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 THE 
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY 
 
 HER MAJESTY'S MINISTERS. 
 
 Price Is. 6d.
 
 THE COURT OF DIRECTORS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY, 
 
 HER MAJESTY'S MINISTERS, 
 
 THE 
 
 RESOLUTIONS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PUBLIC OF INDIA AND ENGLAND, 
 
 AS REGARDS A COMPLETE 
 
 PLAN OF STEAM COMMUNICATION 
 
 BETWEEN THE TWO EMPIRES. 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN JAMES BARBER, H. C. S. 
 
 AGENT TO THE NEW BENGAL STEAM COMMITTEE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., CORNHILL. 
 
 1839.
 
 STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA. 
 
 " Among the various ways in which the Steam-engine has administered 
 to the moral and social progress of the human race, none is more important 
 and interesting than the aid it has afforded to Navigation." 
 
 WHATEVER view be taken of this question, and how- 
 ever various opinion may be as to the best mode of 
 establishing so important an undertaking, all men 
 who have reflected upon the subject are unanimously 
 of opinion, that a perfect system of Communication 
 by Steam (vi& Egypt and the Red Sea) between this 
 country and the oriental world has become impera- 
 tively necessary, and that it ought to be carried into 
 effect without further delay. 
 
 An acceleration of the intercourse between Great 
 Britian and India by the " Comprehensive Plan" (pro- 
 ceeding from England to all the Presidencies,) pro- 
 mises advantages far greater than merely increasing 
 the opportunities of corresponding by letter. An 
 enlarged mode of communication would be a mea- 
 sure of wise policy, calculated to promote the cause 
 of good government, to augment the commercial 
 prosperity of both empires, and to raise in the scale 
 of morality and civilization many millions of the 
 most interesting and least regarded of the subjects of 
 Great Britian. Search the globe, and no other 
 country can be found where our political power is so 
 
 B
 
 great, and our moral influence so little as in British 
 India. 
 
 It is confidently stated by those whose judgment, 
 formed by personal observation, has become a standard, 
 that by no other means will the prejudices, ignorance, 
 and superstition of the Natives of India be so 
 effectually corrected as by an international commu- 
 nion of persons and interests ; and that nothing will 
 tend more speedily to raise that country from the 
 moral degradation in which she is immersed by the con- 
 tinued practice of barbarous customs, which are op- 
 posed to true happiness and repugnant to the best feel- 
 ings that Providence has planted in the human breast. 
 
 These facts admitted, the following questions natu- 
 rally present themselves to the mind of every reflecting 
 enquirer: What are the barriers that interpose and 
 prevent so desirable a project as Steam Communica- 
 tion on a grand and an efficient scale ? Will the ex- 
 pense be so ruinously costly as to forbid an under- 
 taking that would bestow so much good ? Are the 
 difficulties that prevent its consummation insur- 
 mountable? Do the Natives themselves object that a 
 fair portion of the revenue of India should be ex- 
 pended to confer such vast benefits upon their land ? 
 Is there any state policy which demands that the 
 stream of human intercourse should not be allowed 
 to flow in a smooth and uninterrupted course? In 
 fact, can any rational argument be stated for with- 
 holding from India, at this time, a boon that has 
 been granted to most places subjected to British 
 rule? No ! the greatest enemy to India cannot de-
 
 vise a valid objection : the more searching the enquiry, 
 the more glaring the answering truth, that there are 
 neither difficulties nor dangers that science and prac- 
 tice cannot easily overcome. I will presently show that 
 thecosttothe Natives of India, for an efficient plan will 
 be at least one half less than is at present expended 
 upon the mismanaged scheme now in operation. 
 
 The Natives of India, taxed to the extent of twenty 
 millions sterling annually, have always joined the Eu- 
 ropean residents in their desire to obtain so grand an 
 object, (they look to it as the lever by which will be 
 removed the mass of evil which oppresses them ;) to 
 which there can be no state policy opposed, or it would 
 not have been recommended by the House of Commons 
 and the President of the India Board ; therefore, as 
 no rational argument can be urged against its adop- 
 tion, I proceed to show, as concisely as the subject 
 will admit, the exact state of the question during its 
 progress to its present position. 
 
 Steam-power, particularly as applied by the marine 
 engine, was spreading its blessings far and wide for 
 many years before the attempt even was made to 
 confer any portion of its benefits upon India, though 
 repeated remonstrances were sent home, complaining 
 of the cruel neglect which India had to endure, 
 and of the comparative injustice that she suffered, 
 by her continued distance from supreme authority, 
 a disadvantage which her local Governors have 
 bewailed from the time of Clive to the present hour : 
 they further stated, that although artificial means 
 were at command to overcome the physical difficul- 
 
 B 2
 
 ties that had hitherto prevented her approximation 
 to England, she was still denied any participation in 
 those advatanges which art and science had confer- 
 red upon countries but (comparatively) of little value 
 to Great Britain, whether estimated by their com- 
 mercial relationship, or by their political import- 
 ance. 
 
 Those whose high privilege it is to sway the desti- 
 nies of India did not perceive the propriety or the 
 necessity of attending to the suggestions of their sub- 
 ordinates abroad, or to the concentrated requests 
 and supplications which came home in respectful 
 memorials and petitions, addressed to the Chairman 
 and Directors of the East India Company. At 
 length, however, the question forced itself upon the 
 attention of the Right Honourable the President of the 
 India Board ; and in June, 1834, Mr. Charles Grant 
 moved for and obtained a Committee of the House of 
 Commons, to investigate the subject : he stated, that 
 
 " The importance of a rapid communication with India was 
 evident, it was of the utmost consequence by this means to bring 
 India nearer to this country, and thereby to remove the obstacles 
 that at present existed to the closer and more advantageous con- 
 nexion between England and our Indian territories. It was most 
 desirable to do away with the obstacles which now tended to 
 perpetuate prejudices, and which stood in the way of a free and 
 rapid communication of improvements of all kinds. Greater 
 security would result to our Indian empire from the course pro- 
 posed to be adopted ; and, in short, it was equally our interest, 
 policy, duty, and glory to bring India more and more intimately 
 in contact with this country by every means in our power (hear, 
 hear.) It was our duty to confer on India every possible advan- 
 tage in consequence of its connexion with Great Britain, and he 
 appealed to the House with confidence, and called upon it to lend
 
 its assistance to this important object (hear, hear.) In conclusion 
 he should only add, that it was equally the duty and interest of 
 England to watch all the modes of access to India with a view to 
 the political and commercial prosperity, and the mutual advantage 
 of both countries." 
 
 Mr. Hume said also upon the same occasion, 
 that he 
 
 "Hoped that what the Committee had just heard was only a 
 prelude to those advantages and that assistance which India had 
 a right to expect at our hands. The state of the communication 
 between India and England had long been a reproach to this 
 country." 
 
 The Committee performed the task well, and after 
 receiving answers to two thousand seven hundred 
 and sixty-eight questions from the evidence examined, 
 and papers forming an Appendix of one hundred and 
 fifty-four pages, on the 14th of July, 1834, they re- 
 solved, 
 
 " That it is the opinion of this Committee, that a regular and 
 expeditious communication with India by means of Steam-vessels 
 is an object of great importance both to Great Britain and to 
 India. 
 
 " That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the experiments 
 which have been made have been attended with very great ex- 
 pense ; but that, from the evidence before the Committee, it ap- 
 pears that by proper arrangements, the expense may be materially 
 reduced : and, under that impression, it is expedient that measures 
 should be immediately taken for the regular establishment of 
 Steam Communication with India by the Red Sea." 
 
 Unbounded joy and gratitude filled the breasts of 
 our exiled countrymen when they received this deter- 
 mination of the House of Commons. Knowing it to 
 have originated in the President of the India Board,
 
 6 
 
 they believed that every obstacle had been cleared 
 away; they felt sure that Government would no 
 longer impede but strenuously urge forward the de- 
 sired object. Imagination presented to them a grand 
 high-road, connecting the two empires, by which the 
 geographical distance would be shortened one half, 
 and the time occupied be two-thirds less than had 
 hitherto been required to perform an uncomfortable 
 and expensive sea-voyage round the " Cape of 
 Storms." 
 
 They were, however, but little acquainted with the 
 lethargy of Presidents of the India Board, and they 
 little understood the power of the opposition in Lead- 
 enhall Street ; but they were made to feel both the one 
 and the other, for up to June, 1837, though no less 
 than thirty monthly mails might have been regularly 
 transmitted, only four opportunities of conveying 
 them by Steam occurred on the Indian side of the 
 Isthmus of Suez ; moreover, seven months' cor- 
 respondence, contained in the mails from England, 
 of July, August, September, October, November, 
 and December, 1836, and of January, 1837, were 
 all detained at the same time in Egypt, there 
 being no means of transmitting them from Suez to 
 India. 
 
 In March, 1836, simultaneously, without any fore- 
 knowledge of each other's intention, parties in Eng- 
 land and India bestirred themselves to obtain in sub- 
 stance the promises held out in the Resolutions of 
 the House of Commons, in 1834. A Provisional
 
 Committee* was formed in London, to promote such 
 a communication with India, by way of the Red Sea, 
 as would have three great essentials for its basis, 
 viz., regularity, security, and despatch : to this the 
 East India Company continued their opposition, and 
 every delay and obstacle was thrown in the way of 
 bringing the undertaking to a satisfactory result. 
 
 The gentlemen who formed the Committee perse- 
 vered in their endeavours with untiring zeal ; fresh 
 memorials to the Executive in Leadenhall Street, to 
 the President of the India Board, together with peti- 
 tions to both branches of the Legislature, poured in 
 from India, The Lords of the Treasury were ad- 
 dressed by the Provincial Chambers of Commerce in 
 England; deputations of merchants, members of Par- 
 liament, and others, waited upon the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, upon the First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 and upon the Minister for Indian Affairs, to urge 
 upon those authorities the importance and the justice 
 of giving to India this communication, either by the 
 agency of a private Company, to be paid by the Crown, 
 
 * Major Charles Franklin Head, CHAIRMAN. 
 
 A. F. Arbuthnot, Esq. 
 J. Bagshaw, Esq. M.P. 
 Captain J. Barber, H.C.S. 
 J. Bonar, Esq. 
 
 C. S. Compton, Esq. 
 J. Cry tier, Esq. 
 
 E. M. Daniel, Esq. 
 
 D. Grant, Esq. 
 
 Captain Locke, H.C.S. 
 C. E. Mangles, Esq. 
 Captain Nairne, H.C.S. 
 W. Norton, Esq. 
 G. Palmer, Esq. 
 Captain Probyn, H.C.S. 
 B. Roberts, Esq. 
 W. Scott, Esq. 
 
 W. Hutt, Esq., M.P. Captain Thornton, R.N. 
 
 C. Kerr, Esq. 
 W.Lyall,Esq. 
 T. Larkins, Esq. 
 
 E. Thurburn, Esq. 
 J. Woolley, Esq. 
 G. Wildes, Esq.
 
 8 
 
 and the East India Company, for the conveyance of 
 the public mails, together with the Government and 
 East India Company's despatches ; or, that the Go- 
 vernment and the East India Company should, in the 
 spirit of the Resolution of the House of Commons, in 
 1834, take " immediate measures for establishing the 
 communication." 
 
 The Provisional Committee were required (by Sir 
 John Cam Hobhouse, who had become President 
 of the India Board,) to show who were their "bona 
 fide' supporters in the plan proposed. In the space 
 of six weeks, without a single advertisement, in the 
 very time of a heavy pressure in the money-market, 
 (November, 1836,) a list was handed in, containing 
 the names of most respectable and influential firms 
 and individuals in London, with nearly a hun- 
 dred thousand pounds attached to their signatures! 
 It was then, and not till then, the East India Com- 
 pany yielded to the pressure from without, (and de- 
 cided upon setting afloat what, as conducted by them, 
 is but the effigy of Steam Communication,) and under 
 an arrangement with Her Majesty's Government, by 
 which the latter concluded a good bargain, while the 
 former entailed an annual charge upon the revenues 
 of India of a sum at least triplicate that which would 
 have procured a contract (with security for its fulfil- 
 ment,) for keeping up an efficient monthly commu- 
 nication ; but then it would have been effectually ac- 
 complished, and ere this India would have been 
 drawn within thirty-five days' communication with 
 England ! whereas, judging of the wishes of the East
 
 India Company by the individual opinions of some of 
 their executive, they would prefer the time occupied 
 in passing from one shore to the other should be 
 three hundred and sixty-jive ! 
 
 This arrangement between the East India Company 
 and the Crown was merely for the conveyance of letters 
 from Suez to Bombay. It required but little foresight 
 to find that such a plan was not one to satisfy the 
 " just expectations of the public both of England and 
 of India ;" nor could the mere transit of a letter-bag 
 be that communication which Lord William Bentinck, 
 when Governor General, declared " would confer such 
 advantages, directly and indirectly, on India, that it 
 would be cheaply bought at any price :" indeed it 
 was only acquiesced in by the Right Hon. President 
 (Sir John Cam Hobhouse) because, as he has stated 
 in evidence, " he was given to understand, in his oral 
 communications with the Chairman and Deputy 
 Chairman of the East India Company, that any 
 effort on his part to insist at once upon the larger 
 plan being carried into effect, would most probably 
 fail, and that no immediate step would be taken 
 towards a Steam Communication with India." It 
 may here naturally be asked, how it happens that 
 the President of the India Board, i. e. Her Majesty's 
 Government, have not the power to cause the East 
 India Company to establish an undertaking so pal- 
 pably advantageous as such an one would be to both 
 empires? The answer is the Crown, by the present 
 charter, have no power to expend any portion of the 
 revenues of India. It has authority to check a
 
 10 
 
 wasteful outlay, but, however important the cause, it 
 cannot disburse ; it has, in fact, the power of amelio- 
 rating evil, but none of doing positive good. The 
 arrangement concluded between the two authorities 
 was, as I have before stated, simply the transmission 
 of a letter-bag, and that from Suez to Bombay only ! 
 whereas (combined, it is true, with that) a full flow- 
 ing stream of human intercourse to and from all the 
 presidencies of India, is the grand object sought 
 for; by which civilization would progress, our name 
 and our commerce would be extended, arts and 
 sciences would flourish, and, to use the emphatic 
 language of the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, " it would 
 be opening the flood-gates of measureless blessings 
 to mankind." Here I take leave to show the com- 
 parative importance of the three presidencies, Bom- 
 bay, Madras, and Calcutta, and I shall give it in the 
 words of Mr. Auber, the late Secretary to the East 
 India Company, than whom no man could be a 
 better authority : 
 
 " But there is another more important consideration, looking 1 at 
 Calcutta. Under the new charter Calcutta is the seat of the 
 Supreme Government. It is the seat of the Legislative Council. 
 The revenues of Bengal and Madras are between seventeen and 
 eighteen millions; those of Bombay are 2,424,000. The ex- 
 ports and imports are nearly 12,000,000 annually: from Bom- 
 bay they are not half the amount. The tonnage arriving and 
 departing from Bengal and Madras was 1,469,000 tons ; at 
 Bombay, 73,000. The population in Bengal and Madras was 
 830,000,000, leaving out Ceylon ; Bombay, 7,000,000. The letters 
 from Bengal, Madras, and Ceylon, 260,000; Bombay, 64,000 
 Passengers, Bengal and Madras, 2,566 ; Ceylon, 603. The army 
 of Bengal and Madras, 190,000 ; of Bombay, 40,000. 
 
