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    iL^^T 18, 1855] THE LllADfR, 793

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    MR. B0WYER AND OUR POPULARITY IN ITALY. ...

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    The Indepe Ndent States Of India. Weee I...

    bond round any standard that promises bold adventure . And it should always be borne in mind that the natives of India have no faith in the stability and permanence of the British rule . That vast empire has been so frequently overrun by conquering armies , and has so frequently changed masters , that it has become a matter of analogy and conviction that not any power will long maintain its ascendancy . They do not disguise their hope and belief that the hour is approaching when the-English shall be supplanted by another race of Europeans , though they do not

    pause to consider—nor do they care to divine—by what denomination their future mastery may be now known upon earth . Their utter ignorance the relative importance of European states was shown in the intrigues of the Rajah of Sattara in 1839 . That imbecile prince was led to expect the co-operation of a powerful armament from Portugal , and was induced to purchase a merchant ship for the professed purpose of conducting the preliminary negotiations with greater secrecy and despatch . Nor did it appear to him at all extraordinary that this vessel should be employed in

    trading with China instead of proceeding direct to Europe . Geography , however , is an occult science to most Asiatics , and the Rajah was probably quite ignorant of the exact position of any one country under the sun . There is little doubt that be was the victim of the European and Eurasian adventurers who infested his court , and are the bane of every native ruler . They are generally men of ill-directed energy , bankrupt in character as in fortune , moved by the temptation of the moment , and wholly unrestrained by any sort of principle .

    Like the foul slimy things that batten on corruption , they earn their disgraceful subsistence by pandering to the brutal passions of their patrons , and by playing upon their credulity and ignorance . Very often they are persons who have been cashiered from the British army , or who have otherwise degraded themselves by acts of moral , perhaps of legal turpitude . Many of these wretched beings have sprung from the impure loves of European gentlemen with native women , and thus become the instruments of the Nemesis

    that causes man ' s guilt to be its own avenger . The Rajah of Sattara had the misfortune to fall into the hands 6 f these knaves and parasites , and no effort availed to rescue him from their fatal influence . Their intrigues at length achieved his deposition , and his territories were once more annexed to the British possessions , from which they had been injudiciously separated by Che Marquis of Hastings . A very large proportion of the disorders that are constantly recurring in native states may be traced to disputes about the succession to the chief power . According to Mahomedan usage , if the

    son be a minor , the uncle ascends the throne ; but this question is frequently submitted to the arbitration of the sword . Whenever the British Government has interfered in such matter . - ' , its influence has been exerted in favour of the lineal descendant , notwithstanding native prejudices and the evils incidental to a minority . It is true that such policy most surely brings about the absorption of the state whose prince is a child , but we acquit our rulers of any such Machiavellian intentions . Wo believe that they act honestly , though unadvisedly , for calculation and foresight

    have seldom distinguished the Governors-General of India . And we admit the difficulty they experience in laying down any ruin or system that requires a length of time for its development , owing to the brief tenure of power held by each individual . At first , ignorant of the country and people he is suddenly called upon to govern , the new Governor is compelled to draw his inspirations nt second bund from the small knot of oflicials with whom ho is in immediate communication , until ho is able to acquire some knowledge of the circumstances by which he is surrounded . Even then he is seldom competent to judge of the

    real merits of the case , because the native character is an entangled wob that few ever . succeed in unravelling . In moat instances the governors an ; anxious to illustrato their rulo by some striking event , and it must bo acknowledged that they have erected many monuments of their own procapitation and ignorance . Probably Lord Dalhouaio hna made fewer mistakes than any omi of his predecessors ; and in refusing to acknowledge adopted children as heirs of native princes , ho hna rendered the entire subjection of India a moral certainty to bo determined within a given period . It may , porhapa , bo worth while to remind the

    mere English reader that these adopted children are usually of very low birth , and frequently the offspring of the illicit amours of the women of the royal Zenana . Haremzadeh , or son of the harem , is a common term of reproach in the East , and yet these are the persons advanced to the throne by the successful intrigues of some favoured concubine . Thus , even his Royal Highness Maharajah Dhuleep Singh , to whom the Morning Post loveth to accord a place of high honour in the records of fashionable intelligence , is well known to be the son of a Nautch girl and a water-carrier . And equally obscure is the parentage of the present wh h

    Maharajah of Gwalior , -om Lord Ellenboroug unwisely recognised as the lawful successor to Sindhia , though at that time only eight years of a ^ e , and adopted by a widow of only thirteen . Nothing could have been more just and expedient than the annexation of Gwalior at the death of the late ruler , but his Lordship feared that an outcry would be made in England similar to that which arose on the conquest of Scinde . And thus , in the words of Mr . Campbell , " too great eagerness in seizing the unripe crab-apple of Scinde , deprived the Government of the ripe pear of Gwalior . " With the unfulfilled expectation of acquiring a character for magnanimity and liberality , our Indian magnates have squandered enormous sums of

    money by way of pensions to the princes whom our arms have vanquished in the strife they themselves originated . Shorn of power , but possessed of immense wealth , these " royal personages " naturally plunge into riotous excesses and the lowest depths of debauchery . Wherever one of these ex-Uajahs , or Nawabs , fixeshis residence , a host of parasites and obscure villains attach themselves to his per ? on and assist in the gratification of his impure desires . The Nawab of the Carnatic , for instance , receives 116 , O 00 Z . a year from the British Government , but which proves inadequate to his dissolute extravagance . To the Rajah of Tanjore xre pay 118 , 000 ^ per annum , to the Nawab of Bengal IGO , 000 Z ., and to the descendants of Hyder Ali about 64 , 000 / ., and formerly a still larger income which enabled the sons of

    Tipnoo Sultan to effect the famous mutiny at Yellore . To the King of Delhi , the miserable representation of the " Great Moguls , " we allow an annual stipend of 150 , 000 / ., together with absolute jurisdiction within the walls of his fortified palace . In this oriental AJLsatia there live and sin at leust 12 , 000 human beings , parasites of parasites , of many grades in the social scale , but forming an ^ unbroken chain from Majesty to a Mehter , all equal , however , in vicious propensity , and dinering only in the power of gratification .

