in the United States has increased from four hundred thousand to three millions and a half, being an increase of eight-fold, while our population has increased only four-fold. True religion thus keeps pace with the progress of the country, while Popery dwindles, notwithstanding all its foreign resources. We cannot but repeat here the hope, expressed some time since in another article on the subject, that the politicians of the country will learn at last from the national Census, as well as from these other evidences, that the political importance of the Romanists, so much emphasized, is little short of a humbug. We doubt not that it has been the policy of the priestly leaders to foster a sense of their numerical importance among the political leaders. There has been a preposterous exaggeration of their value in this respect. There are other denominations who eclipse them numerically-denominations, too, which will hereafter resent any compromise of any political party with them. It is time, indeed, that the Protestant sects of the country should distinctly assert themselves in this respect. They insist upon no coalitions of religious and political parties; but if the leaders of the latter are guilty of direct or indirect concert with Popery, the Protestant sects of the land, any one of them, or all of them, will be justified in arraying themselves against the unrighteous league. The last Census of the United States shows the comparative strength of Popery in this country. We gave some remarks on the subject some months ago, but may again refer to it opportunely here. We inserted at that time the following table: The representation of the Roman Church here is surprising, and should undeceive at once our political managers. It has but one thousand one hundred and twelve churches, which can accommodate only six hundred and twenty-one thousand hearers!-not one-eleventh of the number of churches belonging to the Methodists, scarcely more than one-eighth of the number of the Baptists, not one-fourth the number of the Presbyterians. It has not one thirty-third of the whole number reported, while the Methodists have more than one-third, and the Baptists nearly one-fourth. The comparative feebleness of Popery among us, as shown in this table, accords with the statement of the government Report respecting immigration. We have had quite exaggerated apprehensions on this subject. Of our twenty-four millions, only about two and a quarter millions are natives of Europe. This is less than ten per cent. About one million of these are Irish, a people who have been supposed to be more numerous than the whole foreignborn population reported by the Census. Lastly coincident with the discovery of these real facts respecting Popery, the public mind of the nation has been roused to resist its aggressions and pretensions. By a concerted scheme it attempted, within a short time, to overthrow the commonschool system of the country; but it was defeated at every point. Its attacks were made with evident confidence and courage; but it has had to retreat, utterly discomfited from the contest, in Detroit, Cincinnati, Baltimore-everywhere, in fine, except in California, where, it is said, a bill, smuggled in at the heel of the session of the legislature, provided for its iniquitous demands. No blow has stunned so thoroughly the strength of Popery among us, as its defeat on the commonschool question. The conflict has determined the character of the Church as disloyal to the highest interest of the country-for what interest is higher than the education of the common people? There was moral if not legal treason in its design. The circumstances of the conflict render every evasion of the 108,100 charge impossible. The infamous shame 690,065 is branded upon the very brow of Popery, 3,265,122 and it will hereafter be watched with the 1,767,015 Number of Aggregate Total Value of Universalist 494 Minor Sects.. 325 205,462 $10,931,382 845,810 7,978,962 4,096,730 11,261,970 252,255 1,709 567 965,880 2,867,886 871,600 94.245 14,636,671 443,347 14,369,889 8,973,838 46,025 741,980 vigilance which its well-ascertained inTotal....... 80,011 13,849,896 $86,416,639 tentions demand. increasing our provisions for the intellectual and religious education of the people. Let us especially extend the "common school" everywhere, and without delay, even where it must be but the log cabin. Let us maintain in it our old common Bible-the Bible which the first Congress of the United States, itself, provided for the people, by express vote and an express appropriation. Let us vest the public responsibilities in genuine Americans, who know how to value them. Let us break the power of Popery at the polls. Let us demonstrate, as we have now attempted to do, the falsehood of its numerical pretensions. Let us treat it as an egregious folly of a long-past age, which cannot, and ought not, to hold up its head with self-respect amidst the light and liberties of our country and our century. It will affect to smile at us for such opinions and attempts; and others, not of it, will smile also, reminding us of its historical vigor and chicanery; but all good men, who rely upon a divine providence, and not only they, but all sagacious men who understand the inevitable tendencies of the times, will predict our success. A half a century ago many of our Christian Meanwhile the newly-awakened popular hostility to it has taken a new form in an energetic political organization, which seems destined to control the elections of the country. We "know nothing " of the "Know-Nothing" movement except by its public results as reported in the election returns. We are not prepared to indorse its measures, as we