Page:The Carcanet.djvu/194

nation! They have embraced us with their protecting arms—and, these are the fruits of their alliance. What then, shall we be told, that under such circumstances the exasperated feelings of a whole people, thus goaded on to resistance, were excited by the influence of the Begums t When we hear the description of the paroxysm, into which despair had thrown the natives, when on the banks of the polluted Ganges, panting for death, they tore open their wounds to accelerate their dissolution, and while their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly eyes to heaven, breathing their last prayer that the dry earth might not ba suffered to drink their blood, but that it might rise up to the throne of God, and rouse the eternal providence to avenge the wrongs of their country, will it be said that all this was brought about by the incantations of these Begums in their secluded Zenana 1 or that they could kindle this despair in the breast of a people who felt no grievance and had suffered no torture ? what motive then could have such influence in their bosoms ? That which nature plants in the bosom of man, which, though it may be less active in the Indian, than in the Englishman, is still congenial with his being. That feeling which tells him that man was never made to be the property of man—but that when, in the insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannize over another, it is a power usurped and that resistance is a duty : that feeling which tells him that all power is delegated for the good, not for the injury of the people: that principle which tells him that resistance to usurped power, is not only a duty to himself, and to his neighbour, but a duty to