 " With reference to the Indian correspondence, under the new
 
 11 
 
 Act of Parliament, the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay can- 
 not disburse fifty rupees without the sanction of the Supreme 
 Government: they cannot legislate at all. The fact is, those 
 Governments are, comparatively speaking, a cipher. The Bengal 
 Government is supreme, the Governor General is little less than 
 an autocrat ; the subordinate governments are required to report 
 to Calcutta everything which takes place. From Calcutta, then, 
 alone you can get a complete series of information upon all 
 points. If despatches are sent home without the consultations 
 and diaries, you may have a most important case referred home, 
 either connected with an important matter of government, or with 
 the case of an individual, involving his dearest interests, but with- 
 out those documents you cannot fairly and impartially decide 
 upon it. Establish a comprehensive Steam Communication to 
 Calcutta, and you will have the whole of these documents brought 
 home." 
 
 Notwithstanding the promises of the East India 
 Company, of adequate Steam Communication 'the 
 Provisional Committee mistrusted them, and con- 
 tinued to urge upon the Government an enlarged and 
 extended communication. Petitions to both branches 
 of the legislature, containing 7,000 signatures, with 
 reiterated memorials to the Court and to the India 
 Board, arrived from Calcutta, supported by others 
 from the sister presidency. In June 1837, the father 
 of Steam Communication with India, the late Lord 
 William Bentinck, presented to the House of Com- 
 mons the Calcutta Petition ; it was accompanied 
 by others from the merchants of London, Liverpool, 
 Manchester, and Glasgpw ; and aided by the in- 
 fluence of the London Provisional Committee, His 
 Lordship asked for, and obtained, another Committee 
 of the House of Commons, which commenced their 
 sittings on the 13th of June, 1837, and after receiv- 
 ing answers to 1954 questions, and having examined
 
 12 
 
 papers forming thirty pages of an Appendix, Re- 
 solved : 
 
 " That a direct communication by Steam from the Red Sea lo 
 Ceylon, Madras, and Bengal, would be practicable at all seasons 
 of the year, by the employment of vessels of adequate tonnage 
 and power. Your Committee feel bound to recommend a zeulous 
 attention to the subject on the part of Her Majesty's Government 
 and the East India Company, strongly impressed with a sense 
 of the advantages, political, commercial, and personal, which 
 would arise from the more extended system of communication." 
 
 Then it might fairly be supposed a fresh impetus 
 would have been given to Steam Navigation with India ; 
 but to such as read that evidence it cannot fail to 
 strike them how decided the opposition of the East 
 India Company remained, and it has continued to the 
 present hour, for they have not one boat of adequate 
 size or power to effect the regular transit of even a 
 letter-bag. Disheartened but not dismayed, the peo- 
 ple of India renewed their memorials and petitions, 
 and if ever documents contained sound arguments, 
 lucid reasoning, and respectful phraseology, they are 
 (o be found in the petitions and memorials from 
 the people of India on. this question. Alas ! how 
 powerless have they fallen upon the Council in Leaden- 
 hall Street. The last petition was presented at (he 
 close of the session of 1838, and it will be well to re- 
 member, that constantly to that period, the boon had 
 been repeatedly prayed for by all classes and all castes 
 of Hritish subjects in the East: by Governors General, 
 Bishops, Commanders in Chief, Judges, Civil and 
 Military Servants, Merchants, Agents, Natives of
 
 13 
 
 wealth and rank, and indeed by all who understand 
 the subject, amounting to very many thousands. 
 
 It vill now be useful to show the annual amount 
 thai, r'o costs the East India Company (which may 
 be justly termed a wanton and wasteful expenditure 
 of their revenue) to maintain four inefficient Steamers, 
 boats totally inadequate, as the public have reason 
 to know* to convey with any degree of certainty or re- 
 gularity even letters from Suez to Bombay, a distance 
 of three thousand miles. 
 
 ESTIMATE TAKEN FROM PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS 
 
 Cost of the Atalanta .... 32,882 
 
 " " " Berenice 34,814 
 
 " " " Semiramis .... 48,177 
 
 " " " Hugh Lindsay. . . 35,000 
 
 " " " Machinery (extra) . 594 
 Stores at Bombay 7529, two-thirds appropriated for 
 
 packet service . . . . . r - . / 5,020 
 
 Capital employed 156,487 
 
 Annual Charge. 
 
 5 per Cent Interest on 156,000 . . . . .7,800 
 15 per Cent Wear and Tear . . . / - . . 23,400 
 
 Carried forward 31,200 
 
 * The following resolution was lately unanimously passed 
 at a large Steam Meeting at Agra : 
 
 " That this meeting are of opinion that the Steamers at present 
 employed between Bombay and Suez, and those now reported to 
 be building in England for the Bombay line, are ill adapted and 
 totally unfit for obtaining the object in view, and that the em- 
 ployment of such inefficient vessels is likely to bring discredit on 
 the plan altogether, and deter parties from subscribing to more 
 creditable undertakings."
 
 14 
 
 Brought forward 31,200 
 
 6 per Cent Insurance . . ..,, .,,,.. . 9,360 
 
 The sailing expenses are made up for eight months and 
 one half; calculated for the year, they will be 
 
 Berenice '& .% ' 8,047 
 
 Atalanta .,.. t! -,. , 8,713 
 
 Hugh Lindsay . 7,776' 
 
 ( Not given, but say the same as the Atalanta,) Semiramis 8,713 
 Coal for eight months and one half 62,027, for a year 
 
 875,63, say two-thirds appropriated for packets . 58,376 
 Sundry charges for eight months and a half 22,519, for 
 
 a year 31,794, say two-thirds appropriated for packets 21,220 
 
 Miscellaneous charges . . . . ... 4,571 
 
 Charges in Egypt 14,054 
 
 172,030 
 
 Deduct Government payment 50,000 "I - 7 , 
 " Passage Money. . 6,752 / 
 
 Annual Charge to the East India Company for the line 
 
 from Egypt to Bombay as it is now done ! ! . . JCl 15,278 
 
 By reference to the foregoing it will be seen it 
 annually costs the public, through the agency of the 
 East India Company, 115,278 to maintain four 
 Steamers;* notwithstanding the said Steamers are 
 totally inadequate to perform the very limited service 
 required of them that of conveying letters between 
 Bombay and Suez ! ! In fact the beneficial results 
 that might be derived from a perfect scheme of Steam 
 Communication with all the presidences of India, are 
 wholly frustrated by an obstinate adherence to a 
 system ruinously defective. In proof of which it is 
 only requisite to state that, in October 1838, in con- 
 
 For an annual grant of 50,000 they have been offered the 
 service of nine boats of 2000 tons and 500 horse power each, to keep 
 up a monthly communication from London to all the presidencies ! ! !
 
 15 
 
 sequence of the non-arrival in due course of three 
 consecutive mails, severe loss was entailed on many 
 parties who had written by the overland mail, trans- 
 mitting orders for insurance, but which orders, under 
 the East India Company's mis-management, had not 
 arrived. 
 
 The question now brought to a more recent date, 
 leads me to refer to the plan that has been pro- 
 posed to Her Majesty's Government and to the East 
 India Company, approved of by the former, but 
 rejected by the latter, with their systematic and 
 continued opposition. 
 
 These circumstances required grave consideration. 
 disasters multiplied how were they to be reme- 
 died ? In capacity of Agent to the New Bengal 
 Steam Fund Committee, I called attention to the 
 subject, and convened a Public Meeting on 12th of 
 October 1838, at which the Right Honourable Sir 
 R. Wilmot Horton, Bart, presided. I then had the 
 honour to submit a plan for the approval and support 
 of the Public, whereby a regular and secure monthly 
 communication might be maintained, suitable to the 
 wishes of all parties, whose interests are deeply in- 
 volved in so important a measure. 
 
 At this meeting, the following Resolution proposed by Sir John 
 Rae Reid, Bart. M.P. and seconded by James McKillop, Esq. 
 was passed with acclamation. 
 
 "This Meeting is unanimously of opinion, that the present 
 means afforded for overland intercourse with India is totally 
 inadequate for commercial purposes, and that for social purposes 
 it has hitherto entirely failed to fulfil the just expectations of the 
 people, both of England and of India." (Cheers.)
 
 1C 
 
 A Committee* was also appointed to investigate the subject, 
 and to make their report. Public duty was never more faithfully 
 nor more zealously performed. The Committee made their re- 
 port, it was received and adopted at a Public Meeting in January 
 last, and therein they stated, 
 
 " Your Committe are of opinion, that a monthly communica- 
 tion, combining regularity and despatch, so ardently desired, but 
 hitherto so unsuccessfully attempted, may be effectually secured 
 through the instrumentality of a private association, and that by 
 such agency alone can it be accomplished. 
 
 " In order, therefore, at once to place the undertaking in a posi- 
 tion of undoubted efficiency to carry out the scheme with perfect 
 success, your Committee recommend that the Capital of the pro- 
 posed Company should not be less than 600,000. 
 
 " To meet the annual disbursement, your Committee consider 
 that the projectors should look for returns from the following 
 sources, viz. : passengers, periodicals, specie, and valuable light 
 parcels, and an annual payment from Her Majesty's Government 
 and the East India Company, for carrying the mails and des- 
 patches to and from the several presidencies of India and Ceylon, 
 and for a monthly conveyance of the mails to and from Gibraltar, 
 Malta, and Alexandria. 
 
 " Your Committee are decidedly of opinion, that any Com- 
 pany, formed with an adequate capital for the purpose of carrying 
 out the contemplated communication, would be entitled to receive 
 an annual sum from Her Majesty's Government and the East 
 India Company, for a limited period, not only for conveying the 
 mails and despatches, but also in consideration of the vast bene- 
 fits, political, social, and commercial, which such international 
 communication cannot fail to confer." 
 
 * John Bagshaw, Esq. 
 T. A. Curtis, Esq. 
 Henry Gouger, Esq. 
 J. P. Larkins, Esq. 
 James McKillop, Esq. 
 Captain Alexander Nairne, 
 
 H.C.S. 
 
 P. Auber, Esq. 
 Captain Henderson. 
 
 J. H. Pelly, Esq. 
 John Pirie, Esq. Alderman. 
 Christopher Read, Esq. 
 John Small, Esq. 
 Robert Thurburn, Esq. 
 Major Turner. 
 Major Oliphant. 
 P. Stewart, Esq.
 
 17 
 
 At that Meeting the following Resolutions were passed unani- 
 mously .' 
 
 " That the daily increasing importance of a quick and certain 
 intercourse between Great Britain and her immense possessions in 
 the East Indies, whether the subject is considered politically or 
 commercially, renders it highly necessary that the intercourse 
 should be sustained by a private Company, whose sole object 
 would be to afford such means of conveyance of letters, news- 
 papers, and periodicals, and such accommodation to passengers as 
 shall ensure a constant and certain monthly communication be- 
 tween Great Britain, and the three Presidencies of India and 
 Ceylon, and whose future views may be directed to the extension 
 of that communication to the Mauritius, the Straits, China, and 
 Australia. 
 
 " That T. A. Curtis, J. P. Larkins, J. Bagshaw, and James 
 McKillop, Esquires, be requested to take measures for forming a 
 Board of Direction, and preparing a Prospectus to carry out the 
 proposed Company, and that the East India Association of Lon- 
 don, and the respective Chambers of Commerce of Liverpool, 
 Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, and Birmingham, be respectfully 
 invited to co-operate with the proposed Company." 
 
 The Gentlemen thus appointed, were selected from the Com- 
 mittee who had investigated the subject, and who had brought 
 up their Report. Proceeding in the spirit of that Report, they 
 entered into a negociation with Her Majesty's Government, 
 through their Chairman, T. A. Curtis, Esq., and the plan submit- 
 ted to Government was approved of. Previous to its being 
 carried into effect, it was necessary the East India Company 
 should concur in the arrangements. The Projectors, therefore, 
 in May last, placed before the executive of that Corporation 
 the plan that had been approved of by Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment. To demonstrate the advantages that would be gained 
 by the adoption of that plan, I will place it in juxta-position 
 with the one in operation. 
 
 FIRST, AS TO LETTERS. 
 
 PRESENT PLAN. 
 
 Letters have to pass through 
 France and Egypt, and they 
 arrive at Suez in twenty days : 
 if a steamer be there, which 
 
 PROPOSED PLAN. 
 
 A. guarantee has been offered, 
 to place three steam -ships be- 
 tween London and Alexan- 
 dria, each of two thousand ten 
 
 C
 
 is by no meant certain, they 
 will in eighteen days more 
 reach Bombay : but from Bom- 
 bay there are not means to 
 send on the whole mail at the 
 same time, which is conse- 
 quently divided into several 
 packets, the first occupying 
 in its transit (from the mail's 
 arrival at Bombay to Cal- 
 cutta) 'twelve days, the last 
 division seventeen, causing a 
 difference of five days between 
 the receipt of Letters at Cal- 
 cutta, and Bombay, although 
 they left the London Post-Of- 
 fice at the same hour. On the 
 average, leters from London to 
 Calcutta are fifty-four days in 
 transit, at a charge of four 
 shillings and eight pence for a 
 single letter; it must also be 
 remembered the difficulty of 
 land-carriage from Bombay to 
 Calcutta and Madras, prohi- 
 bits the conveyance of specie, 
 parcels, law-deeds, bulky in- 
 voices, samples, patterns, &c. 
 
 SECONDLY, 
 
 S learners leave Lond on every 
 fourth Saturday for Gibraltar ; 
 they are inadequate in size 
 and power. At Gibraltar, 
 passengers are transhipped to 
 a much worse boat for Malta; 
 at Malta to another for 
 Alexandria; which port they 
 reach on an average in twenty- 
 
 burthen, and fire-hundred 
 horse-power ; and a sufficient 
 number of the same size and 
 power between Suez, Bombay, 
 Ceylon, Madras, and Calcutta, 
 which would convey direct to 
 those places, not only letters, 
 but passengers, parcels of all 
 kinds, East India Company's 
 and Government despatches, 
 however bulky, in forty-five 
 days from London to Cal- 
 cutta, at a charge for a single 
 letter of two shillings and six- 
 pence, showing a gain in time 
 of nine days, and a saving in 
 cost of two shillings and two- 
 pence for each single letter. 
 
 PASSENGERS. 
 
 It is offered under guarantee, 
 that steamers of two thousand 
 tons, and five-hundred horse- 
 power, should leave London 
 every fourth Saturday for 
 Alexandria, that a vessel 
 exactly similar should bewail- 
 ing in readiness at Suez, to 
 convey the passengers, mails
 
 baggage, &c. direct to Cal- 
 cutta, calling at Ceylon 
 and Madras; also it would 
 meet a branch-boat at Aden, 
 for the convenience of the 
 Bombay community ; but 
 for argument, taking the ex- 
 treme point, Calcutta passen- 
 gers would be landed there in 
 forty-Jive days from England at 
 a charge of one hundred and 
 thirty pounds, thus saving in 
 time twenty -three days, and 
 in money one hundred and ten 
 pounds, to say nothing of the 
 wear and tear of the consti- 
 tution. 
 
 eight days : then comes the 
 feverish excitement, " Is there 
 a steamer at Suez ? If there 
 is, will she accommodate all 
 of us to Bombay ?" If she be 
 there, and can accommodate 
 all the passengers, which is 
 by no means certain, they 
 will arrive at Bombay in fifty- 
 one days ; from thence to Cal- 
 cutta they are subject to a 
 long land journey, at all times 
 fatiguing; at certain seasons 
 impracticable ; but taking it 
 at the fairest period, they will 
 reach Calcutta from London 
 in sixty-eight days, at a 
 charge of two hundred and 
 forty pounds, to which sum 
 must be added the cost of 
 sending their heavy baggage 
 by some other route. 
 
