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India, and has long been the subject of my public complaints at the India House. I have proved, in open Court, that the European officer of the Madras Government offered a gold marriage necklace (an indication of the strictest union, and therefore a direct act of worship) to the idol Padazier, together with red silk cloth and incense: and also presented scarlet cloth to the priest, and money to the heathen attendants. I then also read the Government order, authorizing this expenditure from the public treasury for this idolatrous ceremony.

"I further proved that offerings are annually made on behalf of the Government to the idols at Conje veram, near Madras-no similar honour having ever been paid to Idolatry under the rule of Mahomedan predecessors; also that the British Government incurs herein the expense of 300 pagodas paid from the public treasury, and I named Mr. Place as the Government officer (the collector of the Jaghire) from whose time the festival has been performed by the India Company.

"I further shewed that, in one year, the Rajah of Mysore requested leave to perform this worship himself, which was conceded; but in the following year the Government performed this ceremony instead of the Rajah. I proved that Mr. Place offered to the god jewels, and a head ornament worth 1000 pagodas-that Lord Clive, on his personal visit to an idol temple, offered an ornament of 1050 pagodas-that Mr. Collector Garrow presented a gold necklace of 500 pagodas, and that till this time the collectors present to the god, every year, a lace garment of 100 rupees value. In Mr. Place's collectorate he sent for all the musicians, dancing girls (or prostitutes,) elephants, and horses, attached to the other temples of the Jaghire, in order to increase the pomp of the principal ceremony in question, when he gave his personal attendance, and made offerings to the priests who recited the bedas; and I then asked the Court whether these facts did not remind them of Mr. Burke's celebrated declaration, that the servants of the East India Company contrive to get unbaptized in their outward-bound passage?'

"I proved further that the Goverment order issued at Canara, so late as 1833, fully sanctions the offerings to the idols for procuring rain, and expressly allows money from the public treasury for the maintenance of this abominable superstition, and even directs the officiating priest to offer such worship. The total money paid in that one year to the several temples in one district was no less than 360 rupees. I proved further that the Hindu goddess of wisdom (The world by wisdom knew not God,' 1 Corinthians i.), received annual offerings at the public expense and that, as a part of the ceremony, the account books of the company, were equally deified, and money gifts distributed to the heathen priests. These gifts, the music, and the fruit, all form a regular item in the public expenditure.

"There is also a god of wisdom as well as a goddess (Ganesa) who is worshipped as duly at the charge of the Company, and I read to the Court the application of the native officer for this very payment to perform worship to this idol, after it had been kept one day in the Government Court House,' that is, after the priests and prostitutes had been fed till the idol was moved in procession.

"I could easily multiply these proofs of religious offerings being made by the officers and servants of the Company, and paid for by the State, but shall only observe that these different acts of worship are notoriously performed in the offices of all the chief native revenue officers, the expense of all being defrayed by the Government.

"On one occasion I showed that we had to pay for all this abomination six entire days, and that nightly worship was then offered, the particulars of which would be wholly unfit for publication in England.

"The only remarkable circumstance is, that Mr. Weeding was himself in Court when I adduced these and many similar instances of European delinquency in openly encouraging and paying for the offerings made to idols, and that he can yet suppose the possibility of the offering at Umritsir not having been made by Lord Auckland, but by Runjeet Singh. I will, however, suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the heathen prince (and not the Christian Governor) offered to the heathen idol, and I will then ask, in the face of this Christian country, how came Lord Auckland to be present when this abominable idolatry was performed? He had clearly no right to sanction, by his presence, the worship of heathenism, any more than the primitive Christians would have permitted themselves to be present at the offerings which were made to heathenism of old.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant,
"JOHN POYNDER.

"New Bridge-street, June 21, 1839."

15. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY'S REPORT AND THE REV. W. S. MACKAY. We cannot refrain from placing before our readers the following just tribute paid by the Assembly to our excellent but absent friend the Rev. W. S. Mackay, concerning whom we regret to say no very recent information has been received, but we trust he will soon be restored to his circle in improved health.

"To the only painful topic on which they have to report in regard to Calcutta, your Committee have already referred. Its is the continued and increasing indisposition of Mr. Mackay. They cannot, however, confine to a mere passing allusion the statement of their deep regret on this subject, or the tribute which it is their wish and their duty to pay to the services of the excellent person for whom their sympathies, and alas! their fears, are so strongly excited. Highly talented, and highly ac complished, Mr. Mackay has, with unobtrusive but most Christian devotedness, laboured in the great cause to which he had dedicated himself. His meek and gentle spirit endeared him both to his colleagues and to his pupils; while his energy and calm decision insured the respect of all with whom he was brought into contact. To the utmost of his strength, indeed far beyond his physical strength, he struggled on while it was possible: and when the effort could no longer be made, the manner in which he yielded to his Heavenly Father's will most strikingly indicates his single-hearted piety.

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"If ever I return to Calcutta,' he says in a letter to the Convener of the Committee, my absence will probably not exceed seven or eight months; and I trust then, for what measure of life is left me, to be again actively employed. Should I die, God can easily raise up for himself other and far better men to fill my place; for I have been, in every sense, an unprofitable servant. The young men seem sorry to part with me; and several of them have promised, with every symptom of deep feeling, to think over all that I have said to them, and no longer to remain halting between two opinions.' Mr. Mackay's own impression,' says Dr. Charles, is, that his work is nearly finished; and the feeling of this evidently forms to his devoted mind the most painful part of his trial. But nothing can be more touching, or more edifying, than the uncomplaining and even cheerful manner in which he sustains his appointed lot; and his meek, gentle, and unostentatious character never appeared to greater advantage than now, when he is unfitted for active usefulness.-The grace of his Heavenly Master shines forth in him with great lustre ; and he is evidently ripening fast for immortality.""

THE

CALCUTTA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

No. 91.-December, 1839.

I.-Some Notices in relation to the present position of the Opium Trade in China.

No. 2.*

To the Editors of the Calcutta Christian Observer.

My notices relative to the Opium Trade in China which you had the kindness to publish in your No. for September 1838, were elicited by seeing a short editorial article in a previous No. of your work, setting forth that the Opium Trade with China" was nearly if not quite extinct." Since that time varied indeed have been the movements and losses and successes of the opium traffic, both in India and in China; and the importance of the events which have transpired within the past six months in connexion with the trade have indeed brought matters to a "crisis ;" and friends and foes are waiting with the deepest anxiety and interest for the opening of the next scene in this singular drama. Within the lapse of another six months, other events of equal importance will most certainly be developed; but what will be the precise character of these events, and their ultimate results, are known only to Him who rules the destinies of nations.

Knowing that it is your object and warmest desire to disseminate correct information upon every subject which comes within the sphere of your journal, I venture to lay before you and your readers a few more notices, prompted by an editorial article in your No. for June, headed "EXTINCTION OF THE OPIUM TRADE," the first sentence of which is "We believe the Opium Trade with China is at an end:" and you observe, a little further on, that your "information was of the most accurate and undoubted description."

Now, Messrs. Editors, let me solemnly assure you that, like theCooly Trade," the fountain of the Opium Trade, which * See Calcutta Christian Observer for September, 1838. VIII.

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is overwhelming China with its torrents and its curses, is in India; and the decrease of the trade in China, will just be in proportion to the decrease of the growth of the poppy in India. And, however devoutly to be wished is the final "extinction" of this vile traffic, still your prophecies in relation to it are at present far from being fulfilled, and "the Opium Trade with China is NOT at an end." It is with no other feelings than those of the deepest regret that I send you this sad intelligence, and for the accuracy of my statements I hold myself publicly responsible. Of the arrival in Canton on the 10th of March of the high Commissioner, LIN, with extraordinary powers from the Court of Peking; of the imprisonment for nearly two months of all the foreigners in their own houses in Canton; of the insults offered to the national Representatives; of the forced surrender of 20,283 chests of opium; of the actual destruction of every ball of this vast quantity, and the withdrawal of all British subjects from the provincial city, you and your readers are doubtless already fully aware.

