camp into disorder. In about twenty days they raised the siege, and each returned to his own country. Mahomet, seeing them depart, exclaimed: They have lately been the assailants: we will now go in search of them.” Previously, however, he determined to be revenged of the Jews, who were the authors of this war. Without giving his people time to complete their preparations, he marched the same day against the tribe called the children of Korayda, Having found them shut up, to the number of 700, in a strong castle, he forced them to open the gates, and made arrangements for putting them to death. The Jews had recourse to the mediation of one of Mahomet's companions, named Moadh, formerly their friend, who, however, having been previously wounded at the attack of Medina, from that moment thought only of revenge, and concluded his nightly prayer with these words: Grant me, O God, the happiness, before I die, of witnessing the shedding of the blood of the Koraydites !" When he understood that the lives of these Jews were in his hands, he ordered them to be brought to the camp, and sentenced the men to death, the women and children to slavery." A heavenly sentence !" exclaimed Mahomet, in an excess of joy, “ a sentence which came from the seventh heaven!" and he commanded it to be carried into immediate execution. The booty, on this occasion, was immense. Mahomet reserved to himself the arms and horses for the constantly increasing band of his proselytes; he even purchased others with part of his own share of the booty. There still remained a Jew named Salam, who was much dreaded by reason of the hatred he bore to the prophet. Five Musulmans, by Mahomet's order, entered his house, on the pretext of seeking hospitality, and assassinated him. {To be concluded next month.] SONG. FROM THE BENGALI ; (In the original measure.) THERE'S One whose charms have pierced my breast, and set my heart in flame; Her father's only daughter she, and Veedya is her name. "Tis not for me those charms to tell: O! would she were but mine! Though mortal hardly dare aspire to one almost divine. They say that Love has never shewn his shape to human eye, Yet who beholds my Veedya, will the face of Love descry. Her dazzling beauty if the god at any time should see, I'll write her songs, and pour my love-sick strains into her ear, SLAVERY IN INDIA. (Continued from last vol. p. 677.) WITH reference to the subject with which our last article concluded, we find a statement from Mr. Baber, dated in December 1814, that since the discussions upon the subject of importing kidnapped free-born children in 1812 and 1813, an entire stop had been put to that inhuman traffic in North Malabar. The next occurrence mentioned in the Madras papers is an alleged attempt at slave-dealing, by some Frenchmen, between Malabar and the Isle of France. Col, John Munro, the British resident at Travancore, discovered in January 1812 that a number of natives, men, women, and children, were confined in irons at the Dutch settlement of Janganacherry, a port dependent upon Cochin, for the purpose of being transported, as they declared, to the Isle of France as slaves. Janganacherry is described as a place under the immediate superintendence of a Portuguese inhabitant, remote from the civil control of any European authority, and the convenient resort of smugglers and thieves. The proprietor of the slaves was M. Vally, a resident at Pondicherry; they were found in the house of some of his at Janganacherry. The inhabitants of this place, Col. Munro states, in defiance of the proclamations of government, persisted in a traffic in slaves "of the same nature as the transactions carried on at Travancore, under the o orders of Mr. Murdock Brown." By direction of the government, M. Vally was examined by Col. Fraser, the British commandant at Pondicherry, when he admitted that the slaves were his property; that such of them as were natives of India he had regularly purchased in Travancore, by permission of the then resident (Col. Macaulay) and of the dewan; that he was not aware of any proclamation on the subject, and that he had never sold any slaves, and had no intention to send the slaves in question out of the country. In a representation to the Madras government, he reiterates these declarations, adding, that in purchasing these slaves, “he was less guided by views of personal interest than by a mere act of charity, and that most of them were more burthensome than useful to him." In reply to the statements made by the slaves, and by the superintendent of bazars at Quilon, that they were imprisoned in irons, half starved, almost naked, and in a state of the utmost wretchedness, M. Vally affirms that he was ignorant of these facts, and believed them to be much exaggerated; that he always treated his slaves as a good master ought to do, and never ordered them to be put in irons. There is one circumstance which is material to a right conclusion in this matter: Col. Munro states that M. Vally had obtained the permission of the government to proceed to the Isle of France, but having stated that he could not procure a passage thither from the e Malabar coast, he received a passport from him (Col. Munro) to proceed with his family to Madras, for the purpose of embarking at that place, M. Vally admits this, but states in explanation, that when he left Travancore he had intended to proceed to the Isle of France, but that circumstances had induced him to alter his intention and to take up his abode at Pondicherry. The result of a subsequent inquiry intended to be made into this subject is not given. In 1814 an inquiry took place, at the instance of the Bombay government, on a complaint preferred by a dependent of Mohammed Ali, the present pacha of Egypt, relative to certain Abyssinian slaves and females from Kutch, who had been seized and taken from some Arab traders in India, in which complaint some of the public servants were charged as accessories. It appears that in January 1813, Mr. Gillio, the judge and magistrate of South Malabar, received information that some Rajpoot women and children had been