destined to play a conspicuous part in the future prospects and government of India. They are neither Hindoos nor Mahomadans, but a sect which follows the religious doctrines of Nañak, who sought by originating a third sect or race to amalgamate the two religious sects of Hindú and Mahomadan. Its original elements were Deism of a mystical tendency, contemplative worship, peace and good-will, but, above all, the amalgamation before alluded to of the Hindoo and Mahomadan.

I must content myself by referring you to an able summary of the civil and religious institutions of the Sheicks, from the pen of Professor Horace H. Wilson (a).

There are other tribes or sects in India, such as the Parsees, Armenians, Portuguese, &c., who are also neither Hindú nor Mahomadan. These rely upon modifications of the laws of the two, or on custom; and law is administered by our native courts with as near an approximation to justice between the parties as circumstances will allow.

I may add that, since the establishmeut of the French in Algiers, great pains have been taken by the French Government to publish a Mahomadan code for the guidance of their courts in that country, and detached parts of that code have been from time to time published, which are valuable (b).

Such may be considered as a general but necessarily superficial view of the laws and customs of India, at the time when Englishmen had obtained such a position in the country by conquest as to some few parts of it, or by treaties with the native powers, as authorized them to interfere in the administration of justice between individual natives; and I cannot but glance at the energy of character, nay, I may say the audacity of the Anglo-Saxon race, which could thus throw

(a) "A Summary Account of the Civil and Religious Institutions of the Sikhs. By Professor H. H. Wilson."-Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ix., p. 43.

(b) "Notice sur les Successions Musulmanes, par Solvet et Bresnier: Alger, 1846." "Recherches sur la Constitution de la Propriété Territoire dans les Pays Musulmanes et subsidiairement en Algerie, par M. le Docteur Worms."Journal asiatique, 3me Serie, tom. xiv., p. 225.

itself, as it were, into a vortex of litigation, and presume to take the lead in a course so uncongenial to all the preconceived notions of the legal mind in England, so antagonistic to all the outward forms by which that mind had been heretofore surrounded. This, however, may I think be assumed, that it was founded upon an innate conviction of the deep principles of right and wrong, or natural law, which must prevail throughout the world, irrespective of the forms and ceremonies by which those principles are to be applied.

The concentration of the British power in India may date from the great Lord Clive, when in 1765 he obtained the grant of the Dewanny from the then Mogul emperor. This was by way of firman or grant, conferring in perpetuity the Dewannee authority over the then provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, on the Company-which in fact constituted them masters and virtual sovereigns of that part of India; Dewan implying not only the power for the collection of revenue, but the right of administration of civil justice.

This was followed up by an assumption of the Nizamût, or the power of raising and arming native troops-the management of the whole of the police of the country-as well as the administration of criminal justice. It may however be truly said that Warren Hastings, about 1780, was the originator of that system of law by which justice has been since administered to the natives of India, through the medium of English tribunals. Before this time there had been Charters of Justice-one so early as James I. (1622), empowering the East India Company to administer law amongst the English, either by martial law or otherwise. The first introduction of our laws amongst the natives was, however, the Charter of Charles II. (1661), giving power to the Authorities of the several places then belonging to the Company in the East Indies, to exercise therein civil and criminal jurisdiction 'according to the laws of the kingdom." They were also about the same time empowered to make laws and constitutions for the good government of the inhabitants of those particular places, and to impose punishment and penalties, extending to the taking away of life (if necessary); "so that

those punishments and penalties were consonant to reason, and not repugnant to, but as near as might be agreeable to, the laws of England." Other charters were granted by Charles II. in 1683, by James II. in 1686, by William III. in 1698, by George I. in 1726, by which courts were authorized to be established in the three Presidencies; and others subsequently in the succeeding reigns, by which Supreme courts were constituted at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay.

In 1772 Hastings drew up the celebrated report of himself and his council, comprising plans for the collection of the revenue and the administration of justice in India; and it may indeed excite our admiration that, in the midst of political convulsions which had then only recently been reduced into something like order-surrounded by open and avowed, as well as concealed enemies-where every species of corruption and venality prevailed-when every Englishman, public functionary or otherwise, was enabled to commit the grossest extortion on the natives, and to remit to England prodigious wealth thus acquired, and were even enabled to turn the scale of justice to his own advantage-that one master mind should have inaugurated and developed so comprehensive a system.

