HIS RETURN AND DEATH. of Aseerghur in conjunction with General Doveton; but the place was very strong, built upon the top of an inaccessible rock, and occupied them for nearly two months. During the siege, he learned by letters from England the appointment of Mount Stewart Elphinstone to the Governorship of Bombay, as successor to Sir Evan Nepean. Sir John Malcolm had expected, and probably he had been promised this appointment; and although an old friend had been successful, yet he felt indignant under the disappointment. Lord Hastings, then the Governor-General of India, appears to have been equally surprised with the appointment. At first he determined to resign his position in central India, but the Governor-General so urged him to continue in his post there, that his resolution was overcome for a time. He remained at his post for two years, but when the Governorship of Madras became vacant, and the appointment was given to Munro, he felt that the slight was of a personal character. A proposal was then talked of to form a central presidency in India, and Sir John Malcolm being upon the spot, and better acquainted with central India than any other man, might have received that nomination; but the idea was postponed, and, in 1821, he returned home by what is now called the overland passage, and was introduced to Mehemet Ali, not then so great a man as he afterwards became. Sir John Malcolm remained during this visit to England for a considerable period, and had no intention of returning to India; but in 1827 he received the appointment of Governor of Bombay, which he had long sought, at the moment when he ruminated a canvass for the Governor-Generalship, which the Duke of Wellington did not encourage. A considerable part of the correspondence on this subject might have been judiciously omitted. Malcolm was a great man, deservedly a favourite among the natives of India, and intimately conversant with all departments of the service; but he preserved a very favourable opinion of his own merits, and lost no opportunity of pressing them upon the remembrance of his friends. The high places of the earth are as much the objects of canvassing, as those of a less important character; and if human nature would admit of it, the world would gain by a change of the system. Lord William Bentinck was the Governor-General of India at that period, and he was anxious to conduct its affairs in peace. The Governor of Bombay had not, therefore, the same opportunities of distinguishing himself that he might have obtained under a more ambitious chief. Sir John's Government was chiefly celebrated, for that reason | 117 in civil affairs, and above all, by an unseemly dispute with Sir John Grant, the Supreme Judge, regarding the currency of a writ; in which, however, the judge raised too high pretensions. Then the Governor was compelled to carry through measures of retrenchment, and although few men cared less for money on his own account, yet he was munificent, and not the best financial economist of his time, merely because the work was distasteful. As apparently the chief achievements of his Governorship, he wrote on the 10th November, 1836 "I opened the Bhore Ghaut. This road will positively prove a creation of revenue." He did not then know that between Liverpool and Manchester an experiment had been tried that would revolutionise India; and that so far from grudging the cost of a single road, the East India Compahy in twenty-five years would guarantee a fair dividend from a complete system of railways. He left India for the last time on the 5th of December 1830, having said farewell for ever to his native friends, among whom he had passed nearly fifty years of active life, with the exception of his European visits; to the European community, and to the Christian missionaries, who acknowledged "the facilities that he had granted for the preaching of the Gospel in all parts of the Bombay territories, his honourable exertion for the abolition of Suttees, and the kind mauner in which he had conntenanced Christian education." He passed through Egypt, and was again entertained kindly by Mehemet Ali. Upon his return to England, the Reform Bill agitated the community. Sir John Malcolm acted with his Tory friends. He went into Parliament as the representative nominally of the borough of Launceston, in Cornwall. His biographer says quaintly that there was no need of a canvass. The Duke of Northumberland was the free and independent constituency. He spoke repeatedly against the Reform Bill, and when it passed, Launceston was disfranchised, and his Parliamentary career was stopped-for although he attempted both Dumfries and Carlisle, he was in both convinced that he would be beaten without a poll. His last speech was delivered on the 15th of April, 1832, at a Special General Court at the India House. He was in bad health, and fainted at its close. On the 28th he was struck by paralysis, and on the 30th of May he died. The two large volumes over which his biography extends might be abridged by their author, and by no other person so well, within the compass