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 Substance' of the Speeches .. .for 
 Promoting the Religious Instructioi 
 |and Moral Improvement. .in India. 
 
 By 
 " T illiarn Wilberforce 
 
 i 
 
 

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNI/ 
 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 illiertou and M. n-1 -iv.i,. I'm 
 Joi.mou's Court, Loudou.
 
 SUBSTANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. 
 
 OX THE CLAUSE 
 
 IN THE EAST-INDIA BILL 
 
 rOP. PROMOTING 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 A\D 
 
 MO It AL IMPROVEMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE NATIVES OF THE BRITISH DOMINIONS 
 
 IN 
 
 INDIA, 
 
 On the 22d of JUNK, and the l.sl and 12th of JULY, 1815. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR JOHN HATCKARD, 1 DO, PICCADILLY, 
 
 .1. BUTTEiaVOUTH, FI.KKT STREET; AND 
 
 CADELL AND I) A V IKS, STRAND.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE Writer of the following pages has been 
 induced to publish them, partly by a wish 
 that his sentiments on the important subject 
 of them, and the premises which led him to 
 the conclusions which he has formed, should 
 not be misunderstood ; and partly, he con- 
 fesses, because he finds, with concern, that 
 notwithstanding all the light which has been 
 thrown on the moral state of the natives of 
 India, many respectable and intelligent men 
 still entertain very mistaken notions on that 
 great question. It appeared to him best, to 
 put together, in the form of one Speech, the 
 substance of what was said on at least two
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 different occasions. He is conscious, that, 
 owing to his not having been ahle, from va- 
 rious hindrances, to execute his task till long 
 after the discussion, his recollection, even of 
 what he himself said, has become imperfect, 
 and therefore that his publication may be in 
 some respect an inaccurate statement of what 
 he actually uttered. In one or two instances 
 he has intentionally enlarged on topics on 
 which, in speaking, he was more concise. 
 But the inaccuracies of his publication, he be- 
 lieves, are none of them important ; and more 
 especially, it is correct in that particular which 
 he deems by far the most worthy of attention, 
 and of which, therefore, he entreats the reader's 
 most serious consideration the extracts from 
 various documents taken from the East India 
 Company's records, which have been laid 
 before the House of Commons during the pro- 
 gress of the late Parliamentary Discussions. 
 The subject itself he deems to be of a degree 
 of importance which it transcends the powers
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 of language to express ; and he trusts that 
 they, whose sentiments he has opposed, will 
 forgive the warmth with which he has felt it 
 his duty to condemn their opinions. He he- 
 lie vcs that they are actuated, no less than 
 himself, by a sincere desire to promote the 
 welfare of their countiy.
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 &V. SO. 
 
 JL HAVE listened with no little pleasure to the 
 Honourable Gentleman (the Hon. F. Douglas), 
 who, for the first time, has been just delivering 
 his sentiments j and I cordially congratulate 
 him on the manifestation of talents and prin- 
 ciples which, I trust, will render him a valuable 
 accession to this House, and to his country; 
 but before I proceed to the more direct discus- 
 sion of the question before us, he will allow me to 
 express my dissent from his opinion, that it might 
 be advisable to employ our regular Clergy as 
 Missionaries. It was a proposition, indeed, which 
 naturally recommended itself to the mind of 
 any one, who, like my Honourable Friend and 
 myself, being attached, on principle, to the 
 Church of England, and being deeply impressed, 
 with a sense of the blessings which we ourselves 
 derive from it, are of course desirous of commu- 
 nicating the same blessings to others of our fel- 
 low-subjects. 
 
 E
 
 I grant that it is much to be regretted, and 
 among the Roman Catholics it has been the 
 reproacli of the Protestant Churches, that they 
 have taken so little interest in the conversion of 
 the heathen nations ; ahd I may take this oppor- 
 tunity of declaring it as my opinion, that it is 
 much to be regretted, that our excellent Church 
 Establishment contains within itself no means of 
 providing fit agents for the important work of 
 preaching Christianity to the heathen. Nor is 
 this a new opinion : on the contrary, I had the 
 honour of stating it many years ago to two ve- 
 nerable and most respected Prelates, the late 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and the late Bishop 
 of London ; and they expressed themselves favour- 
 ably of a proposition which I submitted to their 
 consideration, that there should be a distinct or- 
 dination for Missionaries, which should empower 
 them to perform the offices of the Church in fo- 
 reign Countries, but should not render them ca- 
 pable of holding Church Preferments, or even of 
 officiating as Clergymen in this kingdom. It is 
 obvious, that the qualifications required in those 
 who discharge the duties of the ministerial office 
 in this highly civilized community, where Chris- 
 tianity also is the established religion of the land, 
 are very different from those for which we ought 
 chiefly to look, in men whose office it will be to 
 preach the Gospel to the heathen nations, which 
 they will find unacquainted with the first principles 
 of religion and morality; from the qualifications 
 which we should require in Instructors who
 
 will probably be cast among Barbarians, and, 
 besides having to encounter the grossest igno- 
 rance and its attendant vices, will also have to 
 endure great bodily hardships and privations. 
 But this is not the time for enlarging farther 
 on this point, or on the suggestion of my Honour- 
 able Friend. It will not, I know, escape him, pass- 
 ing over other objections to the measure, that it 
 necessarily implies, that the Missionaries who are 
 to officiate in India, are to be expressly commis- 
 sioned and employed by the state, or by the 
 East-India Company ; whereas, lam persuaded, 
 we shall all concur in thinking, that it ought to 
 be left to the spontaneous benevolence and zeal 
 of individual Christians, controuled of course by 
 the discretion of Government, to engage in the 
 work of preaching the Gospel to the natives in 
 our Indian territories ; and that the Missionaries 
 should be clearly understood to be armed with 
 no authority, furnished with no commission, from 
 the governing power of the country. 
 
 Allow me, Sir, before we proceed farther, to en- 
 deavour to do away a misconception of the thir- 
 teenth Resolution, which appears generally to 
 prevail, that the only object it has in view is, to 
 secure, to such Missionaries as the Board of 
 Controul shall sanction, permission to go to India, 
 and to remain there, so long as they shall continue 
 to exercise the duties of their office in a peaceable 
 and orderly manner. This undoubtedly is one 
 object of the Resolution, but by no means the 
 only, perhaps not the principal, one. I beg you 
 to observe, that the very terms of the Resolution,
 
 4 
 
 expressly state, that " we are to enlighten and 
 inform the minds of the subjects of our East 
 Indian empire." And after much reflection, I 
 do not hesitate to declare, that, from enlight- 
 ening and informing thm, in other words, from 
 education and instruction, from the diffusion of 
 knowledge, from the progress of science, more 
 especially from all these combined with the cir- 
 culation of the Holy Scriptures in the native 
 languages, I ultimately expect even more than 
 from the direct labours of Missionaries, properly 
 so called. 
 
 By enlightening the minds of the natives, we 
 should root out their errors, without provoking 
 their prejudices; and it would be impossible that 
 men of enlarged and instructed minds could 
 continue enslaved by such a monstrous system 
 of follies and superstitions as that under the yoke 
 of which the natives of Hindostan now groan. 
 They would, in short, become Christians, if I 
 may so express myself, without knowing it. 
 
 Before I enter further into the argument, more 
 especially after what we have lately heard from, 
 several of my opponents, it is due to myself, as well 
 as respectful to the House, to state, that though I 
 cannot, like them, speak of India from my own 
 personal observation, yet that I do not presume to 
 address them on this important question, without 
 having studied it with the most strenuous and 
 persevering diligence. That my attention has been 
 long directed to the subject, will indeed suffi- 
 ciently appear, when I remind the House, that I 
 had the honour, in 1793, of moving the Resolu-
 
 tion of late so often referred to, which declared 
 it to be the duty of the Legislature, to diffuse 
 among our East Indian fellow-subjects the bless- 
 ings of useful knowledge and moral improve- 
 ment; a Resolution which, with little or no 
 opposition, was repeatedly sanctioned by the 
 approbation of the House : and I can truly de- 
 clare, that I have never since lost sight of this great 
 object, though various circumstances concurred 
 in preventing my again bringing it before the 
 House : above all, that of my being, for almost 
 the whole of that period, engaged in the pursuit 
 of an object of a kindred nature. 
 
 Before I enter into the argument, let me also 
 clear away another misconception which has 
 sometimes prevailed, by distinctly and most so- 
 lemnly assuring the House, that, in the work of 
 conversion, I abjure all ideas of compulsion; I 
 disclaim all use of the authority, nay, even of 
 the influence, of Government. I would trust 
 altogether to the effects of reason and truth, re- 
 lying much on the manifest tendency of the prin- 
 ciples and precepts of Christianity to make men 
 good and happy, and on their evident superi- 
 ority in these respects, more especially when the 
 minds of the natives shall become more en- 
 larged and instructed than they are at present, 
 over the monstrous and absurd superstitions of 
 their native faith. 
 
 And now, Sir, let me enter into the discussion, 
 by assuring the House, that there never was a 
 subject which better deserved the attention of a
 
 6 
 
 British Parliament than that on which we are 
 now deliberating. Immense regions, with a po- 
 pulation amounting, as we are assured, to sixty 
 millions of souls, have providentially come under 
 our dominion They are deeply sunk, and by 
 their religious superstitions fast bound, in the 
 lowest depths of moral and social wretchedness 
 and degradation. Must we not then be prompt- 
 ed by every motive, and urged by every feeling 1 
 that can influence the human heart, to en- 
 deavour to raise these wretched beings out of 
 their present miserable condition, and above all 
 to communicate to them those blessed truths 
 which would not only improve their understand- 
 ings and elevate their minds, but would, in ten 
 thousand ways, promote their temporal well- 
 being, and point out to them a sure path to ever- 
 lasting happiness. 
 
 But our opponents confidently assure us, that 
 we may spare ourselves; the pains ; for that the 
 natives of Hindostan are so firmly, nay, so un- 
 alterably, attached to their own religious opinions 
 and practices, however unreasonable they may 
 appear to us, that their conversion is utterly im- 
 practicable. 
 
 I well know, Sir, and frankly acknowledge, the 
 inveterate nature of the evils with which we have 
 to contend ; that their religious system and cus- 
 toms have continued with little alteration, for 
 perhaps thousands of years; that they have dif- 
 fused themselves so generally throughout all their 
 institutions and habits, as to leaven, as it were, the
 
 7 
 
 whole mass both of their public and private lives: 
 but, nevertheless, Sir, I boldly affirm, that this 
 position, that their attachment to their own insti- 
 tutions is so fixed that it cannot be overcome, is 
 a gross error, abundantly falsified by much, and 
 even by recent, experience. I beg the House to 
 attend to this point the more carefully, because it 
 serves as a general test by which to estimate the 
 value of the opinions so confidently promulgated 
 by the greater part of those gentlemen who have 
 spoken of Indian affairs, both in this House and 
 out of it, from personal experience. This is a per- 
 suasion universally prevalent among them ; and 
 if it can be disproved, as easily, as it will shortly 
 I trust appear to you to be, it will follow, that 
 those gentlemen, however respectable where their 
 understandings have fair play, in point both of 
 natural talents and acquired knowledge (and no 
 man admits their claim to both more willingly than 
 myself), are here under the influence of prejudice, 
 and are not therefore entitled to the same degree 
 of weight as if they were free from all undue bias. 
 And first, Sir, it might afford a strong pre- 
 sumption against the absolute invincibility of the 
 religious principles and customs of the Hindoos, 
 that great and beneficial reforms have been effect- 
 ed in various other most important instances in 
 which their existing systems were, so far as we 
 know, equally dear to them, and which were con- 
 ceived to be equally unchangeable ; for even 
 in these, their religion was more or icss impli- 
 cated, because, as I before remarked, it has been
 
 8 
 
 most artfully diffused throughout all their other 
 institutions. 
 
 In proof of this assertion, it may be sufficient 
 to specify that mighty change introduced about 
 twenty years ago, by which the British Govern- 
 ment granted to all classes of landholders an he- 
 reditary property in their estates; a privilege till 
 then unknown in Asia: the rents to be paid to 
 Government, which, as Sovereign of the country, 
 was proprietor of the soil throughout all India, 
 were equitably and unalterably settled ; and I 
 ought not to omit to state, that care was taken to 
 secure to the inferior occupants, no less than to 
 the great Chieftains, the secure possession of their 
 properties without any increase of the rents. 
 
 Again : the most important reforms have been 
 introduced into the judicial system; and in the 
 military, even the most confirmed religious prin- 
 ciples and habits have in some particulars been 
 quietly overcome, and have fallen into disuse, 
 with little or no observation. Nay, the general 
 spirit of our Government, as it respects the na- 
 tives, has for some time been such, as even that 
 passionate lover of liberty, Sir William Jones, 
 dared not to anticipate in the case of the natives 
 of India ; whom with pain, he, but a few years be- 
 fore, had pronounced to be given up to an unmi- 
 tigated and unalterable despotism. 
 
 But it is not only where their religion has been 
 indirectly concerned, that it has appeared that 
 their institutions are susceptible of the same 
 changes which have taken place in every other
 
 9 
 
 country ; but also, in many instances in which 
 religion has been directly in question. How else 
 can we account for that immense number of Ma- 
 hometans, estimated at from ten to fifteen mil- 
 lion, scattered over India, most of whom are sup- 
 posed by the best judges to be converts from 
 the Hindoo faith ? And let me remind you of 
 the stern and persecuting spirit of Mahometa- 
 nism, and of the increased difficulty which would 
 be thereby occasioned ; since it is now an esta- 
 blished truth, that persecution counteracts her 
 own purpose and promotes the prevalence of the 
 religion she would suppress. 
 
 Again : what shall we say of the whole nation 
 of the Seiks, so numerous, as to be supposed able 
 to raise 200,000 horse, who within a few centuries 
 have forsaken the Hindoo faith, and freed them- 
 selves from its burthensome restrictions ? * 
 
 The followers of Budha also, who reject Caste, 
 are very numerous; and within the pale of the 
 Hindoo faith itself, different sects spring up from 
 time to time as in other countries, Mr. Orme 
 says, " Every province has fifty sects of Gentoos, 
 and every sect adheres to different observances." 
 
 But we have still surer grounds of hope ; we 
 have still better reasons than these for believing, 
 that there is nothing in the nature or principles of 
 
 * Sir J. Malcolm's highly interesting publication concerning 
 the Seiks, suggests many most important considerations respect- 
 ing the mischief's which, if not provided against by timely pre- 
 cautions, may hereafter result from the galling and severe pres- 
 sure of the system of Castes on the lower orders of India 
 
 C
 
 to 
 
 a Hindoo which renders it impossible for him 
 to become a Christian ; for it is notorious, that 
 from the earliest times there have been many 
 churches of native Christians in India. For the 
 whole of the last century, the work of conversion 
 has been going on with more or less success ; and 
 at this moment, there are hundreds of thousands 
 of native Christians in the East Indies. 
 
 But here again, in justice to my argument, I can- 
 not but remind the House of the signal example 
 which this instance affords of the utter ignorance 
 of our opponents on the subject we are now 
 considering: for a Gentleman of high charac- 
 ter, of acknowledged talents and information, who 
 had passed thirty years in India, and who having 
 fairly made his way to the first situations, pos- 
 sessed for full ten years a seat in the Supreme 
 Council in Bengal, stated at your bar, that he 
 had never heard of the existence of a native 
 Christian in India, until after his return to Eng- 
 land ; he then learned the fact, to which however 
 he seemed to give but a doubting kind of as- 
 
 O O 
 
 sent, from the writings of Dr. Buchanan. Can 
 any thing more clearly prove, that Gentlemen, in- 
 stead of seriously turning their minds to the subject, 
 and opening their eyes to the perception of truth, 
 have imbibed the generally prevailing prejudices 
 of men around them, without question, and have 
 thus suffered themselves to be led away to the 
 most erroneous conclusions. 
 
 Let me mention also another circumstance, 
 which well deserves consideration. If the asser-
 
 11 
 
 tion of our opponents were correct, that the sen- 
 sibility of the natives of India in all that regards 
 their religion is so extremely great that they 
 can scarcely listen with temper or patience to any 
 arguments that are urged against it, it would na- 
 turally follow, that the Christian Missionaries, 
 if, even from the dread of punishment, their lives 
 should be safe, would be universally regarded 
 with jealousy and detestation 5 whereas, as if on 
 purpose to confute the unreasonable prejudices 
 of our opponents, the most zealous, laborious, 
 and successful Missionaries have commonly been, 
 among all classes of the natives, the most esteem- 
 ed and beloved of all the Europeans ; and, let 
 me repeat it, this is not only true of the ever 
 memorable Swartz, but of Gericke, of Kolhoff, 
 &c., as well as of Ziegenbalg and his colleagues, 
 the Missionaries of a preceding generation. 
 Swartz's eulogium it is unnecessary for me to 
 pronounce, because our opponents themselves are 
 loud in his praise. And it is acknowledged that, 
 during his long and laborious ministry, he was 
 among the natives, from the greatest to the least, 
 an object of the highest respect and warmest 
 affection. 
 
 But an Honourable Baronet rather insinuates, 
 that Mr. Swartz's popularity among the natives 
 might arise from points in his character which 
 were less estimable in a religious view. Swartz, 
 says the Honourable Baronet, was a politician. 
 Yes, Sir; I thank the Honourable Baronet for re- 
 minding me of it; Swartz was a politician, but 
 not a volunteer in that service: he became a po-
 
 litician at the earnest and importunate intreaty 
 of the East-India Government ; because, having 
 to nei^ociate with Hyder Ally, they could find 
 no one in whose integrity and veracity that chief- 
 tain would confide, but Swartz the Missionary: 
 he therefore became a politician, and an accre- 
 dited envoy, because, as a Missionary, he had 
 secured to himself the universal confidence both 
 of Mahometans and of Hindoos, 
 
 But even Swartz's converts, it is alleged, were 
 all of the lowest class of the people, wretches 
 vho had lost caste, or were below it; and the same 
 assertion is generally made concerning the native 
 Christians at this day. This again, Sir, is one of 
 those wretched prejudices which receive easy 
 credence, because they fall in with the precon- 
 ceived notions of the receiver, and pass current 
 from man to man without being questioned, in 
 spite of the plainest and most decisive refutation. 
 Even our opponents themselves will refer to Mr. 
 Swartz's own authority; and that excellent man 
 having happened to read in India much such a 
 speech concerning Missionaries as the Honour- 
 able Baronet has this day uttered, which had been 
 made in the India-House the year before, by 
 Air. Montgomery Campbell, he positively con- 
 tradicted all those stale assertions in disparage- 
 ment of the Missionaries and their followers, 
 Vvhich had been so generally circulated ; among 
 the rest, this of the low degraded quality of their 
 converts; by stating, that if Mr. Campbell had 
 even once attended their Church, he would have 
 observed, that more than two thirds were of the
 
 IS 
 
 higher caste, and so it was, he said, at Tranquebar 
 and Vepery. In like manner, Dr. Kerr, who was 
 officially commissioned by the Madras Govern- 
 ment, in 1806, to visit the Malabar coast, for the 
 express purpose of obtaining every possible infor- 
 mation in regard to the establishment, &c. of the 
 Christian Religion in that part of the Peninsula, 
 after stating, that the character of the native 
 Christians, whose numbers, according to the best 
 accounts, are estimated at from seventy to eighty 
 thousand, is marked by a striking superiority over 
 the heathens in every moral excellence, and that 
 they are remarkable for their veracity and plain 
 dealing, adds, " They are respected very highly 
 by the Nairs" (the nobility of the country), " who 
 do not consider themselves defiled by associ- 
 ating; with them, though it is well known that 
 
 O y O 
 
 the Nairs are the most particular of all the Hin- 
 doos in this respect ; and the Rajahs of Travan- 
 core and Cochin admit them to rank next to 
 Nairs*." 
 
