| Description | Another fortnight has passed like a day, William writes, citing personal difficulties 'to have brought a wigging from the Government on my poor head'. He refers to his actions in trying to free two people confined by a European indigo planter, where he had the police occupy a village, to prevent the planter's people from entering it. The planter complained to the government, which reversed William's decision. He believes it would have been a different result if an Indian had been involved. William admires the wrist-strength of Pistruccio [Benedetto Pistrucci], which is needed to crush a rogue but also to carefully build evidence. He outlines the decision of the Lieutenant Governor in a tribunal which he fears will tell against him in the future. He notes his father's letter, and asks for an outline of the powers of a magistrate at home. His father has commented on William's letter being a 'horrifier' on the subject of torture, which William asserts is commonplace in India, and he expands upon this topic, noting different reactions towards it. He has contempt for Sir J [James] Hogg: 'a few more exposés of the policy...of the Court of Directors [of the East India Company] will go far to shake my allegiance to them...'. He thinks the Court is 'on the threshold of ruin'. Anyone who comes into contact with the police in Bengal pays for it, he asserts, and may suffer violence: but 'positive torture, submission to physical pain...is never resorted to unless the police really believe they have got hold of the right man'. William absolutely denies the practice in Bengal for the purpose of extracting revenue as anything other than rare. Lord Cornwallis made over Bengal 'to a set of rapacious bloodhounds' he believes, but the government has cleared itself of responsiblity be enacting laws which may stand against oppression. William concludes by saying he has sent time studying the latest pictures from home and playing his concertina. |