man could be more clear and eloquent when he pleased; no man, when he wished to conceal his meaning, could veil it in greater elegance of language, or involve his sentences in a finer disguise of obscurity, when he wished to conceal that he had no meaning at all. The right honorable gentleman had charged those on that side of the house with being enemies to the prerogative of the crown, and had asserted his claim at the same time to be not only the champion of prerogative, but the protector of privilege. If he meant to call gentlemen the enemies of prerogative, because they were not like himself, the friends of a dark, concealed, and secret band of advisers, who, sculking behind the throne, were the main spring and source of attack upon the constitution, and of danger to the throne itself: if he meant, that because they objected to entrench upon the valued privilege of that house, and disdained to see the dignity of another insulted by a mean, gross, and scandalous system of transacting public business by whispering; if he meant, that because they were not ready unnecessarily to increase the standing army by every possible expedient, they were, therefore, enemies to the prerogative of the crown, they were truly so, and they gloried in confessing it. They avowed an eternal hostility to a prerogative so exercised. But, that they were enemies to the just prerogatives of the crown; to those prerogatives which the constitution had wisely placed in the hands of the chief magistrate, and the exercise of which tended equally to the honor of the sovereign, and the happiness of the subject, he denied. He was ready, however, to bear testimony, that the right honorable gentleman was a friend to the prerogative of the crown, indefinitely and implicitly, but he did not see how he could therefore arrogate to himself the praise of being also a friend to the privileges of the people; he whose whole political life had been occupied in attacks upon those privileges. He who commenced his ca

reer in the situation which he then held by a violent infringement of the rights of that house: an infringement which was followed by a direct attack on the freedom of election. Under the cover of a bill of commercial regulation, his next measure had been an attack upon the privileges of the people of the sister kingdom, and this was followed by an experiment on the temper of the people here, by assisting in the scheme of a wild protector to change the constitutional defence of the kingdom from a navy to fortifications. Every part of his administration had manifested a tendency to support and enlarge the just but dangerous prerogatives of the crown; and in particular, he had used every means to augment the standing army; fictitious wants had been pleaded, unknown dangers had been suggested, and he had but too successfully added to the alarming military force of this country, both at home and in all its distant colonies; and too successfully, also, endeavoured to bring others than the mere military within the bounds of the mutiny act. These were the proofs he had given of his friendship for the privileges of the people. Such had, nevertheless, been the confidence of that house, that, with all these things, they had professed to have faith in his good intentions, and in his regard for the constitution. He, for his own part, was most sincerely desirous that it should be proved, that the right honorable gentleman had a true and zealous reverence for the constitution. To satisfy the mind's taste, and to justify the admiration that every one felt for his endowments, it was a matter to be eagerly wished, that a gentleman of such brilliant talents should sincerely regard and love that constitution to which such talents as his were peculiarly adapted, and under which alone they could fully display themselves. His friends talked much of his conscience; and, fruitful in excuses for the errors of his system, never failed to say, that he was debauched into every iniquity and folly that he committed. An honorable gentleman speaking of

him, had said, that in his bill he was sure that his conscience had been surprised. It was bad advice, and not wicked intention, from which this bill had originated. He was not unwilling to give ear to this apology. He hoped it was true, and he partly believed it. He did not hesitate in agreeing with his admirers, that he had people about him very capable of leading him wrong. It was his original crime that he had connected himself with those from whom no good counsel could come; and lamenting, as they all must do, the consequences of his want of vigilance, and the misfortunes of his connections, it was earnestly to be wished, that his conscience would either keep a better look-out, or that he would keep better company.

His right honorable friend, Mr. Sheridan said, on this occasion, had obtained a most complete triumph. Every part of his India system was now demonstrated to be just, and in nothing was it more truly justified, than in the attack which the right honorable gentleman had made on him that night. In the very moment that he was vehemently arraigning his right honorable friend for the bill which he had brought into the house four years ago, a bill lay on the table which went ten times farther in all the points which he at the same time affected to condemn. There was something very singular in the whole of the right honorable gentleman's conduct on this occasion. He had begun his speech with talking of the magnitude and importance of the bill on the table; of that very bill with which he had originally stolen in upon the house, without explanation, without speaking of its dangers, and without giving any notice of its magnitude. He had cured it to be read a first and second time; but being caught in the fact, and finding his arm arrested, and himself discovered: seeing, that not only the gentlemen on that side of the house, but on all sides, had taken the alarm, then he came forward, and talked of the danger with which the bill was

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pregnant, humbly requesting that it might be checked and guarded in every possible shape. The bill, with all its terrors, its arrogance, and its evils, came first, but the checks came behind, by way of rider;-prerogative foremost, the constitution in the rear. The right honorable gentleman's great argument was, that his bill did not, like that of a right honorable gentleman (Mr. Fox) assume the patronage of India. That it did not take the power of appointing was certain, and never denied; but while it conveyed the power of recalling in all cases where the appointment was not made with their approbation, the only difference was, that the patronage in the one case was possessed under cover, and without responsibility; in the other it was open and avowed. In all the great features of the present bill, and in much more the present doctrines, were the same as those which his right honorable friend had asserted in 1784. The great difference was, that this bill added to the system a measure which he should soon explain, and which broke through every principle of the constitution, and was in every shape alarming to the people of this country.

But mark, continued Mr. Sheridan, the modest assumption of the Board of Control! The revenues of India amount to nine or ten millions a year, and the Board of Control desire that a declaratory bill may pass to give them the unlimited power, not only to collect, but to appropriate the whole sum as they may think fit. The only security was to be the virtue and integrity of the man. Was that a sufficient security ?-Any person capable of asking from an enlightened people so much power must be mad, and consequently not capable of applying it with sound reason to a good end. But, said the right honorable gentleman, judge of us by experiHave we not chosen a Lord Cornwallis, a Sir Archibald Campbell, and a General Meadows; and can there be danger in trusting power in such hands?-Arguing in that way, what did it impose

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on that house?-That they were to fit every man out with power in proportion to his character. That was to be the slop-shop for Indian governors; they were to give to one man the flowing robes of imperial despotism, and to another the short skirts of limited monarchy. The constitution of England must not trust to such means of safety; and in arguing about principles, they must not think of men. He averred, that the bill gave the Board of Control the power of appropriating the revenues of the company to what purposes they pleased; and they might put 500,000l. at discretion into their own pockets, or those of their friends. They had the power of uncontrolled corruption. They might subsidize the court of Poonah. They might take into their pay 20,000 Mahratta horse; they might annihilate the commerce of the company; and all this they might do by means of this declaratory bill.

The bill of his right honorable friend had been said to erect a monster unknown to the constitution, because a noble Lord (Earl Fitzwilliam) and the seven commissioners were invested with certain powers. Compare the powers of that board with the powers of this. Lord Fitzwilliam and the commissioners could not send forth a dispatch; they could neither declare war nor make peace in India; they could neither subsidize Poonah, nor entertain a body of Mahratta horse, without having the pleasure of the king signified through the medium of the Secretary of State. The board of control could do all this. They could declare war; they could make peace; they could enter into subsidiary treaties with the princes of India; they could collect all the revenues of the company; and they could apply them to what purpose they pleased, without the consent of the King. Mr. Sheridan put this in various points of view, and then came to animadvert on what Mr. Pitt had said with regard to the bill of 1784 not being made on a compact with the company. Mr. Sheridan averred, that the whole of the bill was made