tion was made by Mr. Francis, and feconded by Mr. Windham, for leave to bring in a bill to explain and amend the act of the year 784, for the regulation of the affairs of the Eaft India company. Mr. Francis embraced this occafion of entering into an examination of that bill, and pointing out in the fullett manner, what appeared to him to conftitute its impolitic and unconftitutional nature. He alluded to the petitions, which were faid to be upon their way from India, against Mr. Pitt's act. He might be fufpected on one fide of a bafe intention to avail himself of the prefent temper of the parties for fome mischievous purpofe; and on the other he might be charged with acting precipitately and unfairly to the peritioners themfelves in not waiting for their petition. To the taft of thefe imputations he anfwered, that, though he acted independently of the petitioners, he was as much in earnest as they could be, to promote the object they fought; that what he did could not injure, and might affift them; and that the method he took to accomplifh his object was most honourable to parliament, and moft confiftent with is dignity. With refpect to the former he observed, that his fentiments upon the subject had always been known, and had always been the fame. Perhaps upon his principles he might have been ftrict ly bound, to have moved for an alteration of this law during the courfe of the laft feffion; but he had his reafons for not adopting that proceeding. The attention of the houfe was wholly engaged in the commercial arrangement with Ireland. The most exceptionable parts of the India bill were not to begin to operate till a year or two

afterwards. But his principal confideration had been, that he wished to give time for the fenfe of the houfe to cool upon its own act, and for the general judgment of the nation to be collected on the merits of the measure.

The law obviously divided itself into three, departments; first, the arrangement made for the distribution and establishment of power at home; fecondly, the arrangements made for the government of the company's affairs abroad; and finally the inftitution of a special in. quifition, and a new judicature in England, for the difcovery and trial of offences committed in India. Under the first head Mr. Francis obferved, that the constant and notorious complaint had been, that the power of the court of directors was defective and infufficient to enforce obedience upon their fervants abroad, or to punish their difobedience. In order therefore to create a strong government, Mr. Pitt's act had divided the fupreme power between two boards; bad placed the nominal power in one fet of men, and the real power in another, and had obliged the directors. to affix their fignatures to letters and instructions, drawn up in notorious contradiction to their declared fentiments. A more effectual contrivance to excite and irritate a fpirit of difobedience could hardly have been imagined. Mr. Francis was not reafoning upon imaginary cafes. The law had established two jurifditions over the fame object. They had already clafhed in one very important inftance, and he had reason to believe that they continued to do fo in many others. The very moment the directors began to act, the board of control began to counteract; and

the

the directors in the end were obliged to fign orde s, against which they had previoutly protefted.

Mr. Francis ftrongly condemned the power, which, by a fictitious vote and a cafting voice, government had thrown into the hands of the governor-general; and obferved, that by this method they had fecretly placed an influence in the hands of the prefident of Bengal, which they had been afhamed to attribute to him openly. He employed many arguments to prove, that the predominan power in India was much lefs judicioufly placed in the hands of a fingle perfon, than in thofe of a council. The fact was, that under the former fpecies of government all thofe principles, which the prefent law condemned and prohibited, were brought into action, and all thofe effects were produced, which the prefent law profeffed to look back upon with indignation; which it threatened to pun fh, or promised to corre&. Mr. Francis defcribed the government of Bengal as being of a very peculiar na ture. A governor-general underfood nothing of his fituation, if he thought, that any power directly vested in his hands, would carry half the authority with it, that would accompany the united acts of a governor and council. If he trusted to his own exclufive judgment, he would find himself furrounded by fome of the most artful men that existed, by natives, who, without our general knowledge, were infinitely fagacious, who ubferved us attentively and understood us perfectly, and by fome Europeans, who, in every thing but their habit and complex on, were perfect Afiatics. No fingle, unaffifted English judgment was a match for fuch men, and for fuch peculiar faculties, as would collect about him from the moment of his arrival.

If he relied on his exclufive power, for want of clear and accurate knowledge, he would rarely venture to exert it. Every man who approached him would tell him a dif ferent story, or give him a different opinion. He would often doubt, and no vigorous determination could exit in a good mind that was not preceded by conviction. Even when he exerted his power, it would be feeble and ineffectual against the univerfal combination and clamour of all ranks and interefts, that would be formed to counteract him in every measure, that tended to cor rect abuses, or reduce exorbitant emoluments. In a great commu nity the reformer had the voice and approbation of the majority to eneourage him; but in a very narrow circle he would have no part of the fociety in which he lived to fupport him against the reft. They would make a common caufe against him, and, fooner or later, would overcome his refolution, or break his heart. Mr. Francis alluded to the government in which he had been concerned, and remarked, that if the perfonal character, the political views, and public principles of Mr. Haftings and Mr. Barwel had been fuch, as to have induced the minority to give them a fteady and vigorous fupport, the government would have carried along with it an opinion, a dignity, an authority and a fway, which no faction could have refifted and no combination could have with flood.