do not understand them; but we do most unhesitatingly indorse its main design-the restoration of a truly American control of the affairs and destiny of the country. It is high time that this were done. Every native citizen should insist upon it. The pretensions of Popery in our politics should especially and conclusively be ignored. Comparatively feeble as it is, it has, nevertheless, been for years a potent element in the politics of the country. It has received in this respect a tolerance, an indulgence even, which would not have been accorded to any other religious body of the land. What if the Baptists, the Presbyterians, or Methodists, native citizens though they mostly are, had interfered with politics as have the foreign Romanists among us? What would have been the outcry of all the land against the "Union of Church and State"-the deg-fathers predicted that Popery would either radation of religion to ambitious ends-the corruption of the clergy! Any Protestant sect which should have attempted the wretched game, would have been ruined by it. But a horde of foreigners, bound by their religion to a foreign allegiance, have done the thing openly and for years, and have been courted and complimented, and fawned over by our intriguing politicians for the very fact-the fact which would blast with public scorn any denomination of native Christians. There is an end to this iniquity now, however, let us hope. In attempting to show the real state and prospects of Popery, we have not argued against the necessity of a continued and uncompromising conflict with it. We have only argued for the feasibility of such a conflict. Let us then wage it incessantly-not as heretofore, with servile terrors at the supposed magnitude and power of the enemy, but with an unmitigated conviction of its iniquitous designs, and yet the confidence of assured superiority and assured success. While the hordes of Popery pour in upon us from abroad, let us neutralize the corruption they bring into the country by constantly destroy our liberties, or be itself here destroyed; all the indications now favor the latter alternative. It has been coming in upon us as the icebergs float into the southern waters-only to melt away. We need but a confident and energetic persistence in our lawful means of defeating it, to save our children, and perhaps the world, from its intolerable evils. A hundred years from to-day will, we have a right to believe, have concluded its deplorable history as a great power in either the political or religious world. PEEVISHNESS. - Peevishness gives rise frequently to discord. Peevishness we may regard as a family canker. It is not like an acute disease in plants, or like the devastations of the locust and caterpillar, that cause vegetation suddenly to disappear. It is a corroding malady; it eats in, and it eats on, till the vital sap is wasted. Whether the evil be communicated by provocation and example, or whether it be natural and hereditary, we cannot tell; but, strange to say, there are many houses in which there is not an individual free from this unfortunate disease. [For the National Magazine.] ENGLAND'S SHAME-THE OPIUM TRADE IN THE EAST. ritory made by British arms in the Eastall point to the government of Great Britain as the responsible power for the administration of the affairs of British India. THE nominal masters of British India And at this day, when the established gov the Honorable East India Company. The history of this great organization, from its earliest incorporation in the days of Elizabeth, until the recent discussions in the House of Lords of her present Majesty's Parliament of 1853, is the history of insatiable avarice leading to merciless oppressions. Its career, begun in piracy, has been led on by ambition and inordinate thirst for wealth, to the acquisition of vast territories, the possession of an unlimited monopoly, the exercise of absolute prerogatives, and the accumulation of incalculable wealth, wrung from the defenseless subjects of two of the greatest empires in the world-India and China. In the former, the treacheries, the aggressions, and the maladministrations, of nearly a century, heaped with remorseless perseverance upon a population of more than one hundred millions, have extorted from those millions frequent but unheeded cries of wrong, and have debased the people, and well-nigh drained the resources of the country. In China, the insatiable thirst of wealth, accompanied with perpetual financial embarrassments, has led to the establishment of an infamous traffic, which with alarming rapidity is exhausting the wealth of the nation, and spreading demoralization and death throughout the country. To whom is this great corporation responsible for the wrongs it heaps on so vast a portion of the human race? Or, rather, to whom should the world look for redress for these cruel oppressions, and whom should she hold responsible for the administration of the affairs of this vast territory? From the days of Elizabeth until now, the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain have claimed and exercised an authority progressively more extensive and important over the interests of this great dominion. The successive legislation of the British government with regard to the affairs of India, the constant appointment by the Crown of the highest functionaries in the realm, the regular renewals and modifications of the charter of the East India Company, the assumption by Parliament of the acquisitions of ter | England itself, an irresponsible, extravagant, and inefficient government, we cannot but look upon the home government of Great Britain as the proper representative of the controlling power in