express himself, and the cancel of the licence, and consequent ruin of the press that should venture to give such sentiments publicity! Is it possible that under such a state of things, addresses of compliment can be of any value? Or can the expression of flatteries like these be received as an index of public opinion, when no man dares, but at the hazard of his fortune and his liberty, to venture on the expression of censure? Mr. Adam well knew that if the press were free, during his short administration, such addresses would not be so easy to be procured; and being determined to shut out all possibility of opposition or censure, the passing new laws to fetter that press was an appropriate prelude to this terminating farce. Private letters state that hopes were entertained of a more liberal administration under Lord Amherst, which we shall be happy to see realized. Mr. Adam, it is said, was going round to Bombay for his health, which had been impaired by the fatigues and anxieties of office. Others supposed that he was likely to succeed Mr. Elphinstone as governor of that island, the latter being expected to succeed Sir Thomas Munro in the government of Madras. If Mr. Elphinstone should go to Madras, it is probable that he will restore the freedom of the press there, as he has before done at Bombay while, at the latter place, Mr. Adam, if he acts consistently, will have to restore the censorship. Lord Amherst, it is hoped, will follow the early example of Lord Hastings on this subject and if he perseveres in maintaining that example, without the vacillation or inconsistency of his predecessor, he will reap a harvest of richer honours than any Governor General has yet brought home from India. If on the other hand he maintains the present odious system of restraints and fetters of which Mr. Adam was the author: he must expect his reward: for all mankind are now agreed in the maxim that "he who permits oppression shares the crime." Sanguine expectations were entertained in India respecting a steam navigation from that country to England. It was believed at Calcutta that a ship of 500 tons was fitting out in London with one of Mr. Perkins's new engines of 100 horse power, which would require only 60 tons of coals for the whole voyage, so as to render it unnecessary to touch any where between London and Calcutta, and make the voyage in six weeks round the Cape! Their disappointment will be great to learn, that these prospects of speedy intercourse have "vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision," and may be truly said to "leave not a wreck behind." That some application of the power of steam may yet be made to shorten Indian voyages we think highly probable; but considering how much of such voyages is made in the trade winds, where a fast vessel with sails would make even a greater progress than with steam, we do not apprehend that ships between India and England will ever find it to their interest to be navigated by steam throughout the voyage, until some new and important discovery shall be made to reduce the required quantity of fuel, and increase the powers now communicated by steam to the progress of vessels. We have received from India, a copy of a pamphlet, entitled "A Letter to the Right Honourable Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Control, on the Latent Resources of India, by John Wheatley, Esq." The author is well known in England, as a writer on political economy. He arrived in India about the close of Lord Hastings's administration, and being of the profession of the law, was sworn a member of the Supreme Court, to practise there as a barrister. During his short stay in that country, he had already perceived, what indeed must strike every man of reflection who visits it, that the degraded condition of India was a reproach to the British name and character; that its latent resources, though immense, were shamefully neglected; and that one of the first steps necessary to redeem the reputation of England, and advance the prosperity and happiness of her Indian empire, is to give the utmost freedom to the introduction into India, of the science and intelligence of Europe, by an "Unrestrained System of Colonization." This, however, is what the East India Company at home, and most of their servants abroad, on all occasions, oppose and resist; though, it may be safely said, that it is the only thing which can ever render India of so much value to England, as she ought long before this to have been. As advocating this great doctrine of the free and unrestricted intercourse of Englishmen with India, which is known to be obnoxious to its present rulers, Mr. Wheatley has probably printed his pamphlet at an "unlicensed" press : for we perceive no name of printer or publisher attached to it. Indeed, according to the present law in India on that head, the printer of such a work would be liable to have his presses seized, for venturing to publish any thing involving a discussion on any question of policy or government: so effectually do the rulers of that unhappy country strive to oppose even the first steps of improvement, by rendering it dangerous for any man even to attempt to suggest what might lead to amelioration! We shall give a more detailed account of this pamphlet in our next Number. Africa. A communication, from the Sierra Leone papers of October 22. states that Mr. Belzoni had gone from Teneriffe to Cape Coast Castle in the Swinger brig of war, for the purpose of prosecuting his travels in the Interior of Africa. It was his intention to have gone first to the river Gambia, but he was obliged to proceed further south. He went from Cape Coast to Benin, in the same vessel, intending there to commence his route for the Interior. He wore