Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 1.2.3

1.2.3

and being indebted to their national munificence, as well as to their private partiality, for the little competency upon which I now subsist ; the transition is but natural, (and this is but a very small merit, if any at all) from such a set of sentiments to such another, as would render me a well-wisher to their government and a friend to their prosperity : my own welfare has flowed from theirs, and even now does flow from it. The general turn of the English individuals in India, seems to be a thorough contempt for the Indians (as a national body). It is taken to be no better than a dead stock, that may be worked upon without much consideration, and at pleasure : But beware ! that national body is only motionless, but neither insensible, nor dead. ...There runs throughout our author's narrative, a subterraneous vein of national resentment, which emits vapours now and then, and which his occasional encomiums of the English, can neither conceal nor even palliate ; and yet he is himself but a voice that has spoken among a million of others that could speak, but are silent : Nor have signs of this national sullenness been wanting these sixteen years. Living myself in the centre of Moorshoodabad ; wearing an Hindostany dress, and making a practice in the evening to walk the streets with only a servant, either to listen to, or to mix with, any company I meet with either there or in the market place ;