"I think not. And yet we are dealing with agencies of which we know

nothing but the tremendous force. We are breathing a new atmosphere, which

may at first excite only to kill.--We have let out the waters of a new

river-head, which continues pouring from hour to hour, with a fulness

sufficient to terrify us already, and threatening to swell over the

ancient landmarks of the soil.--It is even now a torrent--what can prevent

it from being a lake? what hand of man can prevent that lake from being an

ocean? or what power of human council can say to that ocean in its

rage--Thus far shalt thou go?"

"But the great institutions of France, will they not form a barrier? Is

not their ancient firmness proof against the loose and desultory assaults

of a populace like that of Paris?"

"I shall answer by an image which occurred to me on my late tour of

inspection to the ports in the west. At Cherbourg, millions of francs have

been spent in attempting to make a harbour. When I was there one stormy

day, the ocean rose, and the first thing swept away was the great

_caisson_ which formed the principal defence against the tide,--its wrecks

were carried up the harbour, heaped against the piers, which they swept

away; hurled against the fortifications, which they broke down; and

finally working ten times more damage than if the affair had been left to

the surges alone. The thought struck me at the moment, that this _caisson_

was the emblem of a government assailed by an irresistible force. The

firmer the foundations, and the loftier the superstructure, the surer it

was to be ultimately carried away, and to carry away with it all that the

mere popular outburst would have spared.--The massiveness of the obstacle

increased the spread of the ruin. Few Asiatic kingdoms would be overthrown

with less effort, and perish with less public injury, than the monarchy of

the Bourbons, if it is to fall. Yet, your monarchy is firmer. It is less a

vast building than a mighty tree, not fixed on foundations which can never

widen, but growing from roots which continually extend. But, if that tree

perish, it will not be thrown down, but torn up; it will not leave a space

clear to receive a new work of man, but a pit, which no successor can fill

for a thousand years."

"But the insurrection; I fear the attack on the palace."

"It will not take place. Your information shall be forwarded to the court;

where, however, I doubt whether it will be received with much credence.

The Austrian declaration of war has put the flatterers of royalty into

such spirits, that if the tocsin were sounding at this instant, they would

not believe in the danger. We have been unfortunately forced to send the

chief part of the garrison of Paris towards the frontier. But we have

three battalions of the Swiss guard within call at Courbevoie, and they

can be ready on the first emergency. Rely upon it, all will go well."

With this assurance I was forced to be content; but I relied much more

upon Mordecai and his Jewish intelligence. A despatch to London gave a

minute of this conversation before I laid my head on my pillow; and I

flung myself down, not without a glance at the tall roofs of the Tuileries,

and a reflection on how much the man escapes whose forehead has no wrinkle

from the diadem.

Within twenty four hours of this interview the ministry was dissolved!

Dumourier was gone posthaste to the command of one of the armies on the

frontier, merely to save his life from the mob, and I went to bed, in the

Place Vendôme, by the light of Lafayette burned in effigy in the centre of

the square. So much for popularity.

At dusk, on the memorable ninth of August, as I was sitting in a café of

the Palais Royal, listening to the mountain songs of a party of Swiss

minstrels in front of the door, Mendoza, passing through the crowd, made

me a signal; I immediately followed him to an obscure corner of one of the

galleries.

"The insurrection is fixed for to-night," was his startling announcement.

"At twelve by the clock of Notre-Dame, all the sections will be under

arms. The Jacobin club, the club of the Cordeliers, and the Faubourg St

Antoine, are the alarm posts. The Marseillais are posted at the Cordeliers,

and are to head the attack. Danton is already among them, and has

published this address.

He gave me the placard. It was brief and bold.

"Citizens--The country is betrayed. France is in the hands of her enemies.

The Austrians are advancing. Our troops are retreating, and Paris must be

defended by her brave sons alone. But we have traitors in the camp. Our

legislators are their accomplices: Lafayette, the slave of kings, has been

suffered to escape; but the nation must be avenged. The perfidious Louis

is about to follow his example and fly, after having devoted the capital

to conflagration. Delay a moment, and you will have to fight by the flame

of your houses, and to bleed over the ashes of your wives and children.

March, and victory is yours. To arms! To arms!! To arms!!!"

"Does Danton lead the insurrection?"

"No--for two reasons: he is an incendiary but no soldier; and they cannot

trust him in case of success. A secret meeting of the heads of the party

was held two days since, to decide on a leader of the sections. It was

difficult, and had nearly been finished by the dagger. Billaud de Varennes,

Vanquelin, St Angely, and Danton, were successively proposed. Robespierre

objected to them all. At length an old German refugee, a beggar, but a

soldier, was fixed on; and Westerman is to take the command. By one

o'clock the tocsin is to be rung, and the insurgents are instantly to move

from all points on the Tuileries."

"What is the object?"

"The seizure, or death, of the King and Royal Family!"

"And the result of that object?"

"The proclamation of a Republic!"

"Is this known at the palace?"

"Not a syllable. All there are in perfect security; to communicate

intelligence there is not in my department."

As I looked at the keen eye and dark physiognomy of my informant, there

was an expression of surprise in mine at this extraordinary coolness,

which saved me the trouble of asking the question.

"You doubt me," said he, "you feel distrust of information unpaid and

voluntary. But I have been ordered by Mordecai, the chief of our tribe in

England, to watch over you; and this information is a part of my obedience

to the command." He suddenly darted away.

Notwithstanding the steadiness of his assertions I still doubted their

probability, and, to examine the point for myself, I strayed towards the

palace. All there was tranquil; a few lights were scattered through the

galleries, but every sound of life, much less of watchfulness and

preparation, was still. The only human beings in sight were some

dismounted cavalry, and a battalion of the national guard, lounging: about

the square. As I found it impossible to think of rest until the truth or

falsehood of my information was settled, I next wandered along the

Boulevarde, in the direction of the Faubourg St Antoine, the focus of all

the tumults of Paris; but all along this fine avenue was hushed as if a

general slumber had fallen over the city. The night was calm, and the air

was a delicious substitute for the hot and reeking atmosphere of this

populous quarter in the day. I saw no gathering of the populace; no

hurrying torches. I heard no clash of arms, nor tramp of marching men; all

lay beneath the young moon, which, near her setting, touched the whole

scene with a look of soft and almost melancholy quietude. The character of

my Israelite friend began to fall rapidly in the scale, and I had made up

my mind that insurrection had gone to its slumbers for that night; when,

as I was returning by the _Place de Bastile_, and was passing under the

shadow of one of the huge old houses that then surrounded that scene of

hereditary terror, two men, who had been loitering beside the parapet of

the fosse, suddenly started forward and planted themselves in my way. I

flung one of them aside, but the other grasped my arm, and, drawing a

dagger, told me that my life was at his mercy. His companion giving a

signal, a group of fierce-looking fellows started from their

lurking-places; and of course further resistance was out of the question.

I was ordered to follow them, and regarding myself as having nothing to

fear, yet uneasy at the idea of compulsion, I remonstrated, but in vain;

and was finally led through a labyrinth of horrid alleys, to what I now

found to be the headquarters of the insurrection. It was an immense

building, which had probably been a manufactory, but was now filled with

the leaders of the mob. The few torches which were its only light, and

which scarcely showed the roof and extremity of the building, were,

however, enough to show heaps of weapons of every kind--muskets, sabres,

pikes, and even pitchforks and scythes, thrown on the floor. On one side,

raised on a sort of desk, was a ruffianly figure flinging placards to the

crowd below, and often adding some savage comment on their meaning, which

produced a general laugh. Flags inscribed with "Liberty Bread or

Blood--Down with the Tyrant"--and that comprehensive and peculiarly

favourite motto of the mob--"May the last of the kings be strangled with

the entrails of the last of the priests," were hung from the walls in all

quarters; and in the centre of the floor were ranged three pieces of

artillery surrounded by their gunners. I now fully acknowledged the

exactness of Mendoza's information; and began to feel considerable

uncertainty about my own fate in the midst of a horde of armed ruffians,

who came pouring in more thickly every moment, and seemed continually more

ferocious. At length I was ordered to go forward to a sort of platform at

the head of the hall, where some candles were still burning, and the

remnants of a supper gave signs that there had been gathered the chief

persons of this tremendous assemblage. A brief interrogatory from one of

them armed to the teeth, and with a red cap so low down on his bushy brows

as almost wholly to disguise his physiognomy, enquired my name, my

business in Paris, and especially what I had to allege against my being

shot as a spy in the pay of the Tuileries. My answers were drowned in the

roar of the multitude. Still, I protested firmly against this summary

trial, and at length threatened them with the vengeance of my country.

This might be heroic, but it was injudicious. Patriotism is a fiery affair,

and a circle of pistols and daggers ready prepared for action, and roused

by the word to execute popular justice on me, waited but the signal from

the platform. Their leader rose with some solemnity, and taking off his

cap, to give the ceremonial a more authentic aspect, declared me to have

forfeited the right to live, by acting the part of an _espion_, and

ordered me to be shot in "front of the leading battalion of the army of

vengeance." The decree was so unexpected, that for the instant I felt

absolutely paralyzed. The sight left my eyes, my ears tingled with strange

sounds, and I almost felt as if I had received the shots of the ruffians,

who now, incontrollable in their first triumph, were firing their pistols

in all directions in the air. But at the moment, so formidable to my

future career, I heard the sound of the clock of Notre Dame. I felt a

sudden return of my powers and recollections, but the hands of my

assassins were already upon me. The sound of the general signal for their

march produced a rush of the crowd towards the gate, I took advantage of

the confusion, struck down one of my captors, shook off the other, and

plunged into the living torrent that was now pouring and struggling before

me.

But even when I reached the open air--and never did I feel its freshness

with a stronger sense of revival--I was still in the midst of the

multitude, and any attempt to make my way alone would have obviously been

death. Thus was I carried on along the Boulevarde, in the heart of a

column of a hundred thousand maniacs, trampled, driven, bruised by the

rabble, and deafened with shouts, yells, and cries of vengeance, until my

frame was a fever and my brain scarcely less than a frenzy.

That terrible morning gave the deathblow to the mighty monarchy of the

Bourbons. The throne was so shaken by the popular arm, that though it

preserved a semblance of its original shape, a breath was sufficient to

cast it to the ground. I have no heart for the recital. Even now I can

scarcely think of that tremendous pageant of popular fantasy, fury, and

the very passion of crime; or bring to my mind's eye that column, which

seemed then to be boundless and endless, with the glare of its torches,

the rattle of its drums, the grinding of its cannon-wheels, as we rushed

along the causeway, from time to time stopping to fire, as a summons to

the other districts, and as a note of exultation; or the perpetual, sullen,

and deep roar of the populace--without a thrilling sense of perplexity and

pain.