This report formed the basis for the regulations for the administration of justice, criminal and civil, and which were expressed to be framed so as to be adapted to "the manners and understandings of the people, and exigencies of the country; adhering as closely as possible to their antient usages and institutions." By these there were established in each collectorate Mofussil Dewanny Adawluts, or provincial civil courts, for the administration of civil justice. These took cognizance of all disputes concerning property real or personal, all causes of inheritance, succession, marriage, and caste, as well as all claims of debt, disputed accounts, contracts and claims of rent, with the exception of questions relating to successions to Zemindari or Talookdari property, reserved for decision by the governor in council. At the same time, and for the same localities, courts were established for criminal cases-the Foujdari Adawluts, or courts to which it is unnecessary further to allude.

At the presidency of Bengal two supreme native courts were also constituted, called the Sudr Dewanny Adawlut, and the Sudr Nizamût Adawlut-the first presided over by the president and members of council, assisted by native officers, and acting as a court of appeal in all cases where the amount in dispute exceeded 500 rupees. There were also established subordinate courts of original jurisdiction in the provincial divisions for small demands.

By this plan, Hindoos and Mahomadans were entitled to the benefit of their own laws in all cases relating to succession, inheritance, marriage, caste, and other religious usages and institutions.

To simplify and carry out more effectually this admirable plan thus sketched out by Hastings, the 13th Geo. III., c. 63, called the Regulating Act, was passed, and the illustrious Sir William Jones, then Judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, proposed that a Digest of Hindú and Mahomadan law should be undertaken; and I think the meeting will be interested in the language and extreme good sense by which this proposition was expounded, as it is in fact as applicable to the then state of those laws as administered by us in India, as to the confused state of our own law as existing at the present moment. In a letter of the 19th March, 1778, addressed to the Court of Directors in England, he says, "Nothing could be more obviously just than to determine private contests according to those laws which the parties themselves had ever considered as the rules of their conduct and engagements in civil life; nor could any thing be wiser than by a legislative act to assure the Hindú and Musselman subjects of Great Britain, that the private laws which they severally held sacred, and a violation of which they would have thought the most grievous oppression, should not be superseded by a new system, of which they could have no knowledge, and which they must have considered as imposed on them by a spirit of rigour and intolerance. So far the principle of decision between the native parties in a cause appears perfectly clear; but the difficulty lies (as in most other cases) in the application of the principle to pracfor the Hindú and Musselman laws are locked up for

tice;

the most part in two very difficult languages, Sanscrit and Arabic, which few Europeans will learn, because neither of them leads to advantage in worldly pursuits; and if we give judgment only from the opinions of the native lawyers and scholars, we can never be sure that we have not been deceived by them. It would be absurd and unjust to pass an indiscriminate censure on a considerable body of men; but my experience justifies me in declaring that I could not, with an easy conscience, concur in a decision, merely on the written opinion of native lawyers, in any cause in which they could have the remotest interest in misleading the court. Nor how vigilant soever we might be, would it be very difficult for them to mislead us; for a single obscure text explained by themselves might be quoted as express authority, though perhaps from the very book from which it was selected it might be differently explained, or introduced only for the purpose of being exploded. The obvious remedy for this had occurred to me before I left England.

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If we had a complete digest of Hindú and Mohamadan laws, after the model of Justinian's inestimable Pandects, compiled by the most learned of the native lawyers, with an accurate verbal translation of it into English; and if copies of the work were deposited in the proper offices of the Sudr Dewanny Adawlut, and of the Supreme Court, that they might occasionally be consulted as a standard of justice, we should rarely be at a loss for principles at least, and rules of law applicable to the cases before us; and should never, perhaps, be led astray by the Pundits or Moulavies, who would hardly venture to impose upon us where their imposition might so easily be detected."

Referring again to the great work of Justinian, he says of it, “It gives law at this hour to the greatest part of Europe; and, though few English lawyers dare make such an acknowledgment, it is the true source of nearly all our English laws that are not of a feudal origin." "Already two compilations in Sanscrit and Arabic, which approach nearly in merit and in method to the Digest of Justinian, exist. The first was composed two centuries ago by a learned Brahmin of Bengal, named Ragunandana, comprised in twenty-seven books at