appeal to the King in Council. And also a petition, to be agreed upon or sanctioned by a public meeting, praying that the power of taxing and levying penalties should be taken from the Government and the Supreme Court, and exercised by Parliament alone, unless the inhabitants of Calcutta, who are deemed qualified to pay, should also be deemed qualified to grant. And lastly, if the penalties of the Act should be attempted to be enforced without registration, I would advise a legal resistance to such attempt, the expenses to be defrayed by public subscription; and an appeal from the decision, if adverse, from the Court's deeming that it had no jurisdiction or any other reason, and the case were appealable; and a petition, nearly similar in its prayer to that which I have mentioned, except that it might be added by way of alternative, that if the Legislature thought fit still to intrust the Government with the power, it should at least interpose the necessity of registration in the Supreme Court. Calcutta 1st March, 1827. (Signed) () To this, in the way of legal argument, nothing can be added. But we cannot resist the opportunity to close this series of observations and documents on a question of so much public interest in India at the present moment, by the remarks of an intelligent writer on the spot, and one more closely connected with the Government than many would imagine; yet, as will be seen, sufficiently identifying himself with the people to prevent his own commanding position from absorbingt all sympathy with theirs. He says: 'The petition of the inhabitants of Calcutta against this first attempt at unlimited taxation is before the Vice-Government, which has referred it to the Governor-General in the Upper Provinces. The Vice-Governor is, I believe, sincerely desirous of doing away the thing, as ill-timed and inconvenient to all; but without sacrificing the principle of our having the right to tax, how, and when, and to what extent we please. Lord Amherst, on the other hand, is attended by Holt Mackenzie, in quality of dry-nurse; and as this great financier happens to be the parent of the tax in question, and perhaps the most arbitrary-minded man under the shelter of quiet manners, that ever cursed a country, he does not choose to give up his child, the tax,-still less to yield to any such insolence as petitioning, from men who have nothing to do with the laws but obey them! The independent inhabitants, on the other side, that is, every European out of our service, and all the Natives who enjoy the protection of the Supreme Court and English laws and privileges, (when not expressly deprived of them by express Act of Parliament,) stand out on the principle, that this trading Government of a leasehold Company, having sinister interests, diametrically opposed in all matters of revenue to the governed, shall not be at liberty to tax, without limitation, without their consent, without even their knowledge of what is impending, without opportunity of opposing, or delaying, or appealing, without proof of necessity, without control over outlay of the taxes. They will not believe Parliament can contemplate giving such hideous power into the hands of three or four men, two of whom are strangers, with little know ledge or real influence, two devoted servants to the common enemy, (for so "our honourable masters," the Company, is most unceremoniously termed,) possessing, with their corps of functionaries and aspirant successors at their backs, the whole real power of the state. 'Our favourite argument (they say) is, "Why should Europeans, or Calcutta Natives, be exempt from taxes inflicted on those who live without the Mahratta Ditch?" And to this they reply, 1st, It does not follow that because A is unjustly or cruelly treated, an argument is furnished for depriving B of exemption from the same, if B have had the good fortune to escape heretofore, from whatever cause. 2dly, We must first prove that we ought to treat A in the way we do, and this they deny in the case of stamps, or law proceedings, or transfers of property. They say such taxes are wrong. 1. Because they are taxes on justice. 2. Because they are impediments to industry. 3. Because this country is in an infant stage of commerce, agriculture, and manufactures, and unable to bear this fresh burthen. 4. Because in no country where the Government absorbs all the rent of land, is there, or can there be, room for the European taxation of more advanced countries, where rent is in private hands. 5. Because we oppress the people, in addition, with monopolies of salt, opium, and silk, and privileges, and preferences, enjoyed by us as trading sovereigns. 6. Because experience has twice shown, that the stamps, except those on law proceedings, have been considered intolerable, and resisted successively, even by these prostrate Natives. 