of some members of that house having got possession of a few places in the other house of parliament was any reason why their lordships should consider it unjust to restore them. He had thus got rid of the objection as to any operation of this measure against the privileges of that house. Lord Plunket now came to the rights of the throne. All knew what the rights of the throne were. This measure did not interfere with any of the rights of the throne. He was not aware that any language had been used to deny the rights of the throne, the prerogative of dissolving parliament, or calling up to that house those in whose favour it might think fit to exercise that prerogative. There was no doubt, that the King had the right and prerogative of making himself known to his people, and erecting a throne in their hearts. He thought that what had been said upon this subject was unconstitutional trash. The King's name was not to be used to impute personal blame and responsibility. The King conld do no wrong; but to say that the King of England, the representative of the house of Brunswick, which had been invited to this country to protect its rights and liberties, had not a right to make himself known to his subjects as their father and protector, was trash. The King of England was not like an Eastern monarch; we were not to look at a king as an abstract idea; he was entitled to make himself known, and to shew that a king of England could be the father of his people. He had said more than was neccessary on this point, because so much had been said respecting the dangers which threatened the rights of the crown, and history had been resorted to for no other purpose than to prevert facts. Our kings in former times had issued their writs, calling on certain inhabitants of counties to return members to par liament, in order to advise the King as to what taxes should be laid on. A right had been given to places to return members, and other places had ceased to have representatives. An instance of the latter had not occurred since Richard the Second, but the former practice continued till a much later period. All this, however, had no concern with the subject; and it was throwing away time to discuss it. But, although the prerogative of the King was not affected by the abolition of nomination boroughs, yet it was said, if the government could not be carried on without them, what was to be done? He (Lord Plunket) should like to know how the power of buying and selling seats, and the sellers putting the money in their pockets, could have any bearing on the King's government. Was it quite certain, that though one set of buyers of boroughs might be well disposed to the crown, and might combine together for the King's service and the public good, there might not be other combinations not quite so pure? If the King's government could only be carried on in that manner, he thought it would be quite as well that the King should carry on his own government. It was said, however, that these boroughs were not only a necessary protection against the King, but against the people; for that if the people were fairly and properly represented, the government could not go on, and the House of Commons would swallow up all power. This was a most extraordinary doctrine; it came to no more nor less than this-that this was not a representative government; and he would ask if that was a thing to be received by the people of England with acquiescence and satisfaction? It was a most mistaken notion to suppose this to be necessary in a representative government. In such a government, the people had no right to interfere in the duties of the executive government; that would be a democracy; but they had a right to be fully and fairly represented. It had been said by noble lords opposite, that this was a new constitution --that we were unmaking the constituton; and they were indeed doing so, if the doctrine he had referred to was correct. Unless the people were fairly represented, the King was not safe on his throne. But the doctrine was too monstrous to be maintained. It was not at that period of enlarged knowledge and reflection that such a doctrine could be promulgated without the danger of arousing in the country, from one end to the other, the deepest excitement. So far from innovation, they were reverting to the old and established, and acknowledged theory of the constitution, and those who opposed the change were hostile to that established theory. When the noble lord (Falmouth) called on the reverend bench to defend the present system, he called upon Christian prelates to defend a system of hypocrisy; but he (Lord Plunket) called on that bench, by the same strong and sacred obligations, to join him in supporting that which was the real constitution. If their theory was the true one, where was it proved to be so? For it was not one of those truths which lie upon the surface. None of our own writers, some foreigner, had discovered it. How the noble lord had come by it, it was not possible to imagine. Here were gentlemen buying and selling places in parliament for £5,000 or £12,000, which enabled them to come in there, and move on the axis of their own particular interests. They revolved in cycles and epicycles, with more satellites about them than any planet discovered by Copernicus, or any one else; and when it was intended to deprive the favoured inhabitants of A and B of the light of those luminaries, it was supposed that the laws of nature were about to be repealed. These were the men who, in defiance of the king and of the country, would uphold this system for the exclusive benefit of themselves, and to oppose a measure which had received the sanction of the House of Commons and of the Country. And now one word with respect to the