Your Committee
have no reason to believe that it could ever have been generally
understood "that the Company's prohibition of farms to Europeans was
meant only to exclude such as could not possibly, in their own persons,
come under the jurisdiction of the Duanne courts": no such restriction
is so much as hinted at. And if it had been so understood, Mr. Barwell
was one of the persons who, from their rank, station, and influence,
must have been the principal objects of the prohibition. Since the
establishment of the Company's influence in Bengal, no Europeans, of any
rank whatever, have been subject to the process of the country
judicature; and whether they act avowedly for themselves, and take farms
in their own name, or substitute native Indians to act for them, the
difference is not material. The same influence that screened an European
from the jurisdiction of the country courts would have equally protected
his native agent and representative. For many years past the Company's
servants have presided in those courts, and in comparison with _their_
authority the native authority is nothing.
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