ty is required, and, as that
authority is accidentally relaxed, the country falls into confusion.

It is true that this interference is not strictly consonant with the
spirit of the original contracts entered into by the Company with the
native chiefs, who, in consideration of protection from their enemies,
regular purchase of the produce of their country, and a gratuity to
themselves proportioned to the quantity of that produce, undertake on
their part to oblige their dependants to plant pepper, to refrain from
the use of opium, the practice of gaming, and other vicious excesses, and
to punish them in case of non-compliance. But, however prudent or equal
these contracts might have been at the time their form was established, a
change of circumstances, the gradual and necessary increase of the
Company's sway which the peace and good of the country required, and the
tacit consent of the chiefs themselves (among whom the oldest living have
never been used to regard the Company, who have conferred on them their
respective dignities, as their equals, or as trading in their districts
upon sufferance), have long antiquated them; and custom and experience
have introduced in their room an influence on one side, and a
subordination on the other, more consistent with the power of the Company
and more suitable to the benefits derived from the moderate and humane
exercise of that power. Prescription has given its sanction to this
change, and the people have submitted to it without murmuring, as it was
introduced not suddenly but with the natural course of events, and
bettered the condition of the whole while it tended to curb the rapacity
of the few. Then let not short-sighted or designing persons, upon false
principles of justice, or ill-digested notions of liberty, rashly
endeavour to overturn a scheme of government, doubtless not perfect, but
which seems best adapted to the circumstances it has respect to, and
attended with the fewest disadvantages. Let them not vainly exert
themselves to procure redress of imaginary grievances, for persons who
complain not, or to infuse a spirit of freedom and independence, in a
climate where nature possibly never intended they should flourish, and
which, if obtained, would apparently be attended with effects that all
their advantages would badly compensate.

GOVERNMENT IN PASSUMMAH.

In Passummah, which nearly borders upon Rejang, to the southward, there
appears some difference in the mode o