relations or children, "on the approach of any person to serve them with any process, or to exercise coercion over them on the part of Government or its delegates." By the same Regulation, they were forbidden to sit dharna also. To recover a debt, or extort charity, they were accustomed to take their seat at the person's door of whom the demand was made. Provided with some offensive weapon or poison, in order to wound or kill themselves upon any one entering or quitting the house, they sat fasting until their object was attained; and it was considered " 'equally incumbent on the party who was the occasion of such Brahmins thus sitting, to abstain from nourishment until the latter were satisfied."

"The rules and measures adopted for putting a stop to these abuses, and for preventing the revival of the still more savage custom, which, until within these few years, had been generally prevalent among the Tribe of Rauje Koomars inhabiting the borders of the province near Joïnpore-of destroying their infant female children, by suffering them to perish for want of sustenance are hereby enacted, with modifications, into a Regulation*."

• Twenty-first Regulation of the year 1795.

"By the Hindoo Law, to occasion the death of a Brahmin, either directly or indirectly, is an inexpiable crime." The disregard of this prejudice, in the distribution of justice by the English, has been already shewn; also the abolition, by order of the Civil Authorities, of Infanticide, at Saugur, at several places on the Ganges, and at Guzerat, and drowning in the River Jumna.

In short," the British Government in Bengal has wisely proceeded in the task of reformation, with cautious and measured steps; yet the Civil Institutions of the country have undergone, in the last twenty-five years*, a total alteration."

"The Regulations, which, by deviating from ancient rules, have so much contributed to the comfort and happiness of the people, were, in many instances, at the time of their establishment, considered as hazardous innovations, repugnant to the feelings and prejudices of the Natives of the higher class. Accustomed to a despotic form of government, they were incapable of appreciating the benefits of a different system. Slaves and tyrants by turns, the great Landholders, in the exercise of arbitrary power, found some

This was written in 1813.

compensation for their submission to it; and although they have derived peculiar benefit by the innovations introduced by European Authority, the power and influence which they enjoyed under the former system were not resigned without reluctance, and the loss of them is still regretted." But no commotions have resulted from the alteration of the old system, to endanger the British Empire in India.

The same may be said of the Regulations "enacted for the purpose of modifying the Mahomedan Law."-" I do not learn," says Lord Teignmouth*, "that these modifications have disgusted the Professors of that Law, who have quietly admitted the justice and propriety of them. Yet, were it told at Caïro or Constantinople, that, in opposition to the Divine authority of the Korân, and the Expositions of their Holy Imaums, their Laws had been altered by the authority of profane European Infidels, the Muftis of those cities would exclaim, Impiety!' and 'Revenge!'

Since these alterations have been made without the slightest resistance from the

"Considerations" &c. The whole of this account of the Changes effected in the Laws and Usages of the Mahomedans and Hindoos is borrowed from that Pamphlet: pp. 12—20.

Natives whom they respectively affected, may we not hope that measures will be speedily adopted for the abolition of Suttees, and every other inhuman custom? Will it

be pretended that the Natives of India are more tenacious of the privilege of destroying helpless Widows, than of their natural rights, long-established laws, ancient customs, and prejudices?

However, were it likely for the Hindoos, on being commanded to desist from immolating the Widow upon the funeral-pile of her deceased Husband, to resist the order, what possible danger to our Indian Government could arise from their opposition? They would form a very small minority of the Natives--not One in Twenty Thousand. Unless, then, it be imagined, that the haughty Mahomedans who look down with supercilious contempt upon the whole race of Idolaters, and the hundreds of thousands of apathetic Hindoos who are quite indifferent about the burning or burying of Widows alive, will all make common cause with the incensed few, and take up arms in defence of those abominable practices, there is little more to be feared from their abolition, than from the interruption of the Native Children's play. Be it remembered, that I am not

hazarding a rash assertion here; but drawing a legitimate conclusion, from past experience of the safety with which other changes, much more likely than this to provoke irritation and rouse into action every interested feeling, have actually been effected.

A Fourth point which I would take the freedom to suggest for consideration, is, That every practicable effort be made, to improve the Moral Character of the Honourable Company's Servants.

The Abbé Dubois describes but too accurately, the conduct of many of those persons, and its sad consequences upon the minds of the Natives. "I will refrain," he says, "from entering into details on the low state of Christianity among the Europeans living in this country; as this part of the subject is your* province, rather than mine. I will content myself with saying, that if their public and national virtues are a subject of praise and admiration to all castes of Hindoos, the bare-faced immorality, the bad examples, and disregard of every sense of Religion, exhibited by a great many amongst them, are not the least among the many obstacles which oppose the progress of their Religion in this country, by *The Archdeacon of Bombay.

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