Re: A Sketch: History of the Indian Press, by Sandford Arnot
Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:11 am
SUPPRESSED DEFENCE OF MR. ARNOT AGAINST THE CALUMNIES OF MR. J. S. BUCKINGHAM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHENAEUM.
SIR:
As you have dragged me into your controversy with the LONDON WEEKLY REVIEW, a publication with which I have not, and never had, any connection, although I have long known and esteemed its conductors as gentlemen of high talent and unimpeachable character; I appeal to your sense of justice to allow me to defend myself against the unjustifiable attack of Mr. James Silk Buckingham, one of the Proprietors I believe of the Athenaeum. As he has turned round upon me because of the mention of my name as one of the many who once befriended and spoke well of him, and then saw reason to regard his conduct with extreme aversion, let me state here that the Editor of the "Weekly Review" having been Mr. Buckingham's own referee in our difference (which ended in this gentleman, and John Hunt, Esq. of the Examiner, referee on my part, awarding me £50 damages from Mr. Buckingham), it is surely no fault of mine if Mr. Buckingham's own referee, who now knows and regards him exactly as I did years ago, state a fact so completely within his knowledge. But as changing my opinion of Mr. Buckingham has thus exposed me to this attack, I beg leave to state in extenuation a few of the reasons that produced that change. If Mr. Buckingham can explain them away, with his usual dexterity, he will be grateful to me for affording him this opportunity, and I and my friends will be glad to think better of him than we have done for some years past.
1. He assured us in Calcutta, when he sold his Journal in shares, that it was worth £40,000. That this sum was made up, one-half of copyright, one-fourth of property on the spot, and the remaining fourth of goods commissioned from Mr. James Richardson (23 Cornhill), his agent in London, which were all to arrive in India by the end of that year (1822), and be paid for by a credit on Messrs. Fletcher, Alexander, and Co., now of King's Arms Yard, Coleman Street: I take this from Mr. Buckingham's printed statement and contract of sale in my possession. Unfortunately, however, conversing with Mr. Richardson, his agent above named, on the subject, he informed me that he never sent Mr. Buckingham goods to the value of £10,000 in his life, and not more than £2,000, or a fifth of the sum, in 1822, or any one year. I take this to the best of my recollection, and if wrong, his agent can correct me. And I must add also, that the whole put together, when soon after disposed of by public auction, that it might sell to the highest advantage, did not fetch, I believe more than £8,000 instead of £20,000.* [This is a most liberal calculation for Mr. Buckingham, when the fact is that the highest offer ever made for the whole concern with its latest additions, including of course all the reputed ten thousand of property from England, copy-right and all together; was only about £3,000, not one-tenth of the value asserted by Mr. Buckingham. In witness whereof, that offer was made by Samuel Smith of the Bengal Hurkaru, a shrewd and enterprising man in business, perhaps the best judge of the value of such property of any man in India.] If his agent in Cornhill did not send this £10,000, pray who did? Will Mr. Buckingham print a certificate of the fact from his agents, Messrs. Alexander and. Co., who were alleged to have supplied the funds?
2. If the copy-right of a Journal liable to be suppressed daily by the banishment of its conductors was worth any thing, six months' purchase of the profits may surely be considered a fair estimate. But, allowing from eighteen months to two years, even this, by his own account, would hardly exceed £7,000, which, added to the former £3,000 for effects, makes only a saleable value of £10,000 in all.* [Mr. Buckingham himself confesses, in his letter to the East-India Company of November 13th, 1825, vol. viii. p. 168, that the property only fetched rupees 18,278, or about £1,000. Let him or his agents explain what became of the difference between this and the £20,000! He alleges that it arose from there being no purchasers to compete with each other, and that the types were consequently sold as old metal. That this is quite false I know, as I was present at the sale, where I saw most of the Printers in Calcutta competing with each other; and some of the property sold above its value.] Mr. Buckingham may say indeed, that he sold a fourth of it for that in shares £100 each. But as it was under a condition to furnish each of the purchasers a daily publication, costing 16 rupees per mensem for 100 purchasers, it amounted then to a mortgage over the property equal to its whole worth, at the tremendous interest of 20 per cent. Mr. Buckingham carried home the ten thousand in his pocket, as he publishes somewhere, and left others to pay the interest, consequently the shareholders lost almost all, while he appears to have lost nothing. Yet he tells us that he lost £40,000? Will he state of what it consisted, or if he did not land in India a few years before without a penny of his own, and rather in debt.
3. Mr. Buckingham engaged myself and the present Editor of the Weekly Review to aid him in conducting his Oriental Herald, on a salary of £150 per annum each, with a promise of a share in the profits. At the end of the period of my agreement he declared there were no profits whatever, and that it only afforded £500 per annum for the literary materials of it, on which estimate he wished us to enter into a contract to relieve him of the whole expense of them. At the same period he had a printed estimate in private circulation, stating that the literary materials cost him just three times the above sum, and that even then it would yield a surplus profit of above £800 per annum.* [By another estimate made by him to Messrs. Jowett and Mills, the printers of the work, he made the cost of the literary materials £756 per annum, and the clear annual profits £2,028 as proved by their document, an evidence in my possession. He tried by this estimate to induce them to accept a share of the profits, instead of payment for their work!]
4. On this latter statement he sold a number of shares or perpetual copies of the work to Sir Charles Forbes, Mr. [Joseph] Hume, and others for large sums (afterwards converted into magnificent subscriptions, with a view to support the work;) yet, notwithstanding this aid of several thousands so raised, and the ten thousand at least he brought from India, and the surplus profit of £800 per annum (or rather £1,800 if the lower estimate of the literary materials were the true one), he soon afterwards professed to be reduced to absolute poverty, and solicited public charity: yea, he hung up boards in every part of the town, saying the smallest sums would be acceptable.