 Again: a letter from a respectable gentleman 
 in India to the venerable and justly honoured 
 Dean of Westminster, Dr. Vincent, published in 
 the Report of 1799 of the Society for promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, mentions the almost univer- 
 sal prevalence of the grossest misconceptions, 
 concerning the native converts to Christianity, 
 and strongly opposes them. After stating that 
 the number is very considerable, he adds; "That 
 they consist of the lower or Pariar cast is a vulgar 
 
 * Sec Dr. Ken's Report to the Madras Government, dated 
 November 3, 180G,
 
 14 
 
 error; and instead of being, as is often asserted, 
 despised and contemptuously treated by their fel- 
 low natives, they are universally respected." He 
 proceeds, however: " You may ask five gentlemen 
 out of six, who return from India, their opinion of 
 the state of the native Christians; their reply will 
 probably be, that they see no use in the endea- 
 vours to propagate Christianity there ; and this 
 will be followed by a repetition of the common- 
 place idea, transferred from one to another with- 
 out examination, ' What can a black fellow know 
 about Christianity ?' 1 dwell the more, Sir, on 
 this topic, because, how little soever deserving 
 of notice these prejudices may appear to the eye 
 of truth and reason, they are in fact the most 
 powerful enemies with which we have to contend. 
 Dr. Vincent's correspondent truly remarks; " It 
 is from this sort of cant and jargon of ignorance 
 and indifference, that false ideas respecting the 
 native converts have been instilled into the minds 
 of many at home." Miserable, however, as this 
 jargon may be in the estimation of Dr. Vincent's 
 correspondent, it is not to be despised, when its 
 tendency is to detain an immense region of the 
 earth in darkness and degradation. What we 
 have heard in this House may convince us, 
 though it is with pain and shame that we wit- 
 ness the anomaly, that men of excellent under- 
 standings and of liberal and well-informed minds 
 can be misled by these groundless prepossessions. 
 l ; ,ven the excellent historian, Dr. Robertson, did 
 not r-s.cape this contagion. Though commonly he 
 is most justly to be respected for the accuracy
 
 15 
 
 of his statements, he seems, though reluctantly, 
 to admit the impracticability of converting the 
 natives of India ; and states, that in two hun- 
 dred years, the converts amount but to about 
 12,000 in number; whom also, if I mistake not, 
 he represents to be of the very lowest of the 
 people, and, in direct contradiction to the most 
 decisive testimony, to be, even after their con- 
 version, a disgrace to the Christian name. I 
 could multiply facts and arguments ; but I trust, 
 Sir, I have already decidedly established, that 
 this notion of its being impracticable to convert 
 the Hindoos is a vain and groundless theory; 
 and that, in maintaining the opposite position, 
 my friends and I stand on the solid and sure 
 ground of abundant and indisputable experience. 
 
 But our opponents, encouraging one another in 
 their error, take still higher ground, and affirm, 
 that if it were practicable to convert the Hindoos 
 to Christianity, it is not desirable:. The princi- 
 ples of the Hindoos are so good, their morals 
 are so pure; better than our own. as we are told 
 by more than one Honourable Gentleman ; that 
 to attempt to communicate to them our religion 
 and our morality, is, to say the least, a superfluous, 
 perhaps a mischievous, attempt. 
 
 This, by the way, is no new doctrine; but, 
 considering its origin, it is not altogether without 
 shame, as well as grief, that I find it receiving 
 any countenance in this assembly. It sprang up 
 among the French sceptical philosophers, by 
 whom it was used for the purpose of discrediting 
 Christianity, by shewing, that iu countries winch
 
 16 
 
 were wholly strangers to its light, the people 
 were in general more gentle and peaceable, arid 
 innocent and amiable, than in those countries 
 which had for the longest period professed the 
 Christian faith. After the practical comment, 
 however, which a neighbouring kingdom has af- 
 forded of the doctrines of the French philosophers, 
 the opinions of our opponents will not experience 
 a more favourable reception in this House, or 
 in this country, on account of their issuing from 
 such a source. 
 
 But really, Sir, I can only say, that if the 
 principles and morals of our East Indian fellow- 
 subjects were indeed so admirable, if they were 
 even better than our own, it would be a fact that 
 would belie the experience of all other times and 
 countries. When was there ever yet a nation 
 on which the light of Christianity never shone, 
 which was not found in a state of the grossest 
 moral darkness, debased by principles and prac- 
 tices and manners the most flagitious and 
 cruel? Is not this true of all the most polished 
 nations of antiquity? Did not more than one 
 practice prevail among them, sanctioned often 
 by the wisest and the best among them, which in 
 all Christian countries would now be punished as 
 a capital crime: But, Sir, have not moral 
 causes their sure and infallible effects? Is it not 
 notorious, that the nations of India have, from the 
 very earliest times, groaned under the double 
 yoke of political and religious despotism? And 
 can it then be maintained, that these must not 
 have produced a proportionate degradation of
 
 1? 
 
 their moral character? And is it in a British 
 House of Commons, above all oilier places, 
 where such a doctrine as this is maintained? Are 
 we so little sensible of the value of the free con- 
 stitution and religious liberty which we enjoy, and 
 so little thankful for them, as to tolerate such 
 propositions? No, Sir: I trust we shall be pro- 
 tected by our feelings, no less than by our 
 understandings, against being carried away by 
 any such delusions. No, Sir: the common sense 
 of mankind, in this country at least, is not to be so 
 outraged ; and, in truth, we find the morals and 
 manners of the natives of India just such as we 
 might have been led to expect from a know- 
 ledge of the dark and degrading superstitions, as 
 well as of the political bondage, under which 
 they have been so long bowed down. To which 
 I may add, that, such is the nature of their in- 
 stitutions and customs, that not religion only, but. 
 common humanity, should prompt us to exert all 
 legitimate methods for producing the discon- 
 tinuance of them. 
 
 But Honourable Gentlemen have read us pas- 
 sages from their religious books, some of which 
 breathe a strain of pure and even sublime 
 morality. The Institutes of Akbar also have 
 been quoted upon us, and a learned work by a 
 Bengal Officer has been published, resting almost, 
 entirely on this basis, with large extracts from the 
 sacred writings of the Hindoos. 
 
 Let me beg the attention of the House, while 
 I ask such of our opponents as urge this argu- 
 
 D
 
 18 
 
 merit, whether they did or did not know that 
 which is an undeniable fact (I refer to Mr. Hal- 
 hed's translation of the Hindoo laws), that if a 
 Soodra should get by heart, nay, if he should read, 
 or even listen to the sacred books, the law con- 
 demns him to a most cruel death. If our opponents 
 were ignorant of this, it shews how little they 
 are qualified to be safe guides to us in the road 
 we are now travelling: if they knew it, was it 
 candid, nay, Sir, was it fair, to quote these 
 passages of sublime morality, in proof of the supe- 
 rior moral state of the bulk of the East Indian 
 population? Why, Sir, it is much the same in 
 India (only worse) as it was among the most 
 polished nations of the Pagan world. There, 
 they had their exoteric and their esoteric 
 doctrines : and while, in the writings of their 
 philosophers, we meet with passages of high 
 moral excellence, we know, that the moral opi- 
 nions and practice of the bulk of the people 
 were such as would appear to us at this dav 
 almost insufferably depraved, absurd, and mon- 
 strous. Where can we find more elevated strains 
 than in the lofty speculations of the Imperial 
 Philosopher Antoninus ? And in return for the 
 Institutes of Akbar I might name those of 
 Tamerlane, justly declared by one of our oppo- 
 nents to be one of the most bloodv tyrants that 
 ever disgraced a throne, which are yet declared 
 "by Mr. Gibbon to form one of the most perfect 
 systems ever published on the basis of absolute 
 monarchy.
 
 19 
 
 The topic we are now considering is of so 
 great importance, that in justice to my argu- 
 ment, I must be permitted to enlarge upon it; 
 though, after all, I must leave much unsaid, in 
 order that I may not trespass on the indulgence 
 of the House too largely; and as the authority of 
 several gentlemen, long resident in India, is urged 
 upon us in proof of the probity and superior 
 morality of the natives of India, I must beg leave 
 to bring forward my authorities also. And when 
 the House shall have heard all I have to adduce, 
 I am. confident, that not a doubt will remain in 
 their minds, that my representation of the moral 
 character of the natives of India is borne out 
 by an irresistible weight of unobjectionable tes- 
 timony. And first, Sir, let me quote to you 
 some general opinions of the moral state of the 
 Hindoos, which have been given by authors of 
 established credit, as well as by others whose 
 authority is still higher, persons who held high 
 stations in the Company's service for many years, 
 and who, from having lived so long, and having 
 had so much intercourse with them, must be 
 supposed so have been perfectly acquainted with 
 their real character. Several of the passages which 
 I am about to read to you, are contained in a most 
 valuable document lately laid before the House, 
 the work of a dear and most honoured friend 
 of mine, a Member of this House*, whose ex- 
 
 * I refer to a Memoir, by Mr. Grant, on the Moral State of 
 India, the causes which have produced, and suggestions tor im- 
 proving it. The Memoir \vas principally wriiten as long ago as 
 179'2, soon after his return from India, and \vas_ laid beiou tlic
 
 20 
 
 ceilent understanding and acknowledged worth 
 entitle all his opinions to be received with the 
 utmost deference, and whose long residence in 
 India and familiar acquaintance with its inha- 
 bitants have rendered him peculiarly compe- 
 tent to form a correct judgment on the point 
 which we are now considering. 
 
 The first witness I shall bring forward is the 
 traveller B^rnier, an author of such established 
 credit that his work was allowed to be received 
 as evidence at Mr. Hastings's trial. Pie, who tra- 
 velled among the natives about one hundred and 
 fifty years ago, places the character of the people 
 in general, and more especially that of the Brah- 
 mins, in the most unfavourable light; but as he 
 no where gives a summary view of it, I will only 
 refer generally to his high authority. The same 
 unfavourable character of them, and more espe- 
 cially of the Brahmins, is also expressed by Mr. 
 Scrafton*, whose instructive work was published 
 about fifty years ago; and Mr.Orme, the excellent 
 historian of the Carnatic, leads us to form a still 
 lower estimate of their moral qualities. "Were 
 .not the Gentoos infamous for the want of genero- 
 sity and gratitude in all the commerces of friend- 
 ship; were they not a tricking, deceitful people 
 
 O'irt of Directors in 1797. It contains within a small compass, 
 a lar_e store of most valuable information concerning the reli- 
 gion ami laws the social and moral state and character, of the 
 Him!', os. It is earnestly to be hoped, that his preat modesty 
 may not prevent his publishing to the world this valuable docu- 
 ment, and ther-by obtaining for it a more general perusal. 
 
 * Reflections on the Government of Hindostan, by Luke 
 ^'crauon, ESCJ,
 
 21 
 
 in all their dealings; their charity could not be 
 deemed to arise from the influence of superstition." 
 Orme's India, vol. IV. 4to. p. 434. 
 
 " Every offence is capable of being expiated by 
 largesses to the Brahmins, prescribed by them- 
 selves according to their own measures of avarice 
 and sensuality." 
 
 Orme's character of the East-Indian Mahomedans 
 is still more unfavourable than that of the Brah- 
 mins. " A domineering insolence towards all who 
 are in subjection to them, ungovernable wil fulness, 
 inhumanity, cruelty, murders, and assassination, 
 perpetrated with the same calmness and subtlety 
 as the rest of their politics, and insensibility to re- 
 morse for these crimes, which are scarcely consi- 
 dered otherwise than as necessary accidents in the 
 course of life; sensual excesses, which revolt 
 against nature ; unbounded thirst of power, and 
 a rapaciousness of wealth equal to the extrava- 
 gance of his propensities and vices!" "This is 
 the character of an Indian Moor." Orme on the 
 Planners, Sfc. of the Indian Moors, Ibid. p. 423*. 
 
 Governor Holwell gives a summary account of 
 the native East-Indian character in such clear 
 terms that his own words shall be quoted ; and let 
 it be remembered that Hoi well's mind, to sav the 
 least, was not in any degree biassed by his attach- 
 ment to the Christian system, as compared with 
 
 * Well might Mr. Orme exclaim, after so humiliating a picture 
 of human depravity, " How grateful, how noble, are the reflec- 
 tions inspired by such a retrospect, in favour of the cause of Chris- 
 tianity, and in favour of the cause of liberty!" Orme s India, 
 vol. IV. p. 430.
 
 that of the natives of India:" A race of people 
 who, from their infancy, are utter strangers to the 
 idea of common faith and honesty. The Gentoos 
 in general arc as dangerous and wicked a people 
 as any race of people in the known world, if not 
 eminentlv more so, especially the common run of 
 Brahmins. We can truly aver, that during al- 
 most five years that we presided in the Judicial 
 Cutcherry Court of Calcutta, never any murder or 
 other atrocious crime came before us, but it was 
 proved in the end a Brahmin was at the bottom 
 of it." 
 
 Lord Clive's* testimony is given in the same 
 clear and compendious language : " The inha- 
 bitants of this country we know, by long expe- 
 rience, have no attachment to any obligation." 
 
 An equally unfavourable character of them is 
 given by Governor Verelstf, especially in re- 
 f.pect of avarice, treachery, and ingratitude. 
 
 Mr. Shore J (now Lord Teignmouth) paints 
 their character in still darker colours: " The na- 
 tives arc timid and servile: individuals have little 
 sense of honour, and the nation is wholly void 
 of public virtue. They make not the least 
 .scruple oi lyini;-, where falsehood is attended with 
 advantage. To lie, steal, plunder, ravish, or mur- 
 der, are not deemed sufficient crimes to merit ex- 
 pulsion from society." 
 
 ' : With a Hindoo all is centered in himself; his 
 
 * See Moll's Considerations, vol. 111. 
 
 T St e Verolst's View of the English Government in Bengal. 
 t See the Parliamentary Proceedings against Mr. Hastings. 
 .Anpenciix to \ ol. II.
 
 own interest is his guide." With other particu- 
 lars of a similar complexion. 
 
 Sir John Macpherson*, who was Governor-Ge- 
 neral between twenty and thirty years ago, com- 
 menting on the foregoing description, thus con- 
 firms the accuracy of the delineation : " I am 
 afraid that the picture which he (Mr. Shore) draws, 
 and the low ebb at which he states the popular 
 virtues of the Bengalese, ar(i not fictitious repre- 
 sentations." 
 
 Lord Cornwallis proved by his conduct that he: 
 considered the natives as unworthy of all confi- 
 dence ; for, contrary to the general usage of men 
 occupying such stations as he filled, he never re- 
 posed any trust in any one of them, nor placed a 
 single individual, either Hindoo or Mahomedan, 
 about his person, above the rank of a menial ser- 
 vant. 
 
 It is not, perhaps, unworthy of notice, that a 
 character equally unfavourable of the natives of 
 Hindostan, was given four hundred years ago by 
 their great conqueror Tamerlane. " The native 
 of Hindostan," he says, " has no pretensions to 
 humanity but the figure ; whilst imposture, fraud, 
 and deception, are by him considered as merito- 
 rious accomplishments."- -The foregoing com- 
 pilation of authorities is closed bv rnv Honourable 
 Friend, with the following compendious delinea- 
 tion of the native Indian character. 
 
 " Upon the whole, we cannot help recognizing 
 in the people of Hindostan a race of men lamen 
 
 * See the Parliamentary Proceedings against Mr Ihstin^. 
 Appendix to Vol. II.
 
 24 
 
 tably degenerate and base; retaining but a feeble 
 sense of moral obligation; obstinate in th ; disre- 
 gard of what they know to be right ; governed 
 by malevolent and licentious passions ; strongly 
 exemplifying the effects produced on society by 
 great and general corruption of manners; sunk 
 in misery by their vices, in a country peculiarly 
 calculated by its natural advantages to promote 
 the happiness of its inhabitants." 
 
 But we are far from having laboured through 
 the long and melancholy succession of wit- 
 nesses, who attest the moral degradation of the 
 natives of India. Several of the passages I have 
 already recited are accounts of earlier times ; 
 and it might perhaps be hoped, that the moral 
 character of the natives has been improved, in 
 consequence of their having lived so long under 
 our government. Alas, Sir ! grieved I am to be 
 under the necessity of stating, that this is by no 
 means the fact. I might, I fear, go still farther, 
 and affirm, that the moral standard of the natives 
 has been even deteriorated of late years. The 
 first witness whom I shall call in proof of the pre- 
 sent depraved stale of the natives of India, is a 
 gentleman well known in this House for his ta- 
 lents and hib eloquence, and whom there is reason, 
 1 trust, to believe, that we shall shortly have the 
 honour of including in our number: I scarcely 
 need explain, that I am speaking of Sir James 
 Mackintosh, lie, it is well known, lately presided 
 on the Bench of Justice in Bombay ; and in a 
 charge to the Grand Jurv at Bombay, delivered 
 in the year 1803, he thus expressed himself: "I
 
 25 
 
 observe, that the accomplished and justly cele- 
 brated person, Sir William Jones, who carried 
 with him to this country a prejudice in favour of 
 the natives, which he naturally imbibed iti the 
 course of his studies, and which in him, though 
 not perfectly rational, was neither unamiable nor 
 ungraceful, 1 observe, that even he, after long ju- 
 dicial experience, reluctantly confessed their ge- 
 neral depravity. The prevalence of perjury which 
 he strongly states, and which I have myself already 
 observed, is perhaps a more certain sign of the 
 general dissolution of moral principle than other 
 more daring and ferocious crimes, much more 
 horrible to the imagination, and of which the im- 
 mediate consequences are more destructive to 
 society." 
 
 Again, at a subsequent period, he remarks ; 
 "An offence, of the frequency of which I formerly 
 spoke from information, but can now speak from. 
 large and deplorable experience ', I mean perjury ' 
 
 A melancholy proof of the low standard of 
 morals in the East was afforded on one of the 
 occasions which drew from Sir James Mac- 
 kintosh the above remarks. A woman who was 
 one of the witnesses, having prevaricated shock- 
 ingly, was asked by the Recorder, " Whether 
 there was any harm in false swearing, she answer- 
 ed, that she understood the English had a great 
 horror of it, but there was no such horror in her 
 country'' See the Bombay La\v Reports, given 
 in the Asiatic Register for 1804. 
 
 But, perhaps, the most decisive proofs of uli 
 
 E
 
 26 
 
 are contained in the answers to certain interroga- 
 tories concerning the moral state of the natives, 
 which were sent round hy Lord Wellesley, when 
 Governor-General. Lord Wellesley, wishing to 
 obtain the most authentic and complete informa- 
 tion, would of course consult snch persons as he 
 conceived to behest qualified from the situations 
 which they occupied, to give him the intelligence 
 which he desired, lie therefore applied to the 
 Judges of Circuit, and also to magistrates perma- 
 nently settled in the different provinces. A vain 
 attempt, indeed, has been made to do away the 
 effect of this testimony, by asking what judgment 
 we should form of the moral character of our own 
 people, if we were to take our estimate of it 
 from the criminals who fill our gaols. I must say, 
 I wonder that the Honourable Gentlemen who 
 held this language, were not checked by recol- 
 lecting that they were in reality reflecting strong- 
 ]y on the discretion of Lord Wellesley himself, 
 for having applied for information to a description 
 of persons which he ought to have known not to 
 be qualified, to supply it. But, Sir, you will ob- 
 serve, that it is concerning the general character 
 of the natives that the gentlemen interrogated by 
 Lord Wellesley were questioned ; and I cannot 
 conceive that there can be any set of men better 
 qualified in all respects to form a correct opinion 
 of the general character and conduct of the natives, 
 than such of the Company's servants as are resident 
 magistrates. I will not weary the House with the 
 whole of the melancholy detail ; but a few of the
 
 answers I must lay before them. The first shall 
 be the statement of Mr. Edward Colebrook, se- 
 cond Judge of the Patna Court of Circuit, dated 
 Patna, 21st April, 1804. "Another not less 
 heinous offence attaching to those affrays is per- 
 jury, to which recourse is invariably had, both for 
 the prosecution and defence of such charges. To 
 such a pitch of audacity has this crime long since- 
 reached in this province, that a total distrust of 
 human testimony, on ei-crij occasion, is the conse- 
 quence. No rank, no caste, is exempt from the 
 contagion. A Zemindary Dewan, a Brahmin, who 
 had circumstantially sworn to the nature and num- 
 ber and to the authors of the wounds on two of 
 his cutcherry arnla, alleged to have been mur- 
 dered in an attempt to dispossess him from the 
 cutcherry, scarcely blushed when the two men 
 were produced alive and unhurt in court, and 
 merely pleaded that had he not sworn, as directed, 
 he should have lost his employ." 
 
