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pression, led to fatal and lamentable results. A formidable in surrection broke out in the island of Santa Maura, and on October 6th it was found necessary to issue the following proclamation at Corfu, the seat of go

vernment.

The following proclamation has been published here:

"His excellency, who fills pro tempore the functions of the Lord Commissioner, makes known with high displeasure, that in the country districts of Santa Maura there has appeared lately a spirit of insubordination, and that the inhabitants of the village Sfachiotes were the first to oppose the municipal officers in the exercise of their functions under the orders of government.

"This spirit of insubordination reigned for six successive days, during which a considerable number of armed peasants approached the city, and presented to the resident of his excellency a petition in which the peasants laid open their grievances; and whilst on one hand they manifest their attachment to the general government, they show, on the other, hostile sentiments towards several functionaries of the local government, and towards some of the principal inhabitants of the city, to whom they give the name of oppressors, and against whom they appear animated by a spirit of vengeance. The resident received the petition, assuring the petitioners that he would transmit it to the government; and that, if they retired peaceably, instead of continuing to render themselves guilty of a breach of the laws, he flattered himself that

the government would receive it with indulgence, and take it into consideration. Then a part of these misguided men retired; but a great number remained in arms, without, however, committing any act of violence. As soon as his excellency had been informed of these details, he ordered the Resident to issue in his name a proclamation, to assure these misguided men that if they returned to their obedience and duty, their grievances would be taken into consideration by the government, that they would be relieved from the want of which they complained, as soon as it should be proved; but to apprise them, at the same time, that if they did not merit the indulgence of government, by retiring peaceably to their homes, and submitting to the laws, no attention could be paid to their petition.

"His excellency, considering that the ill-intentioned, who had incited the inhabitants of the country to take arms, might lead them to other acts of violence, thought it prudent to dispatch a great body of troops to provide amply for the safety of that island. On the night of the 3d, before the arrival of the orders relative to the proclamation of his excellency, and before the landing of the troops, a body of peasants, in a state of intoxication, descended from the neighbouring hills, and endeavoured to throw themselves into the city, but they were repulsed by a small detachment, which was at the entrance. Some of them, after having retired, made a circuit, enclosed the city, and set fire to the house of an inhabitant. They were like

wise repulsed, and tranquillity was restored.

"On the following day these misguided men persisted in their mutiny. The resident, wishing to avoid as much as possible the effusion of blood, endeavoured by all means to induce them to retire to their homes; but all his efforts were useless: constrained to employ force he attacked and dispersed them, taking possession of the village of Sfachiotes, the seat and centre of the sedition. Martial law has been proclaimed in the island of Santa Maura, and the public tranquillity will soon be restored, without its being necessary to have recourse to measures of general rigour. The arm of justice will reach and overpower those who, by their ma▾

chinations and example, had led the misguided peasant to his ruin."

The strong measures here indicated, are stated not to have been immediately effectual in suppressing this ebullition of popular fury. On the contrary it is said, that the spirit of insurrection spread throughout the island, and that some lives were lost on both sides in actions between the peasantry and the British troops. Directions subsequently arrived from sir T. Maitland to the local authorities to adopt conciliatory methods, and it should appear that the sacrifice of an unpopular tax was finally determined upon as the only means of conciliating the minds of men,

CHAPTER

CHAPTER XIV.

ASIA.

HINDOSTAN.-Return of the Governor-General to Calcutta. His Answer to an Address from the Inhabitants.-Appa Sahib.-Deposition of the Peishwa.-Settlement of the Pindarries.--Military Transactions.-General Results of the War.-CEYLON.-Suppression of the Insurrection. Punishment of the Leaders.-Protest of Sir S. Raffles against the Proceedings of the Dutch in the Malayan Archipelago.Treaties formed with the Princes of Sumatra.

MARQUIS HASTINGS, on his return to the seat of government from the brilliant campaign of 1818, received, on August 4th, a respectful and affectionate address of congratulation from the inhabitants of Calcutta. The governor-general was pleased to return them an answer, which forms a highly-interesting and important public document, whether it be regarded as a summary of the events of the war, or as an exposition of its causes, and a defence of the system of policy adopted by the marquis with respect to the native powers. We here present it entire to our readers:

Gentlemen;-The compliment with which you honour me is truly gratifying. Were I to consider you merely as men of worth and talent, desirous of marking your friendship towards me by a flattering civility, the distinction conferred upon me by the favour from persons of such stamp would

demand the warmest return from my heart. I entreat you to believe that you do meet that return; but with much, very much, superadded to it. In the satisfaction I am enjoying, there is something far beyond individual vanity. The sentiments which you have been pleased this day to express, are not uttered to me alone; they are vouchers tendered to our countrymen at home. I am not alluding to the pride I must naturally feel, in having such a testimony borne respecting me to our native land; the sensation which you have awakened in me is of a higher quality. A wider scope is inseparable from your treatment of the subject than what applies to me personally. You are pronouncing whether they who may be said to have represented the British character on the occasion, did faithfully and becomingly fulfil that exalted trust; and your proximity, your stations, your excited vigilance, eminently

eminently qualify you for returning a verdict, while your manhood would make you spurn at giving through courtesy an opinion which your judgment belied. Many of you have had to contemplate your most important private interests as staked in the transaction to which you refer; but all of you have felt that the national honour, in which you were severally sharers, was involved in the purpose and tenour of the measures I had the lot to guide. Under such an impression, you have stood forward to attest the dignity of British justice has not been sullied. It is a declaration superiorly grateful; for my portion in the aggregate of British fame is more touching to me than a separate and selfish reputation. Your generous partiality towards me has not betrayed you into an indiscreet averment on that point. When we went forth to punish wrong, we were aware how much it behoved us to watch over our selves, that strength and success might not seduce us into any act of oppression. I venture to be lieve, that violence or wanton exaction cannot, with the faintest colour of truth, be imputed to our procedures. This, however, shall not rest on general assertion. You shall be minutely satisfied. Though from the distinct feature of occurrences, you have with a gallant confidence maintained our equity, it will be pleasing to each of you to learn details which will enable you respectively to say, "I was not carried away by the kind warmth of my feelings; here are circumstances which, to my deliberate reflection, irrefragably confirm the

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conclusions I drew from a less particular statement of the case.' The field of our operations was so vast, that you often did not in Calcutta learn events which took place in remoter parts, till after you had been apprised of others considerably posterior which occurred in nearer quarters; so that you did not see how one transaction rose out of another. You will understand them better when they are presented to you in a regular chain. In laying them before you, I cannot make any inconsiderate disclosure. acting in the spirit of our hon. employers, who would challenge investigation and encourage exposition. Either for them or for us there is not a passage to be slurred over or glossed.

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In our original plan, there was not the expectation or the wish of adding a rood to the dominions of the honourable company. Our knowledge of the decided repugnance, with which any notions of extending our territorial possessions is always viewed at home, would have forbidden such a project. Territory, indeed, was to be wrested from none but the Pindarries; and you will readily comprehend the policy which dictated, that such conquests should be divided between the nabob of Bopul, Scindia, and Holkar. It was useful to strengthen the former, who had attached himself to us devotedly; and it was desirable that the two Mahratta sovereigns should perceive a degree of advantage for themselves, to compensate for the unavoidable dissatisfaction they were to suffer from the completion of our enterprise. The suppression of the Pindarries

Pindarries was our single object. You have unequivocally proclaimed the absolute necessity of that object; and I cannot imagine that the man exists, who would represent it as one of speculative expediency. Even in that light, the extirpation of the Pindarries would have been a justifiable and a wise undertaking. An association, whose undisguised principle is, to subsist by plundering all around it, is a body placed by its own act in a state of war with every regular govern ment. To crush such a confederacy before it should farther increase that strength which every year obviously augmented, would have been a legitimate and prudent cause of exertion. But such considerations were long gone by. We were called upon by the most imperious duty attaching upon a government, that of protecting its subjects from desolation, to prevent the repetition (confessedly preparing) of invasions, which had for two years consecutively ravaged the Madras dependencies with circumstances of unexampled horror; on that principle we resolved to take the field. To have limited our purpose to the expulsion of the Pindarries from the districts which they had hitherto occupied, would have been worse than childishness. Too numerous and powerful to be resisted by any of the smaller states, they would, în receding from us, only forcibly occupy some other territory equally convenient for annoying us, whence their expeditions would have issued with the improved intelligence acquired by their having learned to measure our movements. It was

indispensable to extinguish them wholly. We were not blind to the difficulties of the task. The interception and dispersion of between five and twenty and thirty thousand horsemen, lightly equipped and singularly inured to fatigue, on the immense field over which they had the power of moving in any direction, was an operation that required no ordinary effort. Much more, however, was to be taken into calculation than the agility of our enemies. It was certain that their peril would be regarded with the greatest anxiety by Scindia and by Ameer Khan. I leave Holkar out of the question, though he was interested in the result, for a reason which I will hereafter explain. The Pindarries were an integral, though an unavowed, and sometimes hardly manageable part of the army of Scindia. They were always the ready auxiliaries of Ameer Khan, with whom community of object, rapine, gave them community of feeling. It was therefore sure that those two chiefs would be strenuous in counteracting our attempts to destroy the Pindarries; underhand, as long as their practice could be concealed; in arms, when disguise would no longer avail. We had consequently to aim at incapacitating Scindia and Ameer Khan from taking the part they meditated. Enough was gained from Scindia, could we place him under an inability of moving; but much more was requisite in respect to Ameer Khan. Though his large army was better fashioned and more systematically organized than the Pindarry force, still he was essentially nothing

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