5. All this time he lived in a style very unlike poverty, first in a magnificent residence in Regent's Park, then in one hardly less splendid in Grove End Road; yet denounced as calumniators those who saw and declared this fact, that may easily be ascertained by hundreds in this city.* [For the description of these houses, see Oriental Herald Advertiser for January 1826, p. 5. and August 1826, p. 21. The last, valued by him as worth £500 a year rent, is the cottage to which he retired to drink the "crystal stream!'] In order to aid this public charity, some weak persons were persuaded to believe that he was at this time living at a small cottage in the outskirts of London, drinking only "the crystal stream," which fable is believed in India to this day.
6. Mr. Buckingham agreed, in presence of John Nevins, Esq., merchant in the City of London, and John Betts, Esq., of Honiton, Devon (as proved by their evidence in my hands), to resign to me all share or participation in the trade of book-selling (with which he had induced me to connect myself), either at home or abroad, under the nominal exception only of wholesale orders to the extent of two or three thousand pounds, which I had neither capital nor inclination to execute. Soon afterwards he denied this agreement in toto, in presence of the Hon. Col. Stanhope and Dr. Gilchrist, the referees in the case, as proved by their documentary evidence.
7. While openly professing to me his resolution to resign that business, an agreement which he confirmed in presence of the two gentlemen above named, I found he was secretly employing the name of Messrs. Longman and Co., to enable him to carry it on, on a much greater scale than before, and, as he subsequently avowed, solely for his own benefit.
8. Afterwards, however, as a reason for denying all agreement with me, Mr. Buckingham alleged that he had completed an arrangement with Messrs. Longman and Co., for supplying books, paintings, &c. to the eastern world: He had actually distributed thousands of circulars in India to that effect. That respectable house, however, declared that no such arrangement ever existed, as proved by the extract of their letter in the "London Weekly Review."* [See Appendix, Notarial Documents, p. 8.]
9. It is proved by letters attested by the signatures of Col. Stanhope and Dr. Gilchrist, that the only claim submitted by me against Buckingham was for fulfilment of the above agreement (the evidence of which, by shrinking from the investigation, he never allowed them an opportunity of seeing or acting on). In your paper, Mr. Buckingham now asserts that the claim was a share of the profits of the Oriental Herald.
10. As it is attested that I never submitted this claim, I shall here state my reasons: he wrote at one time there was no profit, at another within a few weeks that there was £800 per annum; at one time, that an item of expenditure was £1,500, and within a few weeks represented the same item as only £500! I was afraid to form any closer connection with such a work; he had before offered me a share in his "Calcutta Journal," an apparently much more flourishing concern: it turned out to be a share of loss: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes:" [Google Translate: I fear Greeks bearing gifts] If some publishers and editors had my experience, they would not be so anxious for shares with a Sphynx, -- or a framer of enigmas, who has the knack of being unintelligible, except when he pleases; and of conjuring up bubbles or riddles, which prove fatal to those who do not understand them.
11. The chief personal grievance which wrought a change in my opinion was, that after I had exposed myself to persecution and banishment, imprisonment, shipwreck, and in short periled life and fortune in his cause in India, when many others had deserted him, for which I received testimonies of approbation from the best and greatest men that country can boast of; he, for whom chiefly I suffered, declared himself not in the least obliged to me! This was submitted to the judgment of Dr. Gilchrist and Col. Stanhope, whose decision I shall here quote from the MS. in the Hon. Colonel's own hand.
This was written long after the infamous letter quoted in your paper, and attributed to the Hon. D. K*******; and it is the deliberate decision of a gentleman whose character ranks as high, although he may not peradventure have so high an opinion of Mr. James Silk Buckingham, and who had the matter much longer before him than this last dupe of the "Adventurer," as he must be, if he has lent himself in the way represented.
I shall now touch briefly on his part in the transaction. On my arrival in England, I addressed a memorial to the East-India Company, a copy of which by the advice of Mr. Buckingham was intrusted to Mr. K*******. At the next public Court of the East-India Proprietors, the Hon. Chairman, Mr. Marjoribanks, intimated that the feeling of the Directors was that I had suffered wrong, and that if the matter were left to them they would endeavour to do me justice. Mr. K******* then and there gave a public pledge, that if the Directors did so, he, as a proprietor, would not interfere, and this was the understanding on both sides of the Court. The Directors accordingly awarded me £1,500 of compensation for my losses and sufferings. This came in the usual course of business for the approval of the Proprietors, when, strange to tell! the Hon. D****** K******* stood up within the very same walls which had heard his pledge, and conjured up every topic of party irritation and violence that was likely to create division, and to disturb the confirmation of the grant. It was nevertheless confirmed unanimously, with the exception of his solitary verbal protest, against the grounds on which it was given. He wished to prove that redress could not be given me on any other grounds than those, which would have afforded it also to his friend Mr. Buckingham, whose claim was rejected; yet he knew the cases were totally different and dissimilar. Though aided and egged on by Mr. Buckingham to this, he failed in his attempt, which if successful would have condemned me to poverty, or at least deprived me of the proud testimonial which the unanimous decision of a great public body in my favour affords. I reproached him with his inconsistent conduct, and since that period he and his friend Mr. Buckingham have been using every means to ruin me. They hate me for having discovered their want of principle, and having spoken the truth to and of them; because I obtained justice in spite of their treacherous opposition, and because their case was decided to be not so well founded as mine; so that all their addresses and petitions for money from the same body having failed, they were at last reduced to beg petty subscriptions from public charity.