 Let me now read an equally humiliating ex- 
 tract from the answers of Mr. J. D. Paterson, 
 Judge of Decca, Jellelpore, &c. to the President, 
 &c. Members of the Police Committee, 30th 
 Aug. 1?99. " As a picture of human degrada- 
 tion and depravity can only give pain to a re- 
 flecting mind, I shall be as brief as possible, con- 
 sistently with the necessity of furnishing the re- 
 quired information. Their minds are totally un- 
 cultivated; of the duties of morality they have 
 no idea; they possess in a great degree that low
 
 28 
 
 cunning which so generally accompanies depra- 
 vity of heart. They are indolent and grossly sen- 
 sual; they are cruel and cowardly, insolent and 
 abject. They have superstition without a sense 
 of religion; and in short they have all the vices of 
 savage life, without any of its virtues. If we look 
 
 O * +s 
 
 a step higher, we find the same total want of 
 principles with more refined cunning, no attach- 
 ment but what centers in self, for the ties of rela- 
 tionship seem only to render inveteracy more in- 
 veterate." 
 
 " Even the honest men," say the Judges of 
 Circuit, in a report made on terminating their 
 Session ; " Even the honest men as well as the 
 rogues are perjured. The most simple and the 
 most cunning alike make assertions that are in- 
 credible, or that are certainly false." 
 
 */ 
 
 " In the course of our judicial duties," says the 
 
 Report from Moorshedabad, Court of Appeal 
 
 arid Circuit (26th Jan. 1802), "we still meet with 
 
 the same barefaced disregard of truth which al- 
 
 wavs characterised the natives of India." 
 
 ' v Xo falsehood," says Judge Stracey, " is too ex- 
 travagant or audacious to be advanced before the 
 Court of Circuit. Perjury is extremely common." 
 5tJi Report of Committee ov East India Affairs. 
 
 " '1 hey arc probably somewhat, more licentious 
 
 iiian formerly. Chicanery, subornation, and 
 
 raud and perjury are certainly more common." 
 
 -Jtrt/ge Stracci/t sltisii'Cr to Interrogatories^ 30th 
 
 .Jan. J80,>.
 
 29 
 
 " The lower classes are in general profligate 
 and depraved. The moral duties are little at- 
 tended to by the higher ones. All are litigious 
 in the extreme, and the crime of perjury was 
 never, we believe, more practised amongst all 
 ranks, than at present." Answers of Magistrates 
 of the 24 Pergunnahs to Interrogatories, Sfc. 
 
 But perhaps the House may, with the least 
 trouble, form a summary opinion of the result of 
 the answers alluded to, by hearing an extract 
 from a judicial letter from the Court of Directors 
 to Bengal, dated 25th April, 1806, which will shew 
 the impression which the information they had 
 received had made on their minds ; and I beg 
 leave to recommend it the rather to the attention 
 of the House, because it will shew what was then 
 the Court of Directors' opinion of the moral cha- 
 racter of the natives of India, however some of 
 them may now have been led, I must rather say 
 misled, into forming different sentiments. "The 
 
 y O 
 
 nefarious and dangerous crime of perjury we are 
 much concerned to find continues to prevail in 
 all directions, and even increases to such a pitch 
 as to baffle and perplex the judicial proceedings 
 of the courts, so that the judge receives all oral 
 testimony with distrust, and is frequently obliged 
 to investigate the character of the witness more 
 closely than that of the criminal." The Directors 
 very judiciously go on to remark on the proba- 
 ble cause of this low state of moral principle: 
 "The little obligation attached by the natives to 
 an oath seems to proceed, in a great degree, from
 
 30 
 
 the nature of their superstitions and the degraded 
 character of their deities, as well as the almost 
 entire wane of moral instruction among them; 
 and this points to the necessity of other remedies, 
 as well as to the most rigorous punishment of a 
 crime so hurtful to society as perjury." 
 
 If such be the moral state of the natives in ge- 
 neral, we might well expect, at least it would be 
 expected by all who have a just sense of the inti- 
 mate connection between virtue and humanity, 
 and on the contrary between depravity and cru- 
 elty, that the crimes of actual violators of the 
 laws, and not of an individual criminal, but of 
 the class of robbers in general, would be extreme- 
 ly shocking; but I quote the following passage 
 from Mr. Dowdeswell's Report on the Police of 
 Bengal, in order to counteract that strange and 
 most unjust persuasion, which has been attempted 
 to be diffused, that the Hindoos are a gentle and 
 humane people. " Were I to enumerate only a 
 thousandth part of the atrocities of the Deceits (a 
 set of hereditary robbers), and of the consequent 
 suiK rings of the people, and were I to soften that 
 recital in every modo which language would 
 permit, I should still despair of obtaining credit 
 solely ou my own authority for the accuracy of 
 the narrative." Mr. J)owdeswcWs Report on the 
 General XI ate of the Police of Bengal, p. 603. 
 
 " Robbery, rupo, and even murder itself, are 
 not the worst figures in this hideous and disgust- 
 ing picture. Volumes might be filled with the 
 recital of the atrocities of the Decoits, every line
 
 of which would make the blood run cold with 
 horror." Ibid. 
 
 I could corroborate my general representation 
 
 of the moral degradation of the Hindoos, by 
 
 fj j 
 
 still farther extracts, selected from that massy 
 volume on the table*. But I will adduce but 
 one more, taken from a document I have al- 
 ready referred to, the letter to the Venerable Dean 
 of Westminster, Dr. Vincent. Speaking gene- 
 rally of the morals of the natives, his correspon- 
 dent says 5 " The state of morality among the 
 Datives is very low indeed. I have had transac- 
 tions with many of those who have the character 
 of most respectable men, rich, and of good credit. 
 I declare to yon, 1 never met with one who 
 had any idea of the obligation of an oath, or 
 who would not break it without scruple, provided 
 the crime could be effected without discovery 
 
 / 
 
 and punishment, and produce to him a pecu- 
 niary profit. There may be natives of a different 
 character ; all I can say is, that I never met with 
 one. I am speaking of those who are not Christians. 
 Now I am clear, that no man, in the course of his 
 dealings in England with various characters for 
 some years, could truly make a similar assertion." 
 Before we dismiss the long and melancholy 
 train of witnesses whose estimate of the moral 
 character of the natives of India I have been 
 laying before you, let me bog that you will at- 
 tend carefully to two considerations, which ai> ?< 
 
 / 
 
 * Fifth Report from the East-India Committee,
 
 32 
 
 applicable to almost all the opinions which I have 
 adduced. These are, first, that the statements- 
 you have heard, are all of them the opinions of 
 intelligent and respectable men, formed and given 
 without reference to any particular question, 
 which happened for the Lime to interest and divide 
 the public mind; and still more, that they are the 
 opinions of men who were upon the spot when 
 those opinions were formed, and whose attention 
 had been specially called to the subject of them, 
 while the natives were actually under their view. 
 These considerations, Sir, deserve the more at- 
 tention, because, when we find conflicting testi- 
 mony among men, all of whom we respect, we 
 naturally look for circumstances which may ex- 
 plain the discrepancies which we witness. With- 
 out presuming to take upon me to estimate how 
 much weight is to be assigned to this consideration, 
 I am persuaded that our opponents themselves 
 will frankly acknowledge, that in the two im- 
 portant particulars which I have just now no- 
 ticed, they are oppositely circumstanced to the 
 individuals whose testimony I have been laving 
 before you. First, the favourable opinions of the 
 people of India which they deliver, are such as 
 occur to ilieni in this country ; which must ren- 
 der them peculiarly subject to the influence of 
 that common cause of erroneous judgment of 
 nations, tho drawing of general inferences from 
 individual instances; and secondly, they will not 
 deny, that from the infirmities of our common 
 nature, they cannot but be liable to have their
 
 33 
 
 opinions in some degree, though imperceptibly, 
 biassed by the particular occasion on which they 
 are led to form them. 
 
 And now, Sir, after the decisive weight of 
 testimony which I have laid before you, in proof 
 of the general depravity of the people of Hin- 
 dostan, what must we think of the soundness of 
 the judgment pronounced by our opponents, 
 that their morals are in general equal, nay, even 
 superior, to those of the people of this country. We 
 have been long accustomed, Sir, to read different 
 characters of the same people from different tra- 
 vellers, of the intentions of all of whom, to speak 
 the truth, we have entertained not the slightest 
 suspicion; but a difference like this, I never be- 
 fore witnessed. In fact, however, Sir, we are 
 relieved from our difficulty, by the very extent 
 to which the assertion of our opponents is pushed. 
 Had it been merely attempted to soften the co- 
 lours in which we had painted the native charac- 
 ter, you might have been more at a loss which 
 was the correct representation. But when, in- 
 stead of the dark hues which we have assigned 
 to it, our opponents give it almost the fairest 
 and loveliest tints of moral colouring, we are 
 led infallibly to conclude that our opponents ;ire 
 either ill-informed, or that they are under the 
 influence of prejudice; and happily, we are ftr.- 
 nislied, in the course of our discussion, with sucli 
 flagrant instances of prejudice on this particu- 
 lar topic of religion, as to furnish a pretty clear 
 explanation of those opinions of our 
 
 F
 
 34 
 
 which would otherwise appear the most 
 plieable as well as extravagant. 
 
 I have already had occasion to shew, Sir, in 
 one notable instance, that on this subject alone 
 of religion and moralr, as connected with the 
 East Indies, men the most able and the best in- 
 formed on ail other topics are strangely and 
 lamentably ignorant. There is a sort of inapti- 
 tude, if I may so term it, in what regards the 
 subject of religion, which we discover in the 
 generality of the Anglo Jndian.% which causes 
 their judgments, however valuable on other oc- 
 casions, to fail them egregious! y in this. We 
 have a curious illustration of this remark in the 
 Fifth Report, which I quote the rather, because 
 I understand the character of the writer to be 
 excellent, and his authority beyond exception in 
 all other matters. I speak of Mr. Dowdeswe!!. 
 After that shocking account of the state of the 
 police which I lately read to the House, suit- 
 ably impressed with a sense of the evils of which 
 he had been speaking, and very justly remark- 
 ing also, that these dreadful practices must be 
 severely punished, " but that a great deal more 
 must be done in order to eradicate the seeds of 
 those crimes, the real sources of the evil lying in 
 the corrupt morals of the people,'* he adds, 
 (and let me beg, that Gentlemen will observe 
 that Mr. Dowdeswell very justly ascribes the 
 perpetration of such crimes to general and moral 
 causes, not merely to individual and accidental 
 depravity;) " if" says he, " we would apply a last-
 
 35 
 
 * ing remedy to the evil, we must adopt means 
 *' of instruction for the different classes of the 
 " community; by which they may be restrained, 
 " not only from the commission of public crimes, 
 '*" but also from acts of immorality, by a dread 
 " of the punishments denounced both in this 
 " world and in a future state by their respective 
 " religious opinions. The task would not, perhaps, 
 '* be so difficult as it may at first sight appear 
 " to be. Some remains of the old system of Hin- 
 " <loo discipline still exist. The institutions of 
 " Mahoraedanis-m of that description, are still 
 '* better known. Both might be revived, and 
 " gradually moulded into a regular system of in- 
 " struction for both those great classes of the 
 " community*." 
 
 We are led irresistibly, by this passage, to a 
 conclusion, which, I confess, has been suggested 
 to me by various other circumstances, that in the 
 minds of too many of our opponents, Christi- 
 anity and India are inconsistent, totally incom- 
 patible, ideas. We cannot but be reminded of 
 the expression of a former ornament of this House, 
 (a name of high authority in this country), that 
 " the Europeans were commonly unbaptized in 
 their passage to India." I will not presume to 
 adopt so strong a position ; but Mr. Burke him- 
 self could not have desired a stronger confir- 
 mation of his assertion, than some with which 
 we have been supplied in the course of these 
 discussions, more especially with this, wherein 
 
 * Fifth Report on East-India Affairs, p. 617. Mr. Do\vdt 
 well's Report on the Police of Bangui, Sept. 2'2, 1809.
 
 36 
 
 we find that a gentleman of intelligence and re- 
 spectability, long resident in India, bewailing 
 such a dissolution of the moral principle as ren- 
 dered it difficult for the frame of society to hold 
 together, and looking round solicitously for some 
 remedy for the evil, never so much as thinks of 
 resorting to Christianity, but proposes to re- 
 sort to the revival of Hinduism and Mahomedan- 
 ism, as the only expedient to which it is possible 
 to have recourse. 
 
 Agreeing with him in my sense of the viru- 
 lence of the disease, I differ entirely with re- 
 gpect to the remedy; for, blessed be God, we 
 have a remedy fully adequate, and specially ap- 
 propriate to the purpose. That remedy, Sir, is 
 Christianity, which I justly call the appropriate 
 remedy; for Christianity then assumes her true 
 character, no less than she performs her natural 
 and proper office, when she takes under her pro- 
 tection those poor degraded beings, on whom 
 philosophy looks down with disdain, or perhaps 
 with contemptuous condescension. On the very 
 first promulgation of Christianity, it was declared 
 bv its Great Author, as " glad tidings to the poor ;" 
 and, ever faithful to her character, Christianity 
 still delights to instruct the ignorant, to succour 
 the needy, to comfort the sorrowful, to \isit the 
 forsaken. I con less to yon, Sir, that but for my 
 being conscious that we possessed the means of 
 palliating, at least, the moral diseases which I have 
 been describing, if not of effecting a perfect cure 
 of them, I should not have had the heart to 
 persevere in dragging you through the long and
 
 37 
 
 painful succession of humiliating statements to 
 which you have been lately listening. For, be- 
 lieve me, Sir, though I trust that to many in 
 this House, I scarce!} need to vindicate myself 
 against such a charge, that it is not to insult 
 over the melancholy degradation of these un- 
 happy people, or to indulge in the proud tri- 
 umph of our own superiority, that I have dwelt 
 so long on this painful subject : but it is be- 
 cause I wish to impress you with a just sense of 
 the malignity of their disease, that you may concur 
 with me in the application of a remedy: fur, 
 I again and again declare to you, a remedy 
 there doubtless is. God forbid that we should 
 have only to sit down in hopeless dejection, 
 under the conviction, that though these evils 
 exist they are not to be removed. Sir, such a 
 supposition would be absolute blasphemy ; to 
 believe that the Almighty Being, to whom both 
 we and our East Indian fellow-subjects owe 
 our existence, has doomed them to continue for 
 ever, incurably, in that wretched state of moral 
 depravity and degradation, in which they have 
 hitherto remained ! No, S;r, Providence- has pro- 
 vided sufficient means tor rescuing them from 
 the depths in which they are now sunk, and I 
 now call on you to open the way for their 
 application; for to us, Sir, I confidently hope, is 
 committed the honourable office of removing the 
 barrier which now excludes the access of Chris- 
 tian light, with its long train of attendant bless- 
 ings, into that benighted land, and thus, of 
 ultimately cheering their desolate hearts with the
 
 38 
 
 beams of Heavenly Truth, and Love, and Conso- 
 lation. And therefore, Sir, I indignantly repel 
 the charge which has been unjustly brought 
 against me, that I am bringing an indictment 
 against the whole native population of India ; and 
 " what have they done to provoke my enmity?" 
 Sir, I have lived long enough to learn the im- 
 portant lesson, that flatterers are not friends: nay, 
 Sir, they are the deadliest enemies. Let not our 
 opponents, therefore, lav to their souls this flat- 
 tering unction, that they are acting a friendly part 
 towards the Hindoos. No, Sir: they, not I, are the 
 real enemies of the natives of India, who, with the 
 language of hollow adulation and "mouth honour" 
 on their tongues, are in reality recommending the 
 coursewhich is to keep those iV'iserable beings bowed 
 down under the heavy yoke which now oppresses 
 them. The most able of our opponents has told 
 us, that some classes of the natives are as much 
 below others as the inferior animals are below 
 the human species. Yes, Sir, I well know it; 
 and it is because I wish to do away this unjust 
 inequality, to raise these poor brutes out of 
 their present degraded state to the just level of 
 their nature, that I am now bringing before you 
 their real character, and explaining to you their 
 true condition. And am not I, therefore, acting 
 the part of the real friend? For true friendship, 
 Sir, is apprehensive and solicitous : it is often 
 jealous and suspicious of evil ; often it even 
 dreads the worst concerning the objects of its affec- 
 tion, from the solicitude it feels for their well-being, 
 and its earnestness to promote their happiness.
 
 39 
 
 Animated, Sir, by this unfeigned spirit of 
 friendship for the natives of India, their religious 
 and moral interests are undoubtedly our first 
 concern; but the course we are recommending 
 tends no less to promote their temporal well- 
 being, than their eternal welfare; for such is their 
 real condition, that we are prompted to endeavour 
 to communicate to them the benefits of Chris- 
 tian instruction, scarcely less by religious princi- 
 ple than by the feelings of common humanity. 
 Not, Sir, that I would pretend to conceal from 
 the House, that the hope which, above all others, 
 chiefly gladdens my heart, is that of being in- 
 strumental in bringing them into the paths by 
 which they may be led to everlasting felicity. 
 But still, were all considerations of a future state 
 out of the question, I hesitate not to affirm, that 
 a regard for their temporal well-being would 
 alone furnish abundant motives for our endea- 
 vouring to diffuse among them the blessings of 
 Christian light and moral instruction. 
 
 And surely it cannot be necessary for me to 
 attempt in this place to prove, that though much of 
 the large mass of comforts which we in this coun- 
 try enjoy, beyond those, I believe, of any other 
 nation in ancient or in modern times, is owing 
 to our invaluable constitution, yet that it is in 
 no small degree, also, to be ascribed to our reli- 
 gious and moral superiority; for it is with gra- 
 titude alike, and with pleasure, that 1 declare 
 my firm persuasion, that the influence of Chris- 
 tianity is greater in this country than in any 
 other upon earth.
 
 40 
 
 But surely, Sir, after the account we have received 
 of the low state of morals among the natives of In- 
 dia, it cannot be necessary for me to prove by a 
 reference to their various institutions, or to the 
 circumstances of their social condition, that their 
 situation is such as to interest every humane mind 
 in improving it. For certainly such an enlight- 
 ened Assembly as this needs scarcely to be remind- 
 ed, that the moral Governor of the universe has 
 established a never-failing and inseparable con- 
 nection between vice and misery, though for a 
 time they may appear dissevered, and vice may 
 seem even to have associated herself with happi- 
 ness. Sir, the evils of India are not merely such as 
 a despotic government never fails to introduce and 
 continue. In countries, great countries especi- 
 ally, groaning under the most absolute despo- 
 tism, there may often be much domestic and 
 even social happiness. It was to the condition of 
 the subjects of an absolute government, that our 
 great poet beautifully alluded when he observed, 
 
 " With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, 
 " Glides the smooth current of domestic joy." 
 
 And truly in the main, though somewhat too 
 broadly and strongly shaded., he adds, 
 
 " Of all the ills that human hearts endure, 
 
 " How few, that Courts 01 Kings cau cause or cure/' 
 
 But the evils of Ilindostan are family, fire-side 
 evils: they pervade the whole mass of the popu- 
 lation, and embitter the domestic cup, in almost 
 every family. Why need I, in this country, in-
 
 41 
 
 sist on the evils which arise merely out of the 
 institution of Caste itself; a system which, though, 
 strange to say, it has been complimented as a 
 device of deep political wisdom, must surely ap- 
 pear to every heart of true British temper to be 
 a system at war with truth and nature; a detes- 
 table expedient for keeping the lower orders of 
 the community bowed down in an abject state of 
 hopeless and irremediable vassalage. It is justly, 
 Sir, the glory of this country, that no member of 
 our free community is naturally precluded from 
 rising into the highest classes in socielv. And, in 
 
 *~J O / 
 
 fact, we have all witnessed instances of men who 
 have emerged out of their original poverty and 
 obscurity, and have risen to the highest level by 
 the inborn buoyancy of their superior natures ; 
 our free constitution, to v\hich such occurrences 
 are scarcely less honourable than to the individu- 
 als who are the subjects of them, opening the way 
 for the developement, and Providence favouring 
 the exercise, of their powers. Even where slavery 
 has existed, it has commonly been possible, 
 (though in the West Indies, alas! artificial diffi- 
 culties have been interposed,) for individuals to 
 burst their bonds, and assert the privileges of 
 their nature. But the more cruel shackles of Caste 
 are never to be shaken; as well might a dog, or 
 any other of the brute creation, it is the Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman's own illustration, aspire to 
 the dignity and rights of man. I will not think 
 so injuriously of our opponents as not to be 
 persuaded, that they would indignantly .spurn a f 
 
 G
 
 42 
 
 the very idea of introducing such a system into 
 this country. And are not the natives of India, 
 our fellow-subjects, fairly intitled to all the 
 benefits which we can safely impart to them? 
 And if there be any which we cannot as vet ven- 
 turer* communicate, should we not at least belong- 
 ing with eager and almost impatient expectation 
 for the time when we can render them partakers 
 of the best blessings which we ourselves enjoy? 
 And herp, Sir, in justice to mv cause, I cannot 
 but animadvert upon the spirit and tone with 
 Vvhich our opponents have descanted on the im- 
 possibility of making the natives acquainted with 
 the truths of Christianity, and of thereby effecting 
 the moral improvement which Christianity would 
 produce. I should have expected, Sir, if they 
 were unwillingly compelled to so unwelcome a 
 conclusion, as that all hopes of thus improving 
 the natives of' India must be abandoned as ut- 
 terly impracticable, that they would form the 
 opinion tardily and reluctantly, and express it 
 with the most manifest concern. I need not re- 
 mind the House with what an air of cheerfulness, 
 not to say of levity, the declaration has been 
 made. But it is lair to sav, that one of the Ho- 
 nonraMe Members supplied the explanation, by 
 plainly intimating, that in his opinion, all re- 
 ligions were alike acceptable to the common 
 Father of ti)3 universe; the same truth, a little 
 differently expressed, as was taught by one of 
 the Brahmins, who stated to one of our Mis- 
 sionaries, that heaven was a large palace, to
 
 43 
 
 which there was a number of different roads, and 
 that each nation or individual might choose his 
 own at pleasure. But, as I have already stated, 
 our opponents should remember, that Christi- 
 anity, independently of its effects on a future 
 state of existence, has been acknowledged even 
 by avowed sceptics, to be, bevond all other institu- 
 tions that ever existed, favourable to the temporal 
 interests and happiness of man : and never was 
 there a country where there is greater need than 
 in India for the diffusion of its genial influence. 
 
