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Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2010
Extract
On July 10, 1833, an aspiring young English lawyer named Thomas Babington Macaulay stood before the Parliament and presented an impassioned argument about the future role of British governance in India. Whereas in Europe, as Macaulay saw it, “The people are everywhere perfectly competent to hold some share, not in every country an equal share, but some share of political power,” in India, Macaulay asserted, “you cannot have representative institutions.” Thus the role of the British colonizers was “to give good government to a people to whom we cannot give a free government.” At the core of Macaulay's good but not free government stood what he saw as one of England's greatest gifts to the people of India: a rule of law.
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- Forum. Colonial Order, British Law: The Empire and India
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References
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16. The idea that the colony served as an experimental testing ground for ideas and institutions later implemented in the metropole is eloquently argued by Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India.
17. The term “non-official” refers to Europeans who did not work in an official capacity for the East India Company or, after 1857, for the Crown Government.
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20. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer of this journal for pushing my thinking on the dilemmas of colonial difference. I regret that the proliferation of differences identified by the reviewer—class, religious, national, gender, caste—are beyond the scope of this piece.
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24. The East India Company was a joint-stock company that operated in India from 1600 to 1857 under the aegis of a royal charter that was renewed at regular intervals.
25. Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 18.
26. The East India Company, which received its first royal charter to trade in the “East Indies” in 1600, formally assumed sovereign duties in India in 1765.
27. 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 85, s. 55.
28. Fourteen years after the passage of the Indian High Courts Act (1861), the government passed the Indian Law Reports Act (1875). Prior reporting of legal cases was performed by private individuals or selectively by legal publications. These tended to be rare, published in limited editions, and not available in the libraries of everyday lawyers. The Indian Law Reports Act created one centralized and official series of reports.
29. Ram Mohun Roy's Communication with the Board of Control on the Judicial System of India dated September 19, 1831, London, in Parliamentary Papers (1831) vol. 5, 734 (hereafter PP).
30. Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 19, 532. The internal remark refers to a comment made by a colonial civil servant to Macaulay.
31. The quotation is from James Fitzjames Stephen's letter to the Earl of Mayo titled, “Legislation Under Lord Mayo,” which appears inHunter, W. W., A Life of the Earl of Mayo (London, 1875), vol. 2, chap. 8, 178Google Scholar.
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33. In 1828, the number of British-born subjects in India was 2,016, most of whom lived at the Presidencies. By 1881, the total number of British-born adults in India was 81,680, of whom 1,189 were planters and land-holders (non-officials). Of these, 59,775 were in the army, navy, civil service, and the police. The first figure is fromHistory of the Changes in the Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction Exercised by the Courts in India over European British Subjects (Simla, 1883)Google Scholar; the second is from theStatistics of the British-born Subjects recorded at the Census of India (Calcutta, 1883)Google Scholar.
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35. Bengal Regulation XXVIII of 1793.
36. 3 Rob. Ad. Rept. 12, 28, 29.
37. See Metcalfe's Minute dated February 19, 1829, quoted by Charles Grant before the House of Commons in Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 18, 730.
38. The quote above is from Legislative Council Member W. Bird's “Minute” of August 26, 1844, National Archives of India (hereafter NAI) Legislative Proceedings, October–December 1844, October 12, 1844, No. 4.
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41. See the landmark legal case of Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823).
42. SeeKades, Eric, “History and Interpretation of the Great Case of Johnson v. M'Intosh,” Law and History Review 19 (2001): 67–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; andWilliams, Robert, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.
