into partnership of the tyranny over the rest. But let government, in what form it may be, comprehend the whole in its justice, and restrain the suspicious by its vigilance; let it keep watch and ward; let it discover by its sagacity, and punish by its firmness, all delinquency against its power, whenever delinquency exists in the overt acts; and then it will be as safe as ever God and nature intended it should be. Crimes are the acts of individuals, and not of denominations; and, therefore, arbitrarily to class men under general descriptions, in order to proscribe and punish them in the lump for a presumed delinquency, of which perhaps but a part, perhaps none at all, are guilty, is indeed a compendious method, and saves a world of trouble about proof; but such a method, instead of being law, is an act of unnatural rebellion against the legal dominion of reason and justice; and this vice, in any constitution that entertains it, at one time or other will certainly bring on its ruin. We are told that this is not a religious persecution, and its abettors are loud in disclaiming all severities on account of conscience. Very fine, indeed! Then let it be so. They are not persecutors; they are only tyrants. With all my heart. I am perfectly indifferent concerning the pretexts upon which we torment one another; or whether it be for the constitution of the Church of England, or for the constitution of the state of England, that people choose to make their fellow-creatures wretched. When we were sent into a place of authority, you that sent us had yourselves but one commission to give. You could give us none to wrong or oppress, or even to suffer any kind of oppression or wrong, on any grounds whatsoever; not on political, as in the affairs of America; not on commercial, as in those of Ireland; not in civil, as in the laws for debt; not in religious, as in the statutes against Protestant or Catholic dissenters. The diversified but connected fabric of universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts; and, depend upon it, I never have employed, and I never shall employ, any engine of power which may come into my hands to wrench it asunder. All shall stand if I can help it, and all shall stand connected. After all, to complete this work, much remains to be done; much in the east, much in the west. But great as the work is, if our will be ready, our powers are not deficient. (c.) That the of the repeal Since you have suffered me to trouble you so much on this subject, permit me, gensequence tlemen, to detain you a little longer. had been an I am, indeed, most solicitous to give fortunate. you perfect satisfaction. I find there are some of a better and softer nature than the persons with whom I have supposed myself in debate, who neither think ill of the act of relief, nor by any means desire the repeal; not accusing but lamenting what was done, on account of the consequences, have frequently expressed their wish that the late Act had never been made. Some of this description, and persons of worth, I have met with in this city. They conceive that the prejudices, whatever they might be, of a large part of the people, ought not to have been shocked; that their opinions ought to have been previously taken, and much attended to; and that thereby the late horrid scenes might have been prevented. I confess my notions are widely different; and I never was less sorry for any action of my life. I like the bill the better on account of the events of all kinds that followed it. It relieved the real sufferers; it strengthened the state; and by the disorders that ensued, we had clear evidence that there lurked a temper somewhere, which ought not to be fostered by the laws. No ill consequences whatever could be attributed to the Act itself. We knew beforehand, or we were poorly instructed, that toleration is odious to the intolerant; freedom to oppressors; property to robbers; and all kinds and degrees of prosperity to the envious. We knew that all these kinds of men would gladly gratify their evil dispositions under the sanction of law and religion, if they could; if they could not, yet, to make way to their objects, they would do their utmost to subvert all religion and all law. This we certainly knew; but knowing this, is there any reason because thieves break in and steal, and thus bring detriment to you and draw ruin on themselves, that I am to be sorry that you are in possession of shops, and of warehouses, and of wholesome laws to protect them? Are you to build no houses because desperate men may pull them down upon their own heads? Or, if a malignant wretch will cut his own throat because he sees you give alms to the necessitous and deserving, shall his destruction be attributed to your charity, and not to his own deplorable madness? If we repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, is left for our faults and follies? It is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural temper which beneficence can fret and sour, that is to be lamented. It is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and corrected. If froward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate any thing but themselves? Does evil so react upon good, as not only to retard its motion, but to change its nature? If it can so operate, then good men will always be in the power of the bad; and virtue, by a dreadful reverse of order, must lie under perpetual subjection and bondage to vice. As to the opinion of the people, which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed; near two years' tranquillity, which followed the Act, and its instant imitation in Ireland, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a great measure, the effect of insidious art, and perverse industry, and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate, and much more general than I am persuaded it was. When we know that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience. But if it may be doubted whether omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am 310 the speaker from Parlia ment, he is main out. MR. BURKE ON DECLINING THE ELECTION AT BRISTOL. I me. [1780. It the good-will of his countrymen; if I have thus that such things as they and I are possessed of no such power. No man carries farther than I do the policy of making government pleasing to the people; but the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice. I would not only consult the interests of the people, but I would