Such are the consequences that must ensue to the public interest from a deprivation of the benefit hitherto derived from this Indian concern: and if the nation is to suffer so grievously by the loss of this object, can she allow herself to be persuaded, that she hath no interest in its preservation. Now this object stands in danger of being lost to the nation by two different causes; the first being, the neglect or incapacity of the Company to maintain and defend it from the assault of enemies: and the other danger arises from the oppression and misconduct of this Company’s political government; tending to despoil those countries of their circulating specie, their arts, manufactures, commerce, and inhabitants, which were the only means that enabled them to afford this benefit to Britain. The first of these dangers is scarcely dreamt of, and yet it is perhaps immediately imminent; at present however we are treating of the danger to be apprehended from the political cause. How far the interest of this foreign dominion hath been injured by the Company’s political misgovernment; or how near it may be reduced to a state of utter inability to afford any farther benefit to Britain, is but little known by the public. For though people have heard in the gross, that affairs in those countries are rather in a bad situation, yet do not they either understand or believe it to be so very bad as it really is; or rather they do not comprehend how it should be so bad; as not being acquainted with the full power of the cause that hath produced the evil; and every one will form his notion of effects that he neither feels nor sees, from his knowledge or opinion of the nature and power of the causes that produced them. In the case before us, people have been taught to consider the oppression and extortion of its government, (of which certain instances are quoted) as the sole cause of evil to Bengal: of consequence it is supposed that Bengal hath suffered no farther damage from its government, than what may have been caused by some private acts of extortion, exercised by the few persons vested with the powers of governing: and, besides that the authenticity of these acts is denied or disputed, and men who are to judge only from report are apt to make allowance for the prejudice or passion of the accuser who brings a charge against individuals; still if all these acts of oppression that have been narrated should be fully credited; nay, if the hearer should suppose still more than is represented, yet cannot he conceive or allow himself to believe that such acts of extortion, exercised by a small number of individuals, could suffice to reduce the lately rich commercial kingdom of Bengal to such a deplorable state of misery, poverty, and distress: the cause assigned will appear too trivial for the effect; and of course the effect, at least the degree of it, will be discredited.