raised in a country infinitely more productive than either, and paid by a people, at least as industrious, and four times as numerous as the inhabitants of France. The rigour with which it is collected is so great, that nothing remains to nine-tenths of the population; a fact which alone furnishes the clearest possible proof of the incapacity and tyranny of the Company's Government. If India were treated like France it might reasonably be expected, from the character of its people, its climate, soil, industry, and commerce, that it would produce an annual revenue of 160 millions, and remain in a state of continually increasing improvement. It would be tedious to enter into minute details respecting the collection of the Indian Revenue, but it may be well to explain, how a system known in Europe as the happy means of rescuing the peasantry from slavery, and which might have diffused ease and happiness among a hundred millions in India, has become a source of oppression and misery, and often reduced them to despair. In Italy, the numerous proprietors who are scattered over the surface of the soil, grow attached to their lands, take pride in adorning and enriching them, receive their share of the produce in kind, are punctually repaid their advances to the Métayer during the year, and assist his experience by their scientific acquirements: In India, on the other hand, the Zemindar demands his portion in money, and values it by an arbitrary and oppressive standard, for the Ryot is by no means sure of a market at all times, and is frequently unable to dispose of his crops. Besides, as the Government requires monthly payments from the Zemindar, he also exacts them from the Ryot-and the delay of one month exposes the former to the sale of his farm, the latter to the distraint of his goods, to imprisonment, and often to torture. The inevitable consequence of this absurd severity has been an immense increase of suits, sales of confiscated land, are constantly occurring, and the security of the cultivator and his attachment to the soil are completely destroyed. The increase of revenue being the main object of the Indian Government, the judicial and financial duties are habitually confounded, and the same magistrate not unfrequently officiates as collector and judge. Add to these sources of extortion and vexation, the inevitable consequences of the concentration of the whole property in a single hand, the total destruction of all local attachments, the denial of all advances to agriculture, the absence of all skill and intelligence, to direct the operations of husbandry, and the wretched state of Indian cultivation will be easily understood, and its financical results excite no surprise. The appropriation of the whole territory has, in fact, produced less revenue to government, than a tenth of the produce would have afforded, had the property been left in the hands of individuals. It is not our intention to enter into an examination of the various schemes of reform which have already been attempted, or to wait for the suggestion of those, which Mr. Rickards gives us reason to expect in a later part of his work. We say to the English Government, employ no untried expedients, but consult experience, and profit by example. Among the numbers of Englishmen who fill the museums and sulons of Italy, no doubt, some few have directed their attention to the classes who cultivate the earth. Let them tell their government, that in Tuscany, there are a million of active, intelligent, industrious contadini, resembling the ninety millions of Indian Ryots who are subject to the Company, that the influence of their priesthood, is at least as much opposed to their improvement as that of the Brahmins is to the improvement of the Hindoos; that their intellectual cultivation is not more advanced, and yet, though their soil is for the most part poor, they not only subsist in great comfort and abundance on half of its produce, but are often enabled to save sufficient to purchase the actual property of their lands, subject only to a small quit rent, payable to the former owner; that the remainder of the produce diffuses opulence among numerous small proprietors-maintains an ancient aristocracy in splendour-supports a wealthy clergy-supplies the expenditure of the Court-of Societies for the encouragement of literature, science and art, which are celebrated throughout Europe-and of all the civil and military machinery of Government. In India, on the contrary, the Ryots live on the lowest scale of possible subsistence, with the best soil and the finest climate in the world. Almost naked, and harassed by continual threats and punishments, their immediate superior is a Zemindar, as poor and wretched as themselves; their sovereign a Joint-stock Company, the members of which, buy and sell their shares for money, thoughtless and careless of their subjects, and contributing in no way to their welfare. The Government of England should reflect, that though it may sometime longer be able to retain the people of India in their present state of misery and dependance, that they have imbibed enough of English feeling to desire a change. Their subjects already rank among civilized nations; they are entitled to every degree of moral and intellectual development, and to as much liberty as they are capable of enjoying. Having already entered on the career of improvement, they will continue to advance; privileges, refused as favours, will be extorted as rights; and if the time should ever arrive when the immense power of India shall be turned against her, England will fall from a great eminence, with the melancholy reflection of having marred, by a narrow selfishness, her glorious destiny, and accelerated her own decline. J. C. L. DE SISMONDI. THE BRITISH SWORD. BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. From the Literary Souvenir, 1827. O! BRITISH SWORD! thy steel was formed Thy blade was forged 'mid fire of heaven, I see thee gleaming in the air Like God's avenging fire,— The fiercest hearts are struck with awe, O, British sword!