murder of Lord Pigot, were brought into an English court of justice, and a jury pronounced them guilty, what was the fentence? A trifling mulct, and not an hour's imprisonment. The fine which they paid in court was scarcely a fiftieth part of the spoils of a wicked ufurpation of the fupreme government, both civil and military, followed by the death of the Governor. The public were infulted, even in the hour of trial, by a vain oftentation of what the criminals were prepared to have difgorged, before the fears of their troubled confciences were quieted by a folemn mockery of juftice. Such a conduct marked the partial and feeble hand of the law at home; for furely, Sir, fuch crimes called for severity to deter future delinquents. They may from this lenity learn with perfect safety, and immense profit, to perpetrate the trifling crimes of mutiny, rebellion, and murder.

I have no objection, I confess, to restraining the Eaft-India Company to the primary object of their charter, to their original views of commerce, I little relish the idea of a few merchants governing, as fovereigns, the three powerful states of Bengal, Bahar, and Oriffa. It is totally inconfiftent with political order, and the subordination of British subjects. The Jefuits were juftly expelled from almost every government in the old and new world, not from a fyftem of filly tenets, which not one in a hundred of them believed, but from their establishing the imperium in imperio, which no ftate ever suffered with impunity. I venerate the wife maxim of a commercial policy, that, while it is adding to the national wealth, forms an invincible bulwark by the ftrength of a powerful navy; but I deteft a scandalous, heterogeneous traffic of war and trade, plunder and commerce, peculation and murder, extortion, rapine, and corruption. The national character has been loft in Hindoftan. Provinces and kingdoms have been bought and fold by the Afiatic Generals and Governors of the Company, against the strongest orders of the Directors and Proprietors, and the lives of fome of the most harmless Princes

who

ever reigned, fet to fale. The mifchief foon reaches Europe, and we experience at home all the calamities which Rome fuffered in the declenfion of her empire, and from the fame quarter, from the Eaft. We are ruined by the luxury and venality of our own defpicable offspring, and all the vices of the East, which they propagate here too fuccefsfully, when they return to purchase protection and indemnity for their crimes. I therefore, Sir, highly approve a bill for the government of the territorial poffeffions and revenues of India, which ought to depend on the State; but the regulation of all commercial concerns, I fhall ever think, ought to reft with the Proprietors and Directors. This is their province; to this they are as competent as they are inadequate to dominion and the care of empires.

Sir, I look upon this bill as the bitter fruits of the coalition. After the fatal confequences of the noble Lord's attack on the American charters, I cannot think he would have ventured on this direct violation of the franchifes and property of a great Company, if he had not been in impious league with fo daring a colleague. Not a man who hears me can believe that such a bill had ever appeared, if the wordy war had gone on between the two Secretaries. The noble Lord, indeed, has made some former faint attempts, and, for a good while, cast a longing eye on the fair prey, but he dreaded his opponent. When he had fecured a fit accomplice, the plan and share of the plunder was adjusted, and the robbing of the East-India Company resolved. The Duumvira, auro, argento, ære, not flando or feriundo, but rapiundo, proceeded by the bill to the feizure and confifcation of all monies, fecurities for money, goods, wares, merchandifes, &c. &c. &c. with as little fcruple as in elder times any triumvirate or decemvirate ever used.

I proteft, Sir, I do not feel the least personality against either of the members of the coalition; but I dread the monftrous, unnatural union of fuch incongruous, difcordant particles, because they could only be brought to coalefce for the division of

