SIR J. BROOKE. [From the " Britannia," February 16]

New Zealander, Volume 6, Issue 450, 7 August 1850, Page 3

SIR J. BROOKE. [From the " Britannia," February 16]

An outcry has been raised against this intelligent and enterprising man for his attempt to clear the East Indian Archipelago of its piiates. A topic of this kind U too valuable to be let slip by the cheap-humanity school All the vulgarities of bastard philanthropy are busy on the oecauon, and the idea of punishing a race of murderen and robbers, of rescuing ourtiadeis from the knife, Of protecting the peaceable portion of the natives from extinction, throws those " orators ol the race" into paroxysms of indignation. It it notorious that the profession of piracy U carried i>n by these nmereants from gene, ation to generation ; that their occupation is blood ; that their liveb are a cour§e of crimes and cruelties of all description j that they are the scout ge of the Indian islands ; and that whenthey capture a fahip they cut the throats of tne crew; and yet to the harapguer here' all tins goes for nothing, and the brave and wise man who attempts to protect the peaceable natives, to lave European commerce from extinction in those seas, and to give the i«lands a chance ot civilization, mu.il be insulted and reviled 'as if be were a lover of blood. We presume that we shall next bear of the atrocity of burning the Chinese fleet, and depriving its cut-throat captain ot the opportunity ot mnrder and robbery. We saw the same game played iv the Kafir war. A nation of thieves became instantly the porleges of the philanthropists. There was no' sympathy for the noloniots who were robbed and inaidered-*-they wtrt guilty ol a white skin and of • jutt cause ; but the savage was the favourite of all their sensibilhties, the African could do no wrong,'und butish governors were denounced ai conspirators against those sable SOns of simplicity ; British troopg were charged with wilful massacre; and the whole body of the colonists were stigmatized with treachery to a lace whose whole nature is treach* cry. Those things disgust one with the very name of ihi'amhropy.