7. Because the people are so impoverished and miserable, backward and ignorant, to an inconceivable degree of depression, in the scale of mankind, and unable to bear more burthens. The independent Europeans (I mean those not in our service) fairly meet the question, and say, "If the tax, and the power imposing, and the way imposed, were all unexceptionable in regard to the Natives of the Provinces, we do not admit that we ought, therefore, to submit to it. For, 1. we have certain general constitutional rights, in common with all settlers and colonists from England, where not expressly deprived of such by law. 2. We are, by law, specially protected in those general rights by Parliament extending to us English laws, and courts, and privileges, except in specified cases; and the implied construction of a chance clause, or vague enactment, cannot take from us our birth-right. 3. We are the conquerors, and the mass of Natives the conquered; these last have no rights under the English Government but what are specially conferred-while we have all rights not specially taken away. 4. The few Natives who live in Calcutta, enjoy every right that Europeans do, by special enactments placing them under our judges and laws, and, in this respect, are on a different footing from our brethren in the provinces." This is a summary of the arguments used against us by the 16 Arbitrary Taxation of the Inhabitants of Calcutta. thinking part of the English merchants and others here; and I confess I do not see how they are to be met or controverted. The Government are perhaps wise, therefore, in refusing their sanction (as I believe they will) to any public meeting of the aggrieved; though some may think it would be better to let the meeting take place, and the opposition to the tax of our honourable masters evaporate, as it then would do, in words. 'The civil and military servants (whatever their private opinions) take no part in this matter,-indeed, why should they? It would only render them obnoxious, and thus do them much more injury individually, than they could effect good as particles of a collective body. Not half a dozen of either class have yet signed the petition; nor has it been allowed to be presented in person or by deputation, as was at first intended; the more orderly and established mode of sending it in through one of our Secretaries being all the favour shown it,-as that leads to no pledges, or civil compliments, on its acceptance or rejection.' TESTIMONY OF APPROBATION FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MADRAS TO THE HONOURABLE MR. COLE. To the Honourable Arthur Henry Cole, Resident, Mysoor. SIR, I am directed by the Honourable the Governor in Council to say, that this Government has frequently expressed its approba. tion of your public conduct as Resident at Mysoor, both on special occasions of difficulty and importance, and also in the general tenour of your proceedings, and at this time in particular, it is due to you and very gratifying to the Governor in Council to state how highly your qualifications for the distinguished office, so long filled by you, have been appreciated. The Governor in Council considers as eminently praiseworthy and deserving of imitation your zeal for the public honour and interests, your uniform concern for the personal wishes of his Highness the Rajah, and for the character and success of his government, and the frank and conciliatory disposition by which you have always secured the cordial co-operation of every authority whose duty it was to act in concert with you. With these sentiments, the Governor in Council instruct me to offer you the expression of his sincere esteem, and of his deep regret that the state of your health should deprive the Government of your further services. I have the honour to be, &c. (Signed) D. HILL, Chief Secretary. Fort St. George Feb. 27, 1827 CLASSICAL EXCURSION FROM ROME TO ARPINO, THE BIRTHPLACE OF CICERO. No. I. THE heat began to be almost intolerable at Rome; neither was it mitigated by one of the loudest thunder-storms I ever remember to have witnessed. The fresher air of the snow-clad Apennines, and a wish to visit the birth-place of Cicero, invited me not reluctantly from the capital. Mihi jam non regia Roma, We were accompanied by a venerable Portuguese Jesuit, about to join his fraternity in Tivoli; comes Heliodorus, come ingenium ;' who had been in England as far back as the year 1769; and whose knowledge of the finer passages in Milton proved that he had not been there in vain. The sun was shooting a rich crimson tint on the ruins of Dioclesian's baths; a rotunda attached to which, Michael Angelo turned into a church; but the magnificent granite shafts, ill imitated by modern in brick and plaister, vindicate the glory of the