When I had obtained my just redress, they endeavoured however to benefit by it. Mr. Buckingham knew that on my first leaving Bengal, the inhabitants, his friends among the number, had offered me a present of £500 to defray my charges to England: a voluntary testimonial of their approbation and sympathy quite unsolicited on my part, of which I shall retain a grateful recollection till my dying day. I applied part of the money to the object for which it was given, and it of course perished in the general shipwreck of my property by the burning of the Fame, from which Sir Stamford Raffles, myself, and others, narrowly escaped with our lives. (This too I suffered for Mr. Buckingham.) The rest of the sum I presented to a philanthropic institution in Calcutta. Mr. Buckingham now claimed more than half of it as belonging to him! And this claim he referred to the Hon. D****** K*******!!! Mr. B. first pretended that the part of the money contributed by his friends was a loan advanced me on his account! Then, that it was actually entered in his Agent's books against him. I challenged him to prove either the one or the other. We both applied to his agent, Mr. J. C. C. Sutherland, of the house of Alexander and Co., who happened to be in England; who wrote in reply, there was no such entry in Mr. Buckingham's account! and he told me personally, that he never heard of my asking or receiving a loan from their house. Mr. K******* can produce this letter if he chooses!!!
In support of this claim, seeing no other mode left, Mr. Buckingham drew up a long paper; depreciating and vilifying every part of my conduct from the first moment of our connection. Almost every line of it was untrue, as I can prove by the evidence of every honest man who knows the facts. It was intended, I believe, to send this romance to India with a string of signatures, without my knowing any thing about it, but for the honesty of a gentleman who would not lend himself to such a proceeding. It thus came to my knowledge -- when I refuted every part of it that deserved refuting. Mr. K******* however, seems to have taken it for true gospel, and is reported to have consequently sent out his single opinion in a letter, which he will yet be sorry for.
The Editor of the Weekly Review admits that he was deceived in this same manner by a series of specious statements, which he now discovers to be entirely false. Mr. K*******, who seems determined to have the honour of being the last of the 'Dupes,' may believe that I landed in India a beggar -- that Mr. Buckingham relieved me from great distress -- that on leaving it I borrowed three hundred pounds from his Agents -- that on my arrival in England he treated me kindly and relieved my necessities, and that I at last (without any reason whatever) turned round and called him a villain! This is B.'s story, and there is not a word of truth in it. The truth is, I went to India much richer than he did, having above £1,000 of ready cash of my own before I left England, as I can prove by the statement of my agent in Edinburgh, W. Walker, Esq., Writer to the Signet. And Mr. B. never lent or made me a present of a shilling in his life, to the best of my recollection and belief. When I first gave him my aid, I neglected much more lucrative prospects, by following which I might have been now as much richer as I am poorer than him to-day. He found me, therefore, in easy circumstances; and left me destitute. He found me full of youth, and health, and hope, he left me poor and friendless -- broken down by long persecution and misfortune, all brought upon me by my attachment to him; and then, when I was reduced to uncertainty as to the means of earning my daily bread, he tried to deprive me unjustly of what he owed me, to the extent of fifty pounds. After I would not submit to this cruelty and injustice, he boasts that he depicted me so as to make people regard me with "horror and disgust."* [See his Athenaeum.] Here be gratitude with a witness!!! The above is confirmed by the following decision of Mr. John Hunt, formerly Editor of the Examiner, and Mr. A. St. John, now Editor of the London Weekly Review. On an agreement signed by Mr. B. and myself, showing that the matter referred was my claim for redress for his having inveigled me into his publishing concern in Bond Street, they write their decision as follows: --
This, with the above recorded decision of Col. Stanhope, Mr. Buckingham's own friend and arbiter, will shew whether the Editor of the Weekly Review, the Editor of the Examiner, and every body thought me entirely in the wrong, as Mr. Buckingham asserts. Such is a specimen of my reasons for changing my opinion of him; and if you or any gentleman of character will say they are not sufficient, I will furnish you with others equally well authenticated.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
(Signed) SANDFORD ARNOT.
23, Leicester Square, 16th April, 1828.
P.S. -- I beg to add that the above facts are drawn from Mr. Buckingham's printed and published statements, as, even in self-defence, I would not wish to avail myself of any private knowledge of his accounts to his prejudice, if my situation had afforded me an opportunity of having it, which it did not (this being a subject over which mystery -- dark brooding mystery! ever hung) as appears by the following extract from his printed rules and regulations --
Wishing to derive no benefit from anyone's good opinion further than is just, I shall here also notice that Mr. Buckingham's arbiter and friend blamed me for one thing, and one only -- for pressing my reference till I got a written decision. I did so as the only means of stopping the floodgates of calumny, which I knew would be let loose the moment I discovered his baseness; and I would advise every one connected with Mr. B. never to part with him long without a written acknowledgment that may put a curb on his fatal talent of invention.
2. -- So averse have I been from publicly attacking Mr. Buckingham, that I have for years past rather suffered under his calumnies than exposed them and their author, good-naturedly listening to the intreaties of his friends, who represented how much a common cause would suffer if our quarrels became known, and begged me to believe that though many things, particularly his conduct to myself, were too bad, some were capable of being explained. As -- in giving vent to my indignation I might have also used some expressions that gave the matter too high a colouring, I was willing to make full reparation for any shade of injustice done even in self-defence. "In taking revenge," said the Hon. Col. Stanhope -- (I quote the M.S.) "a man is but even with his enemy: in passing it over he is superior." I made this exertion of magnanimity, and agreed to bury my wrongs in oblivion. But I have just learnt by letters from India, that my good-nature in listening to such advice has been made use of for a treacherous purpose, that I might be depicted to my friends abroad, as a wretch, every thing false, base, and abject. But the day of retribution will arrive, when those who pervert a man's virtues into crimes (and what greater virtue is there than charity and forgiveness of injuries?) will receive their reward, and the public will perhaps learn, like me, never again to trust to the honour or judgment of any man who is, or professes to be, the 'dupe' of Mr. Buckingham.
Having enjoyed the friendship and approbation of the best and greatest men for talents and virtue, in every part of Europe or Asia where I have set my foot -- men who could judge of character, and observed me, as the Hon. Col. Stanhope justly observes, under the most trying circumstances -- I thank God that I can dispense as before with Mr. K*******'s suffrage, as he knows nothing of me except from the tale of a false accuser; and I do not think him a better or a wiser man than Burckhardt, Bankes, Boog, Barker, and Col. Missett, the British Consuls of Egypt and Syria, the Editor and Proprietor of the London Review, who were 'Dupes' before him, and at last came to think, as I did, on longer and more severe experience than possessed by Mr. K******* or any man in England.
