CONTENTS OF No. II. PAGE I. RUSKIN ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ART................ 223 1. Modern Painters. Vol. I. containing Parts 1 and 2 of Ge- neral Principles, and of Truth. By John Ruskin. 5th - Edition. London: Smith Elder & Co. 1851. Ditto, ditto, Vol. II. containing Part 3, Sections 1 and 2. Of the Imaginative and Theoretic Faculties. By John Ruskin. 3rd Edition. 2. The Stones of Venice. By John Ruskin. 3 Vols. imperial 8vo. London: Smith Elder & Co. 1851-1853. 3. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. By John Ruskin. London: Smith Elder & Co. 1849. II. THE MORALS OF THE INDIAN ARMY.............. 1. Oakfield, or Fellowship in the East. By Punjabee. 2 Vols. 2. Records of the Indian Command of General Sir Charles James Napier, G.C.B., comprising all his General Orders, Remarks on Courts Martial, &c. &c. Compiled by John Mawson. III. RAILWAYS IN WESTERN INDIA........... Minute by the Most Noble the Governor General, dated the 20th April 1853, on Railways in India, printed by order of the House of Commons, 19th July 1853. IV. NEWTON AND HIS PREDECESSORS........ The History of Physical Astronomy, from the earliest ages to the middle of the 19th Century, comprehending a de- tailed account of the Establishment of the Theory of Gravitation by Newton, and its Developement by his Successors; with an exposition of the progress of Research on all other subjects of Celestial Physics. By Robert Grant, F.R.A.S.-8vo. London: Baldwin, 1852. V. RAJPUT INFANTICIDE......... THE BOMBAY QUARTERLY REVIEW. JANUARY, 1855. ART. 1.-MR. MACKAY'S REPORT ON GUZERAT. Western India Reports addressed to the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester, Liverpool, Blackburn, and Glasgow, by their Commissioner, the late ALEXANDER MACKAY, Esquire. Edited by J. ROBERTSON, Esquire, with a Preface by THOMAS BAZLEY, Esq., President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, &c. London, Nathaniel Cooke, Milford House, Strand, 1853. Ar the close of the year 1850, Parliament having refused Mr. Bright's motion for an address to the Crown, that a special Royal Commission should be despatched to India to enquire into the causes which retarded progress in this country, especially in the cultivation of Cotton, the Chambers of Commerce of Manchester, Liverpool, Blackburn, and Glasgow, determined to make the same enquiry through a Commissioner of their own. Their choice fell upon the late Alexander Mackay, Esq. who as the author of " the Western World," one of the best works that has appeared on the United States of America-and as a writer, and special Commissioner, to a leading London Journal-had given public indications of his fitness for this very interesting and important trust. The Commission was conceived in the most honorable spirit. Mr. Mackay was instructed to elicit the truth without fear or favour, and to transmit to England only such reports of the condition of India as could be implicitly relied on. His qualifications were thus described by Mr. Bright, on moving the resolution for the mission, at the meeting of the several Chambers of Commerce : "I have known Mr. Mackay for some years. I have known him VOL. 1-NO. I. "for a considerable time intimately. I have had many opportunities "of knowing his opinions and character long before this question was "ever thought of by me; and I am quite satisfied that if he goes Iout under the sanction of this Chamber, and as representing the "trade of this district, he will execute the duty confided to him "with that impartiality, truthfulness, and fidelity which we, or any "honest friend of the India Company, would require and expect.' Mr. Bright added, that "two years would probably be about the period which would be required for the purpose of performing this "service satisfactorily." Naturally of a very delicate constitution, and having contracted organic disease before he left England, Mr. Mackay was scarcely a year in India ere his health entirely gave way, and compelled him to return home. We are told that he transmitted nearly the whole of his reports now given to the world, at intervals extending over the period of his residence in this country, that they were prepared at a time when he was much occupied with engagements and correspondence connected with his mission, and that the last of them was written while he was in a declining state of health. He died, unhappily, before reaching England. The papers he had with him were taken especial care of by gentlemen who accompanied him on his homeward voyage, and were delivered, we presume, to those whose Commissioner he was. We do not learn either from the Editor of the present work, or from Mr. Bazley, --and we are curious to know-whether Mr. Mackay left behind him any materials for correcting his earlier statements and impressions. Mr. Robertson's Preface suggests that the only liberty which he has taken with the reports, as transmitted to England, has been-the compression of then "within more moderate compass, by condensing "such passages as seemed to be unnecessarily amplified." As Mr. Robertson had all Mr. Mackay's papers before him, we cannot suppose that he has performed his Editorial task in so slovenly, inaccurate, and dishonest a manner as to have printed anything which the author of the reports afterwards had discovered to be incorrect, and had in his later papers corrected. On the other hand, we believe that Mr. Mackay spared no pains to arrive at the truth,-that his errors, grave and inexplicable in many respects, as they are, are still conscientious, and mainly attributable to the peculiar duty he had to discharge, and to the embarrassing position it necessarily placed him in with reference to official personages in India-to his inability to estimate at its real value, the information he received from the natives of this country, ignorant as he was of their language, character, and customs-to a sensitive distrust of official authority, natural under the circumstances, and necessary perhaps for the preservation of his credit with his employers at home; and lastly, to no inconsiderable bias against the E. I. Company's |