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for the advantage of any man, contrary to the ftricteft principles of honour and juftice; and that fo far from reaping any benefit myself from the expedition, I returned to England many thousand pounds out of pocket.

Lord Clive, March 30, 1772.

INDOSTAN was always an abfolute, defpotic government. The inhabitants, especially of Bengal, in inferior stations, are fervile, mean, fubmiffive, and humble. In fuperior ftations, they are luxurious, effeminate, tyrannical, treacherous, venal, cruel. The country of Bengal is called by way of diftinction, the paradife of the earth: it not only abounds with the neceffaries of life to fuch a degree as to furnish a great part of India with its fuperfluity, but it abounds with very curious and valuable manufactures, fufficient not only for its own use, but for the use of the whole globe. The filver of the West and the gold of the Eaft have for many years been pouring into that country, and goods only have been sent out in return. This has added to the extravagance and luxury of Bengal.

From time immemorial it has been the custom of that country, for an inferior never to come into the prefence of a superior without a prefent. It begins at the Nabob, and ends at the lowest man that has an inferior. The Nabob has told me, that the fmallprefents he received amounted to three hundred thousand pounds a year; and I can believe him, because I know that I might have received as much during my last government. The Company's fervants have ever been accustomed to receive prefents. Even before we took part in the country troubles, when our poffeffions were very confined and limited, the Governor and others used to receive prefents; and I will take upon me to affert, that there has not been an officer commanding His Majesty's fleet, nor an officer commanding His Majesty's army, not a Governor, nor a Member of Council, nor any other perfon, civil or military, in fuch a station as to have connection with the country government, who has not received

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received prefents. With regard to Bengal, there they flow in abundance indeed. Let the House figure to itself a country confifting of fifteen millions of inhabitants, a revenue of four millions fterling, and a trade in proportion. By progreffive fteps the Company have become fovereigns of that empire. Can it be fuppofed that their fervants will refrain from advantages fo obviously resulting from their fituation? The Company's fervants, however, have not been the authors of those acts of violence and oppreffion, of which it is the fashion to accuse them. Such crimes are committed by the natives of the country, acting as their agents, and for the most part without their knowledge. Thofe agents and the banyans never defift till, according to the ministerial phrafe, they have dragged their masters into the kennel, and then the acts of violence begin.

Let us confider the nature of the education of a young man who goes to India. The advantages arifing from the Company's service are now very generally known; and the great object of every man is, to get his fon appointed a writer to Bengal, which is ufually at the age of fixteen. His parents and relations reprefent to him how certain he is of making a fortune; that my Lord Such-a-one, and my Lord Such-a-one, acquired fo much money in fuch a time; and Mr. Such-a-one, and Mr. Such-a-one, so much in fuch a time. Thus are their principles corrupted at their very setting out; and as they generally go a good many together, they inflame one another's expectations to fuch a degree in the courfe of the voyage, that they fix upon a period for their return before their arrival.

Let us now take a view of one of those writers arrived in Bengal, and not worth a groat. As foon as he lands, a banyan, worth, perhaps, one hundred thousand pounds, defires he may have the honour of ferving this young gentleman at four fhillings and fix pence per month. The Company has provided chambers for him, but they are not good enough; the banyan finds better. The young man takes a walk about town; he obferves

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obferves that other writers, arrived only a year before him, live in fplendid apartments, or have houses of their own, ride upon fine prancing Arabian horfes, and in palanqueens and chaises; then they keep feraglios, make entertainments, and treat with champagne and claret. When he returns, he tells the banyan what he has obferved. The banyan affures him, that he may foon arrive at the fame good fortune; he furnishes him with money; he is then at his mercy. The advantages of the banyan advance with the rank of the mafter, who, in acquiring one fortune, generally fpends three. But this is not the worst of it: he is in a state of dependence under the banyan, who commits fuch acts of violence and oppreffion as his intereft prompts him to, under the pretended fanction and authority of the Company's fervants. Hence, Sir, arifes the clamour against the English gentlemen in India. But let us look at them in a retired fituation, when returned to England, when they are no longer Nabobs and Sovereigns of the Eaft: fee if there be any thing tyrannical in their disposition towards their inferiors: fee if they are not good and humane mafters: are they not charitable? Are they not benevolent? Are they not generous? Are they not hofpitable? If they are, thus far, not contemptible members of fociety, and if in all their dealings between man and man their conduct is strictly honourable. If, in fhort, there has not been one character found amongst them fufficiently. flagitious for Mr. Foote to exhibit on the theatre in the Haymarket, may we not conclude, that if they have erred, it has been because they were men, placed in fituations fubject to little or no control?

