In such cases of mutual assertion and denial, your Committee
are led irresistibly to attach abuse to power, and to presume that
suffering and hardship are more likely to attend on weakness than that
any combination of unprotected individuals is of force to prevail over
influence, power, wealth, and authority. The complaints of the native
merchants ought not to have been treated in any of those modes in which
they were then treated. And when men are in the situation of
complainants against unbounded power, their abandoning their suit is far
from a full and clear proof of their complaints being groundless. It is
not because redress has been rendered impracticable that oppression does
not exist; nor is the despair of sufferers any alleviation of their
afflictions. A review of some of the most remarkable of the complaints
made by the native merchants in that province is so essential for laying
open the true spirit of the commercial administration, and the real
condition of those concerned in trade there, that your Committee
observing the records on this subject and at this period full of them,
they could not think themselves justifiable in not stating them to the
House.
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