 To carry this plan into effect, the Projectors have requested 
 from the Crown and the East India Company a contract for a 
 limited period, and an annual payment of one hundred thousand 
 pounds, for which sum the Company would engage to convey the 
 mails and the East India Company's and Government despatches 
 from England to all the Presidencies in India. 
 
 By the arrangement before alluded to, the East India Company 
 agreed with the Crown to divide the expenses of the present line, 
 which is from Suez to Bombay only, and the accounts not being 
 made up, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appropriated fifty 
 thousand pounds, as the Government moiety for one year's 
 expense; but although this sum was accepted by the Court, 
 several of the Directors entered a protest against it ; the amount 
 being disproportionate to the expenses actually incurred; therefore, 
 independent of the advantage to be derived from an extended 
 and perfect communication over the very limited and irregular 
 system in operation, it is evident the cost to the East India 
 Company will be greatly diminished.
 
 20 
 
 3uch a plan of communication is the only one 
 that can satisfy the just expectations of the people 
 both of England and of India, for anything short of a 
 plan that proceeds direct from Suez to Calcutta, call- 
 ing at Ceylon and Madras, as well as to Bombay, must 
 fail to render commensurate advantages to the eastern 
 side of India, which have been so repeatedly sought, 
 and which being asked for in reason, should have 
 been graciously conceded long since. The scheme 
 will be curtailed of its fair proportions, by confining 
 the connexion by sea to any one point in India ; 
 because in that country there is a great difficulty of 
 communication for persons and things, which arises 
 from the nature of the climate heavy rains at one 
 period and a burning sun at another and also from 
 the paucity, and bad state of the roads.* 1 quite agree 
 with Mr. Peacock, who says in his evidence : 
 
 * " Will it be believed, that after holding of such a country for 
 nearly a century, that the Government-post is carried by foot- 
 men, at the rate of ubout three miles and a half per hour! I travelled 
 a journey of six hundred miles through the most populous and 
 frequented part of India, viz. from Calcutta to Cawnpore, which 
 occupied fourteen days and nights in uninterrupted travelling ; 
 soon after emerging from the city of Moorshedabad the road 
 became a perfect swamp, and frequently no vestige of it could be 
 found. After wading the whole night we reached, about half-past 
 two o'clock in the morning, a little rising ground, where the 
 weary bearers found a dry spot to rest the palankeen." Dr. Spry's 
 Modern India. 
 
 " The total absence of high-roads by which the traffic of the 
 country might be conducted, is found to be one of the heaviest 
 rvils with which our eastern dominions is afflicted." Central 
 Hriygs.
 
 21 
 
 " For the objects contemplated by the Indian Government 
 Steam Navigation would require to be carried on, on a large and 
 efficient scale. Between doing it efficiently and not doing it at 
 all there seems to be no advisable medium '\ 
 
 It would be trespassing too much upon the patience 
 and time of the reader, were the varied and multitu- 
 dinous objections to be narrated that have been made 
 by the opponents of a complete system of intercourse 
 between the two empires. Without referring, therefore, 
 to those that have already been advanced and refuted, 
 1 proceed to notice the last that has been raised, 
 and, as I trust to be able to prove, with as flimsy a 
 title to truth as any that have been previously urged. 
 It is said, the plan proposed has been formed upon 
 erroneous opinions and estimates, and this argument 
 is grounded upon a statement, that, at most, the num- 
 ber of Europeans that could benefit (as passengers) by 
 the establishment of the " Comprehensive Plan," 
 would not exceed eight thousand ; and, moreover, 
 it is declared, that the " Natives of India are totally 
 indifferent to the matter." The first assumption is not 
 proven by the circumstance, that at present but eight 
 thousand Europeans pass between the two countries; 
 but the smallness of the number going to and fro 
 proves that some very powerful cause has existed for 
 the last fifty years to prevent the augmentation of 
 European residents in India, and it will be fair to 
 assume the same cause lias operated to deprive Great 
 Britain of the relative value, which she might other- 
 wise have derived from her intimate connexion with 
 a country of such extent and capability as that of 
 British India.
 
 Can any other nation boast of such a possession ? 
 It is most strange, but yet most true, that even unto 
 this day India is to us as an unknown country ; with 
 a soil capable of growing articles of prime necessity to 
 England, and with a population capable of consum- 
 ing the fabrics of our mills and our looms,* in return 
 for the produce of her wide-spread and fertile lands, 
 what has been done? comparatively nothing. Is it 
 not high time, then, that a country holding, under 
 favour of Providence, such a place amongst the na- 
 tions of the earth, should be no longer hermetically 
 sealed by the vexatious opposition of the East India 
 Company. 
 
 The calculations made by the projectors of the 
 proposed scheme, are based upon the actual number 
 of passengers that at present travel from England to 
 and from India, of which number they estimate one 
 half will go via Egypt, whenever that route shall be 
 made convenient and expeditious. Who will say 
 this is not a moderate and safe computation ? but to 
 
 * "The people could take a great deal of the k British manufac- 
 tures ; they are remarkably fond of them, particularly of scarlet 
 It is a mistaken notion that Indians are too simple in their man- 
 ners to have any passion for foreign manufactures. They are 
 hindered from taking our goods, not by want of inclination, but 
 either by poverty, or the fear of being imputed rich, and having 
 their rents raised. When we relinquish the barbarous system of 
 annual settlements ; when we make over the lands either in very 
 long leases, or in perpetuity, to the present occupants ; and when 
 we have convinced them, by making no assessments above the 
 fixed rent for a series of years, that they are actually proprietors 
 of the soil, WE SHALL SEE A DEMAND FOR EUROPEAN ARTICLES, OF 
 
 WHICH WE HAVE AT PRESENT NO CONCEPTION." S> T. Munro.
 
 23 
 
 this should be added the many that will proceed not 
 only from all parts of the continent of Europe, but 
 from America. Experience proves the fact, that on 
 facilities of intercourse being provided, the number 
 of travellers is largely increased. It will also be 
 seen, from the evidence hereafter quoted, given by 
 men of admitted good judgment, that there can be 
 no doubt that the accession of travellers to India 
 and back will be very great when suitable accommo- 
 dation shall be provided If it be asked why there 
 are so few at present who choose the route here ad- 
 vocated ? it may be answered, it is astonishing there 
 are so many ; and I quote from the Indian journals the 
 following letters to testify the cause. 
 
 " But the voyager must not think his trouble at an end on 
 reaching Bombay ; or that the Steam -packets are equal to passen- 
 ger Indiamen in accommodation In fact I cannot conceive how 
 a lady manages. We have, however, five. There are only seven 
 very small cabins, into each of which two people are crammed : 
 no room to swing cots. Eight other deluded individuals (of 
 whom I am one) are given to understand that in a cabin-passage 
 is included permission to sleep on the benches and table of the 
 cuddy. For this you pay two hundred rupees extra. The vessel 
 is dirty beyond measure, from the soot, and with the difficulty of 
 copious ablution, and private accommodation is almost worse to 
 a lover of Indian habits, than the journey to Bombay from Agra 
 on camels. No civility is to be got from the officers. If they 
 are not directly uncivil, you are luckier than we have hitherto been. 
 They declare themselves disgusted with passenger-ships, but do not 
 take the proper way of showing their superiority to the duty. 
 Egypt is, I hear, still plagued with four-footed things ; indeed 
 the Bombay presidency suffers in some degree from a like pesti- 
 lence, and the Steamers on the other side are said not to be better 
 than on this. One thing, we have abundance of good food and 
 good plain wines. We have only to shut our eyes to the process 
 of the cuisine, and all is right."
 
 24 
 
 Again " I was twenty-five days from Suez to Bombay in the 
 Atalanta : on my arrival, 25th November, I requested that a dak 
 might be had for Mrs. and myself, via Nagpore to Alla- 
 habad ; this I was told by the deputy post-master could not be 
 done, without almost the certainty of our both dying of jungle- 
 fever. I then suggested our going to Madras via Hydrabad ; to 
 this he replied, I might be detained on the road for want of bearers 
 for three weeks or a month, and possibly be obliged to return to 
 Bombay; judge of my vexation and disappointment when I 
 reflect, but for the prejudice of my honourable masters, I might 
 have gone from Suez to Calcutta in the same time it took us to 
 reach Bombay, and at the same cost ; thus I should have been 
 spared this toil, vexation, delay, and expense," 
 
 Once more " I was desirous of coming to England via Egypt, 
 and took the precaution to apply for accommodation in one of 
 the East India Company's Steamers four months in advance ; at 
 the end of the fifth month we went on board, but till the day of 
 embarkation, I could obtain no definite answer as to the accom- 
 modation we could have ; we were thus charged by the East India 
 Company for passage from Bombay to Suez only : 
 
 "Bombay to Suez, for each adult eight hundred rupees, or eighty 
 pounds; each child four hundred rupees, or forty pounds; Euro- 
 pean attendant, for whom no sleeping accommodation was pro- 
 vided, and who had her meals with the servants, four hundred 
 rupees, or forty pounds ; man servant, for whom there was no ac- 
 commodation but the deck, forty rupees, or ten pounds. Each 
 cabin was for two persons, neither bed or bedding provided." 
 
 I now come at the second objection, viz. " the 
 natives of India are totally indifferent to the matter." 
 The best answer that can be given to this broad, but 
 erroneous assertion, is to allow the native gentlemen 
 to speak for themselves, and to subjoin some resolu- 
 tions that have been moved and seconded by natives 
 of wealth, intelligence, and influence ; added to which 
 the natives have already taken upwards of three hun- 
 dred shares in the proposed Company, believing, 
 from the statement that had arrived in India, there
 
 25 
 
 would be no longer any hesitation on the part of 
 the East India Company to comply with so rea- 
 sonable a request, and to give to all the presidencies 
 of India superior advantages at a much less cost than 
 is now incurred for the very limited service rendered. 
 The Report of the Committee of London Merchants, 
 given in January last, before alluded to, had no 
 sooner arrived in Calcutta, than a Public Meeting 
 was called to demonstrate the satisfaction felt there at 
 the result of that Committee's labours. 
 
 " Dwarkanath Tagore, in rising to second Mr. Clarke's resolu- 
 tion, found it scarcely necessary to say anything upon the subject 
 which that gentleman had so fully and ably commented upon. 
 He would only say a few words regarding his own countrymen. 
 Among other advantages which they would derive from the esta- 
 blishment of Steam Communication between the two countries, it 
 should be remembered that England was the last place where 
 their grievances, whatever they be, could be redressed, and that 
 every step taken towards reducing the distance between the two 
 countries, was an advantage gained in obtaining redress, which 
 under the circumstances that had heretofore prevailed, every body 
 knew, could not be obtained but after years' delay, and seldom 
 in a satisfactory manner. He therefore hoped his countrymen 
 would now come forward to support the measure that had been 
 set on foot by taking shares." 
 
 At a Public Meeting at Berhampore, composed 
 chiefly of native noblemen and gentlemen, the fol- 
 lowing Resolutions were unanimously passed : - 
 
 " 1. That the European gentlemen now present cannot allow 
 this occasion to pass without expressing their sincere gratification 
 at the interest evinced in the objects of this Meeting by so large 
 an assemblage of the most respectable native gentry of the city 
 and its neighbourhood, and their hope that so laudable an ex- 
 ample will be extensively followed throughout India. 
 
 " Proposed by Nuwab Jaun Buhadoor, seconded by Nuwab 
 Shumsher Jung Buhadoor,
 
 " 2. That as the proposed communication by Steam, from Cal- 
 cutta to the Red Sea, will greatly shorten the period of going to 
 and returning from Mecca Shureef, every Mahomedan is in- 
 terested in its success. 
 
 "Proposed by Nuwab Sufdun Ally Khan Buh ad oor, seconded 
 by Nuwab Sulabut Jung Buhadoor, 
 
 " 3. That the Mahomedan gentlemen now present be requested to 
 write to their friends in the celebrated cities of Delhi and 
 Lucknow, to endeavour to receive their aid in a scheme fraught 
 with such advantages to all India. 
 
 " Proposed by Rae Parushnath Buhadoor, Dewan of the 
 Nizamut, seconded by Nuwab Nazir Darab Ally Khan 
 Buhadoor, 
 
 " 4. That all Hindoos are no less interested in the success of this 
 scheme, than the Mahomedans, more particularly the zumeendar 
 Merchants, the most valuable products of whose estates and 
 traffics, such as indigo, silk, &c., will be far more expeditiously 
 conveyed to, and the returns obtained from Europe by this, than 
 by any other mode of conveyance now known. 
 
 " Proposed by L. Grey, Esq., seconded by Dr. O'Dwyer, 
 
 " 5 That a statement, showing the number of Shares to be 
 subscribed in this scheme, the price of each Share, and the regu- 
 lations with regard to the payment of the same, be translated 
 and circulated as widely as possible, for the information of the 
 native gentry of the district whojhave been unable to attend this 
 Meeting. 
 
 " Proposed by Rajah Kishennath Ro*y Buhadoor, seconded by 
 Rajah Ram Chunder Buhadoor, 
 
 " 6. That every native of Hindostan should support to the 
 utmost of his power the scheme of Comprehensive Steam Com- 
 munication, by means of which India will be brought so near to 
 England, the great source to her of knowledge and Government, 
 and which it is to be hoped will tend so much to the develope- 
 nient of the immense resources of this country. 
 
 " Proposed by G. G. M'Pherson, Esq., seconded by Captain 
 Goldie, 
 
 " 7. That the thanks of this Meeting be given to Koonwur 
 Kishennath Roy Buhudoor, for the exertions he has made amongst 
 the Hindoo community to further the objects of the Comprehen- 
 sive Steam Communication.
 
 27 
 
 " Captain Pemberton, then, at the request of the Chairman, 
 read a list of the members of the Nizamut family and dependents 
 who had subscribed to the Steam Fund, and intimated that he 
 had received communications, of an intention to subscribe, from 
 other members of the Nizamut family, whose names did not 
 appear in the present list. 
 
 " 8. A vote of thanks to the Chairman. 
 
 " The Chairman, in returning his thanks, congratulated the 
 native gentlemen who attended the meeting on their respecta- 
 bility and number, and observed that there never had been so 
 large an assemblage, he believed, at Berhampore before, nor one 
 on a more interesting occasion." 
 
 The interest the natives of Hindostan not only 
 have, but feel, in promoting the approximation of 
 the two countries by means of Steam-power, is 
 here manifested ; and he who knows it will think 
 lightly of truth, should he be bold enough hereafter 
 to assert " the natives of India care little about the 
 matter." It cannot fail to appear otherwise than 
 extraordinary that we should have possessed for so 
 many years a country whose empire is as large as 
 Europe, (Russia excluded,) of a population of more 
 than 100,000,000, and that a native of British India, 
 if seen to-day perambulating our streets, is eyed with 
 as much curiosity as if he had been just introduced 
 from a newly discovered country, of which it 
 may have pleased some marvellous modern tra- 
 veller to have told the greatest wonders. It is evident 
 a forcible reason must cause this estrangement of 
 our fellow-man, otherwise so intimately connected 
 with us in a bond of union, as subjects of the same 
 sovereign, and whose interests in common are so 
 identified with our own.
 
