262 288 Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan; by Lady Sale History of the British Empire in India; by E. Thornton, Esq. 274 Narrative of a Journey to Khiva, &c.; by Capt. Jas. Abbott The Parsí Religion; by Dr. John Wilson Life and Correspondence of the late Lord Teignmouth; by History of the War in Affghanistan; by Chas. Nash, Esq. 525 Hon. E. Eden's Princes and People of India, 109; Letters from Madras, ib.; Sir Rob. Peel and his era, 110; White's Elements of Universal History, ib.; Johnson's Stranger in Calcutta, 199; the Dethroned Rajah of Sattara, 200; the Wives of England, ib.; Marks' Sea Sermons, ib.; Bischoffs' Foreign Tariffs, ib.; Rambles of the Emperor Ching Tíh, 419; Tales of the Colonies, 420; Chase's Cape of Good Hope, ib.; Letters from the Virgin Islands, ib.; a Voice from the Vintage, ib.; Henderson's Treatise on Astronomy, 421; Waterston's Cyclopædia of Commerce, &c., ib.; Car- penter's Popular Cyclopædia of Natural Science, ib.; Ben- COLLEGE EXAMINATIONS. 618 104, 209, 305, 422, 535, 655 214, 323, 431, 543, 659 110, 221, 332, 445, 556, 668 THE ASIATIC JOURNAL AND MONTHLY MISCELLANY: MAY-AUGUST, 1843. EXPOSITION OF VIEWS AND PRINCIPLES. THE Commencement of a New Series of this work presents a fit occasion for offering an exposition of its views and principles, accompanied by a few reflections upon the public utility and importance of a publication, properly conducted, which is exclusively devoted to subjects concerning the East,-a portion of the world with the interests of which those of Britain are becoming daily more intimately identified. When the Asiatic Journal was first projected, in the year 1815, the want of a periodical publication in this country dedicated entirely to Eastern topics,―to the literature, the politics, the trade of our Indian possessions,-was urged and accepted as a sufficient motive for undertaking such a work. The necessity, if it existed then, has been rendered more urgent by the events which have occurred in the subsequent twenty-eight years. During this interval, our Indian territories have attained a vast and unexpected magnitude, extending from the Ganges to the Indus, from the snowy Himalaya to the Indian Ocean, encroaching upon Tibet to the North and upon the Indo-Chinese countries to the East,-constituting an empire greater in the number and variety of its subject nations, if not in geographical area, than that which was proudly designated as orbis terrarum, the terrestrial world. Recent events have, moreover, opened to us an avenue into the immense country of China, which may lead to consequences moral, political, commercial, the immense importance of which cannot be computed. No one who contemplates the extent of these distant possessions and connections; the complexity of the machinery required to regulate their various concerns and often conflicting interests; the accidents which may derange its operations and the evils which may result from such derangement, will deny that there is no department Asiat.Journ.N.S.VOL.I.No.1. B of the imperial government of Britain which demands more wisdom and judgment, more energy and activity, more prudence and caution, and which requires, for that very reason, a more constant and jealous vigilance on the part of the public press of this country, which concentrates public opinion, and enables it to bear with salutary effect upon political measures. The great ability with which the public journals of this country are now conducted, the comprehensive and accurate information, and the enlarged views, which they display, might render it superfluous to seek any further security for the exercise of such constitutional supervision of the proceedings of the general and local governments whereby the affairs of India are administered, than may be found in the watchfulness of those journals, but for two considerations which, in our humble opinion, tend in no slight degree to neutralize their efficiency in this particular case. In the first place, the English newspapers are almost entirely absorbed by European politics, by the discussions of public measures in Parliament, by the business in the courts of law, by the casualties, the follies, the crimes of the society in which we live, so that only a partial and transient attention can be bestowed by their conductors upon topics connected with the remote East. Secondly, English newspapers are ranged under the banners of some political party, and public questions are debated in them more or less with reference to the principles of that party. In noticing this fact, it is very far from our design to imply a condemnation of such a rule of action, which is perfectly consistent, according to our view, with the highest moral integrity, and with the theory and practice of the English constitution, which recognizes the existence of antagonistical political parties as an inseparable concomitant or ingredient. We do not speak with reference to a newspaper, if such there be, swayed by no other motive than that of a sordid hope of pecuniary gain,-which hawks itself for hire, and assumes the livery of the best bidder ;—but of journals thoroughly independent, which would not and could not be bought; which are actuated solely by a desire to promote the real interests of the nation; the conductors of which consider the support of a particular party, esteemed to be the best fitted for the office of government, as the surest means of effecting a patriotic object. The heat and excess of party may be lamented, as obscuring truth and disturbing social relations by the animosities they engender; but no rational friend of England will, in the present frame of society, desire to see political parties extinct there. It is to the conflict of parties we owe some of our most valuable constitutional privileges; the mutual jealousy of parties guards past acquisitions, and advances, upon fit occasions, the landmarks of political freedom; without the impulse of party, some of the most useful functions of government would act inertly and imperfectly; even the best intentions often slumber for want of such excitement. The journals of this country, therefore, frequently-may we not say generally?