the Moorish dress with a beard, and had a native of Haoussa with him. It was feared that he would meet with numerous difficulties, as he was to take an entirely new route. The object of his research is to trace the source of the Niger: and we wish him all the success he deserves in this hazardous but interesting enterprise. Accounts from South Africa, mention that the powerful tribe which had made an irruption on the boundary of the Cape Colony amounted to 40,000, and they were still approaching towards our settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. Some of the tribes favourable to the English, were preparing to repel the invaders and a general assembly of chiefs had been held at New Lattakoo, to deliberate on the best means of proceeding, when it was determined to advance towards the invaders, and meet them on their way. They set out for this purpose, and after a few days march came to an encounter, in which both parties fought desperately. About 500 were killed on both sides, and many of the new race taken prisoners. They described themselves as coming from a great distance, being driven out of the country by another tribe. They have desolated the whole country through which they travelled: they had never before seen fire-arms, and called their discharge thunder.' Both parties were equally cruel towards those who fell into their possession. The invaders had retreated eastward, filled with the utmost terror, lest the thunder and lightning' should overtake them. New South Wales.-We consider it an act of justice to give publicity to the following letter from the colonists of New South Wales, to their late Governor, eighteen months after he resigned that Government. It is, at this distance of time, a gratifying proof of the high estimation in which General Macquarie was held, by those who had the best opportunities of appreciating his public and private character. Sydney, April 21, 1823. DEAR SIR,-It having been unanimously agreed on and determined, at a public meeting of the colonists of New South Wales, that a gold cup of the value of five hundred pounds, with an appropriate inscription, should be presented to your Excellency on your retirement from the situation of Governorin-chief of this territory, in order to mark the high esteem and veneration in which your character was held by the inhabitants of the colony," I have now the pleasure to transmit to you, the first of a bill of exchange to the amount of 5001. sterling; and to convey to you the wishes of the colonists that you will be pleased to have a cup or vase made, of the most modern taste, and in workmanship corresponding with the value of the article, with this inscription : The Colonists of New South Wales to their late venerated Governor, For the Wisdom, the Equity, and Humanity which distinguished his Government of that Colony and its Dependencies, During an active and prosperous Administration of Twelve Years. THE ORIENTAL HERALD. No. 2.-FEBRUARY 1824.-VOL. 1. EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST A FREE PRESS IN INDIA. "The libels on the Duke of York have been so frequent and so flagrant, as almost to make good men hesitate whether the licentiousness of the Press is not more mischievous than its liberty is beneficial: the hesitation, however, can be but for a moment-the blessings of the Liberty of the Press are so clear and so acknowledged, as far to outweigh the mischiefs of its abuse-the evil is transitory, but the good is immortal."-CANNING. In concluding our strictures on the Appeal of a Governor General to public opinion in India, which occupied so large a portion of our last Number, we promised to revert to the subject, for the sake of examining the arguments on which he founded his objection to a Free Press in that country. We are glad to find that the facts brought to notice in the article already published, have produced a deeper sensation, and excited a far more general interest in the issue of this great question, than our most sanguine hopes could have anticipated. There are some few to whom the length of the Review appeared an objection; but, when it is considered that the history of five years of opposition to liberal efforts in support of public principles had to be compressed into a certain space, and yet told in so clear and connected a manner, as to be intelligible to those who had bestowed no previous attention on the subject, it will, we trust, plead a sufficient apology for the length to which it unavoidably extended. If it operated prejudicially to the general reader, in excluding that variety for which all classes naturally look in a Periodical Journal; it also involved a large pecuniary sacrifice on our own part, in furnishing a greater quantity of information than is contained in any single Number of the most expensive Review now published, at considerably less than the actual cost of printing alone, independently of other heavy collateral disbursements. We desire, however, to attach no importance whatever to this, except to show that higher feelings than those of mere interest actuated us in our pursuit. In the present instance we shall omit every thing that may be considered personally bearing on our own case, which was completely laid before the reader in our last, and proceed to examine in detail the arguments put forth by the late Governor General of India against the Freedom of the Press in that country. They are no doubt plausible, and are certainly the strongest that could be urged, containing the essence of all that has been written on the subject, both officially and in the anti-liberal Prints of India for the last five years. So far, however, are we from regretting this powerful array, that we rejoice at the opportunity which it presents us