Chapter XI: Slavery in British India (1)

The extensive, populous, and wealthy peninsula of Hindostan has suffered greatly from the crushing effects of the British slave system. From the foundation of the empire in India by Clive, conquest and extortion seem to have been the grand objects of the aristocratic government. There unscrupulous soldiers have fought, slaughtered, enslaved, and plundered. There younger sons, with rank, but without fortune, have filled their purses. There vast and magnificent tracts of country have been wasted with fire and sword, in punishment for the refusal of native princes to become slaves. There the fat of the land has been garnered up for the luxury of the conquerors, while famine has destroyed the people by thousands. There, indeed, has the British aristocracy displayed its most malignant propensities—rioting in robbery and bloodshed—setting all religion at defiance, while upholding the Christian standard—and earning to the full the continued execration of mankind.

In a powerful work, called "The Aristocracy of England: a History for the People, by John Hampden, Jun.," a book we commend to the people of England, we have the following passage:—

"From the hour that Clive and his coadjutors came into the
discovery of the vast treasures of the native princes, whence
he himself obtained, besides his jaghire of £30,000 per annum,
about £300,000; and he and his fellows altogether, between
1759 and 1763, no less than £5,940,498, exclusive of this said
jaghire, the cupidity of the aristocracy became excited to the
highest degree; and from that period to the present, India has
been one scene of flights of aristocratic locusts, of fighting,
plundering, oppression, and extortion of the natives. We will not
go into these things; they are fully and faithfully written in
Mills's 'History of British India;' in Howitt's 'Colonization and
Christianity;' and, above all, in the letters of the Honourable
Frederick Shore, brother of Lord Teignmouth, a man who passed
through all offices—from a clerk to that of a judge—and saw
much of the system and working of things in many parts of India.
He published his letters originally in the India papers, that
any one on the spot might challenge their truth; and, since his
death, they have been reprinted in England. The scene which
that work opens up is the most extraordinary, and demands the
attention of every lover of his country and his species. It fully
accounts for the strange facts, that India is now drained of
its wealth; that its public works, especially the tanks, which
contributed by their waters to maintain its fertility, are fallen
to decay; that one-third of the country is a jungle inhabited
by tigers, who pay no taxes; that its people are reduced to the
utmost wretchedness, and are often, when a crop fails, swept away
by half a million at once by famine and its pendant, pestilence,
as in 1770, and again in 1838-9. To such a degree is this
reduction of the wealth and cultivation of India carried, that
while others of our colonies pay taxes to the amount of a pound
or thirty shillings per head, India pays only four shillings.

"At the renewal of its charter in 1834, its income was about
_twenty millions_, its debt about _forty millions_. Since then
its income has gradually fallen to about _seventeen millions_,
and its debt we hear now whispered to be about _seventy
millions_. Such have been the effects of exhausted fields and
physical energies on the one hand, and of wars, especially that
of Afghanistan, on the other. It requires no conjurer, much less
a very profound arithmetician, to perceive that at this rate we
need be under no apprehension of Russia, for a very few years
will take India out of our hands by mere financial force.

"Our aristocratic government, through the Board of Control, keep
up and exert a vast patronage in India. The patronage of the
president of this board alone, independent of his salary of £5000
a year, is about _twenty-one_ thousand pounds. But the whole
aristocracy have an interest in keeping up wars in India, that
their sons as officers, especially in these times of European
peace, may find here both employment and promotion. This, then,
the Company has to contend against; and few are they who are
aware of the formidable nature of this power as it is exerted
in this direction, and of the strange and unconstitutional
legislative authority with which they have armed themselves for
this purpose. How few are they who are aware that, while the
East India Company has been blamed as the planners, authors,
and movers of the fatal and atrocious invasion of Caboul,
that the Directors of the Company only first, and to their
great amazement, learned the outbreak of that war from the
public Indian papers. So far from that war being one of their
originating, it was most opposed to their present policy, and
disastrous to their affairs. How then came this monstrous war
about, and _who_ then did originate it? To explain this requires
us to lay open a monstrous stretch of unconstitutional power
on the part of our government—a monstrous stratagem for the
maintenance of their aristocratic views in India, which it is
wonderful could have escaped the notice and reprehension of the
public. Let the reader mark well what follows.

"In the last charter, granted in 1834, a clause was introduced,
binding a secret committee of the East India Company, consisting
of three persons only, the chairman, deputy chairman, and senior
director, who are solemnly sworn to this work, to receive
private despatches from the Board of Control, and without
communicating them to a single individual besides themselves, to
forward them to India, where the receivers are bound, _without
question or appeal_, to enforce their immediate execution. By
this inquisitorial system, this worse than Spanish or Venetian
system of secret decrees, government has reserved to itself a
direction of the affairs of India, freed from all constitutional
or representative check, and reduced the India Company to a mere
cat's-paw. By the sworn secrecy and implicit obedience of this
mysterious triumvirate, the Company is made the unconscious
instrument of measures most hostile to its own views, and most
fatal to its best interests. It may at any hour become the
medium of a secret order which may threaten the very destruction
of its empire. Such was the case with the war of Caboul. The
aristocratic government at home planned and ordered it; and the
unconscious Company was made at once to carry out a scheme so
atrocious, so wicked and unprincipled, as well as destructive
to its plans of civil economy, and to bear also the infamy of
it. Awaking, therefore, to the tremendous nature of the secret
powers thus introduced into their machinery by government, the
Company determined to exercise also a power happily intrusted to
_them_. Hence the recall of Lord Ellenborough, who, in obedience
to aristocratic views at home, was not only running headlong
over all their plans of pacific policy, but with his armies
and elephants was treading under foot their cotton and sugar
plantations. Hence, on the other hand, the favour and support
which this warlike lord finds with the great martial duke, and
the home government."

