The remaining news of the week sinks to comparative insigni-
Seance, and may be very summarily dismissed. Abroad, we see most activity in Portugal and India. The Portuguese contest continues by the joint favour of mutual ob- stinacy and universal inefficiency of means. A Portuguese bombardment is about on a par with a hail-storm, and a stout umbrella seems to have been the only thing needed during the storm at Evora. The same want of money, however, which cripples both sides, imparts enormous value to pelf, however ob- tained; so that the Portuguese combatants are diligent robbers and easy converts. The Royalists have the advantage, at least nominally, of holding the treasury ; and the last reports describe the insurgents as losing through wholesale desertion.
In India, the settlement of the Punjaub will not last long enough for its own completion : Gholab Singh, to whom we gave half of the territory as the strongest man to rule it, is all too weak for the task. Real power among barbarians is only to be maintained by barbarous expedients incompatible with British patronage : we cannot govern the Sikhs through the Sikhs, be- cause we cannot permit their methods of effectual government. This is a truth uniformly overlooked in the establishment of the spurious "independent" states of India. We maintain a go- vernment which we force to be only half a power because we force it to be only half a tyrant. By at once establishing full British rule, we should have full power and no tyranny. In the present case, it is well that the signs of disorder manifested them- selves before our troops were withdrawn : it is better to have the troops detained than sent back after a brief tantalizing return to quarters.
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