500l. a year; medical officers being compelled to serve two years in these situations, whatever their previous length of service may have been, to entitle them to retire on the pensions attached to these offices; a hardship, and most illiberal piece of injustice, inflicted on no other commissioned officer in the Honourable East India Company's service. But as these appointments are not attainable in less than thirty or forty years, to all of shorter service they might as well not exist.

To conclude, as you are fond of your profession, and may wish to remain in it, it might be most advisable for you, in these times of peace, to remain at home; and now that the Royal College (most absurd and illiberal) monopoly is at an end, you might practice, with good success, as an independent physician in the metropolis, provided you be content with moderate fees. You would be unfortunate indeed, if you did not more than double, in the first year, the Company's ultimate recompence of twenty and thirty years' service, and you would have a still better prospect of success, as a general practitioner, a degree being no more an obstacle to practising as such, in civil life than it is in the navy and army; but, if, after all, you are still unhappily bent on going out to India, in the medical service of the Company, and live in the manner and at the expense you can hardly avoid there, you may return to England, after from seventeen to thirty years service in India, with broken health, both of body and mind, to enjoy the Honourable Company's RECOMPENCE for your services, of 1917. 12s. a year; a sum, after the habits you will have acquired, scarcely proper and sufficient to find you a respectable lodging, leaving the trifling et ceteras of meat, clothes, and fire, wholly unprovided for. Heartily wishing you a better fate, I remain, my dear Sir, your's faithfully,

A RETIRED SURGEON.

To WILLIAM MAXFIELD, ESQ., PROPRIETOR OF EAST INDIA STOCK, LONDON.

SIR,-Having perused, in the Oriental Herald' of April last, the debates that took place at the East India House, in Leadenhall Street, at a Court of Proprietors, on the 16th of March, 1827, respecting the Bombay Marine, I was much gratified to perceive the able, disinterested, and honourable manner, in which you brought to its notice the sufferings of a corps we had toiled in together for se'veral years; and, although you were far my junior in the service at that period, believe me I now rejoice at seeing you elevated to one of the highest seats in the Court of Proprietors, supported by four stars, and endowed with wisdom, and an anxious desire to see justice done to all parties, however remote.

And as the honourable Chairman seemed disinclined to admit the

correctness of the observations you made on the conduct of the Superintendant, who has gone to another world, to render an account of all his deeds, and whom, it appears, the honourable Chairman had been instrumental in getting appointed to preside over the Bombay Marine, it may not be improper here to mention that the officers of the corps, and myself in particular, were witnesses to unbecoming behaviour, more than you have charged him with in that debate; and I sincerely hope that the wisdom and justice of the Honourable the Court of Directors, will never again permit them to yield assent to such appointments.

Dispersed as our corps is at present, allow me, Sir, to tender you my individual thanks for your generous and friendly exertions in behalf of the Bombay Marine, a service that I trust will never be surpassed in meriting honour and applause, whenever and wheresoever it may have the means to obtain it.

Believe me, Sir, to remain with sincere respect and esteem, your obliged and obedient servant,

East Indies, Oct. 1, 1827.

A BOMBAY MARINE OFFICER

of Forty-four years standing.

P. S. The circumstance you allude to in the debate, (page 153 of the Oriental Herald' for April, 1827,) respecting the 'Hastings' frigate, and Ernaad timber or store-ship was, I believe, the act of the Marine Board at Calcutta.

SONNET.*

Suggested by the unexpected Death of a beloved Brother.

OUR spring of life! How sweet, how passing sweet,
Together did we spend that season dear,

My brother! And since, for many a year,

How seldom hath it been our chance to meet!

And now hath Death, insatiable and fleet,

Thy course arresting in its bright career,
Placed thee, lamented, on a timeless bier,
And seal'd our parting in this world complete!
Yet shall we meet again, I fondly trust,
Where pain and grief shall know no second birth,
To hail that greater spring which waits the just,
Mid friends beloved on this dim speck of earth,
And where, near streams that vital freshness give,
The pure in heart shall see their God and live!

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE CONNECTED WITH THE EASTERN WORLD.

BENGAL.

The General News from Bengal during the past month is meagre and unimportant. We except that relating to the proceedings at Calcutta relative to the Sugar Duties and Colonization, of which we have made a separate article in the beginning of the present Number. The following are among the miscellaneous extracts which the latest papers yield.

'Cholera Morbus, we are concerned to learn, is prevailing to a considerable extent in the Native part of Calcutta, and many of the cases have terminated fatally. The violence of the disease, we apprehend, is to be attributed to the unprecedentedly great power of the sun this season through the day, and the coldness of the nights, arising from the north winds, which now begin to prevail. This month, (November,) so far as it has gone, has not been so healthy as it usually is, bad cases of fever being by no means unfrequent.'

With a view to caution the commercial community against the attempts now making to betray into acts which would render them liable to the penalties of the stamp regulation, the following facts are detailed, upon the authority of a party on whom we can rely.