The policy of the European conquerors of India was fully illustrated during the gubernatorial term of Warren Hastings. Of his extortion the eloquent Macaulay says—

"The principle which directed all his dealings with his
neighbours is fully expressed by the old motto of one of the
great predatory families of Teviotdale—'Thou shalt want ere
I want,' He seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental
proposition which could not be disputed, that when he had not
as many lacs of rupees as the public service required, he was
to take them from anybody who had. One thing, indeed, is to
be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to him by his
employers at home was such as only the highest virtue could have
withstood—such as left him no choice except to commit great
wrongs, or to resign his high post, and with that post all his
hopes of fortune and distinction. It is perfectly true, that the
directors never enjoined or applauded any crime. Far from it.
Whoever examines their letters at that time will find there many
just and humane sentiments, many excellent precepts; in short, an
admirable circle of political ethics. But every exhortation is
modified or annulled by a demand for money. 'Govern leniently,
and send more money; practise strict justice and moderation
toward neighbouring powers, and send more money;' this is, in
truth, the sum of almost all the instructions that Hastings ever
received from home. Now these instructions, being interpreted,
mean simply, 'Be the father and the oppressor of the people; be
just and unjust, moderate and rapacious.' The directors dealt
with India as the church, in the good old times, dealt with a
heretic. They delivered the victim over to the executioners,
with an earnest request that all possible tenderness might be
shown. We by no means accuse or suspect those who framed these
despatches of hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen
thousand miles from the place where their orders were to be
carried into effect, they never perceived the gross inconsistency
of which they were guilty. But the inconsistency was at once
manifest to their lieutenant at Calcutta, who, with an empty
treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own salary often in
arrear, with deficient crops, with government tenants daily
running away, was called upon to remit home another half million
without fail. Hastings saw that it was absolutely necessary for
him to disregard either the moral discourses or the pecuniary
requisitions of his employers. Being forced to disobey them in
something, he had to consider what kind of disobedience they
would most readily pardon; and he correctly judged that the
safest course would be to neglect the sermons and to find the
rupees."

How were the rupees found? By selling provinces that had never belonged to the British dominions; by the destruction of the brave Rohillas of Rohilcund, in the support of the cruel tyrant, Surajah Dowlah, sovereign of Oude, of which terrible act Macaulay says—

"Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the fair
valleys and cities of Rohilcund; the whole country was in a
blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their
homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine and fever and
the haunts of tigers to the tyranny of him to whom an English
and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold their
substance and their blood, and the honour of their wives and
daughters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier,
and sent strong representations to Fort William; but the governor
had made no conditions as to the mode in which the war was to
be carried on. He had troubled himself about nothing but his
forty lacs; and, though he might disapprove of Surajah Dowlah's
wanton barbarity, he did not think himself entitled to interfere,
except by offering advice. This delicacy excites the admiration
of the reverend biographer. 'Mr. Hastings,' he says, 'could not
himself dictate to the Nabob, nor permit the commander of the
Company's troops to dictate how the war was to be carried on.'
No, to be sure. Mr. Hastings had only to put down by main force
the brave struggles of innocent men fighting for their liberty.
Their military resistance crushed, his duties ended; and he had
then only to fold his arms and look on while their villages were
burned, their children butchered, and their women violated."

By such a course of action, Warren Hastings made the British empire in India pay. By such means did the aristocrats, of whom the governor was the tool, obtain the money which would enable them to live in luxury.

"The servants of the Company obtained—not for their employers,
but for themselves—a monopoly of almost the whole internal
trade; they forced the natives to buy dear and sell cheap; they
insulted with perfect impunity the tribunals, the police, and
the fiscal authorities of the country; they covered with their
protection a set of native dependants, who ranged through the
provinces spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared.
Every servant of a British factor was armed with all the power
of his master, and his master was armed with all the power of
the Company. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at
Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to
the last extremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed
to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this; they
found the little finger of the Company thicker than the loins
of Surajah Dowlah. Under their old masters they had at least
one resource; when the evil became insupportable, they rose and
pulled down the government. But the English government was not
to be so shaken off. That government, oppressive as the most
oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was strong with all the
strength of civilization; it resembled the government of evil
genii rather than the government of human tyrants." * * *

"The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally objects of hatred
to all the neighbouring powers, and to all the haughty
race presented a dauntless front; their armies, everywhere
outnumbered, were everywhere victorious. A succession of
commanders, formed in the school of Clive, still maintained
the fame of their country. 'It must be acknowledged,' says
the Mussulman historian of those times, 'that this nation's
presence of mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted bravery are
past all question. They join the most resolute courage to the
most cautious prudence; nor have they their equal in the art of
ranging themselves in battle array and fighting in order. If to
so many military qualifications they knew how to join the arts of
government—if they exerted as much ingenuity and solicitude in
relieving the people of God as they do in whatever concerns their
military affairs, no nation in the world would be preferable to
them or worthier of command; but the people under their dominion
groan everywhere, and are reduced to poverty and distress. O God!
come to the assistance of thine afflicted servants, and deliver
them from the oppressions they suffer.'"