 In reasoning concerning the happiness, no less 
 than the virtue, of any people, all who consider 
 how many of the charities of life, how large a 
 portion of the greatest a:ul best of our earthly com- 
 forts, arise out of our domestic relations, will think 
 it difficult to overrate the sum of the evils pro- 
 duced, and the happiness impaired and lost, from 
 the single circumstance of the prevalence o'' poly- 
 gamy. Here again, to prove the effects of polygamy, 
 I would refer to one who ead no peculiar zeal for 
 Christianity; though his understanding was too 
 enlightened, and his mind too well-informed, for 
 him not to recognize its superior excellencies; 
 I mean, to the President Montesquieu. VVould 
 we see a lively picture of 'he je,dou>ies, the heart- 
 burnings, the. ai titice, the falsehood, the cruvltv, 
 the rage, and the despair of which polvuamv is 
 the feri ile source, let. us look to ; ii.it great v, r;ter's 
 Persian Letters. And he-re also. Sir, we. mav fiu.l 
 a (ieci>;ve settlement oi he quv>tie.:i, concerning 
 uhich there lias been some ciiiiereuce of option,
 
 44 
 
 as to the rank in the scale of being which is as- 
 signed to the female sex among the natives of 
 India. An Honourable Friend of mine (Mr. Wil- 
 liam Smith) has quoted some passages from their 
 great lawgiver, which speak of women in general 
 in the most disparaging and even contemptuous 
 terms. We see the same estimate in many of the 
 Hindoo customs and institutions; but this system 
 of polygamy alone might have sufficed to prove, 
 that the female sex could not possess in India 
 that equality, in point of nature and rank, with 
 ours, to which it is considered to be entitled in 
 every Christian country, and on which, in fact, so 
 much of the real dignity and happiness as well as 
 so many of the benefits of the married state essen- 
 tially depend. 
 
 Again in India, we find prevalent that evil, I 
 mean Infanticide, against which we might have 
 hoped that nature herself would have supplied 
 adequate restraints, if we had not been taught by 
 experience, that for our deliverance even from this 
 detestable crime, we are indebted to Christianity. 
 For it is not to philosophy, it is not to civiliza- 
 tion ; it is not to progress in refinement, or in 
 the arts and comforts of social life; it is not even 
 to Liberty herself, that the world is indebted for 
 this emancipation. The friends of Christianity 
 may justly glory in the acknowledgment of one 
 of its greatest enemies, that infanticide was the 
 incorrigible vice of all antiquity ; and it is very 
 striking, that both in India and in China, where 
 Jie light of Revelation has never penetrated, this
 
 45 
 
 detestable crime still asserts its superiority over 
 nature itself, no less than over virtue. To this, in 
 India, is added, the destruction of the sick and 
 the aged, often by their nearest relatives. 
 
 There is another practice on the prevalence of 
 which it is the rather necessary for me to insist, 
 because it has been conceived bymanv gentlemen, 
 otherwise well-informed on East-Indian topics, 
 that whatever may have been formerly the case, 
 the practice now exists in a very inconsiderable 
 degree. The House must have anticipated rny 
 mention of the Burning of Widows on the funeral 
 pile of their deceased husbands. A writer of great 
 authority, Mr. Dow, many years ago, stated the 
 custom to have become almost extinct. But 
 sorry I am to sav, that this is so far from being 
 the truth, that the practice, which Bernier states 
 to have been greatly discouraged, though not 
 absolutely prohibited, by the Mahometan govern- 
 ment, and which, in consequence, had consider- 
 ably declined, has increased since the country 
 came under our dominion. Great pains were 
 taken by the Missionaries, a few years ago, to as- 
 certain the number of widows which were annu- 
 ally burnt in a district thirty miles round Cal- 
 cutta, and the House will be astonished to hear, 
 that in this comparatively small area, one hun- 
 dred and thirty widows were burnt in six months. 
 In the year 1803, within the same space, the num- 
 ber amounted to two hundred and seventy-five* 
 one of whom was a girl of eleven years of age. 
 I ought to state, that the utmost pains were taken
 
 46 
 
 to have the account correct; certain persons 
 were employed purposely to watch and report 
 the number of these horrible exhibitions; and the 
 place, person, ant! other particulars were regu- 
 larly certified. After hearing this, you will not 
 be surprised on being told, that the whole num- 
 ber of these annual sacrifices of women, who are 
 often thus cruelly torn from their children at the 
 very time when, from the loss of their father, 
 thev must be in the greatest need of the fostering 
 
 */ O O 
 
 care of the surviving parent, is estimated, I think, 
 in the Bengal provinces, to be ten thousand ; the 
 same number at which it was calculated, many 
 years ago, by a gentleman whose uncommon 
 proficiency in the native languages gave him pe- 
 culiar advantages in his inquiries on this subject, 
 the highly respected brother of the late Sir Ro- 
 bert Chambers. 
 
 Nor must we dare to flatter ourselves, though 
 it would in truth be a wreiched consolation, that, 
 as has been sometimes stated, these sacrifices arc- 
 spontaneous. Not to mention what Bernier him- 
 self relates from his own personal view, that the 
 women are always carefully fastened down, some- 
 times with strong green bamboos, at others with 
 thick strong ropes thoroughly soaked in water - 
 which is done, as Mr. Marshman was frankly told, 
 lest on feeling the lire they should run awav and 
 make their escape; Bernier goes on, " When 
 the wretched victims drew back, I have seen 
 those demons the Brahmins thrusting them 
 into the fire with their long poles.'' Sometimes,
 
 47 
 
 indeed, the relations and friends of the widow, ex- 
 erting their utmost influence with her, succeed in 
 
 O 
 
 persuading her to live; but too commonly, the 
 poor wretches are forced into these acts of self- 
 immolation by the joint influence of their hopes 
 and fears. Their fears, however, are by far the more 
 predominant of the two : and while the Brah- 
 mins delude them with the hopes of glory and 
 immortality if they consign themselves to the 
 flames, their only alternative is a life of hard fare, 
 and servile offices; in short, a life of drudgery, 
 degradation, and infamy. 
 
 Such, Sir, is the number of these human sacri- 
 fices, and such the principle on which they are 
 made. As to their nature I should shock the 
 feelings of the hardest heart, if I were to read 
 to you the authenticated statements of the horrid 
 scenes of this kind which are continually taking 
 place ; to which the people are so accustomed, 
 that, as I lately learned from a private friend of 
 my own, who witnessed one of these dreadful 
 transactions, a great concourse of spectators even 
 in populous districts is not collected; and what 
 is worse than all, the horrible scene is beheld 
 with as much unconcern, and even levity, as we 
 see among the lower orders in this country, when 
 the destruction of one of the inferior animals is 
 the subject of their savage mirth. But I will 
 spare you the disgusting recital*; and yet I 
 
 * It would scarcelv be justifiiihle to forbear inserting, what 
 perhaps 1 was culpable in not reading to the House, the follow- 
 ing account of one of these horrible scenes at which the Mis-
 
 48 
 
 well remember what was said nearly in the place 
 where I now stand on an occasion not dissimilar, 
 
 sionary, Mr. Marshman, was present a few years ago. I will 
 extract his own words, only adding, that he is a man of the most 
 established integrity, in the veracity of whose account entire 
 reliance may be justly placed. 
 
 " A per.-on informing us that a woman was about to be burnt 
 with the corpse of her husband, near our house, I, with several 
 of our brethren, hastened to the place: but before we could 
 arrive, the pile was in flames. It was a horrible sight. The 
 most shocking indifference and levity appeared among those 
 who were present. I never saw any thing more brutal than 
 their behaviour. The dreadful scene had not the lenst appear- 
 ance of a religious ceremony. It resembled an abandoned rab- 
 ble of boys in England, collected for the purpose of worrying to 
 death a cat. or a dog. A bamboo, perhaps twenty feet long, had 
 been fastened at one end to a stake driven into the ground, 
 and held down over the fire by men at the other. Such were 
 the confusion, the levity, the bursts of brutal laughter, while the 
 poor woman was burning alive before their eye.s, that it seemed 
 as if every spark of humanity was extinguished by tins accursed 
 superstition. That which added to the cruelty was, the small- 
 ness of the fire. It did not consist of so much \\ood as we con- 
 sume in dressing a dinner : r,", not this fire that was to consume 
 the living and the (had! I saw the legs of the poor creature 
 hanging out of the fire while her body wns in flames. After a 
 while, they took a Daniboo ten or twelve feet I. 1114 and stirred it, 
 pushing and beating the half consumed corpses, as you would re- 
 pair a fire of green wood, by throwing the unconsumed pieces 
 into the middle. Perceiving the legs hanging out, they beat them 
 with the bamboo for some time, in order to break the ligatures 
 which fastened them at the knees, (for they would not have 
 come ii" a r to touch them for the world). At leug'h they suc- 
 ceeded in bending them upwards into the fire, the skin and mus- 
 cles giving way, and discovering the knee sockets bare, wuh 
 the balls of the leg bones: a sight this whica, 1 need n-t say, 
 made me thrill with horror, especially when I recoilucitd that
 
 49 
 
 by a Right Honourable Gentleman now no more, 
 .(Mr. Fox), " that true humanity consists, not in 
 a squeamish car, but in feeling for the sufferings 
 of others, and being forward and active in reliev- 
 ing them." And, Sir, I am perfectly sure, that 
 people could not make up their minds to the 
 quiet toleration of these practices; they would 
 not suffer them, I mean, to go on, without using 
 even- lawful effort to put a stop to them ; but for 
 our having not yet learned to consider India as a 
 part of the British Empire, and its inhabitants as 
 our fellow-subjects. The vast distance also of 
 the scene of these barbarities tends consider- 
 ably to deaden the impression which they would 
 otherwise produce. If these transactions took 
 place in anv part of England, instead of the in- 
 difference with which they have been too long 
 
 this hapless victim of superstition was alive- hijt a few minutes be- 
 fore. To have seen savage wolves thus tcaimg a human body 
 limb from limb, would have been shocking; but to see relations 
 and neighbours do this to one with whom they h.ul familiarly 
 conversed not an hour before, and to do it v\iih an air of levity, 
 was almost too mnch for me to bear. 
 
 " \ ou expect, perhaps, to hear, that this unhappy victim was 
 the wife of some Branim of liigii caste. Sue v*as. the wife of a 
 barber who dwe!> in Serampre, and had di-d tuar, morning, 
 leaving liiv so;i I have mentioned, and a daughter <>t abma <}- 
 ven years of aj^e. Thus has this infernal supersufiri aggravated 
 the common miseries of life, and left these chhdivn -tupped of 
 both their parents in one day. Nor is this an uncommon i a*e. 
 It often happens to children tar more helpless than the>e, *uinr- 
 times to children possessed of property, which is ihm IHI, HS 
 well as themselves, to the mercy ol those who have decoyed their 
 mother to their father's funeral pile!" 
 
 H
 
 60 
 
 regarded by men, I am sensible, not inferior hi 
 humanity to ourselves, the public zeal \vould be 
 called forth, and every possible endeavour would 
 be used to put an end to them. But here again, 
 Sir, we see the effects of that strange delusion by 
 which our countrymen are led into adopting 
 one set of morals, and principles, and even 
 feeling-, for this country, and another for India. 
 And, although, after the proofs of the abilities 
 of the Anglo-Indians which have been exhibited 
 to this House in the course of this very in- 
 quiry, the grossest prejudice alone would deny 
 that they are men of superior talents and intelli- 
 gence; yet, I must say, this very consideration, 
 that they have one rule of judging for India, and 
 another for Great Britain, renders them judges 
 Against whose competency I must except, when 
 the question is concerning the introduction of 
 British religion, British morals, and British man- 
 ners, among the inhabitants of British India. 
 
 And now, Sir, I shall do little more than allude 
 to another class of enormities, which by that very 
 enormity, are in some measure shielded from the 
 detestation they would otherwise incur: I allude 
 to the various obscene and bloody rites of their 
 idolatrous ceremonies, with all their unutterable 
 abominations. A vain attempt has been made 
 in a single instance to do away this charge; but 
 had the endeavour succeeded, instead of ut- 
 terlv failing, as it certainly did, what would it 
 avail when the obscene and bloody nature of the 
 Jlindoo superstitions is established by a cloud of
 
 51 
 
 witnesses; and I will add., when from our more 
 intimate acquaintance with the language, books, 
 and institutions of the natives, the light of day is 
 at length beginning to shine into these dens of 
 darkness, and to expose their foul contents to our 
 disgust and abhorrence. We might easily anti- 
 cipate, that the people's being accustomed to 
 witness the most disgustingly indecent exhibi- 
 
 *_ '_.>*/ 
 
 tions*, in broad day, must have the effect of de- 
 stroying all that natural modesty which the 
 Almighty has implanted in us for the most bene- 
 ficial purposes. And such is in truth the fact: 
 and a gentleman, whose name, if it were men- 
 tioned, would at once establish the undeniable 
 truth of any statement which is made on his an- 
 
 / 
 
 thority, has assured me, that whole families of 
 both sexes and different ages, will witness toge- 
 ther a sort of theatrical or pantomimical enter- 
 tainment of the most shockingly indecent kind. 
 
 - 1 will give one instance only, as a specimen. It is related 
 by an unexceptionable witness. " 1 suppose, 2000 men, women, 
 and children, might be assembled. I observed, that one of ire 
 men standing before the idol in a boat, dancing and making in- 
 decent gestures, was stark naked. As the boat pa^ed along, he 
 was gazed at by the mob; nor could I perceive that this abo- 
 minable action produced any other sensation than iho-e nt 
 laughter. Before other images, young mui, dressed in women's 
 clothes were dancing with ether men, making indecent i^tnivs. 
 | cannot help thinking, but that the vuigaresl mob in l/.ngkv.Ki 
 would have arisen on these impudent beast-;, and true ahno->r 
 toni them in pieces. I have seen the s-nnii abominations exiu- 
 bited btt'ore our own dour." I'/ur-Vs Account of /u'//,i r --'<.. 5c ../ 
 Hind i-, 4'o. Note. p. ;' f X>.
 
 Lord Cornwall!?,, much to his hononr, shortly 
 after his arrival in India, declined an invitation to 
 an amusement of this indecent kind, to which he 
 had been asked by the native of the highest rank 
 in the ;?r-Uiciiient. Indeed, to all who have made 
 it their business to study the nature of idolatrous 
 worship in general, I scarcely need remark, that 
 in its superstitious rits, there has commonly been 
 fotmd to be a natural alliance between obscenity 
 and cruelty; and of the Hindoo superstitions it 
 may be truly affirmed, that they are scarcely less 
 bloody than lascivious ; and as the innate modesty 
 of our nature is effaced by the one, so all the 
 natural feelings of humanity are extinguished by 
 the other. Hence it is, that, as in other instances, 
 as well as in that of the burning of widows, we 
 often read and hear of spectacles and incidents, 
 which would deeply interest the feelings of most 
 Europeans, being witnessed by the natives with 
 utter insensibility. Were all considerations of 
 humanity to be left out of the question, the con- 
 sequences of some of the prevalent enormities 
 would deserve our attention, even in a political 
 view, on account of the numbers which lull vic- 
 tims to these pernicious superstitions. A gentle- 
 man of the highest integrity, and better quali- 
 fied than almost any one else to form a correct 
 judgment in this instance; I mean Dr. Carey, the 
 Missionary, has calculated, that, taking in all the 
 various modes and forms of destruction connected 
 with the worship at the Temple of Jaggernaut ni
 
 53 
 
 Orissa, the lives of one hundred thousand human 
 beings are annually expended in the service of 
 that single idol. 
 
 Ii has often been truly remarked, particularly 
 I think hy the Historian of America, that the 
 moral character of a people may commonly be 
 known from the nature and attributes of the ob- 
 jects of its worship. On this principle, we might 
 have anticipated the moral condition of the Hin- 
 doos, by ascertaining the character of their dei- 
 ties. If it was truly affirmed of the old pagan my- 
 thology, that scarcely a crime could be committed, 
 the perpetrator of which might not plead in his 
 justification, the precedent of one of the national 
 Gods; far more truly may it be said, that in the 
 adventures of the countless rabble of Hindoo 
 deities, you may find every possible variety of 
 every practicable crime. Here also, more truly 
 than of old, every vice has its patron as well as 
 its example. Their divinities are absolute mon- 
 sters of lust, injustice, wickedness, and cruelty. 
 In short, their religious system is one grand 
 abomination. Not but that I know you may 
 sometimes find, in the sacred books of the Hin- 
 doos, acknowledgments of the unity of the great 
 Creator of all things; but just as, from a passage 
 of the same sort in Cicero, it would be contrary 
 alike to reason and experience to argue, that the 
 common pagan mythology was not the religion 
 of the bulk of mankind in the ancient world ; so it 
 is far more absurd and groundless, to contend 
 that more or fewer of the 33,000,000 of Hindoo
 
 54 
 
 gods, with their several attributes and adventures, 
 do not constitute the theology of the bulk of 
 the natives of India. Both their civil and reli- 
 gious systems are radically and essentially the 
 opposites of our own. Our religion is sublime, 
 pure and beneficent. Theirs is mean, licentious, 
 and cruel. Of our civil principles and condition, 
 the common right of all ranks and classes to be 
 governed, protected, and punished by equal laws, 
 is the fundamental principle. Equality, in short, 
 is the vital essence and the very glory of our 
 English laws. Of theirs, the essential and uni- 
 versal pervading character is inequality ; despo- 
 tism in the hii'Sier classes, degradation and 
 
 *_? * O 
 
 oppression in the lo\ver. And such is the syste- 
 matic oppression of this despotism, such its 
 universal predominancy, that, not satisfied with 
 condemning the wretched Soodras for life to their 
 miserable debasement, (nay, death itself does not 
 mend their condition), and endeavouring to make 
 that degradation sure, by condemning them to 
 ignorance as well as humiliation, the same ine- 
 qualities pursue and harass their victims, in the 
 various walks and occupations of life. If they 
 engage in commerce, they are to pay 57. per 
 cent, interest for money, while a Bramin pays !/.> 
 and the other two castes 2/. and 3/. per cent. 
 Their punishments are far more severe than those 
 of the higher classes, for all crimes; although, 
 with any but a Hindoo legislator, their inferior 
 measure of knowledge might be held to extenu- 
 ate their guilt. And are these systems which car>
 
 55 
 
 meet not merely with supporters, but even with 
 panegyrists, in a British Mouse of Commons ? But, 
 
 Sir, I verily believe, nay, I am fully persuaded, 
 that our opponents would think and speak less 
 favourably of the religious and moral system of 
 the Hindoos if they knew it better; and when 
 their eyes shall at length be irresistibly and fully, 
 though tardily and reluctantly, opened to its real 
 character, by that growing developement of its 
 enormities which is daily effecting from the in- 
 creased and increasing light cast on the subject 
 by new publications, they will, I doubt not, be 
 shocked to reflect of what a system they have 
 been unwarily led to applaud the merits, and 
 even contend for the continuance. 
 
