in which those stupendous fortunes which astonish the world have been
made. They have been made, first by a tyrannous exaction from the people
who were suffered to remain in possession of their own land as
farmers,--then by selling the rest to farmers at rents and under hopes
which could never be realized, and then getting money for the relaxation
of their debts. But whatever excuse, and however wicked, there might
have been for this wicked act, namely, that it carried upon the face of
it some sort of appearance of public good,--that is to say, that sort of
public good which Mr. Hastings so often professed, of ruining the
country for the benefit of the Company,--yet, in fact, this business of
balances is that _nidus_ in which have been nustled and bred and born
all the corruptions of India, first by making extravagant demands, and
afterwards by making corrupt relaxations of them.

Besides this monstrous failure, in consequence of a miserable exaction
by which more was attempted to be forced from the country than it was
capable of yielding, and this by way of experiment, when your Lordships
come to inquire who the farmers-general of the revenue were, you would
naturally expect to find them to be the men in the several countries who
had the most interest, the greatest wealth, the best knowledge of the
revenue and resources of the country in which they lived. Those would be
thought the natural, proper farmers-general of each district. No such
thing, my Lords. They are found in the body of people whom I have
mentioned to your Lordships. They were almost all let to Calcutta
banians. Calcutta banians were the farmers of almost the whole. They
sub-delegated to others, who sometimes had sub-delegates under them _ad
infinitum_. The whole formed a system together, through the succession
of black tyrants scattered through the country, in which you at last
find the European at the end, sometimes indeed not hid very deep, not
above one between him and the farmer, namely, his banian directly, or