Long before daybreak we had swept all minor resistance before us,

plundered the arsenal of its arms, and taken possession of the Hotel de

Ville. The few troops who had kept guard at the different posts on our way,

had been captured without an effort, or joined the insurgents. But

intelligence now came that the palace was roused at last, that troops were

ordered from the country for its defence, and that the noblesse remaining

in the capital were crowding to the Tuileries. I stood beside Danton when

those tidings were brought to him. He flung up his cap in the air, with a

burst of laughter. "So much the better!" he exclaimed; "the closer the

preserve, the thicker the game." I had now a complete view of this hero of

democracy. His figure was herculean; his countenance, which possibly, in

his younger days, had been handsome, was now marked with the lines of

every passion and profligacy, but it was still commanding. His costume was

one which he had chosen for himself, and which was worn by his peculiar

troop; a short brown mantle, an under-robe with the arms naked to the

shoulder, a broad leathern belt loaded with pistols, a huge sabre in hand,

rusted from hilt to point, which he declared to have been stained with the

blood of aristocrats, and the republican red cap, which he frequently

waved in the air, or lifted on the point of his sabre as a standard. Yet,

in the midst of all this savage disorder of costume, I observed every hair

of his enormous whiskers to be curled with the care of a Parisian

_merveilleux_. It was the most curious specimen of the ruling passion that

I remember to have seen.

At the Hotel de Ville, Danton entered the hall with several of the

insurgents; and the crowd, unwilling to waste time, began to fire at the

little statues and insignia of the French kings, which ornamented this old

building. When this amusement palled--the French are easily

_ennuied_--they formed circles, and danced the Carmagnole. Rum and brandy,

largely introduced among them, gave them animation after their night's

watching, and they were fit for any atrocity. But the beating of drums,

and a rush to the balconies of the Hotel de Ville, told us that something

of importance was at hand; and, in the midst of a group of municipal

officers, Petion, the mayor of Paris, arrived. No man in France wore a

milder visage, or hid a blacker heart under it. He was received with

shouts, and after a show of resistance, just sufficient to confirm his

character for hypocrisy, suffered himself to be led to the front of the

grand balcony, bowing as the man of the people. Another followed, a

prodigious patriot, who had been placed at the head of the National Guard

for his popular sycophancy, but who, on being called on by the mob to

swear "death to the King;" and hesitating, felt the penalty of being

unprepared to go all lengths on the spot. I saw his throat cut, and his

body flung from the balcony. A cannon-shot gave the signal for the march,

and we advanced to the grand prize of the day. I can describe but little

more of the assault on the Tuileries, than that it was a scene of

desperate confusion on both sides. The front of the palace continually

covered with the smoke of fire-arms of all kinds, from all the casements;

and the front of the mob a similar cloud of smoke, under which men fired,

fled, fell, got drunk, and danced. Nothing could be more ferocious, or

more feeble. Some of the Sections utterly ran away on the first fire; but,

as they were unpursued, they returned by degrees, and joined the fray. It

may be presumed that I made many an effort to escape; but I was in the

midst of a battalion of the Faubourg St Antoine. I had already been

suspected, from having dropped several muskets in succession, which had

been thrust into my hands by the zeal of my begrimed comrades; and a

sabre-cut, which I had received from one of our mounted ruffians as he saw

me stepping to the rear, warned me that my time was not yet come to get

rid of the scene of revolt and bloodshed.

At length the struggle drew to a close. A rumour spread that the King had

left the palace, and gone to the Assembly. The cry was now on all

sides--"Advance, the day is our own!" The whole multitude rushed forward,

clashing their pikes and muskets, and firing their cannon, which were

worked by deserters from the royal troops; the Marseillais, a band of the

most desperate-looking ruffians that eye was ever set upon, chiefly

galley-slaves and the profligate banditti of a sea-port, led the column of

assault; and the sudden and extraordinary cessation of the fire from the

palace windows, seemed to promise a sure conquest. But, as the smoke

subsided, I saw a long line of troops, three deep, drawn up in front of

the chief entrance. Their scarlet uniforms showed that they were the Swiss.

The gendarmerie, the National Guard, the regular battalions, had abandoned

them, and their fate seemed inevitable. But there they stood, firm as iron.

Their assailants evidently recoiled; but the discharge of some

cannon-shots, which told upon the ranks of those brave and unfortunate men,

gave them new courage, and they poured onward. The voice of the Swiss

commandant giving the word to fire was heard, and it was followed by a

rolling discharge, from flank to flank, of the whole battalion. It was my

first experience of the effect of fire; and I was astonished at its

precision, rapidity, and deadly power. In an instant, almost the whole

troop of the Marseillais, in our front, were stretched upon the ground,

and every third man in the first line of the Sections was killed or

wounded. Before this shock could be recovered, we heard the word "fire"

again from the Swiss officer, and a second shower of bullets burst upon

our ranks. The Sections turned and fled in all directions, some by the

Pont Neuf, some by the Place Carrousel. The rout was complete; the terror,

the confusion, and the yelling of the wounded were horrible. The havoc was

increased by a party of the defenders of the palace, who descended into

the court and fell with desperation on the fugitives. I felt that now was

my time to escape, and darted behind one of the buttresses of a royal

_porte cachere_, to let the crowd pass me. The skirmishing continued at

intervals, and an officer in the uniform of the Royal Guard was struck

down by a shot close to my feet. As he rolled over, I recognised his

features. He was my young friend Lafontaine! With an inconceivable shudder

I looked on his pale countenance, and with the thought that he was killed

was mingled the thought of the misery which the tidings would bring to

fond ears in England. But as I drew the body within the shelter of the

gate, I found that he still breathed; he opened his eyes, and I had the

happiness, after waiting in suspense till the dusk covered our movements,

of conveying him to my hotel.

Of the remaining events of this most calamitous day, I know but what all

the world knows. It broke down the monarchy. It was the last struggle in

which a possibility existed of saving the throne. The gentlest of the

Bourbons was within sight of the scaffold. He had now only to retrieve his

character for personal virtue by laying down his head patiently under the

blade of the guillotine. His royal character was gone beyond hope, and all

henceforth was to be the trial of the legislature and the nation. Even

that trial was to be immediate, comprehensive, and condign. No people in

the history of rebellion ever suffered, so keenly or so rapidly, the

vengeance which belongs to national crimes. The saturnalia was followed by

massacre. A new and darker spirit of ferocity displayed itself, in a

darker and more degraded form, from hour to hour, until the democracy was

extinguished. Like the Scripture miracle of the demoniac--the spirits

which had once exhibited the shape of man, were transmitted into the shape

of the brute; and even the swine ran down by instinct, and perished in the

waters.

* * * * *

CEYLON[12]

[12] CEYLON, AND ITS CAPABILITIES. BY J.W. Bennett, Esq. F.L.S.

London Allen: 1843. With Plain and Coloured Illustrations. 4to.

There is in the science and process of colonization, as in every complex

act of man, a secret philosophy--which is first suspected through results,

and first expounded by experience. Here, almost more than any where else,

nature works in fellowship with man. Yet all nature is not alike suited to

the purposes of the early colonist; and all men are not alike qualified

for giving effect to the hidden capacities of nature. One system of

natural advantages is designed to have a long precedency of others; and

one race of men is selected and sealed for an eternal preference in this

function of colonizing to the very noblest of their brethren. As

colonization advances, that ground becomes eligible for culture--that

nature becomes full of promise--which in earlier stages of the science was

_not_ so; because the dreadful solitude becomes continually narrower under

the accelerated diffusion of men, which shortens the _space_ of

distance--under the strides of nautical science, which shortens the _time_

of distance--and under the eternal discoveries of civilization, which

combat with elementary nature. Again, in the other element of colonization,

races of men become known for what they are; the furnace has tried them

all; the truth has justified itself; and if, as at some great memorial

review of armies, some solemn _armilustrum_, the colonizing nations, since

1500, were now by name called up--France would answer not at all; Portugal

and Holland would stand apart with dejected eyes--dimly revealing the

legend of _Fuit Ilium_; Spain would be seen sitting in the distance, and,

like Judæa on the Roman coins, weeping under her palm-tree in the vast

regions of the Orellana; whilst the British race would be heard upon every

wind, coming on with mighty hurrahs, full of power and tumult, as some

"hail-stone chorus,"[13] and crying aloud to the five hundred millions of

Burmah, China, Japan, and the infinite islands, to make ready their paths

before them. Already a ground-plan, or ichnography, has been laid down of

the future colonial empire. In three centuries, already some outline has

been sketched, rudely adumbrating the future settlement destined for the

planet, some infant castrametation has been marked out for the future

encampment of nations. Enough has been already done to show the course by

which the tide is to flow, to prefigure for languages their proportions,

and for nations to trace their distribution.

[13] "Hailstone chorus:"--Handel's Israel in Egypt.

In this movement, so far as it regards man, in this machinery for sifting

and winnowing the merits of races, there is a system of marvellous means,

which by its very simplicity masks and hides from us the wise profundity

of its purpose. Often-times, in wandering amongst the inanimate world, the

philosopher is disposed to say--this plant, this mineral, this fruit, is

met with so often, not because it is better than others of the same family,

perhaps it is worse, but because its resources for spreading and

naturalizing itself, are, by accident, greater than theirs. That same

analogy he finds repeated in the great drama of colonization. It is not,

says he pensively to himself, the success which measures the merit. It is

not that nature, or that providence, has any final cause at work in

disseminating these British children over every zone and climate of the

earth. Oh, no! far from it! But it is the unfair advantages of these

islanders, which carry them thus potently a-head. Is it so, indeed?

Philosopher, you are wrong. Philosopher, you are envious. You speak

Spanish, philosopher, or even French. Those advantages, which you suppose

to disturb the equities of the case--were they not products of British

energy? Those twenty-five thousand of ships, whose graceful shadows darken

the blue waters in every climate--did they build themselves? That myriad

of acres, laid out in the watery cities of docks--were they sown by the

rain, as the fungus or the daisy? Britain _has_ advantages at this stage

of the race, which make the competition no longer equal--henceforwards it

has become gloriously "unfair"--but at starting we were all equal. Take

this truth from us, philosopher; that in such contests the power

constitutes the title, the man that has the ability to go a-head, is the

man entitled to go a-head; and the nation that _can_ win the place of

leader, is the nation that ought to do so.

