learned earl's reasoning upon this clause had been somewhat extraordinary. The clause gave the Court of Proprietors a power of revoking and rescinding any act, order, resolution, matter, or proceeding of the Court of Directors not approved by the Board of Control, and as this power was not consonant to the construction now wished to be put upon the Act of 1784, the noble and learned earl says to the clause, nil operatur! Did the noble and learned earl mean to confess that the clause was originally put into the Act, merely to gall the proprietors into an acquiescence with the Bill, under the delusive idea that their powers were not wholly annihilated, and that now, when the period for plain dealing was ripe, it was necessary they should be told, "Don't rely on the 29th clause; it is true, it gives you an effectual check upon the Company's affairs, but as it would annul the active powers of the Board of Control, you are to consider the clause as having found its way into the Act through some strange inadvertency, and though its words bear an obvious and undeniable meaning, nil operatur !" the records of their House of Commons contained various representations against their House of Lords, and complaints of their having acted partially and unjustly. The solitary precedent of a Declaratory Bill, stated by the noble and learned earl (Camden) in its consequence, afforded a gloomy proof of the bad effects of such Bills. Perhaps, his private opinion was, that the Declaratory Act of George 2 truly pronounced the construction of the Act of the 4th of queen Anne; but what was the effect of that construction being declared? Universal alarm and universal complaint! The public saw with horror the right of an heir, unborn when the Act of queen Anne passed, and necessarily innocent of his father's crimes, taken away by an ex post facto law. There was something so glaringly unjust, and at the same time so cruel in such an exercise of power, that mankind were shocked at the instance, and with one consent broke out in condemnation and censure. His lord ship pointed out the distinction between declaratory bills passed with a view to ascertain advantages to the subject, and with a view to authorize the extent of their restriction. The latter were always odious, and considered as the instruments of tyranny; while the former were looked to with gratitude and admiration. Of that description was the Bill of Rights, a Bill recognizing the legal claims of the subject, in opposition to the encroachments of prerogative and the stretches of arbitrary power. Lord Loughborough next proceeded to answer the arguments of lord Camden, upon the several clauses of the Bill, and said, that although the doctrine that the control of civil and military government would be nothing without the control and direction of the revenue, appeared to be plain and plausible doctrine, it could only be well understood in France and other despotic countries. In Great Britain, the constitution has ordered it otherwise, and the executive power was not suffered to hold the public purse, the benefits of which system of separation were so obvious and so undeniably excellent, that it would be a waste of words to enter into any argument to further its elucidation. The learned lord had done him the honour to observe, that he had, on the preceding Monday, pointed out a clause in the Act of 1784, the 29th, which, if allowed to be of any force, did annul all the active powers of the Board of Control. The His lordship proceeded to reprobate the claim of the Board of Control to exercise an unlimited power of superintendance, direction, and control over the revenues of the British territorial possessions in India. He asked, where the right of applying the revenues of the Company in India as the Board of Control thought proper, had a precedent? Was there any such power vested in the assignees of a commission of bankruptcy? Had the Board been appointed guardians of the infancy of the Company, trustees in a commission of lunacy against it, or even, if it were possible, guardians of their dotage, he defied any man to prove that they would have had a right to exercise any such extraordinary power. He had taken the liberty of applying to a noble Secretary of State for information respecting the state of the four regiments to authorize the sending out of which to India was the professed object of the Bill, and it was but justice to the noble lord to acknowledge, that he had given him a very candid answer. He had been given to understand explicitly, that three of the regiments only were intended to be now sent out, and that the fourth was meant to be kept in England for an indefinite and unlimited term. Had noble lords heard, and heard without emotion, that it was orders in the commerce of the Company had been stated among the other abuses, making up the sum of delinquency in the Court of Directors, that called for the interference of Parliament; and yet the noble earl had stated, that general delinquency was the ground of justification of the Bill of 1784. It was rather a whim→ sical revolution of political sentiment, that the noble earl should have objected to the Bill of 1783, because it stated the delin should have assigned that very delinquency as the ground of his support to the Bill of 1784. The fact was, the one Bill in a direct manner charged the delinquency, and for the limited term of four years suspended the powers of the Court of Directors; the other delusively aimed at inducing them to believe that those powers were left standing, but they at the same time found that they were left blind, deaf, dumb, and with their hands tied. The Bill of 1783 had been most partially quoted and untruly stated with uncommon industry in all parts of the kingdom. At a county meeting held at York, a part of it only had been read, and a construction palpably false had been put upon it; and, under that deception, the meeting had separated. The consequence was, a misinterpretation of the Bill spread through