From the earliest times the "village system," with its almost patriarchal regulations, seems to have prevailed in Hindostan. Each village had its distinct organization, and over a certain number of villages, or a district, was an hereditary chief and an accountant, both possessing great local influence and authority, and certain estates.[106] The Hindoos were strongly attached to their native villages, and could only be forced to abandon them by the most constant oppressions. Dynasties might change and revolutions occur, but so long as each little community remained undisturbed, the Hindoos were contented. Mohammedan conquerors left this beautiful system, which had much more of genuine freedom than the British institutions at the present day, untouched. The English conquerors were not so merciful, although they were acquainted with Christianity. The destruction of local organizations and the centralization of authority, which is always attended with the increase of slavery,[107] have been the aims of English efforts. The principle that the government is the sole proprietor of the land, and therefore entitled to a large share of the produce, has been established, and slavery, to escape famine and misery, has become necessary to the Hindoos.

Exhaustion was the result of the excessive taxation laid upon the Hindoos by the East India Company. As the government became stinted for revenue, Lord Cornwallis was instructed to make a permanent settlement, by means of which all the rights of village proprietors over a large portion of Bengal were sacrificed in favour of the Zemindars, or head men, who were thus at once constituted great landed proprietors—masters of a large number of poor tenants, with power to punish at discretion those who were not able to pay whatever rent was demanded.[108] From free communities, the villages were reduced to the condition of British tenants-at-will. The Zemindaree system was first applied to Bengal. In Madras another system, called the Ryotwar, was introduced. This struck a fatal blow at the local organizations, which were the sources of freedom and happiness among the Hindoos. Government assumed all the functions of an immediate landholder, and dealt with the individual cultivators as its own tenants, getting as much out of them as possible.

The Zemindars are an unthrifty, rack-renting class, and take the uttermost farthing from the under-tenants. Oppressions and evictions are their constant employments; and since they have been constituted a landed aristocracy, they have fully acted out the character in the genuine British fashion.

Another tenure, called the Patnee, has been established of late years, by some of the great Zemindars, with the aid of government enactments, and it is very common in Bengal. The great Zemindar, for a consideration, makes over a portion of his estate in fee to another, subject to a perpetual rent, payable through the collector, who receives it on behalf of the zemindar; and if it is not paid, the interests of the patneedar are sold by the collector. These, again, have sub-patneedars, and the system has become very much in vogue in certain districts. The parties are like the Irish middlemen, and the last screws the tenant to the uttermost.[109]

During the British government of Bengal, wealth has been accumulated by a certain superior class, and population, cultivation, and the receipts from rent of land, have largely increased; but, as in England, the mass of the people are poor and degraded. In the rich provinces of Upper India, where the miserable landed system of the conquerors has been introduced, the results have been even more deplorable. Communities, once free, happy, and possessed of plenty, are now broken up, or subjected to such excessive taxation that their members are kept in poverty and slavery.

Colonel Sleeman, in his "Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official," records a conversation which he held with the head landholder of a village, organized under the Zemindar system. During the dialogue, some statements were made which are important for our purpose.

The colonel congratulated himself that he had given satisfactory replies to the arguments of the Zemindar, and accounted naturally for the evils suffered by the villagers. The reader will, doubtless, form a different opinion:—

"In the early part of November, after a heavy fall of rain, I
was driving alone in my buggy from Garmuktesin on the Ganges,
to Meerut. The roads were very bad, the stage a double one, and
my horse became tired and unable to go on. I got out at a small
village to give him a little rest and food; and sat down under
the shade of one old tree upon the trunk of another that the
storm had blown down, while my groom, the only servant I had with
me, rubbed down and baited my horse. I called for some parched
grain from the same shop which supplied my horse, and got a
draught of good water, drawn from the well by an old woman, in a
brass jug lent to me for the purpose by the shopkeeper.

"While I sat contentedly and happily stripping my parched grain
from its shell, and eating it grain by grain, the farmer, or head
landholder of the village, a sturdy old Rajpoot, came up and sat
himself, without any ceremony, down by my side, to have a little
conversation. [To one of the dignitaries of the land, in whose
presence the aristocracy are alone considered entitled to chairs,
this easy familiarity seems at first strange and unaccountable;
he is afraid that the man intends to offer him some indignity,
or what is still worse, mistakes him for something less than a
dignitary! The following dialogue took place:—]

"'You are a Rajpoot, and a Zemindar?' (landholder.)

"'Yes; I am the head landholder of this village.'

