I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the spirit and temper in which the debate has been all along purfued, upon one fide of the house. The declamation of the gentlemen who oppofe the bill has been abundant and vehement; but they have been referved and even filent about the fitnefs or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in view. By fome gentlemen it is taken up (by way of exercise I prefume) as a point of law on a question of private property, and corporate franchife; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction at court, and argued merely as it tends to fet this man a little higher, or that a little lower in fituation 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 minifters. The total filence of these gentlemen concerning the intereft and well-being of the people of India, and con-cerning the interest which this nation has in the commerce and revenues of that country, is a ftrong indication of the value which they fet upon thefe objects.

It has been a little painful to me to obferve the intrufion into this important debate of fuch company as quo warranto, and mandamus, and certiorari; as if we were on a trial about mayors and aldermen, and capital burgeffes; or engaged in a fuit concerning the borough of Penryn, or Saltash, or St.. Ives, or St. Mawes. Gentlemen have argued with as much heat and paffion, as if the first things in the world were at ftake; and their topics are fuch, as belong only to matter of the lowest and meaneft litigation. It is not right, it is not worthy of us, in this manner to depreciate the value, to degrade the majefty 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

confider (as fome gentlemen are fo fond of doing) whether the bill originated from a secretary of state for the home department, or from a fecretary for the foreign; from a minister of influence or a minifter of the people; from Jacob or from Efau*. I asked myself, and I asked myself nothing else, what part it was fit for a member of parliament, who has fupplied 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 receffes and labyrinths of the Indian detail, what part, I fay, it became fuch a member of parliament to take, when a minister of state, in conformity to a recommendation from the throne, has brought before us a fyftem for the better government of the territory and commerce of the Eaft. In this light, and in this only, I will trouble you with my fentiments.

It is not only agreed but demanded, by the right honourable gentlemant, and by those who act with him, that a whole fyftem ought to be produced; that it ought not to be an half measure; that it ought to be no palliative; but a legiflative provifion, vigorous, fubftantial, and effective.-I believe that no man who understands the fubject can doubt for a moment, that those must be the conditions of any thing deferving 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.

To all the conditions propofed by his adverfaries the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and on his performance of them he refts his cause. On the other hand, not the least objection has been taken, with regard to the efficiency, the vigour, or the completeness of the scheme. I am therefore warranted to affume, as a thing admitted, that the bills An allufion made by Mr. Powis. + Mr. Pitt. Uu

VOL. II.

accomplish

accomplish what both fides of the house demand as effential. The end is completely answered, fo far as the direct and immediate object is concerned.

But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral objections made; objections from the effects, which this plan of reform for Indian administration may have on the privileges of great public bodies in England; from its probable influence on the constitutional rights, or on the freedom and integrity of the feveral branches of the legisla

ture.

Before I answer these objections I must beg leave to observe, that if we are not able to contrive fome method of governing India well, which will not of neceffity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal feparation; but none for facrificing the people of that country to our conftitution. I am however far from being perfuaded that any fuch incompatibility of interest does at all exift. On the contrary I am certain that every means, effectual to preserve India from oppreffion, is a guard to preserve the British constitution from its worst corruption. To fhew this, I will confider the objections, which I think are four.

Ift. That the bill is an attack on the chartered rights of

men.

2dly. That it increases the influence of the crown.

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..

As to the first of these objections; I must observe that the phrase of "the chartered rights of men," is full of affectation; and very unusual in the difcuffion of privileges conferred by charters of the prefent defcription. But it is

not

not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous mode of expreffion, so often reiterated, is meant to answer.

The rights of men, that is to fay, the natural rights of mankind, are indeed facred things; and if any public meafure is proved mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no charter at all could be fet up against it. If these natural rights are further affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are clearly defined and fecured against chicane, against power, and authority, by written instruments and positive engagements, they are in a still better condition: they partake not only of the fanctity of the object so secured, but of that solemn public faith itself, which fecures an object of such importance. Indeed this formal recognition, by the fovereign power, of an original right in the subject, can never be fubverted, but by rooting up the holding radical principles of government, and even of society itself. The charters, which we call by distinction great, are public inftruments of this nature; I mean the charters of king John and king Henry the third. The things fecured by these instruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.

These charters have made the very name of a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman - But, Sir, there may be, and there are charters, not only different in nature, but formed on principles the very reverse of thofe of the great charter. Of this kind is the charter of the Eaft India company. Magna charta is a charter to restrain power, and to destroy monopoly. The Eaft India charter is a charter to establish monopoly, and to create power. Political power and commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and the rights to them derived from charters, it is fallacious and fophiftical to call "the chartered rights of men." Thefe chartered

U u 2

chartered rights, (to fpeak of fuch charters and of their effects in terms of the greatest poffible moderation) do at least suspend the natural rights of mankind at large; and in their very frame and conftitution are liable to fall into a direct violation of them..

It is a charter of this latter defcription (that is to fay a charter of power and monopoly) which is affected by the bill before you. The bill, Sir, does, without question, affect it; it does affect it effentially and fubftantially. But having ftated to you of what defcription the chartered rights are which this bill touches, I feel no difficulty at all in acknowledging the existence of those chartered rights, in their fulleft extent. They belong to the company in the surest manner; and they are fecured to that body by every fort of public fanction. 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 confideration, over and over again.

I therefore freely admit to the East India company their claim to exclude their fellow-fubjects from the commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to adminifter an annual territorial revenue of feven millions fterling; to command an army of fixty thousand men; and to dispose, (under the controul of a sovereign imperial discretion, and with the due obfervance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. All this they poffefs by charter and by acts of parliament, (in my opinion) without a shadow of controversy.

Those who carry the rights and claims of the company the furtheft do not contend for more than this; and all this I freely grant. But granting all this, they must grant to me in my turn, that all political power which is fet over men,