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dispassionate man, that there was something damnatory to the college behind the curtain which they dare not bring forward. But against such an irregular mode of stifling the voice of inquiry against such an unfair and unjust mode of proceeding, he must strongly protest. Undoubtedly numbers might afford the directors a temporary shelter from the prying eyes of justice; but it would be a short-lived security. Disturbances would, ere long, again take place in the college, and force themselves on the public, however unpleasant they might be. Under such a government the college could not long remain quiet. His hon. and learned friend, with his usual candour, liberality, and delicacy, had brought the matter before this conrt, in the hope that justice would be done by those who were so much interested in the question. He had done that which he thought due to the professors, to the directors, and to this court, and in endeavouring to attain his object, he was actuated by no hostile feeling. But in the name of justice and of humanity, he demanded that inquiry which he thought the subject required. The court might be assured that the artifice of moving the previous question would not get rid of the subject-for further disturbances, from the present seeds, would and must come out. He appealed to the candour of the court, whether any reasonable answer had been given to his hon. and learned friend's statement of facts and reasons for inquiry? His hon. and learned friend had brought forward his motion with abundant evidence to justify the inquiry, but in the very discussion which had now taken place, much more important facts had come out as it were by mistake. The court of directors themselves had unawares let in some most important evidence, which afforded damning proof of the weakness of the cause which they had been supporting. Many highly interesting facts and important reports had escaped them in their zeal in support of their own cause; and here he again besought them to let the whole budget of official correspondence come out→→ for come out it would some time or other. But with these official reports they were well acquainted, and were afraid of publicity-as secrecy would shield them and the college, he had little hope of their coming out through the directors sense of justice or candour. Did not, however, the evidence already produced, warrant his hon. and learned friend in every step he had taken? If this were so, he called upon the court to lend their assistance to his hon. and learned friend in the cause of those who had a right to look for protection. He called upon them to intercede on behalf of the youths who sought promotion by honora

ble means on the theatre of India, and inquiry whether they were fairly dealt by in their probationary career at Hertford college?-and whether the interests of the Company are served by the education and discipline there? Surely these were legitimate objects of inquiry, and an inquiry which this court had a right to demand. They had a right to see whether an institution maintained at such an enormous expense to the proprietors really answered the purpose. If Hertford college be really a proper place for education let it be continued, but do not compel the parents (to use his learned friend's words) to immolate their children at the shrine of vice-do not compel them to give up all superintendence of the moral education of their sons-do not I entreat you, insist that they shall go to Hertford college right or wrong without any reference to improvement by that or other means of education. Was it not a libel against the character of Englishmen, and against common sense, to say that parents would not exert themselves to educate their children to any test, that the court of directors would impose? Did not the court every day see children educated for the highest and most important functions of church and state, from the ordinary and natural motive of interest and ambition which every parent had to see his son properly educated and provided for in life. Was it to be supposed that parents were so dead to the value of appointments in India, as to neglect the necessary means of sufficiently educating their sons for such appointments? Surely they would feel a stronger interest in qualifying them than any which the Company and its learned professors could entertain; and in indulging their natural feelings, they would be actuated by higher objects —namely, in giving them a religious and moral education, as well as a political and scientific one. By indulging parents in the opportunity of educating their sons in their own way, so as to qualify them to answer the Company's test, they would at the same time have their morals pure and untainted, by taking care to keep them apart from the contagion of that vice, which, it was now too late to deny, had been found unhappily to exist in Hertford college. Was it not notorious that families of the first respectability gave to their sons and relations the best education the country could afford, and at a greater expense than that of Hertford, in the hopes of procuring for them a situation in the church, or under the government, of a few hundreds a-year to establish them in life; and can it for a moment be supposed, that there will be an unwillingness in any family to give to their sons who may have the offer of an appointment to India (worth £3000 a

