any other country. The right honourable gentleman, whose eloquence and whofe abilities would lend a grace to deformity, had appealed to your paffions, and preffed home to your hearts the diftreffed fituation of the unhappy natives of India. A fituation which every man most deeply deplore, and anxioufly wish to relieve; but ought the right honourable gentleman to proceed to the protection of the oppreffed abroad, by enforcing the most unparallelled oppreffion at home? Is the relief to be administered in Afia, to be grounded on violence and injustice in Europe? Let the Houfe turn their eyes to the very extraordinary manner in which the very extraordinary bill now under confideration has been introduced. When the right honou rable gentleman opened it to the House on Tuesday fennight, he urged the indispensable neceffity of the measure as its only justification; and in order to carry that neceffity to the conviction of the Houfe, he gave such a state of the Company's affairs, as to convey to the ideas of almost every gentleman present, that the Company were bankrupts to the amount of eight millions. [Mr. Fox fhook his head.] I am ready to admit that the right honourable gentleman did not exprefsly fay fo; but I shall still contend, that the manner in which the right honourable gentleman stated their affairs conveyed that idea. It has been entertained by most of those who heard the right honourable gentleman, it has been entertained by the public, and it has been entertained by the Company. The right honourable gentleman has himself confeffed, he made feveral omiffions in his former state of the Company's affairs: omiffions he certainly did make; omiffions, grofs, palpable, and prodigious. What is the confequence? the Company flatly denied the right honourable gentleman's ftatement. They prepare an account of the true ftate of their affairs; they produce it at the bar of the House; they establish its authenticity by the concurrent testimony of their accountant and auditor. What happens then? The right honourable gentleman declares it is incumbent on him to clear his own character, and that can only be done by refuting

D 4

refuting and falfifying the Company's ftatement of their affairs to the enormous amount of twelve millions. Arduous and difficult as this task is, the right honourable gentleman enters upon it with a degree of fpirit peculiar to the boldness of his character. He acknowledges that the Company's paper must be deprived of its credit fome how or other; and he proceeds in a most extraordinary manner to effect a purpose he had just told you was fo neceffary to himself. The right honourable gentleman ran through the account with a volubility that rendered comprehenfion difficult, and detection impoffible. I attempted to follow Mr. Fox through his commentary; and though it is impoffible, upon first hearing fuch a variety of affertions, to inveftigate the truth of all of them, and com-' pletely refute their fallaby, I will undertake to fhew that the 1ight honourable gentleman has unfairly reasoned upon fome of the articles, grofsly mifreprefented others, and wholly paffed by confiderations material to be adverted to, in order to. afcertain what is the true ftate of the Company's affairs. I muft juftify the Company's giving themselves credit for 4,200,000l. as the debt from Government, on the ground, that as they have advanced the full principal of the fum to Government, they have a right to give themselves credit for the whole of it; and the more efpecially, as on the other fide they make themselves debtors for 2,992,4401. borrowed, to enable them to make the loan to Government of 4,200,000l. The money due for fubfiftence of prisoners in a former war, for the expences of the expedition against Manilla, and for hospital expences, fhew that the Company were not to blame for inferting them on the credit fide of their account. The right honourable gentleman has fuch a happy talent of rendering even the drieft fubject lively, that his pleasant allufion to the charge of one halfpenny for bread in Falstaff's tavern bill, when he came to take notice of the 1000l. amount of filver remaining in the Treasury of the East-India Company, fo far caught my fancy, that it was not till a minute or two afterwards that I

glanced

glanced my eye a little higher in the fame page of the Company's account, and faw an entry of money to the amount of 142,7941. The right honourable gentleman has taken fuch advantage to display his oratory, that the House have been loft in a blaze of eloquence, and fo dazzled with the luftre and brilliancy of the right honourable gentleman's talents, that they have been deprived of the exercise of their fober reason, and rendered incompetent to weigh the propriety of the Company's making any mention of debts, fome of which they expreffly declare will be lingering in their payment, and others which they acknowledge to be precarious.

