below, and enable them to pay their
debts. And thus many have become the instruments of Mr. Hastings.

These banians, or dewans, were originally among the lower castes in the
country. But now, it is true, that, after seeing the power and profits
of these men,--that there is neither power, profession, nor occupation
to be had, which a reputable person can exercise, but through that
channel,--men of higher castes, and born to better things, have thrown
themselves into that disgraceful servitude, have become menial servants
to Englishmen, that they might rise by their degradation. But whoever
they are, or of whatever birth, they have equally prostituted their
integrity, they have equally lost their character; and, once entered
into that course of life, there is no difference between the best castes
and the worst. That system Mr. Hastings confirmed, established,
increased, and made the instrument of the most austere tyranny, of the
basest peculations, and the most scandalous and iniquitous extortions.

In the description I have given of banians a distinction is to be made.
Your Lordships must distinguish the banians of the British servants in
subordinate situations and the banians who are such to persons in higher
authority. In the latter case the banian is in strict subordination,
because he may always be ruined by his superior; whereas in the former
it is always in his power to ruin his nominal superior. It was not
through fear, but voluntarily, and not for the banian's purposes, but
his own, Mr. Hastings has brought forward his banian. He seated him in
the houses of the principal nobility, and invested him with farms of the
revenue; he has given him enormous jobs; he has put him over the heads
of a nobility which, for their grandeur, antiquity, and dignity, might
almost be matched with your Lordships. He has made him supreme
ecclesiastical judge, judge even of the very castes, in the preservation
of the separate rules and separate privileges of which that people
exists. He who has dominion over the caste has an absolute power over
something more than life and fortune.

Such is that first, or last, (I know not which to call it,) order in the
Company's service called a banian. The _mutseddies_, clerks,
accountants, of Calcutta, generally fall under this description. Your
Lordships will see hereafter the necessity of giving you, in the opening
the case, an idea of the situation of a banian. You will see, as no
Englishman