year), such an education as might be prescribed by the Company for persons entering into their service?!! Here he must correct a notion of the hon. ex-director who had supposed that the present motion before the court, and the objections which had been made from time to time to the college, originated in a parsimonious feeling-the proprietors resting their opposition upon the ground of expense. The hon. ex-director was under a complete mistake,-it was not on account of the expense of the establishment (although that ought never to be lost sight of) that this question was brought forward; but it arose from a proposition made by the court of directors to add to the expense of the institution, a salary for an assistant professor to teach the oriental languages, which the hon. ex-director had repeatedly told the court was never meant to be a leading or important feature of education in the college. Now, after the voluntary testimony of professor Malthus who had lately informed the public, that after ten years' trial the college had not answered its object; after the declaration of the hon. ex-director, that it never was intended to teach the young men at Hertford any thing else than the usual branches of European literature and science; and after the declaration of my lord Minto in 1815, that Mr. Stirling was the only young man "who had ever ar"rived from Hertford with a knowledge "of the languages beyond mediocrity" it seemed to him impossible for the directors to resist this call for inquiry into the real state of the college, and the causes of its failure. But without the testimonies of so important witnesses, as he had now quoted, his hon. and learned friend had brought forward a volume of evidence which no ingenuity could answer. had produced many instances of such glaring defects in the institution, as must strike every candid mind with irresistible conviction. Certainly he (Mr. H.) would not enter into all the points which his hon. and learned friend had dwelt upon with so much force and eloquence; but there was one topic which his hon. and learned friend had urged with peculiar emphasis; and in his view of it, he (Mr. H.) most cordially concurred. His hon. and learned friend had shewn in their true colour the character of the statutes, and had justly described them as abominable and iniquitous. He had most properly exposed and condemned the injustice, and the cruelty, of the principle which considered the students as in statu pupilari, and yet treated their errors with all the severity of men. Nothing certainly could be more inconsistent with the principles of British justice than this doctrine. If the young men at the college were to be considered only in statu

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pupilari, why not treat them with that indulgence and consideration for the levities and follies of youth, which such a state required? On the other hand if they were to be punished with all the severity of men, why debar them of the rights and privileges belonging to every British subject?-Why not practice towards them those principles, which they were taught by their learned professor of British law, to believe were the peculiar attributes of English justice. It had been argued by the hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. R. Grant) that the statutes of the college treated them in all respects as children;-if this were so, upon what principle were they denied the privilege of having justice administered on that footing, why were they to be put out of the pale of the English law, and punished with all the rigour of persons who were really amenable to it? This undoubtedly was a matter of most serious importance and imperiously demanded inquiry. He should only detain them to state one case as an example of the manner in which the college council acted upon the statutes of the college, that the court may judge between the learned gentleman (Mr. R. Grant) and his learned friend (Mr. Jackson) of the justice and lenity of both statutes and conduct. In the riot at the college in Nov. 1815, when upwards of one fourth of the young men were implicated, the college council, instead of only punishing those who were really guilty, actually inflicted the severe punishment of expulsion from the college, and of exclusion from every other brauch of the Company's service, whether medical, marine, or military, on many young men, whom, from some former acts of conduct, or from pique, or whim, they choose to select-therein, by an arbitrary, and perhaps most unjust act, ruining the youths, and heaping sorrows on their parents.

The following is a copy of a letter from the official officer of the college to the friend of one of the young men expelled.

"East-India College, 11th Nov. 1815. "Sir,-It is my painful duty to inform "you officially that the council, not being "able to delect the persons concerned in "the outrage of Thursday evening, have "been under the necessity of having re"course to the statute which enables "them to select certain persons whom "they conceive most likely to be concerned: Mr. is unhappily amongst "that number, and I have taken for "granted that he will be received into

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your house. I can only add, that I re"main your obedient servant,

(Signed) "B. BRIDGE, Reg."" With such facts as these before the court, could it be said that there was no data to go upon? No man of an unpre