The last matter urged against the Company, viz. their ca pital, is, to my mind, the most extraordinary of any thing I ever met with. I have often heard, when traders are bankrupts, or when it becomes neceffary that their affairs fhould be vefted in the hands of trustees, that it is incumbent on them to discover the whole amount of their debt to others; but I never before knew, that it was either incumbent on them to ftate, or neceffary for the creditors to know, how much they owed themselves. I must deny that there is any deficiency whatever in their capital; contending, on the other hand, that the Company, though diftreffed, are by no means infolvent, and that they ought to be allowed an opportunity of proving the whole of the ftatement of their affairs at the bar of the House. The right honourable Secretary has accufed the temerity of the Company in bringing before this House the accounts of the Company in a ftate exceedingly fallacious. He has asked what indignation and cenfure is due to the individual who dared to have thus trifled with truth, with decency, and with the dignity of the Houfe? What then thall be faid of a Minifter, who ventures to rife up in his place, and impofe on the House a statement every way abfurd and errcneous? On thefe, and many other accounts, I am clearly for deferring the debate.

Mr. William Pitt, Nov. 27, 1783.

IT

It is not only agreed, but demanded, by the right honoura ble gentleman, [Mr. Pitt] and by those who act with him, that a whole fyftem ought to be produced; that it ought not to be an half measure; that it ought to be no palliative; but a legiflative provifion, vigorous, fubftantial, and effective. I believe that no man who understands the fubject can doubt for a moment, that thofe muft be conditions of any thing deferving the name of a reform in the Indian Government; that any thing fhort of them would not only be delufive, but, in this matter, which admits no medium, noxious in the extreme.

To all the conditions proposed by his adverfaries, the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and on his performance of them he refts his caufe. On the other hand, not the least objection has been taken with regard to the efficiency, the vigour, or the completeness of the fcheme. I am therefore warranted to affume, as a thing admitted, that the bills accomplish what both fides of the House demand as effential. The end is completely anfwered, fo far as the direct and immediate object is concerned.

But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral objections made; objections from the effects, which this plan of reform for Indian Administration may have on the privileges of great public bodies in England, from its probable influence on the conftitutional rights, or on the freedom and integrity of the feveral branches of the Legisla

ture.

Before I anfwer these objections, I must beg leave to obferve, that if we are not able to contrive fome method of governing India well, which will not of neceffity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal feparation; but none for facrificing the people of that country to our conftitution. I am, however, far from being perfuaded that any fuch incompatibility of interest does at all exift. On the contrary, I am certain that every means effectual to preferve India from oppreffion, is a guard

to

to preferve the British conftitution from its worst corruption, To fhew this, I will confider the objections, which I think are four:

ift, That the bill is an attack on the chartered rights of

men.

2dly, That it increases the influence of the Crown.

3dly, That it does not increase, but diminishes, the influence of the Crown, in order to promote the interefts of certain Minifters and their party.

4thly, That it deeply affects the national credit.

As to the first of these objections, I must observe, that the phrase of "the chartered rights of men," is full of affectation, and very unusual in the difcuffion of privileges conferred by charters of the prefent description. But it is not difficult to difcover what end that ambiguous mode of expreffion, so often reiterated, is meant to answer.

The rights of men, that is to fay, the natural rights of mankind, are indeed facred things; and if any public measure is proved mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that meafure, even if no charter at all could be fet up against it. If these natural rights are farther affirmed and declared by exprefs covenants; if they are clearly defined and fecured against chicane, against power, and authority, by written inftruments and positive engagements, they are in a still better condition: they partake not only of the fanctity of the object fo fecured, but of that folemn public faith itself which fecures an object of fuch importance. Indeed this formal recognition, by the fovereign power, of an original right in the fubject, can never be fubverted, but by rooting up the holding radical principles of government, and even of fociety itself. The charters which we call by diftinction great, are public inftruments of this nature; I mean the charters of King John and King Henry the Third. The things fecured by these inftruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.

Thefe