GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. London Gaz.-Times-Ledger Chron.--Post -Herald-Morn. Adver.Courier Globe-Standard-Sun-True Sun--Albion Brit.Trav.-Record-Lit.Gaz. St. James's Chron--Packet.Even. Mail---English Chron. 8 Weekly Pa...29 Sat. & Sun. Dublin 14-Edinburgh 12 Liverpool 9--Manchester 7 Exeter 6-Bath Bristol Sheffield, York, 4- Brighton, Canterbury, Leeds, Hull, Leicester, Nottingh. Plym. Stamf.3-Birming. Bolton, Bury, Cambridge, Carlisle, Chelmsf,Cheltenh., Chester, Coven., Derby, Durh., Ipsw., Kendal, Maidst., Newcastle, [PUBLISHED AUGUST 1, 1833.] JULY, 1833. Norwich, Oxf.,Portsm.. Preston. Sherb., Shrewsb., Southampton,Truro, Worcester 2Aylesbury, Bangor, Barnst., Berwick, Blackb., Bridgew., Carmar., Colch., Chesterf, Devizes, Dorch., Doncaster, Falmouth, Glouc., Halifax, Henley, Hereford, Lancas ter, Leamingt. Lewes, Linc., Lichf. Macclesf. Newark., Newc. or-Tyne, Northamp. Reading, Rochest., Salish., Shields, Staff., Stockp., Sun derl.,Taunt.,Swans., Wakef., Warwick, Whiteh., Winches., Windsor, Wolverha., 1 each. Ireland 61--Scotland 37 Jersey 4-Guernsey 3 .19 .21 ..67 NEW CHURCHES.-St. James's Chapel, Life of the last Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel 10 Neglected state of the Fitz-Alan Monum1. 23 Review of New Publications. Archæologia, Vol. XXV. ............ .32 .37 Clarke's Young Cricketer's Tutor..........41 Collectanea Topographica, Part II..........46 Parnell's Works, edited by Mitford.......48 Loudon's Encyclopædia of Architecture...50 Sharpe's British Peerage. ........ ........ .52 Historical Chronicle. Proceedings in Parliament." Foreign News, 73.-Domestic Occurr.... 74 .78 Bill of Mortality.-Markets.-Shares.....95 Dr. Chalmers's Bridgewater Treatise......54 | Meteorological Diary.-Prices of Stocks. 96 Embellished with Views of ST. JAMES'S CHAPEL, CROYDON; With Representations of the PULPIT and CARVINGS at NAILSEA CHURCH, Somerset, and the LUNAR and SOLAR ECLIPSES. By SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. Printed by J. B. NICHOLS and SON, CICERO'S HEAD, 25, Parliament Street, Westminster; where all Letters to the Editor are requested to be sent, PosT PAID. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. The Rev. Mr. Archdeacon WRANGHAM remarks, "In the last word of the inscription on Napper's Mite, Dorchester (noticed in your Magazine for May last, p. 423), Mr. Barnes will permit me to point out the concealed Chronogram, which I was led to suspect by the circumstance that no year is attached to the word Ann. Xeno Do ChIVM will furnish Roman numeral letters amounting in the aggregate to 1616; the precise date, I conclude, of the year when the building was completed, and the inscription put up. As I am troubling you with these few lines, I may add, with respect to Mr. Prickett's valuable work on Bridlington Priory, which I am proud to find inscribed to myself, that since he wrote, the Church at Grindel (see Mag. for April, p. 332), has been re-built, and that of Speeton nearly so; and that in numerous other churches of my archdeaconry, great and costly repairs have been made (subsequently to my parochial visitation) most ungrudgingly throughout the whole of the East-Riding of Yorkshire; a circumstance which I am bound in justice to the agricultural population to state also, with regard to their neighbours in the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, of which I was Archdeacon from 1820 to 1828." 6 W. S. B. observes, " In the Number for May (p. 447), noticing a picture of Cromwell looking at Charles I. in his coffin, it is said, we cannot detect an anachronism.' The date is obviously one; for the year 1649 did not commence till 25th March. And in fact, Sir Henry Halford's Memoir, on opening the vault at Windsor,' states that a leaden coffin bore the inscription King Charles, 1648.' Respecting the design, I submit that it is not possible for any one to hold a heavy coffin lid with the left hand, in the position there represented: it is on the slope, and would require support from below. When the painting was exhibited at the Louvre, its masterly execution would have obtained a prize for the artist; but the subject gave offence, and deprived M. Delaroche of that honour." WROXTONIENSIS remarks, "The Editors of the new edition of the Monasticon, give an imperfect list of the Priors of Wroxton Priory in Oxfordshire. To the ten names they have catalogued, the following are to be added: Hugo, supposed to have been the first Prior (see an instrument printed in the note to p. 369 of Warton's Life of Sir Thomas Pope); Richard, occurs in 1410 (see p. 370 of the same work); John Adderbury, in 30 Henry VI. 1452; William Braddenham, 5 Hen. VII. 1490 (see Warton's Pope, 371), he is elsewhere called William Bradnam; Richard, in 1504 (see Warton, ibid.); and Thomas Smith, or Smyth, who continued Prior till the Dissolution, ibid. A hospital for lepers, at Tavistock, is only