cheerfully gratify their humors. We are all a sort of children that must be soothed and managed. I think I am not austere or formal in my nature. I would bear-I would even myself play my part in any innocent buffooneries to divert them; but I never will act the tyrant for their amusement. If they will mix malice in their sports, I shall never consent to throw them any living, sentient creature what-is soever no, not so much as a kitling, to torment. "But if I profess all this impolitic stubbornIf such views ness, I may chance never to be electmust exclude ed into Parliament." It is certainly not pleasing to be put out of the public willing to re- service. But I wish to be a member of Parliament, to have my share of doing good, and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat. I deceive myself, indeed, most grossly, if I had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the visions Gentlemen, I submit the whole to your judgand imaginations of such things, than to be placed ment. Mr. Mayor, I thank you for the trouble on the most splendid throne of the universe, tan-you have taken on this occasion. In your state talized with the denial of the practice of all which of health, it is particularly obliging. If this comcan make the greatest situation any other than pany should think it advisable for me to withthe greatest curse. Gentlemen, I have had my draw, I shall respectfully retire. If you think day. I can never sufficiently express my grat- otherwise, I shall go directly to the councilitude to you for having set me in a place where- house and to the 'change, and, without a moin I could lend the slightest help to great and ment's delay, begin my canvass. laudable designs. If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property, and private conscience; if, by my vote, I have aided At the close of this speech Mr. Burke was enin securing to families the best possession, peace; couraged by his friends to proceed with the canif I have joined in reconciling kings to their vass; but it was soon apparent that the opposubjects, and subjects to their prince; if I have sition he had to encounter could not be concilassisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the cit-iated or resisted. He therefore, on the second izen, and taught him to look for his protection day of the election, declined the poll in the speech to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to which follows: SPEECH OF MR. BURKE ON DECLINING THE ELECTION AT BRISTOL, DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 9, 1780. I GENTLEMEN,-I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself. I have not canvassed the whole of this city in form; but I have taken such a view of it as satisfies my own mind that your choice will not ultimately fall upon me. Your city, gentlemen, is in a state of miserable distraction; and I am resolved to withdraw whatever share my pretensions may have had in its unhappy divisions. have not been in haste. I have tried all prudent means. I I have waited for the effect of all contingencies. If I were fond of a contest, by the partiality of my numerous friends (whom you know to be among the most weighty and respectable people of the city) I have the means of a sharp one in my hands; but I thought it far better, with my strength unspent, and my reputation unimpaired, to do early and from foresight that which I might be obliged to do from necessity at last. I am not in the least surprised, nor in the least angry at this view of things. I have read the book of life for a long time, and I have read other books a little. Nothing has happened to me but what has happened to men much better than me, and in times and in nations full as good as the age and country that we live in. To say that I am no way concerned would be neither decent nor true. The representation of Bristol was an object on many accounts dear to me, and I certainly should very far prefer it to any other in the kingdom. My habits are made to it; and it is in general more unpleasant to be rejected after a long trial than not to be chosen at all. But, gentlemen, I will see nothing except your former kindness, and I will give way to no other sentiments than those of gratitude. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for what you have done for me. You have given me a long term, which is now expired. I have performed the conditions, and enjoyed all the profits to the full; and I now surrender your estate into your hands without being in a single tile or a single stone impaired or wasted by my use. I have served the public for fifteen years. I have served you, in particular, for six. What is past is well stored. It is safe, and out of the power of fortune. What is to come is in wiser hands than ours, and He in whose hands it is, best knows whether it is best for you and me that I should be in Parliament, or even in the world. Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, while his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.' It has been usual for a candidate who declines, to take his leave by a letter to the sheriffs; but I received your trust in the face of day, and in the face of day I accept your dismission. I am not-I am not at all ashamed to look upon you, nor can my presence discompose the order of business here. I humbly and respectfully take my leave of the sheriffs, the candidates, and the electors, wishing heartily that the choice may be for the best at a time which calls, if ever time did call, for service that is not nominal. It is no plaything you are about. I tremble when I consider the trust I have presumed to ask. I confided perhaps too much in my intentions. They were really fair and upright; and I am bold to say that I ask no ill thing for you when, on parting from this place, I pray that whomever you choose to succeed me, he may resemble me exactly in all things except in my abilities to serve and my fortune to please you. SPEECH OF MR. BURKE ON THE EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 1, 1783. INTRODUCTION. So enormous were the abuses of the British power in India, that men of all parties demanded strong measures to secure an effectual remedy. Those embraced in the East India bill of Mr. Fox, as matured between him and Mr. Burke, were certainly of this character. All the concerns of the Company were taken into the hands of the English government. Seven commissioners, to be appointed for four years by Parliament, were intrusted with the civil and