THESE pages are respectfully inscribed to that illustrious statesman, the EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH, whose short but brilliant administration of Indian affairs tended to decrease the danger, and to mitigate the violence of the impending storm of Seikh invasion, which has since burst comparatively harmless. If the formidable armies of the Mahrattas and Belooches had been in existence when the Seikhs crossed the Sutlege in 1845—if Marahajpore and Meanee had not been fought, what power would now be paramount in the territories stretching from Calcutta to Peshawur? Would the Company's Government be now disfranchising Englishmen of their most valued and ancient privileges? THE last Indian mail brought us intelligence that the Draft Act for the protection of Judicial Officers had become law, and also that, in two or three days after the sailing of the steamer, the other drafts would be ratified and declared legislative facts. The source from which we have derived our information is of the most authentic kind, and removed above the likelihood of error. Therefore, long ere this, the following Acts have undergone the final reading in the Council of India. ACT, No. 1849. An Act for abolishing Exemption from the Jurisdiction of the East India Company's Criminal Courts. WHEREAS, her Majesty's British subjects resident in the territories under the Government of the East India Company without the towns of Calcutta and Madras and the town and island of Bombay, are now by law exempt from the jurisdiction of the Criminal Courts established by the East India Company in the said territories, to which all other persons, whether natives or other inhabitants in the said territories beyond the said towns and islands are amenable; And, whereas, it is necessary for the due administration of justice that such exemption be abolished, it is enacted as follows : I. In every part of the territories under the Government of the East India Company without the towns of Calcutta and Madras and the town and island of Bombay, all persons are henceforth amenable to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates and Criminal Courts of the East India Company, and may be apprehended, tried, and punished by B |