allegations-for to call them arguments would be bitter irony-of noble lords, founded on the great changes which the bill, according to them, would introduce into the established institutions of the country. "These institutions," say they, "have been framed by our wise and venerated ancestors, to last for ever-the country has flourished under their influence, and oh! beware, you puny moderns, and do not touch with your rash hands what has received the sanction of time, and been formed in the spirit of the wisdom of antiquity." Now let him ask these sapient expounders of the wisdom of our ancestors, whether he world had grown older or younger since our ancestors followed their ancestors to the tomb? To believe these noble lords, the world was every day growing younger, and the old age of the world was its infancy. With them, groping in the dark was light, and wisdom and experience but another name for youthful ignorance. Indeed, he was sure that if he divided the house on the question, whether the world was not actually younger and less experienced in the year 1, than in 1831, he was sure that many noble lords opposite would vote in the affirmative. What if our ancestors were as blind worshippers of their ancestors, as noble lords, wise in their generation, would fain just now persuade us to be of theirs, was no advantage to be taken of increased knowledge-of increased experienceof the relations of society being better understood because contemplated under a greater variety of aspects? Were circumstances the growth of time, and change the growth of both, in the habits of thought and action in the people and the increased and increasing diffusion of knowlodge—and, above all, time, the great innovator-of no influence? And, what was the change? why, that change should be effected in the machinery of a branch of the constitution. Pray what was the history of the constitution? were noble lords, who objected to all change, read in that history? it CHRISTIANITY IN CEYLON. THE circumstances which render the province of Jaffna, the most northern of the provinces in Ceylon, so well calculated for the spot on which any experiment is to be tried, which, if attended with success, is meant to be imitated on the peninsula, are as follow: first, its complete separation from, notwithstanding its nearness to, that peninsula, by the Gulf of Manar, which prevents such an experiment, during its trial, from being thwarted by the interference and opposition of the people on the peninsula, who may be hostile to its success; secondly, its proximity to, and intercourse with, every part of that peninsula, which, if desired, enables the people of that province to keep up a constant intercourse with, and hold out a powerful example to, the people of that peninsula ; thirdly, its proximity to the island of Ramisseram, the kingdom of Travamore, the province of Tinnevelly, Ramnad, Madura, Trichinopoly, and Tanjore, which are all the most sacred seats of the Hindoo religion; fourthly, its easy and rapid communication by sea with every part of the coast of Coromandel, from whence there is access to every part of the country to the east of the range of mountains called the Gauts, and with every part of the coast of Malabar, from whence there is access to every part of the country, to the west of the Gauts; fifthly, its short distance, not above thirty miles, from the Paumbum passage, through which all the small vessels that trade between the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel must pass; and, lastly, its having on its own shores all the great points of communication between the peninsula of India and the island of Ceylon, the port of Point Pedro on its north-eastern, that of Kaits on its northern, and that of Manar on its north-western coast, and the most valuable Pearl banks in the world, which, whenever they are fished, are the resort of people of every cast, and every religious persuasion in India. From these circumstances the province of Jaffna has been celebrated in the history of the progress of christianity in India, for the last three hundred years, and is likely to continue to be so in future ages, from the religious and moral effect which must be gradually produced, not only upon the natives of that province, but upon the natives of the opposite peninsula of India, by the zealous, prudent, and successful exertions which have been made for the last sixteen years by the Wesleyan and American Missionaries, who are resident in that province, to introduce amongst the natives of the country an enlightened system of education, which at once unites the most efficient instruction in the principles of christianity, with the most efficient instruction in the elementary principles of knowledge, and the highest branches of science. When that province first came into the possession of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, St. Francis Xavier, the great apostle of India, himself a Jesuit, and the intimate friend of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of the Jesuits, while be was engaged in spreading christianity throughout every part of the opposite peninsula of India, sent some of the most zealous of the Jesuit missionaries over to this province; here they soon succeeded in inspiring the natives of the country with such enthusiasm for their doctrine, that six hundred of their earliest converts, during a persecution commenced against them by the Hindoo chief of the country, suffered martyrdom on the island of Manar, under the most excruciating tortures, sooner than disown their belief in christianity. These missionaries divided the whole province into thirty-four parishes, built a respectable church and school in every parish, surrounded them with gardens, in which they planted the most useful