of one small volume, with advantage, to the public in the present times of cheap literature. EAST, WEST, AND SOUTH. The races who inhabit the British Islands came from the east, and after remaining here in a quiet state for many centuries, they began to throw out branches to the west. Our population received few additions by immigration after the arrival of the Normans. The colonies of French or Flemings who settled subsequently in the three kingdoms were more influential from the manufactures introduced by them than for their numbers. Religious persecution on the continent drove many families to this country, whose descendants retain | in their family names the only trace remaining to them of the lands from which their fathers came. The same cause, in part at least, led to the colonization of Ulster from Scotland, and of New from Old England. Religious persecution has made great and important changes on the earth. It established the silk manufacture in Spitalfields, and republicanism in America; and it led to the formation in Ireland of that northern community who have for many years been the most active and prosperous of its inhabitants. The world is considerably indebted to religious intolerance, not because it means well, but because that out of evil cometh good. means of journeying and the want of roads. The various races who ever in large numbers sought homes in the islands of the west, are doubtless still represented among our population. None of them have been entirely obliterated, but all have been amalgamated to a considerable extent. The Romans probably left a few families behind them; but their counexion with Britain much resembled our own intercourse with India. They built cities and constructed roads, yet they only considered themselves dwellers here for a season. Italy was still their home. Their hearts were in Rome, on the Tiber, or the mountain sides that gird their native land around. They were precursors or pioneers of civilization. They left their traces in a superior civilization, in language, and in laws; yet it by no means seems probable that they were settlers and residents in the land. A striking illustration of this opinion is found in the fact, that no ancient family claimed a Roman descent; and yet the Romans did not abandon Britain in feud or from quarrels. They were not driven out of the island. Their departure was even bitterly regretted by the people in the middle and southern counties of England, where their influence was greater than in the northern parts of the island. The withdrawal of the Roman legions proves the opinion that they did not consider themselves at home in England. They left us in consequence of the dangers that then threatened Rome. They adopted all the precautions in their power to protect the people with whom they appa The Hanoverian dynasty brought a few German families, but only a few to England, and they never in any perceptible manner affected the current of population, except by continuing our tendency to continental interventions and wars. The accession of William and Mary, at a former period, introduced a greater Dutch element, than the Hanoverians brought in subsequent years, although Hol-rently lived on friendly terms, from the inroads of land had not many men to spare. Several aristocratical families originated in the revolution of 1680, and are descended from successful Dutch generals or statesmen. Previous to that period the reigning families in Britain had also been native families; and even during those middle ages when the English kings claimed the sovereignty of France, the immigration from that country was not powerful in numbers. The It has been assumed generally that the three kingdoms are inhabited by the descendants of many different and distinct races, who have come into a state of tolerable fusion. This statement is not supported by close investigation. Celtic race were found in Britain by the Romans, but we have no evidence that they alone inhabited the country at that date. Another race are supposed to have preceded them, and to have been swallowed up by the Celtic conquerors. The Pictish race in Scotland, who burrowed in the earth, have been disposed of on paper in this manner; but we see no cause for the supposition. Nations only fight when they come into collision for land, or some similar object. The different tribes who dwelt in Britain, in these days, had abundance of land, and the distance between their localities was very great, measured by their the ruder races of the north, and only left them at the call of their own land endangered by the nations of eastern and northern Europe. During the Roman supremacy, which extended over many years, it is probable that an extensive, if not rapid, immigration occurred from continental Europe, then also under the dominion of Rome. At that period, a large mixture of the Saxon elements may have gradually occurred, and the circumstance may explain the invitations given to various Saxon soldiers and tribes to take the place of the Romans. The Dane, Norman, and Saxon form unquestionably one race, and as