ernment, and
domestic happiness, which has struck off the chains of the slave, which
has mitigated the horrors of war, which has raised women from servants
and playthings into companions and friends, is to commit high treason
against humanity and civilisation.

Gradually a better system was introduced. A great man whom we have
lately lost, Lord Wellesley, led the way. He prohibited the immolation
of female children; and this was the most unquestionable of all his
titles to the gratitude of his country. In the year 1813 Parliament
gave new facilities to persons who were desirous to proceed to India
as missionaries. Lord William Bentinck abolished the Suttee. Shortly
afterwards the Home Government sent out to Calcutta the important and
valuable despatch to which reference has been repeatedly made in the
course of this discussion. That despatch Lord Glenelg wrote,--I was then
at the Board of Control, and can attest the fact,--with his own hand.
One paragraph, the sixty-second, is of the highest moment. I know that
paragraph so well that I could repeat it word for word. It contains in
short compass an entire code of regulations for the guidance of British
functionaries in matters relating to the idolatry of India. The orders
of the Home Government were express, that the arrangements of the
temples should be left entirely to the natives. A certain discretion
was of course left to the local authorities as to the time and manner
of dissolving that connection which had long existed between the English
Government and the Brahminical superstition. But the principle was laid
down in the clearest manner. This was in February 1833. In the year 1838
another despatch was sent, which referred to the sixty-second paragraph
in Lord Glenelg's despatch, and enjoined the Indian Government to
observe the rules contained in that paragraph. Again, in the year 1841,
precise orders were sent out on the same subject, orders which Lord
Ellenborough seems to me to have studied carefully for the express
purpose of disobeying them point by point, and in the most direct
manner. You murmur: but only look at the orders of the Directors and at
the proclamation of the Governor General. The orders are, distinctly and
positively, that the British authorities in India shall have nothing
to do with the temples of the natives, shall make no presents to those
temples, shall not decorate those temples, shall not pay any military
honour to those temples. Now, Sir