Thus has England come in possession of one of the oldest and most powerful of the Oriental empires, containing a population of one hundred and thirty millions of people, speaking various languages, and wedded irrecoverably to different social and religious institutions. Consequences of the Conquest. The conquest of India is complete, and there is not a valuable office in the whole country which is not held by an Englishman. The native and hereditary princes of provinces, separately larger and more populous than Great Britain itself, are divested of all but the shadow of power, and receive stipends from the East India Company. The Emperor of Delhi, the Nabobs of Bengal and the Carnatic, the Rajahs of Tanjore and Benares, and the Princes of the house of Tippoo, and other princes, receive, indeed, an annual support of over a million sterling; but their power has passed away. An empire two thousand miles from east to west, and eighteen hundred from north to south, and containing more square miles than a territory larger than all the States between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, has fallen into the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is true that a considerable part of Hindostan is nominally held by subsidiary allies, under the protection of the British government; but the moment that these dependent princes cease to be useful, this protection will be withdrawn. There can be no reasonable doubt that the English rule is beneficent in many important respects. Order and law are better observed than formerly under the Mohammedan dynasty; but no compensation is sufficient, in the eyes of the venerable Brahmin, for interference in the laws and religion of the country. India has been robbed by the armies of European merchants, and is only held in bondage by an overwhelming military force, which must be felt as burdensome and expensive when the plundered country shall no longer satisfy the avarice of commercial corporations. But that day may be remote. Calcutta now rivals in splendor and importance the old capital of the Great Mogul. The palace of the governor-general is larger than Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; the stupendous fortifications of Fort William rival the fortress of Gibraltar; the Anglo-Indian army amounts to two hundred thousand men; while the provinces of India are taxed, directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen millions of pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies of India, or the duration of the English power. The future is ever full of gloom, when scarcely any thing is noticeable but injustice and oppression on the part of rulers, and poverty and degradation among the governed. It is too much to suppose that one hundred and eighty millions of the human race can be permanently governed by a power on the opposite side of the globe, and where there never can exist any union or sympathy between the nation that rules and the nations that are ruled, in any religious, social, or political institution; and when all that is dear to the heart of man, and all that is consecrated by the traditions of ages, are made to subserve the interests of a mercantile state.
But it is time to hasten to the consideration of the remaining subjects connected with the administration of William Pitt.
The agitations of moral reformers are among the most prominent and interesting. The efforts of benevolent statesmen and philanthropists to abolish the slave trade produced a great excitement throughout Christendom, and were followed by great results.
In 1787, William Wilberforce, who represented the great county of York, brought forward, in the House of Commons, a motion for the abolition of the slave trade. The first public movements to put a stop to this infamous traffic were made by the Quakers in the Southern States of America, who presented petitions for that purpose to their respective legislatures. Their brethren in England followed their example, and presented similar petitions to the House of Commons. A society was formed, and a considerable sum was raised to collect information relative to the traffic, and to support the expense of application to parliament. A great resistance was expected and made, chiefly by merchants and planters. Mr. Wilberforce interested himself greatly in this investigation, and in May brought the matter before parliament, and supported his motion with overwhelming arguments and eloquence. Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. William Smith, and Mr. Whitbread supported Mr. Wilberforce. Mr. Pitt defended the cause of abolition with great eloquence and power; but the House was not then in favor of immediate abolition, nor was it carried until Mr. Fox and his friends came into power.
The War with France. war with France, in consequence of the progress of the revolution, is too great a subject to be treated except in a chapter by itself. Mr. Pitt abstained from all warlike demonstrations until the internal tranquillity of England itself was affected by the propagation of revolutionary principles. But when, added to these, it was feared that the French were resolved to extend their empire, and overturn the balance of power, and encroach on the liberties of England, then Pitt, sustained by an overwhelming majority in parliament, declared war upon France, (1793.) The advocates of the French Revolution, however, take different views, and attribute the rise and career of Napoleon to the jealousy and encroachments of England herself, as well as of Austria and Prussia. Whether the general European war might not have been averted, is a point which merits inquiry, and on which British statesmen are not yet agreed. But the connection of England with this great war will be presented in the following chapter.
Mr. Pitt continued to manage the helm of state until 1806; but all his energies were directed to the prosecution of the war, and no other events of importance took place during his administration.
His genius most signally was displayed in his Policy of Pitt. financial skill in extricating his nation from the great embarrassments which resulted from the American war, and in providing the means to prosecute still more expensive campaigns against Napoleon and his generals. He also had unrivalled talent in managing the House of Commons against one of the most powerful oppositions ever known, and in a period of great public excitements. He was always ready in debate, and always retained the confidence of the nation. He is probably the greatest of the English statesmen, so far as talents are concerned, and so far as he represented the ideas and sentiments of his age. But it is a question which will long perplex philosophers whether he was the wisest of that great constellation of geniuses who enlightened his brilliant age. To him may be ascribed the great increase of the national debt. If taxes are the greatest calamity which can afflict a nation, then Pitt has entailed a burden of misery which will call forth eternal curses on his name, in spite of all the brilliancy of his splendid administration. But if the glory and welfare of nations consist in other things—in independence, patriotism, and rational liberty; if it was desirable, above all material considerations, to check the current of revolutionary excess, and oppose the career of a man who aimed to bring all the kings and nations of Europe under the yoke of an absolute military despotism, and rear a universal empire on the ruins of ancient monarchies and states,—then Pitt and his government should be contemplated in a different light.
That mighty contest which developed the energies of this great statesman, as well as the genius of a still more remarkable man, therefore claims our attention.
References.—Tomline's Life of Pitt. Belsham's History of George III. Prior's and Bissett's Lives of Burke. Moore's Life of Sheridan. Walpole's Life of Fox. Life of Wilberforce, by his sons. Annual Register, from 1783 to 1806. Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. Elphinstone's and Martin's Histories of India. Mill's British India. Russell's Modern Europe. Correspondence of Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke. Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Boswell's Life of Johnson. Burke's Works. Schlosser's Modern History.[(Back to Contents)]