-O, British sword! Upon the shore ye shone a sun, And on the sea a star,— Bear witness, woods of Waterloo, O, British sword!-O, British sword! No tyrant e'er shall strike with thee, Joy of the weak, dread of the strong, Has with thee freed the world from chains;- AMERICAN Manufactures.—CONVENTION AT HARRISBURG.— EAST INDIA MONOPOLY. HALF a century ago, while Great Britain still smarted under the loss of America, and the affairs of our Eastern Empire were in a state of embarrassment and confusion, Mr. Burke thought that all the misfortunes of the country might be traced to the single source of our not having had before our eyes, a general, comprehensive, wellconnected, and well-proportioned view of the whole of our dominions, and a just sense of their true bearing and relations. What was then said of our sovereign power, is now true of our commercial supremacy. The experience of fifty years of amicable intercourse with our emancipated colonies, equally beneficial to ourselves and to them, had refuted the calculations of those who had anticipated, from their separation, the calamity and ruin of this country. The sense of its own interest and advantage, and the conviction of our mercantile pre-eminence, seemed to have imposed upon the infant nation, a state of dependance on its parent, infinitely more advantageous to the latter, than any which the acknowledgment of direct dominion, or formal respect to Acts of Parliament, could confer. This difference, however, there was between the old relations of the two countries and the new, that, under the altered state of things, our influence was only to be maintained by actual superiority. America, from the condition of subjection, rose at once into the dignity of a rival. Fettered by no prejudices, cramped by no restrictions, and full of all the energy and activity of youth, we soon found her a more formidable competitor in the race of prosperity, than any with whom our strength had previously been tried. Every year her people have approached nearer and nearer to the standard of our own improvement; all that was good in our commercial system, had been carefully selected; and all that was bad, judiciously laid aside; their connexions were gradually and cheaply, by treaty, and not by conquest, universally extended; their domestic industry was prudently encouraged; their peculiar interests accurately ascertained, until, by the slow but certain process of economy, diligence, and precaution, from being dependent upon us, they proclaim that we have become dependent upon them. Unfortunately there is more of truth in the exaggerated boast, than it is pleasant to acknowledge. Instead of maintaining our superiority, and securing their good-will, by husbanding our own resources, and rendering them equal to our wants, we have failed to improve the capabilities of the dominions which remained to us, and are outstripped, not so much by the speed of our rivals, as by our own indolence and neglect. Of all the evils which result from the Monopoly of the East India Company, there is none so galling and injurious as the stimulus which it has given to American competition. Since the treaty of 1793, by which the people of the United States obtained the right of unrestricted access to the ports of India, a privilege not extended to the English until 1813, they have met us in the markets of the Eastern world, on terms of incalculable advantage. While the commerce of their chartered rivals was burthened by the most exorbitant outlays, in Europe and in Asia, theirs was conducted on a system of prudential, thrifty, unostentatious economy, which insured a profit on every adventure: they had no expensive factories; no magnificent establishments, to vie with the unwieldy splendour of the Royal Merchants; by wise adherence to strict neutrality amidst the quarrels of Europe, their flag had become familiar to continental ports, from which ours was excluded; the lowness of the freights, and other charges to which their trade was subject, enabled them to contest with the East India Company the supply of manufactured goods to India, China, and the Eastern Islands; and they brought to Marseilles, Havre, Altona, and Hamburgh, varied assortments of American and Asiatic products, collected in a voyage round the world. Such was the relative condition of the Eastern trade of the Americans, and the East India Company, at the expiration of the last Charter. Since that time, more active candidates have entered into the lists, and if the exertions of our free traders had met with moderate encouragement, or had been permitted to work their own way to prosperity, we should have little reason to regret the earlier successes of our rivals. But the concessions of 1813 were so exceedingly parsimonious, that the British merchant remained subject to many disadvantages. He could not sail in a vessel of less burthen than 500 tons; he could only touch at three ports in India, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay; all traffic was prohibited to him in tea, the principal article of Asiatic export; he was expressly forbidden to haunt the dominions of the Emperor of China;' he was not allowed to enter any part of Continental Europe, and was bound to return to the Thames. Under such multiplied restraints, it could hardly be expected that our traders would have been long in a condition to cope with the vigorous emulation of their transatlantic rivals, and had it not been for the superior skill of our artizans, our immense power of machinery, and the excellence of our cotton and woollen goods, we must long since have relinquished the unequal contest. Unfortunately we relied too much on the permanence of a superiority, which, though mainly attributable to our own exertions, was not so entirely. The Americans, hurt at the exclusion of their agricultural produce from the consumption of England, have now determined to create a market for it at home. The tariffs of 1824 and 1828 indicate a determination to exclude British goods from the markets of the United States. If we threaten them with the prohibition of their cotton wool, their rice, |