustres ; but the work of Time, in the devas- 
 tations he so much delights in, has been taken 
 off his hands by an artist quite as expert, and in 
 that climate much more expeditious ; by sorrow, 
 not loud but deep, not breathing itself out into 
 friendly ears, nor easing its load by confidential 
 ommunications ; but cherished, silent sorrow, in* 
 dulged in secrecy and solitude, finding no commu- 
 nion but with the midnight gloom, or the pale 
 moonlight shadows, which throw over the earth a 
 congenial sadness. Then arise the images of de- 
 parted years ; the familiar groupes of childhood ; 
 thoughts, feelings, passions, come rushing around 
 their couch, as with the sound of innumerous wings. 
 And to be the subject of scorn to those who have 
 played with better cards scorn, indeed, more in 
 apprehension than reality, for, bad as our nature is, 
 we seldom cast aside our respect for misfortune. 
 Yes, it is misfortune, the disappointment of hopes 
 " too fondly nursed, too rudely crossed,'" 1 and there
 
 30 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 is none incident to humanity which has a better title 
 to commiseration, and would meet with it more, 
 were not these instances in which it is indelicate and 
 cruel to commiserate. It is, however, natural for 
 persons thus self-humbled, to take every smile or 
 whisper for the complacent commentary of selfish- 
 ness and contempt, even where no scornful feeling 
 existed, and where the hearts of those who were 
 thus unjustly suspected were much too pure and 
 generous to triumph for a moment over those whom 
 they had distanced in the race. 
 
 I knew one neglected beauty, for she certainly 
 was beautiful, who felt not her matrimonial disap- 
 pointment, but the destitution to which the circum- 
 stance of not being married had consigned her 
 with peculiar intensity. The nerve was waked in 
 this interesting creature, where " agony is born." 
 Her meditations upon her almost insulated con- 
 dition, in a society to which she was allied by no 
 natural ties beyond those of gratitude for kindness 
 and hospitality, cast as it were the shroud of death 
 over every scene and object ; and she sometimes sate 
 as motionless and insensate in the lighted ball-room, 
 amid the glare of lamps and the revelry of music, 
 as if she had already reached the stillness of that 
 sepulchral abode, where her sorrows not long after- 
 wards found repose. But the error was not her's -
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 31 
 
 alas ! the miseries of that error were her's, and hers 
 exclusively. She had been sent out to take her 
 chance, in common with other accomplished and 
 amiable creatures, of meeting with a respectable 
 husband, and a comfortable establishment ; but it 
 was an injudicious step on the part of those who 
 over-ruled her own instinctive reluctance to the 
 adventure. They had not penetration enough to 
 see a something in her character, her affections, her 
 habitual turn of thought, her high-toned romantic 
 sense of all that is right and dignified, which boded 
 little success to the speculation. 
 
 Poor Isabel W ! No persons gave them- 
 selves the trouble of inquiring whether on this orb, 
 which you hardly seemed to tread, there are not 
 some spirits so refined above every gross and earthly 
 ambition thine, dear girl, was eminently so so 
 dedicated to the love of all that is good or beautiful, 
 whether in nature or in virtue, and so entranced in 
 those mysterious but hallowed musings of the soul 
 in which that love is fed and cherished, as to have 
 as little leisure as aptitude for the day-dreams and 
 speculations, in which the greater part of the sex are 
 immersed from morn to night. Yet such spirits 
 there are rare, indeed, and twinkling like solitary 
 stars on the extreme boundary of the horizon, whose 
 wanderings no eye can follow, or note when they
 
 3 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 go or when they return. Isabel's mind and its 
 peculiar genius were quite overlooked by the people 
 who, with the best intentions in the world, were in 
 the habit of computing human beings in the lump, 
 and classing all alike with natures with which they 
 have neither kindred nor analogy. 
 
 What unhappy mistakes are constantly occurring 
 in this world of ours, for want of a distinctive clas- 
 sification of the minds and temperaments, over whose 
 destinies we usurp an authority which nature refuses 
 to sanction; and this, because we still persist, right 
 or wrong, in classing individuals by wholesale cata- 
 logues ! Never was the mistake more woefully 
 illustrated than in the case of Isabel. Here, 
 was a soul of etherial temper, " finely touched 
 and to fine issues." Yet from the gross misdi- 
 rection of those who should have watched its 
 wanderings, or rather have studied its aspirations, 
 it was rudely transplanted from the quiet spot in 
 which it was embedded, the home of its purest 
 joys, its unpolluted affections, from the dear fami- 
 liar scenes of youth, from the stream or grove or 
 valley, among which it delighted to wander ; from 
 rich landscapes fresh with verdure, and rejoicing 
 with nature in their richest attire, where her eye 
 never failed to trace or create new beauty, as it 
 paused to meditate or admire, transplanted, I say,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 3D 
 
 to the cheerless, and sterile, and parched soil of a 
 burning clime, where nature rather languishes than 
 reposes ; where her beloved melodies of birds, and 
 of cool refreshing breezes, and of gushing brooks, 
 are heard no more ; and there is no walking by the 
 side of fragrant hedgerows, or under the shade of 
 embowering elms. Such a being, endued with sen- 
 sibilities attuned to every noble emotion, ever in 
 extremes, and vibrating with ecstasy, whether of 
 gladness or sorrow, was unfitted for Anglo-Indian 
 society, where no feeling is allowed to exceed its 
 statutable limits, no sympathy to burst the bounds 
 of that conventional complacency of look, thought, 
 manner, and that subdued, disciplined state of 
 feeh'ng, which receives with unfl uttered pulse alike 
 the imparted joy or the revealed sorrow. 
 
 In such a society, by such a mind, how much 
 was to be endured, to which, unfortunately, it had 
 been never trained ! But Isabel, chained in that 
 insipid converse from which there is no flight and 
 especially during that part of an Indian soiree 
 when the ladies leave the table, and indulge them- 
 selves in the habitual topics furnished by the 
 domestic events of the settlement, the suspected 
 flirtation, the reprehended coquetry, and others 
 equally interesting and equally stale from daily 
 recurrence and endless repetition and her fear of
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 imputed pedantry, should she attempt the intro- 
 duction of subjects more familiar to her by thought 
 or reading, felt unutterable torture, and the more 
 acutely as she was constrained to dissemble it. Now 
 and then, indeed, a rebuke of female inanity did 
 escape her ; and it was felt the more acutely be- 
 cause it was expressed, not with bitterness or a con- 
 temptuous sense of superiority, but pointedly and 
 eloquently. The women leagued in a society of 
 sneer and sarcasm against her ; and, without sus- 
 pecting it, she found herself engaged in that war- 
 fare, rt paw foil/ ykwffffuv, that war of tongues, in 
 which no one is invincible. 
 
 Isabel W was the most beautiful and sylph- 
 like female of the lesser order of figure my eyes 
 ever beheld. Her step was graceful beyond any 
 thing I had heretofore witnessed ; it was winged 
 rather than pedestrian ; she seemed to hover about 
 you rather than to stand near you ; and, after 
 half-an-hour's converse with her, such was the celes- 
 tial airiness of her form, and such the silver sound 
 of her voice, which seemed like notes struck from 
 an angel's lyre, and such (probably her personal 
 fascinations should incline me to mistrust my 
 own estimate) such the wisdom that welled forth, 
 pure, bright, and unaffected, from her lips, I always 
 felt as if I had been conversing for that short pe-
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 35 
 
 riod with some vision indulged to us as a specimen 
 from the world of better and happier spirits. Yet 
 all her feelings were feminine; her perceptions of 
 feminine propriety instinctively keen ; and, in one 
 word, it would have been almost a pardonable 
 idolatry to have fallen down and worshipped her, as 
 the living image of virtue. 
 
 What did this avail in the society of Madras ? 
 It is certainly true that she created a considerable 
 sensation (to use an unmeaning, but common phrase) 
 upon her first arrival ; and many of the eligibles 
 flocked around her. The kind friends, with whom 
 she was domiciled, gave her the usual catalogue 
 raisonne of the unmarried members of the civil 
 and military services. As to the latter, except in 
 the case of a few lucrative staff situations, they are 
 universally sneered at. Majors, captains, and lieu- 
 tenant-colonels, are only the sad refuge of despond- 
 ing virgins the straws caught hold of in the last 
 paroxysms of despair. Moreover, the same friendly 
 monitors could enumerate within a few fanams 
 the amount of their respective salaries, and all their 
 brilliant expectancies in the background ; to what 
 Mr. B***, the collector of Tanjore, would proba- 
 bly be appointed, as soon as Mr. W**** of the 
 Revenue Board, who was happily in the last stage 
 of a liver complaint, should make room for him ; or
 
 36 * SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the cholera morbus make a few fortunate inroads 
 upon the Sudder-ul-Dawlet, or Mr. C***, the resi- 
 dent at Hyderabad, fall by the tusks of a wild boar, 
 the only event that could possibly wean him from 
 the dangerous amusement of the boar-hunt either 
 of which auspicious incidents would double or tre- 
 ble Mr. B***'s salary : besides this, the good 
 friend, who was thus pulling up the curtain of fu- 
 turity to her young charge, pointed out to her, and 
 in no very distant perspective, a seat in council for 
 Mr. B***, that ultima Thule of a civilian's ambi- 
 tion. Never did the chapter of human accidents 
 unfold so many delightful promises. To be sure, 
 there was a per-contra creditor to all this ; for Mr. 
 B*** was a very dull and a very cross man, and 
 exceedingly penurious withal, and his servants, in 
 their English jargon, used to call him " a make- 
 afraid man, 11 because he was in the habit of beating 
 them, or pulling off their turbans, when they could 
 not understand his bad Hindostannee. A gentle- 
 man, so peevish and tyrannical, was not indeed ex- 
 actly cut out for the fairest, the gentlest, the kind- 
 est of created beings. Added to this, Mr. B*** 
 was very middling in point either of intellect or 
 acquisitions ; but, instead of being humbled by the 
 consciousness of his inferiority, he was weak enough 
 to think that it would not be discerned by others,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 37 
 
 provided he could assume the bearing and conse- 
 quence of a man whose knowledge was universal. 
 He proposed to Isabel, and was feelingly and kindly 
 refused. 
 
 Good heavens! what, after this, could be thought 
 of Isabel in the coteries of the settlement ! De- 
 luded girl, was it for this that thou wert arrayed 
 by nature with all this prodigality of charms, both 
 of mind and person, and fitted out for India with 
 so much cost to thy friends? Mr. B***'s failure 
 did not discourage other suitors. They came, and 
 were repulsed. Seeing this, the rest of the eligibles 
 kept aloof, and poor Isabel sat through the tedious- 
 ness of the ball-room and the concert quite unmo- 
 lested, unless perchance a straggling aide-de-camp 
 or two, in the course of a saunter through the room, 
 ventured to expend upon her the vapid nothings of 
 his famished intellect. 
 
 Now all this on Isabel's part was error, error 
 fatal at length to her happiness. Oh, that she could 
 have lowered her lofty and towering, but visionary 
 ideas of what a husband ought to be, or what he 
 might be made, down to the concert-pitch of the 
 world as it is ; that she had learned, by being more 
 conversant with mediocrity, to have been more to- 
 lerant towards it ; that, instead of struggling and 
 panting after ideal excellence, she had found out
 
 38 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 that the happiest and best of unions are rather 
 compromises between what we expect and what we 
 find, than the entire fulfilment of what fancy and 
 hope are so wont to dream of ! Then she might 
 have wedded well and respectably, and in the course 
 of things have produced children, and run the ordi- 
 nary round of conjugal happiness, and in the ful- 
 ness of time have returned home, and graced the 
 first societies of England, of which she was in every 
 respect worthy. But she could not listen with 
 feigned attention, scarcely with patience, to com- 
 mon-place remarks propounded with as much gra- 
 vity as if they were philosophical discoveries. She 
 could take no part in the pointless satire, the stale 
 jest, and the prosy narrative, that necessarily con- 
 stitute the essence of Anglo-Indian conversation. 
 Her's were no vulgar endowments. A large ex- 
 panded soul, a cultured mind, that comprehended 
 very considerable stores of acquired knowledge; 
 taste, feeling, a green flourishing memory, pregnant 
 with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and re- 
 flection ; a perpetual stream of fresh ideas, and a 
 voice to give them utterance that fell upon your 
 ear as the genuine music of the heart; with so 
 many gifts and such natural powers, let those who 
 know India, and the English society of India, judge 
 whether they, who disposed of poor Isabel's destiny,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 39 
 
 acted wisely and judiciously. There was a restless 
 pining constantly going on in her mind for the 
 country she had quitted, the dear scenes of her 
 childhood and her youth, and the groupe of happy 
 faces which fancy conjured up to her remembrance. 
 She indulged a great deal too much that silent an- 
 guish, which is felt so acutely when the soul has no 
 affinities, no fellowships, in the crowd of vacant 
 faces that surround it; for ever was she stealing 
 in vision to the vales, hills, woods, streams, of 
 her native place the modest mansion, the home of 
 her modest affections, the seat of her purest joys, 
 and the blue wreath of smoke that curled from its 
 roof, as if to warn her, after her return from a pro- 
 longed walk, of the lateness of the hour, and the 
 sweet affectionate chidings that rebuked her delay. 
 From all this, the world of waters had severed her, 
 perhaps for ever; but the chain which bound her 
 to that spot, though lengthened by distance, was 
 never broken. She felt its force to the last. Thus 
 occupied, she would weep alone, benighted in her 
 soul's gloom, for whole days and nights. 
 
 Soon after her refusal of Mr. B***, her parents 
 had died, and Isabel, through some untoward do- 
 mestic circumstance, was left without one natural 
 protector, save the kind friends with whom she 
 found an asylum in India. And most affectionately
 
 40 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 was it accorded to her; for so powerful are the in- 
 fluences of beauty, goodness, and virtue, virtue, 
 too, enshrined in the fairest of forms, that every 
 one of those selfish, every-day feelings, which are so 
 apt to break out where there is no considerable en- 
 largement or cultivation of the mind, was restrained, 
 and nothing was said, not even by a look, that served 
 to remind her for one moment of her destitution 
 and dependence. Isabel, however, felt them; and 
 her beauty withered, and her smile, though as de- 
 lightful and interesting as ever, was mingled more 
 and more with a languor that betokened inward 
 suffering; and she went the unmeaning round of 
 Anglo-Indian visits, tiffins, balls, assemblies, din- 
 ners, and listened to idle ridicule and empty gossip, 
 and sate at feasts where daily hecatomfcs were of- 
 fered up to vanity and ostentation, 
 
 "joyless all, and unendeared ;" 
 
 but no amusements, scarcely her own insatiable 
 thirst for literature, could fill up the cheerless void 
 which existed in the bosom of one, who was made 
 to love, but who could not love where she found 
 nothing lovely. 
 
 Yet what false interpretations pass amongst the 
 ladies and gentlemen of this world for profound 
 commentaries what gross blunders for sagacious
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 41 
 
 truths ! No person thought it worth while to 
 penetrate into the real causes of the decay of that 
 beauteous frame. The easiest solution, and the 
 most in unison with their own sentiments and habi- 
 tudes of thought, was at hand, and they adopted it. 
 Isabel, they took it for granted, was wasted with 
 disappointment, because no offers were made her, 
 and with regrets for having refused Mr. B***, 
 who, on the very day, perhaps the very hour, of his 
 rejection, had made another offer to another lady, 
 which was accepted, that lady being luckily of a 
 disposition or temperament not liable to be shocked 
 by Mr. B***'s flogging his black servants because 
 they could not comprehend his broken Hindostan- 
 nee ; and being gifted with an understanding that 
 tamely brooked the usurped superiority of that of 
 her husband. Moreover, as if to heighten poor 
 Isabel's disappointment, there was a conspiracy of 
 the accidents of life, and every thing happened to 
 Mr. B*** as had been predicted. The small resi- 
 due of Mr. W****'s liver soon gave way, and 
 made the happy vacancy at the Board of Revenue; 
 the cholera morbus did its duty at the Sudder-ul- 
 Dawlet court, and Mr. B*** had only to wait ano- 
 ther propitious death to arrive at the consummation 
 of his hopes, the seat in council. But they knew 
 her not, nor was it possible they should. She was
 
 42 SOCIETY AND MAN 7 NERS. 
 
 far too high-minded for such vulgar disquietudes, 
 and she had little in common with the minds which 
 they agitate. Her fine frame and generous heart 
 had been overmastered by feelings of another kind; 
 and she was universally deemed a martyr to disap- 
 pointed hopes of marriage, when those hopes were 
 the most abhorrent from her nature. She was fas- 
 cinating and instructive, even whilst she was sink- 
 ing into the grave, and her wonted smile lingered 
 on her face in death. A memorial was rudely 
 sculptured on her grave-stone, at the expense of 
 one who knew her well. It was borrowed from the 
 pathetic epitaph of Shenstone on Maria, and ran 
 thus: 
 
 Vale, vale, Isabella ! 
 Quam melius est tui meminisse, 
 Quain cum reliquis versari ! 
 
 But this is a melancholy theme. Yet, spite of 
 every wish and every effort to change the strain, I 
 find the thing impossible, and the chord being once 
 touched, I must go on. Recollections, "sicklied 
 o'er with the same pale cast," continue to haunt 
 me, strive as much as I will to oppose or divert 
 their current. And thus it must ever be, so long 
 as this orb of sorrow revolves on its axis, that he 
 who unclasps the volume of his life, will start with 
 horror at the sad and painful world of remem-
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 43 
 
 brances he evokes from their graves. Thoughts 
 are awakened, whether of yourself or of others, 
 that, as they rush with hideous yell from the cells 
 of memory, tear and agitate you like furies. 
 
 The English society, into which you are thrown 
 whilst in India, becomes after a few years a gallery 
 of dismal portraits, out of whose histories the tragic 
 muse might weave many a mournful drama of real 
 woe ; and he who can meditate with a heart at ease 
 upon the manifold chronicles registered in his mind, 
 of vanished hopes, of disappointed ambition, of 
 friendships passed away, of early loves buried in 
 sudden clouds, or thrown prostrate by overwhelming 
 storms, and can calmly pick up the links of the 
 broken chain without grief and shuddering, is a 
 being belonging to another nature, with whom we 
 have nothing in common beyond the form and 
 configuration of humanity. Amongst the specific 
 train of causes, however, by which these unhappy 
 results have for the most part been brought about, 
 and which the careful observer of society and man- 
 ners will not fail to have noted down minutely, 
 he cannot overlook, as he unfolds his tablets, the 
 havoc, disorder, and wretchedness, superinduced 
 in Anglo-Indian life over the other ills to which we 
 are heirs, by the mania for ostentatious expense, 
 which is the most fatal epidemic, whether of the
 
 44 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 country or the climate. It pervades all orders and 
 classes, and drives on young and old indiscrimi- 
 nately to their ruin. 
 
 Strange, indeed, it must seem, and it is an anomaly 
 that baffles all set reasoning, that, execrating the 
 climate as everybody does from morning to night, 
 panting beneath the hot fumes of the land-winds, 
 which it would be no poetic exaggeration to term 
 " blasts from hell," punctured from top to toe 
 with the prickly heat, a sensation that teaches you, 
 without any help from the fancy, precisely what 
 you would feel were your body stretched on a bed 
 of upraised pins, awakened in the sultry stillness 
 of the night-watches out of some delightful dream 
 of England and of home by musquitoes buzzing in 
 the ear, or meeting each other by appointment on 
 the tip of the nose, cursing in querulous anguish 
 the dull sameness and unvaried vapidness of exis- 
 tence, compelled every returning eve to take the 
 self-same ride or drive along the self-same road, 
 through the same monotonous vista of trees, to 
 meet for ever the same faces, and reciprocate the 
 same cold and unheartfelt greetings, and when 
 the nightly promenade is concluded, to sit down 
 without appetite to the same bill of fare, of which 
 that of to-day is the exact fac-simile of that of 
 yesterday, the eternal pig with the lime in his
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 45 
 
 mouth, the unfailing mulligatawney, the never 
 ending rice and curry, with the same oft-repeated 
 topics, bad puns, and tasteless reflections ; that, 
 enduring these incommodities, and whilst every 
 one is beating his wings against the bars and wires 
 of his cage, from which, in due course of time, 
 a little worldly prudence would have delivered 
 him ; that, all this while, nearly the whole Anglo- 
 Indian world should be busied in schemes of throw- 
 ing away the means which can alone ferry them 
 back again to the land of their fathers, is, I repeat, 
 a most perplexing paradox. 
 
 But so it is. The climate, it is true, renders 
 many things, which elsewhere would be termed 
 luxuries, absolute necessaries. Horses, carriages, $f 
 servants, unavoidably multitudinous from the end- 
 less divisions and subdivisions of employment, 
 palanquins, garden-houses, all, or some of these, 
 are perhaps requisite to mitigate the inconveniences 
 of a clime which forbids bodily exertion. But it is 
 not merely the indulgences, without which nature 
 would sicken and languish, 
 
 Queis humana sibi doleat natura negatis ; 
 
 it is not in these that European fortunes are en- 
 gulphed and lost. There are other " Serbonian 
 bogs, 11 in which gold mohurs and rupees sink as
 
 46 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 fast, often faster, than they are obtained. There 
 are horse-racings, horse-breedings, horse-trainings, 
 equipages ostentatiously swelled beyond every do- 
 mestic need, carriages gorgeously splendid, postil- 
 lions and even horse-keepers extravagantly liveried, 
 and tables, on which a very few simple condiments 
 would represent all the actual comforts of the whole 
 bazaar, not only crammed with a superfluous heap 
 of provisions, but glittering with a costly shew of 
 plate, gold and silver. 
 
 Add to this, that your capricious and pompous 
 civilian, or your brief-proud lawyer, whose fees 
 in Westminster-hall could not keep his washer- 
 woman in good humour, but which in India have 
 descended upon him in showers, cannot content 
 himself with a mansion of modest proportions. No : 
 he must roam through long suites of elegantly 
 furnished apartments. He erects, therefore, a pa- 
 lace, which, as it rises out of the earth like an 
 exhalation, so it often disappears like an exhalation; 
 for the sun and the monsoons, with their united 
 strength, are rapid artificers of ruin, and these being 
 helped in their work of destruction by the puny 
 industry of their active collaborateur, the white 
 ant, in a few very short years, the master-pieces of 
 domestic architecture crumble to their foundations. 
 Yet to rear these transitory emblems of human
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 47 
 
 pride and human folly, he squanders sums which, 
 on his return to his native land, might have repaired 
 the ancient hall of his ancestors, redeemed the mort- 
 gaged acres, or erected a mansion anew, to illustrate 
 him as the first founder of a name and family. 
 Such are the riddles which vanity is perpetually 
 framing to perplex and humble us. 
 
 The fretfulness for surpassing those among whom 
 we live, is at all times a passion which it requires 
 no little philosophy to subdue ; and perhaps the 
 entire extinction of it would not be desirable, were 
 it possible. It is in its misdirections that it works 
 so much mischief and folly, and becomes the most 
 sordid thing imaginable, and leads to the most sor- 
 did results, especially when it takes the mean, piti- 
 ful turn of vying in pursuits after the veriest trifles 
 and gew-gaws of existence ; and in little societies, 
 like those of our Anglo- Indian settlements, this 
 paltry misdirection of a feeling which would be a 
 noble one in its right course, may in ten cases out 
 of twelve be with tolerable certainty calculated 
 on. In a wider sphere of intercommunion, all this 
 would find wholesome and natural correctives. The 
 influence of better example would incite to worthier 
 competitions, perhaps to literary or philosophical 
 ones; and there is no mind, after it has acquired 
 knowledge, but swells out to the requisite diuien-
 
 48 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 sions of what it contains, and, becoming enlarged 
 and lofty, looks down with disdain upon the puny 
 emulations, in which so many foolish creatures 
 sacrifice fortune, fame, happiness. At our Indian 
 presidencies, moreover, there is scarce an individual 
 of any rank or station, that, like the citizen in the 
 Spectator, who kept a journal of his life, is not of 
 greater consequence in his own thoughts than in 
 the eyes of the world, and therefore imagines that 
 he is watched in all his movements, his exits and 
 entrances, and thus trains himself to a false theatri- 
 cal appearance in society, and walks perpetually on 
 the stilts of the most absurd and despicable of all 
 the prides that infest our nature. 
 
 I believe from my heart that poor R******* 5 
 who in a very few years contrived to spend in mere 
 external shew, not only his own accumulations, but 
 the hoards of others, was infected with no other 
 vice but this. He was a vain, but, in every other 
 respect, a strictly honourable man, kind, humane, 
 generous to excess, passionately fond of horses, and 
 determined not to be surpassed in the stateliness of 
 his mansion, the splendour of his table, and the ex- 
 cellence of his stud. His legitimate emoluments, 
 as Registrar of the Supreme Court, were consider- 
 able, but not adequate to a style of living that put 
 to the blush the establishment of the Governor-
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 49 
 
 General. It is the first step which it is so difficult 
 to retrace. On one side of a given line lay good 
 fame, competence, domestic peace, inward satisfac- 
 tion ; on the other side of it was a tinsel, candle- 
 light happiness, that would not bear a day-light 
 inspection; hosts of acquaintances, who grinned with 
 envy at his hollow magnificence, or watched with 
 delight the progress of his ruin ; a heart cankered 
 with care, and slumbers broken by fear. This line 
 he had passed. As Registrar, he was the official 
 administrator of the property of intestates, and as 
 intestate death is a most common accident in India, 
 large accumulations sometimes remained for years 
 unchecked and unaccounted for in his hands. Had 
 the judges of the court called periodically for his 
 accounts, as they were virtually bound to do, he 
 might at this day have been, if not rich, virtuous 
 and happy. For a long succession of j udges, this 
 duty was neglected ; at length, a chief justice 
 arrived, who was dazzled and astonished at the 
 splendour of his hospitality ; enquiry took place, 
 and R******* was a defaulter to an immense 
 amount. He lived but for opinion, and although 
 it was a contemptible species of opinion that he 
 worshipped, he could not exist without it, and a 
 sudden apoplexy terminated his career. It is a sad 
 story, but it contains volumes of admonition, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 so 
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 III. 
 
 IT is true, your genuine Anglo-Indian has many 
 prejudices, which have necessarily encrusted them- 
 selves over his understanding and feelings during .a 
 long commorancy in India. But, on the other hand, 
 how many prejudices are there from which he is 
 Emancipated; prejudices which, had he remained 
 in England, would have stuck to him for the whole 
 of his natural life, and created around him that 
 dense atmosphere, which chokes the moral and intel- 
 lectual respiration, and condemns a man for ever to 
 the disgrace and degradation of thinking with the 
 multitude upon those subjects on which the multi- 
 tude can hardly be said to think at all ! The rea- 
 son of this is not inexplicable ; it is simply because 
 ho has had the advantage of handling, or rather 
 seeing, what the rest of the world only reads or talks 
 about. Of all our corporeal senses, the eyes are the 
 most faithful interpreters to the understanding;
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 51 
 
 and when he hears people uttering endless absur- 
 dities concerning India and Indian institutions, 
 Avith as much ease and apparently as much at home 
 as if the very objects were palpably before them ; 
 when he finds things taken for granted, and de- 
 claimed upon with zeal and fury, which he knows 
 to be non-existent, or at best to be the mere bubbles 
 of popular declamation he naturally enough shrugs 
 his shoulders, and asks whether they would talk 
 such execrable nonsense, and give themselves so 
 much trouble in laying down moral precepts and 
 prescribing rules and regulations for the inhabitants 
 of a country so removed from the circle of their 
 experience, if they had cast the most transient 
 glance upon that which they are in the habit of 
 reviling, and seen in their genuine forms the usages 
 and practices which are reflected to them, in the 
 most distorted shapes and the falsest colours, through 
 so many media of imperfect observation, of interested 
 testimony, and of blundering zeal. 
 
 " What are they making all this fuss about sut- 
 tees for in England ?" said a sensible old Calcutta 
 civilian, as I was handing him some letters of recom- 
 mendation which I had brought out addressed to 
 him by my friends in this country. Upon the very 
 threshold of my Indian noviciate, to be authori- 
 tatively given to understand, by a person of long 
 
 D2
 
 52 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 experience, of great learning, and of a protracted 
 residence in India one, whom my aunts, cousins, 
 and uncles had extolled to the skies, and urged me 
 to cultivate by every means in my power, and to 
 make him, in short, " my guide, philosopher, and 
 friend,"" to receive so much as a hint from a per- 
 son for whom, during my voyage, I had hoarded 
 up so much veneration and respect as to give him 
 credit for being an oracle of wisdom, and to prepare 
 myself to treasure up the most casual remark that 
 should fall from his lips, as a response of Pythian 
 prudence to hear from such an authority, that a 
 single word was to be said in behalf of the self- 
 immolation of widows, which I had habitually 
 abhorred as the foulest of the deformed family of 
 Hindu superstitions I, too, who had so lately been 
 numbering groan for groan with the most sensible 
 of my maiden aunts, while she bewailed, over her 
 nightly needle- work, that hideous rite of idolatry 
 to be told that the invectives against it, to which in 
 a manner I had been trained and educated, might 
 possibly be, after all, only nonsense, or worse than 
 nonsense threw me, I confess, into a n't of per- 
 plexity, from which I did not soon recover. My kind 
 patron, who had by no means been unobservant of 
 what was passing in my mind, took afterwards an 
 early opportunity of developing what he had only
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 53 
 
 hinted, and of detailing his sentiments on what he 
 called, sarcastically, "the home-legislation"" of India, 
 and on the folly as well as danger of making, upon 
 slight or inadequate grounds, the notions and usages 
 of large portions of mankind, and those civilized 
 portions too, the subjects of such indiscriminate and 
 unsparing vituperation. I must protest, however, 
 against being understood to identify my own feel- 
 ings or opinions with those of my Anglo-Indian 
 friend, when I give the substance, or something like 
 the substance, of what he said ; my purpose being 
 merely, in accordance with the plan on which I first 
 set out, that of shewing in what manner, and in 
 what degree, mind and its opinions are modified by 
 a residence of considerable duration in India. 
 
 " So long,"" he said, " as we are rather clamoured 
 than philosophized into the greater part of our 
 opinions, it will be almost a matter of peril to utter 
 a word in behalf of many things, which, however 
 cried down in the gross, may nevertheless be sus- 
 ceptible of excuse. It is enough that they are in 
 the index expurgatorius of those who profess the 
 morality of the day, which is, you well know, by 
 no means deficient in verbal pretensions to a 
 pure and refined benevolence, and is for the most 
 part careful in selecting those subjects which make 
 no further demand upon its commiseration ; and so
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 prevalent is this cheap and economizing virtue, that 
 no one, unless he is a candidate for the downright 
 abhorrence of half the decent, respectable, well- 
 dressed persons he meets with in society, would 
 venture so much as to whisper or breathe an apology 
 for them. Candid reasoners, indeed, may admii 
 that there is a wide distinction between excuse, 
 which is merely relative, and defence, which proceeds 
 upon some unqualified and absolute principle. 
 But where are you to look for candid reasoners ? 
 Upon the subject of the religious customs of India, 
 there are a hundred second-hand declaimers to one 
 original thinker. It might, indeed, be expected, in 
 an age which is proud of its philosophy and its ex- 
 emption from vulgar prejudice, that understandings 
 capable of liberal and extended views of our com- 
 mon nature, and familiar from the nature of their 
 habitual inquiries with that copious chapter of its 
 errors and obliquities implied in the word 'super- 
 stition, 1 would be aware how many palliations, not 
 merely the spirit of philosophy but of common charity, 
 might suggest for religious practices, however alien 
 from our best feelings, and however discordant with 
 the tone and genius of Christianity, which I allow, 
 and indeed feel, to be the only perfect wisdom that 
 has yet beamed upon mankind. 
 
 " It has always struck me as very remarkable,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 55 
 
 that the most heated enthusiasts who condemn those 
 practices, and in particular that of the suttee, all 
 their knowledge of which is mere hearsay, disavow 
 the expediency or the right of interfering with the 
 religion of India. But the same consistent people, 
 whilst they avow their tolerance towards the whole 
 system of Hindu theology in the gross, yet in their 
 talk about its specific rites and ceremonials, which, 
 though far from being the essence, in fact constitute 
 the greater part, of all the subsisting theologies of 
 mankind when they talk, I say, of specific rites 
 and ceremonials, although part and parcel of the 
 inveterate religion of Hindustan, and entwined with 
 it by a coeval root and simultaneous growth, the 
 very next moment forget the forbearance they still 
 think it politic to profess, and feel no delicacy even 
 in calling for restrictive measures, to suppress them 
 as nuisances and abominations. Such is the marked 
 inconsistency of their mode of speaking of the 
 Hindu religion generally, with their zeal for the 
 compulsory repeal of its vital and not unessential 
 parts. 
 
 " Happily, however, it is only a verbal zeal ; 
 for words are the coin in which our modern 
 philanthropy pays its debts. Verbal denunciations 
 reduced to action would be fatally ominous to the
 
 56 . SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 repose of India, and the stability of our Indian 
 empire ; for they would evince a total departure 
 from every maxim of justice, policy, and reason, on 
 which it has been hitherto administered. I was 
 strangely amused," he continued, with a sardonic 
 expression in his looks, " in seeing, by one of the 
 English papers in the packet you brought me, that 
 a petition signed by one solitary gentleman has 
 been actually presented to Parliament, for an im- 
 mediate penal enactment against the practice of 
 suttee. One individual actually lifting up his voice 
 in the British senate for the abolition of one of the 
 religious usages of a people, removed from the 
 natural sphere of our legislation, not more by 
 physical distance, than the strong discriminations 
 which the wisdom of Providence has impressed on 
 the various families of the earth ; that usage, an 
 integral part of an immense and venerable pile of 
 opinions, or, if you will, errors, which, for a long 
 cycle of years, beyond the reach of all rational 
 chronology, has been wrought inseparably into their 
 moral identity ! But as no practical result has 
 yet happened, or is likely to happen, from the 
 petition, one cannot help smiling to observe how 
 vast a field is open for the overflowings of this 
 worthy creature's benevolence ; how unrestrained
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 57 
 
 his imagination may wander amidst so many soothing 
 dreams of human amelioration, with the whole chart 
 of Brahminical superstitions, all the 
 
 Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum 
 
 of Hindustan, unfolded before him. What a 
 glorious privilege is secured to him by the happy 
 constitution of his country, that permits him to 
 petition by lines of latitude and longitude all over 
 the globe, and to display his benevolence on so 
 large a scale, without the slightest appeal to his 
 pocket, or any expense beyond that of the paper on 
 which he writes his petition ! Happily for India, 
 however, it is a species of philanthropy as noiseless 
 and inaudible as it is cheap and economical. Long 
 may it * lie upon the table,' that limbo of unamended 
 grievances and forgotten wrongs, and expire in the 
 gentle euthanasia of the utter oblivion which, by this 
 time, has in all probability overwhelmed it, along 
 with many other pieces of congenial folly ! 
 
 " Yes, you must allow me again to indulge a 
 smile, " here the sardonic expression of his features 
 began again to display itself, " whilst I figure to 
 myself in fancy the enviable enthusiasm that must 
 have glowed in the breast of this magnanimous 
 lover of his kind. For your English philanthropy,"" 
 he continued, " seems on all occasions to be a mighty
 
 58 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 traveller. It is a charity that neither begins nor 
 ends at home. Make the appeal to its compassion at 
 its own door, it is received with comparative indif- 
 ference. The hungry and wretched before its eyes 
 make but a feeble impression on sympathies whic 
 are not cultivated for home consumption : those sym- 
 pathies, which journey with unwearied steps over 
 distant climes, to snatch the Hindu widow from the 
 blissful illusion of dying by the side of her lord, and 
 living with him for long cycles of ages in the bliss- 
 ful mansions of Paradise ; or to prevent imaginary 
 multitudes from being crushed under the wheels of 
 Juggernaut, a martyrdom they are supposed to 
 seek with the most vehement emulation. Whip me 
 a score of such philanthropists ! Oh ! that it were 
 possible by some moral gauge to measure the real 
 depth of the benevolence that is for ever fermenting 
 in the bosoms of these sensitive individuals, and 
 to ascertain the contemptible proportion between 
 the few drops of pure and genuine milk of human 
 kindness that you would find there, and the exube- 
 rant quantity of that weak, yeasty, counterfeit of 
 it, which passes by its name. Depend on it, 
 they scarcely wish in their hearts for the consum- 
 mation of their pious projects. Destroy the whole 
 superstitions of India, and you would compel their 
 philanthropy to shut up shop for want of a capital 
 to trade with.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 59 
 
 Vixque tenet lachrymas, quia nil lachrymabile cernit, 
 would scarcely be an exaggeration of the pain and 
 disappointment they would undergo. You could 
 not do them a more unwelcome favour. They 
 would sigh in secret for the recall of the abdicated 
 grievance, and feel an aching void at their hearts 
 in the absence of the themes, on which they had 
 been wont to be pathetic, with so scanty a waste 
 of tears, and charitable with so small an expenditure 
 of money. Nor is this last consideration of little 
 weight with your rhetorical distributors of charity. 
 The miser in Moliere liked bonne chere avec peu 
 < argent ; and the cruel rites of the Hindu religion 
 afford matter for a long and benevolent speech, 
 whilst the same display of oratory at the London 
 Tavern, in behalf of our suffering poor, would entail 
 the necessity of coming down handsomely in a 
 public subscription. Then what fine opportunities 
 would be lost of attacking the Court of Directors, 
 who are of course involved in all the guilt of the 
 Hindu idolatries ; a fact so logically proved in a 
 late debate at the India House, when it appeared as 
 clear as day, that they were lending their coun- 
 tenance and support to the obscene worship of 
 Juggernaut, because they laid a tax upon its 
 celebration, almost amounting to the prohibition 
 of it !
 
 60 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 " To speak gravely. Even allowing the zeal 
 which dictates our interference to be the most 
 pure and exalted of its kind, let us not forget,, 
 that political wisdom demands an obeisance to- 
 times and seasons. The discussion of the subject 
 is dangerous. The natives, contemplating the 
 matter through optics peculiar to themselves, and 
 sensitively shrinking from the meditated invasion 
 of their religious customs, will not probably 
 distinguish between the mere proposition of a 
 measure, and its actual adoption. They are too 
 imperfectly schooled in our political constitution, 
 and have been nurtured to maxims of government 
 too dissonant from the genius and frame of ours, 
 to discriminate an act done permissively under the 
 state, from the solemn and authentic act of the 
 state itself. That which is permitted, they will 
 erroneously, but with their habits of thinking, or 
 rather of feeling, naturally infer to be sanctioned, 
 I do not complain of slow attempts at abolishing 
 so sad and melancholy a rite. Let the suttee be 
 prohibited, as it now is, within certain distances of 
 the presidencies. Beyond this, I question whether 
 at present it would be wise to push our interference. 
 Mild remedies have been found to succeed with 
 fanaticisms much more detestable than this. What 
 a world of wisdom did the old senate of Rome
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 61 
 
 bequeath to the knights-errant of the officious 
 philanthropy of the present day, in their memorable 
 decree against the most execrable ceremony which 
 ever assumed the character or dishonoured the 
 name of religion ! * Si quis tale sacrum solenne 
 et necessarium duceret, nee sine relligione et piaculo 
 se id omittere,' &c. &c. &c. The whole may be 
 seen in Livy, and it is one of the best lessons of 
 tolerance that subsists in history." 
 
 My Anglo-Indian friend continued nearly in the 
 following words : " I have before expressed my ab- 
 horrence of this practice. As a Christian man, I feel 
 for all the sorrows of humanity, superinduced by 
 custom or religion upon the necessary and ine- 
 vitable ills which we inherit at our birth. Yet 
 I do not like the disingenuous spirit, in which it 
 has been loaded with unjust exaggerations and 
 clothed in horrors not its own. For this purpose, 
 the victim is usually exhibited, by the wholesale 
 dealers in rhetorical misery, as cut off uniformly 
 in the flower of her youth (I suppose the inhu- 
 manity varies in intensity, as the premium of an 
 insurance-office, according to the increased years of 
 the sufferer), dragged like Iphigenia with tottering 
 steps to her death-bridal, with those lingerings 
 after life so natural to its vernal season, and 
 closing her eyes upon the light of heaven and
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the cheerful scenes of day, with pangs which the 
 greatest master of pathos could alone describe : 
 
 ' la, la, 
 Ao's 
 
 (pttog. * 
 
 But, believe me, these are sufferings to which the 
 Hindu widow is impassive. The choice of death 
 (for the martyrdom is by no means compulsory, 
 as many zealous but ill informed writers have 
 asserted) is one of the purest volition. So far from 
 its being forced upon her by the peremptory order 
 of her religion, one of the most authoritative of 
 the sacred texts declares, that ' a wife, whether she 
 ascends the funeral pile of her husband or survives 
 for his benefit (that is, lives the remainder of 
 her days in performing certain expiatory ceremonies 
 in his behalf), is still a faithful widow.' It has been 
 my fortune to have been, on one or two occasions, 
 the spectator of this afflicting ceremony, and I can 
 myself bear testimony against the vulgar assertion, 
 that the widows on either of these occasions had been 
 overpowered, either by the entreaties of relatives or 
 the persuasion of the Brahmins, into the execution 
 
 * Iphigen. in Aul., a. 2.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. t>3 
 
 of her resolve. On the contrary, the strongest 
 remonstrances of her friends were aided by those 
 of the Brahmins, to call her back to life and its 
 duties. The truth is, the sort of existence, life 
 it can be scarcely called, to which, as a surviving 
 widow, she knows herself to be destined, has nothing 
 in it to render death, in its most appalling form, an 
 image of terror. It is this fearful perspective, which 
 makes her future existence appear to her eyes a 
 long, wearisome, and distasteful series of melancholy 
 duties. This, added to the honourable distinction 
 attached to the martyrdom, operates upon a feeble 
 and enslaved understanding with a strength, that 
 overpowers the instinctive love of life which 
 nature has infused into every bosom, and she 
 dies amidst the most beatific visions of having 
 redeemed her deceased lord from a thousand years 
 of penance, and dwelling with him in the seats of 
 the blessed, till both are absorbed into the bound- 
 less infinity of nature. Amid these visions, she 
 knows no taste of death, or even of suffering. Is 
 it wise, therefore, is it genuine humanity, to be 
 making these incessant appeals to the morbid 
 sensibilities of those, who are remote from the spot, 
 and untinctured with the slightest knowledge of 
 Hindu institutions or Hindu society, and therefore 
 have no opportunity of correcting, by actual ob-
 
 64 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 servation, the errors into which overheated and 
 exaggerated representations of an irremediable evil 
 must of necessity mislead them ? In your future 
 speculations upon the people amongst whom you 
 are now thrown, you will, I trust, avoid the 
 mistake of considering the suttee the worst of 
 religious usages, or as one that calls for the 
 impertinent gossiping interference of those, who 
 talk so much nonsense about it at home. 1 " 
 
 Years have intervened since my kind friend and 
 patron addressed this discourse to me. It has been 
 my good fortune to revive my acquaintance with 
 him in London, and I have lately listened with still 
 more pleasure to his opinions as to what he calls 
 " New India," in other words, the ominous changes 
 that have happened there since his time. " I read 
 in the Bengal papers," he observed, the other day, 
 " of strange doings there. Things are called by 
 new names." I had already, from previous hints 
 which had fallen from him, begun to conjecture the 
 nature of the forebodings that had thrown so dark a 
 cloud over his good-humoured brow, and what were 
 the innovations that had grown up since my friend's 
 departure from India. His prejudices on this 
 subject were inveterate, and lay near his heart. 
 " Our former relations to the natives of India are 
 wholly subverted, 1 ' he observed. " Only consider,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 65 
 
 now, what a vast change, moral and political, is im- 
 plied in the new fashionable slang of the Bengal 
 newspapers ' native gentlemen ! ' Observe here 
 (reading a paragraph from a Bengal John Bull of 
 a recent date) : ' Last Thursday, a grand ball and 
 supper were given by , at his house in 
 
 Chowringhee, at whic ha numerous, elegant, and 
 brilliant assemblage of rank, beauty, and fashion, 
 were present. A number of native gentlemen were 
 present, who appeared to be highly delighted with 
 a scene, which to them must have been new and 
 striking." 
 
 I could scarcely repress a stare of astonishment 
 at this almost microscopic prejudice of an Anglo- 
 Indian of the old school ; but I begged him to be 
 more explicit, when, after a few half-muttered and 
 half-suppressed imprecations against the march of 
 intellect, which, without circumlocution, he recom- 
 mended to the devil, calling it the march of folly 
 and madness, he proceeded in his tirade against what 
 I thought to be quite an innocent, though perhaps 
 an unmeaning, designation. 
 
 " It is not," said he, " that I am in the least 
 wanting in all due and seasonable feelings of respect 
 for the virtues and amiable qualities of our Hindu 
 fellow-subjects. Far from it ; I have systematically 
 and on all occasions condemned every one of those
 
 OD SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 senseless and impertinent molestations of their opi- 
 nions and usages, which have of late been so preva- 
 lent, and have reprobated without mercy the pre- 
 mature and fanatical efforts, from certain quarters, 
 to engraft upon their's a system of theology, to 
 which only in the fulness of time, and in the season 
 of God's high will, they will become reconciled ; 
 for they who have most plagued and pestered them 
 with their restless experiments of conversion, have 
 first in the regular process of their argument, and 
 in order to prepare an adequate basis for their pro- 
 ject, blackened them, after the fashion of the Wards 
 and the Careys, with every pollution of which our 
 nature is susceptible, and attributed to them every 
 vice and atrocity, that makes us hang down our 
 heads in sorrow and shame for our species : and 
 this for the benevolent object of making them little 
 better than nominal Christians. It is my rooted 
 opinion, I say, that in all our intercourses with this 
 highly interesting order of mankind, the harsh re- 
 lations of conquerors and conquered, the strong 
 and the feeble, should be banished, and free, mild, 
 and forgiving communications, in the spirit of gen- 
 tleness and affection, subsist betwixt us. But let 
 us not forget, sir, that there are lines of expediency 
 which circumscribe all the virtues; which place 
 ^imitations even upon the too eager pursuit of right
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 67 
 
 principles. Let us push these principles of social 
 duty towards the Hindus as far as possible ; they 
 should nevertheless stop short of that complete 
 identity and assimilation of national character, 
 which is amongst the most deplorable of modern 
 affectations. Native gentlemen, indeed ! Invited, too, 
 to our evening parties, to teach them to laugh at 
 our follies, to be spectators of our intemperance, to 
 witness our convivial noise and inanity, and, how- 
 ever they may for a while suppress or disguise their 
 contempt, to shrug up their shoulders when they 
 get home, in disgust and pity at the degenerate 
 successors of the Clives, the Cornwallis's, and the 
 Hastings' s, of those who laid the first foundations 
 of our vast dominions in India. On the other hand, 
 they are governed by maxims of much less equivo- 
 cal wisdom. Every European eye is religiously 
 excluded from their domestic privacies, and their 
 social festivities, save on the formal and unmean- 
 ing occasions of a nautch, which is altogether a 
 public out-of-door thing, and does not afford the 
 English observer the slightest glimpse of the Hindu 
 life or character, which, to this day, in spite of all 
 the nonsense that is written and will continue to be 
 written about them, is still a sealed mystery to 
 Englishmen. 
 
 " Let ' the native gentlemen,' in God's name,"
 
 68 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 continued my friend, " when they do come into 
 contact with us, see our character in its more 
 dignified position ; in its official and civil aspects ; 
 administering equal and indifferent law to rich and 
 poor ; framing wise and humane provisions for their 
 protection, dispensing beneficent and healing mea- 
 sures to mitigate their indigence, and to diffuse over 
 the wasted country, which the mysterious ordinances 
 of Heaven have subjected to our domination, the 
 wholesome encouragements of its industry, and the 
 seeds of its public and social happiness. It is thus 
 they are to be taught to revere and admire us. But 
 as to calling them native gentlemen (he said this 
 with a sneer of bitter irony), exposing yourselves 
 to their gaze and their criticism in that attitude, 
 which in their eyes is the most contemptible one in 
 which you can be seen especially in that most 
 senseless occupation of jnmping up and down in a 
 heated room, beneath a climate which overpowers 
 you even in the most quiescent postures, and which 
 you can hardly endure whilst reposing on your 
 couch be convinced, that these intercourses, now 
 so frequent in Calcutta, will lower you most egre- 
 giously in their estimation. Do you know, that 
 they esteem this amusement of ours as one of the 
 worst deformities of our social system ? Dancing, 
 in their opinion, is a degradation, and not the better
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 69 
 
 for being a voluntary degradation. They think that 
 it is a most senseless and idle pastime and the 
 more disgraceful, as it is by their customs exclu- 
 sively confined to the mercenary ministers of plea- 
 sure, the most despised race of outcasts that are to 
 be found in Hindustan. God knows where these 
 innovations will stop. Not, I suppose, till we have 
 lost the country altogether. For, in breaking down 
 the social discriminations, which till lately kept the 
 native community at a certain distance from us, not 
 too great to generate awe, but just wide enough to 
 preserve respect, be assured, we part with no small 
 portion of our ascendancy. You may think this 
 an insignificant circumstance ; but national supe- 
 riorities often reside in matters apparently trifling, 
 as the strength of Sampson lay in his hair. No 
 man can be a hero to his valet de chambre. You 
 understand me." 
 
 Although strongly inclined to dissent from this 
 most unaccountable of Anglo-Indian prejudices, I 
 saw it was of no use to interrupt his invective, which 
 flowed, I well knew, from his sincere and rooted 
 conviction, that India had been turned quite topsy- 
 turvy since he left it. The phrase " native gentle- 
 men,"" I perceived, stuck in his throat nearly to 
 suffocation, and he dwelt with renewed emphasis on 
 its ludicrous inappropriateness. " When we talk
 
 70 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 of an English gentleman," he remarked, " we know 
 what we are saying. A definite set of ideas rise up 
 by a necessary and instantaneous association, to re- 
 present the complex being whom we designate by 
 that term ; but the words ( native gentlemen ' 
 are as much a solecism in language as an absurdity 
 in logic. All the powers of abstraction that the 
 intellect of man ever brought into exercise, would 
 fail of conjuring up such a monster with any sort 
 of accuracy to the imagination. Swift's abstrac- 
 tion of a lord mayor, without his gold chain and 
 furred gown, is a joke to it. 
 
 " Aye aye," he continued, " I know what you 
 are going to reply." In fact, I had remained with 
 my lips closed, and had not given him the slightest 
 intimation of dissent, beyond certain wry faces that 
 I was constrained now and then to make, as a sort 
 of protest against his doctrine. " You are going 
 to tell me, that many natives of the opulent and 
 respectable classes are persons of engaging manners, 
 of habitual mildness in conversation, amiable, pleas- 
 ing, and deferential in society ; postponing them- 
 selves to others ; courteous even to elegance. Yet 
 all this does not amount to the character with which 
 it is the fashion of the times to invest them. ' Na- 
 tive gentlemen,' forsooth ! The Oriental qualities 
 are wholly immiscible with those of the gentleman,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 71 
 
 properly so called. They are necessarily tinged 
 with a sense of subordination, a feeling of subser- 
 viency, between which, and stiff stately arrogance, 
 there is in the native character no intermediate 
 shade or softening." I perceived that my friend 
 was> in the language of Hamlet, considering the 
 matter somewhat " too curiously," and was glad to 
 put an end to the conversation, if that could be 
 called conversation which was sustained by a single 
 prolocutor. 
 
 My Anglo-Indian's prejudice, though carried to 
 a degree of absurd refinement, and involving dis- 
 tinctions almost evanescent, is, however, by no 
 means peculiar to himself; for it tinctures, and 
 that not slightly, the feelings and judgments of the 
 greater part of Indians of that class and standing, 
 with regard to many portentous phenomena now 
 visible at our presidencies, particularly at Calcutta, 
 of which, in their days and to their vision, not the 
 slightest speck was discernible. No doubt, our 
 familiar intercourses with the natives may be car- 
 ried much too far, and too close an inspection of 
 our domestic and social habits may contribute in a 
 great measure to dissipate a certain halo, which 
 ought to encircle our character in their estima- 
 tion, and thus destroy the real superiority which 
 we derive from a morality guarded by the sanctions
 
 72 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 of a purer religion, as well as the more enlightened 
 knowledge, which are the great foundations of 
 our Indian empire. The repulsive maxims of 
 former days, indeed, kept us at too marked a dis- 
 tance ; for among the various moral causes that 
 have so long fettered and enfeebled our efforts to 
 improve the condition of our Indian fellow-sub- 
 jects, must be reckoned the stiffness and pride of 
 our demeanour towards them, as if we deemed 
 them an inferior and degraded race. It were de- 
 sirable, were it possible, to preserve a due mean 
 between these extremes ; not, however, overlooking 
 altogether, as quite visionary, the apprehensions and 
 solicitude of our Anglo-Indian as to too indiscri- 
 minate a commixture, from which neither party 
 would derive increased veneration for the other.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 IV. 
 
 WE noticed in a former article the besetting pre- 
 judices of your genuine Anglo-Indian, respecting 
 what he has taught himself to believe are no less 
 than portentous changes in our relations to the na- 
 tive population. Those prejudices may seem to 
 accord most ungraciously with the spirit of libera- 
 lity which is abroad in our day; but many of them 
 have their origin in correct notions concerning the 
 delicate and complex threads of our eastern policy, 
 which any violent or sudden movement may for ever 
 snap asunder, as well as in those habitudes of think- 
 ing, which European residents, till the new era 
 dawned upon them, were wont to cherish in every 
 former period of the British government in India. 
 For it is pretty obvious, that we have lately been 
 solicitous to remove from the eyes of our native 
 subjects every monument of the real subjection, in 
 which, by the necessities of our own tenure, we 
 
 VOL. T. t
 
 74 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 are compelled to hold them. The subjection is 
 actual and substantial the extraordinary tolerance, 
 stretched so far beyond the utmost limits of our 
 ancient practice, nominal and ideal. Can so un- 
 natural an equilibrium long remain ? These are 
 questions that are for ever obtruding themselves on 
 the reflections of those who have been brought up 
 in the old school of our Oriental policy. 
 
 It may, therefore, easily be imagined with how 
 torturing an impatience our Anglo-Indian friend 
 contemplates the unrestricted comments of the na- 
 tive newspapers, upon matters heretofore considered, 
 in that part of our dominions, sacred from the slight- 
 est breath of animadversion those papers, too, 
 assuming and exercising to the utmost latitude the 
 right of passing strictures upon the administration 
 of the British government, and of criticising the 
 acts of its servants, with a severity of sarcasm and 
 a vehemence of invective, scarcely surpassed by the 
 most liberal of our English journals, in their com- 
 ments upon what is going on at home. Conceive, 
 then, the strange sensations to which the remarks 
 of the Chundrika, the Kaumudy, and other native 
 journals, published without restraint and circu- 
 lating all over India tinged as they necessarily 
 must be with political speculations, of a character 
 formerly deemed to be much below the tone and
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 75 
 
 temperament of Asiatic feeling, must have awakened 
 in the mind of my worthy friend, who for some 
 time past has felt a morbid sensitiveness on the 
 subject of Indian innovation. 
 
 Being an indefatigable reader of the Bengal 
 newspapers, extracts from these extraordinary pub- 
 lications are continually meeting his eye, and they 
 seem occasionally to conjure up tempests of thought 
 within him. Some allowance, indeed, ought to 
 be made for the strength of his feelings, and the 
 gloominess of his anticipations, upon a subject 
 which appears to give uneasiness to no one else; 
 for he proceeded to India not many years after our 
 acquisition of the Dewanny, and resided there nearly 
 forty years; during that large portion of human 
 existence, filling in succession many high and ho- 
 nourable posts in the civil service, and therefore, 
 with a pardonable complacency, deeming himself a 
 kind of Nestor upon almost every topic of Eastern 
 politics. Often, at the same time chuckling with 
 the pleasing recollections of his early career, has 
 he told me how encouragingly Clive patted him en 
 the shoulder, what courtesies he received from Mr. 
 Hastings, and how hospitably he has been enter- 
 tained at Mr. Barwell's house, the first villa that \va? 
 as yet built at Garden-Reach. In short, he might 
 be said to belong to ancient more than modern
 
 76 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 India. His mind and all its ideas had, of course, 
 been drilled in the discipline of those austerer times, 
 when no such phrases existed in the Anglo-Indian 
 vocabulary, as native gentlemen or native news- 
 papers: combinations of sounds from which he al- 
 ways started with perturbation and affright. 
 
 And here I observe, that, in speaking of native 
 newspapers, I must be understood to refer only to 
 native printed newspapers, in their present form, 
 and conducted on their present strange and irre- 
 sponsible maxims; for manuscript instruments of 
 communication between different parts of Hindu- 
 stan, though uniformly confined to topics of mere 
 local interest, such as the proceedings at assemblies 
 of castes, marriage and funeral ceremonies, nautches, 
 consecration of idols, in one word, what we call in 
 England by that expressive phrase parish-business, 
 have certainly time out of mind existed in India. 
 My readers will then be enabled to judge of the 
 alarm and horror of the Anglo-Indian, when every 
 arrival brings him copious extracts from these 
 journals, in which whole columns are devoted to 
 the discussion of the plans, counsels, even the em- 
 bryo resolves, of the civil government, whilst the 
 minutest subjects of domestic history pertaining to 
 the European residents undergo the alembic (some- 
 times tolerably hot) of satire, sarcasm, and decla-
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 77 
 
 mation, and public and private transactions are ex- 
 posed to the test of a sharp and microscopic inves- 
 tigation. 
 