Yorkshire, and a variety of other counties, He had heard of one conversation which passed between two freeholders in that part of England. One of them, speaking of the noble earl behind him, (lord Fitzwilliam) said, "He and his Board have taken all the patronage of the Company." intended to maintain at home, in this country, a regiment not voted by parliament as part of the establishment, and not paid by Parliament, but paid out of the revenues of India? Would ministers dare to maintain in England a regiment neither paid by Parliament, nor mentioned in the Mutiny Bill? Would they dare to billet soldiers on British subjects, who were not amenable to martial law? Would they dare thus to violate the Bill of Rights, and the principles established at the Re-quency of the Court of Directors, and volution? If they dared venture this length, he advised them to bring in a bill of indemnity without delay, or if they rather chose to follow their own precedent, to pass another declaratory bill. He could not say what the law then was, but he knew what the law had been in the year 1688. At that time, it was held impossible to make soldiers of a regiment neither recognized by the Mutiny Bill, nor paid by Parliament. If all the valuable principles of the constitution were not meant to be destroyed at once; if the principles of the Revolution were not grown obsolete, or were not yet so covered with the rust of antiquity, as to be no longer discernible, he trusted ministers would take some means of marking their intention of keeping the fourth regiment at home, and justifying it on the ground of necessity. Perhaps, he should hear that the Declaration of Rights had been extorted by a banditti, a gang little better than highwaymen, from whom the great and good had separated, as soon as the hurry of the moment, which by accident huddled them together, had enabled them to choose better company. He was sorry" Has he," said the other; "why then I to find that the wretched pamphleteers of the times were encouraged to treat those, to whom the enjoyment of our liberties and the restoration of our constitution were ascribable, with so little reverence and respect. Singular, indeed, was the freedom, and indecent the contempt, with which it appeared to be the boast of some modern writers to speak of the Revolution, and the great and distinguished cha racters who effected that glorious work. His lordship said, that he could not sit down, without making some observations upon the comparison which the noble and learned earl had thought proper to make between the two East India Bills, that of 1783 and that of 1784. The noble and learned earl had read the preamble of the Bill of 1783, and had assumed something like an air of triumph, on finding that dis am sure he'll bring good deal of it down to Wentworth." Their lordships, from what they had heard that day, must now confess, that the two Bills stood nearly upon the same ground, at least as to the reason upon which the power was taken out of the hands of the Directors. The noble and learned earl, however, had thought proper to remark, that the powers assumed by the Act of 1783, were to be given into the hands of a party, and that the Board of Commissioners had a smack of coalition in it; clearly alluding to an honourable gentleman, the son of a noble friend of his, who had been minister of the country, a man of as much worth and integrity as any individual that ever graced the senate, or decorated human society. Was there nothing of party, no smack of coalition, in the Board of Con trol? Was there not a noble lord, for in- | be found any traces of that influence in stance, who used, when he had himself the present House of Commons? Had no the honour to be a member of the House Nabobs, with hard names, found their of Commons, to inveigh vehemently way into that House since the year 1784? against that unfortunate, and as the noble Had no New Romney, and a variety of lord (Mulgrave) then termed it, "ac- other boroughs that memory might sugcursed" American war? that ruinous and gest, felt the happy effects of Indian in"starvation" war, which a learned friend Auence? Had not a Nabob descended on of his (Mr. Dundas) was at that time New Romney, like another Jupiter, in a somewhat more than suspected of abet- shower of gold? Such things were ruting? Was not the noble lord accustomed moured. The fact was, the Bill of his to reprobate Treasury interference, and right hon. friend, Mr. Fox, like his now the undue influence of Treasury letters? mind, was manly and open. He was above Were there no such things in existence, the meanness of concealment, and scorned as the exertion of that influence, and the the scandalous baseness of a lie. His life circulation of those letters? He remem- and manners, whatever they were, were bered when a learned friend of his and the public; they were explicit and avowed. noble lord used to wage eternal war on His right hon. friend had asserted, and those topics, and yet they were now per- asserted openly, that the patronage and fectly cordial; other members of that the power were inseparable; and as the Board had formerly stood forward equally best possible guard against abuse, he had opposite as partizans; there was, never- placed the patronage in the hands of hotheless, nothing like a smack of coalition nourable men with complete responsiin all this! It was doubtless an agreement bility. What did the other Bill do? His of parts, a harmony, a fitness arising from expression failed him. He could not find the absence of every thing rough and an adequate term to describe its operation excrescent, all asperities were smoothed on this side Bow-street! It stole the padown, and the conjunction was perfect and tronage, and put it in the pockets of the complete!