Now Bengal hath been subjected to a government of this nature for these fifteen years past; for though we commonly date the commencement of the Company’s sovereignty from the assumption of the Dewanny, (as it is termed,) yet hath this Company (at least her deputies) possessed a really absolute authority in those countries ever since the battle of Plassey in 1757. That action rendered them masters of Bengal; and it was equally within their power to assume the sovereign government at that time, as afterwards in 1765; their own will was the only obstacle: but notwithstanding they bestowed it on a native Nabob, yet did they retain an absolute superiority over him, and he governed in a state of perfect subordination to their authority; for he well knew and experienced, that the duration of his office, and even of his existence, depended upon their will; consequently this dependent native government could but little restrain the conduct of the Company’s deputies, or protect the subject from their rapacity; and when they, in 1765, set aside this native government, they only removed a screen which they themselves had set up, and till then preserved for their own purpose. How far these countries may have advanced towards the period of final ruin, under the fifteen or sixteen years domination of such a government, we shall not pretend to determine, because the term _ruin_ is variously understood. This much is certain, that the unbounded remittance of specie made, for some years, by the English Company, for sundry purposes as sovereign; and for a much greater number of years, and in much larger sums by the other European Companies, who received it from the servants of the English Company for bills on Europe, at a very low exchange, and employed it for every purpose in the other parts of India and China, hath compleatly drained Bengal of its wealth, and reduced it to a state of the most abject poverty. And the grievous oppression and rapine exercised by the Company’s servants, and their numerous dependants; together with the most cruel monopolies usurped by them over every species of merchandize, and even the necessaries of life, hath in a great measure suppressed commerce, and abolished trade. Whilst the insatiable avarice and unrestrained extortion of those employed in the collection of taxes and revenue having ruined the farmer, the lands lay uncultivated and waste; insomuch that, not to mention the immense decrease of revenue, that naturally most fertile of all countries, Bengal, hath suffered a more severe famine than perhaps was ever heard of; it being reckoned that a fifth part of the inhabitants have died of want, and numbers have fled from starving and oppression.