unquestionably the more numerous and predominant race in Britain, if not also in Ireland. If, therefore, the Celtic race is assumed to be distinct and separate originally from the Teutonic races, we shall still have only two distinct families contributing to the existing population. No other nation on the earth adapt themselves so readily to changes, or have so pushed their branches over the seas. The United States form an exception, but they are an overgrown branch. We have thrown out colonies for now nearly three centuries; but they have been chiefly directed to the west. It is only now that we begin to repossess the East. The emigration to the St. RAILWAYS IN INDIA. Lawrence is to a new river. An emigration to the Euphrates would only be the completion of a circle that has required more than two thousand years to form. The emigrant who plants his home under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, has chosen to make it in a new land. The settler who makes a home on the Lebanon, or under Ararat, reverts to the country from which his ancestors wandered. He goes home. Absolutely, the East is towards home; socially, the West occupies that position. The institutions, languages, laws of the West are "homely." The associa tions, the histories, the traditions, and the ruins of the East—the past alone have that character. The necessities of our commerce point to the East. Although the trade in corn has been open for ten years, its price is not less than during the preceding decennial period. Although the apparent trade in cotton goods grows, yet the profit for working cotton falls, and the benefits of the business are nearly monopolised by the planters of the States, and are employed as an encouragement to the slave system. We must return to the old fields and paths to find the means of checking both evils; and first the roads must be made. We have repeatedly advocated the necessity of extending the railway system from Hyderabad, the proposed terminus of the Scinde Railway, to the Punjaub, and we can have nothing new to say respecting the Punjaub Railway Company, except that the present political trouble with Persia, which may affect ultimately our intercourse with Russia, offers the strongest argument for the improvement of the communication on the Indus, and that the promoters of the Company, in the meantime, propose to use the river between Hyderabad and Mooltan, making the latter their southern terminus for the Punjaub line, and starting from thence to Lahore, the capital of the Punjaub and to Umritsir. As it is monetarily and physically impossible to complete the communication except at a fixed and limited progress, the promoters of the Scinde Railway, who are also promoters of the Punjaub, and who have established a claim to the formation of the Indus line, have acted with proper judgment in applying the railway system to those territories in which the river system is more defective. The Punjaub railway will be 230 miles in length, and the river link between Hyderabad and Mooltan will be occupied by river steamers of improved capabilities. By these different means the passengers and produce traffic of the north-western provinces with Kurachee will be developed in a very remarkable manner. Ultimately, and at no distant date, the railway, we have no doubt, will occupy the entire line of the Indus. Another Company has been formed, for the purpose of connecting Lucknow and Oude, by railway, with the port and town of Bombay, from Cawnpoor. This line will start from Gharepoor, and touching the towns named in Oude, will again fall into the great line of the Ganges at Cawnpoor. The Company also propose to themselves the improvement of the 119 river communication in Qude. The moment is well selected for the introduction of this scheme, when the cotton interests are in dread of being deprived of their fair supply of material, and are already reduced to famine prices, for Oude is said to possess labour and land capable of affecting the cotton trade, if their productions could get cheaply and speedily to market. The capital of the Oude line now proposed is half a million sterling, and that of the Punjaub Company two and a half millions sterling. The latter Company is one farther link, and a most important one, in the western system suggested by Mr. Andrew, and the prosperity of the Punjaub, in its isolated position, guarantees the success of the scheme, in farther and indefinitely increasing the business of the five rivers region; where a very large portion of the European forces in India are stationed now; and where ultimately, we have no doubt, Europeans will reside in larger numbers than in any other province of India, with the necessary exception of the Presidential cities. The extent of the communicating lines necessary in the East, render the formation of railways through them a tedious work. The rate of progress is very rapid, yet a long period will pass before these lines can cover the land. The Euphratean and Scinde schemes have, therefore, wisely taken rail and river into their system. A line will be laid along the banks