whether you have
acquired it by fraud or force, or whether by a mixture of both,) when, I
say, you have acquired it, it is your business not to oppress those
people with new and additional difficulties, but rather to console them
in the state to which they are reduced, and to give them all the
assistance and protection in your power.

The next system is composed of the descendants of the people who were
found in the country by the Mahometan invaders. The system before
mentioned comprehends the official interest, the judicial interest, the
court interest, and the military interest. This latter body includes
almost the whole landed interest, commercial interest, and moneyed
interest of the country. For the Hindoos not being forbidden by their
laws or religious tenets, as laid down in the Shaster, many of them
became the principal money-lenders and bankers; and thus the Hindoos
form the greatest part both of the landed and moneyed interest in that
country.

The third and last system is formed of the English interest; which in
reality, whether it appears directly or indirectly, is the governing
interest of the whole country,--of its civil and military interest, of
its landed, moneyed, and revenue interest; and what to us is the
greatest concern of all, it is this system which is responsible for the
government of that country to the government of Great Britain. It is
divided into two parts: one emanating from the Company, and afterwards
regulated by act of Parliament; the other a judicial body, sent out by
and acting under the authority of the crown itself. The persons
composing that interest are those whom we usually call the servants of
the Company. They enter into that service, as your Lordships know, at an
early period of life, and they are promoted accordingly as their merit
or their interest may provide for them. This body of men, with respect
to its number, is so small as scarcely to deserve mentioning; but, from
certain circumstances, the government of the whole country is fallen
into their hands. Amongst these circumstances, the most important and
essential are their having the public revenues and the public purse
entirely in their own hands, and their having an army maintained by that
purse, and disciplined in the European manner.

Such was the state of that country when Mr. Hastings was appointed
Governor in 1772. Your Lordships are now to decide upon the manner in
which he has comported himself with regard to