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mind could dispute dit, to believe the testimony of the counthat a very strong case for inquiry had try gen gentlemen, who must be taken to been completely made out; and therefore speak from disinterested motives, in he hoped and trusted the court would preference to that of persons who were not sauction by their vote of this day, the in every way interested in vindicating the secret, suspicious, and unworthy conduct character of the college. The learned of those gentlemen who refused all in- gentleman had read a letter from Lord quiry. He said unworthy conduct; for John Townshend, as if in favour of the if truth was really the object, it was un- college; but no document could prove in worthy of the court of directors-unwor- a stronger point of view that the whole of thy the character of the professors, and the gentlemen of the county entertained unworthy of the proprietors, to refuse to the same opinion of the college as those elicit truth by inquiry; for in that point who supported the present motion.-It of view they were acting directly contrary can hardly be supposed on the one hand to what they professed to wish, but which, that the whole of the country gentlemen in reality they were afraid to meet. If of the county had any motive for maligthe result of the inquiry should be fa- ning the institution, or saying of it that vourable and honorable to the college, which was untrue; whereas, on the other no man would more sincerely rejoice than hand, the interested friends of the college he should; because, although it was im- had every inducement in the world to palpossible to dispute the past and present liate the objections urged against it in facts upon which the inquiry was brought order to secure its continuance and their forward, yet that the inquiry would be salaries. He, therefore, cautioned the the means of bringing back the college to court against the imputation of the learnsuch a state of amendment and improve- ed advocate of the college, when he asment, as to afford a rational probability serted that the authors of this motion that the establishment would be perma- were interested in the downfall of the nent. And here he begged to caution the college, prejudiced against its character, proprietors against the unfair insinuations and ignorant of the real history of it.which had been thrown out, that it was Setting the testimony of the disinterested the wish of the author of this motion for supporters of the motion for inquiry, inquiry, to abolish the college without due which that learned gentleman had thought consideration. That was far from their proper (with what right or justice he best wish, and they had no view of that kind know) to designate as the enemies of the in bringing forward the question of in- college, and the testimony of the interested quiry. On the contrary, it was found upon professors and opposers of all inquiry.deinquiry to have answered the purpose, it signated by some gentlemen as the friends was their wish that it should be con of the college, entirely aside, the court tinued: but if it turned out that the vari were in fact possessed of the most disinous facts and statements upon which the terested, and the best evidence which question of inquiry was submitted to the could be adduced upon the subject, namecourt, were founded in truth, then it ly, the opinion of the independent counwould become a serious question whether try gentlemen of England,- and official the institution ought any longer to be con documents from which the most irrefragatinued. For his own part he had no hesi ble testimony could be produced to prove tation in expressing a candid and consci- all the statements of his hon. and learned entious belief that if the case did go to friend touching the degree of proficiency the inquiry the result would be unfavour in the Oriental languages and other able to the college. The documents sciences, and the demeanour of the young which had been produced strengthened this men, and the general character of the col belief,-public opinion tended very much lege. Under these circumstances, he to confirm it, and above all it was corro hoped and trusted, that every man in this borated by the testimony of those who court, who had any regard for the charac were independent and disinterested men, ter of the proprietors, for the reputation resident in the neighbourhood of the col- of the court of directors, for the honor lege-for in spite of all that Mr. Mal of the college, or for the interests of India, thus had said, and all that the professors would manfully stand up in support of the Could say, he was disposed to take the motion made by his hon. and learned fair, candid, and unbiassed opinion of the friend for inquiry after truth, to enable country gentlemen of Hertford against the them best to come to a calm, a deliberate, testimony of all the interested professors and a candid consideration of this most put together. In every view of the case important subject. hshienes afsidor he was ready, notwithstanding what had to st been said by Mr. Malthus to their discre- To be continued.) do Div sustaienos romed blues disrel

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Asiatic Journ.-No. 19.

VOL. IV.

M

MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

THE late excellent Mr. Tolfrey, whose death we record on a following page, had completed the Pali translation of the New Testament to the end of Paul's epistle to Philemon, and the Singalese to the end of the 2d chapter of 2d epistle to Timothy.