 28 
 
 A long sea-voyage is in every way repugnant to 
 their feelings, and is never undertaken except lor the 
 purpose of obeying the dictates and ceremonies of 
 their religion. Many of the wealthy and influential 
 Musulmen of Hindostan make a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca, notwithstanding the serious inconvenience 
 and deprivation of comfort they suffer on board the 
 ill-fitted and badly-navigated Arab ships, at present 
 their only means of conveyance. But if such a jour- 
 ney was to be one of comparative ease and plea- 
 sure, as the establishment of this undertaking would 
 make it, when they had reached half-way from India 
 to England, prejudice would yield to curiosity ; we 
 should not find them hesitate to extend their jour- 
 ney, and, in a short space of time, our streets and 
 our manufacturing towns would be thronged with 
 natives from India.* Give then to the educated class 
 
 * " I conceive it to be the most efficient measure which can be 
 adopted for raising the moral and political character of the natives 
 of British India, and for affording them those moral and political 
 advantages which they have a right to expect to derive from their 
 present connexion with Great Britain. It will, from the shortness 
 of the passage, and from the interest which is attached by all 
 persons to the countries through which the travellers must pass, 
 induce many persons, as well Englishmen as foreigners, who 
 otherwise never would have thought of doing so, to proceed to 
 India, and make themselves acquainted with the history and 
 people of that portion of Asia; and thereby call the attention of 
 Europe in general, and of the British public in particular, to every 
 circumstance of importance which is connected with the subject. 
 It must ultimately improve the nature of the British government 
 of India, by enabling the natives of the country, without doing 
 an injury to their religious habits and feelings, to come to Eng- 
 land, and submit their opinions upon all public questions involv-
 
 29 
 
 proper facilities for coming to England afford them 
 the means of becoming acquainted with our moral ties 
 and social habits, and our principles of government, 
 and much will be done towards effecting that moral 
 change in the character of the natives of India on 
 which the stability of our Indian empire mainly de- 
 pends. 
 
 It is not necessary to prove that a country strictly 
 commercial requires the greatest facility of intercourse 
 with all parts of the globe. Notwithstanding this 
 axiom, the opponents of a "Comprehensive Plan of 
 Steam Communication with India," profess to doubt 
 
 ing their public and private interests, directly to both Houses of 
 Parliament ; and thereby render it necessary for the local govern- 
 ments of India to consult the natives of the country on all ques- 
 tions in which their interests are concerned. The effect which 
 is likely to be produced upon the minds of those natives of 
 India who may hereafter be induced to come to England may 
 be fairly estimated from the effect which a residence in England 
 had upon the mind of the late Ramrnohun Roy, a Hindoo, and a 
 brahmin of high caste. He told me that eighteen brahmins and 
 four rajpoots of his acquaintance, in different parts of India, had, 
 in consequence of his having written to them an account of the 
 manner in which he had been received in England, and of the 
 knowledge which he had acquired since he had been in the coun- 
 try, authorized him, in the event of a Steam Communication being 
 established between England and British India through Egypt, 
 to purchase land for them in England, intimating to him their 
 intention of coming and residing for some years in the neigh- 
 bourhood of London, and making themselves acquainted, for the 
 benefit of themselves and their countrymen, with our laws, science, 
 and institutions; and not long before his death, he one day when 
 he was with me drew up in my presence the sketch of a work 
 which he intended to write, in imitation of Cicero's Tusculan 
 Questions, and to circulate it throughout every part of India, pur- 
 porting to be a Dialogue between a Brahmin from the Thames
 
 30 
 
 whether it will extend our trade, and produce gene- 
 rally those beneficial results to commerce which its 
 advocates expect It will therefore not be ill-timed 
 to offer here a word or two upon this part of the 
 subject 
 
 Towards the close of the East India Company's 
 charter, that terminated in 1814, it was then con- 
 tended, that no great increase of trade in that coun- 
 try could be expected. The Chairman of the Court 
 of East India Directors, in a letter to the Right 
 Honourable Robert Dundas, 1809, referring to public 
 opinion, on this head, said : 
 
 " The article of the first necessity, (cotton,) their own country 
 furnishes more abundantly and more cheaply than it is possible 
 for Europe to supply them." 
 
 In the year 1814, however, the trade was opened ; 
 at that time the export of manufactured cotton to 
 India, and the whole tonnage employed were 
 
 Yards. Ships. Tonnage. 
 
 In 1814 817,000 180 68,732 
 
 1824 23,686,426 222 98,463 
 
 1832 a 1, 833,9 13 330 122,952 
 
 The value of cotton exported in the same time, in- 
 creased from .201,182 to .3,238,248; and the value 
 
 and a Brahmin from the Ganges, in which, after discussing our 
 moral and political institutions, both Brahmins agree to recom- 
 mend such of their countrymen as can afford it, to come to Eng- 
 land, and acquire that degree of knowledge which is necessary to 
 raise them to that moral and intellectual superiority which the 
 Supreme Being has qualified them to enjoy in this world. He 
 was very unwell at the time, and requested me, in case of his 
 death before he could complete the work, to destroy the sketch, 
 which I have done." Right Hon. Sir Alexander Johnstone.
 
 31 
 
 of all exports from Great Britain from .1,874,690 
 to .4,674,673. 
 
 As with commerce so it is with literature ; but even 
 under the present system of intercourse, limiting, a sit 
 does, the advantage to Bombay, (from whence to all 
 parts of India the charge for postage of newspapers is 
 very heavy, while for periodicals it amounts to prohi- 
 bition,) what is the result? 
 
 In April 1837 Newspapers sent were 127 
 In August 1839 2,700 
 
 On this subject I must introduce a paragraph from 
 the Calcutta Englishman. 
 
 " Newspapers coming free would multiply immensely. Almost 
 every individual at the several presidencies would take an English 
 newspaper ; and, if the residents in the Mofussil did not do this 
 to so great an extent as regards the London newspapers, yet very 
 many of the Mofussil residents would gladly pay the Indian 
 postage to receive the newspapers of the county with which they 
 might be connected. The whole British periodical press is 
 therefore deeply interested in the early establishment of the 
 Comprehensive Scheme ; and none so much so as the more in- 
 fluential newspapers. We should be curious to learn how many 
 Indian subscribers the Times would add to its list, if the Compre- 
 hensive Scheme were in full and regular operation. 
 
 " The above is not mere theoretical assumption. It partakes 
 sufficiently of actual detail to warrant our assertion, that the na- 
 tural effect of affording facility to the transmission of correspond- 
 ence is already in manifest operation, even under the present mi- 
 serable arrangements." 
 
 India contains 1,128,800 square miles, with a fer- 
 tile soil and an industrious and dense population. 
 She is capable of producing in exuberance, and in al- 
 most endless variety the crude material for our mar- 
 kets, by the sale of which she would enrich herself,
 
 32 
 
 and in return she would be able to purchase our 
 manufactures* to an extent which the imagination, 
 taking a review of 100,000,000 of population, may 
 conceive, and of which no other country without the 
 pale of British influence and British capital can be 
 supposed capable. 
 
 What powerful cause then has hitherto prevented 
 that which in truth might be termed a " system of 
 reciprocity?" The two most cogent reasons that 
 may be urged are, First, the till recently exclusive 
 privilege of the East India Company, and which 
 even now they would feign uphold by denying the 
 boon here sought at their hands : Secondly, the 
 immense distance and the difficulty of approach, 
 which, combined, have limited that international 
 change of persons which invariably creates a know- 
 lege of and an interest in each other's wants ; to which 
 
 * " Place India on an equal footing with the mother-country ; 
 treat her as a trading nation, and not as a tributary colony; and 
 ninety millions of people, with a thriving agricultural population, 
 and a ready market for their produce, will not fail to consume all 
 that the manufacturers of England can supply, in the vray of 
 broad-cloth, cutlery, machinery of every description, (from a steam- 
 engine to a pocket-watch,) porcelain, glass-ware, in all its shapes, 
 jewellery, wines, and a hundred other articles, which the want of 
 means alone now prevent the natives from purchasing." General 
 Itrit/i/s. 
 
 " The natives of India are just as desirous of accumulating 
 wealth, as skilful in the means of acquiring it, and as prone to all 
 its enjoyments, as any people on earth. It is the land-tax that 
 confirms their unalterable poverty. If the channels of wealth 
 were freely opened in India, luxuries would abound as in other 
 countries. It is inconsistent with the laws of human nature to 
 suppose otherwise." Bishop Jleler,
 
 33 
 
 may be superadded, the narrow policy that continued 
 so long 1 , unjust fiscal regulations which deprived the 
 agriculturists of India of privileges which, in com- 
 mon with the colonies of the crown, she had a natural 
 and moral right to enjoy. 
 
 Among the prolific growth of her soil, are to 
 be found cotton,* indigo, sugar, tobacco, silk, 
 hemp, flax, spices, and gums. The English cap- 
 italist, however, has to the present time devoted 
 his attention to realising fortune from proved sources 
 of profit, rather than incur a heavy outlay on the 
 untried, but promising methods of accumulating 
 wealth. 
 
 There is scarcely a vegetable production known to 
 our commerce that might not be obtained from India 
 with profit and advantage. Our machinery has en- 
 abled us to supplant their manufactures, but her 
 agricultural resources have yet to be developed by 
 the employment of skill and capital from Europe, 
 and the unparalleled fruitfulness of her soil ensures 
 an abundant return to all who may be induced to 
 embark in the enterprise. The Linum Usitatissimum, 
 a most useful species of flax, that grows in exuberance 
 
 * In 1834, four bales of Bombay cotton were sold in Liverpool 
 at a higher price than the bulk of American cotton. * * * 
 Evidence confirms the fact, that cotton can be grown in India 
 fully equal, or rather superior, to the bulk of the American. 
 
 The Bombay Chamber of Commerce have reported to the London 
 East India and China Associations, that excellent sugar, cotton 
 equal to some of the finest kinds of American, and also raw silk, 
 can be produced in the Bombay territory. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 throughout India, is wholly neglected.* The Hindoo 
 agriculturist, finding ample remuneration in the seed 
 alone, suffers the flax to rot on the ground ; never 
 dreaming of its extensive use, and the consequent 
 value it might realise as an article of export to this 
 country. How should he? The Natives of India 
 are strangers in our land, the British capital hitherto 
 employed there, has been for the most part absorbed 
 in indigo and opium. 
 
 Linseed, the product of this flax, has within the 
 last five or six years only become an article of com- 
 merce to Great Britain. It yields five per cent, more 
 oil than that from Russia, and since it has occupied 
 the attention of the English speculator, in one year 
 3000 tons weight of it was imported into Great 
 Britain in all 18,000 tons. 
 
 I have said before, India is to us an unknown 
 
 * The Consumption of Foreign Flax in Great Britain, 
 
 In the Year ending the 5th of January, 1837, was. .cwt. 1,530,000 
 
 Ditto ditto 1838, 1,000,000 
 
 Ditto ditto 1839, 1,625,315 
 
 Three Years 4,155,315 
 
 Average Consumption per annum cwt. 1,385,105 
 
 or tons, 69,255$ 
 
 Annual S r alue at an Average of 60 per ton. . 4,155,315 
 
 And allowing, as in the case of jute and hemp from India, 
 seventy-five feet to the ton of 20 cwt., the import of flax from 
 the latter country would yield employment to 100,000 tons of 
 shipping.
 
 35 
 
 country. After the lapse of ages the advantages to 
 be derived from her connexion with us are just be- 
 ginning to dawn ; the most important sources of her 
 commerce and her agriculture are yet in their infancy. 
 The English manufacturer who reflects on this cannot 
 fail to see the important consequences that must re- 
 sult from facilities of intercourse. The British ship- 
 owner will see in the agricultural prosperity of India 
 the employment of a very considerably increased 
 tonnage ; for it must be borne in mind, to convey the 
 same quantity of merchandize from India would (from 
 its distance) require at least double the tonnage that 
 would be necessary to convey it from the Baltic. 
 
 Establish then the Comprehensive Steam Com- 
 munication, and Englishmen will no longer have 
 difficulty in visiting this much-neglected, but interest- 
 ing country. Becoming eye-witnesses of the re- 
 sources of her soil, enterprise will revive and again 
 call into action the very life-spring of industry : the 
 Natives will find employment, and earning a surplus 
 of wages beyond that capable of purchasing a bare 
 subsistence, it will be employed, first, in providing an 
 augmentation of necessaries of British manufacture, 
 and then, in the progress of their accumulating wealth, 
 of luxuries ; by this means India would become en- 
 dowed with an active and re-active power, the source 
 both of supply and demand. 
 
 Thus briefly of India; but to draw nearer home, 
 is it too much to say, that our trade will revive and 
 extend in that country through which this grand 
 high-road is to pass ? We know the borders of the 
 
 D2
 
 36 
 
 Red Sea and the provinces adjoining in Africa and 
 Arabia are studded with cities and towns densely 
 populated. We have the evidence of travellers on 
 that route that the people are both ready and desirous 
 to possess themselves of British manufactures, 
 but that having no direct intercourse with Europe, 
 the mode by which they are at present supplied 
 renders the price to them so exorbitantly high as to 
 restrict their purchases to small quantities. From 
 the eastern coast of Africa ivory, gums, hides, various 
 drugs, and gold-dust are exported ; for which, in re- 
 turn, they would take broad-cloth, light clothing, 
 cutlery, ornaments, &c., to an enormous extent. If 
 we refer back to the state of trade in those countries 
 before the passage by the Cape of Good Hope 
 was discovered, we may form some idea of their 
 resources, and of what would be their relative 
 value again to us by the adoption of this systematic 
 scheme : in fact, a road for facilitating the inter- 
 course between Great Britain and her Oriental empire 
 would be a line of commercial exchanges throughout. 
 The capital of England would find profitable employ- 
 ment in India ; art and cultivation would walk hand 
 in hand ; and then, indeed, would India be the 
 brightest gem in the British Crown. 
 
 I am so sensible of the importance of this project, 
 and so convinced of the feebleness of my efforts in 
 promoting it, that I take leave to add the opinions of 
 the late Lord William Bentinck and the Hon. Mr. 
 Elphinstone, than whom no two persons could be 
 found, in the British or Indian empire, whose judg-
 
 37 
 
 ment on this matter would be more esteemed and 
 valued. 
 
 " What is your opinion of the probable effects, political and 
 moral, of a communication with India by Steam ? I think the 
 effect would be highly advantageous, both in a political and a 
 moral view. 
 
 " What do you conceive will be the effect of increased facility 
 of communication on the members of the Company's service ? It 
 may perhaps lead to inconvenience, by promoting appeals and 
 the employment of private interest against the decisions of the 
 local governments; but that will be more than compensated by 
 the more frequent visits of the Company's servants to England, 
 and the greater infusion of European ideas, which cannot fail 
 to extend their views and increase their efficiency. It will also 
 tend much to strengthen their connexion with their native 
 country, the possible diminution of which has on former occa- 
 sions given rise to serious apprehensions. It would probably 
 increase the number of travellers, who will have the attractions o, 
 Egypt and Arabia, instead of the discouragement of a monoton- 
 ous sea-voyage. This will be useful, from its effects, in India, 
 and still more so from the attention it will draw to that country, 
 and the interest it will excite about it at home. 
 
