champions of the East-India company's charter, although the incapacity and incompetence of that company to a due and adequate discharge of the trust deposited in them by that charter, are themes of ridicule and contempt to all the world; and although, in consequence of their mismanagement, connivance, and imbecility, combined with the wickedness of their servants, the very name of an Englishman is detested, even to a proverb, through all Asia, and the national character is become degraded and dishonoured. To rescue that name from odium, and redeem this character from disgrace, are some of the objects of the present bill; and gentlemen should indeed gravely weigh their opposition to a measure which, with a thousand other points, not less valuable, aims at the attainment of these objects.

Those who condemn the present bill, as a violation of the chartered rights of the East-India company, con. demn, on the same ground, I say again, the revolution, as a violation of the chartered rights of king James H. IIe, with as much reason, might have claimed the property of dominion. But what was the language of the people? No, you have no property in dominion; dominion was vested in you, as it is in every chief magistrate, for the benefit of the community to be governed: it was a sacred trust delegated by compact; you have abused the trust; you have exercised dominion for the purposes of vexation and tyranny-not of comfort, protection, and good order; and we therefore resume the power which was originally ours: we recur to the first principles of all governnient, the will of the many; and it is our will that you shall no longer abuse your dominion. The case is the same with the East-India company's government over a territory, as it has been said by Mr. Burke, of 280,000 square miles in extent, nearly equal to all christian Europe, and containing 30,000,000 of the human race. It matters not whether dominion arises from conquest, or from compact. Conquest gives no right to the conqueror to be a tyrant; and it is no violation of right, to abolish the authority which is misused.

LIV. Mr. Fox, in support of his East-India bill.

PART II.

HAVING said so much upon the general matter of the bill, I must beg leave to make a few observations upon the remarks of particular gentlemen; and first of the learned gentleman over against me (Mr. Dundas). The learned gentleman has made a long, and, as he alwaysdoes, an able speech; yet, translated into plain English, and disrobed of the dexterous ambiguity in which it has been enveloped, what does it amount to? To an establishment of the principles upon which this bill is founded, and indirect confession, of its necessity. He allows the frangibility of charters, when absolute occasion re quires it; and admits that the charter of the company should not prevent the adoption of a proper plan for thefuture government of India, if a proper plan can be atchieved upon no other terms. The first of these admis sions seems agreeable to the civil maxims of the learned gentleman's life, so far as a maxim can be traced in a political character so various, and flexible and to deny the second of these concessions was impossible, even for the learned gentleman, with a staring reason upon your. table to confront him, if he attempted it. The learned.. gentleman's bill, and the bill before you, are grounded upon the same bottom, of abuse of trust, mal-administration, debility, and incapacity in the company and their şervants; but the difference in the remedy is this: the jearned gentleman's bill opens a door to an influence a hundred times more dangerous than any that can be imputed to this bill, and deposits in one man an arbitrary power over millions; not in England, where the evil of this corrupt ministry could not be felt; but in the EastJudies, the scene of every mischief, fraud, and violence. The learned gentleman's bill afforded the most extensive latitude for malversation; the bill before you guards against it with all imaginable precaution. Every line in both the bills, which I have had the honour to introduce, presumes the possibility of bad administration, for every word breathes suspicion. This bill supposes that men are but men; it confides in no integrity, it trusts no character; it inculcates the wisdom of a jealousy of

power, and annexes responsibility, not only to every action, but even to the inaction, of those who are to dispense it. The necessity of these provisions must be evident, when it is known that the different misfortunes of the company resulted not more from what the servants did, than from what the masters did not.

To the probable effects of the learned gentleman's bill, and this, I beg to call the attention of the house.. Allowing, for argument sake, to the governor general of India, under the first named bill, the most unlimited and superior abilities, with soundness of heart, and integrity the most unquestionable; what good consequences. could be reasonably expected from his extraordinary, extravagant, and unconstitutional power, under the tenure by which he held it? Were his projects the most enlarged, his systems the most wise and excellent which human skill could advise; what fair hope could be entertained of their eventual success, when, perhaps, before he could enter upon the execution of any measure, he may be recalled in consequence of one of those changes in the administrations of this country, which have been so frequent for a few years, and which some good men wish to see every year?" Exactly the same reasons, which banish all rational hope of benefit from an Indian administration, under the bill of the learned gentleman, justify the duration of the proposed commission. If the dispensers of the plan of governing India (a place from which the answer of a letter cannot be expected in less than twelve months) have no greater stability in their situations than a British ministry-adieu to all hopes of rendering our eastern territories of any real advantage to this country;-adieu to every expectation of purging or purifying the Indian system,-of reform,