Since the above was written, Mr. Buckingham has added one more breach of faith to the list. At the repeated and earnest intreaties of his friends Kinnaird, Stanhope, and Gilchrist, and who, deeming him a useful political instrument, begged of me not to expose his private conduct, I agreed to forgive him, and a treaty of peace was accordingly concluded, under the guarantee of the Editor of the Examiner and Mr. Kinnaird. The conditions of the treaty were, that neither of us should write or publish any attack against the other, or do any thing to bring our differences into public discussion. This being settled, and Mr. Buckingham's own friend and arbiter, Col. Stanhope, having acquitted me of blame, and admitted that his friend B. was wrong, as above shown, I thought it would be only acting handsomely to express regret for having occasionally perhaps spoken of him with undue severity, especially as he complained that I had in my letters to India called him "AN ABANDONED VILLAIN," &c. I do not recollect having used any such expressions, but if I did it certainly was rather an exaggeration, which I could not but regret my imprudence in having committed. Severe as the libel law is, however, Buckingham has never attempted to prove that I had said worse of him than he deserved. He has since printed part of my Letter, to create an impression, that because I did not think him quite "an abandoned villain," I therefore thought him a very good man, and that because part of my information to his prejudice rested on the reports of others, there was not a much larger part resting on surer evidence! The foregoing letter will shew whether I do not know enough independent of hearsay, and whether a simple unimpassioned statement of the facts is not sufficiently damning without the exaggerations of passion. While his revival of the discussion by an attack on me, is a breach of faith to Messrs. Hunt and Kinnaird as well as to myself, of which they have both complained, as proved by letters in my hands, it is an act of folly which Buckingham and his friend will yet bitterly repent, as they have now deprived themselves of all claim to my mercy and forbearance.
Having already quoted the opinion of my conduct expressed by the Hon. Lt.-Col. Stanhope, Mr. Buckingham's own friend and arbitrator in 1826 and 7, I shall here shew that his opinion of me continues unchanged up to the present hour, as appears by the following autograph inscription on a copy of his work presented to me on the 17th of last month (May 1829):
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHENAEUM.
SIR:
As you have dragged me into your controversy with the LONDON WEEKLY REVIEW, a publication with which I have not, and never had, any connection, although I have long known and esteemed its conductors as gentlemen of high talent and unimpeachable character; I appeal to your sense of justice to allow me to defend myself against the unjustifiable attack of Mr. James Silk Buckingham, one of the Proprietors I believe of the Athenaeum. As he has turned round upon me because of the mention of my name as one of the many who once befriended and spoke well of him, and then saw reason to regard his conduct with extreme aversion, let me state here that the Editor of the "Weekly Review" having been Mr. Buckingham's own referee in our difference (which ended in this gentleman, and John Hunt, Esq. of the Examiner, referee on my part, awarding me £50 damages from Mr. Buckingham), it is surely no fault of mine if Mr. Buckingham's own referee, who now knows and regards him exactly as I did years ago, state a fact so completely within his knowledge. But as changing my opinion of Mr. Buckingham has thus exposed me to this attack, I beg leave to state in extenuation a few of the reasons that produced that change. If Mr. Buckingham can explain them away, with his usual dexterity, he will be grateful to me for affording him this opportunity, and I and my friends will be glad to think better of him than we have done for some years past.
1. He assured us in Calcutta, when he sold his Journal in shares, that it was worth £40,000. That this sum was made up, one-half of copyright, one-fourth of property on the spot, and the remaining fourth of goods commissioned from Mr. James Richardson (23 Cornhill), his agent in London, which were all to arrive in India by the end of that year (1822), and be paid for by a credit on Messrs. Fletcher, Alexander, and Co., now of King's Arms Yard, Coleman Street: I take this from Mr. Buckingham's printed statement and contract of sale in my possession. Unfortunately, however, conversing with Mr. Richardson, his agent above named, on the subject, he informed me that he never sent Mr. Buckingham goods to the value of £10,000 in his life, and not more than £2,000, or a fifth of the sum, in 1822, or any one year. I take this to the best of my recollection, and if wrong, his agent can correct me. And I must add also, that the whole put together, when soon after disposed of by public auction, that it might sell to the highest advantage, did not fetch, I believe more than £8,000 instead of £20,000.* [This is a most liberal calculation for Mr. Buckingham, when the fact is that the highest offer ever made for the whole concern with its latest additions, including of course all the reputed ten thousand of property from England, copy-right and all together; was only about £3,000, not one-tenth of the value asserted by Mr. Buckingham. In witness whereof, that offer was made by Samuel Smith of the Bengal Hurkaru, a shrewd and enterprising man in business, perhaps the best judge of the value of such property of any man in India.] If his agent in Cornhill did not send this £10,000, pray who did? Will Mr. Buckingham print a certificate of the fact from his agents, Messrs. Alexander and. Co., who were alleged to have supplied the funds?
2. If the copy-right of a Journal liable to be suppressed daily by the banishment of its conductors was worth any thing, six months' purchase of the profits may surely be considered a fair estimate. But, allowing from eighteen months to two years, even this, by his own account, would hardly exceed £7,000, which, added to the former £3,000 for effects, makes only a saleable value of £10,000 in all.* [Mr. Buckingham himself confesses, in his letter to the East-India Company of November 13th, 1825, vol. viii. p. 168, that the property only fetched rupees 18,278, or about £1,000. Let him or his agents explain what became of the difference between this and the £20,000! He alleges that it arose from there being no purchasers to compete with each other, and that the types were consequently sold as old metal. That this is quite false I know, as I was present at the sale, where I saw most of the Printers in Calcutta competing with each other; and some of the property sold above its value.] Mr. Buckingham may say indeed, that he sold a fourth of it for that in shares £100 each. But as it was under a condition to furnish each of the purchasers a daily publication, costing 16 rupees per mensem for 100 purchasers, it amounted then to a mortgage over the property equal to its whole worth, at the tremendous interest of 20 per cent. Mr. Buckingham carried home the ten thousand in his pocket, as he publishes somewhere, and left others to pay the interest, consequently the shareholders lost almost all, while he appears to have lost nothing. Yet he tells us that he lost £40,000? Will he state of what it consisted, or if he did not land in India a few years before without a penny of his own, and rather in debt.
