Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/31

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GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA
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abolished the censorship which indeed had in very rare instances been called into play since the days of Cornwallis. But as after the 'invidious shackles' were broken the editor of a newspaper was still prohibited from publishing 'animadversions on the measures and the proceedings of the Honourable Court of Directors,' and (to omit other forbidden categories) from 'publishing private scandal and personal remarks on individuals tending to excite dissension in society,' the degree of relief cannot be thought extravagant. Mr. James Silk Buckingham, the conductor of a clever little print appearing under the title of The Calcutta Journal, for the delectation of society at the Presidency, became the object of a practical demonstration of the meaning of the liberty of the Press. He had ridiculed the appointment of a minister of the Scotch Church to the office of Clerk to the Committee of Stationery. But it must be said, in justice to Mr. Adam's sense of absurdity, that it was the deliberate repetition of the offence which provoked the penalty. Mr. Buckingham was summarily deprived of his licence—for even then a licence was indispensable—to remain in Bengal, and despatched by an early ship to England. It is only fair to those who supported the policy of the high hand to recall the fact that the position of the East India Company as a paramount power was felt, even by those who had played a leading part in advancing the borders of its influence, to be precarious, it may almost be said provisional. The little