PREFACE. THE following pages contain such further arguments, in support of the expediency of permitting the colonization of British subjects in India, as have been suggested by further observation, inquiry, and reflection, and by the books and documents which have been published, or which have come to my knowledge, since the "Inquiry" was written, (1820). That free scope will soon be given to the industry of British subjects and their descendants, in India, I am firmly persuaded; and the signs of the times sanction the sanguine anticipations which I entertained, on that subject, eight years ago. The only instance, in which I have found occasion to modify former views or statements, is in what relates to the condition of the Ryots, which appears generally to approach much more nearly to that of tenants at will than to that of privileged occupants, as they are commonly supposed to be, or of leasehold farmers, as it was predicted, by Mr. Colebrooke, that they would become.* To those at all acquainted with this controversy it is needless to say that what is meant by the colonization of India is something as different from the colonization * See Inquiry, p. 167, 178-181. of Canada as the emancipation of the Irish Catholics differs from the emancipation of the Greeks. It never was imagined that any part of the redundant labouring population of England or Ireland could find relief by emigrating to India; but that British landlords, farmers, traders, and artizans, of every description, would rapidly and indefinitely advance the agricultural and commercial interests of India, give stability and vigour to the local government, and conciliate the attachment while they raised the character of the native inhabitants. A note, however, in the Edinburgh Review, (No. XC. p.346,) must have widely disseminated a singular misapprehension on the subject of the colonization of India. The reviewer admits that the author of a work on that subject is "right in point of 66 principle."-" But he has prodigiously 66 66 exaggerated its importance. A few land speculators might emigrate to India; but "it is ridiculous to suppose that there can "be any considerable or really advantageous "emigration to a country where the wages of “labour do not exceed three pence a-day." If the reviewer can show that I calculated on the emigration of a single ploughman, or day-labourer, or point out wherein I have overstated the advantages derivable from the intelligence and energy of many Englishmen already in India, as well as of the kind of emigrants intended by me, and generally understood by all who enter into the discussion, I shall admit that I am chargeable with exaggeration; but, if he * * See Inquiry, p. 219-223, 295. cannot, it will be for the reader to judge whether the Reviewer has not prodi 66 "giously" under-rated those advantages, and mistaken the whole ground and bearings of the question. In conceding the "principle," the Reviewer has conceded all that is required. Nothing more is required than that Englishmen should be free to expend their own money, and apply their own ingenuity and labour in cultivating the resources of India. No greater or more complicated effort is required from the British Parliament than that it should give to Englishmen the liberty of unlicensed resort to and residence in India, with the right of trial by jury in all cases. Without such indispensable protection, no Englishman will invest capital in agricultural* The name of "Indigo planter" may mislead some into a |