The Colombo Auxiliary Bible Society have resolved that a letter be written to the Parent Society, informing them of the deplorable misfortune which the society has sustained in the untimely death of Mr. W. Tolfrey, and the measures taken to prevent an interruption in the publication of the Singalese scriptures. The Committee also resolved to express their esteem for Mr. Tolfrey, by erecting a monument to his memory in the church of Colombo.

The Sermon upon the Mount, and the

Discourses of our Saviour, have just been printed from the new Singalese translation, by the Colombo Auxiliary Bible Society.

We have the satisfaction to announce the opening of the New Wesleyan Mission House in the Petta, on Sunday, 22d December. His Excellency the Governor, who with his accustomed benevolence and zeal to promote Christianity, sanctioned and generously assisted the missionaries at the commencement of their undertaking, attended their place of worship on this interesting occasion, and was accompanied by Lady Brownrigg, the principal gentlemen of the civil and military establishment, many of the respectable Dutch and native inhabitants, attended with others of every gradation in society.

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL

INTELLIGENCE.

MARITIME DISCOVERIES IN AUSTRAL

ASIA.

Extract from the Hobart Town Gazette, and Southern Reporter, May 11, 1816.-We are happy to lay before our readers the following very interesting journal of Lieutenant Jeffries, of H. M. armed brig Kangaroo, on her voyage from port Jackson to Ceylon; which is highly creditable and meritorious to the nautical abilities of Lieutenant Jeffries; and as the publication of a new track in seas abounding with reefs and shoals in every direction, to the imminent danger of the navigator, must prove of the greatest import and utility to the commercial world; more especially that part of it which enjoys the trade of Austral Asia and Bengal, besides adding to the general stock of nautical knowledge:

His Majesty's armed brig Kangaroo, commanded by Lieutenant Jeffries, sailed from Port Jackson the 19th of April 1815, for the island of Ceylon, for the purpose of conveying to their regiment the various detachments of the 73d that had remained, and who, with their families, amounted to about one hundred persons in number. Intending to make the passage through Torres Straits, Captain Jeffries ran along the coasts as far as Harvey's Bay, which lies in about 244 S. Latitude; when finding the weather grow thick and unfavourable as he approached Wreck Reef, he formed a resolution to try the passage inside the Great Barrier Reefs, which commence in about 23°, and extend as far as New South Wales.

lat. 10° S. Captain Jeffries followed Captain Cook's track along the coast of New Holland, considering it in all respects preferable to the outer passage, in which almost every vessel that has adopted it has fallen in with unknown reefs and shoals. Having observed that officer's track as nearly as was possible, until he reached that part of the coast which lies off Endeavour river, Captain J. was left to his own judgment in running down an immense track that had been hitherto unexplored. On the 28th of April at noon, he rounded Breaksea Sprit, Harvey's Bay, and hauled in towards the coast to the westward; passed the Keppel island, and anchored at Point Bowen, for the purpose of getting fresh water, as her old stock, which had been taken on board at Port Jackson during an extremely dry season, had become putrid. The launch, upon her watering expedition, was driven fifteen miles to leeward of Port Bowen, by an unexpected gale of wind, and this accident detained the vessel several days. After leaving Port Bowen, Capt. J. continued as nearly as possible in the track of our celebrated but unfortunate countryman, and always ran down in the day-time such parts of the coast as Capt. Cook had passed by night, deriving thence an occasion of describing places which in Captain Cook's unlimited extent of observation have unavoidably escaped his more minute attention.

Having passed Northumberland and Cumberland islands, Capt. J. made Whitsunday passage upon Whit-sunday as

Capt. Cook had previously done in the Endeavour, thirty-five years before, from which circumstance the Passage took its name. There is something pleasingly coincident in the circumstance of two British commanders having upon that particular day anchored in the same remote and unfrequented spot-the knowledge of which brought to recollection the immortal Cook, and filled the mind with reverential awe and sympathy.

