JB/010/179/001

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1829. Nov. 19.
J.B. to Lord Wm. Bentinck.

Jeremy Bentham to Lord Wm. Bentinck,
Govr.-Genl. of Brith. India.

My Lord

Before me not opened till this moment,
lines the Oriental Herald of September last; in page 565
I read in it these words, under the head of Calcutta.

"The following official notice has been published. – The Governor-Genl.
invites the communication of all suggestions tending to promote
any branch of national industry; to improve the commercial
intercourse by land & water; to amend any defects in the
existing establishments; to encourage the diffusion of
education and useful knowledge; and to advance the general
prosperity & happiness of the British empire in India. This invitation is addressed to
all Native gentlemen landholders, merchants & others, to
all Europeans, including that
useful & respectable body of
men the indigo-planters,
who, from their uninterrupted
residence in the
Mofussil, have peculiar
opportunities of forming an
opinion upon some of these
subjects."

In Reading this invitation it seems to me as if, that I behold
the golden age of British India were lying before me.
Among the Subject matters or objects of the suggestions invited I behold
improvement of "to amend any defects in the existing
establishments; to encourage the diffusion of education.
If useful knowledge and to advance the general prosperity & happiness of the British empire in India" among the descriptions of persons
from whom suggestions are called for I behold
"Europeans in & out of the service". Persons in
contemplation on this occasion, perhaps in no
others than those who then were or had been
resident among the people over whose destiny, so
happily for them, you preside. Be that as it may
I entertain no such apprehension as that any suggestions
from a man whose unremitted endeavours
have for upwards of three score years been directed
to the augmentation of the "happiness & prosperity" of all
nations of the earth nor yet altogether without success, will be turned aside from as
obtrusive.

Rule of action in all the branches of it, by which observance
is called for at each man's hands, – justice accessible
to him – justice, that is to say the services of the Judge in
as employed in securing to him the benefit of his rights and
adequate remedy for all the wrongs to which he stands exposed
to suffer by – defects in the provision made in
relation to these objects – are surely, if anything be so, defects in
the existing establishment – as of any other country so of British India.
As

Identifier: | JB/010/179/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 10.
Date_1	1829-11-19	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	010	Main Headings	codification proposal (codification offer)
Folio number	179	Info in main headings field	jb to lord wm bentinck
Image	001	Titles
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e1
Penner		Watermarks	b&m 1828
Marginals		Paper Producer	arthur moore; richard doane
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1828
Notes public		ID Number	3615
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