This colonizing genius of the British people appears upon a grand scale in

Australia, Canada, and, as we may remind the else forgetful world, in the

United States of America; which States are our children, prosper by our

blood, and have ascended to an overshadowing altitude from an infancy

tended by ourselves. But on the fields of India it is, that our aptitudes

for colonization have displayed themselves most illustriously, because

they were strengthened by violent resistance. We found many kingdoms

established, and to these we have given unity; and in process of doing so,

by the necessities of the general welfare, or the mere instincts of

self-preservation, we have transformed them to an empire, rising like an

exhalation, of our own--a mighty monument of our own superior civilization.

Ceylon, as a virtual dependency of India, ranks in the same category.

There also we have prospered by resistance; there also we have succeeded

memorably where other nations memorably failed. Of Ceylon, therefore, now

rising annually into importance, let us now (on occasion of this splendid

book, the work of one officially connected with the island, bound to it

also by affectionate ties of services rendered, not less than of unmerited

persecutions suffered) offer a brief, but rememberable account; of Ceylon

in itself, and of Ceylon in its relations historical or economic, to

ourselves.

Mr Bennett says of it, with more and less of doubt, three things--of which

any one would be sufficient to detain a reader's attention; viz., 1. That

it is the Taprobane of the Romans; 2. That it was, or has been thought to

be, the Paradise of Scripture; 3. That it is "the most magnificent of the

British _insular_ possessions," or in yet wider language, that it is an

"incomparable colony." This last count in the pretensions of Ceylon is

quite indisputable; Ceylon is in fact already, Ceylon is at this moment, a

gorgeous jewel in the imperial crown; and yet, compared with what it may

be, with what it will be, with what it ought to be, Ceylon is but that

grain of mustard-seed which hereafter is destined to become the stately

tree,[14] where the fowls of heaven will lodge for generations. Great are

the promises of Ceylon; great already her performances. Great are the

possessions of Ceylon, far greater her reversions. Rich she is by her

developments, richer by her endowments. She combines the luxury of the

tropics with the sterner gifts of our own climate. She is hot; she is cold.

She is civilized; she is barbarous. She has the resources of the rich; and

she has the energies of the poor.

[14] St Mark, iv. 31, 32.

But for Taprobane, but for Paradise, we have a word of dissent. Mr Bennett

is well aware that many men in many ages have protested against the

possibility that Ceylon could realize _all_ the conditions involved in the

ancient Taprobane. Milton, it is true, with other excellent scholars, has

_insinuated_ his belief that probably Taprobane is Ceylon; when our

Saviour in the wilderness sees the great vision of Roman power, expressed,

_inter alia_, by high officers of the Republic flocking to, or from, the

gates of Rome, and "embassies from regions far remote," crowding the

Appian or the Emilian roads, some

"From the Asian kings, and Parthian amongst these;

From India and the golden Chersonese,

And utmost Indian isle Taprobane

* * * * *

Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed;"

it is probable, from the mention of this island Taprobane following so

closely after that of the Malabar peninsula, that Milton held it to be the

island of Ceylon, and not of Sumatra. In this he does but follow the

stream of geographical critics; and, upon the whole, if any one island

exclusively is to be received for the Roman Taprobane, doubt there can be

none that Ceylon has the superior title. But, as we know that, in regions

less remote from Rome, _Mona_ did not always mean the Isle of Man, nor

_Ultima Thule_ uniformly the Isle of Skye or of St Kilda--so it is pretty

evident that features belonging to Sumatra, and probably to other oriental

islands, blended (through mutual misconceptions of the parties, questioned

and questioning) into one semi-fabulous object not entirely realized in

any locality whatever. The case is precisely as if Cosmas Indicopleustes,

visiting Scotland in the sixth century, should have placed the scene of

any adventure in a town distant six miles from Glasgow and eight miles

from Edinburgh. These we know to be irreconcilable conditions, such as

cannot meet in any town whatever, past or present. But in such a case many

circumstances might, notwithstanding, combine to throw a current of very

strong suspicion upon Hamilton as the town concerned. On the same

principle, it is easy to see that most of those Romans who spoke of

Taprobane had Ceylon in their eye. But that all had not, and of those who

really _had_, that some indicated by their facts very different islands,

whilst designing to indicate Ceylon, is undeniable; since, amongst other

imaginary characteristics of Taprobane, they make it extend considerably

to the south of the line. Now, with respect to Ceylon, this is notoriously

false; that island lies entirely in the northern tropic, and does not come

within five (hardly more than six) degrees of the equator. Plain it is,

therefore, that Taprobane, it construed very strictly, is an _ens

rationis_, made up by fanciful composition from various sources, and much

like our own mediæval conceit of Prester John's country, or the fancies

(which have but recently vanished) of the African river Niger, and the

golden city Tombuctoo. These were lies; and yet also, in a limited sense,

they were truths. They were expansions, often fabulous and impossible,

engrafted upon some basis of fact by the credulity of the traveller, or

subsequently by misconception of the scholar. For instance, as to

Tombuctoo, Leo Africanus had authorized men to believe in some vast

African city, central to that great continent, and a focus to some mighty

system of civilization. Others, improving on that chimera, asserted, that

this glorious city represented an inheritance derived from ancient

Carthage; here, it was said, survived the arts and arms of that injured

state; hither, across Bilidulgerid, had the children of Phoenicia fled

from the wrath of Rome; and the mighty phantom of him whose uplifted

truncheon had pointed its path to the carnage of Cannæ, was still the

tutelary genius watching over a vast posterity worthy of himself. Here was

a wilderness of lies; yet, after all, the lies were but so many voluminous

_fasciæ_, enveloping the mummy of an original truth. Mungo Park came, and

the city of Tombuctoo was shown to be a real existence. Seeing was

believing. And yet, if, before the time of Park, you had avowed a belief

in Tombuctoo, you would have made yourself an indorser of that huge

forgery which had so long circulated through the forum of Europe, and, in

fact, a party to the total fraud.

We have thought it right to direct the reader's eye upon this correction

of the common problem as to this or that place--Ceylon for

example--answering to this or that classical name--because, in fact, the

problem is more subtle than it appears to be. If you are asked whether you

believe in the unicorn, undoubtedly you are within the _letter_ of the

truth in replying that you do; for there are several varieties of large

animals which carry a single horn in the forehead.[15] But, _virtually_, by

such an answer you would countenance a falsehood or a doubtful legend,

since you are well aware that, in the idea of an unicorn, your questioner

included the whole traditionary character of the unicorn, as an antagonist

and emulator of the lion, &c.; under which fanciful description, this

animal is properly ranked with the griffin, the mermaid, the basilisk, the

dragon--and sometimes discussed in a supplementary chapter by the current

zoologies, under the idea of heraldic and apocryphal natural history. When

asked, therefore, whether Ceylon is Taprobane, the true answer is, not by

affirmation simply, nor by negation simply, but by both at once; it is,

and it is not. Taprobane includes much of what belongs to Ceylon, but also

more, and also less. And this case is a type of many others standing in

the same logical circumstances.

[15] _Unicorn_: and strange it is, that, in ancient dilapidated

monuments of the Ceylonese, religious sculptures, &c., the unicorn

of Scotland frequently appears according to its true heraldic

(_i.e._ fabulous) type.

But, secondly, as to Ceylon being the local representative of Paradise, we

may say, as the courteous Frenchman did to Dr Moore, upon the Doctor's

apologetically remarking of a word which he had used, that he feared it

was not good French--"Non, Monsieur, il n'est pas; mais il mérite bien

l'être." Certainly, if Ceylon was not, at least it ought to have been,

Paradise; for at this day there is no place on earth which better supports

the paradisiacal character (always excepting Lapland, as an Upsal

professor observes, and Wapping, as an old seaman reminds us) than this

Pandora of islands, which the Hindoos call Lanka, and Europe calls Ceylon.

We style it the "Pandora" of islands, because, as all the gods of the

heathen clubbed their powers in creating that ideal woman--clothing her

with perfections, and each separate deity subscribing to her dowery some

separate gift--not less conspicuous, and not less comprehensive, has been

the bounty of Providence, running through the whole diapason of

possibilities, to this all-gorgeous island. Whatsoever it is that God has

given by separate allotment and partition to other sections of the planet,

all this he has given cumulatively and redundantly to Ceylon. Was she

therefore happy, was Ceylon happier than other regions, through this

hyper-tropical munificence of her Creator? No, she was not; and the reason

was, because idolatrous darkness had planted curses where Heaven had

planted blessings; because the insanity of man had defeated the

graciousness of God. But another era is dawning for Ceylon; God will now

countersign his other blessings, and ripen his possibilities into great

harvests of realization, by superadding the one blessing of a dovelike

religion; light is thickening apace, the horrid altars of Moloch are

growing dim; woman will no more consent to forego her birthright as the

daughter of God; man will cease to be the tiger-cat that, in the _noblest_

chamber of Ceylon, he has ever been; and with the new hopes that will now

blossom amidst the ancient beauties of this lovely island, Ceylon will but

too deeply fulfill the functions of a paradise. Too subtly she will lay

fascinations upon man; and it will need all the anguish of disease, and

the stings of death, to unloose the ties which, in coming ages, must bind

the hearts of her children to this Eden of the terraqueous globe.

Yet if, apart from all bravuras of rhetoric, Mr Bennett seriously presses

the question regarding Paradise as a question in geography, we are sorry

that we must vote against Ceylon, for the reason that heretofore we have

pledged ourselves in print to vote in favour of Cashmeer; which beautiful

vale, by the way, is omitted in Mr Bennett's list of the candidates for

that distinction already entered upon the roll. Supposing the Paradise of

Scripture to have had a local settlement upon our earth, and not in some

extra-terrene orb, even in that case we cannot imagine that any thing

could now survive, even so much as an angle or a curve, of its original

outline. All rivers have altered their channels; many are altering them

for ever.[16] Longitude and latitude might be assigned, at the most, if

even those are not substantially defeated by the Miltonic "pushing askance"

of the poles with regard to the equinoctial. But, finally, we remark, that

whereas human nature has ever been prone to the superstition of local

consecrations and personal idolatries, by means of memorial relics,

apparently it is the usage of God to hallow such remembrances by removing,

abolishing, and confounding all traces of their punctual identities.