slightly mentioned by Tanner, and in the Monasticon, but more fully noticed in your vol. c. i. 489. What appears to be the matrix of its seal, is now found in the Ashmole Museum at Oxford; and represents a female figure, perhaps Mary Magdalene, under a ta bernacle, with a legend as follows: Di gillum hospitalis de sca marie magdelini de tavistocke." In Mr. Lodge's useful and generally accurate Peerage, the Countess of Mansfield's issue by her second marriage with the Hon. R. F. Grevile, are styled Ladies, &c. notwithstanding that in the second or genealogical volume, the title was granted as there stated, to her and her issue male, by David Viscount Stormont only; if so, the issue of the second marriage would surely not be entitled to any honorary designations in right of their mother's peerage. Beatson, in his Political Index, however, does not mention the limitation to the male issue of Lord Stormont, but to the male issue generally of Louisa Viscountess Stormont. Sir Harris Nicolas, in his Synopsis of the Peerage, states the limitation to be to the male issue by Lord Stormont.-That the present race of the Montagu's are not descended legitimately from the Montagu's Earls of Salisbury, must be quite obvious to any genealogist. Sir E. Brydges has pointed out the fact that the bordure to their arms is an ancient difference signifying illegitimacy. Mr. W. WILLIAMS requests information respecting William Kerwin, of London, Freemason, who died in 1594, and was buried in St. Helen's Church, where a monument still exists to his memory, with the following inscription: Edibus Attalicis Londinum qui decoravi One of his daughters was married to the The same Correspondent will also feel obliged by information on the following subject:-Stow states that on the incursion of the Danes in the year 1010, the bones of St. Edmund the Martyr were brought to London and deposited for three years at the Church of St. Gregory, near St. Paul's. Dr. Yates, in his History of Bury St. Edmund's, says, they were placed at Christ Church; and Entinck, in his History of London, states that the Church of St. Helen was the place where they were deposited. Which is correct? GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. JULY, 1833. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. Mr. URBAN, THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN INDIA. Gloster Terrace, THE British Empire in India has been described as the most extraordinary spectacle "which the political world ever saw" as nearly equalling in extent that which the Romans once established in Europe; while it has surpassed and differs from theirs in the celerity and inferior agency, numerically considered, by which it has been acquired; in the benevolent character and efficiency of its administration; and in its remoteness from the seat and source of the ruling power and influence. It is not proposed to enter, in this letter, upon a review of the political, much less of the naval and military history of India, rich as the latter undoubtedly is in splendid instances of British skill and prowess; but rather to show, by a very brief reference to the more prominent features of the Company's administration in that country, that public opinion, or a persuasion which has been instilled into the minds of the natives that those into whose hands the government had fallen were at all times disposed to do the best that could be done with a view to the welfare of the whole community, was, and still is, the basis upon which the dominion now exercised by the East India Company on the Indian peninsula rests. This enquiry may be the more seasonable at a moment when, public opinion being the admitted basis of government at home, such changes may be contemplated in the government of that immense colony, as by suddenly outraging native prejudices, an attention to which has hitherto been one of its principal sup Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. covш. p. 775. ports, may, by their consequences, endanger the British Empire in the East. During the whole of the seventeenth and till the middle of the eighteenth centuries the East India Company, by whom and in whose name this empire has been acquired and esta blished, traded to the shores of India as merchants, with various success; exposed during a considerable part of that time to hostile competition from home, and to many untoward and distressing accidents abroad. The factories which they were allowed to establish were never numerous, and the amount of their territorial acquire ments was limited to the Island of Bombay, the fort and town of Madras, and the marsh within the limits of the Mahratta Ditch, upon which the splendid city of Calcutta has since been erected. The Company's agents during this period appear generally to have traded, in their character of merchants, with the native Banyans or merchants, observing in their mercantile intercourse an integrity and