of the Euphrates when the work can be done cheaply and conveniently; but in the meantime the iron rails will link the Euphrates with the Mediterranean, passing Aleppo and Antioch. Iron rails will run nearly parallel with the Indus, when the work can be completed, but without waiting for that, rails will be placed through the dangerous portions of the river below Hyderabad, and again above Mooltan. This is the mixed system; and it is well adapted to present exigencies, not only of a commercial but of a political character. A work by Mr. Andrew on the Euphratean Valley Railway discusses the advantages to be derived from the adoption of this route at great length, and in an able manner; able because it forms a series of commercial and political facts. It is the route to India, the shortest communication with the largest limb of any empire that ever existed since the beginnings of history. We want corn, and cotton, and sugar, and silks. For the first three of these articles we resort to serf or slave labour. Our domestic system moves laboriously, but it moves; not because we steal altogether, but only because we buy what others take by force. The community feel deeply this dependence on slave-grown produce. They do not much. like to hear often of the fact; yet it galls them, and they wince under it. Thus, when Dr. Livingstone returned here so few weeks since, he was feted, and had the freedom of cities and towns bestowed upon him, and there is no end yet of public exeitement, nor likely soon to be, regarding those discoveries which he has made. If the 120 DR. LIVINGSTONE AND SOUTHERN AFRICA. His pamphlet is published to-day, but we have not seen it. Still, we have recorded statements that in some measure, for our purpose, supply its place. Thus of one district in South Africa, he says: With respect to the fertility of the soil, I have very little doubt, because cotton is already cultivated, though of inferior quality. It is short in the pile. In Cazengo, a district of Angola, 1,200 cloths, each six feet long by three broad, is the annual tribute of the free population to Government. There is bees'-was in great abundance in the interior, but the people eat the honey and throw the wax away. Coffee, wheat, sugar, and indigo were formerly exported from Tete. The country in many parts is quite covered with wild vines; but the grapes are bad. There is abundance of specular iron ore and the black oxide, but I have spoken of these elsewhere. The wheat grows on parts flooded by the Zambee; and this river inundates large patches of country annually, exactly as the Nile does. Indeed, it rises in a great valley containing extensive collections of water with islands. And, as the view of Sir R. Murchison respecting the formation of Africa was remarkably confirmed by my observations, made without the remotest idea of his having enunciated it clearly three years before, I think it highly probable that the Zambee and Nile rise in one great valley. The valley of the Nile between Cairo and Alexandria is the exact counterpart to the valley of the Barotse, between 16 and 14 degrees south latitude, and 23 degrees cast longitude. Cotton is already cultivated in this district, but it is so short in the pile; yet Syria is nearer, and Mesopotamia is not so far from home as Cazengo, and every year the export of cotton increases from the port of Aleppo and Antioch; but it will increase immeasurably when it can be brought cheaply and quickly to market. Coffees and sugars were formerly exported from Tete. Well, but the Arabs grow the finest coffee in the world, and India could produce a ton of sugar for each of our people annually, if it could only be brought to the sea. This Southern Africa produces wheat. True; but wheat in large quantities can always be purchased at 15s. to 20s. on the Euphrates, at 10s. to 16s. on the Indus, and the construction of roads will supply us with wheat to any amount that we can require. Look what little necessity exists for slavery anywhere. We again quote Dr. Livingstone: Look at the insignificant island of the Mauritius, 35 miles long by 25 broad-a great piece of volcanic rock, and so little soil that the boulders which covered it must be placed in rows, as drystone dykes, in order to get space for the sugar caue; the holes are made for the cane between the rows, and a little guano added, for without that there would be no augar; and when that part is exhausted the dykes must all be moved on to the intervening space. The labour must all be brought by colonial money from India, and then English enterprise produces sugar equal in amount to one-fourth of the entire consumption of Great Britain. The population of this wonderful little island, 200,000, is entirely free; the labourers happy, and comparatively free from the influence of caste, feel more friendly to Christianity and civilisation, and often return home such men to spend their after life in ease and quiet. Indeed, it is free labour which here, as in Angola, produces the large supply of the articles we need. The latter country contains a population of 600,000 souls, and