native as well as foreign plants, attached a sufficient number of ministers and schoolmasters to each, made excellent roads from one church to another, established markets and fairs in the most central places in the province, availed themselves constantly of the opportunities afforded them by numbers of the natives, who were periodically collected at these markets and fairs, to instruct them in the principles of the Catholic religion, and in a knowledge of some of the arts which are the most useful in common life, and to represent before them, in buildings erected for the purpose in front of their churches, sacred dramas, founded upon the most eminent characters, and the most remarkable events mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, in order to make them familiarly acquainted with the historical part of the Scriptures; thus skilfully directing to moral purposes the passion which the people of this province, as well as those of the opposite peninsula, have, from time immemorial, evinced for dramatic exhibitions, only substituting in these exhibitions such subjects as would circulate a knowledge of, and an interest in, the principles of Christianity, for such as had been chosen by the Hindoo philosophers and poets, with a view of popularizing and perpetuating the leading events in the Hindoo mythology and many parts of the Hindoo history, which were intimately connected with that mythology. When the province was, in the seventeenth century, conquered by the Dutch, they were as zealous in circulating in it the principles of the Protestant, as the Portuguese had been those of the Catholic religion; and for that purpose, as soon as they were established in the country, employed in it, amongst other active clergymen, the Rev. Dr. Baldæus, who, in the best history ever written of the province and the people, gives a very detailed and a very interesting account of the several churches and schools, of the number of christians of all ages and both sexes, in each and of the several measures which the Dutch government adopted for instructing the natives of the country, and keeping up permanently amongst them the Christian religion. The celebrated Swartz, in 1760, while the province was still under the Dutch, came from the peninsula, and visited some of the principal churches in it, particularly that of Point Pedro, and the Old Tamarind Tree in front of it, under which Baldæus used frequently to instruct three thousand native children in all the elementary principles of the christian religion. When the province first came into the possession of the English government in 1795, the churches and schools, and the cause of christianity in general, was not so much attended to as was desirable, for the reasons stated in the following letter written from Jaffna by the late Dr. Buchanan in 1806, when on the tour which he made under the authority of Lord Wellesley, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of christianity throughout British India, and the measures which might be necessary for securing a due observance of its doctrines throughout the country :— 66 Jaffnapatam in Ceylon, Sept. 27, 1806. "From the Hindoo Temple of Ramisseram, I crossed over to Ceylon, keeping close to Adam's Bridge. I was surprised to find that all the boatmen were Christians of Ceylon, I asked the helmsman what religion the English professed, who now governed the island: he said he could not tell; but that they were neither of the Portuguese nor Dutch religion! I was not so much surprised at his ignorance afterwards, as I was at the time. "I have had the pleasure to meet here with Alexander Johnston, Esq. (now Sir Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of Ceylon,) of the Supreme Court of Judicature, who is on the circuit; a man of large and liberal views, the friend of learning and of christi anity. He is well acquainted with the language of the country, and with the history of the island; and his professional pursuits afforded him a particular knowledge of its present state, so that his comunications are truly valuable. "It will be scarcely believed in England, that there are here Protestant Churches, under the King's government, which are without ministers.-In the time of Baldæus, the Dutch preacher and historian, there were thirty-two Christian Churches in the province of Jaffna alone.-Most of those handsome Churches, of which views are given in the plates of Baldæus's History, are now in ruins.-Even in the town and fort of Jaffna, where there is a spacious edifice for Divine worship, and a respectable society of English and Dutch inhabitants, no clergyman has been yet appointed. ciated in the province of Jaffnapatam, have "The Dutch ministers, who formely offigone to Batavia or Europe. The whole district is now in the hands of the Romish priests, from the college of Goa; who, perceiving the indifference of the English nation to their own religion, have assumed quiet and undisturbed possession of the land. And the English Government, justly preferring the Romish superstitions, to the worship of the idol Budhu, thinks it right to countenance the Catholic religion in Ceylon. But when our Church shall direct her attention to the promotion of Christianity in the East, I know of no place which is more worthy of her labour than the old Protestant vineyard of Jaffnapatam. The Scriptures are already prepared in the Tamul Language, -" &c. &c. &c. Sir Alexander Johnston, in consequence of his communication with Dr. Buchanan, in 1806, and in consequence of the local circumstances of the province of Jaffna, determined not only to revive the spirit of christianity in that province, but, by establishing a system of good education and good government amongst the native christians in it, to make them a bright