one or more perfons for fome given benefit. If this truft be abused, if the benefit be not obtained, and that its failure arifes from palpable guilt, or (what in this cafe is full as bad) from palpable ignorance or mifmanagement, will any man gravely fay, that truft fhould not be refumed, and delivered to other hands; more especially in the cafe of the Eaft-India Company, whofe manner of executing this truft, whofe laxity and languor produced, and tend to produce, confequences diametrically oppofite to the ends of confiding that truft, and of the institution for which it was granted?—I beg of Gentlemen to be aware of the lengths to which their arguments upon the intangibility of this Charter may be carried. Every fyllable virtually impeaches the establishment by which we fit in this House, in the enjoyment of this freedom, and of every other bleffing of our government. Thefe kind of arguments are batteries against the main pillar of the British Conftitution. Some men are confiftent with their own private opinions, and difcover the inheritance of family maxims, when they question the principles of the Revolution; but I have no fcruple in fubfcribing to the articles of that creed which produced it. Sovereigns are facred, and reverence is due to every King: yet, with all my attachments to the person of a first Magistrate, had I lived in the reign of James the Second, I should most certainly have contributed my efforts, and borne part in those illustrious struggles which vindicated an empire from hereditary fervitude, and recorded this valuable doctrine, that trust abused was revocable. No man will tell me, that a truft to a company of merchants, ftands upon the folemn and fanctified ground by which a truft is committed to a Monarch; and I am at a loss to reconcile the conduct of men who approve that refumption of violated truft, which rescued and re-established our unparalleled and admirable Conftitution with a thoufand valuable improvements and advantages at the Revolution, and who, at this moment, rife up the champions of the Eaft-India Com pany's Charter, although the incapacity and incompetence of that Company to a due and adequate difcharge of the truft depofited in them by that Charter, are themes of ridicule and contempt to all the world: and although, in confequence of their mifmanagement, connivance, and imbecillity, combined with the wickedness of their fervants, the very name of an Englishman is detefted, even to a proverb, through all Afia, and the national character is become degraded and difhonoured. To refcue that name from odium, and redeem this character from difgrace, are fome of the objects of the present Bill; and Gentlemen fhould indeed gravely weigh their oppofition to a meafure which, with a thousand other points not lefs valuable, aims at the attainment of thefe objects. Thofe who condemn the prefent Bill as a violation of the chartered rights of the Eaft-India Company, condemn, on the the fame ground, I fay again, the Revolution, as a violation of the chartered rights of King James II. He, 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 vefted in you, as it is in every Chief Magiftrate, for the benefit of the community to be governed; it was a facred truft delegated by compact; you have abused the truft; you have exercised dominion for the purposes of vexation and tyranny-not of comfort, protection, and good order; and we therefore refume the power which was originally ours we recur to the first principles of all government, the will of the many; and it is our will that you fhall no longer abufe your dominion. The cafe is the fame with the Eaft-India Company's government over a territory, as it has been faid by Mr. Burke, of 280,000 fquare miles in extent, nearly equal to all Chriftian Europe, and containing 30,000,000 of the human race. It matters not whether dominion arifes from conqueft or from compact. Conqueft gives no right to the conqueror to be a tyrant; and it is no violation of right to abolish the authority which is misused. I Having Having faid fo much upon the general matter of the Bill, I must beg leave to make a few obfervations upon the remarks of particular Gentlemen; and first of the learned Gentleman overagainst me (Mr. Dundas.) The learned Gentleman has made a long, and, as he always does, an able speech; yet, translated into plain English, and disrobed of the dexterous ambiguity in which it has been inveloped, what does it amount to? To an establishment of the principles upon which this Bill is founded, and an indirect confeffion of its neceffity., He allows the frangibility of Charters, when abfolute occafion requires it; and admits that the Charter of the Company fhould not prevent the adoption of a proper plan for the future government of India, if a proper plan can be atchieved upon no other terms. The first of these admiffions feems agreeable to the civil maxims of the learned Gentleman's life, fo far as a maxim can be traced in a political character, fo various and flexible: and to deny the second of thefe conceffions was impoffible, even for the learned Gentleman, with a ftaring reafon 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 truft, male-adminiftration, debility, and incapacity in the Company and their fervants; but the difference in the remedy is this: the learned Gentleman's Bill opens a door to an influence a hundred times more dangerous than any that can be imputed to this Bill, and depofits in one man an arbitrary power over millions, not in England, where the evil of this corrupt Miniftry could not be felt, but in the Eaft-Indies, the scene of every mischief, fraud, and violence. The learned Gentleman's Bill afforded the most extenfive latitude for malverfation; 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, prefumes the poffibility of bad Adminiftration, for every * * Mr. Dundas's Bill, brought in last year. word word breathes fufpicion. This bill fuppofes that men are but men; it confides in no integrity, it trufts no character; it inculcates the wifdom of a jealoufy of power, and annexes refponsibility not only to every action, but even to the inaction of those who are to difpenfe it. The neceffity of thefe provisions must be evident, when it is known that the different misfortunes of the Company refulted not more from what the fervants did, than from what the mafters 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's fake, to the Governor General of India, under the firft-named Bill, the moft unlimited and fuperior abilities, with foundness of heart and integrity the most unquestionable; what good confequences could be reasonably expected from his extraordinary, extravagant, and unconftitutional power, under the tenure by which he held it? Were his projects the most enlarged, his fyftems the, moft wife and excellent which human skill could advife; what fair hope could be entertained of their eventual fuccefs, when, perhaps, before he could enter upon the execution of any measure, he may be recalled in confequence of one of thofe changes in the Administrations of this country, which have been fo frequent for a few years, and which fome good men wifh to fee every year? Exactly the fame reafons which banish all rational hope of benefit from an Indian Administration under the Bill of the learned Gentleman, justify the duration of the propofed commiffion. If the difpenfers of the plan of governing India, (a place from which the answer of a letter cannot be expected in lefs than twelve months) have not greater ftability in their fituations than a British Ministryadieu to all hopes of rendering our Eaftern territories of any real advantage to this country; adieu to every expectation of purging or purifying the Indian fyftem, of reform, of improvement, of reviving confidence, of regulating the trade upon its proper principles, of restoring tranquillity, of re-establish ing the natives in comfort, and of fecuring the perpetuity of thefe bleffings, 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 thofe falutary ends; the Bill of the learned Gentleman, which leaves all to the difcretion of one man, or the Bill before you which depends upon the duty of feveral men, who are in a state of daily account to this House, of hourly account to the Ministers of the Crown, of occafional account to the Proprietors of Eaft-India ftock, and who are allowed fufficient time to practise their plans, unaffected by every political fluctuation.. But the learned Gentleman wishes the appointment of as 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 fprings up, and feems to be cherished with the fondnefs of confanguinity*; 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 bufinefs of the office which I have the honour to hold. His good difpofition towards me upon all occafions cannot be doubted, and his fincerity in this opinion is unquestionable. I beg the House to attend to the reafon which the learned Gentleman gives for this preference, and to see the plights to which men, even of his understanding, are reduced, who must oppofe. He laughs at the refponfibility of the Commiffioners to this Houfe, who, in his judgment, will find means of foothing, and foftening, and meliorating the * Mr. Dundas's Bill was to have appointed a Secretary of State for the Indian department, and to have made the Governor General defpotic in India. If the Earl of Shelburne had continued in power, it was understood that Mr. Dundas was to be the Indian Secretary. Mr. Fox here alluded to this anecdete. Members |