1 Thefe charters have made the very name of a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman. But, Sir, there may be, and there are, charters, not only different in nature, but formed on principles the very reverfe of thofe of the Great Charter. Of this kind is the charter of the Eaft-India Company. Magna Charta is a charter to reftrain power, and to deftroy monopoly. The Eaft-India charter is a charter to establish monopoly, and to create power. Political power and commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and the rights to them derived from charters, it is fallacious and fophiftical to call "the chartered rights of men." Thefe chartered rights (to speak of fuch charters, and of their effects, in terms of the greateft poffible moderation) do at least fufpend the natural rights of mankind at large; and in their very frame and conftitution are liable to fall into a direct violation of them. It is a charter of this latter defcription (that is to say, a charter of power and monopoly) which is affected by the bill before you. This bill, Sir, without question, does affect it; it does affect it effentially and fubftantially. But, having stated to you of what defcription the chartered rights are which this bill touches, I feel no difficulty at all in acknowledging those chartered rights in their fulleft extent. They belong to the Company in the fureft manner; and they are fecured to that body by every fort of public fanction. They are ftamped by the faith of the King; they are ftamped by the faith of ParHament; they have been bought for money-for money honeftly and fairly paid; they have been bought for a valuable confideration, over and over again. I therefore freely admit to the Eaft-India Company their claim to exclude their fellow fubjects from the commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to adminifter an annual territorial revenue of feven millions fterling; to command an army of fixty thousand men; and to dispose (under the control of a Sovereign, imperial discretion, and with the due obfervance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions millions of their fellow creatures. All this they poffefs by charter, and by acts of Parliament, in ny opinion, without a fhadow of controversy. Those who carry the rights and claims of the Company the fartheft, do not contend for more than this; and all this I freely grant. But, granting all this, they muft grant to me, in my turn, that all political power which is fet over men, and that all privileges claimed or exercised in exclufion of them, being wholly artificial, and, for fo much, a derogation from the natural equality of mankind at large, ought to be fome way or other exercised ultimately for their benefit. If this is true with regard to every fpecies of political dominion, and every defcription of commercial privilege, none of which can be original, felf-derived rights, or grants for the mere privilege or benefit of the holders, then fuch rights, or privileges, or whatever elfe you chufe to call them, are all in the ftricteft fenfe a truft; and it is the nature and effence of every trust to be rendered accountable; and even totally to cease, when it fubftantially varies from the purposes for which alone it could have a lawful existence. This I conceive, Sir, to be true, of trufts of power vested in the highest hands, and of fuch as feem to hold of no human creature. But about the application of this principle to fubordinate, derivative trufts, I do not see how a controversy can be maintained. To whom then would I make the Eaft-India Company accountable? Why, to Parliament to be fure; to Parliament, from whom their truft was derived; to Parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending the magnitude of its. object, and its abuse; and alone capable of an effectual legiflative remedy. The very charter which is held out to exclude Parliament from correcting malversation with regard to the high truft vested in the Company, is the very thing which at once gives a title, and impofes a duty on us to interfere with effect, wherever power and authority, originating from our felves, felves, are perverted from their purposes, and become inftruments of wrong and violence. If Parliament, Sir, had nothing to do with this charter, we might have fome fort of epicurean excufe to ftand aloof, indifferent fpectators of what paffes in the Company's name in India and in London. But if we are the very caufe of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for us paffively to bear with oppreffions committed under the sanction of our own authority, it is in truth and reason for this House to be an active accomplice in the abuse. That the power notoriously, grofsly abufed, has been bought from us, is very certain. But this circumftance, which is urged against the bill, becomes an additional motive for our interference, left we should be thought to have fold the blood of millions of men for the base confideration of money. We fold, I admit, all that we had to fell; that is, our authority, not our control. We had not a right to make a market of our duties. I