an inch or two at the utmost. Thus his work is finished. But I tell the right honourable gentleman, that controuled depravity is not innocence; and that it is not the labour of delinquency in chains, that will correct abuses. Will these gentlemen of the direction animadvert on the partners of their own guilt? Never did a serious plan of amending of any old tyrannical establishment propose the authors and abettors of the abuses as the reformers of them. If the undone people of India see their old oppressors in confirmed power, even by the reformation, they will expect nothing but what they will certainly feel, a continuance, or rather an aggravation, of all their former sufferings. They look to the seat of power, and to the persons who fill it, and they despise those gentlemen's regulations as much as the gentlemen do who talk of them. But there is a cure for everything. Take away, say they, the court of proprietors, and the court of directors will do their duty. Yes, as they have done it hitherto. That the evils in India have solely arisen from the court of proprietors, is grossly false. In many of them, the directors were heartily concurring; in most of ther they were encouraging, and sometimes commanding; in all, the were conniving. But who are to choose this well-regulated and reforming court of directors?-Why, the very proprietors who are excluded from all management, for the abuse of their power. They will choose, undoubtedly, out of themselves, men like themselves; and those who are most forward in resisting your authority, those who are most engaged in faction or interest with the delinquents abroad, will be the objects of their selection. But gentlemen say, that when this choice is made, the proprietors are not to interfere in the measures of the directors, whilst those directors are busy in the controul of their common patrons and masters in India. No, indeed I believe they will not desire to interfere. They will choose those whom they know may be trusted, safely trusted, to act in strict conformity to their common principles, manners, measures, interests, and connections. They will want neither monitor nor controul. It is not easy to choose men to act in conformity to a public interest against their private, but a sure dependence may be had on those who are chosen to forward their private interest, at the expense of the public. But if the directors should slip, and deviate into rectitude, the punishment is in the hands of the general court, and it will surely be remembered to them at their next election. If the government of India wants no reformation; but gentlemen are amusing themselves with a theory, conceiving a more democratic hey or aristocratic mode of government for these depende are in a dispute only about patronage; the dispute is with little concern, that I should not take the pains to utter an affirmative or negative to any proposition in it. If it be only for a theoretical amusement that they are to propose a bill, the thing is at best frivolous and unnecessary. But if the company's government is not only full of abuse, but is one of the most corrupt and destructive tyrannies that probably ever existed in the world, (as I am sure it is) what a cruel mockery would it be in me, and in those who thinks like me, to propose this kind of remedy for this kind of evil! I now come to the third objection, that this bill will increase the influence of the crown. An honourable gentleman has demanded of me, whether I was in earnest when I proposed to this house a plan for the reduction of that influence. Indeed, Sir, I was much, very much, in earnest. My heart was deeply concerned in it; and I hope the public has not lost the effect of it. How far my judgment was right, for what concerned personal favour and consequence to myself, I shall not presume to determine; nor is its effect upon me of any moment. But as to this bill, whether it increases the influence of the crown, or not, is a question I should be ashamed to ask. If I am not able to correct a system of oppression and tyranny, that goes to the utter ruin of thirty millions of my fellow-creatures and fellowsubjects, but by some increase to the influence of the crown, I am ready here to declare, that I, who have been active to reduce it, shall be at least as active and strenuous to restore it again. I am no lover of names; I contend for the substance of good and protecting government, let it come from what quarter it will. But I am not obliged to have recourse to this expedient. Much, very much the contrary. I am sure that the influence of the crown will by no means aid a reformation of this kind; which can neither be originated nor supported, but by the uncorrupt public virtue of the representatives of the people of England. Let it once get into the ordinary course of administration, and to me all hopes of reformation are gone. I am far from knowing or believing, that this bill will increase the influence of the crown. We all know, that the crown has ever had some influence in the court of directors; and that it has been extremely increased by the acts of 1773 and 1780. The gentlemen who, as part of their reformation, propose 66 a more active controul on the part of the crown," which is to put the directors un der a secretary of state, specially named for that purpose, must know, that their project will increase it further. But that old influence has had, and the new will have, incurable inconveniences, which cannot happen under the parliamentary establishment proposed in this bill. An honourable gentleman, [Governor Johnstone,] not now in his place, but who is well acquainted with the India company, and by no means a friend to this bill, has told you, that a ministerial influence has always been predominant in that body; and that to make the directors pliant to their purposes, ministers generally caused persons meanly qualified to be chosen directors. According to his idea, to secure subserviency, they submitted the company's affairs to the direction of incapacity. This was to ruin the company, in order to govern it. This was certainly influence in the very worst form in which it could appear. At best it was clandestine and irresponsible. Whether this was done so much upon system as that gentleman supposes, I greatly doubt. But such in effect the operation of government on that court unquestionably was; and such, under a similar constitution, it will be for ever. Ministers must be wholly removed from the management of the affairs of India, or they will have an influence in its patronage. The thing is inevitable. Their scheme of a new secretary of state, "with a more vigorous controul," is not much better than a repetition of the measure which we know by experience will not do. Since the year 1773 and the year 1780, the company has been under the controul of the secretary of state's