3. Mr. Buckingham engaged myself and the present Editor of the Weekly Review to aid him in conducting his Oriental Herald, on a salary of £150 per annum each, with a promise of a share in the profits. At the end of the period of my agreement he declared there were no profits whatever, and that it only afforded £500 per annum for the literary materials of it, on which estimate he wished us to enter into a contract to relieve him of the whole expense of them. At the same period he had a printed estimate in private circulation, stating that the literary materials cost him just three times the above sum, and that even then it would yield a surplus profit of above £800 per annum.* [By another estimate made by him to Messrs. Jowett and Mills, the printers of the work, he made the cost of the literary materials £756 per annum, and the clear annual profits £2,028 as proved by their document, an evidence in my possession. He tried by this estimate to induce them to accept a share of the profits, instead of payment for their work!]
4. On this latter statement he sold a number of shares or perpetual copies of the work to Sir Charles Forbes, Mr. [Joseph] Hume, and others for large sums (afterwards converted into magnificent subscriptions, with a view to support the work;) yet, notwithstanding this aid of several thousands so raised, and the ten thousand at least he brought from India, and the surplus profit of £800 per annum (or rather £1,800 if the lower estimate of the literary materials were the true one), he soon afterwards professed to be reduced to absolute poverty, and solicited public charity: yea, he hung up boards in every part of the town, saying the smallest sums would be acceptable.
5. All this time he lived in a style very unlike poverty, first in a magnificent residence in Regent's Park, then in one hardly less splendid in Grove End Road; yet denounced as calumniators those who saw and declared this fact, that may easily be ascertained by hundreds in this city.* [For the description of these houses, see Oriental Herald Advertiser for January 1826, p. 5. and August 1826, p. 21. The last, valued by him as worth £500 a year rent, is the cottage to which he retired to drink the "crystal stream!'] In order to aid this public charity, some weak persons were persuaded to believe that he was at this time living at a small cottage in the outskirts of London, drinking only "the crystal stream," which fable is believed in India to this day.
6. Mr. Buckingham agreed, in presence of John Nevins, Esq., merchant in the City of London, and John Betts, Esq., of Honiton, Devon (as proved by their evidence in my hands), to resign to me all share or participation in the trade of book-selling (with which he had induced me to connect myself), either at home or abroad, under the nominal exception only of wholesale orders to the extent of two or three thousand pounds, which I had neither capital nor inclination to execute. Soon afterwards he denied this agreement in toto, in presence of the Hon. Col. Stanhope and Dr. Gilchrist, the referees in the case, as proved by their documentary evidence.
7. While openly professing to me his resolution to resign that business, an agreement which he confirmed in presence of the two gentlemen above named, I found he was secretly employing the name of Messrs. Longman and Co., to enable him to carry it on, on a much greater scale than before, and, as he subsequently avowed, solely for his own benefit.
8. Afterwards, however, as a reason for denying all agreement with me, Mr. Buckingham alleged that he had completed an arrangement with Messrs. Longman and Co., for supplying books, paintings, &c. to the eastern world: He had actually distributed thousands of circulars in India to that effect. That respectable house, however, declared that no such arrangement ever existed, as proved by the extract of their letter in the "London Weekly Review."* [See Appendix, Notarial Documents, p. 8.]
9. It is proved by letters attested by the signatures of Col. Stanhope and Dr. Gilchrist, that the only claim submitted by me against Buckingham was for fulfilment of the above agreement (the evidence of which, by shrinking from the investigation, he never allowed them an opportunity of seeing or acting on). In your paper, Mr. Buckingham now asserts that the claim was a share of the profits of the Oriental Herald.
10. As it is attested that I never submitted this claim, I shall here state my reasons: he wrote at one time there was no profit, at another within a few weeks that there was £800 per annum; at one time, that an item of expenditure was £1,500, and within a few weeks represented the same item as only £500! I was afraid to form any closer connection with such a work; he had before offered me a share in his "Calcutta Journal," an apparently much more flourishing concern: it turned out to be a share of loss: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes:" [Google Translate: I fear Greeks bearing gifts] If some publishers and editors had my experience, they would not be so anxious for shares with a Sphynx, -- or a framer of enigmas, who has the knack of being unintelligible, except when he pleases; and of conjuring up bubbles or riddles, which prove fatal to those who do not understand them.
11. The chief personal grievance which wrought a change in my opinion was, that after I had exposed myself to persecution and banishment, imprisonment, shipwreck, and in short periled life and fortune in his cause in India, when many others had deserted him, for which I received testimonies of approbation from the best and greatest men that country can boast of; he, for whom chiefly I suffered, declared himself not in the least obliged to me! This was submitted to the judgment of Dr. Gilchrist and Col. Stanhope, whose decision I shall here quote from the MS. in the Hon. Colonel's own hand.
"My opinion was, and is, that these gentlemen have rendered useful service to the state. Mr. Buckingham was wrong in asserting that he owed nothing to Mr. Arnot, because Mr. Arnot had served him faithfully under the most trying circumstances."
This was written long after the infamous letter quoted in your paper, and attributed to the Hon. D. K*******; and it is the deliberate decision of a gentleman whose character ranks as high, although he may not peradventure have so high an opinion of Mr. James Silk Buckingham, and who had the matter much longer before him than this last dupe of the "Adventurer," as he must be, if he has lent himself in the way represented.