kidnapped from their country (Kutch) and sent on board, two Arab dows, which had then arrived in the Beypoor river. The informant, a boy of twelve or fourteen, who had made his escape from one of the vessels, stated that he and the rest had been brutally treated on board, and that the women and girls had been violated by the noquedah and others. The vessels were accordingly searched, and thirteen individuals of the Rajpoot caste, women, boys, and girls, were brought away to the court. From their depositions, it would appear that they had, most of them at least, embarked on board the dows during the famine at Kutch in 1812, when the poorer classes, being in a state of actual starvation, were glad to sell themselves or their children to any one who would give them food. Their treatment, however, had been so brutal, that they declared that they would rather die than return to the vessels. The magistrate thought it not an act of humanity merely, but of duty, to set them at liberty; and one Ruttun Chund, a Kutch man, and other merchants of apparent respectability, having voluntarily offered to maintain and send them back to their own country, Mr. Gillio delivered them up to Ruttun Chund accordingly. Unknown to the magistrate, however, the noquedahs of the dows, who were brought up to the office, were subjected to great indignity by Ruttun Chund and others leagued with him, who enticed away four Abyssinian slaves from one of the vessels, and extorted from one of the noquedahs upwards of 2,200 rupees. Upon an investigation of the matter by Mr. Pearson, Mr. Gillio's successor, it appeared that the Rajpoots had not been sent back to Kutch, but had been distributed amongst various persons at Calicut and elsewhere, and through the treatment they had experienced had forfeited caste. The magistrate suggested that the delinquents should be prosecuted, and accordingly Ruttun Chund aud three others were tried before the Court of Circuit, on a charge of enslaving the persons referred to, but escaped conviction. The next subject is one of considerable moment and interest. ́ In the latter part of the year 1814, Mr. Baber, the magistrate of North Malabar, whose efforts for the amelioration of the servile classes in Southern India have already been largely spoken of, brought some very serious questions before the government, namely, whether a British magistrate ought to sanction with his authority the sale of individuals of the slave-tribes, in execution of judicial decrees, or to take cognizance of disputes between persons claiming such slaves, or of complaints by owners against slaves who deserted or refused to work; also whether Europeans were allowed to become purchasers, and whether, under any circumstances whatever, it would be lawful in the collector to attach and the judge to cause the sale of slaves by public auction, in satisfaction of revenue arrears, with or separate from the estate on which they were born. The application of Mr. Baber was referred to the Board of Revenue at Fort St. George; and in consequence of this and of a further representation by Mr. Baber, in 1818, when he was a judge of the Circuit Court, some very important evidence was obtained, which diffuses considerable light upon the subject of slavery in this part of India. The representation of Mr. Baber in Dec. 1818 was founded upon a declaration of the parbutty of Beypoor, when under examination respecting a charge of conspiracy, that he had, in his official capacity, and in concert with the sheristadar of Calicut, distrained some chermars, a slave-class, who had been sold by public auction. Mr. Baber, thereupon, took steps to ascertain whe ther ther there was any authority for this practice, and whether slaves were liable to attachment and sale in satisfaction of revenue arrears. A minute of the Board of Revenue, dated January 1818, ostensibly with reference to the question of revenue administration, speaks of the inferior labourers in southern India in the following terms: It is not, perhaps, sufficiently known, that throughout the Tamil country, as well as in Malabar and Canara, far the greater part of the labouring classes of the people have, from time immemorial, been in a state of acknowledged bondage, in which they continue to the present time. In Malabar and Canara, where the land is very generally divided, and occupied as separate and distinct properties, the labourer is the personal slave of the proprietor, and is sold and mortgaged by him, independently of his lands. In the Tamil country, where land is of less value, and belongs more frequently to a community than to an individual, the labourer is understood to be the slave rather of the soil than of its owner, and is seldom sold or mortgaged, except along with the land to which he is attached; but in Telingana, where it is difficult now to trace the remains of private property in the land, this class of people is considered fr free. It is, certainly, a curious circumstance, that in those provinces where the severe and arbitrary system of the Mussulman government was established at the most early and for the longest period, where consequently the public assessment on the land is the most high, and private property in the soil the most rare and least valuable, the labourer should also be the most free; while his condition is the most abject in those countries where the ancient institutions of the Hindoos have been least disturbed, where the public demand on the soil is the most light, and private property in the land is universal, and of the highest value. It seems probable, however, that in former times slayery may have been as prevalent in the northern, as it now is in the southern and western provinces; and the same circumstances that reduced the landlord of Telingana to the situation of a landholder, may have tended gradually to weaken the power he possessed over his slaves, until they finally became altogether emancipated from his authority. There cannot, however, be a doubt, that the slavery prevalent among the lower classes of Hindoos, is of a very different and opposite nature from that so strongly