h the power and authority of all the
Mahratta states, with the independence and dignity of the Subah of the
Deccan, and the mighty strength, the resources, and the manly struggle
of Hyder Ali,--and then the House will discover the effects, on every
power in India, of an easy confidence or of a rooted distrust in the
faith of the Company.

These are some of my reasons, grounded on the abuse of the external
political trust of that body, for thinking myself not only justified,
but bound, to declare against those chartered rights which produce so
many wrongs. I should deem myself the wickedest of men, if any vote of
mine could contribute to the continuance of so great an evil.

Now, Sir, according to the plan I proposed, I shall take notice of the
Company's internal government, as it is exercised first on the dependent
provinces, and then as it affects those under the direct and immediate
authority of that body. And here, Sir, before I enter into the spirit of
their interior government, permit me to observe to you upon a few of the
many lines of difference which are to be found between the vices of the
Company's government and those of the conquerors who preceded us in
India, that we may be enabled a little the better to see our way in an
attempt to the necessary reformation.

The several irruptions of Arabs, Tartars, and Persians into India were,
for the greater part, ferocious, bloody, and wasteful in the extreme:
our entrance into the dominion of that country was, as generally, with
small comparative effusion of blood,--being introduced by various frauds
and delusions, and by taking advantage of the incurable, blind, and
senseless animosity which the several country powers bear towards each
other, rather than by open force. But the difference in favor of the
first conquerors is this. The Asiatic conquerors very soon abated of
their ferocity, because they made the conquered country their own. They
rose or fell with the rise or fall of the territory they lived in.
Fathers there deposited the hopes of their posterity; and children there
beheld the monuments of their fathers. Here their lot was finally cast;
and it is the natural wish of all that their lot should not be cast in a
bad land. Poverty, sterility, and desolation are not a recreating
prospect to the eye of man; and there are very few who can bear to grow
old among the curses of a whole people. If their passion or their
avarice drove the Tartar lords to acts of r