"
Your Lordships see that the system which is supposed to have reduced him
to vassalage did not make, as he contends, a violent exercise of our
power necessary or proper; but possessing, as the Nabob did, that high
nominal dignity, and being in that state of vassalage, as Mr. Hastings
thought proper to term it, though there is no vassalage mentioned in
the treaty,--being, I say, in that situation of honor, credit, and
character, sovereign of a country as large as England, yielding an
immense revenue, and flourishing in trade, certainly our honor depended
upon the use we made of that influence which our power gave us over him;
and we therefore press it upon your Lordships, that the conduct of Mr.
Hastings was such as dishonored this nation.
He proceeds,--"This is not a place, nor have I room in it, to prove,
what I shall here content myself with affirming, that, by a sacred and
undeviating observance of every principle of public faith, the British
dominion might have by this time acquired the means of its extension,
through a virtual submission to its authority, to every region of
Hindostan and Deccan. I am not sure that I should advise such a design,
were it practicable, which at this time it certainly is not; and I very
much fear that the limited formation of such equal alliances as might be
useful to our present condition, and conduce to its improvement, is
become liable to almost insurmountable difficulties: every power in
India must wish for the support of ours, but they all dread the
connection.
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