"'Can you tell me how that village in the distance is elevated
above the ground; is it from the debris of old villages, or from
a rock underneath?'

"'It is from the debris of old villages. That is the original
seat of all the Rajpoots around; we all trace our descent from
the founders of that village, who built and peopled it many
centuries ago.'

"'And you have gone on subdividing your inheritances here as
elsewhere, no doubt, till you have hardly any of you any thing to
eat?'

"'True, we have hardly any of us enough to eat; but that is the
fault of the government, that does not leave us enough—that
takes from us as much when the season is bad as when it is good!'

"'But your assessment has not been increased, has it?'

"'No; we have concluded a settlement for twenty years upon the
same footing as formerly.'

"'And if the sky were to shower down upon you pearls and
diamonds, instead of water, the government would never demand
more from you than the rate fixed upon?'

'No.'

"'Then why should you expect remissions in bad seasons?'

"'It cannot be disputed that the _burkut_ (blessing from above)
is less under you than it used to be formerly, and that the lands
yield less from our labour.'

"'True, my old friend, but do you know the reason why?'

"'No.'

"'Then I will tell you. Forty or fifty years ago, in what you
call the times of the _burkut_, (blessing from above,) the
cavalry of Seikh, free-booters from the Punjab, used to sweep
over this fine plain, in which stands the said village from which
you are all descended; and to massacre the whole population of
some villages; and a certain portion of that of every other
village; and the lands of those killed used to lie waste for want
of cultivators. Is not this all true?'

"'Yes, quite true.'

"'And the fine groves which had been planted over this plain by
your ancestors, as they separated from the great parent stock,
and formed independent villages and hamlets for themselves, were
all swept away and destroyed by the same hordes of free-booters,
from whom your poor imbecile emperors, cooped up in yonder large
city of Delhi, were utterly unable to defend you?'

"'Quite true,' said the old man with a sigh. 'I remember when
all this fine plain was as thickly studded with fine groves of
mango-trees as Rohilcund, or any other part of India.'

"'You know that the land requires rest from labour, as well as
men and bullocks; and that if you go on sowing wheat, and other
exhausting crops, it will go on yielding less and less returns,
and at last not be worth the tilling?'

"'Quite well.'

"'Then why do you not give the land rest by leaving it longer
fallow, or by a more frequent alternation of crops relieve it?'

"'Because we have now increased so much, that we should not get
enough to eat were we to leave it to fallow; and unless we tilled
it with exhausting crops we should not get the means of paying
our rents to government.'

"'The Seikh hordes in former days prevented this; they killed off
a certain portion of your families, and gave the land the _rest_
which you now refuse it. When you had exhausted one part, you
found another recovered by a long fallow, so that you had better
returns; but now that we neither kill you, nor suffer you to be
killed by others, you have brought all the cultivable lands into
tillage; and under the old system of cropping to exhaustion, it
is not surprising that they yield you less returns.'

"By this time we had a crowd of people seated around us upon the
ground, as I went on munching my parched grain and talking to the
old patriarch. They all laughed at the old man at the conclusion
of my last speech, and he confessed I was right.

"'This is all true, sir, but still your government is not
considerate; it goes on taking kingdom after kingdom and adding
to its dominions, without diminishing the burden upon us its old
subjects. Here you have had armies away taking Afghanistan, but
we shall not have one rupee the less to pay.'

"'True, my friend, nor would you demand a rupee less from those
honest cultivators around us, if we were to leave you all your
lands untaxed. You complain of the government—they complain of
you. [Here the circle around us laughed at the old man again.]
Nor would you subdivide the lands the less for having it rent
free; on the contrary, it would be every generation subdivided
the more, inasmuch as there would be more of local ties, and a
greater disinclination on the part of the members of families to
separate and seek service abroad.'

"'True, sir, very true; that is, no doubt, a very great evil.'

"'And you know it is not an evil produced by us, but one arising
out of your own laws of inheritance. You have heard, no doubt,
that with us the eldest son gets the whole of the land, and the
younger sons all go out in search of service, with such share as
they can get of the other property of their father?'

"'Yes, sir; but where shall we get service—you have none to give
us. I would serve to-morrow, if you would take me as a soldier,'
said he, stroking his white whiskers.

"The crowd laughed heartily, and some wag observed, 'that perhaps
I should think him too old.'

"'Well,' said the old man, smiling, 'the gentleman himself is
not very young, and yet I dare say he is a good servant of his
government.'

"This was paying me off for making the people laugh at his
expense. 'True, my old friend,' said I, 'but I began to serve
when I was young, and have been long learning.'

"'Very well,' said the old man; 'but I should be glad to serve
the rest of my life upon a less salary than you got when you
began to learn.'

"'Well, my friend, you complain of our government; but you must
acknowledge that we do all we can to protect you, though it is
true that we are often acting in the dark.'

"'Often, sir? you are always acting in the dark; you hardly any
of you know any thing of what your revenue and police officers
are doing; there is no justice or redress to be got without
paying for it; and it is not often that those who pay can get it.'

"'True, my old friend, that is bad all over the world. You cannot
presume to ask any thing even from the Deity himself, without
paying the priest who officiates in his temples; and if you
should, you would none of you hope to get from your deity what
you asked for.'