43. See the Report in Papers Relating to the Settlement of Europeans in India (1854).
44. See the letter from Governor General Cornwallis to Henry Dundas, dated November 7, 1794, in Ibid.
45. See the letter from John Bebb and James Pattison to George Canning, dated February 27, 1818 in Ibid.
46. The American Revolution and the switch from indigo cultivation to sugar and coffee cultivation in the West Indies provided a huge boom to the market for indigo in India. In turn, the indigo planters and merchants of Lower Bengal—many of whom moved from the infamous Caribbean plantations to India—became extremely important players in the future shaping of colonial law and policy in India. SeeChaudhuri, B. B., Growth of Commercial Agriculture in Bengal, 1757–1900 (Calcutta: Indian Studies Past and Present, 1964)Google Scholar; Gupta, Ranajit Das, “Plantation Labour in Colonial India,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 19 (1992): 173–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kling, Blair B., The Blue Mutiny: The Indigo Disturbances in Bengal, 1859–1862 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; andShukla, Prabhat Kumar, Indigo and the Raj (Delhi: Pragati Publications, 1993)Google Scholar.
47. See Metcalfe's “Memorandum of European Settlement,” of February 19, 1829 and Bentinck's “Minute on European Settlement,” of May 30, 1829, in Papers Relating to the Settlement of Europeans in India (1854).
48. See Ram Mohun Roy's communication to the Board of Control of August 1831, “On the Revenue System of India,” dated August 19, 1831, in the Appendix to the Report from the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company, vol. 2, 716–22.
49. See the “Despatch from the Court of Directors to the Governor General,” dated April 10, 1832, in Papers Relating to the Settlement of Europeans in India (1854).
50. Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 19, 527. For an argument about the class biases inherent in this position, see Harald Fischer-Tine, “Britain's Other Civilizing Mission: Class Prejudice, European ‘Loaferism’ and the Workhouse System in Colonial India,” in Low and Licentious Europeans: White Subalterns in British India, 1784–1914 (forthcoming).
51. See Kala Anand against Pierre Aller and others, Reports of Cases Determined in the Court of Nizamut Adawlut, vol. 4, 15–29; Akbur Ali against Mohun Chunder Battoorjeah and Pocha Booeah, Reports of Cases Determined in the Court of Nizamut Adawlut, vol. 3, 41–46.
52. See Behal, Rana P. and Mohapatra, Prabhu P., “‘Tea and Money versus Human Life’: The Rise and Fall of the Indenture System in the Assam Tea Plantations, 1840–1908,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 19 (1992): 142–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
53. See Crawfurd, John, Letters from British Settlers in the Interior of India descriptive of their own condition, and that of the Native inhabitants under the Government of the East India Company (London: James Ridgway, 1831).Google Scholar
54. See excerpts from the report in the Court of Director's Judicial Despatch to Bengal, August 6, 1828, in Papers Relating to the Settlement of Europeans in India (1854).
55. See Turnbull's Minute of July 2, 1829, in Ibid.
56. See Dampier's Letter No. 1366, dated May 23, 1844, in NAI Legislative Proceedings, October–December 1844, October 12, 1844, No. 1.
57. See Cockburn's Letter No. 322, dated May 23, 1844, in Ibid.
58. FromMacaulay, Lord, Speeches and Poems with the Report and Notes on the Indian Penal Code (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1867)Google Scholar.
59. See Macaulay's speech of July 10, 1833, in Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 19, 503–35.
60. See Letter No. 44 from the Court of Directors to the Government of India in NAI, Home (Public), Letters from Court of Directors (1834), No. 98.
61. Ibid.
62. The quotation above is from the Legislative Proceedings of March 9, 1883, by Council Member Hunter.
63. See his speech of July 10, 1833, in Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 19, 503–35.
64. Ibid., 531.
65. For more on the relationship between liberalism and empire and an elaboration of the concept of colonial tutelage, seeMehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.
66. Hansard's, 3d ser., vol. 19.
67. See Hussain, The Jurisprudence of Emergency, chap. 2, 35–68, for a lengthy discussion of the historical relationship between the ideology of Oriental despotism and the nature of colonial legal reform.
68. Quoted in Schofield, “‘Professing Liberal Opinions,’” 365.
69. See Maine's “Minute on Codification in India,” dated July 17, 1879, at the NAI, Home (Legislative) August 1879, 217–20.
