" Whereas
the said Hastings did well know, that, whether the payments from the
Rajah were called _rent_ or _tribute_, having been frequently by himself
called the one and the other, and that of whatever nature the
instruments by which he held might have been, he did not consider him as
a common zemindar or landholder, but as far independent as a tributary
prince could be: for he did assign as a reason for receiving his rent
rather within the Company's province than in his own capital, that it
would not "frustrate the intention of rendering the Rajah _independent_;
that, if a Resident was appointed to receive the money as it became due
at Benares, such a Resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over
the Rajah, and over his country, which would in effect render him the
master of both; that this consequence might not, perhaps, be brought
completely to pass without a struggle, and many appeals to the Council,
which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate
against the Rajah, and, by the construction to which his opposition to
the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe
restrictions, and end _in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of
a zemindar_.
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