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CHAPTER X.

REGENERATION OF INDIA-ANOTHER MEANS.

THE two classes of writers on India.-Two dangers to India.— The difficulties of making a successful stand in the Punjab against the Russians stated.-Confidence and a feeling of Patriotism more requisite on the defensive line of operations, than strength and discipline.-Warlike tribes of Upper India, and their ambition.-The only measure to avert the danger is Colonisation.-Colonisation of two sorts.-That which we ask for India different from all colonisations to America and Australia, and beneficial to India only.-The presence of the English Settlers also beneficial, in checking all abuse of official power in the interior.-English settlement will enhance our crops and resources.—Art wholly wanting in the Native Peasant.—Anglo-Saxon zeal for improvement.—The Anglo-Indian Government worse than the Roman and Mahomedan, in their zeal for public works of utility.-Difference between Calcutta and Delhi or Agra.-All extensive conquests preserved by Colonisation.-English settlement peculiarly beneficial to Young India.-Rights will then be more liberally granted. A question to Young India.—England's mission in India threefold.

THERE have been written volumes upon the condition of India; but nothing whatever has been practically attempted for the removal of those causes which fallow the rich resources

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of the soil or paralyse the spirit of the people. In the long and extravagant controversy, one set of writers is proscribed for viewing and analysing with European prejudices, whilst the other is condemned as having Asiatic apathy, for deeming the wretchedness of the condition of India as inevitable, and therefore indifferent to England; and while we are taken up with deciding upon the comparative merits of opposite advocacies, time passes away, and India is left to her own fate, uncared for and neglected.

The English nation is proverbially too intrepid of danger; and this intrepidity, if it has escaped in Europe on more than one occasion its merited penalty, in India at no distant date will the supinely-disposed nation have to pay for it dearly. Two powers have long entered into a treacherous conspiracy, each to retrieve a political dishonour that has pinned it to a national inferiority; and both, despairing of striking for honour on European soil, have chosen India as the field for their redeeming glory. To this thirst of vengeance, if we add the stimulus of political avarice, which both are too weak to resist, as well as the facility afforded by the want of organisation of every sort for a successful stand against their object,

we may be assured that every circumstance conspires to produce the collision of England with France and Russia on the confines of India-with the first by sea on the southern coast, and with the second by land on the northwestern frontier. Considering England's maritime power, we can imagine that she can easily line the Indian coast with one strong fortress of frigates and men-of-war, which France will scarcely be strong enough to break through. But the danger thus looming in the distance requires necessarily to be reckoned up beforehand, so that, when her trial comes, she may not be found wanting in the balance of strife. And conceiving the probability of the second, the mind naturally recurs to the Macedonian conquest; when, from the vague accounts which history has been able to give of the enterprise of Alexander, we are tempted to assure ourselves upon the immense length and difficulties of the march, and the untameable ferocity of the savage tribes whose territories would have to be crossed. But in so supinely reckoning our safety, we lose all consideration of the improvement of modern warfare, and the fact of Russian authority and organisation already extending to the very spot whence the Mongol and

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Tartar Conquerors of India started on their race. Besides, Russia needs not necessarily force her way by open injustice or violence to the intervening hordes; she has already a less obtrusive line of policy set to her as an example by the East India Company in their conquest of India;—while the disputes, which never fail to attend succession to the throne of Persia, and the general imbecility of the nation, might supply an opportunity for Russia to extend her influence in Central Asia for an Indian invasion. On the Indus, then, the die will be cast; and success or defeat will be the result only in the Punjab, where armies will have to be marched from Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, the distance between the field of action and the starting-points being as great as nearly the whole breadth of the European continent, with tribes and nations interspersed differing as much from each other as the Spaniard from the Hungarian, or the English from the Italian; and if these extensive marches weigh nothing upon the European troops (which requires yet to be proved), the cold and fatigue must have a great effect on the Native regiments, whom sickness and a depression of spirit, the maladie du pays, will render almost whol

ly ineffectual. It will, besides, be difficult to inspire rebellious tribes and Native regiments, differing and opposed as they are in principles to each other, and ignorant of conceiving the stability of British power in the East, with any degree of confidence; and though discipline and courage avail in the impulse of aggression, in defence, we necessarily require confidence of the highest degree, and a feeling of patriotism, to bear the brunt of invading impetuosity. The resistance of the French when the Russians attempted to retake their position at Borodino, and of Havelock's noble band at Lucknow, are only too recent instances of confidence of success and self-devotion achieving triumphs in the defensive line under the most trying circumstances of overwhelming numbers and well-regulated discipline. The armies of Native troops brought into action will sadly be wanting in these springs of success; while the fact should never be neglected, that Upper India is replete with those restless tribes, which history has described as ever ambitious to seek for a change of masters; and in point of fact, Baber, Nadir, and Ahmed-the three greatest conquerors of the East-invaded India with a contemptible force, but succeeded on the battle