But before I consider of what nature these abuses are, of which the gentleman speaks so very lightly, permit me to recall to your recollection the map of the country which this abused chartered right affects.  This I shall do, that you may judge whether in that map I can discover anything like the first of my conditions:  that is, whether the object affected by the abuse of the East India Company’s power be of importance sufficient to justify the measure and means of reform applied to it in this bill.

With very few, and those inconsiderable intervals, the British dominion, either in the Company’s name, or in the names of princes absolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the mountains that separate India from Tartary to Cape Comorin, that is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude!

In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land, about eight hundred miles in length, and four or five hundred broad.  As you go southward, it becomes narrower for a space.  It afterwards dilates; but, narrower or broader, you possess the whole eastern and northeastern coast of that vast country, quite from the borders of Pegu.—­Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, with Benares, (now unfortunately in our immediate possession,) measure 161,978 square English miles:  a territory considerably larger than the whole kingdom of France.  Oude, with its dependent provinces, is 53,286 square miles:  not a great deal less than England.  The Carnatic, with Tanjore and the Circars, is 65,948 square miles:  very considerably larger than England.  And the whole of the Company’s dominions, comprehending Bombay and Salsette, amounts to 281,412 square miles:  which forms a territory larger than any European dominion, Russia and Turkey excepted.  Through all that vast extent of country there is not a man who eats a mouthful of rice but by permission of the East India Company.

So far with regard to the extent.  The population of this great empire is not easy to be calculated.  When the countries of which it is composed came into our possession, they were all eminently peopled, and eminently productive,—­though at that time considerably declined from their ancient prosperity.  But since they are come into our hands!——!  However, if we make the period of our estimate immediately before the utter desolation of the Carnatic, and if we allow for the havoc which our government had even then made in these regions, we cannot, in my opinion, rate the population at much less than thirty millions of souls:  more than four times the number of persons in the island of Great Britain.

My next inquiry to that of the number is the quality and description of the inhabitants.  This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies and Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the River of Amazons or the Plate; but a people for ages civilized and cultivated,—­cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet