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the possession of talents which would probably have enabled him to acquire a fortune in any of those various paths which, it is well known, India opens to a man of enterprise and ability. It happene, however, that Lord Hastings had about that period abolished the censorship of the press, and the cry of a "free press' resounded through India. This cry, so animating to the ears of a man born and bred in England, enticed and allured Mr. Buckingham, and he was induced to undertake the conducting of a newspaper, by which he hoped to promote free discussion, to advance the cause of rational knowledge, and to promote the general improvement of that great portion of the British empire, whilst, at the same time, he consulted the inter sts of his own fortune. In consequence of transactions which I need not now detail, the Indian Government considered that a free press, instead of being useful, was injurious, and issued an order for the removal of Mr. Buckingham from India. That, however, is not the greatest hardship of Mr. Buckingham's case: the peculiar hardship is, that, after he had left India, in the full confidence that the property which he left behind him was secure un fer the protection of the laws, it was, from no fault of his own, but by a series of measures, wholly originating with others. utterly destroyed; and the competency which he had acquired by his talents and industry was altogether overwhelmed by one single wave, and sunk and buried in the ocean. (Hear, hear.) This is a case which calls for the sympathy of the people of England, they should feel that one of their countrymen residing in a distant part of the globe, but at the same time retaining the feelings of an Englishman, and ruined for acts on account of which no blame can be imputed to him, is entitled to expect that those who happen to be placed in a more fortunate situation than hims If, should at least come forward to support him under his misfortunes. (Applause.) There is but one reason which could induce us to withhold our support from an individual labouring under such a calamity. This reason would exist if Mr. Buckingham, in the course of his connection with the press in India, had abused his privilege of communicating knowledge to his fellow men by converting his paper into a vehicle for personal slander, and had disgraced himself by a factious opposition, exhibiting not so much a just indignation at oppression as malignity against those in authority; but for my own part, having lately had an opportunity of reading all the articles published in Mr. Buckingham's Journal, which were particularly found fault with by the Indian Government, I can undertake to say that there is not one of those articles, although they must have all been written and inserted in the hurry inseparable from the publication of a daily paper, which not only does not reflect the slightest stain upon the character of the writer, but are such as would do honour to any man possessing an honest eal for the welfare of the community in which he lived, and such as, there is every reason to believe, were written and published with a perfect conviction on the part of the author and publisher, that he was serving the cause of truth, and was, therefore, entitled to the thanks of his fellow subjects, and the approbation of a wise and benevolent gover ment. (Applause.) I will not now trespass further on your attention, as there are others present more fully possessed of the particulars of Mr. Buckingham's case, who will address you on the subject. (Loud applause.)

THE HON, DOUGLAS KINNAIRD.-A resolution has been put into my hands to move, which I will take the liberty of reading before I offer any observations: "Resolved-That the case of Mr. Buckingham appears to this meeting to be one of such unusual hardship and unmerited severity, as to give him the strongest claim on the benevolent sympathies of his fellow countrymen; and every other avenue of hope for immediate relief being now unfortunately closed, they earnestly solicit the li eral contributions of the British Public in his behalf, in order to repair, in some degree, the ruin of his fortunes, and to rescue his family from impending destruction."

I believe that Mr. Buckingham's case is now sufficiently known to he British public to command their sympathy for the misfortunes which have been