_That_ raises them to shadowy powers. By that process such remembrances

pass from the state of base sensual signs, ministering only to a sensual

servitude, into the state of great ideas--mysterious as spirituality is

mysterious, and permanent as truth is permanent. Thus it is, and therefore

it is, that Paradise has vanished; Luz is gone; Jacob's ladder is found

only as an apparition in the clouds; the true cross survives no more among

the Roman Catholics than the true ark is mouldering upon Ararat; no

scholar can lay his hand upon Gethsemane; and for the grave of Moses the

son of Amram, mightiest of lawgivers, though it is somewhere near Mount

Nebo, and in a valley of Moab, yet eye has not been suffered to behold it,

and "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."[17]

[16] See Dr Robison on _Rivers_.

[17] Deut. xxxiv. 6.

If, however as to Paradise in connexion with Ceylon we are forced to say

"_No_," if as to Taprobane in connexion with Ceylon we say both "_Yes_"

and "_No_,"--not the less we come back with a reiterated "_Yes, yes, yes_,"

upon Ceylon as the crest and eagle's plume of the Indies, as the priceless

pearl, the ruby without a flaw, and (once again we say it) as the Pandora

of oriental islands.

Yet ends so glorious imply means of corresponding power; and advantages so

comprehensive cannot be sustained unless by a machinery proportionately

elaborate. Part of this machinery lies in the miraculous climate of Ceylon.

Climate? She has all climates. Like some rare human favourite of nature,

scattered at intervals along the line of a thousand years, who has been

gifted so variously as to seem

"Not one, but all mankind's epitome,"

Ceylon, in order that she might become capable of products without end,

has been made an abstract of the whole earth, and fitted up as a

_panorganon_ for modulating through the whole diatonic scale of climates.

This is accomplished in part by her mountains. No island has mountains so

high. It was the hideous oversight of a famous infidel in the last century,

that, in supposing an Eastern prince _of necessity_ to deny frost and ice

as things impossible to _his_ experience, he betrayed too palpably his own

non-acquaintance with the grand economies of nature. To make acquaintance

with cold, and the products of cold, obviously he fancied it requisite to

travel northwards; to taste of polar power, he supposed it indispensable

to have advanced towards the pole. Narrow was the knowledge in those days,

when a master in Israel might have leave to err thus grossly. Whereas, at

present, few are the people, amongst those not openly making profession of

illiteracy, who do not know that a sultan of the tropics--ay, though his

throne were screwed down by exquisite geometry to the very centre of the

equator--might as surely become familiar with winter by ascending three

miles in altitude, as by travelling three thousand horizontally. In that

way of ascent, it is that Ceylon has her regions of winter and her Arctic

districts. She has her Alps, and she has her alpine tracts for supporting

human life and useful vegetation. Adam's Peak, which of itself is more

than seven thousand feet high, (and by repute the highest range within her

shores,) has been found to rank only fifth in the mountain scale. The

highest is a thousand feet higher. The maritime district, which runs round

the island for a course of nine hundred miles, fanned by the sea-breezes,

makes, with these varying elevations, a vast cycle of secondary

combinations for altering the temperature and for _adapting_ the weather.

The central region has a separate climate of its own. And an inner belt of

country, neither central nor maritime, which from the sea belt is regarded

as inland, but from the centre is regarded as maritime, composes another

chamber of climates: whilst these again, each individually within its

class, are modified into minor varieties by local circumstances as to wind,

by local accidents of position, and by shifting stages of altitude.

With all this compass of power, however, (obtained from its hills and its

varying scale of hills,) Ceylon has not much of waste ground, in the sense

of being irreclaimable--for of waste ground, in the sense of being

unoccupied, she has an infinity. What are the dimensions of Ceylon? Of all

islands in this world which we know, in respect of size it most resembles

Ireland, being about one-sixth part less. But, for a particular reason, we

choose to compare it with Scotland, which is very little different in

dimensions from Ireland, having (by some hundred or two of square miles) a

trifling advantage in extent. Now, say that Scotland contains a trifle more

than thirty thousand square miles, the relation of Ceylon to Scotland will

become apparent when we mention that this Indian island contains about

twenty-four thousand five hundred of similar square miles. Twenty-four and

a half to thirty--or forty-nine to sixty--there lies the ratio of Ceylon to

Scotland. The ratio in population is not less easily remembered: Scotland

has _now_ (October 1843) hard upon three millions of people: Ceylon, by a

late census, has just three _half_ millions. But strange indeed, where

every thing seems strange, is the arrangement of this Ceylonese territory

and people. Take a peach: what you call the flesh of the peach, the

substance which you eat, is massed orbicularly around a central

stone--often as large as a pretty large strawberry. Now in Ceylon, the

central district, answering to this peach-stone, constitutes a fierce

little Liliputian kingdom, quite independent, through many centuries, of

the lazy belt, the peach-flesh, which swathes and enfolds it, and perfectly

distinct by the character and origin of its population. The peach-stone is

called Kandy, and the people Kandyans. These are a desperate variety of the

tiger-man, agile and fierce as he is, though smooth, insinuating, and full

of subtlety as a snake, even to the moment of crouching for their last

fatal spring. On the other hand the people of the engirdling zone are

called the Cinghalese, spelled according to fancy of us authors and

compositors, who legislate for the spelling of the British empire, with an

S or a C. As to moral virtue, in the sense of integrity or fixed principle,

there is not much lost upon either race: in that point they are "much of a

muchness." They are also both respectable for their attainments in

cowardice; but with this difference, that the Cinghalese are soft, inert,

passive cowards: but your Kandyan is a ferocious little bloody coward, full

of mischief as a monkey, grinning with desperation, laughing like a hyena,

or chattering if you vex him, and never to be trusted for a moment. The

reader now understands why we described the Ceylonese man as a tiger-cat in

his noblest division: for, after all, these dangerous gentlemen in the

peach-stone are a more promising race than the silky and nerveless

population surrounding them. You can strike no fire out of the Cinghalese:

but the Kandyans show fight continually, and would even persist in

fighting, if there were in this world no gunpowder, (which exceedingly they

dislike,) and if their allowance of arrack were greater.

Surely this is the very strangest spectacle exhibited on earth: a kingdom

within a kingdom, an _imperium in imperio_, settled and maintaining itself

for centuries in defiance of all that Pagan, that Mahommedan, that Jew, or

that Christian, could do. The reader will remember the case of the British

envoy to Geneva, who being ordered in great wrath to "quit the territories

of the republic in twenty-four hours," replied, "By all means: in ten

minutes." And here was a little bantam kingdom, not much bigger than the

irate republic, having its separate sultan, with full-mounted

establishment of peacock's feathers, white elephants, Moorish eunuchs,

armies, cymbals, dulcimers, and all kinds of music, tormentors, and

executioners; whilst his majesty crowed defiance across the ocean to all

other kings, rajahs, soldans, kesars, "flowery" emperors, and

"golden-feet," east or west, be the same more or less; and really with

some reason. For though it certainly _is_ amusing to hear of a kingdom no

bigger than Stirlingshire with the half of Perthshire, standing erect and

maintaining perpetual war with all the rest of Scotland, a little nucleus

of pugnacity, sixty miles by twenty-four, rather more than a match for the

lazy lubber, nine hundred miles long, that dandled it in its arms; yet, as

the trick was done, we cease to find it ridiculous.

For the trick _was_ done: and that reminds us to give the history of

Ceylon in its two sections, which will not prove much longer than the

history of Tom Thumb. Precisely three centuries before Waterloo, viz.

_Anno Domini_ 1515, a Portuguese admiral hoisted his sovereign's flag, and

formed a durable settlement at Columbo, which was, and is, considered the

maritime capital of the island. Very nearly halfway on the interval of

time between this event and Waterloo, viz. in 1656 (ante-penultimate year

of Cromwell,) the Portuguese nation made over, by treaty, this settlement

to the Dutch; which, of itself, seems to mark that the sun of the former

people was now declining to the west. In 1796, now forty-seven years ago,

it arose out of the French revolutionary war--so disastrous for

Holland--that the Dutch surrendered it per force to the British, who are

not very likely to surrender it in _their_ turn on any terms, or at any

gentleman's request. Up to this time, when Ceylon passed under our flag,

it is to be observed that no progress whatever, not the least, had been

made in mastering the peach-stone, that old central nuisance of the island.

The little monster still crowed, and flapped his wings on his dunghill, as

had been his custom always in the afternoon for certain centuries. But

nothing on earth is immortal: even mighty bantams must have their decline

and fall; and omens began to show out that soon there would be a dust with

the new master at Columbo. Seven years after our _debut_ on that stage,

the dust began. By the way, it is perhaps an impertinence to remark it,

but there certainly _is_ a sympathy between the motions of the Kandyan

potentate and our European enemy Napoleon. Both pitched into _us_ in 1803,

and we pitched into both in 1815. That we call a coincidence. How the row

began was thus: some incomprehensible intrigues had been proceeding for a

time between the British governor or commandant, or whatever he might be,

and the Kandyan prime minister. This minister, who was a noticeable man,

with large grey eyes, was called _Pilamé Tilawé_. We write his name after

Mr Bennett: but it is quite useless to study the pronunciation of it,

seeing that he was hanged in 1812 (the year of Moscow)--a fact for which

we are thankful as often as we think of it. _Pil_. (surely _Tilawé_ cannot

be pronounced Garlic?) managed to get the king's head into Chancery, and

then fibbed him. Why Major-General M'Dowall (then commanding our forces)

should collude with Pil Garlic, is past our understanding. But so it was.

_Pil_. said that a certain prince, collaterally connected with the royal

house, by name Mootto Sawmé, who had fled to our protection, was, or might

be thought to be, the lawful king. Upon which the British general

proclaimed him. What followed is too shocking to dwell upon. Scarcely had

Mootto, apparently a good creature, been inaugurated, when _Pil_. proposed

his deposition, to which General M'Dowall consented, and his own (_Pil.'s_)

elevation to the throne. It is like a dream to say, that this also was

agreed to. King Pil. the First, and, God be thanked! the last, was raised

to the--_musnud_, we suppose, or whatsoever they call it in Pil.'s jargon.

So far there was little but farce; now comes the tragedy. A certain Major

Davie was placed with a very inconsiderable garrison in the capital of the

Kandyan empire, called by name Kandy. This officer, whom Mr Bennett

somewhere calls the "gallant," capitulated upon terms, and had the

inconceivable folly to imagine that a base Kandyan chief would think

himself bound by these terms. One of them was--that he (Major Davie) and

his troops should be allowed to retreat unmolested upon Columbo.

