, will very soon exhibit, if it does not already
display, the same appearance with those countries and cities which are
under better subjection. A great master, Mr. Hastings, has himself been
at the pains of drawing a picture of one of these countries: I mean the
province and city of Furruckabad. There is no reason to question his
knowledge of the facts; and his authority (on this point at least) is
above all exception, as well for the state of the country as for the
cause. In his minute of consultation, Mr. Hastings describes forcibly
the consequences which arise from the degradation into which we have
sunk the native government. "The total want (says he) of all order,
regularity, or authority, in his (the Nabob of Furruckabad's)
government, and to which, among other obvious causes, it may no doubt be
owing that the country of Furruckabad is become _almost an entire waste,
without cultivation or inhabitants_,--that the capital, which but a very
short time ago was distinguished as one of the most populous and opulent
commercial cities in Hindostan, at present exhibits nothing but _scenes
of the most wretched poverty, desolation, and misery_,--and that the
_Nabob himself_, though in the possession of a tract of country which,
with only common care, is notoriously capable of yielding an annual
revenue of between thirty and forty lacs, (three or four hundred
thousand pounds,) with _no military establishment_ to maintain, scarcely
commands _the means of a bare subsistence_."

This is a true and unexaggerated picture, not only of Furruckabad, but
of at least three fourths of the country which we possess, or rather lay
waste, in India. Now, Sir, the House will be desirous to know for what
purpose this picture was drawn. It was for a purpose, I will not say
laudable, but necessary: that of taking the unfortunate prince and his
country out of the hands of a sequestrator sent thither by the Nabob of
Oude, the mortal enemy of the prince thus ruined, and to protect him by
means of a British resident, who might carry his complaints to the
superior resident at Oude, or transmit them to Calcutta. But mark how
the reformer persisted in his reformation. The effect of the measure was
better than was probably expected. The prince began to be at ease; the
country began to recover; and the revenue began to be collected. These
were alarming circumstances. Mr. Hastings not only recalled the
resident, but he entered into a formal stipulation w