 I beg the House, Sir, to observe, that in all 
 the statements I have made either of the moral 
 character of the natives of India, or of the nature 
 of their superstitious principles and observances, 
 I have not grounded any of my assertions on the 
 authority of Dr. Buchanan; and that, because I 
 knew that endeavours had been diligently, I hope 
 not successfully, used, to call in question the ac- 
 curacy of his representations: and therefore, if 1 
 could establish rny positions by other witnesses, 
 against whom no such prejudices prevailed as 
 had been excited in Dr. Buchanan's instance, 
 prudence suggested to me the expediency of 
 preferring them. But, Sir, I should be shamefully 
 wanting to the cause of justice and of truth, ns 
 "well as of friendship, if I were not to protest 
 against the prejudices to which 1 have alludedj
 
 as utterly groundless. I beg the House to mark 
 my assertion, that although Dr. Buchanan's state- 
 ments have been scrutinised with jealous eyes, I 
 am yet to learn one single instance in which any 
 of his statements have been proved erroneous. 
 But his character shall be laid before the House 
 by a less questionable authority than my own. 
 Lord Wellesley has publicly recorded his esti- 
 mate of Dr. Buchanan's merits, not merely by 
 selecting him for the important office of Vice- 
 Provost of the College of Calcutta, but by the 
 terms which he used in communicating to the 
 Directors his having appointed Dr. Buchanan to 
 that important office: " I have also formed," 
 says his Lordship, " the highest expectations 
 from the abilities, learning, temper, and morals 
 of Mr. Buchanan, whose character is also well 
 known in England, and particularly to Dr. Por- 
 teus, Bishop of London; and to Dr. Milner, Mas- 
 ter of Queen's College in the University of Cam- 
 bridge." 
 
 I will not affirm that Dr. Buchanan is exempt 
 from the ordinary infirmities of our common na- 
 ture; and that he who has published so much, of 
 course in some cases, on the authority of others, 
 may never have been misinformed, or may never 
 have been betrayed into the slightest inaccuracv : 
 but this, Sir, I say, and 1 will even leave it to bo 
 determined by those who entertain the strongest 
 prejudices against Dr. Buchanan, and who may 
 complain the most loudly of the supposed inac- 
 curacy of his statements, whether, at least, his
 
 57 
 
 conduct was not that of one who was the most 
 anxious and impartial inquirer after truth, and 
 whether they themselves could have suggested 
 any method by which the correctness or incor- 
 rectness of his statements could be more deci- 
 sively ascertained than that which he adopted. 
 He did not wait, as his opponents have done in 
 calling in question his supposed inaccuracies, till 
 his return to England; but he published his chief 
 work while yet in India. In order to draw more 
 attention to it, he presented it to Government ; 
 and it was in universal circulation for three 
 3'ears before he left Calcutta, on the very spot, 
 and among the very people, whose opinions, in- 
 stitutions, and practices, were the subjects of his 
 publication. 
 
 To those who have known as long, and as 
 well as myself, the unblemished integrity of Dr. 
 Buchanan in private life, this attestation to his 
 character will be superfluous; but it is no more 
 than paying a debt of justice to a man to whom 
 India, I trust, will one day know, and, I doubt not, 
 acknowledge, the unspeakable obligations which 
 sde owes him, for the degree of zeal and per- 
 severance, scarcely to be paralleled, with which, 
 in contempt of misconstruction and obloquv, he 
 continues to promote her best interests, and to 
 render her services, the. amount of which no hu- 
 man language can adequately express. 
 
 And now, Sir, I am persuaded, that in a!! who 
 hear me, there can be but one common feeling 
 of deep commiseration for the unhappy people 
 
 I
 
 58 
 
 whose sad state I have been describing to you; 
 together with the most earnest wishes that we 
 should commence, with prudence, but with zeal, 
 our endeavours to communicate to those be- 
 nighted regions, the genial life and warmth of 
 our Christian principles and institutions, if it can 
 be attempted without absolute ruin to our politi- 
 cal interests in India. And if we were compel- 
 led by any irresistible urgency of political neces- 
 sity, to abstain from the attempt, however cau- 
 tiously and prudently it might be made, we 
 should at least require this necessity to be clearly 
 and indisputably established. For my own part, 
 I confess, that nothing but absolute demonstra- 
 tion could convince me of the existence of such 
 a necessity. For I should deem it almost mo- 
 rally impossible, that there could be any coun- 
 try in the state in which India is proved, but 
 too clearly, now to be, which would not be 
 likely to find Christianity the most powerful of all 
 expedients for improving its morals, and promot- 
 ing alike its temporal and eternal welfare. And 
 I rejoice, Sir, in being able to assure you, that if 
 we proceed with that prudence and caution with 
 which all such measures should be conducted, the 
 endeavour to communicate to our fellow-subjects 
 in India, the benefits of Christian light and moral 
 improvement may not only be made without 
 danger, but, \\hat is more, that there is no way 
 whatever by which we should be so likely to pro- 
 mote our political interests in India 3 because 
 there is no other way by which we should so
 
 59 
 
 greatly strengthen the found at ions of our govern- 
 ment in tliat country. Here, Sir, as in the whole 
 of our case, we stand on the sure and stable 
 ground of fact and experience. 
 
 Our opponents represent the natives of India 
 as of such a jealous sensibility, wherever their re- 
 ligion is concer ed, that on the most reserved 
 and cautious endeavours to convince them of the 
 errors of their system, and to bring them over 
 to our purer faith, their passions would be at 
 once inflamed to madness, and some violent ex- 
 plosion would infallibly ensue. If this, Sir, were 
 true, how is it then that, for more than a centurv, 
 Christian Missionaries have been labouring in 
 India, sometimes with considerable success, and 
 yet we not only have heard of none of these tu- 
 mults, but, as I before remarked, the Mission- 
 aries themselves, who, admitting the statement of 
 our opponents to be correct, must necessarily be 
 supposed to be the objects of universal jealousy 
 and even antipathy, have been, on the contrary, 
 not only the most esteemed, but the most beloved 
 and popular, individuals in the country. No 
 longer ago than in the year ISOo', the Mission- 
 aries of the venerable Society for promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, as we learn from its Re- 
 port for that year, were eminently successful. 
 Yet we heard of no insurrection, nay, of no dis- 
 content, in that part of the country; in short, we 
 only knew of the proceedings at all, i:om the 
 correspondence published by the Society. 
 
 In that only instance in whrcb our
 
 60 
 
 have been enabled to find any just matter of com- 
 plaint against any of the Missionaries, or rather 
 against any of the converts of the Missionaries, (for 
 it is only to them that any blame can be imputed), 
 the transaction taken altogether, and with all its 
 consequences, tends strongly to confirm our con- 
 clusions, and to invalidate those of our adversaries. 
 The story is this One of the native converts of 
 the Baptist Missionaries, translated into Persian, 
 and printed without the knowledge of the Mis- 
 sionaries, a sort of life of Mahomet, containing 
 many abusive and highly objectionable passages. 
 Of this book, 2000 copies were struck off, and 
 300 got into circulation in and about Calcutta, 
 that is, in the very district where, of afl others, the 
 thickness of the population, and the consequent 
 intercourse of the natives with each other, must 
 naturally favour the diffusion of any popular dis- 
 content. Yet what was the result? Did the cir- 
 cumstance transpire in consequence of some 
 sudden insurrection ? Of all the three hundred 
 copies, one alone was ever heard of. And what 
 became of that ? It was brought by the son of 
 a native merchant to one of the Mahometan 
 IVofrs.-ors in the College at Calcutta, with a re- 
 quest that he would write an answer to it, and 
 vindicate the honour of their prophet and the 
 truth of the Mahometan faith. Could any thing 
 indicate less of that headlong violence which we 
 are told we are to expect from the natives, 
 whenever we attempt to call in question the te- 
 nets of their religion, or to inculcate our own?
 
 61 
 
 Here was a case in which I grant there was im- 
 prudence; yet so far from producing any 
 commotion, it scarcely excited the smallest 
 attention; and in the only instance in which 
 it was noticed, it was in that temperate and cool 
 way of reason and argument, which can never 
 tend to the disturbance of the public peace 
 or to the endangering of our political interests. 
 The true conclusion, Sir, from the incident, 
 would be, that the natives were so tolerant and 
 patient in what concerns their religion, that even 
 the grossest imprudence could not rouse them to 
 anger. But I ought not to close my account of 
 thif transaction without remarking, that no such 
 incident can ever take place again; for it was 
 settled, and indeed willingly conceded by the 
 Missionaries themselves, that all publications 
 should in future be inspected and licenced by a 
 Government Officer, appointed for that purpose, 
 before they should be sent into the world. Nei- 
 ther ought I to dismiss the subject, without re- 
 marking, that the whole conduct of the Mission- 
 aries on this occasion was in the highest degree 
 honourable to their Christian character, and such 
 as could not but obtain lor them, as it did, the 
 warm approbation of their superiors*. In truth, 
 
 * " We observe with great satisfaction the temperate and re- 
 spectful conduct of the Society of Missionaries, in the discussions 
 which took place on the subject of the publications to which 
 your attention was directed, and of the measures whicii you felt 
 yourselves called upon to adopt," &.C. Letter of Au. IS OS, from 
 the Court cf Directors to their Presidency at Fort William iu 
 Bengal-
 
 if they hai behaved on this occasion otherwise 
 than as they did, they would have acted in a 
 manner wholly inconsistent with their own deli- 
 berate purpose ; for among other general resolu- 
 tions for the regulation of their conduct, into 
 which they entered previously to their commenc- 
 ing their professional labours, there is one, the 
 good sense and prudence, as well as the Christian 
 meekness of which, ought to cover with shame 
 those who speak of them as a set of hairbrained 
 fanatics A part of it is as follows : " It is ne- 
 cessary," they say, " in our intercourse with the 
 Hindoos, that, as far as we are able, we abstain 
 from those things which would increase their pre- 
 judices against the Gospel. Those parts of Eng- 
 lish manners which are most offensive to them 
 should be kept out of sight ; nor is it advisable 
 at once t> attack their prejudices by exhibiting 
 with acrimony the sins of their gods; neither 
 should we do violence to their images, nor inter- 
 rupt their worship *." 
 
 In truth, Sir, these Anabaptist Missionaries, as, 
 among other low epithets bestowed on them, they 
 have been contemptuously termed, are entitled to 
 our highest respect and admiration. One of 
 them, Dr. Carey, was originally" in one of the 
 lowest stations of society; but, under all tne 
 disadvantages of such a situation, he had the 
 genius as well as benevolence to devise tl.e plan 
 which has since been pursued, of forming a So- 
 ciety for communicating the blessings of Christian 
 light to the natives of India; and his first care \va* 
 * See Baptist Missionary Society's Report,
 
 to qualify himself to act a distinguished part in. 
 that truly noble enterprise. He resolutely ap- 
 plied himself to the diligent study of the learned 
 languages ; after making a considerable profi- 
 ciency in them, he applied himself to several of 
 the Oriental Tongues, more especially to that 
 which I understand is regarded as the parent 
 of them all, the Shanscrit : in which last, his pro- 
 ficiency is acknowledged to be far greater than 
 that of Sir William Jones himself, or of any other 
 European. Of several of these languages he has 
 already published grammars, of one or two of 
 them a dictionary, and he has in contemplation 
 still greater literary enterprises. The very plan 
 of one of them would excite the highest admira- 
 tion and respect in every unprejudiced literary 
 mind. All this time, Sir, he is labouring indefa- 
 tigably as a Missionary with a warmth of zeal 
 only equalled by that with which he prosecutes 
 his literary labours. Merit like this could not 
 escape the distinguishing eye of Lord \Vellesley, 
 who appointed him to be Professor of the Shan- 
 scrit, and of another of the native languages in 
 the College at Calcutta. Another of these Ana- 
 baptist Missionaries, Mr. Marshman, has esta- 
 blished a Seminary for the cultivation of the Chi- 
 nese Language, which he has studied with a suc- 
 cess scarcely inferior to that of Dr. Carey in the 
 Shanscrit. 
 
 On more than one occasion, at the annual exa- 
 jninations at the College at Calcutta, the highest 
 eulogium was pronounced both on Carey and
 
 64 
 
 Marsliman, by the Governor General ; and the 
 happiest consequences were predicted from the 
 prosecution of their literary labours*. 
 
 It is a merit of a more vulgar sort, but to 
 those who are blind to their moral and even theit 
 literaiy excellencies, it may perhaps afford 
 an estimate of value better suited to their 
 principles and habits of calculation, that these 
 men, and Mr. AVard also, another of the Mission- 
 aries, acquiring from 1000/. to J500/. per annum 
 each, by the various exercise of their talents, 
 
 * I ought not to omit the honourable testimony which has 
 been borne to these extraordinary men by the Rev. Dr. Marsh 
 of Cambridge. After some account of their literary labours, he 
 proceeds: " Such are the exertions of those extraordinary men, 
 the Missionaries at Serampore, who in the course of eleven years 
 from the commencement of 1800, to the latest accounts, have 
 contributed so much to the translation and dispersion of the 
 Scriptures in the Oriental Languages, that the united efforts of no 
 society whatever can be compared with them. These are the men 
 who, before the Bible Society existed, formed the grand design 
 of translating the Scriptures into ail the languages of the East ; 
 these are thv men who have been the grand instruments in the 
 execution of this stupendous work ; these are the men who are 
 best qualified to complete the design so nobly begun, and 
 hitherto so successfully performed, who in the knowledge of 
 language which they themselves hare acquired, who in the Se- 
 minary at Serampore, designed for the education of future trans- 
 lators, who in their extensive connections with men of learning 
 throughout the East, who in the Missionary printing oflice, so 
 well supplied with types of almost every description, and who 
 in the extensive supplies afforded by the Baptist Society, aug. 
 mentfd by their own noble contributions, are in possession of 
 the means which are required for that important purpose. These 
 are the men, therefore, who are entitled to the thanks of tha 
 British Public."
 
 65 
 
 throw the whole into the common stock of the 
 Mission, which they thus support by their pecu- 
 niary contributions only less effectually than by 
 their researches and labours of a higher order. 
 
 Such, Sir, are the exertions, such the merits, 
 such the success, of these great and good men, 
 for so I shall not hesitate to term them. 
 
 Nor ought we to withhold from the Society 
 with which they are connected some share of 
 praise, for having selected and sent forth agents 
 so admirably fitted for their important functions ; 
 and it fairly entitles the Society to our confidence 
 in future. Sir, to have chosen with judgment the 
 instruments to be employed in high stations, has 
 ever been deemed matter for no mean applause. 
 In one instance, indeed, it lias been stated, that 
 after Lord Wellesley's departure, one of the most 
 eminent of them was publicly guilty of an act of 
 gross imprudence ; but his imprudence could not 
 have appeared to the Supreme Government to be 
 of any very serious import, because he was subse- 
 quently honoured by that Government with an 
 additional mark of favour, by having another 
 professorship conferred on him. 
 
 With the well-founded claims which I have stated, 
 to your respect, it will not, I trust, be very inju- 
 rious to them, to have received in this House the 
 contemptuous appellations of Anabaptists and 
 Fanatics. For my own part I have lived too 
 long to be much affected by such epithets, 
 whether applied to others or to myself. But 
 I confess, Sir, that it was not without some 
 
 K
 
 66 
 
 surprise, as well as concern, that I heard these 
 Missionaries spoken of in a style like this, 
 by any gentleman whose eloquent exhibition 
 this day, certainly indicates a liberal educa- 
 tion and an instructed mind. It has been 
 truly stated by perhaps the greatest philosopher 
 as well as one of the ablest writers of the present 
 day*, that to have the mind occupied with little 
 blemishes, where they are associated with real 
 and great excel ler.cics, is by no means an evi- 
 dence of superior intellectual or moral acuteness 
 or refinement, but that it rather indicates a con- 
 tracted understanding, and a vitiated taste. And 
 I confess, Sir, that if there had been any little 
 foibles or infirmities (of none of which however 
 I am aware) in men of such exalted merit as 
 those of whom I am now speaking, it might 
 have been expected that the eye of every gene- 
 rous obsen er would be so filled and captivated 
 with their excellencies, as to have no power, 
 no leisure, to perceive their defects. But what shall 
 wesav : What estimate shall we form of the judg- 
 
 %/ " O 
 
 rnent of some of our opponents in this cause, and 
 of their candour towards those who support it, 
 when in the want of any defect in character, or 
 even in conduct, to be imputed to the Missionaries, 
 such terms as Anabaptist and Fanatic are applied 
 to them. It has justly been .-aid to be asign that 
 men begin to iind themselves lacking in argu- 
 ments, when they begin to call names. But I
 
 67 
 
 own, Sir, I should have conceived, that let the 
 consciousness of that want have pressed ever so 
 severely, the Missionaries would have been 
 shielded against such attacks as thc:;e, from any 
 assailant of a 'cultivated mind, by their Iriving 
 conceived, and planned, and in the face of much 
 opposition undertaken, and so long persevered in 
 carrying on, at a vast expence of time and study 
 and money, such dignified, beneficial, and disin- 
 terested labours *. 
 
 Anabaptists and Fanatics ! These, Sir, are men 
 not to be so disposed of. Far different was the 
 impression which they produced on the mind of 
 the Marquis Wellcslev; far different the language 
 lie has bestowed on them. While in India, lie 
 patronised their literary labours ; and very lately, 
 in another place, public] v and on a -olemn occa- 
 sion, after describing, \\ith a singular felicity of 
 expression which must have fixed his words in 
 every hearer's memory, their claim to the protec- 
 tion, though not to the direct encouragement of 
 
 J O O 
 
 Government, he did them the honour of stating, 
 that though lie had no concern with them as 
 Missionaries, they were known to him as men of 
 learning, In fact, Sir, the qualifications which 
 several of thorn have exhibited ;ire truly extraor- 
 dinary. And while the thoughts of a Christian 
 
 i; ' A part of \v!iat is Jiere said of the -Missionaries was stated 
 by Mr. Wilberf.n'ce in presenting to the House of Commons the 
 
 JAit'uion of the I'.itplist Soru-ty iu favour of' thf ililliision olVhria- 
 ti.mity in the East.
 
 68 
 
 observer of them, and of their past and present 
 circumstances would naturally dwell on that pro- 
 vidential ordination by which such uncommon 
 men had been led to engage in that important 
 service, and would thence perhaps derive no ill- 
 grounded hope of the ultimate success of their 
 labours; even a philosophical mind, if free from 
 prejudice, could not but recognize in them 
 fin extraordinary union of various, and in some 
 sort contradictory, qualities; zeal combined 
 with meekness, love with sobriety, courage and 
 energy with prudence and perseverance. To this 
 assemblage also, I may add another union, which, 
 if less rare, is still uncommon, great animation 
 and diligence as Students, with no less assiduity 
 and efficiency as Missionaries. When to these 
 qualifications we superadd that generosity which, if 
 exercised in any other cause, would have received 
 as well as deserved the name of splendid munifi- 
 cence ; and when we call to mind that it is by 
 motives of unfeigned, though it had been mis- 
 guided, benevolence, that these men were prompt- 
 ed to quit their native coiiut> v, and devote them- 
 selves for life to their bene^cent labours; is there 
 not, on the whole, a character justly entitled at 
 least to co.nuion respect : And '.n:>..y I not justly 
 charge it to the score of pivjud' .?, that the Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman can here- find only objects 
 of contempt and aversion: For my part, Sir, I 
 confess the sensations excited it, my mind are of 
 o, very diilcrer.t kitid, and I wouid express them
 
 69 
 
 in the words, if I could recollect them with ac- 
 curacy, which were used by a learned prelate* 
 on a similar occasion, by acknowledging-, that I 
 can only admire that eminence of merit which I 
 despair myself to reach, and bow before such 
 ex hed virtue. 
 
