THE WELLESLEY PENSION.
"Date ()holm Belisatio."
TO THE EDITOR OP THE SPECTATOR.
224 November 1337.
Sin—The grant lately made by the East India Company to the Marquis of Wsr.f.rst.Ev, is a proceeding so characteristic of the whole body, and mule especially of the Court of Proprietors, that even in this busy season I venture to submit the following remarks to your notice. It were idle to speak of the causes which rendered necessary this degrading application fur charity,—the silence of its supporters and the rumours of the world are in painful harmony. It can be no common course of extravagance or folly which has squandered more than half a million. Yet observe rite eagerness with which the Omit of Prom ietors received the application of this beggared noble : not one worth was uttered of the paramount claims of the people of India to a remission of taxation,—a taxation, in proportion to the means of those by whom it is borne, more grinding than any on the face of the earth ; because, to press such claims as these on behalf of a nation uf dis- tant and impoverished Helots, requires the enlarged sympathies of a deeply- Instructed mind. The proselytizing zeal of certain thenthere who talk against Idolatry, like all cant, is ever found wanting on really great occasions. But most of all, it is instructive to compare the feckless munificence displayed on the present occasion, with the treatmeut of Sir 'I'. STA SIEOR D ltArEm.Es. Years of faithful and enlightened service, a broken constitution, and the over- whelming loss of all his papers and the accumulated records of science—all these, when weighed by the Court of Proprietors, are as Dialling compared with the importunate demands of a needy noble. Surely ludia will not for ever be suffered to remain under its present go- vernment !
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A. T.
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