-His lordship took occasion to Board of Control; it took that by stealth, mention lord North in this part of his which it dared not avow and claim as a speech, and said the noble lord laboured right. The noble and learned earl had under a severe misfortune, inflicted by the said, if those who brought in the Bill of hand of Providence, but he bore it pa- 1783 thought so highly of it as they pretiently and cheerfully, deriving abundant tended to do, he advised them to go to comfort from the resources of his own the general election with that Bill in their mind, and the attachment, friendship, and hands. Be it so; his honourable friends daily resort of those, who professed them- would take the hint; and as they now unselves his adherents in the hour of his derstood from the noble and learned earl, power and prosperity, and having so pro- that a general election was near, they fessed themselves on principles of sincerity would be proud to rest their claims to and honour, still remained the noble lord's public favour on the test of comparison zealous friends. The noble lord, perhaps, between the two Bills. Delusion was now felt his consolation not a little heightened over, and misrepresentation and falsehood by the absence of those, who had basked stood confuted and detected. His right in the sunshine of his better fortune, but hon. friend had reason to be proud on that who felt the first northerly blast too strong day, nor was that his only triumph. Out for their constitutions to endure, vigorous of place, he possessed patronage, and paand robust as some of them were. The tronage of the noblest kind-the protection noble and learned earl had taken pains to of defenceless millions. A species of papaint the patronage given the Board of tronage more congenial to his mind than Commissioners by the Bill of 1783, in any other description of patronage whatbroad and glaring colours. Had the Board ever. The unremitting exercise of that of Control no patronage? Had they no patronage was the best answer to the share of the appointments of the late calumny and slander which, in the hour of Governor-general of Bengal, the Governor popular phrenzy, industrious clamour had of Madras, and the Commander in chief? cast upon his name. The great political The Board of Commissioners, the noble principle of his right hon. friend was that and learned earl had said, would have of an honest and amiable ambition, the overwhelmed both Houses of Parliament reverse of low cunning and sordid avarice. with Indian influence. Were there not to Were there not to His lordship concluded his speech with a declaration that his hon. friends would go to the next general election, confident of success, with the India Bills in their hands; that of 1783 in one hand, as commented upon by its enemies, and the Bill of 1784 in the other, as now explained by its friends! The Lord Chancellor contended, that the object of the present Bill did not relate to the question of right between the crown and the subject, but had been brought forward on general principles of policy; on grounds that did not concern the private rights of the Company, but solely respected the management of their territorial, civil, and military concerns. The real state of the question was not whether the Act of 1784 was a wise and proper measure, but whether the present Bill is a just exposition of that Act. He insisted that it was a fair declaration of the powers vested in the commissioners for the affairs of India, and that so far from giving them additional powers, it restrained them from the exercise of some which they possessed under the former Act. They had voluntarily dispensed with the patronage which they might have exercised, for, they had voluntarily called for checks to limit their powers; this, surely, was no proof that they were desirous of extending their influence. The learned lord had desired to know whether the commissioners of bankrupts had a power of appropriating the effects of bankrupts, without the consent of the party. They certainly had a power to direct the application of the funds of every bankrupt for the benefit of the creditors, just in the same manner as the commissioners for the affairs of India could apply the territorial revenues of that country to the payment of the troops which were necessary for its defence. This was a position which he conceived made more for his argument than against it; but admitting the full force of what the learned lord had argued that if the defence of their possessions should leave them nothing for the purposes of investment, they must of necessity become bankrupts, would their situation be much mended, if they were suffered to apply their whole territorial revenues to commercial purposes, and leave their possessions to the mercy of an enemy? Was this the way to save them from ruin and bankruptcy? He lamented that he had not an opportunity of consulting the calculations, which a noble marquis (Lansdowne) had, with so much ingenuity, reasoned upon § during a preceding debate. He lamented that the anecdotes which he then heard, had made so little impression on his mind, that he did not now recollect for what purpose they had been introduced. With regard to the power of originating dispatches, on which so much had been said, he thought the difference of opinion on that part of the question related more to words than to substance; for, it would not, surely, be contended, that the Board of Control, in allowing or amending the dispatches of the Court of Directors were so tied down by act of parliament, that they could not suggest a single idea which had not been laid before them; and yet this was all the originating power they claimed except in cases where the Directors neglected to send any dispatches at all. As to the appropriation of the revenue, if it was admitted that the Board of Control were invested with the management and direction of the civil and military government of India, it was absurd to contend that they were not to have the power of directing the application of the revenue to the necessary purposes of the arrangement of those concerns. These were, in fact, the only two points on which there was any material difference of opinion; and he appealed to the words of the Act of 1784, which