y." Whereas
the said Hastings did well know, that, whether the payments from the
Rajah were called _rent_ or _tribute_, having been frequently by himself
called the one and the other, and that of whatever nature the
instruments by which he held might have been, he did not consider him as
a common zemindar or landholder, but as far independent as a tributary
prince could be: for he did assign as a reason for receiving his rent
rather within the Company's province than in his own capital, that it
would not "frustrate the intention of rendering the Rajah _independent_;
that, if a Resident was appointed to receive the money as it became due
at Benares, such a Resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over
the Rajah, and over his country, which would in effect render him the
master of both; that this consequence might not, perhaps, be brought
completely to pass without a struggle, and many appeals to the Council,
which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate
against the Rajah, and, by the construction to which his opposition to
the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe
restrictions, and end _in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of
a zemindar_."

XXIX. And the said Hastings, in the said Minute of Consultation, having
enumerated the frauds, embezzlements, and oppressions which would ensue
from the Rajah's being in the dependent state aforesaid, and having
obviated all apprehensions from giving to him the implied symbols of
dominion, did assert, "that, without such appearance, he would expect
from every change of government additional demands to be made upon him,
and would of course descend to all the arts of intrigue and concealment
practised by other dependent Rajahs, which would keep him indigent and
weak, and eventually prove hurtful to the Company; but that, by proper
encouragement and protection, he might prove a profitable dependant, an
useful barrier, and even a powerful ally to the Company; but that he
would be neither, if the conditions of his connection with the Company
were left open to future variations."

XXX. That, if the fact had been true that the Rajah of Benares was
merely an eminent landholder or any other subject, the wicked and
dangerous doctrine aforesaid, namely, that he owed a personal allegiance
and an implicit and unreserved obedience to the sovereign authority, at
the forfeiture of his zemindary, and even of his life and property, at
the