Accordingly, fully armed and accoutred, the British troops began their

march. At Wattépolowa a proposal was made to Major Davie, that Mootto

Sawmé (our _protégé_ and instrument) should be delivered up to the Kandyan

tiger. Oh! sorrow for the British name! he _was_ delivered. Soon after a

second proposal came, that the British soldiers should deliver up their

arms, and should march back to Kandy. It makes an Englishman shiver with

indignation to hear that even this demand was complied with. Let us pause

for one moment. Wherefore is it, that in all similar cases, in this

Ceylonese case, in Major Baillie's Mysore case, in the Cabool case,

uniformly the privates are wiser than their officers? In a case of

delicacy or doubtful policy, certainly the officers would have been the

party best able to solve the difficulties; but in a case of elementary

danger, where manners disappear, and great passions come upon the stage,

strange it is that poor men, labouring men, men without education, always

judge more truly of the crisis than men of high refinement. But this was

seen by Wordsworth--thus spoke he, thirty-six years ago, of Germany,

contrasted with the Tyrol:--

"Her haughty schools

Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say--

A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules,

Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought

More for mankind at this unhappy day

Than all the pride of intellect and thought."

The regiment chiefly concerned was the 19th, (for which regiment the word

_Wattépolowa_, the scene of their martyrdom, became afterwards a memorial

war-cry.) Still, to this hour, it forces tears of wrath into our eyes when

we read the recital of the case. A dozen years ago we first read it in a

very interesting book, published by the late Mr Blackwood--the Life of

Alexander. This Alexander was not personally present at the

bloody catastrophe; but he was in Ceylon at the time, and knew the one

sole fugitive[18] from that fatal day. The soldiers of the 19th, not even

in that hour of horror, forgot their discipline, or their duty, or their

respectful attachment to their officers. When they were ordered to ground

their arms, (oh, base idiot that could issue such an order!) they

remonstrated most earnestly, but most respectfully. Major Davie, agitated

and distracted by the scene, himself recalled the order. The men resumed

their arms. Alas! again the fatal order was issued; again it was recalled;

but finally, it was issued peremptorily. The men sorrowfully obeyed. We

hurry to the odious conclusion. In parties of twos and of threes, our

brave countrymen were called out by the horrid Kandyan tiger cats.

Disarmed by the frenzy of their moonstruck commander, what resistance

could they make? One after one the parties, called out to suffer, were

decapitated by the executioner. The officers, who had refused to give up

their pistols, finding what was going on, blew out their brains with their

own hands, now too bitterly feeling how much wiser had been the poor

privates than themselves. At length there was stillness on the field.

Night had come on. All were gone--

"And darkness was the buryer of the dead."

[18] _Fugitive_, observe. There were some others, and amongst them

Major Davie, who, for private reasons, were suffered to survive as

prisoners.

The reader may recollect a most picturesque murder near Manchester, about

thirteen or fourteen years ago, perpetrated by two brothers named McKean,

where a servant woman, whose throat had been effectually cut, rose up,

after an interval, from the ground at a most critical moment, (so critical,

that, by that act, and at that second of time, she drew off the murderer's

hand from the throat of a second victim,) staggered, in her delirium, to

the door of a room where sometime a club had been held, doubtless under

some idea of obtaining aid, and at the door, after walking some fifty feet,

dropped down dead. Not less astonishing was the resurrection, as it might

be called, of an English corporal, cut, mangled, remangled, and left

without sign of life. Suddenly he rose up, stiff and gory; dying and

delirious, as he felt himself, with misery from exhaustion and wounds, he

swam rivers, threaded enemies, and moving day and night, came suddenly

upon an army of Kandyans; here he prepared himself with pleasure for the

death that now seemed inevitable, when, by a fortunate accident, for want

of a fitter man, he was selected as an ambassador to the English officer

commanding a Kandyan garrison--and thus once more escaped miraculously.

Sometimes, when we are thinking over the great scenes of tragedy through

which Europe passed from 1805 to 1815, suddenly, from the bosom of utter

darkness, a blaze of light arises; a curtain is drawn up; a saloon is

revealed. We see a man sitting there alone, in an attitude of alarm and

expectation. What does he expect? What is it that he fears? He is

listening for the chariot-wheels of a fugitive army. At intervals he

raises his head--and we know him now for the Abbé de Pradt--the place,

Warsaw--the time, early in December 1812. All at once the rushing of

cavalry is heard; the door is thrown open; a stranger enters. We see, as

in Cornelius Agrippa's mirror, his haggard features; it is a momentary

king, having the sign of a felon's death written secretly on his brow; it

is Murat; he raises his hands with a gesture of horror as he advances to M.

l'Abbé. We hear his words--_"L'Abbé, all is lost!"_

Even so, when the English soldier, reeling from his anguish and weariness,

was admitted into the beleaguered fortress, his first words, more homely

in expression than Murat's, were to the same dreadful purpose--"Your

honour," he said, "all is dished;" and this being uttered by way of

prologue, he then delivered himself of the message with which he had been

charged, and _that_ was a challenge from the Kandyan general to come out

and fight without aid from his artillery. The dismal report was just in

time; darkness was then coming on. The English officer spiked his guns;

and, with his garrison, fled by night from a fort in which else he would

have perished by starvation or by storm, had Kandyan forces been equal to

such an effort. This corporal was, strictly speaking, the only man who

_escaped_, one or two other survivors having been reserved as captives,

for some special reasons. Of this captive party was Major Davie, the

commander, whom Mr Bennett salutes by the title of "gallant," and regrets

that "the strong arm of death" had intercepted his apology.

He could have made no apology. Plea or palliation he had none. To have

polluted the British honour in treacherously yielding up to murder (and

absolutely for nothing in return) a prince, whom we ourselves had seduced

into rebellion--to have forced his men and officers into laying down their

arms, and sueing for the mercy of wretches the most perfidious on earth;

these were acts as to which atonement or explanation was hopeless for

_him_, forgiveness impossible for England. So this man is to be called

"the gallant"--is he? We will thank Mr Bennett to tell us, who was that

officer subsequently seen walking about in Ceylon, no matter whether in

Western Columbo, or in Eastern Trincomalé, long enough for reaping his

dishonour, though, by accident, not for a court-martial? Behold, what a

curse rests in this British island upon those men, who, when the clock of

honour has sounded the hour for their departure, cannot turn their dying

eyes nobly to the land of their nativity--stretch out their hands to the

glorious island in farewell homage, and say with military pride--as even

the poor gladiators (who were but slaves) said to Cæsar, when they passed

his chair to their death "Morituri te salutamus!" This man and Mr Bennett

knows it, because he was incrusted with the leprosy of cowardice, and

because upon him lay the blood of those to whom he should have been _in

loco parentis_, made a solitude wherever he appeared, men ran from him as

from an incarnation of pestilence; and between him and free intercourse

with his countrymen, from the hour of his dishonour in the field, to the

hour of his death, there flowed a river of separation--there were

stretched lines of interdict heavier than ever Pope ordained--there

brooded a schism like that of death, a silence like that of the grave;

making known for ever the deep damnation of the infamy, which on this

earth settles upon the troubled resting-place of him, who, through

cowardice, has shrunk away from his duty, and, on the day of trial, has

broken the bond which bound him to his country.

Surely there needed no arrear of sorrow to consummate this disaster. Yet

two aggravations there were, which afterwards transpired, irritating the

British soldiers to madness. One was soon reported, viz. that 120 sick or

wounded men, lying in an hospital, had been massacred without a motive, by

the children of hell with whom we were contending. The other was not

discovered until 1815. Then first it became known, that in the whole

stores of the Kandyan government, (_à fortiori_ then in the particular

section of the Kandyan forces which we faced,) there had not been more

gunpowder remaining at the hour of Major Davie's infamous capitulation

than 750 lbs. avoirdupois; other munitions of war having been in the same

state of bankruptcy. Five minutes more of resistance, one inspiration of

English pluck, would have placed the Kandyan army in our power--would have

saved the honour of the country--would have redeemed our noble

soldiers--and to Major Davie, would have made the total difference between

lying in a traitor's grave, and lying in Westminster Abbey.

Was there no vengeance, no retribution, for these things? Vengeance there

was, but by accident. Retribution there was, but partial and remote.

Infamous it was for the English government at Columbo, as Mr Bennett

insinuates, that having a large fund disposable annually for secret

service, between 1796 and 1803, such a rupture _could_ have happened and

have found us unprepared. Equally infamous it was, that summary

chastisement was not inflicted upon the perfidious court of Kandy. What

_real_ power it had, when unaided by villainy amongst ourselves, was shown

in 1804, in the course of which year, one brave officer, Lieutenant

Johnstone of the 19th, with no more than 150 men, including officers,

marched right through the country, in the teeth of all opposition from the

king, and resolutely took[19] Kandy in his route. However, for the present,

without a shadow of a reason, since all reasons ran in the other direction,

we ate our leek in silence; once again, but now for the last time, the

bloody little bantam crowed defiance from his dunghill, and tore the

British flag with his spurs. What caused his ruin at last, was literally

the profundity of our own British humiliation; had _that_ been less, had

it not been for the natural reaction of that spectacle, equally hateful

and incredible, upon barbarian chief, as ignorant as he was fiendish, he

would have returned a civil answer to our subsequent remonstrances. In

that case, our government would have been conciliated; and the monster's

son, who yet lives in Malabar, would now be reigning in his stead. But

_Diis aliter visum est_--earth was weary of this Kandyan nuisance, and the

infatuation, which precipitated its doom, took the following shape. In

1814, certain traders, ten in number, not British but Cinghalese, and

therefore British subjects, entitled to British protection, were wantonly

molested in their peaceable occupations by this Kandyan king. Three of

these traders one day returned to our frontier wearing upon necklaces,

inextricably attached to their throats, their own ears, noses, and other

parts of their own persons, torn away by the pincers of the Kandyan

executioners. The seven others had sunk under their sufferings. Observe

that there had been no charge or imputation against these men, more or

less: _stet proratione voluntas_. This was too much even for our

all-suffering[20] English administration. They sent off a kind of

expostulation, which amounted to this--"How now, my good sir? What are you

up to?" Fortunately for his miserable subjects, (and, as this case showed,

by possibility for many who were _not_ such,) the vain-glorious animal

returned no answer; not because he found any diplomatic difficulty to

surmount, but in mere self glorification, and in pure disdain of _us_.