70. Minute dated January 2, 1837, in Dharker, , Lord Macaulay's Legislative Minutes. 71.Google Scholar
71. See the Note by H. L. Johnson, Deputy Commissioner, Silhat, and other official memos in Extra Supplement to the Gazette of India, July–December 1883.
72. After 1882, the Legislative Department turned its attention to consolidating and amending existing laws, rather than passing new codes.
73. See the Legislative Consultations of February 1, 1836, No. 20 (IOR P/206/81).
74. See Macaulay's undated Minute in the Legislative Consultations of October 3, 1836, No. 5 (IOR P/206/84), and the many newspaper editorials and letters to the editor from February–October 1836 in The Englishman and Military Chronicle and the Bengal Hurkaru.
75. See the letter to the editor from “A Lawyer,” The Englishman and Military Chronicle, February 6, 1836.
76. See The Englishman and Military Chronicle, February 6, 1836.
77. See the letter to the editor, February 14, 1836, in The Englishman and Military Chronicle.
78. See the petition in the Legislative Consultations of March 28, 1836, Nos. 8–9 (IOR P/206/81).
79. See the Minutes of Legislative Council Members H. Shakespear and Macaulay in the Legislative Consultations of March 28, 1836 (IOR P/206/81).
80. See the Legislative Consultations of October 3, 1836, No. 5 (IOR P/206/84).
81. Quoted by former Law Member Arthur Hobhouse in his piece,“Native Indian Judges: Mr. Ilbert's Bill,” printed in Opinions in Favor of the Ilbert Bill (Calcutta: Doorga Das Chatterjee, 1885), 12Google Scholar.
82. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, “Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education,” Macaulay, Prose and Poetry, ed. Young, G. M. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957).Google Scholar
83. See the Legislative Consultations of March 28, 1836 (IOR P/206/81).
84. See the undated Minute in Ibid.
85. See the responses of the Madras and Bombay Governments in the Legislative Consultations of March 28, 1836, Nos. 3–7, and Macaulay's Minute of May 9, 1836, in the Legislative Consultations of the same date, No. 10 (IOR P/206/81–82).
86. See his undated Minute in the Legislative Consultations of March 28, 1836, No. 13 (IOR P/206/81).
87. See the letter from the Government of India (Legislative Department) to the Court of Directors, No. 6, dated May 30, 1836, in Letters from India and Bengal to the Court of Directors (IOR E/4/154).
88. See the memorial from Turton and Smith, dated May 2, 1836, in which they charged that the Government of India had exceeded its authority and threatened to take the matter to the House of Commons. Legislative Consultations of May 9, 1836, No. 6 (IOR P/206/82).
89. Quoted during the Legislative Proceedings of March 9, 1883, by Council Member Hunter.
90. The memorial is printed in the newspaper Hurkaru, July 28, 1836.
91. Act III of 1839 and Act VI of 1843, also known as “Black Acts,” extended the jurisdiction of the lower civil courts over British subjects.
92. Buller's remark of March 7, 1857, appears in the Legislative Council Proceedings, vol. 3 (1857).
93. See the Legislative Council Proceedings (1883 and 1884), located at the NAI and the IOR.
94. See Radzinowicz, Leon, A History of English Criminal Law and Its Administration since 1750 (London: Stevens, 1948–86).Google Scholar
95. Another reason why the criminal law was first codified was that the Islamic law was perceived by colonial administrators to be inhumane and brutal. For a critical review of this argument about the inhumanity of the Islamic criminal law, seeFisch, Jorg, Cheap Lives and Dear Limbs: The British Transformation of the Bengal Criminal Law, 1769–1817 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983)Google Scholarand Singha, A Despotism of Law.
96. See Maine's Minute dated September 11, 1868, NAI Legislative (A), May 1872, no. 579.
97. Hastings's “Plan for the Administration of Justice” (1772).
98. See Larson, Gerald, ed., Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
99. The two classic colonial works on Hindu and Muslim law are Nathaniel Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits (1776) and Charles Hamilton, The Hedaya, or Guide: A Commentary on the Mussalman Laws (1791).
