his own fashion and language and by his own illustrations which however one-sided and exaggerated, or satirical, seemed to me to merit some attention.
The list given in at the trial contains the number of copies issued, or 202, being not one half of those printed, and the circulation took place with my knowledge, but owing to a misconception on my part not with that of the Lieutenant Governor.
The said list is one of a class of papers not usually brought on record, and it might with ease have been torn up, without blame being imputed to any one, and without is existence being known out of the office. I have taken care that it should be preserved, not from any spirit of defiance, but because, however erroneous my judgement may have been, I felt that it would ill become me to attempt to suppress or conceal anything which shewed the real extent of what had been done.
A great deal of censure has been passed upon the secrecy with which this book was circulated. I contend that the very fact of circulation under official frank shews that no secrecy was attempted or intended beyond the unavoidable secrecy of the Post Office. Had it been intended, as has been stated, to stab reputations in the dark, it would have been comparatively easy to have circulated a number of copies by the ordinary book postage, which mode could have afforded no clue whatever as to the sender.
After all, the whole Indian circulation amounts to 14 copies, and most of those have been recalled or destroyed. No copies were sent to any newspaper or public body in Calcutta because it was considered that to make selections would be invidious, and that, on the whole, those who had taken one side or the other in the Indigo crisis, were hardly in the position to form a fair estimate of any such popular representation of Native feeling. Any large local circulation would probably have done no good. As a bare fact, the impress of the Government frank must, I contend, disprove the charge of a wish to calumniate in secret, and of any underhand proceeding. Indeed, it will hardly be contended with seriousness that any one wishing to produce irritation, or to hurt the feelings of others without detection, and in safety from any possible consequences, would choose such a mode of circulation as the sending to four papers in four
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