by selling the rest to farmers at rents and under hopes which could never be realized, and then getting money for the relaxation of their debts.  But whatever excuse, and however wicked, there might have been for this wicked act, namely, that it carried upon the face of it some sort of appearance of public good,—­that is to say, that sort of public good which Mr. Hastings so often professed, of ruining the country for the benefit of the Company,—­yet, in fact, this business of balances is that nidus in which have been nustled and bred and born all the corruptions of India, first by making extravagant demands, and afterwards by making corrupt relaxations of them.

Besides this monstrous failure, in consequence of a miserable exaction by which more was attempted to be forced from the country than it was capable of yielding, and this by way of experiment, when your Lordships come to inquire who the farmers-general of the revenue were, you would naturally expect to find them to be the men in the several countries who had the most interest, the greatest wealth, the best knowledge of the revenue and resources of the country in which they lived.  Those would be thought the natural, proper farmers-general of each district.  No such thing, my Lords.  They are found in the body of people whom I have mentioned to your Lordships.  They were almost all let to Calcutta banians.  Calcutta banians were the farmers of almost the whole.  They sub-delegated to others, who sometimes had sub-delegates under them ad infinitum.  The whole formed a system together, through the succession of black tyrants scattered through the country, in which you at last find the European at the end, sometimes indeed not hid very deep, not above one between him and the farmer, namely, his banian directly, or some other black person to represent him.  But some have so managed the affair, that, when you inquire who the farmer is,—­Was such a one farmer?  No.  Cantoo Baboo?  No.  Another?  No,—­at last you find three deep of fictitious farmers, and you find the European gentlemen, high in place and authority, the real farmers of the settlement.  So that the zemindars were dispossessed, the country racked and ruined, for the benefit of an European, under the name of a farmer:  for you will easily judge whether these gentlemen had fallen so deeply in love with the banians, and thought so highly of their merits and services, as to reward them with all the possessions of the great landed interest of the country.  Your Lordships are too grave, wise, and discerning, to make it necessary for me to say more upon that subject.  Tell me that the banians of English gentlemen, dependants on them at Calcutta, were the farmers throughout, and I believe I need not tell your Lordships for whose benefit they were farmers.