 I found him the other morning, at our club-house, 
 in St. James's Street, sitting darkling and melancholy 
 in the corner near the window, which he usually 
 occupies, and which by general courtesy has been 
 long conceded to him. From the direction in which 
 his eyes were fixedly gazing, a stranger might have 
 imagined that he was amusing himself with the 
 ceaseless succession of glittering equipages that were 
 rolling along the street. No such thing. The 
 Indian journals had arrived that very day, and they 
 had awakened in his mind the same train of reflec- 
 tions to which I have referred already. " I told 
 you,"" said he, somewhat more emphatically than 
 usual, " what your native newspapers would do, as 
 soon as they touched upon some real and substan- 
 tial grievance; and they have found one with a ven- 
 geance. The Chundrika has lighted upon the 
 foulest and most ulcerous spot in the whole system 
 of our civil administration. The rogue has pene- 
 trated into the abuses of the Supreme Court with a 
 perspicacity quite astonishing, considering how un- 
 intelligible the forms and jargon of English law 
 and lawyers must be to any native, however shrewd 
 and intelligent, and dilated upon them with great
 
 78 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 force and feeling. Yet, powerful as it is, I am 
 sorry to say, that his delineation falls infinitely 
 short of this enormous engine of oppression. Sir, 
 it deals out sorrow and wretchedness, instead of law 
 or justice." 
 
 My friend was a great quoter of Milton, and, 
 whilst he assured me that it was a tribunal that 
 plundered widows, orphans, and children, without 
 mercy, he ejaculated, as if to make his tirade the 
 more impressive, that vehement declamation of the 
 poet on the abuses of the Romish church, 
 
 Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
 Daily devours apace, and nothing said, 
 But that two-handed engine at the door 
 Stands ready to smite once and smite no more. 
 
 " For it does its work," he continued, " quite clean. 
 It picks its suitors to the bone. The law, whether 
 Hindu, Mahommedan, or English, as it is adminis- 
 tered in this court, is nothing better than the Upas 
 tree; nay, it is more baleful than the imagined one. 
 Sir, I foresaw" (my friend, in common with other 
 persons endued with a large and varied experience, 
 took some credit for predicting mischiefs long after 
 they existed), " I foresaw all this from the first. 
 Why, there never was a worse job than the charter, 
 which first inflicted it upon Calcutta; and I was 
 always grieved that Lord North, who in the main
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 79 
 
 was a well-intentioned and upright statesman} 
 should have condescended to it. But it is no easy 
 matter to withstand the lure of patronage. In 1783, 
 with a large majority of the inhabitants, native and 
 European, I petitioned against it ; although the 
 evil that it worked then was comparatively small, 
 for the settlement did not stretch far beyond the 
 Mahratta ditch, and its whole population was not 
 a fourth of its present amount. What do you 
 think ? The satirical dog (holding out the para- 
 graph to me) has actually inserted the death of a 
 person who had been a party to a suit in that court 
 in his weekly obituary. ' Died last week, of a suc- 
 cessful suit in the Supreme Court of Judicature, 
 Ram Chund Roy. After years of litigation, in the 
 case of a disputed will, he recovered, by a decree 
 of the court, half a lac of rupees ; and, after defray- 
 ing the expenses of the lawyers, the residue, which 
 amounted only to 100 rupees, was paid into his 
 hands. He died of grief.' 
 
 " These native papers," my friend went on, 
 " may hereafter loosen some of the fundamental 
 holdings of our empire, if they have cases of this 
 enormity to work upon. Thank heaven, however, 
 in every other respect, our rule is essentially a 
 blessing, and at present they seem convinced of its 
 beneficence. But to return to the Supreme Court,
 
 80 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 here is another native journal, in which the evil is 
 delineated in colours still stronger, and with a com- 
 ment still more pointed. * The Supreme Court, 
 says the editor, ' has been established upwards of 
 fifty-six years. During that long period, it has dif- 
 fused poverty and want over our large city, and the 
 majority, even of those who have succeeded in their 
 suits, have been irretrievably ruined. That ruin 
 results from the heavy costs incident to the cause in 
 every stage of its progress. Moreover, the moral 
 mischief exceeds infinitely the evil of mere loss of 
 property. Those, who have once -become parties 
 to a suit, find time for no other occupation. All 
 the operations of industry stop, and the wealth al- 
 ready acquired, instead of swelling by new aug- 
 mentations, melts away, and leaves whole families 
 desolate and famished.* 1 He concludes his remarks 
 (they leave stings behind them that ought to 
 pierce much more than skin-deep all those who have 
 any influence over the British policy of India), with 
 the most appalling illustration of them ; and citing 
 the case of one Baboo Nama Churn Mullik, who 
 was considered, he says, the first man in Calcutta 
 for wealth and wisdom.* It is shortly, said my 
 friend, this: 
 
 " Baboo Nama, besides being an opulent mer- 
 * Asiat. Journ., N. S. vol. iii. p. 187.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IX INDIA. 81 
 
 chant, was well acquainted with the practice of the 
 Supreme Court, and lived much in the society of 
 the pundits ; and if any man was competent to a 
 legal disposition of his property, it was Baboo 
 Nama. He devised by will, with the exception of 
 certain sums dedicated to the performance of cer- 
 tain religious acts, the whole of his estate to his 
 eight sons, two of whom he constituted his execu- 
 tors, to superintend those religious acts, and to see 
 that they were duly performed. This will was dis- 
 puted in the Supreme Court by six of the brothers, 
 who filed a bill against the two executors, contend- 
 ing that they had expended too much money on the 
 ceremonies. At length, a decree was made, con- 
 firming all the provisions of the will ; and you will 
 immediately jump into the natural inference, that 
 all further litigation would cease. Be not, I be- 
 seech you, so hasty. The suit of the Mulliks was 
 delayed after this decree for many years in the 
 Master's office. They, who are acquainted with the 
 machinery of that office, must know that this officer 
 is in fact the real judge in the cause ; for it is on 
 his decisions mainly that the fate of the suitors 
 hangs. If he is indolent or dilatory, every move- 
 ment of the cause is suspended ; and it happens, 
 unluckily, that his profits do not depend on the 
 speed of his progress. After the decree, the master 
 
 E3
 
 8 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 had been ordered to send in his report without de- 
 lay. But the six brothers, who disputed the sums 
 laid out by the two executors, excepted to his re- 
 port, but, after a long examination of witnesses, the 
 same master reported against the executors. The 
 two filed their exceptions, which were heard; the 
 report was rejected, and the court ordered, that if 
 proof could be given of the sums expended, they 
 should be allowed. The disbursement of every 
 rupee was actually proved before the master, but 
 he clipped the whole down to a trifling amount. 
 Exceptions were again made and heard, but the re- 
 port was confirmed, although every pice of the 
 sums disbursed had been proved pursuant to the 
 directions of the court ! ! ! Both parties appealed 
 to England ; but the documents and papers on one 
 side did not arrive there. 
 
 " The native editor states some further proceed- 
 ings which were had in the Supreme Court, and 
 then exposes the delay and expense of the suit : 
 facts that are worth volumes of declamation and 
 invective against this abominable system of legal 
 depredation. This suit of the Mulliks, he says, 
 has been TWENTY-THREE YEARS in the court, and 
 is not yet settled. The expenses cannot have 
 been less than eighteen or nineteen lacs of rupees 
 (=238,000) ! !
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. O3 
 
 " And now, 1 ' said the Anglo-Indian (looking 
 earnestly at me), " what think you is the conclud- 
 ing comment of the editor upon this atrocious 
 case?" Here I observed, that of course it was 
 virulent and angry. " Virulent and angry,' 1 said 
 he: "is that all? Could you expect any thing 
 short of the utterance of the deepest indignation 
 that can heave the bosom of man ; the tempestuous 
 agitations of the soul under the acutest sense of in- 
 sulted nature and violated right ?" " Certainly, 11 
 I replied. " It is a most aggravated case of legal 
 injustice. 11 " Why then, 11 said my friend, " unfor- 
 tunately, all that he permits himself to say is con- 
 tained in this question ' what advantage is there 
 in all this? 1 " " Unfortunately I 11 I returned, " I 
 am glad to observe so cool and measured an ani- 
 madversion, 11 " Do not, I beseech you, 11 said he, 
 " judge so lightly from appearances. From the 
 very coolness and temperance of the remonstrance, 
 I draw a most fearful omen. The heart is over- 
 loaded, though it vents not itself in idle bewailings; 
 but the grievance rankles the deeper. Be assured, 
 that it is placed to account ; it forms an item in the 
 aggregate mass of suffering, which, if the system is 
 permitted to continue, may be too much even for 
 the proverbial endurance of those on whom we in- 
 flict it.
 
 84 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 " Whatever they may deem concerning our other 
 institutions," continued my friend, " here is this 
 branch of them, the most important of all, as it 
 concerns our lives, our property, and the whole of 
 our civil and social existence, which is perpetually 
 at work in grinding down the wealth or compe- 
 tency of those who seek its relief; nominally 
 erected for the dispensation of justice, but in 
 reality dispensing injustice of the worst descrip- 
 tion : for even the rights which it pretends to 
 establish become wrongs, when the decision is ob- 
 tained at a cost so tremendous. Now, this is no 
 ideal evil. They see around them the wretched 
 monuments of that injustice. They cannot walk 
 along the streets without meeting the impoverished 
 victims of the master's office. Is it weak or vi- 
 sionary, then, to apprehend the natural transference 
 of these feelings to the whole system of our ascen- 
 dancy, how mildly and beneficently soever it has 
 been hitherto exercised ? In vain will you tell 
 them, that the odious judicature under which they 
 have groaned so long, is an excrescence quite 
 foreign from the spirit, and at variance with the 
 ends, of our administration. The question will 
 immediately prompt itself why then is it still 
 suffered to continue ? And how operose a busi- 
 ness would it be to explain to those who reason
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 85 
 
 from what they feel (a logic which it is always 
 difficult to refute), that the court was erected by 
 an authority superior to, and distinct from, that 
 which they have been accustomed exclusively to 
 recognise ; that the Company (the only organ of 
 sovereignty which exists in the contemplation of 
 the native) have not the power either to remove 
 or modify the nuisance ? A native reasoner, I say, 
 can hardly be expected to make these discrimina- 
 tions, as to the origin of the grievance, or the 
 causes of its duration. He feels the mischief; he 
 has clearly demonstrated it; but he finds himself 
 fast within the horns of a dilemma, from which he 
 cannot extricate himself. Either the court is a part 
 of the British government of India, or not. If 
 extrinsic to it, why permit it to exist, to impoverish 
 and ruin us, seeing that it stands in hideous con- 
 trast to the general wisdom and equity of your 
 government. If a part of that government, it is a 
 deformity, which you yourselves ought to be 
 ashamed of, or at least endeavour to rectify into a 
 becoming harmony and proportion with the rest of 
 your institutions : and, rely on it, it is the Company 
 that reaps all the disgrace of it." 
 
 Although the prejudices of my excellent friend 
 against the Supreme Court were of long standing, 
 and perhaps not a little strengthened by the una-
 
 86 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 voidable jealousy of the civil service to an establish- 
 ment in which immense fortunes are made in a few 
 years, and the members of which are embarking 
 homewards with overflowing pockets, long before 
 the civilian has become so much as a senior mer- 
 chant ; and although I began to be convinced that 
 he was carrying them to an undue extreme, when he 
 could speak in commendation of the old Mayor's 
 court, which it superseded; I could not forbear 
 acquiescing in the general justice of his decla- 
 mation. 
 
 But as I thought he had diverged from the sub- 
 ject of the native newspapers, I could not help 
 reminding him of the point from which he had set 
 out. " I am not at all inconsistent," said he. 
 " The Supreme Court, and its evils, form an essen- 
 tial part of my reasoning on that very subject ; for 
 it is quite obvious that nothing is to be appre- 
 hended from the animadversions of these journals, 
 although circulated from the snowy mountains to 
 Cape Comorin, unless we find substantial pro- 
 vender for their discontent. It is probable also, 
 that if the history of this suit, with all the com- 
 mentaries that indignation, or scorn, or compassion 
 might suggest, had appeared in any of the English 
 journals at Calcutta, either the Government, at the 
 instance of the Supreme Court, or the Supreme
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 87 
 
 Court by its own authority, which it is not over- 
 scrupulous in exercising, would have visited the 
 editor with marked displeasure. But a similar in- 
 terference with a native journal would come with 
 the worst grace imaginable, and, in all probability, 
 have the worst effect ; and how absurd is it to pro- 
 hibit to an English journal what you are obliged to 
 permit to a native one ! " I could not refrain from 
 observing, that fortunately, the Supreme Court did 
 not extend over the native population beyond the 
 limits of the Presidency. 
 
 " True,' 1 said he, " it is limited both for good 
 and evil to the jurisdiction of Calcutta; but con- 
 sider how large a portion of the wealth and intelli- 
 gence of Bengal that jurisdiction embraces; and 
 even in respect of population, it is equal to many 
 European sovereignties. Such, however, is the 
 ubiquity of a printed journal, that the grievance 
 inflicted at Calcutta vibrates to Benares, in the ruin 
 and destitution perhaps of some member of a large 
 family, or some partner of a mercantile concern, 
 whose names are familiar in every part of India. 
 The original discontent is thus propagated over 
 Hindustan, and the confidence of a whole empire 
 may be shaken in a government by which they 
 may, erroneously indeed, but not unnaturally, sup- 
 pose the obnoxious system to be upheld and che-
 
 88 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 rished. Yet I perceive that, with regard to ex- 
 pense" (he seemed half-pleased as he made the 
 observation), " the Supreme Court inflicts its 
 justice with the same impartial measure upon its 
 European as on its native suitors." 
 
 Here he pointed out a report, in the Calcutta 
 John Bull, of the proceedings for a libel, instituted 
 by Dr. Bryce against the proprietors of a Bengal 
 journal. Nothing could have come more oppor- 
 tunely to the confirmation of his prejudices on this 
 subject (if they deserve to be called prejudices), 
 nothing more calculated to excite an additional 
 quantity of his honest bile against the machinery 
 of that tribunal. It was simply this : an action 
 had been brought by this gentleman (a clergyman) 
 for damages as a compensation for the injury he 
 had sustained from that libel. He obtained a ver- 
 dict of 800 rupees damages. Such, however, and 
 so operose, were the proceedings, such the pleas, 
 the demurrers, the subsequent taxation of costs by 
 the master, that the final decision of the court, 
 which had awarded him those damages, inflicted 
 upon him, the successful plaintiff, an amount of 
 costs considerably outweighing the compensation 
 that had been awarded him. 
 
 " Here," said my friend, as he put the report 
 into my hands : " cast your eyes over the opinions
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. OV 
 
 of the judges. The very hair of a lawyer, trained 
 to the practice of Westminster Hall, would stand 
 on end for the rest of his natural life after he had 
 read them. It is an inexplicable enigma what it 
 was they intended to say, and no CEdipus can re- 
 solve it. What they said borders on the extreme 
 point of absurdity. It seems that one of the counsel 
 was so forcibly struck with the incoherence and in- 
 consistency of the Chief Justice, as to have thus 
 expressed himself, in reply to one of his lordship's 
 opinions : " My lord, on the 16th November 1829, 
 your lordship said very differently. 11 To this the 
 Chief Justice replied, " I will not allow counsel to 
 bring forward from newspapers, or from his own 
 notes, statements that differ from what is in the re- 
 collection of the judge, and which do not appear in 
 his notes. 11 It is pretty clear, therefore, that on 
 these terms he can never be convicted either of 
 being inconsistent or absurd : for the incon- 
 sistency and absurdity must appear from his own 
 notes ! 
 
 " These enormous expenses, it is said, arose from 
 a number of pleas pleaded by the defendant. That 
 is no excuse, for the court ought to have struck 
 them off the record. Well : to these pleas there 
 were demurrers. The question of costs, however, 
 was referred to the master, who thought the easiest
 
 90 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 mode of solving the difficulty, was to transfer the 
 items from the defendant's bill of costs to the plain- 
 tiff's. The reference itself was irregular as well as 
 oppressive ; the question ought to have been decided 
 by the court. The costs of the reference, a thing 
 never heard of after a nisi prius verdict, came out 
 of the successful plaintiff's pocket, and those costs 
 amounted to 10,000 rupees, when the damages re- 
 covered were only 800. Not to dilate superfluously 
 on this singular procedure, he, the victorious plain, 
 tiff, the recompensed plaintiff, had to pay in sterling 
 money ^638 more than the defeated unsuccessful 
 defendant. Most insane wert thou, O Reverend 
 Dr. Bryce," exclaimed the Anglo-Indian, " not to 
 have submitted in silence to the wounds inflicted on 
 thy character. Thou mightest then have escaped 
 the Master's office that Serbonian bog, where so 
 many suitors have sunk that gulf of rupees and 
 gold mohurs, from which the unhappy litigant 
 is day after day bandied to the court, and again 
 from the court to the master's office, ' dragging,' 
 if I may so profane the words of the poet, ' at 
 each remove a lengthening chain ' of expense and 
 vexation." 
 
 He continued : " Yes ; I have for years watched 
 this Supreme Court, from its first establishment in 
 1781 to the day of my departure from India, and I
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 91 
 
 have traced the original sin that has entailed all this 
 world of woe upon those who in an evil hour are in- 
 duced to have recourse to it. The charter by which 
 it sat was unhappily so framed, as to erect a judica- 
 ture, especially on its equitable side, which should 
 be as precise a fac-simile of the English courts, with 
 all their technical complexities, as possible. Even 
 then, the vices of the English Court of Chancery 
 were of an adult growth, and they were transplanted 
 in all their vigour and luxuriance to Calcutta. The 
 table of costs was framed on the principle and prac- 
 tice of Westminster Hall, but in a tenfold propor- 
 tion of expense. Hence bills, answers, exceptions, 
 paper-books, the master's office, the examiner's 
 office, enormous fees to counsel, an almost indefinite 
 licence of plunder to the attornies, and the vast 
 swarm of minor evils, which disturb the fountains 
 of equity. This I consider the master-vice of the 
 system the introduction of the artificial rules of 
 English law, and of the numberless fictions of that 
 law, with all its disgusting verbosity, and the whole 
 mass of its abuses, which, with us, has been the 
 growth of ages, and are attributable, in a great 
 measure, to the efforts made, from time to time, to 
 force into a reluctant amalgamation the usages and 
 maxims of rude periods with the modes of thinking 
 that belong to more improved ones. For what can
 
 y SOCIETY AND MAKXEItS. 
 
 equal the absurdity of introducing that obsolete 
 worm-eaten practice in to a new judicature, intended 
 for a people who had never before heard the barba- 
 rous gabble of pleas, demurrers, replications, re- 
 joinders, and rebutters, and who required only that 
 cheap and prompt justice, which does not convert, 
 like the Supreme Court, its suitors into its victims. 
 However, when it was once determined to send out 
 English law, English lawyers of course followed 
 with it : and the pure streams of justice have thus 
 been converted into a putrid ditch, in which alli- 
 gators of the most voracious kind knot and 
 engender." 
 
 Here I appealed to the candour of my Indian 
 Mentor, and hoped to moderate the over-heated 
 temperament of his strictures, by reminding him of 
 the English judges who had, from time to time, 
 adorned the Calcutta bench ; but I found that I 
 had again touched the wrong chord. " I am not 
 disposed," he answered, " to join in your panegyric 
 (generally speaking) of the men who have been se- 
 lected for judges in India. Now and then, indeed, 
 but longo intervallo, men of great accomplishments, 
 and strongly disposed to resist the abuses and di- 
 minish the expenses of the court, have appeared 
 there. But the rest I allow of course large and 
 liberal exceptions the rest, who have they been ?
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 93 
 
 Men for the most part trained to the narrow tech- 
 nicalities of the special pleader's desk, but prover- 
 bially ignorant both of the Hindu and the Mahom- 
 medan law, which they were sent out to administer, 
 and therefore obliged to lean on the mercenary dicta 
 of the court pundits, through the medium of a lan- 
 guage, in which, with the brilliant exception of Sir 
 William Jones, they were all equally uninstructed. 
 Speaking, however, generally, they have been legal 
 monks, who had never peeped at mankind but 
 through the murky windows of their chambers in the 
 Temple; or, on the other hand, men of indolent, gen- 
 tlemanly habits, who took every thing very quietly, 
 and thought the Supreme Court went on very well, 
 so long as they could enjoy the guttural music of 
 their hookahs, or play their rubber for gold mohurs 
 in the evening." 
 
 I was unwilling to interrupt my worthy friend's 
 diatribe, yet I thought that he overlooked some 
 very distinguished exceptions. " No doubt," he 
 replied, as if he saw what I was objecting to, 
 " many of them were well-intentioned men, but 
 either unwilling or unable to stem the torrent of 
 its abuses, but in private life they were seldom gen- 
 tlemen, and but little respected. 
 
 " Sir William Jones, indeed, Sir William Cham- 
 bers, and, at a later period, Sir John Royds, were per-
 
 94 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 feet English gentlemen, and universally beloved; and 
 in the time of the former judge (Sir William Jones), 
 the attornies and officers of the court were satisfied 
 with a more moderate table of fees than have since 
 sprung up ; but Sir William lamented with great 
 feeling the enormous expense incurred by the suitors, 
 and its diminution was one of the amiable projects 
 which were intercepted by his untimely death. I 
 lived with him on terms of friendship. He was a 
 good lawyer, but on a comprehensive scale ; con- 
 versant only with the subtleties of law as far as 
 they were auxiliary to a correct administration of 
 justice, but despising them when they were employed 
 to delay or defeat it. He had educated himself to 
 his judicial duty by making himself familiar with 
 the codes of civilized nations, and especially with 
 civil law, the great fountain of European jurispru- 
 dence ; nor was he unread in the sound constitu- 
 tional law of his own country. He was, therefore, 
 enabled to ascend to those principles of natural 
 justice, which are anterior to all municipal law, and 
 are always the safest interpreters when municipal 
 law is silent or perplexed. It was through this 
 course of study, that he had taught himself to dis- 
 cern the true genius and spirit of the Hindu law, 
 which, rightly interpreted, he considered to abound 
 in maxims of the most enlightened equity. Under
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 95 
 
 this conviction, he mastered the Sanscrit, and trans- 
 lated the laws of Menu into his own tongue ; a work 
 of unspeakable advantage to India. 
 
 " Of social life, he was the delight and the pride, 
 though he had a few ridiculous eccentricities, which 
 contributed sometimes to the good-natured amuse- 
 ment of the settlement. Among these was his 
 ambition to be considered a remarkably fine dan- 
 cer; and he thought it not inconsistent with his 
 judicial dignity to figure now and then at a ball ; 
 on which occasions, he never failed telling his 
 partner, that in his younger days he had been a 
 favourite pupil of Gallini's, who, at that time, was 
 esteemed the best teacher of that accomplishment in 
 Europe. 
 
 " But with regard to many other judges (for 
 their succession has been very rapid), the less," said 
 my Anglo-Indian ; " that is said of them the better. 
 They are quite forgotten, and their memories are 
 not worth reviving. You well know, however, how 
 soon after the establishment of their court they ex- 
 hibited those unseemly graspings after an extension 
 of jurisdiction, which brought on so many conflicts 
 with the government of Mr. Hastings, and heaped 
 upon the head of that excellent man and upright 
 statesman so much unmerited obloquy and perse- 
 cution. Those who followed were not much better
 
 96 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Their knowledge of law was chiefly confined to 
 English books of practice, and the evils of pro- 
 tracted delay and immense expense, under their 
 hands, almost amounted, as it does at present, to a 
 denial of justice. 
 
 " It is, however, only due to the name of Sir John 
 Anstruther to say, though he was by no means a 
 great lawyer, * in the Westminster-Hall meaning of 
 the phrase, and was rude and insolent in his bearing 
 towards the bar and the attornies, that he felt 
 strongly the abuses of the court, and did all he 
 could to restrain them. He was, however, but ill 
 seconded by his coadjutors. 
 
 " Sir John Royds, who sat on the bench with him, 
 and was a complete gentleman of the old school, 
 had some weakness of character, which made him 
 shrink back even from a duty, when it was of an 
 invidious nature, and his other colleague was the 
 mere special pleader the auceps formularum can- 
 tor, who thought only of pleas, demurrers, and 
 saving money: in this last respect, exhibiting a 
 striking contrast to both the others, who were hos- 
 
 * The current epigram of Westminster Hall upon Sir John, 
 shews at least in how little estimation he was held by his pro- 
 fession : 
 
 Why is Anstruther Necessity's brother? 
 Necessity has no law, no more has Anstruther.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 97 
 
 pitable and generous to an extreme. Anstruther 
 became unpopular with the profession, because he 
 used to hear causes which were not worth the ex- 
 pense of the Supreme Court, in a sort of private 
 cutchery at his own house ; but they were chiefly 
 petty matters of litigation, which, if an attorney 
 had got hold of, would have ruined both parties. 
 Now, there were most scandalous practices in the 
 Mayor's Court, which I am old enough to remem- 
 ber ; yet, upon the whole, the suitors found sub- 
 stantial justice. The bench consisted of some very 
 intelligent and upright magistrates, and, notwith- 
 standing some suspicions were afloat as to their 
 having been bribed in one or two cases involving a 
 large amount of property, they were suspicions 
 which fell only on one or two, and were, I am in- 
 clined to believe, quite groundless. The prac- 
 titioners there were men of good common whole- 
 some sense : no great lawyers, but for that reason 
 not very adroit in the quirks and quibbles of 
 the profession." 
 
 I must again protest against the conclusion 
 likely to be drawn by some of my readers, that, in 
 detailing these conversations, I am identifying the 
 opinions of this excellent old gentleman with my 
 own. On the contrary, I think that his pictures 
 are frequently overcharged, too much shadowed 
 
 VOL. i. F
 
 98 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 with the dark Rembrandt hue, in which he has ac- 
 customed himself to contemplate that which is bad, 
 to exhibit with sufficient effect those streaks of 
 good, which a more unprejudiced investigation 
 would discover in every institution devised for a 
 beneficial purpose. He was in all probability deeply 
 impregnated with that exclusive corporation spirit, 
 which in different proportions characterizes the civil 
 service of India ; for it is notorious that, from the 
 first to the last, the little community appended to the 
 Supreme Court has been considered an heterogene- 
 ous infusion into the English society of the presiden- 
 cies. They never mixed cordially together. The 
 sudden affluence of these legal adventurers, and their 
 immense emoluments, have never been subjects of 
 very complacent contemplation out of the profes- 
 ional circle ; and I have often heard my friend vent 
 his disgust at the wives and daughters of the law- 
 yers, and tell amusing anecdotes of the whole settle- 
 ment being set together by the ears, when those 
 amiable creatures advanced their foolish pretensions 
 to precedency. In short, it was an ancient grudge, 
 and he had imbibed it in all its bitterness ; 
 for during his long residence in India, as he told 
 me, he had made it the rule of his life, " to shun 
 all Calcutta lawyers and their women," with one 
 exception only.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 99 
 
 I was of course anxious to know who it was that 
 was honoured with such a reservation. " It was 
 Bobus Smith," he said ; the only barrister he ever 
 recollected there, who was at once a man of genius, 
 literature, and law. As for the rest, he could not 
 call to mind a single individual of the bar, who 
 had so much as common talent, unless a certain 
 degree and kind of talent must be presumed from 
 the great fortunes they carried home with them. 
 Allowing, however, the weight which these preju- 
 dices must have had in his estimates, it would be 
 irrational to deny the almost entire want of adapta- 
 tion in the Supreme Court to the habits and usages 
 of the native population. If it must remain, it is a 
 luxury fitted only for the English. The technical 
 complication of its procedure; the dilatoriness of 
 its adjudications on the equity side, that part of 
 its jurisdiction to which questions of stupendous 
 magnitude respecting the disposition of property 
 are always referred ; the large sums extorted from 
 the suitors in the shape of fees to the officers, and 
 costs to the attornies, not to omit the extravagant 
 remuneration of the counsel ; are manifest evils, 
 and would be hideous deformities in any system of 
 judicature; but the evil becomes aggravated ten- 
 fold, and the deformity still more heightened, in a 
 judicature intended for a people who have been
 
 100 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 taught only to venerate law when it is simple in its 
 forms and prompt in its decisions. The policy of 
 that institution is on other grounds more than 
 doubtful. 
 
 For surely the genius of confusion himself must 
 have presided over the counsels of the statesmen, 
 who projected the King's Supreme Court of Judi- 
 cature for India. Two authorities co-existing and 
 independent were thus erected, as if those notable 
 projectors had made trial of their skill merely to 
 frame a political problem to perplex and astonish. 
 These two authorities, acting harmoniously toge- 
 ther, proceeding in the same course towards the 
 same beneficent end for which both were insti- 
 tuted, would have been a problem still more puz- 
 zling, by which reason would be set at nought and 
 experience rendered ridiculous. The world has 
 not yet seen, the world will never see, two elements 
 so repugnant in their natures, assimilated in their 
 operations. Strife is the law and condition of their 
 mutual existence ; collision is their necessary and 
 inherent tendency, their sure and inevitable result. 
 Was it long before the tendency and the result be- 
 gan to display themselves ? Every body acquainted 
 with the history of British India, has heard of the 
 enormous strides of jurisdiction made by Sir Elijah 
 Impey, and his passive and stupid colleagues, in 
 1782.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 101 
 
 It was but the other day (not to mention innu- 
 merable intervening instances) that the King's court 
 at Bombay made their very modest attempt to bring 
 all the late Peishwa's territories within the ring- 
 fence of its jurisdiction. The battle was as fairly 
 fought out, as, with the evident odds in point of 
 physical strength, it could be ; but it was fought. 
 The court demanded obedience to its writ ; the go- 
 vernment exacted obedience to its power. The 
 " two authorities were up." What dissentions 
 arose between the court at Madras and the local 
 government, in the time of Lord Powis, respecting 
 the immunity of the Nabob of Arcot from the 
 King's process ! Those bickerings have broken 
 out in repeated subsequent fits. 
 
 But one of the collisions of the Supreme Court 
 at Calcutta, though of a very recent date, has at- 
 tracted little attention ; yet it was one only of those 
 innumerable cases in which that court have exer- 
 cised their summum jus, so as to make it the 
 summa injuria to the natives ; and it involved a 
 most indecent conflict with the Zillah court, a con- 
 flict which, in respect of principle, is a conflict with 
 the government. 
 
 The house of M*** and Co., in Calcutta, had 
 advanced considerable sums to a mercantile house 
 established at Furruckabad, in the Western provin-
 
 102 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 ces, under the name of Mercer and Co. These men, 
 by means of the capital with which they were thus 
 assisted, obtained an immense credit, and under the 
 superintendence of different members of their firm, 
 set up distinct branches of it at Allyghur and Cal- 
 cutta. Their affairs went on weU for some time. 
 As to their real solidity, it was a fact that lay 
 snugly in the conusance of those who had helped 
 them to build up their credit. Such, however, was 
 the general confidence reposed in them, that num- 
 bers of persons in the army, as well as in the civil 
 service, and natives of all descriptions, had made 
 them their bankers to a very large amount. In the 
 midst of this confidence, when no one, however sus- 
 picious, so much as dreamt of any thing injurious 
 to their commercial reputation, the partners retired 
 to the Danish settlement of Serampore, and M*** 
 and Co., who held a bond and judgment-security 
 against them, entered up that judgment in the Su- 
 preme Court, and seized all their available property 
 at Calcutta, under a writ of execution. Things of 
 this kind attract but little attention at Calcutta, 
 where they are by no means unfrequent. 
 
 But the scramble up the country was yet to com- 
 mence. Thither therefore special bailiffs were des- 
 patched in all directions, to seize the property of 
 the unfortunate firm wherever it was to be found.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 103 
 
 Nothing can exceed the consternation of everybody, 
 when the alarming intelligence of the failure ar- 
 rived, with the still more alarming news that a sin- 
 gle creditor at Calcutta, by virtue of a fieri facias, 
 was helping himself to the whole of that property, 
 which it was thought, according to the most obvi- 
 ous maxims of equity, ought to be divided amongst 
 the general body of the sufferers. At Furruckabad, 
 the principal merchants and soucars thronged about 
 the office of the judge and magistrate of the dis- 
 trict, imploring him to place the seal of his court, 
 by way of protection, on the factories, indigo, and 
 other property of the firm. Petitions alleging the 
 fact of the debts, and the failure of the parties, were 
 instantly given in, and orders were issued in conse- 
 quence to place the seal of the court on the pro- 
 perty, the magistrate making at the same time a 
 report to government and to the S udder Dewannee 
 Adawlet of what had been done, and requesting 
 their directions. 
 
 The bailiff in the mean time was not idle. He 
 proceeded to the factory, and by virtue of the 
 writ in his pocket, took possession of all he could 
 find. But the seizure was in the teeth of all the 
 forms of the Zillah court. No seals had been fixed 
 no security given for the revenue accruing from 
 the demesne: a condition without which, according
 
 104) SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 to the Regulation, no possessory right can be ac- 
 quired. Then came the struggle plusquam civilia 
 bella between the judge and the bailiff; the judge 
 avowing that the property should not be touched ; 
 the bailiff threatening him with attachments, and 
 I know not what vengeance, from the court. See- 
 ing the determination of the judge to be fixed, the 
 bailiff betook himself to other districts, the magis- 
 trates of which were more obeisant to the Supreme 
 Court, and every where but in Furruckabad the 
 property fell into his hands. 
 
 The utmost exertions were made to obtain from 
 the Sudder Adawlet an order directing the judge 
 at Furruckabad to release all that he had attached, 
 amongst which were several indigo-boats belonging 
 to the firm. The Zillah court was in consequence 
 ordered to abandon its process, and to give up 
 every thing to M*** and Co. of Calcutta, on the 
 alleged ground of the natives having only sent in 
 petitions, instead of filing regular suits, which the 
 time (it was Saturday, and no business is transacted 
 by the Zillah court on Sundays) would not permit. 
 Thus, by a mere piece of paper, sealed by the Su- 
 preme Court, a vast amount of property, at the 
 distance of eight hundred miles from Calcutta, 
 upon which, by the Regulations of the Company, 
 the natives had a legal lien, and landed property
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 105 
 
 of considerable extent, which, by the express words 
 of the same Regulations, no European could hold in 
 any of the Company's districts, were transferred to 
 the same house. The judge's office teemed with 
 remonstrances, and the law he had sworn to admi- 
 nister seemed to him so imperative in favour of the 
 remonstrants, and the general exasperation began to 
 diffuse itself so widely, that he again proceeded to 
 the factories, and having personally ascertained 
 that the sheriff's seal had not been affixed on any 
 part of the property, he again fixed his own. 
 
 Again, orders were issued to the judge by the 
 Sudder Adawlet, no doubt from an unwillingness 
 to bring matters into issue with the Supreme Court, 
 requiring him to take off his second attachment, 
 and the government authorized the magistrate to 
 apply for a military force from Cawnpore, in order 
 to put three merchants, who by law could not own 
 a foot of land, in possession of some of the largest 
 estates in those provinces, in direct opposition to 
 the Regulations, to which the natives look for the 
 secure enjoyment of their rights. What were the 
 feelings of those poor people whilst these transac- 
 tions were going on ? Certainly not such as were 
 likely to strengthen their allegiance, and confirm 
 their confidence in the benevolence and equity of 
 the British government. The credit of British 
 F 3
 
 106 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 merchants through the country has received its 
 death-blow, and the deepest curses on the Su- 
 preme Court are at this moment murmuring in 
 every mouth and rankling in every bosom. " Jus- 
 tice is asleep," they exclaim, " when natives appeal 
 to her. Her eyes are always open when she is ad- 
 dressed by Europeans." 
 
 I have before observed the inevitable tendency 
 to collision with the government inherent in the 
 Supreme Court. The only mode of avoiding that 
 collision is by concession on one side or the other, 
 or by mutual compromise. But are not these 
 greater evils than the conflict ? In that case, we 
 all know the issue. Government must prevail; and 
 if it has acted with a sound discretion, its measures 
 will receive the sanction of the home authorities. 
 But a compromise is a mutual dereliction of duty ; 
 and one concession only prepares the way for ano- 
 ther, establishing a dangerous precedent, of which 
 it will not be long before the party, to whom it has 
 been made, will take a sinister advantage. In the 
 affair of the mercantile house at Calcutta, the go- 
 vernment had obviously nothing to do. The Zillah 
 judge had been sworn to execute the law of the 
 Zillah court the judges of the Supreme Court to 
 execute theirs ; and the error of the interference 
 was aggravated infinitely by calling in an armed
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 307 
 
 force to the aid of a civil process. What is the 
 consequence? In the minds of the sufferers, the 
 Company"^ government has ceased to be a protect- 
 ing and paternal government. It is associated in 
 their feelings with tyranny and unjust force, as 
 having taken part with the wrong-doer, and being 
 an accessary after the fact in the depredations com- 
 mitted upon them by European adventurers. 
 
 This may be, and undoubtedly is, a distorted 
 and exaggerated perception of the grievance : but 
 they are not likely to take a correcter estimate, 
 whilst they are smarting under their losses, and 
 feel that they are reduced to penury and despair 
 by their confidence in the good faith of British 
 merchants. It is therefore by far a worse case than 
 that which furnished my worthy friend with so ex- 
 uberant a theme of invective ; for here the desolat- 
 ing influences of the Supreme Court were not li- 
 mited within its assigned jurisdiction, but extended 
 to remote provinces, and smote a number of their 
 most peaceful and industrious inhabitants: for those 
 who were thus made its victims had never invoked 
 its aid, and perhaps would never have heard of its 
 existence, but for this melancholy visitation. 
 
 As to the expediency of permitting the circula- 
 tion of the native printed journals, which appear to 
 have stirred up such " supernatural solicitings "
 
 108 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 in the breast of our old Indian, they who meditate 
 attentively the tenure of our Eastern dominions, 
 a tenure which, considered as the mere creation of 
 power, is of light and gossamery contexture, but as 
 it is seated in opinion and based in moral strength, 
 mighty and adamantine, it is a question that is 
 not to be lightly examined, or hastily decided. 
 Armed with cases like these, they could not fail of 
 being dangerous. Such oppressions, without the 
 help of rhetorical artifice, must, in their most 
 naked and simple statement, goad the feelings of 
 man, to whatever clime he belongs, into something 
 much beyond the mere impatience of our yoke. 
 It is impossible to say what maddening effects they 
 might not produce, in the hyperbolical and pas- 
 sionate language of complaint peculiar to Oriental 
 countries. Besides, the privilege of an unrestricted 
 press presents a most striking contrast to the spirit 
 and genius of our Indian constitution. It is 
 grudgingly, and on hard conditions* only, ac- 
 corded to our English subjects, to whom freedom 
 
 * If any one be disposed to doubt this proposition, let him cast 
 his eye over the Madras journals, and he will see the extent to 
 which the censor is every day carrying his abscissions. These are 
 sometimes capriciously, and even absurdly made. Formerly the 
 secretary of the government exercised that office. He happened 
 to be a distant relation of the late Lord Melville. When the 
 reports of his Lordship's impeachment arrived in the English
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 109 
 
 of discussion is almost as necessary as the food that 
 sustains them; and no one can pretend that the 
 government to which the natives of India are sub- 
 jected, is the policy of a free state towards free 
 citizens. And what an obvious absurdity it would 
 be, to permit the natives a licence which you with- 
 hold from Europeans ! 
 
 Yet I do not participate in all the alarms of my 
 friend, who has suffered himself, by a strange pro- 
 cess of his understanding, to suppose that such a 
 political and social system as ours can remain for 
 ever in the same position. In every colony, and 
 our establishment in Hindustan partakes of the 
 nature, though it is not designated by the name, of 
 a colony, the manners and usages of the colonized 
 people will insensibly glide into something like an 
 imitation of those by whom they are colonized ; 
 and Tacitus tells us that it is the surest means by 
 which a people can be retained under dominion. 
 The inflexibility of Hindu customs in some degree 
 weakens the force of the aphorism ; but they are 
 characteristically a gossiping nation, and, "What is 
 the news ? " (ri HCMX] agitates their curiosity as 
 
 newspapers, they were of course copied into the Madras papers, 
 but were all struck out by a stroke of the secretary's pen. 
 
 [It is proper to remark here, that the Censorship has been", 
 since this was written, abolished at Madras.]
 
 110 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 sensitively as it did that of the lively and inquisi- 
 tive Athenians. Exercised within modest limits, I 
 do not apprehend with him that the native press 
 will turn India topsey-turvey ; with this solemn 
 premonition, however, that we do not by our wan- 
 ton and impertinent interference with their religious 
 ceremonies, shocking as they may be to our moral 
 tastes or our religious opinions, fill the columns of 
 their journals with vindications which we have no 
 right to provoke, and prematurely call upon them 
 to stand on the defensive in support of usages which 
 their law has consecrated, by needlessly bringing 
 them into controversy or contempt.
 
 Ill 
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 V. 
 
 MANNERS are too volatile to endure the chain of 
 a definition. They are the worst portrait-sitters 
 imaginable, and the unceasing restlessness of their 
 attitudes, and the changeful hues in which they 
 present themselves, would elude the efforts of the 
 most patient limner. 
 
 If an exception to this sweeping generality is to 
 be found any-where, it is in India. The English 
 society in that country is, by the mere circum- 
 stance of local distance, beyond the reach of the 
 new affectations which flutter with ephemeral life 
 around us; and fresh infusions of folly from the 
 parent-state are rarer, at least of tardier, occurrence, 
 from the length of time necessarily interposed be- 
 tween each transmission. For this reason, there 
 must be a tolerably luxuriant crop of peculiarities 
 that are of home-growth exclusively incident to 
 the climate, to the indulgences requisite to soften
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 its rigours, to the mode of passing away the lei- 
 sure hours, which in India, more than in any place 
 in the world, are apt to deaden the springs of exist- 
 ence, unless they are kept in play by a constant 
 succession of amusements; to the singular position 
 in which we are placed towards the natives; to 
 the gradations of rank and office, which are there 
 the most marked distinctions betwixt man and man, 
 that can exist in the social system; to the strange 
 and 'anomalous condition of our countrywomen, 
 whose influences upon Anglo-Indian manners act 
 by laws almost the inverse to those which regulate 
 them amongst ourselves; and to many other acci- 
 dents less palpable or striking. These, however, 
 are sufficient elements for a society sui tantvm 
 generis seeds that most germinate into habits 
 strongly contrasted with our own, whilst they im- 
 part a specific character to the coteries of Calcutta, 
 Madras, and Bombay, which, though not always 
 an amusing study, may be a highly beneficial one 
 to the observer of our common nature. He will at 
 least be enabled to discern the peculiar force of local 
 and incidental causes, in forming those striking fea- 
 tures so generally visible in small communities: as 
 mountain-rivers, pent up in narrow currents, leave 
 behind them the deep ravines and hollows, which 
 their stream channeled during its progress.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 113 
 
 Yet our fopperies of manner, changeful as they 
 are, do at length arrive amongst our Anglo-Indian 
 brethren, as well as the fashions of our coats; and 
 there is scarcely an arrival in which some whim of 
 literature or science, some dogma that has run its 
 round long enough to be exploded in England, is 
 not unpacked, with some recent freak of millinery, 
 a hat of new shape and dimensions, or some equally 
 absurd capriccio fresh from Regent Street or St. 
 James's. As the new fashions of a gown or bonnet, 
 however, when they reach a country town at a day's 
 distance from the metropolis, are sure to be most 
 hideously travestied ; in like manner our exported 
 absurdities undergo similar exaggerations when 
 they are adopted at our Indian presidencies. Hence 
 it is, that affectation of every kind stands out there 
 in stronger relief, and with a more obvious shew of 
 its being extraneous and superinduced. Its birth 
 and progress were silent and unperceived at home; 
 it might have arisen, phoenix-h'ke, out of the ashes 
 of a superseded folly, preparing us in some sort for 
 the appearance of the new one; but in India it ar- 
 rives mature in growth, transplanted from the na- 
 tive soil which nurtured its seed and expanded its 
 fibres, to a distant one unprepared for its reception. 
 Manners thus violently engrafted upon antecedent 
 manners, give an air of caricature to the social cir-
 
 114 SOCIETY AND MANNEES. 
 
 cle, which it is painful to all but a professed sati- 
 rist to contemplate. Second-hand clothes are made 
 easy by having been worn ; but second-hand affec- 
 tations never fit the wearer, and render him gro- 
 tesque and ridiculous into the bargain. 
 
 It is inconceivable how strongly these remarks 
 would be illustrated to any one who, having wit- 
 nessed the insect birth of a fashionable whim, and 
 its almost immediate extinction in England, should 
 accompany it on its voyage to India. Here its 
 place would be filled up by its successor. There, 
 however, it would be eagerly patronized by those 
 who would have no notion that it had died away, 
 because its substitute had not arrived amongst 
 them. The folly, or the whim, or the paradox, or 
 the bad taste, whatever it might be, would be se- 
 cure of a reign of as many months as it had of days 
 at home; for fashionable absurdity knows no inter- 
 regnum. In the meanwhile, it is evident that these 
 are adventitious patches to the system of manners, 
 which, being modified by circumstances purely 
 local, must remain unchanged, whilst the influ- 
 encing causes are the same; and that Anglo-Indian 
 society would present the most interesting materials 
 for satirical or dramatic description, unmixed with 
 those of European extraction. But, on the other 
 hand, it is observable that the mimicry of home
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 115 
 
 follies is in itself a main ingredient in that very 
 system which is to be described. Abeunt studio, 
 in mores. It is this readiness to patronize the cast- 
 off fashions of thinking or conversing, this habit of 
 puffing into new life and smoke the rush-light doc- 
 trines, whether of politics, ethics, or metaphysics, 
 that have gone out amongst ourselves, that renders 
 the " polite conversations'" of our presidencies in 
 India so much more heavy and intolerable, than 
 those so ludicrously depictured by Dean Swift. 
 Without these incongruities, the society of Quy-hys 
 would be more pleasing, because it would be more 
 natural, presenting only upon its chequered surface 
 the shadows of those humours or oddities that had 
 grown spontaneously amongst them, and beneath 
 which the old Indians of former days, the Holwells, 
 the Ormes, the Barwells, the Calls, the Hastings, 
 found repose, and comfort, and recreation. It is 
 astonishing how little has been gained by the pye- 
 bald mixture of old colonial habitudes with those 
 that are let loose from the cuddy of an Indiaman 
 with every new importation of dandies. What 
 Anglo-Indian of that ancient date but would turn 
 in his coffin, if he knew that the old standing dish 
 of rice and curry had been shouldered aside, to make 
 room for blanquettes de veau avec sauce a lajinan- 
 ciere ?
 
 116 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 In a community thus constituted, it is plain that 
 there will be a few privileged by rank, which in 
 India is every-thing, who on all subjects take the 
 lead, that is, become egregious bores. Never shall 
 we forget the prosy nonsense we were doomed to 
 hear from one of these oracles of second-hand wis- 
 dom, when the doctrine of craniology found its way 
 to India, nor the Golgotha of skulls that presented 
 themselves by turns to the sapient touch of his 
 brawny fingers. As it is the characteristic of these 
 discoveries to unfold themselves in a long thread of 
 words, it was a natural error to conclude that the 
 mastery he had acquired from an uninterrupted 
 sufferance of his talk, over a certain number of 
 vague terms, multiplied by the unmeaning echoes 
 of an equal allowance of synonimes, was a sure 
 guarantee for his comprehension of the subject. 
 Gifford, in the admirable auto-biography prefixed 
 to his translation of Juvenal, describes the village- 
 schoolmaster from whom he received the first ele- 
 ments of his instruction, as having a custom of fix- 
 ing to every word in common use the periphrasis 
 by which it was explained in the dictionary ; so 
 that his victory was sure, for his opponents could 
 never discover his meaning. This was the secret 
 
 of O 's eloquence. If a disputant ventured to 
 
 take the field, O , like ^Eneas, was sure to es- 
 cape in a cloud.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 117 
 
 It is this tyranny of bores that first strikes you 
 on your initiation into Anglo-Indian circles. The 
 Reviews, that furnish so many short cuts to intelli- 
 gence, purvey both diction and opinions to those 
 whose station entitles them to talk. All equality 
 of discourse is effectually repressed by the deference 
 paid to rank, and the borearchy becomes thus an 
 unmitigated despotism, which bears down all resist- 
 ance. Nor is escape always practicable. Your 
 finished bore makes sure of a given number of 
 listeners, for he looks them each in the face, and 
 good-breeding will not permit you to fly in the 
 midst of what seems addressed personally to your- 
 self. He makes sure of his victim by a fascination 
 of stare like that attributed to the rattle-snake. In 
 English society, changed perpetually by new infu- 
 sions, where privileges of this kind are neither as- 
 sumed nor conceded, all this would be impractica- 
 ble. But in India, the society remains for the most 
 part the same, year after year. It is recruited, in- 
 deed, by new arrivals, but these consist only of the 
 juniors in the service, who, by virtue of their recent 
 standing, must be listeners ; and sometimes the old 
 bores drop off, but their next in rank succeed to the 
 vacant boredom* which, without the help of the le- 
 gal fiction that keeps the British throne constantly 
 filled, is thus never in abeyance. The distant can-
 
 118 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 tonments are, in this respect, only miniature presi- 
 dencies. Society is formed of nearly the same ele- 
 ments throughout the whole of British India; the 
 smaller communities reflecting the same features, 
 though with varied proportions. 
 
 Amongst the modifying causes that have given 
 its peculiar semblance to English society in India, 
 the strongest perhaps is rank. Unperceived in its 
 operation, and affectedly disclaimed by those who 
 are tenacious of its distinctions and those who are 
 submissive to its influence, it is constantly at work. 
 He who for the first time is introduced to it, parti- 
 cularly if he has had the advantage of a general 
 entree in England, is astonished at the formality 
 and stateliness it imparts to every circle. At home, 
 rank may be respected, but it inspires no awe. The 
 entrance of a person of the highest station would 
 not instantly suspend the conversation or hush it 
 into silence. Frequently, in the same Anglo-Indian 
 party, you may observe an ascending series of men 
 in station. Each receives his quota of deference, 
 accurately adjusted by the amount of his monthly 
 income. Upon the female part of the circle, it pro- 
 duces an effect like enchantment. A flirtation with 
 a person of inferior rank is suspended, at its most 
 interesting crisis, if a civilian of higher rank fires 
 across them. The consequence of this is, that a
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 119 
 
 great number of individuals, capable of infusing 
 vivacity into the conversation, are thrown out. For 
 this reason, at all large dinner-tables, you will per- 
 ceive a cluster of young people grouped together, 
 and doing penance for their low standing in the 
 service, by being excluded from all participation in 
 what is going on, except in eating and drinking, 
 which in India is no unimportant part of the busi- 
 ness of life. But the effect of this is, that the con- 
 versation consists of the most solemn inanities ima- 
 ginable, the most ridiculous common-places, pro- 
 pounded with the air and gravity of new discove- 
 ries. The women might, indeed, reform all this, 
 for every society is in their keeping, and will receive 
 the impulse they give it. They, however, have a 
 more important business in hand. They must render 
 themselves agreeable to the person who, according 
 to his rank, has been appointed to hand her to table, 
 and to sit next her: a matter which is arranged 
 by the master of the house before the announce- 
 ment of dinner. The scarcity of topics also renders 
 converse a painful duty rather than a pleasing 
 amusement. In England, public subjects are per- 
 petually floating on the social surface, supplying 
 each day, almost each hour, with something new ; 
 whereas, in India, the public intelligence comes in 
 large masses, and, having furnished themes of dis-
 
 120 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 course for a few days, is forgotten. The ladies 
 and gentlemen of India are, therefore, soon left to 
 their own resources and these are, criticisms upon 
 each other's dress, manners, and figure, sometimes 
 expressed with an unpolished strength of phrase, 
 which would not be tolerated in England. 
 
 Much might be said of the relative influence of 
 the sex upon Anglo-Indian life and, indeed, in 
 what sketch of life or manners can they be passed 
 over ? They shed innumerable graces over our ex- 
 istence every-where but in India. The fairy-land 
 of love, the paradise of the youthful affections, is 
 not to be found in that country. The bosoms, 
 which in our English admiration of the fairer 
 moiety of the species, we revere as the sainted 
 cells from which the unholy passions of gain or 
 ambition are excluded, are open to no other inha- 
 bitant. Women are educated for India as they 
 would be to millinery or mantua-making, or any 
 other female vocation. They are stuffed with ac- 
 quirements by means of every forcing process, sub- 
 stituted by modern ingenuity for the gradual deve- 
 lopment of the mind and its faculties, which it 
 was the sober practice of our ancestors to pursue 
 through a course of wholesome instruction, directed 
 to a few important objects. The girl destined to 
 the Indian mart must run the gauntlet of at least
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 
 a dozen professors. Every thing must be learned 
 at the same time. All exclusive tastes, though 
 frequently the internal promptings of that strong 
 predilection and native aptitude we call genius, are 
 frowned down and discouraged. The same portion 
 of time is dedicated to pursuits often at variance 
 with each other ; and the result is, certain frag- 
 ments and scraps of all kinds of knowledge, a weak 
 diluted tincture of accomplishments, that address 
 solely the eye and ear of their admirers; a bouquet 
 of gaudy but fading flowrets, that tire and disgust 
 the sense. It is plain that this is a species of edu- 
 cation which makes no real progress : it is like sta- 
 tioning all the relays for a long journey at the first 
 stage. 
 
 Arrived in India, the fair pupil receives the last 
 finish at the hands of the respectable matron, gene- 
 rally some distant relative, who undertakes the 
 charge of establishing her in a suitable union. She 
 is told whom she may encourage, and whom she 
 must peremptorily reject. The index expurga- 
 torius of the settlement is placed in her hands. 
 She must love according to the strict letter of the 
 red-book. Her affections must not, even in 
 thought, stray beyond the civil service. If she 
 is permitted to beam an indulgent smile on a mi- 
 litary man, it must be only within the commissariat 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 122 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 department. It often happens, perhaps, that mar- 
 riages in India, though the results of a passive 
 choice or blind neutrality of feeling, turn out well. 
 But can the chances be in favour of wedded hap- 
 piness with a companion thus educated, a mind 
 constructed like a shewy pavilion, on whose por- 
 tico and facade all the graces of architecture have 
 been lavished within, cold, comfortless, and 
 dark ? 
 
 Such are one or two of the chief distinctive 
 characters of Anglo-Indian society ; and they have 
 remained, as to one portion of it, unchanged, and 
 little if at all modified, for many years. Yet, 
 within that period, a change has come over an- 
 other part of it, of dark and ominous import. 
 Time was, when the civil and military services, 
 encouraged by the same hopes and indulging the 
 same aspirations, homeward-bound and pointing to 
 the day of return as the needle to the pole, and 
 like the needle, trembling with that delightful ex- 
 pectation, were alike enabled to realize the visions 
 which supported them through a life of toil and 
 exile. Now, it is only one service that such a hope 
 can visit. A dreary vista of despair lies before the 
 officers of the Company's army, unpierced by one 
 straggling ray of future comfort. Will this pass 
 away as a summer's cloud, without warning those
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 123 
 
 to whom India and her destinies are entrusted, 
 that the discontent, at present a dim and diminu- 
 tive speck, may hereafter blacken the whole ho- 
 rizon ? Great Britain, it is too true, having little or 
 no elbow-room left, opens to a parent burthened with 
 a large family the most discouraging prospects of 
 establishing his sons respectably in life. But a 
 cadetship ! It is a gift he would do well to hesi- 
 tate before he accepts. It is the present of Circe 
 to Ulysses, without the propitious gales that sped 
 him on his voyage the mere bag nothingness 
 and vapour. Ensigns thrown back to cadets, 
 starving on a hundred rupees a month ; lieute- 
 nants picking the dry bones of hopeless expecta- 
 tion; and hoary -headed captains, who have ten 
 years before them to chew the cud of their bitter 
 fancies ere the next step dawns upon their vision. 
 
 Twenty years ago, a young officer in the service 
 of the Company occupied a certain space in the 
 eyes of the community at large. He was invited 
 to the best tables ; he lifted up his head with a 
 conscious equality in the best circles. It is no 
 longer so. The poor cadet or ensign, if he sum- 
 mons sufficient courage to pay a morning visit to a 
 civilian, meets with a reception so closely akin to 
 repulse, that he is never likely to repeat the expe-
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 riment. It is better, however, to dismiss a topic 
 so painful. But in an analysis of Anglo-Indian 
 society, in which the junior officers of the Com- 
 pany 's service, not many years since, formed by no 
 means the least interesting class, it could not have 
 been altogether omitted. 
 
 The peculiarities of English society in India, 
 present, it is true, many tempting subjects of cari- 
 cature. But they are essentially undramatic. A 
 genteel comedy, consisting of Anglo-Indian dia- 
 logue, would be hissed from the stage. There can 
 be no wit where the range of its excursions is so 
 circumscribed ; and the constant recurrence of the 
 same faces, or nearly the same, in every party, 
 stifles one of the strongest incentives to intellectual 
 gladiatorship. It is the same thing, though on a 
 smaller scale, at the cuddy-table. At the beginning 
 of the voyage, perhaps for two or three days, the 
 powers of each are taxed to the utmost, and lively 
 things are said and reciprocated. But, after a few 
 rounds, the ammunition is expended. Identity of 
 countenance, day after day, is a wet blanket not to 
 wit only, but to that humbler facetiousness which 
 aspires merely to mirth. And nowhere is its dead- 
 ening effect felt more than in the salons of India. 
 Neither Congreve nor Sheridan could construct, 
 out of the fashionable topics that float on the sur-
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 125 
 
 face of an Anglo-Indian conversation, any thing 
 like the tierce-and-carte dialogues of Lone for Love, 
 or the School for Scandal. There is no scarcity 
 of Mrs. Sullens and Mrs. Candours, Sir Benjamin 
 Backbites, or Sneerwells. Calcutta and Madras 
 have their " scandalous colleges," that confer 
 diplomas to kill characters by wholesale ; but 
 Anglo-Indian tittle-tattle is deficient in that " de- 
 licacy of sarcasm, that mellowness of sneer," which 
 distinguishes our London scandal ; and probably 
 for this reason : the satire, in so restricted a space, 
 must be conversant not with classes, but indivi- 
 duals ; whereas by delineating the class, and then 
 thrusting the individual into it, he shares the im- 
 putation with a hundred others, and his own quota 
 of it is trivial and insignificant. It is the difference 
 between the Aristophanic comedy, where a single 
 person is ridiculed or one reputation mangled, and 
 the comedy of Plautus or Moliere, where a certain 
 description of men is held up to laughter or re- 
 proach, and the individual merely dramatizes the 
 class amongst which he has been placed. Anglo- 
 Indian societies, on the other hand, supplying no 
 classes, the individual himself must be laid upon 
 the dissecting-table, and unsparingly cut up by the 
 operators. Hence it is that, instead of sarcasm, 
 every dialogue teems with defamation unvar-
 
 126 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 nished abuse which the good taste of English 
 scandal would not endure. We recur, therefore, 
 to our former aphorism, that the dialogue of an 
 Indian coterie is essentially undramatic. 
 