At Cape Sandwich Capt. J. had communication with the natives, who were very friendly, and conveyed fruits to the vessel. The men are rather stouter than the natives of this southern part of the coast; but in point of industry, or apparent genius, there is scarcely any difference. They have a fruit among them in shape and colour resembling the mangosteen of the East, and in taste the English medlar. By the 28th of May, Capt. J. had proceeded as far as Capt. Cook's track extended, he having there borne away, from a consideration that the coast beyond that Strait was an impracticable labyrinth In the evening Capt. J. hove too off Turtle island, intending to examine the coast to the northward before he went outside the reef; and as the inshore passage had never been tried, it was examined with the most minute attention, and found to be all clear as far as the eye could traverse. By so encouraging a prospect Capt. J. was led to determine on the experiment, and more particularly so, from the recollection that whenever Captain Cook stood off he had mostly met with difficulties.

From this day (the 29th), till the 1st of June, Capt. J. continued by day to sail along that unexplored coast, and at night bringing up under the lee of some rock, reef, or shoal, which were numberless. On the night of the 30th of May, Capt. J. anchored under a large group of islands, to which he gave the name of Flinders' Group. Ascending a high mountain, at daylight, he examined the coast, and perceived a chain of reefs along it as far as the eye could penetrate. Weighed, and standing along the coast close in shore, arrived at the entrance of an amazingly extensive bay, or gulph, at least thirty miles in depth, to which he gave the name of Princess Charlotte Bay; the land about this part of the coast appeared much finer than any other Capt. J. had seen, presenting a fine green, moderately wooded, and bearing a considerable resemblance to the interior of this (Van Diemen's Land) island.

Capt. J. found a safe and clear passage from three to five miles off the shore, and from seven to nine miles appeared a continuation of the reef and saud banks commencing off Endeavour River, or rather

from Cape Grafton, from whence the chain was first discovered.

On the 1st of June, at half past twelve, the vessel fell in suddenly with a dark red coloured water, which from the vertical position of the sun was not perceived until within fifty yards, the helm was instantly put hard at port, and the vessel going between five and six knots, cleared a coral shoal which had given the red colour to the water, within the narrow distance of ten yards. This danger was first observed by the captain, who was fortunately at the mast head with three seamen, emplayed for the look-out. Upon examina tion, the changed colour of the water was found to have been occasioned by a bed or mushroom coral rock, about four feet under water. The latitude of this dangerous rock is 13 deg. 32 min. 5 sec. S. and the longitude, by lunar observation, 143 deg. 47 min. East.

On the 2d, Capt. J. having passed the unexplored part of the coast, fell into Captain Bligh's track in the Bounty's launch, and proceeding atong shore, had an opportunity of observing the correctness of the charts; but notwithstanding which, about forty minutes past 1 P. M. the brig grounded on a sand bank not visible, on which there was only from nine to twelve feet water, with upwards of ten fathoms water within a ship's length to the eastward. Capt. J. sent an anchor out, which unfortunately came home, and rendered it necessary to lighten the ship by starting her water over board, together with a quantity of luggage. The anchor was again sent out, and fortunately held, and by the exertions of the soldiers and seamen, Capt. J. had the happiness to find lis vessel afloat at half past three the same afternoon; soon after which, came to anchor and examined the damage, which was very trivial, and soon set to rights. This shoal lies about two miles and a half west of Bolt Head, the soundings along that part of the coast varying from five to twenty fathoms.

On the 6th, after having run through all the reefs laid down in Capt. Flinders' chart, Capt. J. doubled Cape York, and found it to be an island, and not part of the main land, as heretofore supposed. Here the vessel anchored for the night, and next morning found one of the bower anchors broke, which was attributed to the foulness of the ground, and was the only part where foul ground had been met with. This day (the 7th) passed through Torres' Straits, on the side called Endeavour Straits, and found from three to three and a half fathoms water at about half flood, which soundings coutinned till within a few miles of Booby Island. Here the vessel anchored for the night, and thence shaped her course for Timor, which

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