achievements. He then placed himself in a central point, in front of his line, and, in an inspiring tone of voice, said, 'that upon the efforts of that day depended the fate of South America;' then, pointing to the descending columns, he assured his men that another day of glory was about to crown their admirable constancy. This animating address of the general produced an electric effect, and was answered by enthusiastic vivas.

By the time that rather more than half the Royalist divisions Monet and Villalobos, had reached and formed upon the arena, General Sucre ordered the division Cordova, and two regiments of cavalry, to advance to the charge. The gallant Cordova dismounted and placed himself about fifteen yards in front of his division, formed into four parallel columns, with the cavalry in the interval. Holding his hat with his left hand, above his head, he exclaimed "Adelante, paso de vencedores" (onwards with the step of conquerors). The words, pronounced with dignified animation, were heard distinctly throughout the columns, which, inspired by the gallant bearing of their leader,moved to the attack in the finest possible order. The Spaniards stood firmly, and full of apparent confidence. The Viceroy, Monet, and Villalobos, were seen at the head of their respective divisions, superintending the formation of their columns as they reached the plain. The hostile bayonets crossed, and for three or four minutes the two parties were seen struggling together, so as to leave it doubtful which should give way. At this moment the Columbian cavalry, headed by Colonel Silva, charged. This brave officer fell covered with wounds; but the intrepidity of the onset was irresistible. The Royalists lost ground, and were driven to the heights of Condorkanki with great slaughter. The vice-king was wounded and taken prisoner. As the fugitives climbed the sides of Condorkanki, the Patriots kept up a well-directed fire, and numbers of the enemy were seen to drop and roll down, till their progress was arrested by the brushwood or some jutting crag.

General Miller, who had accompanied Cordova's division, perceiving its complete success, returned to the regiment of Usares de Junin, which fortunately, as it subsequently turned out, had been left in reserve.

'At dawn of day the royalist division Valdez had commenced a detour of nearly a league. Descending the sides of Condorkanki on the north, Valdez placed himself on the left of the Patriots at musket-shot distance, separated by a ravine. At the important moment of the battle just described, he opened a heavy fire from four field-pieces and a battalion in extended files. By this he obliged two battalions of the Peruvian division La Mar to fall back. The Columbian battalion Bargos, sent to support the Peruvian division, began also to give way. Two royalist battalions crossed the deep ravine already spoken of on the left, and advanced in double-quick time in pursuit of the retiring Patriots. At this critical juncture, General Miller led the hussars of Junin against the victorious Spaniards, and by a timely charge drove them back, and followed them across the ravine-being further supported by the Granaderos a Cavallo and by the division La Mar, which

had

had rallied. The artillery of Valdez was taken, his cavalry retired and his infantry dispersed.'

The Royalists thus repulsed at every point lost all confidence and order, and fled with the utmost precipitation to the heights of Condorkanki; but to retreat further, with any hope of ultimate escape, was impracticable. Shortly before sunset, therefore, General Canterac, on whom the chief command had devolved, sued for terms; and the remains of the Spanish army laid down their arms and became prisoners of war. A capitulation likewise was entered into, by which the castles of Ulloa, and indeed every place of strength then held by the Royalists, were given up to the Patriots; and South America became, to all intents and purposes, independent.

We must not lengthen out our present paper, which has already far exceeded the limits originally designed for it, by extracting any one of the numerous and entertaining adventures to which the subsequent course of events gave birth. Miller was, in due time, rewarded for his exertions, by large grants of land and the rank of General of Division, and, upon the formal termination of the war, the civil government of the department of Potosi was allotted to him. Here, by the integrity of his proceedings, the suavity of his manners, and the good sense which characterised his schemes, he soon became as popular as he had previously been with the army; and his name will long be coupled, in the minds of the inhabitants at large, with all that is just, noble, and generous.

We believe that the brave and meritorious individual, of whose career we have drawn this sketch, is still in England-where he arrived about twelve months ago, the same modest and singleminded person, we are assured, that he was when, in 1817, he quitted it as a mere adventurer. He means, however, ere long, to return to the scene of his exertions, success, and honour; where, as he happens to be a Roman Catholic, there is every likelihood of his becoming the founder of a great family. The work in which his adventures are detailed by his brother, Mr. John Miller, appears to us to be one of the most interesting that have recently issued from the press; calculated, certainly more than any other we could name, to give a lively and distinct notion of the nature of the warfare which has terminated in the independence of the Spanish colonies, and paved the way, we are to hope, for the future civilization and prosperity of those vast regions-regions, on which so much British treasure, we ask not how wisely or profitably, has been lavished; which have drank so deep of the blood of our countrymen; and which, if moral and political good be the result, will owe so heavy a debt of gratitude to their conduct and their gallantry.

ART.

ART. VIII.-1. An Appeal to England against the New Indian Stamp Act; with some observations on the condition of British Subjects in Calcutta, under the Government of the East India Company. London. 1828. 8vo. pp. 141.

2. A View of the Present State and Future Prospects of the Free Trade and Colonization of India. London. 1828. 8vo. pp. 124.

AS

S the period approaches when the renewal of the East India Company's charter, and the relations, political and commercial, of India and China to England must come before parliament, the publications which we propose to examine in this article acquire a practical interest, as evincing the temper and arguments of those by whom a view adverse to the continuance of the present system has been already taken. When the period of discussion in parliament shall arrive, unless public attention be occupied by some engrossing measure of domestic or foreign policy, the East India question will stand paramount in interest, extent, and importance. The years which have elapsed since the last renewal of the Company's charter, have been remarkable for the impulse given to the spirit of inquiry and speculation. The authority of long-established opinions and rules of conduct, has been shaken; indeed, the temper of the time is to require proof, not of the necessity for change, but for the continuing that which already exists; nor are these feelings more largely displayed than on all colonial and commercial questions.