punctuality, to which the natives till then had been strangers, and the most scrupulous abstinence from all avoidable interference in, or identification with, their religious distinctions and customs; but themselves maintaining, among the Mahomedans and Heathens by whom they were surrounded, the public profession of the Christian faith and worship in churches which they erected for that purpose, and by the observance of the seventh day as a day of rest and intermission of worldly occupation. In the Black town of Madras, one of the Company's earliest possessions, the case was in some respects different. This town may perhaps be regarded as the school in which the Anglo-Indian system of territorial administra tion was first learned. Its population was composed of Portuguese Christians of the Roman Church, Mahomedans, and Hindoos; the latter being in great numbers, and comprehending two opposite and rival castes-the right hand and the left hand castes. Towards this mixed population the agents of the Company stood in the relation of lords of the soil and administrators of the police, accountable to no superior in India; in which character they appear to have considered it to be their only safe and warrantable course to allow of the free but peaceable observance of all forms of worship which were regarded as religious by the worshippers; and to recognize all rights, and to protect all property, connected with the religion of any persons resident within their jurisdiction. The propriety of this course may probably have been suggested to them by the fate of the Portuguese and Mahomedans, whose systems of persecution on a religious account had been experimented in different parts of India, and had been found not more prejudicial to those who were its victims, than detrimental to the power and interests of the persecutors; while on the contrary the obvious design of the measures pursued by the Company's servants, being to impress the natives with confidence in their equity and justice, there was every reason to expect that the natives would be conciliated, by protection afforded to them without the exaction of sacrifices in return. Acting on these principles, and with these views, the servants of the Company administered the government of the Black Town at Madras very successfully for a century and a half; controlling even the right and left hand castes, whose feuds, arising out of conflicting religious pretensions (such as a claim to carry a certain number of pots and pans on a tray at the wedding of two young Hindoos, or some equally notable cause), would not unfrequently, notwithstanding that they had separate parts of the town allotted to them, lead to sanguinary results. The merits of these rival pretensions were generally referred for adjudication to the heads of the castes, who were bound, under securities of large amount, so to adjudicate as to restore and preserve the peace of the town; and the instances are rare in which the Company's servants were compelled to interfere any further, although they always reserved to themselves the right of so doing. That memorable event, the battle of Plassey, by its consequences, opened a new and much wider field, upon which the principles of the Company's government in India were to be experimented and illustrated. In less than ten years it placed them by treaty, in the character of Dewan, or sovereigns depute of the King at Dehli, in the absolute government of three fair provinces, BENGAL, BEHAR, and ORISSA; inhabited by many millions of natives, both Mahomedans and Hindoos. The general condition on which the Company first obtained this and other large territorial trusts was, that they should "attend to the rights and customs thereof, and observe the Law of the Empire" in their administration of justice. Accordingly attention was given to these objects by the Company's servants in Bengal at a very early period of their administration. The languages and laws of the natives, both Mahomedan and Hindoo, became objects of the closest attention and study; and the native establishments for the administration of justice were retained, with such modifications only as admitted into them the concurrent jurisdiction or superintendence of British judges or magistrates. In the year 1793, a very important step was taken with a view to the future administration of justice in these provinces. After much and anxious deliberation, it was determined to enact laws or regulations, establishing courts on the European plan, viz. superior courts, both civil and criminal, circuit courts, and local magistrates; but still reserving to the native population their own laws, religious institutions, and distinctions, subject to such occasional and cautious ameliorations as the better principles of justice which obtain in Europe might supply. The first section of the third regulation, passed by the Bengal Government in the year above mentioned, expressly