the great reforms already initiated by Clive himself, and
still more drastically by Warren Hastings, which, within the framework
as far as possible of the old indigenous system of judicial and civil
administration, built up on solid foundations of integrity and
efficiency a capacious and elastic structure easily extended to the vast
territories that were still to pass under British rule. But then no
more than at any later period could the machinery of government have
worked smoothly, or even at all, without the co-operation of the Indians
themselves, who were recruited in large numbers into the Company's
service. Respect for their traditional customs and beliefs, and
encouragement, of which Warren Hastings was the first to recognise the
importance, to Indian education, though still only on the old lines with
which Indians were already familiar, secured the growing loyalty of
their co-operation. Then, as now, it was nowhere more effective than in
the judicial administration, and side by side with new tribunals, which
conformed with Western jurisprudence, the old ones, purified and
reorganised, continued to dispense justice in accordance mainly with
Hindu and Mahomedan and Indian customary law. With the consolidation of
the British Paramount Power Indians learnt to identify it with their
ancient conception of the State, and the Company's service came to enjoy
the popularity and prestige which had always attached to the service of
the State under their indigenous rulers and even under Mahomedan
domination.

The renewal of the Company's Charter, which took place at intervals of
twenty years, dating from Lord North's Act of 1773, afforded a
convenient opportunity for the revision, when required, both of its
relations to the Crown and of its methods of government in India. The
abrogation of its trading monopoly in 1813 was mainly a concession to
opposition at home, quickened by the loss of the European markets which
had been closed against Great Britain by Napoleon's continental system,
and for the renewal of its Charter the Company had to surrender its
trading monopoly. It was the first step towards the abrogation of all
its trading privileges twenty years later, when the Company, finally
delivered from the temptations which beset a commercial corporation,
became for the first time a purely governing body, free to devote its
entire energies to the discharge of the immense responsibilities that
had devolved upon it. This was