Upon the fubje&t of the third divifion of Mr. Pitt's act, Mr. Francis was more animated and warm. In the inftitution of fo arbitrary a mode of purfuing delinquency, the inftant fuffering indeed belonged to the fervants of the company in India: the confequence and the danger were our own. A capital innovation was made in the crimiI, 3

nal

pal jurifprudence of England. New principles were introduced, not only into the fyftem of our laws, but into the manners of our people. A new tribunal was erected for the trial of mifdemeanours committed in India, and armed and accompanied with powers unheard of in this country. The ancient established mode of trial by a jury and by the country, was renounced as imperfect and inadequate; a new and arbitrary fyflem of enquiry and trial was established in the room of it; and all this was done for reafons and pretences, equally applicable to any other fort of crime, and any other fpecies of offender. Confidered as a precedent, it held out a general menace to the whole kingdom; it operated directly upon a few, but it threatened us all. Upon this head Mr. Francis particularly infifted upon a paffage in the king's fpeech of May 1784, which was intended to have a retrofpect to Mr. Fox's bill, to which it did not apply, and which was forgetten when they came to agitate Mr. Pitt's bill, of the fpirit of which it had been prophetic. "The affairs of the Eaft India company form an object of deliberation deepty connected with the general interefts of the country. While you feel a just anxiety to provide for the good government of qur poffeffions in that part of the world, you will. I trust, never lofe fight of the effect, which any measure to be adopted for that purpose, may have on our own conftitution and our dearest interests at home."

Mr. Francis examined diftinctly the different modes that were employed by the act, for making an inquifition into crimes. The first was that, which obliged every man to give in upon oath an account of his fortune. Mr. Francis examined this provifion, as it would operate

upon the innocent and upon the guilty. From thofe who were innocent no confeffion could be extorted; but he denied, that it was in no cafe a hardship and an injustice to an honest man, to oblige him to declare publicly the exact amount of his property. It might even, happen, that the act might be oppreffive in proportion to the innocence of the party. For, though his poverty might prove his innocence, it might eafily happen, that a man might wish to have his innocence proved by any other kind of evidence. We did not live in times in which poverty was refpectable, Mr. Francis feared, that the contrary was true, and that the law, which compelled an honeft man to difcover the narrownefs of his circumftances, whatever it might intend, would in effect only ferve to fling difgrace upon ill fortune, and to make an honourable poverty ridi. culous. With refpect to the guilty the only tendency of the law was to invite him to add one crime to another; and, if he were already guilty of extortion, oppreffion and cruelty, to endeavour to cover it by perjury. The law fhould be tender of creating fuch dilemmas. It was an invitation to falfhood, because it annexed the expectation of impunity for one offence to the commiffion of another,

In the next place the law, in cafe of any complaint made to the court of exchequer, proceeded to fubject the party to answer interrogatories upon oath, at the difcretion of the court. It fuppofed the party to have been guilty of perjury in the first instance, and it called upon him either to convict himself of that crime, or to cover it by a feries of new perjuries in his anfwers to the interrogatories. In both inftances it revived a mode of inquifition and conviction, which the conftitution

of

of this country held in abhorrence, and which our ancestors vainly imagined they had extirpated for ever, when they abolished the starchamber. The law, having thus exerted its utmost power to extort a difcovery by the confeffion of the guilty, proceeded to fupply the defects of that mode by another courfe, which promised indeed greater fuce cefs, but which in Mr. Francis's judgment was ftill more deteftable, because it held out rewards to treachery and bafenefs, and tended to corrupt and destroy the little mnorality we had left in private life. The law formally acknowledged the office of a fpy and informer, and rewarded him with a fhare in the forfeiture. Its temptations were held out to perfons whom you might have particularly trufted, your agent, your fecretary, your banker, or your friend. Who could tell but the invitation might feduce a fon to betray his father, a brother to betray his brother, or, which was worst of all, a perfon whom you had effentially ferved to betray his benefactor? The very money you had lent him, if you had omitted it in your account, would be the inftrument of his nefarious purpose. Mr. Francis appealed to every thing that was honourable and virtuous in that houte; Was there an object of penal justice against any particular fet of men, adequate to the price they must pay for it, if they fuffered fuch princip'es as thefe to be introduced, not enly into the laws of the kingdom, but into the manners of the people?

Mr. Francis afferted the inftitution of the new judicature to be totally unneceffy. A fpecial jury of English gentlemen, was juft as Ikely to be qualified for this or any other judicial office, as ten members of the lords and commons taken at

a venture. The tribunal abandoned the wife and ancient feparation of the verdict from the judgment, and united in the fame perfons the verdict, the explanation of the law, and the fentence. As, according to this fyftem, feven members conftituted a court, one lord and three judges might find the facts, and on the other hand four commoners might determine the law against the opinion of the three judges. Mr. Francis obferved, that, generally. fpeaking, his prefent purpose was not fo much to inftitute as to correct. He meant to take away a great deal, and not to enact much in the place of it. In other circumstances he fhould have thought himself bound to attempt more than this. If he had been united in views and fentiments with the acting adminif tration, he fhould have extended his thoughts to a comprehenfive pofitive inftitution for the better government of India. Standing as he did, he must take care not to aim at any thiag but what might be really attainable, and that, while he was endeavouring to do good, he might be fure of doing no mifchief. His purpofe was to extirpate out of Mr. Pitt's bill the principal evils, to revert to that, which, if not perfect in itself, had not been improved by innovation; to ftrengthen what was good, if it were feeble; and not to enact much by politive inftitution. He would rebuild the house he lived in from the foundation if he could; but fince that was not in his power he would endeavour to repair it.

Mr. Dundas replied to Mr. Francis. He employed fome arguments in defence of the board of control; and, for the nec flity of increafing the power of the gove nor-general, he appealed to the opinion of lord Macartney, who had declared, that