 The author of the East-India Sketch Book 
 has given us a specimen or two of conversations, 
 having all the appearance of fac-similes, which 
 seem strongly to illustrate, not only the apho- 
 rism, but the distinction we have pointed out 
 between the polished satire, which ranges over 
 varieties and classes, and the blunt cudgel-play 
 of Anglo-Indian scandal, which batters specific 
 individuals. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel and Mrs. Parke are medi- 
 tating a ball at an up-country station, and have 
 determined to make " quite a general thing 
 of it." 
 
 " * Yes, on due reflection,' said the Colonel, ' it 
 will be advisable to ask every-body. I may be 
 removed, Anne, nobody can say how soon. And 
 at my time of life, it is better to be on amicable 
 terms with my officers ; you understand, Mrs. 
 Parke ? A word to the wise humph ! ' 
 
 " l It is a pity you did not come to that conclu- 
 sion sooner, 1 said Mrs. Parke amiably; ' for every 
 officer of ours has sent a refusal, except Grampus-, 
 who goes any-wherefor a feed gratis. 1
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 127 
 
 " ' I don't care, so much the better,' returned 
 Lieutenant- Colonel Parke, sulkily ; ' my young 
 men want a few courts-martial amongst them, and 
 Til see if I can't have two or three of them in 
 arrest before long. Ill have them out to squad- 
 drill, and see how they'll like it, humph ! ' 
 
 " Mrs. Parke turned away, half in a pet with her 
 model for all colonels, past, present, and to come, 
 and half angry at the defiance implied by the de- 
 clining of all the officers of their own regiment, 
 except Mr. Grampus, who, as Mrs. Parke ele- 
 gantly expressed it, went any-where for a feed 
 gratis. 
 
 " She looked over her notes, with all the haste the 
 difficulty she found in decyphering any autograph, 
 that was less than the magnitude of round hand, 
 permitted. Mrs. Parke had great disadvantages to 
 contend with : some said, ' old Parke had picked 
 her up at a charity-school at Calcutta ; ' some 
 hinted that her childhood had been spent under 
 auspices much less unexceptionable. There were 
 many and divers reports afloat; but one point of 
 accordance existed amongst all Mrs. Parke was 
 originally nobody, had bad manners most unfor- 
 givable awkwardness of address unusually plain 
 person, &c." 
 
 To illustrate still further the distinction we have
 
 128 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 ventured, in the sketch entitled " a Tour of Vi- 
 sits," the visitor arrives in the midst of a morning- 
 conversation, in which characters are dissected with 
 the coarsest butchery. 
 
 " ' What upon earth placed that man at the head 
 of a force ? It is an enormity sufficient to afford 
 matter of memorial to the Honourable Court. A 
 frontier station on the borders of a foreign terri- 
 tory is a door worth keeping locked with strong 
 springs, and to put such a warder over it ! a man 
 who has neither head to direct, nor hand to 
 execute. 1 
 
 " ' Nor bull-headedness enough to compensate 
 for his deficiency in mental vigour. He is over- 
 flexible to the touch of his native butler," 1 said the 
 Major. 
 
 " 'Ah ! if it were permitted, " I could a tale un- 
 fold," of a man who, without common sense, truth, 
 honour, or honesty, military skill, or military 
 courage, solely from his relationship to a man in 
 office, is kept in an important position, in which he 
 can only injure the government he serves, and ruin 
 the officers who have the misfortune to serve under 
 him.' 
 
 " * You and the weather are getting warm, Mr. 
 Mulgrave. Pull the punkah, you Bhoi,' said 
 Mrs. Erskine, rather enjoying the bitterness of the 
 young man.
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 129 
 
 " ' Don't stop him, 1 said the major growlingly; 
 * he speaks only the truth, which, if not always 
 safe, is always worth hearing. The secret report 
 system is abominable. * * * An officer com- 
 manding a corps may be superseded, even before he 
 suspect the possibility of it, solely because this 
 
 wretch, Colonel , thinks fit, from personal 
 
 pique, to describe him as incompetent, he himself 
 being no better a judge than I am of indigo. The 
 
 army wants pruning and should be sent to 
 
 the invalids forthwith.' 
 
 " 4 Oh, for a free press ! ' said Mulgrave ; * that 
 alone contains a cure for more than half the com- 
 plaints of the body military.' " 
 
 The spirit and style of the military conversa- 
 tion we have quoted, may surely make prudent or 
 thinking minds pause, when they ask themselves 
 whether a free press would be so safe or efficient a 
 remedy for military grievances as Lieutenant Mul- 
 grave supposes? A newspaper, breathing the 
 spirit of these grumblings, would not be so much 
 the safety-valve, through which the discontents and 
 heart-burnings of the community would evaporate, 
 as the lion's mouth, into which each individual 
 would drop the hoarded spleen of his own malice 
 and disappointment. If colonels and commandants 
 were to be roughly handled in the columns of a 
 G 3
 
 130 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 public journal, as they are at the breakfast or 
 tiffin-tables of the settlement, it is pretty obvious 
 that the " tone of society," to use the author's 
 favourite phrase, would be very far from being 
 improved. But it is worth while to observe the 
 sophism, under which he shelters himself, when 
 he contends for the right of unrestricted animad- 
 version upon official characters. The actions of 
 public servants are public property, he says, and 
 no man holds office exempt from this condition. 
 The press, therefore, the organ of the public, has 
 the right of stamping them with the brand of 
 shame. What a world of exceptions and reserva- 
 tions is excluded from this inflexible generality 
 exceptions and reservations sufficient of themselves 
 to constitute the rule from which they are shut 
 out ! It assumes that there is no other channel 
 through which a complaint against official men can 
 be transmitted ; that military malversations are 
 cognizable before no other tribunal, and that a free 
 press may be made an efficient substitute for a 
 court of inquiry or a court-martial. So delighted 
 is the writer with his syllogism, that the mischief 
 worked by mere accusation, without proof, where 
 there is neither time nor opportunity for adducing 
 evidence to contradict it ; the intermediate torture 
 inflicted upon families and connexions, upon all, in
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 131 
 
 short, who sympathize with the honour that is 
 stained and the reputation that is wounded to 
 say nothing of the exasperated feelings of the party 
 himself, and the modes of vindication to which they 
 would goad him ; all this gives him no concern 
 whatever. It is, however, extravagant to say, that 
 a press, exercising these unlimited powers, would 
 soon become an intolerable despotism, from which 
 even those who are at this moment anxious for its 
 establishment, would be glad to escape ? It would 
 be the bull of Phalaris, and the inventors would be 
 the first victims. Nor is it easy to compute the 
 insecurities of private life, the uncertain tenures 
 upon which private reputations would hang, and 
 the gloomy distrust that would lour over social 
 intercourse, were this system of bush-fighting, 
 under the pretext of assailing public men through 
 the columns of a journal, to be permitted. The 
 writer, indeed, from his panegyric upon the state 
 of the Calcutta press, seems to imply that the 
 actions of public servants of that presidency are 
 amenable to its jurisdiction. But though the cen- 
 sorship is removed, and wisely removed, the respon- 
 sibility of editors is, for that very reason, augmented 
 rather than lightened. A slight inspection of a file 
 of Calcutta papers would convince any one that, 
 with all the latitude recently indulged to them,
 
 132 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 they deal sparingly in those official attacks which 
 seem so much to the taste of our author. In truth, 
 no civil or military duties could be discharged, 
 heneath the terrors of such an inquisition. 
 
 Amongst the sketches contained in these volumes, 
 there is a full-length one of an officer, shadowed 
 under the name of Colonel Scovell. It is evidently 
 taken from life, but deformed by the exaggerations 
 with which all unpopular characters are usually de- 
 lineated when they sit for their likeness to those 
 who have been habituated, from some real or fan- 
 cied grievance, to contemplate them with disgust. 
 A sealed press., it is true, has sheltered many a 
 Colonel Scovell ; but how many, at the same time, 
 has it sheltered, who have been most undeservedly 
 disfigured by traits equally disgusting ? Command 
 of all kinds is an unenviable prerogative. It places 
 a man upon an elevation, from which he is sur- 
 veyed by those below through those false and 
 refracting lights that distort and darken every 
 lineament and magnify every mole or speck into 
 deformity. Every glass that is pointed towards 
 him, presents its object through a thick incrusta- 
 tion of prejudice, or wounded pride, or disappointed 
 expectation. No doubt there are Colonel Scovells 
 in India, and if it be true that the secret-report 
 system exists to the extent described, such beings
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 133 
 
 will continue to plague and dishonour the army. 
 It is a system that ought not to exist at all ; for it 
 is twice cursed ; cursing those who act upon it, and 
 those whom it oppresses. But the encouragement 
 of private reports from the native officers, of their 
 European superiors, is not only a criminal violation 
 of the regulations of the service, but the disruption 
 of the strongest holdings of the Indian army. That 
 subtle and mystic link, which unites the sepoy to 
 his British commanders, would be soon snapt 
 asunder, were the " General Saib "" to encourage 
 similar communications. A specific case, there- 
 fore, of these practices, if substantiated, as it 
 might be, by an adequate weight of evidence, 
 would bring down the severest penalties upon the 
 head of the delinquent. The life of a military 
 man, in India, is always beset with too many 
 incommodities, and exposed to too many adver- 
 sities, to expect of him the tolerance of so hateful 
 an aggravation. 
 
 On the other hand, he is removed from the reach 
 of many temptations. Rarely does it happen, that 
 he can obtain the credit of a month's pay from the 
 obsequious money-lenders who foster the extrava- 
 gance of the civilian. At every step he learns a 
 lesson of privation and hardship. Little courted 
 by society, he is a stranger to its blandishments ;
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 and the world leaves him " leisure to be good." 
 The young civilian, in the meanwhile, from the 
 moment he places his foot on Indian ground, 
 finds himself in the receipt of a handsome in- 
 come. His first appointment probably fixes him 
 in the family of a superior, whose allowances equal 
 the pay of a whole regiment. He becomes the 
 inmate of a dwelling from which nothing that 
 ministers to luxury and ease is excluded. It is 
 here that he imbibes the first rudiments of that im- 
 provident profuseness which becomes in after-life 
 the great torment of his existence. His income 
 sinks under his growing love of dissipation. The 
 native assistant watches his opportunity, and 
 proffers the aid, at the moment when it will be 
 received with the least scruple as to the conditions 
 annexed to it. At length it becomes his habitual 
 resource ; till, year after year, his burdens increase 
 in a fearful ratio, and the country, which industry 
 and frugality would have rendered a mere thorough- 
 fare to the enjoyment of wealth and its blessings at 
 home, becomes his prison and his grave. 
 
 A few traits occur, now and then, in the same 
 work, of the Eurasians, or half-castes; " a class/' 
 the writer observes, " despised almost emulously by 
 Europeans and natives; the peculiarities of their 
 birth uniting them at once with both nations, whilst
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 135 
 
 they are separated by the strongest lines of demar- 
 cation from each. 1 ' But he over-rates the numbers 
 and the hardships of this race. For our own part, 
 we conscientiously believe that they are not re- 
 duced to a state either of political degradation or 
 of moral abasement. Great pains have been taken 
 to convince them that they are treated with injus- 
 tice, in their exclusion from civil and military ap- 
 pointments. It is the age for asserting rights; 
 and as soon as they caught the spirit of the times, 
 they bestirred themselves to call meetings and ma- 
 nufacture petitions. But in all countries, civil dis- 
 abilities are entailed by birth, and it is a general 
 theory, which has received the sanction of the oldest 
 residents in India, that the intermixture of blood 
 has limited both the corporeal and intellectual sta- 
 ture of the race, whom it is the fashion of the day 
 to regard with commiseration. 
 
 Yet the female Eurasians constitute a large por- 
 tion of the married women at up-country stations. 
 Many of them are united to persons of respectable 
 condition, in both services, at the presidencies; and, 
 for the most part, they perform the part of wives 
 with tolerable effect. They are wonderfully docile 
 to the affectations and airs of the sex ; nothing 
 can be more unmeaning than the eternal simper 
 that plays on their lips, and their love of finery and
 
 136 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 baubles is, we are persuaded from long observation, 
 constitutional. We have seen them hanging almost 
 in speechless rapture over a box of newly-imported 
 millinery, and entranced, as in a celestial vision, 
 amidst the folds of a fresh assortment of French 
 silks. They are the first purchasers, on all oc- 
 casions, when a new inventory of modes is offered 
 for sale. But it would be cruel to visit them with 
 an austere criticism, when we advert to the un- 
 happy circumstances of their maternity and their 
 country education ; for it is the good fortune of a 
 few only to be educated in England. Native wo- 
 men, it must be recollected, of the higher class, are 
 never the mothers of children by Europeans. They 
 are generally of the lowest ; frequently menials of 
 the most degraded description, ignorant of every 
 moral obligation, and exercising the faint glimmer- 
 ing of the little reason that falls to their share, in 
 acts of petty fraud and cunning. It is to the 
 guardianship of these beings, that their unhappy 
 children the children, too, of European gentlemen 
 are left for the first ten or twelve years of their 
 lives. They are then sent to an " establishment 
 for young ladies, at Calcutta or Madras," where the 
 little they learn is exactly that which every think- 
 ing man would wish his wife or daughter to unlearn 
 as speedily as possible.
 
 137 
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 
 VI. 
 
 IT is astonishing, amidst the astonishing portents 
 of the times, how indifferent we become to changes, 
 from which we should have started with horror had 
 they been presented to us as matters of remote spe- 
 culation only. We have supped full of them, how- 
 ever, as fully as Macbeth of the appalling horrors 
 that beset him they have long ceased to startle us. 
 Every cry is deemed just and rational, that calls 
 for innovation. To act upon old principles, or, in 
 the phrase of Lord Bacon, stare super antiquas 
 vias, is considered downright idiotcy. Men confine 
 themselves no longer to their own appropriate de- 
 partments. Experimental knowledge is not only at 
 a deplorable discount, but absolutely scouted. 
 Every one is the master of any business, save his 
 own. Who, in these days of intellectual improve- 
 ment, would consult a farmer upon an agricultural 
 question ? Lecturers and economists, who never
 
 138 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 saw a green field, carry about them a box of theo- 
 rems and axioms upon agriculture, that enable the 
 haberdasher, whilst he is measuring a yard of tape, 
 to prove that the farmer knows nothing about corn. 
 Political economy, like the bull in a china-shop, 
 has smashed all the established maxims and recog- 
 nized laws of trade about our ears. Free trade is 
 what Demosthenes attributed to action in oratory, 
 the one thing needful. It is everything at this mo- 
 ment in Great Britain. It strides over a prostrate 
 and impoverished world, and stalks in triumph 
 amid the wide and wasted desert it has created. 
 
 Will they who have been carried onwards in this 
 rapid tide of liberality, stop short, and exclude 
 from the privilege of carrying their skill and talents 
 to the market they have opened to the whole world, 
 a class of men and women, upon whom the policy 
 of the East-India Company has up to this day 
 looked with an evil eye a class who minister an 
 innocent amusement to those who need amusement 
 at home, but need it still more in India, where life 
 requires to be occasionally lightened of its burthens, 
 to enable it the better to sustain them ? Are thea- 
 trical persons, play-actors, as our ancestors called 
 them, to be prohibited in this new sera from pur- 
 suing their professional calling in a country now 
 throwing its arms open to such promiscuous em-
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 139 
 
 braces ? Probably, they who, in their tenderness 
 for the Anglo-Indian morals, have sent out addi- 
 tional supplies of ecclesiastics, may be fearful of 
 undoing their work, by transplanting from our 
 shores a class of persons who have never been re- 
 markable for delicacy of morals or circumspection 
 and prudence of conduct. But it may be asked, 
 what importation of vices is to be feared, that are 
 not to be found existing there, in full rankness and 
 luxuriance, already ? The morals of actors have 
 never been immaculate. Yet, after all, perhaps 
 their vices are rather more glaring, or less dissem- 
 bled, than those of other persons, more wicked. 
 Be that as it may, by what axiom of free trade, by 
 what rule of political economy (for the world is now 
 governed by axioms and rules), are the doors to be 
 shut upon actors ? 
 
 It is then a matter of personal calculation, 
 merely; for, in accordance with the reasonings 
 upon which the new order of things is founded, 
 you cannot exclude them. And, considered as a 
 matter of taste, what can be deemed better calcu- 
 lated to advance it, than a regular dramatic corps, 
 either stationary at one presidency or migrating to 
 others ? Shakspeare must always live in the hearts 
 of Englishmen, and his genius glow in their bosoms. 
 How dreadful to see him mangled, broken on the
 
 140 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 wheel, by what are called amateur performers. 
 They, who have witnessed the few attempts at Cal- 
 cutta or Madras to get up one of his plays, must 
 for the time have wished that Shakspeare had never 
 existed. I have seen a Madras audience convulsed 
 with laughter in the most pathetic scenes of Lear 
 and Othello ; the parting sorrows, the sweet con- 
 fiding affections, of Juliet, travestied by a half-caste 
 writer ffom one of the public offices; the exquisite 
 tenderness of Rowe turned into downright farce by 
 the appearance of a black Portuguese clerk, as the 
 Fair Penitent. It has been heretofore the well- 
 considered policy of the Court of Directors to ex- 
 clude professional actors from India ; and the 
 reasons of that policy are too obvious to need ex- 
 planation. But, in the new, or rather the inverted, 
 state of things, the policy and the reasonings that 
 upheld it have been swept away. India is open, 
 under a few slight and unavailing restrictions, to 
 all kinds of adventurers. Will some twenty or 
 thirty actors and actresses endanger our empire, or 
 loosen its radical holdings ? 
 
 The inconvenience, if any, will be a social, not a 
 political one. With us, a first-rate dramatic per- 
 former, his character and manners being unexcep- 
 tionable, is not refused admittance into the best 
 circles. Anglo-Indian society hangs together by
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 141 
 
 such nice and delicate fibres, it is made up of such 
 filmy, gossamery proprieties, so many petty ob- 
 servances and etiquettes, that it would be next to 
 impossible to adjust the exact position of an actor 
 or actress in the circles of the Presidency. To 
 drive them back upon an inferior rank would destroy 
 all the respectability arising from self-estimation, 
 which rises and falls with the estimation of others. 
 Tell persons of this class that they are not respect- 
 able, they will no longer strive to be so. Drive 
 into a secondary division of the settlement, indi- 
 viduals whose talents delight and charm those who 
 move in the highest, send them to taverns and 
 punch-houses, instead of seating them at the tables 
 of rank and fashion, and they will delight and 
 charm those only who frequent the same haunts of 
 vulgar intemperance. Many of them would, per- 
 haps, be more at their ease at such places, than in 
 the salons of members of council or of judges of 
 provincial courts. Kean was infinitely more com- 
 fortable at the Coal-Hole in the Strand, than at the 
 splendid table of the West-India merchant, whose 
 wife and daughters bored him to death, as he feel- 
 ingly complained, by talking to him about Shak- 
 speare. 
 
 On the other hand, what is to be done with the 
 professional ladies amongst the ladies of the settle-
 
 142 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 ment ? A great artist, drawing nightly tears from 
 a crowded auditory, or charming them into rapture 
 with her song, or rousing them to extasies of comic 
 mirth, will not be awed into humility by the rank 
 of her hostess, nor chilled into obsequiousness by 
 the cold dignity of her demeanour. It is a perplex- 
 ing case, putting it hypothetically. Much, of 
 course, depends upon the place her own manners 
 and deportment would vindicate to her. Yet it is 
 impossible not to foresee a whole Iliad of squabbles 
 and controversies, where so many Helens are con- 
 cerned. What a lengthened tissue of gossippings 
 and chronicles, if the lady herself is not a miracle 
 of reserve almost to sanctity if she forgets one 
 article in the catechism of feminine decorums if 
 she does not hit the precise line in her conversations 
 with the men, between a starched repulsive stiffness 
 and a frank and easy familiarity ! What a pile of 
 misconstructions and slanders might be raised upon 
 a dim semblance of truth what gallantries might 
 be woven out of a few casual whisperings, or too 
 close a tcte-a-tete ! The most petty incidents, by 
 the heightenings of female rhetoric, might be dis- 
 torted into grave offences, and the poor devil will 
 lead a wretched life of it, merely because she is not 
 an angel. I say nothing of the underlings ; I am 
 putting the case only of a person at the head of her
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 148 
 
 profession, a perfect mistress of her art. It is 
 impossible that, with such qualifications, she can be 
 kept in the back-ground. They who love the art 
 must respect the artist and even they who have no 
 taste for the drama, will endeavour to prove that 
 they can understand and relish it by lavishing 
 courtesies upon its professors. Mrs. Siddons or 
 Miss Fanny Kemble, at Calcutta, would have been 
 guests at the highest tables, and their society an 
 object of eager competition. Suppose, however, an 
 actress of equal powers and equal eminence to find 
 her way there, but with less of decorum in her 
 habits or holding the minute observances of female 
 life in contempt ; it is inconceivable what feuds, and 
 jealousies, and disputes would be lighted up both 
 for and against her : plusquam civilia bella. 
 
 With merely musical professors, there is not 
 likely to be the same inconvenience. The experi- 
 ment has been tried. In 1817, Signora Bianchi 
 Lacy and her husband were permitted to go out to 
 India. At Calcutta, they were praised, but starved. 
 Their concerts were not well attended, though pa- 
 tronized by Lord Hastings, and their failure dis- 
 couraged similar adventurers. A regularly-trained 
 dramatic corps would go out under happier aus- 
 pices, and, by alternately playing at Calcutta, Ma- 
 dras, and Bombay, might contrive to put as much
 
 144 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 money into their pockets as by a trip to the United 
 States, to which our theatrical professors are obliged 
 to resort, to freshen up a fading reputation, when 
 the English audiences begin to grow tired with 
 them. This is mere conjecture, the experiment 
 never having been tried. The project, however, 
 has frequently been entertained. So far back as 
 1793, Lee Lewis, a comedian of considerable 
 merit, actually got together a company, including 
 performers of eminence in every department of 
 stage-business. His memorial to the Court of Di- 
 rectors underwent considerable discussion ; but it 
 was rejected. The impolicy of throwing all prac- 
 ticable impediments in the way of colonization 
 the dread of the almost proverbial libertinism of 
 theatrjcal persons, whose private lives, at that time, 
 would not endure a severe scrutiny and the calcu- 
 lation that, in the usual course of human affairs, 
 many of the Juliets and Cordelias would require a 
 temporary retirement from the stage, the spirit of 
 intrigue that a handsome actress might encourage 
 amongst the younger part of the civil service, not 
 forgetting that occasionally a grave judge or mem- 
 ber of council might be found not sufficiently on 
 his guard against similar lapses these considera- 
 tions prevailed over every thing urged in favour of 
 the application. But colonization is now considered
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 145 
 
 as a mere chimaera, and there is an end to the 
 objection. 
 
 At present, the civil and military servants are the 
 artificers of their own dramatic amusement, and I 
 question whether much would be gained by having 
 it sent out ready-made. What a delightful bustle, 
 what a stir of preparation, in getting up an amateur 
 play ! What shifts and contrivances to supply 
 defects ! what laughable disputes for the chief 
 characters ! what perplexities in casting the female 
 parts and drilling them to feminine postures, and 
 what exquisite farce to hear them, in their half-caste 
 accent, mimicking the affected minced lisp of a lady 
 of fashion ! The green-room anecdotes of the Ma- 
 dras theatre would make an entertaining volume. 
 It was, perhaps, the happiest model of a summer- 
 theatre that was ever constructed, and from the 
 universality of its uses, probably (for I could never 
 discover a more rational etymology), being at one 
 time an assembly-room, at another, a place for 
 holding masonic lodges, and at others, for a general 
 meeting for the settlement, received the name of 
 Pantheon. However, it was a handsome building, 
 and capable of holding, pit, boxes, and gallery, 
 nearly seven hundred persons. When there was a 
 ball, a temporary flooring was thrown over the pit, 
 and it served the purpose of a spacious ball-room. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 SOCIETY AND HANKERS. 
 
 The amusing periods of its history, like the amusing 
 periods of every thing else in India, are now de- 
 parted. The reductions of salary in both services, 
 conjoined with other causes, have thrown a gloom 
 over the innocent and cheerful diversions that, in 
 my time, enlivened the place, and gave a life and 
 spirit to those humble theatrical experiments, which 
 will long live in my memory. Mark Rowarth, the 
 arbiter elegantiarum of the settlement, was the ma- 
 nager, with a liberal stipend, of the Madras theatre. 
 
 His company was recruited by young military 
 men, by even a few civilians; and for female cha- 
 racters, he had a regular school of young Portu- 
 guese or European half-castes, whom he contrived 
 to rouge and whiten into something of female sem- 
 blance. 
 
 But Colonel Elisha Trapaud ! Oh that, for one 
 moment, I held the pen of Scarron, to paint the 
 Roman Comique of which poor Trapaud, usually 
 termed in unkind derision Colonel Crapaud, was 
 the Ragotin. He had all the theatrical irritabili- 
 ties of that entertaining personage, and, by coaxing 
 his vanity, might be prevailed upon to undertake 
 any part, however unsuited to his figure and per- 
 son, which were almost caricatures of humanity. 
 Reader, if you had that exquisite work of the most 
 delightful of French authors on your table, I might
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 147 
 
 be spared the trouble of sketching this most exact 
 counterpart of him. But imagine a figure, some- 
 what diminutive, yet protruding into all sorts of 
 ungraceful angles, the whole outline being a kind 
 of rhomboid : imagine this figure, at the advanced 
 age of fifty or fifty-five, surmounted with a youth- 
 ful wig luxuriant with curls, and haunted with the 
 happy consciousness of his personal perfections, and 
 no very limited notions of his intellectual ones, for 
 he was the Admirable Crichton of his own fancy. 
 But, with all his conceit, he was a useful actor, and 
 though it was the fashion to laugh at him the mo- 
 ment he appeared on the stage, he set it down as 
 the effect of some comic hit, that pleased the au- 
 dience, without dreaming that he himself was the 
 subject of it. Upon one occasion, a wag, willing 
 to amuse himself at his expense, actually persuaded 
 him to write a comedy, and, unluckily, he set about 
 it in good earnest. Being an efficient member of 
 Mark Rowarth's dramatic corps, Mark could not 
 refuse to act it, when it was completed. Such a 
 farrago of dulness and absurdity was never exhi- 
 bited before, but he was proud of it, and took great 
 pains in getting it up. The performers, to do them 
 justice, did all they could for it ; for Trapaud's 
 vanities and irritabilities were harmless and amusing, 
 and there was no wish to give him offence. But,
 
 148 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 as for persuading him that the piece would not do, 
 it was out of the question. He would have seized 
 by the throat any body, whoever he might be, that 
 ventured to throw out the slightest criticism upon 
 its faults. 
 
 To this comedy, which he called the Merchant 
 of Smyrna, he wrote a prologue, and insisted upon 
 Mark Rowarth's speaking it. The critic of the 
 Madras Gazette, the next morning, observed of it, 
 that " it abounded in undisputed truths and incon- 
 trovertible propositions:" a criticism (such is the 
 omnivorous nature of vanity) which gave the 
 colonel great satisfaction, for he was as proof 
 against the shafts of ridicule or irony, as an alli- 
 gator to a musket-ball. A line or two of it, I shall 
 never forget. It began thus and the house was 
 in a roar, whilst Rowarth, with as much seriousness 
 as he could force into his countenance, delivered or 
 rather attempted to deliver it: 
 
 To-night, my gentle friends, we act a play 
 
 Approve it or condemn it, as you may. 
 
 In Thespis' days, a waggon was the stage 
 
 But larger theatres adorn our age. 
 
 In Drury's pile assembled hundreds sit, 
 
 Judges of taste and arbiters of wit. 
 
 But we 
 
 I forget how it went on, but it was a most egre- 
 gious specimen of nonsense and excited, of course,
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 149 
 
 thunders of mock applause. By dint, however, of 
 cutting and slashing, this performer forgetting his 
 part, and another substituting some equivalent non- 
 sense of his own, it arrived at its termination; the 
 poor author, all the while, swearing and stamping 
 with rage at their spoiling his piece. But when it 
 was over, there arose, by a preconcerted under- 
 standing amongst persons in different parts of the 
 theatre, a call of " Author ! author !" and a crown 
 wreathed with flowers was thrown on the stage. 
 Old Trapaud, in reality delighted, was with ill- 
 affected reluctance led on to be crowned between 
 two of the performers. The crown, however, was 
 too small to fit his head without taking off his wig, 
 which his two supporters dashed unceremoniously 
 on the floor. The joke, however, was too practical 
 a one ; for the crown had been made of leaves from 
 a prickly hedge, and the thorny part scratched the 
 bald part of his head, so that it streamed with blood, 
 and he ran off the stage, swearing destruction to the 
 contrivers of the insult. 
 
 Never shall I forget, for these are not unpleas- 
 ing reminiscences, the getting up of Macbeth, and 
 to say the truth, it was got up most respectably, 
 and Matthew Locke's music was admirably per- 
 formed, under the superintendence of Topping, 
 who was an excellent musician. Lady Macbeth
 
 150 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 was undertaken by Anstey, son of the celebrated 
 author of, the Bath Guide. Every body knows 
 how rapidly the beard grows in a hot climate. 
 Anstey's was of the blackest tint, and it being a 
 warm season of the year, before the fourth act it 
 had grown so long, as to render it actually neces- 
 sary for Lady Macbeth to shave before she ap- 
 peared in the fifth. It was, however, so sultry 
 behind the scenes, and there was so little air in 
 the room appropriated to dressing, that Anstey or- 
 dered a table with a looking-glass and his shaving 
 apparatus to be placed on the stage, where there 
 was a stronger current. In malicious pleasantry, 
 some one rang the prompter's bell, which was the 
 constant signal for drawing up the curtain. It was 
 most promptly obeyed, and, to the amazement of 
 the whole assembled fashion of Madras, Tom 
 Anstey was exhibited in the costume of Lady 
 Macbeth, in that most unfeminine part of his toi- 
 lette. The roar, the screams of surprise and merri- 
 ment, that ensued, are beyond description.
 
 151 
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 
 I. 
 
 THE India-society writers have been most in- 
 defatigable in their descriptions of its peculiarities. 
 After all, they give us only vague, shadowy, 
 unerabodied sketchings, much more to their own 
 satisfaction than that of their readers. The silliness 
 and affectation of English residents, whether at 
 Calcutta and Madras, or Paris and Brussels, must 
 always have as fatiguing a sameness in delineation 
 as in real life. The scene only is changed ; the 
 persons of the drama remain unaltered. Whether 
 a numerous society of English men and women, 
 whose utmost horizon extends not beyond their own 
 circle, whose little lives flutter in a narrow, cir- 
 cumscribed range of stupid visits, gaiety without 
 mirth, ridicule without wit, finery without elegance, 
 be thrown together in Asia or in Europe, it is 
 the same opaque, lifeless subject, alike uninteresting 
 and uninstructive ; a puppet-show of stiff, clumsy 
 figures, playing at ladies and gentlemen.
 
 152 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 In the mean while, of the natives of India, con- 
 fessedly the most interesting race under the sun, we 
 know nothing. We act for their amusement, not 
 they for ours. They are the spectators we the 
 performers. We are condescending enough to ex- 
 hibit for their entertainment all our pride, all our 
 littleness, all our folly, and it must be added, 
 not a few of our vices. On the other hand, we are 
 quite ignorant of the natives of Hindustan. We 
 see forms and configurations of beings, totally 
 unlike ourselves, moving to and fro; but we see 
 them only as shadows through a curtain. " We 
 know nothing at all of them," said Sir John Shore, 
 in 1792. " We neither converse, live, eat, or drink 
 with them, and are in truth quite shut out from 
 all knowledge of the Hindus,' 1 said Lord William 
 Bentinck, in 1806. Have we penetrated further 
 into the mystery by the aid of our new means and 
 appliances ? For, since that period, the nominal 
 changes in our relations with them have been con- 
 siderable. An affected equality, too affected to 
 conceal the imposture, and such as, thirty years 
 ago, was not dreamt of, a troublesome, obtrusive 
 disclaimer of old distinctions between native and 
 European, but so awkwardly managed as to make 
 the distinction more conspicuous and offensive than 
 ever, is played off in the present improved state
 
 ENGLISH SOCIETY IN INDIA. 153 
 
 of things by the Anglo-Indians of each presidency. 
 " Amongst the gentlemen who honoured the 
 meeting," says the daily paragraph, " were the 
 Lord Bishop, the Honourable Chief Justice, Rajah 
 Budinauth, Baboo Cassinauth Mullick, &c. &c., 
 and other distinguished persons." 
 
 It is of yesterday, this flummery, this part and 
 parcel of the cant of the age. Nor does it soften 
 the real subjection; on the contrary, it draws the 
 natives'* attention to it by the awkwardness of the 
 attempt to disguise it. A deep thinker (it was 
 Tacitus) observes how the loss of liberty was 
 aggravated, under the emperors, by retaining the 
 nomina et vocabula of a free state. The natives of 
 India, indeed, have long since seen through the 
 ragged policy of this affected and nominal equality, 
 and they remain as unmixed and as immiscible as 
 before. It is said that the Corinthian brass was an 
 entire metal, though a fusion of every other. A real 
 political amalgamation, such as ought to subsist in 
 India, would resemble Corinthian brass. But this 
 forced, unnatural assimilation is the hammering 
 and tinkering together a piece of lead to iron : 
 there is no unity of substance. To wield a despotic 
 influence over a vast race of mankind ; to deprive 
 them of actual independence, and then to throw 
 them the husks and shells of complimentary phrases,
 
 154 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 cannot, when duly considered, fail to embitter the 
 servitude. 
 
 What inconsistencies startle them on all sides ! 
 Turn to the reports of intelligent Europeans for 
 the moral characteristics of the Hindus. Perjury, 
 fraud, falsehood, bribery, are declared to be their 
 inveterate complexional habits. These are axioms 
 assumed for the basis of every plan of jurisprudence 
 that has yet been devised for India, amongst the 
 numerous experiments of that kind which have 
 been proposed or attempted. It is the running- 
 base of the celebrated Tenth Report of the House 
 of Commons, in 1784. It is the burthen of Lord 
 Teignmouth's canticle, in 1792. Upon this deep- 
 laid foundation, this solid base of moral depression, 
 assumed by every tyro of Indian policy as if it 
 were another law of gravitation, our new schemes 
 of Hindu legislation are fixed. The trial by jury, 
 which supposes habits of truth and a love of justice 
 in those serving as jurors, is at once imparted, 
 without stint or restriction, to those, of whose vices 
 collectors, magistrates, judges, have devoted half 
 their time in furnishing inventories. What a leap ! 
 But with what growls of dissatisfaction was the gift 
 imparted ! Sir Charles Grey, the Calcutta chief 
 justice, was frightened, in 1829, lest native juries 
 should take it into their heads to determine the law
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 155 
 
 as well as the fact with regard to the stamp regu- 
 jation. Yet the determination of the mixed question, 
 law and fact, was vindicated to British juries by 
 Mr. Fox's bill, in 1792. " What would you think/ 1 
 exclaims the astounded chief justice,* " of being 
 made amenable in capital cases to a native jury, 
 which should have the power of determining both 
 law and fact?" 
 
 Yet, begging the judge's pardon, may we be 
 permitted to ask, what the jury have to determine 
 in a capital case but the law and the fact, or how 
 the two questions can be separated ? By saying 
 that a man is guilty of murder, the jury decide 
 both law and fact. A man cannot be found guilty 
 of killing, for killing may be lawful. The killing 
 is the fact, the murder the legal inference. To say 
 that native juries are not to draw legal inferences, 
 is saying that they are not to be juries at all. But 
 how complimentary a gift to the natives, in 
 the same breath to give them the privilege, and 
 deny their fitness to exercise it ! But the chief 
 justice went further. " If we look to the extension 
 of the trial by jury to the natives, and if it is to 
 carry with it a right of determining the law, it is 
 not saying too much to say, that no man's life and 
 
 * Sir Charles Grey's charge to the grand jury at Calcutta, as 
 reported in the Calcutta Government Gazette, 25th August 1829.
 
 156 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 property would be safe." He then charges them in 
 the lump with habits of corruption, that would 
 render them unfit for any civil function whatever. 
 " My mind, 11 says he, " will not bear to contem- 
 plate that there is any lapse of centuries within which 
 English jurors could be brought to this stage of 
 depravity." 
 
 But, in the short interval of four years, what a 
 moral revolution ! We give them the right, and 
 force on them the duty, of sitting on juries. Sir 
 Charles Grey's seat on the bench had not grown 
 cool, before credit is given them for elevation of 
 mind and character, which the lapse of centuries 
 could scarcely have imparted to a race so long 
 accustomed to breathe the atmosphere of fraud and 
 falsehood. Under such auguries, the natives of 
 India have had the right of sitting on juries con- 
 ferred on them ; a gift poisoned with something 
 more than a suspicion that they are unworthy to 
 receive it. With this strong current of opinion 
 against them, the perfect conviction of the whole 
 British community, that they are sure to admi- 
 nister their judicial functions corruptly, we have 
 made them the arbiters of life and fortune. Men 
 generally act up to the standard of what it is pre- 
 conceived they will do. If native jurors act down 
 to the preconceived standard of their integrity,
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 157 
 
 what is to be expected from their verdicts ? Such 
 are the inconsistencies into which the affectation of 
 enlightened sentiments has hurried us. The trial 
 by jury is for ever in our mouths ; we are bawling 
 ourselves hoarse in praise of it the whole of our 
 feverish interval between the cradle and the grave. 
 We steal our way as traders, or fight our way as 
 conquerors, amongst people that never heard of 
 it; we cram it down their throats as a blessing, 
 taking especial care, however, so to medicate it, as 
 to make it hateful and loathsome as they taste it. 
 
 It is painful to predict gloomily ; but it is not 
 difficult to foresee, that this affectation, for it is 
 nothing else, of promoting a nominal equality be- 
 tween the British and native subject, an equality 
 which the very existence of the British power in 
 India disclaims, is every day unravelling the real / 
 ascendancy on which that power rests. The few 
 benefits we have yet communicated to India, pre- 
 suppose a sense of inferiority in one party. Our 
 institutions are received gratefully, because they 
 are those of a superior. What is the hope, for in- 
 stance, still cherished, of converting the Hindu 
 people to Christianity ? The conviction felt by 
 the natives that it is the creed of a community 
 infinitely in advance of themselves in philosophy 
 and general intelligence. Persist, however, a few
 
 158 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 years longer in that equal intercourse, that permits 
 the names of the rajahs and the baboos to elbow 
 those of the Lord Bishop and the Honourable 
 Chief Justice, and then see whether the argumen- 
 tum ad verecundiam in favour of Christianity will 
 have the same weight ? It is not in human nature 
 to recognise instructors in equals. 
 
 It is a farce, a game of hypocrisy, that we 
 may play too long. By dint of being perpetually 
 reminded of being native gentlemen, they may take 
 it into their heads to shake off a few usages and 
 institutions, that shew, on the part of those who 
 imposed them, that they were not regarded as 
 such. It must and will happen, that they will be- 
 come convinced of that we are labouring to incul- 
 cate into them, and from their happy ignorance of 
 which, thus far, they have submitted to nuisances 
 dignified by high-sounding appellations, that are 
 little more than a machinery skilfully contrived to 
 fill the pockets of their European masters. In 
 process of time, they may discover that a Supreme 
 Court, with English judges talking to them out of 
 Plowden and Sandford, Cro. Jac. and Cro. Car. 
 a court that in half a century has ground their 
 estates to dust, broken up the ancient undivided* 
 
 All the ancient tenures of India were held by undivided 
 families. The origin of this patriarchal institution is lost in an .
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 159 
 
 tenures of India, and made the fortunes of the law- 
 yers who have successively prowled in it for prey, 
 is a cumbrous and expensive fallacy. / 
 
 The error of sendiilg out technical lawyers to 
 India was not perceived at first. That the Mayor's 
 Court was corruptly and ignorantly administered, 
 was the cry of a considerably party at Calcutta ; 
 but it is remarkable that no flagrant instance of 
 outrageous injustice or gross corruption was ad- 
 duced against it. On the contrary, the natives 
 found in it the redress and protection they wanted. 
 When it was put down, they sent to England a 
 strong petition in its favour. Two years after the 
 establishment of the Supreme Court, they petitioned 
 against it. It is not insinuated that the judges have 
 wrongfully administered the law in that court ; but 
 the forced adaptation of English law to those who 
 are not only not English, but placed by custom, 
 institutions, religion, at the very antipodes of all 
 that is English, constitutes the grievance. How 
 often has the individual, who is now writing, 
 smiled at an action of ejectment to recover posses- 
 sion of lands in Hindustan, and the ridiculous ab- 
 surdities of a casual ejector, and the demise of 
 
 tiquity. Partition by law (that is, compulsory partition) is not 
 known in Hindu jurisprudence. It is a creature of the Supreme 
 Court, and has produced a frightful disruption in family estates.
 
 160 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 John D6e absurdities which had once a reason- 
 and of which it is as natural that Westminster Hall 
 should be the depository, as the Egyptian pyramids 
 of their mummies ! But the transplanting of such 
 technicalities into a new jurisprudence, in a remote 
 qolony, was almost as foolish as an attempt to re- 
 animate the decayed carcases of Egypt. Nor was 
 it foreseen how soon the love of jurisdiction, the 
 ruling passion of an English lawyer, would come 
 into play. From the first, there was a fretful impa- 
 tience of the limits assigned to the court, till, by one 
 bold and memorable assumption, Sir Elijah Impey 
 made himself, instead of a puisne justice adminis- 
 tering law within the limits of the Mahratta ditch, 
 </ the sole arbiter of life and property in India. 
 / In its earliest judges, the Supreme Court was 
 singularly fortunate. Sir William Chambers and 
 Sir William Jones were gentlemen as well as law- 
 yers. The oriental pursuits of the latter gave him 
 a happy bias in favour of the Hindus, their ancient 
 civilisation, their law, their enamelled poetry ; 
 and tinctured the sternest of his duties with bene- 
 ficence and mercy. The mild dignity and polished 
 urbanity of these men raised the Supreme Court in 
 the public estimation. From that estimation it fell 
 irrecoverably when Nuncomar was judicially, not 
 legally, murdered. But suitors had no choice;
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 161 
 
 there was no chapel of ease to the Supreme Court ; 
 and it was a populous district. It always fur- 
 nished, therefore, a series of gainful suits to the 
 profession, but with occasional cessations of busi- 
 ness long enough to starve one advocate to death, 
 banish another to Fort Maryborough, and send 
 home a third to Scotland. 
 
 Talking of Anglo-Indian judges, it is remarkable 
 that those seem to have been most loved and con- 
 fided in by the natives, who were not over-active in 
 their calling. A busy, meddling judge, fond of 
 business, and straining the summumjus to its ut- 
 most extent by the strict letter of his books, was 
 much less to their taste than a quiet, indolent man, 
 like Sir John Royds, who sat nearly fifteen years 
 on the bench, and was enamoured of ease and his 
 garden-house. He was a polished gentleman of 
 the old school and almost adored by Europeans 
 and natives. The greatest mistake which can be 
 committed by those who dispose of the judicial 
 patronage of India, is to send out a completely- 
 rigged special-pleader. He is sure to puzzle the 
 court, and the native suitor is dissatisfied with his 
 judgment, because he cannot comprehend it. Asa 
 colleague, he is controversial and punctilious, and 
 generally stands alone in his decision. According 
 to their notions, justice is uniform hi its essence
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 why should it not be uniform in its language ? 
 
 Sir Henry R was of this description. He 
 
 came out a deeply-read, well-exercised, black-letter 
 lawyer. Black-letter lawyer ! the words create an 
 inextricable confusion in the Hindu understanding. 
 Sir William Jones, on the other hand, might be 
 said to hit the natives of India between wind and 
 water. No man was more fitted for the office of 
 a colonial judge by the habitual course of his studies. 
 Such were his powers of generalization, that he not 
 only seized with the rapidity of lightning the ana- 
 logies by which all the European systems of juris- 
 prudence are assimilated, and recognised in Lord 
 Coke the rules traced out in the Code of Justinian, 
 but found the same artificial distinctions in the law- 
 books of the Hindus which pervade those of the 
 west. What can be a more artificial series of dis- 
 tinctions, for example, than those of the law * of 
 deposits in the Hindu code ? Yet they are sub- 
 stantially those laid down by Lord Mansfield in 
 the case of " Forward v. Pittard," and vary slightly 
 if at all, from those insisted on by the old Roman 
 lawyers. It was this faculty of perceiving legal 
 analogies, that made equity an universal science to 
 Sir William Jones, and whilst his brethren of the 
 profession were groping their way by the dark- 
 * Essay on the Law of Bailments, by Sir Wra. Jones.
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 163 
 
 lanthorn of their own municipal law, without one 
 effort to stretch their vision beyond the horizon of 
 Westminster Hall, he had taught himself to dis- 
 cern the consent and harmony of the diversified 
 codes of all nations, and the consentaneousness of 
 each to the antecedent law of nature. Perhaps the 
 selection of Sir William Jones to fill a high judicial 
 office in India is one of the most precise adaptations 
 of the individual to the function (and it is the more 
 remarkable from its being merely an accidental 
 appointment) that have happened in our day. 
 
 Sir John Anstruther had, in one respect only, v 
 the same advantage. He was not a pedantic 
 English lawyer. The doggrel couplet of West- 
 minster Hall makes him out to have been quite 
 ignorant of his profession : yet, as a judge, he 
 was a great favourite with the natives. He saw 
 that a narrow-minded, technical application of the 
 rules of English law to a people contrasted by so 
 many moral diversities to the inhabitants of Great 
 Britain, would, in a great number of cases, ope- 
 rate the grossest injustice. He felt and acted so 
 uniformly on this conviction, that he might be said 
 to have created a new system of equity. This 
 equity he administered at his own house, where 
 he assumed the extra-judicial office of arbitrator 
 in those petty controversies, which could not have
 
 164 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 been adjudicated in the Supreme Court without 
 irretrievably ruining the parties. The motive was 
 laudable, but the practice, in this instance, was 
 mischievous. It raised a considerable cry against 
 him in the profession, whose profits it abridged. 
 It had this inconvenience also. The suitors of Sir 
 John Anstruther's cutcherry (so it was called) were 
 not always pleased with his decisions. In those in- 
 stances, the case sometimes found its way into the 
 Supreme Court, and placed the chief justice in a 
 whimsical situation. Anstruther was hasty and 
 petulant towards the bar, amongst whom he had 
 his favourites, who, of course, did as they liked 
 with him. And here it may be remarked that, in 
 India, a judge may contrive to make himself ex- 
 tremely offensive, if he is desirous of that dis- 
 tinction. The bar is not sufficiently numerous to 
 keep him in order; nor is there always among 
 them that high-minded sense of what is due to its 
 honour and independence, to resent an affront 
 offered to one of their own little body as an in- 
 , dignity to all. Anstruther's demeanour to Strettell, 
 who had at one time the chief business of the Court, 
 was a continued growl, occasionally breaking out 
 into the most ungoverned rudeness. He had also 
 something of an antipathy to the elder Lewin, and 
 for no apparent reason, but that he was a sound
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 165 
 
 and well-read lawyer, which he considered as a 
 reflection upon himself. 
 
 Since the time of Anstruther, there has been a 
 somewhat rapid succession of chief-justices at Cal- 
 cutta. Serjeant Blossett was an amiable man, but 
 of the highest evangelical school. Whether in an 
 office to which so powerful an influence belongs, 
 considering the leanings and partialities towards 
 those who are tinctured with the same sentiments, 
 and the incompatibility of all leanings and partiali- 
 ties with the severity of the judicial duty, Blossett 
 would have steered clear of the disputes and con- 
 troversies which, in a small community, like that 
 of Calcutta, might have rendered his situation irk- 
 some, cannot be decided for he sunk prematurely 
 under the cholera, having tried only one cause. 
 Puller succeeded him, an able lawyer and an 
 excellent law-reporter. He fell a victim also to 
 the same malady, not long after his arrival. From 
 that time, a sort of panic seems to have prevailed 
 in Westminster Hall, which deterred several emi- 
 nent men from accepting seats on the Indian 
 bench. */ 
 
 The Calcutta bar, for a long time, boasted of 
 several distinguished and honourable men. In its 
 earlier period, Shaw, a man educated originally to 
 mercantile pursuits, contrived to obtain permission
 
 166 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 to practise as a barrister, and for some time carried 
 every thing before him. Before the Company 
 created the specific office of Advocate-general, with 
 its present high salary, their general retainer to a 
 counsel, to act in all their suits, was highly lucra- 
 tive, and Shaw, for several years, held the post of 
 their standing counsel. He was a man, it is said 
 (for the traditions of that period are now beginning 
 to be dim), of strong natural powers, and, in a 
 short time, became a skilful practitioner. His in- 
 come was, for some years, enormous. The natives, 
 who were parties in great family causes involving 
 immense sums, the accumulations probably of a 
 century, were not restrained by a table of fees from 
 giving way to certain impulses of hope or gratitude, 
 which soon made the fortunes of their favourite 
 pleaders. Shaw, unfortunately, though in the 
 midst of a most prosperous career at the bar, could 
 not get the better of his love of commercial adven- 
 ture. He dabbled with various success in specula- 
 tions, always hazardous, not always profitable ; 
 and these speculations at length so completely 
 swallowed up his professional emoluments, as to 
 drive him to the most ruinous expedients of raising 
 money. After a continued series of losses, he 
 began to suspect the good faith of his agents ; 
 and, finding it necessary to inspect their proceed-
 
 THE BEXCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 167 
 
 ings more closely, embarked on board one of his 
 own vessels bound to Batavia, and was no more , 
 heard of. \f 
 
 Strettell was a counsel of great note at Calcutta. 
 He arrived there young, and was admitted into the 
 Supreme Court before the right of practising as 
 counsel there was limited to persons who had been 
 called to the English bar. He had the confidence 
 of the natives in an eminent degree, though with- 
 out any of the superficial, noisy qualifications they 
 sometimes look for in their lawyers. He had no 
 eloquence, and pretended to none ; but a steady, 
 uniform, good sense led him onwards to advance- 
 ment. Strettell never looked forward, as others 
 did, to returning home, and enjoying the fruits of 
 his industry in England. Calcutta was his home, 
 and in truth he became at last so old a resident, 
 that he would have been quite a stranger, and in 
 the strongest sense of the word a stranger, any- 
 where else. He made up his mind, therefore, to a 
 protracted stay in India, and took the deeper root 
 in its soil by reason of marrying a young Portu- 
 guese lady of considerable accomplishments : a cir- 
 cumstance that fettered him still more closely to / 
 the spot by the ties of family connexion. Mrs. 
 Strettell was mistress of all the spoken dialects 
 of Hindustan ; and she is recorded as the only
 
 SOCIETY AND MANXERS. 
 
 European (or of European extraction) who ever 
 interposed effectually (till of late years) to divert a 
 suttee from the performance of her horrid vow. 
 The female was about twenty-five, and obstinately 
 tenacious of those rules of her faith which en- 
 joined the sacrifice. Mrs. Strettell addressed her, 
 while she was waiting calmly till the funeral pile 
 was completed, and urged every argument to dis- 
 suade her from her resolve that her truly mascu- 
 line good sense suggested. It was in vain. She 
 was not, the widow said, young and ignorant of 
 her religious obligations, which she had long stu- 
 died. Such remonstrances might, she observed, 
 shake a younger person from her purpose ; but she 
 had meditated upon it too long to be induced by 
 any motive to forego it. Mrs. Strettell in some 
 degree gave way to the poor woman's resolution, 
 seeing that it was backed by so strong and deep- 
 felt a conviction of its propriety, and reluctantly 
 retired, until the ceremonies of washing with the 
 Gunga water, and scattering the grains of conse- 
 crated rice in a direction contrary to the sun's 
 course, were gone through. The last ceremonial, 
 of walking three times round the pile, alone re- 
 mained to be performed. With steps that began 
 to falter, she had completed the circle once, when 
 she looked anxiously towards the spot where Mrs.
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 169 
 
 Strettell stood, but who, unwilling to see the actual 
 immolation, was preparing to enter her palanquin. 
 Their eyes met. The widow looked imploringly. 
 Mrs. Strettell returned to her. A short but earnest 
 conference took place. The result was, the return 
 of the woman with Mrs. Strettell to the house of 
 the collector, in spite of the loud expressions of 
 disapprobation uttered by the multitude. 
 
 To pursue what remains of the personal history ' 
 of Strettell it is only to be observed, that, find- 
 ing age creeping rapidly upon him, after a long 
 residence of thirty-eight years in India, he deter- 
 mined to return home for the residue of his life. 
 He tried London tried the country ran the 
 gauntlet of Cheltenham, Bath, and every other 
 paradise of English idleness. All would not do. 
 He had returned home, but his home was home- 
 less. He felt himself a stranger and sojourner in 
 the land, and returned to Calcutta, where he 
 ended his days. V Q &** 
 
 At this time, the Calcutta bar consisted of about 
 nine ; three or four only in first-rate business ; the 
 others picking up a mere subsistence by their share 
 of the smaller things, such as motions of course, 
 and filling occasionally some of the offices belong- 
 ing to the Court, to which small salaries were 
 annexed. The higher officers of that Court, such 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 . 
 
 170 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 as the Master of the Crown Office, the Prothono- 
 tary, the Master in Equity, in a few years, made 
 rapid and large fortunes. But, at the period of 
 which we are speaking, the counsel in the fullest 
 business averaged 8,000 or ^9,000 a-year. Ro- 
 bert Smith, who, in addition to the office of advo- 
 cate-general, with a salary of 5,000 a-year, had 
 the lead of the court, brought home in twelve 
 years a very handsome competence. He was per- 
 haps the most accomplished person, as a lawyer 
 and a scholar, of course conceding Sir William 
 Jones's superiority in multifarious acquirement, 
 that Calcutta ever saw. He made Sir John 
 Anstruther respect him ; and compulsory respect 
 was all the respect that Anstruther could feel for 
 any one. Robert Smith's might be called the 
 Augustan era of the Calcutta bar. His mode of 
 reasoning, clear, condensed, and frequently oracular, 
 was admirably adapted to that peculiar forum an 
 Anglo-Indian court of law. There was no jury 
 to address. The swaggering, bullying style, there- 
 fore, and the endless prolixity of the English advo- 
 cate, compelled to force his way into the compre- 
 hension of ignorant and uneducated juries, is there 
 wholly out of place. It would not be endured. 
 Three English judges, well-educated, exercised in 
 legal and moral reasonings, require totally different
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 171 
 
 modes of appeal. Smith was most powerful in 
 this sort of address. Perhaps he made it still 
 more powerful by a sort of latent sarcasm, that 
 ran through his argument. If it did not express 
 downright contempt for the court, when they 
 differed from him, it was at least something that 
 seemed commiseration for their understandings. 
 Several persons have since acquired both fame 
 and money at the Calcutta bar: but there are 
 occasions when it is easier to say nothing than to 
 say little. 
 
 The bar at the other presidencies never afforded 
 so open a field as that of Calcutta. Neither Madras 
 nor Bombay produced an abundant harvest to more 
 than two. The Recorder's Court, which preceded 
 the Supreme Court, had disposed of the fat causes 
 those involving great successions of family pro- 
 perty, in which large sums were at issue, infi- 
 nitely transcending those which are the subjects of 
 Westminster-Hall litigation. It was frequently a 
 question before the Court, in cases of disputed 
 wills, whether lacs of rupees should be appro- 
 priated to the perpetual maintenance of brahmins 
 and a tribe of dancing-girls. The money spent on 
 lawyers was then too insignificant an item, com- 
 pared with the bulk of the property, to be the 
 subject of a moment's consideration. When the
 
 172 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Supreme Court was established, and the bar con- 
 sisted of regularly- called English barristers (in the 
 former courts, they acted in the joint capacities of 
 attorney and counsel), there was a much greater 
 restraint upon professional profits, which arose only 
 from the ordinary every-day business of a court of 
 
 y law, in a large and populous jurisdiction. 
 
 The rise of Compton (the present chief justice of 
 Bombay) was most extraordinary, but highly ho- 
 nourable to his integrity of character and unequalled 
 vigour of mind. He had gone out in the military ser- 
 vice of the Company, as a volunteer ; but an opening 
 having taken place in the office of Mr. Samuel, one 
 of the leading practitioners of the Recorder's Court, 
 Compton acted a short time as his assistant, during 
 which he acquired, by the intuitive quickness of 
 his faculties, sufficient knowledge of the business 
 and practice of the Court to qualify him for acting 
 as a principal. Perhaps there was never a more 
 striking illustration of what may be effected, with- 
 out the artificial aids of a technical education, by 
 means of natural powers seconded by most unwea- 
 ried industry. A short time after the arrival of 
 Marsh, he returned to England, and was called to 
 the bar ; a fortunate hit, for his elevation to the 
 Bombay bench could not otherwise have taken 
 
 v ! place. Compton was a hard-headed man. Prolix,
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 173 
 
 ill-assorted, rambling as his argument was, it had 
 its effect upon the judges. The acute skill of 
 Anstruther at Madras, and the long-exercised in- 
 genuity of Spankie at Calcutta (for Compton prac- 
 tised several years at the latter presidency), were 
 often driven off the field by Compton. Sir Henry 
 Gwillim used to say, in allusion to his hammering 
 mode of pressing his case, by continually knocking 
 upon the strongest point in it, that he argued like 
 a Cyclops. There is no cause to apprehend that 
 he will not do honour to his function, if he has 
 sense and strength enough of understanding to 
 " bear meekly " the singular good fortune, to which, 
 in some degree, he owes his unexpected advance- 
 ment. 
 