What a commentary was _that_ upon our unspeakable folly up to that hour!

[19] "_Took_ Kandy in his route." This phrase is equivocal, it

bears two senses--the traveller's sense, and the soldier's. But

_we_ rarely make such errors in the use of words; the error is

original in the Government documents themselves.

[20] Why were they "all-suffering?" will be the demand of the

reader, and he will doubt the fact simply because he will not

apprehend any sufficient motive. That motive we believe to have

been this: war, even just or necessary war, is costly; now, the

governor and his council knew that their own individual chances of

promotion were in the exact ratio of the economy which they could

exhibit.

We are anxious that the reader should go along with the short remainder of

this story, because it bears strongly upon the true moral of our Eastern

policy, of which, hereafter, we shall attempt to unfold the casuistry, in

a way that will be little agreeable to the calumniators of Clive and

Hastings. We do not intend that these men shall have it all their own way

in times to come. Our Eastern rulers have erred always, and erred deeply,

by doing too little rather than too much. They have been _too_

long-suffering; and have tolerated many nuisances, and many miscreants,

when their duty was--when their power was--to have destroyed them for ever.

And the capital fault of the East India Company--that greatest benefactor

for the East that ever yet has arisen--has been in not publishing to the

world the grounds and details of their policy. Let this one chapter in

that policy, this Kandyan chapter, proclaim how great must have been the

evils from which our "usurpations" (as they are called) have liberated the

earth. For let no man dwell on the rarity, or on the limited sphere, of

such atrocities, even in Eastern despotisms. If the act be rare, is not

the anxiety eternal? If the personal suffering be transitory, is not the

outrage upon human sensibilities, upon the majesty of human nature, upon

the possibilities of light, order, commerce, civilization, of a duration

and a compass to make the total difference between man viler than the

brutes, and man a little lower than the angels?

It happened that the first noble, or "Adikar," of the Kandyan king, being

charged with treason at this time, had fled to our protection. That was

enough. Vengeance on _him_, in his proper person, had become impossible:

and the following was the vicarious vengeance adopted by God's vicegerent

upon earth, whose pastime it had long been to study the ingenuities of

malice, and the possible refinements in the arts of tormenting. Here

follows the published report on this one case:--"The ferocious miscreant

determined to be fully revenged, and immediately sentenced the Adikar's

wife and children, together with his brother and the brother's wife, to

death after the following fashion. The children were ordered to be

decapitated before their mother's face, and their heads to be pounded in a

rice-mortar by their mother's hands; which, to save herself from a

diabolical torture and exposure," (concealments are here properly

practised in the report, for the sake of mere human decency,) "she

submitted to attempt. The eldest boy shrunk (shrank) from the dread ordeal,

and clung to his agonized parent for safety; but his younger brother

stepped forward, and encouraged him to submit to his fate, placing himself

before the executioner by way of setting an example. The last of the

children to be beheaded was an infant at the breast, from which it was

forcibly torn away, and its mother's milk was dripping from its innocent

mouth as it was put into the hands of the grim executioner." Finally, the

Adikar's brother was executed, having no connexion (so much as alleged)

with his brother's flight; and then the two sisters-in-law, having stones

attached to their feet, were thrown into a tank. These be thy gods, O

Egypt! such are the processes of Kandyan law, such is its horrid religion,

and such the morality which it generates! And let it not be said, these

were the excesses of a tyrant. Man does not brutalize, by possibility, in

pure insulation. He gives, and he receives. It is by sympathy, by the

contagion of example, by reverberation of feelings, that every man's heart

is moulded. A prince, to have been such as this monster, must been bred

amongst a cruel people: a cruel people, as by other experience we know

them to be, naturally produce an inhuman prince, and such a prince

reproduces his own corrupters.

Vengeance, however, was now at hand: a better and more martial governor,

Sir Robert Brownrigg, was in the field since 1812. On finding that no

answer was forthcoming, he marched with all his forces. But again these

were inadequate to the service; and once again, as in 1803, we were on the

brink of being sacrificed to the very lunacies of retrenchment. By a mere

godsend, more troops happened to arrive from the Indian continent. We

marched in triumphal ease to the capital city of Kandy. The wicked prince

fled: Major Kelly pursued him--to pursue was to overtake--to overtake was

to conquer. Thirty-seven ladies of his _zenana_, and his mother, were

captured elsewhere: and finally the whole kingdom capitulated by a solemn

act, in which we secured to it what we had no true liberty to secure, viz.

the _inviolability_ of their horrid idolatries. Render unto Cæsar the

things which are Cæsar's--but this was _not_ Cæsar's. Whether in some

other concessions, whether in volunteering certain civil privilages of

which the conquered had never dreamed, and which, for many a long year

they will not understand, our policy were right or wrong--may admit of

much debate. Often-times, but not always, it is wise and long-sighted

policy to presume in nations higher qualities than they have, and

developments beyond what really exist. But as to religion, there can be no

doubt, and no debate at all. To exterminate their filthy and bloody

abominations of creed and of ritual practice, is the first step to any

serious improvement of the Kandyan people: it is the _conditio sine quâ

non_ of all regeneration for this demoralized race. And what we ought to

have promised, all that in mere civil equity we had the right to promise;

was--that we would _tolerate_ such follies, would make no war upon such

superstitions as should not be openly immoral. One word more than this

covenant was equally beyond the powers of one party to that covenant, and

the highest interests of all parties.

Philosophically speaking, this great revolution may not close perhaps for

centuries: historically, it closed about the opening of the Hundred Days

in the _annus mirabilis_ of Waterloo. On the 13th of February 1815, Kandy,

the town, was occupied by the British troops, never again to be resigned.

In March, followed the solemn treaty by which all parties assumed their

constitutional stations. In April, occurred the ceremonial part of the

revolution, its public notification and celebration, by means of a grand

processional entry into the capital, stretching for upwards of a mile; and

in January 1816, the late king, now formally deposed, "a stout,

good-looking Malabar, with a peculiarly keen and roving eye, and a

restlessness of manner, marking unbridled passions," was conveyed in the

governor's carriage to the jetty at Trincomalee, from which port H.M.S.

Mexico conveyed him to the Indian continent: he was there confined in the

fortress of Vellore, famous for the bloody mutiny amongst the Company's

sepoy troops, so bloodily suppressed. In Vellore, this cruel prince, whose

name was Sree Wickremé Rajah Singha, died some years after; and one son

whom he left behind him, born during his father's captivity, may still be

living. But his ambitious instincts, if any such are working within him,

are likely to be seriously baffled in the very outset by the precautions

of our diplomacy; for one article of the treaty proscribes the descendants

of this prince as enemies of Ceylon, if found within its precincts. In

this exclusion, pointed against a single family, we are reminded of the

Stuart dynasty in England, and the Bonaparte dynasty in France. We cannot,

however, agree with Mr Bennett's view of this parallelism--either in so

far as it points our pity towards Napoleon, or in so far as it points the

regrets of disappointed vengeance to the similar transportation of Sree.

Pity is misplaced upon Napoleon, and anger is wasted upon Sree. He ought

to have been hanged, says Mr Bennett; and so said many of Napoleon. But it

was not our mission to punish either. The Malabar prince had broken no

faith with _us_: he acted under the cursed usages of a cruel people and a

bloody religion. These influences had trained a bad heart to corresponding

atrocities. Courtesy we did right to pay him, for our own sakes as a high

and noble nation. What we could not punish judicially, it did not become

us to revile. And finally, we much doubt whether hanging upon a tree,

either in Napoleon's case or Sree's, would not practically have been found

by both a happy liberation from that bitter cup of mortification which

both drank off in their latter years.

At length, then, the entire island of Ceylon, about a hundred days before

Waterloo, had become ours for ever. Hereafter Ceylon must inseparably

attend the fortunes of India. Whosoever in the East commands the sea, must

command the southern empires of Asia; and he who commands those empires,

must for ever command the Oriental islands. One thing only remains to be

explained; and the explanation, we fear, will be harder to understand than

the problem: it is--how the Portuguese and Dutch failed, through nearly

three centuries, to master this little obstinate _nucleus_ of the peach.

It seems like a fairy tale to hear the answer: Sinbad has nothing wilder.

"They were," says Mr Bennett, "repeatedly masters of the capital." What

was it, then, that stopped them from going on? "At one period, the former

(_i.e._ the Portuguese) had conquered all but the impregnable position

called _Kandi Udda_." And what was it then that lived at Kandi Udda? The

dragon of Wantley? or the dun cow of Warwick? or the classical Hydra? No;

it was thus:--_Kandi_ was "in the centre of the mountainous region,

surrounded by impervious jungles, with secret approaches for only one man

at a time." Such tricks might have answered in the time of Ali Baba and

the forty thieves; but we suspect that, even then, an "_open sesame_"

would have been found for this pestilent defile. Smoking a cigar through

it, and dropping the sparks, might have done the business in the dry

season. But, in very truth, we imagine that political arrangements were

answerable for this long failure in checkmating the king, and not at all

the cunning passage which carried only one inside passenger. The

Portuguese permitted the Kandyan natives to enter their army; and that one

fact gives us a short solution of the case. For, as Mr Bennett observes,

the principal features of these Kandyans are merely "human imitations of

their own indigenous leopards--treachery and ferocity," as the

circumstances may allow them to profit by one or the other. Sugarcandy,

however, appears to have given very little trouble to _us_; and, at all

events, it is ours now, together with all that is within its gates. It is

proper, however, to add, that since the conquest of this country in 1815,

there have been three rebellions, viz. in 1817-18, in 1834, and finally in

1842. This last comes pretty well home to our own times and concerns; so

that we naturally become curious as to the causes of such troubles. The

two last are said to have been inconsiderable in their extent. But the

earlier of the three, which broke out so soon after the conquest as 1817,

must, we conceive, have owed something to intrigues promoted on behalf of

the exiled king. His direct lineal descendants are excluded, as we have

said, from the island for ever; but his relatives, by whom we presume to

be meant his _cognati_ or kinspeople in the female line, not his _agnati_,

are allowed to live in Kandy, suffering only the slight restriction of

confinement to one street out of five, which compose this ancient

metropolis. Meantime, it is most instructive to hear the secret account of

those causes which set in motion this unprincipled rebellion. For it will

thus be seen how hopeless it is, under the present idolatrous superstition

of Ceylon, to think of any attachment in the people, by means of good

government, just laws, agriculture promoted, or commerce created. More

stress will be laid, by the Ceylonese, on our worshipping a carious tooth

two inches long, ascribed to the god Buddha, (but by some to an

ourang-outang,) than to every mode of equity, good faith, or kindness. It

seems that the Kandyans and we reciprocally misunderstood the ranks,

orders, precedencies, titular distinctions, and external honours attached

to them in our several nations. But none are so deaf as those that have no

mind to hear. And we suspect that our honest fellows of the 19th Regiment,

whose comrades had been murdered in their beds by the cursed Kandyan

"nobles," neither did nor would understand the claim of such assassins to

military salutes, to the presenting of arms, or to the turning out of the

guard. Here, it is said, began the ill-blood, and also on the claim of the

Buddhist priests to similar honours. To say the simple truth, these

soldiers ought not to have been expected to show respect towards the

murderers of their brethren. The priests, with their shaven crowns and

yellow robes, were objects of mere mockery to the British soldier. "Not to

have been kicked," it should have been said, "is gain; not to have been

cudgeled, is for you a ground of endless gratitude. Look not for salutes;