I shall now touch briefly on his part in the transaction. On my arrival in England, I addressed a memorial to the East-India Company, a copy of which by the advice of Mr. Buckingham was intrusted to Mr. K*******. At the next public Court of the East-India Proprietors, the Hon. Chairman, Mr. Marjoribanks, intimated that the feeling of the Directors was that I had suffered wrong, and that if the matter were left to them they would endeavour to do me justice. Mr. K******* then and there gave a public pledge, that if the Directors did so, he, as a proprietor, would not interfere, and this was the understanding on both sides of the Court. The Directors accordingly awarded me £1,500 of compensation for my losses and sufferings. This came in the usual course of business for the approval of the Proprietors, when, strange to tell! the Hon. D****** K******* stood up within the very same walls which had heard his pledge, and conjured up every topic of party irritation and violence that was likely to create division, and to disturb the confirmation of the grant. It was nevertheless confirmed unanimously, with the exception of his solitary verbal protest, against the grounds on which it was given. He wished to prove that redress could not be given me on any other grounds than those, which would have afforded it also to his friend Mr. Buckingham, whose claim was rejected; yet he knew the cases were totally different and dissimilar. Though aided and egged on by Mr. Buckingham to this, he failed in his attempt, which if successful would have condemned me to poverty, or at least deprived me of the proud testimonial which the unanimous decision of a great public body in my favour affords. I reproached him with his inconsistent conduct, and since that period he and his friend Mr. Buckingham have been using every means to ruin me. They hate me for having discovered their want of principle, and having spoken the truth to and of them; because I obtained justice in spite of their treacherous opposition, and because their case was decided to be not so well founded as mine; so that all their addresses and petitions for money from the same body having failed, they were at last reduced to beg petty subscriptions from public charity.
When I had obtained my just redress, they endeavoured however to benefit by it. Mr. Buckingham knew that on my first leaving Bengal, the inhabitants, his friends among the number, had offered me a present of £500 to defray my charges to England: a voluntary testimonial of their approbation and sympathy quite unsolicited on my part, of which I shall retain a grateful recollection till my dying day. I applied part of the money to the object for which it was given, and it of course perished in the general shipwreck of my property by the burning of the Fame, from which Sir Stamford Raffles, myself, and others, narrowly escaped with our lives. (This too I suffered for Mr. Buckingham.) The rest of the sum I presented to a philanthropic institution in Calcutta. Mr. Buckingham now claimed more than half of it as belonging to him! And this claim he referred to the Hon. D****** K*******!!! Mr. B. first pretended that the part of the money contributed by his friends was a loan advanced me on his account! Then, that it was actually entered in his Agent's books against him. I challenged him to prove either the one or the other. We both applied to his agent, Mr. J. C. C. Sutherland, of the house of Alexander and Co., who happened to be in England; who wrote in reply, there was no such entry in Mr. Buckingham's account! and he told me personally, that he never heard of my asking or receiving a loan from their house. Mr. K******* can produce this letter if he chooses!!!
In support of this claim, seeing no other mode left, Mr. Buckingham drew up a long paper; depreciating and vilifying every part of my conduct from the first moment of our connection. Almost every line of it was untrue, as I can prove by the evidence of every honest man who knows the facts. It was intended, I believe, to send this romance to India with a string of signatures, without my knowing any thing about it, but for the honesty of a gentleman who would not lend himself to such a proceeding. It thus came to my knowledge -- when I refuted every part of it that deserved refuting. Mr. K******* however, seems to have taken it for true gospel, and is reported to have consequently sent out his single opinion in a letter, which he will yet be sorry for.
The Editor of the Weekly Review admits that he was deceived in this same manner by a series of specious statements, which he now discovers to be entirely false. Mr. K*******, who seems determined to have the honour of being the last of the 'Dupes,' may believe that I landed in India a beggar -- that Mr. Buckingham relieved me from great distress -- that on leaving it I borrowed three hundred pounds from his Agents -- that on my arrival in England he treated me kindly and relieved my necessities, and that I at last (without any reason whatever) turned round and called him a villain! This is B.'s story, and there is not a word of truth in it. The truth is, I went to India much richer than he did, having above £1,000 of ready cash of my own before I left England, as I can prove by the statement of my agent in Edinburgh, W. Walker, Esq., Writer to the Signet. And Mr. B. never lent or made me a present of a shilling in his life, to the best of my recollection and belief. When I first gave him my aid, I neglected much more lucrative prospects, by following which I might have been now as much richer as I am poorer than him to-day. He found me, therefore, in easy circumstances; and left me destitute. He found me full of youth, and health, and hope, he left me poor and friendless -- broken down by long persecution and misfortune, all brought upon me by my attachment to him; and then, when I was reduced to uncertainty as to the means of earning my daily bread, he tried to deprive me unjustly of what he owed me, to the extent of fifty pounds. After I would not submit to this cruelty and injustice, he boasts that he depicted me so as to make people regard me with "horror and disgust."* [See his Athenaeum.] Here be gratitude with a witness!!! The above is confirmed by the following decision of Mr. John Hunt, formerly Editor of the Examiner, and Mr. A. St. John, now Editor of the London Weekly Review. On an agreement signed by Mr. B. and myself, showing that the matter referred was my claim for redress for his having inveigled me into his publishing concern in Bond Street, they write their decision as follows: --
Messrs. Hunt and St. John, having consulted together on the matters to which the above agreement refers, have decided, that the sum of fifty pounds should be paid by Mr. Buckingham to Mr. Arnot as a compensation for the loss he has incurred."
(Signed) 1st June, 1826,
JOHN HUNT,
JAS. A. ST. JOHN.
This, with the above recorded decision of Col. Stanhope, Mr. Buckingham's own friend and arbiter, will shew whether the Editor of the Weekly Review, the Editor of the Examiner, and every body thought me entirely in the wrong, as Mr. Buckingham asserts. Such is a specimen of my reasons for changing my opinion of him; and if you or any gentleman of character will say they are not sufficient, I will furnish you with others equally well authenticated.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
(Signed) SANDFORD ARNOT.
