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cafes, will fall immediately under the observation of a Governor, and it is his duty to endeavour to eradicate them with very exemplary severity, when occafion demands it. If in the execution of his office he is guilty of oppreffion towards any of His Majefty's fubjects, an act of Parliament points out a legal mode of redrefs; if his oppreffion falls on a subject, he is still amenable to justice. In any trifling causes, especially against a British fubject, a Governor will act merely as a Justice of the Peace, but in cafes which affect the Company's affairs, in cafes of a villainous nature between man and man, particularly extortion, which too happens among the natives of this defpotic empire, whether fupported or not by us; in cafes where the temper, moderation, the justice of the Company's government is concerned; in cafes of fuch a nature, I fay, a Governor will not only act as a Justice of the Peace, but as Governor he will not only, as a Magiftrate, commit to confinement, but will, if he judge neceffary, as Commander in Chief, affume his military power to prevent the offender's ef

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cape."" A black man accused of a heinous crime, meditating an escape from justice, is confined to his house by a few fepoys, and upon this circumftance alone Mr. ***, like a true leader of party, thinks it incumbent on him to ftand forth the champion of his injured country, declaims upon the British Conftitution, civil rights, military force, arbitrary power, the liberty of the subject." I demand,” fays he," that the guards be removed "from the houses of the inhabitants, that not only I, but the whole fettlement, in confidence and safety attend the Company's and our own concerns." In a London newfpaper fuch an harangue might ferve to alarm weak minds, and draw recruits to the standard of faction, but on the face of our confultations, where truth and facts are confpicuous, it must appear a falfehood of the most dangerous tendency, calculated to answer the worst purposes-I therefore defire the following queftion may be put, &c.

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From the above minute we may know what was the Government at the period of the acquifition of the Dewannee, and we may also, on equal certainty, state the principle and practice of the revenue system at the fame period.

The principle of the Company's revenue fyftem, applied to their territory, prior to, and at the period of, the acquifition of the Dewannee, was a fyftematic deviation from the equity of the Moghul fyftem, as is fairly stated by Governor Holwell in the following extracts * :

"To form a just estimate of the value and importance of thefe provinces, we must confider them at the period when they were governed by the younger Princes of the Blood Royal, and fome years before faffier Khan's Soubahship, for in his time they began to decline and decrease in their worth, from causes + already investigated.

* Interesting Historical Events, 2d edit. Vol. I. p. 178.

↑ Ibid. Vol. I. chap. 2.

"From his demife, the country for a few years recovered and began to flourish, until within two years of the decease of Sujah Khan, when, by the rapacity of Hodjee Hamet, the Rajahs and Zemindars were again cruelly oppreffed and plundered and were thereby difabled from making good their contracts to Government; foon after that period commenced the ufurpation of Aliverdi Khan, that drew on the Mahratta invafion, which overwhelmed the country in miferies of every kind for eight years.

"The peace which the ufurper made with these invaders in 1750 feemed for four or five years to promise restoration of vigour to this haraffed country; but its shattered conftitution was scarcely beginning to revive, when the rash conduct of the fucceeding young tyrant reduced it again to imminent peril, a just vengeance and neceffity drew the English arms against him and his country, which produced a revolution fatal to himself and familyneceffity again produced a fecond revolution—wantonness, a third-and when we

fhall ftop, time only will difclofe. A few individuals may benefit by this shifting fyftem; but the total ruin of the trade of the provinces, and to the Company, must manifestly, in the end, be the consequence of this continued warfare, if not timely prevented, notwithstanding the flattering, fallacious fuccefs of our arms."-" The country is capable of being restored under a proper fettled government, and lasting peace; warfare swallows up new-acquired revenue, turns the heads, and bewilders the Company's fervants from attention to their mercantile bufinefs; and the Direction must labour under heavy embarraffments in conducting the two branches of war and trade *—A trading and a fighting Company is a two-headed monster in nature that cannot exist long, as the expence and inexperience of the latter, must exceed, confound, and destroy every profit or advantage gained by the former.". Let us boldly dare to be Soubah ourselves, our own terms have been more than once offered to us by the Emperor; why should

* Interest. Hiftor. Events, Vol. I. page 180.

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