THE ASIATIC JOURNAL FOR MAY, 1824. Original Communications, &c. &c. &c. THE MAUSOLEUM AND ALTAR-TOMB FOR THE FIRST MAUSOLEUM. THE Mausoleum for Marquess Cornwallis, in which is intended to be placed the beautiful monument now sending to India by the Honourable East-India Company (of which lithographic drawings are given in the present publication), and which will hereafter be described, is erected over his remains on the left banks of the Ganges, a little above the town of Ghazcepore, in the Benares district. It is at a small distance from the river, near the place where that nobleman ended his valuable life, upon a high commanding spot, not likely, from the solid nature of the bank, to be encroached upon by the river. The building is a circular peripetral temple of the Roman Doric order; the stylobate, or basement on which it is placed, is a solid piece of masonry, with deep foundations under the walls of the cell and columns, in the centre of which is an arch over the tomb where the body is laid. The cell, or circular apartment, in the centre of which the monument will be placed, is 24 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 30 feet in height to the cornice; it has two lofty doors opposite one another, and two high square windows on the sides, to give light to the upper part of the cell, like the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, to which this building has a general resemblance. From immediately above the cornice is thrown a light hemispherical cupola, or dome of brickwork, for interior show, and the walls of the cell are carried up to the whole height of this cupola, which they enclose, forming a cylindrical elevation with a light cornice, to relieve the plainness of which, there are eight counter-sunk pannels, ornamented with sculptured trophies of war; over this is thrown a second more solid dome, with some receding steps, in the manner of the Pantheon at Rome. This superstructure is solely meant for exterior show, and to give a proper elevation to Asiatic Journ - No. 101. VOL. XVII. 3 R the building, which purpose it answers perfectly well. The cell is surrounded by a peristyle of twelve columns, at the distance of eight feet, forming an ambilacrum, or walk, round the whole, which is covered by a flat arch thrown from the cell to the entablature of the peristyle; the columns are 3 feet 9 inches in diameter at the base, and 30 feet in height, including the base and capital; the entablature is 7 feet 6 inches in height, and all the proportions of its members, as well as of the columns, are those adopted by Sir William Chambers. The intercolumniation is strictly according to the rule laid down for this order, having in the frieze three exactly square metopes; these, instead of being ornamented with oxes' heads, with festoons of flowers and implements of sacrifice, are sculptured with helmets and warlike instruments, being (like the male character of the order and building) more appropriate to the high military rank and reputation of the great man whose remains were therein deposited. The ascent to the temple is by a single flight of steps opposite the front door, and occupies the whole space between two columns. The building is 57 feet in diameter, and 72 feet in height; the whole has been exceedingly well executed on a hard free-stone from Chunar, which has been proved to be of great durability, and is of a good colour and pleasing effect in buildings. From the commanding situation and considerable magnitude and height of this building, it is a very conspicuous object from the river, which is the great road for all travellers proceeding to or from the upper provinces; and the general report of those who have seen it since it has been completed, is, that it produces a grand and striking effect. This lasting testimonial to the virtues and public services of the illustrious nobleman and distinguished Governor-General, so well and justly recorded on the elegant and classical monumental altar by Mr. Flaxman, was unanimously voted at a meeting of the principal inhabitants of Calcutta. A considerable sum was subscribed for its erection, but insufficient for the purpose, and it was completed by Government at the expense of the Honourable East-India Company. The design was given by Colonel Alexander Kyd, then holding the office of Chief-Engineer. The construction of the building is of so solid a nature, and of such excellent materials, that it cannot fail of being of long duration, if taken proper care of, and not wantonly injured: to guard against which, the East-India Company are sending out a strong iron railing to surround it. When the whole is accomplished, this will be without a doubt the most magnificent monument that has ever been erected by Europeans in India to the memory of any individual, public or private; and it certainly does honour to the general feeling in Bengal, from which it originated, as well as to the Governments, both abroad and at home, under whose auspices it has been fostered and brought to a desired completion. ALTAR-TOMB. On the front is a basso-relievo of the Marquess's portrait, between the figures of a Brahmin and a Mohammedan, in attitudes expressive of grief. On the back are the arms of the East-India Company, with the figures of a British grenadier on one side of the arms, and a seapoy on the other side. Each bassorelievo is decorated with the lotus and the olive; on the sides of the pedestal are garlands of laurel and oak; above the cornice, a Marquess's coronet on a cushion, which finishes the design. The whole is 12 feet 6 inches high, of statuary marble. INSCRIPTION. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES MARQUESS CORNWALLIS, KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, GOVERNOR-GENERAL AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN INDIA, His first Administration, Commencing in September 1786 and terminating in October 1793, By the successful Operations of War, Which marked his Internal Government. He regulated the Remuneration of the Servants of the State Which, while it limited and defined the Claims of Government, Which restrained within strict bounds the power of Public Functionaries, Adapted to their Usages, And promulgated in their own Languages. Invited, in December 1804, to resume the important Station, To obey the call of his Country. During the short term of his last Administration, He died near this spot, Where his remains are deposited, On the 5th day of October 1805, In the 67th year of his age. This Monument, erected by the British Inhabitants of Calcutta, Which will live in the remembrance of Long after this memorial of them shall have mouldered into dust. SLAVE TRADE IN THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. To the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. SIR: The third volume of the History of the Island of Celebes, by its Ex-governor, Mr. R. Blok, which was published at Calcutta in 1817, consists of a report upon the slavetrade of Macassar, prepared by authority of the Dutch Government in the year 1799, and accompanied by some