Letters on Recent Transactions in India (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE. In submitting the following Letters to the public, on the affairs of our Eastern Dominions, over whose destinies the British Nation presides, I am fully aware that I expose myself to the imputation of being presumptuous for expressing opinions at variance with those entertained by the Local and Home Authorities. In adverting to our late proceedings in Afghanistan, I am uninfluenced by any motive, but the desire to see the Empire that has risen into being under the genius of the Nation, rendered secure and flourishing by the wisdom of its councils. The subjects to which I desire to call the attention of the public are: ?The policy observed towards the Court of Ava;?the advantage that might have been expected to spring from an alliance with Dost Ma- humud, in preference to Shah Shoojah-ool-Moolk;? the expediency of assuming, in our relations with the states comprised within certain boundaries, a paramount and controlling authority, and the character of the connexion we should maintain with our Asiatic possessions. These are grave topics, demanding the most dispassionate deliberation; as the consequences of our measures must be considered to involve the stability of the British Monarchy. And they have been touchedupon, under a deep conviction that they demand stronger deliberative powers, more competent knowledge, and more extensive and varied talents than I can bring to the examination of the interests they embrace. Events are in progress, that it is essential the Nation should examine, freed from the bias of party feeling, as the interests of England and its Indian Empire are so intermingled, that one cannot be affected without the exciting cause exercising an influence over the other. The affairs of Central Asia have now assumed an aspect that demands the s...