"Here the crowd laughed again, and one of them said 'that there
was certainly this to be said for our government, that the
European gentlemen themselves never took bribes, whatever those
under them might do.'

"'You must not be too sure of that neither. Did not the Lal
Beebee (red lady) get a bribe for soliciting the judge, her
husband, to let go Ameer Sing, who had been confined in jail?'

"'How did this take place?'

"'About three years ago Ameer Sing was sentenced to imprisonment,
and his friends spent a great deal of money in bribes to the
native officers of the court, but all in vain. At last they were
recommended to give a handsome present to the red lady. They did
so, and Ameer Sing was released.'

"'But did they give the present into the lady's own hand?'

"'No, they gave it to one of her women.'

"'And how do you know that she ever gave it to her mistress, or
that her mistress ever heard of the transaction?'

"'She might certainly have been acting without her mistress's
knowledge; but the popular belief is, that Lal Beebee got the
present.'

"I then told them the story of the affair at Jubbulpore, when
Mrs. Smith's name had been used for a similar purpose, and the
people around us were highly amused; and the old man's opinion of
the transaction evidently underwent a change.[110]

"We became good friends, and the old man begged me to have my
tents, which he supposed were coming up, pitched among them, that
he might have an opportunity of showing that he was not a bad
subject, though he grumbled against the government.

"The next day, at Meerut, I got a visit from the chief native
judge, whose son, a talented youth, is in my office. Among other
things, I asked him whether it might not be possible to improve
the character of the police by increasing the salaries of the
officers, and mentioned my conversation with the landholder.

"'Never, sir,' said the old gentleman; 'the man that now gets
twenty-five rupees a month, is contented with making perhaps
fifty or seventy-five more; and the people subject to his
authority pay him accordingly. Give him a hundred, sir, and he
will put a shawl over his shoulders, and the poor people will be
obliged to pay him at a rate which will make up his income to
four hundred. You will only alter his style of living, and make
him a greater burden to the people; he will always take as long
as he thinks he can with impunity.'

"'But do you not think that when people see a man adequately paid
by government, they will the more readily complain at any attempt
at unauthorized exactions?'

"'Not a bit, sir, as long as they see the same difficulties in
the way of prosecuting them to conviction. In the administration
of civil justice (the old gentleman is a civil judge) you may
occasionally see your way, and understand what is doing; but in
revenue and police you have never seen it in India, and never
will, I think. The officers you employ will all add to their
incomes by unauthorized means; and the lower their incomes, the
less their pretensions, and the less the populace have to pay.'"

In the "History of the Possessions of the Honourable East India Company," by R. Montgomery Martin, F. S. S., the following statements occur:—

"The following estimate has been made of the population of the
allied and independent states:—Hydrabad, 10,000,000; Oude,
6,000,000; Nagpoor, 3,000,000; Mysore, 3,000,000; Sattara,
1,500,000; Gurckwar, 2,000,000; Travancore and Cochin, 1,000,000;
Rajpootana, and various minor principalities, 16,500,000;
Sciudias territories, 4,000,000; the Seiks, 3,000,000; Nepál,
2,000,000; Cashmere, etc., 1,000,000; Scinde, 1,000,000; total,
51,000,000. This, of course, is but a rough estimate by Hamilton,
(Slavery in British India.) For the last forty years the East
India Company's government have been gradually, but safely,
abolishing slavery throughout their dominions; they began in
1789 with putting down the maritime traffic, by prosecuting any
person caught in exporting or importing slaves by sea, long
before the British government abolished that infernal commerce
in the Western world, and they have ever since sedulously sought
the final extinction of that domestic servitude which had long
existed throughout the East, as recognised by the Hindoo and
Mohammedan law. In their despatches of 1798, it was termed
'_an inhuman commerce and cruel traffic_.' French, Dutch, or
Danish subjects captured within the limit of their dominions in
the act of purchasing or conveying slaves were imprisoned and
heavily fined, and every encouragement was given to their civil
and military servants to aid in protecting the first rights of
humanity.

"Mr. Robertson,[111] in reference to Cawnpore,
observes:—'Domestic slavery exists; but of an agricultural slave
I do not recollect a single instance. When I speak of _domestic_
slavery, I mean that _status_ which I must call slavery for want
of any more accurate designation. It does not, however, resemble
that which is understood in Europe to be slavery; it is the
mildest species of servitude. The domestic slaves are certain
persons purchased in times of scarcity; children purchased
from their parents; they grow up in the family, and are almost
entirely employed in domestic offices in the house; not liable to
be resold.

"'There is a certain species of slavery in South Bahar, where
a man mortgages his labour for a certain sum of money; and this
species of slavery exists also in Arracan and Ava. It is for his
life, or until he shall pay the sum, that he is obliged to labour
for the person who lends him the money; and if he can repay the
sum, he emancipates himself.

"'Masters have no power of punishment recognised by our laws.
Whatever may be the provision of the Mohammedan or Hindoo
codes to that effect, it is a dead letter, for we would not
recognise it. The master doubtless may sometimes inflict
domestic punishment; but if he does, the slave rarely thinks
of complaining of it. Were he to do so his complaint would be
received.' This, in fact, is the palladium of liberty in England.