 But of all the ground that has been taken by 
 our opponents, that on which they appear to con- 
 ceive themselves the strongest is, the Mutiny at 
 Vellore. On no subject has there ever prevailed 
 more gross, and, among our opponents, more ob- 
 stinate misconception. For I hesitate not to de- 
 clare, that this sad transaction, fully reviewed and 
 fairly considered, will shew, like the circumstance 
 which I lately mentioned of the obnoxious Maho- 
 metan pamphlet, that the natives are very far from 
 being as jealous and resentful of the most distant 
 approaches towards any interference with their 
 peculiar institutions as our opponents have re- 
 presented them to be. Let me however entreat you 
 always to bear in mind, that it is no rude attack 
 on their native superstitions which we are medi- 
 tating, but only that prudent and gradual com- 
 munication of light and truth which will cause the 
 natives themselves spontaneously to abandon 
 them. 
 
 The leading particulars of the Vellore Mutiny 
 are so generally known, that I need not give you 
 the pain you would suffer from hearing a fresh 
 recital of the melancholy detail. Indeed, from 
 
 \ '* Bishop Hurd,
 
 70 
 
 motives of delicacy towards justly respectable in- 
 dividuals, I wish to forbear entering minutely into 
 particulars ; the most detailed inquiry into which, 
 however, would only serve to strengthen my con- 
 clusions. 
 
 But before I proceed to touch lightly on 
 this melancholy subject, permit me to remark, 
 that it has been the common infirmity of our 
 species in all uncivilized and uneducated nations, 
 to overvalue their own peculiar customs and 
 institutions, and sometimes to be devoted to 
 them with such an excessive fondness of at- 
 tachment, that a degree of power which has 
 been sufficient to sway the people at its will in 
 more important matters, has been forced in these 
 to feel and acknowledge its own inferiority. 
 Peter the Croat, wo know, in all the plenitude of 
 his power, in vain endeavoured to force the Mus- 
 covites into the shaving of their beards ; and the 
 pace of history furnishes other instances which 
 
 1 cj / 
 
 inculcate the same lesson. Hut where the force 
 of religion also intervenes, the principle becomes 
 still stronger and more efficient. Indeed, in ad- 
 dressing an assembly so enlightened as this, I 
 scarcely need remark, that men in general, in 
 proportion as they have been uneducated and un- 
 informed, have commonly been found to feel an 
 extravagant attachment to the exterior symbols 
 and observances of their various systems of reli- 
 gion ; and, in truth, that the religion of the bulk 
 of mankind has too often consisted altogether in 
 these exterior ceremonies. Hence it would be
 
 71 
 
 the part of true wisdom, and I am sure, for I say 
 it on the authority of Scripture, of true Christia- 
 nity also, in communicating to any people the 
 principles of a purer faith, to leave them in quiet 
 possession of these petty distinctions, instead of 
 attacking or outraging them, reasonably trusting, 
 that when the judgments ot their converts should 
 be convinced of the falsehood of their old prin- 
 ciples, these distinctive characteristics of them 
 would drop off of themselves. 
 
 If this be true, nay, indisputable reasoning, ve- 
 rified by the experience of all times and all coun- 
 tries, what a comment on them shall we find in 
 the proceedings which led to the fatal Mutiny at 
 Vellore! Though in the progress of that unhappy 
 affair, the deposed family of Tippoo Sultan were 
 found very naturally to have fomented the disaf- 
 fection which prevailed, yet I have the highest 
 authority, that of the Governor of Madras him- 
 self, confirmed also by the deliberate judgment 
 of the Court of Directors, pronounced after a full 
 investigation of the whole business, for saying, 
 " that whatever difference of opinion the dispute 
 respecting the more remote or primary causes 
 of the mutiny may have occasioned, there lias 
 always prevailed but one sentiment respecting 
 the immediate causes of that event. These are 
 on all hands, admitted to have been certain mili- 
 tary regulations, then recently introduced into 
 the Madras armv.' 1 These regulations were, the 
 onlerinir " tho Sr:>ovs to apnear on parade with 
 
 O It 
 
 their chilis ciean shaved, uud the hc.ir 0:1 the upper
 
 72 
 
 lip cut after the same pattern ; and never to wear 
 the distinguishing marks of caste, or ear-rings 
 when in uniform," and "the ordering, for the use 
 of the Sepoys, a turban of a new pattern *." 
 
 Such were the new regulations ; and how were 
 these obnoxious regulations enforced? How was 
 the rising discontent treated which these changes 
 began to produce ? Was it by argument and 
 persuasion, the only weapons in the Missionary 
 armoury? The refractory non-commissioned offi- 
 cers were ordered to be reduced to the ranks ; 
 nineteen of the ringleaders (privates) were con- 
 demned to receive severe corporal punishment, and 
 to be dismissed the Company's service, as turbu- 
 lent and unworthy subjects ; the greater part of 
 these offenders, shewing strong signs of contrition, 
 were indeed forgiven ; but the sentence was exe- 
 cuted in front of the garrison on two of them, 
 each receiving nine hundred lashes. Can we 
 wonder at the sequel ? Though the flame ap- 
 peared for a while to be smothered and sup- 
 pressed, the fire burnt in secret with only 
 the greater vehemence. Can we be surprised 
 that secret oaths began to be administered, and 
 
 * It is due to the highly respectable officer who was at that 
 time first in command in the Carnatic, to state, that he appears to 
 have been misled by the erroneous judgment of some officers of 
 long experience in the Indian army, as well as (in the instance 
 of the new turban) by a Court of Inquiry, into conceiving that 
 no bad consequences would result from the new regulations; 
 and having once comma nck-d them to be introduced, it became a 
 matter of extreme doubt, ami difficulty to decide whether it 
 would be best to retract or tnforce the orders.
 
 secret engagements to be made ? "While to these 
 religious discontents, combined with nil those 
 bad passions which raged the more violently 
 because they durst not shew themselves but 
 raged in secret, was superadded a political caiue 
 of powerful efficiency. The adherents of the de- 
 posed Sovereigns of" Mysore, who were in custody 
 in that part of the country, fanned the rising 
 flame, and used every method for increasing the 
 general discontent. For a time the volcano burnt 
 inwardly, until at length, on the lOliiof July, the 
 fatal eruption took place, the dreadful circum- 
 stances of which are too well known to need enu- 
 meration. Can we wonder, Sir, that such causes 
 as I have stated should have produced such effects? 
 That which may more justly excite our wonder 
 is, that such discontents as these were so easily 
 quieted. But so it was; for, though the obnoxious 
 regulations, strange to say, being still persisted in, 
 a repetition of mutinies, followed perhaps by thf- 
 same dreadful consequences, appeared likely to 
 ensue, yet no sooner were the offensive altera- 
 tions abandoned, than all was order and obedi- 
 ence. " About the 2 1st of July the same regula- 
 " tions were ordered to be introduced in thesub- 
 " sidiary force at Hydrabad, when the turban, the 
 " orders respecting the marks of caste, ear-rings, 
 '' and whiskers, thrcu" the whole of that force, 
 <; amounting to ten thousand men, into the utmos!. 
 " disorder. They resolved not to submit to the 
 " new regulations, and every thing was ripening 
 <( for an open revolt, when by the revocation ol 
 
 J
 
 74 
 
 " the orders the tumult was instantly allayed, 
 " and the troops resumed their obedience." " The 
 " tranquillity," says the Governor of Madras, 
 " which at that place instantaneously followed a 
 " revocation of the orders, sufficiently marked 
 e: the true cause cf disaffection. The revocation, 
 " as I have been assured by an eye-witness, ope- 
 " rated on the troops with the suddenness and 
 " efficacy of a charm*." That when the troops 
 
 * Though for many reasons I wish not to enter more particularly 
 than is absolutely necessary into the various circumstances which 
 followed and were connected with the Vellore Mutiny, yet in 
 justice to the gn at cause for which I am contending, it is fit that 
 I should state, that after the Vellore Mutiny, an undue and un- 
 veaMjjntble degree of suspicion and distrust prevailed for some 
 time throughout all that part of India. This was naturally 
 produced by the suddenness of the explosion, combined with a 
 consciousness that it was commonly supposed that there had 
 been a great if not a faulty want of vigilance and attention to 
 various circumstances which preceded ils actually breaking out, 
 and ought to have suggested the necessity of precautionary mea- 
 sures for preventing thot catastrophe. " Till that period," says 
 the Governor of Madras, " the confidence of the. F.uropean Ofli- 
 " oors in the aii'-ctior. of their Sepoys had been literally unli- 
 " niittv.l, and indeed found more, than its justification in a fidelity 
 " winch had stood the proof ol a series of years, and of a vast 
 ''variety <.f fortune. la the midst of this security a mine wns 
 " sprung. The Mutiny at VelUire overthrew uil reliance on re- 
 "'' ceived principles, and produced a violent though not unnatural 
 '' ti\.iis'tion from the extreme of confluence to that of distrust. 
 " T!K- (.tlicers were tortured by too conviction of a genera! plot; 
 " and, from the detached manner in which the Indian troops 
 " niv canic-!u",!, f<>und themselves ieii to tiie mercy o! traitors. 
 " All \vaj s'l-pensi'. and hnrror ; aiul in one instance, the agon-/ 
 " oftlie.se eaiotion acfii ;l!y ended in insanity." 
 
 Tiie noble writer himstlf illuslnUes the state of mind of which
 
 were on the very point of breaking out into open 
 mutiny, the revocation of the obnoxious order 
 should ia a moment calm the storm, is a decisive 
 proof thai the men who in such circumstances 
 could at once hear and ohev the voice of reason, 
 \vere men of well-disposed and temperate minds, 
 who had been slowly and with difficulty urged 
 
 he is speaking, by another still more general and more lasting 
 delusion, the Popish plot. "The progress of the ahrm crea'ed by 
 " the apprehension of the Popish Plot in the reign ol Charles the 
 " Second, as described by Hume (Vol vi, p. 27.)), corresponds to a 
 *' degree of curious exactness with the public feeling at Madras, 
 " Hume writes, 'While in this timorous and jt^dous disposition, 
 " the cry of a plot all on ;i sudden struck their ears. They were 
 " wakened from their slumber; and, like men affrighted in the 
 " dark, took every shadow for a spectre The terror ot each man 
 " became the source of terror to another. And an universal panic 
 " being dili'used, reason and argument, and common sense and 
 " common humanity lost a!! influence over them/ The^e gene- 
 rally prevailing apprehensions very naturally led to measures, 
 which might have produced the very worst consequences if the 
 native troops had been less attached to us at heart than they 
 really were. Many useful reflections, and of a nature highly 
 favourable to our cause, will be suggested to the considerate 
 mind by the preceding statement of Lord William lientinck. I 
 will only put it to every unprejudiced mind to declare, whether 
 the above transactions do not, account lor the prevalence of a 
 somewhat morbid decree of sensibility in many both of the civil 
 and military gentlemen of India and their connections, when the 
 probability and amount of the danger of interfering with the reli- 
 gious opinions of the natives are in question. That danger may 
 perhaps have Iven ei-.tim.ited ut too low a rate, and have been too 
 little regarded, previously to the Veliore Mutiny. If so, nothing 
 can be more natural th.m ilnt overweening confidence should 
 be succeeded bv feelings of a contrary nature. We all know th<? 
 proneness of the human mind to p-;.ss from OIK- extreme to its 
 opposite.
 
 into resistance, rather than that they were men of 
 the quick and eager, and irritable spirit which the 
 natives of India are alleged by our opponents to 
 display whenever their peculiar opinions and in- 
 stitutions are ever so temperately opposed. 
 
 And now, Sir, I have stated to you from the 
 first authority the nature and causes of the Vei- 
 lore Mutiny; and, in the first place, may I not 
 ask, if there was ever any attempt more atro- 
 ciously unfair than to charge that event on there 
 having been a greater number of Missionaries 
 than before, or on any increased diligence in the 
 circulation of the Holy Scriptures? Yet, strange 
 to say, such is the force of prejudice even in saga- 
 cious aud honourable minds, that to these causes 
 it has been in a considerable degree attributed*. 
 To disprove this assertion I might refer even to 
 military authority, from which it would appear 
 that there had been no such increased measure of 
 attention to the propagation of our religion in 
 that part of India, as to have had any share what- 
 ever in the production of the effect. " In no si- 
 *' tuation," says the respectable Officer who was 
 then Commander-in-Chief of the forces under the 
 Madras Government (General Sir John Cradock), 
 " have so few measures been pursued by British 
 41 subjects for the conversion of the people to the 
 
 * It is clearly proved in a pamphlet, written by Lord Teign- 
 mouth, and published in 1SOS, On the Practicability, Duty, and 
 Expediency of endeavouring to difiuse Christianity throughout 
 India, that there had been no increase in the numbers of the, 
 Missionaries or of the translations of the Scriptures.
 
 77 
 
 f; religion which we profess. No Englishmen have 
 " hitherto been employed on this duty in the pro- 
 " vinces of the Peninsula; and from the almost 
 " total absence of religious establishments in the 
 " interior of the country, from the habits of life 
 ;c prevalent among military men, it is a melan- 
 *' choly truth, that so unfrequent are the reli- 
 " gious observances of officers doing duty with 
 " battalions, that the Sepoys have not, until very 
 fe lately, discovered the nature of the religion 
 " professed by the English*." 
 
 And now, Sir, let me again ask you, after your 
 having heard this brief account of the unhappy 
 transactions connected with the Vellore Mutiny, 
 and I will confidently put the question to every 
 unprejudiced mind, whether they afford any rea- 
 sonable foundation for the inference which has 
 been so precipitately drawn from them, that the 
 morbid irritability of the natives in all that con- 
 cerns their peculiar opinions and institutions is so 
 great, as to render it infinitely dangerous to en- 
 
 * It is right to stale, that this neglect of the common offices 
 of Religion was by no means chargeable on the military gentle- 
 men themselves; and to the honour of the military character it 
 should be stated, that General Macdowall addressed a letter to 
 the Madras Government for the purpose of effecting a reform in 
 that particular. In this letter he stated as his opinion, that the 
 indifference manifested by the European inhabitants of India in 
 the adoration of the Supreme Being, which was ascribed to the 
 want of places exclusively appropriated for Divine Service, was 
 so far from being favourable even to our political interests that 
 the constructing of convenient chapels at a moderate expence, 
 at all stations where European troops mijjht probably be quar- 
 tered, would render the British character more respected by 
 the natives, and would be attended by no evil consequences.
 
 78 
 
 deavour, even in the most temperate and guarded 
 manner, to propagate among them a purer system 
 of religion and morals. Be this however as it may, 
 you will at least see, I am confident, and I beg it 
 may be carefully kept in mind, that the persua- 
 sion of this morbid irritability did not exist in the 
 minds of our military officers, when they issued 
 their new regulations. Those ordinances rather 
 indicated a persuasion of a directly opposite sort ; 
 that the natives were, even in their peculiar 
 usages, so patient of provocation as to be very 
 
 tardily and with great difficulty roused into re- 
 
 *> ~ >/ 
 
 sistance. But have we no reason to believe that 
 this last impression, rather than that winch now 
 possesses the minds of our opponents, prevailed 
 among the civil servants of the Company also, till 
 their views were lately changed by their extrava- 
 gant dread of Missionaries ? For has not my Ho- 
 nourable Friend (Mr. W. Smith) stated to you aa 
 incident which is decisive to this point; that they 
 were not afraid of seizing the Car and the Idol 
 of Juggernaut himself for the payment of a deficient 
 tribute? And as my Honourable Friend truly re- 
 marked, are we, after this transaction, to hear with 
 patience, men, who in the way of business, when the 
 raising of some paltry tax was the object in ques- 
 tion, could treat thus contemptuously the most 
 sacred religious usages of the natives, and that in 
 the very moment and circumstances in which the 
 insult would be most keenly felt : can we, I repeat 
 it, with patience hear the same class of men speak- 
 ing the language we now hear, of the tender sen- 
 sibility of the natives, in all that concerns their re-
 
 79 
 
 ligious opinions and practices, being such, that our 
 opposing them even by argument ami persuasion, 
 would be too hazardous to be attempted; and this, 
 when the object in view is no less than that of 
 rescuing sixty millions of our fellow subjects from 
 the lowest depths of moral degradation ? Th* re is 
 a grossness of inconsistency here which would 
 be beyond all precedent ridiculous, if the serious 
 effects to be apprehended from it were not such 
 as to excite in us the graver emotions of indig- 
 nation and astonishment. I have dwelt the longer 
 on the Vellore transactions, because I am con- 
 vinced that, though most groundlessly, they have 
 operated very powerfully in producing, in the 
 minds of many well-disposed persons, strong pre- 
 judices against the question for which I am now 
 contending. 
 
 But the fair statement of these Vellore trans- 
 cations, combined with the seizure of Jagger- 
 naut and his car, will by no means have pro- 
 duced its just and full effect, if, besides dashing 
 to the ground that superstructure of unjust 
 prejudices which has been raised on the basis of 
 this particular incident, it does not also contri- 
 bute powerfully to strengthen the persuasion, 
 which so rnar.y other circumstances concur to 
 produce in us, that our onnonents nre absolutely 
 
 { I 1 > 
 
 run away with by their prejudices and prepos- 
 sessions on Ihis subject of Christianizing, if (In 
 brevity's suke I m:iy so r:rm it, the natives <<i 
 l:;dia. In. every c >nt i 'uversy, it is highly im- 
 portant to be fiirni-hc,! wilh a ^t'.uvlard_, by which.
 
 80 
 
 to judge of the soundness and correctness of the 
 reasonings of the contending' parties respectively. 
 Now it fortunately happens, that in the Vellore 
 business, on which our opponents have rested so 
 much of their case, we are able to ascertain on 
 what foundations they ground their opinions, to 
 discover from what premises they draw their con- 
 clusions; and, as in this instance, in which that 
 foundation and those premises can be scrutinized, 
 we plainly see, that their opinions and conclu- 
 sions are altogether unwarranted, we may fairly 
 conclude it to be highly probable, that in other 
 cases aKo, in which we have not the same oppor- 
 tunity of closely examining the grounds of their 
 
 , / C5 O 
 
 persuasions, those persuasions are -Dually unwar- 
 rantable. In short, Sir, our opponents shew us, 
 that though, in other case?, me.i even of superior 
 understandings and intelligence, we ought, on 
 this subject, to except against iheir authority, 
 because they are not so much under the guidance 
 of their reason, as of their passions and their 
 prejudices. Hence, like all men who are under 
 the influence of prejudice, though otherwise rea- 
 sonable and intelligent, thev draw conclusions 
 
 J 
 
 from slight and insufficient premises ; they shut 
 their eyes to unquestionable facts, and are led 
 into gross errors aiid inconsistencies. In truth, 
 we see uood reason to susnect, that when this 
 
 O i 
 
 contest commenced, our opponents were almost 
 wholly unacquainted with the subject.; that their 
 minds were never called lo it, till it had become a 
 strongly-contested question, in which, as men arc.
 
 81 
 
 opt to do, they then took llicir side from the in- 
 fluence of their preconceived opinions. 
 
 But, Sir, as if to do away everv remaining 
 doubt which mi^ht still adhere to the most appre- 
 hensive minds, respecting the reasonableness of the 
 alleged danger of our endeavouring, eve'i tem- 
 perately and cautiously, to enlighten and im- 
 prove the natives of India, we are happily fur- 
 nished with some particular instances in which 
 the pernicious institutions of the natives have been 
 combated and overcome. Indeed, the many 
 improvements we have introduced among them, 
 whether in our civil, judicial, financial, or mili- 
 tary system, are all examples of tins kind ; for in 
 all these we had to contend against that formi- 
 dable principle of unchangeableness, which at- 
 taches to all the Indian institutions, and has been 
 supposed to indicate their sacred source, and to 
 forbid our presuming to question their wisdom 01 
 expediency. But there aie two remarkable in- 
 stances of our successful endeavours to root, out, 
 inveterate and pernicious practices, which from 
 their bein.^ complete within themselves, and beinrj; 
 therefore more detached !!<an tho.-,o which are pan : 
 of a large and compl cafe;] system, mavbo more 
 advantageously brought under our review. For a 
 more minute detail of the ca-^es 1 am about to lav 
 before von. I i> fer to the papers on the fa'.le. 
 
 In the fir f of the iis^ta-icej wine;) I am abou! 
 te mention, I am happy to state, that {!)< be.ne- 
 (actor of India was a nobleman wh-m I nr.iy tak< 
 
 ;\!
 