first architect. About a mile from the gate of San Lorenzo, we reached a church dedicated to the same saint. It is only remarkable as having been lately proved by a distinguished antiquary resident at Rome, to have been built with the ruins of the portico of Octavia, which enclosed temples to Jupiter and Juno. Plinius tells us that Batrachus and Saurus, two Spartan architects, were employed by Augustus in the erection of these temples; and that in the volutes of the columns, they caused to be engraved a frog and lizard. Now in the eighth column that supports the roof of San Lorenzo, a frog and lizard, illustrative of the names of the architects, appear. It is thus that the modern Romans have a perpetual whet-stone applied to their wits by the gigantic labours of their ancestors in art. We rolled slowly along the old Via Tiburtina, supposed to have been first paved in the consulship of M. Valerius Maximus, in the year of the city CCCCXLVII. Excavations that were made in the pontificate of Alexander VII. prove that it was thrice raised; three pavements in irregular polygonal masses having been then discovered, one above the other. Vestiges of the old trottoirs are occasionally visible. About two miles from the church of San Lorenzo, just before reaching the Anio, we traversed the spot where Hannibal pitched his camp after his battle with the proconsul Fulvius Flaccus. We may collect from history, that the Carthaginian general just saw Rome, and no more; as if his destinies permitted nothing further. Soon after crossing the bridge thrown over the Anio, and built by Mammea, the mother of Alexander Severus, we noticed remains of very ancient quarries on the opposite side of the stream. To our left was the spot where the consul Servilius defeated the Sabines; and five miles further, is the scene of another memorable victory gained Oriental Herald, Vol. 15. C by Ancus Martius over the early inhabitants of Latium. Every rood of the Campagna has been fought and refought over. We presently saw to the left the Lago de' Tartari, in colour like a bowl of cream, and of a sulphureous, nitrous, and petrifying quality. It is perhaps one of the most active petrifying waters known; for it gradually transforms into stone the plants and reeds that grow for some paces round. A constant fermentation penetrates the pores of the weeds with stony particles; the lake is shallow, and its basin is a light and porous turf. A few paces beyond, we crossed the hoary Albula, which flows into the Anio by a channel cut by one of the princes of the house of Este. It rises from the Lago Sulfureo, celebrated for the oracular groves of Faunus, mentioned in the wellknown lines of Virgil. When Kircher saw this lake, he found it about a mile in circuit; but it is now much reduced in size. It undergoes a perpetual diminution from the unctuous and bituminous matter which floats on its surface. Dust and seeds transported by the wind adhere to it, and in process of time little islands are formed, which, blown to the shores, of course become more compact. None of these bituminous islets exceed ten feet in length. A century or two may possibly thus annihilate the lake, or reduce it to a bituminous marsh. Kircher affirms that it is 'imperscrutabilis profunditatis;' the depth however has been ascertained to be from sixty to one hundred and seventy feet. The force of Virgil's line, sævum exhalat opaca mephitim,' is here sensibly felt by every traveller; for the atmosphere, for more than a mile round, is impregnated with a fetid sulphureous effluvia. 6 We almost immediately reached the Ponte Lucano, either so called from the Lucus Tiburti, or from Marcus Plautius Lucanus, one of the Plautian family, whose sepulchre, half covered with ivy, proclaims the grandiosità of the Romans in their monumental buildings. It is built of Tiburtine stone, and of the same form as that of Cecilia Metella, but very inferior in elegance of design. The illustrious family of the Plautii gave eighteen consuls to Rome. Aulus Plautius was the conqueror of Caractacus; and Claudius having decreed him an ovation, went out to meet him on his return from Britain. Another of this family having been named by the senate to take command of a naval force destined for Asia, lost his wife at Tarentum. As he ascended the funeral pile to take a last farewell, he was so affected that he killed himself. They were both buried in a common tomb, called by the Tarentines, Sepulchrum Amantium.* The freshness of the Tiburtine groves, the murmur of the cascatelle, the moon shining in her fullest splendour, formed a most grateful contrast to the suffocating heat of the Campagna, that pestilens et aridum solum, as it is called by Titius Livius: and we just recognised, by the silver light, the immense ruins of the Villa * De Sanct. Famil. Plautia. |