notes of the translator, which are not less valuable than the report itself. As I have reason to believe that this work is but little known in England, and as every piece of authentic information relative to the enslavement of the human species possesses a peculiar interest with the British public, I enclose transcripts of these papers for insertion in your next number. They appear to have been drawn up with candour, although they contain some expressions of that feeling which the subject of them is calculated to excite. Their professed object was to promote the amelioration of the Dutch slave-system, the evils of which they exhibit in very striking colours; but the reporters having received no authority to recommend an entire abolition of the traffic, which was evidently in their opinion the only remedy for those evils, they concluded their report with a recommendation to try again expedients which had already failed, and to endeavour, with however little prospect of success, to commit the future administration of the slave-laws to more energetic and less venal hands. Consequently, it is not to be wondered at, that when the Eastern Islands were subjected to the British power in 1811, the slave-system should have been found existing there in its utmost virulence, and that it should have appeared to the English Government, represented by Sir T. S. Raffles, as presenting the most formidable obstacle to the commercial and agricultural improvement of the colony. To describe fully the evils of the system of slave-labour, and its concomitant the traffic in slaves, as it existed in the Eastern Islands, and indeed in all the Dutch settlements in India, would occupy too large a portion of your publication at the present moment I will, therefore, only observe, that from this report, and the notes of the translator, which contain some very interesting facts, and from the various other authorities* that treat of the Dutch establishments in India, I conceive the following view of the more prominent evils of that system may be fairly educed. It entailed upon the Government the extra expense of a large proportion of their judicial and police establishments, designed exclusively for the regulation of slaves, slave-holders, and slave-traders; which part of their establishments was, nevertheless, the least efficient in its administration of justice, and uniformly productive of most disquiet to the superior authorities. The powers assumed by professed slave-dealers were wholly inconsistent with any well-regulated government; the right which they claimed to hold the persons of men and women in durance, as their alleged property, in prisons or slave-holes, in their own houses, or on their own estates, without the cognizance or supervision of the magistrate, was a perpetual source of annoyance to the Government, as well as of terror to the peaceable inhabitants; while the wealth and power acquired by the traffickers in slaves enabled them to maintain establishments of professed slave-thieves, or man-stealers, who were in every point of view the most pestilent members of the community. Not less unfriendly to good morals Voyage aux Inde Orientales. Vies des Gouverneurs. Description Historique du Royaume de Ma cassar, &c. and good government, were the laws enacted for the regulation and punishment of slaves. These laws, proceeding upon the principles of intimidation and discouragement only (where depression and fear arising out of the abject mental state of the slaves had nearly attained their utmost limit), were shockingly sanguinary and disgusting; outraging the better feelings of human nature equally with any thing recorded of the proceedings of Englishmen in Africa or the WestIndies. And the execution of the punishments described in these laws could have no other tendency than to engender a barbarous and savage temper in the minds of spectators, and particularly of the rising generation. It is impossible to conceive that a young man, trained to witness with apathy the legal torture and butchery of condemned slaves (which were authorized by the Dutch law), and coming into possession of that almost absolute power over his fellow-creatures which the Dutch slave-system would give him, would do otherwise, from the mere force of habit, than exercise it without sympathy or compassion for the sufferers. tives who inhabited the country; which were constantly exposed to as great outrage, alarm, and insecurity, as would have attended a state of public warfare and invasion. That a system which was so perplexing and annoying both to the governors and governed, in time of peace, should also prove cumbersome and insecure in time of war, is by no means surprising; and such was the fact with respect to the system of slavery in the Eastern Islands. It appears by the trial of Colonel Filz, in the fourth volume of Blok's history, that that unfortunate officer, to whom the defence of Amboyna was entrusted by General Daendals in 1810, ascribed the loss of the colony, among other things, to the entire desertion of the slaves of all descriptions. "The slaves of the Chinese, as well as those belonging to the other inhabitants, had, from the commencement of hostilities, withdrawn from the contest; and the slaves of the Company, except twelve boys or convicts, who were in chains, had also run away." For not having, under such circumstances, defended the colony against an imposing British force, Filz was shot to death at Batavia, with circumstances of cruelty, by the sentence of a court over which Daendels presided; yet Daendels himself, in not more than twelve months from that time, was compelled to lay down his arms and resign the whole Eastern Archipelago, with all its European inhabitants, and all the Dutch Company's valuable pro tively inferior British force. So great appear to have been the innate evils of the Dutch slave-trade, that it proved, as it must ever prove, incurable by any means within the power of man, short of a complete abolition of slavery; because so long as a price is set upon the persons of any of the human race, of whatever complexion, fraud and violence will be found active in pursuit of the un-perty in slaves to boot, to a comparahallowed thrift. This appears to have been the case in the instance before us; in which we learn that heavy penalties, imposed upon the detention and enslavement of free-born persons, and all the legal and expensive formalities contrived, with a view to ascertain, and, if I may be allowed such an expression in such a case, solemnize the transfer of slaves, were unavailing, for the prevention of slave theft, and the protection of the persons and properties of the na Under the government of Sir T. S. Raffles, a general emancipation of the slaves and abolition of the traffic in them took place; but it is rumoured that the restoration of the Dutch authority has been accompanied by at least a partial return to the system of slavery.* I ought to apologize for having so *At Malacca a better system has been adopted. Every child of slave parents born after the year 1819 is free. |