He seated him in the houses of the principal nobility, and invested him with farms of the revenue; he has given him enormous jobs; he has put him over the heads of a nobility which, for their grandeur, antiquity, and dignity, might almost be matched with your Lordships.

He has made him supreme ecclesiastical judge, judge even of the very castes, in the preservation of the separate rules and separate privileges of which that people exists.

He who has dominion over the caste has an absolute power over something more than life and fortune.
Such is that first, or last, (I know not which to call it,) order in the Company's service called a banian.

The _mutseddies_, clerks, accountants, of Calcutta, generally fall under this description.

Your Lordships will see hereafter the necessity of giving you, in the opening the case, an idea of the situation of a banian.