people, speaking various languages, and
wedded irrecoverably to different social and religious institutions.
The conquest of India is complete, and there is not a valuable office
in the whole country which is not held by an Englishman. The native
and hereditary princes of provinces, separately larger and more
populous than Great Britain itself, are divested of all but the shadow
of power, and receive stipends from the East India Company. The
Emperor of Delhi, the Nabobs of Bengal and the Carnatic, the Rajahs of
Tanjore and Benares, and the Princes of the house of Tippoo, and other
princes, receive, indeed, an annual support of over a million
sterling; but their power has passed away. An empire two thousand
miles from east to west, and eighteen hundred from north to south, and
containing more square miles than a territory larger than all the
States between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, has fallen into
the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is true that a considerable part
of Hindostan is nominally held by subsidiary allies, under the
protection of the British government; but the moment that these
dependent princes cease to be useful, this protection will be
withdrawn. There can be no reasonable doubt that the English rule is
beneficent in many important respects. Order and law are better
observed than formerly under the Mohammedan dynasty; but no
compensation is sufficient, in the eyes of the venerable Brahmin, for
interference in the laws and religion of the country. India has been
robbed by the armies of European merchants, and is only held in
bondage by an overwhelming military force, which must be felt as
burdensome and expensive when the plundered country shall no longer
satisfy the avarice of commercial corporations. But that day may be
remote. Calcutta now rivals in splendor and importance the old capital
of the Great Mogul. The palace of the governor-general is larger than
Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; the stupendous fortifications of
Fort William rival the fortress of Gibraltar; the Anglo-Indian army
amounts to two hundred thousand men; while the provinces of India are
taxed, directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen
millions of pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies
of India, or the duration of the English power. The future is ever
full of gloom, when scarcely any thing is noticeable but injustice and
oppression on the part of rulers, and poverty and degradation