 But can we omit all mention of Bushby ? His 
 was a short and sad career, and it elucidates a 
 most perplexing but interesting phenomenon in 
 our intellectual structure. He had received the 
 advantages of the high and generous education of 
 Cambridge carried off the medal of his year, of 
 which he was the second wrangler, and was univer- 
 sally sought and caressed in the highest circles of 
 fashion and letters. His reputation preceded him 
 at Madras, and lost nothing by crossing the ocean. 
 Indeed, the accession of such an advocate to the 
 Supreme Court was looked forward to by the native
 
 174 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 suitors and the profession as a new era in its his- 
 tory. Did a wealthy brahminy or moodeliar, an 
 lyah Pillay or Paupiah, for instance, meditate 
 filing a bill or bringing an action in the court, 
 which involved a considerable sum his language 
 was, " stop till new law gentleman come.'" He 
 had scarcely quitted the masoolah-boat that landed 
 him, before the attornies ran to meet him with re- 
 tainers. Bushby's frame of mind was peculiarly 
 sensitive. Hope and fear of any kind were stimu- 
 lants that acted too powerfully upon his sensorium 
 to leave his faculties, which were naturally prompt 
 and excitable, their healthy and unclouded opera- 
 tion. All became in a moment a confused, chaotic 
 darkness, succeeding to a quick transient illumina- 
 tion, like that of lightning. He saw the difficulty, 
 grasped it, subdued it ; but in an instant he per- 
 ceived another ; another darted upon him, till he 
 became appalled, or, to use a more applicable 
 phrase, cowed, although, in fact, the difficulties 
 were visions, as it were, of his own peculiar and 
 morbid perspicacity. Cases of this kind, we have 
 been told, by those who have studied the irregu- 
 larities of the intellectual system, are by no means 
 unfrequent. 
 
 The great case then pending in the court, and 
 which had been suspended till Bushby's long-
 
 THE BENCH AKD BAR OF INDIA, 175 
 
 expected arrival, was the suit originating in the 
 will of lyah Pillay's father. The amount of pro- 
 perty involved in the issue was immense, compared 
 to the pigmy sums that constitute the subjects of 
 our Westminster-Hall litigations. The prelimi- 
 nary question was of the greatest importance 
 whether the disposition of property by testamen- 
 tary donation was consonant to the Hindu law ; 
 and, after that, whether the Court would uphold 
 the peculiar bequests of that will, by which a large 
 portion of the family property was diverted to the 
 maintenance of a regiment of lazy brahmins and 
 their descendants for ever ? Bushby was retained 
 against the will. He had a full week given him ; 
 but there was such a mass of documents to be 
 perused, and the attorney who prepared the brief 
 had performed his task so indolently, that an older 
 and cooler practitioner would have been sadly per- 
 plexed. However, it was set down for hearing on 
 the first day of the term, and the whole settlement 
 was in a bustle of expectation to hear a young 
 lawyer, who had raised such transcendant expecta- 
 tion, in a cause which was also a matter of consi- 
 derable interest, from the new and singular points 
 involved in the decision. Bushby felt this. It 
 redoubled his diligence to master the facts as well 
 as the legal points ; sudden elucidations shot across
 
 176 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 him ; he congratulated himself on vanquishing 
 the difficulties that met him; but, as he ad- 
 vanced, new and still more embarrassing ones 
 started up ; he endeavoured to wrestle with them; 
 he was overthrown in the struggle, and folded 
 up his papers in despair. His apartments were in 
 the Fort : he seems to have hung over his papers 
 the greater part of the night preceding the day 
 fixed for hearing the cause. At gun-fire, Captain 
 Thompson, the town-major, called under his win- 
 dow on horseback, the horse-keeper leading another 
 horse for Bushby, which Thompson had agreed to 
 lend him for the morning^s ride. Bushby heard 
 the call, and -told his friend out of the window 
 that he would be ready in a few minutes. Captain 
 Thompson waited more than twenty. The report 
 of a pistol from Bushby ""s apartment startled him. 
 He ran up, and found his unhappy friend weltering 
 in blood. 
 
 Alexander Anstruther (afterwards the Recorder 
 of Bombay) and Marsh divided the business of the 
 Madras court between them. The former was an 
 acute, persevering advocate, endued with a much 
 more powerful faculty than that of verbal elo- 
 quence, a sly insinuating mode of carrying the 
 judge along with him; an art which, in the long 
 run, began to defeat itself, by putting the court on
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 177 
 
 its guard against being " bamboozled" as Sir Ben- 
 jamin Sulivan expressed himself, into a decision. 
 The great secret of the artifice was an apparent 
 conviction, admirably counterfeited on the part of 
 the counsel, of the justice and truth of his own 
 case. Much of this was done by a sort of by-play, 
 which had its effect : shrugging his shoulders, or 
 shaking his head, as he turned round to still the 
 anxieties of his client ; as much as saying " that 
 is all true but what is to be done ? you see, the 
 court is against us I have urged everything as 
 strongly as I could if they can reconcile it to their 
 consciences, there's no help." Yet he was an ex- 
 cellent lawyer, and made a considerable fortune. / 
 At this time, Sir Thomas Strange was the chief-* 
 justice ; Sir Henry Gwillim and Sir Benjamin 
 Sulivan were the puisnes. Strange was courteous 
 and mild, with a strong predilection for the natives. 
 He was the only judge in India (Sir William Jones 
 is always an exception) who studied Hindu law 
 with diligence. He adopted Sir John Anstruther's 
 system of holding a private cutcherry to dispose 
 of petty litigations, and consequently incurred the 
 ill-will of some part of the profession. The better 
 and liberal part did homage to the motives that 
 influenced him. 
 
 It was rather an amusing incident, which hap-
 
 , 
 
 178 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 pened in open court, after the judges had come to 
 the determination of wearing wigs, in addition to 
 the costume which, in every thing but the wig, was 
 the ordinary judicial dress. " In Calcutta, where 
 the climate is much hotter, each judge had his 
 wig, and it was the duty of the court to preserve 
 its dignity by the exterior observances of the 
 Bench, of which the wig had always been deemed 
 an essential part. 1 ' The reasoning of the chief- 
 justice was conclusive with his brethren. The wigs 
 were ordered from England, and in due course ar- 
 rived, all carefully packed in boxes. Unluckily, 
 the cock-roaches had found their way into the wig- 
 box of Sir Thomas Strange, and fed, much to their 
 satisfaction, upon each side of it. Unfortunately, 
 after the judges had seated themselves, each with 
 his new wig, the holes gnawed by the voracious in- 
 sects began to make way for Sir Thomas^ ears, 
 which, in a few minutes, were visible through them. 
 The laughter that ran through the court having 
 attracted his attention to the circumstance that af- 
 forded so much amusement in a moment, off went 
 the wig indignantly over the heads of the protho- 
 notary and his clerks, upon the area of the court. 
 The example of the chief-justice was instantly fol- 
 lowed by the other judges, and, one by one, like a 
 leash of partridges, the three wigs flew across and
 
 BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 179 
 
 lighted on the floor. This ludicrous circumstance 
 so completely unhinged Sir Thomas, that he ad- 
 journed the court till the following day, for it 
 was found impossible to hush the merriment it 
 occasioned.* / 
 
 To those who are desirous of practising at the 
 Indian bar, which is now unrestrictedly open to all 
 adventurers, a few hints and admonitions may be . \ 
 acceptable. In the first place, the great tree of 
 litigation, which once put forth so many branches, 
 laden with gold mohurs and rupees, is decayed to 
 its trunk. The causes, in which questions of large 
 property arose, have been disposed of, or settled by 
 the ruin of one or other of the parties not tin- 
 frequently of the successful one. Nor is it likely 
 that that decayed trunk will ever put forth any 
 more shoots. At Madras and Bombay, the profits 
 of the bar may emphatically be said to be extinct. 
 Yet there will be, for some time, a petty race of 
 causes litigated, out of which fees will be extracted; 
 but even these are dwindling every day into insig- 
 nificance. Let him, therefore, who has come to the 
 resolution of quitting home, and all the endearments 
 
 * This anecdote was treated by a correspondent as a mere fic- 
 tion ; but the writer (who was a barrister of the court where the 
 incident occurred) asserted its accuracy, doubting merely whether 
 the wig-less judge was Sir Thomas Strange or Sir Benjamin 
 Sulivan.
 
 180 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 and blessings that word implies, be admonished 
 that he incurs those fearful sacrifices without any- 
 thing approximating to the certainty, by any effort 
 of talent or industry, of making a fortune. There 
 will be another illustration of the precious free-trade 
 system in the Supreme Courts. The bar of each 
 presidency will be overstocked, for Westminster 
 Hall will throw off her overflowings to the various 
 colonial bars of Great Britain, and those who can 
 pay their outfit, allured by the splendid accumula- 
 tions that within the last fifteen years have dazzled 
 and astonished us with the professional profits of 
 India, will find their way thither but, in a climate 
 where nature has more wants, and requires more 
 fondling and indulgence, than in any other, will 
 exchange their dreams of affluence for privation 
 and penury. If, however, these forebodings should 
 not dissuade him from the adventure, he would do 
 well to devote himself to that part of his profes- 
 sional studies, which will make him an expert, con- 
 cise draughtsman in Equity. Rejecting all special- 
 pleading niceties, let his labours be assiduously di- 
 rected to that which special-pleading ought to be 
 and essentially is, a system of law logic, or an ana- 
 lytical method of legal reasoning, whereby all con- 
 troversies are brought to the quickest issue. He 
 ought to study the law as a science, not as an art;
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 181 
 
 to be conversant with it in its primitive elements 
 and its most general principles ; and, above all, to 
 place habitual restraints upon his temper. If the 
 strings of this delicate instrument be liable to be 
 put out of tune by every breath of wind, if he is 
 nicely sensitive to affront and transmute fancied 
 grievances into real ones, let him stay at home.
 
 182 
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 
 II. 
 
 SIR S T , the most irritable of God's 
 
 creatures, under some malicious influence of his 
 horoscope, was appointed Advocate-general at 
 Madras, from a snug obscure practice in the Court 
 of Chancery. With too large a share of his own 
 good opinion, he had been long laying up for him- 
 self a vast store of mortifications, that were for ever 
 annoying him in after-life. The ship, that epitome 
 of all the persecutions by which vanity can be tor- 
 mented, the school where pride receives its most 
 salutary lessons, that nest in which broods of 
 annoyances are engendered from hour to hour, 
 that Pandora's box without hope at its bottom, 
 nearly fretted him to dissolution. During the 
 whole of the voyage, he was haunted by the furies 
 of Orestes. The torments of Sisyphus, Ixion, and 
 Tantalus seemed combined to plague him. He 
 occupied a portion of the round-house that en viable
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 183 
 
 part of the vessel under the poop, where the 
 quacking of ducks and cackling of fowls murdered 
 his sleep so barbarously, that it was as much as 
 
 poor Lady T could do to prevent his running 
 
 on deck naked. And then came the accursed 
 Saturnalia of passing the Line. The fretful man 
 might have been exempted from his share in the 
 farce at the trifling expense of a little rum or 
 tobacco. But he stood upon the summum jus. 
 It seemed as if he had a constitutional point to 
 defend and he defended it most stoutly, till 
 Neptune, seizing him in the midst of the argument, 
 delivered him over without bail or mainprize to his 
 myrmidons, who gave him a specimen of their 
 strigil he did not soon forget. 
 
 It was most amusing to hear his squabbles with 
 the captain on points of law the skipper being 
 one of that not uncommon marine race, who imagine 
 that, to command a Company's ship, implies the 
 possession of a cyclopaedia of all human knowledge. 
 The lawyer was no match for him even on points of 
 law ; and, to make the comedy complete, the pas- 
 sengers always concurred with the captain. In 
 
 short, T , with his irritable nerves, perpetually 
 
 tortured by the ordinary noises of a ship, and fre- 
 quently by the extraordinary ones, invented for 
 the purpose of plaguing him, led a terrible life of it.
 
 
 
 184 SOCIETY AND MAXXEHS. 
 
 At Madras, something was for ever happening to 
 disturb the knight's serenity. Precedence was a 
 thorn in his side. Was a member of council's lady, 
 untitled, to walk to the dining-room before his own, 
 with a title ? The question was sometimes warmly 
 debated. " Pshaw!" said the civilian's lady, " what 
 is a knighthood ? My fishmonger received the dis- 
 tinction only a few days before I left England !" 
 Such were the exasperations that fidgetted the poor 
 Advocate-general from morn to dewy eve. In 
 court it was still worse. He could not get his wit- 
 nesses to come to the point, or the interpreter never 
 gave correctly what they swore. If he fell into a 
 passion, his clients fared the worse for it. The 
 counsel opposed to him took advantage of his infir- 
 mity by some intentional offence to his vanity, ever 
 on the watch for affronts ; and thus, with a 
 cultivated mind, a thorough knowledge of his 
 profession, and parts considerably above the average, 
 he became almost useless to himself and others; 
 and in that hot climate, where petty vexations are 
 real torments, the " o'er-informed tenement of clay" 
 proved too feeble for the wear and tear of the 
 temper that inhabited it. 
 
 There is this important distinction between the 
 English and the Anglo-Indian bars, that, in the 
 one, the presence of a numerous professional body,
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 185 
 
 where, to use Gray's more than classical description 
 of Westminster Hall, 
 
 togatum 
 
 jSZstuat agmen, 
 
 is a perpetual check upon the intemperance of the 
 judges; whereas, at the colonial bars, a restricted 
 number of practitioners, and a most scanty atten- 
 dance of auditors, suffer them to play their pranks 
 with impunity. Nothing destroys the equilibrium , 
 of weak minds so much as judicial authority. In y 
 that office, insolence is sure to keep due pace with 
 ignorance ; nor is there a moral axiom more cer- 
 tain, than that the two qualities are always found 
 to be in equal quantities. What stupid squabbles 
 with the local governments, about jurisdiction and 
 its boundaries, have been bubbling and boiling in 
 the supreme courts, from time to time, since their 
 first institution ! The case of Moro Ragonath, in 
 the Bombay court, was a fac-simile of a quarrel in 
 the Calcutta court in 1776. Sir Edward West 
 bequeathed his share in the dissension to Sir John 
 Grant, whose notions of the omnipotence of his 
 court were to the full as inflated as those of his 
 predecessor. Grant was removed from his office, 
 after long discussions in the Privy Council. 
 
 But Sir Edward West was a thorn in the side of 
 the Company's civil servants, with about a score of
 
 186 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 whom he had contrived to quarrel, four grand 
 juries in succession, consisting of European residents 
 as respectable as himself the editors of all the 
 newspapers, and all the barristers of his own 
 court. This person became Recorder in 1823. In 
 his first charge, he flung out the most virulent cen- 
 sures upon his predecessors arbitrarily dismissed 
 from a high office in his court, an individual of the 
 most unsullied integrity and splendid talents, the 
 son-in-law of Sir James Mackintosh and silenced 
 the whole bar, the Company ""s Advocate-general 
 included, for six months, because they presented a 
 respectful memorial to him upon a case in which 
 their own rights and the established practice of the 
 court had been violated. He was a most indefati- 
 gable and accomplished scold, and richly deserved 
 the cucking-stool awarded by the good old common - 
 law of England to women of ungovernable tongues. 
 The spiritless demeanour of the barristers on the 
 occasion just mentioned was not very creditable to 
 the profession, whose independence was wounded by 
 that shameful abuse of authority.* 
 
 * This paragraph produced a warm defence of Sir Edward 
 West, in the publication from whence these papers are taken, 
 which provoked an assailant of the judge to vindicate the justice 
 of the above description. The controversy is too long for inser- 
 tion.
 
 THE BENCH AMU BAR OF INDIA. 187 
 
 In England, a hot-headed judge of this kind 
 would be soon brought down to a cooler tem- 
 perature. Not only is there the salutary restraint 
 of a numerous bar, tinctured with the same learning, 
 and tremblingly alive to their common professional 
 honour, but there is a public out of doors, sitting 
 as a court of review upon the conduct and opinions 
 of the judges. In India, there is no public. Some 
 half-dozen voices, faintly querulous, like the chirp- 
 ing of grasshoppers in the fern, may be heard if 
 any thing flagitious is done or attempted. But 
 what is this to the roar of censure from the press, 
 echoed from paper to paper, as thunder from hill 
 to hill ? It is this hourly cognizance of all that 
 passes in our courts that keeps the judges to their 
 good behaviour, and the wigs of five hundred 
 barristers would bristle with indignation at such 
 antics as were played by Sir Edward West upon 
 his little bar at Bombay. In India, a barrister 
 must lead an indifferent life of it, if the bench make 
 what is called a dead set at him. It is true that 
 instances of this kind have happened in Westminster 
 Hall, though very rarely. Lord Kenyon had con- 
 ceived a strong antipathy to Law (afterwards Lord 
 Ellenbo rough), and Law made a most happy appli- 
 cation of a passage in Virgil to this circumstance. 
 Replying to a smart speech of Erskine. he perceived
 
 188 . SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 that Kenyon and the rest of the court manifested 
 strong symptoms of being adverse to his client. " I 
 fear not, 11 he said, " the artful sophistries of my 
 friend, Mr. Erskine. 11 Then, turning first to the 
 counsel, and next to the judges, he exclaimed, with 
 great emphasis, 
 
 Non me tuafervida terrent 
 Dicta, ferox; Di me terrent, et (looking at Kenyon) JUPITER hostis. 
 
 It is incalculable what mischief an insolent judge 
 may do to an advocate in India. It matters little, 
 in Westminster Hall, whether a man in full busi- 
 v ness be a favourite with the court or not. For 
 many years, the whole court of King's Bench set 
 their faces against Marryat, and treated him almost 
 with personal contumely ; yet he accumulated a 
 vast fortune, and is supposed to have died the 
 , richest lawyer that England has known. Now, a 
 hundredth part of the same systematic illiberality 
 towards a member of the bar in India, would be 
 death to him. The natives have a remarkably 
 keen scent in these matters, and would not confide 
 in him. They would act in conformity to a brief 
 syllogism : " Judge not give master sugar- words ; 
 judge give sugar- words to court-lawyer on other 
 side ; therefore master will lose cause. 1 ' And a 
 more helpless being than an unemployed counsel in 
 India cannot be imagined. Let this be duly weighed
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 189 
 
 by the English barrister before he pays his passage- 
 money or bespeaks his outfit ; for, if he sits with 
 his hands before him, at Calcutta or Madras, with 
 nothing to do but to gaze with listless vacancy on 
 the figures of the lion and unicorn in the king's arms 
 that hang over the bench, there is no other depart- 
 ment into which he can thrust himself. In the mean 
 time, he must live, though many would readily 
 answer him, as Cardinal Richelieu answered the 
 poet that satirized him, je ne vois pas la necessite ; 
 and in that country, a mere subsistence absorbs 
 what would be deemed a tolerable income at home. 
 What then is to be done ? 
 
 Interea pereunt res et vadimonia fiunt. 
 
 He must run over head and ears in debt ; and, in 
 that climate, the anxieties of being in debt will 
 bring him to the grave sooner than if the whole 
 tribe of European maladies had beset him. Death 
 has not prompter ministers in India than grief and 
 despondency. It is no uncommon thing, and phy- 
 siologists may explain it, for an individual there to 
 sink under a twenty-four hours' fit of vexation. 
 
 Ponder this well, you that, stung with disappoint- 
 ment or sick with protracted hope, give from the 
 back bench of the court, to the daily-recurring 
 question of the chief justice, " Any thing to move
 
 190 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 sir ?" the daily-recurring reply, " Nothing, my 
 lord," and then return with a chilled heart and 
 briefless pocket to your homeless chambers. Dream 
 not of flying from the malice of fortune to the bar 
 of India. No hug your tattered gown to its last 
 rag ; cobble and piece your shoes, worn to the 
 very slither* by your weary pilgrimage to a thank- 
 less shrine. There is no man that has not some 
 snug corner in his mind, to which hope retires and 
 dreams of the future. A sudden gleam may break 
 through the murky cloud that blackens your hori- 
 zon a lucky kite^ may fall unexpectedly into 
 your lap ; or probably you have under your lee 
 some kind friend to minister delicately and 
 promptly to your need ; or a widow, with a com- 
 fortable jointure, may not be deaf to your vows. 
 How absurd, then, to throw away all these smiling 
 probabilities ! To these may be added (taking it 
 for granted you are a Whig, and have bawled loud 
 for the Reform Bill), that there is a constant suc- 
 cession of commissions, graciously provided by a 
 Whig government, as places of refuge for destitute 
 barristers, and may not one of these fall to your 
 
 * Supplementary fragments of old leather inserted between the 
 two soles of the shoe. 
 
 t A stray brief, when the counsel is absent for whom it was 
 intended.
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. l91 
 
 lot, and last you your life-time, if you and your 
 colleagues, after the fashion of commissioners, will 
 but proceed slowly and leisurely in your duties ? 
 How much better all this, than to be baked in a hot 
 land-wind with much fewer chances, and, instead 
 of your fair and fat widow, with her appurtenances 
 in the three per cents., to marry a lean, lisping, 
 insipid creature, fitted out for the market with a 
 ragged assortment of boarding-school accomplish- 
 ments, and of linen from a ready-made shop, or 
 turning up her thin nose at your pretensions, be- 
 cause you are not in the list of the eligibles. 
 
 Madras has, upon the whole, been better off for 
 judges than Bombay ; but once, at least, the Bom- 
 bay bench was splendidly adorned. Sir James 
 Mackintosh, a name dear to letters and philosophy, 
 was no lawyer, in the narrow-minded sense of the 
 word ; he was more, and, for a colonial judge, 
 much better for he was guided by the clear spirit 
 of the law, which reflects a much brighter light 
 than the twinkling taper of its letter. Mild and 
 lenient almost to a defect in the administration of 
 the criminal law (for there was but one instance of a 
 capital punishment during his whole recordership), 
 at Nisi Prius he was governed by those general 
 principles of equity which always lead to a right 
 conclusion. The books might be against him ; but
 
 J 
 
 192 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the book of nature, and the code antecedent to and 
 superseding all special-pleading subtleties, were for 
 him. He was lamentably thrown away on such a 
 society as that of Bombay. Accustomed to lead in 
 the conversations of the conversation-men of the 
 metropolis, such as Sharpe, Rogers, Dumont, 
 he found himself transplanted amongst those who 
 afforded a sad and bitter contrast. It was like 
 Goethe's oak-plant,* with its giant fibres, com- 
 pressed within the dimensions of a flower-pot. On 
 the third day after his arrival, most forcibly was he 
 reminded of the contrast, when one of the members 
 of the council, the conversation turning upon qua- 
 drupeds, turned to him and inquired, what was a 
 quadruped ? It was the same sagacious Solomon 
 (the writer has often heard Mackintosh relate the 
 anecdote), who asked him for the loan of some book, 
 in which he could find a good account of Julius 
 Caesar. Mackintosh jocosely took down a volume 
 of Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, in 
 which mention is made of a Sir Julius Caesar, 
 Master of the Rolls in the time of Charles the 
 First. The wiseacre actually took the book home 
 with him, and after some days brought it back to 
 Sir James, remarking that he was disappointed on 
 finding that the book referred to Julius Caesar 
 * See his illustration of Shakespeare's Hamlet
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 193 
 
 only as a lawyer, without the slightest mention of / 
 his military exploits ! 
 
 No exile ever deplored his lot more feelingly than 
 Sir James Mackintosh. In a letter I received from 
 him, after breathing some complaints of his banish- 
 ment, he says, " Turn to Cicero"^ Epistles. See 
 how elaborately, and with what common-place to- 
 pics, he consoles his friends, Trebatius, Sestius, 
 Torranius, in their exiles. To another he says, 
 pro amore nostro, rogo atque oro, te colligas, virum- 
 que prcebeas. Yet, when it came to his own turn, 
 see how effeminately he laments the loss of Rome, 
 and the intercourses in which he lived there with 
 the wise and accomplished ornaments of the state ! 
 My friends dole out the same consolations to me. 
 Were they here, they would feel the insufficiency 
 of all such topics to administer genuine conso- 
 lation." 
 
 He was rendered for some time uncomfortable 
 through his having given offence to the mercantile 
 part of the Bombay community, by what they 
 thought too rigid an interpretation of the orders 
 in council then in force, having condemned a ship 
 and cargo with costs ; and their opinion of that 
 adjudication was expressed without much delicacy 
 or reserve. He was subject also to certain Parson 
 Adams-like habits of forgetfulness of common 
 
 VOL. I. K 

 
 194 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 things and lesser proprieties ; and this brought 
 down upon him no slight share of taunt and ridi- 
 cule. It happened, on his arrival at Bombay, that 
 there was no house ready for his reception, and it 
 would be a fortnight before a residence in the Fort 
 could be prepared for him. Mr. Jonathan Duncan, 
 the governor of the presidency, therefore, with great 
 kindness, offered his garden-house, called Sans 
 Pareil, for the temporary accommodation of Sir 
 James and his family. But months and months 
 elapsed, till a twelvemonth had actually revolved ; 
 Mackintosh and his wife, during all this time, 
 found themselves so comfortable in their quarters, 
 that they forgot completely the limited tenure on 
 which they held them, appearing by a singular 
 illusion not to have the slightest suspicion of 
 Mr. Duncan's proprietorship, notwithstanding some 
 pretty intelligible hints on the subject from that 
 gentleman, but communicated with his usual deli- 
 cacy and politeness. At last, politeness and deli- 
 cacy were out of the question, and the poor governor 
 was driven to the necessity of taking forcible pos- 
 session of his own property. This was partly 
 indolence, partly absence of mind, on the part of 
 Sir James. He was constitutionally averse to 
 every sort of exertion, and especially that of 
 quitting any place where he found himself com-
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 195 
 
 fortable. Before he went out to India, he made a 
 trip into Scotland with his lady ; and having taken 
 up his abode for the night at an inn in Perth- 
 shire, not far from the beautiful park of the late 
 Lord Melville, then Mr. Dundas, sent a request to 
 Lady Jane Dundas (Mr. Dundas being absent) for 
 permission to see the house and grounds, which 
 was most civilly granted. Mr. Dundas being ex- 
 pected in the evening, her ladyship politely pressed 
 them to stay to dinner, and to pass the night, their 
 accommodations at the inn not being of the first 
 description. Mr. Dundas returned the same day, 
 and, though their politics were as adverse as pos- 
 sible, was so charmed with the variety of Mackin- 
 tosh's conversation, that he requested his guests to 
 prolong their visit for two or three days. So 
 liberal, however, was the interpretation they put 
 upon the invitation, that the two or three days were 
 protracted into as many months, during which 
 every species of hint was most ineffectually given, 
 till their hosts told them, with many polite apolo- 
 gies, that they expected visitors and a numerous 
 retinue, and could therefore no longer accommo- 
 date Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh. 
 
 These eccentricities were specks upon a most 
 brilliant and estimable character, and they are such 
 as have frequently been seen in the man of genius
 
 196 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 and letters. Nature is too thrifty in her gifts to 
 heap all kinds of excellences in one shining mass, 
 but, like a skilful artist, sobers her colours with 
 shades and tints that soften without blackening the 
 effect. Of these eccentricities, volumes might be 
 collected ; but they are painful matters of remem- 
 brance to those who loved the kindness of his heart, 
 and revered the depth of his knowledge. It is 
 not, perhaps, generally known, that his forte was 
 metaphysics. In societies, where he could be un- 
 derstood, he diffused himself over those perplexed 
 subjects of inquiry, with an earnestness of expres- 
 sion and a warmth of eloquence, that shewed the 
 delight he took in them. Such was his perspicuity 
 and powers of illustration, that they no longer 
 seemed perplexed, but flowed from his lips as 
 luminous and beautiful truths. In the very teeth 
 of Locke and Condillac, he deduced the great 
 maxims of moral philosophy from the moral sense 
 inseparably connected with the structure of mind, 
 and our natural perceptions of good and ill. Never 
 were metaphysical hypotheses more clearly illus- 
 trated by the laws of our moral nature, than in the 
 treatise which he published in the supplementary 
 volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It will 
 remain an enduring monument of perspicuity of 
 argument and elegant discourse. Upon these sub-
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 197 
 
 jects he was not only more consistent in his 
 deductions, but more compressed and energetic in 
 reasoning, than Dugald Stewart. 
 
 Well does the writer remember his lecture; 
 on the Law of Nature and Nations, delivered in 
 LincolnVInn Hall, in 1803. The preliminary 
 discourse (now out of print, but well worth re-pub- 
 lishing) is a complete survey, as a great extent 
 of country is viewed from a commanding eminence, 
 of a vast and various subject. The sketch of 
 Grotius is a perfect model of that kind of writing. 
 Every body admires it as a specimen of eloquence, 
 but as a discriminating and ingenious apology for 
 the pedantry which it has been the fashion to object 
 to that great jurist, its merits have been overlooked. 
 The perpetual appeals of Grotius to the poets, 
 philosophers, and dramatic writings of the ancients, 
 are wont to appear to superficial thinkers super- 
 fluous as illustrations, and useless as authorities. 
 Yet this multifarious citation from dramatists and 
 poets was in strict subservience to his design, 
 which was that of shewing the universal sense of 
 mankind as to the great principles of moral obliga- 
 tion. He appealed to the poets, because ^Eschylus, 
 Sophocles, and Euripides, whose province was 
 general nature, could not stray into the paradoxes 
 in which philosophers bewilder themselves, but
 
 198 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 were tied down to the observance of those laws 
 which govern the sympathies of mankind in all 
 ages and countries I cannot resist the temptation 
 of transcribing the following passage : 
 
 " So great is the uncertainty of posthumous repu- 
 tation, and so liable is the fame, even of the greatest 
 men, to be obscured by those new fashions of 
 thinking and writing, which succeed each other so 
 rapidly among polished nations, that Grotius, who 
 filled so large a space in the eyes of his contempo- 
 raries, is now, perhaps, known to some of my readers 
 only by name. Yet, if we fairly estimate both his 
 endowments and his virtues, we may justly consider 
 him as one of the most memorable men who have 
 done honour to modern times. He combined the 
 discharge of the most important duties of active 
 and public life, with the attainment of that exact 
 and various learning, which is generally the portion 
 only of the recluse student. He was distinguished 
 as an advocate and a magistrate, and he composed 
 the most valuable works on the law of his own 
 country ; he was almost equally celebrated as an 
 historian, a scholar, a poet, and a divine, a disinte- 
 rested statesman, a philosophical lawyer, a patriot 
 who united moderation with firmness, and a theo- 
 logian who was taught candour by his learning. 
 With singular merit and singular felicity, he
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 199 
 
 preserved a life so blameless, that in times of the 
 most furious civil and religious faction, the sagacity 
 of fierce and acute adversaries was vainly exerted 
 to discover a stain in his character. It was his fate 
 to be exposed to the severest tests of human virtue ; 
 but such was the happy temperature of his mind, 
 that he was too firm to be subdued by adversity, and 
 too mild and honest to be provoked to violence by 
 injustice. Amidst all the hard trials and galling 
 vexations of a turbulent political life, he never once 
 deserted his friends when they were unfortunate, 
 nor insulted his enemies when they were weak. 
 Unmerited exile did not damp his patriotism ; the 
 bitterness of controversy did not extinguish his 
 charity. He was just even to his persecutors, and 
 faithful to his ungrateful country." 
 
 Mackintosh's lectures at LincolnVInn Hall were 
 well attended. Canning never missed one of them. 
 Romilly, Scarlett, Fonblanque, Richard Sharpe, 
 Butler, were attentive listeners. Old Hargrave 
 admired them, though fast asleep during the greater 
 part of them. It is remarkable, that he made 
 profuse acknowledgments to a voluminous work, 
 then little read, and reposing undisturbed on the 
 shelves of the booksellers, the Light of Nature, * 
 
 * Published in 1776 in six volumes. It was re-published in 
 1808 by the late Sir Harry Mildmay, the author's brother-in-law.
 
 200 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 by Search, a fictitious name assumed by Tucker. 
 Of this book, the leading characteristic is its perpe- 
 tual play of illustration from all subjects, high or 
 low ; the drawing-room and the kitchen, the parlour 
 and the stable. The book rose instantly in price, 
 and in a short time disappeared. But two or three 
 of the most eloquent and impressive discourses 
 were aimed at the refutation of Godwin's Political 
 Justice, a work abounding in moral paradoxes 
 of the most revolting kind. I shall never forget 
 the effect produced on his auditors, in spite of the 
 most inharmonious of all accents and the most 
 ungraceful of all manners, when he animadverted 
 on that part of Godwin's book, which decried the 
 moral beauty and obligation of gratitude. In fact, 
 Godwin had the merit, or the demerit, of founding 
 the modern school of Utilitarianism ; and Mackin- 
 tosh's reasonings might be applied as an unanswer- 
 able confutation of the Jeremy Benthamism of the 
 present day. At this lecture, Godwin himself was 
 present, and stood the fire with most unflinching 
 fortitude. 
 
 During Sir James Mackintosh's Recordership, a 
 singular incident occurred. Two Dutchmen having 
 sued for debt two British officers, Lieutenants 
 Macguire and Cauty, these officers resolved to 
 waylay and assault them. This was rather a re-
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 201 
 
 solve made in a drunken excitement, than a de- 
 liberate purpose. Fortunately, the Dutchmen 
 pursued a different route from that which they had 
 intended, and they prosecuted the two officers for the 
 offence of laying in wait with intent to murder. 
 They were found guilty, and brought up for judg- 
 ment. Previous to his pronouncing judgment, 
 however, Sir James received an intimation that the 
 prisoners had conceived the project of shooting him 
 as he sat on the bench, and that one of them had 
 for that purpose a loaded pistol in his writing-desk. 
 It is remarkable, that the intimation did not induce 
 him to take some precautions to prevent its execu- 
 tion, at any rate, not to expose himself needlessly 
 to assassination. On the contrary, the circumstance 
 only suggested the following remarks : " I have 
 been credibly informed, that you entertained the 
 desperate project of destroying your own lives at 
 that bar, after having previously destroyed the 
 judge who now addresses you. If that murderous 
 project had been executed, I should have been the 
 first British judge who ever stained with his blood 
 the seat of justice. But I can never die better than 
 in the discharge of my duty. 11 All this eloquence 
 might have been spared. Macguire submitted to the 
 judge's inspection of his writing-desk, and shewed 
 him that, though it contained two pistols, neither 
 K 3
 
 202 SOCIETY AND MANNERS, 
 
 of them was charged. It is supposed to have been 
 a hoax, a highly mischievous one, indeed ; but 
 the statement was primd facie so improbable, that 
 it was absurd to give it the slightest credence.* 
 
 It is well known, that Sir James Mackintosh 
 had contemplated a history of England, beginning 
 with the Revolution of 1688, down to the first 
 events of the Revolution in France. Such a work, 
 conceived by a philosophical mind, and executed 
 after much patient research by so complete a mas- 
 ter of rhetoric, would have been an invaluable 
 accession to that department of our literature. He 
 had made considerable preparations for the task, 
 having consulted many rare books, and the corres- 
 pondence in particular of the English and French 
 courts, deposited in the King's library at Paris. 
 From these manuscripts, though Fox had beaten 
 the ground before him, he would undoubtedly have 
 extracted more ample illustration of the intrigues 
 (nick-named policy), that preceded and followed 
 the memorable event, than Dalrymple and Mac- 
 pherson appear to have done with equal opportu- 
 nities. But he listened to the syren-song of indo- 
 lence; that master-vice of great minds overpowered 
 his resolves, and though a vast affluence of materials 
 surrounded him, and the most splendid remunera- 
 
 * See Additional Note to this chapter.
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 203 
 
 tion was proposed to him by the Longmans, the 
 diligent prosecution of it was deferred,* and he 
 accepted the Recordership of Bombay. In the lat- 
 ter period of his life, indeed, he supplied Dr. Lard- 
 ner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia with three volumes of a 
 History of England, of which the first only seems to 
 have received the deliberate touches of his hand. 
 But that volume alone is by far the best com- 
 mentary extant on the early constitution of England. 
 As the work advances, it betrays instances of haste 
 and inadvertence, which would probably have been 
 avoided, had he written for fame rather than the 
 exigency of the moment. If to what Sir James 
 Mackintosh did) could be added what he might 
 have done, he would deserve to be placed amongst 
 the greatest men, who have done honour to polite 
 letters. He was too fine and etherial a substance 
 to work up into a lawyer, certainly a working 
 
 * He executed, it is true, some portion of it, but not for the 
 public eye. It began with James the Second, but broke off at the 
 transfer of the Crown to the Prince of Orange. This has been 
 published, with a continuation, resembling Sir James Mackintosh 
 in manner and spirit, as much as Freinshemius did Livy or Taci- 
 tus, whose last books he attempted to supply. The continuator 
 professes himself to be one of those who undervalue the great 
 transactions of the Revolution. Peace be to such politicians ! 
 But it would have been as well, had he abstained from an attempt 
 to continue a work, conceived by one who was avowedly and em- 
 phatically a Whig of the Revolution.
 
 204 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 lawyer. It was quite amusing to see him conduct- 
 ing a nisi-prius cause, and addressing a common 
 jury, on the Norfolk circuit. There was so innate 
 a habit of generalization in his mode of considering 
 every question propounded to him, that he some- 
 times overlooked the details themselves from which 
 that generalization was deduced. He fired, there- 
 fore, over the heads of a jury, consisting chiefly of 
 farmers, who, taking no cognizance of elevated and 
 polished diction, were often at a loss to compre- 
 hend what he was talking about. 
 
 As I am admonished by the limits of this ar- 
 ticle, that the sketches I have already given may 
 be deemed in some sort episodical, I return to 
 Madras, and, Asmodeus-like, exhibit to the 
 reader a character most dissimilar to that which 
 has been just sketched. Sir F M succeeded 
 to the vacancy on the bench of the Supreme 
 Court occasioned by the resignation of that 
 amiable creature, Sir Benjamin Sulivan, the most 
 kind-hearted and hospitable of mankind. This 
 Sir F M had acted as the Company's Advocate 
 at Calcutta, but had little or no employment ex- 
 cept in his official capacity. He was generously 
 bestowed upon Madras during the Castlereagh ad- 
 ministration, his brother having been an obsequious 
 follower of that nobleman during his critical secre-
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 205 
 
 taryship in Ireland. Through this channel, no 
 other reason for the appointment has ever been 
 suggested, he found himself on the seat of justice. 
 Most unhappily, he arrived just after the discon- 
 tent of the coast army had been extinguished, and 
 when the minds of the misguided but honourable 
 men, whom the pertinacious, self-willed policy of 
 Barlow had goaded into it, had begun to be com- 
 posed, and the amnesty of Lord Minto had restored 
 something like the former state of tranquillity. Still 
 there was the tossing and swell of the waves, as 
 after a storm. It was at this juncture that he 
 delivered his first charge to the grand jury; 
 and though Lord Minto's amnesty had expressly 
 deprecated all retrospective animadversion, M 
 had the good taste and delicacy to call the gallant 
 and high-minded officers, many of whom have since 
 attained the highest honours of the service, traitors 
 and rebels, not without a half-suppressed regret 
 that they had not been convicted and punished for 
 treason. What a specimen of judicial prudence ! 
 The charge did infinite mischief in the settlement. 
 It unchained the animosities of party, and set fa- 
 milies and individuals together by the ears, un- 
 doing in effect all that had been done by a course 
 of conciliatory and healing measures, wisely though 
 too tardily adopted. Again friendships cooled,
 
 206 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 divisions and factions intersected the whole surface 
 of society, and the judge succeeded to the utmost 
 extent of his wishes in making private life bitter. 
 
 Yet Sir F M was afterwards removed to 
 the Calcutta bench, having kept the settlement in 
 hot water for several months, by getting up ad- 
 dresses to Barlow after his recall, and proposing 
 invidious toasts at public dinners, wantonly awak- 
 ening the memory of past grievances, that were as 
 yet imperfectly healed. 
 
 About this time, Sir Edmond Stanley arrived, 
 as a puisne judge. Oh ! for the pen of Fielding to 
 trace the native humour, the genuine simplicity, 
 the quaintness and oddity, of this excellent and 
 amiable being ! But as the mention of this well- 
 read lawyer, but at the same time a man the most 
 credulous and ludicrously unversed in the affairs 
 of common life, unfolds a series of anecdotes, and 
 as much still remains to be said of the Anglo- 
 Indian bar, which will be found, I trust, neither 
 unamusing nor devoid of instruction, I reserve it as 
 fitting matter for another chapter.
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 5207 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAP. II. 
 
 Some time after the appearance of this paper, a com- 
 munication was sent to, and published in, the Asiatic 
 Journal, from one of these gentlemen, Mr. Cauty, now 
 Captain and Adjutant in the Demerara Militia, and 
 Advocate and Proctor at George Town, British Guiana, 
 wherein he gives the following as the real circum- 
 stances of the case : 
 
 " The two Dutch gentlemen did not sue the two 
 English officers ; but they had instituted a civil suit, 
 in the Recorder's Court, against Lieut. Col. Malcome 
 Grant (who recently died, in London, a major-gene- 
 ral), for damages, for the false imprisonment of their 
 father, at Cochin, when Col. Grant commanded the 
 provinces of Malabar and Canara, and which provinces 
 were then under martial-law. The two officers in 
 question, Macguire and self, were with our regiments, 
 and I was summoned from Poonah, for the purpose of 
 giving evidence on the trial, as having been one of the 
 subs at Cochin at the time; Maguire being, at the 
 period when the circumstance occurred, at Surat, with 
 his corps, and was accidentally at Bombay on duty 
 when I arrived there. These two Dutch gentlemen 
 passed my tent, on the esplanade, one evening, a few 
 minutes before dinner, when I had a few friends, of 
 whom Macguire was one, to dinner. During the 
 course of the evening, the matter became a subject of 
 conversation, in which I lamented being brought out
 
 208 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 of the field, from active service, put upon garrison al- 
 lowance, obliged to keep up my field establishment, 
 not knowing but I might be ordered off at a moment's 
 notice, or kept perhaps many months inactive in gar- 
 rison. In the heat of the moment, when the wine had 
 circulated freely (and it generally did, too much so, 
 in those days), it was merely remarked, that if we met 
 the two Dutch gentlemen at the tavern, where we had 
 all proposed to adjourn to supper, we might pick a 
 quarrel with them at the billiard-table, and give them 
 a good horse-whipping ; which was assented to by all, 
 as a most excellent idea. Hours after this conversa- 
 tion had dropped and was forgotten, we went to the 
 tavern, supped, but did not meet them, nor were their 
 names ever mentioned by any one of the party, from 
 the moment the conversation ceased. 
 
 " Some few days subsequently, one of my guests, 
 without the slightest intention of doing injury or cre- 
 ating mischief, mentioned what had passed at my 
 table to the Vandersloots; they consulted their lawyer, 
 and we were not a little surprised to find ourselves 
 (Macguire and self) called upon to give bail to appear 
 at the sessions, to answer a bill of indictment for a con- 
 spiracy to assault (not to murder, as stated by your 
 correspondent in his article); the rest of my guests, 
 six or eight in number, were all summoned as wit- 
 nesses. We did appear; we did not retain counsel, 
 considering the whole matter as absolutely ridiculous;
 
 THE BENCH AND. BAR OF INDIA. 209 
 
 we pleaded not guilty, but we acknowledged the con- 
 versation, which was also proven by the witnesses ; 
 and Sir James certainly did exert himself to persuade 
 the jury to give a verdict against us; and a day was 
 named on which we were to appear to hear sentence. 
 On this occasion, our surprise and distress were great 
 at hearing the assertion of Sir James, which is pretty 
 correctly stated in your article. But there was no 
 writing-desk in court, no pistol, and no inspection by 
 the judge or any one else. But, while waiting in 
 court for the judge to take his seat, he sent for an 
 officer, and directed him to call us apart, and ask us if 
 we had any arms, which that gentleman ascertained 
 we had not. As the information was only known to 
 Sir James, I believe the surprise was equally great to 
 all, more especially the mayor, Mr. James Law, and 
 other magistrates then on the bench ; that it, neither 
 at the moment, or subsequently, ever gained credence 
 with a single individual, I do most sincerely believe ; 
 but it has more than once been made the subject of an 
 attempted annoyance to myself. 
 
 " So forcibly was it impressed on that truly honour- 
 able man, Mr. Law, that the whole was a fabrication, 
 and although we had not the honour of the slightest 
 acquaintance with that gentleman, and, as he has since 
 observed, if true, the disgrace was indelible ; but, if 
 false and left uninvestigated, the injury to us attached 
 for life, with inevitable ruin, as well as being a bar to
 
 210 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 every future attempt at an advancement in the world, 
 that, with these feelings of generosity and honour, 
 and without our knowledge, Mr. Law asked from Sir 
 James, and obtained leave, to institute inquiry: the 
 result will be found in the paper marked A.; and, at 
 this public recantation, we were, by special permission 
 of the judge, present in court. But the fatal poison 
 had been spread far and wide before the antidote could 
 be applied ; nor would the papers and the periodicals 
 in which the first speech was inserted, any one of 
 them, have the honour and candour to insert the se- 
 cond. Thus it is that, except in the far distant papers 
 of Bombay, the recantation of Sir James does not ap- 
 pear in print." 
 
 An extract supplement to the Bombay Courier, Jan. 
 17th 1807, the paper A. referred to by Captain 
 Cauty, is as follows : ' ' Sessions of Oyer and Ter- 
 miner. On Monday last, the court having assembled, 
 pursuant to adjournment, the Honourable the Recorder 
 prefaced the proceedings by observing, that in giving 
 judgment on Bryan Macguire, at a former sessions, he 
 had adverted to information which had been commu- 
 nicated of atrocious designs intended to be executed 
 by that person on the day that he received sentence. 
 At the request of the parties most concerned, that sub- 
 ject had been very lately investigated, in a private and 
 unofficial, but satisfactory, manner, by Mr. Law, a 
 magistrate of the court, and a man on whose sense and
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 211 
 
 honour the Recorder placed perfect reliance. He was 
 now most happy that the result of that inquiry enabled 
 him to say, that he utterly disbelieved the information 
 which he had received, and he was anxious, as far as 
 his suffrage could extend, to deliver the parties from 
 all imputation or suspicion of such horrible projects. 
 Whether his original informers were themselves de- 
 ceived, or intended to deceive him, was a question at 
 present neither easy nor necessary, nor perhaps fit, 
 to be determined. It was sufficient that the infor- 
 mation appeared now to be false."
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 
 III. 
 
 " I WISH,"" says Sir Thomas Browne, " that Icould 
 assent to Plato's doctrine of remembrances, and 
 were convinced that all knowledge was but reminis- 
 cential evocation."" Be that as it may, this is cer- 
 tain, that, to him who has lived the greater part of 
 a century, the most valuable sort of knowledge is 
 but the new stamp of his former impressions, the 
 freshening of pale and faded colours. Judging 
 from the perpetual reminiscences, with which our 
 periodical works is at this moment overrun, one 
 might be led to imagine that " evocations" of this 
 kind were the most interesting and instructive 
 branch of our modern literature. It has at least 
 this advantage, that no counterfeit will pass cur- 
 rent. Reminiscences of eminent persons carry on 
 their face the surest guarantees of their authenticity. 
 No artifice of fiction can secure spurious conversa- 
 tions or fabricated anecdotes from instant detection.
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 213 
 
 Boswell, had his genius been of the most exalted 
 class, could not have forged his memorabilia of 
 Johnson: we feel in a moment that the whole is 
 pure, unadulterated Johnsonianism. On the other 
 hand, we perceive, by an instinct equally rapid and 
 unerring, that Lord Byron could never have said a 
 ninth part of what Lady Blessington has so kindly 
 put into his mouth. Why ? Because, had he ac- 
 tually prosed in that remorseless manner, her lady- 
 ship would never have listened to him, or remem- 
 bered a word of his vapid tattle. It is the same 
 with regard to anecdotes. An uncharacteristic 
 anecdote is rejected with loathing. We see, in an 
 instant, that it might be applied with equal apti- 
 tude to a dozen other persons, like a coat in a 
 wholesale clothes-shop, made for no specific wearer. 
 Sir Edmond Stanley was introduced in my last 
 sketch, and a hint or two was given of his extraor- 
 dinary simplicity of character in the every-day 
 matters of life. Yet he was an admirable lawyer, 
 and in considerable business for many years at the 
 Irish bar, where he attained the rank of prime ser- 
 jeant. In 1790, he was retained as counsel for 
 Fighting Fitzgerald, who was convicted, with three 
 accomplices, of the murder of one Brecknock, an 
 attorney, and executed at Castlebar. Stanley con- 
 ducted his defence with great skill. Fitzgerald
 
 214) SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 was indicted as an accessory before the fact, the 
 others being hired specially for the assassination ; and 
 as the rule of English law, that in murder all were 
 principals, had not been recognised in Ireland, and 
 the actual murderers not being convicted, Stanley 
 urged the absurdity of indicting a man for being 
 accessory to a murder, of which the supposed per- 
 petrators, who had not been tried, might be after- 
 wards acquitted. The judge was taken aback, and 
 was about to direct a verdict of acquittal ; but, 
 having consulted the judge then occupied in the 
 Nisi Prius Court, he was reminded by his learned 
 associate, that there was an unrepealed statute of 
 Henry VIII., which declared all murders com- 
 mitted in Ireland to be high treason, and there 
 being no accessories in high treason, all being prin- 
 cipals, Fitzgerald was convicted, and received sen- 
 tence of death. The ruling passion influenced this 
 person to the last. Having made a particular re- 
 quest with regard to being taken to the place of 
 execution in his own carriage, which was for some 
 reason refused, probably from the fear of a rescue, 
 Fitzgerald, from the mere force of habit it should 
 seem, actually wrote the sheriff a challenge, which 
 he requested a friend to convey to him.* 
 
 * This anecdote produced a communication from a writer evi- 
 dently well acquainted with the facts, containing a full statement
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 215 
 
 Stanley went out originally to India as the 
 recorder of Prince of Wales 1 Island. It was a 
 court without suitors a mere barren jurisdiction, 
 one of the memorable jobs of Henry Dundas, who 
 erected a government without subjects, with a 
 council who had nothing to consult upon, a sort 
 of Barataria for Scotch cousins, who were turned 
 out to graze there, and in a short time overran the 
 island. Sir Edmond was too conscientious a func- 
 tionary not to feel the vacuity of his function. He 
 was fond of relating the mock dignity of opening a 
 session, with the regular accompaniments of a 
 registrar and prothonotary, and charging a grand 
 jury who had nothing to inquire into, comparing 
 it to Dean Swift's solitary congregation, comprised 
 in himself and his dearly-beloved Roger. Through 
 the interest, however, of Lady Stanley's family, 
 which was highly connected, he was appointed, in 
 1814, to the chief-justiceship of Madras. Upon 
 his arrival, he was magnificently feted by Gilbert 
 JRicketts, the registrar. The profusion of plate, with 
 the general style and quality of the entertainment, 
 which was most absurdly expensive, could not, as 
 it struck Sir Edmond, but betoken considerable 
 opulence. How was that opulence acquired, was 
 
 of the case of Fitzgerald, and of the objection made by Sir Ed- 
 mond Stanley. See Asiat. Jount. vol. xvi. p. 195.
 
 216 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the next question ; for the legitimate profits of the 
 office would warrant no such expenditure. It fol- 
 lowed, as a corollary from these suggestions, that 
 some inquiry should be instituted into the state of 
 the registrar's accounts, who, by the charter of the 
 court, was the sole receiver of the assets of all 
 persons dying intestate, through the whole extent 
 of its jurisdiction, and of which the court were 
 responsible as trustees to the next of kin. The 
 inquiry eventually established, as it is well known, 
 the astounding fact of an immense defalcation. It 
 illustrated, moreover, that chapter of our weak 
 nature, which shows how easily it is swayed by the 
 skilful and well-directed flatteries of those who have 
 the reputation of great affluence, and the blind 
 confidence which is reposed in their integrity. The 
 former judges, whose duty it was from time to time 
 to have investigated the accounts of the registrar's 
 office, were lulled into an apathetic assurance that 
 all was right, because they were sumptuously 
 feasted at his table ; each of them delighted to 
 think that the .entertainment was got up specifically 
 as a compliment to himself. For the cards of invi- 
 tation generally concluded thus : " to meet the 
 Honourable Sir Thomas Strange, or the Honourable 
 Sir Benjamin Sulivan, &c. &C." Stanley was proof 
 against these flatteries, by a sort of mother- wit that
 
 i'HE BENCH AND BAE OF INDIA. 
 
 seldom deserted him, though of all men living of 
 the most credulous and infantine simplicity in the 
 common affairs of life. 
 
 It would be a most intricate problem to solve, 
 for such is poor humanity, and so endless and mul- 
 tiform are its affectations, whether this seeming 
 estrangement from the ordinary business of life and 
 almost incredible ignorance of little things, was 
 natural or assumed. Certain it is, that Parson 
 Adams or George Harvest seems to have been his 
 exemplar, and every body knows that an abstraction 
 from worldly matters has been frequently counter- 
 feited, in subservience to some policy that lies lower 
 than the surface, or because it is foolishly associated 
 with great genius or extraordinary learning. But 
 it were almost an abuse of credit claimed by every 
 writer professing to deal in strict matters of fact, to 
 enumerate the incidents in which Sir Edmond dis- 
 played utter inaptitude for the world and his igno- 
 rance of the beings that people it. It was a foolish 
 joke, during his voyage, to cram him with all sorts of 
 miraculous and absurd descriptions of India, which 
 he swallowed without the slightest symptom of 
 doubt or incredulity. He was gravely assured 
 that, notwithstanding the abundance of poultry in 
 that country, not an egg was to be had there ; and 
 nothing could exceed his stare of surprise, when he 
 
 VOL. i. L
 
 218 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 observed eggs placed on the breakfast-table the day 
 after his arrival. Every body stared on him with 
 equal surprise, when he was overheard gravely 
 inquiring of the lady of the house, whether she 
 imported her eggs from Europe ? The eclair- 
 cissement was still more ridiculous, as he remarked, 
 with infinite naivete, that he had been informed 
 that fowls did not lay their eggs in so hot 
 a climate. He landed with his mind stuffed 
 with such wild misconceptions relative to the 
 country he was about to reside in, that, on a 
 carriage with a pair of horses drawing up to the 
 door, he lifted up his hands with astonishment, 
 inasmuch as he had understood that all carriages in 
 India were drawn by elephants. It would be 
 unjust to the memory of a worthy man and an 
 excellent judge, to give any more specimens of the 
 unsuspecting innocence with which he believed, or 
 pretended to believe, the idle stories which his fellow- 
 passengers made him swallow for their amusement. 
 Nor would the characteristic have been noticed at 
 all, but for the still more extraordinary property of 
 human nature it elucidates : for Stanley, in all 
 matters of judicial evidence, was remarkable for the 
 scrupulous nicety with which he balanced proba- 
 bilities, and the accuracy of the inferences he 
 deduced from the comparison. Had he carried to the
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 219 
 
 bench the dove-like simplicity which he exhibited 
 in ordinary matters, he would have rendered himself 
 a more suitable tenant of a lunatic asylum, than of 
 that grave and dignified office. It would be no 
 easy matter to account for this singular phenomenon 
 in psychology ; for this reason, it was the fashion 
 in the settlement to attribute his apparent ignorance 
 of the world to motives of refined policy, and so 
 strongly were childish credulity and acute obser- 
 vation contrasted in his character, that every-body 
 suspected that the one was dissembled to conceal 
 the other. 
 
 Little has yet been said of the Anglo-Indian 
 attorneys a race of men holding a secondary esti- 
 mation in the society of the presidency ; associating 
 rarely with its higher divisions, and, with one or 
 two respectable exceptions, constituting among 
 themselves a little platoon apart from the better 
 class of European inhabitants. They have evidently 
 a considerable advantage in this distinction. They 
 are exempted from the heavy contributions of ex- 
 pense levied by fashion and gaiety upon those who 
 look down upon them with pride or scornful con- 
 descension, and generally contrive to scrape together 
 enough for an unambitious return to their native 
 country in seven or eight years. Formerly, that is 
 in the old Mayor's and Recorder's Courts, the two
 
 220 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 branches of advocate and attorney were carried on 
 by the same individuals, and the expenses of the 
 suitor were considerably abated by their union. 
 At present, their duty is that of pioneers, to clear 
 the way in complex native cases for the counsel ; 
 to reduce into a compendious and intelligible form 
 the confused statements of the client, and to lay 
 before the counsel an abstract, cleared from the 
 endless repetitions and interminable episodes into 
 which his stories invariably branch out. This 
 remark, however, is applicable to the later school of 
 attorneys ; for they made sad work of it formerly. 
 What they facetiously called briefs, were long ram- 
 blingnarratives; copiesof agreementshalf-translated ; 
 facts taken in a sort of Hindu-Portuguese-English 
 from the mouths of the witnesses the whole 
 confusion worse confounded, darkening rather than 
 elucidating the subject-matter to a degree that ren- 
 dered the task of the advocate deplorably perplexed 
 and toilsome. It was this that overwhelmed poor 
 Bushby, who might be said to have been suffocated 
 under the chaotic mass of papers that were laid 
 before him. He found himself unable to grope his 
 way through the ante-chambers and passages leading 
 to nothing of his brief. All this arose from the 
 ignorance and carelessness of those who were for- 
 merly admitted to practise as attorneys. Of late
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 
 
 however, the evil has been reformed, and the whole 
 machinery of a suit, from the commencement to the 
 end, is put in motion with the correctness and 
 regularity of a solicitor's office in England. 
 
