When Hastings took his seat at the head of the council-board, Bengal was still governed according to the system which Clive had devised, a system which was, perhaps, skilfully contrived for the purpose of facilitating and concealing a great revolution, but which, when that revolution was complete and irrevocable, could produce nothing but inconvenience.  There were two governments, the real and the ostensible.  The supreme power belonged to the Company, and was in truth the most despotic power that can be conceived.  The only restraint on the English masters of the country was that which their own justice and humanity imposed on them.  There was no constitutional check on their will, and resistance to them was utterly hopeless.

But though thus absolute in reality the English had not yet assumed the style of sovereignty.  They held their territories as vassals of the throne of Delhi; they raised their revenues as collectors appointed by the imperial commission; their public seal was inscribed with the imperial titles; and their mint struck only the imperial coin.

There was still a nabob of Bengal, who stood to the English rulers of his country in the same relation in which Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the last Merovingians to Charles Martel and Pepin.  He lived at Moorshedabad, surrounded by princely magnificence.  He was approached with outward marks of reverence, and his name was used in public instruments.  But in the government of the country he had less real share than the youngest writer or cadet in the Company’s service.

The English council which represented the Company at Calcutta was constituted on a very different plan from that which has since been adopted.  At present the Governor is, as to all executive measures, absolute.  He can declare war, conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove them, in opposition to the unanimous sense of those who sit with him in council.  They are, indeed, entitled to know all that is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, to remonstrate, to send protests to England.  But it is with the Governor that the supreme power resides, and on him that the whole responsibility rests.  This system, which was introduced by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas in spite of the strenuous opposition of Mr. Burke, we conceive to be on the whole the best that was ever devised for the government of a country where no materials can be found for a representative constitution.  In the time of Hastings the Governor had only one vote in council, and, in case of an equal division, a casting vote.  It therefore happened not unfrequently that he was overruled on the gravest questions and it was possible that he might be wholly excluded, for years together, from the real direction of public affairs.