the walls of the very same Hall, unjustly condemned the unfortunate Nundcoomar. But if we take a survey of the transactions of the Supreme Court, we shall find, that excepting the trials of Nundcoomar and the Rev. James Long, which are of the blackest dye, and which will be for ever observed with detestation and abhorrence, they are truly deserving of praise. Thus by drawing a disfigured, but an exact picture of the interlopers of Christian Europe, we have set before our readers examples of the most barbarous, horrible, and detestable course of actions. I know not whether I shall have the fortune of getting a Brett to prosecute, and a Wells to condemn or not.—Hindoo Patriot.
EPITOME OF ENGLISH NEWS.
The prosecution of the Rev. Mr. Long at Calcutta, for translating and circulating the Bengali drama, called "The Mirror of Indigo Planting," the charge of the judge, and verdict of the jury, will awaken more sympathy in this country on behalf of the ryots, and, by consequence more prejudice against the planters, than all the appeals, petitions, pamphlets, speeches, and newspaper tirades, that could have brought to bear upon the subject during the next fifty years. The impression made on the public mind of England by the proceeding may be considered perfectly irrespective of the actual merits of the case. The question is not so much whether the Indigo Planters—by whom the prosecution was really instituted—were or were not misrepresented in that marvellously tedious spectacle, which Mr. Long thought worth translating as a characteristic illustration of native opinion. The question which strikes the intelligence of the English people is whether a prosecution for libel on such ground should have been instituted at all. What is to become of our vaunts in India of free speech, and political liberty and the rights which men acquire under our happy and liberal constitution, if this kind of general satire—granting it to be a satire—this species of discussion of public interest in popular shapes is to be dealt with as a matter of libel and scandal? In one breath we bestow the privileges of open debate upon the natives and punish them for the exercise of it in the next. There was nothing whatever in the publication that could be tortured into a libel, to the satisfaction of the reason of an English Jury in England. It could not be shown to have injured any one; no one suffered in purse or reputation by it;
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