dream not of honours." For our own part--again we say it--let the

government look a-head for endless insurrections. We tax not the rulers of

Ceylon with having caused the insurrections. We hold them blameless on

that head; for a people so fickle and so unprincipled will never want such

matter for rebellion as would be suspected, least of all, by a wise and

benevolent man. But we _do_ tax the local government with having

ministered to the possibility of rebellion. We British have not sowed the

ends and objects of conspiracies; but undoubtedly, by our lax

administration, we have sowed the _means_ of conspiracies. We must not

transfer to a Pagan island our own mild code of penal laws: the subtle

savage will first become capable of these, when he becomes capable of

Christianity. And to this we must now bend our attention. Government must

make no more offerings of musical clocks to the Pagan temples; for such

propitiations are understood by the people to mean--that we admit their

god to be naturally stronger than ours. Any mode or measure of excellence

but that of power, they understand not, as applying to a deity. Neither

must our government any longer wink at such monstrous practices as that of

children ejecting their dying parents, in their last struggles, from the

shelter of their own roofs, on the plea that death would pollute their

dwellings. Such compliances with Paganism, make Pagans of ourselves. Nor,

again, ought the professed worship of devils to be tolerated, more than

the Fetish worship, or the African witchcraft, was tolerated in the West

Indies. Having, at last, obtained secure possession of the entire island,

with no reversionary fear over our heads, (as, up to Waterloo, we always

had,) that possibly at a general peace we might find it diplomatically

prudent to let it return under Dutch possession, we have no excuse for any

longer neglecting the jewel in our power. We gave up to Holland, through

unwise generosity, already one splendid island, viz. Java. Let one such

folly suffice for one century.

For the same reason--namely, the absolute and undivided possession which

we now hold of the island--it is at length time that our home government

should more distinctly invite colonists, and make known the unrivaled

capabilities of this region. So vast are our colonial territories, that

for every class in our huge framework of society we have separate and

characteristic attractions. In some it is chiefly labour that is wanted,

capital being in excess. In others these proportions are reversed. In some

it is great capitalists that are wanted for the present; in others almost

exclusively small ones. Now, in Ceylon, either class will be welcome. It

ought also to be published every where, that immediately after the

conquest of Kandy, the government entered upon the Roman career of

civilization, and upon that also which may be considered peculiarly

British. Military roads were so carried as to pierce and traverse all the

guilty fastnesses of disease, and of rebellion by means of disease.

Bridges, firmly built of satin-wood, were planted over every important

stream. The Kirimé canal was completed in the most eligible situation. The

English institution of mail-coaches was perfected in all parts of the

island. At this moment there are three separate modes of itinerating

through the island--viz., by mail-coach, by buggy, or by palanquin; to say

nothing of the opportunities offered at intervals, along the maritime

provinces, for coasting by ships or boats. To the botanist, the

mineralogist, the naturalist, the sportsman, Ceylon offers almost a

virgin Eldorado. To a man wishing to combine the lucrative pursuits of the

colonist with the elegances of life, and with the comforts of compatriot

society, not (as in Australia, or in American back settlements) to weather

the hardships of Robinson Crusoe, the invitations from the infinite

resources of Ceylon are past all count or estimate. "For my own part,"

says Mr Bennett, who is _now_ a party absolutely disinterested, "having

visited all but the northern regions of the globe, I have seen nothing to

equal this incomparable country." Here a man may purchase land, with

secure title, and of a good tenure, at five shillings the acre; this, at

least, is the upset price, though in some privileged situations it is

known to have reached seventeen shillings. A house may be furnished in the

Morotto style, and with luxurious contrivances for moderating the heat in

the hotter levels of the island, at fifty pounds sterling. The native

furniture is both cheap and excellent in quality, every way superior,

intrinsically, to that which, at five times the cost, is imported from

abroad. Labour is pretty uniformly at the rate of six-pence English for

twelve hours. Provisions of every sort and variety are poured out in

Ceylon from an American _cornucopia_ of some Saturnian age. Wheat,

potatoes, and many esculent plants, or fruits, were introduced by the

British in the great year, (and for this island, in the most literal sense,

the era of a new earth and new heavens)--the year of Waterloo. From that

year dates, for the Ceylonese, the day of equal laws for rich and poor,

the day of development out of infant and yet unimproved advantages;

finally--if we are wise, and they are docile--the day of a heavenly

religion displacing the _avowed_ worship of devils, and giving to the

people a new nature, a new heart, and hopes as yet not dawning upon their

dreams. How often has it been said by the vile domestic calumniators of

British policy, by our own anti-national deceivers, that if tomorrow we

should leave India, no memorial would attest that ever we had been there.

Infamous falsehood! damnable slander! Speak, Ceylon, to _that_. True it is,

that the best of our gifts--peace, freedom, security, and a new standard

of public morality--these blessings are like sleep, like health, like

innocence, like the eternal revolutions of day and night, which sink

inaudibly into human hearts, leaving behind (as sweet vernal rains) no

flaunting records of ostentation and parade; we are not the nation of

triumphal arches and memorial obelisks; but the sleep, the health, the

innocence, the grateful vicissitudes of seasons, reproduce themselves in

fruits and products enduring for generations, and overlooked by the

slanderer only because they are too diffusive to be noticed as

extraordinary, and benefiting by no light of contrast, simply because our

own beneficence has swept away the ancient wretchedness that could have

furnished that contrast. Ceylon, of itself, can reply victoriously to such

falsehoods. Not yet fifty years have we held this island; not yet thirty

have we had the _entire_ possession of the island; and (what is more

important to a point of this nature) not yet thirty have we had that

secure possession which results from the consciousness that our government

is not meditating to resign it. Previously to Waterloo, our tenure of

Ceylon was a provisional tenure. With the era of our Kandyan conquest

coincides the era of our absolute appropriation, signed and countersigned

for ever. The arrangements, of that day at Paris, and by a few subsequent

Congresses of revision, are like the arrangements of Westphalia in

1648--valid until Christendom shall be again convulsed to her foundations.

From that date is, therefore, justly to be inaugurated our English career

of improvement. Of the roads laid open through the island, we have spoken.

The attempts at improvement of the agriculture and horticulture furnish

matter already for a romance, if told of any other than this wonderful

labyrinth of climates. The openings for commercial improvement are not

less splendid. It is a fact infamous to the Ceylonese, that an island,

which might easily support twenty millions of people, has been liable to

famine, not unfrequently, with a population of fifteen hundred thousand.

This has already ceased to be a possibility: is _that_ a blessing of

British rule? Not only many new varieties of rice have been introduced,

and are now being introduced, adapted to opposite extremes of weather: and

soil--some to the low grounds warm and abundantly irrigated, some to the

dry grounds demanding far less of moisture--but also other and various

substitutes have been presented to Ceylon. Manioc, maize, the potato, the

turnip, have all been cultivated. Mr Bennett himself would, in ancient

Greece, have had many statues raised to his honour for his exemplary

bounties of innovation. The food of the people is now secure. And, as

regard their clothing or their exports, there is absolutely no end to the

new prospects opened before them by the English. Is _cotton_ a British

gift? Is sugar? Is coffee? We are not the men lazily and avariciously to

anchor our hopes on a pearl fishery; we rouse the natives to cultivate

their salt fish and shark fisheries. Tea will soon be cultivated more

hopefully than in Assam. Sugar, coffee, cinnamon, pepper, are all

cultivated already. Silk worms and mulberry-trees were tried with success,

and opium with _virtual_ success, (though in that instance defeated by an

accident,) under the auspices of Mr Bennett. Hemp (and surely it is

wanted?) will be introduced abundantly: indigo is not only grown in plenty,

but it appears that a beautiful variety of indigo, a violet-coloured

indigo, exists as a weed in Ceylon. Finally, in the running over hastily

the _summa genera_ of products by which Ceylon will soon make her name

known to the ends of the earth, we may add, that salt provisions in every

kind, of which hitherto Ceylon did not furnish an ounce, will now be

supplied redundantly; the great mart for this will be in the vast bosom of

the Indian ocean; and at the same time we shall see the scandal wiped

away--that Ceylon, the headquarters of the British navy in the East, could

not supply a cock-boat in distress with a week's salt provisions, from her

own myriads of cattle, zebus, buffaloes, or cows.

Ceylon has this one disadvantage for purposes of theatrical effect; she is

like a star rising heliacally, and hidden in the blaze of the sun: any

island, however magnificent, becomes lost in the blaze of India. But

_that_ does not affect the realities of the case. She has _that_ within

which passes show. Her one calamity is in the laziness of her native

population; though in this respect the Kandyans are a more hopeful race

than the Cinghalese. But the evil for both is, that they want the

_motives_ to exertion. These will be created by a new and higher

civilization. Foreign labourers will also be called for; a mixed race will

succeed in the following generations; and a mixed breed in man is always

an improved breed. Witness every where the people of colour contrasted

with the blacks. Then will come the great race between man indefinitely

exalted, and glorious tropical nature indefinitely developed. Ceylon will

be born again, in our hands she will first answer to the great summons of

nature; and will become, in fact, what by Providential destiny, she

is--the queen lotus of the Indian seas, and the Pandora of islands.

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL POLICY.

SHIPS, COLONIES, AND COMMERCE.

