, invalidity, and
instability of all engagements in so divided and unsettled a state of
society, and from the unavoidable anarchy and confusion of different
laws, religions, and prejudices, moral, civil, and political, all
jumbled together in one unnatural and discordant mass.

"Every part of Hindostan has been constantly exposed to these and
similar disadvantages ever since the Mahomedan conquests. The Hindoos,
who never incorporated with their conquerors, were kept in order only by
the strong hand of power. The constant necessity of similar exertions
would increase at once their energy and extent; so that rebellion itself
is the parent and promoter of despotism. Sovereignty in India implies
nothing else. For I know not how we can form an estimate of its powers,
but from its visible effects; and those are everywhere the same, from
Cabool to Assam. The whole history of Asia is nothing more than
precedents to prove the invariable exercise of arbitrary power. To all
this I strongly alluded in the minutes I delivered in Council, when the
treaty with the new Vizier was on foot in 1775; and I wished to make
Cheyt Sing independent, because in India dependence included a thousand
evils, many of which I enumerated at that time, and they are entered in
the ninth clause of the first section of this charge. I knew the powers
with which an Indian sovereignty is armed, and the dangers to which
tributaries are exposed. I knew, that, from the history of Asia, and
from the very nature of mankind, the subjects of a despotic empire are
always vigilant for the moment to rebel, and the sovereign is ever
jealous of rebellious intentions. A zemindar is an Indian subject, and
as such exposed to the common lot of his fellows. _The mean and depraved
state of a mere zemindar_ is therefore this very dependence above
mentioned on a despotic government, this very proneness to shake off his
allegiance, and this very exposure to continual danger from his
sovereign's jealousy, which are consequent on the political state of
Hindostanic governments. Bulwant Sing, if he had been, and Cheyt Sing,
as long as he was a zemindar, stood exactly in this _mean and depraved
state_ by the constitution of his country. I did not make it for him,
but would have secured him from it. Those who made him a zemindar
entailed upon him the consequences of so mean and depraved a tenure.
Aliverdy Khan and Cossim Ali fined all their zemindars on the
necessities of war, and on