With very few, and those inconsiderable, intervals, the British
dominion, either in the Company's name, or in the names of princes
absolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the mountains that
separate India from Tartary to Cape Comorin,--that is, one-and-twenty
degrees of latitude!
In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land, about eight hundred
miles in length, and four or five hundred broad. As you go southward,
it becomes narrower for a space. It afterwards dilates; but, narrower or
broader, you possess the whole eastern and north-eastern coast of that
vast country, quite from the borders of Pegu. Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa,
with Benares (now unfortunately in our immediate possession), measure
161,978 square English miles; a territory considerably larger than the
whole kingdom of France. Oude, with its dependent provinces, is 53,286
square miles, not a great deal less than England. The Carnatic, with
Tanjore and the Circars, is 65,948 square miles, very considerably
larger than England; and the whole of the Company's dominions,
comprehending Bombay and Salsette, amounts to 281,412 square miles;
which forms a territory larger than any European dominion, Russia and
Turkey excepted. Through all that vast extent of country there is not
a man who eats a mouthful of rice but by permission of the East-India
Company.
So far with regard to the extent. The population of this great empire
is not easily to be calculated. When the countries, of which it is
composed, came into our possession, they were all eminently peopled,
and eminently productive; though at that time considerably declined from
their ancient prosperity. But, since they are come into our hands!--!
However, if we make the period of our estimate immediately before the
utter desolation of the Carnatic, and if we allow for the havoc which
our government had even then made in these regions, we cannot, in
my opinion, rate the population at much less than thirty millions of
souls,--more than four times the number of persons in the Island of
Great Britain.
My next inquiry to that of the number, is the quality and description of
the inhabitants. This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and
barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies
and Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the river of Amazons,
or the Plate; but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated
by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods.
There have been (and still the skeletons remain) princes once of great
dignity, authority, and opulence. There are to be found the chiefs
of tribes and nations. There is to be found an ancient and venerable
priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the
guides of the people whilst living, and their consolation in death;
a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities, not
exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in Europe;
merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in
capital with the Bank of England; whose credit had often supported a
tottering state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and
desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions
of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers of the
earth. There are to be found almost all the religions professed by
men,--the Brahminical, the Mussulman, the Eastern and the Western
Christian.
If I were to take the whole aggregate of our possessions there, I should
compare it, as the nearest parallel I can find, with the empire of
Germany. Our immediate possessions I should compare with the Austrian
dominions,--and they would not suffer in the comparison. The nabob of
Oude might stand for the king of Prussia; the nabob of Arcot I would
compare, as superior in territory and equal in revenue, to the elector
of Saxony. Cheyt Sing, the rajah of Benares, might well rank with the
prince of Hesse, at least; and the rajah of Tanjore (though hardly equal
in extent of dominion, superior in revenue), to the elector of Bavaria.
The Polygars and the northern Zemindars, and other great chiefs, might
well class with the rest of the princes, dukes, counts, marquises, and
bishops, in the empire; all of whom I mention to honour, and surely
without disparagement to any or all of those most respectable princes
and grandees. All this vast mass, composed of so many orders and classes
of men, is again infinitely advocated by manners, by religion, by
hereditary employment, through all their possible combinations. This
renders the handling of India a matter in a high degree critical and
delicate. But oh! it has been handled rudely indeed. Even some of
the reformers seem to have forgot that they had anything to do but to
regulate the tenants of a manor, or the shopkeepers of the next county
town.
It is an empire of this extent, of this complicated nature, of this
dignity and importance, that I have compared to Germany, and the German
government; not for an exact resemblance, but as a sort of a middle
term, by which India might be approximated to our understandings, and if
possible to our feelings; in order to awaken something of sympathy
for the unfortunate natives, of which I am afraid we are not perfectly
susceptible, whilst we look at this very remote object through a false
and cloudy medium.