ground myself, therefore, on this principle: that if the abuse is proved, the contract is broken; and we re-enter into all our rights; that is, into the exercife of all our duties. Our own authority is indeed as much a trust originally, as the Company's authority is a truft derivatively; and it is the ufe we make of the resumed power that must justify or condemn us in the resumption of it. When we have perfected the plan laid before us by the right honourable mover, the world will then fee what it is we destroy, and what it is we create. By that test we stand or fall; and by that teft I trust that it will be found in the iffue, that we are going to fuperfede a charter abused to the full extent of all the powers which it could abuse, and exercised in the plenitude of defpotifm, tyranny, and corruption; and that, in one and the fame plan, we provide a real chartered fecurity for the rights of men, cruelly violated under that charter. This This bill, and thofe connected with it, are intended to form the Magna Charta of Hindoftan. Whatever the treaty of Weftphalia is to the liberty of the Princes and free cities of the Empire, and to the three religions there profeffed—whatever the Great Charter, the Statute of Tallage, the Petition of Right, and the Declaration of Right, are to Great Britain, these bills are to the people of India. Of this benefit, I am certain, their condition is capable; and when I know that they are capable of more, my vote shall most affuredly be for our giving to the full extent of their capacity of receiving; and no charter of dominion shall stand as a bar in my way to their charter of fafety and protection. The ftrong admiffion I have made of the Company's rights, I am confcious of it, binds me to do a great deal. I do not pre. fume to condemn those who argued a priori, against the pro-priety of leaving such extensive political powers in the hands of a company of merchants. I know much is, and much more may be faid against fuch a fyftem. But, with my particular ideas and fentiments, I cannot go that way to work. I feel an infuperable reluctance in giving my hand to deftroy any established inftitution of Government, upon a theory, however plaufible it may be. My experience in life teaches me nothing clear upon the fubject. I have known merchants with the fentiments and the abilities of great ftatefmen; and I have feen perfons in the rank of ftatefmen, with the conceptions, and character of pedlars. Indeed, my obfervations have furnished me with nothing that is to be found in any habits of life or education, which tends wholly to disqualify men for the functions of Government, but that, by which the power of exercifing those functions is very frequently obtained, I mean a fpirit and habit of low cabal and intrigue; which I have never, in one inftance, feen united with a capacity for found and manly policy. To justify us in taking the adminiftration of their affairs out of the hands of the Eaft-India Company, on my principles, I muft muft fee several conditions. 1ft, The object affected by the abuse should be great and important. 2d, The abuse affecting this great object, ought to be a great abuse. 3d, It ought to be habitual, and not accidental. 4th, It ought to be utterly incurable in the body as it now ftands conftituted. All this ought to be inade as visible to me as the light of the fun, before I fhould strike off an atom of their charter. A right honourable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] has faid, and faid, I think, but once, and that very flightly, (whatever his original demand for a plan might seem to require) that "there are abuses in the Company's government." If that were all, the scheme of the mover of this bill, the scheme of his learned friend, and his own scheme of reformation (if he has any) are all equally needless. There are, and muft be, abufes in all governments. It amounts to no more than a nugatory propofition. But before I confider of what nature these abuses are, of which the gentleman speaks fo very highly, permit me to recal to your recollection the map of the country which this abufed chartered right affects. This I fhall do, that you may judge whether in that map I can difcover any thing like the firft of my conditions; that is, whether the object affected by the abuse of the East-India Company's power be of importance fufficient to justify the measure and means of reform applied to it in this bill. With very few, and thofe inconfiderable intervals, the British dominion, either in the Company's name, or in the names of Princes abfolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the mountains that feparate India from Tartary, to Cape Comorin, that is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude! In the northern parts, it is a folid mass of land, about eight hundred miles in length, and four or five hundred broad. As you go fouthward, it becomes narrower for a fpace. It afterwards dilates; but narrower or broader, you poffefs the whole eastern and north-eastern coast of that vaft country, quite from the borders of Pegu. Bengal, Bahar, and Oriffa, with Benares, (now |