The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

‘When the Tartars entered China and into Hindoostan, when all the Goths and Vandals entered Europe, when the Normans came into England, they did so as a Nation.’ The Company in India does not exist as a Nation. Nobody can go there that does not go in its service … They are a Nation of Placemen. They are a Republic, a Commonwealth, without a people … The consequence of which is that there are no people to control, to watch, to balance against the power of office … Out of this has issued a species of abuse, at the head of which Mr Hastings has put himself against the authority of the East India Company at home and every authority in the Country … He has corrupted his hands and sullied his government with bribes. He has used oppression and tyranny in place of legal government; and instead of endeavouring to find honest, honourable and adequate rewards for the persons who served the public, he has left them to prey upon it without the slightest degree of control.

Ibid