military government of the country; while the commercial concerns of the Company were committed to the hands of nine assistant directors, to be chosen out of the proprietors of East India stock. A second bill provided for the correction of numerous abuses in the administration of Indian affairs. The first bill was brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Fox, on the 18th of November, 1783, and was strenuously opposed at every stage of its progress. The principal objections were, that it set aside the charter of the East India Company, threw too much patronage into the hands of the ministry, and might operate injuriously to the national credit. Mr. Fox's coalition with Lord North, which had brought the ministry into power, was also a subject of the severest animadversion. When the question came up, on the 1st of December, for going into a committee on the bill, Mr. Powys, a former friend and adherent of Mr. Fox, opposed it with all his strength. He had great authority in the House, as a country gentleman representing an extensive county, and sustained by a reputation for strong sense and unimpeachable integrity. He denounced the measure in the strongest terms, as a violation of chartered rights, and as designed to make Mr. Fox minister for life, by giving him an amount of patronage which would render it impossible for the King to remove him. Mr. Wraxall, who was then a member of the House, and who was equally opposed with Mr. Powys to the passing of the bill, observes, in his Historical Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 566, “Burke, unable longer to observe silence after such reflections, then rose; and, in a dissertation rather than a speech, which lasted more than three hours, exhausted all the powers of his mighty mind in the justification of his friend's measure. The most ignorant member of the House, who had attended to the mass of information, historical, political, and financial, which fell from the lips of Burke on that occasion, must have departed rich in knowledge of Hindostan. It seemed impossible to crowd a greater variety of matter applicable to the subject into a smaller compass; and those who differed most widely from him in opinion did not render the less justice to his gigantic range of ideas, his lucid exposition of events, and the harmonic flow of his Mr. Burke here refers to Mr. Coombe, one of his competitors, who, overcome by the excitement and exhaustion of the contest, had died suddenly the evening before. periods. There were portions of his harangue in which he appeared to be animated by feelings and considerations the most benign, as well as elevated; and the classic language in which he made Fox's panegyric, for having dared to venture on a measure so beset with dangers, but so pregnant, as he asserted, with benefits to mankind, could not be exceeded in beauty." In giving this speech, those parts are omitted which contain minute details of the abuses of power on the part of the Company's servants in India. Though essential to the argument as originally stated, they would only be tedious at the present day, and, indeed, can hardly be understood without an intimate acquaintance with the concerns of the East India Company. SPEECH, &c. MR. SPEAKER,—I thank you for pointing to me; I really wished much to engage your attention in an early stage of the debate. I have been long very deeply, though perhaps ineffectually, engaged in the preliminary inquiries which have continued without intermission for some years. Though I have felt, with some degree of sensibility, the natural and inevitable impressions of the several matters of fact, as they have been successively disclosed, I have not at any time attempted to trouble you on the merits of the subject, and very little on any of the points which incidentally arose in the course of our proceedings. But I should be sorry to be found totally silent upon this day. Our inquiries are now come to their final issue. It is now to be determined whether the three years of laborious parliamentary research,' whether the twenty years of patient Indian suffering, are to produce a substantial reform in our Eastern administration; or, whether our knowledge of the grievances has abated our zeal for the correction of them, and our very inquiry into the evil was only a pretext to elude the remedy which is demanded from us by humanity, by justice, and by every principle of true policy. Depend upon it, this business can not be indifferent to our fame. It will turn out a matter of great disgrace or great glory to the whole British nation. We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor. Mode in which posed. I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the spirit and temper in which the the bill was op debate has been all along pursued upon one side of the House. The declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill has been abundant and vehement; but they have been reserved, and even silent about the fitness or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in view. By some gentlemen it is taken up (by way of exercise, I presume) as a point of law on a question of private property and corporate franchise; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction at court, and argued merely as it tends to set this man a little higher, or that a little lower in situation and power. All the void has been filled up with invectives against coalition; with allusions to the loss of America; with the activity and inactivity of ministers. The total silence of these gentlemen concerning the interest and well-being of the people of India, and concerning the interest which this nation has in the commerce and rev 1 Mr. Burke had taken a very active part in these researches as a member of a committee of the House. enues of that country, is a strong indication of the value which they set upon these objects. It has been a little painful to me to observe the intrusion into this important debate of such company as quo warranto, and mandamus, and certiorari; as if we were on a trial about mayors and aldermen, and capital burgesses; or engaged in a suit concerning the borough of Penryn, or Saltash, or St. Ives, or St. Mawes. Gentlemen have argued with as much heat and passion, as if the first things in the world were at stake; and their topics are such as belong only to matter of the lowest and meanest litigation. It is not right, it is not worthy of us, in this manner to depreciate the value, to degrade