which he would be certainly overreached by his wily and litigious adversary. The orders actually passed were through the fault of the local officers not carried out for several months, and had scarcely been in operation before the revolt commenced. When however the revolt had begun, the signs of an approaching storm of no ordinary potency were visible. It was unlikely that several European gentlemen living many miles apart in different occupations, and filling varied positions in society, some unknown also to the rest, should at the same time have written as they did letters of serious import, gravely announcing an extensive rising of a numerous and armed population, had they not possessed strong and sufficient reason for their fears and forebodings. Europeans in general are not wont to be alarmed at a common event. But three days after such communications had been received and indubitably confirmed, after one Regiment had been ordered out of Berhampore, to be relieved by another from Calcutta, and after a felt and acknowledged necessity existed of despatching further troops to the protection of Beerbhoom and the Grand Trunk Road, it was considered that one Company of sepoys at Raneegunge, and one at Sooree would suffice for all the purposes required. It proved to be and it might perhaps have been foreseen, a very insufficient force. But, as the Friend of India has stated there were at this time not 1200 troops within 80 miles of the scene of disorder. The fear entertained by some for safety of the Bhaugulpore station were conceived to be groundless. Looking calmly back at the current of events, and the progress made by the insurgents in that direction, that fear is seen to have been for a time fully warranted. Not only the rumours and the alarms spread abroad in various directions, but the reports of district officers of the state of affairs were considered highly exaggerated. So again, as if past experience had not sufficiently chided such temerity, were the reports of the recent recommencement of the revolt in January, 1856, pronounced exaggerated; facts have amply shown that there neither was, nor scarcely could be, exaggeration on the subject. And in real truth if, where real or reasonable grounds for alarm exist, the powers in authority were to act at once fully up to emergency, and as though the exaggerations were indeed and honestly true, how much it is reasonable to suppose, of impending anxiety, toil, and disaster would be obviated and avoided.

It was an important object to shut up the passage of the Grand Trunk Road so as to arrest and prevent any contagious spirit from infecting the wild inhabitants of the pergunnahs south of that highway. Latterly, perhaps from fear of their gaining no work, food, or employment on the northern side,

large bodies, even thousands, of Sonthals, have been permitted to cross the great road.

But these and such like errors are in a broad view of the question trivial and unimportant; and ought to be compared with the anomaly which we have already observed in regard of the delay in declaring Martial Law. It is seldom that a danger like that we have viewed is or can be properly estimated in the present; and in nearly all cases of the like nature large and small has it happened that resort was had in the first instance to inadequate and insufficient means. But the primary delay in the declaration of Martial Law was like an utterance that the civil regulations, the law of the land were sufficient for this as for other occasions of violence against constituted authority; that it was beneath the dignity of the Government of the great Indian Empire to have recourse to such unusual weapons within its own manageable sphere, and upon an antagonist of such small dimensions; that the civil power was, if fairly wielded, of itself fully able to meet the danger; an utterance refuted by the resort to military force; and soon followed by an unwilling confession of the actual and urgent necessity of the measure.

What may be the future of the disturbed territory it is not for us to predict, whether famine, now wisely met, will distress the remnant of its people, or pestilence still further decimate their numbers (for dead bodies are strewn over the face of the earth) whether the depopulation will be soon replenished, or the waste country consume years for its regeneration, are problems yet to be solved. The tracts have been formed into an extra-Regulation Province, subject to the rules of common sense and equity, instead of the Indian Code and Procedure, and unreasonable precedents; the police are to be changed for a body of military police, horse and foot, scarcely more expensive and far more efficient, on the footing of the various civil militia corps of the country; and roads and other public works are to be extensively opened throughout, by means of the involuntary labour of its late occupants so averse to all service, whether hired or unremunerated.

But the state of the law as regards usury, and the relation of the Sonthal to the classes around him might likewise seem to demand attention. On Attic soil, we are told, the small proprietors, impoverished by outward causes, borrowed money at high interest, and mortgaged their lands to the rich, and settled in them again as tenants. The laws made by and for the nobles enabled a creditor to seize an insolvent debtor, and sell him as a slave,—a right frequently exercised; numbers were thus torn from their houses. Stone-posts marked the many acres pledged for debt, and no longer the property of the unfortunate debtor. Solon met MARCH, 1856.

these evils B. C. 594, by "a disburdening ordinance," reducing the rate of interest, retrospectively and prospectively, and lowering the standard of the silver coinage, by which the debtor saved above a quarter of his debt in the payment. He released the pledged lands from their pledges; and the slave-law was utterly abolished, thus emancipating entirely every slave-debtor. His schemes were submitted to, because the people had installed him as their arbitrator to decide, not as a lawyer would now decide a private contract, but on the best view of the public interests. The state of the debtor's law in ancient Rome is a matter of interesting enquiry. In the time of Servius Tullius their goods only, and not their persons, were made liable for their debts, and the odious and cruel custom of the nexum, and debtor-slavery were banished for a time; when the regal government ceased, the aristocracy revived the law; and debts incurred through extreme poverty on the one hand, and loans offered at exorbitant interest on the other, brought on the plebeian and patrician quarrel. More than two centuries afterwards the Lex Papiria restored to the debtor his civil freedom; and subsequently foreigners and Roman citizens lent and borrowed money on equal terms. The extortions of state officers also were made recoverable by a rigorous law; generally the rate of interest did not exceed 12 per cent.: by the law of the Twelve Tables it was 83rd per cent. for the old year of ten months, or 10 per cent. for the common civil year; and this was fixed as the maximum. The State opened a bank to lend money to the indigent on security; debtors might be legally paid in kind, as by land, cattle, &c.; usury was punished by a mulet of four times the amount of the loan; but the law was of course evaded and though a legal rate of interest was still continued for all legal purposes, exactions could not be prevented by any enactment. Some reasonably small rate might be recognised, which should not swallow the harvest profits of the cultivators, and afford an equitable adjudication of the differences between them and their suitors; and the blind or fraudulent lending of money upon a palpably impossible or dubious security be legally forbidden.