the public fpoils, for the fharing of all power among themfelves, to the deftruction of the public liberty, and the independency of this Houfe. I believe that the noble Lord poffeffes the most perfect personal integrity. His own probity is unblemished; but a luft of power, and an unlucky indolence of temper, combined to make him, through the course of the laft war, connive at almost every man in every department fleecing the public beyond the example of all former times. His own hands were clean: not fo those of the whole tribe of his contractors and dependents. The noble Lord has a rich vein. of pure, elegant, claffical wit, the moft eafy manners, and unaffected good nature, with every amniable and companionable quality. He is formed to be admired and beloved as a private nobleman. Would to Heaven I could commend his reverence for the Conftitution, his love of liberty, and his zeal for the prefervation of those noble privileges and franchises which are the birthright of Englishmen! With his colleague I have acted against his Lordfhip for many years. I fought by his fide through the whole American war, and in all the spirited struggles against the too-great power of the Crown. I have frequently been in raptures from the strains of his manly eloquence, the force of his reasoning, and the torrent of his oratory: fo perfect a parliamentary debater this House has never known. I grieve when I recollect how unavailing all our tedious ftruggles have been, and that fo large a part of the empire has been torn from us; but I am indignant when I see the noble Lord in one of the higheft offices of the State, brought back to power, and careffed by the very man who undertook to impeach him as the great criminal of the State, the corrupter of Parliament, the author and contriver of our ruin. He protefted, that he could not trust himself in the fame room - with him. At another time he faid, he confented to pafs for the most infamous man in this, or any country, if he ever made part of an Adminiftration with the noble Lord in the blue ribband. I do not forget, Sir, attending my Sovereign

the

the last year, by the command of the freeholders of Middlefex, to thank His Majefty for having removed from his council men, under whofe administration calamities, fo many and fo great, have befallen this kingdom, and for appointing Minifters, in whom this country had, and are willing to have, the fulleft confidence. That confidence could never have been loft, but by the dereliction of every principle, and every promife. The right honourable Secretary affured us, in the first week after his acceffion to power, that he found every thing much worse than he could have fufpected. Has he instituted the least inquiry into the causes of the dismemberment of the empire, and of the difgraces of the British fleet during fo great a part of the last war, for which he has fo often folemnly pledged himself? In breach of repeated public engagements, and almoft daily pompous profeffions, he has joined the enemy of America, by which he has loft the confidence of America, which he had acquired in fome degree, and might have made ufeful to this country.

Sir, another ftrong objection to this bill arifes from the enormous power, in the end, to accrue to the Crown, perhaps directly by collufion with its Minifter. It is, Sir, a patronage of above two millions fterling a year, of which the Company will be deprived. Wherever fuch a patronage falls, it cannot fail to overturn the balance of power in this well-poised conftitution. All 'the Governor Generals, Lieutenant Governors, Counsellors, Prefidents, Council of Commerce, Factors, Writers, every thing civil and military, from the General to the Subaltern, in the various eftablishments throughout Afia, and at home, every thing of profit in Leadenhall Street, to the very warehousemen, clerks, and porters of the house, are included. Such an influence could never be withftood. I confoled myself, Sir, under the lofs of America, because as the first object of my wifhes is the immortality of the liberties of my country, and I had always thought "that the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be

diminished,"

diminished," three propofitions regularly fupported by one half of the Coalition, and regularly oppofed by the other half, the confiderable diminution of regal power by the lofs of the appointment of thirteen Governors, thirteen Lieutenant Governors, Chief Juftices, Attorney and Solicitor Generals, Receivers, Custom-houfe Officers, &c. &c. with the military government of Minorca, and the two Floridas, no longer rendered the Crown an object of terror. If, however, the immenfe patronage of Afia is to be given to the Crown, its overgrown power muft foon swallow up the two other branches of the Legislature, and the Sovereign of England will become as perfect a defpot as the Monarch of France, Spain, or Pruffia. If it is to be feifed by a Minister at the head of a proud and hateful aristocracy, both the Sovereign and the People will be the flaves of a faction. One only resource will remain in the great revolution of human events, which the womb of time may bring forth, a circumftance not to be regretted, perhaps to be wifhed, by the real friends of humanity. It is an event poffibly not very diftant, that the French, Dutch, and Portuguese, as well as the English, may be entirely fwept away from the countries in the East, which they have cruelly laid wafte, and made the theatre of the most flagitious enormities. The peaceful natives will then be at reft, happy under the mild government of their own princes. Commerce will no longer be fettered by a monopoly, but fpread its fwelling fails as freely over the gulph of Bengal and the Indian feas, as on the coast of China and Japan, on the Atlantic, er the Mediterranean.

May I beg the indulgence of the House for a very few more words? We have an act to prevent officers of the Customs and Excife from voting at elections of members to ferve in Parliament; a truly wife and excellent regulation, dictated by the fpirit of liberty. Should this bill pass into a law, I will move the fame kind of bill with refpect to every man employed under the intended Eaft-India commiffion, to diminish, in some

degree,

A