Hastings says, that the people may be fined, that they may be
exiled, that they may be imprisoned, and that even their lives are
dependent upon the mere will of their foreign master; and that he, the
Company's Governor, exercised that will under the authority of this
country. Remark, my Lords, his application of this doctrine. "I would,"
he says, "have kept Cheyt Sing from the consequences of this dependence,
by making him independent, and not in any manner subjecting him to our
government. The moment he came into a state of dependence upon the
British government, all these evils attached upon him.--It is," he adds,
"disagreeable to me to exert such powers; but I know they must be
exerted; and I declare there is no security from this arbitrary power,
but by having nothing to do with the British government."
My Lords, the House of Commons has already well considered what may be
our future moral and political condition, when the persons who come from
that school of pride, insolence, corruption, and tyranny are more
intimately mixed up with us of purer morals. Nothing but contamination
can be the result, nothing but corruption can exist in this country,
unless we expunge this doctrine out of the very hearts and souls of the
people.
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