India, and, as such, responsible to the world for the evils which have their origin under the administration of the East India Company. To what extent, then, is the government of Great Britain responsible for the traffic in opium? We answer, unhesitatingly, to the full extent of the trade; and this, too, not only on the principle of qui non prohibet, cum prohibere possit, jubet, but also by encouraging and fostering the production of the drug in India, and by lending the authority of her name, and the power of her arms, to enforce and defend the trade in China. But to sustain this answer we must examine the connection of the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain with the government of India. In 1772, when the corruptions of the East India Company had reached an extent truly appalling, the Parliament of England began to interfere decisively with the affairs of India. From that time until the present, the home government has been gradually absorbing into itself the powers and privileges, and perhaps we may add, the emoluments of the Company; and it needs but little prophetic acuteness to predict that long before the same length of time shall again elapse, all the powers and rights of the Company will be absorbed by the national government, and the possessions of the Company will be hold and controlled by the Crown of England-and the Honorable East India Company, with its vast possessions and its anomalous prerogatives, shall become a matter of history. This interference began with the farcical examination and dubious censure of Lord Clive, when Parliament first condemned, and then assumed the conquests he had made, by resolving : "That acquisitions made by the arms of the state belong to the state alone; and that it is illegal in the servants of the state to appropriate such acquisitions to themselves." In the following year the ministry introduced two bills into Parliament, in a government under the entire control of the Parliament of England, and which, though of a different form, is as essentially under the management of British sovereignty, as any colonial possession of the British empire. Nor can the responsibility of the English government be evaded by declaring the Indian empire to be a "foreign dependency, and not a colony; that it does not enjoy that exemption from taxation for the benefit of the United Kingdom, enjoyed by other colonial possessions; and that it has occasionally remitted considerable sums as tribute to England." The English government has always been aware of the extensive growth of the poppy, and the manufacture of opium in India. The poppy is grown on soil de which were distinctly asserted the claims of the British Crown to all the territorial acquisitions of the Company. These bills not only assumed the Company's possessions, but also regulated its internal affairs, by raising the qualification to vote in the Court of Proprietors; by changing the annual election of the whole twenty-four directors, and limiting it to the annual election of six only; by inserting the government of the Presidency of Bengal, in a Governor-general and four counsellors, rendering the other Presidencies subordinate to that of Bengal; and by fixing the salaries of all the government officers. But we cannot in a single article trace the history of the gradual assumption of authority and power over the affairs of India, on the part of the home govern-clared to appertain to the Crown of Great ment. We reserve this for another form, in which we design to give to the public a full and systematic investigation of the whole opium question. We need only now observe, that ten years later than the passage of the above bills,—that is, 1784,the celebrated Pitt introduced his famous India bill, which established the Board of Control, which institution fixes the responsibility of the government of India on the Crown and Parliament of England. This body consists of six members of the Privy Council, appointed by the Crown, two of the principal Secretaries of State being always members. The President of the Board is, in fact, Secretary of State for India, and is the officer responsible for the government, and for the proceedings of the Board. This body extends its superintendence over all the civil and military affairs of India. Macaulay says :— "It revises, cancels, or approves, all dispatches, letters, orders, or instructions, proposed to be sent out by the Court of Directors to the local government in India; it may also require the court to prepare and send out dispatches on any given subject, couched in such terms as it may deem fit; it may transmit, in certain cases, orders to India, without the inspection of the Directors; and has access to all the Company's papers and records, and to all proceedings of the Courts of Directors and Proprietors. It is clear, therefore, that from 1784, when the Board of Control was established, the real sovereignty of British India was taken out of the hands of the Company, and placed in those of ministers." What, then, is the real government of British India? It is obvious, that while it is a government apparently in the hands of the East India Company, it is in reality Britain; opium has always been prepared and sold by the acknowledged subjects of the British empire. The magnitude of the trade, the enormity of its evils, the contraband character of the traffic from its origin to the present day, are facts known to every member of the British Parliament; yet that government, by every means which ingenuity could devise, has encouraged the trade in opium. The gov ernment has presented no objections or remonstrances against the unjust and oppressive system-has passed no acts intended to