 But it was many years before the old class 
 disappeared. Fownes Disney ! what a human 
 riddle in the form of an Irish Madras attorney ! 
 How complete a combination of ignorance, buf- 
 foonery, and cunning ! He was a fabulist of the 
 first magnitude, and Fernando Mendez Pinto was 
 scarcely a type of him. But he lied ingenuously 
 for he made no pretences to the truth ; he violated 
 it not after the fashion of vulgar liars. Indeed, 
 there was some excuse for him ; for, if he acciden- 
 tally spoke truth, it was with such a semblance of 
 falsehood, that it never served his turn, as nobody 
 believed him. But there was sometimes a daring 
 grandeur in his falsehoods, that raised them to 
 the dignity of truth. In short, he lied like a 
 great master, more in the manner of a Machiavel 
 than a Scapin. To be sure, he recreated himself 
 occasionally with passing a smaller coin of fiction. 
 For instance, if any thing occurred out of the 
 usual course of things a sudden death a murder 
 or suicide a carriage overturned a boat swamped 
 on each of such occasions, he was an eye-witness. 
 It happened, ludicrously enough, that, on the faith
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 of these random statements, he was once or twice 
 summoned as a witness upon the coroner's inquest. 
 He contrived, however, to back out by means of a 
 tense, which was to be found in no grammar but his 
 own a sort of paulo-post-prcesentem he arrived 
 at the spot a minute or two after. 
 
 He was one of the batch of attorneys that crept 
 deviously into the Recorder's Court ; chance 
 made him an attorney, as it might have made 
 him any thing else : 
 
 Incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum. 
 
 He had no natural aptitudes for the profession, 
 beyond those which instinctively teach a man to 
 grasp at whatever comes within his reach. Cunning, 
 therefore, was the talent in which he was most 
 exercised. Whether his bulls were the genuine 
 effusions of the national naivete to which we usually 
 attribute that peculiar species of blundering, or 
 elaborately constructed for the purpose of diverting 
 the attention of those he conversed with from the 
 less ingenuous side of his character, simplicity 
 being one of the most useful tools with which 
 cunning effects its purposes, many of them were 
 current in the settlement under his name, and many 
 unjustly fathered upon him. His rebuke to a 
 young civilian, who was complaining of the heat of
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA, 
 
 the climate and its injurious effects upon an 
 European constitution, I believe to be genuine: 
 " You ate and drink and drink and ate, from 
 morning to night, and then you die, and write home 
 to your friends, that it is the climate that killed 
 you r 
 
 To the English barrister, who, in the present 
 adversity of Westminster Hall, may turn his 
 thoughts to the bar of India, I have already given 
 a hint or two, that may have the salutary effect of 
 correcting the insanity that prevails, as to the 
 certainty of bringing home in a few years a large 
 harvest of professional emolument. It may, pro- 
 bably, with minds of a sound temperament, induce 
 them to pause before they make so fearful an 
 experiment. For a complete change has taken place 
 at all the bars of India. 
 
 Qui color albus erat nunc est contrarius albo, 
 
 was the metamorphosis of Ovid's mulberry-tree ; 
 it is the same with what, in familiar parlance, is 
 called, in India, the rupee-tree. That tree has been 
 plucked almost to sterility. The fees, indeed, are 
 nominally high ; but the enormous scale of expen- 
 diture in that country renders them in fact lower 
 than the fees of Westminster Hall. For instance ; 
 a gold mohur at Calcutta, or five pagodas at Madras,
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 or fifteen rupees at Bombay, for a motion of course, 
 or for a counsel's signature, or for a rule nisi, and 
 double that sum to make the rule absolute, sounds 
 magnificently ; it being primd facie the proportion 
 of two and four pounds to half a guinea and a 
 guinea. The cost of living, however, will soon 
 detect the fallacy. In like manner, the ordinary 
 fee marked upon a brief is at Calcutta and the 
 other presidencies what in Indian money is equiva- 
 lent to ten or fifteen pounds ; rising, indeed, with 
 the increased labour required of the advocate, or 
 the complication and magnitude of the cause ; and 
 if not intercepted altogether, or considerably abridg- 
 ed, in its passage through the attorney's office, 
 frequently augmented by the gratitude of the native 
 client for the success of past efforts, or his hopes of 
 still more strenuous ones in future. A favourite 
 counsel, indeed, who turns the odds in his favour, 
 will be always well paid ; but, of a bar of sixteen 
 or twenty, all cannot fee favourites, and the small 
 prizes will scarcely be adequate to the decent main- 
 tenance of one. If he is a family man, his domestic 
 expenditure must be considerable. Economy and 
 good management may effect something towards its 
 reduction, but not much. The shifts and contri- 
 vances, the clippings here, the parings there, the 
 nice balancings of the excess of this month against
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 225 
 
 the reductions of another, all these expedients, 
 so familiar to English housekeepers, are unknown 
 in India; indeed, they are impracticable. The 
 wants of each day resemble those of the day that 
 preceded it. Fashion, luxury, the common ne- 
 cessities of life, flow in an unvaried equable current, 
 and their demands never rise above or sink below 
 an almost fixed and immutable standard. 
 
 It is, therefore, the easiest matter of calculation 
 to see what it will cost you to live in the rank that 
 belongs to you. Not less than dP3,000 of our 
 money must be expended, if you are a married 
 man, before you can lay by a single pice, and this 
 without conceding any thing to whim or ostentation, 
 or a frivolous taste for expenditure. It is a toll that 
 must be paid, or you cannot proceed a yard farther. 
 A bachelor, indeed, may live at a rate something 
 easier ; but he must now and then give an enter- 
 tainment. The general hospitality of the place, 
 however, is (or used to be) unbounded, and a man 
 of cultivated mind and good manners is scarcely 
 ever called upon to make his pot boil ; whereas, in 
 married life, you must visit and be visited ; dinners 
 are reciprocated with the utmost precision being 
 matters of debtor and per-contra creditor, booked 
 and entered with consummate regularity. I have 
 often been amused with the awkward attempts of a 
 
 L3
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 lady recently married to carry into practice her 
 English system of domestic management, and her 
 natural consternation on finding that, of the heca- 
 tombs that furnished the table of to-day, no use 
 could be made on the morrow. What a revulsion 
 in her accustomed train of thinking, taught by the 
 daily lessons and example of mamma, to discover 
 that nothing can be metamorphosed into a new dish 
 for the next day, and that, amongst the innumerable 
 refaccimentos of English house-keeping, nothing 
 of the kind is practicable in India! and how 
 mortifying, that, of the twenty or thirty dishes that 
 made the table groan, not five were consumed, or 
 so much as touched ! The topic brings to my 
 
 recollection the arrival of Sir William N n, as 
 
 king's adjutant-general, with his lady. Her rank, 
 of course, rendered it requisite, in the routine of 
 Madras society, for her to give occasional dinners. 
 But she had been shocked by the waste, and, as 
 she thought, endless profusion, of the Madras 
 dinners, and was determined to " reform it alto- 
 gether." She began her experiment at a small 
 dinner to a few select persons. " You see," said 
 her ladyship to George Arbuthnot, " you see your 
 dinner." And, indeed, it was a set-out that required 
 no extended powers of vision. " You see, I am 
 determined to set an example of having a few
 
 THE BENCH AND BAB OF INDIA. 227 
 
 dishes only, instead of the inelegant profusion of 
 our Madras dinners." " Ye are parfectly right, 
 
 Lady N ," returned George, in his peculiar 
 
 Scotch accent; "there are quite deeshes eneugh. 
 A seengle deesh more wad destroy the ecoonomy of 
 your ladyship's table." 
 
 But, as Rabelais says, a nos moutons. We were 
 in the Supreme Court at Madras. From some 
 defective constitution of all the courts, there has 
 been a strong tendency to conflict between those 
 courts and the local governments. It was a sort of 
 original sin kneaded into their constitution. Sir 
 John Grant's contention and stubborn quarrel for 
 a few hundred miles more of jurisdiction, with a 
 governor equally obstinate, but who might easily 
 have been conciliated, for all vain men are easily 
 conciliated, lowered the dignity of both in the 
 eyes of the natives, by no means unobservant of 
 our ridiculous and idle squabbles. Every instance 
 of the kind is put down to our account, to swell 
 the sum-total of contempt, which at no distant 
 period of time will read us a pretty severe lesson 
 upon the mode in which we have played our game 
 of sovereignty. Madras has not been free from 
 similar collisions. In Lord dive's time, attempts 
 were made to subject the nabob and his little 
 demesne of Chepauk to the Supreme Court. The
 
 228 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 firmness of the Government and the good sense of 
 Sir Thomas Strange defeated the machinations of 
 the junta, who, under the pretence of being the 
 nabob's creditors, were intent upon despoiling his 
 revenues. When Sir Henry Gwillim, during the 
 temporary absence of the chief justice, through 
 some unfortunate misconception, permitted himself, 
 in a charge to the grand jury, to throw out some 
 severe personal animadversions on the conduct and 
 character of Lord William Bentinck (a most wanton 
 and indecent procedure), the breach might have been 
 easily healed for Lord William is the mildest of 
 beings, and Gwillim, though an irritable, was by 
 no means an obstinate man, when kindly admonished 
 of being wrong, but for the advocate-general, who, 
 in the expectation that the judge would indulge in 
 some severe strictures upon the Government, took 
 down his words as he delivered them. It was this 
 the fact of a counsel at the bar, at his own sug- 
 gestion, taking down his words for the information 
 of Government, that goaded him to a still more 
 bitter strain of remark, and, but for the officious 
 and unprofessional demeanour of Anstruther, 
 Lord William, who made every allowance for the 
 constitutional irritability of the judge, being too 
 high-minded to take any further notice of it, the 
 whole matter would have died away, and one of
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 
 
 the most upright of magistrates and the best-hearted 
 of human kind might have remained many years 
 on the bench. But it was reported with aggrava- 
 tions, and the governor, yielding too implicitly to the 
 suggestions of the advocate-general, who mortally 
 hated poor Gwillim, sent home a formal complaint 
 to the Court of Directors. As a matter of course, 
 they referred it to the Board of Control, and the 
 result was, the recall of the judge with a diminished 
 pension. Sir Henry GwillinTs loss was severely 
 felt in the court. He preserved, on all occasions, 
 the purity of its practice, and Anstruther had, on 
 this score, fallen under his reprehension. He kept 
 the attorneys in the state of professional subordina- 
 tion, which he thought most conducive to the 
 correct discharge of their duties. Having observed 
 a habit prevailing amongst them, of addressing 
 their notices and summons to each other with the 
 designation of " esquire," he observed to them, 
 " Gentlemen attorneys, I observe that you are fond 
 of calling each other 'esquire,' Your legal des- 
 cription is that of gentlemen^ and I wish your 
 conduct may always merit the appellation the law 
 assigns you." The hint was not thrown away upon 
 them. 
 
 It was a great misfortune to the Supreme Court 
 at Madras, that Sir Henry Gwillim's recall took
 
 230 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 place before the memorable trial of Reddy Row 
 for the forgery of Carnatic bonds. An authentic 
 narrative of the transactions of that period is still 
 wanting. If ever there was an approximation to 
 romance in human affairs, it was exhibited in the 
 course of that trial, which lasted eleven days, 
 during which nearly two hundred witnesses, bearing 
 directly opposite testimony to the same facts, were 
 examined. It must be observed, that Reddy Row, 
 having for a short time been in the confidential 
 service of the nabob Wallajah, was supposed, from 
 his constant access to the durbar, and habits of 
 communication with the nabob, to be acquainted 
 with his pecuniary transactions. When the bonds, 
 therefore, were brought into the market, the attes- 
 tation of Reddy Row to the genuineness of the 
 instrument dissipated all suspicion, and they were 
 eagerly bought up. It became, then, a gainful 
 trade to forge them, and Reddy Row was not idle 
 in profiting of the opportunities, which his former 
 station at the durbar gave him, of finding a ready 
 sale for the bonds he attested ; and they overflowed 
 the market in such shoals, that the actual creditors 
 became alarmed at an amount of spurious claims, 
 that threatened to absorb the whole fund set apart 
 for liquidation of the just ones. They fixed upon 
 one bond, that had been disposed of by Reddy
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 
 
 Row for a large sum, and he was indicted, with a 
 man named Anundah Row, by whose hand the 
 signatures were forged, for a conspiracy to defraud. 
 The principal question of fact was, whether Reddy 
 Row was in the actual employ of the nabob at the 
 period of the transaction ? Sixty witnesses swore 
 positively that he was then the chief sheristadar at 
 Chepauk. One hundred and thirty-five positively 
 swore, on the contrary, that he was in the districts 
 of Managoondy and Chillambrum, distressed in his 
 circumstances, and absconding from the jurisdiction 
 of the Supreme Court. It was Sir Thomas Strange's 
 misfortune to have the whole responsibility of this 
 cause thrown singly on his shoulders, for Sir Ben- 
 jamin Sulivan, being himself a Carnatic creditor, 
 absented himself from the bench. Then ensued a 
 series of follies, petty persecutions, childish in 
 their motives, cruel in their results, such as never 
 before outraged the feelings of man, or disgraced a 
 government calling itself British. The commis- 
 sioners selected for the adjudication of the claims, 
 Bengal civil servants, could not move an inch 
 without Reddy Row at their elbow, the man who 
 was more than suspected of being the fabricator of 
 bonds to an immense amount, and a dealer in 
 fraudulent instruments purporting to have the 
 ebgetnama of the nabob by wholesale. They re-
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 presented to Barlow and his council, that the 
 prosecutions impeded their investigation, requesting 
 the Government to defend him by their own law- 
 officers. But the grand jury found the bills, 
 and the prosecutions proceeded. What followed ? 
 Individuals of the grand jury became victims of 
 Barlow's narrow-minded persecution. Those who 
 were civilians were removed from their places to 
 subordinate stations of less profit. Mr. Thomas 
 Parry, a merchant and creditor to a large amount, 
 and therefore active in prosecuting to conviction 
 the fabricator of the fictitious claims, was ordered 
 home to England. The magistrate who committed 
 the delinquent was removed from his office. 
 
 After a trial of eleven days, however, Reddy 
 Row was found guilty, upon two several indict- 
 ments. Yet, though convicted, he was permitted 
 to be at large, and was allowed uninterrupted ac- 
 cess to the dufters and books of the durbar. The 
 chief justice, through the thick film of prejudice 
 that clouded his understanding, saw only the inno- 
 cence of the culprit, and recommended him as a 
 fitting object of the King's pardon. Before the 
 pardon arrived, another forgery was clearly traced 
 to the same criminal, who put a voluntary end to a 
 long life of unexampled and systematic fraud by 
 self-destruction. To this day, the Supreme Court
 
 THE BENCH AND BAB OF INDIA. 233 
 
 has not recovered the taint of those proceedings. 
 Their house of refuge from the arm of government 
 seemed closed to the natives. The hand of civil 
 power had broken into the sanctuary and profaned 
 its sacred recesses. But what was the tumult of 
 their feelings, when they learned (for such was the 
 fact), that the law-officers, under whose advice 
 Barlow sheltered himself, were themselves interested 
 in the validity of Reddy Row's forgeries to a large 
 amount, having made considerable purchases of 
 those instruments before the trial, and amongst 
 others, of the very bond which was the subject of 
 the criminal procedure ! Every civil suit in which 
 the East-India Company was a party was instantly 
 withdrawn. Terror and amazement prevailed 
 through the native population of the settlement, 
 when they perceived the verdicts of juries, to whom 
 they had been wont to look up as an invaluable 
 barrier against all arbitrary aggressions on their 
 rights, set at nought, and the individuals compos- 
 ing the tribunal, to which they looked habitually 
 for protection, selected as objects of penalty and 
 proscription. Native creditors, to the amount of 
 seventy lacs, Paupiah Braminy, for instance, and 
 Singanah Chitty, saw their claims destroyed and 
 their property extinguished. It would be well if 
 starlings could be taught to repeat this sad and
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 violent period of Barlow's government to every 
 successive Madras governor, and to every judge 
 that ascends the bench of the Supreme Court. 
 
 The fees of advocates practising at Bombay are 
 upon a diminished scale; but this is more than 
 compensated by the cheapness of living at that ses- 
 tlement; I refer to bazaar expenses only, for Eu- 
 ropean luxuries are exorbitantly dear. Thanks, 
 however, to the free-trade principles, English com- 
 modities are not unfrequently sold at less than 
 their invoice-prices. Yet Bombay is by no means 
 the presidency at which a well-educated English 
 barrister would wish to reside. It is like Bristol, 
 " differtum nautis atque cauponibus ,-" and the 
 spirit of trade is a heavy incubus upon the elegant 
 intercourses of social life. Literary societies, with 
 their usual machinery of presidents, vice-presidents, 
 secretaries, and treasurers, dissertations by kind- 
 hearted writers, 
 
 Sleepless themselves to give to others sleep, 
 
 have existed at Bombay for nearly the quarter of a 
 century. Sir William Syer, Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh, Colonel Vans Kennedy, have successively 
 promoted and encouraged them. But the soil was 
 by each in his turn pronounced to be unthankful. 
 By a similar coincidence, the bar at Bombay has
 
 THE BENCH AND BAR OF INDIA. 235 
 
 been uniformly barren of remarkable talent. The 
 Recorder's Court at that settlement was established 
 somewhat later than that of Madras. The Court 
 had a strong maritime infusion, if I may so speak, 
 for the first practitioners were renegades from the 
 quarter-deck of Indiamen and merchant-vessels. 
 The stream was by degrees filtered, but it was some 
 time before it ceased to be redolent of pitch and tar. 
 Threipland, a Scottish advocate, and Dowdeswell 
 had the principal business there. The third bar- 
 rister, like the bodkin in a post-chaise, had an un- 
 comfortable time of it. The former was a regular 
 speechifier. His written opinions generally ex- 
 ceeded by two-thirds the length of the cases sub- 
 mitted to him. He was all talk and dissertation, 
 and poor Sir William Syer had the gentlest of 
 slumbers all the time Threipland was talking. 
 But talk, with the greater part of mankind, im- 
 plies talent, and he retired with a handsome fortune, 
 about the year 1812. Dowdeswell, on the other 
 hand, was a man of sound law and correct under- 
 standing : he was, therefore, deemed inferior to 
 Threipland. It is the easiest syllogism in the 
 world : the conclusion is inevitable. Dowdeswell 
 died prematurely, universally beloved and la- 
 mented. He was nephew of Dowdeswell, Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer in Lord North's administration.
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Woodhouse, Morley, and Macklin succeeded. 
 With Macklin returned the reign of talk. He 
 out-prosed Threipland. His national (Irish) lo- 
 quacity vibrated like the acutest torture on the 
 polished and sensitive taste of Mackintosh, who, in 
 letters to his friends, written when Macklin was in 
 full talk and full business, and in the zenith of his 
 fame and garrulity, lamented the hard condition of 
 an English judge, compelled " to hear though he 
 could not listen." His law-arguments, as they 
 were by courtesy called, were so elaborately spun 
 from their first elements, that Sir James was re- 
 minded of the advocate in Racine's comedy, who, 
 beginning with the " creation of all things," was 
 requested by the j udge to pass over to the deluge. 
 Mackintosh gave him this hint, in the elegant 
 phraseology of Atticus, in the De Legibus of 
 Tully : " Dii immortales ! quam tu longd juris 
 principia repetis /" The hint was unavailing ; 
 probably it was unintelligible.
 
 237 
 
 SELECTIONS. 
 
 Calcutta Society. In Calcutta society, a man who 
 who should start any part of Indian affairs, as a topic 
 for conversation, would be considered a bore ; almost 
 all literature or information on Indian subjects is 
 thrown aside, as dry and tasteless, nor is it possible 
 that those, whose Indian career has been spent in 
 Calcutta, should possess any sound or solid views 
 thereupon. Of the majority of the Calcutta public, I 
 believe it will scarcely be too severe to assert, that the 
 arrival of a fresh cargo of prime Yorkshire hams, her- 
 metically-sealed salmon, or raspberry jam ; a squabble 
 between two fiddlers of the theatre, and consequent 
 postponement of an opera, would create a greater sen- 
 sation among them, than the rebellion of half-a-dozen , 
 of the western provinces. I appeal to those who were 
 in Calcutta in 1819, to testify whether or not this be 
 exaggeration. At that period, the number of pro- 
 fessional musicians was just sufficient, if all were 
 d 'accord, to get up a good concert ; but the two prin- 
 cipal performers quarrelled, as to a share of the profits, 
 and refused to unite their forces; thus preventing any 
 concerts being held. The Calcutta public, instead of
 
 238 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 declining to patronize either until they should have 
 agreed by which means the musicians would have 
 come to their senses in a week actually formed two 
 parties in favour of their respective heroes. Judges of 
 the Supreme Court, judges of the Sudder, members of 
 council, secretaries., and, indeed, almost the whole of 
 the society, espoused the cause of either side ; even the 
 governess-general did not stand aloof: the petty ani- 
 mosities of the fiddlers' squabble seemed, as it were, 
 to afford a vent for all the mens irritabile which the 
 atmosphere of Calcutta is said so peculiarly to engender; 
 and one could hardly enter a house without encounter- 
 ing the fury or spite of some partisan of the conflicting 
 rivals. And yet, with all this eagerness and vivacity 
 upon a point, in which mere amusement or pleasure is 
 concerned, there is a cold, unsociable heartlessness in 
 the society of Calcutta ; a haughty pomposity, and a 
 parvenu-grandee notion of splendour and dignity 
 (particularly among the officials and their ladies), 
 accompanied with a reluctance to exertion, even for 
 their own interests, if the benefit be not immediate. 
 It is with the greatest difficulty, for instance, that any 
 public institutions can be established, or even preserved, 
 under the apathy which exists among the English in 
 Calcutta. Even English news is, in reality, little cared 
 for : the attention of the greater number seems to be 
 almost entirely devoted to their own little daily comforts, 
 and they are only to Jbje excited by a ball or a dinner.
 
 SELECTIONS. 239 
 
 The remarks of a celebrated writer on the state of 
 society in Paris, before the revolution, will, with a 
 slight variation but too well apply to them. ' They 
 danced and sung to the emperor, they danced and 
 sung to King Louis, and they would have danced and 
 sung to King Satan, if he would have given them a 
 fete or a spectacle ; so will the Calcuttaites flatter and 
 feast in honour of Governor Bentinck, flatter and feast 
 in honour of Governor Metcalfe, and they would flatter 
 and feast in honour of Governor Satan, if he would 
 only give them a dinner or a ball, and occasionally 
 ' honour the theatre with his presence,' at seven o'clock 
 precisely, so as not to keep the audience waiting. 
 Writer in the Bengal Hurkaru, Dec, 1835. 
 
 A Day in the Hot Winds. Now, the thermometer 
 is very little below " a hundred" in the house, and at 
 a wofully elevated height in the sun. Now, crows sit 
 with their beaks open, and adjutants gather in forlorn 
 groupes on the roofs of barracks and houses. Now, 
 old Indians take their early rides, and, though the air 
 is still to suffocation, they salute each other with 
 " what a refreshing morning !" judging by comparison, 
 and thinking of the musquitoe-haunted bed-room, from 
 which they have just escaped. Now, late breakfasts and 
 iced beverages are generally patronised, while hookahs 
 and even Mofussil newspapers, are eagerly hailed, as a 
 means of passing a melting morning. Now, ladies
 
 240 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 keep their reception-rooms half dark with couleur- 
 de-rose curtains, and fear they look "quite horrid,'' 
 while the poor children are most patient, though not 
 interesting, martyrs to " prickly heat" and musquitoe- 
 bites. Now, is the time to enjoy that delicious thing 
 called a siesta, and to appreciate a companion who 
 loves to hear you read, or who reads well himself. 
 Now, some ladies dispense with the milliner's aid, and 
 lounge all day in Combermere chairs, indifferent to 
 their husband's hints about dotvdyism, while the said 
 husbands leave off their stocks, and look neither useful 
 nor ornamental. Now, cutcherries and public offices 
 are delightful places, for those who are obliged to sit in 
 them all day, and the interpreter to a Court of 
 Bequests, which is expected to last a week, is in a 
 very pretty predicament. Now, old Indians yawn 
 over army-lists, to see if there is any chance of their 
 getting out of the country ; a thing, as devoutly to be 
 wished for and as little to be hoped for, as a shower 
 of rain. Now, pianos get out of tune, and the fair 
 owners' tempers get warped. Now, brides look in 
 wonder, to see the change wrought in three months 
 on a bridegroom in " mellow manhood." Now, wives 
 of six and seven summers feel much too ennuyee to 
 think about personal appearance, or indeed any ap- 
 pearance at all. Now, buffaloes lie down in every pud- 
 dle of muddy water that they pass through ; and teal, 
 floating about in their pretty fanciful tealeries, are to
 
 SELECTIONS. 241 
 
 be envied. Now, a cadet making a morning call, on 
 the outside of his pony, thinks sorrowfully of the pond 
 he used to bathe in at school. Now, the nobler part of 
 God's creation, from pure ennui, drive about in buggies, 
 to make themselves agreeable to their lady-friends, 
 and commence each separate conversation, at each 
 separate house,with " this heat is really overpowering." 
 Now, four stout ladies, on a couch, at a concert, feel 
 very enragees, if a fifth of Pharaoh's fat kine shows an 
 inclination to pin them. Now, balls and burrakhanas 
 are most numerously attended, and, upon the principle 
 of " consistency," ladies waltz and quadrille them- 
 selves into fevers. Now, going to a crowded theatre 
 in a full-dress coat, is a thing not to be thought of. 
 Now, jellies are brought to table like bowls of liquid 
 amber, and butter " is melted butter," without any 
 culinary preparation. Now, chicks are let down, and 
 tatties are put up, and therm-antidotes are the " only 
 things," to those who can get them. CaL Lit. Gaz. 
 for 1834. 
 
 A Portuguese wedding in Calcutta. Marriage being 
 one of the sacraments of the Romish Church, it is pre- 
 ceded by confession a day before, and that by ablution 
 in the same manner. The ceremonies of this prelimi- 
 nary purification, like the mysteries of the Bona Dea, 
 are not to be revealed to the other sex. The evening 
 of the confession witnesses a Bye Jce nautck, with cha- 
 
 VOL. i. M
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 peena, to a few particular friends. The following 
 evening, the marriage is celebrated with all the pomp 
 the circumstances of the parties will allow. 
 
 Previous to the important day, each party chooses a 
 bridesmaid and a bridesman, denominated the madreea 
 and padreea, who, in addition to the duties which 
 bridesmaids perform among us, are charged with the 
 superintendence and arrangement of the procession and 
 entertainment. They often contribute something to- 
 wards the marriage-feast, either a few dozens of wine, 
 the wedding-dress of the bride, or the flowers which 
 are used on the occasion. All the friends of the par- 
 ties are expected to send some gifts, in the shape of 
 trinkets or gilded betel-nuts and kuth; those who give 
 nothing, lend their personal assistance : indeed, the 
 following is an established formula, by which the old 
 women acknowledge the little services rendered them 
 by children : " May I die ! I promise to cook your 
 wedding pillau ! " Friends are invited by a notable 
 woman, who goes about from house to house, repeat- 
 ing a set form of invitation. A large house is hired 
 for three days, and fitted up, magnificently or other- 
 wise, as the madreeas and padreeas have friends and 
 influence. The gateway is adorned with an arch made 
 of the trunks of plantain-trees and the leaves of the 
 palmyra, &c., and a similar arch is thrown across the 
 street, a short way from the house, along which the 
 procession is to pass to and from church.
 
 SELECTIONS. 243 
 
 The important day having arrived, the friends who 
 meet at the house proceed to the church. The bride 
 is generally carried in a chair, called bocha palkee. She 
 is covered with as much jewellery, chiefly gold, as her 
 friends can muster. Her deportment throughout 
 the day is a model of maiden reserve and modesty, 
 according to the etiquette prescribed and handed 
 down. Arrived at the church, the parson meets them 
 at the entrance and ties the hands of the man and wo- 
 man, in token of the bond of matrimony. The return 
 of the procession is met by a party of native singers, 
 who chaunt the immemorable strain " shaddee moba- 
 ruck" or propitious union. At this moment, the mo- 
 ther of the bride is expected to lament bitterly her 
 separation from her daughter; and at the nick of time, 
 the voice of song is interrupted and drowned by her 
 lamentations and outcries. Peace, however, being re- 
 stored, the celebration of the marriage commences. 
 
 The bride sits in state, supported by her madreeas, 
 under a canopy of bamboo sticks and gilded paper. 
 The friends as they come in receive a nosegay and a 
 garland, and are presented to the bride and bride- 
 groom, the former of whom is tenderly kissed by 
 all females. When a superior relative comes in, such 
 as a godmother or an aunt, the bride kisses her hands 
 and asks a blessing, which is bestowed by making the 
 sign of the cross. All being seated, tea and sweet- 
 meats are brought in and handed to each guest, while 
 M 2
 
 244 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the byes perform their evolutions and chaunt their 
 melodies in a corner of the hall, until it is time for 
 them to come forward. The byes then sing and dance 
 before the bride, and receive from her a rupee or sik- 
 kee in recompense: in this manner they parade round 
 the hall and receive similar gratuities, till the morning 
 dawns and the company disperse. 
 
 Should the madreeas and padreeas so determine, the 
 byes retire to another room, and preparations are made 
 for a ball. The bride and bridegroom stand up at the 
 head of the ball ; it often happens that either one or 
 both cannot dance, or the severity of one or other of 
 the parties will not allow of the bride's accepting anj 
 other than the bridegroom for a partner; in such cases, 
 the fiddles and clarionets sound a nourish; they com- 
 mence, the bride curtsies and the bridegroom makes a 
 bow, and both resume their seats, amid the plaudits 
 of the whole company. The ball then proceeds. 
 " When this old cap was new," reels and country dan- 
 ces were in vogue, to the tunes of " Drops of Brandy" 
 and " Charlie over the Water ;" a hornpipe was some- 
 times performed at midnight, and was deemed a spe- 
 cial wonder. The times may have changed since then. 
 While the young " trip it on the light fantastic toe," 
 those who have no relish for such amusements regale 
 themselves with the wines and liquors, which are 
 served out in an adjoining room, smoke, and chat 
 until supper is announced. The whole company sit
 
 SELECTIONS. 245 
 
 around tables arranged in one length, if there be room 
 for the whole ; if not, the men very gallantly stand 
 and eat behind their female friends, off plates which 
 they hold in their hands. The bride and bridegroom 
 sit at opposite ends of the table, and at a proper sea- 
 son, the bridegroom drinks to the health of the bride 
 across. Then some friend, who is deputed for the ser- 
 vice and has courage and words at command, proposes 
 the first and last toast the health of the newly mar- 
 ried pair. Dancing is again renewed, till the peep of 
 dawn, or till some riot-loving souls get fuddled, kick 
 and cuff each other, and so disperse the company. 
 Before the one or the other takes place, no egress is 
 allowed ; the doors are double-locked, and every one 
 is made happy in spite of himself. When departure 
 is authorized by the superintending madreeas and 
 padreeas, a search is commenced for hats and shawls ; 
 and many a beau, who had entered with a span-new 
 Borradaile or Moore, returns minus a chapeau, or takes 
 up the shabby concern which has generously been left 
 as a. substitute for his superfine beaver. Orient. Ob- 
 server for February 1834. 
 
 Treatment of Natives. A native correspondent of 
 the Sumachar Durpun, observing that the object of 
 the British Government, to establish " English ways 
 and principles," will never be realized so long as the 
 judges and collectors of the old school continue in the
 
 246 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Mofussil, describes the mode in which natives are 
 treated there. " In the Mofussil, no one dares go to 
 the house of a judge or collector with his shoes on; 
 nor can he address those gentlemen without folded 
 hands and the appellations Jonabhuzoor, Jonabalee, 
 Japuna, and Khodabund. Many of those gentlemen 
 style themselves Huzoor, with their own lips. Thus, 
 when they speak to the officers in attendance, they 
 will say, ' Bring the box of the Huzoor.' ' Attend at 
 the house of the Huzoor to-morrow at 10 o'clock, 
 otherwise the Huzoor will be angry with you.' It is 
 a custom with some gentlemen, when any person looks 
 in their face, to say, ' It is exceedingly improper for 
 you constantly to look in the face of the Huzoor whilst 
 you speak; you are not worthy to salute the Huzoor.' 
 No one has permission to enter with a palanquin the 
 compound of a gentleman's house; and how shall I 
 describe their dignity when sitting in cutchery ! No 
 one must cough, although he has a cold ; his presump- 
 tion will be immediately punished. All, great and 
 small, stand with their hands together. The shiris- 
 tadars of the Sudder Dewannee, the Sudder Board, 
 the Court of Appeal, and other chief cutcheries, in 
 Calcutta, receive chairs to sit beside the sahebs. The 
 shiristadars of the zillah judges and collectors stand 
 like the bird Gurooru from 9 A. M. to 7 p. M., and 
 attend to business; and if their loins or bodies bend, 
 it is reckoned a sign of rudeness."
 
 247 
 
 DIALOGUES BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND AN 
 EUROPEAN. 
 
 I. 
 
 EUR. These doctrines of materialism and neces- 
 sity, for which you contend, must be regarded as 
 heretical in your own country. To me, indeed, 
 they seem almost equivalent to atheism. 
 
 BR. So far are they in my mind from being of 
 an atheistical tendency, that I cannot but regard 
 them as the only tenable forms of pure theism. 
 
 EUR. You surprise me ! And, but for the general 
 seriousness of your previous conversation, I should 
 imagine you were inclined to banter ; for atheists 
 in this country are generally materialists and neces- 
 sarians. 
 
 BR. They are so, perhaps, in all countries. Yet 
 it does not therefore follow, that materialists and 
 necessarians are, by means of those doctrines, atheists.
 
 248 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Rather, I think I can make it appear to you that 
 these doctrines are the legitimate consequences of a 
 belief in an Omnipresent and All-powerful Spirit. 
 
 EUR. I am prepared to hear your proofs with 
 attention ; but I do not anticipate conviction. 
 
 BR. I will commence, then, with the doctrine 
 which you call materialism. Y our idea of man is, 
 that he is composed of two parts, body and spirit; 
 that the body is visible, organized, sensible, perish- 
 able; that the spirit is invisible, and though 
 created, yet not composed of parts, or liable to 
 decay. You have not the idea of spirit as being 
 a mere breath, or vapour, or like what the ancient 
 G reeks called \}/y%w ? 
 
 EUR. Certainly not, for all these notions contain 
 something material, and I regard spirit and matter 
 as containing scarcely any principles in common. 
 Now I cannot conceive it possible that two material 
 substances should at one and the same time occupy 
 one and the same place ; yet there is no impossibility 
 that a spiritual and a material substance should 
 occupy the same place at the same time. 
 
 BR. You are of opinion then that matter may 
 exclude matter, but that matter cannot exclude 
 spirit ? 
 
 EUR. That is my opinion ; and I believe it is the 
 general opinion of those who hold the doctrine of
 
 DIALOGUES. 249 
 
 the spirituality of the human mind, or indeed of the 
 existence of spirit at all. 
 
 BR. You speak of spirit and matter occupying 
 the same place at the same time; have you an 
 idea of two spirits occupying the same place at the 
 same time? 
 
 EUR. I have never, indeed, thought it necessary 
 to form such a speculation; for as spirit is so 
 essentially different from matter, it is almost, if not 
 altogether, impossible to conceive of it as existing 
 and occupying any given space after the manner of 
 a material substance. 
 
 BR. Clearly so ; but you have admitted, and must 
 admit, that matter and spirit may be in the same 
 place at the same time ; now if spirit be in the same 
 place as matter, it mu st be in some place. The question 
 is, not whether spirit occupies place, as matter does, 
 but whether it exists in place. It certainly does 
 not occupy place to the exclusion of matter, but if 
 it be where matter is, it must be in some place. 
 
 EUR. By conceiving spirit to exist in any limited 
 space, you give it shape, whichis one of theattributes 
 of matter : and the idea of shape seems quite incon- 
 sistent with my notion of spirit. 
 
 BR. So it does with mine. But I do not s^e how 
 you can get rid of the notion of some shape connected 
 with a finite and limited spirit. Here am I, 
 
 it 3
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 ing with you in the city called London. Have I 
 a spirit? 
 
 EUR. I think you have. 
 
 BR. And is that spirit anywhere or nowhere? 
 
 EUR. It is somewhere, no doubt. 
 
 BR. You do not think that it is in Calcutta, now 
 that my body is in London ? 
 
 EUR. I do not. 
 
 BR. You think, then, that there is a place where 
 my spirit is, and that there is a place where it 
 is not ? 
 
 EUR. It is impossible to think otherwise. 
 
 BR. Will you not find it difficult to imagine a 
 place where spirit is, and a place where it is not, 
 without conceiving the possibility of drawing a line 
 between the two ? 
 
 EUR. It is difficult, if not impossible. 
 
 BR. Drawing a line then between the place where 
 spirit is and the place where it is not, is clearly 
 giving spirit a shape. For if my spirit be in 
 London at this time and not in Calcutta, it is also 
 in Middlesex and not in Essex ; and if it be in 
 Middlesex and not in Essex, it must either fill the 
 whole of Middlesex or occupy some part of it only. 
 If it fill the whole county, or only part of it, still 
 there is a line to be drawn between where it is and 
 where it is not.
 
 DIALOGUES. 251 
 
 EUR. You appear to be attempting to drive me 
 into some absurdity concerning spirit, and yet 
 you perplex your own notions of deity by proving 
 that spirit must essentially have shape. 
 
 BE. By no means. Shape is as repugnant to my 
 notions of spirit as it can be to yours. I am only 
 endeavouring to shew you that shape is inseparable 
 from the notion of finite spirit ; for finite is bound- 
 ed, limited, defined in its measure and dimensions, 
 consequently shaped. But the infinite spirit, which 
 I call God, has no shape, for we cannot say of it, 
 that it is here and not there. Now your notion of 
 the Divine Spirit differs not, I think, from mine. 
 
 EUR. We seem to have the same notions on that 
 point. But how does all this tend to prove your 
 point, that the doctrine of materialism is one of the 
 foundations of pure theism ? 
 
 BR. Is it not essential to pure theism that we 
 regard the deity as a pure and perfect spirit, filling 
 immensity with his presence ? Do we not consider 
 him to be always every-where ? 
 
 EUR. Most undoubtedly. 
 
 BR. Now, can you imagine there can be two 
 omnipresent spirits in the universe ? 
 
 EUR. I cannot conceive it possible ; for if there 
 could be two, there could be two thousand. The 
 one omnipresent spirit excludes any other omnipre- 
 sent spirit.
 
 2 SOCIETY AND MAXNKRS. 
 
 BR. I think you have almost admitted, that 
 finite spirits must have place, and having place 
 must have shape. 
 
 EUR. Nay, nay, I can never admit that spirit, 
 being invisible, has shape. 
 
 BR. Yes, but do you not admit, that though no 
 two portions of matter can be, at one and the same 
 time in the same place, yet that spirit may be in the 
 same place that matter is, and can you imagine any 
 substance occupying space and having no shape ? 
 
 EUR,. But we cannot reason concerning spirit as 
 concerning matter. 
 
 BR. Clearly not : and that is the reason why I 
 contend that your notion of finite spirit involves an 
 absurdity, because it compels you to reason of spirit 
 as of matter. But to return to what I was just 
 now saying ; you cannot admit of the existence of 
 two omnipresent spirits? 
 
 EUR. Of course, I cannot. 
 
 BR. You would possibly think it absurd to say 
 that, when immensity is filled by an omnipresent 
 spirit, there is room for more ? 
 
 EUR. It would be an absurdity to say so. 
 
 BR. And do you think that there would not be 
 some degree of absurdity in saying that two finite 
 spirits can, at one and the same time, occupy the 
 same place ?
 
 DIALOGUES. 
 
 EUE. You misunderstand me: when I speak 
 about spirit occupying place, it does not occupy 
 place as matter does. 
 
 BR. No, certainly not. It occupies place as 
 spirit does. Well, then, shall we not say that 
 matter occupies place, to the exclusion of matter, 
 but not to the exclusion of spirit ; and that spirit 
 occupies place, to the exclusion of spirit, but not 
 to the exclusion of matter ? 
 
 EUR. I hardly know what to say to that; for I 
 cannot apprehend how spirit occupies place. 
 
 BR. Yet you are sufficiently able to think of the 
 omnipresent spirit occupying all immensity as to 
 l)e aware that it would be an absurdity to imagine 
 two or more omnipresent spirits occupying the 
 same immensity. 
 
 EUR. Certainly, I can see there would be an 
 absurdity in such a supposition ; for if we supposed 
 that there were two or more omnipresent spirits, 
 we could not say of one of them that it filled 
 immensity. 
 
 BR. Well, then, would it not be equally absurd 
 to say that two or more finite and limited spirits 
 could occupy the same finite and limited space ? 
 
 EUR. So it does appear, certainly. 
 
 BR. You see, then, that, on the very ground 
 which prevents you from considering it possible
 
 254 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 that there should be two omnipresent spirits in the 
 universe, you are led to conclude that no two finite 
 spirits can at one and the same time occupy the 
 same place. 
 
 EUE. I may be led to that conclusion ; and what 
 then? 
 
 BR. Then you are led to acknowledge, that 
 where one spirit is, another cannot be. 
 
 EUR. I see it. 
 
 BR. If then, where one spirit is, another spirit 
 cannot be, will it not follow that so much of space, 
 be it greater or less, as is occupied by a finite spirit, 
 cannot at the same time be occupied by the infinite 
 spirit ? And will it not, therefore, follow, that if 
 you admit the existence of what you are pleased 
 to call finite spirits, you either deny the omni- 
 presence of the infinite spirit ; or, admitting the 
 omnipresence, you admit that two spirits may be 
 in the same place at the same time, and thereby 
 leave room for the admission of two or more omni- 
 present spirits ? On this ground, therefore, do 
 I maintain, that the denial of what is commonly 
 called the doctrine of immateriality does not only 
 not lead to atheism, but that it is the proper support 
 of a true theism, seeing that it is the only theory 
 of spirit which is perfectly compatible with the 
 omnipresence of the Infinite Spirit.
 
 IdALOGTJES. 
 
 EUR. I see the drift of your argument, as it 
 concerns the doctrine of materialism ; and without 
 admitting that you have convinced me, will you 
 be kind enough to proceed to the doctrine of 
 necessity, as another theistical argument? Only 
 let me request of you not to go over the old ground 
 of the argument of necessity in general ; but simply 
 let me know how it is that you find in this theory 
 an argument in favour of theism, 
 
 BR. I think I can do that in one word : om- 
 nipotence. 
 
 EUR. Omnipotence ! 
 
 BR. Yes. I speak of the omnipotence of the 
 Deity, which, of course, you admit. 
 
 EUR. Of course, I admit the divine omnipotence; 
 but I cannot see how the omnipotence of God should 
 have any thing to do with the liberty of the human 
 will, either one way or another. 
 
 BR. What is your idea of omnipotence? 
 
 EUR. My idea of omnipotence is expressed by 
 the word itself, which signifies possessing almighty 
 power. 
 
 BR. That is, power to do anything ? 
 
 EUR. Exactly so ; power over all other power. 
 
 BR. But what do you mean by speaking of all 
 other power, when you speak of one being as pos- 
 sessing all power ? for that must be the meaning of
 
 256 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the word omnipotent. Can there be other power 
 than all power ? 
 
 EUR. There can be no other power than that 
 which the Creator communicates. 
 
 BR. When you speak of communicating power, 
 do you mean that the Creator parts with any power 
 when he thus communicates it ? 
 
 EUR. Certainly, he loses no power when he com- 
 municates power to any of his creatures. 
 
 BR. Does he create any new power ? 
 
 EUR. By no means ; he merely communicates 
 power. 
 
 BR. You must excuse me, if my imperfect know- 
 ledge of the language in which we are now con- 
 versing compels me to say, that I do not understand 
 what is meant by communicating power, when, on 
 the one hand, the Creator parts with no power that 
 he possesses, and, on the other, he creates no new 
 power. Is the power, which the creature possesses, 
 a power which existed before he possessed it, or is 
 it not ? 
 
 EUR. You are preparing a dilemma for me. 
 
 BR. I am preparing to make you comprehend 
 your own idea of omnipotence ; and to shew you 
 that you attribute too much to omnipotence and 
 too little to the Omnipotent. 
 
 EUR. You speak paradoxically. How can I
 
 DIALOGUES. 257 
 
 attribute too little to the Omnipotent when I attri- 
 bute omnipotence to him ? 
 
 BR. But do you attribute omnipotence to him ? 
 You attribute to him power, great power, the 
 greatest power : but that is not all power. Do you 
 not see, if there be any power in the universe be- 
 sides the power of the Creator, that the Creator 
 does not possess all power ? You may represent 
 him as supreme in power, but you do not attribute 
 all power to him, if you represent any other being 
 as possessing power. 
 
 EUR. Whatever power created beings possess, 
 they have it in dependence on the Supreme Power. 
 
 BR. So far as man is dependent, he has not 
 power. 
 
 EUR. Not supreme power. 
 
 BR. Not any power. I am dependent on the 
 Creator for life ; he gives me life, but not the power 
 of life ; that rests with him. 
 
 EUR. Then I suppose you will contend that the 
 Creator gives you to will, but not a power over 
 will ? 
 
 BR. So I apprehend the matter. 
 
 EUR. And you hold that you are not the cause 
 of your own actions ? 
 
 BR. I hold that I am altogether an effect ; and 
 effects are not causes, though they may be the
 
 258 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 means of the transmission of action. But I will 
 not wander into the old discussion of liberty and 
 necessity ; it is enough for the purpose to shew 
 you, that the doctrine of necessity, so far from 
 being at all conducive to atheism, is in truth the 
 only view of the subject which is consistent with 
 the absolute omnipotence of the Creator. Will is 
 a result ; is it not ? 
 
 EUR. Of course. But you are going now again 
 into the ordinary discussion of the question of 
 liberty and necessity. 
 
 BR. I will endeavour to avoid it. When I say that 
 will is a result, I mean that, though will originates 
 action, yet will itself is originated by the constitu- 
 tion of the mind and the position of circumstances, 
 and you can no more form a philosophical concep- 
 tion of a thought or conception originated by man, 
 than you can form a conception of a sixth sense. 
 Man's being is altogether dependent, and is but a 
 transmission of impulses; and, as we apprehend, 
 through ignorance, that the beginning of our being 
 is the beginning of time, so we apprehend, by a still 
 deeper ignorance, that the development of choice is 
 the spring of action. 
 
 EUR. Thus far you reason as the necessarians ; 
 and I have no objection to concede you that point, 
 and to allow the doctrine of necessity to be philoso-
 
 DIALOGUES. 259 
 
 phically true. But how does that doctrine comport 
 better with the existence of a deity than the doctrine 
 of liberty ? 
 
 BR. Simply for this reason, that necessity sup- 
 poses God to have all power, and man to have 
 none ; while liberty, on the other hand, supposes 
 man to have some power, though it supposes God 
 to have greater: whereas the proper notion of 
 God is omnipotence. 
 
 EUR. I see your argument in both points : you 
 think that the omnipresence of the Divine Spirit 
 excludes the existence or conception of finite spirits, 
 and you conceive that the -divine omnipotence ex- 
 cludes all other power. This is your meaning, I 
 apprehend ? 
 
 BR. It is so ; but I do not suppose that it con- 
 vinces you, or shakes your faith in your hereditary 
 metaphysical notions. 
 
 EUR. I cannot say that it does ; yet peradven- 
 ture it may be as plausible as any other metaphy- 
 sical arguments, which are for the most part talkings 
 about that which man understands not and cannot 
 comprehend. 
 
 BR. I agree with you.
 
 260 
 
 DIALOGUES BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND AN 
 EUROPEAN. 
 
 II. 
 
 EUR. I must confess that some of your metaphy- 
 sical notions do appear to me altogether extravagant, 
 and, without wishing to use the term disrespectfully, 
 absolutely absurd. 
 
 BR. Will you be pleased to state some of those 
 absurdities, and we will examine them together, and 
 it may perhaps then appear that the ab&tirdity 
 is not so much in our admission of these notions as 
 in your rejection of them. 
 
 EUR. I think I heard you say that you belonged 
 to the Sanchya school ? 
 
 BR. I said so. 
 
 EUR. That school, then, attributes to mind a 
 power which it does not and cannot possess; of 
 which we have no evidence either from our senses
 
 DIALOGUES. 
 
 or from history ; which would be utterly useless to 
 all the practical purposes of life. 
 
 BR. You are somewhat severe in your animad- 
 versions on the Sanchya philosophy. Now, as you 
 are so positive as to what mind is incapable of 
 doing, you can probably tell me what it is capable 
 of, and what is its nature ? 
 
 EUK. Very little can be known of mind, for mind 
 itself is that which knows, and not that which is 
 known. 
 
 BR. But mind has power, and can use that 
 power, and may know its own power by the result 
 of its own efforts. I am of Patanjalfs school (the 
 theistical), and I ask what are your notions of the 
 attributes of the Great Spirit that supremely rules 
 the universe ? 
 
 EUR. I attribute to him infinite power, infinite 
 knowledge and wisdom. 
 
 BR. Then you suppose the wisdom and the power 
 of the Supreme equal ? 
 EUR. I do. 
 
 BR. If, then, you admit that the wisdom and 
 power of the Supreme are equal, have you any 
 reason to suppose that the wisdom and power of 
 created beings are unequal ? 
 
 EUR. Do you mean by this question to imply 
 that in man wisdom and power are equal, and that
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 according to our wisdom so is our power, and ac- 
 cording to our power so is our wisdom ? 
 
 BR. That certainly is my meaning, and that is 
 my belief. 
 
 EUR. I see no reason why it should not be so. 
 
 BR. I see every reason why it should be so : for 
 that which is all-powerful is all- wise, and that which 
 has no power has no wisdom. 
 
 EUR. I will not gainsay it : for I wish not to 
 quibble, but to inquire. 
 
 BR. Can the mind gain strength ? 
 
 EUR. Of that I should think that there can be 
 little doubt. The constant efforts of intellectual 
 persons are directed to strengthening and enlarging 
 the mind. 
 
 BR. That is to say, increasing its power ? 
 
 EUR. Clearly so. 
 
 BR. You see and are convinced that power and 
 knowledge are coincident in their increase ? 
 
 EUR. I see it. 
 
 BR. Then I would ask you, can you set any 
 assignable limits to the improvement and enlarge- 
 ment of the mind ? 
 
 EUR. Most certainly I cannot ; but at the same 
 time I will not admit 
 
 BR. Nay, nay, I beseech you not to perplex the 
 subject by digressions. I only ask you to tell me
 
 DIALOGUES. 
 
 what you will admit, and not what you will not 
 admit. You will admit that in man power and 
 wisdom are respectively equal, and that one cannot 
 be increased or diminished without a corresponding 
 increase or diminution of the other ? 
 
 EUR. But to what consequences will all this 
 lead ? I fear I have conceded too much. Surely, 
 a man may have more knowledge than power. 
 
 BR. I thought it was a principle laid down by 
 your great philosopher Bacon, and generally ad- 
 mitted by the people of England and France, that 
 knowledge is power. 
 
 EUR. To a certain extent, perhaps, it may be so. 
 
 BR. If the extent be certain, perhaps you can 
 state to what extent ? 
 
 EUR. Ah, you are laughing at our conversa- 
 tional peculiarity, in using the word certain when 
 the thing of which we speak is uncertain. But I 
 will concede that knowledge certainly gives power. 
 
 BR. Well then, if a little knowledge gives a 
 little power, a great deal of knowledge gives a great 
 deal of power ? 
 
 EUR. So it should seem, indeed. 
 
 BR. By what argument, then, will you shew, 
 that if increase of knowledge be increase of power, 
 the increase of power does not keep pace with the 
 increase of knowledge ?
 
 264 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 EUR. I have, indeed, no argument for such pur- 
 pose. But still, though as knowledge increases 
 power may increase, it does not follow that they are 
 absolutely equal. 
 
 BR. You may for your own purposes think so, 
 but I cannot imagine how you can with your owii 
 principles prove it ; for if you admit that where 
 there is all knowledge there is all power, and where 
 there is no knowledge there is no power, and that 
 increase of knowledge is increase of power, you will 
 be puzzled to shew how knowledge and power do 
 not always bear the same proportion to each other. 
 Permit me to illustrate. You can suppose grada- 
 tions of power and knowledge between all and 
 none ? 
 
 EUR. I can so. 
 
 BR. You can also suppose a progression from 
 none to all ? 
 
 EUR. Most undoubtedly. 
 
 BR. Very good. Then if, in the course of this 
 progression, increase of power keeps pace with in- 
 crease of knowledge, and if at any period of the 
 progress there should be more knowledge than 
 power, how can the knowledge and the power ever 
 both arrive at the infinite ? Seeing that, let them 
 progress as far as they may, the power must always, 
 if ever, be inferior to the knowledge, and if know-
 
 DIALOGUES. 265 
 
 ledge merely produces a degree of power, then, 
 when knowledge at its infinite height has produced 
 a power that is not infinite, it can do no more. Do 
 you not, therefore, see that, if power and knowledge 
 are equal at their greatest height, and that they can 
 increase by degrees, they must be equal in every 
 step of their progress ? 
 
 EUR I believe I must acknowledge it. 
 
 BR. Having then laid this foundation, we will 
 now, if you please, proceed to consider any doc- 
 trines of the Sanchya school to which you may 
 object : for, unless we be agreed on first principles, 
 all our reasonings and arguments will be but as 
 fighting with air. 
 
 EUR. I should premise that my knowledge of 
 the metaphysical doctrines of your school is derived 
 from the report of others ; but still the reporters are 
 in every way so competent, that I think I may re- 
 gard them as undoubted authority. I have read 
 the following statement of your doctrines, and to 
 my mind they are all equally objectionable. " The 
 Sanchya school consider that there is a transcendent 
 power attainable by man, which is eightfold : 1, 
 shrinking into a minute form ; 2, enlarging to a 
 gigantic body ; 3, assuming levity ; 4, possessing 
 unlimited reach of organs (as touching the moon 
 with the tip of the finger) ; 5, irresistible will ; 6, 
 
 VOL. i. N
 
 266 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 dominion over all things ; 7, faculty of changing 
 the course of nature ; 8, ability to accomplish 
 everything." 
 
 BR. Right ; those are doctrines of our school : 
 now, what objection can you have to any or all of 
 them ? 
 
 EUR. Excuse me, but really I can scarcely avoid 
 smiling at the gravity with which you seem pre- 
 pared to defend these extravagancies, and I may say 
 impossibilities. 
 
 BR. Excuse me also, but it does not become you 
 to call these doctrines impossibilities, after the con- 
 cession which you have made of the possible unli- 
 mited enlargement of the mind. 
 
 EUR. Yes, the enlargement or improvement of 
 the mind must be admitted ; but you are speaking 
 of the enlargement of the body, and of its as mira- 
 culous diminution. 
 
 BR. Certainly I am; and has not mind power 
 over matter, and did not mind create the universe ? 
 
 EUR. That may be very true : but I will ask 
 you one question, which may presently set the 
 matter at rest. Have you ever seen, or heard any 
 authentic account of, any philosopher of your sect 
 thus actually enlarging or diminishing his body ? 
 
 BR. An answer to that question by no means 
 sets the matter at rest ; for although I should say
 
 DIALOGUES. 267 
 
 that I had never been witness of such a fact, and 
 had never seen one who had, that would not prove 
 the thing impossible. Have you seen everything 
 done which is possible to be done ? Is it possible 
 to leap from this window into the street ? 
 
 EUR. Certainly it is. 
 
 BR. Have you ever done it, or have you ever 
 seen any one do it ? 
 
 EUR. No ; but by the universally admitted 
 laws of nature, by one's own feelings, one must 
 know the possibility of it. 
 
 BR. In like manner may I say, by the univer- 
 sally admitted principle that knowledge is power, 
 by the acknowledged principle that the mind may 
 go on progressively improving to an inconceivable 
 and unlimited extent, and by one's own feelings of 
 the power of mind over matter, one must know the 
 possibility of this transcendent power, which the 
 Yoga-sdstra of Patanjali affirms to be attainable 
 by man. 
 
 EUR. Still, if you could give us a little ocular 
 demonstration of these things, it might tend more 
 to our conviction than the most subtle reasonings. 
 You say that it is possible to attain an unlimited 
 reach of organs, so as to touch the moon with the 
 tip of the finger ; now the moon is much higher 
 than the ceiling of the room in which we are sitting, 
 
 N2
 
 268 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 and yet methinks you will never be able to touch the 
 ceiling with the tip of your finger. If you could 
 only show me now that you can reach to the top of 
 of this room, you would go some little way to con- 
 vince me of the verity of your pretensions. 
 
 BR. Ah, my good friend, and if you would only 
 jump halfway out of this window into the street, 
 you would convince me of the possibility of jumping 
 the whole way. 
 
 EUR. Verily, I should convince myself too, and 
 that with a vengeance. But now, to speak se- 
 riously, I beg that you would consider the dif- 
 ference ; that which you desire me to do is 
 dangerous and inconvenient, and I have no wish 
 to break my neck. 
 
 BR. And I have no wish to touch the ceiling of 
 this room. 
 
 EUR. At this rate, you may affirm anything you 
 will as being within the compass of human power, 
 and then, when asked for a practical demonstration, 
 you may decline it, as being not within the range 
 of your wishes. 
 
 BR. Truly, it appears to me that you are of the 
 Sanchya school yourself, and that you believe in 
 transcendent power that is attainable by man ; for 
 you admit that knowledge is power, and that know- 
 ledge, and consequently power, may increase to an
 
 DIALOGUES. 269 
 
 inconceivable degree, or in other words, to a certain 
 extent, which you afterwards acknowledge to be 
 uncertain. 
 
 EUR. Yes, yes, but there must be some limit, 
 though I may not be able for a certainty to say 
 what that limit is. 
 
 BR. To prove that there is a limit, you must 
 show by reasoning the necessity of a limit, or you 
 must adduce instances of those who have reached 
 the limit. 
 
 EUR. Why reason and experience may suffice 
 to make us pretty certain that no mortal being 
 can ever touch the moon with the tip of his finger. 
 I am aware that you include affirmation amongst 
 your demonstrative evidence. 
 