100. The reluctance of the government to move ahead with legal reforms affecting the nonofficial European community was partly due to the booming indigo economy of the 1830s and 1840s and the growing influence of the planters over official policy. The indigo industry in Lower Bengal peaked between 1834 and 1847, precisely the period when Macaulay's Penal Code and other codification efforts were stalled. In 1842, indigo accounted for 46 percent of the total export market of Calcutta. See Kling, The Blue Mutiny and Shukla, Indigo and the Raj.
101. See the Legislative Proceedings of October 10, 1836, Nos. 20–21 (IOR P/206/84).
102. See the judicial despatch from the Court of Directors, No. 6, dated September 30, 1835, in the Legislative Proceedings of October 10, 1836, Nos. 20–21 (IOR P/206/84).
103. See the letter from the Court of Directors, No. 9 of 1841, dated August 18, 1841 (NAI) and NAI Legislative Department, November 29, 1841, Nos. 14–18.
104. See the letter from the Court of Directors, No. 9 of 1841, dated August 18, 1841 (NAI).
105. See “The Memorial of the undersigned persons of English, Scottish and Irish birth or descent, inhabitants of the territories of the Crown of India at present under the Government of the East India Company,” dated January 22, 1850, in the Legislative Consultations of May 10, 1850, No. 44 (IOR P/207/60).
106. See Ellenborough, Earl of, Tyranny in India! Englishmen Robbed of the Blessings of Trial by Jury and English Criminal Law. Christianity Insulted! (London: James Ridway, 1850).Google Scholar
107. See the published Law Commissioners’ Report, 1843: Jurisdiction over European British Subjects and Draft Act (available at the NAI Library).
108. See Maddock's Minute of September 4, 1844, in NAI Legislative Proceedings, October–December 1844, October 12, 1844, No. 5.
109. For more about colonial conceptions of the Indian climate and its adverse effects on European constitutions, seeHarrison, Mark, Climates and Constitutions: Health, Race, Environment and British Imperialism in India, 1600–1850 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).Google ScholarIn his Notes on the Indian Penal Code (1837), Thomas Macaulay had argued on political grounds, rather than anatomical grounds, that “Englishmen of lawless habits and blasted character” should be transported from India rather than imprisoned because he believed that: “our national character should stand high in the estimation of the inhabitants of India.… that character would be lowered by the frequent exhibition of Englishmen of the worst description, placed in the most degrading situations, stigmatised by courts of justice.” This argument that Europeans in India could not tolerate imprisonment persisted into the twentieth century.
110. See Law Member Drinkwater Bethune's Minutes in the Legislative Consultations of May 10, 1850, Nos. 25, 27, 30, 33–35 (IOR P/207/60).
111. See Judge J. R. Colvin's Minute of February 28, 1850, in the Legislative Consultations of May 10, 1850, No. 67 (IOR P/207/60).
112. See Judge W. B. Jackson's Minute of March 27, 1850, Ibid.
113. See his Minute of March 8, 1850, Ibid.
114. See the opinions of Chief Justice Lawrence Peel and Puisne Judge James W. Colvile of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, and Judge J. R. Colvin of the Nizamut Adawlut, in the Legislative Consultations of May 10, 1850, Nos. 57, 59, and 67 (IOR P/207/60).
115. See Dalhousie's Minute of April 19, 1850 in the Legislative Consultations of May 10, 1850, No. 73 (IOR P/207/60).
116. See Legislative Despatch No. 15 of November 27, 1850 (IOR E/4/804).
117. See First Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners Appointed to Consider the Reform of the Judicial Establishments, Judicial Procedure, and Laws of India, &c. (1855), Appendix D: Minutes by Commissioners, Nos. 1 and 2, for the undated oppositional Minutes of Commissioners Macleod, Jervis and Ellis.