Lord Clive, March 30, 1772.

The honourable Baronet (Sir James Lowther) fays, he will not keep me from my defence, and he calls my speaking to the queftion of commitment a speech in my defence. I allow him his affertion. I fhall always confider myself as speaking in my defence, when I rife up to fpeak to a propofition fo great and

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fo important as that which I have now prefumed to offer to the wisdom of the Houfe. Whenever I rife up in this House to prefent a broad and comprehenfive scheme of policy to the nation-and that scheme is questioned, charged, and arraigned, I fhall always confider what I fay in its fupport as an argument in my own defence; because I shall always confider my own character, my fituation, my rank in the country, as at stake on every measure of state which I fhall prefume to undertake. The honourable Baronet faid truly, therefore, that I was now rifing to speak in my defence: but give me leave at the fame time to affert, that I have fomething better than my own defence in view, because the prefant Eaft-India bill has fomething greater than my own advantage; it is a bill which I from my foul believe to be neceffary to the deliverance of the empire, and it would be better fupported in my mind by arguments in fupport of its own principle, than by any harsh affertions of personality, which, however they may gratify spleen, have nothing to do with the fyftem fubmitted to your confidera

tion.

I am really furprized, that notwithstanding the various objections that have been stated to this bill on a former day, I find myself this day attacked upon a ground which I had least expected. The violation of charters, the defpotifm and oppreffion of the bill, were topics which I apprehended would have been principally dwelt on this day: but I find that these grounds are nearly abandoned; and that now I am to be attacked on that fide where I felt myself moft ftrong: yet I will confefs, that I am forry I am fo ftrong there, for my strength must be founded on the weakness of the Company. It was an old and a politic cuftom with Minifters, in talking in Parliament in the time of war, of the ftrength and refources of the different bodies of the community, to defcribe them as if they were in the most profperous and flourishing condition, and, perhaps, I fhould myfelf conform to that cuftom, if the country was now invol ed in war. The fitu-. ation

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ation of the country, however, is fuch as would not now allow the practice of those deceptions. We could only affift the nation, by knowing and declaring what the amount of its diftress was. Had not this been the cafe; had not the most urgent neceffity impelled, I never would have brought in fuch bill as that under difcuffion. The bill was a child not of choice but of neceffity. In like manner, the answer I was about to give to the Directors' ftate of the Company's affairs, was not a matter of option, but a matter which I could not avoid, in justice to the Company, in justice to myself, and in juftice to the world. I affure the House at the fame time, that though my defence must arife from that weakness, I wish moft fincerely that I had no fuch ground of defence; the weakness of a Company fo connected with the public, is not a theme which can afford any fatisfaction: but as I would stake my reputation on the neceffity of the measure I proposed, so it affords me, as far as my character is concerned, fome fatisfaction, that I can find in the Company's own accounts, substantial proofs of the neceffity of a parliamentary interpofition. But I confefs, that while an honourable and learned gentleman, who fits oppofite to me now, and who is likely to do so on all occafions, [Mr. Dundas, the late Lord Advocate of Scotland, who fat on the oppofition fide of the Houfe, close by Mr. Pitt] and other honourable gentlemen in this Houfe, could be appealed to as evidence of the alarming state of the affairs of the Company, I had not imagined that any long or elaborate proof, that they were not in a profperous condition, would be neceffary. Gentlemen will find that there was no occafion for them to lament, that the account which had been delivered in at the bar by the Eaft-India Company's accountant, had not been read by the clerk, as I fhall, in the course of my speech, be obliged to touch upon moft of the points that it contains. In this account I find many things inferted which ought to have been omitted; and many things omitted which ought to have been inferted. Through these affertions, and these omiffions, the

Company's

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