 BR. I cannot tell what reason may do, but how 
 can you say that experience may convince you ? 
 Have you ever known any individual so far exert 
 the powers of his mind, as to endeavour to touch 
 the moon. 
 
 EUR. No, and if any one had ever made the 
 attempt, I should have thought him mad, for 
 aiming at an impossibility and a thing altogether 
 useless and undesirable. 
 
 BR. As for the matter of impossibility, you 
 cannot pronounce upon that, for nobody knows 
 what he can do till he tries; and as to the un-
 
 270 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 desirableness and inutility of the thing, you have 
 furnished yourself with an answer to your own 
 objection, when you asked me to touch the ceil- 
 ing with the tip of my finger. There is a differ- 
 ence, you see, beeween what is undesirable and 
 what is impossible. You people of Europe are 
 so much taken up with material things, and with 
 matters that concern the body, that you have no 
 time to think, at least with the depth and refine- 
 ment of the Hindus. 
 
 EUR. Indeed, you do us great injustice, and 
 give a very unfair representation of European in- 
 tellect. The English are emphatically called a 
 most thinking people. 
 
 BR. Indeed ! Do the English think as much 
 as they possibly can ? 
 
 EUR. I will not go so far as to say that, but I 
 think I may venture to say that there are few if 
 any people who think more deeply and profoundly 
 than they do, for the most part ; our mathemati- 
 cians and metaphysicians have manifested striking 
 proofs of deep thought. 
 
 BR. In this matter, I think you rather flatter the 
 English people, for they have so many pursuits, of 
 wealth, of ambition, of amusement, that they seem 
 to have no habit of continuity of thought, but they 
 fly from one topic to another, and never dwell on
 
 DIALOGUES. 271 
 
 any one thing long enough to have any single idea 
 developed in their minds. They have too many 
 books to read, so that, instead of being occupied 
 with their own thoughts, they are altogether taken 
 up with the thoughts of others, which perhaps 
 after all are no thoughts, but merely words in the 
 place of thoughts. I have never heard of any 
 Englishman spending forty years absorbed with 
 one topic of thought, and not diverting his mind 
 from it for a single moment during the whole 
 period. How then can you imagine that they 
 can think profoundly, if they do not think con- 
 tinuously ? 
 
 EUR. Ah, my good Sir, I can really see no 
 benefit to be derived from this abstracted and 
 dreamy kind of reverie, of which you now speak. 
 It rather bewilders than strengthens the mind, and 
 it leads to those strange vagaries, which you call 
 the doctrines of the Sanchya school of philosophy, 
 and such like extravagancies. 
 
 BE. Which extravagancies, let me remind you, 
 you have not yet refuted. But suppose now I 
 should shew you that you have had a philosopher 
 of the Sanchya school in England, and not merely 
 one professing the doctrines o the school, but one 
 who has practically exemplified them in his own 
 person ?
 
 272 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 EUR. Indeed, if you should shew me that, you 
 will shew me that which will astonish me as much 
 as if I should now see you touch the ceiling of this 
 room with the tip of your fingers. May I ask his 
 name ? 
 
 BR. His name was Lemuel Gulliver. 
 
 EUR. Pardon me, my good friend, but you are 
 altogether in an error as to that matter. There 
 never was any such person in existence as Lemuel 
 Gulliver ; and those travels which go by his name 
 were mere political satires, written by an Irish cler- 
 gyman, named Swift. 
 
 BR. How know you that ? 
 
 EUR. Every body says so ; there is no doubt 
 about the matter. 
 
 BR. Then, if you were to live among the San- 
 chya philosophers, you would believe in their doc- 
 trines ; you would say, " Every body says so ; 
 there is no doubt about the matter." Now you 
 must permit me to say, that you Europeans have a 
 strange way of regulating your belief, by what 
 everybody says the fact is, you do not think for 
 yourselves; you let other people think for you. 
 How can you ever get at truth without thinking ? 
 Some of you, indeed, may talk with great readi- 
 ness, but you do not think profoundly. I see that 
 you really know nothing about Lemuel Gulliver ;
 
 DIALOGUES. 273 
 
 so you may take my word for it he was a practical 
 philosopher of the Sanchya school ; so that he did 
 at one time shrink into a minute form, and at an- 
 other he enlarged himself into a gigantic body. 
 
 EUR. I must be permitted to say that it seems 
 to me that you labour under a little error in this 
 matter, even supposing and admitting the literal 
 truth of Gulliver's travels; for he does not repre- 
 sent himself as undergoing any change as to his 
 own body, but as visiting at one time people of very 
 small dimensions, and at another time dwelling 
 awhile amidst a race of giants. 
 
 BR. Very likely it may so seem to you, who are 
 not accustomed to the Hindu philosophy, but I can 
 see that Gulliver was a true philosopher, who took 
 this mode of introducing the knowledge of the sys- 
 tem to his own countrymen. He very strictly and 
 carefully tells you in what part of the globe these 
 islands are placed, in order to induce other people 
 to visit them, so that, when they find the inhabi- 
 tants to be of the usual dimensions, they may en- 
 quire into the cause of Lemuel Gulliver's mistake, 
 and then be led to a knowledge of the transcendental 
 doctrines of the Sanchya school. 
 
 EUR. Truly, your theory is more ingenious than 
 convincing. 
 
 BR. Europeans cannot be convinced, for they 
 do not think. N 3
 
 274 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 EUR. Nay, indeed, the more I think, the more I 
 seem opposed to your philosophy. Your notion 
 concerning Lemuel Gulliver is clearly an error, and 
 is as fanciful as the rest of your opinions, and I 
 could almost imagine that you design your whole 
 argument as a piece of amusement, or an exercise 
 of the wits. For do you really imagine that, if 
 these things were in the power of men, we should 
 not frequently, or at least occasionally, see instances 
 of the exercise of that power ? Should we not 
 sometimes see people touching the moon with the 
 tips of their fingers ? 
 
 BR. You do not know what they may do when 
 they are absent or asleep. But still, though it may 
 never have happened, you do not know that it is 
 therefore impossible. Perfection in our philosophy 
 requires greater time and sacrifices than men are in 
 general willing to bestow upon it. Do not you 
 know that it requires much effort and patience, and 
 many sacrifices, in moral affairs, to conquer evil 
 habits and subdue the mind to obedience ? You 
 think this possible and even desirable, and yet how 
 few people accomplish it ! Now, though you 
 might think it desirable for the extraordinariness 
 and singularity of the thing, yet peradventure you 
 might not think it so very desirable as to give up, 
 for the sake of it, all your possessions, amusements, 
 and human interests.
 
 DIALOGUES. 275 
 
 EUR. I will indeed acknowledge to you, that I 
 do not think touching the moon with the tip of my 
 finger to be so very desirable as to surrender every 
 thing else for the sake of it. 
 
 BR. Well, perhaps not : I also am of opinion 
 that there are many things in life far more de- 
 sirable than to be able to touch the moon with the 
 tip of my finger ; but we are not to imagine it 
 therefore impossible, any more than we are to sup- 
 pose it impossible for a man to conquer evil habits, 
 because he finds it more pleasant to continue in 
 them than to subdue them. 
 
 EUR. You have not convinced me yet. I must 
 converse with you again on this topic. 
 
 BR. Most willingly, when it may suit your con- 
 venience.
 
 276 
 
 DIALOGUES BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND AN 
 EUROPEAN. 
 
 III. 
 
 EUR. Since we last discussed the Sanchya phi- 
 losophy, I have been thinking very closely on the 
 subject of our conversation, and I but what do 
 you smile at ? 
 
 BR. I smile, my good friend, at your notion of 
 thinking. It is little more than three weeks since 
 the conversation, to which you allude, took place, 
 and in the course of that time you have been at five 
 dinner-parties, you have made an excursion to 
 Brighton, and you have read four new novels, to 
 say nothing of newspapers and magazines ; you 
 have also, as I have heard, made several good bar- 
 gains at the Royal Exchange. Now, what time 
 can you possibly have had for thinking? 
 
 Eun. I have had abundance of time, notwith- 
 standing all these occupations, to think so much of 
 your theories as to be assured that they are totally 
 without foundation.
 
 DIALOGUES. 277 
 
 BR. If they be so totally without foundation, 
 why have you not overthrown them ? or rather, 
 why have they not fallen of themselves ? You 
 say you have thought, and the result of your 
 thought is, that the Sanchya philosophy is without 
 foundation ; permit me now to remind you, that 
 you have yourself, in our former conversation, laid 
 the foundation of it, even in your principle that 
 knowledge is power, and that the mind may pro- 
 gress to a point of which you have no conception. 
 Here is the foundation : now, do you retract what 
 you then said ? Do you think that the mind is 
 incapable of all advance, or can you say positively, 
 and for an unquestionable truth, how far it is ca- 
 pable of advancing? 
 
 EUR. I have no wish to retract anything I have 
 formerly said, but I cannot see on what principle 
 you can maintain that it is possible for a man to 
 have or attain unto Irresistible will, Dominion over 
 all things, Faculty of changing the course of nature, 
 and Ability to accomplish every thing. ' 
 
 BR. I maintain these doctrines, I say again, on 
 the principle which you yourself allow, namely, 
 the power of the mind to improve and advance to 
 an inconceivable and unlimited extent. 
 
 EUR. Yes ; but when we speak of the power of 
 the mind to improve and advance, we have reference
 
 278 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 merely to the exercise of its faculties; to the 
 strengthening of memory by practice ; to the sharp- 
 ening the discriminative faculty and brightening 
 the imaginative. And it is easy enough to con- 
 ceive of this as being very possible and rational ; 
 we have evidence of it, indeed, by actual experi- 
 ment ; but your notions are absolutely outrageous 
 and extravagant. 
 
 BB. May not the Sanchya philosophy appear to 
 you outrageous and extravagant merely for want of 
 thought on your part ? You have never used the 
 means to attain to the glorious objects which it 
 proposes. 
 
 EUB. What are the means, I pray you? for 
 truly I should like to make the experiment, if I 
 thought it possible that I could succeed, even in a 
 degree. If I could make myself as tall as the mo- 
 nument, I should make my fortune by letting my- 
 self out for a shew. 
 
 BR. This is truly English ; you are always me- 
 ditating upon the means of making money. But 
 it would cost you a fortune to build a house large 
 enough to contain you. 
 
 EUR. Very true, and where should I find a tailor 
 to make clothes for me ? I did not think of this. 
 
 BR. And yet you talked this minute of thinking 
 very closely. Now permit me to ask you a ques-
 
 DIALOGUES. 279 
 
 tion. If you have a desire to accomplish any ob- 
 ject, a real and earnest desire, would you not 
 naturally use the means for its accomplishment ? 
 
 EUR. Certainly. 
 
 BR. Now, in our last conversation, perhaps you 
 may recollect, you said that you did not think 
 touching the moon with the tip of your finger to 
 be so very desirable as to surrender every thing 
 else for the sake of it ! 
 
 EUR. That is still my feeling ; yet, to make 
 myself as tall as the monument, is comparatively 
 nothing to touching the moon with my hand. 
 
 BR. Ay, I see how it is ; you are disposed to 
 use our philosophy as you Christians are too much 
 in the habit of using your religion ; you will just 
 take a little of it, so much as will not interfere very 
 seriously with your worldly pursuits. You people 
 of Europe are mightily calculating: you have been 
 computing that if to reach the moon would take 
 your whole life and your whole thought, it would 
 require a very short time and a very little thought 
 to grow as tall as the monument. 
 
 EUR. I must confess, that is my feeling. 
 
 BR. And yet I fear that, even for so small a 
 growth as to the height of the monument, you would 
 scarcely have patience to use the means ; for all 
 the attention and all the thoughts are required, and
 
 280 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the mind must not wander away to foreign objects. 
 If you were to hear of the arrival of an India ship 
 in the river, you would be interrupted in the most 
 profound contemplation that you could possibly be 
 engaged in, and I much question whether a card of 
 invitation to dine at the Mansion House would 
 not put to flight all your philosophy, as the firing 
 of a gun disperses the crows from one of your 
 corn-fields. 
 
 EUR. I think if I had an object to attain and a 
 desire to attain it, I could patiently use the means. 
 
 BR. Do you really and truly think you could 
 keep your eyes resolutely fixed on the top of your 
 nose, when the Times newspaper is brought into 
 your apartment ? Would not your curiosity be 
 prompted to take a peep at the price of stocks ? 
 
 EUR. Now, indeed, you are only laughing at me. 
 For what can the keeping my eyes fixed on the top 
 of my nose have to do with the attaining of a 
 transcendental power ? 
 
 BR. It has very much indeed to do with the 
 attaining of transcendental power. I beseech you 
 to make trial. 
 
 EUR. For how long a time ? 
 
 BR. Say for ten or fifteen years. 
 
 EUR. For ten or fifteen years! I should be 
 weary of it in less than as many minutes.
 
 DIALOGUES. 281 
 
 BR. Or, if you prefer it, you may sit with your 
 hands folded above your head for the same time. 
 
 EUR. I should lose the use of my arms. 
 
 BR. But you would recover their use by the time 
 that you grew to the height of the monument. 
 
 EUR. And not before, I think. But are you 
 quite sure that in ten or fifteen years I should be 
 as tall as the monument ? 
 
 BR. I am not quite sure ; but if you should not 
 find fifteen years long enough, you might try thirty. 
 
 EUR. Oh, most horrible ! What a dreadful 
 penance your philosophy imposes ! 
 
 BR. Say, rather, what a glorious object it pro- 
 poses. 
 
 EUR. An object not at all commensurate with 
 the labour required to attain it. 
 
 BR. On the contrary, it seems to me that the 
 object which it proposes is infinitely beyond the 
 labour which it imposes ; because it gives you all 
 things for the sacrifice of some things. 
 
 EUR. But if it might take me thirty years to 
 reach the height of the monument, how long would 
 it take me to reach the moon ? 
 
 BR. Concerning the time which it might take to 
 accomplish such things, I may not speak positively; 
 for modern writers doubt, considering the shortness 
 of life, whether the end can be gained in the present
 
 282 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 age. However, if you have any doubts, you may 
 try. 
 
 EUR. Have you ever tried yourself ? 
 
 BR. I have not, because I have no doubt. I am 
 content with my present stature and my present 
 powers, and as I do not question the dogmas of our 
 philosophers, I make no efforts after greater powers 
 or loftier stature. 
 
 EUR. And, I think, I may as well be content 
 also. 
 
 BR. Yes, but your content arises only from doubt 
 and scepticism. I know that, such is European 
 ambition, you would undergo much in order to 
 obtain dominion over all things. 
 
 EUR. I acknowledge that I do doubt, or, I 
 should speak more correctly if I said that I do not 
 doubt, but rather I feel assured, that there is no 
 verity whatever in your philosophy ; that it is 
 altogether a thing of the imagination a wandering 
 of the fancy. It is so essentially absurd so totally 
 out of nature. 
 
 BR. Excuse me, my good friend, excuse me 
 but I must say that you Europeans know nothing 
 at all of what is in nature or out of nature. You 
 are art all over; you give no time to contemplation ; 
 you spend all your time and thoughts merely and 
 entirely on the surface of things ; you give your
 
 DIALOGUES. 283 
 
 undivided attention to that which concerns the 
 body only ; your very minds are bodily, and what 
 you call improving the mind is merely sticking the 
 memory all over with a multitude of facts, which 
 are too numerous to sink into the mind or produce 
 any effect in it. You read so much that you can 
 never think, and you are so absorbed in politics 
 and merchandize, that absolutely you do not believe 
 in the existence of mind or philosophy. 
 
 EUR. I confess there may be some truth in what 
 you say. 
 
 BR. Ay, very great truth, and that in almost 
 every individual, yourself not excepted. Your 
 minds are of no use to you. You think only with 
 your bodies, and all your thoughts are merely 
 recollections of bodily sensations. You believe in 
 nothing that may not be seen, heard, felt, smelled, 
 or tasted. So far from making any endeavour to 
 render yourselves more spiritual, to deliver your- 
 selves from the body and rise to a glorious trans- 
 cendentalism, you give all diligence to make your 
 bodies more entirely the prisons and dungeons of 
 your minds. 
 
 EUR. This is rather severe, though perhaps not 
 entirely unjust. But may there not be an opposite 
 error, in so far abstracting the mind from that which 
 is visible and rational, as to fill it with all manner of
 
 S84 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 useless speculations and extravagant notions ? And 
 is it not as possible to be too negligent of the body 
 as to be too negligent of the mind ? 
 
 BR. Is this your mode of reasoning ? Do you 
 think, because a little stillness and abstraction pro- 
 duces truth, a great deal will generate falsehood ? 
 
 EUR. I think that the continued application of 
 the mind to one object may be the means of produc- 
 ing a certain degree of absorption more favourable 
 to fancy than to truth. Intellect requires compa- 
 rison, and comparison requires many objects to be 
 presented to the mind. 
 
 BR. But the mind can know nothing of that 
 which is hastily presented and as hastily withdrawn. 
 You know too much to know anything. You say 
 you know that there is no truth in our Sanchya 
 philosophy ; now let me as a friend implore you, as 
 a lover of truth, to keep your eyes fixed upon your 
 nose for ten years, just by way of experiment, and 
 1 feel convinced that, at the end of that period, you 
 will entertain a different opinion of the Sanchya 
 philosophy from what you do now. 
 
 EUR. Nay, nay, you are too unreasonable in your 
 request. How would you like to do so yourself? 
 
 BR. In my search after the true philosophy, I 
 might be willing ; but, as I am a believer in it, I 
 need not to make the experiment.
 
 DIALOGUES. 285 
 
 EUR. And I believe, if I were to make the expe- 
 riment, it would fail for want of faith. 
 
 BR. Well then, now I see how it is; you are 
 fully determined that you will not believe, and you 
 will not use any means by which you may convince 
 yourself ; yet, with all this inveterate and obstinate 
 prejudice, you plume yourself on being rational. 
 Surely, I have never met with any people under the 
 sun more prejudiced and narrow-minded than you 
 people of Europe ! And I dare say that you fancy 
 yourself a bit of a philosopher, even for questioning 
 the truth of our system, and for speaking of it 
 sceptically and superficially. Now, I shall meet 
 you again soon, and then I will have a little closer 
 talk with you ; and I must beg of you, that you 
 will endeavour to be truly rational, and either to 
 deny at once the existence of mind, or be prepared 
 to allow its power. 
 
 EUR. I must beg that you will not call me pre- 
 judiced : I am open to conviction. 
 
 BR. Nay, you are not open to conviction, because 
 you will not allow the consequences of your own 
 premises, when they seem to lead to my conclusions. 
 But we shall meet again.
 
 286 
 
 DIALOGUES BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND AN 
 EUROPEAN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 BR. Have you been thinking any more on the 
 topic of our conversation since we last met ? 
 
 EUR. / think I have been thinking ; but you 
 will scarcely allow that Europeans think at all. 
 
 BR. Verily, in Europe, an Asiatic can hardly 
 think. Your climate is too cold ; and there is every 
 where so much bustle and noise, that one cannot 
 easily get the mind into the attitude of thought ; 
 and no sooner has a train of reasoning entered the 
 mind, than it is put to flight and dispersed in all 
 directions by some common-b'fe movements, by 
 which we are prevented from rising to anything of 
 a transcendental eminence. 
 
 EUR. Pardon me, if there should be any want of 
 respect in the suggestion, that you Hindus think 
 too slowly : in England, especially since the intro- 
 duction of steam-engines and rail-roads, every thing 
 is done with a most amazing rapidity ; and as the
 
 DIALOGUES. 287 
 
 mind sympathises with the body, perhaps it may 
 happen that, as we can travel ten miles while you 
 are travelling one, we can also think ten times as 
 quickly as you can. 
 
 BR. It may be so, it becomes not me to doubt 
 because I cannot refute it. I dare say that you do 
 think very rapidly, but as the rapidity of your loco- 
 motiveness produces accidents by explosions and 
 oversets, to the great peril and manifest detriment 
 of heads, necks, legs, and arms ; so also your over- 
 hastiness in thinking frequently terminates in a 
 blow-up or a break-down of your theories. Your 
 proverbs seem to indicate something of the kind ; 
 you say, " slow and sure; 1 ' " the more haste 
 the worse speed ;" with many others of the same 
 complexion, which proverbs would never have had 
 any existence in your language but for your perni- 
 cious propensity to rapidity of movement. You 
 may recollect how, in our first conversation, you 
 presently admitted those principles on which I 
 proved to you the Sanchya philosophy was founded; 
 and yet when you saw that the tree of your philo- 
 sophy would bear the Sanchya fruit, you imme- 
 diately cut it down. This is a specimen of the 
 rapidity of your thinking : no wonder then, that, 
 when you wish to express any great quickness, you 
 say " as quick as thought. 11
 
 288 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 EUR. There are certainly some propositions which 
 may be rejected as soon as they are stated ; such 
 for instance, as those which involve an absurdity or 
 a contradiction in terms. You yourself would not 
 require any long train of thought in order to deny 
 the position that It is possible for the same thing 
 to be and not to be at the same time. 
 
 BR. Certainly, I should not take a long time to 
 deny it, because I do not think that I should be 
 disposed to deny it. 
 
 EUR. Nay, now you are really laughing at me, 
 and endeavouring to make experiment of the power 
 of sophistry in contradicting one's senses. 
 
 BR. Ah, there now, pardon me, butyou must allow 
 me to say that you English people are too sensible. 
 
 EUR. Too sensible! You now are disposed to flat- 
 ter. How is it possible for any one to be too sensible ? 
 
 BR. Very possible, indeed. You are too sensible 
 to be rational. 
 
 EUR. Well again ! That is the strangest asser- 
 tion I have ever heard. Too sensible to be rational ! 
 I should think that a man only shews his sense by 
 being rational, and that the most sensible would be 
 the most rational man. 
 
 BR. I may mistake your language, but I should 
 take it that sensible concerns the senses, and rational 
 the reason.
 
 DIALOGUES. 289 
 
 Eua. We generally apply the word sensible to 
 the understanding. 
 
 BR. You do ? Then that is true which I have 
 often heard told of you, that the English philoso- 
 phers materialize spirit, and spiritualize matter. 
 Instead of deriving knowledge from mind, you 
 imprison mind in matter, and you measure the 
 results of mind by the standard of the senses. Is 
 not this manifestly wrong ? 
 
 EUR. But surely it would be absurder still 
 to suffer our minds to persuade us out of our 
 senses. 
 
 BR. I see, I see how it is. You are, as I said, 
 too sensible you rest altogether in the bodily 
 senses, and you take their report only ; and you do 
 not use the mind at all, or you use it only in 
 subserviency to the senses. Your very application 
 of the word sensible to the understanding, is a 
 proof that your minds are animal. 
 
 EUR. But surely the understanding, as well as 
 the senses, will tell you that it is impossible for 
 the same thing to be and not to be at the same 
 time. 
 
 BR. I am afraid, however, that even in this 
 
 matter you attribute more to the senses than to the 
 
 understanding. Now, if the senses could tell us 
 
 all things, where would be the need of mind or 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 290 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 understanding ? Let me inquire, however, more 
 particularly whether it be so really absurd, as you 
 seem to imagine, to believe that it is possible for 
 the same thing to be and not to be at the same 
 time. Do you think I can convince you ? 
 
 EUR. I am almost sure you cannot. 
 
 BR. There now, you are arming yourself against 
 conviction and closing your mind to reason. You 
 know, I presume, that in a very great degree, the 
 will influences the belief: now if you feel confident 
 that I cannot convince you, you will notbeconvinced. 
 
 EUR. But I must be convinced if I cannot refute 
 your arguments. 
 
 BR. Not so, indeed; for when you could not 
 refute my arguments concerning knowledge and 
 power, in our first conversation, you notwithstand- 
 ing refused to admit my conclusions ; and that 
 simply because the theory did not fit your European 
 prejudices. 
 
 EUR. Well, then, I will endeavour to be as 
 open to conviction as I possibly can. Let me 
 therefore hear your reasoning, which shall prove 
 that it is possible for the same thing to be and not 
 to be at the same time. 
 
 BR. There is an obstacle in the way, which I 
 must first remove, and that is your strong prepos- 
 session of the impossibility ; for I take it for granted
 
 DIALOGUES. 291 
 
 that you can never believe a thing to be possible 
 till you have ceased to believe it to be impossible. 
 
 EUR. Clearly. 
 
 BR. Now you affirm it impossible for the same 
 thing to be and not to be at the same time ? 
 
 EUR. I do. 
 
 BR. In the sentence which expresses your posi- 
 tion, you discern three several ideas, viz. being, 
 not being, and time. Do you not ? 
 
 EUR. I do. 
 
 BR. If your affirmation then includes three ideas, 
 you must, if you understand your affirmation, 
 understand the ideas included in it. 
 
 EUR. To all practical purposes I think that I 
 understand these three ideas perfectly well. 
 
 BR. Ah ! my good friend, we are not talking 
 about practical purposes, but concerning philoso- 
 phical verities and transcendental truths. Tell 
 me, I pray you, what you mean by being ? 
 
 EUR. I apprehend that you hardly need any 
 information on that point ; our ideas of being 
 must be pretty much alike. Every thing that Ave 
 can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste, has a being. 
 
 BR. And is there nothing else which has a being ? 
 What say you concerning spirit, which can neither 
 be seen, heard, felt, smelt, or tasted ? 
 
 EUR. It may be thought of.
 
 292 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 BR. Good; then being includes whatever can 
 be seen, heard, felt, smelt, tasted, or thought of. 
 What is not being ? 
 
 EUR. The reverse of being. 
 
 BR. Not being includes, therefore, what can nei- 
 ther be seen, heard, felt, smelt, tasted, or thought 
 of? 
 
 EUR. Stay let me consider. May not that 
 which is not, be thought of? 
 
 BR. You are afraid of conceding too much, or, 
 in other words, you are afraid of being driven out 
 of European theories. 
 
 EUR. Nay, I am only fearful lest I have given 
 a false definition of being. 
 
 BR. By a false definition, you mean one that will 
 establish my philosophy and overthrow yours. 
 Let it, however, be for a moment conceded, that 
 that which is not, may be the subject of thought. 
 
 EUR. And surely it may, for I can think of many 
 things which are not. 
 
 BR. Be it so ; I have no objection. But let 
 me ask you, when you think, must not your thought* 
 have an object ? 
 
 EUR. Certainly. 
 
 BR. When, therefore, you think of that which 
 is not, that which is not is the subject of your 
 thoughts.
 
 DIALOGUES. 293 
 
 EUR. Most undoubtedly. 
 
 BE. Then you acknowledge that that which is 
 not, is. 
 
 EUR. How can you say that I make any such 
 acknowledgment ? 
 
 BR. Because you >say that that which is not, is 
 the subject of your thoughts; and in so doing, 
 you not only affirm that that which is not, is, but 
 you even go so far as to say what it is, vi%. the 
 subject of your thoughts. 
 
 EUR. Then I had need find another definition of 
 being, which I fear is not easy. 
 
 BH. Would you find it convenient to affirm that 
 that which is not, is not the subject of thought ? 
 
 EUR. That would answer but little purpose, and 
 I also fear would lead me into greater perplexities. 
 
 BR. So I fear. Or would you find any extrica- 
 tion from your difficulty by saying that nothing 
 is not ? 
 
 EUR. You bewilder me so, that I shall presently 
 be scarcely able to distinguish between being and 
 not being. 
 
 BR. I must acknowledge that you seem somewhat 
 at a loss. Yet it is not by any means philosophical 
 for you to affirm so positively that it isi mpossible 
 for the same thing to be and not to be at the 
 same time, when you find that you do not know
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 what is being and what is not being. If then 
 you will not affirm that nothing is not, will you 
 affirm that something is not ? You must, I think, 
 grant either that nothing is not, or that something 
 is not. 
 
 EUR. Surely I may safely affirm that something 
 is not. 
 
 BR. And will you not also allow that some- 
 thing is ? 
 
 EUR. Of course. 
 
 BR. And do you know every thing that is? 
 
 EUR. I do not. 
 
 BR. Do you know every thing which is not ? 
 
 EUR. I do not. 
 
 BR. If you do not know every thing that is, and 
 every thing that is not, how can you know that 
 there may not be something that is, and at the same 
 time is not ? 
 
 EUR. Because I cannot conceive how any thing 
 can be and not be it is a contradiction in terms. 
 
 BR. Can you conceive how that which is, is ? 
 
 EUR. I must acknowledge that I cannot. 
 
 BR. Neither, I suppose, can you conceive how 
 that which is not, is not ? 
 
 EUR. Certainly, I cannot. 
 
 BR. And you do not deny that something is, and 
 something is not ; and why, therefore, should you
 
 DIALOGUES. %y5 
 
 affirm that it is impossible for the same thing to be 
 and not to be at the same time, because you cannot 
 conceive how it can be ? You seem to know neither 
 being nor not being, yet you make a proposition in 
 which both are involved, and you are positive as to 
 the truth of your proposition. 
 
 EUR. You may confound and perplex me by 
 sophistical questions, but I shall never be con- 
 vinced that it is possible for the same thing to be 
 and not to be at the same time. 
 
 Bit. Do you know what time is ? 
 
 EUR. I might tell you that time is the measure 
 of duration, and then you might ask me what is 
 duration and what is a measure ; so that at every 
 step the difficulty would increase instead of dimi- 
 nishing. The profoundest philosophers have found 
 themselves at a loss to define time, yet the plainest 
 and most uneducated minds have a sufficient appre- 
 hension of what it is. 
 
 BR. Therefore you should be the less positive in 
 persevering in your position, seeing that it includes 
 three terms, not one of which, according to your 
 own statement, you understand. For how can you 
 state positively that it is impossible for the same 
 thing to be and not to be at the same time, when 
 you know not what being is, nor what not being 
 is, nor what time is ?
 
 296 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 EUR. I verily believe that, were you disposed to 
 assert that whatever is is not, you would find no 
 lack of argument. We may now, however, change 
 a little the topic of discourse ; for as you cannot 
 get out of my mind the impression, that it is im- 
 possible for the same thing to be and not to be at 
 the same time, you of course will not be able to 
 convince me of its possibility. I would now fain 
 ask you how it is that you reckon affirmation among 
 the species of evidence by which men arrive at 
 demonstration and certainty ? 
 
 BR. Our means of knowledge are threefold, and 
 so are yours, and so must be the means of all im- 
 perfect beings : it is only for beings of a superior 
 order to know by intuition. Our means are per- 
 ception, induction, and affirmation. Perception 
 and induction we have in ourselves, affirmation we 
 have in others. Perception we have through the 
 senses, induction by the mind, and affirmation is 
 the result of the perception and induction of 
 others. 
 
 EUR. But may you not be deceived by affirmation? 
 
 BR. May we not also be deceived by perception 
 and induction? Do not our senses frequently 
 deceive us ? And as for induction, are we not as 
 frequently liable to be deceived by that ? Induction 
 deceives you or me, seeing that it leads us to different 
 conclusions. If it were not for affirmation, how little
 
 DIALOGUES. 297 
 
 should we know ! All your very early knowledge 
 comes to you by means of affirmation, which you 
 receive as satisfactory testimony of the existence of 
 things which you cannot learn by perception or 
 induction. 
 
 EUR. All that is very true, nor have I anything 
 to object to it ; only methinks you should be very 
 cautious how you receive affirmation, seeing that 
 you may be very easily deceived by it. 
 
 BR. Are you quite sure that you receive affir- 
 mation cautiously yourself? 
 
 EUR. I think you may have perceived, in my 
 conversation with you, that I am not apt to receive 
 affirmation very hastily or implicitly, seeing that, 
 notwithstanding you affirm to me that it is possible 
 for the same thing to be and not to be at the same 
 time, together with many other matters, I do not 
 receive them as verities. 
 
 BR. In your rejection of these doctrines, I do not 
 see that you are cautious in receiving affirmation, 
 but rather the reverse; because your mind has 
 been pre-occupied by the affirmation of others, and 
 you have received their affirmation so implicitly, 
 that it is only by the evidence of that affirmation 
 that you hold your opinions, seeing that you cannot 
 corroborate them by induction. What but affir- 
 mation tells you that Gulliver was not a philosopher 
 o3
 
 298 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 of the Sanchya school ? Were you to make true 
 confession, you would readily enough own that 
 affirmation, however you may affect to despise it as 
 a source of knowledge, exercises a greater power 
 over your mind than any other source whatever. 
 You see that by induction you cannot prove that 
 it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to 
 be at the same time, nor can you prove it by percep- 
 tion ; therefore, your proof is only from affirmation, 
 which in this instance exercises a stronger influence 
 than any thing else over your mind. Now then 
 you may clearly discern, unless your prejudices do 
 absolutely blind you, that you not only receive 
 affirmation as one of your sources of knowledge, 
 but that you use it most copiously, and rely upon it 
 most implicitly. 
 
 Eun. But still, generally speaking, we examine 
 by our own understandings and perception, as far 
 as we can, those things of which we are informed 
 by affirmation. 
 
 BR. You may fancy that you do so, but your 
 examination is more of form than of force ; and if 
 you were to look more closely into your minds, you 
 would find that there are no principles of belief 
 that lay a firmer hold upon you than those which 
 you owe to affirmation. 
 
 EUR. There may be some truth in this.
 
 DIALOGUES. 299 
 
 BR. I am glad that you are so far enlightened as 
 to acknowledge it. May I not hope in time to bring 
 you to an acquiescence in the doctrines of the 
 Sanchya philosophy ? 
 
 EUR. Oh, no ! you will never bring me to admit 
 doctrines which contain a manifest absurdity on the 
 very face of them. 
 
 BR. I perceive now, by the very smile upon your 
 face as you speak, that one principal reason why 
 you so positively and pertinaciously reject the 
 Sanchya philosophy is, that in your country affir- 
 mation is against it. 
 
 EUR. And may I not also say that one reason 
 why you receive the Sanchya philosophy is, that in 
 your country affirmation is in favour of it ? 
 
 BR. But I can also support it by reasoning, and 
 by reasoning too from the consequences of your own 
 admitted axioms. 
 
 EUR. We certainly do admit that knowledge is 
 power, and that knowledge may increase, and that, 
 with knowledge, power also may increase ; but we 
 cannot possibly admit that either the knowledge or 
 the power of finite beings can increase to an infinite 
 extent ; and indeed, even on the supposition that 
 there was plausibility in your theory, and that by 
 any continued effort of the mind, power and know- 
 ledge might increase to a vast degree, yet there 
 would not be time enough, in the short space of
 
 300 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 human life, for any one to reach to that perfection 
 of which you speak. 
 
 BR. Of that fact I am well aware, and I believe 
 that most modern philosophers of the Sanchya 
 school admit that the present life is not sufficient 
 for the purpose of arriving at a transcendental 
 perfection : therefore, you perceive that a wider 
 field is opened for the operation of the principle, 
 and therefore you will probably be somewhat more 
 ready, or at least less reluctant, to receive the 
 Sanchya theory. 
 
 EUR. Nay, indeed, I must freely and fairly tell 
 you, that I can never be brought to an acquies- 
 cence in such extravagances, which do violence to 
 all feeling and reason. 
 
 BR. Exactly so; you acknowledge that your 
 prejudices against the Sanchya philosophy are in- 
 superable even by reasoning, and that therefore the 
 force of affirmation, on which your own philosophy 
 rests, is the most convincing proof to you of that 
 which you believe. Now, permit me to ask you, do 
 you not admit that the future state of being is 
 endless in duration ? 
 
 EUR. I do admit it. 
 
 BR. And do you not also admit that improve- 
 ment in wisdom and power may be continually 
 progressing in that state ? 
 
 EUR. I see no reason to deny it.
 
 DIALOGUES. 301 
 
 BR. Furthermore, do you regard infinite power 
 and wisdom as stationary or progressive ? 
 
 EUR. Clearly, it must be admitted that they are 
 stationary, for it would be a contradiction in terms 
 to say that infinity could receive addition or acces- 
 sion. 
 
 BR. If then the mind is continually making pro- 
 gress in wisdom and power, must it not be ap- 
 proaching nearer and nearer to infinite wisdom and 
 infinite power, that is, to what you call omniscience 
 and omnipotence ? 
 
 EUR. The mind may make approaches, and may 
 be susceptible of vast improvements, but still it 
 may fall far short of omniscience and omnipotence. 
 
 BR. But if the mind is making progress towards 
 infinitude of wisdom and power, and yet never 
 reaches or never can reach that point, this inability 
 must arise from some impediment to its progress. 
 You say, that the mind may make continued pro- 
 gress in wisdom and power you say, that it may 
 make this progress in a state of being which has 
 no end ; now, how can it fail of arriving at infi- 
 nitude in an infinity of duration, unless some stop 
 be put to its progress ? And what is it that makes 
 the interruption ? And at what period does im- 
 provement cease ? A 
 
 EUR. We cannot speak positively of a future state.
 
 302 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 BR. You have spoken so positively as to affirm 
 of it that its duration is infinite, and that it is a 
 state of progressive improvement. I wish you then 
 only to say, what prevents the mind from arriving 
 at omniscience and omnipotence, if it be continually 
 making progress thereunto. 
 
 EUR. If I were to admit that the mind of a 
 created being could ever attain unto infinite power 
 and wisdom, I should make a concession that it 
 was possible for man to become god, and so I 
 should virtually uphold a system of atheism. 
 
 BR. You are not the first that has affirmed that 
 the Sanchya doctrines are essentially atheistic ; 
 but I can assure you that there are many who hold 
 those doctrines who are very far from atheism : 
 indeed, I will say that your views of philosophy 
 are far more atheistic than mine ; for though you 
 admit the existence of a deity having infinite wis- 
 dom and power, yet your notions of infinite wisdom 
 and power seem to be very limited and imperfect. 
 
 EUR. My notions are, that omniscience and omni- 
 potence belong only to one supreme being, and that 
 they are unattainable by any created being. 
 
 BR. But notwithstanding that you deny the 
 attainableness of omniscience and omnipotence, you 
 acknowledge the existence of those principles on 
 which they are manifestly attainable. There is
 
 DIALOGUES. 303 
 
 somewhat in this that is inconsistent, and that is 
 quite as perplexing as the affirmation that it is 
 possible for the same thing to be and not to be at 
 the same time. Either the mind goes on increas- 
 ing in wisdom and power, or it does not. If it 
 goes on increasing to all eternity, it must arrive at 
 infinity of power and wisdom ; but if it does not 
 arrive at omnipotence and omniscience, how, when, 
 and where, is its progress interrupted ? 
 
 EUR. Truly, I must say that to answer you in 
 this matter is not in my power. I cannot suppose 
 that the created should ever attain unto the power 
 of the uncreated. And now, after all that we 
 have said on this topic and on others connected with 
 the Sanchya philosophy, I am of opinion that the 
 discussion has not produced any, even the slightest, 
 assimilation of sentiment between us. We leave 
 off nearly, if not quite, as we began. I must, how- 
 ever, be permitted one remark, and that is, that I 
 do not know any one system of philosophy, or, if 
 I may so speak, of antiphilosophy, which may not 
 be pushed into absurdity by an ingenious arrange- 
 ment of questions. And I think that when we 
 quit sense, we talk nonsense. 
 
 BE. So do I.
 
 304 
 
 PAUPIAH BRAHMINY, THE DUBASH OF 
 MADRAS. 
 
 THERE may be an appearance of pedantry in the 
 phrase, but it is not the less true as a proposition, 
 that there are two histories of India, an esoteric 
 and an exoteric history. By the latter, is meant 
 only the general course of political and civil events, 
 in our relations with the people, whom Providence 
 has placed under our rule; the mere outline, in 
 which great changes and momentous transactions 
 are, as it were, mapped and delineated ; by the 
 other, the interminglings of our respective domestic 
 histories, and which, though never formally re- 
 corded, are still valuable, inasmuch as they lift up 
 the curtain to features of character peculiar to each, 
 and are perhaps the more valuable, because, being 
 beneath the dignity of regular history, they are 
 chiefly oral traditions, which in a few years are 
 forgotten, and sometimes impossible to be recovered 
 with tolerable exactness. Yet, as moral pictures
 
 PAUPIAH BRAHMINY. 305 
 
 and moral lessons, they are full of instruction, and 
 most assuredly not devoid of amusement. 
 
 The Dubash system is peculiar to the southern 
 peninsula ; but it has principally flourished at 
 Madras. The dubashes are a class of persons who 
 act as stewards, bankers, and general agents to 
 those emphatically called the gentlemen, a generic 
 appellation of the civil and high military servants 
 of the Company. Nor is it quite ancient history, 
 when they had an influence, sometimes slight, 
 sometimes powerful, and at times overbearing, 
 upon men high in office at that presidency and 
 occasionally acted as go-betweens the government 
 and the Arcot nabobs, at whose diwans they often 
 held responsible situations of considerable impor- 
 tance. This may be traced, amongst other causes, 
 to the pecuniary resources they were enabled to 
 command beyond any other class of Hindus, and 
 to the immense accumulations which, from small 
 beginnings, rapidly swelled them into immense 
 and bloated capitalists. It is not true, that native 
 usages are impassive to change and untouched by 
 time. Slowly, indeed, and almost imperceptibly, 
 they undergo those silent modifications which, in a 
 long cycle of years, make the contrast between was 
 and is, and probably there is no stronger proof of 
 the fact, than the altered character of that class
 
 306 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 within the last forty years. They are now, for the 
 most part, needy adventurers, on the watch for the 
 arrival of ships from Europe, which at certain 
 intervals import, as if for their special advantage, 
 some raw inexperienced lads, to whom, on their 
 first landing, every thing is new, and captains and 
 mates of ships, to whom they render very important 
 services in the disposal of their investments, and by 
 the advance of money upon the goods themselves 
 at a devouring interest. 
 
 Some authentic sketches of this peculiar vein of 
 character, and a genuine occurrence elucidatory of 
 that almost extinct genus, may probably be worthy 
 the attention even of the students of regular Oriental 
 history. 
 
 Amongst the principal members of this memo- 
 rable body of natives, at the time we are speaking 
 of, was Avadanum Paupiah Brahminy, a character 
 which, from the vehement contrasts embodied in 
 it, would require the colours of Rembrandt to 
 depicture. Supple, submissive, patient of affront 
 and even injury but with the love of revenge 
 the odium in longum jacens deeply lurking in 
 the recesses of a mind capacious of every project 
 that hate can devise or meditate. But the domi- 
 neering passion was litigiousness. To the lawyers, 
 as they were then called by courtesy, he was a
 
 PAUriAH BRAHMINY. 307 
 
 treasure ; a Peter Peebles, though not reduced to 
 indigence (for his resources were ample), whose 
 name for years alternately figured in the Mayor's 
 Court, as plaintiff and defendant. He was almost 
 a fixture in his lawyer's chamber ; squatting down 
 on a mat in some dark corner of the room, patiently 
 waiting till his papers could be attended to. At 
 Mr. Samuel's, he might be seen sitting, except 
 during the short interval of a brief meal, which, 
 consisting of nothing more than a handful of rice, 
 he would " with haste despatch and come again ;" 
 occasionally ejaculating, as the attorney turned over 
 the bundles of his other clients, "My papers, 
 master ! Paupiah Brahminy, plaintiff, versus Ven- 
 catachellum Chitty." On one occasion, his lawyer 
 fell into a short slumber ; but, when he awoke, 
 could not help smiling to find that the papers 
 before him had been silently removed, and those 
 indorsed " Paupiah Brahminy" placed directly 
 under his nose. But not a murmur of complaint 
 or dissatisfaction escaped his lips on account of 
 any real or imagined delay. When a new lawyer, 
 whose reputation preceded him, arrived at the 
 settlement, Paupiah was sure to retain him, gene- 
 rally with a large fee, seldom less than a thousand 
 pagodas (^OO), the foundation, he would hint, 
 and it frequently proved so, of masters fortune.
 
 308 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 This was not always a sheer profit to the lawyer ; 
 for it was understood to convey to the sole use of 
 the said Paupiah the fee-simple of all his future 
 labours, and the exclusive benefit of all his facul- 
 ties, his occasional fees seldom amounting to the 
 ordinary remuneration of professional services. 
 
 But Paupiah, in the high and palmy days of 
 Madras corruption, when Lord Hobart, writing to 
 the Court of Directors, called the entire settlement 
 " a hot-bed of intrigue," was an indispensable in- 
 strument in the commerce of bribery, then the lever 
 by which all the affairs of state were moved. 
 Where any thing that shunned the light was to 
 be transacted, he was the most efficient and useful 
 of negociators. Yet there were shades of character 
 in the man, upon which it is pleasing to dwell. 
 With hands dipped in the feculence of his time, a 
 mind never reposing from stratagem, disdaining 
 the tranquillity of virtue for the restlessness of 
 intrigue, he was faithful where he conceived an 
 attachment, beyond all example passive and en- 
 during in the cause he espoused even unto death. 
 Where he was made a confidant to some defalcation, 
 into which a young civilian, for instance, had been 
 betrayed by indiscretion or extravagance, he not 
 only supplied it out of his means but no tortures 
 could have wrung from him the guilty secret.
 
 PAUPIAH BRAHMINY. 309 
 
 These instances were then not rare. By the Act of 
 Parliament, regulating the amount of salaries and 
 prohibiting presents of every kind, the service was 
 raised to a state of purity never dreamt of in the 
 philosophy of that day. It is seldom that a mere 
 act of legislation brings about a complete moral 
 revolution ; but certain it is, that Astraea was 
 restored by that Act of Parliament to Madras, 
 from which she seemed to have taken her flight 
 for ever. The biography of Paupiah, if it were 
 brought to light, would be found to overflow in 
 these romantic fits of benevolence never, indeed, 
 requited and seldom acknowledged. It was com- 
 puted that the bond and other debts, for sums 
 thus generously advanced, due to him from civilians 
 and sometimes military men, but especially tot- 
 tering houses of agency (the great pest and moral 
 disease of the Eastern settlements), amounted to 
 more than ^50,000 sterling. But with money 
 perpetually at his command, the sources from 
 which it was extracted always remained a mystery. 
 At the durbars of the Nabobs Wallajah and the 
 Omdut-ul-Omrah, he was a constant attendant, for 
 he supplied them with large sums to meet the kists 
 or tribute due to the Company, and that too often 
 in critical periods of the public treasury. When 
 the assumption of the Carnatic revenues cut off
 
 310 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the means of repayment, from those princes, of all 
 the bonds adjudicated by the commissioners, his 
 were of the most bond Jide description. Yet the 
 grossest injustice was systematically dealt out to 
 him, except in those cases (the greater number were 
 of that class) where the evidence to authenticate 
 the claim was as clear as the sun at noon. Those 
 adjudicators had, from a series of misconceptions, 
 reposed unlimited confidence in Reddy Row, a 
 Brahmin, a poor and needy adventurer, who had 
 cunning enough to convince those gentlemen that 
 he was thoroughly conversant in all the mysteries 
 of the Durbar, and being the implacable enemy of 
 Paupiah, induced them to beat down his demand 
 to the utmost minimum of what in justice was 
 due to him. This Reddy Row, when the nabob's 
 bonds became marketable in consequence of the act 
 passed for their consolidation, became a wholesale 
 fabricator, not figuratively, but literally, of those 
 instruments, of which he disposed of a large number 
 on the faith of his being in the confidential employ 
 of the nabob. His end may not be forgotten. 
 Tried, convicted, pardoned, at the instance of a 
 recent Madras governor, one bond of his manufac- 
 tory was proved by such minute evidence to be a 
 forgery, that he was deserted by those who had 
 protected him through thick and thin, per fas et
 
 PAUPIAH BRAHMINY. 311 
 
 nefas, and took himself off by a dose of poison. 
 During this time, Paupiah was shamefully per- 
 secuted by those who knew nothing of his real 
 transactions with the Durbar, and estimating his 
 character by looking only at the wrong side of the 
 tapestry, adjudicated him almost to ruin. But the 
 English commissioners did him justice, and his 
 claims were with few exceptions allowed. It was 
 like much of the justice of this world : it came too 
 late, and not till vexation and grief had removed 
 him to take his chances at a better tribunal. 
 
 This same Paupiah was considered the natural 
 prey for such vultures as Paul Benfield. Plucked 
 to the last feather cheated laughed [at he was 
 perpetually to be seen squatted and waiting with 
 desperate expectation of redress in the verandahs 
 and ante-chambers of those who had plundered him. 
 Still it was not with one word of menace that he 
 waited there, but as a suppliant, suing for his 
 right of the great gentlemen^ as they were then 
 styled by the Madras natives humbly and silently 
 imploring their justice (it was a most sorry twig to 
 catch at), but never quitting his hold and seldom, 
 indeed, but sometimes, darting his little green eyes 
 piercingly in the face of those who had defrauded 
 him, although he could discourse powerfully, in 
 good English, had he been so minded. The respect
 
 312 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 universally conceded to a Brahmin, secured him 
 generally from personal outrage but not uniformly. 
 On one occasion, where he had been fraudulently, 
 treated, he was ignominiously thrust out from the 
 garden-house of Mr. P , and his turban torn in 
 the scuffle. Apparently, he forgave the insult ; 
 but every tyro in Indian affairs knows, that no 
 higher indignity can be sustained by a native of 
 caste, than the pollution of this part of the Hindu 
 habiliment. Then the feeling of revenge, though 
 postponed for years, never dies. It burns like a 
 lamp in a temple, constantly fed and trimmed. 
 There is no statute of limitations to the unextin- 
 guished, unextinguishable thirst for retribution. It 
 is sure finally to be exacted to the very letter. 
 
 Mr. P was at the head of the Treasury de- 
 partment, then conducted conjointly with the col- 
 lectorship of the Madras district. He had stood 
 high in the estimation of several successive go- 
 vernments. Paupiah, whose nature it was to be 
 heedlessly confident in the integrity of those whom 
 he had been accustomed to look up to with respect, 
 and whose bad qualities, whatever they were, had 
 no affinity to the suspicious avarice of the natives 
 in their money- transactions, had, a year or two be- 
 fore, undertaken, in virtue of a religious vow, a 
 distant journey in the nature of a pilgrimage; and,
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINY. 313 
 
 whether to secure Mr. P 's favour by covertly 
 lending him a sum of money without exacting in- 
 terest, or whether it formed a part of the super- 
 stitious ordinance that enjoined the pilgrimage, 
 that, during the year of its fulfilment, he was 
 inhibited from taking interest upon sums depo- 
 sited in contemplation of it (both causes were 
 strenuously insisted on by Paupiah's counsel) 
 but, before he set out, he deposited twelve thousand 
 pagodas with Mr. P , on no other condition than 
 that of its safe custody till his return. He de- 
 manded and took no receipt or acknowledgment 
 whatever. This procedure was not only in unison 
 with the unsuspecting habits of Paupiah, from 
 which the repeated frauds he had experienced had 
 not yet weaned him, but it was an indirect compli- 
 ment to the honour and uprightness of Mr, P , 
 whose interest and protection he was anxious to 
 secure. Be that as it may, the deposit was made ; 
 but when Paupiah returned, the fact of the deposit 
 was denied, and the restitution of the money re- 
 fused. By the Hindu law, the rules regarding 
 bailments of every class are as strict, and governed 
 by the same principles, as in our own; so much 
 so r that Sir William Jones, in his Essay on the 
 Law of Bailments, traced the equitable maxims 
 that regulate that species of contract in the practice 
 VOL. i. p
 
 314 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 of Westminster Hall to the code of the Hindus, of 
 which it forms a large and comprehensive title. 
 
 But it was an unequal contest. On one side, 
 was a civilian of the highest rank, fortified by that 
 conventional reputation, which passes in the world 
 for genuine virtue, fenced round by friends or by 
 those persons who under that name swarm during 
 the sunshine of a man's fortunes, secure of the sup- 
 port of the government, and especially that of its 
 minions, who had a stealthy interest in its crooked 
 and sinister practices ; on the other, a native, un- 
 questionably an artful intriguing individual, and 
 convicted (right or wrong there are now no means 
 of deciding) of repeated malversations in several 
 confidential employments; in short, on one side, 
 power, influence, and outward character ; on the 
 other, two of the most powerless and unpatronized 
 things on earth, truth and justice. What un- 
 equal chances ! It was as a feeble piece of artillery 
 against the ramparts of a droog or hill-fort. 
 
 In a corner of the black town of Madraspatnam 
 was a sort of huckster's shop, where law was served 
 out in scales, not always as correct as the balance 
 of the sanctuary. It was called the Mayor's Court, 
 and in its constitution not unlike the bench of 
 Quarter-Sessions magistrates in this country, right 
 and wrong being put to the vote and determined
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINY. 315 
 
 by the majority. In this court, Paupiah filed his 
 bill (the process was of a mongrel kind, half equity, 
 half nisi-prius) against P , praying for a dis- 
 covery and for the amount of the sum deposited. 
 The answer denied on oath the plaintiff's allega- 
 tions, and the cause came on to be heard. Pau- 
 piah's counsel or attorney was not wanting either 
 in strength of lungs or of argument. He might 
 have spared both. " Where is the receipt or ac- 
 knowledgment ?" said the opposing lawyer. " Is 
 it probable that a native, endued with the astute- 
 ness of a systematic lender, would incautiously 
 place so large a sum in the custody of another 
 without the slightest token or recognition of having 
 so placed it ? and Mr. P , too, is a civil servant 
 holding the most confidential office in the settle- 
 ment, having been raised to it through a long gra- 
 dation of tried services and a life of inflexible 
 integrity. And who is the plaintiff ?" Here some 
 insinuations not highly complimentary to poor 
 Paupiah were thrown out. Vainly was the re- 
 ligious custom urged, and the natural anxiety of 
 Paupiah to court the patronage and favour of Mr. 
 P , and, moreover, the well-known incautiousness 
 of the plaintiff in money-transactions (there were 
 upon that sacred seat of justice those who had be- 
 neficially experienced that peculiarity of his dis-
 
 316 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 position), insisted on by his advocate. It mattered 
 little. Justice, proverbially blind, had grown deaf 
 in the Mayor's Court. She could feel sensitively 
 certain touches, but her ears were those of the 
 adder to the eloquence of truth. The balance was 
 soon struck, and in favour of the supposed deposi- 
 tary. Paupiah retired, defeated and humbled. If, 
 in the first agony of disappointment, he breathed 
 at all it was for the hope of retribution. That 
 retribution at length came. 
 
 The singularity peculiar to the natives of India, 
 in the South more especially, of continuing an 
 unwearied and hopeless pursuit for what is due to 
 them, has been remarked already. For months after 
 his discomfiture in the Mayor's Court, Paupiah 
 might be seen seated in the outward saloon of" the 
 collector's office, with a shawl thrown over his head 
 in place of a turban, the only change of garb 
 that denotes affliction among the higher castes of 
 Hindus. He said nothing, but his little green eyes 
 darted now and then an expressive flash upon P , 
 as he passed into the interior apartment, which, 
 though impossible to define, he knew and felt the 
 meaning of. Some affected to pity the poor Bra- 
 miny, from a secret misgiving, probably, that foul 
 injustice had been done to him. There was no 
 appeal. It was of no use to excite the sympathies
 
 PAUPIAH BKAMINY. 317 
 
 of the public. In India, there is no public. As 
 for the authors of that injustice, the infamy was 
 divided amongst too many to be felt by any one. 
 The moral deformity was like the physical one of 
 the Alps, where goitre keeps goitre in countenance. 
 But there was a vow registered in the soul of the 
 man who had been thus wronged. The vow was 
 heard, and the bitter cup of revenge filled to over- 
 flowing, Yet how, by what agency (if by any r 
 it must have been of the subtlest kind), it was 
 gratified so usuriously, has never been substantiated 
 by positive evidence, although no problem was ever 
 canvassed by so many sharp and ingenious casuists. 
 The department over which P presided neces- 
 sarily placed the whole of the public money at his 
 discretion. It was a serious charge. The cash 
 chest, indeed, was under the immediate care of 
 Arnachellum Chitty, a faithful servant, whose merits 
 had been repeatedly acknowledged by the govern- 
 ment ; but still the entire responsibility rested on 
 the shoulders of P . So vigilantly were these 
 duties performed by P and Arnachellum, that 
 the keys of the chest were never out of the personal 
 custody of the treasurer himself. No native servant 
 ever laid his hand upon them. Every evening, 
 before he retired from the fort, Mr. P , after 
 examining Arnachellum's balance with a nicety
 
 318 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 that left not the error of half a fanam unrectified, 
 took the keys of the chest, which he unlocked with 
 his own hands, and having reckoned the amount 
 of the cash deposited in it, by weight or tale, 
 according to the nature of the coin, and removed 
 the loose money to the same place of security, 
 took the keys home with him to his garden-house, 
 situated near the Loll-baug, the site upon which 
 Paul Benfield afterwards built his princely mansion. 
 The keys were of a most complicated construction. 
 The chest was massive, and nearly irremoveable. 
 It was unlocked by four keys in succession. Both 
 chest and keys were the master-piece of the most 
 skilful artist in London, the Bramah of his day. 
 Mr. P had recently returned from Europe, and 
 as in all the money-departments of Madras immense 
 abstractions had been committed by the native ser- 
 vants, he readily availed himself of a complicated 
 invention that would so assuredly defeat them, 
 The keys, as already said, were four in number ; 
 but the exquisite skill of the contrivance consisted 
 in the process of using them. It was requisite that 
 i\\e first and second keys should be entirely at the 
 discretion of the party in whose custody they were 
 placed. These were changed each successive day, 
 or as often as he who was master of the combination 
 might think fit. But if the wrong keys were begun
 
 PAUPIAH BEAMINY. 319 
 
 with, a bar shot suddenly and irrevocably into a 
 deep groove. It is plain, therefore, that, in the 
 hands of a mere novice, the chances of hitting upon 
 that which was the open sesame of the chest, were 
 as four to one and if by accident the first should 
 be the right one, they were three to one' against the 
 right selection of the second key. 
 
