The British government in India being a subordinate and delegated power, it ought to be considered as a fundamental principle in such a system, that it is to be preserved in the strictest obedience to the government at home. Administration in India, at an immense distance from the seat of the supreme authority,--intrusted with the most extensive powers,--liable to the greatest temptations,--possessing the amplest means of abuse,--ruling over a people guarded by no distinct or well-ascertained privileges, whose language, manners, and radical prejudices render not only redress, but all complaint on their part, a matter of extreme difficulty,--such an administration, it is evident, never can be made subservient to the interests of Great Britain, or even tolerable to the natives, but by the strictest rigor in exacting obedience to the commands of the authority lawfully set over it. But your Committee find that this principle has been for some years very little attended to. Before the passing the act of 1773, the professed purpose of which was to secure a better subordination in the Company's servants, such was the firmness with which the Court of Directors maintained their authority, that they displaced Governor Cartier, confessedly a meritorious servant, for disobedience of orders, although his case was not a great deal more than a question by whom the orders were to be obeyed.[12] Yet the Directors were so sensible of the necessity of a punctual and literal obedience, that, conceiving their orders went to the parties who were to obey, as well as to the act to be done, they proceeded with a strictness that, in all cases except that of their peculiar government, might well be considered as rigorous. But in proportion as the necessity of enforcing obedience grew stronger and more urgent, and in proportion to the magnitude and importance of the objects affected by disobedience, this rigor has been relaxed. Acts of disobedience have not only grown frequent, but systematic; and they have appeared in such instances, and are manifested in such a manner, as to amount, in the Company's servants, to little less than absolute independence, against which, on the part of the Directors, there is no struggle, and hardly so much as a protest to preserve a claim. Before your Committee proceed to offer to the House their remarks on the most distinguished of these instances, the particulars of which they have already reported, they deem it necessary to enter into some detail of a transaction equally extraordinary and important, though not yet brought into the view of Parliament, which appears to have laid the foundation of the principal abuses that ensued, as well as to have given strength and encouragement to those that existed. To this transaction, and to the conclusions naturally deducible from it, your Committee attribute that general spirit of disobedience and independence which has since prevailed in the government of Bengal.