1858.
ZT. bd.

580

LIFE OF OOBDEN. [oma®

account for our indifference to the subject. We have bee?
taught to consider our colonies as an outlet for the popula:
tion, and this not by a process of expatriation to a foreig?
land, but by emigration to other parts of our own territory:
Then there is our insular vanity, that scorns to folloW
the example of other countries and that lays us open to the
influence of flattery, of which John Bull will accept 82¥
quantity, however coarsely laid on, in place of more substantial
 payment of what is honestly his due.”
“ London, May 16, 1858. (To G. Oombe.)— . . . I have
come to London for a few weeks, and have brought mY
wife and little girls. We have been staying with our friends
in a succession of visits, and I have seen a little of the
politicians from whom I have been so long separated.
“I am afraid our national character is being deteriorated;
and our love of freedom in danger of being impaired bY
what is passing in India. Is it possible that we can play
the part of despot and butcher there without finding our
character deteriorated at home? Were not the ancient
Greeks and Romans corrupted and demoralized by thei
Asiatic conquests, and may we not share their fate, though
in a different way ? Then comes the question which you
have so ably put in your letter. ¢ What possible benefit
can we derive from our Indian conquests?’ I confess I
take a gloomy view of our prospects in that quarter. The
English people will not give up Hindoostan, any more than
they did North America, without years of exhausting war.
“It is more and more my conviction that the task of
governing despotically 150 millions of people at a distance of
bwelve thousand miles cannot be executed by a constitutional
Government. It ought to be done, if atall, by a despot, whose
rule is concentrated, and less liable to personal changes than
our representative forms admit. With a change of Government
 every six or twelve months it is impossible that we