There are many parts of the Bengal Presidency where a sudden emergency like the Sonthal revolt, but of a more formidable character, might at any time burst forth, and find fewer troops in the vicinity to check its progress. On the Chittagong borders there are many races, wild and savage, who might inflict as much mischief as the Sonthals have done; and the force at present located in that quarter would hardly be sufficient even to offer a successful resistance. While we write, we have just heard of a recent massacre by hill tribes in that very quarter. The neighbourhood of Tipperah swarms with multitudes of

barbarians, and there is no defence. Many fair districts on the north of the Ganges are peculiarly exposed to danger without a soldier within a week's call. Twice in sixteen years have the Ferazees given trouble to the Government; a third instance of their religious propensities is not even an improbability. On the south and west of the Cuttack province are tribes familiar with crimes of violence and rapine; the protecting force is not probably too small, if more distributed over the surface of the country. Westward of the Jungle Mehals are most plentifully scattered the elements of rebellion, and hordes of men to whom an excitement of such a nature would be acceptable; the protection is very feeble; while throughout Behar is an ignorant, bigoted, proud and high-spirited population, ever alive to some new idea, quick to conceive, and as ready to resent a supposed injury. We are therefore not only willing to agree with the Friend of India that Sooree, Rajmahal, and Bhaugulpore should be turned into military posts;" but would be glad to see military posts multiplied throughout these provinces; and this in addition to the new regime of police control about to be established. It is easy indeed to scheme without reckoning the cost. But the cost, it is scarcely too sanguine a hope to express, might almost be met by the reduction of many inefficient and even useless, as well as expensive establishments in more than one branch of the public service. In point of fact, however, a large addition to the military force of the Lower Provinces is already a gained point; and the valuable element of Irregular Cavalry is included in the estimate; it remains to be desired that their distribution should be directed according to the real dangers of the country.

66

But as regards the punishment of the Sonthal disturbers of the peace, we likewise concur in the main with the views expressed by the editor of the Journal we have quoted :

The

"It is only by striking terror into these blood-thirsty savages, who have respected neither age nor sex-that we can hope to quell this insurrection. It is necessary to avenge the outrages committed, and to protect the cultivators of the plains from a repetition of them. Sonthals believe that they can enjoy the luxury of blood and plunder for a month without a certainty of retribution. It is absolutely necessary that this impression should be removed, or obliterated, if Government would not in these districts sit on bayonet points. To achieve this end the retribution must be complete, leaving no calculation of chances for future rioters; striking, that none may fail to know and understand; and tremendous that people may know their lives and happiness are not held of light account. It is to Pegu that we would convey the Sonthals, not one or two of the ringleaders, but the entire population of the infected districts. India has not arrived at the point, where armed rebellion can be treated with the contemptuous forbearance, with which an English Ministry can pardon a knot

of Chartists, or banish a gang of Irish patriots. Let the Sonthal's punishment be entrusted to a special commission, as was done in Canada in 1838. Or if even this expedient be too arbitrary, let the villages be fined in an amount about equal to the plunder retained, and the sum distributed among the sufferers. To secure the punishment of the race, and restore the prestige of British authority, the mass of the Sonthals should not remain unpunished."

The leading principle of these passages is not perhaps one to be called in question. It was absolutely right, and a desirable thing that punishment of the severest kind, consistent and commensurate with its object, should be inflicted on as large a number as possible of those actively concerned in the movement. Under a system of Martial Law, too late declared, and too easily withdrawn, or else by special legislation, such results were attainable. Under the ordinary Civil Code in a civilized age and community their attainment was simply impracticable.

"The inefficiency of the law has been demonstrated beyond the possibility of argument: under its provisions, we could neither put down, nor punish insurrection. Whenever an unusual crisis occurs, we abolish the Regulation system. We recur at once to the old principle of Government, as a refuge from the imbecile tyranny of legal institutions. Is it not probable that legal forms are not applicable to half civilized races, that for them absolute power under real responsibilities is the true government ?"

Such is the language of the Friend of India. A blind devotion, writes Dr. Arnold, to the letter and forms of the constitution on all occasions, may really compromise those great interests, for the sake of which alone forms are valuable.

Hence did the Governor General ordain that Sonthals should be prevented from crossing the Grand Trunk Road, even though the measure might be an illegal one. It is for these and like reasons that we could have wished to find a sterner justice dealt to the Sonthal insurgents, than they have been permitted to feel. The safety and interest of the State, the foundation of constitutional government, as well as the moral effect upon observant classes of society, and upon the Sonthals themselves, required, one might be disposed to think, a severer course. Of the many prisoners captured by the military authorities, as well when Martial Law was in force, as when it was not extant, how many handed over to the civil power have been, and will be, from some vagueness of proof as to particular acts, acquitted and released as innocent subjects, who without infringing any moral principle of truth, justice and equity, might have been at once and on the spot condemned as in a state of open defiance of the authority of their rulers. It is proposed to employ the Sonthal con