Hastings, "and its right to exercise it, will require a previous
explanation." He then proceeds,--"With his death [Sujah Dowlah's] a new
political system commenced, and Mr. Bristow was constituted the
instrument of its formation, and the trustee for the management of it.
The Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah was deprived of a large part of his
inheritance,--I mean the province of Benares, attached by a very feeble
and precarious tenure to our dominions; the army fixed to a permanent
station in a remote line of his frontier, with an augmented and
perpetual subsidy; a new army, amphibiously composed of troops in his
service and pay, commanded by English officers of our own nomination,
for the defence of his new conquests; and his own natural troops
annihilated, or alienated by the insufficiency of his revenue for all
his disbursements, and the prior claims of those which our authority or
influence commanded: in a word, he became a vassal of the government;
but he still possessed an ostensible sovereignty. His titular rank of
Vizier of the Empire rendered him a conspicuous object of view to all
the states and chiefs of India; and on the moderation and justice with
which the British government in Bengal exercised its influence over him
many points most essential to its political strength and to the honor of
the British name depended.
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