’That they who draw the breath of life in a court, and pass all their days in an atmosphere of lies, should have any very sacred regard for truth, is hardly to be expected.  They experience such falsehood in all who surround them, that deception, at least suppression of the truth, almost seems necessary for self-defence; and, accordingly, if their speech be not framed upon the theory of the French cardinal, that language was given to man for the better concealment of his thoughts, they at least seem to regard in what they say, not its resemblance to the tact in question, but rather its subserviency to the purpose in view.’ (Brougham’s George IV.) ’Yet, let it never be forgotten, that princes are nurtured in falsehood by the atmosphere of lies which envelops their palace; steeled against natural sympathies by the selfish natures of all that surround them; hardened in cruelty, partly indeed by the fears incident to their position, but partly too by the unfeeling creatures, the factions, the unnatural productions of a court whom alone they deal with; trained for tyrants by the prostration which they find in all the minds which they come in contact with; encouraged to domineer by the unresisting medium through which all their steps to power and its abuse are made.’ (Brougham’s Carnot.)

But Lord Brougham is too harsh.  Johnson has observed truly enough, ‘Honesty is not necessarily greater where elegance is less’; nor does a sense of supreme or despotic power necessarily imply the exercise or abuse of it.  Princes have, happily, the same yearning as the peasant after the respect and affection of the circle around them, and the people under them; and they must generally seek it by the same means.

I have mentioned the village communities of India as that class of the population among whom truth prevails most; but I believe there is no class of men in the world more strictly honourable in their dealings than the mercantile classes of India.  Under native governments a merchant’s books were appealed to as ‘holy writ’, and the confidence in them has certainly not diminished under our rule.  There have been instances of their being seized by the magistrate, and subjected to the inspection of the officers of his court.  No officer of a native government ventured to seize them; the merchant was required to produce them as proof of particular entries, and, while the officers of government did no more, there was no danger of false accounts.

An instance of deliberate fraud or falsehood among native merchants of respectable station in society is extremely rare.  Among the many hundreds of bills I have had to take from them for private remittances, I have never had one dishonoured, or the payment upon one delayed beyond the day specified; nor do I recollect ever hearing of one who had.  They are so careful not to speculate beyond their means, that an instance of failure is extremely rare among them.  No one ever in India hears of families reduced to ruin or distress by the failure of merchants or bankers; though here, as in all other countries advanced in the arts, a vast number of families subsist upon the interest of money employed by them.[27]