No caution could be too great in handling this matter, no scrutiny too
exact. It was evidently the interest, and as evidently at least in the
power, of the creditors, by admitting secret participation in this dark
and undefined concern, to spread corruption to the greatest and the most
alarming extent.
These facts relative to the debts were so notorious, the opinion of
their being a principal source of the disorders of the British
government in India was so undisputed and universal, that there was no
party, no description of men in Parliament, who did not think themselves
bound, if not in honor and conscience, at least in common decency, to
institute a vigorous inquiry into the very bottom of the business,
before they admitted any part of that vast and suspicious charge to be
laid upon an exhausted country. Every plan concurred in directing such
an inquiry, in order that whatever was discovered to be corrupt,
fraudulent, or oppressive should lead to a due animadversion on the
offenders, and, if anything fair and equitable in its origin should be
found, (nobody suspected that much, comparatively speaking, would be so
found,) it might be provided for,--in due subordination, however, to the
ease of the subject and the service of the state.
These were the alleged grounds for an inquiry, settled in all the bills
brought into Parliament relative to India,--and there were, I think, no
less than four of them.
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