for it,
nor, for aught that appears, ever desired this boon. But its natural use
was made of it: it was made a pretence for new extortions of money.

The natives had, however, one consolation in the ruin of their
judicature: they soon saw that it fared no better with the English
government itself. That, too, after destroying every other, came to its
period. This revolution may well be rated for a most daring act, even
among the extraordinary things that have been doing in Bengal since our
unhappy acquisition of the means of so much mischief.

An establishment of English government for civil justice, and for the
collection of revenue, was planned and executed by the President and
Council of Bengal, subject to the pleasure of the Directors, in the year
1772. According to this plan, the country was divided into six
districts, or provinces. In each of these was established a provincial
council, which administered the revenue; and of that council, one
member, by monthly rotation, presided in the courts of civil resort,
with an appeal to the council of the province, and thence to Calcutta.
In this system (whether in other respects good or evil) there were some
capital advantages. There was, in the very number of persons in each
provincial council, authority, communication, mutual check, and control.
They were obliged, on their minutes of consultation, to enter their
reasons and dissents; so that a man of diligence, of research, and
tolerable sagacity, sitting in London, might, from these materials, be
enabled to form some judgment of the spirit of what was going on on the
furthest banks of the Ganges and Burrampooter.

The Court of Directors so far ratified this establishment, (which was
consonant enough to their general plan of government,) that they gave
precise orders that no alteration should be made in it without their
consent. So far from being apprised of any design against this
constitution, they had reason to conceive that on trial it had been more
and more approved by their Council-General, at least by the
Governor-General, who had planned it. At the time of the revolution, the
Council-General was nominally in two persons, virtually in one. At that
time measures of an arduous and critical nature ought to have been
forborne, even if, to the fullest council, this specific measure had
not been prohibited by the superior authority. It was in this very
situation that one man had the hardiness to conceive and the temeri