 Mr. P was high in Lord Macartney's confi- 
 dence, for nothing could be more religiously correct 
 than the Treasury accounts whilst he administered 
 them. His vigilant inspection, but above all, the 
 newly-imported machinery of the chest, rendered 
 native subductions, formerly matters of such fre- 
 quent occurrence, the head of the office relying 
 on his confidential servants, and those servants 
 sheltered from all responsibility but to their im- 
 mediate employers, next to impossible. All new 
 brooms sweep clean. Lord Hobart came out to 
 Madras impressed with the comfortable conviction 
 that the entire settlement was a sink of corruption, 
 and resolved to make an effectual sweep in every 
 department : but happily there was one civilian 
 untouched by the scabies of the flock, an Abdiel 
 faithful among the faithless. With what delight 
 did P 's ear drink in the commendations of the 
 new governor, to whom, though recently from 
 England, the invention of the chest was quite new !
 
 320 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Nor is this singular, for it was the last constructed 
 by its inventor ; and besides this, in each the me- 
 chanism was varied so as to enhance its value to 
 every respective proprietor. It is supposed, also, 
 that the invention died with the artist and the 
 secret with him. There could, therefore, be no 
 Exchequer better secured than that of Madras. 
 To be sure, it was occasionally at a low ebb. It 
 had, however, its flows ; and, at the crisis we are 
 speaking of, might be said to overflow, treasure 
 having been collected from all quarters to meet the 
 exigencies of a powerful confederacy then hatching 
 amongst the native powers against us. 
 
 On the 13th of October 1795, owing to these 
 and other causes, the chest, spacious as it was, was 
 overgorged with coin and bullion. In the after- 
 noon of that day, Mr. P 's palanquin was at the 
 lower door of his office, then situated on the beach, 
 near the spot where the large room called the New 
 Exchange has been since built. As usual, having 
 gone through the financial process of the day, he 
 took the keys with him into his palanquin, and, 
 when he got home, placed them in an escrutoire, 
 which was well secured, and, for more assured 
 custody, was placed under his cot in his bed-room. 
 Being a civilian of high rank, he had a small guard 
 of sepoys regularly stationed in front of his house.
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINY. 321 
 
 When he left the fort, it was past five by St. 
 Mary's clock. Two sepoys, part of the usual 
 Treasury guard, were on duty as usual at the foot 
 of the staircase which descended into an arched 
 lower story, where the palanquin-bearers remained, 
 during the hours of business, as well as horse- 
 keepers, with their horses picketted, belonging to 
 the Europeans, English and Portuguese, attached 
 to the office. The sepoys were relieved every five 
 hours. In short, nothing irregular or ovit of the 
 usual course was observable when Mr. P quitted 
 the fort. He discerned, indeed, Paupiah squatted, 
 according to custom, in the outer room, and when 
 the latter made his salaam, P observed a singular 
 twinkling in the small piercing eyes, which seemed 
 on that occasion to have changed their mournful 
 expression for something of a far different meaning. 
 This, however, might be mere fancy, and so he 
 considered it at the time ; it did not become matter 
 of comment by him till afterwards. As to the chefet 
 and its contents, human vigilance could not have 
 been carried farther. Perhaps the error, if there 
 was any, arose, as the lawyers say, ex abitndanti 
 cauteld, or too overstrained a caution. On tht- 
 same evening, Mr. P and his family were at a ball 
 given at the Government-gardens, whence they 
 returned about two in the morning, It was -for
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 this reason, probably, that he did not arrive at his 
 office that morning till some time past his usual 
 hour of attendance. 
 
 On his arrival, Paupiah sate in his usual niche 
 and with a complete change of habiliment. His 
 finest muslin tunic and a handsome turban trans- 
 formed him into another being, and his countenance 
 beamed with an evident glow of satisfaction. Mr. 
 P found, at the same time, a government peon, 
 Avho had been waiting for his arrival, with an order 
 from the Governor in Council to despatch Arna- 
 chellum to the military paymaster with 50,000 star- 
 pagodas in specie, and a receipt for the same. Mr. 
 P , with Arnachellum, proceeded forthwith to the 
 chest, the former with the bunch of keys in his hand. 
 Upon opening it, both started instantly back with 
 consternation. But the visage of the European was 
 pale and distorted with a thousand warring emo- 
 tions, that of the native remaining inflexible, and 
 exhibiting a character as remote from the conscious- 
 ness of crime as from the terror of its consequences. 
 Indeed, Mr. P , though his self-control gradually 
 returned to him, might have been deemed, if looks 
 could be interpreted into guilt, conusant of the theft ; 
 for a theft had been committed to an enormous 
 amount from the chest, in mockery of the mystic 
 keys that guarded it. It was computed that a lac and
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINV. 323 
 
 a half of pagodas had been abstracted, and that, too, 
 in a coin that was not only portable, but exchange- 
 able at sight. Paupiah, on being told what had 
 happened, uttered not a word, but remained un- 
 moved in the same position. Not a muscle of his 
 frame quivered, not a feature of his face changed. 
 It was a serious calamity to P . His prospects, 
 his hopes, his reputation seemed cut off at one blow. 
 The Governor in Council, as soon as the intelli- 
 gence reached them, took charge of the Treasury ; 
 the chest and what little remained of its wealth were 
 put under seal, and Mr. P was suspended from 
 his employments. 
 
 Adversity, whatever may have been the correct- 
 ness of a man's life and conduct, will ever bring 
 its critics and commentators. There were not want- 
 ing those who began to carp and cavil ; but, as 
 genuine materials for animadversion were not at 
 hand, they were soon silent, and P became the 
 object of general commiseration. It was pretty 
 evident that he must have been plundered ; by 
 whom or in what manner, amidst the confused 
 conjectures of the hour, all equally plausible and 
 irrational, remained an inscrutable mystery. That 
 P himself should have participated in the delin- 
 quency, was probable only on the supposition of 
 his being actually a madman. The next day, how-
 
 324 . SOCIETY AND 'MANNERS. 
 
 ever, strange rumours were afloat. It was at first 
 whispered confidentially afterwards unreservedly 
 asserted, that deposits to run at interest had been 
 made in P 's name at different houses of agency ; 
 amongst others, of a large amount of Porto Nuovo 
 pagodas, which was chiefly the coin in which the 
 nabob paid his kists ; besides this, of several 
 thousands of star-pagodas placed in the Carnatic 
 bank, an opulent establishment (since dissolved), 
 which allowed a considerable rate of interest ; and 
 P was called on to disprove these injurious in- 
 sinuations. In the consciousness of innocence, the 
 unfortunate man proceeded with two of his friends 
 to Messrs. R and Co., the house where the 
 largest sum was stated to have been paid in on his 
 account. The question was fearlessly put : " Have 
 I placed any sum of money whatever with you ? or, 
 is there any money in your hands standing to my 
 credit ? " It was answered thus : " About nine 
 o'clock on Saturday morning (the day after the 
 robbery), two persons, apparently peons, and wear- 
 ing what seemed to be an engraved plate on a belt 
 of red cloth across their shoulders, but which we 
 did not examine in the hurry of business, more 
 especially as we took it for granted they had 
 been sent by Mr. P , placed to the credit of that 
 gentleman the sum of star pagodas, which
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINY. 325 
 
 they brought in bags, a large portion of which was 
 in Porto Nuovo coin. They gave their names 
 Rungapah and Verdapah, and enjoined great se- 
 crecy on the part of Mr. P . We gave them the 
 customary receipt, in the name of Mr. P . It 
 was a promissory note to pay on demand, with inte- 
 rest at eight per cent." Mr. P was all amaze- 
 ment and perplexity ; his friends were equally 
 puzzled. The same inquiry was made at three 
 other houses, and the result was the same. The 
 aggregate, however, of these deposits, amounting 
 to an immense sum, nearly corresponded to the 
 deficiency of which the chest had been plundered ; 
 and as they had been deposited at the disposition 
 of Mr. P , there was no difficulty in repaying to 
 Government the whole deficiency. Still, however, 
 he was not restored either to character or office. 
 The current imputation was that, in addition to 
 his being a rogue, he was the weakest of idiots. 
 More than a year elapsed before the Court of Di- 
 rectors, to whom his case had been referred, gave 
 their decision. It was not a satisfactory acquittal, 
 but a species of compromise, leaving the stain 
 upon his character nearly as it was before, although 
 it recommended him, in consideration of former ser- 
 vices, to a subordinate situation at the presidency. 
 It must be remarked, however, that, from this
 
 326 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 time, Paupiah was no longer seen squatted at Mr. 
 P 's garden-house ; for, it seems, he travelled to 
 the southward after the affair had blown over. 
 He was not heard of at Madras for many years. 
 
 Time, that brings all hidden things to light, 
 seemed to have an unusual respect for this. The 
 matter, indeed, was frequently discussed, and much 
 ingenuity exercised about it. Many persons, whose 
 opinions were of great weight, were inclined to 
 make Paupiah the contriver, if not the actual arti- 
 ficer, of the whole. This theory was not very 
 flattering to the integrity of Mr. P , for if 
 Paupiah was actuated by revenge, it was improba- 
 ble that such a feeling should have gratuitously 
 existed in his bosom. There must have been ade- 
 quate reasons for it and the denial of the deposit, 
 a crime considered by the natives as the most inex- 
 piable of social wrongs, embittered by the unjust 
 decision in the Mayor's Court, sufficiently accounted 
 for it. Was it credible that Paupiah should have 
 fabricated the story, much more brought the ques- 
 tion to trial, seeing how incapable of direct proof it 
 was, and that none could be extracted but by means 
 of P 's answers upon oath ? The truth is, they 
 said, Paupiah had a high esteem for that gentle- 
 man, and imagined, notwithstanding his denial of 
 the sum entrusted to his care, that his conscience
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINY. 327 
 
 would not stand the brunt of an oath. Nor was 
 the conjecture of Paupiah's participation in the 
 robbery wholly unconfirmed. Paupiah, having 
 been put in possession of certain teeps, or assign- 
 ments of the forthcoming crops of the districts of 
 Chillambrum and Manargoody, in consideration of 
 large advances to the nabob, had been for some 
 time engaged in collecting them. It seems that, 
 suspecting two natives of fraud and embezzlement, 
 whom he had employed as agents, he had suddenly 
 dismissed them from his service, and appointed two 
 other persons to succeed them. One of the sup- 
 posed defaulters, named Ramiah Chitty, appeared 
 at the cutcherry of the collector of the Company's 
 district, which bordered on Chillambrum, offering 
 to substantiate some important facts relative to the 
 robbery at the Treasury, stating also that, if a 
 pardon was guaranteed to himself and three others, 
 who had acted under Paupiah's direction, they 
 would bring ample evidence to convict that person 
 as the head and author of the conspiracy. He 
 stated that those persons were now acting under 
 Paupiah in the collection of the produce at Chil- 
 lambrum, and if apprehended and confronted with 
 him, would be soon brought to confess their share 
 in the stratagem. 
 
 He deposed that, on the night of the robbery,
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS.. 
 
 which was unusually dark, all three remained near 
 he great tank, till they saw Mr. P 's carriage 
 on the Mount-road, proceeding to the Government- 
 house. One of them, to whom Paupiah had given 
 the most precise instructions as to all the local pe- 
 culiarities of Mr. P 's garden-house, went cau- 
 tiously to the window of Mr. P 's bed-room, 
 which was open, having eluded the observation of 
 the sepoys who were stationed in the verandah in 
 front of the house, the two others remaining at 
 some little distance to watch ; that the escrutoire 
 was easily opened by means of a small key, with 
 which he had been furnished by Paupiah, and the 
 large keys transferred to that person, whom they 
 met at gun-fire the following morning at the south 
 gate of the fort. The deponent left them together, 
 his services being no longer required, and supposes 
 that, as soon as the gate was opened, they all pro- 
 ceeded to the Treasury. His own personal know, 
 ledge went no farther the two persons whom he 
 before named, and Paupiah, were the only parties 
 to the rest of the transaction ; he acknowledged, 
 however, having received two hundred rupees from 
 Paupiah, as a reward for his share in the business. 
 The substance of the man's deposition was for- 
 warded to Madras, and the collector received instant 
 orders to apply to the nabob for the apprehension
 
 PAUPIAH BRAMINY. 329 
 
 and immediate transmission to the presidency of 
 those persons, as well as Paupiah himself. The 
 orders were instantly obeyed, but neither Paupiah 
 nor his confederates were to be found, after the 
 most minute inquisition set on foot for that 
 purpose. 
 
 Two years afterwards, indeed, Paupiah was ap- 
 prehended at his house in Vepery, where he had 
 arrived some days and lived without any conceal- 
 ment. When brought before the magistrate, his 
 answers were cool and collected, and furnished no 
 clue to the mysterious embezzlement. It is singu- 
 lar, also, that when Ramiah Chitty, who had been 
 confined in the gaol during this long interval, was 
 brought before the magistrate to be confronted 
 with Paupiah, the former threw himself at his feet, 
 imploring his forgiveness, and acknowledging the 
 falsehood of the accusation, which he confessed he 
 had fabricated from pure motives of revenge. 
 
 The secret history of the robbery has never been 
 revealed. By what means Paupiah entered the 
 office, or made himself master of the mysterious 
 process of the keys, remains in impenetrable dark- 
 ness. It is supposed that, by long observation, he 
 had so studied every speck of rust upon the two 
 which Mr. P had separated from the others, as 
 he proceeded every evening to the chest, leaving
 
 330 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the rest on the ring as it were unemployed, as to 
 discern the two keys which it was requisite to em- 
 ploy first ; it being probably a mere matter of 
 accident that he hit upon them in their right order. 
 That it was revenge for the indignity of the turban, 
 there was no doubt. Had it been merely the 
 pecuniary wrong, those who well knew the habits 
 and character of that singular man, have often 
 maintained that so elaborate a scheme of vengeance 
 would never have entered his mind.
 
 331 
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 
 
 $iuyuftti fin yr,vfi <p;Xi)v is *rg<3 y 0.10.1. 
 
 ILIAD n. 140. 
 
 THERE are few books in the present day more 
 deservedly popular than those of travels, and there 
 are few departments of literature in which the 
 scanty information of our ancestors forms a more 
 striking contrast with the immense extent of modern 
 knowledge. Three centuries ago, a traveller even to 
 a neighbouring country was a sort of wonder, and 
 a narrative of a journey formed a kind of era in 
 literature ; but now " my picked man of countries 11 
 is grown so common a character, that it is impos- 
 sible to look over the advertising sheets that form 
 the antecedent and consequent of a review or 
 magazine, or to cast the eye over the first and last 
 pages of a newspaper, without learning the names 
 of a multitude of such performances to all parts 
 both of the known and unknown world, by natives 
 and foreigners, by soldiers and divines, by anti- 
 quaries and exquisites, by conservatives and utili- 
 tarians, by misses, mistresses, and ladies. Yet it is 
 surprising that, among all this variety, no one has
 
 332 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 thought of writing travels in one's own country by 
 a long absentee. Scarcely any narrative would be 
 more interesting than that of the contrast which 
 such an individual experiences, between what he 
 sees and what he remembers. Young, when near 
 his death, put the affecting question, " At the age 
 of eighty, where is the world into which we were 
 born ? " and so, in this age of change and improve- 
 ment, may an absentee of twenty-five or thirty 
 years exclaim, on returning, " Where is the country 
 which I left in my youth?" What are the reflec- 
 tions that arise in the mind of such an individual 
 on revisiting the scenes of early recollections? 
 Much, undoubtedly, that is pleasurable, but also 
 much that is melancholy the dreamy recollection 
 of what was, overpowered by the stronger percep- 
 tion of what is ; the mixture in the mind of old 
 and new ; the violent disruption of ancient asso- 
 ciations by present facts ; the perpetual efforts to 
 connect the one with the other, and to trace out 
 whatever links in the chain may be broken or lost ; 
 the involuntary confession of improvement joined 
 to the irresistible regret at change, and the con- 
 sciousness that what we have long known is im- 
 pressing us as new, and what is familiar is at the 
 same time felt to be strange. 
 
 It is to give a few examples of this that I sit
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 333 
 
 down to make some memoranda of my feelings, on 
 returning to Europe, after a residence in India of 
 twenty-two unbroken years. That is, of the con- 
 trast experienced by one who left his country in the 
 warlike times of the Prince Regent, to return in the 
 peaceful reign of William the Fourth ; who, on 
 his passage out, was in a fleet convoyed by ships of 
 war, saw the crew of his own vessel regularly exer- 
 cised foraction, and, with the other passengers, was, 
 on an alarm of suspicious sails in sight, stationed 
 on the poop with a musket in his hand. On my 
 passage home, there was not an enemy to be pre- 
 pared for, nor a port in the civilized world to which 
 we might not have gone with assurances of safety. 
 My departure from Europe was in that memorable 
 period, between the termination of Bonaparte's tre- 
 mendous Russian expedition, and the deliverance 
 of Europe at the great battle of Waterloo, the only 
 battle of modern times fit to furnish a subject for 
 an epic poem. At that time, the whole Continent 
 was, as it were, hedged round with walls of brass ; 
 all entrance was denied, and Paris was as inacces- 
 sible as the magnetic pole. On my return, I find 
 hardly one acquaintance who has not made half the 
 circuit of the Continent, including both European 
 and Asiatic Turkey. This immense contrast ex- 
 cites something like the feelings that must have
 
 334 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 been experienced by the Seven Sleepers, in passing 
 at once from the reign of Decius to that of Theo- 
 dosius; and I may, perhaps, after due allowances 
 and deductions, venture to quote, as a summary of 
 my experience, the words of the great historian of 
 the latter ages of the empire : " We imperceptibly 
 advance from youth to age, without observing the 
 gradual but incessant change of human affairs; 
 and even in our larger experience of history, the 
 imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of 
 causes and effects, to unite the most distant revolu- 
 tions ; but if the interval between two memorable 
 eras could be instantly annihilated ; if it were pos- 
 sible, after a momentary slumber of 200 years, to 
 display the new world to the eyes of a spectator who 
 still retained a lively and recent impression of the 
 old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish 
 the pleasing subject of a philosophical romance. 1 ' 
 
 Such, in a less degree, must be the case with an 
 Indian absentee, returning after a long interval 
 to the country of his youth ; for, notwithstanding 
 all the pains he may take, by correspondence and 
 reading, to keep up his knowledge of European 
 affairs, and to go along with their course, his ideas 
 will be by far too faint to furnish any adequate 
 preparation for the reality of the changes he will 
 meet on his return.
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 335 
 
 To begin at the beginning, I shall say a little 
 respecting the steam-passage from Calcutta to the 
 ship at Saugor. The reader if he be an European 
 reader may, perhaps, require to be told, that the 
 all-changing power of steam has performed its me- 
 tamorphoses in India as well as in Europe. For- 
 merly, a ship, on arriving at the mouth of the 
 Hoogly, had the choice either of continuing there, 
 and sending up her passengers and goods to 
 Calcutta by Bujraus, Patailas, Ulauks, SfC. 
 that is, "in the dialect of men, interpreted" by 
 pinnaces, lighters, and barges or of coming up 
 herself. It is difficult to say which of these 
 methods was productive of most annoyance to 
 all parties. The first involved a heavy expense 
 in freight, insurance against loss, and a hundred 
 other items, including the risk of ruining the 
 health of the crew by remaining in the noxious 
 exhalations of the alluvial shores of the mouths of 
 the Ganges; the last required a voyage of some- 
 times fifteen or twenty days, before the ship could 
 get up a distance of a hundred miles from Saugor 
 to Calcutta. I well remember the disappointment 
 we all experienced when, after five months with- 
 out seeing land, we at last attained the sight of the 
 low jungles of Saugor, and fondly thought we had 
 nothing to do but to step on shore, and " take our
 
 836 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 ease at our inn." How mortifying it was to find, 
 we had either to travel three days in a wretched 
 native boat, starving with hunger and broiling 
 with heat, or stay three weeks more in our weari- 
 some ship ! All this is now changed ; the mo- 
 ment a vessel arrives at Saugor, a notice by tele- 
 graph is made to Calcutta ; a steamer proceeds 
 down to take her in tow, and she is brought to her 
 anchorage, above Champaul Ghaut, in two or three 
 days ; so that, independently of the saving in 
 trouble, expense, and risk, the voyage out and 
 home is really shortened by a month or six weeks. 
 In the same manner, in former times, when a ship 
 departed from Calcutta, the passengers had no 
 alternative but either to embark there, and have 
 the tedious passage down to Saugor, or to allow 
 the ship to get to Saugor, and follow as they best 
 could, in native or European craft ; all which, 
 especially for invalids, was exceedingly annoying. 
 The general plan now is, for the passengers to 
 emb*ark and establish themselves comfortably in 
 their cabins before their vessel quits Calcutta. 
 A steamer then takes the ship in tow, and in 
 two days they are at the Sand-Heads. Sometimes, 
 however, there is a prospect of the vessel being de- 
 tained at the river's month. In this case, the pas- 
 sengers generally allow her to get down by herself;
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 337 
 
 they then club together to engage a steamer, which 
 in one day carries the whole party to the ship, the 
 expense being Rs. 25 or Rs. 30 (about 3.) a-head : 
 much the same sum that the absentee will find him- 
 self charged from London to Edinburgh, a distance 
 at least three times as great, and in a vessel of in- 
 comparable superiority in point of comfort and 
 accommodation. 
 
 If such be the difference in the boat, how much 
 more marked is that in the passengers ! A curious 
 speculator on life and manners might receive much 
 both of instruction and amusement, from a contem- 
 plation of the variety of feelings by which they are 
 affected. The first class he would probably note 
 among them, consists of Europeans proceeding to 
 revisit their native country ; among these is easily 
 to be distinguished the independent satisfaction of 
 the man whose fortune is made, and who returns to 
 India no more, and the careless indifference of those 
 who are merely taking a three or five years' trip to 
 Europe on business or pleasure, and are, after that, 
 to resume duties in Bengal : these latter being, as 
 it_were, denizens of two hemispheres, and standing 
 between both, are more indifferent to either. 
 Another is the more sombre set, easily distin- 
 guished by their sallow cheeks and haggard 
 features, of invalids seeking renovation to their 
 VOL. i. Q.
 
 338 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 broken constitutions and harassed minds, by this 
 visit to their own country. There are also gene- 
 rally to be found one or two widows, sometimes in 
 the very bloom of youth, and whose dearest affec- 
 tions have been snapt asunder by the fatal climate 
 of India; at others, tolerably reconciled to their 
 privation by the possession of a reasonable share 
 of Company's paper and claims upon Savings- 
 funds. 
 
 In the minds of these returning emigrants, there 
 is a strange struggle of contradictory feelings. 
 On the one hand, there is the inexplicable satisfac- 
 tion which every one, rich or poor, sick or well, 
 fortunate or unfortunate, old or young, irresistibly 
 feels at the idea of returning to their native land, 
 and of mixing again in the scenes which were 
 familiar to their youth ; and, again, there is the 
 equally irresistible and often most acute regret, at 
 quitting the friends and connexions they may have 
 formed in India. 
 
 India, it must be confessed, has many faults and 
 many disadvantages, and there are innumerable 
 sources of dissatisfaction in its climate and its 
 exile ; but still it has some redeeming properties ; 
 and among these, one, certainly by no means the 
 least important, which makes up for many evils, 
 and hides a multitude of sins, is the warm feelings
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 
 
 of friendship, which a residence there has a ten- 
 dency to generate, and which frequently exists as 
 strongly between what Europeans would consider 
 mere common acquaintances, as here between 
 nearest relations. It is Goldsmith, I believe, who 
 observes that, were a Spaniard and a Swede to 
 meet in China, they would feel themselves drawn to 
 each other, as being both Europeans - r and if a 
 European and a Chinese were to meet in Jupiter, 
 they would have the same feeling, as being both of 
 the same planet; and were an inhabitant of Mercury 
 and one of Herschel to meet in Sirius, they would 
 think themselves Jaut Bhaees, as brothers of 
 the same system. Something of this takes place 
 with Europeans in the East. In that country, 
 amidst a race of men with whom we have no inter- 
 community of language, of manners, or of ideas, we 
 naturally cling to each other for support against 
 the overwhelming influence of the immense popula- 
 tion by which we are surrounded, and however 
 distant may have been our birth-place in the British 
 empire, we consider ourselves as natural friends. 
 Nor are such feelings transitory; the friendships thus 
 formed are generally firm and lasting, and so far from 
 being dissolved by a return to Europe, are frequently 
 strengthened and increased. For then principles 
 exactly the reverse, but equally strong and favour- 
 Q 2
 
 340 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 able to kindly feelings, begin to operate. Old 
 Indians, returning after a long absence, find them- 
 selves almost as much estranged, and as much a 
 particular caste among their countrymen, as they 
 were at first among the natives of India. They are, 
 therefore, led to each other, and the circumstance 
 of having been acquainted in a distant land, and 
 having common topics of interest and intelligence, 
 converts what may have been mere casual ac- 
 quaintanceship into warm intimacy. Still, at the 
 moment of quitting India, these feelings, if not 
 overpowered, are at least counterbalanced, by the 
 strange delight which is universally experienced at 
 the idea of returning to our native land. The 
 thought of once again treading British ground, 
 gives an animation to the spirits, which for the 
 time is irresistible. 
 
 And here it is difficult to avoid a question, which 
 this universal feeling among the passengers tends to 
 excite, and which, to use a favourite continental 
 phrase, is a striking phenomenon in psychology. 
 Whence, it may be asked, arises this mysterious 
 affection of mind, which connects every child of 
 Adam with one particular spot of earth ? Whence 
 is it that, throughout every nation, powerful or 
 weak, civilized or barbarous, peaceful or warlike, 
 this sentiment is universal; that, whatever may
 
 BEFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 341 
 
 have been our privations or poverty, in the residence 
 of our youth, however harsh or uncongenial its 
 climate, however ungracious its soil and scenery, 
 however obscure and confined its situation, and 
 with all this, whatever may have been our success 
 in after-life, however delightful may be our after- 
 abode, still, in spite of every advantage, our heart 
 yearns after the scenes of youth with desire in- 
 creasing the longer has been our separation ; that, 
 under every form of prosperity, we still feel an un- 
 satisfactory banishment in being excluded from 
 thence ? There is, perhaps, no human being who 
 does not propose, as the reward of his labours, the 
 privilege of returning to terminate his existence 
 where he earliest remembers it to have begun. 
 There he can put up with privations and submit to 
 inconveniences which elsewhere would provoke his 
 loudest complaints, and can receive satisfaction 
 from objects which elsewhere would excite his in- 
 difference, contempt, or disgust. 
 
 Such are the feelings which prevail through all 
 nations, and through all ages ; which appear to 
 form an elementary part of human nature, and 
 are attributed with equal propriety to the many- 
 wiled Ulysses at the court of Antinous, and to 
 the brave Sir Huon on the banks of the Eu- 
 phrates. :
 
 342 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 flf aySsv y\uKiev nt Karoos uSs rturtuv 
 Tmrai, uvtf xui ns a,<jrt>*'o6i ftata, otxtv 
 rj EV aXXoSaiTx vain artetvtufa rannav. 
 
 Odyss. ix. 34. 
 
 No sweeter lot than this our heart desires, 
 In our own land to dwell with our own sires ; 
 In foreign soil from these exiled away, 
 No joy the palace and the feast convey. 
 
 Du kleiner Ort, wo ich das erste Licht gesogen, 
 Den ersten Schmerz, die erste Lust empfand, 
 Sey immerhin unscheinbar, unbekannt, 
 Mein Herz bleibt ewig doch vor alien dir gewogen, 
 Fiihlt Uberall nach dir sich heimlich hingezogen, 
 Fiihlt selbst im Paradies sich doch aus dir verbannt : 
 O mochte wenigstens mich nicht die Ahnungtriigen, 
 Bey meinen Vatern einst in deinem Schoos zu liegen ! 
 
 Oberon, 4r Gesang. 
 
 Thou dear loved nook, where first Heaven's light I viewed, 
 
 Where my first joy, where my first grief I found, 
 
 Poor be thy soil, thy name unknown and rude, 
 
 My yearning heart to thee is ever bound ; 
 
 Still longs the haunts of childhood to explore, 
 
 For these, in Eden banished, pants unblest; 
 
 Oh grant me, Heaven, when life's fond dream is o'er, 
 
 In native earth beside my sires to rest ! 
 
 A speculator on the structure of mind, who holds 
 the doctrine that nothing, either in the physical or 
 moral world, is made in vain, might exercise his 
 sagacity in discovering the final cause of this myste- 
 rious feeling ; in determining what advantage the 
 human race derives from this principle in their 
 nature, and what would be the loss were it extir-
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 343 
 
 pated from the breast, and no predilection felt for 
 the place of our birth beyond any other spot. To 
 this, perhaps, it may be replied, that the feeling is 
 intended as a provision for the equal population of 
 the globe. Had mankind no attachment to the 
 place of their nativity, it is not improbable that, on 
 feeling its disadvantages, they might generally be 
 induced to migrate to more propitious climates, and 
 that the whole progeny of Adam might be again 
 congregated in one crowded Shinaar, leaving other 
 countries unpeopled. Such an event is effectually 
 counteracted by the feelings of which we have been 
 speaking : as it is, every one is unwilling to leave 
 his birth-place, whatever may be its disadvantages, 
 and, when compelled to do so, that place becomes 
 a magnet to draw him perpetually back, like a body 
 revolving round the centre of an ellipse, with a 
 force increasing directly as the distance. Yet, uni- 
 versal as is this sentiment, it is, like the opposite 
 principles of attraction and repulsion, wonderfully 
 counterbalanced by an antagonist principle the 
 love of emigration. How powerfully this acts, is 
 known to every tyro in ancient history, who has 
 read of the swarms that 
 
 the populous North 
 
 Poured ever from her frozen loins, to pass 
 Rhine or the Danube.
 
 344 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 And the accounts of modern colonies equally de- 
 monstrate that there is in the human mind an 
 inherent love of travel. These contradictions are 
 rendered the more perplexing by the changes that 
 seem occasionally to take place in national manners 
 and character. Thus, were we to look through 
 
 7 O 
 
 Europe for a nation more than ordinarily attached 
 to its home, we should probably fix upon the Swiss, 
 among whom the affection of Nostalgia is so strong 
 and prevalent, that it is said whole regiments of 
 their soldiers have, in foreign countries, been known 
 to lay down their arms, that they might follow the 
 irresistible desire of returning to their native moun- 
 tains. Yet these are the very people who, in the 
 time of Julius Caesar, under the name of Helvetii, 
 in a body, burned their homes and left their be- 
 loved birth-place to seek a more propitious dwelling 
 in Gaul. How are we to reconcile such opposite 
 affections in the'human breast ? Are we to conclude 
 man to be so capricious a being, as to defy all spe- 
 culations on his nature ; or are we to adopt the old 
 Aristotelian doctrine, that all things subsist by 
 contraries ? 
 
 The next class of passengers, that appear in a 
 Calcutta and Saugor steamer, present a marked 
 contrast to the preceding. They are friends and 
 relatives, who are going down to accompany the
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 345 
 
 departing, as far as the limits of the pilot-boats will 
 permit. Among these are many shades of differ- 
 ence. The first are common acquaintances, who 
 look forward to follow in a year or two themselves. 
 They go down the river on this occasion merely as 
 a party of pleasure ; their conversation rolls chiefly 
 on a calculation of the time when they also may be 
 setting out on their return homewards, and is en- 
 livened by many a witty remark on the vile climate 
 of Bengal, the delights of that of Europe, and the 
 embarrassment which an old Qua-hy feels on being 
 transferred from the one to the other. A good deal 
 is said on the want of Thikauna in the English 
 weather, on the new Hickmuts of steam-coaches 
 and rail-roads, of the present Shouq for improve- 
 ments, and the number of new Bunaos to be found 
 in the London shops. 
 
 And here it may be necessary to explain the un- 
 couth terms which I have introduced into this 
 sample of Anglo-Indian phraseology. The European 
 reader need not be surprised to learn that, among 
 Anglo-Indians, as among every other set of people 
 any how combined, there exists a sort of slang lan- 
 guage, containing a variety of phrases, not, it must 
 be owned, of much classical elegance, but yet such 
 as it would be difficult to find substitutes for of 
 equal force and expressiveness. If I be thought to 
 ft 3
 
 346 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 take too much pains in interpreting such of the 
 vocables of this lingua franca, as must occasionally 
 occur, I entreat my readers to observe that one of 
 the difficulties which an Indian finds, on returning 
 home, is that of making himself understood. His 
 friends naturally crowd about him with questions 
 regarding the manners, customs, mode of living, 
 &c. in India, and he attempts his best to gratify 
 their curiosity ; but, before proceeding beyond the 
 very threshold of his explanations, he finds he has 
 employed a number of words so familiar to himself, 
 that it never occurs they can be unknown to his 
 hearers. This produces a demand for explanation ; 
 one explanation requires another, and the business 
 goes on, wheel within wheel, from one degree of 
 intricacy to another, till both speaker and hearer 
 give up the discussion in despair, the former won- 
 dering at the dulness of his friends in being unable 
 to comprehend what is so simple and notorious; the 
 latter declaring that no Indian can ever give an 
 account of India. In fact, a vocabulary of the most 
 expressive Eastern words adopted into European 
 conversation, would be a very interesting and enter- 
 taining piece, and would cast great light on Anglo- 
 Indian manners and ideas. In the absence of such 
 a work, and for the benefit of those critics and com- 
 mentators who, in A.D. 2500, shall publish Vari- 
 
 \
 
 DEFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 347 
 
 orum editions of the Bengal Annual and Calcutta 
 Magazine, I shall attempt an elucidation of a few 
 naturalized phrases, which our Indian friends will 
 readily recognise as old acquaintances. 
 
 I shall begin with Jaut Bhaee, a phrase for 
 which we necessarily want an equivalent, as it im- 
 plies a person of the same caste ; it is derived from 
 Jaut, * a caste ' (a derivative from the Sanscrit Jun, 
 * to be born '), and Bhaee, the Hindee word for 
 1 brother.' It is used metaphorically by Anglo- 
 Indians to express intimate friends as brother- 
 officers, or brothers of a Freemason lodge. 
 
 The next word is the well-known Bunao. The 
 best elucidation of this term is Peter Pindar's cele- 
 brated tale of the Razors. It exactly signifies 
 what is made, not to shave, but to sell. " This 
 Joe Manton is a bit of a bunao," is a phrase often 
 applied to the fowling-pieces sold at Monghyr, the 
 place where, by tradition, the Hindoo Vulcan fixed 
 his earthly abode, and where accordingly the ma- 
 jority, of inhabitants are blacksmiths. Similarly, 
 we may say, " this hookah-snake, this palkee, or 
 palankeen, are bunaos;" 1 " 1 and, by an easy mataphor, 
 " that story of his is a complete bunao :" it would 
 be difficult to find an English phrase in which to 
 translate this word, in all these instances. To the 
 profounder class of my readers, who may wish to
 
 318 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 know its etymology, I will add that Bunao is the 
 second person plural of the imperative, used as a 
 substantive, of the Hindee verb Bunauna, ' to 
 make, 1 and, perhaps, " a made-up affair" would be 
 its nearest, though circumlocutory translation. 
 
 The next term we shall mention is Hickmut. 
 This is a very noble word, being the infinitive of 
 the Hebrew and Arabic verb Hakama, ' he judged, 
 or ' commanded.' Our readers doubtless all know, 
 that Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of the Cru- 
 saders, makes Sultan Saladin (Salauh-ood-Deen) 
 come to the Christian camp, as a Hakim, or physi- 
 cian. But this is a mistake; Hakim, or more 
 properly Haukim, signifies ' a judge 1 or ' ruler. 1 
 It is a common title of God, and never would have 
 been assumed as a title by the sultan on that occa- 
 sion. The word Sir Walter intended is Hukeem, 
 another derivative from the same root, and which 
 is the usual title for a physician, perhaps from some 
 anticipation of the modern discovery, that " know- 
 ledge is power. 1 ' The infinitive Hickmut signifies 
 1 wisdom, 1 or * philosophy, ' and in this sense is 
 degraded by Anglo-Indians to a variety of uses, 
 which, if they be philosophy, are philosophy in its 
 every-day clothes. Thus, " I don't understand 
 the Hickmut of this lock ; " that is, " I don't 
 understand how to open it." " Whafs the Hickmut
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 
 
 of this new bridle? 11 i. e. " Which is the way in 
 which it must be put on the horse? 11 &c. 
 
 While upon this subject, I may as well stop a 
 moment, to complain of the want of prosody which 
 appears in the writings even of our best poets, when 
 using Oriental names. If an error in the quantity 
 of a Greek or Latin word be an inexcusable blun- 
 der, why should a similar error in an Arabic or 
 a Sanscrit appellation be passed over uncensured ? 
 If it would be unpardonable to talk of Cicero or 
 Alexander, why should we persist in speaking of 
 the Emir and Sultan, instead of Emeer and Sul- 
 taun. These, however, are errors that, like the 
 universal use of St. Helena for St. Helena, are too 
 deeply engrained in language to be now got rid of. 
 Still I cannot help wishing, that our great poets 
 had avoided mistakes that necessarily disturb all 
 who know any thing of Oriental pronunciation ; I 
 cannot resist quoting two instances. 
 
 In his Vision of Don Roderic, Sir Walter Scott, 
 in a passage that must be familiar to every person 
 of taste, describes, in a blaze of the most animated 
 poetry, the landing of the Moslems in Spain : 
 
 They come! they come! I see the groaning land 
 White with the turbans of each Arab horde; 
 Swart Zahra joins her misbelieving bands, 
 Allah and Mahomet their battle-word. 
 
 How much is it to be wished that this splendid effu-
 
 350 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 sion had not been injured by the introduction of 
 two lines that sin against all prosody ! 
 
 The Tecttrs' war-cry and the Leties' yell, 
 The choice they yield, the Koran or the sword. 
 
 In the first of these, Lelie, though a barbarous 
 corruption of the Arabic profession, " There is no 
 God but God, 11 may be excused, as there is no 
 other word that would express it. But Tecbir 
 ought to be altered 
 
 Tucbeers' fierce war-cry, Lelies 1 cruel yell. 
 
 The second line, could the rhyme allow it, would 
 assume far greater magnificence by a very slight 
 alteration : 
 
 The choice they yield, the Sword or the K&ran. 
 
 Mahomet, a barbarism for Mohammad, may be 
 allowed, as it is Don Roderic who speaks, and he 
 may be supposed not well versed in the Oriental 
 tongues. 
 
 The other instance I shall give is from Thomas 
 Campbell, who, in that beautiful but sadly fanciful 
 picture of the regeneration of India, which con- 
 cludes the first part of his Pleasures of Hope, ex- 
 claims 
 
 The tenth Avatar comes ! 
 
 This should be again corrected 
 Comes the tenth Avataur.
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 351 
 
 Conversely, he has Gariesa for Ganesha, and so on. 
 Such mistakes, though unnoticed by Europeans, 
 sound very disagreeably to Oriental readers. They 
 might easily be avoided. 
 
 Another current Anglo-Indian phrase is Thi- 
 kauna, a Hindee word, of which it is difficult to 
 give the exact meaning. Its general signification 
 is ' fixture, 1 c certainty,' 4 or trust-worthiness. 1 
 Thus, " there's no thikauna in the English wea- 
 ther; it may be fair and foul a dozen times a-day :" 
 " there's no thikauna in that fellow; he may be 
 your friend to-day and enemy to-morrow." 
 
 We shall mention but one more, and that is the 
 much-used but utterly untranslateable word Shouq. 
 The ou is here to be pronounced as in shout, trout. 
 It is the infinitive of the Arabic verb Shaaka, * he 
 wished' or * desired.' It is in some respects similar 
 to our ' taste/ but not exactly so, as shouq can be 
 used in a ludicrous or perverse meaning, which 
 * taste' cannot. Thus, " he has a great shouq for 
 pictures, 1 ' would hardly imply that he has a great 
 taste for or in pictures, but that he has a great rage 
 for buying and possessing them, whether he really 
 be a judge of painting or not. Rage,' however, 
 would scarcely answer for shouq, in all instances. 
 Thus, " he has a great shouq for study, 11 would be 
 more properly, " he has a great love for study,"
 
 352 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 and would give an idea of approbation, of which 
 " rage,"" is incapable. " Horses and dogs were his 
 shouq at one time, but there's no thikauna in him; 
 he has given up all his old shouqs, and his only 
 shouq now is for politics." " I have a shouq for 
 all sorts of machines, but I don't understand the 
 hickmut of this watch ; I think it is rather a bunao, 
 for there^s no thikauna in its going, and I know 
 that my Sirkaur and the Ghurree Waula (native 
 watch-maker) are jaut bhaees."" Such is the lan- 
 guage that is often heard from old Bengalee resi- 
 dents ; not classical, certainly, but yet not easy to 
 be rendered with equal force into pure English. 
 
 Another class of passengers are of a sadder de- 
 scription than those of which we have yet given an 
 account. They are the parents, generally the mo- 
 thers, of children of from three to eight years old, 
 whom the irremediable insalubrity of the Indian 
 climate compels their parents to send to Europe. 
 During this last day of their being together, the 
 children may be seen running up and down the 
 poop and deck of the vessel, enjoying the novelty and 
 bustle, and talking incessantly to their ayahs and 
 bearers about each juhau% (ships) and naoo (boat), 
 as it passes by, while the parents, indifferent to all 
 other objects, follow their little ones constantly 
 with their eyes, endeavouring to arrest their atten-
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EX,ILE. 353 
 
 tion, arid to say or do something that may remain 
 in their own and their children's remembrance as a 
 memorial. 
 
 This is, indeed, the most painful part of Indian 
 exile. The insalubrity and oppression of its cli- 
 mate may be guarded against and alleviated; inter- 
 course with Europe may be kept up, by correspon- 
 dence; subjects with a large development of the 
 bump of politics may have sent out bales of the 
 Times and Morning Chronicle, according as the 
 organs of conservativeness or destructiveness pre- 
 vail ; and they who, in addition to hearing the 
 speculations of others, long to enlighten the world 
 with their own, may at all times do so through the 
 ever open columns of the Calcutta newspapers. 
 Those again who wish to cultivate any particular 
 department of science or literature have always op- 
 portunities of doing so, for there are few parts of 
 the world where books are more easily procured 
 than Calcutta It is true that new English publi- 
 cations are unattainably expensive; but after the 
 lapse of a few months, they are found selling in the 
 bazaar, when the gloss of novelty is over, at a tenth 
 part of their original cost. Besides this, cheap 
 editions of all popular English and translations of 
 French and German books are printed in America, 
 and imported in large numbers into Calcutta, where
 
 354 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 they sell at an equal or perhaps greater rate of re- 
 duction. The savans of France and the professors 
 of Germany are fond of having their names included 
 in the list of donors to the Asiatic Society, and al- 
 most universally present copies of their works to its 
 library, which thus contains a vast store of valuable 
 books, that (thanks to our wholesome laws against 
 the importation of such a pernicious manufacture 
 as foreign literature) are hardly procurable even in 
 London ; of these particularly are German and 
 French periodicals ; and lastly, there is the litera- 
 ture of Calcutta itself, Native, English, and Anglo- 
 Indian, composing a mass of valuable information 
 on all topics relative to India, and forming a vivid 
 picture and genuine record of the opinions and 
 manners of seventy millions of our fellow-subjects, 
 from all knowledge of which the people of Britain 
 (thanks to the operation of the same laws) are com- 
 pletely prohibited. " Malheureusement" says 
 Baron de Sacy, speaking of Macan's edition of the 
 Shah Namah) " les editions de I'lnde parvien- 
 nent difficilement en Europe" and for some rea- 
 son, best known to those at the head of affairs, the 
 shores of Britain are girt as with a wall of iron 
 against the admission of the literary products of 
 our eastern dominions. The consequence is, that 
 no intercommunity of literary feeling exists between
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 355 
 
 us ; and that while we are perpetually complaining 
 of the paucity of our information respecting Hin- 
 dostan, we voluntarily deprive ourselves of that 
 from which alone it can be obtained pure and un- 
 sophisticated, the statements of the inhabitants of 
 India themselves, as they are to be found exhibited 
 in every possible shape, by the innumerable news- 
 papers, magazines, tracts and pamphlets, Native, 
 English and Eurasian, that are perpetually issuing 
 from the Indian press. 
 
 No country can possibly afford a richer field than 
 India for the cultivation of the various branches 
 of natural history, zoology, botany, geology, mi- 
 neralogy, &c.; in short, the politician, the man of 
 literature, and the man of science, will find abun- 
 dant scope for the exercise of their respective 
 powers, and were there no counterbalancing cir- 
 cumstances, each of these might live almost as 
 happily in India as in Europe. But to the father 
 of a family, all this can countervail nothing of what 
 there may almost be called the eleventh command- 
 ment, thou shaft separate from thy children. For 
 if there be any aphorism at all certain in Indian 
 Hygiene, it is, that children of European parents 
 cannot be reared in India, from birth to adult age, 
 without destruction to their constitutions. No pre- 
 cautions in diet, clothing, lodging, exercise, or
 
 356 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 exposure, can ward off the irresistible effects of 
 climate. The general course of the young consti- 
 tution is, that from birth till about the age of three, 
 the child, passing over the usual ailments of denti- 
 tion, appears tolerably healthy, in some cases even 
 more so than its cotemporaries in Europe ; but, 
 after that period, it begins to droop, becomes ema- 
 ciated, sallow and languid ; loses strength, spirits 
 and appetite, and is incapable of partaking in 
 amusement or receiving education. Then it is that 
 parents have to make the choice, between sending 
 their children to Europe, and retaining them in 
 India to see them daily wasting away before their 
 eyes. A cruel alternative ! when to the inevitable 
 griefs of parting there is added, as is too often the 
 case, the uncertainty of the treatment which the 
 children are to receive at home, from friends whom 
 perhaps the parents may not have seen or had com- 
 munication with for many years; who may be 
 utterly indifferent to their long absent relatives, 
 and very little prepared either to receive the " living 
 consignments 11 with affection, or to watch over them 
 with care. 
 
 Such reflections do not, of course, occur to young 
 men on their arrival in India, nor are they com- 
 monly awakened during the few first years of mar- 
 ried life. While the children are young, parents
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 357 
 
 in general, too much occupied with the happiness 
 of possessing them, willingly exclude from their 
 minds all thoughts of parting, and give themselves 
 up to a sort of dreamy persuasion, hardly amount- 
 ing to belief, that, among the innumerable cases 
 they see around them, theirs may be an exception, 
 and that, though thousands of examples testify to 
 the contrary, some additional care or precaution, 
 or some latent good fortune in the constitution, 
 may preserve their children unaffected by the fiery 
 blasts of May and the steamy exhalations of Octo- 
 ber. But gradually time steals on, and the infant 
 passes its fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh birth- 
 days; the delusion begins to dissipate; languor, 
 sallowness, loss of appetite and strength, unappeas- 
 able fretfulness and increasing emaciation, followed 
 by more serious attacks of fever, and unconquer- 
 able derangement of bowels, arouse parents to the 
 sad necessity of preparing for their children's 
 departure. 
 
 When, after many a struggle between duty and 
 affection, and many an excuse for delay, which the 
 parents, even while making it, perceive to be falla- 
 cious, the transmission is finally determined upon 
 and accomplished, it is not to be supposed that all 
 the disadvantages of Indian exile terminate, or that 
 the whole loss consists in a few years of absence. Far
 
 358 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 more serious evils are often the result. The un- 
 natural separation of parents and children necessa- 
 rily breaks up the associations which result from 
 youthful intercourse, and the gradual expansion of 
 intellect, during the years of education, under the 
 parent's eye. When all this interesting period is 
 passed over as a dreary blank, and the parents meet 
 again with their grown-up offspring, they find 
 themselves estranged from each other ; community 
 of feeling is lost, and too frequently there remains 
 but little of affection. Even brothers and sisters, 
 who may have been sent home at distant intervals, 
 rarely attain that warmth of mutual affection which 
 can be produced only by a length of unbroken in- 
 tercourse during the susceptible years of childhood. 
 Such are the disadvantages of sending children 
 to Europe ; but they are inevitable. Of those who, 
 from any cause, are kept in India, great numbers 
 perish between birth and the completion of child- 
 hood. Some, however, survive : they for the most 
 part appear to recover themselves about the age of 
 ten or twelve, and from thence continue to pass 
 through the usual stages of existence, but with 
 marked debility both of mental and bodily consti- 
 tution. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to 
 ascertain the average duration of life in this race of 
 men, but there can be little doubt that it is short :
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 359 
 
 many of the females, particularly, fall victims to 
 too early marriage. 
 
 A curious circumstance, connected with the in- 
 fants, is that, where they are much affected by the 
 climate, they absolutely appear to cease to grow, 
 and at the age of from one to three years, will go 
 on from month to month without the smallest in- 
 crease of bulk : their little clothes never require to 
 be enlarged. Yet on being put on board of ship, 
 and sent to sea, they at once take a start, and shoot 
 up to their proper size. 
 
 Many projects have been entertained, and some- 
 times carried into execution, of rearing European 
 offspring in Simla and other northern parts of In- 
 dia, and such schemes are generally so far success- 
 ful as to carry children over the dangerous period 
 of infancy ; but this imperfect improvement of cli- 
 mate is altogether insufficient as a substitution for 
 that of Europe, and perhaps no parent has ever 
 trusted to it without having cause to repent. So 
 certain is all this, that it would be difficult, per- 
 haps impossible, to find throughout India a single 
 instance of a second generation of European blood 
 existing without having had communication with 
 their original country; I mean that the grand- 
 parents should be Europeans, and the children and 
 the grandchildren should have been born and reared
 
 360 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 in India without ever going to Europe. If in- 
 stances of this are to be found, they certainly must 
 be very rare. I have never known one. 
 
 These considerations fully demonstrate the fal- 
 lacy of the idea, that colonization by Europeans 
 could ever be carried to any extent in our eastern 
 dominions, even were it permitted in the most un- 
 limited manner. Nature herself has placed insur- 
 mountable obstacles in its way, and has evidently 
 intended that the blood of Europe should never 
 people the plains of India. Were a colony now 
 established under the most favourable circum- 
 stances, and with every requisite for the foundation 
 of a new community, it would, without the slightest 
 external accident or misfortune, wither and perish 
 in two generations. The truth is, that the apho- 
 rism, that man is an inhabitant of all climates, 
 must be received with great limitation. If it be 
 true with respect to man in general, it is certainly 
 erroneous with respect to the various races into 
 which mankind are divided. They appear to be 
 almost as strictly confined to particular districts as 
 the different species of animals, and we might as 
 easily expect to people the jungles of Bengal with 
 a race of white bears, as its fields with a race of 
 Esquimaux, or even perhaps of the race, whatever 
 be its name, which inhabits the White Islands of
 
 REFLECTIONS OF A RETURNED EXILE. 361 
 
 the north-west. We can change our longitude 
 but not our latitude. It was from the east., and 
 not from the north or south, that the children of 
 men travelled to the land of Shinaar. 
 
 voi, i.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 
 
 " I KNOW not whether the document, in which I 
 have thus sought a temporary relief from the pangs 
 of humbled pride and disappointed ambition, is 
 destined to see the light. Neglected, solitary, for- 
 gotten, it has been a relief to me to register my 
 follies, and to preserve a record of the hidden trou- 
 bles that have now nearly fretted to decay the frail 
 mansion they so long tenanted. How soothing to 
 have breathed them, in the confidence of the social 
 hour, to some familiar friend, and in return to have 
 drunk the cordial drop of sympathy from his lips ! 
 But neither friendship nor its consolations have 
 been mine. To me it is a barren name a shadow 
 an image suggested only by books, of which my 
 experience can supply no counterpart. 
 
 " I was born a member of that limited knot of 
 persons, whom the improved nomenclature of the
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 363 
 
 day designates Indo-Britons, or Eurasians, and a 
 sharer, as such, in the supposed sorrows and ima- 
 gined proscription which have, of late, awakened 
 the fashionable sympathies of those who take a 
 lively interest in the affairs of others, with the sim- 
 ple proviso of not being out of pocket by their phi- 
 lanthropy. But years glided away before the light 
 burst in upon me, that I belonged to an aggrieved 
 and persecuted race. From infancy almost to man- 
 hood, that consoling truth never flashed its convic- 
 tion upon me. A liberal allowance, the best in- 
 structions that India could supply, a horse, a pa- 
 lanquin, and the superintendence of a kind parent 
 and indulgent guardians, wafted me along so 
 smooth a current of existence, that I had no leisure 
 to cherish that high-minded sense of wrong, without 
 which, according to prevailing doctrines, a man is 
 neither- free nor deserves to be so. It is astonishing 
 how apt an unbroken flow of ease and enjoyment is 
 to blind a man to the miseries of his own condition, 
 as well as to make him insensible to the miseries of 
 others as well off as himself. It is an apathy highly 
 culpable in an enlightened age. 
 
 " I am the fruit of a mixed union, the confluence 
 of Western and Asiatic blood in the same veins ; 
 in other words, the child of a casual congress be- 
 tween a major in the Honourable Company's ser-
 
 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 vice and a decent Pariah female, named Latchmy 
 Ubby, one of those beauties that wear the darkest 
 livery of a burning sun. The country languages 
 came to me with a natural facility, for I rapidly 
 acquired sufficient of their vernacular gabble to 
 communicate my wish to have what I wanted 
 the primitive element of every language. My 
 father, the worthy Major Middlerace, undertook 
 the task of teaching me English; but, though my 
 docility was great, and my apprehension somewhat 
 lively, my proficiency in that difficult tongue did 
 not probably respond to the pains he took with 
 my instruction, particularly when he endeavoured 
 to teach me his own Yorkshire patois, which, in 
 phrase and accent, he considered the purest English 
 that could be spoken. 
 
 " I made considerable progress in more miscella- 
 neous studies ; yet, from my boyhood upwards to 
 maturity, I frequently encountered a strange inex- 
 plicable sensation, that came over me at those times 
 when a proposition more complex than usual, or 
 embracing several accessories or relatives, lay be- 
 fore me. It was a discouraging, deadening sensa- 
 tion, partaking of an external sense and an inward 
 sentiment, probably compounded of both. It 
 seemed as if, from the beginning, a mysterious 
 decree had gone forth, by which an impassable
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 365 
 
 boundary had been prescribed to my thinking facul- 
 ties. I despair adequately to describe it, unless 
 to those whom the same predicament of birth may 
 have rendered accessible to its influence. Yet, pos- 
 sibly, those of our little community who have felt 
 its tyranny, have preserved too inaccurate a notice 
 of its operation to undertake the analysis. For 
 myself, I can explain it only by metaphor and 
 analogy. 
 
 " Have you noted the strange phenomena of 
 your sleeping hours ? You will easily call to mind 
 those disturbed dreams, in which, having been pur- 
 sued by a bull, or by a human assassin still more 
 ferocious, you have betaken yourself to an alley or 
 narrow street, you vainly mistook for a thorough- 
 fare, and to your horror found it to be a cul-de-sac, 
 that interposed an effectual bar to your escape, 
 your adversary being all the while close at your 
 heels; and then, in the faintness of despair, you 
 have given yourself up for lost, but with an inward 
 consciousness of ease and satisfaction in the sur- 
 render. Even so, when, hurrying onwards in the 
 acquisition of knowledge, a doubt or difficulty 
 came across me, I attempted to fly from it through 
 some easier avenue, but sunk overpowered with 
 something of a pleasing stupor, whilst the horns of 
 the dilemma were about to goad me. Night-mares
 
 366 SOCIETY AND MAtfNEBSf. 
 
 like these rode me in the solution of every problem, 
 whether of learning or conduct. At the same time, 
 the very obstacle to which I had thus yielded was 
 triumphantly vanquished by my competitors of un- 
 mixed descent, whether Europeans or Hindoos, as 
 a well-poised skiff mounts with the wave and rides 
 gallantly over it. In short, I was conscious of a 
 certain quickness of apprehension, that carried me 
 lightly along to a certain point. The sentiment 
 stimulated my ardour and soothed my vanity; but 
 when I had to thread consecutive reasonings, which, 
 though of the simplest form, lay beyond the propo- 
 sition I had embraced, my way became dark and 
 confused, and, in despair of advancing an inch fur- 
 ther in the labyrinth, I sunk down in a fit of tor- 
 por, which became by degrees rather agreeable 
 than painful. 
 
 " Whence was this? I was alarmed at the 
 soothing complacency that came over me on these 
 occasions. Had I persisted in the struggle to the 
 last, and then retired with defeat, my case would 
 have been less hopeless ; but, instead of making an 
 effort to burst through the barrier, I tranquilly 
 laid myself to rest the moment I reached it. 
 
 " Years glided calmly and pleasurably along : 
 I pursued the unambitious tenor of my way, unof- 
 fending and unoffended. In truth, when I turn
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 367 
 
 back to the events of my life, \vhich have left on 
 my mind a chequered feeling of pleasure and pain, 
 I feel a grateful veneration towards the Supreme 
 Disposer, who shed upon my earlier course 
 the choicest of his blessings. I looked around 
 amongst my contemporary half-castes Eura- 
 sians, I beg their pardons and observed them 
 to be in the same peaceful condition of fortune. 
 Indeed, the Eurasian lot, which it is so much the 
 fashion to commiserate, is for the most part 
 auspiciously cast. The British parent, engrossed 
 in the pursuits of gain, and the gradual accumula- 
 tions which are to enable him to return to England, 
 and having, therefore, no inclination to an union 
 with one of his own countrywomen for English 
 beauty is a divinity that requires costly sacrifices 
 at her altar bestows his undivided cares on his 
 Eurasian progeny; and nature, who always acts by 
 rule, has in each family limited this progeny to a 
 small number, and, in the greater part of a given 
 number of instances, to a single one. Thus, the 
 fruit of the connexion is endeared to him who has 
 condemned himself to celibacy for the sake of 
 fortune ; and we are fondly nurtured in an affluence 
 of all that is sufficient to render those happy, who 
 are neither sufficiently English to be enamoured of 
 intemperate pleasures, nor sufficiently Hindoo to
 
 368 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 debar ourselves from those which are innocent. 
 Happy Eurasians, till the fatal knowledge was 
 revealed to you, that you were degraded by disa- 
 bilities you never knew, and bowed down to the 
 ground by the weight of fetters you never felt ! 
 With many of them I lived in close communion, 
 and never did a murmur escape their lips. They 
 made no idle comparisons, and complained of no 
 injurious contrasts. 
 