example to the rest of India, of the manner in which the standard of morals may be raised amongst the natives of India, by introducing christianity amongst them, and by rendering them capable, by a scientific education, and by extending to them the rights and privileges of a free constitution, of exercising the highest functions and benefit to their countrymen ; and with of government with credit to themselves this view Sir A. Johnston proposed to his Majesty's government, that in order to keep up the discipline of the church of England amongst those who professed christianity in Ceylon, as soon as a bishop should be appointed for British India, his jurisdiction should extend over Ceylon; that an archdeacon should reside on the island, and that an English clergyman of eminence should be constantly stationed at Jaffna,that as the British government could not afford to have a sufficient number of regular English clergymen stationed in the dif ferent parishes in the interior of the province of Jaffna, that a sufficient number of Wesleyan missionaries should be invited from England, to establish themselves, and a sufficient number of schoolmasters, and a printing press in those parishes; that in order to have a sufficient supply of Old and New Testaments for the use of the natives, a Bible Society should, under the authority of the Bible Society in England, be established in Ceylon, which, amongst other vocations, should print, in the Tamul language, and circulate through the province of Jaffna, as many Bibles as may be required for the use of all the natives of the country; that in order to make the natives familiar with the history of the Old and New Testament, the Bishop of London's "Evidences of Christianity" should be translated into Tamul, and circulated amongst them, and that Tamul translations of Miss Hannah More's sacred dramas should be represented before them in the same manner as the sacred dramas of the Jesuits were represented before them in the time of the Portuguese; and that in order to make the people appreciate the value of a good character, by making them consider it as the sure passport to political privileges and public honours, the right of sitting upon juries, and that of being tried by juries of their countrymen, be extended to every native of the country, and that the character for integrity, independence, and talents acquired by them during the exercise of these rights be considered by government as the criterion of their fitness for, and their being deserving of, all appointments in the gift of his Majesty's government. Sir Alexander Johnston, in 1809, as one of his Majesty's members of council on Ceylon, came to England at the request of the governor and council of that island, for the purpose of explaining to his Majesty's ministers the nature and bearings of all the different measures which he proposed for the improvement of the island, and amongst others proposed to his Majesty's ministers the adoption of the plan he had formed with respect to Jaffna, which having met with the approbation of the late Lord Londonderry, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, a royal charter was passed, extending the right of sitting upon juries, and being tried by juries of their own country men, to natives of every cast and religious persuasion in the province of Jaffna, as well as to the natives of every other part of Ceylon, the first time such right was ever extended to any native of India: and measures were taken for placing Ceylon, when a bishop was appointed to Calcutta, under his jurisdiction, for having an arch deacon on Ceylon, and for permanently establishing an English clergyman at Jaffna. Dr. Coke, the worthy successor of Wesley, at the same time determined, on the suggestion of Sir A. Johnston, after* much communication on the subject with Sir A. Johnston and Mr. Wilberforce, to establish a Wesleyan mission on Ceylon, and send out a sufficient number of missionaries to meet the views of Sir A. Johnston, with respect to Jaffna; and, it being the first instance in which a Wesleyan mission was ever established in any part of British India, the Doctor determined, notwithstanding he was sixty-eight years old, to accompany the mission himself to Ceylon, and, when he arrived there, to proceed along with Sir Alexander Johnston, and, on the spot, make all the arrangements which Sir Alexander had proposed with respect to that province. The Bible Society also at the same time, on the suggestion of Sir Alexander Johnston, authorised him to establish a Bible Society, the first ever established in India, on the island of Ceylon, giving him at the same time a great many Bibles in various languages, to circulate in that island, and a sufficient quantity of printing-paper, and pecuniary aid, to enable the Society on Ceylon to print such versions of the Bible in Tamul, as might be best understood by the natives of Jaffna. Miss H. More also, at the same time hearing from Sir Alex. Johnston, of his plan of having sacred dramas translated, for representation amongst the natives, into Tamul, and other native languages, not only arranged some of her published dramas for the purpose, but in communication with Sir Alex. Johnston determined to compose a great many similar dramas for the same purpose. Sir Alexander Johnston having returned again to Ceylon in the latter end of 1811, as Chief Justice and President of his Majesty's Council on that island, extended, according to the provisions of the royal charter, which he brought out with him, the right of sitting upon juries, and being tried by juries of their own countrymen, to all the natives of the island, established a Bible Society at Colombo, and took measures for having translations made of the Bible into the Cingalese and Tamul |