    The most frightful crimes , even now , are perpetrated within the gloomy pile . Murder , mutilation , adultery , rape , infanticide , fraud , theft , and other deeds humanity shudders to contemplate , and which Christianity in its humblest form utterly ignores , are there matters of daily occurrence , and pass with impunity as fur as our magistrates are concerned ; anil the puppet king , in his hall of Eblis , administers injustice according to his

    most royal caprice . A criminal fleeing to this den of iniquity is readily admitted and screened from detection . The same thing , indeed , is done in every independent state , and thus the police arc thwarted in the discharge of their duty , and guilt remains unpunished . The total amount annually squandered in the form of pensions falls very little short of one million and a half , nearly the whole of which is frittered away in squalid

    pageantry and low animal gratification . But the consequences are far more terrible when the prince possesses the power as well as the vices of a despot . It little matters what instance we first select . It mig ht be expected , however , that Goolab Singh , who is on such excellent terms of amity with the administrators of the Punjab , would endeavour to prove himself worthy of their protection and good-will by sonic slight show of

    moderation and liborality . A more ruthless tyrant does not exist . During the first Sikh campaign , Goolab Singh , the chief of Jummoo , held aloof until after the battle of Forozoshah , when he offered his services n . s u mediator . As an acknowledgment of his good offices , he obtained the absolute sovereignty ' of Cashmere , on tho payment of half a million sterling towards defraying the expenses of the war . In other words , wo sold 750 , 000 men , women , nnd children to a licentious despot for

    thirteen shillings and fourpencc a head all round . A recent traveller in that unhappy country affirms that tho revenue is never less than two-thirds ot

    the entire produce , and not unfrequently threefourths . There is scarcely a single production , natural or artificial , which is not taxed . A great portion of Cashmere is consequently uncultivated , and "in the western parts of the valley the exactions have reached such a pitch that there is scarcely a village in those Pergunnehs in which many houses are not to be seen deserted and in ruins , the owners having , with kith and kin , escaped into the Hazara hills by devious and unfrequented paths . " The shawl manufacture , for

    which Cashmere has so long been celebrated , has greatly declined since labour became compulsory , and the overworked artisans toil on without heart and without hope . No Cashmeree can leave the country without the special permission of the sovereign , and even British officers are compelled to give security for the return of the porters employed to carry their luggage across the borders . In many seasons the crop of apples is entirely confiscated , to enable the Maharajah to send an acceptable present to his friends , and particularly to influential English officers at Lahore .

    " The chief grievances of the people , writes the traveller to whom we have already alluded , " are over-assessment ; begaree . labour ; the confiscation of all religious grants ; the interference of the Government with all retail traders , who are prohibited from dealing without permission ; taxation on all articles of industry to an unprecedented extent , the shawl paying six annas in the rupee ( three-eighths ) on its value -, every silversmith contributing a quarter of his monthly income ; and even the little skiffs which ply on the Dal in search of the Singhara being assessed . These , and the prohibition against leaving the

    country except with a perwunneh , or passport , signed by one of the Cashmere officials—an order especially applying to shawl--weavers , the most persecuted of all workmen—are the grievances complained of , and complained of justly , whose effect is that the people are in an unprecedented state of misery , and , as far as respects the poorer population , live literally from hand to mouth . Were it not for the bounty of Nature in producing so many fruit-trees and vegetables growing wild in the woods and valleys , the end would be starvation

    or flight . . . . Goolab Singh is a true miser , and would , I verily believe , sell his own soul for a due payment . Though able and intelligent , he sees not that his unbounded avarice , the keystone to his character , produces a hateful tyranny—a tyranny so bad and so abhorred , albeit with bated breath , that his name will assuredly descend to the third and the fourth generation , and as people talk of Noushirwan the Wise and Akbar the Clement , so , will they tell of Goolab Singh the Tyrannical Miser . " Now pass we on to Nepaul ( To be concluded in our next- )

    Il^^T 18, 1855] The Llladfr, 793

    iL ^^ T 18 , 1855 ] THE LllADfR , 793

    Mr. B0wyer And Our Popularity In Italy. ...

    MR . B 0 WYER AND OUR POPULARITY IN ITALY . { From a Correspondent . ') We are unpopular in Italy , and so is the war , hence the formation of our Italian legion will meet with great opposition , not only from the Republican , or Mazzinian party , but also from the staunchest constitutionalists , and from every other ramification of Italian patriotism . We have at hand a number of Italian newspapers all addressing public opinion , and urging men not to accept service under English officers . The Italia e Popolo says : — " It would be an eternal disgrace \ i we , like the soldiers of fortune in the middle ages , were to sell ourselves to foreigners , while fivesixths of Italy are oppressed by Austrians up held by those very foreigners . " Tho Specola dclle Atjn adds : — " It is enough that we see the Piedmontcsc army sacrificed in ft war without results ; shall we

    quietly behold still greater losses which will deprive It ;» ly of her bravest sons ? Keep your gold , and let us preserve the livos of our warriors till the moment hns arrived when Italy will need their services . " While tho Wow *« y * ¦ ¦ - " * ' * f ™* > in choosing im Italian h V io » , « g »' " X ± ^ : ? S ^ ^ JW ^ SSE

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 18, 1855, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18081855/page/13/