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dishonesty, to "skin and film the ulcerous part," and leave the Constitution to be wasted underneath, by secret and lurking corruption. We have boldly applied the bold treatment, which, in our mind, it seemed to demand, though the caustic burn, and the knife should wound.

POSTSCRIPT.

SINCE the preceding pages have been in the press, letters have been received from India of so late a date as the 22d of October, which confirm the previous accounts of the amnesty granted to the parties involved in the late unhappy occurrences on the Coast of Coromandel, and describe the particular exceptions, which are more numerous than hitherto supposed, as well as the grounds on which they had been governed, in the application of the general rule. This act of grace was declared in a General Order of the Governor General of the 25th September.

The principle on which it proceeds may be best understood from the language of the order itself, in which Lord Minto thus expresses himself:

the whole country with consternation and dismay. Let them examine, comprehensively, the events which have happened with their own eyes, and we shall look with confidence to such decision, as the necessity of things requires.

None of the calamities that have happened can be ascribed, with fairness and with truth, to any mistaken proceeding of their own-except the removal of the Commander in Chief, from a seat in the council, may be viewed in that relation. But the surest and best amends have already been made for this unfortunate policy, in the revocation of its principle, and in the arrest of its effects. The Court of Directors, therefore, will feel their conduct free and unrestrained, in the full range of the inquiry, which we zealously recommend. Fortunate, indeed, it would have been, if the necessity of such an investigation had been obviated, by the exercise of a preventive caution in India, operating upon, and restraining the manifestation of, that early spirit, which, in its full growth, produced so many and such mighty mischiefs. If the shame and the reproach of these deeds could be now done away, what sacrifice too great, what

sum too large, for the accomplishment of so signal a service. Yet these might have been once purchased, Oh! that wisdom had intervened! at an easy and a small price. If an obnoxious, we will not say an offending, member and minister of the army, had been rendered up, not to the clamours of a military public, but to the course of military justice. How sincerely is it to be lamented, that the authority which should have consulted the popular feeling, was alone busied and delighted with the demonstration of extreme power, instead of using its true strength in moderate and temperate rule, sweetened by the ministry of grace.

If we have spoken with more freedom than may be supposed to become us, of great persons, and of dignified offices, our excuse is, that we were desirous that the eminence of station should not dazzle weak eyes, and so conceal the urgency of inquiry. If the times were more smooth, we should have been inclined to be more courteous.

It may be considered presumptuous and arrogant in us, to point out the line of policy which should be adopted in the diffi

culty of our Indian affairs. One or two suggestions, however, we shall hazard, though it should chance to expose us to the severity of such a censure. It will be not among the last endeavours of the Court of Directors, to bring back men's minds, so far as it be practicable, to the state in which they stood, before extremities were resorted to. As a primary means of effecting this, we would seriously recommend, that all objects should be removed from the sight, that would be likely to excite a recollection of what has passed. In the first place, it would appear an obvious act of policy, to prevent the collision of the Company's corps, on the Madras establishment, with those of his Majesty, which have taken an active, striking, and, we will add, a meritorious part, in suppressing the late outrages. Any collision between the two services, under these relative circumstances, could not, we apprehend, be productive of much good, whilst it might keep fresh in the memory of both, what had better be consigned, and as speedily as may be, to the stream of oblivion. We will not bear it to be insinuated against us, while we are urging this suggestion, that we are throwing aside

instruments now they are no longer useful, or of creating a field and range for unshackled discontent. To release such minds, as are capable of these suspicions, from the anxieties consequent upon them, we must add, that when we advised the removal of these bodies, we intended that their places should be supplied, with an equal number of his Majesty's corps, brought from other parts of India, whence they might be easily forwarded, and not inconveniently interchanged. It would be needless to point out, that such a measure would reduce things as near as possible to their primitive situation, when no distinction, and no cause for it, had existed between the separate branches of the service.

We sincerely wish that so immediate a reparation could be made of other no less eminent evils. But it will demand more than individual wisdom to devise measures to heal the animosities which exist in the different members of the same body. It will be a work of some time and of much labour, we are afraid, of studied and of continued policy, to harmonize the distracted feelings of those who favoured separate courses of action in the late disputes; and

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