FRENCH OPINION ON THE WAR IN INDIA

Colonist, Issue 41, 12 March 1858, Page 4

FRENCH OPINION ON THE WAR IN INDIA

The Revue ties Deux Moudes, in' its last number, has an article on " The Events in India," interesting as a whole, and containing some passages worthy of particular notice. The. following appreciation of the conduct of the English in their Eastern possessions, and of the benefits their governments have conferred upon the country, may be considered with profit by those French journalists Who ' daily insist that the origin of the revolt is to be sought in the oppressive and cruel nature of British rule. The 'Revue says: — " The English have been in reality the the liberators' of the Indians; they have abolished in India the reign of brigands and substituted for it justice and law; they there perform the part* of grand justiciaries iFor a long series of centuries the history of India was but a series of massacres and exterminations. It was the English Conquest that closed this era of blood without wishing to represent the Government as the model of all virtues, it may be said to have been the most humane, the.gentlest and justest the Indians have ever known. The English have fertilized India'^'they have made roads and railways; they have established order there. Their greatest.error has been to have too soon believed that they had created a nation. They had given to natives liberties they were not able to support, and the triumphs of barbarism have ensued." The writer of the article declares that if England lost India, it would be a much greater misfortune for the Indians than for | the English, and a calamity for the human race. He protests against the cry raised against missionaries and Bible Societies and upholds proselytism by -persuasion, while admitting that an attempt to impose Christianity on the Indians is not to be thought of. The question cannot be argued in this place; but since various French periodicals besides the Revue have blamed England, some of them in bitter and violent terms, for not having attended to the conversion of her Indian subjects, 1 may be allowed- to remark that in Algeria the strictest orders are given not to meddle in any way with the religion of the Arabs. Why do hot some of the journals that so severely censure our supineness, and show such anxiety for the salvation of the Asiatic Hindoo, lift up their voices in behalf of that x of the African Mussulman ? The Revue proceeds to proclaim that the dominant sentiment excited out of England by the Indian insurrection is that of illdisguised satisfaction: — " Popular opinion pays a necessary debt to humanity and to the commonest proprietor by. reproving the excesses of the insurgents; but, that official duty once fulfilled, it does not- disguise its content. Let the English nation be well 'assured that it is not loved in the world; it is too selfish for its misfortunes to be - looked upon by other nations as family misfortunes, and it has been too fortunate not to have provoked immense envy. Distinctions are to be made among those who rejoice at present events. The Catholic party in France and on the whole continent see the chastisement of heresy in the blow that strikes England, and applauds, as lessons of Providence, the calamities that fall on the enemies of the Church. Whatever may be thought of this sentiment, one. may at least pronounce it not a mean one; but there is another, much more widely spread and for which the same cannot be said. It is that of the numerous friends of servitude and platitude throughout Europe, who jealous of having seen England "preserved from the revolutions which had so rudely shaken themselves, and of seeing her resist a pressure of liberty a hundred times stronger than that which had exploded them, to-day triumph at beholding her wounded in the heel, and exclaim "'At last, then, it is her turn!" The English have the instinctive consciousness of the sentiments' they inspire, and they confide in themselves, alone."

A Jury Hard of Belief.—The other day Rebecca Mountford was tried for stealing and concealing in her stays £7 10s., the moneys of her mistress, Mrs. Chappels, farmer, of Puddle Bank. The defence was that Solomon Chappells, one of the prosecutrix's sons, must have given it to the prisoner.—Mr. M'lntyre: "How came you to guess, Mrs. Chappells, where you would find the money?"-—Witness: "Well, Til tell you. I prayed to the Lord that he would reveal to me where my money was, and the Lord answered me by a voice, and the voice said, " You'll find the money in Mecca's stays."—Mr. M'lntyre: "Wasnot the Lord's voice something like Solomon's ?" (Much laughter.)— Witness : "Yes, it was; very like." (Roars of laughter.) The jury acquitted the prisoner.— Liverpool Paper.

The Sack of Delhi.—Nothing now remains (says the Calcutta Eaglish'fimn) totit to describe to you the sack and plunder of the unfortunate place; but this, human language is utterly incapable of doing. Imagine all the wild men—Seikhs, Aftreddies, Swats, Beloochees, Mohmunds, Dograhs, Persians, and fifty other tribes who compose our Punjab regiments, with followers of the same races or of other savage tribes, let loose into the city with our gdldiers and an enormous crowd of other 1 plunderers, and you may form some idea of the interior of Delhi yesterday. Men climbing through windows or breaches inthfl walls of houses, hammers and bars smashing open gates or partitions, muskets opening locks by being discharged into them,' the crashing of wood, of chests, of trunks* of boxes, of glass, earthenware, bottles,' mirrors, furniture, ornamerits, and property, of every kind, and the streets strewn with, every conceivable species of manufacture1, from European carriages down'to the smallest article of dress, convenience, or bijouterie. Never before was such a sight; and I fancy it is still lively and visible within* and will be till the whole city shall have been thoroughly raked, torn through, and plundered. I rode down to the city, entering 'by the Cashmere Gate, and rode straight to the palace, scorning.the plunder' of any meaner place. We had blown in the large Palace-Gate, at the\ top o£ the Ghandney Choke, about 10 o'clock, arid found the place almost deserted, with the; exception of some sepoys of the 38th aiiii 1 54th Regiments, N. 1., who were, lying in a large arched gateway inside, too sick'to' move, I suppose,1 and whom our fellows'of course bayoneted. Further oni' urfder a verandah of the Palace was an hospital for the Pandies, many of whom,' fearfully wounded by our shell, some very recently, were lying on charpoys, and "who were unfortunately, by some change or other, , burning to death or dead. When I entered' I must confess that this sight did" not cause me the slightest annoyance; and so I went cheerfully up the stairs, through the Marble Hall of Audience, and into the chambers of the queens and the dear.young princesses,, where I, got .my share 6£,thephinder; but the fapt is, that all the valuable property and real wealth of Delhi-has been carried away by the rascally sepoys/, or removed or undiscoverably secreted by its owners, who are gone for the time at least. From the palace I went to the Jumna Musjid, through the' uproarious crowds of plunderers'in the streets' and back, to camp. It is said that if you put two persons: to sleep in the same bedroom, one of whom has the toothache and the other is in love, you will find that the person who has the toothache will go to sleep first.