In our September number, we succeeded in establishing the fact, upon the

best official records which could be accessible either to ourselves or to

Mr Cobden, that the renowned Leaguer had magnified that portion of the

army estimates, or expenditure, falling properly under the lead of

colonial charge, by about thirty-five per cent beyond its real amount, as

tested _seriatim_ and starting upon his own arithmetical elements of gross

numbers and values. We arrived at the truth by the careful process of

dissecting, analysing, and classifying, under each colonial head, the

various items of which his gross sum of aggregates must necessarily be

composed; and the result was, that of the _four millions and a-half

sterling_, with such dauntless assurance set down as the proportion of

army charge incurred for the colonies by the parent state, it was found,

and proved in detail by official returns, colony by colony, and summed up

in tabular array at the close, that the very conscientiously calculating

Leaguer had made no scruple, under his lumping system, of overlaying

colonial trade with upwards of one million and a half of army expenditure,

one million and a quarter of which, in all probability, appertaining to,

and forming part of the cost nationally at which foreign trade was carried

on. The cunning feat was bravely accomplished by ranging Gibraltar, Malta,

&c. &c., as trading and producing colonies, for the purpose of swelling

out the colonial army cost; whilst, to complete the cheat cleverly, they

were again turned to account in his comparative statistics of foreign and

colonial trade, to the detriment of the latter, by carrying all the

commerce with, or through them, to the credit of foreign trade. This was

ringing the changes to one tune with some effect, for the time being--and

so astutely timed and intended, that no discussion could be taken in the

House of Commons upon the informal motion, serving as the peg on which to

hang the prepared speech of deceptive figures and assertions inflicted on

the House the 22d of June last; whilst thus, as the Leaguer shrewdly

anticipated, it might run uncontroverted for months to come until another

session, and, through _Anti-Corn-Law circulars_ and tracts of the League,

do the dirty work of the time for which concocted, when no matter how

consigned and forgotten afterwards among the numberless other lies of the

day, fabricated by the League. Unluckily for the crafty combination,

_Blackwood_ was neither slow to detect, nor tardy in unmasking, the

premeditated imposture, the crowning and final points of which we now

propose to deal with and demolish. Betwixt the relative importance in the

cost, and in the profit and loss sense, of foreign and colonial trade, on

which the question of the advantages or disadvantages attending the

possession or retention of colonies is made exclusively to hinge, with a

narrow-mindedness incapable of appreciating the other high political and

social interests, the moral and religious considerations, moreover,

involved--we shall now proceed with the task of arbitrating and striking

the balance. If that balance should little correspond with the bold and

unscrupulous allegations of Mr Cobden--if it should be found to derogate

from the assumed super-eminence of the foreign trading interest over the

colonial, let it be remembered that the invidious discussion was not

raised by us, nor by any member of the Legislature who can rightfully be

classed as the representative of great national and constitutional

principles; that the distinction and disjunction of interests, both

national, with the absurd attempt unduly to elevate the one by unjustly

depreciating the other, is the work of the League alone, which, having

originated the senseless cry of "class interests," would seem doggedly

determined to establish the fact, _per fas et nefas_, as the means of

funding and perpetuating class divisions.

In our last number, we left Mr Cobden's sum

total of army expenditure for colonial

account charged by him, at L.4,500,000

Reduced by deductions for military and other

stations, maintained for the protection

and promotion of foreign trade, for the

suppression of slave dealing, and as penal

colonies, in the total amount of-- 1,550,000

----------

To apparent colonial charge, -- L.2,950,000

We have, however, to reform this statement, so far as Mr Cobden's basis

upon which founded. Accustomed to his blunders undesigned and mistatements

intentional as we are, it is not always easy to ascertain their extent at

the moment. Thus, the army estimates for 1843, amounting to L.6,225,000 in

the whole, as he states, include a charge of, say about L.2,300,000 for

"half-pay, pensions, superannuations, &c.," for upwards of 80,000 officers

and men. This fact it suited his convenience to overlook. Now, of this

number of men it is not perhaps too much to assume, that more than

one-half consists of the noble wreck and remainder of those magnificent

armies led to victory by the illustrious Wellington, but certainly not in

the colonies, and the present cost of half-pay and invaliding not

therefore chargeable to colonial account. It may be taken for granted,

that at least to the amount of L.1,300,000 should be placed against

ancient foreign service, separate from colonial; whilst, for the balance,

home, foreign, and colonial service since the war may be admitted to enter

in certain proportions each. Deducting, in the first place, from the total

estimates of, say

L.6,225,000

The "dead-weight" of pensions, &c., 2,300,000

----------

We have, as expenditure for military force on

foot, L.3,925,000, but say-- L.4,000,000

Taking the Cobden dictum of three-fourths of

this charge for the colonies, we have in

round numbers, say-- 3,000,000

----------

And the incredibly absurd sum left for home

and foreign service of L.1,000,000

As we have, in our last number, established deductions from the gross sum

of L.4,500,000 put down to the colonies by Mr Cobden, to the amount of

L.1,550,000, we shall now remodel our table thus:--

To colonial account, as per Mr Cobden, of

active force,-- L.3,000,000

Add colonial proportion of half-pay,

pensions, &c., as per id., three-fourths

of L.1,000,000 750,000

---------- L.3,750,000

Deduct military and other stations, falsely

called colonial, as per former account,-- L.1,550,000

Deduct again charges for the Chinese war,

exact amount unknown, deceptively included

in colonial account--say for only 250,000

--------- 1,800,000

----------

Approximate, but still surcharged proportion of

army estimates for colonial service, on Mr

Cobden's absurd basis of three-fourths, L.1,950,000

This is a woful falling off from Mr Cobden's wholesale colonial invoice of

_four and a half millions sterling_! It amounts to a discount or rebate

upon his statistical ware of L.2,550,000, or say, not far short of sixty

per cent. Had the Leaguer been in the habit of dealing cotton wares to his

customers, so damaged in texture or colours as are his wares political and

economical, we are inclined to conceit, that he would long since have

arrived at the _finiquito de todas cuentas_.

We now come to his naval cost of colonies, with a margin for ordnance as

well. On this head, Mr Cobden remarks, with much sagacity--and, for once,

Mr Cobden states one fact in which we may agree with him:--"But the

colonies had no ships to form a navy. The mother country had to send them

ships to guard their territories, which were not paid for by the colonies,

but out of the taxation of this country. The navy estimates for this year

amounted to L.6,322,000. He had no means of ascertaining what proportion

of this large amount was required for their colonies; but a very large

proportion of it was taken for the navy in their colonies. The ordnance

estimate was L.1,849,142, a large share of which was required for their

colonial expenditure. The House would find, that from the lowest estimate,

from L.5,000,000 to L.6,000,000 out of the taxes of this country were

required for maintaining their colonial army and navy." True it is, the

colonies have no ships of war; true, the navy expenses count for the

gigantic sum stated--in the estimates at least, and estimates seldom fall

short, however budgets may; true, also, that ordnance is the heavy item

represented. And we also are without the means for any, not to say

accurate, but fair approximative estimate of the proportion of this

expenditure which may be incurred for, and duly chargeable against the

colonies. In the case of the army, as we have shown, the possession and

facilities of reference to documents, enabled us to resolve Mr Cobden's

bill of totals, in one line, into the elements of which composed, to

classify the items under distinct heads, and so to detect the errors, and

redress the balance of his own account. The authorities, of official origin

mostly, to which we had recourse, were equally open to Cobden, had he been

actuated by an anxious desire to arrive at the truth, earnest in his

enquiries after the means of information, laborious in his investigations,

and, beyond all, with honesty of purpose resolved nothing to withhold, nor

aught to set down in malice, as the result of his researches.

Unfortunately, the navy is not a stationary body, as the army may be said

to be; squadrons are not fixtures like corps in garrison; here to-day and

gone to morrow. The naval strength on the various stations, never

permanent, escapes calculation, as the due apportionment of expenditure

between each, and again of the quotas corresponding to the colonies or to

foreign commerce alone, defies any approach to accurate analysis. But we

have at least common observation and common sense to satisfy us that but a

small proportion of the naval outlay can be justly laid to colonial

account, because so unimportant a proportion of the naval armament afloat,

can be required for colonial service or defence. We have, assuredly, a

certain number of gun-boats and schooners on the Canadian lakes, which are

purely for colonial purposes; and we may have some half-a-dozen vessels of

war prowling about the St Lawrence and the British American waters, which

may range under the colonial category. Wherever else our eyes be cast, it

would be difficult to find one colony, east or west, which can be said to

need, or gratuitously to be favoured with, a naval force for protection.

We have a naval station at Halifax chargeable colonially. We have also a

naval station, with headquarters at Jamaica, but certainly that forms no

part of a colonial appendage. The whole of the force on that station is

employed either in cruizing after slavers, and assisting to put down the

slave trade, or it is hovering about the shores of the Spanish Main and

the Gulf of Mexico, for the protection of British foreign commerce, for

redressing the wrongs to British subjects and interests in Colombia,

Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, or Hayti, or for conveying foreign specie and

bullion from those countries for the behoof of British merchants at home.

We have a naval station at the Cape of Good Hope, with the maintenance of

which, that colony, Australia, New Zealand, &c., may be partly debited.

And we have a naval station in India, the expense of which, so far as

required for that great colonial empire, is, we believe, borne entirely by

India herself. But by far the largest proportion of the expense is

incurred, as the great bulk of the force is destined, for the protection

of foreign commerce in the Indian and Chinese seas.

If we are to seek where the British navy is really to be found and heard

of in masses, we have only to voyage to Brazil, where whole squadrons

divide their occupations betwixt coursing slavers and waiting upon foreign

commerce. Further south, we find the River Plate blocked up with British

war ships, watching over the interests of British commerce, and

interposing betwixt the lives and properties of thousands of British

subjects, and the unslaked thirst of the daggers of Rosas and his

sanguinary _Mas-horcas_, that Ægis flag before which the most fearless

and ferocious have quailed, and quail yet. So also, rounding Cape Horn,

traversing the vast waters of the Great Pacific, the British ensign may

ever be met, and swarming, too, on those west and northwestern coasts of

Spanish America, where, as from Bolivia to California, war and anarchy

eternal seem to reign. Assuredly, no colonial interests, and as little do

political combinations, carry to those far off regions, and there keep,

such large detachments of the British fleet. Nearer home we need not

signalize the Mediterranean and Levant, where British navies range as if

hereditary owners of those seas nor the western coasts of Spain, along

which duly cruise our men-of-war, keeping watch and ward; certainly in

neither one case nor the other for colonial objects.