the more afraid of it, because the plausible and specious appearance with which it comes forward is likely to render its hostility so much the more efficient and destructive. It accosts us with a language of this sort" We all mean the same thing we all wish Christianity and moral improvement to be communicated to the natives of India: but we are afraid of the effects which will be produced in India by the appearance of your proposed clause on the statute book. Government may grant licences to persons to go over to India for religious purposes, as well as any others, under the general powers to be granted to them by the Bill. We must, therefore, resist your clause."

has treated the whole of this subject with extraordinary discretion and ability, the natives, if they should read the clause, which, however, is a highly improbable occurrence, will find in it, and find I believe for the first time expressed in terms, a clear recognition, an effectual security, of their right to preserve their religious principles and institutions sacred and inviolate. The clause thus framed, will therefore produce satisfaction among them rather than discontent, on that very subject of religion.

But, Sir, it is an additional argument, and with me I confess a very powerful one, for retaining this clause, that though the general power of granting licences with which the friends of the hon. baronet's If what has been already stated to the motion would have us be satisfied, might House should not have sufficed for dispel- provide sufficient openings for the sending ling any apprehensions of a dangerous fer- over of missionaries to India, and for the ment being produced in the public mind employment of them there, so long as of India, by the existence in the statute they should conduct themselves properly; book of the clause we have now proposed, which, however, I utterly deny; yet I all such fears will, I think, be removed, beg the House ever to bear in mind, that when I shall have read an extract from my friends and I have far more in view in one of the volumes on your table, con- the measure we have been recommending, cerning the extreme difficulty that is ex- than merely the sending over and mainperienced in India, in diffusing the most in- tenance of missionaries. I beg they will teresting intelligence throughout the mass recollect what I stated in one of the first of the people. Our opponents will assign sentences which I addressed to you, that more weight to the extract, because it is it is not merely for the purpose of enabling taken from Judge Strachey's Answers to government to grant licences to missionaries lord Wellesley's Interrogatories, "I take that I support the present clause, but bethis opportunity," says he, " of remarking, cause, especially when taken in conjuncthat to render generally known any penal tion with the Resolution on which, accordlaw, is extremely difficult, particularly ing to the usage of parliament, it is foundamong the lower orders of the people. ed; by affirming the duty of enlightenTill they see the effect of it, they remain ing the minds and improving the morals ignorant of it; and this in spite of ad- of our East Indian fellow-subjects, it estavertisements and proclamations. News blishes the principle; it lays the ground and information of all kinds are, in Ben- for promoting education among them, and gal, slowly and inaccurately transmitted for diffusing useful knowledge of all kinds. from one to another. Among us, events When truth and reason, so long excluded obtain publicity through the means of pe- from that benighted land, shall once more riodical prints, of epistolary correspond- obtain access to it, (and we are this day enence, and of verbal communication. Among gaged in the great work of breaking down the natives, there is nothing of the two that barrier which has hitherto substanfirst, and even of the other hardly any*" tially and practically excluded them), the After hearing the above extract, the understandings of the natives will begin House will not, I think, participate in the to exert their powers; and their minds, apprehensions which some gentlemen seem once enlightened, will instinctively reject to entertain, that the mere insertion of the profane absurdities of their theolothis clause into our statute book may pro-gical, and the depraving vices of their duce a dangerous commotion among the moral system. Thus they will be preparnative population of India. Besides, Sir, ed for the reception of Christianity, for as has been well remarked by my noble friend, (lord Castlereagh) who, in truth,

* Answer from Judge Strachey to Interrogatories, 30th Jan. 1802.

Christianity is a reasonable service," and then, we may appeal to the moral superiority of Christian Europe in modern times, in comparison with that of the most polished pagan communities, for the

blessed effects which may be expected to follow on their moral, their social, and, above all, their domestic comfort.

But, Sir, to return to the question concerning the necessity of retaining our clause; I cannot but hope, after all we have heard in the course of our discussions, and more especially after what has passed subsequently to the hon. baronet's motion for leaving out our clause; after all this, I repeat it, I cannot but indulge the hope, that all those at least, who were disposed to leave our clause out of the Bill, on the ground of its being unnecessary, if not dangerous, will at length discover, that some such clause as this is absolutely indispensable for accomplishing the desire, which they profess in common with us, of furnishing the means of introducing Christianity into India. Indeed, it ought to open their eyes to the real practical effect of their own amendment, that they who are the most decidedly hostile to the introduction of Christianity into India, so readily assent to it, or rather so warmly support it.

gued by the writer just alluded to; the guilt, if any, of not having favoured the endeavours of individuals to convert the natives of India, was not justly chargeable on the East India Company's directors, nor yet on the Board of Controul, but on the legislature, which prescribed to both the principles on which the government in India was to be conducted, but said not one syllable about religion or morals. And if the present Act, like the former, were to leave religion and morals unmentioned, the same inference might fairly be drawn from the silence of the legislature; but with greatly increased force, since the enemies of East India missions would truly state, that the subject, which had formerly attracted little attention, had now been long under the consideration of parliament; and that, in the House of Commons especially, it had occasioned much debate. They would allege, that the advocates for the religious and moral improvement of India had maintained that the moral degradation of our East Indian fellow-subjects, and their perniBut, Sir, let me ask, do they not see that cious and cruel institutions, rendered it if the clause be left out, the act of parlia- eminently desirable that we should endeament will contain no mention whatever of vour to impart to them a purer system religion or morals? no recognition of its of faith and morals; that the attempt being our duty to endeavour to communi- was perfectly practicable, and that it cate to our East Indian fellow-subjects the might be made with safety, nay even with blessings of Christian light and moral im- advantage to our political interests;provement? That recognition will still, that, on the other hand, our opponents had I grant, be contained in the resolution of maintained, that we were bringing forthe House of Commons, as well as in that ward an unnecessary, nay a most perniof the House of Lords; but let me ask, cious project; that the principles of the will not this be precisely the situation in Hindoo religion were eminently pure, which the cause has stood, and stood, their practice superior to our own; but, alas! to no purpose, for the last twenty were this more doubtful, that the endeayears? For on the renewal of the char-vour could not be made without endanter in 1793, both Houses of Parliament, as has been repeatedly stated, passed, and have ever since kept on their Journals, a Resolution similar to that which we have now adopted. But, as was unanswerably urged in defence of the Court of Directors, by one of the ablest and most active opponents of all attempts to convert the natives of India, this recognition, being only contained in the Votes of the two Houses, but not in the act of the legislature, the executive body, whose business it was to carry into execution what parliament had prescribed by that Act, could not be chargeable with neglecting any duty which that statute had ordained, when, so far from favouring, they rather thwarted and hindered the attempts of the mission. aries. The guilt, as was irresistibly ar

