On the other hand, consider the fate of those who have met with the applauses of the Directors.  Colonel Monson, one of the best of men, had his days shortened by the applauses, destitute of the support, of the Company.  General Clavering, whose panegyric was made in every dispatch from England, whose hearse was bedewed with the tears and hung round with the eulogies of the Court of Directors, burst an honest and indignant heart at the treachery of those who ruined him by their praises.  Uncommon patience and temper supported Mr. Francis a while longer under the baneful influence of the commendation of the Court of Directors.  His health, however, gave way at length; and in utter despair, he returned to Europe.  At his return, the doors of the India House were shut to this man who had been the object of their constant admiration.  He has, indeed, escaped with life; but he has forfeited all expectation of credit, consequence, party, and following.  He may well say, “Me nemo ministro fur erit, atque ideo nulli comes exeo.”  This man, whose deep reach of thought, whose large legislative conceptions, and whose grand plans of policy make the most shining part of our Reports, from whence we have all learned our lessons, if we have learned any good ones,—­this man, from whose materials those gentlemen who have least acknowledged it have yet spoken as from a brief,—­this man, driven from his employment, discountenanced by the Directors, has had no other reward, and no other distinction, but that inward “sunshine of the soul” which a good conscience can always bestow upon itself.  He has not yet had so much as a good word, but from a person too insignificant to make any other return for the means with which he has been furnished for performing his share of a duty which is equally urgent on us all.

Add to this, that, from the highest in place to the lowest, every British subject, who, in obedience to the Company’s orders, has been active in the discovery of peculations, has been ruined.  They have been driven from India.  When they made their appeal at home, they were not heard; when they attempted to return, they were stopped.  No artifice of fraud, no violence of power, has been omitted to destroy them in character as well as in fortune.

Worse, far worse, has been the fate of the poor creatures, the natives of India, whom the hypocrisy of the Company has betrayed into complaint of oppression and discovery of peculation.  The first women in Bengal, the Ranny of Rajeshahi, the Ranny of Burdwan, the Ranny of Ambooah, by their weak and thoughtless trust in the Company’s honor and protection, are utterly ruined:  the first of these women, a person of princely rank, and once of correspondent fortune, who paid above two hundred thousand a year quit-rent to the state, is, according to very credible information, so completely beggared as to stand in need of the relief of alms.  Mahomed Reza Khan, the second Mussulman in Bengal, for having been distinguished by the ill-omened