ir laws and opinions were
concentred within themselves, and hindered from spreading abroad, they
have doubled their force at home. They have existed in spite of
Mahomedan and Portuguese bigotry,--in spite of Tartarian and Arabian
tyranny,--in spite of all the fury of successive foreign conquest,--in
spite of a more formidable foe, the avarice of the English dominion.

I have spoken now, my Lords, of what their principles are, their laws
and religious institutions, in point of force and stability; I have
given instances of their force in the very circumstance in which all the
institutions of mankind in other respects show their weakness. They have
existed, when the country has been otherwise subdued. This alone
furnishes full proof that there must be some powerful influence
resulting from them beyond all our little fashionable theories upon such
subjects.

The second consideration in the Gentoo institutions is their beneficial
effects, moral and civil. The policy, civil or religious, or, as theirs
is, composed of both, that makes a people happy and a state flourishing,
(putting further and higher considerations out of the way, which are not
now before us,) must undoubtedly, so far as human considerations
prevail, be a policy wisely conceived in any scheme of government. It
is confirmed by all observation, that, where the Hindoo religion has
been established, that country has been flourishing. We have seen some
patterns remaining to this day. The very country which is to be the
subject of your Lordships' judicial inquiry is an instance, by an entire
change of government, of the different effects resulting from the
rapacity of a foreign hand, and the paternal, lenient, protecting arm of
a native government, formed on the long connection of prejudice and
power. I shall give you its state under the Hindoo government from a
book written by a very old servant of the Company, whose authority is of
the greater weight, as the very destruction of all this scheme of
government is the great object of the author.

The author, Mr. Holwell, divides the country of Bengal into its
different provinces. He supposes what they then paid to the supreme
government; he supposes what the country is capable of yielding; and his
project is, to change entirely the application of the revenues of the
country, and to secure the whole into the hands of government. In
enumerating these provinces, at last he comes to the province of
Burdwan.

"In tr