FORE:Such was the peace abroad and the prosperity of the country at this time, that there occur few events worthy of record. Of those which took place in 1731, the most remarkable was an Act abolishing the use of Latin in all proceedings of the Courts of Justice, and the next the renewal of the charter of the East India Company. If the country was peaceful and prosperous, however, it was neither free from corruption nor from the need of extensive reform. The very system of Walpole which produced such a show of prosperity that an old Scottish Secretary of State asked the Minister what he had done to make the Almighty so much his friend, was built on the most wholesale bribery and corruption. It was, in fact, a purchased domestic peace. In social life the example of the Government produced the like dishonesty. There was a fearful revelation of the proceedings of a charitable corporation for lending small sums of money to the industrious poor at legal interest; and Sir Robert Sutton, the late Ambassador at Paris, was found so deeply implicated in the frauds and extortions practised on those they were employed to benefit, that he was expelled from the House. There was also an inquiry into the state of the public prisons of London, which opened up a most amazing scene of horrors. It was found to be a common practice of the warders to connive at the escape of rich prisoners for a sufficient bribe, and to inflict the most oppressive cruelties on those who were too poor to pay heavy fees.In return for this favour, Clive obtained one of infinitely more importance. It was the transfer of the sole right of dominion throughout the provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. All that vast territory was thus made the legal and valid property of the East India Company. The conveyance was ratified by public deed, which was delivered by the Great Mogul to Clive in presence of his court, the throne on which he was elevated during this most important ceremony being an English dining-table, covered with a showy cloth. And of this princewho was entirely their own puppetthe British still continued to style themselves the vassals, to strike his coins at their mint, and to bear his titles on their public seal! Clive saw the immense importance of maintaining the aspect of subjects to the highest native authority, and of avoiding alarming the minds of the native forces by an open assumption of proprietorship. By this single treaty, at the same time that he had freed the Company from all dependence on the heirs of Meer Jaffier, he derived the Company's title to those states from the supreme native power in India; and he could boast of having secured to his countrymen an annual revenue of two millions of money. Thus began a system which has played a leading part in our Indian history.
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