brought upon himself and his family. Mr. Buckingham is entitled to sympathy, as a gentleman of unimpeached character, who is suffering under a great calamity, without being in any degree the author of his own misfortunes. But there are peculiar circumstances attending his case, which would render an extension of public sympathy productive of more good than, I believe, ever could have attended any similar measure before. Mr. Buckingham is at this moment the victim of the ac s of power which emanate from this country, but is placed t such a distance from his oppressors, that the terrible and cruel effects of its exercise cannot be controlled by the mere expression of public opinion here; and it is admitted by the Government at home, that they would rather sacrifice individuals, than cast any censure upon the conduct of its officers abroad. Mr. Buckingham has, at a very great expense, at the sacrifice of much money, as well as time and labour, gone before the constituted authorities in this country-the Privy Council, the Court of Directors, and the Board of Control,-appealing to each of them against the conduct of the Indian Government. But the result of all his labours shows that it will in future be absurd for any oppressed individual to appeal to any of those authorities for redress: for they reply, that the constitution of the Indian Govern. ment is such, that it is impossible to censure any one of its acts. On that ground it is that Mr. Buckingham has been refused redress. There is not an individual Direc'or who would not, with all his heart, make Mr. Buckingham some compensation for his unmerited sufferings, but for this reason. There is not an individual in the Direction, with whom I ever conversed on the subject, who did not say that Mr. Buckingham's was one of the hardest cases he had ever heard of. They all acknowledge that they have not a word to say against him as a man and a gentleman; they would willingly meet him on frienldy terms in a private room; "but," say they, "if we afford him redress -if we save him from destruction, we pass censure upon the despotic power exercised ten thousand miles off, and that we dare not do." (Hear, hear, hear.) There are 40,000 Englishmen living under that despo ic power; and it is melancholy to think how many re urn home possessed of reat wealth, with their minds not only tainted, but paralysed, by the baneful influence of the arbitrary rule which they have been accustomed to see exercised around them. The only means of counteracting this evil, is to be found in the powerful efforts of the free press of this country. What the British public is now asked to do, is in furtherance of this object; and not merely to enable Mr. Buckingham to pay his debts, and to relieve him from the painful burthens which now weigh down himself and his family. Mr. Buckingham, being denied the liberty of speaking to his countrymen in India through the press established there, came home, and in the full confidence that the valuable property which he had left behind him was perfectly secure, he embarked his supposed fortune in a publication here, contracting engagements to the ex'ent of four or five thousand pounds, under the idea that he possessed property in India to more than e ght times that amount. This publication is now the only fair channel of communication between the two countries; it is the only instrument by which the wrongs done in India can be made known, bo h to the public there and to the people of England; and it is the only means by which we can hope that the vices of the Indian system of government will be corrected. Mr. Buckingham possesses the sympathy of nearly the whole of the community in India, though they dare not express it. Our countrymen there, notwithstanding the despotism under which they live, cannot easily forget the liberal sentiments which they imbibed in their native land; and they will rejoice to see us come forward to enable Mr. Buckingham to extricate himself from the difficulties in which he has been plunged, in consequence of his unaba'ed zeal in their cause; and to make him the instrument, through the 'Oriental Herald,' of spreading useful intelligence in India, and procuring for the millions under our rule there the blessings of a good government, which have always been the great objects of Mr. Buckingham's life.-(Cheers.)—Under these circumstances, I say, that to enable Mr. Buck nghim to fulfil his engagements, will be not only doing an act of justice to him, and of pleasure to ourselves, but will at the same

time be doing one of the greatest possible acts of public utility, by supporting the only channel of free communication between this country and India. Mr. Buckingham's friends have not made this appeal to public sympathy on his behalf, until every other attempt to obtain compensation for the wrongs which he has suffered have failed. The East India Company have refused to grant him the sum of £5,000 out of their ample funds, although this was but a small proportion of his losses, and although there is no Director, with whom I have ever conversed, who does not acknowledge that he never heard of a stain upon Mr. Buckingham's character. All that he could be charged with was "contumacy," (I think that is the word,) in not obeying the "warnings" to abstain from writing freely in India. To talk of writing freely, however, would seem absurd; for if I were to quote the articles which were so considered in India, and there thought indicative of a desire to overturn the Government of that country, there is not a gentleman present who would not laugh in my face. I will give only one example : a Dr. Bryce, a Scotch clergyman at the head of the Presbyterian church, was appointed to the office of Clerk of the Stationery, whereupon Mr. Buckingham, in a very good-humoured manner, suggested that the appointment was incompa ible with the sacred character of the reverend gentleman, and for doing this Mr. Buckingham was sent from India. (Hear, hear.) It is material to mark what followed. The principal members of the Church of Scotland decidedly disapproved of the conduct of Dr. Bryce, in having thus degraded his cloth by accepting the appointment in question; and the Court of Directors felt it necessary to send out orders for the removal of the reverend gentleman from his office, in which the Board of Control concurred; and yet Mr. Buckingham, for his merely commenting on the impropriety of the appointment thus subsequently condemned and annulled, was sent out of India, without a trial, a hearing, or any of the usual formalities of law. (Hear, hear, hear.) The other subjects of complaint against Mr. Buckingham were equally frivolous with that which I have mentioned. Lord Hastings, whilst he remained in India, was frequently applied to by the Members of his Council to send Mr. Buckingham away. On those occasions, public and official letters were addressed to Mr. Buckingham, but Lord Hastings was always satisfied by the judicious reasoning with which that gentleman supported and maintained the positions he had advanced. It has been said, that Lord Hastings, if he had remained in India, would have found it necessary to banish Mr. Buckingham, as had been done by his successor. But I have it under Lor Hastings's own hand, that Mr. Buckingham never wrote anything, and he (Lord Hastings) believed he never would have written anything, which could induce him to resort to so severe a measure. (Hear, hear!) I state thi under his Lordship's own hand, and with his authority to make it public. For my own part, having had frequent and almost uninterrupted personal intercourse with Mr. Buckingham, from the moment of his arrival in this country up to the present period, I can declare t at I never met with a gen leman who, under the difficulties and distresses wi h which he has had to contend, behaved with more constancy and uprightness, or showed a greater di position to behave in a fair and conciliatory manner. (Hear, hear!) It is not a little to his credit, that after standing before the public eye for so long a period, with the most searching scrutiny applied to every incident of his public and private life, no man can lay his hand upon his heart and point out any one of his acts, as dishonourable. (Loud applause.) On every ground, therefore, he is entitled to the sympathy and support of his countrymen in England, as well as in India.