23, Leicester Square, 16th April, 1828.
P.S. -- I beg to add that the above facts are drawn from Mr. Buckingham's printed and published statements, as, even in self-defence, I would not wish to avail myself of any private knowledge of his accounts to his prejudice, if my situation had afforded me an opportunity of having it, which it did not (this being a subject over which mystery -- dark brooding mystery! ever hung) as appears by the following extract from his printed rules and regulations --
"On the accounts of the month being made up by Mr. Heckford, and examined and revised by Mr. Sandys, but by no other person, &c. &c."
Wishing to derive no benefit from anyone's good opinion further than is just, I shall here also notice that Mr. Buckingham's arbiter and friend blamed me for one thing, and one only -- for pressing my reference till I got a written decision. I did so as the only means of stopping the floodgates of calumny, which I knew would be let loose the moment I discovered his baseness; and I would advise every one connected with Mr. B. never to part with him long without a written acknowledgment that may put a curb on his fatal talent of invention.
2. -- So averse have I been from publicly attacking Mr. Buckingham, that I have for years past rather suffered under his calumnies than exposed them and their author, good-naturedly listening to the intreaties of his friends, who represented how much a common cause would suffer if our quarrels became known, and begged me to believe that though many things, particularly his conduct to myself, were too bad, some were capable of being explained. As -- in giving vent to my indignation I might have also used some expressions that gave the matter too high a colouring, I was willing to make full reparation for any shade of injustice done even in self-defence. "In taking revenge," said the Hon. Col. Stanhope -- (I quote the M.S.) "a man is but even with his enemy: in passing it over he is superior." I made this exertion of magnanimity, and agreed to bury my wrongs in oblivion. But I have just learnt by letters from India, that my good-nature in listening to such advice has been made use of for a treacherous purpose, that I might be depicted to my friends abroad, as a wretch, every thing false, base, and abject. But the day of retribution will arrive, when those who pervert a man's virtues into crimes (and what greater virtue is there than charity and forgiveness of injuries?) will receive their reward, and the public will perhaps learn, like me, never again to trust to the honour or judgment of any man who is, or professes to be, the 'dupe' of Mr. Buckingham.
Letter of Colonel [Leicester] Stanhope to Ram Mohun Roy
Worthy Philanthropist, Your Memorial to the King of England, demonstrating the usefulness and safety of a free press in British India, and praying for its restoration, I forwarded with a letter, to the Secretary of the Board of Control. He honoured me with a courteous reply, stating that it had been graciously received by his Majesty. This Memorial, considering it as the production of a foreigner, and an Hindoo of this age, displays so much sense, knowledge, argument, and even eloquence, that the friends of liberty have dwelt upon it with wonder; while the monopolists, who would doom one hundred millions of England’s subjects to eternal despotism, unequal to combat with its logic, have denied its authenticity. The advocates for censors and licensers are now in the full sway of their bad power. They are, however, either silenced by their fears, or struck dumb by the reasonings of their antagonists, or reduced to a most lame and impotent defence. What are their arguments? Read the proceedings on the late Appeal before the Privy Council, and you will not find one that has truth or reason to support it. Mr. Bosanquet contended, that “a free press was adapted only to countries, the government of which depended on the good opinion which the people entertained of its justice and wisdom, and the other qualities which belong to good government.” Certainly a free press is not calculated for an unjust, an unwise, or a bad government, which are the characteristics implied by Mr. Bosanquet of our Indian rule. Yet who but the Honourable East India Company’s advocate would maintain such rank immorality? The Directors who attended the debate must have been vexed enough to hear him slide into so imprudent an admission. The Holy Alliance would blush to hear such doctrines. The Holy Inquisition, when it reigned in all its glory at Goa, never supported any thing so diabolical. If a demon were sent on earth to seek out some crime for which a nation was to be condemned, he could not devise a more frightful one than that of a race of civilized conquerors dooming one hundred millions of their distant and submissive subjects, and their descendants, to eternal misgovernment. “De Lolme,” said Mr. Spankie, “had stated that the establishment of a printing press in Contantinople would, ipso facto, overturn the government.”* [This was an error of the learned Serjeant: De Lolme has stated no such thing. We shall enlarge on this subject hereafter. – Ed.] No doubt: but does Mr. Spankie mean to compare Lord Amherst to a Sultan -- Censor Adam to his Vizier -- our Collectors and Judges to Bashaws -- our Sepoys to Janissaries, and one hundred millions of English subjects to Turkish slaves? And if he does, can any statesman, Tory or Whig, wish to perpetuate such a system? "The liberty of the press and a free government," said Mr. Spankie, "might amalgamate together; but if it were united with an absolute government, it would speedily mildew and destroy its brother." What does Mr. Spankie mean by free and absolute governments? There are degrees in both these systems of rule. England is less free than America; for, according to Mr. Spankie, though she admits of no slavery at home, she has nothing but slaves in Hindoostan. France is less despotic than Austria, and Austria less despotic than Turkey. Prussia is a despotism -- but still under Frederick the Great she enjoyed great liberty of discussion. Our slave colonies are despotisms -- but they have their constitutions, laws, and free presses, India, too, is called a despotism; but the press was free to licentiousness, in the dangerous times of Warren Hastings; and, according to Mr. Spankie, during Lord Hastings's administration.
This advocate was not, however, satisfied with simple despotism, such as it prevailed in Prussia, or even in our slave colonies. He was for a despotism more unlimited than that which existed in the time when Burke told the Parliament, that the British rule in India was the most galling tyranny that had ever existed on the face of the globe; and that her protection was worse than all the irruptions of the Tartars and the Arabs.