of improvement, of reviving confidence,-of regu Jating the trade upon its proper principles,-of restoring tranquillity,of re-establishing the natives in comfort, and of securing the perpetuity of these blessings, by the cordial reconcilement of the Indians with their former tyrants, upon fixed terms of amity, friendship, and fellowship. I will leave the house and the kingdom to judge which is best calculated to accomplish those salu-tary ends; the bill of the learned gentleman, which leaves all to the discretion of one man; or the bill before

you, which depends upon the duty of several men, who are in a state of daily account to this house, of hourly account to the ministers of the crown, of occasional ac count to the proprietors of East-India stock, and who are allowed sufficient time to practise their plans, unaffected by every political fluctuation.

But the learned gentleman wishes the appointment of an Indian secretary of state, in preference to these commissioners: in all the learned gentleman's ideas on the government of India, the notion of a new secretary of state for the Indian department springs up, and seems to be cherished with the fondness of consanguinity; but that scheme strikes me as liable to a thousand times more objections than the plan in agitation. Nay, the learned gentleman had rather, it seems, the affairs of India were blended with the business of the office which I have the honour to hold. His good disposition towards me, upon all occasions, cannot be doubted; and his sincerity in this opinion is unquestionable. I beg the house to at tend to the reason which the learned gentleman gives for this preference; and to see the plights to which men, even of his understanding, are reduced, who must oppose. He laughs at the responsibility of the commis sioners to this house, who, in his judgment, will find means of soothing, and softening, and meliorating the members into an oblivion of their mal-administration. What opinion has the fearned gentleman of a secretary of state? Does he think him so inert, so inactive, so incapable a creature, that, with all this vaunted patronage of the seven in his own hands, the same means of soothing, and softening, and meliorating, are thrown away upon him? The learned gentleman has been, for some years, conversant with ministers; but his experience has taught him, it seems, to consider secretaries, not only untainted and immaculate, but innocent, barmless, and incapable. In his time secretaries were all purity-with every power of corruption in their hands; but so inflexibly attached to rigid rectitude, that no temptation could seduce them to use that power for the purpose of corrupting, or, to use his own words, for soothing, or softening, or meliorating. The learned gentleman has founded his opinion of the simplicity and inaction of secretaries, from that golden age of political

probity, when his own friends were in power, and when he himself was every thing but a minister. This erroneous humanity of opinion arises in the learned gentleman's unsuspecting, unsullied nature, as well as in a commerce with only the best and purest ministers of this country; which has given him so favourable an impres sion of a secretary of state, that he thinks this patronage, so dangerous in the hands of seven commissioners, perfectly safe in his hands. I leave to the learned gentleman that pleasure which his mind must feel under the conviction with which he certainly gives this opinion; but I submit to every man who hears me, what would be the probable comments of the other side of the house, had I proposed either the erection of an Indian secretary, or the annexation of the Indian business to the office which I hold.

In the assemblage of the learned gentleman's objections, there is one still more curious than those I have mentioned. He dislikes this bill, because it establishes an imperium in imperio. In the course of opposition to this measure, we have been familiarised to hear certain sentiments, and particular words, in this housebut directed, in reality, to other places. Taking it, therefore, for granted, that the learned gentleman has not so despicable an idea of the good sense of the members, as to expect any more attention, within these walls, to such a dogma, than has been shewn to the favourite phrase of his honourable friend near him (Mr. William Pitt), who calls a bill, which backs this sinking company with the credit of the state, a confiscation of their property, I would wish to ask the learned gentleman, if he really holds the understanding, even of the multitude, in such contempt, as to imagine this species of argument can have the very slightest effect! The multitude know the fallacy of it, as well as the learned gentleman himself: they know that a dissolution of the East-India company has been wished for, scores of years, by many good people in this country, for the very reason that it was an imperium in imperio. Yet the learned gentle. man, with infinite gravity of face, tells you he dislikes this bill, because it establishes this novel and odious principle. Even a glance of this bill, compared with the present constitution of the company, manifests the