Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

shorter term than four years? None has hazarded such an assertion-none, who has a regard for his reputation, will hazard it.

Sir, the gentlemen, whoever they are, who shall be appointed to this commiffion, have an undertaking of magnitude on their hands, and their stability must not only be, but it must be thought, real; and who is it will believe, that any thing short of an establishment made, supported, and fixed in its duration, with all the authority of Parliament, can be thought secure of a reasonable stability? the plan of my honourable friend is the reverse of that of reforming by the authors of the abuse. The best we could expect from them is, that they should not continue their ancient 'pernicious activity. To those we could think of nothing but applying control; as we are fure, that even a regard to their reputation (if any such thing exifts in them) would oblige them to cover, to conceal, to fuppress, and confequently to prevent, all cure of the grievances of India. For what can be discovered, which is not to their difgrace? every attempt to correct an abuse would be a fatire on their former administration. Every man they should pretend to call to an account, would be found their instrument or their accomplice. They can never see a beneficial regulation, but with a view to defeat it. The shorter the tenure of fuch perfons, the better would be the chance of some amendment.

But the system of the bill is different. It calls in persons no wife concerned with any act censured by Parliament; persons generated with, and for the reform of which they are themselves the most effential part. To these the chief regulations in the bill are helps, not fetters; they are autho rities to fupport, not regulations to restrain them. From these we expect zeal, firmness, and unremitted activity Their duty, their character, binds them to proceedings of vigour; and they ought to have a tenure in their office which precludes all fear, whilst they are acting up to the purpofes of their trust; a tenure without which, none will undertake plans that require a series and system of acts. When they know that they cannot be whispered out of their duty, that their public conduct cannot be censured without a public discussion; that the schemes which they have begun will not be committed to those who will have an interest and credit in defeating them; then we may entertain hopes. The te nure is for four years, or during their good behaviour. That good behaviour is as long as they are true to the principles

of

of the bill; and the judgment is in either House of Parlia ment. This is the tenure of your judges; and the valuable principle of the bill is, to make a judicial adminiftration for India. It is to give confidence in the execution of a duty, which requires as much perseverance and fortitude as can fall to the lot of any that is born of woman.

As to the gain by party, from the right honourable gentleman's bill, let it be shewn, that this supposed party advantage is pernicious to its object, and the objection will be of weight; but until this is done, and this has not been attempted, I shall confider the fole objection, from its tendency to promote the interest of a party, as altogether contemptible. The kingdom is divided into parties, and it ever has been so divided, and it ever will be so divided; and if no system for relieving the subjects of this kingdom from oppreffion, and snatching its affairs from ruin, can be adopted, until it is demonstrated that no party can derive an advantage from it, no good can be done in this country. If party is to derive an advantage from the reform of India, (which is more than I know, or believe) it ought to be that party which alone, in this kingdom, has its reputation, nay its very heing, pledged to the protection and preservation of that part of the empire. Great fear is expressed, that the cominiffioners named in this bill will shew some regard to a Minifter out of place. To men made like the objectors, this must appear criminal. Let it however be remembered by others, that if the commiffioners should be his friends, they cannot be his flaves. But dependants are not in a condition to adhere to friends, nor to 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 last objection is, that the bill will hurt public credit. I do not know whether this requires an anIwer. 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 distresses, owing to the misinanage. ment of the East-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 consent of the treaJury. The treasury, acting under a parliamentary trust and authority, pledges the public for these millions. If they pledge the public, the public must have a security in its hands

1

*

hands for the management of this interest, or the national credit is gone. For otherwise it is not only the East-India Company, which is a great interest, 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 must depend on the fupport of the bill.

It has been faid, if you violate this charter, what security 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 fubjects are involved? I answer, in the like case they have no security at all-No-no security at all. If the Bank should, by every species of mismanagement, fall into a state similar to that of the East-India Company, if it should be oppreffed with demands it could not answer, engagements which it could not perform, and with bills for which it could not procure payment; no char ter should protect the mismanagement from correction, and such 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 should prove no sanction to such tyranny and such oppreffion. Charters are kept, when their purposes are maintained; they are violated when the privilege is supported against its end and its object.

Now, Sir, I have finished all I proposed to say, as my reasons 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 least, 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 should leave him to his own noble sentiments, if the unworthy and illiberal language with which he has been treated, beyond all example of parliamentary liberty, did not make a few words necessary; not so much in justice to him, as to my own feelings. I must say 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 so grievously oppressed, from the greatest tyranny that was ever exercised, has fallen to the lot of abilities and dispositions equal to the task; that it has fallen to one who has the enlargement to comprehend, the fpirit to undertake, and the eloquence to support, so great a measure

of

of hazardous benevolence. His spirit is not owing to his ignorance of the state of men and things; he well knows what snares are spread about his path, from personal animofity, from court intrigues, and poffibly from popular delufion. But he has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people whom he has never seen. This is the road that all heroes have trod before him. He is traduced and abused for his supposed motives, He will remember, that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the compofition of all true glory: he will remember, that it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in the nature and conftitution of things, that calumny and abuse are essential parts of viumph. These thoughts will support 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 almost 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 summit, 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 sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In those faults, there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrify, of pride, of ferocity, of complectional despotism, or want of feeling for the distresses of mankind. His are faults which might exist in a descendant 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 peasant of his kingdom. That sentiment of homely benevolence was worth all the splendid sayings 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 subject, may this day say this at least, with truth, that he secures the rice in his pot to every man in India. A poet of antiquity thought it one of the first 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 VOL. XII.

Mm

arts Mr. Duncombe.

arts of peace, had corrected governments of oppreffion, and suppressed wars of rapine.

Indole proh quanta juvenis, quantumque daturus
Aufoniæ populis, ventura in fæcula civem.
Ille fuper Gangem, fuper exauditus et Indos,
Implebit terras voce; et furialia bella

Fulmine compefcet linguæ.

This was what was faid of the predeceffor of the only perfon to whose 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 those, whose whole consequence, power, and authority, exist only for the benefit of mankind; and I carry my mind to all the people, and all the names and descriptions, that, relieved by this bill, will bless the labours of this Parliament, and the confidence which the best House of Com'mons has given to him who the best deserves 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 bless 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 afked for fin, and reward for those who imitate the Godhead in his univertal bounty to his creatures. These honours you deserve, and they will furely be paid, when all the jargon of influence, and party, and patronage, are swept into oblivion.

I have fpoken what I think, and what I feel, of the mover of this bill. An honourable friend of mine, speaking of his merits, was charged with having made a studied panegyric. I don't know what his was. Mine, I am fure, is a studied panegyric; the fruit of much meditation; the refult of the obfervation of near twenty years. For my own part, I am happy that I have lived to fee this day; I feel myfelf overpaid for the labours of eighteen years, when, at this late period, I am able to take my share, by one humble vote, in destroying a tyranny that exists to the disgrace of this nation, and the destruction of so large a part of the human species.

Mr. Duncombe admired the premises as stated and illuftrated by the honourable gentleman, but begged to be ex

cufed

« AnteriorContinua »