-take up the discussion of public measures with relation to the party who are the authors of them. India, however, and our Eastern connections, are almost entirely without the circle of European politics; the interests of India, direct, and in its relation with England, are of a peculiar kind, and we fear that much of the past mismanagement of that valuable dependency has arisen from the home Government having overlooked this fact, and mistaken the principles upon which it should be ruled. It is, therefore, of moment to both countries that there should be publications here (we speak in the plural number, for our remarks apply to every work which has the same scope and design as ours, and which we are ready to hail as fellow-labourers) which have specially in view the affairs of the East, which are familiar with the interests and the exigencies of our magnificent empire in Asia, and which are entirely unconnected with, and perfectly independent of, any political party, any ruling body, any private or local interest, and which have no other object whatever than the mutual good of India and of England. We may obtain some practical illustration of our views from certain political events of recent occurrence, too serious in their character and too deplorable in their consequences to be speedily forgotten, namely, the transactions in Affghanistan. If the undivided attention of the political press in England had been directed to the policy which the late ministry adopted with respect to the countries beyond the Indus; if the nature and tendency of that policy had been considered entirely apart from all feelings of partisanship; if its merits had been examined solely with reference to the interests of India, or to the conjoint interests of India and England, there can be little doubt that the weight of public opinion would have so far preponderated against the rash invasion of Affghanistan, that that disastrous measure would have been checked in its inception, or arrested before it had had time to work much mischief. The warnings which were offered, from time to time, in the Asiatic Journal, even from the first announcement of the intended invasion, were unheeded amidst the triumphs which seem to have been lures to the destruction that awaited our doomed army. We never ceased, even in the midst of a success that we innocently thought to be the result of calculation, not accident, to urge the abandonment of the unprofitable conquest, for reasons irrespective of the unjust and erroneous principles upon which the measure has since proved to have been originally based. Full justice has been done to the correctness of our opinions upon this point by one of the ablest journals of India,—the Bombay Times. In a very valuable historical summary of the events of the Affghan expedition, in the course of publication in each month's overland Times, large quotations are made from the Asiatic Journal, beginning with the year 1838 (when the fatal expedition was undertaken), and the writer observes: “The whole of the papers in this periodical on our Affghan policy are able and excellent, and would form valuable subjects of study to those who have the ignorance or impudence to assert that the mischiefs of the Affghan war were only first discovered after it began to appear unfortunate." Errors of policy, of a less fatal character, it is to be hoped, may happen again, not merely in India,-our own territories-but in our transactions with China, a foreign state, with which we have to maintain a very difficult and delicate species of relations, altogether new in the annals of diplomacy, and liable to sudden derangement, through the caprices of that state itself, or the proceedings of our fellow-subjects there, or the subjects of other nations. These errors are of more probable recurrence, since so large a discretionary power has been placed in the hands of the India Board, and the direction of British interests in China has been altogether withdrawn from the hands of the East-India Company. The fact is now notorious, that, had the Court of Directors been permitted to decide whether the Affghan policy should have been adopted or not, many millions of treasure would have been saved, and many thousand lives would have been spared. In a despatch from the Court of Directors to the Government of Bengal, dated 20th September, 1837,-written whilst the late ministry were preparing their instructions for commencing an unnecessary war with the people of Affghanistan, the Directors thus expressed their prudent views: "With respect to the states west of the Indus, you have uniformly observed the proper course, which is, to have no political connection with any state or party in those regions, to take no part in their quarrels, but to maintain, so far as possible, a friendly connection with all of them." We may assert with equal confidence, that, had our relations with China been still entrusted to the management of the East-India Company's servants, this country would have escaped |