and justly reprobated in England, inasmuch as foreign traffic or external commerce in slaves is quite different from domestic slavery. It has been stated by very competent authority, Mr. F. W. Ellis, the collector of Madras, that in the Tamil country, the parriyars and pullers, most of whom are slaves attached to the lands of the vallaler, as well as the pulli, who are generally serfs on the lands of the brahmin meerassidars, sometimes claim meras, or hereditary private property, in the "incidents of their vil lainage," and that "it is generally allowed to them and their descendants, on proving their former residence in the village, however long they may have been absent from it." On the other hand, the late magistrate in Malabar, in addressing Government respecting the sale of men, women, and children of the Pollar, Cherumakul, Panian, Kanakan, Kallady, Yocallan, and Nacady tribes, submits that, "if the general question of slavery, as recognized by the local usages of Malabar, or by the Hindoo and Mahomedan law, is not affected by the laws made to abolish the slave trade, adverting to the wretchedness and diminutive appearance of this description of natives, it still appears to be a subject well worthy the humane consideration of the Right Honourable the Governor in Council, to enact such legislative provisions as will tend to ameliorate their condition, and prevent their being sold out of the talook, or, indeed, off the estate, the place of their nativity, and above all, from being exposed to sale by public auction, in execution of decrees, or in satisfaction of revenue demands." The right which the slaves in the Tamil country possess to continue attached to the soil where they are born, which, though not universal, is pretty general among them; their dependence rather on a community than on an individual, and perhaps the vicinity of some of them to the presidency, where a general knowledge prevails, that the spirit of our government is inimical to bondage, seem all, more or less, to have contributed to case. to render their condition in some degree at least superior to that of their brethren on the other coast. It is by no means, however, to be understood that this is universally the Their treatment necessarily depends principally on the individual character of their owners; and when we reflect on those evils that are inseparable from even the mildest state of slavery, and consider how large a portion of our most industrious subjects are at present totally deprived of a free market for their labour, restricted by inheritance to a mere subsistence, and sold and transferred with the land which they till, policy no less than humanity would appear to dictate the propriety of gradually reliev→ ing them from those restrictions, which have reduced them, and must otherwise continue to confine them, to a condition scarcely superior to that of the cattle which they follow at the plough. While such, in the opinion of the Board, ought to be the policy to be pursued with regard to this class of people, it would be obviously unjust to interfere with the private property, which there can be no doubt that the ryots at present possess in their slaves: and it might be dangerous too suddenly to disturb the long-established relations in society subsisting between these two orders. For the present, therefore, it would seem sufficient, with the view to prevent oppression, or abuse of authority, to define by legislative enactments the power which may be lawfully exercised by a ryot over his slaves; but as the revenue records do not afford information sufficiently minute and satisfactory for this purpose, it is resolved to call the particular attention of the collectors in Canara, Malabar, and the Tamil country to this subject, and to desire that they will take an early opportunity to communicate fully their sentiments thereon, for the consideration of the Board. T The Board in consequence procured the opinions of the various collectors, of which we subjoin an epitome, Nort Mr. Hargravé, of Salem, says: "I can safely state in the manner referred to in these communications, there is no vestige whatever of slavery in this collectorate, nor has any such practice obtained from the time the country came into possession of the Honourable Company. During the Mussulman government, there were a few slaves belonging to certain nunjah lands in the vicinity of the Cauvery; and there are now some descendants of these people, but they are just as free as any other inhabitants. I have heard of one or two instances of a child being sold for the purposes of domestic slavery; but this is uncommonly rare, and otherwise, such a circumstance as a person being sold as a slave has never transpired." Mr. Sullivan, of Coimbatore, states that slavery exists but in a very few villages of this zillah; that the children of slaves are born slaves, and that the right of the owner to sell his slave without the land is very seldom, if ever, exercised. He adds that the master is supposed to be vested with despotic authority over his slaves, though its exercise is not permitted by the British government; he has also a power over the property of the slave, and may make use of the cattle reared by the slave for agricultural purposes; that, on the other hand, a slave may object to serve another master to whom the land is conveyed. Mr. Sullivan states that there appears reason to think that the slaves are, on the whole, better treated by their masters than the common class of free labourers; they have about an eighth of the produce allotted for their subsistence, and in some instances land has been made over to the pullers, which they cultivate for their support. The collector of Tanjore, Mr. Hepburn, gives the following statement: From the best information I can obtain upon this subject, it appears that slavery, unconnected with the land, does not exist in this district; but in connexion with the land, slavery does exist in this district to a certain degree, although the situation of these people is widely different from what is understood by the term slavery in other parts |