"In Malabar, according to the evidence of Mr. Baber, slavery, as
mentioned by Mr. Robertson, also exists, and perhaps the same
is the case in Guzerat and to the north; but the wonder is, not
that such is the case, but that it is so partial in extent, and
fortunately so bad in character, approximating indeed so much
toward the feudal state as to be almost beyond the reach as well
as the necessity of laws which at present would be practically
inoperative. The fact, that of 100,000,000 British inhabitants,
[or allowing five to a family, 20,000,000 families,] upward of
16,000,000 are landed proprietors, shows to what a confined
extent even domestic slavery exists. A commission has been
appointed by the new charter to inquire into this important but
delicate subject.'"

We have quoted this passage from a writer who is a determined advocate of every thing _British_, whether it be good or had, in order to show by his own admission that chattel slavery, that is the precise form of slavery of which the British express such a holy horror, exists in British India under the sanction of British laws. Nor does it exist to a small extent only, as he would have us believe. It has always existed there, and must necessarily be on the increase, from the very cause which he points out, viz. famine. No country in the world, thanks to British oppression, is so frequently and so extensively visited by famine as India; and as the natives can escape in many instances from starving to death by selling themselves, and can save their children by selling them into slavery, we can readily form an estimate of the great extent to which this takes place in cases of famine, where the people are perishing by thousands and tens of thousands. As to the statement that the government of the East India Company have been endeavouring to abolish this species of slavery, it proves any thing rather than a desire to benefit the natives of India. Chattel slaves are not desired by British subjects because the ownership of them involves the necessity of supporting them in sickness and old age. The kind of slavery which the British have imposed on the great mass of their East Indian subjects is infinitely more oppressive and inhuman than chattel slavery. Indeed it would not at all suit the views of the British aristocracy to have chattel slavery become so fashionable in India as to interfere with their own cherished system of political slavery, which is so extensively and successfully practised in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the West and East Indies. The money required for the support of chattel slaves could not be spared by the aristocratic governments in the colonies. The object is to take the fruits of the labourer's toil without providing for him at all. When labourers are part of a master's capital, the better he provides for them the more they are worth. When they are not property, the character of their subsistence is of no importance; but they must yield the greater part of the results of their toil.

The "salt laws" of India are outrageously oppressive. An account of their operation will give the reader a taste of the character of the legislation to which the British have subjected conquered Hindoos. Such an account we find in a recent number of "Household Words," which Lord Shaftesbury and his associates in luxury and philanthropy should read more frequently than we can suppose they do:—

"Salt, in India, is a government monopoly. It is partially
imported, and partially manufactured in government factories.
These factories are situated in dreary marshes—the workers
obtaining certain equivocal privileges, on condition of following
their occupation in these pestiferous regions, where hundreds of
these wretched people fall, annually, victims to the plague or
the floods.

"The salt consumed in India must be purchased through the
government, at a duty of upward of two pounds per ton, making the
price to the consumer about eight pence per pound. In England,
salt may be purchased by retail, three pounds, or wholesale, five
pounds for one penny; while in India, upward of thirty millions
of persons, whose average incomes do not amount to above three
shillings per week, are compelled to expend one-fourth of that
pittance in salt for themselves and families.

"It may naturally be inferred, that, with such a heavy duty upon
this important necessary of life, that underhand measures are
adopted by the poor natives for supplying themselves. We shall
see, however, by the following severe regulations, that the
experiment is too hazardous to be often attempted. Throughout
the whole country there are numerous 'salt chokies,' or police
stations, the superintendents of which are invested with powers
of startling and extraordinary magnitude.

"When information is lodged with such superintendent that salt is
stored in any place without a '_ruwana_,' or permit, he proceeds
to collect particulars of the description of the article, the
quantity stated to be stored, and the name of the owner of the
store. If the quantity stated to be stored exceeds seventy
pounds, he proceeds with a body of police to make the seizure.
If the door is not opened to him at once, he is invested with
full power to break it open; and if the police-officers exhibit
the least backwardness in assisting, or show any sympathy with
the unfortunate owner, they are liable to be heavily fined. The
owner of the salt, with all persons found upon the premises,
are immediately apprehended, and are liable to six months'
imprisonment for the first offence, twelve for the second, and
eighteen months for the third; so that if a poor Indian was to
see a shower of salt in his garden, (there _are_ showers of
salt sometimes,) and to attempt to take advantage of it without
paying duty, he would become liable to this heavy punishment.
The superintendent of police is also empowered to detain and
search trading vessels, and if salt be found on board without
a permit, the whole of the crew may be apprehended and tried
for the offence. Any person erecting a distilling apparatus in
his own house, merely to distil enough sea-water for the use
of his household, is liable to such a fine as may ruin him.
In this case, direct proof is not required, but inferred from
circumstances at the discretion of the judge.