 " What do you think will be the effect of a more easy com- 
 munication with England on the natives? I think it will 
 have the best effects, though they may not be felt to their 
 full extent at first. The real obstacles will not be much 
 diminished ; for after the effort necessary for a native to 
 form the intention of visiting a country so remote and so unlike 
 his own, the addition of a short time to his passage would 
 not be likely to deter him ; but there is a great deal in 
 getting rid of the vague dread of a sea-voyage ; and although 
 the overland journey, as it is called, would prove to be almost 
 entirely made by sea, yet, when once a native had been tempted 
 to enquire into particulars, he would find the actual difficulties to 
 be very small. The novelty of a Steam conveyance will excite 
 attention. Two or three successful visits will lead to more 
 attempts ; and it is to be hoped that the fashion will spread 
 among the rich and educated classes. The advantage of the 
 visits of such persons would be incalculable. More would be 
 learned by an intelligent native during a year's residence here
 
 38 
 
 than by many years' study in India; and each individual, on bis 
 return, might open more ideas to his countrymen than the ablest 
 European could ever hope to do. 
 
 " Do you apprehend any ill consequence from the influx of 
 natives into England ? No. There may be an increase of peti- 
 tioners at the India House, which is troublesome, without being 
 of much use, for their affairs are seldom such as the Court of 
 Directors could interfere in; but if it is not required for redress 
 of grievances, it is useful as a vent for discontent ; and no man 
 will undertake such a journey, with the knowledge that a year's 
 residence will also, in all probability, be necessary in this 
 country, unless he is actuated by strong feelings of the importance 
 of his case. It is also sometimes said, that a familiarity with the 
 institutions of Great Britain would indispose the natives to obe- 
 dience to the government in India ; but I do not see that danger. 
 If they only get a taste for popular government, or a disposition 
 to legal assertion of their rights, it would be an improvement in 
 their character ; and with respect to factious feelings against the 
 local government, I think they are more likely to acquire them in 
 Calcutta than here, where they are less liable to be dazzled with 
 the novelty of liberal opinions, and where they may observe 
 thut it is not so simple a matter to carry those opinions to their 
 full extent as it seems at a distance. Besides, I do not think that 
 there is any fear of disturbances in India from democratic prin- 
 ciples. The real sources of danger there, are national prejudices 
 and religious enthusiasm, both of which would be weakened by 
 visits to England. 
 
 " What other effects do you think Steam Navigation would 
 have in India ? I think the free communication, as far as it 
 went, would be useful in many ways; merchants would have 
 more facility in ascertaining the state of the markets, and manu- 
 facturers in suiting their productions to the native taste. The 
 greater quickness with which books and instruments might be 
 ordered, the greater ease in printing both native and European 
 books, and, above all, the increased attention which we might hope* 
 the two countries would pay to each other's proceedings, would 
 be the means of procuring important benefits to India. The 
 effect of the more direct influence of the English press might 
 have been questionable while that of India was restrained ; but 
 I think there is no doubt that it would be useful now. If the 
 acts of the Ind-an government attracted notice in this country
 
 39 
 
 the discussion of them by the newspapers attached to different 
 parties would secure a more impartial examination of them than 
 they might meet with in India ; and if in the progress of colo- 
 nization there should come to be any opposition of interest or 
 feeling between the Europeans and natives, I think the natives 
 would have a better chance of being treated with fairness in an 
 English newspaper than in an Indian one." 
 
 Hon. Mr. Elphinstone's Evidence. 
 
 " Do you think that, supposing the scheme were carried into 
 effect, the great mass of Europeans going to and returning from 
 India would prefer the short to the long voyage round the Cape 
 of Good Hope ? I have no doubt of it : I think also there would 
 be a very considerable addition to the number of passengers. At 
 present all the passengers to India come from the United Kingdom 
 exclusively ; whereas I conceive that, from the continent of 
 Europe, and from the tide of travellers generally, you would have 
 a very great addition of numbers by the Red Sea to visit India. 
 
 " Your Lordship was understood to say, on other occasions 
 besides this, there is in India, among the European residents 
 universally, and partially among the natives, a very general de- 
 mand for the establishment of this extended communication ? 
 It is universal among Europeans, and has spread also among the 
 natives, from their conviction of the benefit India might derive 
 from being brought into a closer connexion with England, both 
 commercially and politically. 
 
 " If some such scheme as that you recommend should not be 
 carried into effect, in your opinion a general dissatisfaction will 
 ensue ? There is no doubt of it ; and the subject has been enter- 
 tained in India now during the last five years. For three years 
 of that time I was in India, and I can state the very general and 
 intense desire for it among all ranks and classes; and I may 
 perhaps state here, that nobody was more anxious about it than 
 the Bishop of Calcutta ; it was his opinion that it would tend 
 very much to the extension of Christianity in India, and the 
 general improvement of India; that opinion he expressed at a 
 public meeting, and he has frequently expressed the same 
 opinion to myself. 
 
 " Do you consider that a speedy and regular communication by 
 Steam with all the ports in India will be productive of any moral
 
 40 
 
 or political advantage ? Very many, and very great. With re- 
 spect to the moral advantage, I have already had the occasion, in 
 India, of publishing my opinion ; and I will now repeat it. The 
 subscribers to the Madras Steam Fund addressed me a letter, in 
 1834, in which they stated their belief that this project would 
 confer vast and incalculable benefits upon our country and man- 
 kind. I answered as follows: 'I confess that my anticipation 
 of the expected benefit goes far beyond the more obvious results, 
 great as those undoubtedly would be, of improved government, of 
 the welfare of the people, as effected by such improvement, of 
 the promotion of commerce, and of what may be considered of 
 minor importance, of the comfort of our own numerous country- 
 men, separated by such great distance of time and place from all 
 connexion with their dearest interests.' The limit assigned by the 
 resolution is expressed by the large term of ' mankind,' and in 
 my judgment appropriately and correctly ; because the great 
 want of this eastern world, India, China, &c., may be compre- 
 hended in the single word, ' knowledge.' If the moral condition 
 and happiness of the most enlightened countries suffer from this 
 cause, it can be easily conceived, that on this great space, where 
 the human mind has been buried for ages in universal darkness, 
 the task must be hopeless, unless the same means which have 
 alone accomplished the object elsewhere are brought into action, 
 and these means increased and enforced with all the encourage- 
 ment that the Government authority can bestow. I look to Steam- 
 Navigation as the great engine of working this moral improve- 
 ment. In proportion as the communication between the two 
 countries shall be facilitated and shortened, so will civilized 
 Europe be approximated, as it were, to these benighted regions ; 
 and in no other way can improvement in any large stream be ex- 
 pected to flow in. The circumstances that have hitherto operated 
 as a complete barrier against the intercourse of the natives with 
 Europe, except the classes of sailors and of menial servants, have 
 been, first, certain customs as to food prescribed by the Hindoo 
 religion ; and, secondly, and mainly, the length, the expense and 
 apprehension also of so long a voyage. In respect to the first of 
 these obstacles, Rammohun Hoy, who will be of illustrious me- 
 mory among his posterity, has broken the ice ; and I know that 
 some, and I have no doubt that other, rich and well-educated 
 natives are preparing to tread in his footsteps, with the same lau-
 
 41 
 
 dable desire of seeing what India may become, by what Europe, 
 and especially England is, and of raising their country by the 
 same means from the moral and political degradation in which 
 she is plunged. When in India I recorded the opinion, which I 
 repeat, that had the establishment of Steamers now proposed been 
 then in existence during the Burmese war, many thousand lives, 
 prodigious individual suffering, and millions of money, would 
 have been saved to the state. It is not too much to assert, that 
 under the peculiar local circumstances of India, with great space, 
 no roads or canals, a very unhealthy climate, and with a sea- 
 coast for its universal limit, one-fourth of the same military force, 
 in co-operation with an adequate Steam establishment, would be 
 more efficient than the whole without it. Perhaps the most im- 
 portant benefit of all would be its tendency to place the security 
 of our empire upon the only solid foundation, the general good 
 will of those we govern. Our government, to be secure, must be 
 made popular, and to become so, it must consult the welfare of 
 the many, and not of the few : the government must remain arbi- 
 trary, but it may also be, and should be, paternal. It is through 
 the means of a quick, safe, and frequent communication between 
 all India and England, that the natives of India in person will 
 be enabled to bring their complaints and grievances before the 
 authorities and the country ; that large numbers of disinterested 
 travellers will have it in their power to report to their country- 
 men at home the nature and circumstances of this distant portion 
 of the empire. The result, I hope, will be to rouse the shameful 
 apathy and indifference of Great Britain to the concerns of India; 
 and by thus bringing the eye of the British public to bear upon 
 India, it may be hoped that the desired amelioration may be ac- 
 complished. The following remark of Mr. Mill in his able His- 
 tory of India, is well suited to the present question : ' If the East 
 India Company have been so little successful in ameliorating the 
 practical operation of their government, it has been owing chiefly 
 to the disadvantage of their situation, distant a voyage of several 
 months from the scene of action, and to that imperfect knowledge 
 which is common to them with all their countrymen.' " Right 
 Hon. Lord IVilliam Eentinck's Evidence.
 
 42 
 
 With such authority as the foregoing, and consi- 
 dering the results that a perfect system of Steam 
 Communication with India would probably lead to, 
 it does appear almost incredible that there should 
 be any enemies to a measure which has been proved 
 beyond contradiction would be an inestimable benefit 
 to Britain and to India ; and it may sound still more 
 strange to many, (who now hear it,) that the Direc- 
 tors of the East India Company, the very parties 
 who ought to be foremost in promoting the object, 
 are those who have been from the first most adverse 
 to it! who even now do all they can to thwart its 
 progress, and to render nugatory the efforts of those 
 warm friends of India, whose energies have been ap- 
 plied to establish the much-wished-for communica- 
 tion. Was the project that has been laid before them 
 a chimera could it be designated a disjointed or a 
 visionary scheme, framed by parties who sought in 
 its working no other object but personal aggrandize- 
 ment, then their objections to contribute the aid 
 asked would have some rational foundation ; but is 
 the judgment of the East India Company, or rather 
 of their executive, being that of twenty-four sage 
 counsellors in Leadenhall Street, to outweigh the de- 
 cision of the Ministers of the Crown, backed as it is 
 by public opinion at home and abroad ? 
 
 Formerly their calculations, given in evidence, went 
 to prove their objection was founded on the expense. 
 " Mr. Peacock stated, it would require annually 
 4*100,000 to maintain four vessels of six hundred 
 tons each ! /"
 
 43 
 
 Now they do not hesitate to disburse 120,000 a 
 year (a sum extracted from the over-taxed Natives of 
 India,) to keep up an irregular and imperfect com- 
 munication between Bombay and Suez! an object 
 to them of little or no value ; while, on the other 
 hand, they refuse to give their sanction and co-ope- 
 rative aid to a plan which combines every advantage 
 for all classes of the British and Indian community, 
 and that for an annual payment of less than 
 50,000. 
 
 Is it not monstrous that the East India Company 
 should be permitted to continue the narrow-minded 
 policy, which has hitherto double-barred every door 
 that would open a channel through which the Natives 
 of India might find an easy access to our shores ? 
 
 The public of England and of India have been 
 humbly supplicating and waiting years for such an 
 arrangement as the one here advocated, whilst the 
 East India Company has played the dog in the 
 manger, neither doing it themselves, nor suffering 
 it to be adequately undertaken by others. How 
 much longer are the community of both empires to 
 endure such narrow, selfish, and unfeeling policy? . 
 
 Her Majesty's Government should insist upon one 
 of two things the public should demand it: they 
 should call upon the East India Company to with- 
 draw their opposition to the wish and opinion of the 
 Right Honourable President of the India Board,* 
 
 * 10th March, 1837. Sir John Hobhouse, in a letter to the Chair- 
 man and Directors, stated, " I am convinced that any plan which 
 does not embrace a communication by Steam Packets with Madras
 
 44 
 
 or to produce a measure themselves, in all respects 
 as perfect and complete as the one proposed for their 
 adoption by Mr. Curtis and his colleagues. But con- 
 sidering, as I have shown, that from the first the East 
 India Company have opposed this measure, and have 
 prevented its being an instrumentfor good in the hands 
 of others, that they are themselves unwilling agents, 
 and only have yielded to the pressure from without to 
 do the miserable little that has been done ; I confess I 
 should not be disposed to trust their promises for the 
 future, unless they be secured by the authority of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Therefore, taking a review of the whole project 
 from its advent to the present hour, with the expe- 
 rience of the constant failure, even in its very limited 
 line of operation, under the control of the East India 
 Company, and with the knowledge that it is not iheir 
 intention to extend the communication beyond the 
 line from Suez to Bombay ; moreover, to attempt that 
 only when the weather will permit their Packets 
 
 and Calcutta, as well as with Bombay, will entirely fail to give 
 public satisfaction, and to fulfil the just expectations of the 
 people, both of England and of India." 
 
 28th March, 1839. Sir John Hobhouse expressed a wish in 
 writing, that a contract should be entered into with Mr. Curtis 
 and his party. 
 
 12th July, 1839. The Secretary of the India Board, in his 
 letter to the East India Company, writes in reply to theirs of the 
 llth, " I am desired to state, that the Board having, through 
 their President, placed on record an opinion favourable to the 
 adoption of the proposed scheme, an opinion which they see no 
 reason to recall, consider that they cannot, either in consistency 
 or propriety, reverse that opinion."
 
 45 
 
 (" Tubs,") to make the passage, I maintain the pub- 
 lic ought no longer to suffer the caprice, whim, or 
 jealousy of that corporation to interfere against the 
 accomplishment of an object, in which national and 
 individual interests are so deeply involved. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 The foregoing pages were at the printer's when 
 public attention was called to the correspondence 
 just published, which has passed between Mr. 
 Curtis and the President of the India Board and the 
 Court of Directors of the East India Company, upon 
 this very subject. The pamphlet itself cannot be 
 too strongly recommended to the attentive perusal 
 and consideration of each individual who feels an in- 
 terest in British India : a brief notice of its contents 
 here must suffice. 
 
 It appears that Mr. Curtis (as Chairman of the 
 Committee,) in the first instance, communicated with 
 the ministers of the Crown. This created a narrow- 
 minded jealousy in Leadenhall Street, which was 
 found to be operating to the prejudice of the cause. 
 On the 15th of May last, therefore, Mr. Curtis address- 
 ed himself direct to the " Honourable Court of Direc- 
 tors of the East India Company," and having waited 
 a considerable time without receiving any answer to 
 his letter, on the 3rd of July that gentleman re- 
 minded them of their neglect, and asked for a reply, 
 still no answer. It, consequently, became necessary
 
 40 
 
 that a third letter should be written, which bears date 
 September the 14th. On the 14th of October, exactly 
 jive lunar months from the date of the first letter 
 to them, this Honourable and dignified body thought 
 proper to vouchsafe a reply ! It is worthy of remark, 
 that although Her Majesty's Ministers were in the 
 first instance addressed by Mr. Curtis, yet due 
 courtesy was at the same time observed towards the 
 Court of Directors, and, that they were not only fur- 
 nished with copies of all the letters at the time they 
 were sent to Sir John Hobhouse, but, the Court were 
 in possession in detail of every transaction that had 
 taken place, (relative to this subject,) since the pub- 
 lic meeting that was held in October, 1838, " To 
 promote an efficient means of Steam Communication 
 between Great Britain and all the Presidencies of 
 India," as the following extract from Mr. Curtis's 
 letter distinctly declares 
 
 " To the Hon. Court of Directors of the East India Company. 
 
