, properly speaking, acts by himself, that he must be made
responsible for that person called his banian,--for the power he either
uses under him, or the power he has acquired over him. The banian
escapes, in the night of his complexion and situation, the inquiry that
a white man cannot stand before in this country. Through the banians, or
other black natives, a bad servant of the Company receives his bribes.
Through them he decides falsely against the titles of litigants in the
court of castes, or in the offices of public registry. Through them Mr.
Hastings has exercised oppressions which, I will venture to say, in his
own name, in his own character, daring as he is, (and he is the most
daring criminal that ever existed,) he never would dare to practise.
Many, if not most, of the iniquities of his interior bad administration
have been perpetrated through these banians, or other native agents and
confidants; and we shall show you that he is not satisfied with one of
them, confiding few of his secrets to Europeans, and hardly any of his
instruments, either native or European, knowing the secrets of each
other. This is the system of banianism, and of concealment, which Mr.
Hastings, instead of eradicating out of the service, has propagated by
example and by support, and enlarged by converting even Europeans into
that dark and insidious character.

I have explained, or endeavored to explain, to your Lordships these
circumstances of the true spirit, genius, and character, more than the
ostensible institutions of the Company's service: I now shall beg leave
to bring before you one institution, taken from the mercantile
constitution of the Company, so excellent, that I will venture to say
that human wisdom has never exceeded it. In this excellent institution
the counting-house gave lessons to the state. The active, awakened, and
enlightened principle of self-interest will provide a better system for
the guard of that interest than the cold, drowsy wisdom of those who
provide for a good out of themselves ever contrived for the public. The
plans sketched by private prudence for private interest, the regulations
by mercantile men for their mercantile purposes, when they can be
applied to the discipline and order of the state, produce a discipline
and order which no state should be ashamed to copy. The Company's
mercantile regulations are admirably fitted for the government of a
remote, large, disjointed empire. As merchants, havi