 82 
 
 the liberty ofcalling mv noble friend*. That noble- 
 man who, grcat.lv to his honour, in the midst of all 
 his political and military concerns, found leisure 
 to attend to the internal improvement of his go- 
 vernment, and \vho, as if eager to avail himself of 
 an opportunity of inculcating the real superiority 
 of the honour to be obtained in bloodless victories 
 over ignorance and error to those laurels that are 
 reaped in the field of battle, founded the College at 
 Calcutta, as a trophv to commemorate his success 
 in the Mysore war. The Marquis Wellesley was 
 informed, that a practice prevailed of sacrificing, 
 at the change of every moon, many victims, 
 chiefly children, to the river Ganges. He wished 
 to put an end to this horrid practice; but he was 
 conscious, as all men of sense must be in such 
 cases, that he must ieel his wav cautiously and 
 tenderly. 'To those who had adopted the princi- 
 ples of our opponents, it would have been suffi- 
 cient, I fear, to make them acquiesce in the con- 
 tinuance of this practice, to be told, that it had 
 subsisted for manv hundreds, perhaps even for 
 thousands, of years. But my noble Friend con- 
 r-ulied no such advisers; he took counsel with his 
 ;;wn exceiienl understanding, and humane heart ; 
 and the consequence soon followed The practice 
 was at an end. lie conferred with some of the 
 learned natives who were attached to the Col- 
 lege, /onccming the origin and principle of these 
 horn'! murders, and ascertained, that they were. 
 
 * "'he Mimui- Wellfsle.
 
 83 
 
 prescribed bv no ordinance of religion, and that, 
 probably, no objection would be made, no 
 discontent produced, if they should bo prohi- 
 bited. 'I hev luui :~one on, from time irmnemo- 
 ria!, from tiie habit which had prevailed in India 
 of suturing all such wicked and cruel practices 
 to prevail, without question or opposition. A 
 Jaw therefore was issued, by the Governor-Gene- 
 ral in Council, declaring the practice to be hence- 
 forth murder punishable bv death. The law was 
 obeyed without a murmur: and not only have 
 all the wretched victims, who would otherwise 
 have been sacrificed, been since saved to the 
 stale; but this cause at least has been taken from 
 the number of those which injure the commu- 
 nity in India, more than in proportion to the 
 direct loss of life- they occasion, by their harden- 
 ing and depraving effects on the hearts and prac- 
 tice of the whole population. 
 
 But the second instance in which we are able 
 to speak of a conquest already achieved over the 
 native superstitions and cruelties of India, is of 
 a still more striking nature?, and where originallv 
 
 o o *> 
 
 the obstacles were of a tar more formidable 
 character. It is now more than twenty years 
 since Air. Duncan, afterwards Governor of Bom- 
 bav, then Resident at Benares, learned that a 
 custom existed, among a tribe of the natives in 
 that neighbourhood, of murdering their female 
 infants ; and he was able, through the influence of 
 the British Government (for the influence of Go- 
 vernment was in that instance used not oulv in-
 
 84 
 
 iiocuously but successful! y), to prevail on the 
 In be (the Rajkumars of Juan pore) to enter into 
 a positive engagement, to abstain in future from 
 such detestable aets ; and that any of their num- 
 ber who should be guilty of them, should be ex- 
 pelled from their tribe. 
 
 Thus the practice was abolished in Juanpore. 
 But it had been suggested by Captain Wilford 
 to ;\!r. Duncan, in his former inquiries concern- 
 ing Infanticide in India, that the Greek Historians 
 had stated it to prevail in tli^ neighbourhood of 
 Guzerat. Accordingly, recollecting the success 
 of his former humane en.ieavour, he was ani- 
 mated by the benevolent desire of extending in 
 that quarter also the triumphs of humanity. 
 After some inquiry, hs ascertained, that the prac- 
 tice of murdering the female infants was very 
 general among the tribes of Jarejah and Cutch. 
 An I so firmly had this -detestable custom rooted 
 itself, and so powerful!'/ was it established, as to 
 have overcome the strongest of the human in- 
 s.tinc!s, a mother's love of her infant. Not only 
 did these mothers assist in destroying their off- 
 
 . o 
 
 spring, but even when the Mussel man preju- 
 dices (Mussehnan prejudices observe, Sir ! it 
 is with shame that I pronounce the words !) oc- 
 casionally interfered to preserve their offspring, 
 they held these femah-s in the greatest contempt, 
 calling them by a n.irne which indicated that 
 their fathers had derogated from their military 
 ca-'te, and were become pedlars. Governor 
 Duncan's humane designs acrainst this horrid
 
 85 
 
 practice were most ably and effectually further- 
 ed, and at length accomplished, bv the Resident, 
 Colonel Walker, who displayed 0:1 this occa- 
 sion a sagacitv, address, and firmness, as well 
 as hutnanitv, which are beyond all praise. The 
 whole progress of this admirable enterprise is 
 published to the world ; and the leading parti- 
 culars, in Moor's Hindoo Infanticide, are now, 
 on my motion, upon vour table. Observe there- 
 fore, Sir, that here, as in other instances, I 
 ground my arguments on attc^ed, indisputable 
 facts, and undeniable experience. Colonel Wal- 
 ker's attempt, at first, wore a very unpromising 
 aspect. In return to a letter which he wrote 
 to one of the chieftains of the tribe, reasoning 
 with him on the cruelty of the practice, and 
 urging him to discontinue it, he received an an- 
 swer which would have been sufficient not only 
 to discourage, but to intimidate, a less zealous, 
 and, 1 may add, a less able adventurer. He 
 was told, that it was " notorious that the Jare- 
 " jnhs had been in the habit of killing their 
 1 daughters for 4,900 sears; and that no doubt 
 <! he was aware that all of God's creation, even 
 " the mighty emperors of Hindustan, Shah Jehan, 
 ' c Aurenzebe, and Akbar, had alwnvs preserved 
 " friendship with his court, and had never acted 
 " in that respect (female Infanticide) uureasun- 
 " ai)Iv r . Even the king of the world had never 
 " once though* 1 of putting a slop to the custom 
 " \\hich prevails amongst the Jarejahs, of killing 
 f< their daughters,"
 
 86 
 
 After much more in defence of the practice, he 
 concludes with a declaration, winch, if somewhat 
 ambiguously mysterious in its outset, is clear 
 enough as to its meaning before it ends : " God 
 " is the giver, and God is the taker away ; if any 
 " one's affairs go to ruin, he must attribute his 
 " fortune to God. No one has until this day 
 " wantonly quarrelled with this Durbar, who has 
 tf not in the end suffered loss." 
 
 " This Durbar wishes no one ill, nor lias ever 
 " wantonly quarrelled with any one." 
 
 " Do not, address me again on !his subject." 
 
 Such, Sir, was the reception of Colonel Wal- 
 ker's first application to the chieftains of the 
 Jarejahs. And even one of the mothers returned 
 him an answer of the same hopeless tenor. 
 
 Now, Sir, let me fairly put it to the House, 
 whether such an answer as this, to any applica- 
 tion which had been made for putting an end to 
 any instance of native superstition, would not 
 have been deemed such a decisive proof that it 
 was dangerous to proceed in the attempt, that 
 any one who. had advised that the endeavour 
 should be slill persevered in, would have drawn 
 upon himstif the epithets of fanatic and enthu- 
 siast : and it would perhaps have been thought, 
 even by candid and humane men, that an excess 
 of zeal only could prompt any one to a conti- 
 nuance of efforts which appeared not only hope- 
 less, but even highly dangerous. Colonel \VaI- 
 ker might even have obtained the praise of 
 having engaged and do'ie his best; in this work
 
 87 
 
 of humanity, though he had not been able to 
 achieve it. But Colonel Walker, Sir, was not so 
 easily to be disheartened: Colonel Walker's hu- 
 manitv was not satisfied with enjoying this bar- 
 ren and unprofitable triumph: he persevered, 
 but by the only prudent, the only just and legi- 
 timate, means: he took frequent occasions of 
 discussing the subject in the court of justice, 
 and of exposing the enormity of so unnatural a 
 practice: and, that I may hasten to so welcome 
 a conclusion, within twelve months of the day on 
 which the letters which I lately quoted had been 
 written, the very writers of those letters, together 
 with the Jarejah tribes in general, formal! v ab- 
 jured for the future the practice of Infanticide, 
 and declared themselves highly satisfied with 
 the engagement which they made to that effect, 
 
 / 
 
 To a man of principles and feelings such as Co- 
 lonel Walker's must be, how delightful must have 
 been the recompence which about two years af- 
 terwards he received. lie took the opportunity 
 afforded by his being in that neighbourhood, of 
 causing to be brought to his tent,, some of the 
 infants which had been preserved : and let all 
 who are now opposing us, listen to Colonel Wal- 
 ker's account of the scene. " It was extremely 
 i: gratifying on this occasion, to observe the tri- 
 
 ; uiisph of nature, feeling, and parental affec- 
 
 -i lion, over prejudice and a horrid superstition. 
 " and that those who but a short period before 
 
 ; would (as many of them had done) have doom- 
 '" ed their infants to destruction without com- 
 
 ; punction, should now glory in thoir preserve.
 
 as 
 
 ' hon, and doat on thorn with fondness. The 
 " Jarejah fathers, who but a short time back 
 ' ; would not have li.st.encd to the preservation of 
 " their daughters, no\v cxliibited them with 
 " pride and fondness. Their mothers and nurses 
 " also attended OP. this interesting occasion. 
 " "I rue to the feelings which are found in other 
 " countries to [)revaii so forcible, the emotions of 
 " nature here exhibited were extremely moving. 
 " The mothers placer] their infants in tiie hands 
 " of Colonel Walker, calling on him and their 
 " gods to prolcct what he alone had taught them 
 " to preserve. These infants they emphatically 
 " called, ' his children.' And it is likely that this 
 " distinction u ill continue to exist for some years 
 " in Guzerat." 
 
 Whv, Sir, wiiii bnt one such incident as this, 
 \vit.h but one ueh cordial, to cheer us on our 
 pi'o.irress, \ve ?hould be indeed faint-hearted, we 
 should be indeed ciia"ueabK: with being wanting 
 in the zeal and spirit of perseverance which .such 
 a cause as ours inspires, if we could faint bv the 
 wav, and not deienvlne to go iorwa'd in the 
 face of everv ob^'ac'e. orndently indeed and can- 
 
 k- t 
 
 tion.--!v, but tir:::!'-' i .;i resultitelv, prv-ssing on 
 tou';;rds the grea! o: iect of uur endeavours. In 
 i'aci, Sir, here, n- In -jtlier ca^es, when you are en- 
 gaged in the pu^eeution oi'a worthy end, by just 
 and \vi-e means, difficulties and obstacles disap- 
 pear as we procee:' ; and the phantoms, not to 
 call them bugb- ;: , of ignorance and error, melt 
 away before the !i;. 'it. of tnrh. 
 
 Had the noble Lord, whom I have already
 
 8*9 
 
 mentioned, continued in India, it is highly proba- 
 ble that he would have achieved other conquests 
 over the cruel practices of the natives of India. 
 It is highly probable that he would have been 
 able to put an end to the barbarous custom of 
 widows destroying themselves; a custom which 
 
 . o 
 
 has been the disgrace of India for above two 
 thousand years. But had the doctrines of our 
 opponents continued to govern the practice of 
 alt the East India Company's servants in India, 
 those two barbarous practices, the termination of 
 which has been already effected, would still have 
 carried on their destructive ravages. For let 
 me ask our opponents, were these practices in 
 any degree less firmly established, or of a later 
 date, than various others which still continue ? 
 And with these instances before our eyes, in which 
 the success of the efforts of humanity has been 
 more rapid and more complete than probably our 
 most sanguine expectations could anticipate, shall 
 we suffer alt the other detestable practices of In- 
 dia lo prevail without the slightest attempc to put 
 a stop to them? And shall we at once admit the 
 assertions of those who thus, in defiance alike of 
 reason and experience, inculcate on us that it is 
 infinitely dangerous, though ever so prudently 
 and cautiously, to endeavour to substitute the 
 reign of light and truth and happiness, for that 
 of darkness, delusion, and misery? 
 
 But, Sir, it is time to speak out, and to avow thai 
 I go much further than I have yet stated, and 
 maintain, not only that it is safe to attempt, by 
 
 N
 
 90 
 
 reasonable and prudent methods, to introduce into 
 India the blessings of Christian Truth and moral 
 improvement, but that true, aye, and imperious 
 and urgent, policy, prescribe to us the same 
 course. And let me not be misunderstood on 
 this subject: I do not mean that I think our Indian. 
 Empire rests on such firm foundations as to be 
 shaken by no convulsions, and that therefore we 
 ni.iy incur the risk of popular ferments with im- 
 punity : no, Sir ; I frankly acknowledge, that I 
 have long thought that we hold our East Indian 
 possessions by a very precarious tenure. This is 
 a topic on which it would be painful to expatiate, 
 and perhaps imprudent to be particular; but the 
 most cursory survey of the circumstances of our 
 East Indian Empire must be sufficient, in the 
 minds of all who are ever so little read in the 
 page of history, to justify the suspicion which I 
 now intimate. 
 
 On the most superficial view, what a sight does 
 that empire exhibit to us ! A little island obtaining 
 and keeping possession of immense regions, and of 
 a population of sixty millions that inhabit them, at 
 the distance of half the globe from it ! of inhabit- 
 ants differing from us as widely as human differ- 
 ences can go ! differences exterior and interior- 
 differences physical, moral, social and domestic 
 in points of religion, morals, institutions, lan- 
 guage, manners, customs, climate, colour, in short 
 in almost every possible particular that human 
 experience can suggest, or human imagination 
 devise ! Such, Sir, is the partnership which
 
 91 
 
 we have formed; such rather the body with which 
 we are incorporated, nav, almost assimilated and 
 identified. Our Oriental Empire indeed is now 
 a vast edifice; but the lofty and spacious fa- 
 bric rests on the surface of the earth, without 
 foundations. The trunk of the tree is of prodi- 
 gious dimensions, and there is an exterior of gi- 
 gantic strength. It has spread its branches widely 
 around it, and there is an increasing abundance 
 of foliage and of fruit ; but the mighty mass 
 rests on the ground merely by its superincumbent 
 weight, instead of having shot its roots into the 
 soil, and incorporated itself with the parent earth 
 beneath it. Who does not know that the first 
 great storm probably would lay such a giant 
 prostrate r 
 
 This, Sir, I fear, is but too just a representation 
 of the state of our East Indian Empire. Various 
 passages in the papers on the table clearly illus- 
 trate and strongly confirm this position ; some- 
 times they distinctly express it. In truth. Sir, are 
 we at this time of day still to be taught that 
 most important lesson, that no government can 
 be real I v secure which does not rest on the 
 
 */ 
 
 affections of the governed ; or at least on their 
 persuasion that its maintenance and preservation 
 are in some degree connected with their own 
 well-being ? And did we want the papers on the 
 table to inform us, as, however, in more than one 
 place, they do inform us, that, notwithstanding the 
 vast improvements we have introduced among the 
 people of India, and the equity and humanity with 
 which our government is administered, the native
 
 92 
 
 population is not attached to us? It might easily be 
 shewn also, that many of the peculiar institutions 
 of India, more especially that of its castes, greatly 
 favours the transference of dominion from one 
 conqueror to another. Then, the situation and 
 neighbourhood of India ! Regions which have 
 been again and again the prey of those vast Tar- 
 tar hordes which at different times have descend- 
 ed like some mountain torrent, and have swept all 
 before them with resistless fury! Sir, would we 
 render ourselves really secure against all such 
 attacks, as well as against any, less perhaps to be 
 dreaded, which our great European enemy may 
 make upon us in that quarter, let us endeavour to 
 strike our roots into the soil, by the gradual intro- 
 duction and establishment of our own principles 
 and opinions; of our own laws, institutions, and 
 manners; above all, as the source of everv other 
 improvement, of our religion, and consequently of 
 our morals. Why, Sir, if it were only that we should 
 thereby render the subjects of our Asiatic Empire 
 a distinct and peculiar people ; that we should 
 create a sort of moral and political oasis in the 
 vast expanse of the Asiatic \regions, and amidst 
 the unnumbered myriads of its population, by 
 this change we should render our East Indian domi- 
 nions more secure, merely from the natural desire 
 
 J i 
 
 Avlncli liif.-u feel to preserve their own institutions, 
 solfiy ijjcause they are their own, from invaders 
 who would do-troy them. But far more than this; 
 Are we so httle aware of the vast superiority 
 even of European laws and institutions, and far 
 more of lii'itUh iavvs and institutions, over these
 
 93 
 
 of Asia, as not to be prepared to predict with 
 confidence, that the Indian community which 
 should have exchanged its dark and bloodv su- 
 perstitions for the genial influence of Christian 
 light and truth, would have experienced such an 
 increase of civil order and security; of social plea- 
 sures and domestic comforts, as to be desirous of 
 preserving the blessings it should have acquired ; 
 and can we doubt that it would be bound even by 
 the ties of gratitude to those who had been the 
 honoured instruments of communicating them? 
 
 Here again, Sir, we can answer this question 
 from experience. We have a ca^e precisely in 
 point ; by which, on a small scale, we are enabled 
 to judge what would be the effects of the same 
 experiment tried upon a larger. All around me 
 have heard of the great Albuquerque, one of those 
 extraordinary men who,nearlv three hundred years 
 ago, raised to the highest pitch the glory of the 
 Portuguese name in India*. The commentaries 
 
 * For tiie above curious fact I am indebted to the kindness of 
 Mr. Southey, who has also been so -obliging as to turni-tli me 
 with the following curious and important fact, which from torijtt- 
 f'ulness I omitted to mention in the House of Commons. \Vli--u 
 Joane de B.irras wrote (a man who, for the extent of hn r. - 
 searches, is worthy to be ranked with Herodotus), a fourth p.iri of 
 the population of Malabar consisted of native Moois; and Um 
 reason which he assigns for their rapid increase is, that they ' 1 
 obtained privileges from the king, and put themselves upoi* t 
 level with the high casi.es, " for which reason many of ti ; 
 natives embraced their faith/' He says in another pi. ice, th t 
 " tht: natives esteemed it a great hon-.ur when the Mr"---, t'>,)k 
 their daughters to \vi!e." Tlie above I'aot plainly shews \vi,;U has
 
 94 
 
 of his son Bras de Albuquerque contain the fol- 
 lowing curious passage. " When Alf. de Albu- 
 " querque took the kingdom of Goa, he would 
 " not permit that any woman from thenceforward 
 " should burn herself; and although to change 
 " their customs is equal to death, nevertheless they 
 " rejoiced in life, and said great good of him, 
 " because he commanded that they should not 
 " burn themselves." It is added, in proof of the 
 veneration in which this great man was held by 
 the natives, " that long after his death, when a 
 " Moor or Hindoo had received wrong, and could 
 " obtain no redress from the Governor, the ag- 
 " grieved person would go to Goa, to Albuquer- 
 " que's tomb, and make an offering of oil at the 
 '' lamp which burned bei'ore ir, and call upon 
 " hun for justice." 
 
 And now, Sir, if I have proved to you as I 
 trust I have irrefragably proved, that the state 
 of our East Indian Empire is such as to render it 
 highly DESIRABLE to introduce among them the 
 blessings of Christian light and moral improve- 
 ment ; that the idea of its being IMPRACTICABLE 
 to do this is contrary alike to reason and to expe- 
 rience; that the attempt, if conducted prudently 
 and cautiously, may be made with perfect safety 
 to our political interests; nay more, that it is the 
 very course by which THOSE INTERESTS MAY BK 
 
 been abundantly confirmed lo me bv private testimony, that the 
 real cause which renders the natives of India afraid of I'^ing 
 rate is not any religious scruple, but merely the dread of tin- 
 many and great temporal evils which proceed from the loss
 
 95 
 
 MOST EFFECTUALLY PROMOTED AND SECURED; 
 does it not follow from these premises as an irre- 
 sistible conclusion, that we are clearly bound, 
 nay, imperiously and urgently compelled, by THE 
 STRONGEST OBLIGATIONS OF DUTY, to support 
 the proposition for which I now call upon you for 
 your assent. But what is that proposition? Its 
 only fault, if any, is, that it falls so far short of 
 what the nature of the case requires. Is it that 
 we should immediately devise and proceed with- 
 out delay to execute, the great and good and ne- 
 cessary work of improving the religion and mo- 
 rals of our East Indian fellow-subjects ? No; but 
 only that we should not substantially and in effect 
 prevent others from engaging in it. Nay, not even 
 that; but that we should not prevent Government 
 having it in their power, with all due discretion, 
 to give licences to proper persons to go to India 
 and continue there, with a view of rendering to 
 the natives this greatest of all services. Why, Sir, 
 the commonest principles of toleration would give 
 us much more than this. Where am I stand- 
 ing? Where is it, and when, that I am arguing 
 this question ? Is it not in the very assembly in 
 which, within these few weeks, nothing but the 
 clearest considerations of political expediency 
 were held sufficient to justify our withholding 
 from the Roman Catholics the enjoyment of the 
 fullest measure of official as well as political ad- 
 vantages, and when you yourself, Sir*, though 
 
 The Speaker.
 