After the above circumstances had occurred, together with the repeated injunctions and requests of the British Superintendent to his countrymen to desist for the present from all attempts to introduce the drug into the country, many of us thought and hoped that a death-blow had been given to the Opium Trade. The high Commissioner too, in his first edict to foreigners, declared that "the wrath of the great Emperor had been fearfully aroused, nor would it slumber until this destroying evil be utterly extirpated."

The great amount of opium surrendered to the Commissioner, however, did not by any means include all that was in China, not to mention the large quantities that were constantly arriving. The smokers became exceedingly anxious for supplies, offering enormous prices; and the consequence was that a more desperate system of smuggling soon commenced, which has been going on at a tremendous rate ever since. In Macao, although the Portuguese governor has wisely interdicted the trade, much opium has been sold since the surrender, at vast profits. A Portuguese boasted that the measures of the Commissioner would enable him to make his fortune within the space of a few days. During the imprisonment in Canton, the Portuguese of Macao sent a considerable quantity of their opium to Manilla, for fear it would be seized by the Commissioner, but many chests were sold on their way from the warehouses to the ships; and the plan of the above individual was to take the opium out at night, and deliver it to the Chinese junks and boats in the offing. The governor of Macao seized a number of chests while in the act of being

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smuggled into Macao by an Englishman at the very time, and in consequence too of opium, his own countrymen, with the Representative of his Sovereign, were imprisoned and threatened with starvation and death in Canton. I leave comments to others-my obstinate determination is to state facts. In the Typa, at Hongkong, the present anchorage of the foreign shipping, and all around in the adjacent harbours, the drug is delivered to the Chinese from foreign vessels. A few days ago twenty-five chests were put into a Portuguese Lorcha from an English vessel (I have the name of this vessel if you wish it) at Hongkong; the Lorcha was equipped with thirty armed men, and, bidding defiance to Mandarin boats, soon delivered her cargo in the adjacent bays. While at Hongkong a week or two ago I myself saw the white sails of the opium schooners, as they were skulking among the surrounding islands. Several foreign vessels have recently gone to Singapore and Manilla for cargoes of opium, a great deal of which is imported here under the head of "SIAM SUGAR." Yea, I send this paper as far as Singapore by an English vessel which is despatched for a large invoice of the drug, from which place you will no doubt receive it by one of the many clippers" which are at present engaged in carrying opium from Calcutta to Singapore. Upon the Chinese coast there are at this very time between 12 and 15 foreign vessels actively engaged in this abominable traffic. Some of these vessels did not leave the coast at all during the whole of the troubles in Canton in March and April. I repeat what I said in No. 1, (September 1838,) viz., that the very vessel which brought your No. (June 1839,) containing your article on the Extinction of the Opium Trade," brought at the same time from Calcutta, the seat of your labours, a large amount of opium, most of which has already been disposed of to the Chinese at enormous advances. From the Bengal papers I perceive that the "opium sales" in Calcutta continue as usual, and shipments of the drug to China are still being made. You published your article in June, but upon the first day of the following July four thousand chests were sold within 20 minutes' ride of the office of the Calcutta Christian Observer. Now for what purposes, think you, did the purchasers design this large amount of opium? To bury it in the bowels of the earth, or sink it in the midst of the sea? Or, after the examination of the high Commissioner, destroy it with lime and sand and oil and salt-water? Never! Every man of them would have told you, had you interrogated them, that their sole object in purchasing it was to send it to China, all the difficulties in that country to the contrary notwithstanding.

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