That these oppressions exist is a fact no more denied than it is
resented as it ought to be. Much evil has been done in India under the
British authority. What has been done to redress it? We are no longer
surprised at anything. We are above the unlearned and vulgar passion of
admiration. But it will astonish posterity, when they read our opinions
in our actions, that, after years of inquiry, we have found out that the
sole grievance of India consisted in this, that the servants of the
Company there had not profited enough of their opportunities, nor
drained it sufficiently of its treasures,--when they shall hear that the
very first and only important act of a commission specially named by act
of Parliament is, to charge upon an undone country, in favor of a
handful of men in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous
sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money.
It is difficult for the most wise and upright government to correct the
abuses of remote, delegated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, and
protected by the boldness and strength of the same ill-got riches. These
abuses, full of their own wild native vigor, will grow and flourish
under mere neglect. But where the supreme authority, not content with
winking at the rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and
corrupt as openly to give bounties and premiums for disobedience to its
laws,--when it will not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit
of its own gains,--when it secures public robbery by all the careful
jealousy and attention with which it ought to protect property from such
violence,--the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its
purposes; neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will it long
endure itself.
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