Lehal Library

xxii AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO 2ND EDITION parts in the great social movements with more or less of effect and intelligence. Of the deeds and opinions of these conspicuous men, the Author has not hesitated to speak plainly but soberly, whether in praise or dispraise, and he trusts he may do both, without either idly flattering or malignantly traducing his country, and also v/ithout compromising his own character as a faithful and obedient servant of the State; for the soldiers of India are no longer mere sentinels over bales of goods, nor is the East India Company any longer a private association of traffickers which can with reason object to its mercantile transactions being subjected to open comment by one of its confidential factors. The merits of the administration of the East India Company are many and undoubted; but its constitution is political, its authority is derivative, and every Englishman has a direct interest in the proceedings of his Government; while it is likewise his country's boast that her children can at fitting times express in calm and considerate language their views of her career, and it is her duty to see that those to w?iom she entrusts power rightly understand both their own position and her functions. 25th October, 1849.