their superstition has a continual tendency to deterioration.

9. The European who has been long resident in India, looks on the civilization of the Hindoos with a hopeless eye. Despairing, therefore, of intellectual or moral improvement, he is content with an obsequious spirit and manual service. These he calls the virtues of the Hindoo; and, after twenty year's service, praises his domestic for his virtues.

10. It has been remarked, that those learned men who are in the habit of investigating the mythology of the Hindoos, seldom prosecute their studies with any view to the moral or religious improvement of the people. Why do they not? It is because they think their improvement hardly practicable.

In

deed the present circumstances of the people seldom become a subject of their investigation. Though such a number of women sacrifice themselves every year in the vicinity of Calcutta, yet it is rare that a European witnesses the scene, or even hears of the event. At the time that government passed the law which prohibited the drowning of children, or exposing them to sharks and crocodiles at Saugor, there were many intelligent persons in Calcutta, who had never heard that such enormities existed. Who cares about the Hindoos, or ever thinks of visiting a village to enquire about their state, or to improve their condition! When a boat oversets in the Ganges, and twenty or thirty of them are drowned, is the event noticed as of any consequence, or recorded in a newspaper, as in England? or when their dead bodies float down the river, are they viewed with other emotions than those with which we behold the bodies of other animals?

11. A few notices of this kind will at once discover to the accurate observer of manners in Europe, the degraded character of the Hindoos in our estimation, whatever may be the cause. What then is the cause of this disregard of the persons and cir

cumstances of the Hindoos? the cause is to be found in the superstition, ignorance, and vices of the Hindoo character, and in nothing else.*

12. Now it is certain that the morals of this people, though they should remain subject to the British government for a thousand years, will never be improved by any other means than by the principles of the Christian religion. The moral example of the few English in India cannot pervade the mass of the population. What then is to be expected as the utmost felicity of British administration for ages to come? It is this, that we shall protect the country from invasion, and grant to the inhabitants to manufacture our investments in solemn stillness, buried in personal vice, and in a senseless idolatry.

13. Providence hath been pleased to grant to us this great empire, on a continent where, a few years ago, we had not a foot of land. From it we export annually an immense wealth to enrich our own country. What do we give in return? Is it said that we give protection to the inhabitants, and administer equal laws? This is necessary for obtaining our wealth. But what do we give in return? What acknowledgment to Providence for its goodness has our nation ever made? What benefit hath the Englishman ever conferred on the Hindoo, as on a brother? Every argument brought in support of the policy of not instructing the natives our subjects, when traced to its source, will be found to flow from principles of Deism, or of Atheism, or of Polytheism, and not from the principles of the Christian religion.

14. Is there any one duty incumbent on us as conquerors, toward a conquered people, resulting from our being a Christian nation, which is not common to the ancient Romans or the modern French? If there be, what is it? The Romans and the French

Bee Appendix, I.

observed such delicacy of conduct toward the con-, quered, on the subject of religion, that they not only did not trouble them with their own religion, but said unto them, "We shall be of yours." So far did these nations excel us in the policy of not "disturbing the faith of the natives."

Can any one believe that our Indian subjects are to remain for ever under our government involved in their present barbarism and subject to the same inhuman superstition? And if there be a hope that they will be civilized, when is it to begin, and by whom is it to be effected?

15. No Christian nation ever possessed such an extensive field for the propagation of the Christian faith, as that afforded to us by our influence over the hundred million natives of Hindostan. No other nation ever possessed such facilities for the extension of its faith as we now have in the government of a passive people, who yield submissively to our mild sway, reverence our principles, and acknowledge our dominion to be a blessing. Why should it be thought incredible that Providence hath been pleased, in a course of years to subjugate this eastern empire to the most civilized nation in the world, for this very purpose?

16. "The facility of civilizing the natives, some will admit, is great; but is the measure safe? It is easy to govern the Hindoos in their ignorance, but shall we make them as wise as ourselves! The superstitions of the people are no doubt abhorrent from reason: they are idolatrous in their worship, and bloody in their sacrifices; but their manual skill is exquisite in the labours of the loom; they are a gentle and obsequious people in civil transaction."

In ten centuries the Hindoos will not be as wise as the English. It is now perhaps nineteen centuries since human sacrifices were offered on the British altars. The progressive civilization of the Hindoos will never injure the interest of the East India

Τ

Company. But shall a Christian people, acknow ledging a Providence in the rise and fall of empire, regulate the policy of future times, and neglect a present duty; a solemn and imperious duty: exacted by their religion, by their public principles, and by the opinion of the Christian nations around them! Or can it be gratifying to the English nation to reflect, that they receive the riches of the east on the terms of chartering immortal superstition!

17. No truth has been more clearly demonstrated than this, that the communication of Christian instruction to the natives of India is easy; and that the benefits of that instruction, civil as well as moral, will be inestimable; whether we consider the happiness diffused among so many millions, or their consequent attachment to our government, or the advantages resulting from the introduction of the civilized arts. Every thing that can brighten the hope or animate the policy of a virtuous people organizing a new empire, and seeking the most rational means, under the favour of heaven, to ensure its perpetuity; every consideration, we aver, would persuade us to diffuse the blessings of Christian knowledge among our Indian subjects.

CHAPTER III.

On the impediments to the civilization of the natives.— The philosophical spirit of Europeans formerly an impediment to the civilization of the natives.

1. A chief obstacle to the civilization of the Hindoos during the last fifty years, is accounted by some to have been the unconcern of Europeans in India, particularly the French, as to their moral improvement, and the apathy with which they beheld their superstitions. This has been called the philosophical

spirit, but improperly; for it is a spirit very contrary to that of true philosophy. The philosophical spirit argues in this manner: "An elephant is an elephant and a Hindoo is a Hindoo. They are both such as nature made them. We ought to leave them on the plains of Hindostan such as we found them."

2. The philosophical spirit further shews itself in an admiration of the ancient systems of the Hindoos, and of the supposed purity of their doctrines and morals in former times. But truth and good sense have for some years been acquiring the ascendency, and are now amply vindicated by a spirit of accurate investigation, produced by the great encouragement which has been lately afforded to re

searches in oriental literature.

3. The college of Fort-William will probably illustrate to the world what India is, or ever was; for all the sources of oriental learning have been opened. The gravity with which some learned disquisitions have been lately conducted in Europe, and particularly in France, respecting Indian science and Indian antiquity, is calculated to amuse us.

The passion for the Hindoo Joques seems to have been first excited by a code of Gentoo laws, transmitted with official recommendation from this country, and published at home by authority; and yet not by the code itself, but the translators preface, in which there are many solemn assertions impugning the Christian revelations, and giving the palm to Hindoo antiquity. The respect due to the code itself seems to have been transferred to this preface, which was written by a young gentleman, who observes, "that he was held forth to the public as an author, almost as soon as he had commenced to be a man;" that he could not translate from the Shanscrit language himself, "for that the Pundits who compiled the code, were to a man resolute in rejecting all his solicitations for instruction in this dialect; and thatt he persuasion and influence of the governor