seems expedient to prepare the way by shortly defining the nature and limits of the restraints usually considered applicable to the dissemination of opinions through the Press.

2. In every nation, each individual is free to think unrestrained. No human contrivance can reach or prevent the fullest freedom of thought.

S. Thought may be communicated by spoken or by written language; and this intercommunication of thought between man and man is susceptible of human restraint.

4. That restraint is more or less effectual, according as the intercommunication takes place between the greater or smaller numbers of thinkers, at the same moment.

5. It is difficult to restrain conversations between two persons, or prevent their corresponding by writings. But it is easy to restrain men from addressing large assemblages, or from circulating multiplied copies of the same written address.

6. Printing is such a multiplication of copies. He who harangues a hundred men at once communicates his opinions one hundred times more rapidly than they could be spread from man to man. He who distributes one hundred copies of his opinions, enables one hundred men to harangue each his hundred; therefore, intercommunication by the Press may be ten thousand times more rapidly effectual than ordinary communication between man and man; and the copies being permanent in form, and exactly alike, may serve over and over again for successive assemblages of hearers.

7. The Press is, therefore, much more dangerous, if it be dangerous that men should intercommunicate thoughts, and much more beneficial, if intercommunication be beneficial, than any other mode of spreading opinions; it is also more susceptible of restraint from those who have the wish and the power to restrain intercommunication, by reason of its machinery.

8. The restraint may be direct, that is, may be applied in the form of prohibition, total or partial, against free intercommunication of thought: or it may be indirect, in the form of subsequent threatened punishment, the fear of which shall deter and intimidate those who print.

9. Previous censure of writings proposed to be printed, and systems of revocable licensing, are both modifications of direct restraint in its partial form. No nation has ever practised a total and absolute direct restraint; for tyrannical rulers always encourage the Press while it only praises them, and spreads agreeable or scientific intelligence. No nation has altogether dispensed with indirect restraint. Even in the United States of America, it exists in the cases of individuals who have civil remedy for false and malicious injury through the Press, as through any other vehicle of

wrong. In England, the indirect restraint prevails by law in a very strong degree.

10. In the East-India Company's dominions, up to April, 1823, no special legal enactment, touching the liberty of printing, existed. The power of making laws for India, generally, rests with the British Legislature, and has no other limit than their discretion. The power of making local laws for the Company's territories, except within the cities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, is vested in the governments of the three Presidencies above-named. The power of making local or bye-laws for those three great cities is vested concurrently in the Governments and the King's Supreme Court of Judicature at each,-the former proposing, the latter sanctioning.

11. The local laws enacted by the Government and King's Courts, conjointly, must not be repugnant to the laws of England, and may be appealed against by individuals, to the Privy Council, acting judicially, not ministerially. The laws enacted by the Governments solely, are not required to be consonant to English Jaw, and may only be repealed by the Governments themselves, by the Court of Directors of the Company, or by the Board of Control.

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12. Printing was first introduced into India by the English in their great cities; but the custom of circulating manuscript newspapers in multiplied copies is of considerable antiquity among Natives, the Mahomedans particularly and these Ukhbars (as) they are called) have always contained political rumors and intelligence, often mixed up with satirical and personal remarks.

13. The English Governments have never, until 1823, restrained printing in the provinces under their separate legislative jurisdiction. That it was, therefore, lawful to print without restraint up to that period, may be inferred from the very step of passing a law, in 1823, which constitutes into a crime, punishable by heavy fine and long imprisonment, the having or using any press, materials, &c. without special license; or any book, or printed paper, of which the circulation shall be prohibited by Government in their Gazette such fines or imprisonment to be summarily inflicted by a single justice, (appointed, paid, and removable by Government,) who is also vested with power of domiciliary visitation, and of seizing all such books or implements of printing, simply on his own belief that such obnoxious articles are concealed on any man's premises. Such has been the law since April, 1823, in the provinces of Bengal, without the ditch of Calcutta.

14. Within the metropolitan jurisdictions of the Supreme King's Courts, reside almost all the Europeans in India not in the service of the Company; most of the numerous mixed races of Anglo-Indians and Indo-Portuguese; most of the Armenians,

Parsees, Chinese, and other Asiatic foreigners, together with a vast population of indigenous Mahomedans and Hindoos. No accurate census exists in India; but writers have supposed Calcutta, and its immediate suburbs, to contain 600,000 souls. Madras and Bombay, together with Calcutta, may perhaps reckon a million of inhabitants in all.

15. These cities and all their population, from the earliest charters of the Kings of England, have been governed by English criminal law alone; while the Mahomedan code has been the law of the provinces, excepting only where British-born subjects, or Native servants of the Company, are concerned; in which case, the King's Court at the metropolis had exclusive jurisdiction. Justice has always been administered in the name of the King, in the Courts of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. In 1773, the Old King's Court of the Mayor and Aldermen of Calcutta being thought by Parliament not sufficiently powerful and venerable in the eyes of the Company's servants, a new and independent Court was created, expressly to protect the subject against the notorious despotism of the Government, and abuses of power by its servants.