118. See Legislative Council Proceedings, vol. 3 (1857).Google Scholar
119. The Covenanted Civil Service consisted of officers placed in higher positions who served at the pleasure of the Crown, having passed a formal entrance examination in England. The Uncovenanted Civil Service consisted of lower administrative officers (European and Indian) appointed to their positions in India by the Viceroy.
120. See the memorial printed as Annexure 14 to C. Tindall's Note on “Inequalities in the letter of the law as applied to European British subjects and Indians when under trial before the Courts of India,” dated July 29, 1921, in NAI, Racial Distinctions: Main Correspondence, vol. 1.
121. The memorial is printed as Annexure 15 to Tindall's Minute in Ibid.
122. Also see the interesting “Petition of the Armenians of Dacca and Calcutta,” in which the Armenians asked that they be entitled to the same legal privileges as those reserved to European British-born subjects, inLegislative Council Proceedings, vol. 3 (1857), July 25, 1857Google Scholar.
123. See Buller's speech of March 9, 1857, inLegislative Council Proceedings, vol. 3 (1857)Google Scholar.
124. See Metcalf, Thomas, The Aftermath of the Revolt: India 1857–1870 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Stokes, Eric, The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and the Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)CrossRefGoogle ScholarandStokes, Eric, The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)Google Scholar.
125. See Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, especially “The Crisis of Liberalism.”
126. Stephen, James Fitzjames, A History of the Criminal Law of England (London: Macmillan, 1883), 345.Google Scholar
127. The Queen's Proclamation is printed in the Calcutta Gazette, Extraordinary, Monday, November 1, 1858.
128. See the debates of July, August, and September 1859, in Legislative Council Proceedings, vol. 5 (1859).
129. For a summary of the Select Committee's proposals, see Harington's speech before the Council of July 30, 1859, Ibid.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. See the published Memorial from the British Indian Association dated December 31, 1860 (Calcutta, 1860), at the IOR.
133. Section 21 withdrew from the Native Magistracy the power to hold any preliminary inquiry into cases of European British subjects, or to arrest, hold to bail, or commit them for any case triable by the Supreme Court. Section 23 disallowed the trial of Europeans or Americans by Magisterial Officers other than Covenanted Civil Servants or European British subjects.
134. See the report of the Calcutta British Indian Association of September 21, 1859, in Reports of Meetings of the British Indian Association Calcutta, June 1859–May 1862 (IOR).
135. See the letter from A. Money, Commissioner of Bhaugulpore in Henry Maine's “Minute on Vagrancy” of June 11, 1868, in NAI Home, Legislative (A), October 1868, Nos. 12–15.
136. See Maine's Minute in NAI Home, Legislative (A), August 1864, Nos. 31–33.
137. See Chapter Three of my unpublished dissertation,“‘The Body Evidencing the Crime’: Gender, Law and Medicine in Colonial India” (Columbia University, 2002)Google Scholarfor a lengthy discussion of European vagrancy in the post-Mutiny period.
138. See the Minutes of the Madras and Calcutta High Court Judges, and the Punjab Chief Court Judges in NAI, Home, Judicial (A), February 4, 1871, Nos. 40–41 and NAI, Home, Judicial (A), February 25, 1871, No. 4.
139. See the third Indian Law Commission's Seventh Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners Appointed to Prepare a Body of Substantive Law for India (1870) available at the IOR.
140. See the December 9, 1870 proceedings in Legislative Council Proceedings, vol. 16 (1870).
141. NAI Legislative (A), June 1872, Nos. 141–346.
142. See the letter from S. C. Bayley, Officiating Secretary to the Government of Bengal in the Judicial Department, No. 5457, dated November 4, 1871, in NAI Home, Judicial (A), December 30, 1871, Nos. 35–37.
143. See letter No. 6629 from R. Thompson, Esq., Officiating Secretary to the Government of Bengal, Judicial Department, to W. Stokes, Esq., Secretary to the Government of India, Legislative Department, dated December 23, 1871, NAI Home, Judicial (A), February 1873, Nos. 131–32.