his noble friend (lord Camden) had so fairly stated, that the Bill was a fair interpretation of that Act; that it was not a question which ought to be left to the determination of the courts in Westminsterhall; but that as a measure of general policy, it belonged only to Parliament to determine it. The construction contended for, was no stretch whatever of the original Act. The face of the noble marquis, indeed, spoke denial; yet, he could venture to assert, that he was well grounded in his position. The Marquis of Lansdowne expressed his surprise at the doctrine which the Lord Chancellor had thought proper to maintain, when he contended that the present was a question which ought not to be left to the courts in Westminsterhall. He should be glad to know on what foundation this species of general policy rested? Was not the general policy of this country founded upon its law, upon its constitution, upon its freedom? and were not the law and the constitution synonimous terms? Would the learned lord presume to say that the great questions resulting from the government, the finance, and the trade of the empire, did not rest solely for support upon the principles of the constitution, under the direction of the courts of law? Was that fundamental principle, the trial by jury, to be attacked by an authority whose peculiar duty it was to protect it? Were the eloquent and powerful arguments of the noble lord near him (turning to lord Loughborough) to be passed over in this light and trivial manner? If such was the new-fangled interpretation of general policy from such a quarter, it was an ill omen indeed! As to the sarcasms which the learned lord had been pleased to direct against him, he should neither be deterred by the looks, howsoever commanding, nor the talents of the learned lord, from asserting his opinions in that House on any public question. The learned lord was welcome to profit from his calculations, if he wished to reap the benefit of them. Knowing them to be founded in truth, he was not ashamed to look him in the face, and to tell him that the present Bill was a base violation of the rights and privileges of the East India Company. He insisted, that by the Act of 1784, the power of appropriating the revenue did not follow the right of control which the commissioners claimed over the civil and military concerns of the Company, and that it was not the necessary consequence of a power of control. It was true, indeed, that the executive government of France had the sole appropriation of its revenues, and to this the present low state of its finances was owing. Let those who doubted this, look at that great financier, Neckar; let them consult a very considerable man who was once at the head of the finances of that country, and who was now present (M. Calonne); they will demonstrate the impolicy of that maxim, and show it is contrary to the principles of good government, by the bad effects it has produced in the decline of the finances of France. Louis the 14th, unhappily, for his subjects, preferred the tinselled vanity of being a conqueror, to the solid happiness of his people, arising from a wellregulated commerce and government. He trusted, that whatever resolution might be adopted with regard to the renewal of the Company's charter, government would consider the rights of the stockholder and of the creditor.-The noble marquis acknowledged, that a great and comprehensive system for that government was become absolutely necessary. He, for one, was ready to go immediately into the subject with expedition and effect. He [VOL. XXVII.] thought it should not be delayed a moment; he was ready to join any party, either in or out of power, to effectuate so desirable a purpose. It appeared to him of such magnitude, and, indeed, it had appeared so to the nation at large; for, it seemed to him, that every measure of government had, for many years past, and during the progress of several successive administrations, either primarily or ultimately turned upon Indian politics. He next adverted to the precipitancy with which the Bill had been hurried through the House. It was, undoubtedly, highly important in many points of view, yet three days had been deemed sufficient for the discussion of a question of such magnitude. He said he had that morning looked into the his tory of the Bill of 1784, and found that its progress had also been marked with similar haste, when only a few peers attended the House; yet to that "well-digested law" we were now called to look up for the government of our dominions, and the management of the affairs of the East India Company. Could he have conceived that such precipitancy would have been suffered to prevail, he certainly should have attended the first day, when the Bill was brought up. Unwilling as he was to trouble the House, although he had much reason to thank the noble members for their kind indulgence to his feeble arguments, yet he should have called for papers-he should have demanded the Court of Directors to appear at the bar of that House, and upon their oaths have declared what construction they had put upon the Act of 1784, and have answered whether they had considered themselves as having surrendered all the power and patronage of the Company, the origination of dispatches, and the application of the revenues, into the hands of the Board of Control. And even if this question had been affirmed, he was bound in duty to oppose the present Bill, as a most dangerous extension of power, which he was well assured would alarm the neigh bouring powers. He believed that the affairs of the Company abroad could not be in better hands than they were at present. He reflected with pleasure on his being the first man who had suggested that lord Cornwallis was a proper person to assume the reins of government in Bengal, and sir Archibald Campbell had been appointed by him governor of Jamaica on the recommendation of merit solely; for it was well known that some of that gentleman's relations were hostile to [S] |