of pursuing the enemy into his strong holds, of grappling with him hand to hand, and contesting every inch of ground, even to the very bulwarks of his citadel. We shall not follow the example of those who first fetter an antagonist, and then affect to despise him. We shall fairly admit the Governor General to speak for himself, not suppressing even a line of his arguments; but taking up his Statement at the point at which we left off in our preceding Number, (p. 77) we shall insert successively his text, and our comment: a mode of controversy to which none can reasonably object, but those who have an interest in presenting garbled fragments of what they cannot refute. We proceed, therefore, to give a faithful copy of the closing portions of the Pamphlet adverted to, commencing with the following: It must be quite unnecessary to disclaim any wish to conceal the real character of the measures of Government, or even their most secret springs, from the knowledge of those controlling authorities to which the law has subjected it, or of the great body of our countrymen, whom the spirit of the constitution, and the practice of the Government at home, have rendered the ultimate judges of the conduct of every public functionary. No one entertains a more unfeigned deference for the constitutional control of public opinion, than the Governor General; or is more solicitous to have every public measure, in which he has been engaged, submitted to that tribunal, which, in the end, will always do justice to upright intentions and honest endeavours in the public service. With equal readiness does he acknowledge the utility of this species of control, in rendering public men circumspect in the performance of their duties, and checking every propensity to abuse the power, influence, and authority derived from public station. p. 51, 52. After the publication of the Restrictions on the Indian Press, given in our last Number, prohibiting under pain of fine and imprisonment if a native of India, and of banishment if a Britishborn subject, the discussion of any topic involving the character or measures of the Indian Government, whether at home or abroad, and which Restrictions were avowedly the work of the Governor General himself; it does certainly require a large share of credulity to believe, that the same individual can be sincere in the professions contained in the preceding extract. If the real character and measures of a government are such as the governors can have no wish to conceal from those who are to be the ultimate judges of them, why should they be concealed from those on whom they must be carried into effect? It is of tenfold more importance to the actual inhabitants of India, that this character should be pure, and these measures salutary, than to persons living at the distance of many thousand miles, who can scarcely ever be affected by them. It must be inferred from this strange position, that the great object of the Government of India is not the welfare and happiness of the people over whom it rules-for these, it declares, have no right to examine its conduct-but the profit of the Monopolists of Leadenhall-street, to whom alone it would acknowledge its responsibility. The hypocritical profession of deference to public opinion in England, to the exclusion of public opinion in India, is a mere pretence held out to entrap the unwary, and to induce men to believe that the objection is merely to the class of people who are to exereise this scrutiny. If the constitutional control of public opinion be really vested in the great body of the people-as the Governor General admits it is in England-are not the British inhabitants of India, so far as they extend, as much an integral part of the great body of the people" when residing on the banks of the Ganges, as they would be if dwelling on the banks of the Thames? The Governor General is himself as much an Englishman in Calcutta as he would be in London; if he claims and exercises the same rights of person, property, and religion in India, as he would do in England, by what law are his less elevated countrymen to be shut out from the full enjoyment of the same distinguished privileges? They are to all intents and purposes as genuine Britons as himself; and cannot justly be denied the exercise of any birthright or privilege not absolutely forbidden by the Law of England. They are at least a part of that "great body of his countrymen," in whom the constitutional control of public opinion is vested at home; and since they do not change their natures with their countries of abode, no good reason can be assigned why they should not equally exercise the same control abroad. The "unfeigned deference to this tribunal is therefore mere mockery on the part of the Governor General, since he has declared in his public and official regulations, that he has no respect whatever for its decisions; that, if it will always do justice to upright intentions, he dreads its verdict in his own case; and that instead of acknowledging its utility, as he professes to do, he has expressly stated, in deed as well as word, his conviction that it is worse than uselessnay, mischievous and dangerous, having a tendency to disturb our possession of India, and to lead to the separation of the dependent from the parent country! These are the express and manifest contradictions between Mr. Adam's professions and practice. It is not for us to reconcile them; we deem it indeed impossible, Let his friends and admirers exercise their ingenuity, and see if they can help him out of this dilemma. We proceed to the exceptions which the Governor General makes to the application of his liberal professions.-After admiting the constitutional right of controlling the measures of public |