only from 5 to 7 per cent. are slaves. Why should these thirty-five miles long by twenty-five miles broad of volcanic rock, on which our Hindoos labour, beat the world in sugar? Because no land carriage is incurred. Let the contemporaries of these men be encouraged by a little capital and good roads iu India, and we shall speedily see the end of slavery in the Southern States of America. We copy another passage from Dr. Livingstone, in which he describes the goodwill of the negroes of Angola, towards bartering and labouring. Then in Angola a very large amount of ivory, beeswax, and palm and sweet oil is exported. We met hundreds of people carrying these articles to the coast. The Balonda and Ambonda collect most beeswax by means of hives, which we saw at a distance of a few miles on trees in the forest. They are not given to steal each other's honey, from a fear of medicine being placed on the trees. For the most part, nearly all the wax is collected by perfectly free agency, though to one sitting in London the amount seems enormons. And so of the palm and sweet oil. It is produced by independent negroes, and had they roads, as 1 recommended they should have, in Angola, the produce would be multiplied a hundredfold. I say this because of the cheap rate at which these articles may be obtained from the cultivators in the interior, and the very wonderful predeliction which all Africans have for barter. In connexion with this subject, I may mention that before our cruisers were so increased in number as to repress the trade in slaves, the traders went inland and purchased slaves sufficient to carry the wax, ivory, &c., they could find, to the coast. Both were sold for exportation. But when our cruisers became, by increased numbers, more efficient, a new system was necessary; and under it to render service by transporting merchandise at a now the Government of Angola compels the negroes living fixed rate, to the coast. This was pretty clear proof that the slave trade was repressed, though it did not prove its entire suppression. We cannot always trace an untruth to its author. I had imbibed a Yankee notion that our cruisers only made bad worse, and increased by interference the hor rors of the middle passage. Dr. Livingstone only agreed with some other opponents of slavery, in supposing that our vessels make bad worse; but he ingenuously confesses the mistake. Angola is far away, farther than Aleppo population are also industrions if they can get emor Antioch, or any Syrian town, of which the ployment-for a large trade has been done recently in silks in Syria, merely because some Scotch honses supplied the capital. May commercial missions among the negroes of South Africa prosper; nevertheless, let us net forget that equally good fields, and a more numerous people, under tolerably strict laws, live at some ten day's sail from us, nearer than New Orleans, and also able to supply cotton and bee's-wax, for the land was a land flowing with milk and honey. The colonists of Natal apparently wished an immigration of Indian labourers into their section of South Africa. They applied to the Government for aid in order that they might grow cotton. Dr. Livingstone LABOUR IN NATAL. states their reason in a few words. They could get labour at a cheap rate at home; but they had a wish to get capital also, and at the same time, being clever men, they attempted a dodge to get their bills discounted. But it may be objected that the colonists of Natal cannot get free labour from the Caffres, and our Government must supply them with coolies-there can be no harm in quoting the Natalians' own words, as published from reports of publie meetings in their own newspapers. The avowed object of the speakers at one meeting, a few years ago, was to induce the Government to grant Chinese or coolie labour, "for then they would get English capital on the strength of it." Now, I wish them to get some of it; they would make a much better use of it than the Emperor of Russia would; but, though desirous to see them prosper, I think it will be in their power to remember that Caffre labour by the thousand was at their door at 7s. 6d. per month, and if a Times' commissioner had gone out they would both have left off their clamour for "labour" and for a Caffre war, for these "Times' people" are sad fellows for putting the ends of things together. The attempt by a commission to get up a Caffre war produced the opinion of the Recorder of Natal," that history does not present another instance in which greater security was enjoyed by the Natalians during the period of English occupation." Mr. Cleote, the recorder, is a gentleman of Dutch descent, of distinguished impartiality of judg. ment, and eminent in legal attainments. And then they were told, nem con., in the commission, that nearly all those who were clamouring for labour were so unable to employ labour that they had actually come to the colony in search of employment. I wish them success; but you will see whether their want of labour means more than want of capital, and whether the case has any bearing on the ques