arrest, or even to limit it. On the other hand, it has repeatedly afforded facilities and assistance, and has fostered it, by its encouragement and approbation, into its present magnitude. Great Britain has given her soil to the growth of the poppy; has lent her arms to the acquisition of new territories, whose possession increased the extent and value of the traffic; has allowed and defended the trade in India; and, which brings her complicity to its acme, she has enforced the ruinous trade in China by the power of her arms. The secret of all this is, that India has been enriched by this traffic. It has been the life of English proprietors and English possessions in the East. The exchequer of China has been almost exhausted by the payment for this pernicious drug. The bullion of China has been transferred to the treasury of British India. It has paid large salaries to the incumbents of the civil, judicial, and military officers of England's possessions in the East; it has fought the battles of India, and made new acquisitions to British ter ritory; it has covered vast tracts of India with smiling fields, worked by a groaning population; it has conferred princely fortunes on English subjects; it has opened an extended field throughout India for the importation of British manufactures; and it has paid large remittances to the exchequer of England. The English government has not possessed the moral courage to do right, when the cost might be the loss of such golden fruit. Nor is the British government unwilling to acknowledge this responsibility, nor does it hesitate to give its power and authority to the cultivation of the poppy, and its assent to the receipt of revenue from this source. In 1832, when about to renew and modify the Company's charter, this subject came under review, and a "Select Committee" was appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the subject of the Indian revenues. From the report of this Committee we extract the following sentences: "The monopoly of opium in Bengal supplies the government with a revenue amounting to 8,459,425 sicca rupees, or £981,293 in sterling money, per annum; (that is in 1832; it now reaches three millions sterling;) and the duty which is thus imposed, amounts to 301 per cent. on the cost of the article. In the present state of the revenue of India, it does not appear advisable to abandon so important a source of revenue; a duty on opium being a tax which falls principally upon the foreign consumer, and which appears upon the whole less liable to objection than any other which could be substituted." And again : tinue the production and sale of the drug as a source of revenue; and if any contingency should arise to endanger and diminish this income, it is prepared to adopt other measures, calculated to increase the production of the article to compensate for any threatened loss. And this has been the obvious policy of the government ever since. Wars have been declared for this purpose; and this very policy had a large share of influence in producing the conquest of the great territories of Scinde, by which the large products of Malwa were brought under the control of the Anglo-Indian authorities. Is it to be wondered at, that a few years after this, when the outrages of the smuggling traffic had brought the opium merchants in China into imminent danger, and when more than twenty thousand chests of the contraband acticle had been seized and burned by the Chinese authorities-is it to be wondered at, that this very report of the House of Commons should be referred to, and quoted by the British merchants, when calling upon the home government to defend them, and to demand indemnity in their behalf for the opium that had been seized and destroyed? The government then felt the weight of its responsibility, and under a deep sense of its own complicity in the forbidden traffic, dared not refuse to succor its imperiled subjects in China, many of whom had been seduced into the trade, by the constant approbation given by the home "Unless it should be found practicable to government to the opium traffic. The substitute an increase of assessment on poppy lands, it does not appear that the present high amount of revenue could be obtained in a less objectionable manner." And yet again "The time may probably be not very far distant, when it may be desirable to substitute an export duty; and thus, by the increased production under a system of freedom, to endeavor to obtain some compensation for the loss of the monopoly profit." We have here at once a full confession of acquaintance with the evils of opium, and a full assumption of responsibility for them. This looks like managing the affair in a business-like manner. There is no mistaking the meaning of the report of the Select Committee. The government of Great Britain, after a full investigation of the matter, thinks it advisable to con consequence was, a war with China. Nor in the parliamentary debates which were produced by the crisis in the affairs of China which led on to the opium war, do we find any tendency to a denial of British complicity, or any disposition to abandon the cause of their merchants, who, through the countenance lent to the traffic by the English government, became involved in it. Not a few of the noble speakers frankly avowed their personal interest in, and connection with the opium traffic; not a few sanctioned and approved the conduct of Captain Elliott, and thereby pledged the nation to fulfil his stipulations made with the merchants, to indemnify them for any losses which might be sustained by delivering into the hands of the Chinese authorities all the contraband drug that might be found in their posses |