144. See the Assam Commissioner's letter and Officiating Secretary to the Government of Bengal Bayley's letter in NAI Legislative (A), June 1872, Nos. 141–346. Also see Behal and Mohapatra, “‘Tea and Money versus Human Life.’”
145. See the Legislative Council Proceedings of January 30, 1872, in Legislative Council Proceedings, vol. 18 and the preliminary Report of the Select Committee published in the Supplement to the Gazette of India, January–June 1872 (February 3, 1872).
146. See Pedder's letter No. 235, dated January 15, 1872, in NAI Legislative (A), June 1872, Nos. 141–346.
147. See the Madras Advocate General's letter of January 11, 1872, in NAI Home, Judicial (A), April 1872, No. 79.
148. The introduction of the concept of “separate but equal” systems in late nineteenth-century India eerily resembles the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
149. Unfortunately, there are no historical records detailing this compromise. The minutes of the Select Committee, potentially interesting and rich sources, were never recorded.
150. See Commander-in-Chief Barrow Ellis's speech in Supplement to the Gazette of India, May 4, 1872.
151. See the Governor-General's speech in Supplement to the Gazette of India, May 4, 1872.
152. See Stephen's speech of April 16, 1872, in the Legislative Council Proceedings, vol. 18.
153. Ibid.
154. See the Memorial from the British Indian Association of Calcutta regarding the new Code of Criminal Procedure (Act X of 1872), dated July 11, 1872, in NAI Home, Judicial (A), August 1872, Nos. 61–64.
155. See their memorial of November 1, 1872, in NAI Home, Judicial (A), January 1873, Nos. 255–59.
156. See the memorial, dated Kurrachee, November 9, 1872, Ibid.
157. See Government of India Resolutions Nos. 92 to 97, dated Fort William, January 14, 1873, Ibid.
158. Hirschmann, “White Mutiny.”
159. See the “Statement of Objects and Reasons,” dated January 30, 1883, in Extra Supplement to the Gazette of India, July–December 1883 and IOR L/P&J/5/40.
160. See the “Proceedings of a Public Meeting held in the Town Hall, Calcutta, on the 28th February 1883, in connection with the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Bill,” in PP, vol. 60 (1884), c. 3952.
161. See the debates of March 9, 1883, in Legislative Council Proceedings (1883).
162. See the extract from the Joint Memorial of the British Indian Association, the Indian Association, the Mahomedan Literary Society, the National Mahommedan Association, the East Bengal Association and the Vakils’ Association, High Court, Calcutta, IOR L/P&J/5/40. See also the memorial of the Kayastha Literary and National Association, dated November 10, 1883, in PP, c. 3952 (1884) as well as the many memorials printed in the Extra Supplement to the Gazette of India, July–December 1883 and IOR L/P&J/5/40.
163. See the “Memorial of the European British-born subjects of Her Majesty the Queen Empress and employees of the East Indian Railway Company,” IOR L/P&J/5/40.
164. See the “Humble Memorial of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce,” dated April 19, 1883, in Extra Supplement to the Gazette of India, July–December 1883.
165. See the “Humble Memorial of the Anglo-Indian and European British subjects residing at Mirzapur in Upper India,” in Extra Supplement to the Gazette of India, July–December 1883.
166. See letter No. 1232 J-D. from F. B. Peacock, Secretary to the Government of Bengal, to the Government of India (Legislative Department), dated June 22, 1883, in Extra Supplement to the Gazette of India, July–December 1883.
167. See the speech of G. H. P. Evans, a non-official Member of Council and a Calcutta barrister, of March 9, 1883, in Legislative Council Proceedings (1883).
168. See Miller's speech on March 9, 1883, in Legislative Council Proceedings (1883).
169. See his speech of January 25, 1884, in Legislative Council Proceedings (1884).
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