the majesty of this grave deliberation of policy and empire. For my part, I have thought myself bound, when a matter of this extraordinary weight came before me, not to consider (as some gentlemen are so fond of doing) whether the bill originated from a Secretary of State for the Home Department, or from a secretary for the foreign; from a minister of influence or a minister of the people; from Jacob or from Esau. I asked myself, and I asked myself nothing else, what part it was fit for a member of Parliament, who has supplied a mediocrity of talents by the extreme of diligence, and who has thought himself obliged, by the research of years, to wind himself into the inmost recesses and labyrinths of the Indian detail, what part, I say, it became such a member of Parliament to take, when a minister of state, in conformity to a recommendation from the Throne, has brought before us a system for the better government of the territory and commerce of the East. In this light, and in this only, I will trouble you with my sentiments. called for. It is not only agreed but demanded, by the right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt], Measure and by those who act with him, that a whole system ought to be produced; that it ought not to be a half measure; that it ought to be no palliative; but a legislative provision, vigorous, substantial, and effective. I believe that no man who understands the subject can doubt for a moment that those must be the conditions of any thing deserving the name of a reform in the Indian government; that any thing short of them would not only be delusive, but, in this matter, which admits no medium, noxious in the extreme. 2 Mr. Powys, who retained a lingering affection for Mr. Fox, had ascribed the bill to the influence of Lord North, saying, "the voice is Jacob's, but the hands are the hands of Esau." 1783.] EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. To all the conditions proposed by his adversa- | subverted but by rooting up the holding radical ries the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and principles of government, and even of society on his performance of them he rests his cause. itself. The charters which we call, by distincOn the other hand, not the least objection has tion, "great," are public instruments of this nabeen taken with regard to the efficiency, the ture; I mean the charters of King John and vigor, or the completeness of the scheme. I King Henry the Third. The things secured by am, therefore, warranted to assume, as a thing these instruments may, without any deceitful amadmitted, that the bills accomplish what both biguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights sides of the House demand as essential. The of men.3 end is completely answered, so far as the direct and immediate object is concerned. These charters have made the very name of a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman. But though there are no direct, yet there are But, sir, there may be, and there are charters, various collateral objections made; objections not only different in nature, but formed on princifrom the effects which this plan of reform for In- ples the very reverse of those of the great charOf this kind is the charter of the East Indian administration may have on the privileges ter. of great public bodies in England; from its prob-dia Company. Magna Charta is a charter to able influence on the constitutional rights, or on restrain power, and to destroy monopoly. The the freedom and integrity of the several branch-East India charter is a charter to establish moes of the Legislature. Answer to Before I answer these objections, I must beg leave to observe, that if we are not able objections, to contrive some method of governing India well, which will not of necessity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal separation; but none for sacrificing the people of that country to our constitution. I am, however, far from being persuaded that any such incompatibility of interest does at all exist. On the contrary, I am certain that every means effectual to preserve India from oppression is a guard to preserve the British ConTo show stitution from its worst corruption. this, I will consider the objections, which I think are four: nopoly, and to create power. Political power It is a charter of this latter description (that is 1st. That the bill is an attack on the charter- to you of what description the chartered rights ed rights of men. 2dly. That it increases the influence of the Crown. Violation of 3dly. That it does not increase, but diminishes the influence of the Crown, in order to promote the interests of certain ministers and their party. 4thly. That it deeply affects the national credit. I. As to the first of these objections, I must observe that the phrase of "the charthe Compa tered rights of men" is full of affectany's Charter. tion, and very unusual in the discussion of privileges conferred by charters of the present description. But it is not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous mode of expression, so often reiterated, is meant to answer. are which this bill touches, I feel no difficulty at all in acknowledging the existence of those chartered rights in their fullest extent. They belong to the Company in the surest manner, and they are secured to that body by every sort of public sanction. They are stamped by the faith of the King; they are stamped by the faith of Parliament; they have been bought for money, for money honestly and fairly paid; they have been bought for valuable consideration, over and over again. I therefore freely admit to the East India Company their claim to exclude their fellowsubjects from the commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to administer an annual territorial revenue of seven millions sterling, to command an army of sixty thousand men, and to dispose (under the control of a sovereign imperial discretion, and with the due observance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. this they possess by charter and by acts of Parliament (in my opinion) without a shadow of controversy. The rights of men, that is to say, the natural All Those who carry the rights and claims of the Company the farthest do not contend for more than this, and all this I freely grant; but, grant3 This opening of the subject with a distinction thus clearly drawn and illustrated, is highly charac teristic of Mr. Burke, and lays the foundation of his |