The author of the works now before us (for we apprehend that, though the entry be in different names, the property is in the same hands), has availed himself very freely of the prejudices of the day; his statements and reasonings are addressed, with most gallant disregard of accuracy and fairness, ad captandum. We quote the following passage from the preface to the Appeal, as containing, in fact, the whole case which has been preferred by the petitioning merchants of Calcutta, and submitted to the consideration of the legislature; merely observing, that instead of Mr. James Hogg, Mr. Crawford has been appointed their agent in England. The sinews of war have not been overlooked, for a sum of 3,000l. has been subscribed to remunerate Mr. Crawford for his services. Mr. Crawford is a gentleman who has run a career of honourable and successful service in India. Like another great Indian and Scotch reformer, he commenced in the medical department of the East India Company, which, however, he quitted in 1809 for the political branch of their service. In that branch he has been employed, with an interval of three years passed in England, up to the year 1827, when his mission as VOL. XXXVIII. NO. 76.—Q.R.

62

envoy

envoy to the court of Ava terminated. In the course of this service, galling as it must have been, under this arbitrary and oppressive government, he has received, in the painful form of nett salary, the sum of fifty thousand six hundred and forty-two pounds sterling. We do not mention these facts in detraction of Mr. Crawford's character or abilities, but as illustrative of the different feelings which appear to prevail on the relation to the government of public servants in this country and in India. That a servant specially favoured and enriched by royal patronage should become the active agent of attack and censure upon his Majesty's government, would excite here a degree of surprise sufficient to deter the most adventurous from taking such means of attracting public notice. It would, however, seem that no such feelings have place in regard to the East India Company; a gentleman may be their confidential servant in 1827, and yet become the remunerated agent of their enemies in 1828, without incurring any disagreeable imputation. So much for the agent; and now to the matter of the agency, as expressed in the preface to the Appeal.'

'From the nature of the Indian revenue, as is explained at length in the following sheets, the existing taxes could not be increased; but it appeared to some of the advisers of the government, that a new tax might be imposed, which would extract some revenue from the inhabitants of Calcutta, who (as they pretended) contributed little or nothing to the wants of the state. The reader of the following pages will judge of the fairness and intellect of the statesmen who could deliberately make this assertion. It is certain that the inhabitants of Calcutta pay a house-tax, town duties, and inland customs, besides the harbour duties and customs upon the whole foreign trade of Bengal; this surely is something. And when it is considered that the Englishmen who inhabit Calcutta are not permitted, by the Company's regulations, to possess an acre of land over the whole of the provinces under their exclusive government; that they cannot go eleven miles from the capital, for pleasure or business, without a passport; that their licences may be withdrawn, and their persons deported to England, because they have "incurred the displeasure of the government,” without any other cause being assigned, it may be doubted whether it is quite fair to call upon them to pay for the glory or distant territory which the Company may acquire by their wars.

*

It appeared, however, to the Indian government, quite fair and reasonable; and having discovered, what seems to have been unsuspected for thirteen years before, that the 98th and 99th sections of the act of 1813, renewing the charter, conveyed the power of imposing all manner of taxes in Calcutta, with no other checks than the previous sanction of the Court of Directors and the Board of Controul, they obtained this sanction for a stamp tax, which was promulgated in

* 53 Geo. III., c. 155, sect. 93 and 99.

December

December 1826, to take effect from the first of May 1827. This publication of the law was the first notice the inhabitants received of any such intention. Alarmed, as they might well be, at this novel assumption of power by their rulers, they began to examine the grounds on which it was founded. It appeared to them, that the sections in question only related to duties of customs, and taxes of a like nature; and that, if the words seemed to have a wider scope in that section, it was plain, from the whole tenor of the enactment, that this was all that parliament intended. They met, and petitioned the government to forbear from levying the tax; at least until a reference could be made to England: this was refused, and they were plainly told that the clauses in the 53d Geo. III., c. 155, were considered by the government as conferring upon them as full and ample a right to levy taxes in Calcutta, as they already had in the provinces. Upon this, the inhabitants determined to make a stand, to have a public meeting to discuss the matters, and to petition parliament against this encroachment upon their rights and upon their property.

They were prevented from taking this course by hints that some peculiarly vexatious clauses in the tax might be modified, if they would only submit quietly to the rest. If the arbitrary power claimed by the government were submitted to, those clauses might at any time be reenacted, and the stamp duty might be followed by a property tax, or any other oppressive impost. It was not to save the thirty shillings at which he was rated, that Hampden resisted the payment of ship-money. A meeting was accordingly held, in spite of all intimidation, and various attempts to prevent it; petitions to both houses of Parliament were agreed upon, and a subscription was opened to defray the expenses of a legal resistance to the tax, in India, and in England. Upwards of 3,000l. were subscribed in an hour for this purpose; and the petitions have been signed by nearly all the respectable European and native inhabitants of Calcutta, who are not in the Company's service.'

It is unnecessary to offer any remarks on the alleged illegality of the stamp duty-that point has been abandoned; and we have therefore only to examine the measure as to its general merits and policy. The petitioners have borne for many years, without remonstrance, the imposition of stamp duties throughout the interior of India. This fiscal oppression for some time afflicted only the natives and their property. It would have been a work of supererogation in these Anglo-Indian Hampdens to have called the attention of parliament to this mode of arbitrary taxation, while the favoured precincts of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court remained secure from its influence; but, alas! in 1826, the necessities of the state-really nothing more nor less than the necessities. of the state, produced by a war of unexampled expenditure for its duration-required an augmentation of revenue; and as the unjust distinction, on this very head of taxation, between the metropolis and the provinces, had already attracted the notice of the govern