 London, \5th May, 1839. 
 " HONOURABLE SIRS, 
 
 " The daily increasing importance of the vast empire 
 held in possession by your Honourable Company in the East 
 Indies, both as regards the political, social, and commercial rela- 
 tions in which it stands to this country, and the necessarily con- 
 sequent desire on the part of those who are in any way connected 
 with that branch of the British dominions, that the most expedi- 
 tious mode of communication should be established between 
 Great Britain and her Indian Empire, led to a Public Meeting, 
 which was held at the Jerusalem Coffee-House on the 12th of 
 October, 1 838. The result of that Meeting was the appointment 
 of a Committee to take into its consideration such plans as might 
 be submitted to it for carrying into effect the proposed object of 
 a direct and regular communication by Steam-vessels from Great
 
 47 
 
 Britain to the three presidencies of India and to Ceylon, by way 
 of the Red Sea. After a diligent investigation the Committee 
 made its Report to the General Meeting, which was held at the 
 London Tavern on the 18th of January last, when the Report was 
 received and a Committee appointed to carry into effect the pro- 
 posed objects of that Committee, of which (as of the former one, 
 appointed by the Public Meeting of the 12th October, 1838,) I 
 was named chairman. 
 
 "I had the honour of transmitting to the chairman and deputy- 
 chairman of your Honourable Court the printed Report adopted 
 by the Meeting of the 18th January last, for the information of 
 your Honourable Court ; and having, at the desire of the Right 
 Honourable the President of the India Board and the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, addressed them a letter, pointing out what 
 were conceived to be the defects of the present system of inter- 
 communication with India, and the remedy to make it perfect, I 
 also transmitted a copy of that letter to the chairman of your 
 Honourable Court. Subsequently, in consequence of some ques- 
 tions put verbally to me by the President of the India Board, I 
 addressed another letter to that Right Honourable Gentleman, 
 and a third in reply to a letter from the chairman and deputy- 
 chairman to him. In order to bring all these documents under 
 the consideration of your Honourable Court, I transmit inclosed 
 herewith copies of my several letters alluded to above, viz. Feb. 
 21, March 25, and April 13." 
 
 Now, I am quite sure that I may venture to assert, 
 that the Court of Directors of the East India Company 
 are the only public body in Europe, who would 
 have committed such a palpable breach of the com- 
 mon observances of social or official etiquette, as to 
 have kept any gentleman for five months without an 
 acknowledgment even that his letter had been re- 
 ceived, more particularly when that gentleman was 
 known to have been authorized by the merchants of 
 London to communicate upon this subject with them- 
 selves. Having made this short comment on the
 
 48 
 
 manners of the Honourable Court, let us examine the 
 reply itself. 
 
 After acknowledging the receipt of the several 
 letters from Mr. Curtis, it states, ' The East India 
 Company have been, and are anxiously endeavouring 
 to establish an efficient Steam Communication with 
 India" IF this be truth, the signal and constant 
 failure of those endeavours are conclusive arguments 
 against the East India Company, and prove " an 
 efficient Steam Communication" is not to be accom- 
 plished through their agency. 
 
 They next condescend to say, " To any well-de- 
 vised measures, by which the established means of 
 communication might be extended, the Court would 
 be ready to afford due encouragement," 
 
 On perusing this paragraph, it bears the appear- 
 ance of such great plausibility, that the public will 
 conclude the Honourable Court are in earnest. No 
 such thing ; disrobe it of its cloak, and it has not the 
 slightest pretext for credence. 
 
 Who is to pronounce the measure to be a well- 
 devised one? the East India Company. Is not 
 their own plan, and the vessels they employ for car- 
 rying it into effect, the laughing-stock of the veriest 
 tyro in Steam-navigation ? Fine names may easily 
 be given to "Locomotive Stys,"* Zenobia! Semi- 
 ramis ! You may call a dray-horse by the name of 
 
 The " Waterford" and the " Kilkenny" were built for car- 
 rying pigs between Ireland and England, now yeleped Zenobia ! 
 
 and Si-minimis !
 
 49 
 
 " Eclipse," but that will not give to him the proper- 
 ties of a high-mettled racer ! Where then is the 
 fittest tribunal to be found to sit in judgment on a 
 " well-devised measure ?" Surely not in the "Finance 
 and Home Committee" at the India House? The 
 majority of that Committee were, till lately, opposed 
 to any communication with India by Steam. 
 
 The " well-devised measure" which Her Majesty's 
 Minister* for Indian affairs approved of, and thesa me 
 which the Court of Directors have rejected, is the re- 
 sult of a careful investigation by a committee comprised 
 of Indian and British merchants, of civil and military 
 servants of the East India Company, and others, 
 who patiently and attentively took, and examined 
 evidence, forming a large volume upon the subject, 
 and who did submit the plan proposed to a public 
 meeting in January last, whereat it was unanimously 
 approved of; moreover, it has been acknowledged in 
 India, by Natives and Europeans, as the one needed ; 
 still in the face of all this, the Honourable Court re- 
 
 * 28th March last. Sir John Hobbouse expressed a wish in 
 writing to the chairman of the Court, that this plan should be 
 supported, subject to a five years' contract, instead of ten, the 
 time asked. 
 
 12th July, 1839. The Secretary of the India Board, in his let- 
 ter to the East India Company, writes in reply to theirs of the 
 llth, "I am desired to state, that the Board having, through 
 their President, placed on record an opinion favourable to the 
 adoption of the proposed scheme, an opinion which they see no 
 reason to recall, consider that they cannot, either in consistency 
 or propriety, reverse that opinion, which they would virtually do, 
 were they to accede to the request contained in your letter." 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 quire a " well-devised measure !" Reader, say how 
 much faith you have in their ''due encouragement." 
 
 But now turn to page 17, and see the East India 
 Company's well-devised measure, (the product of 
 their " anxious endeavour to establish an efficient 
 Steam Communication") placed in juxta-position 
 with the one that has been submitted to them : mark 
 too the cost!! 115,000 annually ! for what? to 
 draw down upon us the ridicule of nations, and to 
 create and continue universal dissatisfaction, when 
 the most perfect plan that care and talent could de- 
 vise one that would add to our national glory, and 
 give security to our Indian Empire, might be had at 
 an annual charge to the East India Company of 
 50,000, being less than one-half the sum it now 
 costs them to maintain four inefficient boats. Was 
 there ever such gross and unblushing effrontery ex- 
 hibited towards British merchants? 
 
 Before concluding these remarks upon this ever- 
 to-be celebrated reply, it is requisite to refer to Mr. 
 Curtis's letter, which is dated the 25th of March, 
 and addressed to Sir John Cam Hobhouse, in which 
 reference is made to a conversation that had passed 
 between those gentlemen on the 14th of the same 
 month, on which occasion it appears Mr. Curtis was 
 given to understand the East India Company would 
 probably yield the point to Calcutta, if the proposed 
 company would not interfere with the Bombay line. 
 In paragraph the fifth of the chairman and deputy- 
 chairman's letter to Sir John Hobhouse, dated the 5th 
 of April, they unequivocally state, " That they could
 
 51 
 
 not consent to make any pecuniary grant in aid of 
 the expense of a Steam Communication with India, 
 without being relieved from the charge which the 
 East India Company now incurs on that account;" 
 which is to say, whatever party undertakes Steam Com- 
 munication with Ind'a, must do all or none ; whereas 
 they now state, much as they may be inclined to give 
 dueencouragement to an extended measure, "they are 
 unwilling now to enter into any arrangement affect- 
 ing the measures regarding the communication be- 
 tween Suez and Bombay." Whence, let me ask, is 
 this new light so suddenly derived ? To what mo- 
 tive is it to be attributed ? No one would presume 
 to think the little patronage that hangs upon the 
 Packet branch of their Steam-flotilla, would induce 
 this alteration of decision : it will, nevertheless, be a 
 difficult matter to make any dispassionate reasoner 
 believe the decision of the East India Company to be 
 based upon patriotic motives, or paternal regard for 
 the immense population subject to their rule, seeing 
 their verdict is opposed to the highest authorities in 
 India to the opinion and desires of the Ministers of 
 the Crown to their own civil and military Services 
 and to the social and commercial public of both em- 
 pires, who are at all interested in the matter. 
 
 While the liberal hand of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment has conceded an annual payment of 240,000 
 to establish and maintain a perfect system of Com- 
 munication by Steam with the West Indies, what is 
 done by the East India Company in behalf of our 
 Eastern empire ?
 
 52 
 
 They stand forth, armed with the high and power- 
 ful privileges of their charter, and, instead of holding 
 out the cordial hand of good-fellowship instead of fos- 
 tering, by their sanction and support, the means that 
 have been placed within their reach, to confer " mea- 
 sureless blessings" upon a large portion of the human 
 family, over whose destiny Providence has permitted 
 them to preside what do they? They attempt to 
 withhold this great boon, they oppose, to sound prac- 
 tical arguments, an evasive reply which ranks only 
 as one among the one hundred and one shifts that 
 have been resorted to for a similar purpose. How 
 much longer is this to be endured ? When will the 
 eyes of British merchants be opened to the truth ? 
 When will they see the necessity of active and sub- 
 stantial measures on their own part ? Is not the un- 
 tiring perseverance and the enterprise exhibited in 
 India, a censure upon the continued apathy at home? 
 
 That the East India Company has been hitherto 
 the great hindrance to a perfect system of Steam 
 Communication with India, no one can doubt who 
 reads this statement of facts. To hope for it under 
 their fostering hand, I fear, will be useless ; and there 
 consequently remains but one mode for carrying it 
 into effect. For however desirable the cordial co ope- 
 ration of the Court of Directors in support of the un- 
 dertaking would be, it is by no means an indispen- 
 sable adjunct. 
 
 Let then the community of Great Britain step boldly 
 forward, and respond to the example which has been 
 set them in the East. Let a Joint Stock Company beat
 
 53 
 
 once formed to carry this undertaking, gigantic in im- 
 portance but easy of accomplishment, into effect. Who 
 can doubt of an abundant capital for such a purpose, if 
 the management be placed in proper hands ? The 
 outlay will be invested in bond fide property ; a large 
 and ruinous expenditure beyond the estimate cannot 
 be created ; there will be neither the houses to pull 
 down, nor the gentlemen's parks to run through, which 
 callforth such largesums of moneyin establishing rail- 
 roads. Approximate India to England, how vast the 
 benefits !" The scheme once accomplished, there can 
 be no doubt of a revenue. The Government are 
 willing to be the East India Company of necessity 
 would be not only your ready, but your anxious 
 customers. My conviction grows every day more 
 strong, from the many opportunities I have of judging, 
 that the estimated number of passengers who would 
 choose this Red Sea route is far underrated. 
 
 Is an undertaking thus fraught with so much pro- 
 mise, and favoured by so many anticipations, never 
 to be achieved ? Great ends must have great aims 
 in those that would attain them ; half of the enter- 
 prises of the present day, of far less pretensions, 
 would never have been completed, if the energy of 
 man had found a stumbling-block in the objections 
 of the timid, and the blindness of the narrow-minded. 
 " Projectors see no difficulties, critics nothing else." 
 
 I shall conclude with quoting the opinion of the 
 Lord Bishop of Calcutta, who, at a public meeting 
 held in that city on this subject, said, " I should
 
 54 
 
 like any gentleman to say, of those who are well 
 acquainted with such subjects, what in his opinion 
 has been discovered of late, that so much opens the 
 access to future improvement, as the present pro- 
 ject." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Jnwph Hi. k'-tliv, Printer, Shcrbmirn Lanr-
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE arrival of the Indian Mail enables me to sub- 
 join the following extracts, taken from the proceed- 
 ings of a Public Meeting, that was held in Calcutta 
 on the 19th of August last, to receive the Report of 
 the New Bengal Steam Fund Committee. 
 
 The LORD BISHOP was called to the chair, on the motion of 
 H. M. Parker, Esq., who characterised him as an honourable, 
 able, zealous, and persevering advocate of Steam Communica- 
 tion. 
 
 The Right Reverend Chairman then addressed the meeting as 
 follows : Gentlemen, it is not without some reluctance that I 
 have taken the chair on this occasion, because I think, that in 
 matters not directly of a religious character, the chair of public 
 meetings is better filled by gentlemen more immediately con- 
 nected with the subject in hand. Still, so far as may be in ac- 
 cordance with my sacred duties, I am always happy to support 
 this and every other design, which has for its object the good of 
 India and of the world at large. But what overcame my reluc- 
 tance to act as chairman, at this time, was an intimation from Mr. 
 Greenlaw, that it was designed to offer some tribute to the me- 
 mory of our late Governor-General, Lord William Cavendish 
 Bentinck, tidings of whose death, at Paris, have just reached us. 
 When I remembered his exertions in the cause in which we are 
 assembled, and in every other design for the happiness of India, 
 I did not think it possible for me to decline the invitation with 
 which I was honoured. It was Lord William Bentinck who, in 
 1833, first instilled into my mind that zeal for the cause of Steam 
 Communication, which has ever since animated me. It was Lord 
 William Bentinck who induced me to send the little letter in the 
 
 f2
 
 June of that year, which many gentlemen before me remember, 
 and which contributed, perhaps, in some measure, to advance the 
 subscriptions then begun. 1 had continual opportunities after- 
 wards of knowing, that the same distinguished person used every 
 exertion in his power in furtherance of the great cause. A tribute 
 to his memory is therefore most justly due. 
 
 Moreover, when I remember the warm kindness which he 
 displayed towards myself when I remember the integrity of his 
 character, his love for India, and his appreciation of the advan- 
 tages of native education, I am still further disposed to honour his 
 name. When I add to this his private charities, his munificence 
 to all around him, (he has more than once at church put 2,000 
 rupees into the plate for the District Charitable Society,) when 
 I remember that I never missed him at church when his health 
 would allow him to attend when I call to mind his avowed al- 
 legiance to the Christian religion, the interest which he took in 
 the wise and discreet progress of Christian missions, his Chris- 
 tian purity, his family piety, his love to his wife, his kindness and 
 benignity to all around him the example, in short, that he set to 
 India all these induce me as a man, as a resident in this coun- 
 try, as a Christian, and as one holding the office I do in the 
 church, to offer my feeble but heartfelt testimony of love to the 
 memory of Lord William Bentinck. 
 
 The following Report of the Committee was then read by the 
 Secretary, C. B. Greenlaw, Esq. 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 ' The Committee are happy to state, that the cash paid into 
 the Union Bank, amounts up to this date to Rs. 99,650, being the 
 first instalment on 9,96,500 Rs., or in round numbers 10 lacs or 
 100,000; and it has been paid by only 401 firms and indivi- 
 duals out of the large number of persons interested in this great 
 undertaking. The Committee trust that many of that number 
 may now be induced to come forward and support, at a critical 
 period, the measures in progress at home; which cannot be better 
 done than by demonstrating the sincerity of the] interest felt by a 
 subscription for Shares and payment of the fiist instalment.
 
 " Of the Calcutta Subscriptions five houses of business have 
 each taken one hundred Shares; and one native gentleman, Baboo 
 Mutty Loll Seal, has taken fifty. 
 
 " The Committee cannot pass the Mofussil Subscriptions with- 
 out noticing the highly interesting proceedings had at Berham- 
 pore. 
 
 " On the receipt of a Circular, addressed by the Committee to 
 the most influential and leading members of society at the seve- 
 ral stations in Bengal and Agra, a meeting was called by Mr. F. 
 W. Russell, at which that gentleman presided, and at which re- 
 solutions in conformity with those adopted at Calcutta were 
 passed, and a Committee appointed, consisting of Captain Pem- 
 berton and Messrs. G. G. M'Pherson and Lambrick, to further 
 the object of the meeting. 
 