gering the very existence of our empire in India. Such, I say, it would be alleged, had been the state of the argument, and it would be added irresistibly, that parliament had shewn, by rejecting the clause which had been offered by the advocates for Christianity in India, that it disapproved the project they had proposed.

If any thing more could then be needed to supply additional force to the above argument, it would be the language which has at length been used by the ablest of our opponents. For happily, Sir, in the progress of our discussions, they have warmed in their course, one of them especially, to whose abilities and eloquence I pay no unwilling testimony, though I must say that he has imposed on himself a task which exceeds his, or indeed any

Mr. Prendergast repeated the arguments he had urged on a former night against the principle upon which the preamble was framed, and contended that the introduction of men with heated imaginations into India, under the title of Missionaries, would be attended with the most mis

that he had heard Dr. Carey, on a bogshead, exhorting the Hindoos, and telling them that hell's flames would certainly be their portion if they did not become Christians. The attempt to convert the Hindoos was the most absurd infatuation that ever besotted the weakest mind,

human abilites, in undertaking to reconcile the manifest inconsistency, of feeling the highest respect for Christianity, and of preserving at the same time any measure of reverence for the Hindoo religion, which, both in its theology and its morals, Christianity utterly abjures and condemns. The hon. gentleman, how-chievous consequences. He re-asserted, ever, has spoken out; (I thank him for it ;) and has relieved the question from all ambiguity, speaking in terms of high admiration of the excellence and sublimity of the Hindoo religion, and pretty plainly intimating that we, who are endeavouring to substitute Christianity in the place of it, are actuated by a zeal the most fanatical and absurd. Indeed, he frankly acknowledged to us, that he had it once in contemplation to move a clause, expressly forbidding all further attempts of Christian missionaries, leaving us to conclude that he abstained from so doing merely on prudential grounds. All this may be right, or it may be wrong; but after such sentiments have been uttered, and after the exulting approbation with which they were received by our opponents in general, let it no longer be said that we are all of one mind, all wishing alike for the diffusion of Christianity in India, but only differing as to the mode of accomplishing that desirable event. No, Sir; the question is now put on its true basis, and it clearly appears to be no other than this, whether, as Christianity is the religion of the British empire in Europe, the religion of Brahma and Vishnoo is not to be the acknowledged system of our Asiatic dominions.

Mr. J. H. Smyth said, that the hon. gen. tleman who had spoken second in the debate, in supposing that government wanted to patronize missionaries going out to India, had misunderstood the plain meaning of the Resolution, as no such proceeding on the part of government was in contemplation. With regard to the mutiny at Vellore, he denied that the melancholy transaction was at all attributable to an attempt to introduce Christianity among the troops, but was solely to be ascribed to other causes, namely, to an order which had been given to remove the marks of their caste, than which nothing could be more degrading to a Hindoo. With respect to the argument of the invincibility of the prejudices of the natives, he said a sufficient answer had been afforded to this by the admirable effects which had resulted from the exertions of colonel Walker, in putting an end to the crime of infanticide, which had, before his interference, existed for centuries.

I beg pardon, Sir, for having trespassed Mr. Marryat expressed his surprise that so long on the indulgence of the House: the duty imposed by this clause on misbut the subject is one, the importance of sionaries, was not also imposed on the which can scarcely be over-estimated. bishop and archdeacons who were proIf, Sir, a British judge and jury, the for-posed to go to India, in a subsequent mer often at an advanced period of life, after a long course of professional labours, will sit patiently for more than an entire day to decide whether the life of some criminal shall be forfeited to the offended laws of his country; nay, even to settle some doubtful question of property; how much less will you grudge, even to me, a still larger portion of your time and attention than I have presumed to occupy, when you consider, that the question which we are now deciding involves not the prospe Mr. Forbes pointed out the certain ill rity, not the life merely of an individual, effects which would result from this clause, but the religious and moral inserests, the and said that the natives of India were now temporal at once and the eternal well-watching every ship for the arrival of the being, of 60 millions of our fellow creatures! Bill which was to constitute their future

clause. That there were many dignified clergymen of the established church prepared to pursue so laudable a design as the conversion of the Indians, he had not a doubt; and as he was not disposed to pay the missionaries a compliment at the expence of the church of England, he should not vote for the insertion of the preamble, unless it was also applied to the clause respecting the appointment of the bishops.

government. The moment it arrived it | Christian parliament could not do less-a would be translated into their language and British parliament could not do more. they would study it with peculiar earnest- The House then divided, when there ness. The result they would draw from the proposed preamble would be, that the British government intended to force them to adopt the Christian religion, and hence would arise a spirit of dissatisfaction that would not terminate till the British authority in India was annihilated.