THE ORIENTAL HERALD. No. 67.-JULY, 1829.-Vol. 22. DEFENCE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY-INDIAN REVENUEINDIAN JUSTICE AND COLONIZATION. We are glad to perceive that the seed we have sown is beginning to promise an abundant harvest. For a long period our duty has been somewhat monotonous, from the difficulty of rousing the advocates of that Monopoly against which our labours have been, for nearly six years directed, in England, into any thing like tangible opposition. These labours are now likely to become more varied as well as more vigorous, since we find the advocates of the 'existing system' have been, at length, induced to gird on their armour. Repose and silence were the two great bulwarks of the East India Company and its Chartered Monopoly. As long as any 'agitation of the question,' respecting the benefits or evils, arising from their continuance, could be postponed or prevented, so long was there food for hope to be sustained upon. But if this agitation' can only be effected so as to bring them fairly into the field, and to put them on their defence, however high or able their advocates, they are lost beyond all hope of redemption. That 'consummation, so devoutly to be wished,' appears then to be on the eve of being realized. The Directors of the East India Company themselves, made, it is true, but a very poor stand against their assailants in the late Debate in the House of Commons; but some friendly advocates have started up on their behalf in other quarters, and, actuated with that zeal which seems so becoming, when well-paid servants eulogize their honorable masters, they have sent no less than three pioneers into the field. The first has written an article in the East India Company's especially patronized and protected periodical, The Asiatic Journal,' published by the Company's booksellers in Leadenhall Street: the second has written a pamphlet under the attractive cognomen of Playfair;' and the third has put forth his production as one courting investigation, by giving his name and rank at length, as Mr. Thomas Campbell Robertson, of the Bengal Civil Service.* The intention of all these writers, is to refute the arguments which have been recently advanced against the East India Company, * Remarks on several recent publications, regarding the Civil Government and Foreign Policy of British India. By Thomas Campbell Robertson, Bengal Civil Service. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1829. Oriental Herald, Vol. 22. 13 409246 |