creditor has over his debtor.  Actions the most abhorrent to his nature he must see done before his face, and thousands and thousands worse are done in his absence, and he dare not complain.  The banian extorts, robs, plunders, and then gives him just what proportion of the spoil he pleases.  If the master should murmur, the very power that was sent over to protect the people of India from these very abuses, (the best things being perverted, when applied to unknown objects and put into unsuitable situations,) the very laws of England, by making the recovery of debts more easy, infinitely increase the power of the banian over his master.  Thus the Supreme Court of Justice, the destined corrector of all abuses, becomes a collateral security for that abominable tyranny exercised by the moneyed banians over Europeans as well as the natives.  So that, while we are here boasting of the British power in the East, we are in perhaps more than half our service nothing but the inferior, miserable instruments of the tyranny which the lowest part of the natives of India exercise, to the disgrace of the British authority, and to the ruin of all that is respectable among their own countrymen.  They have subverted the first houses, totally ruined and undone the country, cheated and defrauded the revenue,—­the master a silent, sometimes a melancholy spectator, until some office of high emolument has emancipated him.  This has often been the true reason that the Company’s servants in India, in order to free themselves from this horrid and atrocious servitude, are obliged to become instruments of another tyranny, and must prostitute themselves to men in power, in order to obtain some office that may enable them to escape the servitudes below, and enable them to pay their debts.  And thus many have become the instruments of Mr. Hastings.

These banians, or dewans, were originally among the lower castes in the country.  But now, it is true, that, after seeing the power and profits of these men,—­that there is neither power, profession, nor occupation to be had, which a reputable person can exercise, but through that channel,—­men of higher castes, and born to better things, have thrown themselves into that disgraceful servitude, have become menial servants to Englishmen, that they might rise by their degradation.  But whoever they are, or of whatever birth, they have equally prostituted their integrity, they have equally lost their character; and, once entered into that course of life, there is no difference between the best castes and the worst.  That system Mr. Hastings confirmed, established, increased, and made the instrument of the most austere tyranny, of the basest peculations, and the most scandalous and iniquitous extortions.