declares that the regulations of the British Government were calculated to protect the natives in the free exercise of their religion; and in perfect accordance with this principle, many enactments of that year and of subsequent dates, secured to the inhabitants of India a judicial recognition of their several and respective religions, in the administration of oaths, and other particulars, together with full and effective protection for their persons and all property which might be employed in services considered by them to be of a religious character. Experience so fully justified this course, that the same system was established at Bombay in 1799, and at Madras in 1802, and now obtains over nearly all the provinces subject to the Company's government in India, containing about 100,000,000 of inhabitants; and it has been by a discreet adherence to this course, subject to some occasional deviations not determined on without much cautious deliberation, and to which I am now about to call the attention of your readers, that the British empire in India has attained to its present extent and elevation. The following are instances in which the principles of British justice have been applied with the view of correcting customs in India which had a religious sanction among the Hindoos. INFANTICIDE. Of this barbarous practice two kinds have attracted the attention of the East India Company's servants, distinct from mere acts of child murder instigated by passion or revenge, but which had their origin in motives conceived by the natives to be justifiable if not meritorious. The first appears to have had for its immediate site the Island of Saugor, at the mouth of the river Ganges; a place of great note in the calendars of Hindoo superstition, to which the Hindoos were wont to make pilgrimages under religious vows, and there devote their offspring, by casting them into the river to be drowned and devoured by sharks, in the hope of thereby obtaining increase of family. This practice was suppressed by a regulation of the Bengal government in the year 1802, but with very considerable caution; the whole of the religious observances being permitted to remain, together with the oblations to the faqueers, who presided over them, and nothing being forbidden but the infanticide. It was nevertheless found necessary to enforce this prohibition by a military guard from Calcutta, who for that purpose have during many years proceeded to the accustomed place of sacrifice at each of the half-yearly festivals, there to guard the coast and prevent acts of infanticidc. Since the prohibition these fes tivals are stated to have assumed much of the character of fairs, or periods of public resort to the sea coast for the purposes as well of trade or amusement as of worship. Another species of infanticide, which prevailed among certain tribes of Hindoos, denominated Rajkoomars, Rajevansees, and Rajpoots, and which appears to have had its origin in pride of caste, was encountered with success by two of the East India Company's most enlightened servants; who wisely resorted rather to argument and amicable treaty than to coercion for its suppression. These castes it appears were prompted to destroy their female offspring immediately after their birth, under a notion that no alliances could be found of sufficient rank and dignity for females of those high castes. The correspondence relative to the discouragement, with a view to the eventual extinction of this custom, is of a highly interesting character; it has been published by order of Parliament, and from it we learn that Mr. Jonathan Duncan, Resident in Benares, and afterwards Governor of Bombay, who first noticed the subject in the year 1789, and Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Walker, the Company's representative in Kattawar and Kutch, in the year 1808, both exerted themselves to obtain the consent of the heads of those tribes to abandon the practice. After much discussion and urgent entreaty that consent was obtained, and the parties bound themselves under penalties to discontinue the practice. Still it appears not to have been altogether relinquished; some fines for violation of agreement have been recovered, out of which a fund has been formed to be employed in marriage portions for the children whose lives have been saved. These children are in Kattawar designated the daughters of the state. Their fathers are entitled on the marriage of any of them, or on their attaining the marriageable age, to appear publicly in the durbar, or Court of the British Resident, and there to receive portions for their children and honorary badges for themselves. More than three hundred females have been thus saved from death on that side of India, and now form a new and distinct class or caste, who owe their existence to the mild and benevolent influence of the East India Company's government_wisely exerted. In the districts near Benares |