added, as utterly unfounded.

On these grounds I do not blame the arrangement this day in question, as
a preference given to the debt of individuals over the Company's debt.
In my eye it is no more than the preference of a fiction over a chimera;
but I blame the preference given to those fictitious private debts over
the standing defence and the standing government. It is there the public
is robbed. It is robbed in its army; it is robbed in its civil
administration; it is robbed in its credit; it is robbed in its
investment, which forms the commercial connection between that country
and Europe. There is the robbery.

But my principal objection lies a good deal deeper. That debt to the
Company is the pretext under which all the other debts lurk and cover
themselves. That debt forms the foul, putrid mucus in which are
engendered the whole brood of creeping ascarides, all the endless
involutions, the eternal knot, added to a knot of those inexpugnable
tape-worms which devour the nutriment and eat up the bowels of
India.[47] It is necessary, Sir, you should recollect two things. First,
that the Nabob's debt to the Company carries no interest. In the next
place, you will observe, that, whenever the Company has occasion to
borrow, she has always commanded whatever she thought fit at eight per
cent. Carrying in your mind these two facts, attend to the process with
regard to the public and private debt, and with what little appearance
of decency they play into each other's hands a game of utter perdition
to the unhappy natives of India. The Nabob falls into an arrear to the
Company. The Presidency presses for payment. The Nabob's answer is, "I
have no money." Good! But there are soucars who will supply you on the
mortgage of your territories. Then steps forward some Paul Benfield,
and, from his grateful compassion to the Nabob, and his filial regard
to the Company, he unlocks the treasures of his virtuous industry, and,
for a consideration of twenty-four or thirty-six per cent on a mortgage
of the territorial revenue, becomes security to the Company for the
Nabob's arrear.

All this intermediate usury thus becomes sanctified by the ultimate view
to the Company's payment. In this case, would not a plain man ask this
plain question of the Company: If you know that the Nabob must annually
mortgage his territories to your servants to pay his annual arrear to
you, why is not the assignment or mortgage made directly to the Company