all these three interests:
first, whether he has made the ancient Mahometan families as easy as he
could; secondly, whether he has made the Hindoo inhabitants, the
zemindars and their tenants, as secure in their property and as easy in
their tenure as he could; and lastly, whether he has made the English
interest a blessing to the country, and, whilst it provided moderate,
safe, and proper emoluments to the persons that were concerned in it, it
kept them from oppression and rapine, and a general waste and ravage of
the country: whether, in short, he made all these three interests pursue
that one object which all interests and all governments ought to pursue,
the advantage and welfare of the people under them.

My Lords, in support of our charge against the prisoner at your bar,
that he acted in a manner directly the reverse of this, we have proved
to you that his first acts of oppression were directed against the
Mahometan government,--that government which had been before, not only
in name, but in effect, to the very time of his appointment, the real
government of the country. After the Company had acquired its right over
it, some shadow still remained of the ancient government. An allowance
was settled for the Nabob of Bengal, to support the dignity of his
court, which amounted to between four and five hundred thousand pounds a
year. In this was comprehended the support of the whole mass of
nobility,--the soldiers, serving or retired,--all the officers of the
court, and all the women that were dependent upon them,--the whole of
the criminal jurisdiction of the country, and a very considerable part
of the civil law and the civil government. These establishments formed
the constitutional basis of their political government.

The Company never had (and it is a thing that we can never too often
repeat to your Lordships)--the Company never had of right despotic power
in that country, to overturn any of these establishments. The Mogul, who
gave them their charters, could not give them such a power,--he did not
_de facto_ give them such a power; the government of this country did
not by act of Parliament, and the Company did not and could not by their
delegation, give him such a power; the act by which he was appointed
Governor did not give him such a power. If he exercised it, he usurped
it; and therefore, every step we take in the examination of his conduct
in Bengal, as in every step we take upon the same subject everywh