16. To this Court, the jurisdiction of which, at first pervading the entire dominions of the Company, was subsequently limited to Englishmen and public employers without, and to all men within the City of Calcutta, whether Native or English, the power was confided of a negative on all legislative measures of the Supreme Government. No regulation could have the force of law within Calcutta, until approved by the King's Court, as consonant to British law. In April, 1823, this Court (one judge only present) passed a law, proposed by the Government, prohibiting the printing or publication of any periodical work, without previous license, revocable at pleasure, under heavy pecuniary penalties, to be inflicted by justices summarily; such justices being paid, appointed, and removable by Government. From this local law, an appeal has been made to the King in Council, and various protests and reclamations were presented by Natives and Indo-Britons : all on the ground that this licensing of the Press at will was repugnant to the principles of English law.

17. Until April, 1823, therefore, no law existed in Calcutta to restrain free printing: but an indirect method of influencing the Press did exist before, and was effectual so long as none but Europeans possessed skill and capital sufficient to conduct the business of printing.

18. This indirect method arose out of a power vested in the Company from the very beginning of its monopoly, and inherent in a strict monopoly, of preventing any British-born subject of England from resorting to or residing in India, but such as were in its employ, or had its license to remain there, as private merchants,

sailors, planters, and the like. This power has been continued in every successive renewal of the Company's charter, and in the last, 1815, was put in a particularly strong and distinct shape, although the commercial monopoly of the India Company was taken away, or so altered as to hold out a free trade to British subjects with the East, China alone excepted. The Government having the power of sending any British-born subject to England a prisoner, without reason assigned, it is evident this terrible engine, though created for purposes of monopoly, and continued for other purposes not avowed, might be used effectually to intimidate any individual within its scope from doing, or leaving undone, any thing whatsoever that might not be agreeable to authority.

19. On the first establishment of the Parliamentary-Government-General, and of an independent Council, and independent King's Court, in 1773, the Press in India was actually, as well as legally, free: that is, responsible only to the English libel law and a jury; but this freedom virtually ceased as the powers of the Court were curtailed and those of the Governor-General enlarged, while the privileges of the Council were at the same time cut down, and civil servants resumed the exclusive right of filling seats at that board. In fact, from the epoch of Lord Cornwallis's administration, it may be said, British-born publishers have been intimidated from printing any thing unpleasant to persons in authority, or those protected by them, more or less effectually, according to their opinion of the irritability or mildness of the individual Governor who holds the undivided prerogative of transportation at pleasure; but, in 1798, Lord Wellesley made use of this same power, in a more sweeping form, to compel white printers, through fear of banishment, to submit to the previous censorship of a Government Secretary. Still there was no law to restrain the Press; and, in 1818, when Indo-British editors began to start up, they refused to submit to the censorship, which they were professionally advised was a thing unknown and repugnant to law.

20. Lord Hastings, on that occasion, abolished the censorship, and circulated anew certain rules prohibitory of topics unpleasing to authority, which had been established by Lord Wellesley to guide censors and editors in his day. These prohibitory rules, however, were not law, not having been formally passed in the Supreme Court. They were, accordingly, in point of fact, never inforced, although the indirect power of fully inforcing them by intimidation on English editors still existed, and Lord Hastings publicly announced, in a speech to the assembled community, his intention and meaning that the intercommunication of thought by printing ought to be unrestrained for the sake of the governed, and should be so under his administration.

21. Mr. Adam, in 1823, succeeded temporarily to the Governor

General's fearful prerogative, and found the influential press chiefly in the hands of Englishmen. Having all along disapproved of Lord Hastings's notion of unrestrained intercommunication by printing, he re-established the system of restraint by intimidation; and immediately, on his accession, transported one editor, Mr. Buckingham, without trial or further notice, under the powers given him by the act to withdraw at pleasure the license of any British-born man to remain in India.

22. The Press, in consequence, began to fall into the hands of Indo-Britons and Natives, who were beyond the reach of any power except that of the King's Court, administering English law. But Mr. Adam prevailed on the single judge (Macnaghten) then remaining on that bench, to let him enact a regular bye-law, in point of form, which should put down all free printing by direct restraint, and should constrain Natives and Indo-Britons equally with Englishmen. This novel contrivance appears to have been readily agreed to by that single judge, and became law, as stated in par. 20.

23. At Madras and Bombay, previous censorship inforced on British-born residents, by terror of summary banishment, has existed, in imitation of Lord Wellesley's system, since his day, and is still in force. But no law for licensing has yet been solicited by those governments of their supreme courts; or if solicited, the King's judges have refused to lend themselves to such purposes; so that the Indo-British, or Native inhabitants, who cannot be got rid of in a summary way, are free to print without restraint, subject to the English law of libel only, and to a jury of English-born men, whose individual votes in a verdict cannot be known so as to expose them to intimidation for acting conscientiously.

24. To understand thoroughly the state of the Calcutta press, after the censorship was removed and free discussion was publicly invited by Lord Hastings, it must be remembered that the power of summary transportation is not vested in the majority of the government, but personally in the Governor-General alone. The circular " regulations" to editors, substantially the same as Lord Wellesley's, were the work of the collective government-namely, Governor-General and three councillors; but as these regulations were not in any respect law, they could only become operative to the extent that the Governor-General, individually, should choose to give them indirect penal effect, by backing them with his personal and special warrants for transporting such as should disregard the missive of the government.

25. When the Governor-General, therefore, openly challenged that scrutiny of the public press, which the Government had previously forbidden by its circular, the only means of giving efficacy to the vague denunciations of that missive being in his hands, the