The hon. gentleman concluded with moving the resolution which he read at the commencement of his speech.

Mr. HUME. It was not my intention to have addressed the meeting at the present moment, but to have deferred what I had to say to a later period; as, however, some points of importance in this case have not, in my opinion, been dwelt on so strongly as they deserve to be, I will now attempt to supply the deficiency. On the present occasion, however much I may be disposed, as I hope every Briton is, to support the propriety of freedom of discussion in this

country and in India (on which subject I agree with all that has fallen from my hon. friend, Mr. Kinnaird), I think it becomes us more especially to look at the facts of Mr. Buckingham's case which occurred subsequent to his removal from India, and to consider him as an Englishman who, after his deportation, had a property which it can be proved was worth £40,000 totally destroyed by the acts of Government, and by no fault of his own. The value of Mr. Buckingham's property was e timated at £40,000 a few months only preceding Mr. Buckingham's removal; and that this valuation was not an unfair one is proved by the best of all possible tests, namely by his having sold one fourth share of he whole for £10,000. At he time this valuation was made, neither Mr. Buckingham nor any other person could have had any id a of what has since happened, and therefore there was no apparent reason for affixing a fictitious valuation upon the property in question. At that period the income returned to Mr. Buckingham by the Calcutta Journal' was £8000 a year. It had a wide circulation, and received the approbation of the great majority of persons in the East India Company's service, a strong presumptive proof that its tendency was not to overturn the Government, for on the stability of that they depended for support and promotion. Every person is aware of the importance of the press in this country, and they can easily conceive the use to which it can be applied in India in correcting the abuses which creep into establishments of all kinds; such an instrument, however, instead of being dangerous to a good government, would only have the effect of con solidating its power. It was in that view that the Indian community supported Mr. Buckingham's Journal, as a vehicle for exposing the abuses committed in the departments, which the dependent situation of persons employed would prevent them from making known. Any person who is aware of the de potic nature of the power which prevails in India must know, that a junior who should venture to challenge the conduct of his superior must, be he right or wrong, expect to experience the enmity of that superior, for having, in the honest discharge of his duty, exposed abuses, with a view to their correction. In India, the collectors of the revenue are, in some instances, removed to the distance of a thousand miles from the seat of Government, and two or three Europeans are left in charge of immense tracts of territory; under such circums ances mal-practices must be tenfold more dangerous than in a country like England. Mr. Buckingham's paper was considered the best means of exposing the abuses which existed in this and other departments, and thereby conso idating the British power in India, and of rendering our sway acceptable to the community. A fourth of this paper was, as I before stated, disposed of, for £10,000, to 100 individuals, who thus became co-proprietors with Mr. Buckingham to the extent of their shares. It is evident, therefore, t at at the time of Mr. Buckingham's removal from India, his share of the property amounted to £30,000, and would have yielded him, under any tolerable management, if not destroyed by the Government, an income of upwards of £3,000 a year for life. Now, admitting, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Buckingham's removal from India was a proper proceeding; what followed? The moment he got on board ship the Government first passed a law, placing that property entirely at their disposal, and then, acting on this law, took away the license of the paper, and refused to restore it so long as he, or any of his former co-proprietors, had any share in it whatever; so that the property which Mr. Buckingham supposed to be safe there, under the protection of the laws, was, by these proceedings of the Government, entirely destroyed. The pretence upon which the license was taken away I wil state: My hon. friend, Colonel Stanhope, published, in this country, a pamphlet, pointing out the advantages of the liberty of the press to India; this pamphlet was republished in the Calcutta Journal,'—Mr. Buckingham, be it recollected, being then in England, and having no power or control over the paper. (Hear.) He had left the management of it to two editors, and they thought they could not employ its pages better than in making them the means of communicating to the Indian public the very sensible observations of Colonel Stanhope on the subject of the press. The Government allowed the whole of the pamphlet to be republished in separate portions, without making any objection to the

