Hastings, at one stroke, put up the property of all the nobility and gentry, and of all the freeholders, in short, the whole landed interest of Bengal, to a public auction, and let it to the highest bidder.
Burke describes the auctioning of Bengal's landed interests under Hastings' administration.
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Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
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