principles, nor to any uniform line of conduct. They may begin cenfors, and be obliged to end accomplices. They may be even put under the direction of those whom they were appointed to punish. The fourth and laft objection is, That the bill will hurt public credit. I do not know whether this requires an anfwer. But if it does, look to your foundations. The finking fund is the pillar of credit in this country; and let it not be forgot, that the diftreffes, owing to the mismanagement of the Eaft India company, have already taken a million from that fund by the non-payment of duties. The bills drawn upon the company, which are about four millions, cannot be accepted without the confent of the treafury. The treasury, acting under a parliamentary truft and authority, pledges the public for these millions. If they pledge the public, the public must have a fecurity in its hands for the management of this intereft, or the national credit is gone. For otherwise it is not only the East India company, which is a great intereft, that is undone, but, clinging to the security of all your funds, it drags down the reft, and the whole fabric perishes in one ruin. If this bill does not provide a direction of integrity and of ability competent to that trust, the objection is fatal. If it does, public credit muft depend on the fupport of the bill. It has been faid, if you violate this charter, what fecurity has the charter of the bank, in which public credit is fo deeply concerned, and even the charter of London, in which the rights of so many subjects are involved? I anfwer, In the like case they have no fecurity at all-No-no fecurity at all. If the bank fhould, by every species of mismanagement, fall into a state fimilar to that of the East India company; if it fhould be oppreffed with demands it could not anfwer, engagements which it could not perform.. 2. form, and with bills for which it could not procure payment; no charter fhould protect the mifmanagement from correction, and fuch public grievances from redress. If the city of London had the means and will of destroying an empire, and of cruelly oppreffing and tyrannizing over millions of men as good as themselves, the charter of the city of London fhould prove no fanction to fuch tyranny and fuch oppreffion. Charters are kept, when their purposes are maintained: they are violated when the privilege is fupported against its end and its object. Now, Sir, I have finished all I propofed to fay, as my reafons for giving my vote to this bill. If I am wrong, it is not for want of pains to know what is right. This pledge, at leaft, of my rectitude I have given to my country. And now, having done my duty to the bill, let me fay a word to the author. I fhould leave him to his own noble fentiments, if the unworthy and illiberal language with which he has been treated, beyond all example of parliamentary liberty, did not make a few words neceffary; not fo much in justice to him, as to my own feelings. I muft fay then, that it will be a distinction honourable to the age, that the rescue of the greatest number of the human race that ever were fo grievously oppreffed, from the greatest tyranny that was ever exercifed, has fallen to the lot of abilities and difpofitions equal to the task; that it has fallen to one who has the enlargement to comprehend, the spirit to undertake, and the eloquence to fupport, so great a measure of hazardous benevolence. His fpirit is not owing to his ignorance of the state of men and things; he well knows what fnares are spread about his path, from perfonal animofity, from court intrigues, and poffibly from popular delufion. But he has put to hazard his ease, his fecurity, his intereft, his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people whom he has never feen. This is the road that all heroes have trod before him. He is traduced and abufed for his fuppofed motives. He will remember, that obloquy is a neceffary ingredient in the composition of all true glory : he will remember, that it was not only in the Roman cuftoms, but it is in the nature and conftitution of things, that calumny and abuse are effential parts of triumph. These thoughts will fupport a mind, which only exifts for honour, under the burthen of temporary reproach. He is doing indeed a great good; fuch as rarely falls to the lot, and almoft as rarely coincides with the defires, of any man. Let him use his time. Let him give the whole length of the reins to his benevolence. He is now on a great eminence, where the eyes of mankind are turned to him. He may live long, he may do much. But here is the fummit. He never can exceed what he does this day. He has faults; but they are faults that, though they may in a small degree tarnish the luftre, and fometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In thofe faults, there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrify, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional defpotism, or want of feeling for the distresses of mankind. His are faults which might exift in a defcendant of Henry the Fourth of France, as they did exist in that father of his country. Henry the Fourth wished that he might live to see a fowl in the pot of every peafant of his kingdom. That fentiment of homely benevolence was worth all the fplendid fayings that are recorded of kings. But he wished perhaps for more than could be obtained, and the goodness of the man exceeded the power of the king. But this gentleman, a fubject, may this day fay this at least, with truth, that he fecures the rice in his pot to every man in India. A poct of antiquity thought it one of the first 5 diftinctions diftinctions to a prince whom he meant to celebrate, that through a long fucceffion of generations, he had been the progenitor of an able and virtuous citizen, who by force of the arts of peace, had corrected governments of oppreffion, and fuppreffed wars of rapine. Indole proh quanta juvenis, quantumque daturus Ille fuper Gangem, fuper exauditus et Indos, Fulmine compefcet linguæ.- This was what was faid of the predeceffor of the only perfon to whofe eloquence it does not wrong that of the mover of this bill to be compared. But the Ganges and the Indus are the patrimony of the fame of my honourable friend, and not of Cicero. I confess, I anticipate with joy the reward of thofe, whofe whole confequence, power, and authority, exist only for the benefit of mankind; and I carry my mind. to all the people, and all the names and defcriptions, that, . relieved by this bill, will blefs the labours of this parliament, and the confidence which the best house of commons has given to him who the beft deferves it. The little cavils of party will not be heard, where freedom and happiness will be felt. There is not a tongue, a nation, or religion in India, which will not blefs the prefiding care and manly beneficence of this house, and of him who propofes to you this great work. Your names will never be feparated before the throne of the Divine Goodness, in whatever language, or with whatever rites, pardon is asked for fin, and reward for those who imitate the Godhead in his univerfal bounty to his creatures. Thefe honours you deferve, and they will furely be paid, when all the jargon, of influence, and party, and patronage, are fwept into oblivion. I have spoken what I think, and what I feel, of the mover of this bill. An honourable friend of mine, speaking of his merits,. merits, was charged with having made a studied panegyric. I don't know what his was. Mine, I am fure, is a ftudied panegyric; the fruit of much meditation; the result of the observation of near twenty years. For my own part, I am happy that I have lived to fee this day; I feel myself overpaid for the labours of eighteen years, when, at this late period, I am able to take my fhare, by one humble vote, in destroying a tyranny that exifts to the difgrace of this nation, and the deftruction of fo large a part of the human fpecies. MR. |