 " At Madras, I was placed, at the age of seven- 
 teenan epoch of Eurasian, equivalent to the 
 maturity of European, life at the desk of a house 
 of agency. It was an age when nature, an expert 
 schoolmistress, made me accessible to youthful 
 emotions. My homage was first paid to English 
 beauty ; but with sensations of awe rather than 
 love : yet there was something in that awe which 
 propelled me to the object that inspired it. In my 
 musings on the subject, it did not occur to me that 
 an abstract beauty resided in the European com- 
 plexion, but was to be traced in the nameless 
 accessories to that complexion, constituting, on the 
 whole, a being that seemed to be perfection. It 
 was, as the swain says in Comus, a thing that, as it 
 passed by, I worshipped. But when I spoke with 
 it, I wanted the requisite phrase and idiom ; my 
 tongue clove to my mouth, and refused its office.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 369 
 
 " I resided, at this time, in the garden-house of 
 a storekeeper, a respectable, and often an opulent 
 class of the English community in India, but living 
 in a subordinate sphere of connexion. He had an 
 only daughter a spoiled coquettish pet ; pretty, 
 though with diminutive features, and eyes rather 
 arch and playful than expressive. She interested 
 me most strangely. Was it love, about which I 
 had read so much ? Why not then make love at 
 once? It was known that my father was rich. 
 Where then was the disparity ? My colour was 
 not black ; it was a tinge of olive only, that dis- 
 tinguished my complexion from the European. 
 It is true, cosmetics would not help it ; but I said, 
 as Othello did of his * Yet that's not much.' 
 
 " She was an interesting creature, that Amelia 
 Waddle ; but the difficulty lay in my inexperience, 
 not so much of the passion, as the set phrase the 
 words in which I was to reveal it. Certain 
 novels occasionally came out from England by 
 the India ships, and chiefly from the Temple 
 of Minerva in Leadenhall Street: of cfeurse, I 
 imagined they were written under the sanction, 
 probably by order, of the Company, the seat of 
 whose authority was in that very street. I read 
 them, therefore, voraciously, looking up to them 
 as accurate models of the art of making love. 
 R 3
 
 370 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Ovid's were only the rules, but here were to be 
 found their living illustrations. Often did I com- 
 mit to memory parts of an interesting moonlight 
 dialogue, from some of the numerous brood of 
 fictions which Minerva, perhaps at a loss how to 
 dispose of them at home, used to send out to India. 
 But I rehearsed them in a voice so timid and 
 faultering, that, conjoined with my Eurasian 
 accent, which is never to be conquered nor dis- 
 sembled, she supposed, or pretended to suppose, I 
 was talking a language she did not understand : - 
 ' I don't understand Gentoos, 1 she said, ( so you had 
 better hold your tongue. 1 Perverse thing ! Thus 
 she rebuked me into silence. 
 
 " Now and then, but at long intervals, a civilian 
 or two of rank, who had a respect for my father, 
 invited me to dinner. Who has not heard of Cecil 
 Smith, the pleasantest, the wittiest of men? I sat 
 occasionally, a silent and unpretending guest, at 
 his hospitable board, and the conversation I heard 
 there, chiefly pertaining to England, seemed to 
 open glimpses to me of an unknown world. I was, 
 therefore, careful in treasuring up all that I heard 
 in the delightful societies that encircled his table. 
 Amongst other things, I remember hearing a clever 
 man remark, that a series of attentions would win 
 any woman upon earth.' Invaluable aphorism J
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 371 
 
 Henceforth, it was to serve me as a talisman, to 
 direct me through the intricate mazes of love. 
 But Miss Waddle what were the attentions by 
 which she was to be won ? If- 1 touched her hand, 
 it was sure to come back to me with a smart box of 
 the ear, and the occasional exclamation' let my 
 hand alone, you black fool.' 
 
 " Not being master of all the turns and pretti- 
 nesses of English conversation, I took this to be one 
 of them. It, therefore, gave me no uneasiness. On 
 the contrary, faithful to the maxim I had heard at 
 Cecil Smith's, every repulse quickened my atten- 
 tions, till they became officious even to servility. 
 Her ayah could not have been more assiduous or 
 quicksighted in discerning what she wanted, or 
 picking up what she dropped a glove, or hand- 
 kerchief, or smelling-bottle. I shall long remem- 
 ber the morning of one very hot land-wind day. 
 She was reclining on a sofa I had wheeled for her 
 into the verandah, and dropt her kerchief on the 
 floor. The extension of her arm an inch or two 
 (for it was a low ottoman on which she reposed) 
 would have placed it within her grasp. But it was 
 enough to call my fetch-and-carry qualities into 
 play ; so I flew instantly and placed it by her side. 
 It fell again. I picked it up with equal eagerness 
 and delight. Again, again, again, the kerchief fell,
 
 372 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 as if instinct with life. Again, again, again, I ren- 
 dered her the same office. The sun shone fiercely 
 even through the screen of cusa-grass that shaded 
 the portico ; and such was the impetuosity of my 
 movements, that I was nearly overpowered with the 
 exertion. Once more, the provoking piece of cam- 
 bric found its way to the ground. Once more, I 
 bustled to pick it up ; but the heat of the effort 
 and the weather made it for that day the last of 
 'the series of attentions, 1 by which my English 
 beauty was to be propitiated ; for I sunk almost 
 fainting on the floor. I soon recovered, indeed, 
 but perceived to my surprise that the foot of the 
 capricious syren had been all the time kept in 
 employ by kicking me in sundry parts of the per- 
 son those especially, of which nearly all the others 
 take the precedence. These kicks she accompanied 
 with c get up, you black fool ! how can you make 
 yourself such an ass ?' 
 
 " I assured her I did not sham ; that it was pure 
 exhaustion : trusting she would think favourably 
 of me for suffering so much in her service. But 
 she laughed scornfully, calling me an officious 
 blockhead. I still clung, however, to the maxim 
 I had heard at Cecil Smith's. Thus my attentions 
 became slavery knight-errantry was a mild, unob- 
 trusive devotion compared with mine. If knights-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 373 
 
 errant could find favour in the eyes of their mis- 
 tresses, what was the recompense I had merited in 
 those of Miss Waddle ? 
 
 "- The garden-house, at which Waddle resided, 
 was at Ryapettah, about two miles from the fort. 
 It had been my wont, every evening, when the 
 business of the day was over, to ride thither, taking 
 at the same time the usual promenade of the 
 Mount-road ; and emulous, I am compelled to say, 
 of the young civilians, who, from their curvetting 
 steeds, paid passing compliments to barouches, 
 landaus, and curricles, freighted with the English 
 beauty of Madras. It is true, I could not, like 
 them, flutter round the fair groupes, that shone 
 like so many stars along that delightful vista. But 
 I was dressed in the closest imitation of their Euro- 
 pean fashions ; and my Arab, the kind present of 
 my father, who considered the manly exercise of 
 horsemanship as the most redeeming accomplish- 
 ment from the reproach of Eurasianism, could 
 caper as nimbly and gracefully as theirs. 
 
 " One evening, however, my Arab played me a 
 scurvy trick. I had just caparisoned him with a 
 new saddle and bridle of recent importation, and 
 rode with conscious elation amongst the gay cava- 
 liers of the Mount-road, who were showing off their 
 spirited steeds, rebuking with the curb the curvet
 
 374 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 hei**heels were inciting, and rattling out their idle 
 persiflage to the dowager with whom they were to 
 dine, or the misses who sate bodkined between 
 papa and mamma. I took care, indeed, to keep 
 the respectful distance of an Eurasian from the 
 young registrars of zillah courts, and other dashing 
 civilians, not omitting, at the same time, to note 
 down their light talk, and to watch their air and 
 manner, which I would have given any thing to 
 acquire even my grey Arab; every thing, in 
 short, but Amelia Waddle. 
 
 " In a short time, I observed that amiable crea- 
 ture, mounted for she was a graceful horsewoman, 
 on a spirited palfrey. In her appropriate sphere, 
 she too had admirers. It is true, her cavaliers 
 were neither of the civil nor the military service. 
 But her train was seldom deficient in a spruce 
 English clerk or two, or now and then a young 
 attorney. On the present occasion, she was escorted 
 only by a third-mate of an Indiaman, who had found 
 himself (God knows how) on the back of a Black ~, 
 town charger, and was scudding before the wind 
 alongside of Amelia. As she approached me with 
 her convoy, she smiled with the kindest encourage- 
 ment ; and the smile was not lost upon me. Making 
 a bold effort to shake off the Eurasian bashfulness,. 
 which was for ever disconcerting me in my inter-.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 375 
 
 course with English ladies, and imitating, as closely 
 as I could, the nonchalance of the young civilians 
 I mentioned, I crossed abruptly to get near her, 
 and in the movement gave the third-mate a jerk 
 with my right foot, that went near to unseating him 
 (a check-mate, by the way, he never forgave me), 
 and thus sidled myself close to her right-hand. 
 
 " Every body knows that it is the property of an 
 Arab, though slow and sluggish in solitary excur- 
 sions, to glow with a double portion of Promethean 
 fire when he perceives a rival willing to outstrip 
 him. * I admire your grey much, Mr. Middlerace, 1 
 said Amelia. * How dearly should I like to see 
 him gallop P With that, suiting the action to the 
 word, she set off instantly at full speed, and my 
 Arab, receiving the challenge with a snort of defi- 
 ance, followed her with equal rapidity ; the third- 
 mate, on his Black-town hack, doing wonders, for 
 the animal he bestrode had only the use of three 
 legs, the fourth being suspended by the spring-halt 
 aloft in the air. This was an insult my Arab 
 seemed to feel, and having soon shaken off so ig- 
 noble a competitor, stretched himself out to give 
 the go-by to a rival more worthy of his powers. 
 Amelia, an excellent rider, pushed her palfrey to 
 the extent of his speed and in an instant, chariots, 
 palanquins, curricles, tandems, bandys, drew on one
 
 376 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 side, as if we had been regularly matched for a 
 race. 
 
 " Miss Waddle, all the time, had her horse in 
 perfect controul. I had lost all power over mine ; 
 and he ran along as if entered in the Nemaean 
 games, and anxious to be commemorated by Pindar. 
 My seat, always a precarious one, became now en- 
 dangered; but he went on just as if my consent 
 had nothing to do with his movements. Off flew 
 my hat : at that moment, a thousand faces were 
 grinning most hideously at my expense. Miss 
 Waddle seemed also to enjoy the joke she had 
 created ; but though she had reined in her horse, 
 I was still carried onwards on the wings of light- 
 ning, and had already arrived at Lord Cornwallis's 
 cenotaph, when the animal, apparently out of 
 respect to that great man's memory, stood suddenly 
 still, and I glided over his neck, like an angel I 
 have seen in some Dutch painting, descending from 
 the clouds on a rainbow. 
 
 " Stunned with the fall, which, thanks to the 
 lightness of my person, was not fatal, I remained 
 prostrate for some minutes. The first object on 
 which my eyes opened was the third-mate, who, 
 having dismounted, or rather let himself down the 
 side of his horse, was lifting me up, his square 
 inexpressive face rendered more repulsive by a
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 377 
 
 broad grin, exclaiming ' How now, tawny ? carry 
 too much sail, eh ! ' So saying, he began swabbing 
 me down, as he called it, to brush off the dust from 
 my dress ; that is, giving me each time a prodigious 
 thump with his hands. But a celestial voice 
 vibrated in my ear, that amply compensated for the 
 rude handling I was undergoing from this savage 
 Trinculo ; for Amelia herself rode up, and said, 
 * I hope he is not hurt.' 
 
 " * Not at all, Miss Waddle,' was my reply ; 
 unless it is, I would have said, by this sea-monster, 
 who is belabouring me, under the pretext of brush- 
 ing the dust from my coat. A certain Eurasian 
 prudence, however, which has seldom deserted me, 
 admonished me to silence. But did I see aright ? 
 for the moment the kind-hearted creature had made 
 the inquiry, I saw a grin upon her face, much wor- 
 thier the ugly mouth of the third-mate than one 
 formed so exquisitely as her's. She is overjoyed, 
 I said, at my safety, and vents her feelings in 
 laughter. 
 
 " From this incident, I date my repugnance to 
 equestrian exercises. I contented myself, therefore, 
 with walking home on foot, like other Eurasians, 
 who sighed neither for horses, nor curricles, nor 
 any of the equipages that shine like meteors on the 
 Mount-road. One evening, I was returning, at a
 
 378 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 slow, musing pace, when Amelia overtook me. She 
 was riding gently, with the third-mate, on his 
 Black-town jade, by her side. Gladly would I 
 have declined a rencontre with that maritime pro- 
 duction, for he never met me without one of those 
 abominable grins, that had already made him so 
 hateful. But Amelia, in the kindest manner, and 
 in spite of her unmannered companion, entered into 
 the most pleasing converse with me, as I walked, or 
 rather ambled, by her side. Her horse walked, 
 however, faster than I could have wished ; but, 
 according to my Eurasian notions of politeness, it 
 would have been a gross insult to have left her 
 whilst she was running on in a communicative flow, 
 with which I was seldom honoured, when she 
 deigned to converse with me. What could this 
 third-mate mean ? He was in a broader grin than 
 ever, and looked for all the world like Vishnu, with 
 his wide mouth and distended nostrils, on a Hindu 
 pagoda. She still persisted in her fluent prattle, 
 and I began to think myself decidedly a favourite. 
 From other lips, indeed, it would have been tedious; 
 but she never ceased, though I was puffing, pant- 
 ing, choaked with her horse's dust, and that kicked 
 up by the third-mate on his three-legged beast, 
 bathed in perspiration and ready to drop. How 
 strangely inconsiderate, seeing how fatigued I was
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 379 
 
 in keeping up with her, not to epitomize her story, 
 which, after all, was only an account of the ladies* 
 dresses at a ball given to the presidency at the 
 Government-Gardens ! The least she could have 
 done would have been to moderate her horse to a 
 slower walk. She had now got into a long descrip- 
 tion of the lady governess's pink sarsnet, and the 
 festoon of laurel which skirted it. But the apho- 
 rism came across me, that * every female was to be 
 won by attentions,' and I attempted to walk on till 
 she dismissed the pink sarsnet, and then politely to 
 take my leave. But that accursed sarsnet would 
 have filled a volume ; and I was obliged at last, in 
 a complete state of exhaustion, to lean against a 
 tree to recover my breath. * Eh, eh, eh P cried the 
 third-mate, shaking his fat sides, and pointing to 
 the great Triplicane tank near which I halted, 
 
 ' run in, young tawny, run in and cool yourself. 1 " 
 
 ******* 
 
 Here follow several similar misadventures that 
 befel the Eurasian, down to the marriage of Miss 
 Amelia Waddle with the third-mate, occupying 
 several pages of his diary and three years of his 
 life. His father having died, leaving him a hand- 
 some property, he was anxious, like other sojourners 
 in India, to return home, and take his share in the 
 great political transactions of England. Before
 
 380 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 his embarkation, however, he took a distinguished 
 lead in the measures that were about that time 
 under deliberation, for the entire restoration of his 
 Eurasian brethren to their just weight in the social 
 and moral scale, and to those rights from which 
 they had been so long and so iniquitously excluded. 
 It seems that the Eurasian, on the death of his 
 father, inherited considerable property; and having, 
 to use his own phrase, determined to return home, 
 was deputed by his fellow-Eurasians to carry their 
 petition for a restoration to the civil and political 
 immunities from which they deemed themselves 
 unjustly excluded, in order that it might be pre- 
 sented to the Legislature. From a marginal anno- 
 tation in the manuscript, it appears also that he 
 was now in his twenty-second year. 
 
 ##*#** 
 
 " Experience, the god of this lower world, had, 
 to this epoch of my life, been wanting to me ; and 
 to this circumstance I naturally attributed the 
 errors and perplexities in which, from time to time, 
 I found myself entangled. England, I fondly 
 hoped, would in a few years supply the defects of 
 an education so little calculated to train the under- 
 standing to the solution of those difficult problems 
 of human conduct, on which our weal or woe de- 
 pends.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 381 
 
 " To an Eurasian, the embarkation in a large 
 vessel is like a new birth. The ship itself was a 
 new orb, peopled with a new race, presenting within 
 its narrow dimensions more opportunities of study- 
 ing the nature to which I belonged, than had 
 hitherto been within my reach. A new present, a 
 new futurity lay before me. Through the indis- 
 tinct haze of anticipation, every object of hope 
 loamed, as it were, in huge and gigantic propor- 
 tions, which half-gladdened, half-appalled me. I 
 was now wafted along the world of waters, towards 
 a country, which the language and sentiments of 
 the European residents of India had pictured to my 
 thoughts as the resting-place of the fondest aspira- 
 tions of the heart, the paradise that encircled all the 
 modes and forms of earthly enjoyment. I was blest 
 with affluence, invested with the unfettered use of 
 it, and with such a talisman of worldly happiness 
 in my possession, a long vista of undisturbed delight 
 opened to my vision. 
 
 " But I had not analyzed with requisite precision 
 the attraction which Europeans felt towards the 
 country of their birth. It was their HOME. The 
 letters composing that word were each so many 
 cabalistic characters, that summoned before their 
 eyes smiling hearths, groupes of familiar faces, 
 village-greens, where their careless infancy had
 
 382 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 roamed, all mellowed in the soft moonlight of re- 
 membrance, or clothed with fresh life, if remem- 
 brance had failed. To me there was no home. It 
 was a lifeless term, that awakened no sentiment and 
 presented no picture. What heart beat for my 
 return ? What parent, what sister counted anxi- 
 ously the minutes that retarded it ? It was well for 
 me that I did not dwell on these painful contrasts. 
 It would have been too harsh a foretaste of sorrows 
 which, till their due season, are wisely veiled from 
 our knowledge. 
 
 " At firstj all was prodigy enchantment. I 
 gazed on the ocean as an abyss illimitable, like that 
 of eternity, and when the flat sands of Madras and 
 the scorched hills of Pulicat sank below our hori- 
 zon, felt myself pushed off on a vast and shoreless 
 void. But though I knew not the mystic import of 
 the word, the charities it contained, or the promises 
 it breathed, I was returning HOME, and by habit 
 and imitation, the word came as becomingly from 
 my lips as it did from those of my fellow-passen- 
 gers. Some of them, indeed, appeared to sneer 
 when I joined in those delightful anticipations of 
 home, with which they were wont to beguile the 
 tediousness of the voyage. But it gave me no un- 
 easiness, for they were kind and attentive to me; 
 sometimes so officiously as to annoy me with their 
 civilities.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EUKASIAN. 383 
 
 " One thing, on my first embarkation, had pre- 
 saged an unpleasant time of it; for I found installed 
 in the office of chief mate, the identical Caliban 
 who had grinned with such savage ecstasy at my 
 misadventures in the Mount-road, and as a con- 
 summation of his insolence had robbed me of Amelia 
 Waddle. But he showed me such marked atten- 
 tions, made me so low an obeisance every time we 
 met on deck, and exhibited so amiable a deference 
 to every observation I made, that though I thought 
 his politeness rather overdone, I began to stifle the 
 unfavourable opinion with which he had impressed 
 me ; the more so, since I found that Miss Waddle 
 had given him little reason to be satisfied with his 
 bargain, the capricious spoiled chit having de- 
 generated into the fretful termagant wife. 
 
 " Week after week glided away, and I began, 
 like every body else, to be fatigued with the voyage. 
 * And how long do you think, Sir, it will be before 
 we get home ?"" I asked the chief mate, one even- 
 ing, when it was his watch. ' Get home ! Mr. 
 Middlerace, get home ! ' he returned for answer, in 
 a tone like that of computation but with a marked 
 emphasis on the word home ; ' why, you will be 
 home"* pulling out his watch ' aye it's now 
 eight P. M. Tuesday the 22d of August you will 
 be at Portsmouth at eleven o'clock in the forenoon 
 of the 5th of October. 1 And, ideot as I was, I did
 
 384 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 not see the banter that lurked in the forced gravity 
 and mock politeness with which he replied to my 
 inquiries ; neither did I suspect the accuracy of his 
 reckoning. I had seen the fellow, day after day s 
 assiduously engaged in his solar observations, and 
 my education had been so unscientific, that I leaped 
 with the greatest agility to the conclusion that the 
 day and hour of our arrival was an affair of easy 
 computation, and having no reason to suspect the 
 trick he was playing upon my credulity, looked 
 forward to the auspicious day and hour with the 
 fondest anticipation. 
 
 " And it did happen that we saw land on the 
 day and anchored within a few minutes of the hour 
 he had predicted, beneath a high ridge of land, in- 
 tersected by a long winding valley, along which, 
 with the aid of a glass, I could clearly discern 
 several buildings of considerable magnitude, a 
 street with neat and elegant houses on each side, 
 with the steeple of a church rising pleasingly above 
 them. ' There, Mr. Middlerace ! ' said Woolfen- 
 face, while they were letting go the anchor, ' there ! 
 did I not tell you we should be at Portsmouth at 
 eleven o'clock on the 5th of October ?' ' You are 
 quite correct, Sir,' I replied, looking at my watch. 
 * This is the 5th of October, and it is only four 
 minutes and a half past eleven in the fore- 
 noon.'
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 385 
 
 "Was I deceived, or did I not discern that hideous 
 grin on his ugly face, which had so often disgusted 
 me and did not every individual of the group of 
 passengers collected on the deck at that moment 
 eye me with a look, betokening in some contempt, 
 and commiseration in others? Such, however, 
 was the faith my imperfect education had taught 
 me to repose in human assertions (alas ! it led me 
 subsequently into a thousand perplexities), that I 
 began to busy myself in immediate preparations 
 for my journey to London, and was infinitely de- 
 lighted when the purser offered me a seat in the 
 post-chaise, in which, he said, he was about to con- 
 vey the despatches to the India House. 
 
 " Overwhelmed with the idea of having at length 
 reached home, full of the importance of the Eura- 
 sian mission, and not unconscious of the inspiring 
 sensation of a considerable fortune, securely placed 
 in the English funds, I began the bustle of packing 
 up, requesting the chief-mate to order my trunks 
 and packages to be brought from the hold ; and 
 he affected to give orders to that purport, but in a 
 tone of vociferation much louder, I thought, than 
 was necessary. ' Below there!' 'Aye, aye, Sir! 1 
 * Trunks No. 1, 2, and 3, marked Ephraim Mid- 
 dlerace, Esquire ! ' Methought I heard the order 
 echoed from below with shouts of laughter; but 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 386 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 my delusion was so complete, that every suspicion 
 died instantly away as soon as it was awakened. 
 With a wild exultation of heart, I joined a party 
 of passengers who were going ashore, and soon felt 
 my feet treading, as I believed, the hallowed soil of 
 England. But the vision was not destined to be 
 of long duration. One of my fellow-passengers, an 
 officer in the King^s service, drew me aside, and 
 said, * Faith ! Mr. Middlerace, they are laughing 
 at you. You have been led to believe that you are 
 in England. By the powers, it's all a hoax ; you 
 are now in the island of St. Helena ! ' 
 
 " In truth, the confederacy to deceive me had 
 been got up with great unity of design and skill in 
 execution. I knew it to be usual for homeward- 
 bound ships to stop at St. Helena ; but in answer 
 to all my inquiries on that head, I was assured by 
 Woolfenface, that we could not possibly make 
 St. Helena; and in that assurance I had quietly 
 acquiesced. Judge, then, with what surprise and 
 indignation I received Major Nettlehead's kind 
 intimation of the deceit that had been practised 
 upon me. 
 
 " ' Is it possible P 1 I exclaimed. 
 
 " ' Yes,' said the major, * I tell you so upon my 
 honour ; and I beg, Mr. Middlerace, that my 
 honour may not be called in question.' His tone
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EUEASIAN. 387 
 
 humbled and alarmed me. I apologized, and 
 thanked him for his kindness, assuring him I 
 would take the earliest opportunity to tell Woolf- 
 enface that he had deceived me. 
 
 " ' But you must do more,' replied my Hiber- 
 nian Mentor. * He has insulted you.' ' Most 
 grossly, major,' I said. 
 
 " ' And you must call him instantly to account 
 for doing so,' said the major. 
 
 " ' I will do so this very evening,' was my reply. 
 ( I will tax him with falsehood, and to make his 
 disgrace more galling to him' (I had frequently 
 occasion to observe that the chief-mate was fond of 
 dangling on the ladies whenever they appeared on 
 deck), ' I will tell him of it to his face before the 
 ladies.' 
 
 " ( You mistake the matter quite,' rejoined 
 Major Nettlehead. ' The ladies must know no- 
 thing about it. It must be done in private, and 
 I will be your friend, and carry him your message.' 
 I was not displeased to find the affair was to be 
 a private one, for assuredly my courage would have 
 faltered in reproaching Woolfenface before so many 
 witnesses; and more particularly before the ladies, 
 in whose presence I always felt abashed. But the 
 major had not yet made me understand him. At 
 last came the explanation. I was to send him, by
 
 388 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Major Nettlehead, a hostile message to meet me 
 behind Longwood, at seven the next morning. 
 ' We must hire horses," 1 observed the major, ' to 
 carry us up the hill, which is as steep, by all the 
 powers, as the mainmast ; and I will take care of 
 the needful.' 
 
 "' The needful! 1 said I, 'I have enough for 
 that purpose;' at the same time pulling out a 
 handful of coin from my pocket. 
 
 " ' Pshaw ! ' said he, muttering between his teeth 
 something that sounded not unlike * half-caste 
 ideot. 1 ' That's not what I mean. What I meant 
 was, that I would accommodate you with my 
 pistols. They are hair-triggers, and genuine 
 Wogdens, every inch of them. 1 
 
 " ' In a moment, obtuse as I was to the forms 
 and conventions of European life, the truth flashed 
 on me like lightning. ' What, major,' I asked, 
 ' am I to fight a duel?' 
 
 " * You have hit it, 1 said he, with ineffable 
 coolness. 
 
 " * But I never fought one in my life, 1 I returned. 
 
 " ' It is high time, then, you should begin, 1 was 
 his placid answer. 
 
 " ' And be killed,* I continued, * because, for- 
 sooth, Mr. Woolfenface has insulted me?' ' Pre- 
 cisely so,' said he ; * what better reason would you 
 have?'
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 389 
 
 " * But, my dear Sir, 1 I rejoined, * would it not 
 be more Christian-like to forgive him ?' 
 
 " * More Christian-like, undoubtedly,' said he, 
 4 but not quite so gentleman -like/ 
 
 " It was idle to argue with Major Nettlehead on 
 such a subject, for he had killed his man not long 
 before at Masulipatam, and with one of those very 
 Wogdens, as he had himself assured me. His looks 
 were quite fearful when he told me I should forfeit 
 the character and privileges of a gentleman for the 
 rest of my life, if I did not call Woolfenface out. 
 ' And what is more, Mr. Middlerace,' said he, * by 
 all the powers, you must fight me if you refuse. 
 I have offered, as you see, to be a pace-maker be- 
 twixt you, and my services must not be slighted." 
 Here he swore an oath that made me tremble. 
 Thus placed between two fires, non-compliance 
 was out of the question, and the major was in- 
 stantly rowed off to the ship, which lay about two 
 cables 1 length from the shore. A quarter of an 
 hour brought him back to the spot in which he 
 had left me. Every thing, he told me, was most 
 comfortably arranged. Woolfenface would be be- 
 hind Longwood the next morning at the hour 
 appointed. 
 
 " A party of passengers, amongst whom were 
 the major and myself, had taken lodgings at a
 
 390 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 private house during our sejour on the island. At 
 dinner, I sate motionless with affright. The major 
 plied me with port wine. It was the first time I 
 had ever tasted it. It seemed, from its strength, 
 to be an admirable beverage for a bull ; it inspired 
 me with a sensation like courage ; I congratulated 
 myself on the discovery, and in the full glow of a 
 manly determination to avenge the affront that had 
 been put upon me, retired to my apartment. But, 
 in a short time, the screws by which my feelings 
 had been raised were again loosened. Yet how 
 could I retract ? I was like the ancient Britons 
 before them lay the ocean, behind the Picts. I must 
 either fight Woolfenface, or stand a shot from the 
 unerring Wogdens of the major. But surely there 
 were exemptions, which might be fairly pleaded 
 from the tyranny of this barbarous custom. 
 
 " Nor was I long before I hit upon one. Was I 
 not entrusted with an important diplomacy in 
 behalf of my Eurasian brethren? Was not the 
 person of every ambassador privileged from a 
 wanton and unnecessary risque ? At this crisis of 
 the debate, the major entered. I stated- to him my 
 scruples. He overruled them as before, and swore 
 there was no alternative left to me. The major 
 made two glasses of stiff brandy-and- water. Strange 
 phenomenon ! I was again wakened to the insult
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 391 
 
 I had received again fired with the wish to revenge 
 it. Another glass heated me to a degree of deter- 
 mination still more intense. But it was a smoulder- 
 ing flame, like that of ignited grease, which 
 extinguished the blaze it excited. 
 
 " I felt sleepy, or rather stupified and the major 
 left me, with a promise to call me punctually at the 
 hour, telling me emphatically that, on these occa- 
 sions, it was better to be too early than too late. 
 
 " I could not have been left in less pleasant com- 
 pany than that of my own meditations. My night 
 was restless, and scarcely had I fallen into my first 
 doze, when the major, with accursed punctuality, 
 stood at my bed-side. Happily, my olive tint con- 
 cealed the paleness which, under similar circum- 
 stances, the European countenance would have 
 betrayed. I lingered longer, however, at my toi- 
 lette than the major liked. * Make haste, my 
 friend, said he, as if we were going on a party of 
 pleasure. * Here are the cunning rogues,' opening 
 the box that contained his Wogdens. * They 
 never miss at twelve paces ; but I shall only allow 
 you eight.'. 'Eight paces !' I ejaculated. * Surely 
 we might as well fight in a saw-pit.' I should have 
 continued the protest, but the major's looks awed 
 me into silence. 
 
 " We accordingly mounted our island nags, and
 
 392 SOCIETY AND MANNEltS. 
 
 began to climb the road, or rather the ravine, that 
 led to Longwood. We did not arrive at the ap" 
 pointed spot till half an hour at least after the time ; 
 for the horses of St. Helena are quite unmanageable 
 without their keepers, who run behind, twisting 
 their tails by way of rudder, which at the same 
 time goads them along and guides them in the 
 direction it is intended they should take. But the 
 secret nature of our expedition rendered it neces- 
 sary for us to get on as well as we could without 
 them. The Bucephalus, however, which the major 
 bestrode, not perceiving the wonted stimulus in his 
 rear, took it occasionally into his head to back down 
 the hill instead of ascending it ; and my own, out 
 of mere mimicry, made the same retrograde 
 advances. The major, therefore, adopted the inge- 
 nious expedient of turning the heads of both 
 animals from the point we were going to, and then 
 to spur and whip as if it had been our object to go 
 back again. The expedient succeeded ; for in the 
 true spirit of opposition, they backed upwards, and 
 thus brought us to the place of rendezvous. We 
 looked around, but Woolfenface was not to be seen. 
 " The major pulled out his watch. ' I shall 
 give him,' he said, ' half an hour's law. That is 
 the indulgence allowed by the code of honour.' 
 Though inwardly pleased at the circumstance, I
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 393 
 
 exclaimed, with affected surprise 'not come ! how 
 strange!' * Some accident/ replied Nettlehead, 
 coolly ; ' but I cannot think he will be so uncivil 
 as to disappoint us.' An hour elapsed, and no 
 chief-mate made his appearance. * What's to be 
 done,' said I ? * Why, you must post him as a 
 coward, or give him a horse-whipping, whichever 
 you prefer, 1 continued the major, replacing his 
 darling Wogdens in their well-padded receptacle. 
 At that instant, his face brightened with a sudden 
 gleam of satisfaction, for the chief-mate, attended 
 by the purser, hove in sight. It seems, they had 
 mounted two steeds more self-willed than our own, 
 and after a long controversy, in which spurs and 
 whips took an active part, they had turned them 
 loose into the valley beneath, and proceeded on 
 foot as well as they were able. 
 
 " The matter was soon arranged, and the Wog- 
 dens again saw the light. I was placed with my 
 back next to the declivity, and the major, having 
 measured out the eight paces, put a pistol into my 
 hand,and proceeded to make some arrangement with 
 my adversary's second. I looked instinctively the 
 chief-mate in the face, and even at that awful 
 moment it was in broad grin. The major was now 
 receding to a short distance, in order to pronounce 
 the word ifire ! But in the same instant, my reso- 
 s3
 
 394 SOCIETY AND MANNERS, 
 
 lution was taken and executed. I turned my back, 
 and ran down the valley along crags and precipices 
 which a chamois would not have ventured to tempt. 
 By what process I framed the resolve, I cannot for 
 the life of me explain ; it was so rapid as to outstrip 
 all thought or volition. I pursued my flight to the 
 beach, and having soon got back to the ship, 
 related to the captain the incident of the morning. 
 He was a man of good sense and amiable manners. 
 Having mildly reprehended the chief-mate for 
 passing such idle trickeries on an ingenuous and in- 
 experienced youth, he recommended Major Nettle- 
 head in future to keep his Wogdens for his own 
 use ; a hint which the major, with all his Irish 
 courage, received more calmly than might have 
 been expected from one who had killed his man. 
 The captain kindly attributed my defalcation of 
 nervous energy not to hereditary or constitutional 
 causes, but to the softness and languor of mind, 
 contracted by an education amongst a race habi- 
 tually passive to every provocation. He knew, he 
 said, many Eurasians, who, after sojourning in 
 England for a few years, showed themselves far 
 from deficient in the moral courage which was 
 requisite to sustain the character of a gentleman. I 
 could have listened to him for ever when I heard 
 him talk so sensibly of the Eurasian character, and
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 395 
 
 found him so willing and competent to do us justice. 
 He insisted farther, that Woolfenface should make 
 me an apology ; and the fellow, still however with 
 the infernal grin upon his countenance, advanced 
 and took me by the hand. I received the apology, 
 but could not forbear asking him why he had 
 deceived me ? 
 
 " ' Deceived you, Mr. Middlerace ! .How did I 
 deceive you ?' ' Did you not tell me,' I said mildly, 
 
 * that we could not possibly make St. Helena ?' 
 
 * True, 1 replied he, ' and neither we, nor any navi- 
 gators that ever sailed, have made it yet. 1 This, 
 as I afterwards found, was a conundrum ; and it 
 was truly worthy of its addle-headed inventor." 
 
 * * * # 
 
 The Eurasian's diary proceeds to relate the 
 mingled emotions of surprise and admiration that 
 agitated him on his arrival in England. It describes 
 his expectation of finding the shores of the river lined 
 with Eurasians to hailhiscoming ; the strange disap- 
 pointment he witnessed when he first saw a director, 
 having, as he mounted the steps of the India House, 
 made his salams to a stout old man, in a cocked- 
 hat and scarlet cloak, with a pint of porter in his 
 hand, whom he took for the chairman, but whom 
 he afterwards found to be one of the porters, in the 
 dress worn by those personages on a court-day.
 
 396 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Several minor perplexities happen to him, all 
 attributable to too easy a faith in human assertions, 
 a defect, of which a little London experience soon 
 cured him. Hewaitedupon amember of Parliament, 
 who promised to present the Eurasian petition ; 
 invited him, in the name of the Eurasians in Eng- 
 land, to a grand dinner they gave him at the 
 London Tavern, where he ate and drank heartily 
 at their expense, made speeches in praise of the 
 Eurasians and the dinner and afterwards forgot to 
 
 present their petition. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 "' Month after month elapsed, and I received no 
 invitation to confer with the chairman, the deputy- 
 chairman, nor with the committee of shipping, nor 
 with tlie secret committee, nor with any individual 
 director, on the important objects of my deputation. 
 Strange, that a political portent so new and alarm- 
 ing, as the rising of the whole Eurasian body in the 
 dignified attitude of insulted nature, though for 
 the recovery of rights they never had, and the 
 redress of grievances they never felt, should be 
 overlooked by those whose especial province it 
 was to watch every speck or cloud in the eastern 
 horizon. 
 
 " Eurasian timidity alone restrained me from 
 proceeding at the head of our body domiciled in
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 397 
 
 London, and demanding an audience of the Court 
 of Directors. Besides, on examining our numerical 
 strength for that object, we found we could only 
 muster about half a dozen a numbernot sufficiently 
 imposing to awe the directors into the measures we 
 were anxious to carry so the matter was abandoned. 
 Still, however, I felt it would be deserting the 
 great cause that had been confided to my exertions 
 were I to omit any practicable means of influencing 
 the directors in our favour. Amongst the many 
 deficiencies of an Eurasian education, is the shrink- 
 ing bashfulness, that ties the tongue within the 
 mouth when we have any thing important to urge, 
 or any point to carry. Yet an opportunity at last 
 occurred of an interview with one of the directors, 
 which I hoped might turn out advantageously to 
 the common cause. I had taken care to qualify 
 myself as a proprietor of India stock, which I held 
 to a considerable amount. Three stars were affixed 
 to my name on the books, and I was told bv the 
 kind friend who advised me to that effect, that it 
 was a constellation that would prove propitious to 
 any objects I might wish to promote at the India 
 House. 
 
 " A worthy gentleman became on a sudden so 
 solicitous for the happiness of his fellow-subjects in 
 India, that he besought the ladies and gentlemen
 
 398 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 who were in possession of India stock to make him 
 one of the directors. He called upon me, and 
 solicited my vote. ' A civil, well-spoken gentleman,' 
 I said, as he came bowing into the room : ' I will 
 give him my vote, but he shall pledge himself to 
 support the Eurasians.' The words almost died on 
 my lips. At last, though with some hesitation, I 
 gave him to understand that I was an Eurasian. Here 
 I paused. ' My dear Sir,' he replied, * persons of 
 all religious sects are entitled to vote at the India 
 House, provided they are duly qualified : Catholics, 
 Quakers, Baptists, Anabaptists. 1 Here I perceived 
 that he had mistaken Eurasianism for one of the 
 numerous isms into which the Christian world is 
 divided. When I explained to him, however, the 
 meaning of the designation, and the objects we 
 were seeking, he assured me that, as soon as he 
 should be placed in the direction, and could feel his 
 way (these were his words), he would give the 
 Eurasian cause his most strenuous assistance. 
 Delighted with this assurance, I gave him my vote, 
 and being well supported, he became a director. 
 
 " ' Now is the time, 1 my friend said, who had 
 advised me to the purchase of my India stock, 
 ' now is the time for you to push the Eurasian 
 cause. See whether he can feel his way as yet 
 to promote it. In the meanwhile, as a matter
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 399 
 
 of course, he will give you a cadetship, for mind, 
 you have three stars to your name. And my boy 
 Joseph is just the age so pray ask him for the 
 appointment, for there are two at this moment in 
 his gift.' Inspired with Eurasian zeal, and the 
 laudable desire of promoting the interests of my 
 friend's family, I obtained an interview with the 
 director. How strange, that my Eurasian timidity 
 should on such an occasion make me falter ! I con- 
 trived, however, though in broken sentences, to 
 remind him of his pledge to the Eurasians, so soon 
 as he should feel his way. l Right, right, Mr. 
 Middlerace,' he replied ; ' the moment I can feel 
 my way, the thing shall be arranged.' ' The 
 thing ! ' I said to myself. * Is the Eurasian cause 
 a thing ? ' Not willing to harass him with further 
 importunities on the same topic, I proceeded to the 
 next, and in plain language asked him for the 
 cadetship. He was the most civil person imagi- 
 nable, s Cadetship ! ' said the director, most as- 
 suredly. Cavalry or infantry which, Mr. Mid- 
 dlerace?' I answered, it was all the same to my 
 friend ; it was a matter I would leave to himself. 
 And whilst I was stammering this out, the civil 
 gentleman went on making me bow after bow, with 
 a courtesy so bewitching, that I found myself un- 
 consciously so near the door, as actually to have
 
 400 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 reached the passage before he had done bowing. 
 Never shall I forget the retrograde fascination, if 
 I may so call it, by which I was charmed into an 
 exit. I have since heard it termed * bowing a per- 
 son out of the room ;' but the process described by 
 that phrase is associated with some degree of insult, 
 or at least of contempt ; whereas, in my instance, 
 it was done with a politeness so truly enchanting, 
 that I took it for one of the refinements by which 
 high-bred persons facilitate the egress of their visi- 
 tors without the formality of taking leave. 
 
 " Eager to communicate to my friend the kind 
 gentleman's promise of a cadetship for his son, 
 though I must say, I expected a heartier expression 
 of interest in the Eurasian cause, I told him all that 
 had passed. I was surprised to see him shake his 
 head at the good news I brought him. ' But/ said 
 I. ' here is a distinct assurance: can any thing be 
 more explicit ? ' He replied only by second shake 
 of the head. Half provoked at his incredulity, I 
 asked him what more he required than so positive 
 an assurance, accompanied by the question 
 ' cavalry or infantry ? ' implying, as strongly as 
 language could imply, that a cadetship in one of 
 those services was actually awaiting his acceptance. 
 My friend, instead of replying, burst into a horse- 
 laugh, which I perceived he had been for some mi- 
 nutes endeavouring to repress.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 401 
 
 " But was the Eurasian cause to languish from 
 my want of activity or resolve ? I was determined 
 to see the chairman himself, to explain our views, 
 and to beseech his powerful patronage of our suit. 
 I had to wait in the ante-chamber amongst a crowd 
 of applicants, in whose features I thought I could 
 peruse the grievance to be remedied, the advance- 
 ment that was sought, and the hope deferred by 
 which the heart was sickened. At length my name 
 was called, and I was ushered into the presence of 
 a tall and dignified but easy and polished person, 
 sitting at a table covered with papers. From some 
 undefined notion of a respectful humility, I stole 
 across the room with the stealthy pace of a cat, and 
 stood full before him. Though somewhat startled 
 at the suddenness of the apparition, he motioned 
 me to a chair. ' Mr. Middlerace I believe, 1 said 
 the chairman. * The son of a late respectable offi- 
 cer, Colonel Middlerace.'' I made a slight acquies- 
 cence, and then commenced an effort, but in broken 
 sentences, and with a due allowance of hems and 
 haws, to open the subject of my mission. In truth, 
 I am to this hour unconscious of what I actually 
 said. Enough, however, escaped me to guide his 
 apprehension to the subject of the conference I had 
 solicited. 
 
 " ' You have been deputed,' he said, with a
 
 402 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 suavity of manner that won my heart, f to present 
 the petition of the Eurasians of India for the re- 
 dress of their grievances ?' I bowed assent, and un- 
 folded a copy of the petition in which those griev- 
 ances were enumerated. ' Of course,' he continued, 
 4 the Eurasians, yourself amongst the rest, are ex- 
 ceedingly wretched ?' I stared, not having expected 
 the question. Wretchedly oppressed,' he went on ; 
 ' liable to be killed and plundered with impunity.' 
 I replied in the negative. ' Then you are protected 
 by the law from robbery and assassination ? Very 
 good, so far. Forbidden, perhaps, to marry or fall 
 in love ? ' I answered, that an Eurasian might fall 
 in love as often as he pleased, and marry any body 
 who would have him. ' Good,' said he ; ' these 
 are requisite ingredients in civil liberty, and I am 
 glad to find that your oppressors have left them to 
 you. Then, I take it for granted, that the bazaars 
 are closed upon you, and that you must either con- 
 sume bad provisions or go without any.' I assured 
 him he was in an error. We lived on the best of 
 the land, and had plenty of money to spend. 
 ' Humph !' Never shall I forget his ejaculation. 
 ' I am afraid, then, the case of the Eurasians, how- 
 ever deplorable, is without a remedy ; for they have 
 nothing to complain of.' * Nothing, Sir, to com- 
 plain of !' To be shut out from the high offices to
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 403 
 
 which every man in a free state naturally aspires ! ' 
 and I was beginning to declaim some sentences of 
 the petition. 'All very true,' replied the chairman 
 ' and do you, Mr. Middlerace, yourself aspire to 
 the painful office of governor-general, or would you 
 accept it, were it offered to you?' I said, ' Cer- 
 tainly not ; it would make me miserable. 1 * Then, 
 in a free state,' said he, ' every man naturally as- 
 pires to be miserable ! ' He looked at me in the 
 face as he said this, and having perused in it the 
 ingenuous avowal of the truth to which, by this 
 Socratic process, he had completely extorted my 
 assent, shook me cordially by the hand, and ad- 
 vised me, with such evident kindness of heart, to 
 think no more of Eurasian grievances, that I re- 
 turned home for ever weaned from the absurd pur- 
 suit of seeking redress for wrongs, which existed 
 no where but in the petition for their removal." 
 
 " My wants were few, and I had abundant 
 means to satisfy them. Shut out, by the uncon- 
 querable shyness of my habits, from those inter- 
 courses which, by the seduction of example, lead a 
 man into ruinous expenses, my fortune accumulated 
 almost beyond my wishes. Wealth was a dubious 
 blessing to a solitary being like myself, who had 
 no friends to sympathize in his good fortune, but
 
 404 SOCIETY AXD MANNERS. 
 
 the mercenary wretches who pursue it, as sharks 
 follow the ship, with a greedy expectancy of the 
 offal that may be thrown out from it. Yet I felt 
 myself made for social enjoyment, and experienced 
 an aching loneliness and chillness of heart, which a 
 pleasing and disinterested friendship, had it been 
 my lot to have formed one, would have soothed 
 and comforted. Nor was it long before my imagi- 
 nation grasped the treasure of which it had so long 
 dreamed. It had been my duty occasionally, whilst 
 I was in the employ of the house of agency at 
 Madras, to carry government specie on board one 
 of his Majesty's ships then in the roads : a con- 
 fidential employment, which introduced me to the 
 acquaintance of the lieutenants and other officers, 
 by whom I was frequently invited to the hospi- 
 talities of the ward-room. 
 
 " I was one morning pacing along one of the 
 walks of St. James's Park, revolving, in no very 
 pleasant mood, the friendless and solitary condition 
 in which fortune had placed me, when I met a 
 person of well-dressed and fashionable appearance, 
 who looked at me in the face with a stare of recog- 
 nition. We exchanged the usual civilities, and 
 shrinking, as it was my wont to do, from unautho- 
 rised familiarity, I made him a low obeisance, and 
 took my leave. I remembered him as the Honour-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 405 
 
 able Lieutenant Featherington, of the navy, and 
 as one of the ward-room party whom I had now 
 and then seen, or perhaps conversed with, during 
 one of the visits I have mentioned. But he held 
 me fast by the arm, chatting with all the ease ima- 
 ginable, but running so rapidly from one topic to 
 another, that I could not get in a word, even when 
 he was obliged to stop for want of breath, and as if 
 we had been all our lives sworn friends and com- 
 panions. In this manner he dragged me several 
 times up and down Bond Street, and during the 
 whole time, all the quota I contributed to the con- 
 versation consisted only of a few of the shortest 
 monosyllables. It struck me, however, that several 
 persons, as they passed us, addressed him with 
 'my lord.' And so he was; for having suc- 
 ceeded to the title, and to what remained of the 
 estates, of his father, he was now, as he told me, 
 Viscount Featherington. 
 
 " I know not how to account for a certain mystic 
 reverence that, from my youth upwards, I have 
 always felt towards those titular personages, unless 
 it was through the imperfection of my Eurasian 
 education. But I had accustomed myself to invest 
 them with attributes beyond those of mere huma- 
 nity, as if it was by condescension only they suffered 
 themselves to be classed with the species. In India,
 
 406 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 they appeared, indeed, now and then, like the fabled 
 birds of Araby, to awe and astonish us, in the shape 
 of governor-generals or governors; but to walk arm- 
 and-arm in familiar converse with a being of this 
 description, was a dream that never visited my 
 imagination in its most aspiring moods. Yet it 
 seemed odd that several of the gay saunterers, as 
 they passed us, gave him a knowing wink of the 
 eye, and then looked at me with so unrestrained a 
 curiosity as nearly put me out of countenance. 
 Nor was their symbolical speech the more intelli- 
 gible, when I heard one of them remark to his 
 companion, as they stopped at the window of a 
 caricature-shop, ' Who's that Featherington has 
 taken in tow ? Some Jew, for a cool five hundred, 
 111 swear.' * Jew !' said the other ; ' He's no Jew. 
 That olive complexion may prove an olive-branch 
 of peace between Featherington and his duns. 
 Why, it's some young slip of a nabob out of a 
 tawny-ketch, with more rupees in his pocket than 
 brains in his head. I'll swear to sire and dam, or 
 there's no faith in mahogany.' Eurasian ass that I 
 was ! My eyes were as much closed to the light as 
 an owl's ; and the jargon of Bond Street as dark 
 and mysterious to my apprehension as the Syriac 
 or Coptic. 
 
 " The young peer shook me heartily by the hand
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AX EURASIAN. 407 
 
 at parting. * We must meet again,' said he. 'It 
 is not often I can enjoy the pleasure of conversing 
 with a sensible man, who has seen so much of man- 
 kind as yourself. Dine with me to-morrow, my 
 good fellow, at six.' So saying, he put his card 
 into my hand, which I received with a look that 
 would have told him, had he minutely observed it, 
 with how overwhelming a sense of his condescension 
 the invitation was received. In truth, it fared with 
 me as if a cubit had been added both to my moral 
 and physical stature. To be the chosen companion 
 perhaps the familiar friend of one of the nobles 
 of the land to burst the barriers of that Eurasian 
 awkwardness which had hitherto rebuked the secret 
 ambition I had cherished in solitude and silence, of 
 obtaining an introduction into the circles of ele- 
 gance and fashion was the consummation of all 
 that the beneficence of fortune had yet in store for 
 me. Wealth ! what was it, if I was doomed to 
 live amongst the vulgar underlings, with whom the 
 untoward circumstances of my mixed birth had 
 hitherto linked me beings whose mirth was in- 
 spired by ale, whose wit was enlivened by gin 
 whose converse was as heavy and stupifying as the 
 fumes of their pipes? I was perplexed, however, 
 with the compliment he had been pleased to pay 
 me. ' It is not often I can enjoy the pleasure of
 
 408 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 conversing with a sensible person, who has seen 
 so much of mankind as yourself. 1 Went it not so ? 
 I said to myself. What could he mean ? My 
 share of the conversation was sustained only by the 
 few assenting monosyllables I now and then con- 
 trived to wedge in and I had seen much of man- 
 kind, it was true, but had observed and studied 
 them just as a turnpike-keeper observes and studies 
 those who pass through his gate. Still, why 
 should his lordship think it worth his while to 
 flatter me ? The easier and more pleasant infe- 
 rence was, that he had actually discerned the good 
 sense and knowledge of the world, for which he 
 gave me credit, in the appropriateness of that very 
 monosyllabic discourse to which I had confined 
 myself: for a wise brahmin once told me, that all 
 the practical wisdom of life consisted in knowing 
 when to say 'yes 1 or ' no. 1 
 
 " Lord Featherington, who was yet single, re- 
 sided in splendid lodgings at a milliner's in Regent 
 Street. He had been on shore long enough to lose 
 the bluntness of the nautical character, or, as he 
 himself quaintly expressed it, * to wash the pitch 
 and tar off his hands. 1 It struck me as a singular 
 but rather a flattering circumstance, that it was a 
 tete-a-tete party, for only two covers were laid 
 and I was still more flattered, when my noble
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. . 409 
 
 host assigned the reason for not having invited a 
 party to meet me. ' I had not time, my dear 
 Middlerace, to beat up for guests worthy to meet 
 you; and as for those made-up puppies we met 
 yesterday chenilles le matin, papillons le soir 
 grubs in the morning, butterflies at night I know 
 their trivial conversation would be as little to your 
 taste as it is to mine.' The dinner was neat and 
 elegant; the wines exquisite. The Promethean 
 fire of champagne emboldened me to overleap the 
 monosyllabic limit to which my former conversa- 
 tion was confined. He allowed me my full share 
 of the talk ; and such was the careless amenity of 
 his manners, that I felt myself much more at my 
 ease with a peer of the realm, than I was wont to 
 feel with the extra-clerk, my father-in-law, whom 
 I was now and then, for decency's sake, compelled 
 to visit at the dusty villa, in the shape of a tea- 
 caddy, which he occupied at Islington. Wine in- 
 spires confidence even in the most cautious ; and my 
 heart, now that I had conquered the first ceremo- 
 nious reserves arising from the difference of rank 
 between us, stood on the brink of my lips. 
 
 " In a short time, every secret of my soul was 
 revealed to him ; all the whispered suggestions of 
 my ambition, all the fevered hopes of my pride; 
 every wheel, every pivot of the moral mechanism 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 410 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 hat constitutes a man's identity, the moi of Madame 
 de Stael's Commentary on Kant's philosophy. He 
 laughed at me for the Eurasian bashfulness that 
 rebuked me, as I frankly acknowledged, every 
 moment of my life. Even my olive tinge became 
 enlivened into a brilliant brun^ as he rallied me 
 on the false shame which had to this moment made 
 me consider myself a scare-crow amongst women : 
 for I had always attributed Bridget's acceptance 
 of my hand to have been mainly prompted by the 
 command my purse would give her over sarsnets 
 and gros de Naples. With the earnestness of a 
 devoted friendship, he assured me my complexion 
 was now completely in vogue ; that Apollo him- 
 self, were he to choose a skin for his re-appear- 
 ance on earth, would array himself in one not a 
 shade lighter than my own. * But admitting,' said 
 the viscount, ' that your colour is objectionable, 
 let me entreat you, dear Middlerace, to remember 
 the superiority of intellectual powers to attributes 
 that are personal only !' I listened with delight to 
 his syren-song. A large mirror was before me, 
 and at every glass of claret I drank, methought my 
 face had less and less of the oriental sallowness 
 which had hitherto, as I absurdly imagined, ex- 
 cluded me by the fiat of nature from the hope of 
 rendering myself agreeable to women. It ended
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 411 
 
 in his solemnly pledging his honour that he would 
 introduce me to a young lady of rank at an early 
 opportunity. He had touched a string which 
 vibrated to my inmost soul. To live amongst the 
 great, to be allied to them by domestic ties, to 
 breathe the atmosphere of fashion, was the intoxi- 
 cating dream that had haunted my waking and my 
 sleeping fancies. How could I repay this gratui- 
 tous, this unlooked-for kindness? And it was a 
 poor, pitiful return I made him ; but it was at 
 least of some value I trusted in his eyes, as a grate- 
 ful acknowledgment of his friendship, when I com- 
 plied with his request for the temporary accommo- 
 dation of three thousand pounds, to enable him to 
 complete a purchase which was requisite to the 
 arrondissement of the paternal estate that had 
 devolved to him. Ephraim Middlerace, thou type 
 of blockheads, thou prince of dupes, thou ass of 
 the first magnitude ! 
 
 " Our intimacy ripened every day. It gave 
 me renewed opportunities of manifesting my sense 
 of Lord Featherington's condescensions by farther 
 advances of money. For the aggregate amount he 
 gave me his bond and what security could be 
 better than the bond of a viscount ? At length 
 I became a regular disciple in the college of 
 fashion. I exchanged the awkwardness of an
 
 412 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 Eurasian lout for the impudence of a Bond Street 
 coxcomb." 
 
 ***** 
 
 Here follow several pages of self-upbraiding of 
 bitter retrospect of shuddering anticipation of the 
 future. It should seem, from the Eurasian's diary, 
 that he married, under the auspices of his titled 
 patron, a demirep of fashion, with the prefix of 
 " honourable" to her name. Her taste for sarsnets 
 and gros de Naples was of course more refined 
 than that of his first wife ; but it was in the same 
 ratio the more expensive. Her mornings were 
 spent in a conclave of milliners and sempstresses, 
 her evenings in the usual dissipations of the town. 
 The Honourable Mrs. Middlerace was condescend- 
 ing enough to introduce her husband to her parties. 
 At these parties, the Eurasian had sufficient dis- 
 cernment to perceive that his entree excited a 
 general titter amongst the women, and somewhat 
 louder expressions of mirth amongst the men ; in 
 short, that he was laughed at universally, and what 
 was much worse, that the Honourable Mrs. Middle- 
 race herself joined in the laugh. But late hours, 
 the laborious ennui of a woman of fashion, tight 
 lacing, thin drapery, all acting upon an enfeebled 
 constitution and declining years for the Honour- 
 able Mrs. Middlerace, long before she bestowed
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN EURASIAN. 413 
 
 her hand on the Eurasian, had been laid by on the 
 shelf as a damaged article at length restored him 
 to the independence and ease of celibacy, but with 
 wasted resources, and a heart half-broken by the 
 scorn and contempt of the unfeeling wretches, 
 whose follies he had mimicked, and whose dis- 
 tresses in many instances he had generously re- 
 lieved. 
 
 Abut this period, his diary appears unusually 
 barren, both of incident and reflection. Sufficient, 
 however, may be collected, from several miscella- 
 neous but desultory entries, to show that his mind 
 had become gradually strengthened by the coarse 
 discipline of misfortune, and that the soft and cre- 
 dulous milkiness of his nature, which had exposed 
 him to so long a series of trickery and imposture, 
 had been exchanged for a more manly confidence 
 in himself and a salutary distrust of others. He 
 became anxious from this time to return to India 
 his real home ; and though we have no longer the 
 aid of his diary, which he has long since discon- 
 tinued, we know that he still lives beloved and 
 respected, at the head of a flourishing mercantile 
 firm at Calcutta ; and that, nothing disheartened 
 by his former conjugal misadventures, he has 
 lately won the heart and obtained the hand of a 
 rich Eurasian heiress ; an event which has enlarged
 
 414 SOCIETY AND MANNERS. 
 
 the capital and extended the credit of Ephraim 
 Middlerace and Co. ; while, considered as one of 
 three matrimonial experiments, it bids fair to be 
 the most auspicious of them all. We cannot 
 forbear also mentioning, as an instance of the native 
 good sense of Mr. Middlerace, that he frequently 
 recounts his Eurasian adventures, and indulges a 
 hearty laugh at his own expense. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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