Page:The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy Vol 2.djvu/343

Rh ted under the indirect sanction of native officers, undeservedly employed for the security of life and preservation of peace and tranquillity.

In many instances, in which the vigilance of the magistrate has deterred the native officers, of police from indulging their own inclination, widows have either made their escape from the pile after being partially burnt, or retracted their resolution to burn when brought to the awful task, to the mortifying disappointment of the instigators: while in some instances the resolution to die has been retracted, on pointing out to the widows the impropriety of their intended undertaking, and on promising them safety and maintenance during life, notwithstanding the severe reproaches liable thereby to be heaped on them by their relatives and friends.

In consideration of circumstances so disgraceful in themselves, and so incompatible with the principle of British rule, your Lordship in Council, fully impressed with the duties required of you by justice and humanity, has deemed it incumbent on you, for the honour of the British name, to come to the resolution, that the lives of your female Hindoo subjects should be henceforth more efficiently protected; that the heinous sin of cruelty to females may no longer be committed, and that the most ancient and purest system of Hindoo religion should not any longer be set at nought by the Hindoos themselves. The magistrates, in consequence, are, we understand, positively ordered to execute the resolution of government by all possible means.

We are, my Lord, reluctantly restrained by the consideration of the nature of your exalted situation, from indicating our inward feelings by presenting any