We fully subscribe to all that is here said in commendation of the lower
classes of our Indian subjects, but we demur to the author’s very
disparaging estimate of the capacity of the higher orders. Doubtless
there are, or rather were, many dull men of rank on the banks of the
Ganges; but are there none on those of the Thames?—no squires of cramped
and confused notions, no fortunate inheritors of wealth content to
wallow through life in utter disregard of the duties attaching to
property, while fiercely jealous of its rights? It would be a sad day
for our own landed aristocracy if Mr Campbell were to obtain sway in
England, and try to rule that country upon the principles of which he
approves in the East. But if he could, would our peasantry be
_permanently_ bettered by a change tending towards a destruction of all
the gradations of society? If the reply to this query should be in the
affirmative, we may contemplate with unalloyed satisfaction the progress
of a system the description and defence of which is the main object of
Mr Campbell’s work; but if we feel any hesitation as to the future
effects of such a change in England, then, human nature being much the
same in every clime, we ought to have some misgivings as to its eventual
results in the East. We say _eventual_, because the _immediate_ fruits
of the measures described by Mr Campbell have, we are assured by him,
and have heard from other quarters, been satisfactory and cheering. But
is it probable that a whole nation should rest satisfied for ever in
this state of flat and tame sufficiency? and can we wonder to find
alongside of Mr Campbell’s picture of what ought to be the feelings
towards the English of the present day on the banks of the Ganges, Mr F.
H. Robinson’s gloomy account of what, in his opinion, those feelings
really are? Having been compelled, as a member of the Board of Revenue,
to make a communication to an old retired officer of Gardiner’s
Irregular Horse, and to a Mussulman of rank, calculated to hurt the
feelings of both, Mr Robinson thus describes what followed:—
“I shall never forget the looks of mortification, anger, and at first
of incredulity, with which this announcement was received by both, nor
the bitter irony with which the old Russuldar remarked, that no doubt
the wisdom of the _new-gentlemen_ (Sahiblogue, so they designate the
English) had shown them the folly and ignorance of the gentlemen of
the old time, on whom it had pleased God, nevertheless, to bestow the
government of India.”—(P. 17).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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