proceeding; but, some days after the whole was completed, they then pretended that their orders had been disobeyed, and, therefore, they withdrew the license. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Buckingham's agents, Messrs. Alexander and Co. (one of the most respectable houses in Calcutta) used every means to obtain a renewal of the license. Several months passed in this negociation, and during that time a large portion of the very expensive establishment of a daily paper was kept up. At the end of four months, Mr. Buckingham's agents were informed, that so long as that gentleman had any property in the paper the license never would be renewed. I ask whether it is possible to find a stronger instance of persevering hostility to an individual than this transaction presents? Mr. Buckingham's case ought not to be considered as an isolated one. Every one who feels for the situation of his countrymen in the colonies, where de potic power prevails, ought to make common cause with him. (Hear, hear.) Every man should consider that, in supporting Mr. Buckingham, he is supporting the rights of Englishmen in the colonies. This may be called a colonial question. It is one of great importance, and I hope that, when it becomes properly understood, Mr. Buckingham will receive the support to which his talents and misfortunes alike entitle him. I have taken a very warm interest in the case from the first moment it was made known to me. The statements which were originally made by Mr. Buckingham have been most fully borne out by the evidence given before the Committee of the House. I do not speak of the evidence of Mr. Buckingham, or his friends, but of the documentary proof afforded by the East India Company themselves. (Cheers.) Under these circumstances I consider Mr. Buckingham's case to be not only one of great individual hardship, but also of infinite general importance, as it may be the case of any Englishman placed in the colonies, where such power as that to which Mr. Buckingham has been the victim prevails. By supporting Mr. Buckingham, the Indian and the Eng ish public will at once manifest their admiration of his conduct, and their detestation of the power by which he has been oppressed. I, therefore, with great pleasure second the resolution proposed by my hon. friend, and beg pardon for having occupied so much of your time, although I thought what I hav ve stated was necessary to complete the history of Mr. Buckingham's persecution. (Applause.)

Mr. HILL. When I entered the room, I had no intention of offering any observations to the Meeting, because I was not aware of the exact nature of the proposition to be submitted; but believing that I can add something to what has already been stated, to strengthen Mr. Buckingham's claim to the sympathy of the British public, I should consider myself inexcusable did I not advance it. (Cheers.) If Mr. Buckingham were a person of doubtful or even of decidedly bad private character, yet when I look to what his public conduct has been, I think the public is bound to support him; for when a man labours for the good of the public, he labours for the welfare of every individual composing that public. It has fallen to my lot, however, to be appointed one of the counsel to defend Mr. Buckingham against a charge which originated in the selfishness and malice of one individual, (Mr. Bankes) but which was popagated all over India, and sent home before Mr. Buckingham returned to this country, for the purpose of ruining his private character, and through that of bearing him down in his public capacity. Under such circumstances, Mr. Buckingham's private character becomes a part of the case which we have to consider. It therefore gives me great satisfaction to have it in my power to state, (which I do with the same solemnity and the same regard to responsibility as if I were on my oath,) that after a most severe, and, I may say, suspicious examination of every document connected with the cha ge, (which, as it is not finally disposed of in the courts of law, I shall not more particula ly allude to.) I regard it, in its origin and progress, as one of the most foul conspiracies against the private character of a man against whom not only no chare, but not even the shadow of a charge could with any justice be brought, as ever came to my knowledge. (Cheers.) Looking at Mr. Buckingham as an Englishman who had used his best exertions to benefit the community in which he was placed in India, his countrymen are bound, in common fairness and honesty to join in preventing his utter ruin. Let us look, however, at Mr. Buckingham's case, as it

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