of his name to mark that he is connected
with and supported by an European who is himself well connected and
supported at home. This is a commission which nothing can resist. From
that moment forward it is not the Englishman, it is the black banian,
that is the master. The nominal master often lives from his hand. We
know how young men are sent out of this country; we know how happy we
are to hear soon that they are no longer a burden to their friends and
parents. The banian knows it, too. He supplies the young servant with
money. He has him under his power: first, from the necessity of
employing such a man; and next, (and this is the more important of the
two,) he has that dreadful power over his master which every creditor
has over his debtor. Actions the most abhorrent to his nature he must
see done before his face, and thousands and thousands worse are done in
his absence, and he dare not complain. The banian extorts, robs,
plunders, and then gives him just what proportion of the spoil he
pleases. If the master should murmur, the very power that was sent over
to protect the people of India from these very abuses, (the best things
being perverted, when applied to unknown objects and put into unsuitable
situations,) the very laws of England, by making the recovery of debts
more easy, infinitely increase the power of the banian over his master.
Thus the Supreme Court of Justice, the destined corrector of all abuses,
becomes a collateral security for that abominable tyranny exercised by
the moneyed banians over Europeans as well as the natives. So that,
while we are here boasting of the British power in the East, we are in
perhaps more than half our service nothing but the inferior, miserable
instruments of the tyranny which the lowest part of the natives of India
exercise, to the disgrace of the British authority, and to the ruin of
all that is respectable among their own countrymen. They have subverted
the first houses, totally ruined and undone the country, cheated and
defrauded the revenue,--the master a silent, sometimes a melancholy
spectator, until some office of high emolument has emancipated him. This
has often been the true reason that the Company's servants in India, in
order to free themselves from this horrid and atrocious servitude, are
obliged to become instruments of another tyranny, and must prostitute
themselves to men in power, in order to obtain some office that may
enable them to escape the servitudes