Time, in the origin of most governments, has thrown this mysterious veil over them; prudence and discretion make it necessary to throw something of the same drapery over more recent foundations, in which otherwise the fortune, the genius, the talents, and military virtue of this nation never shone more conspicuously.

But whatever necessity might hide or excuse or palliate, in the acquisition of power, a wise nation, when it has once made a revolution upon its own principles and for its own ends, rests there.

The first step to empire is revolution, by which power is conferred; the next is good laws, good order, good institutions, to give that power stability.

I am sorry to say that the reverse of this policy was the principle on which the gentlemen in India acted.

It was such as tended to make the new government as unstable as the old.