office, and we had then three secretaries of state. If more than this is done, then they annihilate the direction which they pretend to support; and they augment the influence of the crown, of whose growth they affect so great a horror. But in truth this scheme of reconciling a direction really and truly deliberative, with an office really and substantially controlling, is a sort of machinery that can be kept in order but a very short time. Either the directors will dwindle into clerks, or the secretary of state, as hitherto has been the course, will leave every thing to them, often through design, often through neglect. If both should affect activity, collision, procrastination, delay, and in the end, utter confusion must ensue. But, Sir, there is one kind of influence far greater than that of the nomination to office. This gentlemen in opposition have totally overlooked, although it now exists in its full vigour; and it will do so, upon their scheme, in at least as much force as it does now. That influence this bill cuts up by the roots; I mean the influence of protection. I shall explain myself. The office given to a young man going to India is of trifling consequence. But he that goes out an insignificant boy, in a few years returns a great nabob. Mr. Hastings says he has two hundred and fifty of that kind of raw materials, who expect to be speedily manufactured into the merchantable quality I mention. One of these gentlemen, suppose, return aded comes as to a prisou, or as to a sanctuary; and either are ready for him, according to his demeanour. What is the influence in the grant of any place in India, to that which is acquired by the protection or compromise which such guilt, and with the command of such riches, under the dominion of the hopes and fears which power is able to hold out to every man in that condition? That man's whole fortune, half a million perhaps, becomes an instrumentof influence, with out a shilling of charge to the civil list; and the influx of fortunes which stand in need of this protection is continual. It works both ways; it influences the delinquent, and it may corrupt the minister. Compare the influence acquired by appointing, for instance, even a governor-general, and that obtained by protecting him. I shall push this no further; but I wish gentlemen to roll it a little in their own minds. The bill before you cuts off this source of influence. Its desigr and main scope is to regulate the administration of India upon the principles of a court of judicature; and to exclude, as far as human prudence can exclude, all possibility of a corrupt partiality in appointing to office, or supporting in office, or covering from inquiry and punishment, any person who has abused or shall abuse his authority. At the board, as appointed and regulated by this bill, reward and punishment cannot be shifted and reversed by a whisper. That commission becomes fatal to cabal, to intrigue, and to secret representation, those instruments of the ruin of India. He that cuts off the means of premature fortune, and the power of protecting it when acquired, strikes a deadly blow at the great fund, the bank, the capital stock of Indian influence, which cannot be vested anywhere, or in any hands, without most dangerous consequences to the public. The third and contradictory objection is, that this bill does not increase the influence of the crown. On the contrary, that the just power of the crown will be lessened, and transferred to the use of a party, by giving the patronage of India to a commission nominated by parliament, and independent of the crown. The contradiction is glaring, and it has been too well exposed to make it necessary for me to insist upon it. But passing the contradiction, and taking it without any relation, of all objections that is the most extraordinary. Do not gentlemen know, that the crown has not at present the grant of a single office under the company, civil or military, at home or abroad? So far as the crown is concerned, it is certainly rather a gainer; for the vacant offices in the new commission are to be filled up by the king. It is argued that a part of the bill, derogatory to the prerogatives of the crown, that the commissioners named in the bill are to continue for a short term of years, (too short in my opinion,) and because, during that time, they are not at the mercy of every predominant faction of the court. Does not this objection lie against the present directors; none of whom are named by the crown, and a proportion of whom hold for this very term of four years? Did it not lie against the governor-general and council named in the act of 1773-who were invested by name, as the present commissioners are to be appointed in the body of the act of parliament, who were to hold their places for a term of years, and were not removable at the discretion of the crown? Did it not lie against their re-appointment, in the year 1780, upon the very same terms? Yet at none of these times, whatever other objections the scheme might be liable to, was it supposed to be a derogation to the just prerogative of the crown, that a commission created by act of parliament should have its members named by the authority which called it into existence? This is not the disposal by parliament of any office derived from the authority of the crown, or now disposable by that authority. It is so far from being anything new, violent, or alarming, that I do not recollect, in any parliamentary commission, down to the commissioners of the land-tax, that it has ever been otherwise. The objection of the tenure for four years is an objection to all places that are not held during pleasure; but in that objection I pronounce the gentlemen, from my knowledge of their complexion and of their principles, to be perfectly in earnest. The party (say these gentlemen) of the minister who proposes this scheme will be rendered powerful by it; for he will name his party friends to the commission. This objection against party is a party objection, and in this too, these gentlemen are perfectly serious. They see that if, by any intrigue, they should succeed to office, they will lose the clandestine patronage, the true instrument of clandestine influence, enjoyed in the name of subservient directors, and of wealthy trembling Indian delinquents. But as often as they are beaten off this ground, they return to it again. The minister will name his friends, and persons of his own party. Whom should he name? Should he name his adversaries? Should he name those whom he cannot trust? Should he name those to execute his plans, who are the declared enemies to the principles of his reform? His character is here at stake. If he proposes for his own ends (but he never will propose) such names as, from their want of rank, fortune, character, ability or knowledge, are likely to betray |