In the letter of the same date as that of Lord Clive[255], from the Select Committee of Calcutta above referred to, they express themselves bound to lay open to the view of the Directors a series of transactions too notoriously known to be suppressed, and too deeply affecting their interest, the national character, and the existence of the Company in Bengal, to escape unnoticed and uncensured. "Transactions," they add, "which seem to demonstrate that every spring of this government was smeared with corruption, that principles of rapacity and oppression universally prevailed, and that every spark of sentiment and public spirit was lost and extinguished in the unbounded lust of unmerited wealth." Lord Clive, in a letter to Mr. Sykes of the 20th August, informs him of the happy conclusion of his mission to Benares, and of his having obtained from the King the grant of the dewannee, or deed, for the administration of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa; an arrangement to which he very justly attaches the greatest value, and which may be viewed as having crowned his efforts as a hero and a statesman, in fixing firm the foundation of the British empire in India.[256] It is difficult, at the present day, to appreciate that wisdom which appeared to attach a value to the form, almost beyond the substance, of power. It is impossible to satisfy those who judge such questions by philosophic rules, or others who apply a European standard to Indian policy, of the weight of the reasons which led Clive to give the consequence he did to an act, that may appear to them as being more likely to augment, than to lessen, the numerous obstacles which already opposed the good government of our Eastern territories. It is not easy to convince such persons of the degree in which he was enabled, by this grant, to reconcile to the rule of strangers the various communities which formed the vast population of India; nor can we compute the amount of strength which it took away from princes, who had long been enemies to those Europeans whom they deemed invaders and usurpers, but who were, from the moment the grant was made, in the eyes of a great proportion of their subjects, if not in their own, sanctioned in the exercise of the power they had attained, by the authority of one who, however fallen, was still considered the legitimate source of all rank and authority over that empire of which he was hardly more than the nominal head.