 96 
 
 you felt yourself bound to continue some few 
 official disabilities, acknowledged that it was with 
 reluctance and even with pain : And shall we now 
 lay the religion which we ourselves profess under 
 such a restraint in any part of our own domi- 
 nions r No, Sir: it is impossible: you will not, you 
 cannot, art thus. But, in addition to what I have 
 already said, it deserves well to be considered, 
 that if we should fail in our present endeavour, 
 and 'if Christianity should he, as it ihen would be, 
 the only untolerated religion in >he British domi- 
 nions in India, the evil would not stop here. The 
 want of toleration would not be merely* a nega- 
 tive mischief; the severest persecution must in- 
 fallibly ensue. For, assuredly, there are, and by 
 God's help 1 trust there ever will be, both Euro- 
 pean and native teachers prepared in the face 
 even of death itself, to diffuse the blessed truths 
 of Christianity. 
 
 But let it never be forgotten, it is toleration 
 only that we ask : we utterly disclaim all ideas 
 of proceeding by methods of compulsion or 
 authority. But surelv I need not have vindi- 
 cated myself from any such imputation. The 
 very cause which I plead would have been suffi- 
 cient to protect me from it. Compulsion and 
 Christianity ! Why, the very terms are at va- 
 riance with each other : the ideas are incompati- 
 ble. In the language of Inspiration itself, Chris- 
 tianity has been c?llcd " the law of liberty." 
 Her service, in the excellent formularies of our 
 Church, has been truly denominated " peiftct
 
 97 
 
 freedom ;" and they, let me add, will most advance 
 her cause, who contend for it in her own spirit 
 and character. 
 
 I have often been reminded, Sir, during the 
 course of these discussions, of the similarity of 
 the present case to another great contest of justice. 
 and humanity, in which, with many confederates 
 far abler than myself, I was pcrscveringly and at 
 length, ble>sed be God, successfully engaged some 
 years ago. The resemblance I see is acknow- 
 ledged by my Honourable Friend near me (Mr. 
 William Smith), who is stiil faithful to the great 
 principles which animated us in our former strug- 
 gle, during the whole of which he was among 
 the ablest as weli as the most zealous and per- 
 severing of mv associates. 
 
 On that occasion, let it be remembered, it was 
 our ultimate o' ject, by putting an end to those 
 destructive ravages, which, for centuries, had pro- 
 duced universal insecurity of person and property 
 along a vast extent of the coast of Africa, and 
 had thereby protracted the reign of darkness and 
 barbarism in that quarter of the globe, to open 
 a wav for the natural progress of civilization and 
 knowledge ; of Christian light and moral improve- 
 ment: so now, likewise, we are engaged in the 
 blessed work of substituting light for darkness, and 
 the reign of truth and ju-ticeai:d social order and 
 domestic comfort, of substituting ail that can ele- 
 vate the character, or add to the comfort of mm, in 
 the place of the most foul, degrading, and bloody 
 of superstition that ever depraved at once., 

 
 98 
 
 and enslaved, the nature, and destroyed the hap- 
 piness of our species. In the case of the Slave 
 Trade, as well as in this, we had the misfortune 
 to find ourselves opposed by many of Ihose whose 
 means of local information were certainly con- 
 siderable, but whose notions of facts were so ob- 
 scured or warped by prejudices or prepossessions, 
 as to be rendered strangely inaccurate and pre- 
 posterous. 
 
 There, likewise, owing no doubt to the strange 
 prejudices and prepossessions I 'nave noticed, our 
 opponents maintained., that there was no call 
 whatever for the exercise of our humanity: that 
 the Slave Trade, whatever cur English notions 
 of comfort might suggest to us, like the super- 
 stitious practices in India, added to the sum of 
 human happiness, instead of lessening it; or at 
 the least, we were wishing to make men hap- 
 pier against their will: and that, so far from there 
 being any need for our interference to improve 
 the condition of the slaves in the West Indies, 
 already they were as happy as the day was long; 
 nay happier, for they danced ail night. Con- 
 sistently therefore \\ith tlie.se opinions, they call- 
 ed upon us, just as we have been called upon 
 this evening, to find some other and better se- 
 lected sphere, for the exertions of our humanity. 
 Keailv, the similarity of the two cases runs al- 
 most on all fours: for on that occasion, as well 
 as now, v, e were assured that we should infallibly 
 produce insurrections ; while it might be truly 
 aflirmed in both cases, that the language of our 
 
 w O
 
 99 
 
 opponents themselves was far more likely than 
 ours to produce the apprehended evil. Happily, 
 the West Indian predictions have been so far from 
 verified in this particular, that I scarcely recol- 
 lect any other period of the same length as that 
 which has elapsed since we commenced our abo- 
 lition-proceedings in which there had not been 
 some insurrection or other. Sir, allow me to 
 hope that the resemblance, which I have shewn 
 to exist between the two cases with so striking 
 an accordance, will be completed, by our finding, 
 that, notwithstanding the different views and ex- 
 pectations which different gentlemen have form- 
 ed of the effects of this measure, we shall all re- 
 joice over it together ere manv years shall be 
 completed, and find all the fancied mischief? 
 apprehended by our opponents disproved by 
 the event. I beg, however, that, it may be ob- 
 served, that the resemblance which I have been 
 describing is not merely an illustration : it is an 
 argument; and a very powerful one too it will 
 appear to all uho remember that we had then 
 the misfortune to number many considerable 
 men among our opponents; inasmuch a^ it shew 
 how possible it is for men of eminent atirur.- 
 mcnts to be misled, not merely into tolerating as 
 an unavoidable evil, which it is onl\ r fair to con- 
 fess was the argument of some of our opponents, 
 but. into supporting and panegyrizing, as war- 
 ranted by the principles of justice and humanity, 
 i cause, of which I will onlv sav. that nov.\ after
 
 100 
 
 a few short years have expired, not a single man 
 can be found to lift up his voice in its favour. 
 
 And now, Sir, if we suffer our imaginations 
 to follow into its consequences the measure in 
 which we are now engaged, and to look forward 
 to the accomplishment of tho.se hopes \\hich I 
 trust will be one day realized, what a prospect 
 opens on our view ! In the place of that degrad- 
 ing superstition, v\ hieh now pervades those vast 
 regions, Christianity, and the moral improvement 
 which ever follows from its introduction, shall be 
 diffused with all their blessed effects on individual 
 character, and on social and domestic comfort. 
 Surely, we here see a prize which it is worth con- 
 tending for, at any cost of time and labour. 
 And I can assure our opponents, that they are 
 greatly deceived, if they imagine that we are 
 likely to give up the contest, even if we should 
 fail in our present attempt. Ilnppily, Sir, it 
 appears from the unprecedented number of pe- 
 titions now on your table, that the importance 
 of the question is duly appreciated by the pub- 
 lic mind. And let it not be imagined that these 
 
 o 
 
 petitions have been produce';] by a burst of mo- 
 mentary enthusiasm ; that the zeal which has ac- 
 tuated the petitioner- is a mere temporary flame, 
 which will soon die away, and be exhausted. No, 
 Sir: I am persuade;!, that in proportion as the 
 i eal condition of our Asiatic fellow-subjects shall 
 be more generally known, the feeling which has 
 already been so forcibly expressed, will prevail
 
 101 
 
 still more extensively. If, therefore, our oppo- 
 nents really apprehend the greatest evils from 
 discussing the subject, in common consistency 
 with this opinion, they should suffer our ques- 
 tion to pass, us the only way bv which that dis- 
 cussion can be term inn ted. For they may be 
 assured, that otherwise the public voice will call 
 upon this House still more loudly than even it 
 has now done. And assuredly, my friends who 
 are associated with me in this great cause are 
 animated with the same determination as rny- 
 self, never to abandon it, either till success shall 
 have crowned our efforts or till it shall appear 
 utterly unattainable. 
 
 But after all, Sir, at the very moment when 
 mv friends and I were ready to raise the shout 
 of victory, a proposition has been made to us 
 by an Honourable Baronet, of which, though of- 
 fered to us in the language, and by him, I do 
 not denv, with the meaning, of good will to our 
 object, I must confess I am more afraid than 
 of all the other modes of opposition we have 
 experienced in the course of these discussions. 
 I am the more afraid of it, becan.se the plausi- 
 ble and specious appearance with which it com*s 
 forward is likely to render its hostility so much 
 the more efficient and destructive. It accosts 
 us with a language of this sort " AVe all mean 
 the same thing : we all wish Christianity and 
 moral improvement to be communicated to the 
 natives of India: but we are afraid of the effects 
 which will be produced in India by the appear-
 
 103 
 
 mice of your proposed clause on the statute book, 
 Government may grant licences to persons to go 
 over to India for religious purposes, as well as 
 anv others, under the general powers to be grant- 
 ed to them by the Bill. We must, therefore, re- 
 sist your clause." 
 
 If what, has been already stated to the House 
 should not have sufficed for dispelling any ap- 
 prehensions of a dangerous ferment being pro- 
 duced in the public mind of India, by the ex- 
 istence in the statute book of the clause we have 
 now proposed, all such fears will, I think, be 
 removed, when I shall have re; j d an extract from 
 one of the vn'uaies on your table, concerning 
 the extreme dimValty that is experienced in 
 India, in diffusing the most interest ing intelli- 
 gence throughout the m.r,.-s of the people. Our 
 opponents will as-igvi more weight to the ex- 
 tract, because it is iak-r-ii from Judge Strachey's 
 answers to Lc:ii YTelleslev's interrogatories. " I 
 " tak; ihi; opportunity," savs he, '' of remark- 
 " ing, inr. to render general! v known any penal 
 " law, is cxtreir,:,-: y r i-.iiiicult, particularly among 
 " the lower orde-s of t'i2 people. Till they see 
 " the (Mr ct of il, thcv reuia'n ignorant of it; 
 '' and this, in ip ; te of advertisements and pro- 
 " clamatin^s. News and infbancition ofal! kinds 
 " are, in B;-ii.al, ylowlv ^ n: ^ inaccurately trans- 
 " milted from one to another. Among us, 
 ct events ohia'n i.xibliciry tlirough the means of 
 " periodical prinls, of epistolary correspondence, 
 " and of vei'oai communication, /miong the
 
 103 
 
 v - natives, there is nothing of the two first, and 
 " even of the other hardly any*." 
 
 After hearing the above extract, the House 
 will not, I think, participate in the apprehen- 
 sions which some gentlemen seem to entertain, 
 that the mere insertion of this clause into our 
 statute book may produce a dangerous commo- 
 tion among the native population of India. Be- 
 sides, Sir, as has been well remarked by my 
 Noble Friend f, who, in truth, has treated 
 the whole of this subject with extraordinary 
 discretion and ability, the natives, if they should 
 read the clause, which, however, is a highly 
 improbable occurrence, will find in it, and find I 
 believe for the fir^t time expressed in terms, a 
 clear recognition, an effectual security, of their 
 right to preserve their religious principles and 
 institutions sacred and inviolate. The clause, 
 thus framed, will therefore produce satisfaction 
 among them rather than discontent, on that very 
 subject of religion. 
 
 But, Sir, it is an additional argument, and with 
 me I confess a very powerful one, for retaining 
 this clause, that though the general power of 
 granting licences with which the friends of the 
 Honourable Baronet's motion would have us be 
 satisfied, might provide sufficient openings for the 
 sending over of Missionaries to India, and for the 
 employment of them there, so long as they should 
 
 * Answer from Jud^e Suachi-y to luterrogatoriis, 'j'.Hfi Ja;i. 
 
 02. 
 
 f Lord Castlereagh.
 
 conduct themselves properly : which, however, I 
 utterly denv; vet 1 beg the House ever to bear 
 
 / */ ' V 
 
 ill mind, that my friends and I have far more 
 in view in the measure, we have been recom- 
 mending, than merely the sending over and 
 maintenance of Missionaries. I beg they will 
 recollect what I stated in one of the first 
 sentences which 1 addressed to you, that it is 
 not merely for tho purpose of enabling Govern- 
 ment to grant licences to Missionaries that I 
 support the present clause, but because, especially 
 when taken in conjunction with the Resolution 
 on which, according to the usage of Parliament, 
 it is founded; by affirming the duty of enlighten- 
 ing the minds and improving the morals of our 
 East-Indian fellow-subjects, it establishes the 
 principle; it lays the ground for promoting edu- 
 cation among them, and for diffusing useful 
 knowledge of all kinds. When truth and reason, 
 so long excluded from that benighted land, shall 
 once more obtain access to if, (and we are this 
 day engaged in the great work of breaking down 
 that barrier which luis hitherto substantially and 
 
 i/ 1 
 
 practically excluded them), the understandings 
 of the natives will begin to exert their powers : 
 and their minds, once enlightened, will instinc- 
 tively reject the profane absurdities of their theo- 
 logical, and the depraving vices of their moral 
 system. Thus they will be prepared for the re- 
 ception of Christianity, for " Christianity is a 
 reasonable service," and then, we mav appeal to 
 the moral superiority of Christian Europe in rno-
 
 105 
 
 clern times, in comparison with that of the most 
 polished pagan communities, (or the blessed ef- 
 fects which may be expected to follow on their 
 moral, their social, and, above all, their do- 
 mestic comfort. 
 
 But, Sir, to return to the question concerning 
 the necessity of retaining our clause ; I cannot 
 but hope, after all we have heard in the course of 
 our discussions, and more especially after what 
 has passed subsequently to the Honourable Ba- 
 ronet's motion for leaving out our clause ; after 
 all this, I repeat it, I cannot but indulge the 
 hope, that all those at least, who were disposed 
 to leave our clause out of the Bill, on the 
 ground of its being unnecessary, if not dan- 
 gerous, will at length discover, that some such 
 clause as this is absolutely indispensable for 
 accomplishing the desire, which they profess in 
 common with us, of furnishing the means of in- 
 troducing Christianity into India. Indeed, it 
 ought to open their eyes to the real practical 
 effect of their own amendment, that they who 
 are the most decidedly hostile to the introduction 
 of Christianity into India, so readily assent to it, 
 or rather so warmly support it. 
 
 But, Sir, let me ask, do they not see that if the 
 clause be left out, the Act of Parliament will con- 
 tain no mention whatever of religion or morals? 
 no recognition of its being our duty to endea- 
 vour to communicate to our East Indian fellow- 
 subjects the blessings of Christian light and mo- 
 ral improvement ? That recognition will still, J 
 
 p
 
 106 
 
 grant, be contained in the Resolution of the 
 House of Commons, as well as in that of the 
 House of Lords; but let me ask, will not this be 
 precisely the situation in which the cause has stood, 
 and stood, alas ! to no purpose, for the last twenty 
 years ? For on the renewal of the Charter in 1793, 
 both Houses of Parliament, as has been repeatedly 
 stated, passed, and have ever since kept on their 
 Journals, a Resolution similar to that which we 
 have now adopted. But, as was unanswerably 
 urged in defence of the Court of Directors, by 
 one of the ablest and most active opponents of 
 all attempts to convert the natives of India, this 
 recognition, being only contained in the Votes of 
 the two Houses, but not in the Act of the Legisla- 
 ture, the Executive Body, whose business it was 
 to carry into execution what Parliament had pre- 
 scribed by that Act, could not be chargeable 
 with neglecting any duty which that statute had 
 ordained, when, so far from favouring, they ra- 
 ther thwarted and hindered the attempts of the 
 Missionaries. The guilt, as was irresistibly ar- 
 gued by the writer just alluded to; the guilt, if 
 any, of not having favoured the endeavours of in- 
 dividuals to convert the natives of India, vyas not 
 justly chargeable on the East India Company's 
 Directors, nor yet on the Board of Controul, but 
 on the Legislature, which prescribed to both the 
 principles on which the government in India was 
 to be conducted, but said not one syllable about 
 religion or morals. And if the present Act, like 
 the former, were to leave religion and morals un-
 
 107 
 
 mentioned, the same inference might fairly be 
 drawn from the silence of the Legislature ; but 
 with greatly increased force, since the enemies 
 of East India Missions would truly state, that the 
 subject, which had formerly attracted little atten- 
 tion, had now been long under the consideration 
 of Parliament; and that, in the House of Com- 
 mons especially, it had occasioned much debate. 
 They would allege, that the advocates for the 
 religious and moral improvement of India had 
 maintained, that the moral degradation of our 
 East Indian fellow-subjects, and their pernicious 
 and cruel institutions, rendered it eminently de- 
 sirable that we should endeavour to impart to 
 them a purer system of faith arid morals; that 
 the attempt was perfectly practicable, and that it 
 might be made with safety, nay even with ad- 
 vantage to our political interests; that, on the 
 other hand, our opponents had maintained, that 
 we were bringing forward an unnecessary, nay a 
 most pernicious project; that the principles of 
 the Hindoo religion were eminently pure, their 
 practice superior to our own ; but, were this more 
 doubtful, that the endeavour could not be made 
 without endangering the very existence of our 
 empire in India. Such, I say, it would be al- 
 leged, had been the state of the argument, and it 
 would be added irresistibly, that Parliament had 
 shewn, by rejecting the clause which had been of- 
 fered by the advocates for Christianity in India, 
 that it disapproved the project they had proposed. 
 If any thing more could then be needed to supply
 
 108 
 
 additional force to the above argument, it would 
 be the language which has at length been used by 
 the ablestof our opponents. For happily, Sir, in the 
 progress of our discussions, they have warmed in 
 their course, one of them especially, to whose abi- 
 lities and eloquence I pay no unwilling testimony, 
 though I must say that he has imposed on him- 
 self a task which exceeds his, or indeed any hu- 
 man abilities, in undertaking to reconcile the ma- 
 nifest inconsistency of feeling the highest respect 
 for Christianity, and of preserving at the same 
 time any measure of reverence for the Hindoo 
 religion, which, both in its theology and its mo- 
 rals, Christianity utterly abjures and condemns. 
 The Honourable Gentleman, however, has spoken 
 out ; (I thank him for it ;) and has relieved the ques- 
 tion from all ambiguity, speaking in terms of 
 high admiration of the excellence and sublimity 
 of the Hindoo religion, and pretty plainly inti- 
 mating that we, who are endeavouring to substi- 
 tute Christianity in the place of it, are actuated 
 by a zeal the most fanatical and absurd. Indeed, 
 he frankly acknowledged to us, that he had it once 
 in contemplation to move a clause, expressly 
 forbidding all further attempts of Christian Mis- 
 sionaries, leaving us to conclude that he abstain- 
 ed from so doing merely on prudential grounds. 
 All this may be right, or it may be wrong ; but 
 after such sentiments have been uttered, and after 
 the exulting approbation with which they were 
 received by our opponents in general, let it no 
 longer be said that we are all of one mind, all
 
 109 
 
 wishing alike for the diffusion of Christianity in 
 India, but only differing as to the mode of accom- 
 plishing that desirable event. No, Sir; the ques- 
 tion is now put on its true basis, and it clearly 
 appears to be no other than this, whether, as 
 Christianity is the religion of the British Empire 
 in Europe, the religion of Brahma and Vishnoo 
 is not to be the acknowledged system of our 
 Asiatic dominions. 
 
 I beg pardon, Sir, for having trespassed so long 
 on the indulgence of the House: but the subject 
 is one, the importance of which can scarcely be 
 over-estimated. If, Sir, a British judge and jury, 
 the former often at an advanced period of life, 
 after a long course of professional labours, will sit 
 patiently for more than an entire day to decide 
 whether the life of some criminal shall be for- 
 feited to the offended laws of his country ; nay, 
 even to settle some doubtful question of property ; 
 how much less will you grudge, even to me, a still 
 larger portion of your time and attention than I 
 have unwillingly presumed to occupy, when you 
 consider, that the question which we are now de- 
 ciding involves not the prosperity, not the life 
 merely of an individual, but the religious and 
 moral interests, the temporal at once and the 
 eternal well-being, of sixty millions of our fellow^ 
 creatures! 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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