'Two days ago a respectable looking Native broker came to the office of an agency establishment in this city, and tendered the sum of fifty thousand rupees on loan for six months, at the rate of six per cent. per annum, which was accepted of, and a stamped receipt offered for the same-upon which the broker consulted with another Native who accompanied him, and declined paying for the stamped paper, stating that he would be quite satisfied with the receipt of the parties upon plain paper, which not being acceded to, they left the house; and circumstances having occurred to excite suspicion, they were traced directly into the office of the Collector of Stamps. The parties returned on the following day, and after further negociation, they paid down one hundred rupees to bind the bargain, in the usual manner, when a receipt for the 50,000 rupees was made out upon stamped paper of the prescribed value, which being objected to by the brokers, upon the ground, that a receipt upon plain paper was all that was required, it was explained to them, that the party borrowing the money was willing to pay for the stamp, and that the receipt would at all events be as good with

*

Here is one of the blessed fruits of the new system of taxation. Such doings were heretofore unheard of among gentlemen in Calcutta.

Summary of the latest Intelligence from the East. 155

a stamp as without it. They then departed, accompanied by two sircars of the borrowers, and proceeded to complete the transaction, at the private dwelling house of the dewan of the Collector of Stamps. A common sircar, in the employ of the father of this dewan, had, by this time, been announced as the nominal lender of the money, but which was now refused, under the pretext, that the brokers had only been employed to negociate the loan upon the condition of procuring a receipt upon unstamped paper.

6

Any comment upon the above appears quite unnecessary; but the public will do well to be upon their guard. The brokers have since declared, that Ramchundar Ghoossal, the dewan of the Superintendant of Stamps, was the sole person who employed them in the transaction-that they received the hundred rupees paid as earnest money from his own hands, and that it was he who instructed them to take a receipt in the name of his father's sircar, above referred to.'

The Honourable Company's Steamer, Irrawaddy, reported on the 19th instant, (Nov.) brings twelve lacs of rupees, being the whole amount collected in Rangoon at the date of her departure, (the 12th instant,) of the balance of the crore of rupees. The place was perfectly quiet, and the new Woonghee had evinced every desire to keep faith with us, if Government should enable him to do so. The King has issued orders for the payment of the whole amount, aud no doubt is entertained that it will be ultimately paid, although not without delay and much difficulty in the collection. From the conciliatory character of the present Viceroy, it was considered that the present tranquillity was not likely to be interrupted.

Mr. Maingy, the Civil Commissioner, had arrived at Moulmein from Tavoy. Previous to fixing himself there, he is to visit the adjacent districts, and great advantages are anticipated from his talents and activity. It was supposed that he would make immediate arrangements for cutting timber in the immense teak forests of the country, which promises to be very productive.'

Sarkies Manook, the Armenian merchant at Rangoon, who rendered himself so conspicuous during the war, has boasted, it is said, that it was he who overturned Mr. Crawfurd's commercial treaty. As we do not recollect what that treaty was, we are unable to estimate the merits of this vaunted stroke of policy, either as it respects the Burmese Government or our own.'

General Orders by the Right Honourable the Governor-General in Council.

'Fort William, 30th October, 1827. 'His Majesty Solyman Jah Nusseer-ood-deen Hyder, Son of his late Majesty Abool-Moozuffer Moiz-ood-deen, Shah Zumeen

Ghazee-ood-deen Hyder, having ascended the throne of Oude, on the 20th instant, the Right Honourable the Governor-General in Council has been pleased to direct, that a royal salute and three vollies of musketry shall be fired from the ramparts of Fort William, and at all the principal stations of the army, in honour of that event.

By order of the Right Honourable the Governor-General in Council.

GEORGE SWINTON.

Acting Chief Secretary to Goverument?'

'A most lamentable accident, we are concerned to say, happened on the the 21st of October, within four or five marches of Almorah, by which an amiable and beautiful young lady lost her life.

'Captain Salmon and his family, it appears, had gone to the Hills for change of air, on account of health. On the day mentioned, Miss Salmon, in company, we believe, with her relative Captain Hearsey, was crossing a Sangah, or torrent bridge, when, shocking to relate, it broke down, and both were precipitated into the torrent; the gentleman was saved, but the strength and rapidity of the current, along with the shock of the tremendous fall, overpowered the young lady, and she sunk to rise no more.'

The following is from the Calcutta Government Gazette.

'The Editors of the Native papers of Calcutta, are entitled to much credit for their candour, and for the ingenuous simplicity with which they confess how little benefit they derive from their speculations. One Persian paper has been long abandoned, through want of support; and we apprehend the Hindi paper, the Udanta Martanda,' does not meet with that encouragement which it deserves. The Native community, it is clear, continues insensible to the importance of periodical illumination, and the European portion of the society takes no real interest in its dissemination through the local dialects. Paragraphing is cheap patronage, but the Native Press, evidently does not thrive upon such insubstantial fare as declamatory anticipations of the marvellous effects it is to produce.' †

The cypher of to-day succeeds the cypher of yesterday! but we learn that the real king, the low and wortliless minister keeps his place. We have not heard whether a fourth crore loan is to be the nuzzer on this occasion to the Honourable Company. But by all accounts, some such aid was sorely required by the Government in India; yet at such a time, the Company is harrrasing the Indian Government to make them remittances of one or two millions in specie! Where it is to come from, we have not been able to learn,

↑ So long as the Press was free, and the Natives could, without fear, make their anonymous complaints, the Native newspapers flourished. Since the licensing and domiciliary-visit regulations, they have of course