I must, however, remark, before I go further, that there is something in the representation of the East India Company in their Oriental territory different from that, perhaps, of any other nation that has ever transported any part of its power from one country to another.  The East India Company in India is not properly a branch of the British nation:  it is only a deputation of individuals.  When the Tartars entered into China, when the Arabs and Tartars successively entered into Hindostan, when the Goths and Vandals penetrated into Europe, when the Normans forced their way into England, indeed, in all conquests, migrations, settlements, and colonizations, the new people came as the offset of a nation.  The Company in India does not exist as a national colony.  In effect and substance nobody can go thither that does not go in its service.  The English in India are nothing but a seminary for the succession of officers.  They are a nation of placemen; they are a commonwealth without a people; they are a state made up wholly of magistrates.  There is nothing to be in propriety called people, to watch, to inspect, to balance against the power of office.  The power of office, so far as the English nation is concerned, is the sole power in the country:  the consequence of which is, that, being a kingdom of magistrates, what is commonly called the esprit du corps is strong in it.  This spirit of the body predominates equally in all its parts; by which the members must consider themselves as having a common interest, and that common interest separated both from that of the country which sent them out and from that of the country in which they act.  No control upon them exists,—­none, I mean, in persons who understand their language, who understand their manners, or can apply their conduct to the laws.  Therefore, in a body so constituted, confederacy is easy, and has been general.  Your Lordships are not to expect that that should happen in such a body which never happened in any body or corporation,—­that is, that they should, in any instance, be a proper check and control upon themselves.  It is not in the nature of things.  The fundamental principle of the whole of the East India Company’s system is monopoly, in some sense or other.  The same principle predominates in the service abroad and the service at home; and both systems are united into one, animated with the same spirit, that is, with the corporate spirit.  The whole, taken together, is such as has not been seen in the examples of the Moors, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Romans,—­in no old, in no recent examples.  The Dutch may resemble it, but they have not an empire properly so denominated.  By means of this peculiar circumstance it has not been difficult for Mr. Hastings to embody abuse, and to put himself at the head of a regular system of corruption.