 " A Resolution was also passed to the effect, ' That, the meet- 
 ing observing with deep regret that no native gentlemen have at- 
 tended, and concluding that they must be ignorant of the advan- 
 tages likely to be secured to them by the establishment of a 
 Comprehensive System of Steam Navigation, it be resolved that 
 circulation throughout this and the adjoining districts be given to 
 a brief outline, in the native languages, of the nature and objects 
 of the scheme. 
 
 "This having been done, a voluntary meeting of the native gen- 
 tlemen took place, at the house of Koowar Krisnath Roy Bahadoor, 
 Raja of Cossimbazar, at which the matter was discussed among 
 themselves; and it being understood, that having made them- 
 selves acquainted with the nature of the enterprise and its man- 
 ner of accomplishment, they were desirous of aiding therein, 
 another public meeting took place on the 28th day of May, at which 
 Mr. Russell also presided, when eighty-two shares were sub- 
 scribed for (including twenty-eight subscribed at the previous 
 meeting,) and two have since been added, making in all eighty- 
 four shares from Berhampore. Of the eighty-four shares, fifty- 
 one were taken by twenty-one native ladies and gentlemen. Her 
 Highness the Newab Ameeroomissa Begum having taken ten 
 shares, and Koowar Krisnath Roy Bahadoor, twenty. 
 
 " The Committee beg explicitly to state, once again, that the pro-
 
 posed Comprehensive Scheme, always from the 6rst included Bom- 
 bay, as well as Madras and Calcutta. The exclusion of that pre- 
 sidency indeed has never for a moment been contemplated ; and 
 letters for Agra would naturally as now be forwarded by the 
 Steamers of the Comprehensive Scheme, which took the line be- 
 tween Bombay and Aden ; while passengers from and for Agra 
 would take their passages either on the Bombay or the Calcutta 
 line, as might be most convenient to themselves. As respects let- 
 ters indeed, our secretary is at this moment in communication 
 with a gentleman, better qualified perhaps than any other indivi- 
 dual in India to advise on such a subject, and who is preparing a 
 statement to show the shortest routes by which letters on the Com- 
 prehensive Steamers will reach all the stations in India, in order 
 that they may be made up in packets for Bombay, Madras, or 
 Calcutta ; as the stations to which they are directed may be near- 
 est by the Dak route to one or other of those cities. Thus the 
 Agra presidency would of course have its letters and light parcels 
 via Bombay. 
 
 "The Committee are persuaded, that the more the Comprehen- 
 sive Scheme is understood, the more clearly will it be found to 
 embrace the highest interests of all the presidencies, and all the 
 different stations. It never had, from the beginning, in view any 
 other than the most general and universal benefit of all India, 
 British and native ; and as the plan becomes understood, it will 
 draw to itself the general and universal support of all classes of 
 this vast peninsula. 
 
 " The Committee have dwelt on the proceedings had at the above 
 three places, with a view to show the deep interest they take in 
 Mofussil co-operation, and in the hope that a spirit similar to that 
 which induced the meetings at Berhampore and Mirzapore may 
 yet spring up throughout Bengal and Agra. 
 
 " The Madras Committee, in the meantime, have not been idle. 
 They called a public meeting on the 10th May, at that presidency, 
 at which the Honourable the Chief Justice presided, and at which 
 resolutions, to the same purport as those passed in Calcutta, 
 were adopted. Above five hundred shares have been taken, and 
 (subscriptions are still in the course of being made. Among the
 
 Madras subscriptions are those of his Highness the Rajah of My- 
 sore, and of some members of his family, for fourteen shares. 
 
 "These subscriptions were made after his Highness had been 
 made aware of the object in view, by the perusal of a pamphlet 
 which had been sent to him at his own request, by Major Stokes. 
 His Highness, in returning the pamphlet, and notifying the sub- 
 scription, and payment of the first instalment, observes : 
 
 " ' The Rajah concurs with Major Stokes, in the opinion that 
 the permanent establishment of Steam Communication between 
 England and India will be productive of extensive advantage to 
 both countries. It affords much gratification to him to find that 
 the scheme has met with the powerful aid and support of a great 
 number of persons, which is a strong proof of the warm feeling en- 
 tertained in favour of this great enterprise.' 
 
 " But the princely subscription for twenty-five shares, by his 
 Highness the Elliah Rajah of Travancore, demands the special 
 notice of the Committee. The high estimation in which his High- 
 ness is held throughout India, induces a hope that his example 
 will be generally folio wed, especially in the presidency which has 
 had the benefit of his Highness's liberal contribution. 
 
 " The following has been the manner in which letters have 
 reached Calcutta from Bombay : 
 
 " On one occasion (viz. the February mail,) sixty-two letters 
 for Calcutta, and eighty-three for the Mofussil, (with a single 
 newspaper, ( making 145 covers, were received in eleven days from 
 Bombay; the great body of the mail, 2129 covers in number, did 
 not arrive till three days after, and the remainder were two days 
 more: and it has happened that the ordinary dak of a date subse- 
 quent to the despatch of portions of the English mail for Calcutta 
 has arrived previous to those portions of the mail. 
 
 "The largest number of covers yet received by the mail at Cal- 
 cutta, was contained in the March mail, when 4,441 covers were 
 received, 3,634 being for Calcutta delivery, and 807 for the Mo- 
 fussil. The largest previous number of covers received was 3897. 
 
 "The longest period between the arrival of a mail at Bombay, 
 and the final receipt of the Calcutta portion, since last report, 
 was twenty-one days, in the case of the last mail. This mail
 
 8 
 
 consisted of 4,111 covers. The first division arrived in sixteen 
 days after the arrival of the mail at Bombay, and contained 955 co- 
 vers, of which 815 were letters, and the rest newspapers. The 
 second division arrived in seventeen days, and brought 890 covers, 
 of which 798 were letters. The third came in eighteen days, and 
 had only J64 covers, of which only three were letters. The fourth 
 took nineteen days, and contained 1,247 covers, of which 913 were 
 letters. The fifth arrived in twenty days, and had 331 covers, of 
 which seven were letters. The sixth, and last, took twenty-one 
 days, and brought 524 covers, of which twenty-one were letters. 
 Thus on the third day, although there were many letters to 
 come, few were sent, and on that mail only 164 covers were sent, 
 though on the following day the mail conveyed 1,247 covers. 
 " By order of the committee of the New Bengal Steam Fund, 
 
 " CHAS. B. GREENLAW, Secretary.'' 
 " Calcutta, Town Hall, Aug. 16, 1839." 
 
 Capt. T. J. Taylor, then spoke to the following effect. Mr. 
 Chairman, I believe, after the report just read, every person 
 in this room will feel cause to congratulate himself, and the pub- 
 lic on the gradual advancement of the good cause of Steam 
 Navigation. But few remarks are required from me in support 
 of the proposition I have now to make : it was considered as a 
 reproach upon the people of England, that they could not be 
 brought to feel an interest in, or exert themselves for any thing 
 which was to bring no pecuniary benefit to themselves. It 
 was said by the old Spanish Ambassador, Olivarez, that nothing 
 was to be done in England without the expectation of the 
 candle-ends and cheese-parings. This has been shown, how- 
 ever, not to be the case with our indefatigable friend Mr. Curtis, 
 the Governor of the Bank of England, who had the good 
 sense to appreciate the advantages of extended Steam Commu- 
 nication between England and her most valuable colony, and 
 whose energy had determined to produce those advantages. His 
 assiduity in the cause is unparalleled, Mr. Curtis is a man of 
 great wealth and great commercial influence, and could have
 
 nothing to expect in the way of pecuniary reward. But, un- 
 doubtedly, he expected to elevate himself in the opinion of 
 his fellow-men. T trust he will not be disappointed. I trust 
 that the thanks of this meeting, and of all India, will be accorded 
 as they ought to be, to that indefatigable man. 
 
 Satisfactory, however, as is the general report of the pro- 
 gress made during the,last half-year, there is one drawback, gen- 
 tlemen, to which I must advert. I mean the underhand op- 
 position to the cause of Steam Communication, shown by 
 the Court of Directors, which is altogether unworthy of that 
 honourable body. There is, indeed, some reason why they 
 should not be pleased at the prospect of a speedy communication 
 betwixt India and England it afforded such an opportunity 
 of applicants for redress. Persons had already gone by the 
 Steamers from Bombay, to lay their grievances at the foot of the 
 throne There are practices in this presidency far more calcu- 
 lated to produce such appeals than anything in those of Bombay 
 or Madras. Look at the resumptions ! When I went up the 
 country last year, what was it made the people in the provinces 
 of Behar look on me as if they could cut my throat ? What 
 was it made the man at Patua say that " they only wanted a 
 leader ?" It was the simple fact, that every man above the com- 
 mon herd every man possessed of land and property in bis 
 own right, felt that his whole estate might be seized on the 
 morrow by the Resumption Special Commissioner, and that he 
 might be turned out into the world, a houseless wanderer, 
 and, with a starving family, be reduced from independence to 
 absolute beggary. 
 
 The Court of Directors well knew that if a rapid communica- 
 tion was fairly established, the number of applicants for redress 
 would be doubled, quadrupled, increased a hundred-fold. 
 Their opposition, therefore, need be a matter of no surprise. 
 But there is a power to which even the Court of Directors must 
 bow, the power of Parliament and the pressure from without. 
 
 If, therefore, the Court of Directors should return an unfavour- 
 able reply to Mr. Curtis's last letter, no time should, I think,
 
 10 
 
 be lost, in convening a fresh meeting, and addressing a petition 
 to Parliament, appealing against the proceedings of the Honour- 
 able Court. It now only remains for me to propose to the meet- 
 ing the following resolution : 
 
 " That the Report be received ; that the thanks of this meeting 
 be conveyed by the Right Reverend the Chairman to Messrs. 
 Curtis, Larkins, Bagshaw, and McKillop, and to Captain Barber, 
 for their zealous and well-directed efforts to obtain the immedi- 
 ate establishment of a perfect Comprehensive Steam Commu- 
 nication between England and India ; and that they be assured 
 that no exertion shall be wanting in Bengal in aid of their endea- 
 vours." 
 
 The resolution was seconded by Col. McLeod, and carried 
 unanimously. 
 
 The Right Reverend Chairman, here took occasion to ob- 
 serve, that it would be advisable for the gentlemen present, 
 strictly to confine themselves, in their orations, to FACTS re- 
 lative to the object of the meeting, and not digress from the 
 subject, to attribute unworthy motives to, or censure, any body 
 on mere hypothesis. 
 
 Mr. Parker. My Lord and Gentlemen, I have been en- 
 trusted with a resolution, which I solicit your permission to read : 
 it is as follows : 
 
 " That the position of the question, when the last mail was 
 despatched, demands that this meeting should reiterate, in the 
 strongest manner possible, the unabated desire which pervades 
 the meeting, and the public in general, for the immediate estab- 
 lishment of the communication, and their determined resolution 
 to continue to use every means in their power to obtain it." 
 
 Before submitting this resolution to the sense of the meeting, 
 I would crave permission to offer a few remarks, which I hope 
 may appear not inapplicable to its tenour. In submitting these 
 remarks I shall bear in mind, as far as possible, the excellent ad- 
 vice we have just received from our right reverend chairman, so 
 just in itself, so worthy of attention, as proceeding from his lips. 
 J shall abstain as much as possible from comments ; I shall con-
 
 11 
 
 fine myself as much as possible to facts. Comments, however 
 true, may, as his Lordship observes, create unpleasant and un- 
 friendly feelings; facts can have, or ought to have, no such 
 effect. 
 
 Since we last met in this hall, another season has elapsed of 
 distressing and humiliating failure in the present imperfect scheme 
 of Steam Navigation between Great Britian and India. That is 
 a fact. 
 
 At this moment every hour is worth a week of ordinary time. 
 A commercial crisis of an unparalleled nature, and involving im- 
 mense interest, has occurred in China. A momentous war is 
 waging .on one frontier. On two others the storm seems gather- 
 ing, and clouds of threatening hostility hang darkly. In the in- 
 terior of our empire, for such I may say is Joudpore, there is ano- 
 ther conflict to all appearance approaching. These, my Lord, 
 these gentlemen, I think I may call FACTS ! 
 
 Between the United States of America and our native country, 
 mighty vessels, called the Great Western, the Liverpool, the Bri- 
 tish Queen, and there may be many others, are breasting their 
 magnificent way through the storms, over the foaming seas, amidst 
 the encumbering ice of the Great Atlantic stopped by no ob- 
 stacle, triumphing over every difficulty, and carrying on their in- 
 tercourse between the old world and the new, almost with the re- 
 gularity and precision of clock-work. This, my Lord, is no com- 
 ment it is a FACT ! 
 
 While a crisis is hovering over British Asia, such, perhaps, as 
 no man has yet seen while every hour is precious, and thick 
 coming events cry speed, speed, speed ; while the glorious 
 vessels 1 have alluded to, are going to and fro with the rapidity, 
 and the certainty, of great creatures of the sea, conquering the 
 mountain-waves and the adverse winds, the momentous despatches 
 of this government on \vhich may hang the fate of millions the 
 thousands of letters fraught with the hopes, the wishes, the for- 
 tunes of an immense public, are painfully floundering through 
 the Syrian deserts, with very little chance, to my mind, consider- 
 ing the state of that part of Asia, of ever reaching their destina- 
 tion ; or are beating about on the ocean in tivo sailing vessels, dis-
 
 12 
 
 patched on voyages of discovery, sent, in short, to make the in- 
 teresting and pleasing experiment, of how speedily sailing vessels 
 might reach Aden against that monsoon, which it has at length 
 been confessed, the inefficient Steamers provided for the service 
 
 " could not look at." This is really a state of things, but I 
 
 remember our excellent chairman's exhortation gentlemen, have 
 I stated any thing but FACTS ? 
 
 I have still another curious fact or two which may not be un- 
 worthy of your attention, and they bear upon the subject of my 
 resolution. 
 
 I find, in a statement placed before Lord William Bentinck's 
 Select Committee, by Sir John Hobhouse, in 1837, the following 
 passages. 
 
 Perhaps the Committee will permit me to read them, 
 
 First. A despatch dated on the 16th of September, 1836, which 
 the home authorities received from the Government of Bombay ; 
 it is couched in these words : 
 
 " We beg leave to offer to your Honourable Court our congra- 
 tulations on the rapidity witli which your wishes have of late been 
 conveyed to all parts of your Indian possessions. The three last 
 overland mails have brought despaches from London to Bombay 
 in fifty-eight, forty-five, and sixty-four days; and those intended 
 for Calcutta have been forwarded in ten days. We have witnessed 
 the energetic impulse this early intelligence has given to the mer- 
 cantile interest, and the unbounded satisfaction it has diffused 
 throughout all classes of the community, &c. &c. &c.*' 
 
 Now there is some ambiguity in the term " despatches" in the 
 above passage. I construe it, however, as any plain man would, as 
 having reference to what interests the public at large, viz. the 
 overland mails, which, I conclude, are said on the 16th September, 
 1^36, to have been " of late" conveyed to Calcutta in ten days, 
 (ientlemen, I have had drawn up a little paper here which shows 
 that from the 1st of June to the 16th of September, 1836, the date 
 of the letter quoted, the overland mails reached Calcutta from 
 Bombay in fifteen days in fifteen days and a quarter - in six- 
 teen days and a half in fifteen days and a quarter in four- 
 teen days and a quarter, twelve days and a half, and thirteen days
 
 13 
 
 and a half; but on no one occasion in ten days! These are 
 curious facts FACTS they are. That I cannot reconcile them is 
 owing no doubt to my want of apprehension. 
 