"If a person wishes to erect a factory upon his own estate,
he must first give notice to the collector of revenue of all
the particulars relative thereto, failing which, the collector
may order all the works to be destroyed. Having given notice,
officers are immediately quartered upon the premises, who
have access to all parts thereof, for fear the company should
be defrauded of the smallest amount of duty. When duty _is_
paid upon any portion, the collector, upon giving a receipt,
specifies the name and residence of the person to whom it is to
be delivered, to whom it _must_ be delivered within a stated
period, or become liable to fresh duty. To wind up, and make
assurance doubly sure, the police may seize and detain any load
or package which may pass the stations, till they are satisfied
such load or package does not contain contraband salt.

"Such are the salt laws of India; such the monopoly by which
a revenue of three millions sterling is raised; and such the
system which, in these days of progress and improvement, acts as
an incubus upon the energies, the mental resources, and social
advancement of the immense population of India.

"Political economists of all shades of opinion—men who have well
studied the subject—deliberately assert that nothing would tend
so much toward the improvement of that country, and to a more
complete development of its vast natural resources, than the
abolition of these laws; and we can only hope, without blaming
any one, that at no distant day a more enlightened policy will
pervade the councils of the East India Company, and that the poor
Hindoo will be emancipated from the thraldom of these odious
enactments.

"But apart from every other consideration, there is one,
in connection with the Indian salt-tax, which touches the
domestic happiness and vital interest of every inhabitant in
Great Britain. It is decided, by incontrovertible medical
testimony, that cholera (whose ravages every individual among
us knows something, alas! too well about) is in a great measure
engendered, and its progress facilitated, by the prohibitory
duties on salt in India, the very cradle of the pestilence. Our
precautionary measures to turn aside the plague from our doors,
appear to be somewhat ridiculous, while the plague itself is
suffered to exist, when it might be destroyed—its existence
being tolerated only to administer to the pecuniary advantage
of a certain small class of the community. Let the medical men
of this country look to it. Let the people of this country
generally look to it; for there is matter for grave and solemn
consideration, both nationally and individually, in the Indian
salt-tax."

Yes, the salt-tax is very oppressive; but it _pays_ those who authorized its assessment, and that is sufficient for them. When they discover some means of obtaining its equivalent—some oppression quite as cruel but not so obvious—we may expect to hear of the abolition of the odious salt monopoly.

Famines (always frightfully destructive in India) have become more numerous than ever, under the blighting rule of the British aristocrats. Vast tracts of country, once the support of busy thousands, have been depopulated by these dreadful visitations.

"The soil seems to lie under a curse. Instead of yielding
abundance for the wants of its own population and the inhabitants
of other regions, it does not keep in existence its own children.
It becomes the burying-place of millions who die upon its bosom
crying for bread. In proof of this, turn your eyes backward upon
the scenes of the past year. Go with me into the North-west
provinces of the Bengal presidency, and I will show you the
bleaching skeletons of five hundred thousand human beings, who
perished of hunger in the space of a few short months. Yes,
died of hunger, in what has been justly called the granary of
the world. Bear with me, if I speak of the scenes which were
exhibited during the prevalence of this famine. The air for miles
was poisoned by the effluvia emitted from the putrefying bodies
of the dead. The rivers were choked with the corpses thrown
into their channels. Mothers cast their little ones beneath the
rolling waves, because they would not see them draw their last
gasp and feel them stiffen in their arms. The English in the
cities were prevented from taking their customary evening drives.
Jackals and vultures approached, and fastened upon the bodies
of men, women, and children before life was extinct. Madness,
disease, despair stalked abroad, and no human power present to
arrest their progress. It was the carnival of death. And this
occurred in British India—in the reign of Victoria the First.
Nor was the event extraordinary and unforeseen. Far from it:
1835-36 witnessed a famine in the Northern provinces; 1833 beheld
one to the eastward; 1822-23 saw one in the Deccan."

The above extract from one of George Thompson's "Lectures on India," conveys an idea of the horrors of a famine in that country. What then must be the guilt of that government that adopts such measures as tend to increase the frequency and swell the horror of these scenes! By draining the resources of the people, and dooming them to the most pinching poverty, the British conquerors have greatly increased the dangers of the visitations of famine, and opened to it a wide field for destruction. The poor Hindoos may be said to live face to face with starvation. The following account of the famine of 1833 is given by Colonel Sleeman, in his "Rambles and Recollections:"—

"During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain
of every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large
streams from this favoured province (Malwa) toward Bundelcund;
and the population of Bundelcund, as usual in such times of
dearth and scarcity, flowed off toward Malwa against the stream
of supply, under the assurance that the nearer they got to the
source the greater would be their chance of employment and
subsistence. Every village had its numbers of the dead and the
dying; and the roads were all strewed with them; but they were
mostly concentrated upon the great towns, and civil and military
stations, where subscriptions were open for their support by
both the European and native communities. The funds arising from
these subscriptions lasted till the rain had fairly set in, when
all able-bodied persons could easily find employment in tillage
among the agricultural communities of the villages around.
After the rains have fairly set in, the _sick_ and _helpless_
only should be kept concentrated upon large towns and stations,
where little or no employment is to be found; for the oldest
and youngest of those who are able to work can then easily find
employment in weeding the cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and other
fields under autumn crops, and in preparing the land for the
reception of the wheat, grain, and other spring seeds; and get
advances from the farmers, agricultural capitalists, and other
members of the village communities, who are all glad to share
their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay liberally for
the little service they are able to give in return.

