ject of your foreign policy, military supremacy, the day may not be far distant when you shall feel, in disappointment and disgrace, how feeble is physical, compared with moral, power; and in the downfal of the magnificent empire of India, -tot quondam populis terrisque superbum Regnatorem Asiæ. may add one more page to the proofs given by history, that fleshly arms, and the instruments of war, are but a fragile tenure, and "soon to nothing brought," when opposed to the interests, and the will of an enlightened people. APPENDIX. FOR the three first letters in the following selection, I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Alexander Johnston, Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society, whose services and experience in the East eminently qualify him to judge of the real character of native Indians. It is to the accurate discernment and sound judgment of Sir Alexander Johnson, when filling the high offices of Chief Justice of Ceylon, and first Member of His Majesty's Council, that we owe the first institution of native juries in India. He established the system in Ceylon in the year 1811, when the right of sitting on juries, which had before been confined, as in other parts of India, to Europeans, was extended, under certain modifications, to every native on the island. These modifications were so judiciously adapted to the habits and prejudices of the natives, that in a report to the Government of Ceylon in June, 1817, by the advocate fiscal, it is is represented, after an experience of seven years, to have been attended with the most beneficial effects; and, by gratifying the native inhabitants, to have warmly attached them to the British Government. When Sir Hardinge Giffard succeeded to the Chief Judgeship in 1820, he soon became fully sensible as well of the merits, as of the benefits of this institution. In an address from the bench, on opening the criminal sessions, he adverts, in pointed terms, to the advantages of thus wisely raising the native inhabitants in their own, and in general estimation, by causing them to participate in the administration of justice among their own countrymen. He mainly ascribes to this cause the tranquillity of the provinces subject to the 66 Ceylon government, and the entire absence from the criminal calendars, for the two preceding years, of every offence bearing the slightest tinge of a political character; and he closes an eloquent eulogium on the system, with the following just tribute to the merits of its founder :Of one of them (Chief Justice Sir A. Johnston), holding as he still does that station in society so well merited by his talents and services, it would be difficult in me "without indelicacy to offer more than that tribute which "it would be injustice to withhold. To his perfect know"ledge of the native habits and character, and his ex"tensive acquaintance with their institutes, it was owing that the jury system was thus so skilfully adapted " even to their prejudices, and so deeply rooted in their "affections, as to have had the consequences in which we now rejoice.”* In this document we have prac 66 66 As. Jour. vol. xx. p. 288. For a full account of the jury system on the Island of Ceylon, the reasons for proposing it, the mode in which it was carried into effect, and the consequences of its adoption, see also As. Jour. vol. xxiii. p. 807. By the 7 Geo. IV. cap. 37, native jury trial was introduced, under certain limitations and restrictions, into the King's courts at the different presidencies in India. In the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 27th volumes of the Asiatic Journal, some interesting documents will be found on this subject. Among others, some letters from natives, written in a nervous style, and as purely grammatical as those which follow in this Appendix. It is, indeed, curious to compare the expressed wish of enlightened natives for the full establishment of native jury trial in India, with the opinions of sundry official persons, who appear to have been consulted as to the advisableness, or otherwise, of introducing the system into India; and who, with one only exception, are opposed to it. Their reason seems to be, that jury trial is only fitted for a country, |