 Secondly On the 30th March, 1837, a letter was addressed to the 
 President of the Board of Controul, which will be found at page 
 18 of the Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee. The 
 letter says : 
 
 " The Court are aware that it will be necessary to promote, by 
 every possible means, facility and quickness of communication 
 between Bombay and Calcutta, and Madras; and they have ob- 
 served, by recent intelligence, that the Government of India has 
 adopted arrangements for the acceleration of the dawk, by which 
 packets may be conveyed from Bombay to Calcutta in from eight 
 to ten dags, and to Madras in about seven days, and which the 
 Court consider to be a much more rapid and certain, and un- 
 questionably more economical mode of communication than a 
 Steam conveyance." 
 
 My Lord Gentlemen ibis is a happy announcement; but how 
 has it been fulfilled ? I put many other failures, (unavoidable 
 failures failures inseparable from the very scheme of sending the 
 English mails overland from Bombay,) I say, I put many other 
 failures out of the question, I only entreat your notice to that un- 
 der which we are now smarting. The Taptee left Aden with the 
 English mail on the 16th, and readied Bombay on the 27th 
 ultimo. The first letters by that vessel reached us, neither in 
 eight or ten, but in sixteen days, after the arrival of the mail at 
 Bombay ! The last letters by that vessel reached us, neither in 
 eight or ten, but in twenty-one days after their arrival at Bombay ! 
 Gentlemen, do you desire any further commentary upon the 
 passage I have quoted ? If you do, it must be offered by some 
 more competent individual. I confine myself to a simple state- 
 ment of FACTS. 
 
 But I have yet another. In the passage I have quoted, it is 
 said, that this overland route from Bombay is considered to be a 
 much more rapid, certain, and unquestionably more economical 
 mode of communication than a Steam conveyance. I say nothing 
 about the economy of the matter ; that question was settled for
 
 14 
 
 ever when Lord William Bentinck offered to conduct the full, 
 free Comprehensive Scheme at two-thirds of the expense attending 
 the present wretched system : its certainty is also pretty well dis- 
 posed of; but its rapidity ! aye, that is worth consideration, and 
 I shall accordingly give you a FACT. 
 
 The Taptee left Aden on the 16th ultimo. The last letters by 
 that vessel reached us on the 17th instant, having been thirty-two 
 days between Aden and Calcutta. Now, by a direct Steamer like 
 the Great Western, I will take upon me to say, (and there are 
 many here who can correct me if I am in error,) I will take upon 
 me to say that by a Steamer like the Great Western, those letters 
 would have been brought from Aden to Calcutta, at this season 
 of the year, including stoppages at Galle or Madras, in fourteen 
 or at the outside FIFTEEN DAYS, instead of THIRTY-TWO. 
 
 I have still in store, my Lord and gentlemen, one leetle FACT, 
 which will probably give you more gratification than any I have 
 yet placed before you ; but away with any affectation of pleasan- 
 try. This fact is a grave and a sad one ; you have not heard it 
 yet ; you will now doubtless hear it with those painful feelings, 
 and that sense of almost hopelessness, with which I communicate 
 it. The English mail, gentlemen, for which the latest safe date was 
 pronounced to be the 17th of July, which was to be carried to 
 the Persian Gulf by the Zenobia on the 1st of August, that 
 mail has been left at Bombay, which it did not reach until the 
 3rd, instead of the 1st of August, the Zenobia having left on the 
 appointed day. 
 
 No blame whatever can be attached to the Bombay authorities 
 for this. It was right that the Steamer should depart on the 
 day fixed for her departure. It is the entire wretched system 
 which makes this presidency dependent upon the uncertain 
 overland communication to Bombay, that is to blame for the 
 whole. That; but, gentlemen, I must refrain from com- 
 ment ; I have, I trust, redeemed my pledge by dealing only in 
 FACTS. 
 
 And in doing this, my Lord, in doing this, gentlemen, have I 
 mentioned a single evil which does not admit of the simplest 
 and most easy remedy ? Do we call for impossibilites when we
 
 15 
 
 crave and implore that these things may be corrected ? No ! I 
 say, we do not. I say the correction lies in the adoption of a 
 measure so plain and practical, that the blindest bigotry, the most 
 determined prejudice, cannot but admit its completeness. I say, 
 that it lies in the despatch from the Hooghly every fourth Satur- 
 day of a powerful Steamer calculated to ensure a passage to 
 Aden, and thence to Suez, within a given time, at ALL periods of 
 the year. I say it lies in the completion of the great Comprehen- 
 sive Scheme of Steam Communication between this mighty realm 
 and the sovereign country. In saying this, my Lord and 
 gentlemen, do I or do I not state a fact ? If I do, the better 
 reason is there for adopting the resolution which I have now the 
 honour to move. 
 
 The resolution was then seconded by James Colquhoun, Esq. 
 
 T. E. M. Turton, Esq. I have one question to ask. I see in a 
 Bombay paper, a statement of which I wish to ascertain the ac- 
 curacy. It is that the blame of delay did not rest with the Bom- 
 bay Government, but with the Government on this side of India. 
 That the Bombay Government are ready to forward the mails in one 
 dispatch as far as Nagpore, if the Bengal Government had runners 
 to carry them on to Calcutta. If this be true, the remedy of the 
 delay complained of, lies with this Government. Let us ascertain 
 the true state of the case before we do aught to cause between us 
 and the sister presidency a further interruption of that harmony, 
 which should unite all lovers of Steam Navigation. I would, 
 therefore, put the question on this head now, before the present 
 Resolution is put. 
 
 Captain T. J. Taylor. If you will allow me, Mr. Chairman, I 
 can answer that question. On the western side of India the 
 country is clear and open, and horses convey the mails from 
 Bombay to Nagpore. On this side of Nagpore, it is jungly, 
 unhealthy and almost impassable, with very few inhabitants, and 
 those in a very low condition. There are nine men stationed at 
 every stage of six miles each, who are sufficient to carry four or 
 five men's loads passing either way. The expense of this con- 
 veyance is nearly one lakh of rupees per annum. But as the 
 \veightof the entire mail is so very great, if it were all brought
 
 16 
 
 on together, it would be impossible, even with the above large 
 establishment, to bring it at a greater rate than two miles an hour. 
 But by bringing it on horses to Nagpore, by separating it at that 
 place into different despatches, each not exceeding four or five 
 men's loads, and requiring the runners to return forthwith to 
 their posts, in order to bring on a fresh despatch within twelve 
 hours, and by giving them extra payment for the same, the whole 
 mail of twenty men's loads, would be transported so as to reach 
 its destination within two days after the first despatch arrived. 
 On the late occasion the mails were divided at Bombay, 
 and were sent in four regular and daily despatches, by 
 which two days' longer time than necessary were occupied. This 
 was not the fault of the Government of India, but arose 
 from some mistake on the part of subordinate authorities. It 
 would cost two or three lacs of rupees to place such an esta- 
 blishment on the Bombay road, as to bring the overland mails at 
 once and without delay. 
 
 H. M. Parker, Esq. It is not the Government that is to blame, 
 it is the system. If we have to bring these mails through jungles, 
 in which many valuable European lives have been lost, and which 
 are described as almost impassable, if such be the state of affairs, 
 all these are reasons for the Comprehensive Scheme of Steam 
 Communication, 
 
 T. E. M. Turton, Esq. Allow me a few words in explana- 
 tion. I did not intend to attack my friend's resolution. When ex- 
 amined before the House of Commons, I ventured to suggest, in 
 opposition to Sir John Hobhouse's statement, that there were cir- 
 cumstances such as these, which would at certain seasons of the 
 year occasion much more delay than was spoken of in the convey- 
 ance of the mails from Bombay to Calcutta. I am glad that I put 
 the question, for it shows that the delay does not arise so much from 
 the Bombay Government, as from the nature of the country itself, 
 and shows more than any thing how much we are interested in 
 the establishment of the Comprehensive Scheme. 
 
 C. 11. Greenlaw,Esq. I hope you will exonerate the Committee. 
 I cannot understand how it is that they send three letters and 
 twenty-one covers one day, and on the next twelve hundred.
 
 17 
 
 T. E. M. Turton, Esq. I think it may have been a fit and 
 proper thing. They probably sent what they thought most re- 
 quired. Therefore, the first and second day they sent as many 
 letters as possible, and the third day they may have sent as many 
 as possible, and probably the dawk parcels. These letters were 
 more of the nature of parcels, and the weight probably each day 
 was nearly the same. We should know all this before we attach 
 blame to the Bombay Government. 
 
 After the above explanations, the resolution was put from the 
 chair and carried unanimously. 
 
 J. H. Stocqueler, Esq., then rose, and said,- Gentlemen, I have 
 been entrusted with the third resolution, but before I read it to 
 you, allow me to remark, that I see no reason to let off the Ben- 
 gal Government so easily from the charge of delay in the trans- 
 mission of the mails. One reason of that delay is in the conduct 
 of the Rajas through whose territories the route lay. I believe 
 that the exertions of a commissioner between Nagpore and Cut- 
 tak, would do something to bring those fellows to order, and 
 to exonerate the Bengal Government from the imputation cast 
 upon them. 
 
 In consequence, gentlemen, of the death of Baboo Mothoor- 
 nauth Mullick, it becomes necessary to appoint some one as his 
 successor. The resolution I have to propose, nominates Baboo 
 Mutty Loll Seal, who you all are aware has lately become the 
 owner of a large stake in the scheme. Mr. Stocqueler then 
 moved, 
 
 " That Baboo Mutty Loll Seal be appointed a member of the 
 Committee, in lieu of Baboo Mothoornauth Mullick, deceased." 
 
 The resolution was seconded by David Hare, Esq., and carried 
 unanimously. 
 
 T. E. M. Turton, Esq. My Lord and gentlemen ; I have had a 
 resolution put into my hands, which I will, if you please, com- 
 mence with reading. 
 
 "That this meeting deeply deplore the loss which the cause 
 we are here to support has sustained by the decease of Lord 
 William Bentinck ; and, impressed with the most profound grati- 
 tude for his zealous, straight-forward, and unwearied exertions for
 
 18 
 
 the promotion of the great measure, while he was alive, desire to 
 manifest by this resolution, their reference for the memory of the 
 earliest, warmest, and most persevering friend of a Comprehensive 
 Steam Communication between Britain and British India, a cause 
 which he continued zealously and perseveringly to support to the 
 hour of his lamented death.'' 
 
 My Lord, if this resolution required any powers of eloquence 
 or persuasion, I should have shrunk from the task imposed npon 
 me; but it requires only to be received to be appreciated. There 
 is not a heart in any one whom I address, or any belonging to a 
 friend of Steam Navigation between England and this 
 country, especially of the friends of that great and comprehen- 
 sive scheme which we are met to promote, that does not respond 
 to the praises of Lord William Bentinck on this subject. It would, 
 indeed, be ungrateful in us, if it were not so. It was here from 
 the first he endeavoured to promote the cause we have at heart. 
 He first took up the plan and laboured in its support with un- 
 wearied perseverance. After witnessing his anxious endeavours 
 to promote it here, I can speak to his earnest exertions in its fa- 
 vour in England, and so he continued, I may say, up to the pe- 
 riod of his death. One of the last persons I saw at Paris on my 
 uay here, was Lord William Bentinck, and I had a long conversa- 
 tion with him on the subject, which he felt as warmly as ever. 
 I was with him continually during the sitting of 1837, of that 
 committee, in which he was chairman and of which he was the 
 main supporter. From the hour of the appointment of thut 
 committee, for three hours every morning, his house was filled 
 with persons, who were in attendance there, that the evidence 
 might be marshalled and all in preparation for the committee. 
 Nor did he confine his exertions to that committee, there was 
 not a steamer of any note or power that he did not personally 
 visit and inspect, for the purpose of informing his mind more on 
 the subject. 
 
 We must look back with feelings of gratitude to him while he 
 lived, and of respect to bis memory now that he is dead j we must 
 look forward with distrust now that he is taken from us. I de- 
 clare that I know not a man on whom I could put my finger, in
 
 19 
 
 the British House of Commons, to advocate our cause as a worthy 
 successor of Lord William. There is no man who could bring his 
 weight and influence, or his knowledge his straight-forward cha- 
 racter, his integrity of purpose. Lord William had a weight in 
 the House of Commons which probably we should find few pos- 
 sess, whose services we might be able to procure. Other men 
 would be considered the advocates of this or that part of India; 
 the late Governor-general would be considered only as advocating 
 that which was best for India. 
 
 There is one fact I know welj, that while the state of his health 
 compelled him to avoid taking any part in matters connected 
 with India, from this rule he made an exception in favour of 
 the cause of Steam. With feelings of the deepest gratitude to him 
 I look forward with little hope of finding a fitting successor. 
 
 There is no need for me to dilate further on this subject. I have 
 avoided saying anything upon the general merits of his govern- 
 ment, upon which there may be a difference of opinion ; though 
 I should scarcely, for my own part, think it necessary to 
 avoid it. I do not, however, mean to say that I agreed with 
 Lord William Bentinck in all his views. He knew very well I 
 did not agree with him in some. My opinion, one way or other, 
 was of little consequence, but in this great object of Steam Navi- 
 gation we had no difference of opinion. Many may differ from 
 his views on various points; but what difference of opinion there 
 may be, all I believe will give him credit for honesty of purpose 
 and integrity of heart. We all know and feel the loss which we 
 have sustained. In expressing my own personal sorrow for his 
 lamented death, I but express a feeling in which every person 
 here present will sincerely and deeply participate. 
 
 Dwarkanauth Tagore, Esq. Gentlemen, after what has been 
 said by my friend, Mr. Turton, I need not enlarge much upon the 
 praises of Lord William Bentinck. His is a name which no native 
 of this country can mention without regret. Respecting his being 
 the friend of the natives there can be but one opinion : he raised 
 them to the high estate which they now enjoy. Before Lord Wil- 
 liam's time, the natives were not made so much of by the Gover- 
 nors. I do not wish to bring any accusation against Lord Wil-
 
 20 
 
 liam's predecessors ; perhaps they might be fully employed in 
 more important matters, but it was he who raised the natives; he 
 first gave them private audiences. Before his time they had only 
 been treated with pawn and attur, and this did not give them 
 satisfaction. The medical college of his instituting, gave the great 
 blow to the prejudices of the country. The Hindoo college has 
 done much, but it is the medical college that has done most for 
 the natives : it has saved the lives of thousands, and the youths 
 who are being educated there, will go forth thence throughout the 
 country, and be a blessing to its inhabitants. Gentlemen, it is 
 with heart-felt pleasure that I second the resolution. 
 
 Mr. Turton. After the manner in which the resolution lias 
 been seconded, with so much feeling, by our friend Dwarkanuuth 
 Tagore, who may be considered as representing the whole native 
 community, I think nothing more is necessary than to submit it 
 for your approbation. 
 
 The resolution was then put and carried unanimously. 
 
 The last resolution was proposed by Captain Johnston, se- 
 conded by T. E, M. Turton, Esq. and carried by acclamation. 
 
 " That tht thanks of the meeting be given to the Right Reve- 
 rend the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, for his Lordship's kindness in 
 taking the chair, on the occasion of a meeting so interesting to all 
 the friends of Steam Communication with England, as also for 
 his Lordship's able conduct therein, and his constant warm and 
 energetic advocacy of the cause. 
 
 The Right Reverend Chairman then briefly returned his ac- 
 knowledgments, and expressed his readiness to forward, by every 
 means in his power, the interests of this and all other plans for 
 the benefit of the country. 
 
 The meeting separated at about twenty minutes past eleven. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 J. Hickerty, I'nnur. Slwrbourn