"At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated, the
scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for in spite of the best
dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of government and
its officers, and the European and native communities, thousands
commonly die of starvation. At Saugor, mothers, as they lay in
the streets unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants,
and imploring the passing stranger to take them in slavery,
that they might at least live—hundreds were seen creeping into
gardens, courtyards, and old ruins, concealing themselves under
shrubs, grass, mats, or straw, where they might die quietly,
without having their bodies torn by birds and beasts before the
breath had left them! Respectable families, who left home in
search of the favoured land of Malwa, while yet a little property
remained, finding all exhausted, took opium rather than beg, and
husband, wife, and children died in each other's arms! Still more
of such families lingered on in hope until all had been expended;
then shut their doors, took poison, and died all together,
rather than expose their misery, and submit to the degradation
of begging. All these things I have myself known and seen; and
in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes which
present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail to
remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit
to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting
acts which have characterized the famines of which he has read
in other countries—such as the living feeding on the dead,
and mothers devouring their own children. No such things are
witnessed in Indian famines; here all who suffer attribute the
disaster to its real cause, the want of rain in due season; and
indulge in no feelings of hatred against their rulers, superiors,
or more fortunate equals in society, who happen to live beyond
the influence of such calamities. They gratefully receive the
superfluities which the more favoured are always found ready to
share with the afflicted in India; and though their sufferings
often subdue the strongest of all pride—the pride of caste,
they rarely ever drive people to acts of violence. The stream of
emigration, guided as it always is by that of the agricultural
produce flowing in from the more favoured countries, must
necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it
takes a greater number of people than they have the means of
relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say,
that I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than
seems to animate all classes of these communities in India on
such distressing occasions."

The same writer has some judicious general remarks upon the causes of famine in India, which are worthy of quotation. We have only to add, that whatever may be found in the climate and character of the country that expose the people to the frequency of want, the conquerors have done their best to aggravate natural evils:—

"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous
consequences than in Europe. In England, not more than one-fourth
of the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of
the land around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes,
independent of the annual returns from those lands; and with
these incomes they can purchase agricultural produce from other
lands when the crops upon them fail. The farmers, who form so
large a portion of the fourth class, have stock equal in value
to _four times the amount of the annual rent of their lands_.
They have also a great variety of crops; and it is very rare
that more than one or two of them fail, or are considerably
affected, the same season. If they fail in one district or
province, the deficiency is very easily supplied to people who
have equivalents to give for the produce of another. The sea,
navigable rivers, fine roads, all are open and ready at all times
for the transport of the super-abundance of one quarter to supply
the deficiencies of another. In India the reverse of all this
is unhappily everywhere to be found; more than three-fourths of
the whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land,
and depend upon its annual returns for subsistence. The farmers
and cultivators have none of them stock equal in value to more
than _half the amount of the annual rents of their lands_. They
have a great variety of crops; but all are exposed to the same
accidents, and commonly fail at the same time. The autumn crops
are sown in June and July, and ripen in October and November;
and if seasonable showers do not fall in July, August, and
September, all fail. The spring crops are sown in October and
November, and ripen in March; and if seasonable showers do not
happen to fall during December or January, all, save what are
artificially irrigated, fail. If they fail in one district or
province, the people have few equivalents to offer for a supply
of land produce from any other. Their roads are scarcely anywhere
passable for wheeled carriages at _any season_, and nowhere _at
all seasons_—they have nowhere a navigable canal, and only in
one line a navigable river. Their land produce is conveyed upon
the backs of bullocks, that move at the rate of six or eight
miles a day, and add one hundred per cent. to the cost for every
hundred miles they carry it in the best seasons, and more than
two hundred in the worst. What in Europe is felt merely as a
_dearth_, becomes in India, under all these disadvantages, a
_scarcity_; and what is there a _scarcity_ becomes here a famine."

Another illustration of the truth that poverty is the source of crime and depravity is found in India. Statistics and the evidence of recent travellers show that the amount of vice in the different provinces is just in proportion to the length of time they have been under British rule. No stronger proof of the iniquity of the government—of its poisonous tendencies as well as positive injustice—could be adduced.

The cultivation and exportation of the pernicious drug, opium, which destroys hundreds of thousands of lives annually, have latterly been prominent objects of the East Indian government. The best tracts of land in India were chosen for the cultivation of the poppy. The people were told that they must either raise this plant, make opium, or give up their land. Furthermore, those who produced the drug were compelled to sell it to the Company. In the Bengal Presidency, the monopoly of the government is complete. It has its establishment for the manufacture of the drug. There are two great agencies at Ghazeepore and Patna, for the Benares and Bahar provinces. Each opium agent has several deputies in different districts, and a native establishment. They enter into contracts with the cultivator for the supply of opium at a rate fixed to suit the demand. The land-revenue authorities do not interfere, except to prevent cultivation without permission. The land cultivated is measured, and all the produce must be sold to the government. At the head agency the opium is packed in chests and sealed with the Company's seal.[112]