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 grounds why as a clergyman opposed to war I published the Nil Darpan. My Lord, four years only have elapsed since Calcutta was waiting in trembling anxiety for the result of the mutiny. Few could look with calmness on the future, while watch and ward were kept all night by the citizens. Many felt then, as I had felt long before, how unsafe it was for the English to reside in India in ignorance of and indifference to the current of the native feeling. The mutiny in common with the Afghan War has shown that the English in India were generally unacquainted with it; so a short time previous to the mutiny, the Santhal war burst out unexpectedly to the public. For a long period, thugge and torture prevailed in India without the English knowing anything of them. Had I, as a missionary, previous to the mutiny, been able to submit to men of influence a native drama which would have thrown light on the views of the Sepoys and native chiefs how valuable.. My Lord, the mutiny has passed away; who knows what is in the future. As a clergyman and friend of the peaceable residence of my countrymen in India, I beg to state the following as a motive for my editing such a work as the Nil Darpan. I, for years, have not been able to shut my eyes to what many able men see looming in the distance. It may be distant or it may be near; but Russia and Russian influence are rapidly approaching the frontiers of India. Her influence so manifest in Cabul 20 years ago, as shown in a recent parliamentary blue book, was beginning to be felt in India during the last mutiny".

This apart, the peasants of Bengal did not allow the tyranny of the Indigo planters go unresisted. A missionary who lived in Nadia where the real drama of the Indigo tyranny was enacted wrote thus:

They [the peasants: Ed] had divided themselves into about six different companies. One company consists merely