"A cargo of European clothing," observed Lawyer Bosanquet, "would no more fit the persons, than our laws and maxims would suit the moral, political, and religious opinions of the people of India;" notwithstanding that all the Sepoys are clothed in garments made in and sent out from England. Mr. Bosanquet seems to think that the natives of Hindoostan are a curious race of animals -- a species of ouran-outangs, somewhat resembling man, but inferior to him in form and reason; and hence he would domineer over them as herdsmen do over the brutes of the field. If we speak of curious races, however, where is there, after all, to be found an animal less like a man than your English lawyer, with his legal reason, and his artificial reason,* [Vide Lord Coke, 12th Report.] his rusty stuff-gown, and his dusty ridiculous wig? These are the only human beings who do not in all things admit the pre-eminence of reason, founded, not in law, but in truth; and whom no clothes will fit but silk gowns or robes of ermine.
Mr. Bosanquet asserts, that "not a single step can be taken in India without hazard and peril;" and, according to Mr. Spankie, "we could not induce the people to feel an affection for our Government, nor to rise to take up arms in its defence. The only thing we could hope," said he, "was to prevent them from taking arms against us." This is a most melancholy prospect. It must be evident, indeed, to all men, that no structure ever rested upon a worse foundation. It is like those modern metropolitan houses of ours that are built to stand for a few years, and then to overwhelm their inhabitants in their ruins. The sooner we change a course so replete with weakness and danger, and follow Lord Hastings's wise steps, the better; for there can be no root to any government but in the good will and good opinion of the people. "And the surest way," as Lord Bacon has it, "to prevent seditions is, to take away the matter of them; for if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to say whence the spark shall come that shall set it all on fire."
You will rejoice to learn that the Marquis of Hastings has returned from Malta to England. All who know his gallant spirit and high honour anticipate good from this event. Rest assured that no paltry motive of private interest, or want of ministerial favour, of going to Ireland or going to India, will prevent this illustrious nobleman from clearing his character and name from the odious slur that has been out upon it by the Court of Directors, and which, though so ably defended by Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Hume, Mr. Buckingham, Sir J. Doyle, and other liberals, (for these alone stood by him in the hour of trial,) still left many sceptical and prejudiced minds in a state of doubt. Nor will any hope of obtaining power or pension from the Court of Directors prevent this high-minded statesman from manfully defending, in the face of this country and the world, that course which he and Warren Hastings pursued towards the Asiatic press, which long experience has proved so safe and useful, and which he advocated in his answer to the Madras address, in language that will be remembered when his great military triumphs are either forgotten or jumbled together with those of tyrants.
God grant that your Memorial, recommending a free press in India, may be attended to by our good Sovereign. That it will, I have reason to hope, because Mr. Randle Jackson did, on the 4th of April 1821, in the face of the East India Company and the world, insist on Mr. Canning's decided intentions to oppose the renewal of restrictions on the press; a determination quite worthy of the noble character of Mr. Canning's administration.
I am, your sincere friend,
London, June 9, 1825.
LEICESTER STANHOPE.
-- Leicester Stanhope, The Oriental Herald and Journal of General literature; vol. 6, July to September, 1825, London, Sandford Arnot, 33, Old Bond Street, MDCCCXXV
Having enjoyed the friendship and approbation of the best and greatest men for talents and virtue, in every part of Europe or Asia where I have set my foot -- men who could judge of character, and observed me, as the Hon. Col. Stanhope justly observes, under the most trying circumstances -- I thank God that I can dispense as before with Mr. K*******'s suffrage, as he knows nothing of me except from the tale of a false accuser; and I do not think him a better or a wiser man than Burckhardt, Bankes, Boog, Barker, and Col. Missett, the British Consuls of Egypt and Syria, the Editor and Proprietor of the London Review, who were 'Dupes' before him, and at last came to think, as I did, on longer and more severe experience than possessed by Mr. K******* or any man in England.
Since the above was written, Mr. Buckingham has added one more breach of faith to the list. At the repeated and earnest intreaties of his friends Kinnaird, Stanhope, and Gilchrist, and who, deeming him a useful political instrument, begged of me not to expose his private conduct, I agreed to forgive him, and a treaty of peace was accordingly concluded, under the guarantee of the Editor of the Examiner and Mr. Kinnaird. The conditions of the treaty were, that neither of us should write or publish any attack against the other, or do any thing to bring our differences into public discussion. This being settled, and Mr. Buckingham's own friend and arbiter, Col. Stanhope, having acquitted me of blame, and admitted that his friend B. was wrong, as above shown, I thought it would be only acting handsomely to express regret for having occasionally perhaps spoken of him with undue severity, especially as he complained that I had in my letters to India called him "AN ABANDONED VILLAIN," &c. I do not recollect having used any such expressions, but if I did it certainly was rather an exaggeration, which I could not but regret my imprudence in having committed. Severe as the libel law is, however, Buckingham has never attempted to prove that I had said worse of him than he deserved. He has since printed part of my Letter, to create an impression, that because I did not think him quite "an abandoned villain," I therefore thought him a very good man, and that because part of my information to his prejudice rested on the reports of others, there was not a much larger part resting on surer evidence! The foregoing letter will shew whether I do not know enough independent of hearsay, and whether a simple unimpassioned statement of the facts is not sufficiently damning without the exaggerations of passion. While his revival of the discussion by an attack on me, is a breach of faith to Messrs. Hunt and Kinnaird as well as to myself, of which they have both complained, as proved by letters in my hands, it is an act of folly which Buckingham and his friend will yet bitterly repent, as they have now deprived themselves of all claim to my mercy and forbearance.
Having already quoted the opinion of my conduct expressed by the Hon. Lt.-Col. Stanhope, Mr. Buckingham's own friend and arbitrator in 1826 and 7, I shall here shew that his opinion of me continues unchanged up to the present hour, as appears by the following autograph inscription on a copy of his work presented to me on the 17th of last month (May 1829):
From Leicester Stanhope to Sandford Arnot, who ably wrote and nobly suffered for a Free Press in British India.
And this sufferer has for years been maligned and persecuted by some of its pretended friends, because his heart revolted against such abominable, treacherous, and swindling practices!!!