nute should differ from a Despatch, a Memorial, a
Report, and a Decision. His method of applying general principles to the
circumstances of a special case, and of illustrating those principles
with just as much literary ornament as would place his views in a
pictorial form before the minds of those whom it was his business to
convince, is strikingly exhibited in the series of papers by means of
which he reconciled his colleagues in the Council, and his masters
in Leadenhall Street, to the removal of the modified Censorship which
existed in India previously to the year 1835.

"It is difficult," he writes, "to conceive that any measures can be more
indefensible than those which I propose to repeal. It has always been
the practice of politic rulers to disguise their arbitrary measures
under popular forms and names. The conduct of the Indian Government with
respect to the Press has been altogether at variance with this trite
and obvious maxim. The newspapers have for years been allowed as ample a
measure of practical liberty as that which they enjoy in England. If any
inconveniences arise from the liberty of political discussion, to those
inconveniences we are already subject. Yet while our policy is thus
liberal and indulgent, we are daily reproached and taunted with the
bondage in which we keep the Press. A strong feeling on this subject
appears to exist throughout the European community here; and the loud
complaints which have lately been uttered are likely to produce a
considerable effect on the English people, who will see at a glance
that the law is oppressive, and who will not know how completely it is
inoperative.

"To impose strong restraints on political discussion is an intelligible
policy, and may possibly--though I greatly doubt it--be in some
countries a wise policy. But this is not the point at issue. The
question before us is not whether the Press shall be free, but whether,
being free, it shall be called free. It is surely mere madness in a
Government to make itself unpopular for nothing; to be indulgent, and
yet to disguise its indulgence under such outward forms as bring on it
the reproach of tyranny. Yet this is now our policy. We are exposed
to all the dangers--dangers, I conceive, greatly over-rated--of a free
Press; and at the same time we contrive to incur all the opprobrium of
a censorship. It is universally allowed that the licensing system, as
at present administered, does not keep any man who ca