tion-producing cotton by free labour in Africa. They would get English capital on the strength of the Indian coolies; but why cannot India get English capital on the strength of its coolies at home. Why do we not at once set to the emancipation of the slaves of the West, by aid of the soil of the East. We must balance the West by the East, in order to recover one portion of our race from a state of Egyptian bondage. Dr. Livingstone assures us that Africa is not suitable for slavery. The crime cannot be carried on there. The means of escape are so abundant, that men would not remain with owners. We may however allow Dr. Livingston to state this part of the case for himself. It is a very important argument against slavery within Africa-namely, that it is impossible, except within a limited district :Now, these various chiefs, though nearly independent of each other, are by no means independent of their people. Suppose a man is dissatisfied with one chief he can easily : transfer himself to another. And as a chief's importance increases with the number of his followers, fugitives are always received with open arms. The chief of the Balobale, who are west of the Balonda (12 degrees, and 13 degrees S. lat., 23 degrees E. long.) sold some of his people a few years ago to Mambari. The consequence was, whole villages passed over to the Balonda, and we saw them as an important part of the population under Shinte. Slavery invariably produces bad neighbourhood. Nearly all the Portuguese wars have had this element in them-they received and kept our fugitive slaves.' So constantly is this the case I cannot conceive a cordial friendship between the United States and England till either a fugitive slave act is operative in Canada or England, or slavery is abolished in the south. In Africa an extensive slave system could not be carried out anywhere except in the spaces enclosed in the 121 deep reedy rivers of the Great Valle. One of the queens of the Sebituane tried to escape thence to the south; but, though accompanied by eight attendants, she got so entangled in the branches of the rivers, as to be obliged, after a month's absence, to give herself up. In all the other parts of the country the facilities for escape are so great that the slave system, even though it were desirable to establish it, could not be worked. Would it be necessary? Take the most free and independent persons in the country, the Bushmen and Bakalahari; they kill and prepare upwards of 30,000 small animals, the skins of which are taken annually to the Cape in the shape of karosses.' Ultimately many of them purchase tea in China. Three or four traders manage the whole affair. Ask an American, and he would answer that these animals could only be collected from the desert by slave labour. These circumstances form our encouragement for the establishment of cotton and sugar plantations within Africa; but it is a strong assertion that any form or any shape of country will in itself prevent slavery, especially after we have all read "Dred and the Cedar Swamp," believing that the forest scenery of North Carolina has been in no way exaggerated by the authoress. those persons who want to provide against the possible establishment of slavery in these trades should prosecute them in the East. There they have labourers, not reckoned in tribes, but in empires. They have land under cultivation, and jungle land to almost any extent. And they are All Euro so far connected with ourselves, that they can never be enslaved without our consent. They have and we have only to cut up India into squares or fought the battle of free labour in the Mauritius, oblongs, of the size of the Mauritius, and surround them with navigation, or rail, or even good roads, in order to attain "a thousand like results." The landowners then should accomplish that work. This is a very natural infeernce; but the landowners are virtually the British Parliament and people, so far as they controul the proceedings of also, that these landowners have discharged their the East India Company. It must be admitted' duty nobly for some years past, at least, in the efforts, a long period will elapse before they can construction of railways, but without individual known to have been very successful. elicit the pith of the land. Indigo planting is peans who have followed it have become fat and rich, and even rosy. What reason is there that others should not pursue the cotton or sugar growing business in the same way? Joint stock companies have got under, or may, we presume, even in India get under the ægis of limited liability; and if we are really earnest ia desiring to beat Gordon, Legree, and Co. out of their profitable Mobile and New Orleans business in slave produce-look to the East. It is well to help Africa, but the South is the bye-play of the struggle with the West, and can only be used as a feint, although one that may turn into reality; yet for a time the strife between freedom and slavery must depend upon the East. It is strange that slavery, which began in the East will probably receive its death blow in that quatrer. |
